TM2YC's 1001 Movies (Chronological up to page 25/post 481)

[Silver Screen Samurai]

Side note, Patton Oswald is the last person on earth I'd suspect of being a fan of Umbrellas of Cherbourg. Gotta admit, I respect the range of taste.

 

[TM2YC]

^Watched that recently and absolutely hated it. The problem is that once you figure out the director is making torture porn, but he's completely intent on torturing the audience with no chance of release, it deflates all investment in the story since there really is no story. Haneke has said that his whole intent was to make people turn off the film, but sadly he mistook how sadistic horror film lovers can be, and how many actually enjoy pointless sadism.

I totally got the "deflates all investment in the story" feeling but I've read other reviewers mention the term "torture porn" which I don't get because Haneke makes a point of not showing the violence, only it's aftermath. He doesn't show us what happened to the dog, or what happens to the wife, or the other family, or what is happening to the kid during the "bag" game and for the most shocking part, rather than simply cut away he actually walks us out of the room along with the camera so we don't see anything happen. Leaving it all up to the imagination probably makes it worse though, as intended. You could label it sadistic but it's literally not "pornographic". IIRC, the kidnapper getting shot by the victims, is the only time he allows us to see extreme violence directly, center frame.

I just watched the strange pointless remake too...

Funny Games U.S. (2007)
There are only two reasons to watch this marginally inferior remake of Michael Haneke’s own 1997 film (it’s actually titled ‘Funny Games U.S.’ on-screen): one, because you are allergic to subtitled foreign films, or two, because like me you are fascinated by the weird prospect of seeing a Director do a shot-for-shot, line-for-line, music-for-music, prop-for-prop, set-for-set remake. I can only assume Haneke made it to cater to the former and saw no need to meddle with his careful construction of the latter elements. Nothing in it is bad, or significantly worse because it’s just the same but I did think Michael Pitt was less disturbing than the smirking Arno Frisch. Also after the original, the relatively light application of Hollywood sheen felt less authentic and the most shocking shot is more censored. But if you haven’t seen the 1997 film and want to see Tim Roth and Naomi Watts acting their hearts out, then go for this version, it’s totally fine.

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Side note, Patton Oswald is the last person on earth I'd suspect of being a fan of Umbrellas of Cherbourg. Gotta admit, I respect the range of taste.

I wonder if he likes this one as much...

The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967)
Director: Jacques Demy
Country: France
Length: 126 minutes
Type: Musical, Romance

I was under the impression that the other 1960s Jacques Demy/Catherine Deneuve musical ‘The Umbrellas of Cherbourg’ was the influence on ‘La La Land’ but it’s much closer to ‘The Young Girls of Rochefort’. One of the main themes is very similar in the other film, plus it’s full of brightly costumed, always colour coordinated, people dancing. ‘The Young Girls of Rochefort’ is a conventional musical with people speaking as normal and then spontaneously breaking into singing and dancing, so I preferred it to ‘The Umbrellas of Cherbourg’. The songs are catchier, the characters are endearing and frivolous and I really wanted all the romances to come together. It’s a pleasure the way the will-they-won’t-they farce is teased out to the last frame. Gene Kelly is just as light on his feet 15-years after ‘Singin’ in the Rain’, it’s like he’s floating above the ground. The only flaw was the bizarre little serial killer subplot which goes nowhere.

 

[Silver Screen Samurai]

I was under the impression that the other 1960s Jacques Demy/Catherine Deneuve musical ‘The Umbrellas of Cherbourg’ was the influence on ‘La La Land’ but it’s much closer to ‘The Young Girls of Rochefort’. One of the main themes is very similar in the other film, plus it’s full of brightly costumed, always colour coordinated, people dancing. ‘The Young Girls of Rochefort’ is a conventional musical with people speaking as normal and then spontaneously breaking into singing and dancing, so I preferred it to ‘The Umbrellas of Cherbourg’. The songs are catchier, the characters are endearing and frivolous and I really wanted all the romances to come together. It’s a pleasure the way the will-they-won’t-they farce is teased out to the last frame. Gene Kelly is just as light on his feet 15-years after ‘Singin’ in the Rain’, it’s like he’s floating above the ground. The only flaw was the bizarre little serial killer subplot which goes nowhere.

