Where The Sidewalk Ends (1950)

Director: Otto Preminger
Country: United States 

Mark Dixon is a tough cop who is labaled for skulduggery and who hates thugs because his father was one of them, but despite of being on the right side of the law he finds himself in a tricky situation and decides to solve it in a dirty way. 

This Preminger film is based upon the novel Night Cry by William L. Stuart, and is a unique noir masterpiece, a great story in its three acts that holds you from the beginning, keeps the intensity and the mistery and most importantly it breaks many clichés. 

With solid performances especially those by the legendary Karl Malden (On The Waterfront, How The West Was Won, etc) as Lt. Thomas a skillful cop, and Dana Andrews as Dixon, a solid supporting role by the beautiful Gene Tierney as Morgan, and a gorgeous cinematography work by Joseph LaShelle which is not necessarily bleak as in many other noir films but it's superb, he made amazing exterior shots although very few (considering the low-budget) of New York City, we can feel the streets, we can see the lights and the vibrant and glamorous life in the city at the time (and even the EL in some scenes). 

In conclusion, this is a simple film masterfully written and directed, film noir at its finest, so don't waste more time and watch it right now.

 

Branded To Kill (1967)

Director: Seijun Suzuki
Country: Japan 

"Branded to Kill" is like free jazz: no rules, no conventional timing, no straight narrative and no romantic bullshit, instead it is an acid trip, or if you prefer is Melville, Buñuel, Furukawa, Godard and Andy Warhol mixed in a blender. 

Full of abstract, surrealist and artistic scenes and surprisingly pop-art images encrusted into the film, a beautiful chiaroscuro cinematography in combination with Naozumi Yamamoto incredible acid-jazz soundtrack, which provides a fastidious synchronicity that helps to maintain the energy through the entire film, this picture has been labeled as noir, but that's only part of it, because it's also a mistery-thriller with a chunk of satire and dense sex scenes that imply sadism and fetichism (snuffing the boiled rice and leg fetichism as well) and of course with a lot of action sequences too. 

Branded To Kill is starred by the magnificent and legendary actor Joe Shishido -well known for his role in "Youth Of The Beast", another Suzuki tour de force- is about a cold blooded killer who becomes the target of a Yakuza organization after failing the assasination of a foreign detective, he also becomes obsessed both with a woman (Mizuku) and with the misterious number one gunman. It has many remarkable scenes but I would like to write about the ones that fascinated me more. 

One of the most famous "eye scenes" in the history of cinema is from Luis Buñuel's "Un Chien Andalou" (1929) but in Suzuki's Branded To Kill we have a very powerful and brutal scene involving an eye too, also Suzuki created a beautiful pop-art picture in movement in this film, when Goro Hanada shoots the first of four men behind a billboard's animatronic lighter, that sequence is simply beautiful, and maybe the most ingenious one is when Hanada shoots the second guy in the face through a pipe drain (Jim Jarmush stole this one for his 1999 film "Ghost Dog") . 

Technically Suzuki used jump cuts, fade out transitions, static, handheld camera and point of view shots and in addition to the animated images he also used inverted colors in some scenes; silence is executed in a deftly way and complements the acid-jazz soundtrack .

Due to its complex, tricky and non-conventional narrative, the audience can get lost while watching the movie, but that's the beauty of it, maybe the number one never existed and Hanada gone crazy, maybe the woman he loves is actually dead or if you want to think that everything could be an hallucination feel free to do it, you can think whatever you want about the plot, the story and the ending, because Suzuki made one of the most twisted and unique movies ever; this is an absolute and crazy masterpiece that I saw twice in a row and no wonder Suzuki got fired and banned from the Japanese industry during 10 years after this!. 

If you want to know more about the production and background of this film click here to check out this film essay written by the great saxophonist John Zorn who is also a big fan of "Branded To Kill"   enjoy!

