Stopsiiiiign's 30 (or so) underseen, underrated, under appreciated films - #10 - Der Fan

[hesastopsiiiiign]

A Scene At The Sea

A Scene At The Sea follows a deaf rubbish collector, Shigeru, who finds a love for surfing after finding a broken surfboard on his route. He takes it home and cuts some polystyrene into shape, fashioning it into a working board. Shigeru is shown to be figure of fun to the local teens as they throw rocks at him as he walks to the beach. When he arrives with his bodged board and none of the gear, the local surfers mock him as he makes his first attempts to stand on the board. The only person who belives in him is his girlfriend, Takako.

Takeshi Kitano is one of my favourite directors. Known mostly for his violent gangster films, I think his best work is from his more contemplative side and A Scene at the Sea delivers on that aspect in spades. Fittingly for a film centering on two main characters who are deaf, there is very little spoken dialogue. Additionally, the couple are only seen communicating through sign once or maybe twice. Instead, we learn a lot about the couple and the strength of their relationship largely through a variety of static, locked off shots. Kitano is a man of many talents, as well as actor, director, comedian and… owner of a mad castle full of demons and Craig Charles, he is also a painter. His work has appeared in films such as Hana-Bi and Battle Royale but the greatest evidence of his painter’s eye comes from the composition of these shots, they work (for me at least) as a sort of living painting, each little body movement adding to what we know about the characters. Often Kitano will shoot a character in close up and let the camera just record their facial expressions and you’re suddenly transported inside their internal monologue. It’s a trick that works incredibly well especially when there’s so little else to go on and you can’t help feel empathetic to the couple.

I watched an interview with the director taken shortly after the film was completed and he stated that he was always struck by particular photographs taken in the Vietnam war and how you didn’t need any written words or spoken dialogue to understand the story of the picture, it spoke for itself. He also cited Picasso’s ability to put across complex emotions through a single image, while he as a film maker, has 24 images per second at his disposal, and it is clear that these sorts of thoughts have lead to him to strive for such a stripped back, almost silent-film approach to story telling.

I would class the film as a Romance but it’s one with a couple of important differences. Shigeru and Takako are not a couple shown in the act of falling in love, there are no grand gestures, they aren’t even particuarly physcial. They’re a couple whose whole existence is a comfortable silence with each other. The act of falling in love instead belongs to Shigero and his love of surfing. A Scene At The Sea captures the passion for a hobby or activity incredibly well. Shigeru lives and breathes surfing. Often he is shown lost in his own thoughts, just staring out into the sea from the beach. He has a single minded drive to be on his board and ridicule from other surfers doesn’t even give him the slightest pause. Soon, he stops turning up for work and any time she’s not with him, Takako knows to head to the beach to find him. Shigero’s love of the sport is so intense that some of the kids who were hurling rocks at him at the beginning of the film decide to try it themselves too and he’s soon good enough to be entering competitions.

Fittingly, as it’s centred on the sea and the zen-like art of surfing, this is an incredibly meditative, gentle movie. Everything plays out at the same calm, tranquil speed, there is no real conflict, no bad guys, no friction with Shigeru and Takako. This may make it sound boring, but instead it’s more like listening to ambient music, minimal does not necessarily mean bad. Speaking of the music, Joe Hisaishi is the soundtrack’s composer, and without him I don’t think the film would work as well. His score is the perfect accompaniment, full of musical drips, drops and splashes, as calm and as tender as the images it goes alongside.

Silent Love (Main Theme) - Joe Hisaishi (A Scene at the Sea Soundtrack)

Finally, it’s been a few years since I last watched this and I’d entirely forgotten about the little moments of humour that Kitano has inserted. They took me by surprise almost every time and in another film I mightn’t even have particulary noticed them but here they feel perfectly judged, and the clueless, rich guy with all the gear became a real joy every time he took off running down the beach.