I think what I like about the fact a "conventional musical" influencing "La La Land" is that the latter is a meta-commentary on musicals (and the romanticized/idealized view of life as presented through art in general). Like, "La La Land" has a lot of "anti-musical" moments in it; moments where it seems like it's going to lead into a narrative trope of musicals, but then something more realistic or mundane happens instead. This happens at the movie theater, when Ryan Gosling almost kisses Emma Stone... and then the projector breaks. All the idealistic tropes of musical genre are subverted, as if to say the distorted view of life is incompatible with the reality of life.

I'll say I can respect if someone likes "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg" less than a more rhythmically stylized musical, as the latter was ironically also aiming for a somewhat more realistic/non-idealized "happy" ending, which was uncommon for the hyper-tonal aesthetic of musicals; although I can't help but wonder if the meta-version of that "realism" is better captured in "La La Land" or "Cherbourg."

 

[mnkykungfu]

^That's a great analysis of La La Land. I think that's totally what they were going for, but to me it missed. It felt like they were trying to have their cake and eat it, too. For example, the opening scene of people getting out and happily dancing on their cars in a grand sequence is straight out of the kind of mindlessly-cheerful musicals they later "subvert". The people aren't joyfully singing and dancing out of any expression of their true characters or feelings, they're doing it purely as an aesthetic indulgence.

Similarly, when Stone and Gosling dance in the hills, or float in the observatory, it's fully committing to the romantic aesthetics and cliches of Hollywood whimsy. There's no subversion there, other than the "it's leading towards them hooking up, but then they don't"...which totally happens in many classic musicals, too. The only thing that La La Land got points for with me was committing to seeing it through. The ending pissed off a lot of people, because it's the one time they didn't cave to the trope and let the couple finally get that emotional release that had been denied.

@TM2YC re: torture porn. I get what you mean... regular porn certainly wouldn't work very well if they were cutting away and not showing you the ultimate act. That said, I don't think the focus on that is required for the way people use the term. It seems to me that it's more a general aesthetic label, an acknowledgment that, like porn, the story, character, etc, are almost inconsequential. In torture porn, all that is just setup to see them 'get it on'. Whether you see blades penetrating bodies is not really required for torture porn, as a Horror nut can get their gratification just as well from the implication...the point is that the horrific acts are the point. The audience is thrilled by being steeped in the forbidden, whether it be a 20-minute sequence of a leg caught in a bear trap, or a 20-minute sequence involving a principal and two step-sisters.

 

[TM2YC]

the opening scene of people getting out and happily dancing on their cars in a grand sequence is straight out of the kind of mindlessly-cheerful musicals they later "subvert". The people aren't joyfully singing and dancing out of any expression of their true characters or feelings, they're doing it purely as an aesthetic indulgence.

I read quite a few reviews talking about how that opening dance sequence had rubbed them the wrong way. My cinema screening started earlier than I expected so I missed the first 5-minutes, so my viewing began on the scene with Emma Stone at her apartment just after and I loved it from then on out, seemingly having missed nothing much essential to the story.

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Sleuth (1972)
Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Country: United Kingdom
Length: 138 minutes
Type: Mystery

This is definitely one for fans of ‘Knives Out’, a clever mystery playing with the conventions of the mystery genre. That it’s based on a stage play becomes very clear but I didn’t mind. There is a big ‘The Sixth Sense’ style trick played on the viewer, which I did see through right away but like 'The Sixth Sense', it’s still a lot of fun to see how it’s concealed, plus there are more tricks afterwards that did catch me out. I was put off by and suspicious of Sir Lawrence Olivier doing an “amusing” array of stereotypical accents (e.g. subservient Chinaman, Irish simpleton, Jewish gangster, Deep South red-neck, dim Cockney etc) given his offensive portrayal of ‘Othello’ just 7-years earlier but an hour in its confirmed that his character is motivated by being a bitter racist and classist, complete with Edward VIII portraits proudly displayed on his wall. I’m looking forward to the ‘Knives Out’ sequel later this year to get another dose of this sort of caper.

