Screening Room

by Ari

The General - Buster Keaton
Keaton or Chaplin? Okay, I’ve seen The Dreamers a few too many times, I think. And while it’s fun to debate that question, the correct answer is that they were both incredible performers and artists. It’s amazing how well Buster Keaton’s The General holds up almost 100 years after its release. That’s the true mark of a classic. A film lives for almost a century, and it’s still as fresh, funny, and exciting today as it was for audiences in 1927. There’s not much interest in silent films anymore, but I would still be surprised to speak with someone who honestly dislikes this film. Keaton’s slapstick comedy was priceless. His charm and personality in this film is too rich to dismiss, and his stunts and slapstick comedy is inventive and brilliant. The General is filled with incredible set-pieces and chases, relentless pacing, classic comedy and some startling, epic imagery. It’s a silent film, yes, but it represents everything that made movies so enjoyable in the first place.

Late Autumn - Yasujiro Ozu
Late Autumn is a very effective retelling of Ozu’s family drama Late Spring, a story about a father doing his best to see his daughter happily married. This time around the drama surrounds a mother and daughter, the overall tone is much lighter and even playful at times, and the film is in technicolor instead of black and white. Late Spring is basically a masterpiece, so directly remaking it would’ve been rather pointless and unnecessary. With Late Autumn, Ozu’s focuses more on the men who are so eager to see their friend’s daughter married. They sit around and discuss possible candidates for the young Ayako (Yôko Tsukasa). Many of these sequences are quietly amusing, as are the situations they eventually find themselves in. Ayako’s mother is played by the great Setsuko Hara, who starred in the daughter’s role in Late Spring. She, like most of the cast, is an Ozu regular, and her beauty and depth is as affecting as ever.

The Lives of Others - Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck

One of last year’s best movies and one of the great directorial debuts of the decade, The Lives of Others is a piercing and emotional drama about life in East Germany before the fall of the Berlin Wall. It’s tragic that actor Ulrich Mühe passed away a couple months ago. His performance as the conflicted Stasi officer Gerd Wiesler is exceptional work in every respect. The subtlety he used to convey the emotion of the character is exactly what keeps the film from becoming melodramatic. The conflict is in his face...in his eyes. The dialogue may be good, but it’s not even necessary for the performance. Everything is said by the way he listens and spys on the other characters. This is new to dvd - absolutely one of the essential new releases of the year. If you missed this film in theaters, I implore you to give it a chance now. The Lives of Others is the emergence of a major artist.