Havoc (2005)

Havoc (Barbara Kopple, 2005)

The plot is not unfamiliar: Bored rich kids faking it out by pumping it up with the ghetto accent, the gang culture and the hip hop wardrobe. Barbara Kopple's Havoc is your everyday urban drama that dissects the huge divide between the privileged rich and the stratified poor by having members of both classes interact in the most surprising of ways. Havoc seems to be more interested in the lifestyle of the rich kids of the Palasade. Kopple portrays the Latino gang of downtown L.A. as merely a necessary element of the film --- an alien culture whose allure is excitement in danger. Hints of characterizations for the Latino gang members are kept to a minimum, while the faux trappings of the rich kids are put into spotlight, creating a curiously imbalanced film which seems to draw more from fantasy than reality, despite the fact that the events in the film might really happen.

Allison (Anna Hathaway) is part of a Palasades gang with her boyfriend Toby (Mike Vogel), friend Emily (Bijou Phillips), and Emily's boyfriend Sam (Joseph Gordon-Levitt). The gang is the typical Caucasian rich kid gang. They cruise the more affluent portions of Los Angeles in their richly adorned vehicles, picking up fights with rival gangs in the night, but being perfect students by day. In one of the gang's cruises, they decide to go to downtown L.A. to buy some drugs from the real gangs who reside there. Allison gets attracted to the Latino gang and gets herself acquainted with one of the members, Hector (Freddy Rodriguez) leading to tragic results.

Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Barbara Kopple directs the film with assured professionalism. The film is edited briskly and the cinematography is quite clear in differentiating the sunny coolness of the Palasades and the gritty grimy yet tempting allure of downtown Los Angeles. Kopple makes it a point to show the two worlds as completely different and that when the Palasades kids find themselves downtown, it's like they're in a different country despite the fact that downtown L.A. is just less than an hour away from their affluent residences. It's the same with the Latino gang. In a later scene, two Latinos find themselves in Bel-air and while they know the narrow alleyways of downtown like the palm of their hands, affluent White Los Angeles is an utterly different world, where they aren't treated as Americans, but as dangerous elements. The obvious differences fleshed out by Kopple provides for interesting class commentary, but in a way, is a bit overdone.

Written by Stephen Gaghan, who continues off the story provided by Jessica Kaplan (she died from an airplane crash before the film finished), Havoc may be criticized as unrealistic and such criticism isn't entirely false. I would never get it why Allison suddenly decides to try to go with the Latino gang ---- boredom, sure, but that's not enough justification to carry on the bulk of a film. The film hints of an attraction by Allison to Hector but that isn't really fleshed out. The primary justification is always the idea that Allison seems to be so tired of her Palasades life that she seeks something rawer, more real, but eventually gets disappointed when she got herself into something that is bigger than what she can actually chew.

The film throws in an unnecessary character, a documentary filmmaker Eric (Matt O'Leary) who seems to be interested as to how the Palasades gang works. He goes around filming the fights, interviews the gang members but as to why he's part of the film, I can never fathom. It's probably Kopple trying to pump up her themes of social reality and how kids hide in a facade of toughness and how film can never really show the truth behind the facades these kids.

Be With Me (2005)

Be With Me (Eric Khoo, 2005)

Eric Khoo has matured as a filmmaker ever since his feature film debut Mee Pok Man (1995). Be With Me, Khoo's third feature is a near-silent film whose narrative experimentations doesn't feel contrived as it could be, but instead, is rather tender, sensitive and utterly beautiful. Khoo's visuals are pretty. Singapore's urbane locales are bathed with cool, metallic colors. It's more human tenements are rustic and painted with comfortable browns. It feels very different from the Singapore Khoo painted in Mee Pok Man. That Singapore was ugly, filthy and cruel. Be With Me's Singapore is a land of opportunity and emotional depth, despite being covered by a ton of steel, glass, and financial and technological success.

Be With Me is basically three stories intertwined by fateful connections. The base of the three stories is real life character Theresa Chan, a sixty one year old woman who was blinded at fourteen, and became deaf at twelve. In the film, her autobiography is being translated by Brian (Jason Tan), who hasn't visited his father as regularly as possible. Brian's father is an eternally depressed person after his wife has died. It's a beautiful gesture to the strength of a lifelong marriage that Khoo decided to materialize Brian's dad's nostalgia with the wife physically being seen and felt by the sorrowful father.