By the way, I was delighted to recognise the line “A jumped up pantry boy who never knew his place” the instant it was said, as The Smiths quote it in their song ‘This Charming Man’.

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The Spider's Stratagem (1970)
Director: Bernardo Bertolucci
Country: Italy
Length: 100 minutes
Type: Mystery

At first I was really engaged with this murder mystery, where the son of a famous murdered Italian anti-Fascist (who shared the same name and face) returns to uncover the truth his father's death. Then I slowly realised that Bernardo Bertolucci was more interested in playing with memory and filmic illusion than with the mechanics of a properly engrossing mystery, so by the time the underwhelming denouement arrived, I didn’t have much expectation of being overwhelmed anyway. It’s always nice to see Alida Valli from ‘The Third Man’ in something else.

 

[TM2YC]

Chronicle of a Summer (1961)
Director: Jean Rouch & Edgar Morin
Country: France
Length: 90 minutes
Type: Documentary

‘Chronicle of a Summer’ is another one of these French New Wave films that I’m glad existed, to deconstruct the rules of film-making (that of a documentary in this case) but I’m not sure we actually need to watch it any more. Out of date topics are discussed by people with outmoded views. The raw interview with screenwriter Marilu Parolini is the one that sticks out, she just lets it all out on camera, you feel like you’ve looked into her soul.

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The Princess Bride (1987)
Director: Rob Reiner
Country: United States / United Kingdom
Length: 98 minutes
Type: Fantasy, Adventure, Romcom

It’s testament to Peter Falk’s skills that him reading a book to his grandson, is the most magical element of a film that features swashbuckling, a princess to be rescued, pirates, swooning romcom enchantment and all manor of fantasy adventures. I love ‘The Princess Bride’ every time I watch it but I can never quite decide if the unconvincing sets, dodgy hair and makeup and generally sparse production values are deliberate artifice in keeping with the framing device and the look of old fashioned Hollywood movies, or simply limitations of the budget. It works either way. Mark Knopfler’s score gets stuck in my head every time but I don't mind.

 

[Silver Screen Samurai]

‘Chronicle of a Summer’ is another one of these French New Wave films that I’m glad existed, to deconstruct the rules of film-making (that of a documentary in this case) but I’m not sure we actually need to watch it any more.

This has always been my thoughts on the "1001" guide in general. No disrespect to anyone who holds it in esteem, I just find that there are many films on the list that are only included because they are historically important from a technical perspective rather than because they are artistically accomplished in some way.

Even the original "Star Wars," when you get down to it, wasn't actually as "technically innovative" as people think; in the sense that most of the VFX techniques it used were already invented and "old-school" even by the 1970s. But what it did with those already existing tools was unique and artistically groundbreaking, even if not technically. I find this criteria results in a lot of essential films being excluded, despite having more artistic value, simply because they weren't technical breakthroughs.

Out of date topics are discussed by people with outmoded views.

More to this point, this is the other reason I don't take as much stock in the "1001 movies" guide as some other people. Going back to the "technically innovative" criteria asserted across most of the list, sometimes this criteria is employed regardless of the actual moral or thematic content of the film; hence the inclusion of something like "Birth of a Nation" and "Triumph of the Will," two of the most universally condemned films ever made.

In the case of the former, its inclusion also constitutes an act of historical revisionism; since most of the techniques historians claim were invented for "Birth of a Nation" were actually invented by other films that had come before, with history books only retroactively giving that credit to D.W. Griffith rather than the people who actually invented those techniques.

