La Naissence du Cinema (1947)

Director: Roger Leenhardt
Country: France

This documentary film is about the invention of cinema, the first photography machines and the first devices and artifacts that projected moving images, I gotta say that it is great to acquire new knowledge and culture through visual media and this one especially is very interesting and educational because we learn how medical doctors, engineers and high-skilled workers such as Émile Reynaud, Thomas Alva Edison, Eadweard Muybridge or The Lumiere Brothers contributed to the birth of cinema and above all how a lot of mistakes were made on the road and even some hearts were broken in order to see a bunch of workers leaving a factory, but of course everything was worthed.

This material is of great value without a doubt and it should be projected on cinemas instead of the bullshit ads we see for 15 minutes every time we go to the movies nowadays, the invention of the motion pictures was made out of love and curiosity, combining chemistry, physics and a lot of effort to get magical results, sadly that is not the case today because we live in a world that is focused solely on making money and that includes the movie-industry. I recommend you to watch this short film to engage yourself in the real love for the seventh art and of course to see many of the old-school films in black and white which like this one you can see for free on the web.

The Lumiere Brothers

                             

I Will Buy You (1956)

Director: Masaki Kobayashi
Country: Japan

When  I talk about sports films I always think of Martin Scorsese's "Raging Bull" and Lindsay Anderson's "This Sporting Life" but now I will think of "I Will Buy You" directed by Masaki Kobayashi.

When I was a kid I used to dream about becoming a professional baseball player, I loved the baseball caps and gloves and I admired this beautiful game played by strong guys hitting home runs and throwing real lighting bolts but I did not know "the dark side of the moon" until I grew up, and this Kobayashi film is about that and more importantly it is about the human condition.

Japan was a developing country at the time struggling with the post-war puzzle, and even though we see other sports in the film such as horse racing, sumo wrestling and illegal dog fighting it had already developed its love and passion for the ultimate symbol of its American conquerors: the baseball game,

Kurita is the rising star of the college league and every professional team wants to hire him but he has a mentor named "Kyuki" who claims to be very sick and protects the player from singing contracts in order to rise Kurita's value in the market, Kishimoto on the other hand is the scout who wants to convince Kurita to play for the Toyo Flowers. Fueko who is Kurita's girlfriend starts losing hope in the relationship with him because all of the attention and offerings he is gettings from teams and media.

Greed, mistrust and betrayal, which are initially spread by Kishimoto whose lack of moral and ethics make them a professional businessman and the perfect one representing the morally corrupted industry of sports, start to take over Kurita's family, mentor, girlfriend and Kurita himself with catastrophic consequences. 

Money can corrupt anybody's soul no matter how pure the person is and this is pointed out by Fueko and Kishimoto (I loved the novelistic aspect of the film) because we know only through dialogue that Kurita used to be a good boy, we also know that Kyuki was an spy or a kind of a doble agent in China, and we know that the pitcher who was going to be hired by Kishimoto loses his fingers in a factory job so we can imagine the bleak future of Kurita repeating the cycle after the final events. 

Kurita became a cold-hearted person while Kishimoto understands that loyalty and respect are more important than money, but before the end we are trapped in a big network of lies and doble crossings between all characters, who is telling the truth? who is lying? and who is being loyal?. This film is a masterpiece (and definitely one of my favorites of all time) that makes us question ourselves about morality, values and respect. Capitalism is the system that rules our lives, and Kobayashi lambasted this system by pointing out how money can corrupt our minds and change our souls for the sake of money no matter if you are a baseball player, a journalist or a simple peasant.

P.S: Kudos for the Godzilla reference in the film!

Kurita in action

                           

Le Rouge Est Mis (1957)

Director: Gilles Grangier
Country: France

Jean Gabin and Lino Ventura were like Al Pacino and Robert De Niro for the European cinema during the 50's and 60's, and before Tony Soprano and Walter White, they were the guys who called the shots or paraphrasing Walter White "they were the danger" playing the roles of anti-heroes, and charismatic cold-blood murderers dressing suits, coats and hats.

Old-school cinema can teach many lessons to young filmmakers and to young viewers and even critics of this time, but the main one is that it's not necessary to produce expensive special effects to make a decent film nor is it necessary to hire a genius cinematographer nor a blondie-curvy woman to write an engaging story and make it entertaining, and this heist film is the perfect example of it, not only because it breaks some noir clichés like that of the femme fatale, but also because it contains violence, suspicion, betrayal and action and even some funny moments (like that when the crew steals a car with a truck which has a cow on it).

I would not label this little unknown film as a "masterpiece" but it is without a doubt a solid piece in the genre which influenced the American upcoming movies of the 70's, I also found some coincidences such as Marcel Bozzuffi who appears in this film and years later in William Friedkin The French Connection.

E=mc2 is Einstein's most famous formula and maybe his permanent trademark in the world, well I'm inventing a new one:   Paris + Thieves =  Film Noir

                              

Bim Le Petit Ane (1951)

Director: Albert Lamorisse
Country: France

The real cinema is the one that MAKES YOU FEEL, the one that MOVES YOUR HEART through images no matter if you can't understand the language of it, and the one that takes you to the action, and that was the case when I saw this beautiful French film without subtitles because actually it is not available on DVD.


