Author: SceneByGreen

Nights of Cabiria (1957)

Federico Fellini | 1hr 58min

Every evening on the same Roman street, Giuletta Masina’s lonely prostitute passes time with her fellow ladies of the night, and waits to be picked up by men. Her birth name is Maria, but at some point between being orphaned as a young girl and taking on her current profession, Cabiria became the moniker which her friends and clients came to know her by. Elsewhere in the same city, a shrine to the Madonna draws believers from far and wide who desperately throw themselves on the ground and beg for their prayers to be heard. “Viva Maria!” they zealously cry out, and as Cabiria awkwardly joins the multitude to plead for a better life, Federico Fellini draws a striking parallel between the two women.

Here he presents a virgin and a prostitute – both named Maria, both drawn to God, and both embodying intrinsic goodness. In a symbolic rendering of the Madonna-whore complex though, the name that is shouted in passionate ardour through the churches of Rome refers only to one of them. Men have their fun with Cabiria for a time, but too often they discard her just as easily as they pick her up, cruelly twisting the knife on their way out. She is treated with all the dignity of a used rag, while the Virgin Mary continues garnering respect thousands of years after her death.

The Madonna and the whore have more in common than the people of Rome believe, both being paragons of goodness and innocence – a striking formal comparison.

Of course, the modern-day Rome of Nights of Cabiria would never accept this irony. Fellini’s love of the city’s history and culture is only outdone by his disgust at its hypocrisy, and six films deep into his directorial career, that cynicism is only increasing as he watches it destroy icons of innocence. Though the narrative is far more straightforward than his later films, it is still very much a character piece, relying heavily on Masina’s extraordinary ability to command our awe and empathy as the tragically forsaken Cabiria.

As always, Masina’s large, expressive eyes and dark eyebrows constantly project longing, joy, and anguish, though Cabiria is also far more world-weary than many of her previous characters. Where Gelsomina’s shattered innocence in La Strada leads to a tragic downfall, Cabiria wears her pessimism like a protective shell, even as she quietly searches for reasons to let some shred of hope through. Her high heels do little to lift her tiny stature as she shrinks beneath both men and women, but thanks to her feisty spirit that isn’t afraid to back down from petty fights, she rarely fades into any crowd.

Masina’s dark eyes express profound joy and sorrow, revealing the layers of emotion at war within Cabiria.
Through Fellini’s blocking and Masina’s naturally slight stature, Cabiria often shrinks beneath other characters, yet compensates with a feisty spirit.

As Cabiria is so often written off as simple-minded and cheap by those looking for an easy laugh, any instance where she is lifted off her street corner by a man and placed on a pedestal becomes a moment of ecstasy, and each time she fully believes that she has found acceptance within the society she both loathes and adores. So often does this happen in Nights of Cabiria that it virtually becomes part of its narrative structure, convincing her each time that this relationship will be the one to lift her out of poverty, only to deflate the fantasy the moment something more enticing catches their eye.

Three relationships and three cruel rejections, beating Cabiria down over and over again as she is pushed into rivers and trapped in bathrooms.

In the film’s very first scene, it is Cabiria’s boyfriend Giorgio who steals her purse and pushes her into a river, while later movie star Alberto Lazzari takes her home on a whim simply because she is the first woman he sees after breaking up with his girlfriend. His vast, lavish villa makes for a jarring visual contrast against the seedy neon signs and worn architecture of downtown Rome, and especially the city’s barren outskirts where she resides in a small hovel. Fellini indulges in the symmetry of its grand stairway, opulent mirrors, and exotic artwork, giving her a glimpse of luxury before Alberto’s woman comes home begging for forgiveness and she is forced to hide in the bathroom for the night. The scene would almost belong in a screwball comedy if it wasn’t so demeaning, revealing just how expendable Cabiria is compared to wealthier, more ‘respectable’ women.

Fellini shoots on the barren outskirts of Rome, relegating Cabiria to a small hovel at the bottom of society.
The lavish mise-en-scène inside this extraordinary Italian villa is a welcome break from the rugged streets of Rome – and it is only fitting that it should be snatched away from Cabiria in such a cruel manner.

Besides this brief but extravagant detour, Fellini’s location shooting out on the streets of Rome firmly entrench Nights of Cabiria in the harsh realities of the working class and their tedious routines. His deep focus lenses allow for some magnificently staged compositions of prostitutes loitering around cars and curbs, while the occasional addition of black umbrellas to these shots underscores the cold, wet discomfort of their lifestyles.

Living in environments as inhospitable as these, it is no wonder Cabiria is so awed by acts of altruism, even being stirred to seek mercy at the aforementioned shrine of the Madonna after observing one mysterious stranger feeding the homeless just outside the city. Much like the men in her life though, religion simply turns out to be another disappointment, leaving her and all the other hapless worshippers she prays with in the same destitute position as before. Maybe she just didn’t ask properly, one priest unhelpfully suggests, but she believes the problem goes deeper than that – she is simply too small and insignificant to live in God’s grace.

Rome becomes its own coarse character in Fellini’s location shooting, towering in dilapidated buildings and sinking its citizens into shadows.
Waiting for customers out on the cold streets, Cabiria and her fellow prostitutes stand beneath umbrellas, shielding themselves from the rain.

On the other hand, there is not exactly any sanctuary to be found in Satan’s seductive allure either, taking the symbolic form of a magic show run by a devil-horned hypnotist. As she stands onstage under his spell, Fellini fades the background into darkness, leaving only her face illuminated by a single spotlight beckoning from the void. For the first time, her peaceful, dreamy expression is wiped completely of any doubt, being entirely absorbed in the perfect world the magician has built for her. To the amusement of the audience, she dances a waltz through a garden with an imaginary man called Oscar, and inadvertently reveals her most personal fantasies for the world to laugh at.

Satanic and divine imagery captured in a single scene, lulling Cabiria into a vulnerable state through devious illusions, and composing this image of eerie peace.

Cabiria’s humiliation at being turned into cheap entertainment might almost be the end of her were it not for the near-mystical manifestation of the man from her dream, astoundingly also called Oscar. Fellini has firmly established his narrative’s pattern of broken and mended hearts by this point, so we are aligned in Cabiria’s initial suspicion around this seemingly perfect man, but she can only keep her naïve idealism at bay for so long before falling in deep love all over again. It isn’t long before she is accepting a marriage proposal and selling her small house to move far away, partly realising how naïve she is being, and yet nevertheless committing enthusiastically to her dream of new beginnings.

Upon a clifftop, Cabiria and Oscar’s silhouetted figures look out at the sun setting over a peaceful lake, and a happy ending finally seems within reach – but Fellini is no writer of fairy tales. This magical backdrop is undeserving of the brutal narrative pay-off that taints its scenery, formally mirroring the film’s first scene as Cabiria once again faces the threat of being robbed and thrown into the water. The mercy that Oscar takes on her is not out of love, but rather sheer pity as she willingly hands over her purse and begs to be killed, her heart unable to sustain any more pain.

This gorgeous backdrop of the sun setting over a lake is undeserving of the brutal narrative pay-off that taints its scenery.

Still, even at Cabiria’s lowest and Fellini’s most cynical, the rekindling of hope need not be some naïve submission to the same cycle of suffering that has perpetuated throughout Nights of Cabiria. After several hours laying and sobbing on the cliff edge, the pieces of a broken woman pick themselves up again, and she dejectedly continues down a nearby road. Very gradually, the sound of Italian folk music fills the air, and she is surrounded by musicians rapturously playing and dancing alongside her. For once she is part of a crowd that is not only acknowledging her, but delighted to have her present. A single tear forms in the corner of her left eye, black with mascara, and as she looks directly at the camera in the final seconds, we find an unfamiliar self-acceptance in her tender smile. This is not the end of Cabiria’s tragedies, though for as long as she holds onto the hope that keeps her alive, neither will it be the end of her profound joy.

Fellini of course chooses to end his film with Masina’s eyes, breaking the fourth wall with a tender smile of self-acceptance and assurance.

Nights of Cabiria is currently streaming on Kanopy, and the Blu-ray is available to purchase on Amazon.