The two other stories revolve around tales of unrequited love. Fatty (Seet Keng Yew), a security guard, is secretly in love with beautiful yuppie Ann (Lynn Poh). It's a tragic romance which can never blossom because of the differences between the two, and the fact that Fatty is not that intelligent. Fatty struggles to write a love letter to the lovely Ann, whom he secretly stalks every night. Finally, there is the erstwhile lesbian romance between Sam (Samantha Tan) and Jackie (Ezann Lee). In what seems to be a result of the tired notion of love at first sight, the two fall helplessly in love until one gets tired and tries to find love the heterosexual way.

The film is carefully paced. While the set-up is slow, it's never boring. Spoken words are never used, except in certain instances mostly by Theresa who dictates English in strong and proud aural tones. Communication in Be With Me is limited to internet chatting, cellular phone texting, or in Fatty's case, a love letter. Khoo has a clear message as to how love has suffered in the midst of easy communication. The lesbian romance ends in a sour note. Khoo details how messages of resonating impact are easily deleted in the click of a button, and how a reply has become an easy decision instead of the tactful way of reacting to a emotional question. As opposed to Fatty's tale wherein communication is so difficult that the possibility of love is squandered because of illiteracy or the impossible expectations of a modern society.

The two tragic tales could've been melodramatic misfires if it weren't for the sturdy and well-observed way Khoo connects it to Theresa Chan's portion. Theresa and Brian's father meet in the end, with the father finally letting go of his wife and erupting in a mournful embrace to the source of inspiration for his emotional recovery. Theresa's blindness and deafness (which weren't there when she was born, therefore she has an idea how it feels like to have all his facilities working) is a powerful symbol of letting go, as connected with the father's incapability to let go of a beautiful past, or Fatty's incapability to let go of what could be a beautiful future, or Jackie's incapability to let go of a beautiful present relationship with Sam.

The Wicker Man (2006)

The Wicker Man (Neil LaBute, 2006)

It's easy to review a remake by comparing it to the original film from which it was based. It's even easier when the original film is an excellent one that doesn't really call for improvements or updates. Such is the case with Neil LaBute's update of Robin Hardy's The Wicker Man (1973), a film that gained much cult status because of its perfectly atmospheric portrayal of pagan rituals in contemporary times. To those far too busy to read on, here's my verdict: LaBute's version is a sorry thing to behold --- a tiring, boring, annoying mess that is so insignificant compared to the original.

The plot is pretty much left unchanged except for a few additions and a few modifications. Summerisle is turned into Summer's Isle, an Ommish isle in Washington State as compared to Summerisle, a real island off the coast of the British Isles. Instead of apples and other fruits, the island's greatest import is honey, gathered from bees. Of course, the bees are supposed to represent the biggest modification in the film. Like the bee colonies, Summer's Isle is a matriarchal society headed by Sister Summer's Isle (Ellen Burstyn) and other similarly named females, while males are either killed at birth or turned into mindless silent drones.

Edward Malus (Nicolas Cage) is a police officer who gets a letter from an ex-girlfriend (Kate Beahan) asking for help to find her missing child. Malus travels to the island and is entreated with suspicion and aggression by the isle's citizens. He researches and investigates on the missing child, learning of the isle's cultural roots and its weird traditions involving witchly sacrifices and other bizarre stuff.

The biggest mistake LaBute made is with the modification in the character of the police officer. Hardy's Sergeant Howie is a self-righteous snob and the fact that he finds himself trapped in the middle of what he pertains as uncivility is in itself, claustrophobic. To add terror to the phobia, the citizens of Summerisle treat him with curious welcome which is at once both deceitful yet attractive. LaBute's Malus is a boring man. He's driving force isn't his self-righteousness or the fact that he's out on a mission in the name of the queen (or in his case, Dubya) or everything moral. His driving force is the product of cliche: an unresolved past. Seriously, it doesn't add anything to Malus' investigations and every time he whines about what could have been, or how perfect a couple he and his ex-girlfriend are, it's more or less laughable while everything else is dragging and uncompelling.

