Sunset Boulevard (8.3/10)

Billy Wilder, 1950

The Hollywood classic is a fantastic physiological film noir that explores the twisted ego filled and delusional lives of movie stars. Joe Gillis (William Holden) the films protagonist is an unsuccessful screenwriter on the run from debt collectors. Looking for a place to hide his car, he comes across a seemingly abandoned old mansion. It turns out that the house belongs to Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson), a once famous silent movie star from a bygone era in Hollywood. Hearing of Joe’s money problems, Norma offers him a job editing her script, which he grudgingly accepts to help pay off his debts. It is not long until Norma takes a romantic liking to Joe, and immerses him in the weird and sad world of Hollywood’s elite. A world of excessive ego worship, complete with an endless supply of champagne and bizarre rituals such as extravagant funerals for deceased pet chimpanzees. Unfortunately for Norma, the attraction is one sided and becomes evident that Joe is only in the relationship for the materialistic gains. While Norma prepares for her comeback to the Hollywood stage, the situation increasingly becomes suffocating for Joe. As he begins to drift away, Norma becomes more desperate and delusional to point of madness.

The story is typical of celebrities. Who on the surface, seem to have everything anyone could ever want. However, in reality many of them lead tortured lives, suffering from a gambit of mental health and addiction issues. Often causing them to lash out or act peculiarly, get involved with strange cults, steal things simply for the sake of stealing, or overdose with drugs. Often the larger the celebrity the more tragic the consequences are, look at Michael Jackson for example. This makes sense, because from a young age these people are completely detached from reality, sheltered behind mountains of money, and worshiped by legions of fans. When their time in the spotlight is up, it can be difficult for their ego to cope and subsequently causes great anguish. Wilder captures this pain, and in doing so makes Norma human again, into someone that we cannot only relate to, but can pity. It is timeless story, applicable to anyone famous, in any culture, anywhere in the world. However, what really makes the film truly interesting to watch is the weird and wonderful world Wilder creates on screen. It gives the viewer a glimpse into the super decadent and sordid reality of the super rich, which while fictional is remarkably believable. It is a world that is ‘fellini-esque’, and is every bit as depraved and extravagant as ‘La Dolce Vita’, only a decade earlier.

Lilja-4-Ever (7.4/10)

Lukas Moodysson, 2002
Lilja-4-Ever is a tragic and gut wrenching film that leaves the viewer troubled long after the credits finish. The film is an adaptation of an actual incident in 2000 involving a teenager from Lithuania that shocked Swedish society and received extensive media coverage. Lilja (Oksana Akinshina) is a 16-year-old living in a dilapidated Soviet era residential suburb with plans of immigrating to the United States with her mother. When her mother abandons her right before they are about to leave, she is forced to live with her Aunt. Who not concerned about her nieces well being, moves her into a filthy rundown apartment to live alone. Lilja spends her days hanging out and getting high with Volodja, a 13-year-old run away from an abusive home. With no other options and at the recommendation of her aunt, Lilja eventually resorts to prostitution for survival. She takes small comfort in the fact that it lets her buy luxury goods such as fruit juice, potato chips, and a small gift for Volodja. While working one night at the club, she meets Andrej a ‘nice guy’ who is not just interested in sex but who really wants to get to know her. He promises her a better life in Sweden with a good paying job, and gets her a passport and a plane ticket. At the last second, Andrej claims he has to visit his poor sick grandmother and promises to meet Lilja in Sweden. In reality, there is no lucrative cleaning job waiting for her, Andrej has sold her to a pimp in Sweden. Who locks her in a dirty apartment during the day, and sells her for sex at night, but is kind enough to buy her a McDonald’s value meal between clients.



Films like Lilja-4-Ever are difficult to write about because of the severe nature of the subject matter. How can someone recommend a film about child sexual exploitation, where teenagers sniff glue and commit suicide on screen, because they thought the film’s narrative was well done or the sound track was interesting? Ultimately, one must judge the film within its context to determine if the content is justified. They must determine whether the director successfully matched the brutality of the images and story with the seriousness of the subject matter. If it is unbalanced in either direction, the film is an epic failure, especially when handling extremely controversial topics. While it is true, that the director could have had much of the truly disturbing scenes take place take place off camera and retain the potent message of the film. The fact is that humans have become so desensitized to disturbing images that artists need to resort to new depths of depravity to get our attention. Moodysson does this very well, almost too well. The scenes in the film get progressively more brutal to the inevitable conclusion, bringing out so many raw emotions in the audience that range from hate to compassion and are impossible to ignore. Maybe that is why we like films like this, or at least like them enough to warrant their creation, because we find them cathartic. Maybe seeing how fucked up someone else’s life is or can be, makes us feel better about our own relatively minor problems and the social context is just an excuse to evade censorship. Regardless, the way Moodysson creates a universe that is completely tragic and utterly devoid of any hope to bring attention to a real and grave injustice speaks to the power of cinema.

The Great Silence (9/10)

Sergio Corbucci, 1968
The film is an interesting and ironic reflection on morality and law, set among a picturesque background and involving a cast of eccentric characters. It is the ‘Empire Strikes Back’ of spaghetti westerns. At face value, the film is similar to most films in its genre. Everything from the plot, which involves outlaws chasing their prey through a lawless and expansive countryside, to the Ennio Morricone score and final show down are typical. What distinguishes the film is Klaus Kinski’s performance as Loco, a morally deprived and dishonest bounty hunter on a mission to capture a group of outlaws hiding in the mountains to collect the reward. Since, Loco can collect the reward regardless if he brings the fugitives in dead or alive, he prefers the former, provoking them into threatening him and claiming self-defense. After he kills a woman’s husband, she hires Silence, a mute gunslinger with a high tech pistol to extract revenge. The two chase each other through the Italian Alps, guised as the Rocky Mountains, and eventually meet in a final confrontation that ends with a distinctive ‘Corbuccian’ twist. Interesting to note the director also made an alternative happy conclusion for North American audiences, where everything works out perfectly for the hero and everyone lives happily ever after.
Like most Westerns, from Sergio Leone to Howard Hawks, John Wayne to Clint Eastwood, the Great Silence portrays a type of moral ambiguity, in where the good guys aren’t really good. The protagonists are often the same bounty hunters, killers, drunks, and mercenaries as the antagonists. However, at the end of day the former are a little less sociopathic, a little more compassionate, and much more human than the latter. This is what makes the genre, inclusive of spaghetti westerns, so ‘American’.

It can be difficult to take Kinski seriously, given his outlandish ‘I am the new Jesus’ performances and legendary escapades with Werner Herzog. However, before all that, he made his name in Italian Westerns, and ‘The Great Silence’ is unquestionably the best performance of his career. His detached deadpan seriousness and eccentricities are reminiscent of a super cool mix between Dennis Hopper and Jean-Pierre Léaud. Corbucci’s distinctive styling and the genius of Klaus Kinski truly distinguish the film, making it one of, if not the, best in the genre.