Hold Me While I’m Naked - 1966 - USA

Hold Me While I’m Naked - 1966 - 5/10

 
“The only things in life worth living for.”
The fantasies and restrictions of the indie director.
From encounters behind stained glass to shaking antennas to banal mealtime.
Experimental film manages to be sexy, funny and depressing.

San Francisco - 1968 - UK

San Francisco - 1968 - 6/10

 
Experimental film by Anthony Stern dashes through every nuance of the Bay city.
Police, hippies, military, office workers, day time, night time, everyday activities, orgiastic happenings.
Flits through neighborhoods like a dragonfly on amphetamines.
The pace is frantic, fueled by an early version of Pink Floyd’s “Interstellar Overdrive”.
Cuts are so dizzying and blurry, you might wish you had dropped Owsley’s acid.

Successive Slidings Of Pleasure - 1974 - France

Successive Slidings Of Pleasure - 1974 - 6/10 
AKA - Glissements Progressifs du Plaisir

 
Alice may have murdered her roommate, Nora.
She confessed she did.  Or was she imagining it?  Or fabricating?
Awaiting the reenactment, she is held in the convent prison with nuns as wardens.

 
Slow pace (typical of this director), steeped in French Catholicism.
Nudity aplenty, along with body paint and sharp instruments.
Extraordinary cast for this contorted arthouse from Robbe-Grillet
Anicée Alvina eerily evokes depraved innocence. 

Hotel Monterey - 1972 - USA

Hotel Monterey - 1972 - 6/10 

 
First feature by Chantal Akerman is a slow, unblinking look inside a decaying New York hotel.
Empty hallways, ghostly staircases, flaking basements, mindless elevators.
A few residents are seen, many enfeebled, others lifeless.
Once on the rooftop, Manhattan skyline can be seen, the city rousing to life.
Good pairing with Akerman’s News From Home (1976).
Better, however, might be Nightshift (1981) observing the ennui of the lobby.
Note: In the mid-70’s, I worked graveyard shift in a hotel; Hotel Monterey equates to my memories.

Summer - 1968 - France

Summer - 1968 - 6/10
AKA - L'été

 
Experimental film, following Graziella as she isolates herself in the countryside.
Earlier, she had been part of Paris riots of the previous month.
She reflects without explanation.  One senses she may have been traumatized.
More of a mood piece, with little narrative.
Knowledge of May 1968 would be helpful for outsiders.

Powaqqatsi - 1988 - USA

Powaqqatsi - 1988 - 6/10

 
“Life In Transformation”
Followup film to Koyaaniqatsi (1982) is not a sequel, is more a view of changing cultures.
This implies the simplistic life is superior to our modern one.
Better to be a farmer or fisherman than toil in an industrial, urban world.
The message was repeated ad nauseam, until it felt preachy and ham-fisted.
Did not care for the Glass music this outing.
Exceptional photography, although not assembled / edited as well as before.

Titus - 1999 - UK

Titus - 1999 - 7/10

 
Roman general Titus returns from campaigns victorious.
After Caesar dies, Titus, an honorable man, declines the sceptre.
Yielding the throne to sharks and cutthroats.
Brilliant film of power, corruption and madness.
Overlong, however, with a few too many characters.
Fared poorly box office wise; possibly audiences were tired of Shakespeare films, or this was simply too long, too strange.

Meshes In The Afternoon - 1943 - USA

Meshes In The Afternoon - 1943 - 6/10

 
A woman seems caught in a  recurring dream.
Entering her apartment, realizing someone has been there, sleep, then spying a hooded figure outside.
An unsuccessful chase, return to her apartment, slumber, repeat.
Each recurrence, elements differ, there are changes.
Mesmerizing film, rather an abstract mystery.

Sight & Sound listed this short as one of the greatest films of all time.  Top 20.
I watched this, then asked,  “Really?”
Curious, I went to their list of the 250 greatest films, and noticed glaring omissions.
Including – Zhang Yimou, John Huston, Chabrol, Soderbergh, Riefenstahl, Parajanov …

Eraserhead - 1977 - USA

Eraserhead - 1977 - 7/10

 
I first screened this in 1977 as a midnight flick.
Henry’s love life is the stuff of nightmare.
A girlfriend who swiftly gets pregnant, births a monstrosity, then flees.
His apartment, merely a chamber in Hell.
Again and again, I feel like all of this is internal.
That Henry is either mad, or withdrawn into himself to the point of shutdown.
Mind you, there are dozens of theories / explanations / arguments for this film (horror, experimental, surreal).
Hopelessly funny at times.

The Witchunt - 2012 - USA

The Witchunt - 2012 - 5/10

First guy straddles two worlds: drugs and danger, and white collar.  Until consequences of Greed.
Next character, blue collar, and the temptations of Lust.
Got it?  Yes, the Seven Deadlies.

