BEST FILMS OF 1954
by Mike Lorefice

Desistfilm
Stan Brakhage

***

Dial M For Murder
Alfred Hitchcock

***

Executive Suite
Robert Wise

***

The Far Country
Anthony Mann

***1/2

Garden of Evil
Henry Hathaway

***

Johnny Guitar
Nicholas Ray

***1/2

Late Chrysanthemums
Mikio Naruse

Once considered too Japanese for American audiences, Yasujiro Ozu has gotten increasingly over in recent years. His peer Mikio Naruse is at least equally esteemed in his own country, but finding one of his films in the US can seem like the quest for the holy grail. Chrysanthemums bears some resemblance to Ozu stylistically, framing the always static shots so the camera seems a little below the centered character(s), but where Ozu lingers on a scene Naruse cuts abruptly to eliminate the possibility of sentimentality. The editing can be fantastic, especially the crosscutting, but the point of it shows probably the biggest difference between the two; Naruse is a defeatist. Both deal with adult characters whose children are about to leave them, but all three of the over the hill retired world war II geishas in Naruse's film are lonely and lead a life of unfulfilled longing, even if they arguably aren't quite sure what beyond money they long for. They all lack a man, and even if in a way they've had their fill of them from work, they at least miss the attention. The two that have children (Chikako Hosokawa & Yuko Mochizuki) are the poor ones. Their grown up children, products of the less serious postwar times, constantly let them down. The one that doesn't have children (Haruko Sugimura) is the successful one, a loan shark who seemingly makes much of her money off her friends, and thus there's always a certain distance and a great deal of resentment. In an ordinary story she'd be the villain, yet even though she's the least appealing she winds up being the one we feel for the most when two men from her past turn up, rekindling her romantic hopes. Naruse's style forces us to identify with the characters rather than judge them, and even if we somehow can't their story is put forth with such a fervor our personal tastes hardly matter. While I might not favor Naruse's pessimism, it certainly extends in ways that help his film a great deal. The film has subtlety, understatement, and realism, all of which are conveyed through the wonderful acting as well as in the directors choices, which include the refusal to employ background music. Perhaps I focus too much on the negative, as the women are remarkably strong and independent for their time. Chrysanthemums is one of those movies that covers a small portion of a few characters lives in great detail, though like Ozu that portion almost starts and ends indiscriminately as the film is more about the passing of time, about the inevitable rather than a conclusion. [5/6/06] ***1/2

On The Waterfront
Elia Kazan

****

Rear Window
Alfred Hitchcock

****

Salt of the Earth
Herbert Biberman

Members of the blacklisted Hollywood Ten decided to actually do something subversive, go to New Mexico and make this powerful humanist fiction focusing on the striking Mexican American zinc miners there. The result is arguably the only truly leftist feature of the period, co-produced by the depicted union. "Liberal" Hollywood not surprisingly used their muscle to suppress it, keeping it out of all the studio owned chains. However, the effort against it went far beyond the usual Hollywood vs. everyone else. It went far beyond our mythological aviating "hero" Howard Hughes trying to use his clout to keep the negative from even being developed. For those interested in how far it went, James J. Lorence wrote "The Suppression of Salt of the Earth: How Hollywood, Big Labor, and Politicians Blacklisted a Movie in Cold War America". While the film was highly regarded abroad, particularly in Europe, Salt had to wait 11 years to be semidiscovered in the US. But the film is notable for a lot more than the effort against it, it's a work years ahead of it's time, particularly in trying to set straight our backwards attitudes. More than just a pro union work; it's one of the only, and certainly the strongest American feminist film of its time. Though the men are on strike, the main character is the wife of the leading Mexican American, played by one of the only professionals in the cast (most of the others are from the striking union), Rosaura Revualtas, who was repatriated to Mexico due to appearing in this evil film. The film shows that as bad as the American workers had it, the Mexican Americans had it that much worse because of racism, and their wives had it far worse than anyone because of sexism. We see Revualtas rise from a neglected unappreciated submissive to a key player in the strike, though it's not one of those films that makes the main character too grand or heroic. She never becomes bigger than the film, rising through some small actions that are a big step forward for her own courage. Her voice over narration is a big key to the film, typically used for reportage, which becomes an excellent condensing tool and allows the cast of non actors to go about business, be themselves. There's one intense particularly memorable crosscutting sequence that's far ahead of it's time, going between Revualtas giving birth without a doctor (because the company doctor won't help a striker) and her husband not being able to help her because the police are beating him up in the back of the squad car. Generally the film is solid though unspectacularly made, but it's daring in legitimately depicting labor issues and prejudice makes it stand out amongst the frivolous entertainments and sugar coated imposters. Though dated in some respects, it's more relevant than ever in others, like what paying for everything on installment does to your freedom. Unfortunately, the one place it goes wrong in concluding that the rights won will be passed on to the children, as we know they disappear as soon as we turn our backs or are distracted long enough. [12/15/05] ***1/2

Samurai 1 - Musashi Miyamoto
Hiroshi Inagaki

Highly overrated samurai epic utilizes same actors as Kurosawa's samurai films, but fails to approach the level of Kurosawa, Masaaki Kobayashi, or Kenji Mizoguchi's work in the genre. It's basically a big melodramatic action film, doing Hollywood rather than incorporating it like Kurosawa did so well. The action is good in a sense because it's sloppy, not the overly choreographed stuff we always see in the west and started getting from the east in the later years when martial arts films became big. But the action is also phony superhero nonsense. It's often a beautiful film, making good use of color to show off the landscapes while at the same time not betraying the gloomy tone. However, it's also marred by artificial effects and backdrops that are so much more obvious because it is in color. It would have been much better if it stuck to emphasizing the loneliness of the samurai, which it does pretty well, but ala Hollywood that aspect is always undermined by going right back to the forced love story so as to tug at our heart strings. If you enjoy Samurai films you don't want to miss this, but you'll be disappointed if like me you go into it thinking you are going to be seeing a true masterpiece. [12/15/05] ***

Seven Samurai
Akira Kurosawa

***1/2

Full Movie Review

La Strada
Federico Fellini

***1/2

Suddenly
Lewis Allen

***

Twenty-Four Eyes
Keisuke Kinoshita

***

Wuthering Heights
Luis Bunuel

***