Robin Hardy's The Wicker Man is an atmospheric triumph. The songs, the music, the fantastical rituals engage the viewers to an alien world that seems all too real, all too believable. Lord Summerisle, as played by Christopher Lee, is a modern man who has a tinge of insanity, but all in all, quite logical and in that sense, very frightful. In LaBute's version, atmosphere is meant as fake-looking sets, obviously weird citizenry, and confusing and jarring dream sequences. While Ellen Burstyn is a terrific actress, she misunderstands her role. I miss Lee's earthiness, and his self-confident stance as compared to Burstyn's cynical and villainous gnarl. LaBute is the biggest sinner in this effort. His transformations to what seems to be perfect is the product of a self-imposed auteurist impulse. It just doesn't work. Accomplice to LaBute's trespasses is Cage who looks like he has to be like his Award-winning character in Leaving Las Vegas (Mike Figgis, 1995) in all the films he'll ever make.

Modern Times (1936)

Modern Times (Charlie Chaplin, 1936)

In Modern Times, the iconic cinematic character The Tramp (Chaplin) is pitted against the woes of modernization. It's largely a pressing issue, even today, wherein humanity is enslaved by a culture of dehumanization based on the rapidly improving state of our technology and processes. Men and women become enslaved by the machineries of the money-hungry corporate world not knowing that they have trapped themselves, as The Tramp would literally show, in one of the giant wheels that keep the world fat and greedy.

Much more than it is a pressing issue, it is also depressing. With the advent of machines that can do almost anything (the film showcases an instrument that automatically feeds the laborers thus minimizing inefficiency by obliterating lunch hours), human beings are turned into just mere parts of a gigantic machinery and individualism is poised as an unneeded bother. The magic of Charlie Chaplin's film is that out of the pressing and depressing issues he decided to tackle, he still has the nerve to tell us to smile and enjoy, and quite frankly, he succeeds.

Chaplin's antics are wonderful. We first see The Tramp as a laborer in a factory. It's a funny sight, the minuscule Tramp forcing himself to keep up with the speeding conveyor belt, and annoying his co-workers, towering and somehow have been able to merge themselves with the machine. The factory itself is fantastic. An art-deco type of building with large contraptions composed of wheels, levers, and belts (it reminds me of Fritz Lang's futuristic world in Metropolis). The president sits in his office and observes his workers via cameras installed in almost every part of the building, which points out the idea that again, privacy is an inefficient human trait and shouldn't be a part of the workplace. The Tramp is booted off the factory after a nervous breakdown and mistakenly identified as a labor leader, is imprisoned.

The Tramp later on meets a waif (Paulette Goddard) and in a tender yet humorous scene dreams up of a life they will have together inside a suburban house. It's a tender and beautiful scene, amped up by Chaplin most recognizable musical composition. Their duo is hopeful that within a world that seems to have forgotten humanity for efficiency and wealth, they will find a place that will appreciate humanity's beauty. The Tramp finds a job at a department store, and there, the dream is extended with the waif skateboarding at the toy section or enjoying the comforts of a luxurious bedroom.

But again, the Tramp seems to be followed by misfortune, and is again booted off from the job. Finally, they find a job in a restaurant. The waif as a dancer, and the Tramp as a singer-waiter. Their misfortune ends in a hopeful scene that Chaplin originally intended as a tragic scene where the duo will be separated forever. The present ending is much more indelible and is a ray of hope in a world that persists to dispose of human traits in pursuit of material things the modern world has imposed on everyone.

Modern Times is Chaplin's last silent film. Interestingly, the film cannot strictly be considered a silent film as sound is an important element in the film. Human voices are only heard from mechanical sources. First, from the monitor where the corporation president details his orders. Second, from a recorded message from the inventors of the feeding machine. Third, from the radio. We finally hear human voices from a human source only when there's singing (by the restaurant singing waiters, and lastly, from The Tramp who utters his first words in film --- complete gibberish as he forgot the lyrics to his song).

Chaplin seems to be commenting on how humanity has been engulfed by a culture of machinery that the only voices that matter are those coming from machines themselves. In a final note, Chaplin insists that humanity does not persist as secondary machines. Humanity should persist as emotional creatures, and that human voices should be heard not to belittle human individuality and emotionality but to strengthen it with humor and enjoyment, thus, the songs. In the end, Chaplin's message is clear --- just smile.

