The Second Danish to Danish Part II

Into Something Unexpected

    After burning my retinas while trying to distinguish certain shapes through the sepia tint of The Element of Crime, I didn't know much what to expect for Lars Von Trier's second movie. 

 

when one watches The Element of Crime

    I mean, I did have an idea of what the second film was going to be but only from a strictly surface point of view. Though let us take a look at what it could have meant seeing it back then when his second film Epidemic came out in 1987.

The Unexpected Follow Up

    1987. Cannes Film Festival. As an imaginary film fan that doesn't exist at festivals like this, you try to catch as many screenings as you can. You check out Barbet Schroeder's Barfly and are surprised to see a Cannon films playing as you have heard through the grapevine that its looking like the writing is on the wall for Cannon films production. You check out Wim Wenders Wings of Desire and believe again that films have something worthwhile to tell. Then you notice something playing in the Un Certain Regard section; Lars Von Trier's Epidemic

    Okay you think. I like The Element of Crime. Strong debut for a new voice in the cinema that is full of old men that don't know when to give it up. Though this thought will be one of diminishing value as you get older and realize that Martin Scorsese is pulling off feats of magic in his older age but this realization will only come in time when you yourself get old as shit. So you get yourself some popping corn, do they even have this at Cannes?, and sit yourself down and watch the following:

The Film

    Lars Von Trier and his writing buddy Niels Vørsel go about in trying to write a new screenplay in the span of one work week. This obviously taking place in another timeline where their script entitled 'The Policeman and The Whore' aka The Element of Crime became corrupted data on a 5 inch floppy drive and they have to start from scratch. The funniest part of the entire film being that Von Trier admitting that he didn't care much for the script but could admit there was a few parts that were good.

    The week goes on and as they start brainstorming, they come up with the story of a plague starting to spread with an idealist doctor as the main character wanting to go out into the world and try to cure it. Though as Von Trier states as they create their timeline of the film in progress, this all taking place in a fun scene of a camera pointing at a wall and the two writers are physically painting a line across a wall, that it should be the idealist himself should be the one who is in fact spreading the disease. Soon enough, a sickness starts to spread in the actual world they live in and now blurs the line of reality as to fiction bleeding into the real world.

The Initial Reaction

    My imaginary time traveling self would be very confused as to what the fuck I just got finished watching. I travel all the way to the bum end of France to see this? I mean, I always enjoyed these type of meta films that go about in showcasing the process of making a film. Sometimes they work and sometimes they don't. No examples come to mind at the moment but I'm sure if I place my brain to work that something should come up. Hopefully something before the end of this review but I digress.

    To see this would leave me wondering if the boy Von Trier shot his load with the first film. Then I would go about enjoying the other films in the festival with this bad taste in your mouth.

In the Initial Reaction in the Actual Present

    Watching this in the now of 2026 with Von Triers entire filmography existing to compare and contrast one film to another, there is something more here but before I get into it, let me just say what I thought of the film; I very much enjoyed it.

    The cuts between the two films with the movie they are speculating shot in beautiful 35mm while the reality of the writers trying to write something seems to have been shot in 16mm that was then blown up to 35mm. The amount of grain between the two sequences being the biggest indicator. Or maybe I'm just bullshitting. Not too sure. Anyway, it all looks great.

    Also, the fact that Von Trier was either needing or wanting to place himself at the center of it makes far more interesting being that the world knows about those depression episodes that debilitate him but maybe this was before he was suffering from those symptoms that DJ Khaled proclaimed to have. 

 

Lars Von Trier after Breaking the Waves

    Seeing what I can only assume is his process by being a guy yammering to his buddy about wanting to make a film, he makes a pretty decent main character to follow. He also becomes the star of the disease bits as the doctor wanting to try and change the world for the better.

    Then the ending comes around of the virus starting to spread but it means something more. Its of a wanting desire for the world to suffer through this apocalyptic disease in order to avoid the responsibility of having to actually make a film. A real solid ending and one that I am sure many creative types have had when hitting brick walls in their creative process.

In the Larger Context

    Seeing this film being sandwiched in-between his debut The Element of Crime and his third film Europa, I now see the connection. This film at the heart of it all is a cinematic bridge. A true exercise in not only showcasing a filmmaker at work substituting making am actual film but more so of a filmmaker needing to film a movie in order to get the ideas out of his head. A far more valuable source of brainstorming than butting his head against the wall.

    Without this film, it is tough to see if Von Trier would have had the courage to make something like Europa. As it is in this film where the idea of the idealist failing to make change comes to be. Though the bigger implications is that without this film, would he even dare tread into the ideals of the Dogme 95? Something that becomes inherent for him to be placed inside of a box so that he would able to think outside the box. This idea being one that he must have seen in one of his favorite filmmakers, Andrei Tarkovsky.    

    The philosopher Slavoj Žižek had mentioned this idea when it came to the work of Andrei Tarkovsky. That the inherent roadblocks of bureaucracy when dealing with the Soviet Union were the kind that forced a filmmaker like him to have to work in creative ways to pull off a film. Being constricted in a box and having to work against it. Then when Tarkovsky left the Soviet Union for Europe, he was unable to create work similar to the kind that he made since the freedom was something he couldn't comprehend.

 

truly a man to read when it comes to the filams

Important but Minimal

    There isn't too much to say about Epidemic. It's a film that will interest fanboys and completionist of Lars Von Trier filmography but even their opinion would be similar to mine. As a whole, if you need to know the thought process of creation to go from one film to another then give this a watch. If not then give it a pass and head straight to Europa. 

A Journey Into the Danish Part 1

What Has Come Is All That Will Be

    Another night comes along where sleep seems to be nonexistent. Tiredness arrives soon enough when the sun rises but its not enough of a tired state of mind for the sandman to come along and do something about it. Coffee and whatever else to keep the engines chugging along during the work week until Friday night comes along when you can relax and drift into something resembling rest. 

i can't get no sleep

    It was during one of these restless nights when I searching the youtubes for something interesting and came across an interview Lars Von Trier had given on the Louisiana channel. I couldn't remember the last time I had thought about Mr. Von Trier. The two films I own of his come across my vision every once in a while but I never had a true emotionally reaction declaring that I would need to watch one of those two movies right at that moment. The two movies? Keep reading to find out. 