The Fall Guy (2024)

David Leitch | 2hr 5min

A stuntman will only persevere through so many dangerous pratfalls and snubs before they steal their moment in the spotlight, though David Leitch’s Hollywood satire is not tainted with the bitterness of being sidelined. The Fall Guy is a tribute to that under-recognised breed of performer who is resilient in both mind and body, putting their lives on the line for art, and stoically dedicating themselves to a job that A-list celebrities will inevitably claim the credit for when the red carpet is rolled out.

Though Leitch loosely bases his film off the 80s television series of the same name, there is little connecting the two besides the character of Colt Stevens. Next to Aaron Taylor Johnson’s bombastic presence as Tom Ryder, the actor who Colt doubles for, Ryan Gosling’s understated charm perfectly counters Leitch’s embellished caricature of show business, taking the constant belittlement directed towards stuntmen in his stride. A peaceful life working as a valet seems appealing, especially after the near-fatal accident which pushes him to leave the industry, yet the thrill, romance, and spectacle of Hollywood moviemaking is irresistible. It is only a matter of time before Colt is drawn back in, allured by the prospect of reconciling with his ex-girlfriend Jody during production of her directorial debut Metalstorm, but the path to redeeming his former glory is not so straightforward.

Tom Ryder’s sudden disappearance into a shady circle of mobsters is merely the catalyst for this action-mystery narrative, plunging Colt into the depths of a Hollywood conspiracy as he seeks to track down and rescue the man who has overshadowed him at every turn. Leitch’s celebration of practical stunt work goes far beyond paying lip service too – The Fall Guy breezily surfs along waves of adrenaline-pumping set pieces, opening with Colt falling several storeys to a devastating injury, and appropriately reaching its climax on a pyrotechnic movie set. Some stylistic experimentation in these sequences doesn’t go amiss either, particularly in one night club fight scene that bursts with neon vibrance and drug-fuelled hallucinations.

Movie producer Gail’s claim that he is well-suited to the task of finding Tom due to the natural ability of stunt doubles to go unnoticed is partially correct, but it additionally becomes apparent that only a daredevil like Colt could handle the brawls, chases, and feats of extraordinary physical prowess that the job entails. Hanging from the back of a pickup truck, he surfs on a slab of metal across the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and later escapes mobsters by faking his own death in a boat explosion. The narrative moves briskly, though Leitch is wise to hold back his editing in longer takes that let his hand-to-hand combat take centre stage. It is especially worth savouring every second when it comes to the record-breaking eight-and-a-half cannon rolls that stuntman Logan Holladay performs in a crashing car, appreciating the incredible level of coordination that went into such a complex manoeuvre.

Though it occasionally seems as if Leitch is simply searching for any excuse to escalate a scene into an extravagant set piece, The Fall Guy at least acknowledges its own extraordinary artifice. Meta-movie references are abundant here, with Metalstorm’s thinly veiled Dune parody mimicking Hans Zimmer’s score with hilarious accuracy, as well as a Cowboys & Aliens allegory barely concealing the subtext of Colt and Jody’s embarrassingly public post-breakup chat.

Still, oftentimes The Fall Guy seems less interested in satirising Hollywood movie conventions and more in revelling in them, leading to a climactic confrontation that plays out with disappointingly little tension. By exalting escapist entertainment as cinema’s most noble purpose, Leitch misses an opportunity to push formal boundaries in the same way his old collaborator Chad Stahelski has with the John Wick series. This is not to say that the project lacks passion though – The Fall Guy is clearly a labour of love for Leitch, shining a light on an underappreciated industry profession that he worked in for many years before sitting in the director’s chair. If movies are manufactured illusions, then stunt doubles like Colt personify the reality that must be hidden, only to be acknowledged and honoured inside cinema’s artificial worlds with a wry tinge of self-awareness.

The Fall Guy is currently playing in cinemas.

Repulsion (1965)

Roman Polanski | 1hr 45min

By the time Roman Polanski reached his second feature film Repulsion, he had already proved that shooting largely in a single location was no imposition on his creativity. In place of the sailing yacht where class tensions unravelled in Knife in the Water, here it is a London apartment which he distorts into disturbing hallucinations, revealing the chaotic psychological state of reclusive Belgian immigrant Carol Ledoux. The latter two instalments of his Apartment trilogy Rosemary’s Baby and The Tenant would famously enter supernatural territory, but the deterioration of Carol’s mind in Repulsion needs no such influence from cults or demons. The visceral revulsion she feels towards even the vaguest notion of sex is instead enough to cripple her for days, confronting her with intimate violations of mind and body that seek to undermine her sense of personhood, and disintegrate her grip on reality.

Coming off her grand success leading Jacques Demy’s Technicolor musical The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Catherine Deneuve becomes the vessel through which Polanski examines an unstable, assaulted femininity in Repulsion, immediately proving her considerable range in the shocking contrast between both roles. Carol’s aloofness towards aspiring suitors in public hides the disgust that comes out more openly at home, specifically towards the boyfriend of her older sister, Helen. Even his habit of leaving his toothbrush in the same cup as hers invokes uneasy frustration, its placement taking on psychosexual significance as a figurative penetration, and the smell of his dirty clothes is enough to make her throw up. When she is left home alone for weeks without the company of another woman though, her obsessive paranoia expands uncontrollably in manic directions.

The first in Polanski’s Apartment trilogy is towering achievement of claustrophobic mise-en-scène, isolating Carol within a space that progressively reflects the breakdown of her mind.
Expressionist light and shadows cast across the ceiling in a low angle, dividing the shot into segments.

Deneuve’s performance is certainly helped as well by Polanski’s natural penchant for close-ups, isolating her disturbed reactions to the sound of Helen having sex in another room, and fragmenting her face with obstructions and shadows. This skilful framing of actors’ expressions is of course drawn directly from Ingmar Bergman’s playbook, though Polanski clearly favours it as a device to craft suspense and terror over subdued drama. Wide-angle lenses uncomfortably press us up against Deneuve’s face, invading her personal space within claustrophobic rooms, while the reflective surfaces of elevator mirrors and kettles create distorted, unsettling doubles in the mise-en-scene. Save for the epilogue which takes a step back into reality, Polanski hangs his subjective camera entirely on Deneuve and her erratic perspective, arousing an eerie discomfort from her vacant, wide-eyed gaze.

Wide-angle lenses applied to close-ups intimately invade Carol’s personal space.
There is a hint of Ingmar Bergman to Polanski’s lighting and framing of faces, here casting a shadow across half of Deneuve’s wide-eyed expression to keep her at a distance.
Polanski never seems to run out of creative shot choices, eerily warping Deneuve’s face in reflections against household objects.

Quite crucially, the array of symbolic motifs that Polanski formally organises around this tortured woman gives sinister shape to her breakdown, keeping Repulsion from falling into meaningless chaos. If Carol’s apartment is an embodiment of the afflicted mind she is trapped inside, growing more shambolic with overflowing bathwater and rotting carcasses, then the fracturing walls that she hallucinates suggest a similar splintering of her psyche’s very foundations. The cracked pavement that inexplicably captures her attention long before this is one of many seemingly insignificant visual cues here that plants a seed in her mind early on and later flourishes as a monstrous expression of primal horror, though the most horrific instance of this doesn’t arrive until the landlord’s fatal visit.

Repulsion is relatively plotless, yet Polanski weaves through strong formal motifs, including these cracks which seem to follow Carol wherever she goes.

Leading up to this point, Carol has been tormented by dreams of men breaking into her bedroom and viciously raping her, viscerally captured by Polanski’s handheld camera and set to nothing but the muted sound of a ticking clock. The first murder she commits out of extreme paranoia toward her unwanted suitor Colin seems to come as a direct result of those hallucinations, but when the landlord visits to collect rent money, attempts to take advantage of her, and brings her nightmare to life, we are given good reason to sympathise with her violent reaction. It is important to note that the razor she wields against him is in fact Michael’s, and thus she adopts its masculine power as she turns the tables on her attacker and slices him to death.

Another motif comes in Carol’s nightmares of being raped, chaotically captured with a handheld camera wildly swinging through the scenes.
The peephole shot would become a trademark of Polanski’s, adopting Hitchcock’s brand of cinematic voyeurism as his own.