Life on a String (1991)

Life on a String (Chen Kaige, 1991)
Mandarin Title: Bian zou bian chang

Chen Kaige's Life on a String opens and ends with death. It begins with the death of a blind grandmaster who tells his young disciple to break the one thousand strings of his banjo to open the box that contains a prescription that will cure his blindness. Sixty years after, the young disciple has turned into an old master (Liu Zhongyuan) yet still carries the same banjo that contains the secret prescription, with only a few strings remaining intact. Along with his also blind disciple, Shitou (Huang Lei), the old master travels to a remote village that is torn by two warring clans. The old master is considered a saint, and through his songs, the two clans are momentarily pacified. However, the young disciple is beholden by the village lass Lanxiu (Xu Qing) and further neglects his duties to his old master.

Life on a String is a beautiful, if not mysterious, fable that discusses the persistence of old age and the whims of youth. The old master persists in breaking all of the one thousand strings that the grandmaster has promised him would restore his eyesight. The young disciple is however in the more physical attractions of life. The film is both a philosophical and a coming-of-age film. While the old master struggles with his impending death and the impending result of a life's work, the young disciple is enchanted by the delights of youthful romance. The intersection of the duo's concerns erupts into conflict, depicted under the grand landscapes visualized by Chen and cinematographer Gu Changwei.

The deceit of the film that it blankets conflict with the serenity of the film's surroundings. A resulting suicide is drowned by the vastness of the valley, and Shitou's despair is heard at once with the howling wind. Drama is emphasized with nature's calmness. The old master's poignant resolution after being sung a song by a teahouse owner's wife is backdropped by a noisy and strong waterfalls. Most telling is the scene wherein the old master is pleaded to resolve an encounter between the two warring clans. The landscape shows the vast desert with hordes of men fighting. The old master sits in quiet assurance and sings a song that feels too big to come from his frail body. The result is miraculous and utterly hopeful. It must be remembered that the old master is considered a saint, and it is quite likely that the gods are singing through his music.

Chen's film is coupled with conflicts and contradictions. As explained above, dramatic and emotional turmoil is backdropped with serene scenery, the woes of old age and the innocent concerns of the youth intersect. Moreover, the film discusses hope, rejection, and finally resolution. The old master's sixty year journey to break all the strings ends, not with a miracle, as might be expected from Chen's fable-like filmmaking, but with an all too real revelation. Life is not about the result of one's handwork, but life is the handwork. As much as the old master has dedicated his life to play his banjo until the strings naturally break and finally give him the prescription for him to see, it is also about the fact that his life is the string, and the music that results from his persistence.

W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism (1971)

W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism (Dusan Makavejev, 1971)
Croatian Title: W.R. - Misterije organizma

There's so many unconnected things happening in Dusan Makavejev's W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism that the words confusing, sloppy, whimsical aren't far-fetched descriptions of the film. The film starts with a documentary on Wilhelm Reich (the W.R. in the title) that focuses on Reich's political and psychosexual theories that resulted to his incarceration and death. The bulk of the film however is a satiric narrative that somehow pokes fun at the restrictions of communism, the liberalities of democracy, and the cowardice of everything in between. In between scenes are snippets from an archived melodrama on Stalin's life, an interview with a glam gender-bender, several footages inside a mental hospital, and continuations of the documentary discussing Reich's work. The film is an utter hodgepodge: messy, unbearably tactless, yet fascinatingly insightful. I'd like to describe Makavejev's filmmaking as Godard without class, finesse and limitations.

The interconnections between the different scenes are tedious. Reich's teachings seem to mirror Makavejev's philosophy of sexual freedom, being ousted from politics. It's desirous that Makavejev begin the film with the documentary instead of plunging his audiences head on to a warped yet wondrous take on sexual politics within the sphere of realtime politics. Reich is described in the documentary as an odd fellow who escaped to America after being persecuted in his native land for his experiments. Yet even in America where freedom is supposedly the driving force of the great American dream, his experiments are considered far too communist or too eccentric and that eventually led to his demise. Reich's experiments feel like new age stuff, a mixed bag of sexual freedom, naturalism, and psychological hooplah that feels more pornographic and immoral, than medical.

More interesting is the narrative, a giddy satire that ends in a crass tragedy. Milena (Milena Dravic) has been espousing sexual freedom within the rigid communist society of Belgrade. She believes that sexual freedom is part and parcel of the beliefs and the philosophy of a socialist state. In a humor-filled scene, Milena starts preaching his beliefs in front of her crowded tenement when an old neighbor scoffs at her roommate who is again having sex with a stranger. Milena falls in love with a visiting ice skater (Ivica Vidovic), who misunderstands her sexual philosophy despite the fact that they are both communists. The narrative sparks in extreme satire when Milena achieves the orgasm she desires from the Russian ultra-communist, she is entreated to be beheaded and even without a body, she continues to preach sexual freedom and delights in the fact that her goals have been achieved: a true martyr of the sexual revolution she espouses, as she continues in liberating despite the fact that she is without the body for which to derive pleasure in liberation.

