A Remarkably True Seven Minutes

Shot in August of 2002, Tom Tykwer’s powerful 7 minute film Faubourg Saint-Denis, the highlight of last year's anthology film Paris Je T’aime, started out life as True, an acclaimed ten minute work that premiered in Germany in 2004. Starring a miraculous Natalie Portman as a young American actress in Paris and Melchior Beslon as her blind boyfriend who confuses reality with a part she is playing, Tykwer’s film is a moving chapter in one of the most distinctive directorial careers of the decade.

Faubourg Saint-Denis is so impressive that apparently it was the film used to finance the beginning stages on the production of Paris Je T’aime with The Coen Brothers signing on shortly after seeing it and the film's other 19 directors soon following in their steps.
For those who haven’t seen it, Paris Je T’aime is quite an achievement…and it reaches its peak though in Tykwer’s segment, a short that manages to somehow take his most transcendent work in films like Run Lola Run, and The Princess and The Warrior and squeeze them into a remarkably concise seven minute segment.

What makes Faubourg Saint-Denis so unique is the thing that makes all of Tykwer’s work so special, namely the rare ability to capture the rawest of human emotions in the most cinematic terms possible. Taking visual cues from such American stylists as Brian De Palma and John Carpenter and combining them with some of the thematic obsessions of both Eric Rohmer’s relationship pictures and Kieslowski’s studies of destiny and fate, Tykwer’s growing canon is a totally unique one and Faubourg Saint-Denis is a key work that finds him firing on all cylinders.

It’s a difficult film to write about though, not only due to its brevity but more importantly by its unflinchingly personal nature. Few modern filmmakers can capture the intricacies of relationships like Tykwer and even fewer can capture the electric and sometimes destructive passion of young love like he can.
Tykwer shot Faubourg Saint Denis after the emotionally exhausting Heaven, an ambitious and well meaning project scripted by and originally meant for Kieslowski himself. Heaven wasn’t the only thing that had fractured Tykwer as a break with his most noteworthy partner in cinema and life, the unforgettable Frank Potente, had also just occurred. Faubourg Saint Denis would return Tykwer to the questions of time, destiny and what exactly is reality that had made Run Lola Run such a dazzling achievement and it would also give him the chance to work with Portman, an actress he is on record as calling the one of the best of her generation…a statement I agree with wholeheartedly.

Portman had just wrapped the dreadful Attack of the Clones for George Lucas, a project that had forced her to deliver some of the worst written dialogue in this or any other decade. The new Star Wars series had in fact made her a huge international star but it had simultaneously damaged her as an actress, seemingly stripping her of the freshness and vitality that had marked her initial work. Faubourg Saint Denis would restore that in its seven short minutes and its not a stretch to say that it is this film that led her to the astonishingly great performances she would give in works ranging from Mike Nichol’s Closer (a film she should have been awarded an Oscar for) and James Mcteigue’s flawed V For Vendetta.

Shot in just four days, Faubourg Saint Denis was supposed to be a part of an anthology project set in Paris that stalled soon after Twkwer shot it. Tykwer is in on record as saying the original ten minute cut was too short so I can only imagine what he thinks of the seven minute Paris Je t’aime edit. Still, while a longer cut would no doubt have been welcome, it is the brevity of Faubourg Saint Denis that perhaps makes it so emotionally overwhelming. Tykwer manages to capture the sometimes grueling excitement of a young relationship in a nearly incomprehensibly honest way here and even more amazingly he manages to portray the thin line in cinema between what is real and imagined in a fresh way that recalls the greatest work of De Palma, probably the director whose work looms largest over his own.

The original cut of True premiered in Germany in 2004 to a mostly enthusiastic reception and it's to its credit that it alone could convince a pair like The Coen Brothers to come aboard a project they probably never would have considered otherwise. It would be a spiritually and artistically healing work for Tykwer, who would say it "symbolises an entire life for me, in just ten minutes." He would take a break after the production and returned two years back with the acclaimed Perfume: The Story of a Murderer. His next project is the much anticipated The International starring Clive Owen and Naomi Watts.

Portman continues to have one of the most interesting careers in modern American film and her recent appearance in Wes Anderson’s moving short Hotel Chevalier, a film that almost seems like a tribute to Tykwer’s True at times, shows her as an actress capable of capturing whatever obsessive detail her director asks of her and doing so in a way that is often direct, at times devastating and always true. She can next be seen in New York, I Love You, the American answer to Paris Je T’aime.

