Best Films of 2014

Like most years, my end of the year list is highly dependent on film festivals which serve as an unofficial distribution model for a majority of foreign and independent movies. However, despite the best efforts of multiple local film festivals, there is still usually an average of a 1-2 year wait to see many foreign films after its Cannes premiere. For example, a few Cannes 2013 titles only appeared in local cinemas this year. A big reason for this delay is that film distribution still follows an outdated model where films are meant to get a theatrical release first before releasing online or on DVD. This release model ignores the reality that there are only a few North American cities with dedicated arthouse/indie cinemas to give these foreign films a proper theatrical run. That means if one does not live in New York or Toronto, then it is a long wait to legally see these festival films. This delay causes a year end list to continuously look back 1-2 years for a proper assessment. For example, this year’s theatrical releases proved that 2013 was an even better year than I had first thought. A full verdict on 2014 may only be properly gauged in the summer of 2015. The other impact of this delay is that local cinemas are not my prime source for catching some of the best global films. For example, only 5 films of the 22 films (23%) in this list got a regular theatrical run in the city. A majority of this list was composed due to the 8 film festivals I attended this year, with 7 local festivals and the 8th being Sundance. 4 of the films in this list were seen at Sundance, while a 5th title, Locke, also showed there. Such a high dependence on international film festivals to catch some of the best films in the world is not a financially feasible model. And local film festivals can’t always show the top festival films every year either. Still, I am grateful to have seen many worthy features and documentaries.

Here are the top 11 films seen in 2014:

1. Locke (UK/USA, Steven Knight)

Locke uses a car and a cellphone, two items that are essential to many people’s lives, to explore moral and ethical problems related to job, family and relationships. These topics are fashioned in a manner which forces the main character Ivan Locke (Tom Hardy) to step across a moral minefield, where each step could lead to a potential explosion. The entire film takes place with Locke driving in his car and as he continues on his route, his life slowly starts to collapse. That is ironic considering his job requires him to oversee solid structural foundations. In his job, Locke is surrounded by physically heavy objects enough to crush a human. Yet, in the film, he is crushed by words. As his character of Locke sinks further, Tom Hardy as an actor soars. Hardy delivers his dialogues with a high degree of composure and emotion. His voice is so precise that it makes one forget there are cuts in the film. There is also enough variation of the shots,  which allows the camera to creatively find as much space in a confined location as possible.  Overall, this is one heck of a ride!

2. Return to Homs (Syria/Germany, Talal Derki)

Return to Homs is an embodiment of ‘Direct Cinema’, a cinematic movement which requires filmmakers to record events unfiltered and as they unfold in real time. In order to capture these raw events, Talal Derki and his crew put their lives on the line. After the Syrian revolution started in 2011, the government shut down the border to all media. Derki and his crew risked their lives to shoot this footage and in many cases, their footage is the only source of truth. As a result, this is more than just a film. It is a living breathing digital document of what happened in Syria when the world was not looking. By the time the world started looking, it was too late. The events in this film are not pleasant but since the film was completed, things have gotten worse. The events in the film are isolated to civil war but in the last few years, terrorism driven by external forces have made things worse in Syria. Return to Homs is one of the most relevant films to have been made in the last few years and is essential to understand why urban warfare is messy and complicated.

3. Enemy (Canada/Spain, Denis Villeneuve)

Enemy transports Jose Saramago’s novel The Double to a David Cronenberg landscape and enhances the material with references to Kafka, George Orwell and Alfred Hitchcock. As a result, this is a film that oozes with symbolism and is packed with delightful little clues and details which leads one through a tangled web of mystery.

4. Memphis (USA, Tim Sutton)

Tim Sutton’s Memphis is a beautiful contemplative film that depicts the fine line between genius and madness. The real coup of the film is casting Willis Earl Beal for the lead. His presence ensures that there are many moments where the film blurs the line between fiction and autobiography. The film shows a successful music artist who is in an envious position where he holds the keys to the kingdom. The problem is that the artist is no longer interested in the kingdom. Witnessing his journey as he drifts across the mystical city of Memphis, peppered with the haunting music of “Too Dry to Cry”, makes for a shattering experience.

5. Under the Skin (UK/USA/Switzerland, Jonathan Glazer)

Locke compressed life into 90 minutes while Under the Skin manages to distill the essence of men in just a few minutes. In the film, it is a woman who is behind the wheel. She cruises the streets of Glasgow looking for able men to prey on. The female is able to assess her subjects with a few glances and extract enough information with few words that allows her to make a quick decision. The sequences where she leads the victims to their final steps are remarkably filmed with an unforgettable score that stays long in the memory after the final credits.