                                 

Witchhammer (1970)

Director: Otakar Vávra
Country: Czechoslovakia

The Catholic Inquisition has been one of the most horrible things "invented" by human beings, along with other terrible chapters in the history of humanity as the Otoman Empire, the Nazis, the Atomic Bomb or the Communist regimes around the globe. "Kladivo na čarodějnice" in its original title, is a film about the massive witch trials that took place in the 18th century in Europe during the Austro-Turkish War perpetrated by the Catholic Inquisition. 

The storyline is focused on two characters, Boblig Von Edelstadt, an inquisitor judge, a ruthless and greedy murderer bastard who lives as a king and Kristof Lautner, a Presbyterian priest, a reasonable and compassionate man who fights against injustice and cruelty. Most of the people falsely accussed of witchery were women, all innocent, and most of them rich, so the clergy and judges could get rid of them and take over their possesions, i.e all this inquisition bullshit was a matter of business instead of spirituality as they claimed at the time. 

Boblig Von Edelstadt is the evil himself, he uses extreme methods of torture to get the confessions he wants, such as the "Spanish boot" which puts a brutal pressure on the victim's legs to the point of crushing the bones or the "thumbscrew" which crushes the victim's thumbs in a horrible and excrutiating way, his guide to obtain these confessions from the "witches" in order to judge them is a book called "Witchhammer" (whose name gives the title to the movie). Innocent people died not because of their religious beliefs but because their money was the real target.
  
This is a great film for many reasons, is well constructed, has precise dialogues and superb acting, the torture scenes are very realistic and I think is very accurate about this topic, also the film was supposed to be a criticism of the Communist regime which took over Czechoslovakia after World War II, if that was the case this parallelism between the Catholic Inquisition and Communism is fair because in my opinion Communism was a terrible and evil way of ruling a country, they deprived people from civil rights, freedom of speech, they tortured and dissapeared hundreds of people accused of subversion and homosexuality was criminalized, so basically it was "you are with us or against us" just like the Inquisition times. The scene that exemplifies that perfectly is when the judges are eating and making fun of people and telling disgusting sexual jokes, we can see that they were the real evil, and of course if somebody has any other thing in mind he was whether possesed or was a wizard and therefore should be executed. 

We also see similarities with the Betrayal and Crucifixion of Jesuschrist when father Kristof is imprisoned and like Jesus who was judged for crimes he did not commit including witchery and blasphemy, Kristof is tortured and accused of having made a deal with the Devil because the people who testified against him were tortured as well.The ending of the film is bleak, no happy-ending here, we can read "Mr. Boblig Von Edelstadt lived in piece and prosperity and still be married" and we have to take that punch because Mr. Boblig is one of the most brutal villians in the history of cinema; I would like to add that this film could be a perfect suplemental for another great movie about witchery: Häxan (I have written about it too on this blog), so you can watch both movies and see how evil the Catholic Church was at the time. 

      
                                    
                                           

A Hard Day's Night (1964)

Director: Richard Lester
Country: United Kingdom

A Hard Day's Night shows us a day in a life of the rebellious group of youngsters from Liverpool during the touring years after returning from America, or in other words the years of "The Beatlemania". They have to do multiple things such as travelling by train, replying letters from fans, partying, attending press conferences full of journalists asking stupid questions and obviously getting answers full of sardonic sense of humor from the Fab Four, reharsing and playing on live TV and also running away from crazy fans and hiding themselves in customs and fake moustaches. 

John Lennon pretending to snort coke and the whole group getting excited about an orgy are two spicy moments in the film, I'm pretty sure they did that shit though (or at least Lennon himself). We can see the funny side of the touring years, but in the end of this adventure we can see how was to be a Beatle, and despite all the fun, money and fame it became a nightmare and an overwhelming and painful activity for the Fab Four and paradoxically they ended up trying to be "normal" citizens and having a break like in Ringo's segment. 

Richard Lester made a simple film with some flaws but an important piece of history because it's The Beatles, although it has some interesting technicalities such as the usage of handheld cameras, close-ups, scenes in time lapse, different camera angles (from above, below, behind, far away, etc) editing tricks and real footage, which combined delivered a great result, a magnificent documentary-fiction film. 

