Museum Hours: Jem Cohen

Something of an oddity, the film tells of an attendant at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna who befriends a Canadian woman who has come to Vienna  because she is the only relative of a cousin who is in a coma.   A leisurely piece which shows a number of the paintings in the Museum without comment as well as a series of disconnected shots of various parts of Vienna (very few of these of tourist sights) coupled with a measured commentary by the attendant about the visitors to the Museum, the film is, to quote the director, a sort of conversation with reference to the philosophy of Chris Marker and John Berger in particular.   The attendant is especially fond of the works of Brueghel and there is a quite extended sequence with a youngish art historian talking about some of the paintings in the room dedicated to his work.   A quiet, unassuming work with well rounded performances from the two leads though some sequences left me puzzled - after a boat trip though some underground caves, they learn that the cousin has died but the scene then moves to a party for immigrants in the attendant's local cafe which is followed by a brief discourse on a short of an old woman walking up a slope with a tall office or apartment building off to the left.   I went to this as I had hoped there would be more on the paintings than there was but, overall, an acceptable film.

Gipsy Anne: Rasmus Breistien

A complete change of pace a few days later in this silent restoration of what is considered the first
authentic Norwegian feature.   Starring Aasta Nielsen in the title role of a foundling tomboy who has
always thought she would marry her childhood friend, the early scenes show her getting into mischief with a local farmeralways being there to protect her.   As an adult, she sets fire to the house her erstwhile boyfriend has built but  her farmer friend takes responsibility for it even though Anne has turneddown his proposal of marriage.   When he leaves prison, Annewho has moved to the town to start afresh, is there to greet him and the film ends with them both leaving for the USA with his mother.   A relatively static camera setting with but a few moving shots though one of the farmer being taken to jail ( a shot of passing scenery with the camera behind the driver) is effective; the film stock switched from sepia to black and white without reason though this may be a function of the material available for restoration.   The main drawback for me was the apparent age of the main characters, all of whom looked to be in their thirties or more though Nielsen was only 23 when the film was made.   A curiosity but no more.

Helter Skelter: Mika Nagakawa

The fourth film from the Far East we have seen, this Japanese feature stars Erika Sawajira, apparently
the Japanese Kate Moss, in an excellently played role as the current darling of the teens of Japan.   She is almost completely artificially beautiful and requires regular treatment from a clinic whose procedures are being investigated by the police.   Sawajira's beauty hides a spoilt and vicious person who corrupts her assistant sexually as well as persuading the latter's boyfriend to disfigure a girl who has become engaged to her current lover.   She is gradually supplanted in the public affection by a younger, fresher beauty and, finally, breaks down completely in front of TV cameras.  A short end sequence shows the new beauty going to a risque nightclub where she sees and follows the assistant to see the earlier teen queen still beautiful but no longer famous.   A very energetic and flashy film with comparatively explicit (for Japan) sex scenes and fine support from the other main actors though the lasting memory will be of Sawajira's central performance in this attack on celebrity and the corruption behind it.

For Love's Sake: Takashi Miike

What a versatile director Miike is. Having made his name with Yakuza style films, he has tried other genres to greater or lesser success. This is a part musical reworking of what is called Romeo and Juliet but this is misleading. The central story is of a rich senior schoolgirl's love for a punk. She sees him in the middle of a street brawl which she unsuccessfully tries to stop but recognises him as the boy who saved her years earlier from a skiing accident which left him with a scarred forehead. This incident opens the film in anime style and also features at the end. She persuades her father to get him into her very exclusive school and to pay for his being there but this does not work and he ends up in a downbeat vocational school in which she enrols even though she was head girl of her former school. Out of her depth she is followed by one of the senior boys who ineffectually tries to protect her. The action is interspersed with songs, the one featuring her parents being delightfully funny and the other blending in with the action for the most part. The girls in the second school seem to be led by a rather large bully, this being the comedic relief role, though the real leader is another girl who takes up with the hero. She has a number of the boys under her thumb including one who is bigger and stronger than the rest. The finale sees this boy fight the hero for the second time with the female gang leader intervening by throwing knives. Although good prevails, the heroine is badly hurt and taken to hospital. In the closing scene, our hero is knifed in the back by a teacher he had humiliated but continues to the hospital to die in her arms. Miike has an excellent eye for scene composition and, although I thought the middle section would have benefitted from either being tighter or possible had more music in it, my overall reaction is that this is a very welcome return to top form.