6. Two Days, One Night (Belgium/France/Italy, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne)

Even by the high standard of the Dardenne brothers, Two Days, One Night is a staggering achievement. The film depicts moral and ethical questions that are always present when money is involved. And in Marion Cotillard, the brothers have found a perfect face to convey the range of emotions from desperation to despair and even a touch of hope.

7. The Grand Budapest Hotel (USA/Germany/UK, Wes Anderson)

When the trailer for The Grand Budapest Hotel first appeared, it looked like a best of Wes Anderson reel, a collection of moments that looked new yet contained his signature. However, the trailer was only an appetizer while the film is the main course and sweet dessert rolled into one memorable experience. The film is a joy to behold, from the sets to the witty dialogue to the pleasant cameos that are sprinkled throughout the film.

8. Welcome to New York (USA, Abel Ferrara)

Welcome to New York charts the entire course of Abel Ferrara’s film style while also presenting a work that threatens to blur the line between reality and fiction. The initial 20 minutes feel like early Ferrara with exhaustive sexual exploits before the film switches gears into a vérité style that on first glance feels at odds with his cinema. However, a jail sequence reveals Ferrara’s hand where he distills the essence of his King of New York in a remarkable jail sequence. In the dialogue-less scene, Gérard Depardieu’s character of Devereaux and the other inmates assess each other, trying to determine who is the the king of the jungle. In the film’s final third, a redemption aspect crops up, without which no Ferrara film would be complete. Depardieu has put in an astonishing performance where he lays it all out in front of the camera. Even though his character faces humiliation, there are a few moments when Devereaux addresses the camera, shattering the fourth wall and tossing judgements back to the audience.

9. Li’l Quinquin (France, Bruno Dumont)

At multiple points in Li’l Quinquin, it is hard to believe that this is a Bruno Dumont directed work as his films don’t exactly invoke humor. Yet there is plenty of humor and sharp observations about French town life shown without any barriers. The film’s biggest pleasure comes from the presence of Bernard Pruvost, whose Commandant Van der Weyden is a cross between Clouseau and Tati’s Mr. Hulot. Li’l Quinquin also shows an auteur variation of True Detective.

10. Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem (Israel/Germany/France, Ronit Elkabetz/Shlomi Elkabetz)

The opening minutes of the film recall A Separation but very quickly the film dives into Kafkaesque territory with endless rounds of court appearances related to a divorce proceeding. There is some humour at first but matters takes on a darker shade when the couple's private life is examined. Then gradually, everyone around the couple is sucked in and is indirectly put on trial, including the two opposing lawyers. Gett is packed with impressive performances and acute observations about how a law can impact citizens.

11. Joy of Man’s Desiring (Canada, Denis Côté)

Denis Côté is back with a visually mesmerizing and intriguing documentary that explores the factory workplace. The film starts off with some dialogue that indicates a fictional narrative but this is a documentary that examines machinery and their operators. Constantly engaging, the film is pure cinematic bliss. By a strange cosmic fate, this film premiered just a few months before Micheal Glawogger passed away. Glawogger’s Workingman’s Death shows the dangerous and messy jobs some people do to earn a living. Meanwhile, Côté spends a good deal of time showing machinery in a clean environment where workers go daily to earn money. The jobs are not as dangerous as those that Glawogger’s covers but it is clear that the machines in Côté’s film won’t tire like the humans. The workers will eventually be physically and mentally beaten down, thereby making them loosely related to those in Glawogger’s film.

11 Honorable mentions in alphabetical order:

Ankhon Dekhi (India, Rajat Kapoor)

Blue Ruin (USA/France, Jeremy Saulnier) 

Child’s Pose (Romania, Calin Peter Netzer)

Dear Albert (UK, Nick Hamer)

The Eternal Return of Antonis Paraskevas (Greece/Czech Republic, Elina Psikou)

Force Majeure (Sweden/France/Norway, Ruben Östlund)

Goodbye to Language 3D (Switzerland, Jean-Luc Godard)

Haider (India, Vishal Bhardwaj)

Lajwanti (India, Pushpendra Singh)

The Overnighters (USA, Jesse Moss)

Stray Dogs (Taiwan/France, Tsai Ming-liang)

Dear Albert is another example of ‘Direct Cinema’ as the film observes people who are trying to rid of their addiction. Nick Hamer has made an excellent decision by limiting details of the subjects’ substance abuse. This makes the film a universal study about why it is difficult for people to break their habits and change themselves. And when some manage to make a change, the film shows that it is easy to fall back into old habits. It may sound cliched but this is a film that has the potential to change one’s life.

The Eternal Return of Antonis Paraskevas is one of the best films of the New Greek Cinema Wave and is the definitive film about Greece’s economic downfall. The film uses the main character’s plight to reflect how the rest of Europe treated Greece. First there was love and admiration but when things got bad, hatred and isolation. In addition, the film is enhanced with a huge nod towards The Shining.