 
Wordless, experimental Horror, jammed with blistering editing and abrasive music.
In many ways, this reminds of an art installation.  Excessive, at that.
Draining in its way, overtly suggestive without anything explicit.
Still … track this down.  Beware swine.

Nightshift - 1981 - UK

Nightshift - 1981 - 6/10

 
The stifling ennui of the graveyard shift at The Portobello Hotel.
Complaints, intrusions, overheard conversations, silence, more silence.
I worked a hotel night shift for a cycle of seasons.
This compresses a week of sundry activity into an hour.
Mostly, the job was numbing boredom, punctuated with some alcoholic’s emergency.
Should appeal to fans of Ligotti or Samuels.
English subtitles = https://sub-scene.com/subtitle/3369653

Cat’s Cradle - 1959 - USA

Cat’s Cradle - 1959 - 6/10

 
Staccato cut film of firelight, sunlight, glimpsed females and a cat.
Unsure what the creator is trying to communicate.
Of course, this could be from the feline point of view.
Any one who lives with cats, however, will say they are far more patient.
Bracing short, furiously edited, not for all tastes.

Un Chant d'Amour - 1950 - France

Un Chant d'Amour - 1950 - 6/10

 
Two convicts, separated by thick concrete, communicate and ignore.
A voyeuristic guard spies on both, more so as there is a homoerotic vibe.
Part experimental, part fantasy, part judgmental.
Prude alert, male nudity abounds.

Dr. Turner’s Mental Hospital - 1929 - UK

Dr. Turner’s Mental Hospital - 1929 - 5/10

 
I am unsure why the young girl (Dora Carrington) is dropped off at this asylum.
Dr. Turner is indifferent, allowing the inmates to do whatever they please with her.
The print I saw in terrible condition, the short itself pure home movie.
BUT – this is a chance to watch the late-era Bloomsbury Group cavorting around.

Love-Zero=Infinity - 1994 - Japan

Love-Zero=Infinity - 1994 - 6/10
AKA - Iyarashii Hitozuma: Nureru // いやらしい人妻　濡れる

 
Ex-schoolteacher Takeshi follows random people.
UFO’s or Unidentified Followed Objects.
A medical doctor asks him to follow a woman, who may - or may not - be a vampire.
Meanwhile, the doctor pays a young couple to observe Takeshi.
There are blood stakes, tainted, contaminated, motivating activities.
AIDS as cause and effect.
For a Satô film, the plot is cohesive, sex scenes limited.
English subs = https://sub-scene.com/subtitle/3369081

Nectar - 2014 - France

Nectar - 2014 - 6/10

 
Attendants stimulate the queen, who exudes honey, or nectar.
Which is collected, stored, eventually making its way to the outside humankind hive.
Health of depends on the queen, otherwise the community perishes.
Arthouse allegory with an evocative sound field (should be boosted substantially).
Mirroring the cityscape with the honeycomb subtly done.

La Belle Cérébrale - 1968 - France

La Belle Cérébrale - 1968 - 6/10
AKA - The Beautiful Intellectual

 
Martine, model for a painter is on her break.
While he babbles on the phone, she listens, eats a pear, lets her mind wander.
Nice juxtaposition of the banal conversation with her vivid imagination.
I used TurboScribe to capture the phone talk, then tidied up.
Not ideal, but serviceable.
English subtitles = https://sub-scene.com/subtitle/3364066

Anticipation Of The Night - 1958 - USA

Anticipation Of The Night - 1958 - 6/10

 
Experimental film spiraling from dusk to dawn.
Silent, no sound.  Blurred images, rapid pans, repeated settings.
From woodlands to what appears to be an amusement park, packed with children late at night.
I viewed with the mindset that this was a museum installation and I was OK with that.
My attention bounced from absorbed to bored to deep concentration to checking the clock.

Nadja - 1994 - USA

Nadja - 1994 - 6/10

 
Modern take on Dracula, actually his daughter, and this bears little resemblance to the 1936 film.
The look is Noir / Gothic, although “vampiric” scenes are pixilated.
The pixilation is overused, gets repetitive, ultimately tedious.
A Van Helsing descendant is jailed after driving a stake (finally) through Count Dracula’s heart.
Dracula’s daughter retrieves the body, then parties begin scrambling across New York.

 
Acting is dominated by a loose, swinging Peter Fonda and a mesmerizing Elina Löwensohn.
Back and forth, I was riveted to the screen and bored out of my mind.
Arthouse vampires, in line with Only Lovers Kept Alive.

Candidate For Murder - 1951 - UK

Candidate For Murder - 1951 - 5/10  

 
A killer roams the London streets at night.
Headlines blare corpse number three, knife in its body.
We follow the “perpetrator” throughout then next day.
Mystery short borders on Experimental, using rapid editing, atypical of the 1950’s.
I sought this out as it is a rare Oswell Blakeston scripted film.