Not that this surge of retributive justice brings Carol any relief, or even an end to her rape dreams. If anything, her descent into madness only escalates from here, as she delusionally irons her clothes without power and lets the apartment sink into filthy disrepair. Where Polanski initially composes his oppressive shots in Repulsion with an Antonioni-like framing of interior architecture, his visuals evolve here into a surreal bombardment of avant-garde stylings, leading Carol down a corridor of protruding hands that forcefully grope at her body.

A touch of Antonioni in Polanski’s use of internal architecture, dividing his frame up through walls, corridors, and doorways to insulate his characters.
There is no holding back Polanski’s grotesque surrealism by the end, erupting in full force with hands protruding from walls and groping Carol as she walks past.

If we are to single out a visual motif that unlocks the key to Carol’s deepest trauma though, then we must look to the very final shot of Repulsion once Helen and Michael have returned from vacation, discovered the gruesome remnants of Carol’s murderous breakdown, and found her in a catatonic state. While panicked family and neighbours scramble to help, Polanski’s camera tracks in on the family photograph that our gaze has been drawn to multiple times throughout the film, and yet which only now reveals an insidious secret. Partially obscured by the surrounding mess, only two faces are now visible – that of an older male family member with a wide grin, and of a young girl staring at him with profound loathing. At the core of Polanski’s surreal, psychological horror, there is simply a wounded woman forced into a depraved repression, miserably trying to contain its resulting damage to her mind, home, and whatever men dare to cross the threshold into either.

Carol’s family photo is visited one last time in Repulsion’s final shot, this time in a new light – both literally and figuratively.

Repulsion is available to purchase on Amazon.

Il Bidone (1955)

Federico Fellini | 1hr 52min

So desperate is the working class of Il Bidone’s post-war Italy, it seems that they are ready to believe any stranger who comes bearing dubious promises of financial stability. Perhaps with some retrospect, they might realise how strange it is that government bureaucrats would promise public housing to anyone in a crowd who comes forward with a deposit. Even more ludicrous a scenario is Vatican clergymen visiting a farmer’s property, bearing papal orders to dig up their land and uncover a repentant criminal’s bones, treasure, and will that stipulates the landowner must pay the church before receiving any money. Those who carry an air of confident authority can easily gain the trust of the needy, and naturally as the oldest and most experienced of his crooked crew, that is exactly Augusto’s greatest strength.

True to Federico Fellini’s contemplations of morality and corruption in modern Italy, Il Bidone is deeply engaged with lives of parasitic cruelty and the weight they bear on one’s conscience. Religion is effectively reduced to empty icons in their hands, stripped of the virtue it preaches and irreverently wielded as a means to an end. There may not be any of Fellini’s usual carnivals or entertainers present here, but Il Bidone’s conmen are nevertheless performers who profit off their carefully constructed spectacles. Much like their show business counterparts, total commitment is required from any swindler who wishes to succeed in his craft, and Augusto leaves no room for confusion regarding what sacrifices must be made.

“People like us can’t have families. One must be free to move. You can’t have a wife. You must be alone. The most important thing when you’re young is freedom. It’s more important than the air you breathe.”

The priest scam is a classic in the books of Augusto and his crew of conmen, displaying an ingenuity and efficiency that holds no regard for the sacrilege being committed.
Broderick Crawford carries an imposing, authoritative presence as Augusto, winning the trust of strangers before running off with their money.

Not that the companionship that these men find with each other instead is terribly fulfilling. At night they excessively indulge in luxuries purchased with their stolen money, drinking and dancing their guilt away. If there is any hope of escaping this cesspool of debauchery, then it comes in the form of family members longing for their husbands and fathers to be truly present, though such clean redemption is no easy objective. Just as the friends in I Vitelloni are awed by their leader’s overconfidence, the naïve Picasso here sees his associate Roberto as a model of masculinity, and ultimately finds himself torn between his charismatic lure and his wife’s desperate pleas to leave this unethical life behind.

Even in her small role, Giulietta Masina makes an impact as the moral centre of Il Bidone, pleading with her husband to leave his life of crime.

Perhaps the most compelling relationship of Il Bidone though arrives through Augusto’s chance run-in with his estranged daughter Patrizia, just as he is on his way to another con. The humanity that had previously escaped his characterisation begins to manifest here with delicate caution as he attempts to rekindle this connection, offering to pay for her studies and bestowing gifts that she doesn’t realise have been stolen. It is a real tragedy that he is recognised as a conman during their outing together at a cinema – not so much for the judicial slap on the wrist, but rather for his humiliating exposure in front of the only person who still holds him in some esteem. The dramatic irony that stations Patrizia in the foreground watching the movie and Augusto’s confrontation in the background is made all the more discomforting by the crowd’s eyes slowly turning towards the commotion in a ripple effect, suspensefully edging closer to his oblivious daughter.

Salvation appears out of the blue one day when Augusto runs into his daughter Patrizia. Her discovery of his crooked line of work is heartbreaking, as Fellini foregrounds her obliviousness while her father is caught by authorities in the background. Very slowly, heads turn towards the commotion, rippling out across the crowd until Patrizia’s attention is similarly caught.

Even if Il Bidone is a step below his prior masterpieces I Vitelloni and La Strada, Fellini’s visual storytelling and blocking still land with bold dramatic impact in moments like these. His neorealist tendency towards shooting real locations with deep focus lenses constantly keeps the struggling communities being hurt by Augusto’s gang in view, and at the very least turns rough-hewn stonework and dusty rural farms into bleak backdrops. As long as the conman can keep an emotional distance from his targets, then he can continue exploiting them with little mind for their future wellbeing, and yet soon we begin to realise that his daughter’s broken belief in him has fundamentally altered his worldview.

Neorealist tendencies in the poverty-centric narrative and location shooting, turning Italy’s towns and countryside into rugged backdrops.
Augusto’s encounter with the disabled girl of the family he is scamming is the last straw – his moral corruption can no longer bear the weight of his guilt.

By laying small reckonings of morality like these all throughout Il Bidone, Fellini earns the final step in Augusto’s redemption arc, formally returning to the religious scam which he conducted so effortlessly in the film’s first scene. When realising his victim’s daughter is a polio-afflicted teenage girl with a pure faith in God, his conscience can no longer bear the weight of his guilt. Torment and shame uneasily mount in Broderick Crawford’s flustered performance, though it is only when he makes away with his crew that they ultimately manifest as a bald-faced lie – he did not end up taking the money, he claims, but instead returned it.

Wondrous depth of field in Fellini’s blocking, as Augusto’s crew grow suspicious of their leader and turn on him.

It is at this point that we witness a religious icon be imbued with real meaning for the very first time in Il Bidone, rather than become a weapon of exploitation. As Augusto is robbed by his associates, beaten, and left on a hill to die, Fellini symbolically alludes to Christ’s sacrifice, bearing the sins of the world on the cross. Augusto’s honourable attempt to keep the stolen money from falling into criminal hands may be in vain, yet through physical and spiritual suffering, his soul is liberated. Rocky is the path to salvation in Fellini’s cinematic parable, but so too is it purifying, stripping back the lies and depravity of a modern world to uncover the grace that lies dormant in even the most dishonest man.

Fellini evokes Christ’s torture and sacrifice in Augusto’s death, cherishing the purification of his soul at the tragic expense of his life.

Il Bidone is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel, and is available to purchase on DVD or Blu-ray on Amazon.

49th Parallel (1941)

Michael Powell | 2hr 3min

The fight that the western world puts up again Nazi Germany in 49th Parallel is not led by individual heroes or organised military units. It takes a communal sense of justice, democracy, and moral fortitude among everyday civilians to not only pick off the six Nazi submariners who have been stranded in Canada, but to also thoroughly undermine the narrow-minded, hateful ideology which guides their actions. With the United States still being considered neutral territory in 1941, the Niagara Falls border crossing is their destination, and so all Lieutenant Hirth and his men need to do is keep their heads down for the journey south. If these fugitives are to successfully find sanctuary though, then it isn’t just a victory for them – it is an alarming affirmation of fascist indomitability.