    It was an interview that was conducted five years ago from this sentence being written and even without knowing, it would have been easy to identify that the man has Parkinson's. This kind of disease comes about in showcasing itself even when standing still. It was a familiar sight as I have seen it many before in my personal life. Seeing how the spirit of the man keeps going but the edge is off. For the man I know and love is debilitated to the point of being unable to do simple tasks as they used to with ease. If what I saw in the video is any indication, as 5 years later it probably did not get any better, then its most likely Lars Von Trier will never make another film. 

 the interview in question

    I hope I am wrong but from all of various interviews I have read of him from the past and the various people he has worked with; he always seemed like a guy that reached a point of fragility that a simple break of the mental prowess would cause him to just fall into a deep depression. Unable to work and even when working, just having to profusely apologize for his lack of engagement. Just go look into and read about the production of Antichrist. Troubled to say the least. It sucks but it what is what is.

 troubled production but GREAT MOVIE!

    Dwelling on this reality made me want to finally get around to purchasing that Europe Trilogy that was released on Criterion some time ago. I already own the Criterion DVD's of The Element of Crime and Europa but never got around to seeing Epidemic and wouldn't you know it, it was already sold out & out of print. Goddamn cinephiles.

dammit

    Disenchanted I was at my laziness to buy the movies before this but fate had other desires. I then went about in searching for some other avenue of obtaining these films legally as I am too lazy to do so illegally and saw that UK distributor Curzon is releasing a smaller boxset, apparently they had released a similar bigger boxset last year, with all of Lars Von Trier's films. It is the 22nd as I write this and far later that I post it but on the 22nd, excitement was growing as the next day it will hopefully be shipped out.

    Days passing before that goddamn box was in my hand but now with this boxset in hand, it will be an interesting experience/journey/good movie watching time to go through this chronologically though I would like to say a few words about the first film as it is one that I have experienced.

the box in question

The History I Have With The Element of Crime

    I forgot where I had first seen the strange images of the film or maybe it was during those first few years of Youtube where I was just looking for as many new trailers for films I haven't heard of that I came across one for The Element of Crime.

    Hypnotic, strange, and most important of all; foreign, but not just foreign in the sense of it being a foreign film but more so in the otherworldly sense. These were images that were not computing as a regular film. Watching the trailer unfold, I was seeing something that I hadn't seen before and stuck out as truly foreign. As time goes on and more movies have been seen there are very few films that I could consider to be in the same space visually as this one. I suppose the closest thing that comes to mind is Mandy as the tone of those images reach a similar point of foreign but the feeling that is conveyed between the two films are something entirely different. Where Mandy has a far more hopeful tone in its sense of dread, there seems to be no hope when it comes to any shot in The Element of Crime. Obviously Von Trier's biggest influence for this is Andrei Tarkovsky but I wanted to delve elsewhere.

    And so, with these images circulating in my brain to try and come up with a film that explores the usage of them I just had to find a copy. Traveling through the available locations in search of it but it all came down to purchasing a copy off of Ebay. What a beautiful, maybe 50/50 beautiful, website it used to be.         Receiving my copy and trying to negotiate the time to be able to watch it without the oversight of either my mother, who probably could care less, and my older sister, a real witch of a person, looking to see what I was watching on the living room TV as that was where the DVD player. .
    So I watch the film and I couldn't really comprehend what the fuck I saw. The pace of it moved along fine enough and the whole mystery in of itself was interesting as I was also trying to fulfill that need of film noirs but the reveal of the killer didn't seem that satisfying. 

    It was a movie that kept me pondering and thinking but I couldn't be able to make heads or tails of it. I didn't even bother to involve my friends around me to watch it because i felt as though it had fallen too far into the 'far out' type of media that they would ever venture into enjoying. Though as time went on, we would all enjoy the spectacle of something like El Topo so maybe there was time to bring it up again before we all went all separate ways in life but c'est la vie.

Watching The Element of Crime for What Feels Like the First Time 

watching the film now

    I put in the movie and the initial feelings of 'aw shit, here we go again' that were rising to the surface were familiar as the opening shots showing off the still strangeness world of Cairo was setting the stage for the nostalgic nightmare to start up.
    The film stars Michael Elphick as Fisher. A former detective that is in the middle of a hypnoses therapy session where he is trying to process a murder case he was called for. The period of time before the event and this hypnotherapy is unsure but the movie doesn't hold your hand as the setting shifts from a hot room in Cairo to a desolate hallucinating world of a Post World War 2 Europe. He is brought in to hunt down Harry Grey, a killer who was thought to have died but apparently is killing again, and does so by following the procedures placed in the police manual The Element of Crime that was written by his mentor Osborne.
    Slowly, Fisher begins to travel down this disjointed memory to solve a murder mystery that will leave nothing gained and everything lost.

From the Film

    I remember being somewhat entranced when I first had seen the film so long ago and watching it now, I couldn't believe the power that the film had over me.
    Seeing the hell world of post war Europe was far more compelling as an older man than a young moron as the destruction was far more visceral for some reason. Maybe since then having seen the various landscapes of destruction that the past wars have brought or maybe because I have seen more movies where the false sensibility of a destroyed landscape looks weak compared to the imagery in this film. I can't say for certain but there is something in the images here that hit me harder emotionally than before.
    You know what this hellscape reminded me of? Apocalypse Now. Not just in tone but in the overall journey, for lack of a better word, that the film showcases. A broken man being jettisoned down this path that he cannot avoid and having to deal with the hellscape of their environment. The plus side for something like The Element of Crime though is that the images feel far more brutal in their godlessness. 
    This world that Von Trier is showing is one where God has left and here were humans rummaging around trying to make sense of it of what was left behind. Everyone and everything is lost as there is not a single drop of hope within any frame of the film.
    In the middle of this godless world is a murder mystery. Now the notion of solving a mystery is that there is a sense of order bringing brought to the world from the chaos that was created from the mystery. This movie negates that notion by creating a mystery that isn't presented in any way as ordinary or orderly. Clues come about in fragments and in those fragments, information that could be gleaned is nothing near something that would bring a eureka moment. There is only obsession and ultimately madness that comes about as Fisher traverses through this nightmare. Slowly we believe that we are getting closer and closer to the killer of these lottery murders until the final realization of the killer is one that deflates the entire notion of bringing order. Flipping expectations on their head so the notion of calling this a film noir seems so strange to me but I digress. 