Makavejev's film has been described as revolutionary, and is even compared to Orson Welles' Citizen Kane. I disagree. Makavejev owes much to Godard and other experimental filmmakers and documentarians and nothing really new is contributed to filmmaking with this piece. It's insightful in its crassness and bluntness. Much of Makavejev's messages have become cryptic because of the fact that Soviet socialism has been declining and the scenario wherein Majavejev sets his preachings have become lost in history. It's still an interesting film, probably at par with Godard's more political works, than Welles.

Elephant (2003)

Elephant (Gus Van Sant, 2003)

The title alludes to the parable wherein some blind men were asked to describe an elephant. Unable to see the elephant as a whole, the blind men were only able to give descriptions of the elephant's parts that they were able to feel and touch. Of course, none of them were able to completely describe the animal but as to what they've felt and touched, their descriptions were accurate. Gus Van Sant's Elephant can be seen as a blind man's description of the American youth's angst and needs. Van Sant prepares the stories of what could the victims of a Columbine-like shooting have been doing or thinking hours before the fateful event. Each of the episodes could be accurate descriptions of youth culture, but even as a whole, the deeply rooted problem can never be wholly appreciated and one has just to gasp in horror and bewilderment as the innocent are being shot to death.

It's a tremendous film. Van Sant mostly follows his subjects from the back as they do their school routine, mostly. Their conversations do not provide for clues or anything deep, it's just anything and everything a high school kid would say or be enchanted to. Banal, mundane, and too familiar, Van Sant's mini-episodes are excellent examples of a base to a really hideous horror film. These subjects are just too vulnerable for death and violence, unaware that that day might be their last.

In an early scene in the film, a gay students' meeting's focus was on how to determine if someone walking by is gay. One of the students then ask if that is even possible. Van Sant's camera rotates showing the faces of the members of the group and it's a fascinating technique as you can't really tell if any of the meeting's members were straight, gay, or lesbian. The same way, it is almost impossible to tell who of the students will just explode and start shooting everyone. Some of the students have problems and angst that may provide a bit of reason as to why they would suddenly storm the school and kill everyone, but the capability for such massacre is impossible to determine. The students' faces, pure and innocent, declare an incapacity for harm and murder. It's chilling.

Van Sant's visuals (through cinematographer Harris Savides) and the sound design are important elements of the film. The subjects are mostly seen from the back and it's an almost prophetic notion especially when a scene where one of the shooters starts to play a computer game where he shoots men mostly from behind. The way Savides focuses on the subjects and blurring the background is quite an effective means of showing the subjects' world as revolving merely on the little space that they have, and that the surroundings are taken for granted. More effective is how the sounds are limited or expanded depending on the situation. It creates for a very eerie feeling that something is a astir and that the fact that Van Sant is unwrapping the events in a careful, almost meditative manner, keeps you ready for something to happen and keeps you curious as to who, what, and how the eventualities will happen.

Van Sant's Elephant is the surprise big winner in the 2003 Cannes Film Festival. It's what the French wants, a provocative film that can be seen as an attack, or an uncomfortable commentary on America, as seen through the eyes of the United States' supposed future, its youth. However, to look at it that way is to see the film as a political film, which I think it's not. While like one of the blind men who were tasked to describe an elephant, one can see it as a provocation or graphic manifestation as to the corruption of the youth.

It can also be described as the middle portion of Van Sant's Death Trilogy, wherein Van Sant examines the inevitability of death, and its being a commodity for those who found themselves alive in a cruel world, or as an unexpected punishment for those who don't care whatsoever. Death is a hindrance to the unbearable events of tomorrow, or opportunities and dreams. The killers are seen both as victims and oppressors. The same way, the victims are all seen as mindless targets, as complete lives and personalities, as in a harsh way, beneficiaries of an option (chosen for them) to end a life in complete innocence.

