Hindinwood

Damnation was one of those rare instances when I felt both frustrated and fascinated by the film I was watching. Bela Tarr is SO adept at creating mood that the light sketches of plot began to feel superfluous, and I found myself wanting to brush them away and just float in this surreal sludge without trying to follow a 'story'. Tarr's use of sound design and music to create tension and a dream-like state come closer to David Lynch's than anything else I've seen. The original (I'm assuming) songs in the film also share that distinctive quality of mimicking a certain genre of familiar music, while having something that's a bit off about them - much like Badalamenti's scores. Interesting to note that Blue Velvet was released two years prior. The slowly gliding camera, which seems to have almost it's own agenda aside from the film ads to the purveying sensation of unease, and the exquisite lighting and black and white tones are breathtakingly stark. There are moments in the film when there is so much going on in the scene, and the shot is so lengthy, that the situation itself becomes real and transcends the fiction of the film. This is a very rare phenomenon in film, and was absolutely spellbinding - especially the dance scene. The middle of the film gets heavy with bleak philosophical exchanges, which would be better illustrated than told - especially with Tarr's incredible gift for mis en scene and sound design. Iconographic sequences like the slow pan past the miserable crowds waiting for the rain to stop, or the reoccurring pack of wild dogs speak volumes more of Tarr's theme than the most eloquent words. The characters are like automatons shuffling about in a purgatory from which there is no escape. It is as though the entire world was a flea-bag apartment building, a tattered old bar, and a vast field of mud and debris which one must traverse between the two.

I probably can't think of two genres less suited to each other than Altman's laid-back auteur era verite, and Chandler's highly stylized noir narratives. As such, I was pleasantly surprised by A Long Goodbye, which successfully updated the genre without attempting to imitate it. If wise-cracking Humphrey Bogart in black and white was the Philipe Marlow of 1940's Hollywood, there is a strange logic in a rumpled, mumbling, chain-smoking Elliot Gould taking on the mantle in 1973. Wheres in the 30's and 40's Los Angeles was all about stark shadows and mysterious damsels made up in Max Factor's finest, the 70's aesthetic was embodied by sunshine, femmes au natural, and the general chaos of an era and city that was still holding onto the past, and at the same time moving fast into the uncertain future. Although I was initially dubious about it, I'm so glad that Altman didn't do a period piece with this story. By translating the characters and sceneries to the present time, he has indelibly shown that Raymond Chadler's vision of Los Angeles transcends era or epoch. In fact, it may just be THE definitive portrayal of the City of Angels.