    The ending of the film after the mystery is solved seems to come out out nowhere and feel like a non sequitur but I actually think its what grounds the whole film. Fisher, after having killed a child and finding out that his mentor was in fact the lotto murderer after Harry Grey had been dead, is sitting in the rain and for no reason other than a feeling that he has, which he doesn't announce to the audience via voice over, walks over to a storm drain and looks inside to see a creature hiding in the dark. Then he asks to be woken up by the hypnotist but there is no one there. 

    Though this feels like out of nowhere, I think this moment is the only time that Fisher is actually seeing himself for the first time as to what he really is. Looking into his bare soul to see a frightened animal. One that has no strength to go on and no one to count on. 

what is left 

   Haunting to say the least but what was fascinating was the commitment Michael Elphick had with this role. I haven't read anywhere or anything in regard to Von Trier and him having issues during the production of the film so maybe, he just clicked with the material. Or maybe he was just a professional the whole time. No clue but as the film is weighted entirely on the performance of Fisher to carry the movie, he does it with a lot of gusto. His narration sounds like a truly broken man retelling a tale and just the amount of rain and general unpleasantness that he had to be in a state of mind for; it's one hell of a performance. What's most interesting is how he plays the main character as someone suffering from a terrible case of PTSD. Whether it was the war or just his life in general state of mind, there is just a consistent state of disarray that Fisher lives in. One particular moment in the film, possibly the breaking point for the character, is where he is driving and as he drives in this frantic state, there are images of bombed out Europe being projected onto him. There is no reference to these images as they just exist but it has to mean something. It has to. 

merrily merrily merrily

 

And So 

    There is a sense of wonder here that I hadn't felt for some time. Feeling something otherworldly. Truly otherworldly. Maybe I mentioned this when reviewing Possession but that movie as a whole was going somewhere else but staying grounded in our reality while this film travels into another dimension. 
    Nothing here looks tangible as grounded reality unless you either place it within a dream world or maybe even shove it into a genre like Science Fiction. The wonder comes from seeing these strange images that create no true logical sense but nonetheless maintain a sense of narrative follow through that enables to keep me engaged in the material without ever taking a second to subconsciously realize that a certain moment isn't working. It all works though depending on how much you care to invest into the film.    
    Just seeing how every shot takes place at night, has rain pumping nonstop, and everything is draped and covered in sepia tone lighting. I could only imagine that the production must have been truly hell. How the fucking a guy like Michael Ephick could turn out a performance like this and not go infuckingsane is just a testament to the movie gods. 

Concluding Thoughts

    What a debut film. There is already so much potential here in craft with what this film manages to accomplish by transporting you into another dimension is something that I have seen fumbled over and over again by veteran directors. Though I must admit that this review didn't delve into the character of Kim (played by Me Me Lai) but I couldn't find a way to delve into the character because there isn't much there. Not even fulfilling the notion of a femme fatale or damsel in distress. She just exists in this nightmare world as someone there. This possibly being the fault of the director as she serves more so a purpose for Fisher to have an interaction with someone more so than form a relationship.
    As I delve into Lars Von Trier filmography, I think to myself as to what a strange odyssey this will be to see the growth of potential and thematic interests of filmmaking that he has committed to after this film.  
    Now as it has been twenty something years since first buying that Criterion DVD with the Spine#80 on the side of it, I am watching it again for what seems like the first time and I can't help but kick myself for not being able to enjoy it for a longer time than now.

Ζει Or How I Read a Novel Before Seeing the Film

waking up in America    

    Another Saturday morning to wake up and see the state of the world. Still no good. Troubling times we live in amigos. Needed a breath of fresh air and luckily for the past week or so Past Francis Booth, who I can hardly trust, went about in feeling the tremors below his feet and navigating down the road of life with a specific goal in mind; To Read a Book. 

Fundamentals

    Compared to last year, I've been pretty slow in starting up my reading habit. It's already March and I only have just three books finished so far. Though I believe I get some leeway since the book I chose to start off the year with that big ass Neal Stephenson novel Cryptonomicon but I digress. 

 Girth Thy Name is Novel

    My second book was then King Rat by James Clavell which felt like something you would place against a film like The Great Escape and showcase the hell of a World War 2 POW Camp in the Pacific Theater.

 the copy i was reading with its green tinted pages

    Then after reading those two novels, I decided that I need to go further into my reading list or what can also be referred to as the books I purchased with the intent of reading but never getting around to it and just kept adding them to the infinite void of books I will eventually get around to reading. All of this to say that I finally got to reading Z by Vassilis Vassilikos and being that this is a place where I review films, I decided that it was about time to give the movie a watch as that existed on my to watch list for the longest time as well

The Novel

    The basic plot of the novel revolves around this progressive deputy/political powerhouse by the name of Z who after giving a speech imploring for a better tomorrow against the current totalitarian democracy that is running the country of Greece is assassinated. This event taking up the first part of the novel with the rest of the novel dealing with the conspiracy around his murder, first acknowledged as an accident, starting to unfold involving those in power pulling the strings of men who only just need a push to get a job done. The kind of guys that don't care how much dirt, or blood, will get on their hands.

    The tone of the novel shifting between the procedural moments of an investigator and reporter digging more and more into the crime to uncover the truth to moments of characters dealing with the tragedy. Something I didn't really expect to see when having first picked up the novel but reflecting back on those moments, probably opened up a bigger understanding in my brain on how to tell a story.

how i see myself after reading the tender moments in Z

    What also fascinated me about the novel is how the passage of time is presented via these tender moments of the wife longing for her dead husband or through the various other characters that can't help but think of Z and the power he resonated in their hearts.