The Isle (2000)

The Isle (Kim Ki-duk, 2000)
Korean Title: Seom

It was The Isle that elevated Kim Ki-duk to international acclaim. The Isle is Kim's fifth entry to a filmography that consists primarily of films which may be bluntly be considered misogynist and cruel. The Isle tops almost everything that Kim showed in previous efforts such as Bad Guy (2001) and Birdcage Inn (1998), with an almost silent-tale of a weird romantic interlude between a mute proprietress (Jung Suh) of a fishing resort and one of the guests, a criminal (Kim Yoo-suk) being hunted down by the police.

Perhaps more shocking than the entire pic are the individual images and scenes that made the film achieve its art cult status. There's an array of scenes that seems to gratuitously show cruelty to animals: a fish is caught and its fleshed made into fresh sashimi and then thrown back to the lake as it swims its bloody body to safety, several fishes are mashed and haphazardly chopped to death, a frog is caught and brutally skinned and fed to a bird, the same bird is then drowned, a dog is beaten without any reason.

However, more shocking are the individual scenes that concern the actions of the two main characters. In an effort to evade police patrolmen searching the floating houses for escaped criminals, the guest swallows four fishing hooks and hides inside a hole which serves as the house's lavatory. The same way, in an effort to call the attention of the guest who suddenly left the floating house one morning, the proprietress inserts fishing hooks inside her vagina. The scenes are shocking and instantly calls for attention and interpretation. Kim's shock cinema isn't clearly meant for gratuitous entertainment nor plot movement, but for symbolism and deep interpretation.

As cryptic as the scenes of cruelty is the ending. The floating house drifts from the lake to what seems like a vast ocean. Then cuts the concluding image of the man entering a solitary isle of lake grass and disappears therein. Kim zooms out the image, revealing the naked body of the proprietress and the same grassy isle in the place where the vagina (or more accurately, the pubic area) should be. It's an excruciatingly open-ended conclusion that is pregnant with many interpretations. Is Kim trying to wash away his misogynistic artistry by telling his audience that men are the weaker sex and that they merely hide their weakness using the female body? More far-fetched but more interesting is the idea that the final scene shows an exact opposite of a woman giving birth --- with the male entering the uterus, it's a skewed imagery of motherhood but the setting (the proprietress, naked and submerged in water) suggests the validity of the theory.

In the end, The Isle is indeed a compelling yet misguided romance. The boy and the girl spend more time away from each other, using the glare of the sunlight being thrown by a mirror to communicate. Kim's direction suggests an outward alienation. The proprietress is mostly seen from outside a glass window, or when she is interacting with other human beings, she is mostly mute, and blank faced. Even when she's paid for sex, it's automatic and slightly cruel. More interesting is the fact that when the two find themselves together, it usually erupts in violence.

It's an unsettling relationship that developed from an understanding that the two or more different than they are similar. Both of them are manipulative but they jive because there is an understanding that their relationship requires that they both use each other, for sex, for survival, for escape. Kim suggests that within that lake resort where men seek solitude or an escape from the world, the most basic and most accurate of sexual politics between the man and the woman can be derived, as emphasized by the imperfect and mutated relationship between the proprietress and the man who is hiding from his past.

House on Haunted Hill (1959)

House on Haunted Hill (William Castle, 1959)

It is most unfortunate that William Castle's haunted house film House on Haunted Hill has been remade into an abysmal update by William Malone complete with overdone make-up, special effects, a ghastly musical score, among other things. Interestingly the 1959 House on Haunted Hill was done with a budget that would seem minuscule compared to the remake, but is infinitely more effective in producing mystery, plot interest, and more importantly, horror.

Millionaire Frederick Loren (Vincent Price) has invited five strangers to his reportedly haunted house for the birthday celebration of his wife, Annabelle (Carol Ohmart). They are offered ten thousand dollars in exchange for staying in the house the entire night. All of them took the bait with different reasons and excuses. While aviator Lance Schroeder (Richard Long), news reporter Ruth Bridgers (Julie Mitchum), psychiatrist Dr. David Trent (Alan Marshal) and Frederick Loren's company employee Nora Manning (Carolyn Craig) are in it primarily for the money, the fifth guest Watson Pritchard (Elisha Cook) is most certain that the house is haunted and has more personal and pressing excuses to accept the invitation.

The most fascinating thing about House on Haunted Hill is that during the entire film, there is hardly an image of an actual ghost that invades the screen. The actual terror doesn't come from the fact that the house is haunted (Castle leads us to believe it to blanket the treacherous schemes of some of the erstwhile residents of the house), but from the idea that there's something clearly troubling when you trap inside a house five strangers whose primary motivation for being there is greed, and to add to that, you have a couple who are so sick of each other that it won't be surprising if they stabbed each other to death.