The acting by The Beatles is not really important because they were charming and funny in front of the camera and basically they were acting like themselves, which is great because we can see a group of four guys playing music and smiling and this Beatles' era was fantastic, they were young, beautiful, fresh and kind of innocent, they were living a beautiful dream before things turned sour and densed starting with the infamous "We are more popular than Jesus" quote by John Lennon, and the internal battles before and during the production of "Rubber Soul". This is a must-see film for any person who loves The Beatles.

                              

La Terra Trema (1948)

Director: Luchino Visconti
Country: Italy

As in "Rocco and His Brothers", Visconti tells the despondent fate of a Sicilian family of fishermen unwilling to eat shit from the salesmen and other organizations that exploit the workers, paying them a fistful of coins instead of a real salary which could enable them of making a decent living, so they decide to put at risk their house and to buy a fishing boat in order to be independent and make real money. Sicily was insular and empoverished at the time, many people faced unemployment, a low-quality of life, injustice and labour exploitation which is a form of modern slavery, we can see all those aspects affecting the life of the Valastra family and his fellow citizens in the film. 

Young and capable guys who want a revolution unlike their parents and grandparents who never complained about a thing and accepted life as it came, unfortunately they fail due to bad decisions and another burden: pride, however they claim it was bad luck instead of assuming the consequences of those wrong decisions. 

The family has to face ignominy: out of work, broken and ejected from their own house by the bank, Cola leaves the town when a stranger from America appears, maybe he goes to New York City as many Italians did, Mara the little sister is bought by an official instead of accepting the love of Nicola, a hard-working construction worker who is in love with her, and finally Tony has to bend his knees in front of the bosses and get the job he used to have. 

Visconti made a real crude pessimistic portrayal of the world, with some humorous moments and a voice over through the film narrating certain events which adds a depressive mood, techinically using static and long takes, minimalistic dialogues, natural light and real-life people instead of professional actors, "La Terra Trema" is pure neorealism that unfortunately we still living nowadays, the film is a criticism of the capitalism (the boss taking a big cut and leaving left overs for his employees) but also an analysis of going against it without the appropiate plan. 

The Valastra family suffers from the social and economic enviroment in which they live in and which also it is bigger than their good intentions. As in Luis Buñuel "Los Olvidados", The Valastra family still exists nowadays in any part of the world both in developed countries and in developing ones, 100% guaranteed.

                
                          

Häxan (1922)

Director: Benjamin Christensen
Country: Denmark

I was totally flabbergasted by this incredible fiction-documentary silent film divided in eight vignettes telling the history of witchcraft and how it has existed since Egyptian times, how it was manufactured (along with the existence of the Devil) and fueled by superstition, fear and different sets of beliefs mainly based on Catholic doctrines which interferred with the development of science, medicine and even in people's affairs of the heart . 

Using different brutal torture methods and techniques many people were forced to confess deeds they did not do; we can see how the power of the mind (autosuggestion) played an important role in supernatural events such as demonic posessions or collective paranoia; mental disorders such as histery or sleep walking were interpreted as a form of witchery or a deal with the devil; the misconception of genetic physical disabilities or physical ugliness, those ones suffering from that were also accused of being Devil's pupils; and human emotions such as jealousy or sexual attraction were interpreted as Devil's forces.

Christensen plays himself the role of the Devil and the film has an amazing production design, customes, superb dramatized reenactments full of details and disturbing images divided between real and unreal (or imaginary) situations, which Christensen decided to differentiate on the screen using a simple cinematography technique, red color for the former ones and blue for the latter ones, also the soundtrack is powerful and well adapted into the film. 

Watching Häxan nowadays could be laughable at times because science has taken the place of superstition and ignorance, but when it was released one can understand why it was censored and chopped off in many theaters around the world. A powerful horror film and a masterstroke of pure cinema.

Surcos (1951)

Director: José Antonio Nieves Conde

Country: Spain

A modest family from the Spanish country side decides to emigrate to the capital city of Madrid in an effort to earn more money and become part of the post-war society but soon they struggle to survive and have to face the hostile environment of the concrete jungle: poverty, misery, unemployment and crime among other hindrances. 