    For the wife moments, you realize the truth regarding the state of their marriage as it was nowhere near being the perfect marriage. Which goes a long way in showcasing how even perfection escapes the legacy of a martyr but even so, there was so much love and the pain that now comes and goes the more you read. Theses moments of growth that would be impossible to see if the novel had been a run of the mill police procedural and ultimately she reaches this moment of acceptance and has to make a decision to move forward in life. This moment being the end of the novel and it was an ending that I didn't even know I needed more so than the conclusion of the investigation into the death.

    The lyrical nature of the novel, I had to read a translation as I am uncultured, left me with the opinion that the novel itself is a memorial and letter of love towards the memory of the actual politician whose unfortunate end prompted the need to write this. How the death created this feeling of hope lost that stays present even as the conspiracy unfolds but ultimately hope is revived by the end even though the aftermath of the investigation itself left everything up in the air. Nothing is certain as to the consequences for those involved except that no one person in the eyes of Justice is truly placed as the singular figure to take the blame. At least, not enough to be considered guilty of masterminding and facing the consequences of their action. 

    Bittersweet in the grand scheme of things but hope comes from the fact that Z is now forever. Z lives becomes the go to phrase and with that fire going, it will never go out. Now, after having finished the novel it was time to give the movie a watch.

The Film

    Z is directed by Costa-Gavras, who would go on to make a career with such fantastic political thrillers such as State of Siege and The Confession, who adapts the novel with Jorge Semprun and has to shoot it in Algiers due to not being able to film in Greece because of the right-wing government that was running the place. With Yves Montand playing the title character of Z and Jean-Louis Trintignant as The Examining Magistrate the film shifts the novel into a different direction but nonetheless a cinematic one.

   A straight from novel to film adaptation seems impossible. To capture those highs and lows of the assassination to the funeral and having to change from the multiple point of views from the various characters would cause the script to have something like 300 pages to truly get the job done right of a straight adaptation. Maybe a miniseries could work but the problem with that is that modern day television looks terrible and dead so it most likely would be a faithful adaptation that was shot with digital muted tones. Which makes me sick just thinking about it.

    And so with the jettison of the lyrical nature of the novel the film shifts into the world of documentary styled filmmaking. Something that would set the standard for political thrillers to follow after its release. For looking at a list of political thrillers, its easy to connect the dots of this film having an influence on something like All The President's Men and Traffic. This film also having often being repeated as an influence on William Friedkin when going about in filming The French Connection. What influenced this film though? I figure Roberto Rossellini's films played a role but most likely 1965's The Battle of Algiers was a big influence on the film but I'm only guessing. You should go see that movie too. It's great.  

it's pretty great 

 

    Moving away from the slowly unfolding narrative is having this film play more along the way of a crime being solved. The novel leaves little as far as mystery is concerned as a lot of the set up to the assassination you read about beforehand and then the crime happens. It wasn't written in a way to thrill you in trying to figure out the criminals but more so deals with the aftermath of what the assassination means to those that care before ultimately reaching the end when the entire conspiracy is told via a letter written by one of the main persons in the conspiracy. 

     

    The film starts off with leaving the audience having to play catch up as we see leftists scramble to get a venue for Z to give his speech while government officials are surviving a speech about mildew that must be destroyed much like communism. Then Z gives his speech as the film builds up to the moment of the assassination. With the rest of the film, about an hour and forty or so minutes, having The Examining Magistrate going about in slowly unfolding the events that occurred. A reporter showing up as in the novel to investigate the assassination but the movie now using flashbacks from the various testimonies to have both the main characters and audience discover the reasons at the same time.

    The biggest bummer of the film though is that it jettisons the real emotional weight of the wife's arc. There is a moment right after the death when she appears and its her silent suffering that really sets the tone for this arc to occur but she leaves the film and doesn't appear until the end and thats a shame.

    Overall though, its fantastic with an ending that goes about in showing the actors and the real people they are playing side by side. A person reading off the end results of the investigation with the strange high amount of suicides regarding various witnesses, the lack of convictions, and ultimately the right wing government taking over the country to make it all moot. The film then shows the now restricted list of banned books, music, teachings of philosophers and other works of art but most importantly, they had ban the letter Z as Z, a slogan for He Lives, references the martyred deputy.

The End

    A great book that transforms into a great movie with being able to coexist for anyone interested. I couldn't believe I waited so long to give it a watch but I am glad that I did sit down and read the novel beforehand. Now onto the next question that will be split into 2; what to read and what to watch next?

Out of the Blue and Into the Nosferatu

The End is the Beginning is the Beginning of The End

   It is the end of February and I haven't gotten around to writing anything about a movie. Though to be fair, it has been a challenging month. For the past 3 weeks I have been having to spend every Saturday watching a movie in the Twilight franchise. Sometimes 2 movies in 1 day. IN 1 DAY. That's a lot of subpar movie watching but when in a relationship, sometimes these things are mandatory but don't forget that it is also known in the Geneva convention as; NO ESCAPE.

I saw them all but did i survive?

    So as of yesterday, 2/21/26 JUDGEMENT DAY, after having survived through the last two films that make up Twilight: Breaking Dawn, I was able to regroup today on this holy Sunday and sit down to watch something worth my while. I decided on a vampire movie that would help get the bad taste of the previous 5 vampire movies out of my mouth. Something tough and mean. Something German.

Felt Pretty German to Me

    Now, I had a copy of Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht for some time but never managed to find the right time to give it a watch. Halloween 2025 would have been a good time but I believe it was around that time that I had seen that recent Robert Egger's film Nosferatu.

Spoilers: Pretty Meh

    Now a quick aside; Robert Egger's is a pretty talented filmmaker. His films like The Witch, The Lighthouse, The Northman are just great so it was a surprise to see how not good Nosferatu was.

    The performances were pretty good overall but man, nothing in the rest of the film offered much to grasp onto. The gray/dead tones all throughout, the bleakness that turned more into boredom as the film goes on, and the critical point of Count Orlok not having any true terror behind any of his actions. 
    Sure, we see that the gray world has turn to a shittier state of gray and people going crazy but goddamn, beyond just being an exercise in style there is just isn't much there.
    I was so affected by this subpar rendition that I forgot that it was Halloween and soon enough I found myself nearing the end of the year watching the Roman Polanski film The Ninth Gate. Now, after going through the entire Twilight Saga and critically verifying my hill to die on as being on Team Jacob; I went about in watching Werner Herzog's adaptation of Dracula.