You can watch it here

A Scene At The Sea (1991)

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• I’ve seen this film and enjoyed it
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[anon21362811]

love the Kitanos I’ve seen - Hana-bi, Sonatine, Violent Cop - so no reason why I wouldn’t give this a chance and enjoy it too!

[hesastopsiiiiign]

Sounds like my kind of thing

Broken Rage review – the strangest show of the year is here

[El_Merto]

Love A Man Who Planted Trees, beautiful film

[hesastopsiiiiign]

Hausu

Where to begin with this film? It’s such a unique experience that it’s hard to work out. I guess some quotes from director Nobuhiko Obayashi helps add some context…

‘I wanted to make a film unlike any Japanese film before it. When I was shooting scenes I had to think of different ways to do it. “Should I shoot this scene like this? No, Kurosawa did it this way. How about this? No, Ozu did something similar.” I thought of the way that would offend Kurosawa or Ozu the most and thought “That’s how I’ll do it!”’

‘Around that time, Steven Spielberg had come out with Jaws and some movie producers thought that someone similiarly considered an amateur should perhaps make a movie as well. So, I was asked to make a film that would be entertaining and as huge a success as Jaws.’

'I asked my daughter, who was 10 at the time, “If daddy was to make a Japanese film, what would be an interesting story?” and she replied “Don’t bother, Japanese movies are boring.” So I asked her if I was going to make something like Jaws, what would it look like. She told me “When I went to stay with Grandpa last summer, his house had no refridgerator so we had to chill melons in a deep well. When we pulled them up again, I thought they were disembodied heads. That’s scary.” I liked this idea, so I asked her for more."

The last one in particular really helps you understand what’s going on here. A group of high school girls have nothing to do for their holidays so they decided to visit one of their elderly aunts in her remote home for a few weeks but they don’t know that the aunt is secretly a vampire who eats unmarried girls and uses their energy to reverse her aging…She might also either be a cat or is controlled by a cat? I haven’t worked that bit out.

Each girl is a one dimensionally character with a name to match. There’s Melody, the musical one, Prof, the brainy one, Gorgeous, the stylish one, Fantasy, the dreamer, Sweet, the helpful one, Kung Fu, the martial artist and Mac, the greedy one, and at various points each of their special abilities is needed to help them battle the evil. Right from the start, the film is noticably odd but things really get going once the group leave home on the train which immediately becomes animated and travels through a pop art landscape that wouldn’t be out of place in the Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour. They then get off a bus at the aunt’s bus stop. We see the bus pulling up in front of what is clearly a painted backdrop and as you’re pondering this, the bus drives away to reveal the girls standing in front of another smaller painted backdrop for seemingly no reason.

When they get to the house, things instantly go awry as a chandelier suddenly explodes, impaling a lizard. A sight so shocking that one of the girls’ hats flies right off her head. It’s not long before Obayashi employs his daughter’s idea and the first of the girls meets her fate and becomes a severed head hiding down the well waiting to take a bite out of an unsuspecting victim’s arse. While the girls try and work out what is happening to them, either the house, the cat, or the aunt continue to whittle down their numbers, each one dying in a stranger way than the last. As Obayashi intended, no two deaths are remotely alike and certainly not shot like anything Kurosawa or Ozu would have done. He revels in using every technique in the film maker’s handbook to achieve his vision. There’s everything from stop motion to traditional animation to claymation to primitive green screen all the way through to good old tie-some-invisible-thread-to-something-and-make-it-levitate know how.

Something else that adds to the film’s oddness is the acting. I would love to know if Obayashi was a fan of British comedies of the time as there’s quite a lot of similarites with Carry On and Benny Hill, along with that sort of hippie freak-out sketch comedy of the previous decade. When this kind of comedy intersects with Evil Dead II style jets of blood and fluids and horror themes, it’s so out of the ordinary that I can’t remember seeing anything else quite like it.

