jürgen fauth’s muckworld

Ten years later, Tom Tykwer’s pop masterpiece still fascinates and exhilarates. It’s a film with a simple premise and complex philosophical implications, a movie that’s all about movement which nonetheless points to big questions best contemplated in complete repose. It’s a film about chance, second chances, repetition, and contingency. It’s Groundhog Day with a techno beat, Rashomon reimagined as a stylized game played on a Google map of Berlin. Rules are established — black and white for flashbacks, video for scenes without Manni and Lola, a quick succession of stills for the future of strangers — but even after the umpteenth viewing, mysteries remain: what is the significance of Lola’s scream? Which characters remember the events of the previous episode? Run Lola Run is emotional, conceptual, symbolic, philosophical, spiritual, local, and visceral. Not bad for an 80 minute joyride you can dance to.

Lola Rennt. Tom Tykwer, 1997. *****

A music video featuring the vocal stylings of Franka Potente:

Ah, lists! Like all fans, film aficionados are collectors, and every now and then, all collectors enjoy sifting through their stash to trot out their favorite baubles, arranged one way or another, to show them off to the world. Look! I’ve got three of the ultra-rare green kind, and oh, how that marbled one catches the sunlight just so! Toying with the objects of our affection in this way makes us feel happy and safe. In the world of movies, that’s what we call a list.

The movies we’ve seen (and can remember) are our stash and currency, and the best and shiniest of them will have to bear the scrutiny of any passers-by. As members of NYFCO, Marcy and I do this once a year, and recently, I’ve been asked, along with a number of bloggers and critics, to help put together a list of best films made in a language other than English before 2002. The list of nominations is out now at Edward Copeland’s site, and it’s a good one. You can go vote on your favorites, and a final tally will be published soon.

For the goal-oriented, that should be the end of the story, but I always find that democracy and criticism make an uneasy fit, and to me, the final result is somewhat beside the point. Instead, you might be happier taking a look at the individual ballots (or adding your own) here, at Jim Emerson’s site, at the House Next Door, or on your own damn blog. The fun is in the arranging of the marbles, the weighing of their comparative beauty, the debates over which ones have been overlooked or could be traded in for shinier ones. (It’s also a terrific way to fatten up your Netflix queue.) For the avid collector, the list is never an end in itself — it’s just a way to spend a little bit more time with some of our favorite things.

So here’s the snapshot of movies I considered worthy of inclusion according to this particular set of parameters on this particular day–culled from a much longer list of close contenders while LH 182, after three hours delay, finally began its initial descent on Berlin-Tegel, a fact I mention only because it may help explain the heavy Teutonic emphasis: I literally found myself in the Himmel über Berlin. Feel free to add your 25 favorites in the comments, and don’t forget to vote at Edward Copeland’s site. In alphabetical order:

8 1/2 Federico Fellini, 1963
Aguirre, The Wrath of God Werner Herzog, 1972
Akira Katsuhiro Otomo, 1988
Au Hasard Balthazar Robert Bresson, 1966
Band of Outsiders Jean-Luc Godard, 1964
Black Orpheus Marcel Camus, 1959
City of God Fernando Meirelles, 2002
Day for Night Francois Truffaut, 1973
M Fritz Lang, 1931
Nights of Cabiria Federico Fellini, 1957
Run Lola Run Tom Tykwer, 1998
Seven Samurai Akira Kurosawa, 1954
Solaris Andrei Tarkovsky, 1972
Spirited Away Hayao Miyazaki, 2001
Stolen Kisses Francois Truffaut, 1968
The Lovers on the Bridge Leos Carax, 1991
The Man Without a Past Aki Kaurismaki, 2002
The Rules of the Game Jean Renoir, 1939
The Seventh Seal Ingmar Bergman, 1957
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg Jacques Demy, 1964
The Wages of Fear Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1953
Wings of Desire Wim Wenders, 1987
Y Tu Mama Tambien Alfonso Cuaron, 2001
Yojimbo Akira Kurosawa, 1961
Zur Sache, Schätzchen May Spils, 1968

…and moi non plus. If there’s a kind of movie I hate to review more than any other, it’s the one that sounds too good to be true. Like a jilted lover obsessively reliving every painful moment, it requires rehashing your embarrassing anticipation and then laying out every deflating pinprick of disappointment. Besides, readers really hate the bearer of bad news. It can sap the joie de vivre right out of you.

So here we go again. Paris, je t’aime sounds like a connoisseur’s delight: two hours of short films celebrating the most romantic city in the world, directed by an impressive roster of international auteurs and starring a legion of favorite actors: Olivier Assayas, the Coen Brothers, Isabel Coixet, Wes Craven, Alfonso Cuaron, Christopher Doyle, Alexander Payne, Tom Tykwer, Gus Van Sant; Natalie Portman, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Gerard Depardieu, Juliette Binoche, Ludivine Sagnier, Steve Buscemi, Bob Hoskins, Nick Nolte, Ben Gazzara, Marianne Faithfull, Miranda Richardson, Fanny Ardant, Gena Rowlands, Barbet Schroeder, Gaspard Ulliel. Surely, this could be nothing but a pleasure?

• Read the rest of my review of Paris, je t’aime on About.com. The film opens next week.

Paris, je t’aime. Olivier Assayas, Frédéric Auburtin, Emmanuel Benbihy, Gurinder Chadha, Sylvain Chomet, Ethan Coen, Joel Coen, Isabel Coixet, Wes Craven, Alfonso Cuarón, Gérard Depardieu, Christopher Doyle, Richard LaGravenese, Vincenzo Natali, Alexander Payne, Bruno Podalydès, Walter Salles, Oliver Schmitz, Nobuhiro Suwa, Daniela Thomas, Tom Tykwer, and Gus Van Sant, 2006. **

Tom Tykwer’s nose isn’t the problem here, his ears are: the tone of his Süskind adaptation is all wrong. It’s been a long time since I read the novel, but somehow Süskind managed to sell the outrageous tale of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, the strangely gifted 18th-century murderer. Perfume is a strange fable, a dark fairy tale, a bad dream. Tykwer tells it as if he’s remaking Amadeus: swelling music, ponderous voice-over, extras, costumes, the works–and not a whit of humor.

As a procession of images that illustrate the novel, Perfume is handsome enough, and newcomer Ben Whishaw does a fine job with the rather thankless role (his nose gets all the close-ups.) Worried father Richis (Alan Rickman) glowers and gnashes his teeth, and his daughter Laura (Rachel Hurd-Wood) is suitably delectable as the red-headed object of Grenouille’s olfactory obsessions. Only Dustin Hoffman, as the Italian perfumer Baldini, is allowed the occasional moment of warmth or levity.

At two and a half hours, Perfume lumbers, creaks, and stubbornly insists on its own importance where it should have been breezy and sly. As straight historical thriller, the story of the monstrous Grenouille is completely preposterous; a more knowing attitude and a less somber tone might have helped to make it work on screen. It’s surprising that the director of Run Lola Run didn’t make a movie that’s lighter on its feet. Opens December 27.

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer. Tom Tykwer, 2006.**

• Official Site
• RT: 88%

[tags]2 stars, film, tom tykwer, ben whishaw, rachel hurd-wood, perfume, france, fable, noses, patrick süskind, german, dustin hoffman, alan rickman[/tags]