 

The main story revolves around the three brothers (like in Visconti's Rocco and His Brothers, except that this one was made 9 years before): Pepé, Tonia and Manolo, whom their different ambitions corrupt their souls little by little while coping with thieves and gangsters like Chamberlein, greedy and materialistic women like Pili or with the inability to find a job due to lack of skills and techniques to perform any job in the industrial field (like the scene when their father is in a factory and he's about to faint, that sequence contains a nice mixing of images and sounds and maybe is the only highlighting moment in the editing department). 

 

We can see how Spain was a developing country at the time, living with the consequences of the Spanish Civil War and the economic impact of the Second War World. This film is considered part of the Spanish neorealism, and was shot basically without technique like many other neorealist films from the era such as Vittorio De Sica's "Ladri di Biciclette", also the ending and some parts of the movie had been adultarated and censored by the Spanish goverment and the Catholic Church but fortunately they were restored in recent years. 

 

I personally enjoyed the dark humor dialogues in the film that work very well, especifically the ones on machismo and sexism. A great Spanish film which unfortunately has been forgotten over time.

                              

María Candelaria (1943)

Director: Emilio Fernandez
Country: Mexico

Written and directed by Emilio Fernandez, the story revolves around Maria Candelaria (performed by the gorgeous Dolores del Rio) a beautiful indigenous woman and her relationship with Lorenzo Rafael (Pedro Armendariz) whose story is told by a misterious painter. The action takes place in 1909 in an empoverished and underdeveloped but beautiful village of Xochimilco. 

For some reason the villagers hate Maria Candelaria, whose mother's life is never revealed, was she a prostitute or a witch? the only thing we know is that she was killed for being a "sinner". This film could be considereded a social one despite its love story, because we can see the division between white Mexicans and the indigenous, with the former ones being medical doctors, priests, artists and bureaucrats, and the latter ones being oppressed by the system and the Catholic Church, which in combination with the indigenous superstitions and the close-minded life style they have, the results are catastrophic such as the rejection of medical care, law enforcement or artistic disciplines, and characters such as "la chismosa", "la huesera" or the ruthless "patrón" are excellent examples of it. 

The film also has many dark humor and satiric dialogues that give balance and help to keep the pace, the cinematography by the legendary Gabriel Figueroa (Los Olvidados, Macario, The Fugitive, Animas Trujano, etc) is stunning and one of the best in Figueroa's career, with a masterful use of natural light, shadows and a perfect framing we can see how beautiful Xochimilco was at the time, and the performances of Dolores del Rio and Pedro Armendariz are very accurate, because portraying indigeous characters was not an easy task for sure, there was the risk of being ridiculous or fake, but they changed their accents and manners so well and the result was succesful. 

Definitely a must-see in the Golden Age of the Mexican Cinema and one of the key films of Emilio "El Indio" Fernandez.



                               

Salvatore Giuliano (1962)

Director: Francesco Rosi 
Country: Italy

This is a dense political-social film based on real facts, shot in a documentary style following a non-linear narrative about the circumstances around the assesination of Salvatore Giuliano, a bandit and the leader of a separatist movement in Sicily, that was responsible for a massacre against members of a communist party, he only appears as a corpse three or four times in the film. 

We can see how Sicily was after the departure of the allies, an empoverished, dejected, dangerous and corrupted place controlled by the local mafia, full of street codes such as the Omerta, and curfews by the military (North Italians who look down on Sicilians calling them savages.) Shot by the legendary Gianni Di Venanzo, the film has a stunning cinematography and a  pure neorealist look . 

Amazingly this film portrays how some goverments around the world still operating nowadays!, with the help of local mafias and bandits, definitely an incredible film.

                                 

Le Trou (1960)

Director: Jacques Becker 
Country: France

For the first time in my blog I'm not writing too much about this film, I don't want to spoil anyone's experience, all I can say is that this is the best minimalistic film ever made and my favorite in the prison genre of all time, Becker only needed little dialogue, five characters and one room, so if you want to have a great night, turn off the lights, turn on your DVD player in a quiet room and concentrate on this tour de force, period.