Greetings, and welcome to the next series of film essays I’ll likely not finish! Previously, I wrote about 30 plus films from the 1950s, which is nowhere near complete, as I have seen about three times that amount with yet to actually write about them. Regardless, I’ve decided to shelve the 50s project and move on to the next decade, which is quickly becoming my favorite decade in cinema history (though the 70s will put up a valiant fight, and might come out the winner), the 60s.
The French New Wave, Nouvelle Vague, Left Bank Cinema, Cult Horror, and James Bond all staked claims on these ten years, and we are all the richer because of them. Godard, Truffaut, Buñuel, Chabrol, Bergman, Hitchcock, Kubrick, Antonioni, Fellini, Kurosawa, Lean, Pasolini, Resnais, Bava, Dearden, Suzuki, Leone, Malle, Melville, Dassin, Bresson, and Rohmer are just some of the recognizable names that put out amazing films during this span, and are certainly going to be directors I’ll write about.
Before I start the first series, I should say that I am not an expert in film, merely a fan with an English degree and an interest in imagery and semiotics. These essays will most likely contain spoilers, if they can even be called that with films that are between forty and fifty years old. Most of my information about years of release come from a combination of Netflix information (which has turned out to be incredibly unreliable in this area, though great for providing a wealth of films) and Wikipedia (which has been slightly more accurate in terms of release dates). But, in the planning of this, several films were miscategorized as either 1959 or 1960, so if you see one in this series as such, it is not a mistake. Don’t comment on it; I’m well aware. Without any further ado, here’s the first collection of films.
Help, I’m Stepping Into the Twilight Zone…
I could think of no better way to start this decade than with an allusion to The Twilight Zone, an anthology television series that aired from 1959 to 1964, acting as a thematical bridge from my past project into this new one. Every week, Rod Serling would present a mind-bending story from a host of genres including science fiction, psychological, horror, or just simply fringe. The following films felt to me like extended episodes of that series in one respect, but each one was much more than this alone.
The Exterminating Angel (1962, Luis Buñuel)
There is probably no director by which I am as equally thrilled as baffled and intrigued than Luis Buñuel. This Spanish director put out films sporadically over five decades from such places as his native Spain, France, and Mexico, living in the latter places as an expatriate from Francisco Franco’s fascist dictatorship. Buñuel is perhaps most famous for his collaborations with surrealist Salvador Dali, and specifically their collaborative short film, Un Chien Andalou.
The Exterminating Angel is one of Buñuel’s films from his time in Mexico, the second part of a loosely tied trilogy, and is widely praised by Mexican critics as one of the best films from that country. It, and its trilogy predecessor, Viridiana, was controversial, seen as sacrilegious on some fronts, namely the Vatican, and merely salacious on others, with the latter mentioned film having won the Palme d’Or, but banned for sixteen years in Spain by Franco’s board of censors.
The story starts out relatively simple enough. A wealthy couple hosts a dinner party at their lavish estate. Before the party even begins, a young servant leaves his shift and is chastised, told not to come back the next day. As the guests arrive, other servants begin to make their exodus, leaving the hosts frustrated and the major-domo, or head butler, alone to handle the festivities. Close attention and repeated viewings are recommended as subtle hints to the eventualities of the proceedings reveal themselves. Small scenes are repeated and lines of dialogue restated verbatim. In other words, something is amiss, but we can’t quite figure it out. After dinner, the guests retire to the music room to relax. Strangely, every person decides to fall asleep on the floor or couches without explanation. The hosts are perplexed, but accommodate their new overnight boarders. In the morning, they slowly discover they can’t leave the room. Though there is no physical barrier, there is apparently a strong psychological one. The major-domo brings leftovers for breakfast on a cart and subsequently he cannot leave the music room either. After time, the wealthy elite partygoers devolve into savagery, even coaxing sheep into the room to slaughter and cook.
Aside from just the Twilight Zone-like notion of a psychological trap, The Exterminating Angel is an insight into class warfare. Somehow, all of the help save for the one with the highest rank are mysteriously called away from their duties, sparing them the trauma to follow. The wealthy hosts and guests quickly turn on each other, act in desperation as opposed to logic, and show that when they have to fend for themselves, they are virtually helpless. The film is also an indictment of religion and a so-called higher social order. The mere representation of a dinner party, in reflection of The Last Supper, is only the start of particular imagery meant to give one pause over the supposed civilized and divine nature of man, which is rapidly unraveled. The final scene of a flock of sheep entering a church like parishioners is a fairly straightforward comment, the church being the second place that people find they cannot leave. Other attacks on the social order, such as showing the ridiculousness of Masonic ritual and other institutions, are peppered throughout the film. Even the resolution of their escape is an indictment, with the guests (though one has expired) resorting to repetition as the key to their freedom, showcasing that this act may be the only thing “creating” the narrow barrier between a false elitism and true human savagery.