The fact that this is one of the few Michael Powell films to be shot in black-and-white rather than Technicolor does not mean he is any less confident with his chosen aesthetic. While other works of his such as Black Narcissus and The Red Shoes possess a similarly haunting wickedness, they are also far more fantastical than 49th Parallel, whose grim severity simply would not be suited to the same stylistic vibrance. In small scenes of contained drama, cinematographer Freddie Young instead captures Powell’s rich blocking and rigorous military formations with a deep focus lens, remarkably uninfluenced by his contemporary Orson Welles who was making Citizen Kane at the exact same time.

Michael Powell was primarily celebrated for the lush beauty of his Technicolor cinematography, but this visual style would have not suited the bleak austerity of 49th Parallel, capturing grim compositions of soldiers and civilians in severe black-and-white.

Even more impressive is the grand visual scale which Powell quite comfortably inhabits, executing spectacular stunts of exploding sea vessels and crashing planes, and flying his camera over vast coastlines in extraordinary aerial shots. When the Nazi fugitives make it to Winnipeg, he confronts them with a rainy city of neon signs and busy streets where bulletins call for their capture, though it is more often the expansive alpine terrains where these ill-prepared men are mentally worn down. Dressed in suits and fine shoes, they traverse sprawling pine forests, hike up barren mountain ranges, and follow raging rivers in the hope of finding some sort of civilisation again, yet the North American wilderness is not kind to these foreigners. With long shots as sweeping as these, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that Young’s work here thoroughly prepared him for his incredible landscape photography in Lawrence of Arabia twenty-one years later, especially since the editor on 49th Parallel is David Lean himself.

Thrilling spectacle in the opening act of 49th Parallel, crashing planes and exploding sea vessels to set up the large scale of the narrative to come.
Aerial shots of the Canadian wilderness, revealing the enormous scope of Powell’s narrative spanning hundreds of miles.
Harsh mountain scenery consuming suited men ill-equipped for their environment – a deeply ingrained mismatch between characters and setting.

Underscoring the incongruency of the Nazis’ survival in Canada even more than the natural environment though is the people they encounter, each of whom possess some liberal value which they view as weakness through their dogmatic perspectives. Powell gathers an impressive cast in his ensemble here, including Laurence Olivier as a jovial trapper whose optimistic trust sees him shot and killed, and Leslie Howard as an English novelist who camps by a lake to mentally separate himself from the war. He is thoughtful and sensitive, shrewdly analysing the repetitive rhetoric used by fascists to manipulate the minds of susceptible listeners, and yet Hirth is nevertheless quick to label him a soft, degenerate coward who would rather talk than fight.

Lawrence Olivier’s brief cameo as a jovial Canadian trapper is worth savouring, as Powell pits his naive optimism against the opportunism of the Nazis.
Leslie Howard’s English novelist offers the film’s sharpest indictment of Nazi ideology and rhetoric, embodying a sensitive sophistication that Hirth and his men disparage as weak.

49th Parallel may be a piece of wartime propaganda, but it is tough to deny the astuteness of its humanitarian arguments, especially when the fugitives are welcomed into a Hutterite farming community that houses German refugees. Anton Walbrook plays their leader Peter, an amiable man who views himself as a servant of his people, rather than the other way round – a shocking discovery for these fascists who are so used to heiling their Führer. Their blind belief that this community is a cover for Nazi sympathisers would almost be comical if Hirth’s impassioned speech inviting them to join him wasn’t met with such damning, disgusted silence, followed by a solemn response from Peter that further reveals how distant these humble Christians are from the monsters of their homeland.

“You think we hate you, but we don’t. It is against our faith to hate. We only hate the power of evil that is spreading over the world. You and your Hitler are like the microbes of some filthy disease, filled with a longing to multiply yourselves until you destroy everything healthy in the world. No. We are not your brothers.”

The stupid arrogance of the Nazis is revealed in Hirth’s attempted alliance with the Hutterite community, defiantly ignorant to the fact that many of them are refugees.

It is not these words alone which moves one of the fugitives to ally himself with the Hutterites, but Vogel’s brief experience of working as their baker and finding heartfelt acceptance among their ranks is enough for him to decide to stay permanently. We can only imagine what his reformation might have looked like had he been allowed to follow his own enlightened path though, as Hirth coldly executes him for treachery before departing with the remaining party.

The readiness of Nazis to abandon their own companions is plain to see all throughout Powell’s narrative, defining its very structure as their group gradually diminishes one-by-one in a similar fashion to Agatha Christie’s murder mystery And Then There Were None. Through plane accidents, executions, arrests, and physical assaults, each fugitive is stopped in their tracks, while the others continue their relentless march south to the Canada-United States border where they might finally be safe. The danger around them increases tenfold once they start drawing attention in the media, but so too does the subsequent news from back home praising them as national heroes spur them on, right up until Hirth is left as the sole survivor struggling to the finish line.

Like Agatha Christi’s novel And Then There Were None, Powell picks off his characters one by one, giving 49th Parallel a rigorous formal structure.

It is there on a freight train heading past Niagara Falls into New York that the German lieutenant encounters Andy, another stowaway similarly keeping a low profile due to his desertion of the Canadian army. “You’re a deserter because you have a legitimate grievance against your democratic government,” Hirth acclaims, but this disloyal soldier does not take so kindly to the Nazi once he learns of his true identity.

“You can’t even begin to understand democracy. We own the right to be fed up with anything we damn please and say so out loud when we feel like it. And when things go wrong, we can take it. We can dish it out too.”

True to Andy’s patriotic sentiments, it is exactly Hirth’s underestimation of the power that democracy vests in ordinary citizens which brings about his downfall. That the deciding moment of his victory rests on the shoulders of a lowly Canadian deserter and a US Customs inspector makes for a tremendous formal pay-off to this narrative, which has consistently underscored the ability of trappers, farmers, and writers alike to weaken fascism’s forward advance. Sacrifices must be made in the struggle, and yet Powell’s wartime fable effectively cloaks these in glory, vigorously rousing the then-neutral United States of 1941 to take up arms against Nazi Germany with egalitarian pride and honour.

It is not a concerted military effort that stop the Nazis in their tracks, but rather the democratic actions of ordinary civilians, right up to Hirth’s attempt to cross the Canada-United States border as the last man standing.

49th Parallel is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel, and is available to purchase on Amazon.

Challengers (2024)

Luca Guadagnino | 2hr 11min

When aspiring tennis player Tashi first meets doubles partners Art and Patrick at the US Open, she lays out the metaphor at the centre of Challengers quite plainly. “Tennis is a relationship,” she romantically opines, binding opponents in perfect harmony. As long as they are locked in this combative back-and-forth, they see into each other’s minds in a way that no one else could possibly imagine, anticipating and performing manoeuvres with an impassioned, instinctive efficiency.

The pivotal Challenger match woven through Luca Guadagnino’s narrative is clearly the purest distillation of this ethos, telling a story of friends-turned-rivals that only those who bore witness to their journey might comprehend. Art and Patrick’s end goal here transcends merely winning the game – that would be far too simplistic a motive for men with as complex a shared history as theirs. In reality, there is another player here who has taken her place on the sidelines. Tashi may not have played professionally since her career-ending knee injury, but her impact on this match is just as impactful as Art and Patrick’s, becoming the third person in a love triangle that has spent thirteen years fluctuating between cold resentment and fervent desire.

“Tennis is a relationship” becomes the central metaphor of Challengers, and Guadagnino goes out of his way to infuse it in every level of his back-and-forth narrative structure, camerawork, and editing.

With his laurels resting on the success of Call Me by Your Name, Guadagnino is no stranger to exploring queer romance, and so it should be no surprise that the polyamorous, homoerotic relationship of Challengers remains so compelling throughout its lengthy runtime. From the moment Art and Patrick lay eyes on Tashi at the US Open as naïve 18-year-olds, they are instantly entranced by her vibrant passion and charm, locking their eyes on her side of the court while everyone else’s heads follow the ball. Later that evening, they are astonished to discover that she has accepted their invitation to their hotel room, and even more surprised when their truncated threesome brings their latent bisexuality to light. Whoever wins the junior singles final the next day will have her number, she promises in the aftermath, incidentally driving the first of many wedges between them. Patrick thus claims his prize and begins dating Tashi shortly after, though it is ultimately Art who marries and takes her on as his coach.