The Film

    The story follows just about the same rhythms of the novel Dracula except with a good chunk of characters and relationship being nixed to shift the focus of the hour and forty something minutes to just the major love triangle of Jonathan Harker, Count Dracula, and Lucy.

    Jonathan and Lucy are happily married but Lucy is having some crazy dreams. Jonathan gets an opportunity to make a real estate deal with Count Dracula in Translyvania from his boss Renfield. He goes out to Translyvania where he meets the albino man to make a deal but it might be one with too high of a price. 

    What separates this from say the other Dracula adaptations from the 1931 Tod Browning film to the fairly modern Francis Ford Coppola adaptation and ending with the Robert Egger's dull gray version is that there is a real sense of grounded reality in this one. I will get more into that later on but what is also drastically different here is with the material having possibly the least amount of time of interaction with Lucy and Dracula. There is not a hint of suave to Klaus Kinski's Count Dracula. He looks like a guy that has been living underground for centuries and shows it by having a single awkward conversation with Lucy and then the movie shifts to her having to sacrifice herself for the greater good.

ay carumba!

    Another change was the character of Dr. Van Helsing becoming far more disinterested and above all useless to the story. Portrayed far more as a man of science that denies any belief of superstitions or folklore dealing with anything that can't be proven with SCIENCE!

    The whole town goes to shit when the Count arrives to town  with some rats who have the plague. Which happens to be right around when Jonathan comes back. He having lost his mind completely as he is unable to recognize any of his friends let alone his wife Lucy. 

     Lucy faints in distress but hunts down an answer and comes across a book that Jonathan received which delves into occult myths and understands immediately that she was dealing with a blood sucker. 

    I don't think there was a mention of the word 'Vampire' in the film. The laws of bloodsuckers stating that its up to a woman with a pure heart to keep the bloodsucker locked down until dawn comes around. 

    Lucy offers herself and the Count takes the bait. Dying as the dawn breaks but what is interesting is that he dies as though it is a heart attack. His body still on the ground in physical form as Van Helsing finds Lucy dead. He shows up and his survival instincts kick in and he goes straight for the hammer and stake to get the job done.
   The twist here is that Jonathan has now taken the role of the villainous vampire. Having whats left as an authority to arrest Van Helsing for killing the Count. With his vampire buck teeth and pale as the moon skin, he rides off into the desert and the most likely destination being that he is heading back to Transylvania to live out his life. Maybe to finish that real estate deal.

What I Got

    With the various differences, it feels more like a straight forward take on the material and leaves you feeling fulfilled when its all said and done. I'm sure its a possible reflection of the original 1922 Nosferatu film but I haven't had a chance to give it a watch so I cannot say yay or nay towards this observation. Regardless, the more streamlined the material gives the story to feel more grounded.

    Now, when I say more grounded I mean that it feels more a part of our world than another world. As we watch Jonathan Harker travel to Transylvania, we find ourselves watching him travel across actually vast landscapes. Real wide plains. Real tall mountains. A real sense of scale that the world Harker lives in to give a far more credible feeling of being real. There are no sets depicting cinematic space distorted landscapes in order to create scale. There is only the real world that these characters live in.

    Also, I want to give a special shout out to that intro credit sequence. I don't know where it was shot but the fact that mummified remains, or at least nearing the end phase of decomposition, are screaming in a silent face of pain is a terrifically horrifying way to not only start the film but also set a tone. Where this tomb was located I can only assume in Count Dracula's massive castle but no answers are given and we are left wondering. 

    What also helps ground the film is the amount of time spent showcasing scenes with actual physical props. A piece of the story deals with the Count arriving to the city while bringing the plague. Now, in the other films this is shown as best as could be with a few amount of rats running around. Maybe even CGI rats with the more recent films. Herzog shows an insane amount of rats running around. Even on a minuscule budget, there is great effort showcasing that the city and citizens are losing a sense of stability and civility as the film goes on with images such as more and more coffins being taken to the cemetery. Reaching a point where coffins are now out in the street with no one around to carry them. We see a family that has the plague sitting down to eat their final meal with the rats. This truly feels like a once prospering society losing it. Also, the way the film was staged and photographed was also visually striking when comparing it to Werner Herzog's other films. Far more stylized than his other work in terms of mood lighting and creating interesting framing for the characters to maneuver and none of it feels awkward or out of place.

    The performances are great but i suppose having to work against Klaus Kinski bringing the heat would require one to step it up. Though Isabelle Adjani is something great. She is able to play like a woman that is both feminine and strong but in a soft way. She isn't running around punching people out or shit. Instead, she is far more proactive in the role of Lucy more so than the other portrayals of the character. She just doesn't become a victim but more so comes to realize that as the world is burning around here and people of authority do not care to listen and so she must do what she has to do to get the job done.
    Lastly, the music is pretty good. Especially that one Wagner piece that plays here and there. 
    

The Beginning is The End is the The End of The Beginning

    I cannot say that I am surprised that the film was good. Werner Herzog makes good movies. I will say that Kinski surprised me since a majority of Herzog's films has him playing characters that are too tough to love but the amount of sympathy I had for this Count Dracula, who didn't say or do much, in that last scene especially was a strange feeling that caught me off guard. Seeing him totally white in the eyes and yet the facial expressions saying so much, goddamn did that crazy sack of shit just know how to act. Though I can't say the film is anywhere near being romantic in the slightest so it cannot reach GREAT status, as a stripped down take on the Dracula story though its pretty solid. 

Blackhat or How Michael Mann Made Another Good Movie That Nobody Saw

A New Chapter

    11 years and a couple days have passed since I first ventured into the new year of 2015. A marker in my life as I moved away from family and friends and had to deal with a world unknown. Time passing since and life hasn't been any easier but at this moment, looking back I see that I had a true sense of pure optimism. It would only be a brief moment where being alive seemed to be going alright for the most part since the world didn't look as though it was on the verge of ending. What also made it exciting was the fact that there was a brand spanking new Michael Mann film coming out.

