Big DVD Week

Tomorrow marks the release of several exciting titles on DVD including the long awaited special edition of Jean-Jacques Beineix's Diva, the new special editions of the all the Dirty Harry films, Olivier Assayas' Boarding Gate starring Asia Argento and the Will Ferrell comedy Semi-Pro.
Diva features a scene specific commentary with Beineix as well as a whopping ten featurettes. The Dirty Harry box set features new transfers as well as a load of extras including new and vintage documentaries and commentaries. Semi-Pro (which I loved even though hardly anyone else did) is a loaded up two disc affair and Boarding Gate appears to have some interviews and a featurette on Asia.

Diva On The Big Screen

I was really honored and thrilled this afternoon to attend a big screen showing of Jean-Jacques Beineix's Diva(1981) at Nashville's great Belcourt Theater. It was a really wonderful experience and it marked the first time I had the opportunity to view one of Beineix's films on the big screen.
Watching Diva for the first time in many years in this sort of setting was really special. The film is still as thrilling as ever and its extraordinary look seems even more alive than it did 25 years ago when it first premiered to negative reactions from the old guard of French Cinema.
Several things stood out to me this time including a couple of delightful winks I hadn't picked up on before such as the copping of Peter Gabriel's Intruder on the soundtrack before slyly highlighting the album from which it was taken in the background of the very next scene. I was also struck by how the glorious Brigitte Lahaie cameo is perhaps the most potent middle finger (imagine, a tip to the French sex film industry and Jean Rollin in one sweet shot) Beineix could have offered to the conservative French critics he knew were going to attack him upon the film's release.
I was also struck by how much more I was affected by the side plots this time instead of the main storyline concerning Jules, even though he is played wonderfully by Frederic Andrei. I was much more taken this viewing with the characters that the very striking Richard Bohringer and Thuy An Luu played and found myself nearly hypnotized by the brilliant shades of blue their apartment offered up throughout the film.
I am disappointed that Criterion is apparently not going to be releasing the film on DVD later this year. Instead it looks like LionsGate is going to handle that and it makes me worry for the extras the film really deserves. We'll have to wait and see but it is a shame that the "Cinema Du Look" movement will still be missing in action on the Criterion label...my fingers are still very much crossed for Moon In The Gutter to re-appear soon...
I will post more on Diva when the DVD does arrive here in the States. In the meantime, if the newly struck print does come near where you are don't hesitate to go see it. The film is still as dazzling and as moving as ever...

The Wild Bunch: Cinema du Look 1981-1994

It has been just over twenty five years since Jean-Jacques Beineix's DIVA landed on American shores and alerted audiences that the freshest and most exciting filmmakers were once again coming out of France.
The 'Cinema du Look' movement was an explosion of style, color, fashion, emotion and the three directors most often associated with it produced some of the most recognizable and influential films of the eighties and nineties. The work of Jean-Jacques Beineix, Luc Besson and Leos Carax doesn't get the respect or attention it deserves, at least here in the United States, so here is a small tribute to my favorite films from these three iconic directors, one of which my little blog took its name from.

JEAN-JACQUES BEINEIX:
Born 1946 in Paris.

Key Films:

1. THE MOON IN THE GUTTER (1983): Beineix's most controversial film is the ultimate Cinema du Look film. Stylish, shocking, frustrating and never less than brilliant, Beineix manages to pull in influences ranging from American film noir to the Italian Giallo in the most audacious manner possible. My long look at the film can be found here.

2. BETTY BLUE (1986): The heart of Cinema du Look and the introduction to perhaps is greatest discovery, L'Enfant sauvage Beatrice Dalle.

3. DIVA (1981): The film that kick started the movement remains one of the most visionary and entertaining works of the eighties. Beineix's command of the medium this early on is frankly astounding.

4. ROSELYNE AND THE LIONS (1989): Beineix begins to slip here but it's still a gorgeous underrated production that deserves more recognition.

5. IP5 (1992): An oddly touching but flawed production that teamed Beaineix with French legend Yves Montand.

Works since:
MORTAL TRANSFER (2001)

LUC BESSON:
Born 1959 in Paris

Key Films:

1. LEON (1994): The movement's swan song and one of its greatest achievements. The westernization hinted at in Besson's early productions is near complete here but it strangely only adds to his obvious brilliance and mastery of the medium.

2. SUBWAY (1985): One of the ultimate punk films...silly, moving, bold, sublime and masterful. A simultaneous embracing and rejection of the New Wave Besson grew up with.