Between this fateful meeting in 2006 and their reunion at the Challenger event in 2019, Guadagnino energetically hops between timelines with incredible deftness, intercutting the years of their youth, the week leading up to their final game, and the climactic showdown itself. As a result, this rich formal structure uncovers hidden signifiers and motivations in Art and Patrick’s decisive match, from a subtle shift in the way Patrick serves the ball to his purposeful double faulting. The editing remains dynamic in the transitions too, gliding across eras through match cuts that seamlessly maintain the narrative’s brisk pacing, and elsewhere shifting between contrasting scenes that bear hidden connections. This is especially evident when Art and Patrick reunite in a steamy sauna before their Challenger game, where Guadagnino breaks up their oddly intimate argument with Tashi and Patrick’s brief liaison eight years earlier. In the years since, Patrick has maintained his fiery passion despite a meagre career while Art has burnt out on professional success, yet both still share a common belief in Tashi as the key to unlocking their true potential.

Old lovers collide through pure accident in flashback, bouncing Josh O’Connors reflection off the window as their paths meet.

As for where Tashi sits relative to this broken brotherhood, Guadagnino’s opening scene paints a perfect picture, symmetrically aligning her with the net as the camera briskly dollies across the court to her position in the dead centre of the crowd. Challengers is not an extraordinarily beautiful film, but in moments like these he works in vivacious flourishes of style to vibrantly match the temperamental dynamic between Zendaya, Mike Faist, and Josh O’Connor, as well as Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ score of propulsive synths. During a pivotal argument between Tashi and Patrick, Guadagnino volleys his camera between both sides as if watching a game of tennis, and later an even greater breakdown unfolds in the middle of a storm furiously whipping leaves of loose paper around them.

Inventive camerawork offers fresh, invigorating perspectives at tennis matches, sinking the camera beneath the ground in extreme low angles and lifting it up into overhead shots.

Ultimately though, Guadagnino reserves his most invigorating visuals for the court, where Art, Patrick, and Tashi release their frustration through raw, physical power and skill. Between games, the camera will often patiently survey the field through panning and tracking shots, while during rallies we flinch as Guadagnino lets the ball fly right past the lens. By the time the match interlaced throughout Challengers reaches its final sets, he similarly lets it build to a cinematic apex, making for one of the most thrilling games of tennis put to film. Close-ups keenly observe sweat pour off faces and extreme low angles dramatically peer up from beneath the ground itself, but it is the extreme slow-motion photography which most triumphantly imbues this sequence with stylish tension, apprehensively drawing out split-second decisions and reactions. As this tightly edited sequence approaches its climax, Guadagnino uses Tashi as the division in a split screen and even attaches us to the disorientated point-of-view of the ball, throwing us onto the court like another participant in this match.

Tennis may be a relationship according to Tashi, though by capturing both aspects of these characters’ lives with the same primal passion, Guadagnino pushes this metaphor even further – tennis is sex, revelling in the exhilarating union of synchronised bodies and building to an explosive finish. When it comes to matters of carnal expression, who wins and loses is entirely inconsequential, with such concerns only leading to discontentment. For what is otherwise a relatively inexplicit film, Challengers intersects lust, love, and loathing with electrifying sensuality, fulfilling a mutual desire for intimate connection through relentless, heated competition.

Endlessly creative shot choices as Guadagnino ramps up the chaotic tension in the final scene, attaching his camera to the ball’s point-of-view as it ricochets across the court.
Sweat drips onto the camera in slow-motion – visceral, carnal imagery.

Challengers is currently playing in cinemas.

Civil War (2024)

Alex Garland | 1hr 49min

If award-winning war photographer Lee and her team of journalists are to accurately capture images of Civil War’s dystopian conflict, then it is necessary for them to first detach emotionally from their work. Their job isn’t to intervene, Lee stresses, but merely to chronicle reality so that other people can ask the hard-hitting questions instead.

Frequently when these reporters snap photos on the frontlines, Alex Garland thus cuts away to black-and-white still shots of their subjects, briefly muting the sound design to remove us from the fervour of the moment. At times it is a relief to breathe just for a few seconds, even if we are still being forced to gaze upon brutal executions and massacres. It is exactly in that silence though that a new, unexpected horror comes to light – one which has taken root in supposedly impartial outsiders who try to deny the personal impact of such visceral psychological trauma. Lee’s hardened mental barriers aren’t indestructible, though equally her sensitive protégé Jessie can only take so much of a beating before she sets up similar defences, as Garland sets both on inverse paths towards a self-destructive conflict of human instincts.

Kirsten Dunst and Cailee Spaeny lead the film along a pair of inverse character paths, converging at the point of psychological self-destruction.
These cutaways to still, black-and-white photos are a superb formal choice with a devastating pay-off, desensitising us to the carnage.
Each stop along the odyssey brings its own threats and twists, revealing the sadistic penchant for violence within ordinary Americans.

Even more than Annihilation’s surreal venture into the unknown, Civil War marks Garland’s largest, most ambitious project yet, setting out an odyssey across a future America that has been violently split into loyalist and secessionist states. The world building is remarkable here, covering an enormous scope from the ferocious riots in New York City to the military siege of Washington DC itself, and positioning a tyrannical, three-term President at the centre who sanctions the murder of journalists. Seemingly untouched towns trying to live in blissful ignorance and gas station attendants torturing dissidents in their garage continue to develop this divided America at a ground level too, revealing the lives of civilians desperate to maintain some semblance of normality, and those viciously buying into the carnage.

Nick Offerman’s three-term is only in the film’s opening and closing scenes, but his impact is felt strongly across a divided America.
There is a huge scope to Garland’s staging and narrative, set up in establishing shots covering military units, camps, and helicopters – clearly one of his biggest budgets yet.

At the same time though, the history and politics of this civilisation is not Garland’s primary focus. Much to the chagrin of audiences hoping for a hard partisan stance, Civil War purposefully neglects the granular details which might have made pigeonholed this film into a shallow take on left-right ideologies, and in doing so saves us from overly didactic monologues stopping the narrative in its tracks.

The unlikely alliance of California and Texas as the Western Forces only further distances Garland’s war from the United States as it exists today, though not so much that we are totally alienated from his characters. This team of photojournalists may have a better contextual understanding than us, but this information is irrelevant in hostile environments where survival is the only meaningful objective – besides their endeavours to record such scenarios in digital snapshots. Even more protective than their Kevlar vests identifying them as press are the cameras which separate them from reality, imbuing Garland’s disorientating cinematography with a cutting self-awareness. The shallow focus close-ups visually isolate his characters when their PTSD kicks in, though even more unusual are the chromatic aberrations and smeared lens effects reminding us of the prism we are viewing this world through, purposefully distorting our perception to save us from the maddening truth.

Shallow focus close-ups shift us outside the immediate reality, and into Lee’s detached mind.
The chromatic aberrations around the edges of the frame are another nice formal choice from Garland, filtering PTSD through a prism.

Garland continues to reveal an uncanny beauty in scenes of Lee’s team driving through blazing forest fires while sparks fall around them in slow-motion, but when he does let the horrors of Civil War unfold in a full view, it is easy to see why such filters are so necessary. The bloodshed is often visceral and downright shocking, grotesquely revealed in one particularly disturbing overhead shot of Jessie crawling out from a mass grave of white, bloodied corpses, and marking each episode in this cross-country journey with its own unique threat. Apocalypse Now is evidently a key influence here, as Garland lets its carnivalesque chaos emerge in the depressing sight of a derelict Christmas fair hosting a shootout between enemy snipers to the depressing sound of ‘Jingle Bells.’ Unsure of which side is which, Lee questions the nearest combatants, and the response she receives is eerily evocative of the insanity at Do Lung Bridge.

“No one’s giving us orders man. Someone’s trying to kill us. We’re trying to kill them.”

Lens flares and slow-motion as the crew drive through a forest fire – an unearthly beauty tainted by the traumatic stench of death.