    Since the last film of his that I reviewed was Miami Vice, I can say from that moment in the mid 2000's to now that I have been a far more involved fan of the man's work. Reading more about him in the few books that I could get my hands on as well as indulging in his filmography. Even checking out some of his early work like the TV prison film The Jericho Mile. Which I also wrote a review on this site. This fanaticism building to this particular moment in time that any film fan would be excited for.

    And so I ventured and saw the film in a small crowd and came out having to ponder but more on that later. 

 

The Teaser Trailer was pretty good

The Film

     Now there are currently three different versions of this film available for watch thanks to Arrow Video. There is the US Theatrical, The International version, and a Directors Cut. For this review, I will discuss the US Theatrical to reflect the movie I saw back in 2015 as well as the recently released Directors Cut that was officially released in 2023.

    Funny enough, this is not the first time in which I have indulged with both a theatrical and directors cut to a Michael Mann film. There is also the pair of DVDs that I had rented late one night of both the theatrical and directors cut of Michael Mann's Manhunter. Though the difference between the two after watching them as a double feature was so minuscule that it was tough to truly say if there was a difference; nonetheless it was worth the time because Manhunter is such a cool fucking movie. Man I love that one.

The Two I Rented

    The film opens up by showing off the big blue world we know as Earth interconnected as the title of the film appears and then we zoom into the world that ultimately becomes a Chinese nuclear reactor. Looking like a normal day for the Scientists at work and then we slowly dive into the computer itself.

    Now, movie hacking has always been the goofiest scene in any movie that went about it in portraying it. From the low lows of the Sandra Bullock film The Net and the forever charming Hackers to the nitty gritty dumbness of Hugh Jackman shaking his ass while hacking himself up a worm that will go about in hacking in Swordfish. It just seems that whenever a movie has to show someone committing the act of hacking that it has always been a challenge for filmmakers to rise up and accomplish filming this in the dumbest way possible. This film though delivers a fresh take on this.

    We do not see the endless finger strokes on a keyboard showcasing the precise and amazing skill of a hacker at work. Instead, we are transported to a fantastic visual treat of data flowing through the microscopic infrastructure of computer chips and wires that all starts with a USB stick being inserted into a USB slot. Traveling through these highly intricate systems and watching a high speed piece of data separate itself and travel into the operating system of the previously mentioned nuclear reactor. Then seeing that its a hack that causes the failure of a turbine and soon the stakes are set with an explosion at the nuclear reactor that rocks the world news cycle. Soon after this, another hack occurs with the price of Soy Bean futures increasing due to the hack. The two seemingly unrelated but are they?

    The mayhem that both these events cause forces Chinese and American intelligence agencies to work together to figure out what the hell happened. After locating how the hackers got their way in the system, it turns out the hack was using a piece of code written by the Chinese office Chen Dawai (Played by Leehom Wang) with a buddy of his from college. Enter Scene: Chris Hemsworth as Hacker Extraordinaire Nicholas Hathaway.

    He's currently doing time and gets a work-pass to help out the FBI and PLA to figure this out and if he helps find the culprit then he gets released from prison. Their investigation has them traveling the world as the team uncovers a global conspiracy involving the want of this hacker mastermind to manipulate the certain destruction of certain areas in 3rd world countries in order to manipulate the stock market once more to make a few more dollars. Rounding out the cast is the always lovely Viola Davis, Holt McCallany, John Ortiz, and Tang Wei.

    What follows is what one expects from a Michael Mann film. People going through a process to figure out the why which then involves gunfights, entanglements of forbidden love, and that slick post 2000 Michael Mann digital sheen to it all but let us save the opinion for later and let us travel onward to the directors cut.

The Directors Cut

    It's always fascinating to see a new version of a film like Blackhat. Re-watching the Theatrical has me feeling like the story I remember was now rushing itself to get to the good parts as soon as possible and set up the high stakes right off the bat. Which now after watching this new version reveals the biggest difference between them.

    The scene that starts off the original version of the film is with the nuclear reactor exploding is now an event that happens later on in the film. The directors cut starts off with solely focusing on the cyber attack of the sudden increase of soy beans futures and the global ramifications of this sudden event. Starting the film at this moment is this strange quiet before the storm. It's a scene that exists but now sets a different tone. Starting off in this eerily empty room with all these screens tracking numbers for various speculation and stocks that you have seen filled to the brim with people selling and buying but now, it just exists. This cold room of brutal capitalism that will never end even as people are not there to be part of it. Sent a real chill down my spine seeing this hacking scene start off the film.

    Obviously not the biggest stakes for a film to start off with but it creates a much more grounded world as an event like this means a whole lot more in our capitalistic driven world where stock market manipulation must be controlled so that those in the know will have access to the profits and not those who cause the manipulations for their own ends whether nefarious or not.

    We are then introduced to the idea of a RAT (Rat Access Tool) being used covertly to manipulate the prices which causes an international partnership to occur between China and the United States intelligent agencies to go about and solve. The tension rising and rising as they travel around the world and get into a gunfight and then BOOM! Reactor explosion. A real big Whoa moment in the middle of all this when this happens because now the stakes have officially been raised Then the movie, for the most part, follows along with the original version as far as moving through the same machinations to reach the same ending. 

    Though the end of this cut seems to fly quicker to the final confrontation between the big evil hacker and Hathaway. No build up and just a simple “You want the money then meet up.” In the Theatrical, there was at least this sense of uneasiness between the two having to meet up since the prearranged site was compromised and now they would have to change location at the last minute. This new location being a place where at the same time was this religious event that I will get into later but that's just gone now and it goes straight to the confrontation. Same ending as the theatrical though with Hathaway and his girl heading off into their future as fugitives on the run.

   With this complete change of structure though comes a film that feels far more natural in telling its story. Gradually, as an audience, we learn more and more about the ramifications of this one event that then leads into the real consequences of these events until we ultimately discover, along with the characters in the film as all good detectives movies have you moving at the same pace as the characters in solving the mystery, the end justification for why hacker mastermind does what he does.  