(also, in case anyone's curious to watch the films those techniques actually came from, I've attached a little list)

1. The film's of Alice-Guy Blanche = Closeups
2. The Great Train Robbery (1903) = Coverage Editing
3. Suspense (1913) = Cutting-on-action and Composites/Overlays
4. Italian features, such as Cabiria (1914) = Basically everything else

 

[mnkykungfu]

I read quite a few reviews talking about how that opening dance sequence had rubbed them the wrong way.

Yeah, we've discussed expectations in musicals a bit before, and that could be a whole sub-thread.
But to draw an analogy (and in my defense somewhat): it's not that I resent musicals for being relentlessly chirpy with their fantasy song sequences. That's the conceit of the genre, and I know I'm going to get people breaking out in song as an expression of skill and spectacle. It goes with the territory and I don't begrudge them that if I've bought the ticket.

The difference between it done well and poorly as like the same as in Martial Arts films. I buy that ticket because I want to see the skill and performance of that particular genre, and I know fights are going to break out as an expression of the genre. The good ones will have those fights be rooted in character motivations, and will have the moves be a reflection of each character, an expression of their personalities and emotional states. Good fights are much like dances, with their own tempos and interplays, little subsets of moves existing as a sequence within the whole dance. But I wouldn't get anything out of that if I just sat down to watch a film and suddenly a huge fight broke out between all these nameless characters. That would tell me that the director was just interested in spectacle, and was purely feeding a left-leaning group of theatre-loving cinephiles the cotton candy froth that they wanted.

Oh sorry, now I'm talking about dancing and singing. La La Land started empty and had to win me back over. There's enough cotton candy throughout the film that it never quite did. Wish I could've been late to that screening, too.

Sleuth (1972)
This is definitely one for fans of ‘Knives Out’, a clever mystery playing with the conventions of the mystery genre.

I've never seen this, but I did see the remake in 2007. I think it's supposed to be almost exactly the same, except Michael Caine said he took delicious pleasure in playing the opposite role this time round. I'm sure watching both in close proximity would be an interesting trip...

 

[TM2YC]

This has always been my thoughts on the "1001" guide in general. No disrespect to anyone who holds it in esteem, I just find that there are many films on the list that are only included because they are historically important from a technical perspective rather than because they are artistically accomplished in some way.

I don't think any films are "only" included because of that, the reviewers genuinely think they are good are provide solid arguments for their merits, sometimes I agree, sometimes not, but it's given too much weight. The list has far too much focus on US films (e.g. all 25 films from 1940-1941-1942 are US films but to be fair they are total classics and there was a war on in Europe), yet still omits "perfect" US movies like Robocop and Predator. It could be criticised on lots of fronts, it's too pretentious generally but it's still a good wide selection of viewing to investigate.

I've never seen this, but I did see the remake in 2007. I think it's supposed to be almost exactly the same, except Michael Caine said he took delicious pleasure in playing the opposite role this time round. I'm sure watching both in close proximity would be an interesting trip...

Oooh, I knew there was a remake but didn't know Caine was in the other role. Intriguing.

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Hoop Dreams (1994)
Director: Steve James
Country: United States
Length: 171 minutes
Type: Documentary

I know zilch about Basketball and care about it the same amount but the lives of two kids at the centre of this multi-year documentary are what kept me glued to the screen for three emotional hours. I didn't much mind if they actually made it to the Basketball "big time", I just wanted them to win at life, against a sick system that doesn't seem to give two sh*ts about the struggling kids, just the points they can score. To my relief, William and Arthur seemed to realise this too and get what they need out of the process before it's too late. It's funny to be invested this much in the outcome of two random lives lived 30-years ago but that's the power of a great documentary, it can make any subject into riveting viewing.

The 90s Hip-Hop soundtrack is great too:

 

[mnkykungfu]

Oooh, I knew there was a remake but didn't know Caine was in the other role.

Yeah, and Jude Law doing a sort of nuevo-Alfie opposite him. Great meta-ness.

Hoop Dreams is great btw, but I unfortunately had to hear Roger Ebert and several other critics repeatedly call it the greatest doc of all time before I gave it a shot, so of course it didn't live up to that hype.