Woman in the Dunes (1964, Hiroshi Teshigahara)
Based on a novel by Kobo Abe, Woman in the Dunes is another story that is a combination of Twilight Zone situation and existential pondering. It is also another tale that largely takes place in one confined location, this time out a small shack at the bottom of a sand pit. Jumpei, an entomologist played by Eiji Okada, who we last saw in the brilliant Hiroshima, Mon Amour, is out collecting insect specimens in the desert when he happens upon a local villager who offers him a place to stay for the night. His acceptance of the offer begins a journey that he never could have expected.
Jumpei is led to a sand pit, made to climb down a rope ladder, and finds the meal and respite he was offered in the shack of a young widow. In the morning, he finds that the rope ladder has been removed and he cannot find purchase on the sand walls to escape. He finds over time that he has been purposefully trapped here to provide sand for the villagers, which serves two purposes. For one, the villagers sell the sand for construction, and for another, without removing the sand at regular intervals, it will eventually engulf not only the widow’s shack, but also all houses of the village behind hers. Jumpei goes from confused, to angry, to vicious, to resigned to his fate as time goes by, eventually finding purpose for himself in his new existence.
It is not just the story itself that is compelling, but it is also Teshigahara’s masterful imagery, Toru Takemitsu’s unsettling score, and the power of the acting that combine to make this an unforgettable film experience. Jumpei’s voiceovers about identity, along with imagery of fingerprints that resemble topographical maps and sand dunes all paint a larger portrait of something deeper than a mere absurdist plot. In the onset of the film, with the establishment of Jumpei as a fairly successful entomologist, he questions his own identity, yet the widow claims to him, with her seemingly Sisyphean task of digging up the surrounding sand, that she serves a purpose. He finds this remarkable and unbelievable, thinking she is merely not trying hard enough or setting her goals higher. I can’t help but see this as a commentary on class and economic status, with those of means and wealth merely thinking that the poor aren’t picking themselves up by their bootstraps even though there are apparent mechanisms in place to keep them there. Though at times languorous at two and a half hours, the stunning visuals and precise dialogue keep the viewer interested at all times.
La Jetée (1962, Chris Marker)
This film is so good it is often placed alongside feature length films in terms of quality even though it is only 28 minutes long. I first saw this short in a French film class in college and have seen it several times since, even though there was a long time in the interim that copies were difficult to find. Of course, La Jetée became much better known after it was adapted into the cult Terry Gilliam hit, Twelve Monkeys. Even though they share the same plot structure, to a certain degree, they are fairly different films.
As one of the main differences, La Jetée is a series of narrated still photographs, save for one sequence of motion in the middle, something that director Marker calls a “photo-roman.” It is a world that is post-apocalyptic, after World War III. The surface of the earth is uninhabitable due to nuclear fallout. Muttering German scientists keep French prisoners underground, leading us to intuit the combatants, as well as providing us insight into this being an analogy of past skirmishes. Our main character becomes a test subject, being sent back in time as a test before he is thrust into the future, with both hopefully providing rescue for those still living in an untenable present. Our time travelling “hero” is one of the few test subjects who can withstand the procedure and is thus sent on his “missions.” His touchstone through these missions is a past memory, one in which he, as a young boy, witnesses the murder of a man on an airport jetty, remembering also the face of a beautiful woman on the same pier.
On his journeys to the past, He meets this mysterious and beguiling woman and falls in love. Every trip brings him hope of spending time with his newfound love, however temporary. Having successfully visited the past, his captors send him to the future where he is given a device that will save the people of his present, but he learns that he has now become useless to his captors and will be executed. He seeks help of those in the future to send him back to the past of his childhood so that he could be with his newfound love, only to realize on his arrival that the murder he witnessed as a child was his own, having been tracked down by his captors and executed as he finds his love on the airport jetty.
La Jetée is a time travel to beat all time travel films, told in an equally intriguing way. By making it a photo-roman, Marker is showing us that life is made up of memories as snapshots, static moments in time to fit a remembered narrative. In a way, it is very much a graphic novel, with each photo representing a panel as we listen along to narration as opposed to dialogue. The “film” even makes reference to Vertigo, both visually and in narrative, surely a touchstone for this meditation on the power of memory and time. La Jetée is a truly remarkable film, one that packs more punch in 28 minutes than most can in an hour and a half or more.
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