Nein, Non, a Thousand Times "NO"

Quick salvos from the foreign front:

"NO" (B-minus) - A fun but lightweight drama about Chile's 1988 referendum on the rule of its dictator, Augusto Pinochet. Gael Garcia Bernal is solid as Rene Saavedra, an ad man (whose father was disappeared by the Pinochet regime) recruited to head up the "No" campaign against the regime. Saavedra brings an MTV edge and zeal to the effort, as he would filming Pepsi commercials. The storyline is naturally compelling, but the film suffers from a surprising dearth of character development and human drama. I was waiting in vain throughout for this to start jumping off the screen. What we get instead is a serviceable period piece from Pablo Larrain ("Tony Manero" and "Post Mortem").

"FILM SOCIALISME" (C) - This meant nothing to me. I take it back: the reds and blues, like a digitally enhanced, high-def version of some of Godard's '60s classic shots, are stunning, at times mesmerizing. Beyond that, I'm not old or intellectual enough to appreciate whatever the French master is going for here, if he has a point at all. It seems to be some sort of sweeping history of western civilization and its economic system, but I was overwhelmed and defeated 20 minutes in. This plays out more like a collection of the random fevered musings of a man who can do absolutely anything he wants. We're on a cruise ship for much of the first third of the film, treated to scattered ramblings, mostly about World War II. We get multiple visual styles, jump cuts and sound dropouts -- as if we're receiving signals from a different dimension in some scenes. A child sips from a straw while jazz music plays. A llama stands hitched to a gas pump. Cats meow. Patti Smith strolls by. Incoherent (sometimes overlapping) dialogue often comes from off-screen; the script is essentially one long, dense non sequitur. (DVD viewers have the option of full English subtitles or subtitles employing Godard's brand of chopped-up pidgin English. For some reason.) Philosophy, history and nature swirl throughout. We're tugged back time and again to Palestine, which, for Godard, has some profound connection to gold-digging Europe's original sin -- but why does he drop in a card reading "KISS ME STUPID" in the middle of this muddle about the Middle East? What does it all mean? It might just mean that Jean Luc Godard can do whatever he wants and has final cut. Good for him. But, oh, the dizzying hues! The vibrant, digital primary perfection of those reds and the blues. We survive, wandering, world-weary tourists, in living color.

"BURDEN OF DREAMS" (1982) (B) - A somewhat crude documentary from Les Blank chronicling German director Werner Herzog's monomaniacal mission in the Brazilian jungle to film "Fitzcarraldo," described by the L.A. Times as "an epic about a man obsessed with hauling a steamship through the jungle to strike it rich in rubber" so that he can eventually build an opera house there. The humorless Herzog employs scores of native Indians as extras in his film, in which they struggle to help Fitzcarraldo haul a ship across a small mountain. The snakebit production is basically a string of disasters.  Early on it lost its two main stars -- Jason Robards to dysentery and Mick Jagger to "Tattoo You" (Klaus Kinski took over) -- and at one point was marred by tribal skirmishes. The documentary, crimped by bland narration, created a kerfuffle 30 years ago, because it exposed Herzog as bit of a mad man in Sisyphean pursuit of cinematic art. Watching it now, it's more quaint and amusing as a cultural artifact. A deeply nihilistic monologue by Herzog serves as a fitting climax.

(Bonus DVD Track: Les Blank's short film "Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe," about the director having lost a bet to colleague/rival Errol Morris about the success of the latter's classic doc "Gates of Heaven.")

The Last Word
Here's an obit of "Burden of Dreams" director Les Blank, from the Los Angeles Times. He died last Sunday.