 

[TM2YC]

Hoop Dreams is great btw, but I unfortunately had to hear Roger Ebert and several other critics repeatedly call it the greatest doc of all time before I gave it a shot, so of course it didn't live up to that hype.

Maybe it was 1994, I don't know? Documentaries are often more crafted, stylish and action-packed than feature films these days. Many docs of yesteryear are almost shocking to see because they are just "point camera and microphone at person" with no music, or soundFX and a few rostrum camera photos if you're lucky. There can be a refreshing honesty to that.

Perhaps 1993's 'The War Room' is better?

'Hoop Dreams' might of kicked off something with taking documentaries to a new level of entertainment and success. The late 90s afterwards has some blockbuster doc gems. I remember being kinda stunned with Kevin Macdonald & Justine Wright's level of editing in 1999's 'One Day in September', it's like a powerful music video, rather than a dry doc:

Plus of course 'When we were Kings' from 1996:

I played that soundtrack CD more than most for feature films:

 

[mnkykungfu]

That "One Day in September" clip seems like the anti-thesis of 'point and shoot', yeah. I've heard good things about several of those. I think some people really respond to docs based around individuals, where you mostly follow that person(s) and interview them. Those usually do less for me than docs that weave a larger tapestry. I am more interested in ones that do extra research, provide extra context, edit in more footage to give me the bigger picture as well as the subjective experiences.
Some of my favorites have been:
The Fog of War
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
Supersize Me
Who Killed the Electric Car?
Why We Fight
Bowling For Columbine
Harlan County, USA
The Act of Killing
Last Days in Vietnam
CitizenFour
Jesus Camp
The Cove
Fahrenheit 9/11

Almost none of those are rooted in the personal experience of just one or a couple people. At the least, a lot of different people are covered so that even if it's all interview footage, you're usually getting a broader understanding of everything at play. I think that's what really puts docs over the edge for me from 'an interesting watch' or something subjectively emotional into the ones where I tell everyone I know like "you've got to watch this!"

 

[TM2YC]

^ I've seen about half of those, great docs.

Michael Moore's first film 'Roger & Me' is on the 1001 list. I haven't seen it since around the time Moore had a popular show on the BBC in the mid 90s. I wonder if it'll hold up to a rewatch.

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Before the Revolution (1964)
Director: Bernardo Bertolucci
Country: Italy
Length: 115 minutes
Type: Drama

There are a couple of nice music sequences, the cafe chat about then current cinema was fun and the wistful speech by the Puck character was beautiful but mostly this is 2-hours of a couple of characters moping around, one of which is played by somebody who can barely act. Bernardo Bertolucci seems to be influenced by the French New Wave aesthetic with some added Italian style of his own. I just wasn't that interested in the vague political and cultural musings, or the characters doing it

 

[mnkykungfu]

^The Moore style introduced in Roger & Me (and carried through on his show, TV Nation) was certainly a more engaging, personal, and confrontational style than in most stodgy docs of the time. That said, I think that like many of the choices in this book, it's in there over other choices due to its primacy and significance rather than it being actually a better doc than some of his others that had the same qualities, but became better refined and filled out.

I think a lot of these Italian and French films you've been watching lately might fall into the same category. It's not that they remain some of the best movies of their type or from their country, but they're "classics" that have "significance".

 

[TM2YC]

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
Director: Mike Nichols
Country: United States
Length: 132 minutes
Type: Drama

Mike Nichols does his level best to make this not feel like a stage play, shifting locations a few times, setting up artful camera angles and powerful imagery but it’s still obvious what it is. No matter, because he’s got two incredible performances to film, even if it’s basically 2-hours in a single room. Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor seem to channel their own troubled marriage and heavy drinking into an onslaught of unflattering bitter abuse, with acid lines like “I swear if you existed I’d divorce you”. Waves of inebriation, truth, lies, cordiality and hate roll back and forth until finally the verbal warfare ceases at dawn and a kind of sad, broken peace is achieved. I could imagine it being even better on a second viewing, when you'd know what's really going on from the start.