Bim Le Petit Ane is almost a silent film with little dialogue and voice over. It is a magnificent adventure-action film centered on Bim a baby donkey whose owner is a lovely poor kid named Abdallah who takes care of him until a rich miserable boy named Messaoud steals him. Bim then is mistreated, beaten and almost mutilated by Messaoud! (Jesus I screamed while looking at that scene!) while trying to retrieve him Abdallah is captured and imprisoned only to be released by Messaoud himself who has learnt that mistreating the baby donkey is wrong and cruel, by the time Abdullah escapes, Bim is stolen by some thieves who are decided to ship him and sell him away.

I felt very touched by this movie to the point of weeping a little because you can feel the friendship, the love and the magic among kids and their donkeys (which have beautiful and powerful eyes and are very noble creatures) things that adults lose in their lives. This is a little and beautiful masterpiece that deserves to be seen by millions of children around the world which sadly is full of Disney CGI-talking-animals with absolute NO SUSBTANCE.

If you want to know more about this film and you speak in French click here and visit this website for more information and pictures about it, enjoy!.

                                           

La Noche Avanza (1952)

Director: Roberto Gavaldón
Country: Mexico

"The Night Falls" in its English tittle, is starring by Pedro Armendáriz as the ultimate Mexican macho, alpha male-bravado Marcos, who is a pelotari champion, Anita Blanch and Rebeca Iturbide as his female victims, the Spanish actor José María Linares as Marcial, and Wolf Ruvinvskis as a low-rank member of the local mafia.
Roberto Gavaldón who also directed Macario, made an instant Mexican noir, which takes action at the Frontón México location, showing a cosmopolitan, glamorous and vibrant Mexico City. We can listen to Basque language at the beggining of the film, and we see real pelotari players on screen, this called my attention, whereas in Macario Gavaldón shows us the indigenous-mestizo aspect of Mexico, in this film he shows us the European side of the country. 

 

Along with the bullfighting, the Basque Pelota is another popular sport in Mexico, which also is a legacy of the Spanish immigrants. Abortion is another part of the subtext of the film, a controversial and almost sacrilegious theme at the time.

Marcos seduces and takes advantage of women whom he treats as if they were garbage, but eventually he slowly pays the price when one of them (Rebeca) gets pregnant and he neglects her in a tricky way, Marcial the leader of the local mafia commands him to lose a match but Marcos disobeys the order causing a huge lost for Marcial, that's when things get sour for him until the tragic and unexpected ending. 

 

This is a quintessential but also forgotten Mexican noir from the Golden Age of Mexican Cinema and a great movie involving sports, which some years ago was displayed at the MOMA and got some recognition, but stills being in the shadows and hasn't got a decent treatment and a proper DVD release in Mexico or elsewhere.

                          

Ashes and Diamonds (1958)

Director: Andrzej Wajda
Country: Poland

After many years of procrastination I finally saw "Ashes and Diamonds", a political, historical and important European film worshipped by some of the most important filmmakers in America such as Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola. 

This is not an easy film to digest, it is very dense in its own structure, it has many dialogues and the main conflict of the story can be forgotten easily through the film which focuses more in the romantic and political context of the story than in the investigation of the murder of the innocent civilians who died at the beginning, on the other hand if you are studying to become a cinematographer or a professional photographer this is a film you need to see, because it was beautifully shot, it is full of noir textures: chiaroscuros, smoke and shadows, but especially one shot that attracted my attention was the scene filmed inside the destroyed church when we can see a Christ turn upside down due to the bombings, it was a maverick movement by Wajda because that single scene could have been considered subversive by the communist. 

This is a great film but in my humble opinion it could have been better, many scenes are useless, some dialogues are unnecesary and I never felt the romantic chemistry between the characters, perhaps this is a film one needs to review after a long, long time.

Mingus: Charlie Mingus (1968)

Director: Thomas Reichman
Country: United States 

"Mingus" is an intimate documentary film about the magnificent Charlie Mingus, my favorite jazz player, and one of the greatest artists in the history of universe, a cosmic genius and maestro, but also a human being as everybody else. Shot in black and white in his apartment in New York City, we can see many angles in the life of Charlie: the American citizen, the father (his daughter is with him the whole time) the New Yorker and the musician. 

Charles talks about many topics such as politics, sexuality, firearms, drugs, religion or the American life, some of his opinions are nonsense but funny at the same time, and others are deep, although he can't develop them due to his lack of formal education as he mentions and we can see his frustration and difficulty to express his thoughts. It is very clear that his real nation was jazz music, not America, a country segregated by races, prejudices and capitalism itself, and Mingus is dissapointed and sad because of how difficult was life for any American and even harder for a black person. 

Seeing Mingus being evicted from his apartment and crying and telling that he wanted to build a music school is heartbreaking, and is more difficult to believe that he was treated that way, a genius!, we are talking about Charlie Mingus here, he was (and still is) like Beethoven for classical music!. 

A short documentary film (55 minutes approx.) but a great piece of material to understand and to emphatize with Charlie Mingus, a forgotten genius who deserves and should be recognized and known for the new generations, but most importantly a real musician who, even when he's dead, can change the world.