Whatever deeply held convictions instigated this war have officially lost all meaning to those merely fighting to stay alive, and perhaps the same could even be said for those soldiers simply seeking excuses to indulge their most sadistic desires, represented in Jesse Plemons’ unnerving ultranationalist. As strong as Kirsten Dunst and Cailee Spaeny are in the two lead roles, he very nearly steals the entire film as the militant in red-tinted sunglasses who captures their entire crew at gunpoint, suspensefully toying with them in his deadpan voice. If Robert Duvall’s Colonel Kilgore was the standout minor character in Apocalypse Now, then Plemons is the memorable equivalent in Civil War, playing a character who rests his entire life’s purpose upon the barbaric conquest of dehumanised enemies.

Jesse Plemons may very well steal the film with his deadpan sadism, playing easily the most terrifying character of the film.

Lee may claim to be desensitised, even suggesting that she would capture the death of her colleagues on camera if she found herself in such a situation, but she at the very least retains a humanity which so many others have clearly lost. By the time she arrives in Washington DC, Dunst has very much earned the major character shift that sees her break under pressure, yet still find the capacity for a rejuvenated selflessness. Not only this, but the cutaways to her team’s photographs throughout Civil War intersect her story arc here with formal aplomb, playing out a crucial turning point in an otherwise bombastic final set piece through a montage of silent, black-and-white stills. Remote objectivity is an impossible standard for any human to uphold in the face of severe trauma, yet after all we have witnessed in Garland’s gruelling wartime odyssey, the prospect of cynically detaching through media’s distancing filter regrettably looks a whole lot more appealing than the alternative.

Civil War is currently playing in cinemas.

La Strada (1954)

Federico Fellini | 1hr 54min

Italy’s rich tradition of commedia dell’arte is given new life in La Strada’s neorealist update, summoning the stock characters of 16th century theatre into a modern landscape of heartbreaking destitution. Sold by her desperate mother as an assistant to travelling strongman Zampanò, bright-eyed idealist Gelsomina soon finds herself tragically drawn to the sensitivity beneath his toxic abuse, as well as the far more jovial stunt performer, Il Matto – or ‘The Fool’ in English. He is our good-natured Harlequin, often pulling whimsical pranks on the boastful Zampanò who might as well stand in for commedia’s Il Capitano, while offering a gentle wisdom to those who seek his comfort.

Gelsomina is not quite the sad sack that the Pierrot clown was traditionally intended to be, and yet her place as a naïve, disenfranchised victim of society between these two men strongly binds her to that theatrical archetype. Especially when she puts on her striped shirt, baggy overcoat, and face of white makeup to serve as Zampanò’s musical assistant, she transforms entirely into a bumbling comedian not unlike Charlie Chaplin, completing the look with a very familiar bowler hat. Unlike the long-suffering Little Tramp though, there is no romance or comical reversal of fortune waiting for Gelsomina at the end of La Strada. Federico Fellini may hold affection for the clowns of Italian theatre and modern cinema, but so too is he deeply engaged with the hardship that haunted a post-war Europe, extinguishing the joy and laughter that its merry entertainers sought to revive.

Giuletta Masina is our white-faced Pierrot clown, supporting the bold and brutish strongman Zampanò with her musical accompaniment, but also bringing a playful, bumbling presence like Chaplin.

There is no doubt to be had that he is the master behind the camera here, astutely blocking his cast within a magnificent depth of field, and whisking them along stretches of dirt track between towns and roadside camps. In front of the camera however, it is Giulietta Masina as Gelsomina who commands our hearts with round, dark eyes that rival Marie Falconetti’s for the most expressive in cinema history, turning her face into an animated canvas of sincere emotion. Whether she is gazing in romantic awe at Il Matto’s fanciful highwire act or raising her brow in miserable surrender to her loneliness, Masina lives in silence, visually conveying the most nuanced of emotions that words could never capture. Even beyond Fellini’s close-ups though, her small stature, androgynous appearance, and bumbling movements reveal a naïve innocence that frequently attracts the company of children. In turn, she offers them comical entertainment, and relishes the simplicity of their playful interactions.

Poignant blocking achieved through Fellini’s depth of field, separating Gelsomina from those she holds most dear as she is forced into Zampanò’s service.
Gelsomina is a woman of few words, but her round, dark eyes are all we need to fill in the gaps – Masina would have thrived in the silent film era, but Fellini is very fortunate that he happened to marry the perfect subject for this tragedy.
Fellini’s neorealist roots bleed through Gelsomina’s broken innocence, sitting with the underlying sadness of Italy’s merry entertainers.

It is a special few people who sense the presence of something truly beautiful in this unassuming woman. The nuns who grant her and Zampanò shelter at their convent see much of their pious lifestyle in Gelsomina’s modesty, and it is clear the admiration goes both ways in the awed reverence she shows for a passing religious procession. Although Il Matto playfully comments on her “funny face” that looks “more like an artichoke” than a woman, he too possesses a powerful belief that everything in the universe carries a greater purpose, and that her humble existence is no exception.

There is a nomadic quality to Fellini’s location shooting through Italian towns and countrysides, wandering around the edges of civilisation where buildings and streets are in disrepair.

This message inspires Gelsomina with enormous passion, and yet it helplessly falls on deaf ears when she tries to bring it back to Zampanò. He is a brutishly close-minded man, content with performing the same rehearsed trick of breaking chains around his torso with little creativity or variation. It is the small details of their interactions that reveal enormous differences between the two companions, such as her desire to stay longer in one location and watch her planted seeds grow, and his subsequent decision to move onto the next destination. Anything that takes time and patience to cultivate is a frivolous endeavour in his mind, as he refuses to believe in any good greater than his own survival, pleasure, and ego. It is especially the latter which drives him to take violent revenge on Il Matto for getting all three of them fired from the circus, and which leads to the strongman accidentally killing the fool in the process.

Zampanò’s feat of breaking chains around chest is an uninspired bore. He is content repeating the same lines and performing the same act for years on end, unable to see any grander purpose to life beyond making a living.
In contrast, Il Matto’s act is playful and genuinely thrilling, carrying an upbeat zest for life that attracts Gelsomina and repels Zampanò.

True to his neorealist roots as a writer for Roberto Rossellini, Fellini wields his tragedy with a deft hand here, destroying this narrative’s icon of hope much like the cold murder of a pregnant Anna Magnani in Rome, Open City. It is at this moment with Il Matto’s demise that we see something irreparably break inside Gelsomina. “The fool is hurt,” she catatonically repeats, consumed by a maddening cloud of grief that keeps her from performing in Zampanò’s travelling act. Just as her sister who previously served the strongman died while on the road with him, so too is Gelsomina destroyed by his brutality, establishing a pattern of suffering among those women who cycle in and out of his life.

As snow settles on the barren roadside where Zampanò sets up camp with Gelsomina for the last time, he makes up his mind. She is little more than a liability in her current state, no longer of any use to him. While other neorealists were using grand European cities as illustrations of their characters psyches, Fellini’s location shooting in Italy’s countryside simply offers Gelsomina’s abandonment a harsh backdrop of frozen alps and a few crumbling stone walls as she mournfully fades away into the distance.

Excellent location shooting on Italian farms and against its frozen alps, isolating Gelsomina from the company of children and lovers who bring joy to her life.

Still, there is a trace of her spirit that lives on in the wind. A simple musical leitmotif reworked from Antonín Dvořák’s orchestral ‘Serenade for Strings’ resonates a nostalgic longing for brighter days, and becomes an evocative piece of La Strada’s broader form. The refrain carries mystical significance for Gelsomina, fatefully luring her to Il Matto when she first hears it on his violin, and becoming a symbol of their connection as he teaches her how to play it on the trumpet. Even strangers who may be sensitively attuned to delicate artistic expressions finds themselves inexplicably moved by her lonely brass melody, subconsciously realising that they are witnessing the distillation of her soul into music, and soon even Nino Rota starts weaving it into his orchestral score.

A sad, evocative refrain passes between characters and instruments, but most distinctly represents Gelsomina’s nostalgic longing for brighter days, carrying on long after her death.