    This was a real solid version of the film that probably would have worked out better for everyone if this had been released in theaters and not the actual theatrical release. The ramifications of this might have been life altering as 2015 turned out to be a real bad year by November.

What Does It All Add Up To?

    Leaving that theater, I didn't feel like I saw a terrible movie but it wasn't as great as I had hoped. Though it was also strange to see the initial mixed reception of the film when it first came out. Obviously this initial release wasn't necessarily going to set the world on fire but even in this strange form, there was a whole lot here to enjoy. 

    The overall aesthetic that Michael Mann has been working towards with digital filmmaking reaches a strong pivotal moment in this film. The mood that comes across from the visuals along with the music and performances are such that for the most part, it all works. It's all coherent and none of it feels cheap. A lot of digital filmmaking these days looks cheap because it seems that with digital it is easier to cut around corners to not put as much into the surrounding environments. The faux worlds of the digital creation that meanders itself into trying to be something wonderful and extraterrestrial but fails to convey anything but artifice. The difference here is that Mann isn't interested in artificial worlds for his digital vision. He is far more intrigued in whats going on now and wanting to get as close to it as possible with these digital cameras. To create something far more immersive to what we see today which also leaves me wondering about the possibility of the story itself being far too close to real world narratives for audiences to engage with.

    In part, this narrative was inspired by the Stuxnet cyber attack on Iran's nuclear program. This odd unknown origin piece of code that caused insane damage and has been verified but not verified to be a country backed attack on another country. All real cloak and dagger shit. Something like that can't be made without needing the audience to be right there from the start. This isn't a movie that wants to hold your hand. It doesn't want to stop and talk out the plot for you to reengage with the material when you happened to have stopped paying attention. This is crafted for you to either get with it or not but as mentioned before, maybe that was the issue.  

    Stock market manipulation by rogue terrorists whose interests is not contained or drawn from a sense of moral or traditional religious fanaticism isn't one that, at least at the time, American had an interest in. Compared to what came out in wide release that same week, Clint Eastwood's American Sniper, it's not hard to tell how America was more interested in the supposed true story of Chris Kyle running and gunning in the Middle East than anything involving a cyber attack on Soy Bean trading.

    Which looking back now to the two films, the all too real Blackhat has shown the true ramifications of stock manipulation as seen the 2016 Administrations failure of protecting Soy Bean farmers as well as various narratives of stolen elections via hacked voting terminals and such. Data security is one topic that has become far more enduring and everyday for everyone now than it ever has been while the popularity of American Sniper has dwindled into one of those 'We really liked this?' kind of movies but I digress.

    Blackhat is a film that doesn't have a happy ending. Nobody wins. There is no exit. A small group of cyber terrorists lose but that doesn't mean that it won't happen again or that all crime has stopped. It's just this one particular story. Though even with my enjoyment of the film, I have to admit that there was a problem I had with the film.

Issues 

    As mentioned before, the end sequence to this film is really great. Shot on site in Jakarta and involves this religious procession where all these people with torches march together all the while the main characters are walking the opposite way. Its a great set up with no real conclusion. 

    The villain in the film isn't one that has any other motive beyond trying to make a few dollars. A couple more million from the original heist he pulled off in the beginning. And I suppose this is truer to life as we watch billionaires with seemingly dead eye stares and terrible taste parade on television screaming about the beautiful virtues of capitalism but for a movie, I think there needs to be something more. What makes a great villain in a movie compared to a movie counterpart to a real capitalist.

    Though this wanting of more could be seen as needing to create a facade and inauthentic character to fulfill this void I have in the film. It's a tough call because the way this movie is tells me it should be this but staying true to the film, it is what it is.

     An aside, I remember there was this thread on forum for this film on IMDB that made fun of the fact that Hemsworth had magazines wrapped around him with tape and it goes to show how education is a fundamental flaw in the average American moviegoer. Any American should know that in prison the tradition of having thick multi-paged atlas books and such wrapped around your body is for protection from knives and knife like weaponry. I only say that this should be a fundamental piece of knowledge for all Americans as we have a higher chance of going to prison statistically than graduating college.

    A lot of people seem to be confused as to why Chris Hemsworth is playing the role of a hacker but I like the performance. Following in the vein of those characters that we have seen before in previous Mann films such as Thief and Heat where there is a struggle to be striving for a place in the world and unable to completely understand how to get there. Maybe it was the whole Thor thing that fucked him up because honestly, I would have rather seen him go into meatier roles in the vein of this character instead of the hulking facade of a troubled past character we saw in those Extraction movies. God those were terrible.

Final Thoughts

    Michael Mann has always been a top 5 director for me. Something about them speaks loudly to whatever lurks within me and I will go see his next film when it comes out. I did actually go see Ferrari and I liked that film as well even though it had a very similar reaction to this film. His next film is going to be a sequel to Heat, based on the novel he wrote which was pretty good as yes, I did read it, and at the age of 82, it might be his last. If this be the case then I can't wait to see it in theaters. 

 

The Review of The Story of a Junkie by Frankie Boothareno

Where the sky stayed the color of grey, like heron

     From the various books such as Requiem for a Dream and The Basketball Diaries, as well as films such as Trainspotting and Requiem for a Dream, and as well as the greatest television show The Wire. I came to understand 1 thing regarding heroin: It is a hell of a drug.

what a novel

    I haven't tried it since I never hung around the type of crowd that endeavored anything beyond marijuana though there have been rumblings about certain individuals that I am acquainted with in having partaken but from what I remember from the last point of contact with them, they seem to be more on the tweaking side with meth than something like heroin but I digress.
    Heroin and its story within the United States has always been a fascinating piece of history for me to learn about. From such beginnings where it became a part of this seedy underworld image with the likes of opium dens during the gold rush in the 19th century. So much of a striking image that it would be backdrop for various yellow peril tales featuring offensively racist characters such as Dr. Fu-Manchu.

who else better to play Fu Manchu but Christopher Lee

    Jumping forward in time and reading about manufactured heroin being smuggled into the USA during the Vietnam war was also a high point for Heroin in the United States. US Soldiers rotating back to the states were hooked on the stuff and with age old theory of supply following demand, capitalists at the right place and right time wanted to spread the joy to the rest of the United States. Then seeing the various footage on how it completely decimated neighbors and communities as the years rolled on alongside the complete failure of the War on Drugs that did absolutely nothing to stop the drug trade. 