My Blueberry Nights

Recently down in Memphis I stopped in at the fabulous Arcade Restaurant, an always tantalizing spot known as the oldest still operating restaurant in the city. Many films have shot scenes there, including Jim Jarmusch's stunning Mystery Train and the equally enthralling 21 Grams. The particular booth we sat at on this visit had a pic of Rachel Weisz hanging above it, and I was reminded I had yet to sit down and watch My Blueberry Nights from acclaimed director Wong Kar-Wai that had been shot partially at the Arcade.
I rectified that a couple of nights ago with a viewing of the American DVD of the much maligned film that was indeed shot in Memphis, as well as New York and out West. I mention that it was the American DVD because I am aware that the film went under some heavy cutting from the version that first premiered at Cannes. Whether the additional footage would help or hurt the film I can’t say, and the DVD unfortunately doesn’t offer any of the missing footage as a supplement.
My time with My Blueberry Nights was odd to say the least. First of all the film is really stunning looking…I would actually go so far as to say that it is among the most visually striking productions of the decade. It is also clearly a Wong Kar-Wai movie, as his shooting and editing style is so identifiable, even to someone like me who has unfortunately only seen a couple of films.
As I said my time with the film was strange though, as I can’t remember a production in recent memory that beguiled me so much while watching it but then slipped away from me so quickly. The film is very much like a particularly good piece of Blueberry Pie, but unfortunately a good piece of pie needs some sort of compliment and My Blueberry Nights finally doesn’t offer one. There is something positively vacant about this stunning looking film from one of the key auteurs in modern cinema.
Many people have pointed to star Norah Jones as the heart of the film’s problem, due to her inexperience as an actor. I actually didn’t have any problems with Jones, who I found perfectly suitable as the film’s mysterious and deliberately undefined main character. Does her inexperience come across? Absolutely, but it’s easy to see why Wai built his film around her…or more specifically her face, which is one of the most charismatic and memorable of the decade.
Nor did I have any problem with the rest of the film's impressive cast, which includes a slew of Oscar winners and nominees including Rachel Weisz and David Stathairn in the Memphis section, Natalie Portman in the Western part and a scraggly looking Jude Law in the New York scenes. I found Weisz and Stathairn particularly good in the film, and one particular moment between Rachel and Norah outside of the Arcade restaurant at night being quite devastating.
The real problem with the film lies in its script by Wai (his first English language attempt) and novelist Lawrence Block. The script never rises above feeling like a trio of short stories cobbled together in an attempt to make a whole and the film can’t really recover from it, no matter how delightful looking it is. I was actually reminded as I was watching it of any number of flawed Wim Wenders productions from the past decade in just how simultaneously rewarding and frustrating it is….and of course the fact that this is very much a Wenders type road movie.
A couple of days after seeing My Blueberry Nights I must admit that my initial feelings of grudging admiration have diminished. There is something finally just unsatisfying about it…pity as it is such a gorgeous work made my an obvious master.



Despite my misgivings about the film, I don’t think it’s the disaster so many critics made it out to be. It has moments of undeniable power and I will revisit it again in the future. There is one sequence in particular involving Law and a surprisingly solid and sublime Chan Marshall (from Cat Power) that almost made me forgive the film all of its failings. It’s a raw moment that exposes the hurt of failed relationships and lost dreams in a truly powerful way. I wish the rest of the film could have possessed the kind of emotion Wai found with with Law and Marshall in this moment…as it is though My Blueberry Nights is just a bit too slight. For another recent look at the film, check out J.D.'s fair and well written look at Radiator Heaven, where he has some different problems than with the film than I did, but he felt the strong Wenders vibe as well.

Cinema's Great Faces: Grazyna Dlugolecka in Walerian Borowczyk's Dzieje Grzechu (The Story of Sin)

Recently while I was watching Natalie Portman's extraordinary performance in Black Swan I was reminded of Grazyna Dlugolecka's startling turn in The Story of Sin (1975). Of course the two films are stylistically and thematically very different works but there was something about the way Darren Aronofsky obsessively concentrated his camera on Portman's face that reminded me of the way Walerian Borowczyk filmed Dlugolecka in his own masterful film. It was a personal response and I am not trying to make any broad comparisons, but it did plant the thought in my head that I needed to pay tribute to one of Borowczyk's greatest works here, hence this post. I'd like to dedicate these stills to their subject Grazyna Dlugolecka, a marvelous actress who deserved many more great roles than she was granted in her career.