 

[TM2YC]

Seconds (1966)
Director: John Frankenheimer
Country: United States
Length: 107 minutes
Type: Psychological Horror, Sci-Fi

Considering 'Seconds' boasts tried-and-tested Hollywood pros like John Frankenheimer in the Director's chair, black & white maestro James Wong Howe as Cinematographer, Saul Bass doing the credits and Jerry Goldsmith providing the score, you might not expect something as conceptually strange, artistically daring, thought provoking and psychologically disturbing as this. It's like a concentrated mixture of 'Eyes Without a Face', 'The Game', 'Get Out', '1984', 'Face Off' and 'Oldboy', or a really top class extended episode of 'The Twilight Zone'. Knowing that 35mm film cameras were a lot larger and heavier in the 60s than the digital ones of today, I wonder how James Wong Howe achieved the woozy actor-mounted POV shots? The amount of nudity in the bacchanalian orgy sequence is surprising for 1966 Hollywood and the final operation/torture sequence is very unsettling. Highly recommended.

 

[TM2YC]

Dekalog (1988)
Director: Krzysztof Kieślowski
Country: Polish
Length: 572 minutes
Type: Drama

A 10-hour post-Soviet Polish film set in an austere concrete tower block-sounds daunting but it's actually a manageable 10-part TV miniseries, of separate but interconnected dramas, thematically linked by The Ten Commandments and it's very good. Although Krzysztof Kieślowski employed different cinematographers for the different stories, they look uniformly brilliant, only the hazy green vignette of part-5 stands out as stylistically inconsistent. It's about moral conflicted, emotionally isolated characters and is often sad, ironic, bleak and blackly comic. The quality of acting is near faultless (although one of the child actors wasn't very good). Some of my favourite parts were the first one about a father and his son who are into computers and chess, the third set on Christmas Eve, the voyeuristic but oddly romantic sixth part and the last part about two brothers becoming obsessed by stamp collecting. The best was part eight, which features an elderly female Polish ethics-professor being confronted in class by a Jewish woman (then a girl) who poses the real ethical problem of how the professor once refused to shelter her from the Nazis. Much of it is shot in searching POV close-ups, capturing the subtle traces of pain, fear and regret between the two women. Many film-makers would handle such a potentially inflammatory subject with sensation but I don't think Kieślowski features a single scene of crying, overt anger, or shouting. It's a masterful piece of direction and acting from Maria Koscialkowska and Teresa Marczewska. I don't know if I'd watch all 10-hours of 'Dekalog' a second time but I'm glad I've seen it at least once. By the way, it's well worth watching the 4K restoration on the Arrow Academy (or Criterion) blu-rays on a big screen.

 

[CAL0901]

96 years ago...

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)
Director: Robert Wiene
Country: Germany
Length: 75 minutes (1 1/4 hours)
Type: Silent, Horror, Expressionist

This was a really excellent watch but to be honest I probably enjoyed the music the most and the film was a nice accompaniment. The unsettling discordant Jazz-Rock soundtrack by Donald Sosin, was exactly what the film needed. The madder the characters/story gets, the more unhinged go the musicians. At times it felt like the mood Wendy Carlos created for 'The Shining'.

The exaggerated set designs took some getting used to. For example... at first you just see some white boxes crudely daubed on a wonky wooden wall. Then you realise they are supposed to be Gothic windows. Throughout the "lighting" is created by the paint on the sets (or actors faces) and not by actual light sources. I found myself forgetting the literal look and just taking the intended effect in by the end. Perhaps it's not supposed to look as sharp and clear as the 4K restoration I watched? With much more contrast and less "stagey" set detail visible, the weird look of the scenes might be more effective.

The best scene features Caligari being chased around by onscreen text that appears as if my magic in the air, taunting him. I'm not sure how the FX were achieved but it was impressive. Perhaps they exposed the animated text onto the negative, wound it back and then filmed the live-action scene? Maybe they simply painted it onto the negative in black paint afterwards?