3. THE FINAL COMBAT (1983): Besson's feature length debut remains as strange, flawed and as refreshing as ever. This must have felt like a kick in the head to audiences back in the early eighties who had given up on French cinema as a combative force.

4. THE BIG BLUE (1988): Unbelievably beautiful but vacant production that features some of the most unforgettable and strange images of the whole movement.

5. LA FEMME NIKITA (1990): The movement's most overrated production is ironically the easiest to see. Problems aside, the influence of the film cannot be denied but I will always prefer John Badham's underrated remake with Bridget Fonda.

Works Since:
THE FIFTH ELEMENT (1997)
THE MESSENGER (1999)
ANGEL-A (2005)
ARTHUR AND THE INVISIBLES (2006)

LEOS CARAX:
Born 1960 in Paris

KEY WORKS:

1. THE LOVERS ON THE BRIDGE (1991): "Let Paris Rot" indeed. Not just one of the great modern French films but one of the key works of the past few decades.

2. BAD BLOOD (1986): MAUVAIS SANG remains the most Godardian of all the Cinema Du Look's works and it is still a beautiful and imaginative work of art that would mark the team of Carax and Binoche as one of the most remarkable in modern cinema.

3. BOY MEETS GIRL (1984): Compelling and uncompromising first film from the just 23 year old Carax.

Works Since:
POLA X (1999)

I hope to write in detail on all of the above works eventually. French cinema in the eighties of course gave birth to many more great directors (not to mention an incredible number of astonishing performers) but the small body of work by these three men remains a particularly resonate snapshot of a very special time. The relative unavailability of several of the above films shows that they still haven't gotten the due they deserve, at least in America.

Images From My All Time Favorite Films: Jean-Jacques Beineix's Diva (1981)

For my little tribute to the Cinema Du Look movement, that this astounding film kick started, please visit here.

The Jean-Jacques Beineix Collection: Otaku (1994)

Shot in the period between his final two feature films, IP5 (1992) and Mortal Transfer (2001), 1994’s Otaku is a penetrating documentary from Jean-Jacques Beineix that is simultaneously fascinating, informative and memorable. Co-directed by Jackie Bastide, Otaku is a penetrating look at the many different youth subcultures in Japan that have proven so increasingly dominant in the past few decades, and even though it is just 75 minutes long it manages to cover a lot of ground.






A difficult term to accurately translate, Otaku can at its most simplistic be described as a hobby that becomes an addiction. Often associated mostly with gaming, comics and models, the Otaku culture can really be anything a person uses to separate themselves from their daily lives and, as Beineix’s film shows, it is not exclusive to Japan’s youth although typically it is considered a youth oriented sub-culture.



The best thing about Otaku is the skill of Beiniex’s reporting, with the word ‘report’ being the key one that hovers over the entire film. It would have been easy for the work to take on a judgmental tone, especially in the sections of the film that highlight the sometimes-overwhelming degradation of Japan’s young women, but Beineix and Bastide don’t use the film to cast any moral shadow and, because of this, the film is a much more resonate and powerful work.




An episodic production that would benefit from a longer running time Otaku will, despite a few editorial flaws, prove of great interest to anyone interested in modern Japanese culture. Manga fans will find the convention and behind the scenes coverage extremely entertaining, while historians fascinated with how Japan’s youth culture has changed in the past fifty years will find Beineix’s work invaluable.



Alternating between the innocent pleasures of a teenager reading his favorite comic, to a riveting portrait of a middle age man who has abandoned nearly everything in his life for his love constructing model airplanes, Otaku is at its most powerful when Beineix and Bastide look at the cultural divisions between Japanese men and women. From the national obsession with models based on teenage Japanese girls that many middle age Japanese men buy by the millions, to the section of the film where young women are interviewed in regards to prostituting themselves, Otaku is a much more serious study than it could have been.




The film is also a powerful study of the way technology in daily life is proving more and more controlling. The fact that the film is already dated at just over ten years old shows the frightening pace technology is hitting modern culture, and the films final images of a young boy's drawing of Japan's past over its modern landscape is one of the most powerful shots in Beineix's canon. Otaku is also an eerie reminder that often the pleasures we find in society are in fact financially supporting the very thing we are trying to escape from...to sum it up succinctly, Otaku gives you a lot to think about.




Otaku is presented as a bonus film on Cinema Libre’s first disco in their Jean-Jacques Beineix collection, Locked in Syndrome. Taken from a French VHS copy with English narration instead of subtitles, it isn’t the ideal way to view the film but currently it is the best version of Otaku available.