FILM REVIEW: ALPHAVILLE

Natasha (Anna Karina) and Lemmy Caution (Eddie Constantine) in Alphaville.

Godard is not dead

By Ed Rampell

One of my favorite genres depicts dystopian sci-fi societies, wherein humans fight to be free from futuristic fascism. On the page, George Orwell’s terrifying 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World are the greatest exemplars of this type of anti-totalitarian tale in tomorrowland. But for my money (or whatever means of currency they’ll use in years to come), arguably the greatest interpretation of dystopia for the silver screen is Jean-Luc Godard’s 1965 masterpiece Alphaville, which has been lovingly, lushly restored and is being theatrically re-released in all its black and white glory by Rialto Pictures. And almost 50 years later, the prescient Godard’s sci-fi classic takes on a whole new dimension as a parable of the NSA national security surveillance state.

The 35-year-old auteur was in fine form when he and renowned cameraman Raoul Coutard shot this low budge take on high tech totalitarianism. When the French New Wave shook world cinema with imaginative, stylish pictures, among other things, these filmmakers made their own versions of Hollywood genre movies. Godard’s first feature, 1960’s Breathless -- with cinematography by Coutard and based on a story by Francois Truffaut -- took on the conventions of Film Noir, as did the second feature Truffaut directed, Shoot the Piano Player, made that same year.

In 1965 the visionary Godard -- who expressed the most filmic, formalistic verve of the Nouvelle Vague’s cineastes, with the possible exception of the late Alain Resnais -- cinematically synthesized (or, perhaps we should say “cin-thesized”) Film Noir, espionage movies and science fiction with Alphaville -- and in the process rendered a potent political work of art presaging his revolutionary agitprop.

Alphaville’s alpha male is portrayed by L.A.-born actor Eddie Constantine, who reprised the role he was noted for in French films: Lemmy Caution, a two-fisted, tough guy secret agent and/or detective in movies such as the 1950s flicks This Man is Dangerous and Dames Get Along. But in Alphaville, wearing a Bogie-like trench coat and fedora, Lemmy is thrust into a dystopian future where the despotic state is ruled by the omnivorous, omniscient Alpha 60, which has an eerily disembodied voice, decades before the coming of Siri. Alpha 60 is the cinema’s spookiest computer that side of Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke’s HAL in that other sci-fi masterpiece, 1968’s 2001, A Space Odyssey. As secret agent 003, Lemmy goes undercover, posing when he enters Alphaville from the “Outlands” as a reporter for the Figaro Pravda newspaper named Ivan Johnson (while Lyndon Johnson was U.S. president).

Godard’s wordplay throughout is tellingly droll and Orwellian: Alphaville is on “Oceanic” time, a reference to 1984, as is the futuristic city-state’s “Ministry of Dissuasions”; the close-up of an elevator button reads “SS” -- a play on the French word for basement (“sous-sol”), clearly a nod to the Nazis’ secret police -- and Alpha 60’s mastermind is the über-scientist Prof. Leonard von Braun, aka “Nosferatu”, obvious references  to both the Nazi rocket engineer Wernher von Braun, who went on to work for the postwar U.S. space program, as well as to F.W. Murnau’s 1922 German Expressionist Dracula classic.

Lemmy gets mixed up with von Braun’s daughter Natasha, who is charmingly played by Anna Karina. Although according to some critics Natasha is assigned to Lemmy as a “Seductress, Third Class” (look for character actor Akim Tamiroff cavorting with another Seductress in a cameo), her dialogue suggests that Natasha is quite innocent and naïve, perhaps even virginal.

Setting the stage for the later 1960s, love is the animating force of this struggle against a computerized tyranny where “logic” dictates human behavior at the expense of “conscience” and “passion.” Beneath Lemmy’s brawny private eye persona lurks an idealistic romantic. So like Winston Smith and Julia in 1984,Lemmy and Natasha couple up and resist the authoritarian Alpha 60, that Big Brother-like computer, which attempts to reign over a “technocracy, like ants and termites.” But Lemmy and Natasha are all-too-human and there’s a nearly rapturous scene when they discover and express their love for one another, which was quite avant garde for 1965 and remains rather lyrical, even poetic. One could make a legitimate case for Lemmy and Natasha taking their place alongside Romeo and Juliet, their 20^thcentury counterparts Tony and Maria, and Porgy and Bess, as two of Western culture’s great lovers.

Alphaville is full of Godard’s signature style and leitmotifs -- rapidly cut montages, pictorial panache (check out the cleverly lensed scenes wherein Lemmy gets the hell beaten out of him in an elevator), Paul Misraki’s Noirish soundtrack, the use of written words (as with Orwell the importance of words and their meanings is key here; Godard even compares the dictionary to the Bible). And, but of course, no Godardian film would be complete without the auteur’s pseudo-philosophical musings (which detractors contend became rantings and ravings) of a vital, dissenting, visionary voice pleading for love, conscience and poetry in our ever-increasingly regimented, mechanized world. In Alphaville Godard arguably prophesized the advent of the National Security Agency’s techno super-state half a century before Mssr. Snowden bravely blew the whistle.