William Castle introduces the film with a deathly shriek in the dark and then, an eerie image of Pritchard telling a slight background on the house and the many murders that ensued there. Then, attention is given to Frederick Loren who gives a short backgrounder and some hints on the different guests he has invited to his guests. It's a clever introduction, I think. The introduction effectively bathes the entire film with a supernatural feel and also puts an air of danger in between the guests, who according to Loren's backgrounder, have the need and the capability to murder for money (especially since they'd allow themselves to be locked up inside a mysterious haunted house for a night).

There are really frightful moments within the film, but those are just there to keep you in the edge of your seats. The real centerpiece of the film is the clever designs of treachery and paranoia-inducing that the guests and the hosts are staging for and by themselves. The film showcases several twists that caught me unaware and are most satisfying given the fact that I kept on expecting a ghost or a ghoul to pop out of somewhere.

Last Days (2005)

Last Days (Gus Van Sant, 2005)

Gus Van Sant's final entry to his Death Trilogy (which includes Gerry (2002) and Elephant (2003)) reportedly solicited several walk-outs upon screening. It's not an easy film to watch and if you are expecting a biopic of the life of tragic musician Kurt Cobain, it's best to stay clear of the film. Originally planned as a somewhat silent film, Last Days evolved into a contemplative examination on the last few days of a musician, Blake (Michael Pitt), the fictional rocker inspired by Kurt Cobain, before he dies. The film, from its first frame to its last evokes a deathly sensation despite its lush setting (a mansion in the middle of a healthy forest), and the several near-interventions from friends and co-workers. It's a powerful film, to say the least and through its meandering pacing, it generates a feeling of an impending event that is impregnated with religious, philosophical and psychological possibilities.

Last Days starts with Blake walking alone, mumbling indecipherable statements, to the forest's falls. He hops in and takes a bath, and steps out of the pond to urinate directly on the water. Interpretations of the opening scene range from a symbolism of baptism being ultimately shattered by Blake's pissing all over the baptismal font, to just about anything. Blake then walks to his mansion, tries to defrost his meal, then goes up and changes to a woman's lingerie and just depressedly does nothing. Again, that makes for difficult viewing as the character embodies a fatal ache that remains mysterious and thus, terrifying. Of course, it's been said that Kurt Cobain's death is a result of his addiction with drugs, added by his personal motivations, but all of that is brushed aside here, Blake's reasons for taking his life is not an issue but the journey from absolute resolution to death to the final act is the meat of the movie.

There are several scenes in the film that allude to religion. Two young Mormon missionaries visit Blake's mansion and is met by Blake's two loafer friends, Luke (Lukas Haas) and Asia (Asia Argento). The missionaries talk about their religion with memorized conviction, and tackles an interesting point that one can only reach purity upon killing a pure creature. Everything is cryptic and it is almost impossible to completely understand the dynamics of the film, but it is easy to connect the events and the dialogue to the fact that Blake is resigned to death. When all the preaching is happening, Blake is in his room dazed and clearly in a state of disarray. The background of this scene is punctured by the music of BoyzIIMen playing, and ending with the rather corny MTV playing in the television screen. It's a curious symbolism that tackles a form of washing away of his rock and roll convictions for contemporary pop trash, a graduated punishment for him to purity. Of course, I'm guessing but nevertheless, the scene is pumped up with deadpan humor.

The film is connected by several situations, mostly involving several persons involving themselves with Blake. It's a sort of intervention that concludes in a clearer conviction to end his life. In only one scene do we see compassion from one of Blake's companions and the rest are barely knowledgeable on what is really happening, even to the point that to his last hour, friends still pour to ask for favors yet never care as to why Blake is acting strangely. It's probably the drugs, or the liquor, or the highness to rock and roll.

It's been said that one achieves nirvana when one has achieved the greatest high through narcotics, but I differentiate Blake's scenario with the drug-induced nirvana. Blake's assuredness, his purity, is his nirvana which is why his character is impenetrable and his movements seem illogical and out of this world. From the first frame to the last, Blake is in a state of sureness that is probably absent in his entire life. That being said, Last Days can be accurately described as one of the greatest death scenes (all of its running time) ever filmed.