The music is also a key part of the film. Again, there is lots of hippy dippy stuff, but also some proggy fusion in the score too, but the main thing is each girl has their own theme that the film makers are determined to cram in as many times as they possibly can. I watched this on Wednesday and ever since, Kung Fu’s theme has been permanently lodged in my brain and I can’t get it out.

I’ve seen this twice and by the third act, I couldn’t honestly tell you what is really happening any more. So much has been thrown at the screen that I don’t know if it’s me or Obayashi who’s lost the thread, but regardless, it’s a hell of a ride. It’s a film that probably isn’t for everyone. I can easily see someone saying it’s a load of nonsense and a waste of their time and while I don’t agree, I can easily see how they’ve come to that conclusion. Give it a go, you won’t have seen anything quite like it before.

[hesastopsiiiiign]

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[hesastopsiiiiign]

The Devil At Your Heels

Ken Carter is 38, he looks like Steven Seagal, walks with a limp and has a pronounced beer belly. He’s also a stuntman. While he can sell out a venue, he’s not Evel Kenivel and with his stunt years on the wane, he wants to bow out in style. He wants to be the first person to jump a car a mile in the air, and he wants to do it over a river bordering Canada and the USA.

This documentary is a love letter to those of us who are told something can’t be done, but who still are determined to try anyway. I don’t know if Carter is to be admired for his bravery or mocked for his insanity. The documentary follows his idea from conception to meetings with managers and prospective sponsors, through test runs and G Force training all the way to the big day.

There’s a section in the film where he’s asked whether he has two personalities. Carter says that he does. Kenneth Gordon Polsjek, the name he was born with, handles all the business affairs and is the voice of caution that occasionally enters his head. Ken Carter is the more dominant, second voice, the one that says “Why not try driving a car custom built for a much smaller man at 270mph with a broken wrist and no safety clothing.” I think it’s more apt thinking of two other personalities. First, the man spends four years of his life as Roadrunner, building an elaborate, rickety ramp over extremely shallow water. Then he becomes Wile E Coyote, straps a rocket to his back and says “launch me.”

This is a documentary filmed over the late 70s into the early 80s and as such, its presentation is quite dated, with a serious, formal narration over the top. However, there is so much colour and life brought to the film by the larger than life stunt men. Along with Carter, there’s Kenny Powers, a man who has broken his back twice. He turns up to do a car jump and the dry narration states “Kenny must always wear a custom back brace when jumping. He’s forgotten it today.” Then there’s Slam’n Sammy, who allows Carter to practice in his car. Sammy tells Carter he’ll limit it to 200mph but actually sets it to hit 260mph because “I knew you could do it, I had faith in ya!” Evel Kenivel even turns up at one point at the request of Carter’s sponsor. He gives the set up a once over and immediately says that Carter is mad to even consider his jump.

Normally when I watch a film over two nights, the break kills any momentum or flow built up in the first half, but with this one, I spent all day thinking about Ken and his crazy ideas, I couldn’t wait to return to his world. I don’t think it’ll be the last time I do.

The Devil at Your Heels

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[hesastopsiiiiign]

I didn’t really make it clear but that YouTube video is the whole film

[uns_nd]

Many thanks to this thread, watched American Movie today on my weekly film date with a friend (who’s the type of person that’s already seen it) and just loved it. Thank goodness this was real and not a mockumentary, the final product of Coven being a labor of love and obsession (despite not even being the original goal in the first place) and not just a punchline was incredibly important here.

Finished it and walked out feeling like I had a little more empathy than before. Can’t find a better endorsement than that.

[hesastopsiiiiign]

Delighted to hear you enjoyed it! Mark’s enthusiasm really is infectious, it’s hard not to feel a lot of empathy for him.