Many believe that after his New Wave phase Godard went off the rails, making totally incomprehensible pictures. The poor movie maestro must have heard this phrase even more than Woody Allen: “I like your    films -- especially the early ones.” Be that as it may, while Godard remains a cinematic éminence grise still creating screen enigmas from his perch in Switzerland, Alphaville was made when the New Wave’s enfant terrible was near the top of his game. It is a highly entertaining love story, a sci-fi Film Noir literally about man (and woman!) against the machine.

Alphaville opens in special theaters nationwide, including the Nuart Theatre in West Los Angeles. 

  

FANTASTIC FEST 2012: ANTIVIRAL

Syd March (Caleb Landry Jones) in Antiviral.

Scanning an existence

By Don Simpson

I would expect nothing less from the son of David Cronenberg to craft his debut feature in the frigidly foreboding fashion of his father's oeuvre. Brandon Cronenberg does not necessarily mimic his father, but the cinematic likeness is still quite uncanny. That said, Antiviral is much more blatant and obvious than anything David Cronenberg has made in the last 30 years; the narrative lacks the intricate layers of subtext for which David Cronenberg is known, opting to project messages that are much more in your face.

First and foremost, Antiviral does not hide its repulsion for celebrity worship. Using an undefined future as its palate, Cronenberg literally turns society's desire to (figuratively) consume its stars into purposefully transmitted diseases and cannibalism. Seemingly as a side effect of this grotesque world, sexual desire is totally vanquished and human relationships have completely disintegrated.

So are the events that occur in Antiviral an unavoidable conclusion for our pop culture obsessed society? Will people eventually resort to injecting themselves with diseases and ingesting synthetic celebrity matter just to become closer to the celebrities they adore? It seems ridiculous absurd, but really just how far are we from that world? Do we not already rabidly consume celebrity culture via magazines and television? As much as it chills me to think it, a repressed sick and twisted demand for this strange world proposed by Cronenberg already seems to exist.

And, oh what a world it is... Cronenberg bleaches the backdrop of the future in white (then again, isn't the future always portrayed in glimmering white?), giving us a very black and white world, one with very little good and a whole lot of bad. The most innocent characters in Antiviral are the celebrities, so much so they are practically angelic. The consumers seem incapable of thought, so they too possess some level of naive innocence. It is the middlemen -- the salesmen -- that are the most lecherous and conniving. They milk the celebrities bone dry, leaving them to die, while telling the consumers exactly what they really want. The black market for these dealings is exponentially more menacing, as the scale of supply and demand is carefully manipulated.

If made by his father, Antiviral would have fit perfectly between Scanners, Existenz and Cosmopolis. In fact, there is a very fine line between Robert Pattinson in Cosmopolis and Caleb Landry Jones in Antiviral, just listen to their accents and speech patterns. They also seem to have the same fashion sense, though Jones is certainly more crumpled than Pattinson, with his unkempt hair and perpetually "sick" demeanor.

As a first film, Antiviral is pretty freaking amazing. It is very rare that a first film is produced with such high production value and accented with quality supporting actors like Malcolm McDowell; but, of course, with Cronenberg's impeccable pedigree, what else would we expect?

AFI 2011: CARRE BLANC

Philippe (Majid Hives) in Carré Blanc.

Scared new world

By Don Simpson

When he was just a boy, the mother (Fejria Deliba) of Philippe (Majid Hives) took a swan dive from balcony of their nondescript cement high rise flat. Her reasoning behind doing so was that this act would toughen Philippe and prepare him for the brutal Social Darwinian world outside. Philippe is ushered off to a State-run boarding school where orphans are molded (read: conformed) into productive members of society. This is where Philippe meets his one and only friend, Marie (Adèle Exarchopoulos), in this cruel world where friendship is rapidly becoming extinct.

Years later we find the adult Philippe (Sami Bouajila) working for the State as an interrogator/indoctrinator. He “trains” people via performance tests to become better (read: conformed) citizens. In one such test, he tells his subjects to stand up against a wall, then walk backwards. The test is like a riddle that none of Philippe’s clients seem to be able to conquer yet the solution is so simple once it is revealed by Philippe. Another test is less simple — it entails studying how long the subjects will “willingly” electrocute themselves. Though it is never explained, it seems as though part of Philippe’s role might be to separate society’s mindless sheep from the potential herdsmen.

At some point in the past, Philippe married Marie (Julie Gayet). We can only assume that they were happy — at least content — for a while, but the present reveals an unconquerable tension between the couple. Philippe buries his feelings beneath his frigidly clinical exterior and Marie’s psyche splinters as she no longer sees any reason to exist.

This is a cruel and emotionless world that Marie and Philippe live in -- love, like anything colorful or creative, has been totally negated from existence. Those who will not conform — those who retain a desire to be creative or possess emotions — only have one escape…suicide.

Muzak is pumped like oxygen from the atmosphere of this world to lull the masses into submission. Carré Blanc also features an omnipresent Orwellian loudspeaker over which repeated recitations of Big Brother-esque propaganda promoting teen pregnancy and the moral benefits of croquet are disseminated to all. This same public address system also functions as an invisible Greek Chorus, sardonically commenting upon the on screen events.

The dystopian world takes place in what seems more like a parallel world rather than our future. Though seemingly non-related to our reality — stripping it of relevant political rhetoric — Jean-Baptiste Léonetti’s mesmerizing first feature recalls the bitingly literate social commentary of Albert Camus, Aldous Huxley and Franz Kafka…with a little Terry Gilliam (circa Brazil) thrown in for good measure.