adrian_knott

Film theorists like to call this type of film an example of "counter-cinema", an attempt by a filmmaker to dislocate the viewer from any pre-conceived ideas of, say, narrative and acting so that he can raise the question of what traditional narrative cinema does to the spectator. In other words, by drawing our attention to the way a film is made he can confound our enjoyment and break the hypnotic effect a traditional film has on us. But who the hell wants that? If I wanted my enjoyment confounded, I'd rent "Flowers in the Attic".

"Le Vent d'est" isn't so much a film as an essay on Communism and the insidious effect American culture has on the individual. It's also possibly the funniest thing I've ever seen. I saw this in an arthouse cinema in the late eighties and for two hours I sat biting my lower lip to prevent myself from laughing out loud. I needn't have bothered, because most of the audience had left within half an hour of the film starting. I wish I could remember it more vividly because I could share with you some of the stuff in it. One scene I do remember, though, is the one where Gian Maria Volonte (the bad guy in the Clint Eastwood spaghetti westerns) throttles some woman while someone else off-screen pelts her on the back of the head with red paint. What does it mean? Who knows? In this case, I'm proud to be a philistine.

The worst thing about this film isn't the acting, the direction, or the dialogue (these are all irrelevant in this film, anyway). No, the worst thing is that Godard is arrogant enough to suggest that the average audience has no critical faculties of its own. Even worse that he feels he has to draw it to our attention.

Why we're expected to care about a middle-aged, misogynist womaniser's affair with a twenty-one year old woman with a heart condition is anybody's guess. Especially when the older man is played in his usual somnambulistic fashion by Richard Gere. He's never been the warmest of performers, but his stone-cold turn in this could send anyone to an early grave. Winona Ryder plays the girl, and has to convince us that her character could see anything in Gere's self-centred egotist in the first place. It's an uphill struggle, because there's no evident chemistry between the two. The dialogue must shoulder most of the blame. Does anyone actually talk the way these two do, even with the spectre of sudden death hanging over them? It's a bit like watching an updated Douglas Sirk melodrama.

Winona Ryder's character is called on to collapse at the plot's convenience, but otherwise there's not much to signal that her life might be in the balance. We aren't told specifically what's wrong with her, but it's one of those mysterious diseases that only one surgeon in the world can correct, because all the others are too chicken to risk performing surgery. It's also the kind of disease that always seems to provoke a desire in the sufferer to go ice-skating, never a good idea if you're prone to blackouts.

On the plus side, Winona's always worth watching, the supporting cast (which includes Anthony La Paglia, Sherry Stringfield and Vera Farmiga of "15 Minutes") are good, and Joan Chen makes full use of the New York locations.

In this one, someone is killing students at a college campus using the same techniques as London's very own Jack the Ripper. The students try and catch him. The audience falls asleep.

This is another misogynist fantasy in which several young women are brutalised by a killer with a stainless steel kitchen knife. One of the suspects looks and acts like a young Bobcat Goldthwaite, Bruce Payne proves once again that he's Britain's most embarrassing export since Julian Sands, and Jurgen Prochnow, as a twitchy detective, continues his regrettable career slide. Rubbish.

Oh, and although I'm no expert on the history of serial killers, I think I can safely say that Jack the Ripper never ran any of his victims over in a jeep.