Though Gelsomina may have never realised this in life, her motif is the mark she has left on the world, infectiously passing between characters and instruments long after her death. At least Zampanò is still around many years later to hear it sung by a woman hanging up washing in her yard. From her, he learns that Gelsomina survived his abandonment, but was entirely mute by the time this family took her in. Instead, she let this sweet melodic passage become her voice, imparting it as her final gift before passing away.

After all this time, Gelsomina’s undying tune finally touches Zampanò as well, forcing a gutting recognition of the divine innocence he has corrupted. As he drunkenly stumbles through the seaside town, Fellini formally returns to the beach for a third time in La Strada, calling back to their meeting in the film’s very first scene, and another brief stopover where she longingly dreamed of home. He wades through the shallow water, emotionally and spiritually lost, and yet echoes of Gelsomina surround him wherever he goes. Her legacy may not change the course of history, but one cannot help recalling Il Matto’s earlier words of comfort, considering the great purpose that lies within an apparently unremarkable pebble. Even after the worst of La Strada’s tragedies, life persists in the memory of those who are gone – weighing heavily on those who bear their guilty burden, and inspiring those who see the miracle of their mere existence.

A melancholy final scene leaves Zampanò with his own guilt back where he started on a beach, this time facing his mistakes and flaws through the memory of Gelsomina, and tragically unable to break free from their constraints.

La Strada is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel, and you can purchase the Blu-ray on Amazon.

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988)

Terry Gilliam | 2hr 6min

If Baron Munchausen’s tales of adventuring across oceans, into volcanoes, and through outer space are true, then he may very well belong among the greatest of all heroes. If the flamboyant, swashbuckling explorer is a liar, then he must be the greatest fraud to walk the Earth. If we are to submit to Terry Gilliam’s whimsical view of history and legend as one and the same however, then the difference is entirely negligible. After all, why shouldn’t one of modern Europe’s greatest spinner of yarns stand next to such icons as Odysseus and Heracles, purely based on the awesome wonder that he inspires in the commonfolk?

This is an especially rare talent in the war-torn city of corrupt bureaucrats that the Baron wanders into one Wednesday in the Age of Reason, taking the stage from a theatrical troupe reenacting his grand escapades so that he may correct their inaccuracies. From there, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen transcends the notion of storytelling as mere entertainment, and blurs the boundaries dividing reality and fiction with all the spirited panache of its titular unreliable narrator. So invisible is this margin that is not marked by any sort of cut or dissolve, but simply rather a slick camera movement transitioning from the stage into the ageing voyager’s story, and of course back again when it is complete. With a pair of simple dollies, life and imagination are thus delicately connected through a single line of continuity.

A marvellous introduction to the real Baron Munchausen a shadow of his giant, distinctive nose being cast over a poster promoting reenactments of his famous tall tales.
John Neville is devilishly charming as Baron Munchausen, brushing off every threat thrown his way through sheer confidence, charisma, and luck.

For Terry Gilliam, this playful mythologising is a natural extension of his work in Monty Python, ludicrously undercutting the notion of historical truth by exposing the amusing shortcomings of those who were at its centre. Wordplay, wit, and satire are still very much present in the dialogue, but it is only in this period after the comedy troupe’s breakup that he is also free to explore his magnificent stylistic ambition, formally matching majestic visuals to his farcical storytelling. It certainly helps as well that he is drawing on cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno’s experience shooting some of Federico Fellini and Luchino Visconti’s most extravagantly beautiful films, and using it here to capture a vibrantly expressionistic world steeped in manic surrealism. Together, Gilliam and Rotunno design their frames with an eccentric precision, often using a wide-angle lens to capture odd obstructions, abstract shapes, and staggered blocking of actors within a vast depth of field.

A combination of extraordinary production design and staging in this shot of the Grand Turk’s harem, commencing the Baron’s grand story of heroic adventures.
Gilliam designs the frame with bodies staggered through the space, framing those in the midground with the slanted body of the Baron’s companion in the foreground.
Painterly compositions of heavy artifice, divorced entirely from reality.

Though the real world is handsomely mounted as a lush framing device, Gilliam’s real visual talents emerge when we enter the Ottoman palace of cocky adventurer’s first tale, cartoonishly patterned with large stripes. There, he wagers his life on a bet that he only barely wins with the help of his magical companions, the super speedy Berthold and uncannily accurate marksman Gustavo. When invited to take his winnings from the Great Sultan’s treasury, strongman Albrecht helps in carrying away its entire contents on his back, while Gustavus wards off the Ottoman army with his powerful breath.

An absolute dedication to maximalism in the cluttered mise-en-scène, dominating the characters with the sheer extravagance of their surroundings.
Creatively unconventional framing as the Baron stands for execution – with a giant hand ready to catch his rolling hand.

Later, the Baron makes his way into outer space via a hot air balloon made solely out of ladies’ knickers, where he sails across a desert of lunar dust and meets the giant, floating heads of the King and Queen of the Moon. The silvery surfaces present here strike a contrast against the fiery red core of Mt Etna where the Baron encounters Roman god Vulcan, just as they are both visually distinct from the deep blue lighting inside the monstrous sea creature that swallows him whole. According to Gilliam’s design, each new setting is its own world with its own rules, manifesting an imagination so wholly detached from reality that we can only admire the pure invention of it all.

It is clear to see why Gilliam adores the source material so much, as its literary world building allows for an infinite number of ways for him to reimagine it on film, such as this boat sailing across the surface of a dark, silvery moon.
Robin Williams is hilariously dazzling in his short but memorable time onscreen, representing the division between mind and body.
The belly of a sea monster, and the heart of a volcano – Gilliam lets loose with his visual creativity, calling upon ancient mythology with playful irreverence.

Of course though, neither Gilliam nor the Baron’s tales are quite as wholly original as they might otherwise suggest. The fact aside that The Adventures of Baron Munchausen is loosely based on an 18th century novel, elements of classic fantasy films are woven into its narrative, such as the sea monster from Pinocchio and the hot air balloon escape of The Wizard of Oz. The imprint of Victor Fleming’s Technicolour musical continues to be seen in the one-to-one connections between people the Baron sees in real life and those characters in his stories, many of whom are similarly collected along an unpredictable journey to the outskirts of civilisation and back again.

Gilliam’s imagery draws from modern cinematic fairy tales The Wizard of Oz and Pinocchio, imbuing this incredible work with a gentle whimsicality.

To draw parallels back even further, Renaissance art can be frequently found all through Gilliam’s production design, whether forming stylish backdrops in his elegantly designed interiors or being directly referenced in a recreation of Botticelli’s painting ‘The Birth of Venus.’ Two cupids, the sons of Venus herself, circle her and the Baron as they fly and waltz through a cavern of waterfalls, fountains, and chandeliers, while elsewhere Gilliam’s classical iconography places his protagonist’s legacy among mythical figures and inspires the visual gag of the Baron falling into Vulcan’s lair. As the Baron and his friends lie helpless at the bottom of a pit, a trick of the camera cleverly creates the illusion that Vulcan is a giant, setting up a brilliantly awkward punchline when they enter the same shot and the god’s relatively short stature suddenly comes to light.

Visual illusions constructed in-camera make for some of the film’s best gags, heavily suggesting an enormous size difference in the framing and editing before amusingly deflating expectations.
Gilliam’s adoration of Renaissance art bleeds through as a young Uma Thurman wondrously recreating the Birth of Venus, and subsequently falls for the magnificent Baron Munchausen.
A breathtakingly romantic waltz lifting these lovers up through a vast cavern and into a cloudy sky, accompanied by tiny Cupids – jaw-dropping, painterly surrealism.

The Baron may elderly, but he strikes a robust figure next to monsters and immortals alike, with his long goatee extending as far off his face as his impressive nose. So rejuvenating is the call of adventure for him that it seems to physically erase the wrinkles from his face, and yet he can only keep running away from the Angel of Death for so long. Surreal visions of paradise and mortality are common in Gilliam’s work, whether manifesting in the flying dreams of Brazil or the Red Knight of The Fisher King, and here they become a formal reminder of what awaits those who live such excitingly dangerous lives. Even the Baron’s young companion and frequent rescuer Sally can’t keep it at bay forever, eventually failing to banish the reaper when, just as our hero saves the city from the Great Sultan’s army, he is caught in crosshairs of the mayor’s rifle.

