The Code of Silence

CODE INCONNU (CODE UNKNOWN)
Michael Haneke, 2000

Ah. The feeling of wanting to say something but can't say it. This dilemma is what Austrian auteur Michael Haneke explores in Code inconnu: Récit incomplet de divers voyages (otherwise known as Code Unknown).

It all started with a piece of thrown garbage. From there we see a series of vignettes about various lives, people who are trapped in various worlds of silence.

Jean (played by Alexandre Hamidi), an angst-ridden farm lad, is sick and tired of his emotionally distant father (Sepp Bierbichler). He runs away to live with his brother, an out-of-the-country photojournalist (Thierry Neuvic). Instead, Jean finds his brother's girlfriend, Anne Laurent (Juliette Binoche), who gives Jean the key to their apartment. Being the douchebag that he is, Jean throws a piece of garbage at Maria (Luminița Gheorghiu), a foreigner begging on the street because she just lost her job as a newspaper vendor. Amadou (Ona Lu Yenke), a Frenchman of African origin, sees Jean's rudeness and demands Jean to apologize to the old lady; when Jean refuses to do so, the two guys fight, causing the police and Anne to enter the scene.

Communication, or the lack thereof, takes the center stage in Code Unknown. In this film, Haneke shows us different kinds of muteness: physical, foreign, forced, and self-inflicted.

I Am a Woman, Watch Me Make a Movie

Eve has definitely come a long way since she was allegedly taken out of Adam's rib. She has long stepped out of his shadow, standing up for herself and speaking her mind. Eve doesn't need many Twitter followers or a thousand of Facebook likes just to prove her worth. She knows she's worth it.

Cinema has given the female species an opportunity to express themselves; and the opportunity isn't wasted. Although filmmaking is mostly a man's world, women have become the captain of their own cinematic ship.

In celebration of being a woman, I listed down some of my favorite films directed by women. (In alphabetical order.)

Game of Thrones and Religion

LA REINE MARGOT

Patrice Chéreau, 1994

"France is torn apart by the Wars of Religion. Catholics and Protestants have been fighting for years... To quench the hatred, Catherine sets up an alliance for peace: she marries her daughter Margot to Henri of Navarre, her Protestant cousin... Margot's wedding, a symbol of peace and reconciliation, will be used to set off the greatest massacre in the history of France."

Those are excerpts from La Reine Margot's prologue. The Catherine they're talking about is not Catherine Zeta-Jones. Not Catherine Deneuve. Not even Catherine the Great. It's Catherine de' Medici, the Adolf Hitler of 16th century. (Catherine was to Protestants as Hitler was to Jews.) Since the king in throne was reportedly a Mama's boy, Valois matriarch Catherine was practically the king and queen of France for quite a long time.

Millennials probably know Catherine from Reign, a CW series about Mary's life. The romanticized show portrays Catherine as a domineering yet sympathetic mommy with quite a good sense of humor — a glaring contradiction to the Catherine portrayed in La Reine Margot, which was marketed as Queen Margot in English-speaking countries.

She May Be the Fate I Can't Escape

L-R: Jennifer Tilly in Bound, Nicole Kidman in To Die For, and Faye Dunaway in Chinatown.

"Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned," as the saying goes. In short, never mess with a woman — especially a femme fatale — unless you want some serious trouble.

According to Wikipedia, "a femme fatale (/ˌfæm fəˈtɑːl/ or /ˌfɛm fəˈtɑːl/; French: [fam fatal]) is a stock character of a mysterious and seductive woman whose charms ensnare her lovers, often leading them into compromising, dangerous, and deadly situations. She is an archetype of literature and art."

Just like Delilah, Catherine Tramell, and Mrs. Robinson, these enigmatic ladies cast their wicked spell on men (and, for some on the list, women), making them as vulnerable as a newborn baby.

Seductive. Mysterious. Dangerous. Behold some of my fave femme fatales.

(In chronological order.)

Phyllis Dietrichson, Double Indemnity
Played by Barbara Stanwyck

To score some huge money, insurance salesman Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) conspires with Phyllis Dietrichson. Having a bad wig day, Phyllis gives Walter an indecent proposal, so indecent it involves Phyllis' husband being dead. (Oh, and about that wig. I thought I was watching George Washington in drag.)