[hesastopsiiiiign]

The Beaver Trilogy

The Beaver Trilogy begins with shaky footage of a Television Studio’s car park, there’s a lanky guy with a long blonde hair, a bright top and bell bottom jeans in the distance. He’s taking photos of the surroundings but clearly very interested in the presence of the camera. It’s 12 years since I last watched this and in that time I’ve thought about Richard “Groovin’ Gary” Griffiths surprisingly often. I hoped he would live up to my memory.

All this time later and Griffiths still lights up the screen as soon as you meet him. His enthusiasm and friendly, outgoing nature is impossible not to like. He’s almost like a puppy or spring lamb the way he can’t stand still, bouncing round the screen. He’s so raw and real in front of the camera too, in a way that was lost when we all got used to having one with us in our pockets every day.

The initial interview was shot in 1979, Griffiths is eccentric, colourful and talks at length about his love of Barry Manilow and Olivia Newton John. I don’t care about his sexuality at all and it’s never addressed in the film either, but this was in a time and a place (he describes Beaver as “a town where there’s nothing to do but go to school or drag-race the main strip”) where many people would give a guy like him a lot of trouble for being so different and yet, Griffiths gives his authentic self. Shot long before reality TV came along, being interviewed on camera is clearly a massive, massive deal, but he doesn’t modify himself at all.

If things weren’t already ‘real’ enough, Griffiths invites the director, Trent Harris, along to see him perform as ‘Olivia Newton Don’ a few weeks later at a Talent Show. With Beaver being such a small town, the only place to get some drag make up done is the local mortuary and Trent meets him there. After some more open conversation, the talent show begins and we see the competition who would all fit in well in a Christopher Guest mockumentary, a couple of sisters singing “The Happiest Girl in the USA,” a bouncy 14 year old singing some Country and Western, some razzle dazzle ladies with a dance piece, an inexplicable ventriloquist and finally Olivia takes the stage to perform “Please Don’t Keep Me Waiting”. It’s a timid and self concious start but Griffiths soon grows into it and is belting it out, clearly enjoying himself…until a guy in a bizarre plastic scarecrow mask comes in and lifts him off the stage as the finale.

This random encounter in the car park obviously made a big impression on Trent Harris and he kept in touch with Griffiths over the years. Despite his openness in the footage, something must have happened to Griffiths afterwards to give him cold feet and he threatened suicide if Harris released it. I watched an interview with Harris where he said this kind of fretting was quite a common reaction and thought Griffiths was only bluffing, but he did actually end up shooting himself, thankfully surviving.

Harris clearly felt bad about his influence in the suicide attempt and the second part of the trilogy explores this. It begins like the first part, a long haired guy taking photos in the car park, but this time it’s a young Sean Penn doing his best impression of Griffiths. Harris sets about recreating his original meeting but this time there’s a different tone. Penn’s version of Griffiths is over-exaggerated and a definite precursor to his role in Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Harris’ part is a little meaner and very exploitative. We’re left with something that is still reasonably entertaining but clearly shot through with a lot of guilt and self-reflection. All the scenes from the real footage are there, but at the end Harris tacks on an extra scene with Penn contemplating suicide with a gun in his mouth. Thankfully though, this darker retelling has a more optimistic ending than it could have.

The final part of the trilogy largely tells the same story but this time in a different small town called Orkly. This time Crispin Glover takes the lead role, only a few months before Back To The Future, and delivers a much stronger version of Griffiths. I love Glover and would watch him in anything, he’s a fascinating, authentic character himself and that probably helps him inhabit the role better. Harris’s demons are banished too as this is a much more empowering version of the story, opening with a fantastic moonlit performance of Please Don’t Keep Me Waiting, with Glover vamping it up in silhouette. The extra scenes this time largely show Glover being bullied by the town’s jocks, but being able to rise above it and remain true to himself. When he transforms into Olivia Neutron-Bomb, he sells it as only Crispin Glover could.