The Angel of Death becomes a formal motif following the Baron on his adventures, while Sally becomes an Angel of Life constantly saving his life with the grace of innocent youth.

Then again, if there is anything in this quirky cosmos that has the power to resurrect the dead, then it is that very talent which the Baron wields such creative control over. Such is the nature of storytelling that even when it is at its most preposterously absurd, it can influence reality in mysterious ways. Lessons of moderation are learned from aliens who can’t reconcile the division between mind and body, the wrath of a jealous god exposes the insecurity behind great egos, and perhaps there may even be just enough truth in such tales that those living under authoritarian rule can shed the fear keeping them locked away from the world. Whether Gilliam’s mischievous raconteur in The Adventures of Baron Munchausen is a hero, a fraud, or both, he is undeniably a man who can shape the lives of those who listen with open hearts and minds.

A final frame that could be hung on a wall, exalting a hero who blends life and fiction with skilful panache and a hint of mischief.

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel, can be rented or bought Apple TV, YouTube, and Amazon Video, and the DVD or Blu-ray can be bought on Amazon.

I Vitelloni (1953)

Federico Fellini | 1hr 47min

Every so often, something genuinely interesting happens in the coastal Italian village where idle womaniser Fausto stirs trouble with his friends, and Federico Fellini eagerly latches onto those fleeting breaks from the monotony. As for the moments in between, I Vitelloni’s mysterious narrator has no issue condensing entire months into a few seconds, briefly noting the facial hair that Fausto’s friends grow as the most exciting thing to happen between their ringleader’s momentous return from his honeymoon and his first scandalous affair. This first-person voiceover is tinged with nostalgia, assuming the perspective of the entire group looking back on their youth, while largely resisting being pinned down to any individual. Still, it very gradually becomes apparent which of them in particular its attitude most aligns with – the only one to have broken free from those small-town constraints, and whose reflections come from a poignant distance.

Moraldo is not the main character in I Vitelloni, let alone his own story, though he is clearly the most introspective of his friends. While the others are chasing women, fame, and glory with a middle-class arrogance, he finds himself wandering the town’s cobbled stone streets at night, recognising his immediate surroundings as the source of his listless discontent. The trivial drama of Fausto’s sleazy escapades can only keep one entertained for so long before they grow wearisome and the call of grander adventures become louder, fading his formative years into memories kept alive through stories like these.

I Vitelloni was Fellini’s Mean Streets long before Martin Scorsese would break through with his own plotless hangout film in 1973, dwelling in vignettes languidly strung together in the lives of young, immature men.

It would be incorrect to label I Vitelloni as an autobiographical film for Fellini, though the essence of his own youth lived by the Adriatic Sea visibly carries from life into fiction. The meandering plotlessness of this hangout narrative would go on to influence everyone from Richard Linklater to the Coen Brothers, but first and foremost it left its mark on the global New Wave movements of the 1960s and 70s. The resemblance between Fellini’s work and Martin Scorsese’s breakout Mean Streets is especially striking, with Fausto’s philandering and Johnny Boy’s troublemaking both building towards a pair of crises that erupt with brutal consequences. Outside of these climactic reckonings, vignettes are also effortlessly strung together into landscapes of celebration and struggle, trapping characters in loops that continuously cycle between both.

Even if it diverges from Roberto Rossellini’s examinations of post-war destitution, I Vitelloni is a film to make Fellini’s neorealist mentor proud, resourcefully shooting on location in small Italian towns and crafting tremendous visuals from their historic stonework.

Much like Scorsese’s film, I Vitelloni similarly marked the first true work of cinematic brilliance from Fellini as well, though the introduction of characters through a floating camera and descriptive voiceover is purely Goodfellas. Even if it diverges from Roberto Rossellini’s examinations of post-war destitution, this is a film to make his neorealist mentor proud, resourcefully shooting on location in small Italian towns and crafting tremendous visuals from their historic stonework.

The heightened emotions of classical Hollywood are nowhere to be found here, replaced by day-to-day interactions and complex relationships that are consistently developed in Fellini’s naturalistic blocking. There is also no external conflict in our characters’ walk down to the town’s deserted beach on a windy afternoon where they playfully consider of how much money they would jump into the water for, and yet the bleak beauty of his coastal scenery, the uneven arrangement of their bodies, and their impassive expressions reveal an unspoken, disenchanted aloofness. Fellini’s staging in such moments often illustrates the indolence of these men who are described in the film’s translated title as layabouts, and yet never quite so explicitly as his magnificent shot of them lounging across chairs outside a café, alternating directions far into the background.

A wealth of meaning packed into the staging of bodies along the edge of a pier, staggered into the background as the men passively gaze out at the ocean – the sheer edge of the only society they have ever known.
Bleak coastal scenery set beneath an overcast sky, with jagged metal wires foregrounded to the left. Fellini never simply throws away his frames.

At least the small routines and traditions of this community connect them to some sense of cultural identity, even if they don’t quite keep them out of trouble. Whether they are attending the annual Miss Mermaid beauty contest or preparing for the chaotic carnival season, these festivities simultaneously break up the monotony of everyday life, and yet paradoxically become part of that predictable annual cycle. It is often during these events that Fellini’s camerawork, editing, and mise-en-scène grow busier too as extras fill his scenery, enveloping Fausto in intoxicating atmospheres that spur him on to make poor decisions.

Traditions, rituals, and celebrations bring some excitement as they periodically break up the monotony of everyday life, and yet they also paradoxically become part of its predictable cycles.
Fellini designs the frame at festivals like Josef von Sternberg before him, cluttering the mise-en-scène with extravagant, maximalist detail and streamers.

Not that it takes much for the playboy to rush headfirst into impulsive exploits and affairs, even after his shotgun wedding to Miss Mermaid contest winner, Sandra Rubini. His disloyalty borders on sociopathic, seeing him slyly flirt with another woman at the cinema while his wife curls up on his arm, before abruptly leaving and following the beautiful stranger home. Later when he is forced to finally get a retail job, he even tries on multiple occasions to seduce his boss’ wife Giulia, and retaliates with petty vengeance when he is fired in a far more gracious manner than what he deserves.

Fausto is easily the greatest character of I Vitelloni – a man his friends call their spiritual guide, yet who is completely devoid of responsibility and shame, leaving his wife at the cinema to cheat on her with a fellow moviegoer. As such, he becomes a complete representation of masculinity at its most immature and self-serving.

Of course, Fausto’s friends aren’t entirely blameless in all of this. They are enablers of the worst kind, convincing him to steal Signore Michele’s angel statue to compensate for the weeks of work he has lost, and directly lying to the hopelessly naïve Sandra about his cheating. They call him their “spiritual guide,” but it is clear that they are young men simply electing the coolest, most confident peer in their vicinity as their leader. Only when Sandra discovers his infidelity and runs away from home with their baby is Fausto forced to accept responsibility for his family, having thoroughly humiliated himself by crying to his old boss and being belted by his father. Whether or not he will fall prey to his lustful impulses in the future remains uncertain, and yet his illusion of self-composure has nevertheless begun to weaken, loosening his grasp over those who once held him as a paragon of masculinity.

Fausto is a fitting name for the playboy of the group, constantly seeking out hedonistic excitement at the ultimate cost of his own freedom.

The time has come to move on, these men realise, and yet only Moraldo has the motivation to set himself free from the past. He doesn’t know where his train will take him, but as he looks back for the last time, Fellini rapidly cuts through a montage of his friends lying in bed and becoming little more than distant memories. They too will grow old and perhaps even find success, but within I Vitelloni’s ruminations they are frozen in an eternal, static youth of idle recreation and empty pleasure, lazily hoping for the day that the world might finally give their lives greater purpose.

A poignant ending, flitting through a montage of each friend asleep in their bed, before farewelling the only one among them with the courage to leave town and make something of his life.

I Vitelloni is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel, the Blu-ray is available to purchase on Amazon.