I enjoyed this film, and will admit I was caught offguard at the ending. I can't help but wonder if this was an influence for Tim Burton's works. The exaggerated sets brought Beetlejuice to mind, specifically the wedding scene. I am no videophile, nevertheless your list is enticing. Intolerance may be next.

 

[TM2YC]

Heavenly Creatures (1994)
Director: Peter Jackson
Country: New Zealand
Length: 109 minutes
Type: Drama

When Peter Jackson is done with documentaries and blockbuster fantasy, he should make a few more films like 'Heavenly Creatures' because he's so good at it. I can't remember if I saw this, or 'Braindead' first (then 'The Lord of the Rings' later), probably late night on Channel-4 in the UK. I doubt I'd have realised they were from the same guy, they just really stuck in my mind as being brilliantly creative in different ways. The film doesn't make the usual "based on a true story" claim at the start but it does state that the ever present narration is taken from the words in the main character's actual diary. So even when the film goes off into the VisFX fantasy of PJ's imagination, you know that there are documented words describing these things. I'm not sure if it's certain that the relationship between Juliet Hulme and Pauline Parker was romantic/sexual, or just extremely intense but in the film it's played that way. As a joyfully passionate and innocent first lesbian romance, that is crushed and twisted by 1950s moralising and unsympathetic parents. Melanie Lynskey and Kate Winslet are sensational in their debut film roles. An additional bit of fun can now be had by playing "spot the bit of middle earth", like "hey isn't that the plains of Rohan?".

What an amazing introductory scene for a character. You know exactly who she is and what she thinks of the world within about 90-seconds. Great writing from PJ and Fran Walsh:

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Happy Together (1997)
Director: Wong Kar-wai
Country: Hong Kong
Length: 96 minutes
Type: Drama

I hope I choose the wrong Wong Kar-wai film to watch first because 'Happy Together' bored me to tears. The kind of viewing experience that no matter how much you watch it, there always seems to be an hour left and it's only 96-minutes. It's engaging at the start and the end but most of the middle is two guys moping in a single room, on repeat. I think I just wanted a couple of scenes of Leslie Cheung and Tony Leung being happy and in love, to throw the rest of the claustrophobic, mutually destructive misery into focus. Christopher Doyle's cinematography looks stunning, so I was definitely enjoying that aspect and I can't fault the performances.

 

[mnkykungfu]

Heavenly Creatures (1994)
I'm not sure if it's certain that the relationship between Juliet Hulme and Pauline Parker was romantic/sexual, or just extremely intense but in the film it's played that way. As a joyfully passionate and innocent first lesbian romance, that is crushed and twisted by 1950s moralising and unsympathetic parents.

I watched this recently last year and realized I had always confused it with "Fierce Creatures" (1997)
I went on a bit of a fact-finding mission after this, as I usually do with films that imply they are true, or at least based on truth. The reality of the story is much less clear than what Fran Walsh put together here, which I think is a sane person's effort to apply sense to an insane act. That makes it quite problematic.
While there was the usual media sensationalizing that you'd expect from a crime from minors, speculation about the girls' relationship was just that. After this movie came out, they eventually broke the cover of their new names and locations to (separately) publicly declaim it and say that their relationship had been intense yes, but not romantic in any way.
Walsh's script says more about her and the zeitgeist of the time than it does the true story. People wanted to reject the homophobia of the '80s, and finding a story that could look like "society is repressing us! Even our parents don't understand!" fit the narrative people wanted. It turns a senseless murder into something that has a motivation people can understand. The problem is, it paints the victim as playing a part in "deserving" her fate, while making the murderers sympathetic. Sure, movies detour from the facts all the time, but this isn't even the "ecstatic truth", as famed fact-detourer Werner Herzog would put it.
It's an admirable tale to tell, but I think stories which are based on real people have a responsibility to how they portray them. Makes you worry about how you'll be portrayed after you're gone, just based on what makes a catchier story for someone. I wish that Walsh would've changed more of the names, locations, and other details and just made a fictional story inspired by this but which no one would connect with the actual Parker–Hulme murder case....