Evelyn Mulwray, Chinatown
Played by Faye Dunaway

She's very reminiscent of those femme fatales in film noir. A tragic character, Evelyn Mulwray is seemingly stoic until her disturbing secret is finally revealed during the iconic "sister daughter scene." Evelyn's vulnerability is what makes her a femme fatale. Evelyn's defenses down, suave P.I. Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson) does every deadly thing just to save her. Miss Dunaway's performance is one of the film's remarkable moments.

Haneke Ranked

At its best, film should be like a ski jump. It should give the viewer the option of taking flight, while the act of jumping is left up to him.

– Michael Haneke

Along with Schubert, Romy Schneider, Helmut Berger, Christoph Waltz, and vienna sausage — I refuse to include The Terminator — Michael Haneke is one of Austria's national treasures.

(Just some trivia: Haneke is somewhat related to Waltz.)

I often recognize a Michael Haneke movie every time I see one. Abrupt transitions. Random shots of mundane things. Static shots. Isabelle Huppert. Susanne Lothar. Juliette Binoche. The names "Anne" and "George" and their variation. Long shots. And no music, because according to him: "usually music is used to hide a film's problems."

Fave Movie Posters: Le cercle rouge

"Fave Movie Posters" is a new portion on this humble a-blog of mine. It features some of my fave movie posters, either theatrical ones or those intended as DVD or Blu-ray disc covers.

I'd be honest here, most of the posters I might feature are those by The Criterion Collection, because I find their posters very innovative while still being loyal to the film's thematics.

Paving the way for this new portion is the Criterion poster for Le cercle rouge, Jean-Pierre Melville's 1970 heist movie. This stylish Frenchie starred Alain Delon, Gian Maria Volonté, and Yves Montand as thieves who conspire a huge heist.

(A remake starring Orlando Bloom was said to be on the way. Apparently it's still on the way, or maybe it's already off the way.)

Trapped Cinema

"As long as we know we're trapped, we still have a chance to escape."

– Sara Grant, Neva

What do you do when you are trapped inside an enclosed space? Cry? Cry some more? Cry for help? Cry until your eyes are dry? Stare into nothingness? Call mom? Perhaps you'll just laugh it all off.

Paranoia can really set in during immurement. Cinema has been able to show us the brutality of being trapped — letting us experience claustrophobia, making us question our own freedom.

Without further blah blah blah, I listed down some of my fave films that trap us inside their trapped plot.

Fave Movie Moments: Garde à vue

Romy Schneider was approaching her final years as an actress and a human being when she filmed 1981's Garde à vue. A year later, the Austrian-born actress died of cardiac arrest.

Romy is Chantal Martinaud. Appearing 52 minutes into the film, Romy was barely in the movie yet her lingering presence is probably the film's biggest draw.

A Brutally Honest Love Story

AMOUR

Michael Haneke, 2012

In 2012, Austrian auteur Michael Haneke made one of the most emotionally intimate films of the 21st century: Amour. Remember that Adam Sandler song from The Wedding Singer? That somehow describes Amour.

Anne and Georges (Emmanuelle Riva and Jean-Louis Trintignant) are an octogenarian couple, blissfully married for a long time. Both are retired music teachers. Their forte: the piano. They live by themselves in a Paris apartment. Their only child (Isabelle Huppert) already has a family of her own, and is somewhat emotionally detached from her parents. (She cares more about trivial things like profiting from her parents' house.) One day, the couple suffers a major blow in their relationship when Anne suffers from dementia and then stroke.

Is There a Way Into the Mind?

LA JETÉE

Chris Marker, 1962

Miss Sylvia Plath once asked: Is there no way out of the mind?

La jetée asks the opposite: Is there a way into the mind? Can lost memories ever be recovered? Can I find myself back in time by way of the mind?

Set in Paris after the fictional World War III, Marker's post-apocalyptic film is a montage of monochromatic photographs. Its main character is a POW (Davos Hanich) who unwillingly becomes the guinea pig of the "victors."

Emotion vs. Rationality, then Vice Versa

GARDE À VUE

Claude Miller, 1981

Garde à vue couldn't be any more timely. The film is about a man who allegedly raped and killed two girls.

