Nastassja Kinski: Unforgettable (Forgotten) Actress

Nastassja. What a sexy and musical name. Kinski. Who could forget such a name? If you're a cinephile comme moi, that name is familiar. The name, Nastassja Kinski, is so unique to forget. Conversely, "Nastassja Kinski" is quite difficult to remember to pronounce, mainly because it's not an ordinary name. (I pronounce it as "nas-ta-sha.") Actually, it is pronounced as "nas-TAS-ya."

So, what comes to your mind whenever you hear the name, Nastassja Kinski? This?

Tess: A Picture of Lost Innocence and the Longing for It

There's a scene from Roman Polanski's Tess, a scene that would later be remade in subsequent screen adaptations of Thomas Hardy's novel; it is the one wherein Tess (Nastassja Kinski) is looking back as she walks away from the d'Urbervilles mansion.

Nastassja Kinski in the 1979's Tess

Polanski at His Most Romantic

TESS
Roman Polanski, 1979

Old is the tale of two well-off guys who fall for a destitute girl. So what makes Roman Polanski's Tess any different from the rest? Aside from the fact that it is Polanski's only romantic film (so far), the novel — Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d’Urbervilles — on which the film is based on is one of the first to tell the tale of two well-off guys who fall for a destitute girl. (I think it would be more appropriate to say: the tale of a destitute girl who is pursued by two well-off guys.)

The Beauty of a One-Way Mirror

EXOTICA
Atom Egoyan, 1994

I've always been a fan of surrealism — may it be paintings, poems, or films. There's just this enormous fascination with what's lurking in the great beyond. Predictability just doesn't sit well with me, just as tracing or merely copying a picture doesn't appeal to me as a drawing or a painting. Predictability is emptiness. Chaos is substance. You know what Banksy said, "Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable."

Well, Atom Egoyan's Exotica sure disturbed me just as much as it comforted me. This somewhat Buñuelesque film is mostly set in the fictional Exotica, a Toronto strip club where various lives converge to make up a discombobulating tale of love, loss, and heartbreak.

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

Quentin Tarantino: A Feminist?

L-R: Pam Grier as Jackie Brown. Uma Thurman in Kill Bill.

What comes to your mind whenever you hear the name "Quentin Tarantino?" Tongue-in-cheek violence? Badass men? A shot from a car's trunk? Or maybe John Travolta's revitalized acting career?

Sam Peckinpah: A Latent Misogynist?

Around '60-'70s, second-wave feminism was at its pinnacle. Forthright feminists like Gloria Steinem, Angela Davis, and Susan Sontag would become the voices of the silenced gender. 'Twas also a time when Marlena Shaw recorded Woman of the Ghetto. It was clearly a time when women just won't put up with men's bullsh*t anymore. (No, sir. They'll make you eat yo sh*t.)

It was also around that time when acclaimed filmmaker Sam Peckinpah would make three of his well-known films: The Wild Bunch, Straw Dogs, and The Getaway. Like Sergio Leone, Peckinpah was/is a hero to the testosterone audience, with men being the lead characters in most of his films.

In 1969, he made The Wild Bunch, which is a tribute to the then-fading Western genre. It starred William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, et al. as a group of aging cowboys/outlaws on to their one last hit — this would later become allegorical since The Wild Bunch is one of the last cowboy films who hit it big at the box office (along with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid). During the film's sanguinary finale, there's a scene that seemed somewhat women-unfriendly: Pike Bishop (Holden) shoots back at a woman who shot him. He shouts, "Bitch!" as he fires a bullet at the woman. (Prior to this scene, Borgnine's character used a woman as his "shield" — she is eventually sprayed.)

Borgnine in The Wild Bunch

Pasolini Immortalized

Fellow film enthusiasts at Criterion has just released a still from Pasolini — a biopic detailing the last days of Italian filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini, who was murdered before the release of his anti-fascist Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom. Pasolini's filmography also includes the mesmerizing Teorema and the decadent Il Decameron.

Willem Dafoe as Pier Paolo Pasolini

DISCLAIMER: No copyright infringement intended. I don't own or claim to own any of the photos used.

He Loves Her, So Does She

All right. So I almost forgot to write this. Been busy. Anyway, here are my favorite heterosexual love stories. Heterosexual. Straight. As if those words are real.

(In alphabetical order.)


CITY LIGHTS

She Loves Her

And these are my fave stories about women who love women. Lesbian movies aren't as popular as their gay counterpart, are they? Thank God for Blue is the Warmest Color, lesbian cinema is now gaining some attention.

(In alphabetical order.)