The Samurai That Night: Masaki Akahori

Seen later the same day as the first film, the title and description led me to expect a somewhat bloody revenge film with the protagonist seeking retribution on the lout who had killed his wife in a car crash. The lout has served a five year jail sentence but has no regrets and has certainly not reformed in any way. The husband is a quiet man who has a small foundry with employees who treat him very off-handedly and friends who are trying to match him up with someone to help him forget his dead wife. This is a slowish psychological study with a few touching scenes and a denouement in really heavy rain which seems to give the husband closure even though the lout is still alive. I might have thought more of it had I not had the wrong initial impression of what I was going to see though without that impression I wouldnot have seen it!

Doomsday Book: Kim Jee-woon & Yim Pil-Sung

The first of this year's London Film Festival viewings, this is a three part Korean film, the first two parts having been completed some time ago while the third is a more recent collaboration. The first segment is a zombie episode which starts with frankly nauseating scenes of food being eaten and the waste then processed into animal feed which then returns to the table as raw beef. This causes an unstoppable epidemic of walking dead. A satirical comment on the food industry filmed in bright colour with some style. The second segment is set in a Buddhist temple with a robot discussing Nirvana with the monks when a mechanic fails to repair it or close it down. A little on the long side but interesting. The final segment has the two directors co-operating in a tale in which a young girl loses her father's eightball and orders another without knowing that she has ordered it from somewhere in the universe. The problem is that the delivery comes in a giant size which destroys muuch of the earth. The family survive in an underground shelter and emerge after many years to find the oversized ball on their doorstep with the alian messenger still waiting for a signature accepting delivery. Amusing but probably the weakest of the three.

Schlink, Bernhard & Popp, Walter: Self's Punishment

Self is a former Nazi prosecutor who became disillusioned with his work, resigned and, after the end of World War II, chose not to return to this profession but became a private investigator instead. He is asked by his brother-in-law, who is now the head of a major chemical firm, to find out who has been tampering with the company's computer system. So far this has been an annoyance rather than causing any real problems. He does this, finds the culprit who is romantically involved with one of the secretaries who has caught Self's eye as well, and makes his report. A few weeks later the culprit is killed in what seems a straight-forward road accident but his girlfriend is not convinced and the bulk of the novel deals with Self's efforts to find out what happened and why. Self is no longer young but seems to have a way with women and his character is well-drawn. The actual story is anything but contrived though there are the almost inevitable co-incidences, the main one being a link to one of his wartime cases at the same chemical plant; this does allow him to work out who was responsible and why by the end of the book. Set in and around Mannheim with excursions to San Francisco and the Italian Lakes, the book portrays a likeable and eccentric detective who enjoys the company of women. The book was published in Germany in 1987 with theEnglish translation dating from 2004. If there are more, it is worth seeking them out.

Carrisi, Donato: The Whisperer

A very interesting Italian thriller starts with the discovery of six severed arms which have been buried in a forest clearing. All belong to young girls but there is no sign of any bodies. The team investigating this is headed by a criminologist and it is joined by a young female officer who is an expert at finding missing girls. She is the focus of the book with the developments told mainly from her viewpoint. She is psychologically damaged being unable to relate to others and being prone to self- mutilation though the reason for this is not clear until the final chapters. The team discover not one but a number of killers who are somehow linked. What makes the book appealing is the gradual discovery of the different strands and the way they come together. Two additional strands are the reason why the killer seems to know what the investigators are doing, the most starling example of this being the discovery of one of the dead girls in the incident room they use and the gradual unveiling of the secret life of the criminologist. The members of the team are deftly characterised and made individual, something not always seen in policiers which this novel is in a way. It is, however, much more than this. It is a well-written psychological study both of the criminals involved but also of those seeking them. A fair amount of technical detail is included but this helps maintain the reader's interest rather than being tedious. Quite a change from the better known Italian policiers by writers like Andrea Camilleri and, overall, more satisfying.