    The clashing between brutal and violent capitalistic ventures of drugs on the street against the bureaucratic failure of the United States Government being unable to take control of the situation has always fascinated me. As it should with any American having to wake up to the hell we live in. 
    So a slice of life that focuses around an addict like the film The Story of a Junkie offered at first glance a film that I found immensely fascinating but as the credits rolled, there was something troubling in seeing the construction of the film.

The Film

    The film follows the trials and tribulations of one John 'Gringo' Spacely as he goes about his day to day life as a guy with a habit in the Lower East Side of New York City. This being the late 1980's New York that hadn't yet sold it's soul to real estate investors and was instead churning itself in the last moments of its shallow grave with a terrible drug trade destroying its city and landlords firebombing their own places for the insurance money. This was the time before it became all Disneyland.

The Greatest Newspaper Headline

    We follow the highs and lows of Gringo as he goes around the town looking to score, getting mugged, and talking to the camera to get a couple of internal feelings and thoughts across but mostly the camera plays like a fly on the wall. Leaving the world to pass by to keep it as untouched and real as possible.

A Documentation of Sorts    

    The feeling and presentation of the film falls under the style known as: Cinéma vérité. A sort of follow along without any coordinated effort to try and present some sort of voice over or flow of a narrative. Showcasing the characters interactions throughout his days to create a collection of images that then could be edited when its all said and done to present a story.    
    Truly the best part about the film is that not a moment throughout it feels as though judgement is being placed on the guy. It really is just showing his life on the streets as he tries to fuel his habit. What film also accomplishes looking it now to the world around was in documenting the possible future of addiction and if anything should have been seen a warning to what was coming to all of America but that's another rant for another place beyond that of a film blog.

   The film goes along and nearing the end, Gringo shows himself in the early stages of getting clean and talks about the sickness (withdrawal) and the proper steps to get off the drugs instead of going cold turkey. Its during the end of the film where the audience is presented with a pivotal moment that has affected me in a way that I believe will stir within me for a good part of my life.

    The scene being about Gringo's reason to entering this life. He's just talking and there's no voice asking or replying back to him with any questions or anything so he's just talking out loud for anyone to listen.         He talks about this girl he married years ago and how she had gotten pregnant but the kid didn't make it. She had some issues or something and the baby had come out of her at like 3 months and he talks about the experience of it all with a tinge of sadness but it comes out so matter of fact.

the scene in question

    You ever hear a story from somebody that has been through some terrible event and when you hear them tell this tale it just gets sadder and sadder and by the end you have a tear in your eye but the orator telling you the story is so matter of fact about it that it just seemed to be like he was telling you his grocery list?

    It's the same type of storytelling you get when hearing this guy talk all throughout this film but listening to him having to toss out his 3 month baby into the trash and having nightmares from the sight and such and needing an escape. Its a short brutal story and gives insight on how anyone would have gotten their start with heroin.

Feelings of Uncertainty 

    It's certainly a movie that succeeds but there are a few moments where I felt uncertain of the film riding the line of genuine curiosity to exploitative. These feelings of exploitation coming from the fact that the promotional materials that Troma made in releasing the film, just see the poster earlier in the blog, and the fucking logo in the beginning of the film just doesn't feel right with me. Which leads me uncertain as a whole as to the complete authenticity of the film as Troma has been known to make editorial decisions of their own free will.

leaves a bad taste in my mouth

    Alongside this sense of uncertainty, there were some scenes of the film that felt staged though these moments are too scattered around and ultimately inconsequential from the primary observational eye of the camera so I can say that it succeeds more-so than fails in presenting this guys story as amoral as possible but with an asterisk. 

    There is also a moment in the film, possibly the weakest, when the movie turns into music video of sorts as Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five song The Message is playing as images of the rundown streets and Gringo just living life pass by. 

    It is tough to tell if my point to criticize this particular scene at this moment of time is justified as this lifestyle at that time wasn't widespread knowledge. It must be understood that my opinion right now is that of a modern asshole giving an opinion on a moment of time that coincides and clashes alongside so much more information about this particular time of the American Drug Trade. All that existed then and what I can only assume was the point of the scene was to showcase something new for people that had no clue while having a fairly popular song that details in genius rhyming scheme the trials and tribulations of drug ridden New York. 

    Regardless, seeing this movie now I can only see this moment being so out of place to the rest of the film. It's just a showcase of more images of Gringo just doing the day to day rituals like combing your hair, cleaning your shoes, and walking around. It's a great song but playing against these images just doesn't work for me. Especially with Chuck Kentis's fantastic score playing all throughout the film. And it certainly doesn't feel like a proper build up to that extraordinarily sobering scene in the film.

    The movie playing out as amorally as possible but this part felt like a public service announcement of the lowest order. These grievances aside, as they are my own issues with the film, the overall impact of the film does far more good than bad.

    The ending though is just perfect. No notes or anything. The song Since I Don't Have You by Don McLean plays alongside the image of Gringo just riding around on his skateboard. A bittersweet sensations as you watch him coast along and feel some hope for the guy as the screen fades to black and credits start to roll.

 

   Bittersweet in that this documentary is about a guy who unfortunately didn't get a chance to come out clean the other side. John Spacely would die of AIDS in 1993. Most likely from sharing needles during this time as he had tried to go clean after this movie was made and strive for an acting career of sorts. 

The End

    A film that succeeds more so than falters in showcasing a external world that no longer exists as the neighborhoods of New York get cleaned up, for the most part, but internally to every person out there needing to escape as the successes of the old world around them seem to get farther and farther from their grasp, it seems like a road paved in blood waiting for them to travel down. It only takes a critical life event to make that road seem far appealing to travel down. Just look at John 'Gringo' Spacely. 

    If I had seen this back in the day, watching him ride this skateboard would give me a sense of childish hope that he would make it out but seeing it 41 years later, it hurts to accept my first reaction that its no surprise the guy didn't make it. Hardly any American today ever do.