If it’s not been clear already, the real star of the trilogy is Griffiths and even two reknowned, established actors can’t top him. I think the Beaver Trilogy is interesting throughout, but the first part really captures lightning in a bottle. As a film making exercise, the second and third parts might not land 100%, but it’s really cool that Harris thought to re-enact the original meeting taking two very different spins, I can’t think of anything else I’ve seen that does this.

That Olivia Newtown John track by the way, what an absolute banger!

Olivia Newton-John - Please Don't Keep Me Waiting

The film isn’t commercially available, partly because of the rights to the song, but also in Trent Harris’ words, “Because Sean Penn is a giant dick,” so it’s hard to find a complete version easily on the internet. Harris sells bootleg copies of his own film off his website, but he’s also put up the first seven minutes on youtube. This is most of the first meeting in the car park.

Trent Harris - FLINGADING 22

If anyone is interested in watching the rest, the full thing is available in chunks on the Internet Archive, or drop me a private message and I can sort you out.

[hesastopsiiiiign]

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[hesastopsiiiiign]

Der Fan

Simone is a teenager in a small, quiet town living with boring, uncool parents and is persued by boys who hold no interest for her. Everything is boring in her life apart from R. R is the biggest popstar in Germany, his music cuts through the tedium and connects with Simone like nothing else. R is the reason she gets out of bed in the morning, her motivation to keep breathing, the only person in the world that matters.

Simone is absolutely convinced that she is meant to be with R and writes him letters constantly expressing her undying devotion. As her obsession grows, she stops going to school and isolates herself from her peers. We never really see Simone talk other than to fight with her parents or ask the postman if R has sent her a letter back. Instead we are privy to her internal monologue as she reads out her letters, expresses her enormous feelings and at one point, says that she’ll jump off the munster tower with a letter to R in her pocket so that she’ll always be a part of him, forever lodged in his brain as the girl who splattered herself all over the town square in his name.

Losing faith that her letters are even reaching R, she grows paranoid. What if some girl he’s employed is destroying them before he has a chance to read them? What if the postman is withholding them to hurt her? Simone then decides she has no other option but to find R in person herself.

When she does finally see him outside a television studio in Munich, the girl who was so confident of her love, of their instant and enduring connection, is rendered awe-struck and rather than fighting the other fans for his attention, retreats to the periphery unable to act at all. Despite this, R does take notice and invites her inside. Seemingly Simone’s dreams all come true, but things quickly take a dark turn and the last act goes to some pretty horrific places.

Der Fan is quite a slow moving film, but I think it earns it. I first came to it with the assumption that it’s a horror film but really it’s more of a character piece and perhaps the best study of that all-consuming, obsessive fandom of your teenage years I’ve ever seen. As you get older, you forget just how incredibly strongly you feel everything iat that age and Simone, played superbly by Désirée Nosbusch, displays that angst and emotion wonderfully. That confidence that Simone displays when she’s on her own completely deserts her when she comes face to face with her hero and his hangers on and groupies. I found this really relatable too.

The decision to have her narrate her thoughts and not share much dialogue with the people around her adds to her obsession and isolation, and the soundtrack by Rheingold (whose singer, Bodo Staiger, plays R) really helps get across her mental state, with some tracks appearing in happy, poppy versions early on and reappearingly later with more distortion and discordance. As the film enters the final act, we’ve spent so much time along with Simone and her thoughts that you can’t help feeling attached to her and R not being the idealised, perfect dream man may seem obvious through adult eyes, you can see how much it hurts her. As the film reaches its climax, suddenly the horror elements creep in and while the abrupt change in tone might have been clumsily done in other hands, here the slow burn that has allowed us to gain a real understanding of who Simone and R are give the film a really satisfying ending.

I’m struggling to discuss it much without giving any spoilers so I’ll leave it there, but I hope I remember this film as a window into the teenage mind when my own kids get there in a few years.

Désirée Nosbusch - "Der Fan" (1982)

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[hesastopsiiiiign]

Rheingold - Fan Fan Fanatisch (German TV-show)