As I write this, Philippines' leading news programs are reporting about a seven year-old girl whose corpse was found in a public bathroom somewhere in an impoverished Pandacan neighborhood.

Her body was found with a bunch of stab wounds and cigarette burn marks on it, her clothes gone. The poor girl is believed to have been raped and then killed by heartless dickheads whose "manhood" should be castrated by a rusty knife. What they did is totally inhuman; only pure evil could do such cruel thing to a helpless young life.

Fave Movie Moments: Blue is the Warmest Color

While watching Blue is the Warmest Color, I can't help but be enthralled by the beauty of that lady. And I'm not talking about Léa Seydoux. Not even Adèle... Ex... Exer... Exa... Exarch... Exarchopu — wait, I can do this — Exarchopoulos.

I was talking about this lady...

(Image source here.)

Da who? Actress is Alma Jodorowsky, Alejandro's granddaughter. Her character in the film is called Béatrice, the first "blue" lady to bring warmth into Adèle's la vie.

Dykon: Romy Schneider

Romy Schneider is a cinematic icon. Wait. Who? Rob Schneider? Romy. Schneider, Romy Schneider. She was an Austrian-born actress who held German and French citizenship. (Yes, I read Wikipedia. Just like all of you out there.)

A Hidden Place Called "Guilt"

CACHÉ
Michael Haneke, 2005

My films are intended as polemical statements against the American "barrel down" cinema and its dis-empowerment of the spectator. They are an appeal for a cinema of insistent questions instead of false (because too quick) answers, for clarifying distance in place of violating closeness, for provocation and dialogue instead of consumption and consensus.
- Michael Haneke

The other night I was contemplating on what film I should rewatch: The Exorcist or Caché. Le exorcist ou Caché. The overrated one or the underseen one. I wasn't really in the mood for something Hollywood, so I decided to ditch The Exorcist for Caché.

What It Feels Like for a Woman

MAJORITÉ OPPRIMÉE
Eléonore Pourriat, 2010

Majorité opprimée shows a day in the life of Pierre (played by Pierre Bénézit, a young Gérard Depardieu look-alike). Pierre is a househusband in a seemingly parallel universe. He tends to his and his wife's son; Pierre basically does what every woman "should" do. Later in the film, he is verbally and physically assaulted by women.

My All-Time Favorite Female Performances

When I was younger, one of my wildest dreams is to become an actress. That's right. And that dream wouldn't be if there weren't no inspiration. Most of the performances that inspired me are by women; I think it's because I can connect more with women than with men. So here they are, the female performances that made me want to be on screen, inhabiting a character and reciting my lines.

Isabelle Huppert, LA PIANISTE

Fave Movie Quotes: Micmacs

 Bazil: [talking to the contortionist] Mom always told me to avoid twisted girls.

Cinematography: Le Havre

LE HAVRE (2011)

Director: Aki Kaurismäki

Cinematographer: Timo Salminen

♪ There's a longing that burns you. You'll have to return to the only life you'll ever know. ♪

Those are the first lines of The Renegades' Matelot, a song that can be heard during the opening credits of Aki Kaurismäki's Le Havre. Kaurismäki's latest film is a minimalist yet compelling portrait of humanity. For me, the song gives the film a sense of melancholy and nostalgia. What makes the film more melancholic is Timo Salminen's irresistible cinematography. Salminen's work is composed of dramatic lighting, which is often accompanied by his elaborate use of silhouettes.

 

Le Havre in blue.

Fave Movie Quotes: The Artist

If you want to be an actress, you need to have something others don't.

- George Valentin

Sings a Rare Tune

"Commerce should adapt to art, and not art to commerce."

- The Diva

DIVA
Jean-Jacques Beineix, 1981

The 1980s saw the emergence of cinema du look, it's kinda like the decade's nouvelle vague. "Youth versus the authority" is one of cinema du look's basic themes. Diva signaled the birth of this new era in French cinema.

Diva's hero is Jules (played by Frederic Andrei), a young man who suddenly finds himself in imbroglio. Jules doesn't look like the type of guy who'd get into any kind of trouble; he is polite and lanky. He also makes an honest living as a postman.