Pushpendra Singh’s debut feature Lajwanti (or The Honor Keeper) is an eye-popping digital painting that belongs in an art gallery along with Tsai Ming-liang’s Stray Dogs. One can clearly see the influence of Amit Dutta and Mani Kaul in Singh’s film but he has also exerted his own unique voice. In order to capture authenticity about village life in the Thar Desert (Rajasthan), Singh has used local non-actors to play themselves. This blurs the line between documentary and fiction. The story is tweaked enough to be timeless with a touch of folk mythology. It is one of the most creative films to have emerged from India this year.

Fear the city when Ms. 45 takes on The Driller Killer

A dark open ended alley with a green garbage dumpster half-way through. On the streets on either side of the alley, people wander by en route to their daily lives unaware of the battle that is taking place within the alley between two tormented souls.

On one end of the alley stands Ms. 45 a.k.a Zoë Tamerlis, a shy mute girl. During her day job, Zoë works in a New York fashion office. Her life was changed when one night she was pulled into an alley way and raped. When she got home, an awaiting burglar attempted to rape her again. In self-defense, she managed to kill the burglar. But not knowing what to do with the burglar's body, she cut it up in pieces and went about New York depositing the various pieces in random locations, like in a garbage bin or a train station locker. On one occasion, when she left a body part in a brown bag near the street side, a man ran after her to return the bag. Terrified of the approaching man, Zoë accidently shot him, using the burglar's gun. At first she was horrified of the gun but gradually, she became comfortable in using the gun to dispatch the city of filthy men. She even started dressing provocatively to lure her victims before she shot them.

On the other end of the alley way is The Driller Killer a.k.a Reno Miller, an artist who only wants peace and quiet to finish his commissioned painting. But others around him let have no rest. He is already frustrated when his masterpiece is ridiculed but he truly loses control when a band keeps practicing their loud music in a neighbouring apartment at odd hours of the night. Reno's inner demon takes over and he embarks on a killing spree with a drill.

If the two characters had to face off against each other, it is clear that Zoë would win as she would easily take out Reno long before he ran towards her with his drill. On the other hand, if Zoë were to face off against One Eye (Christina Lindberg from the Swedish film Thriller: a Cruel Picture), Zoë would easily lose as One Eye could take Zoë out with her shotgun. The killing sequences at the end of Thriller:A Cruel Picture and Ms. 45 are quite similar as both women go around killing a crowd of people in slow-motion, and every scream is amplified. Since the Swedish film came out in 1974, 7 years before Ms. 45 was released, it is possible that the character One Eye had an indirect hand in the birth of Ms. 45.

Abel Ferrara made his feature directorial debut in 1979 with The Driller Killer and followed that in 1981 with Ms. 45. Even though the titular characters in both films start their killing sprees via different circumstances, they eventually start enjoying their murders. The random nature of their murders create fear in the city, so it is not a surprise that Ferrara's third feature in 1984 was titled Fear City where a man believes he is cleaning the city by targeting prostitutes as his victims. In his attempts to kill the prostitutes, the murderer in Fear City follows similar motives with the characters of Ms. 45 and The Driller Killer in that all three believe they are doing the city good by killing unwanted people. Ms. 45 starts off by only killing men, especially those that she thinks prey on women while The Driller Killer starts off by killing homeless people. Eventually both of them start killing anyone that gets in their way but at the beginning they only target a certain section of the city.

Note: In The Driller Killer Ferrara plays the title character while in Ms. 45 he is the rapist that alters Zoë's life.

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Ratings out of 10:

The Driller Killer (1979, USA, Abel Ferrara): 4.5

Ms. 45 (1981, USA, Abel Ferrara): 5

Fear City (1984, USA, Abel Ferrara): 5

Thriller a cruel picture (1974, Sweden, Bo Arne Vibenius): 6

Abel Ferrara Films

Abel Ferrara Spotlight, part II and III

Part Two: Sin and Redemption

The Addiction (1995): Rating 9/10

This is a very intelligent and creative take on a vampire film. While the usual vampire films feature topics of God vs Devil and basic religion morality, The Addiction adds a layer of existentialist philosophy along with discussions of man's hunger for evil on top of the regular religious conflicts.

Kathleen Conklin (Lili Taylor) is doing her ph.D in philosophy and at the film's start, she is watching horrific images of butchered Vietnamese at the hands of American soldiers. While walking home, Kathleen is troubled by all this savagery and is lost in her thoughts when she is suddenly dragged into an alley by a vampire (Annabella Sciorra).

The lighting is just wonderful in the scenes when the vampire descends on Kathleen. In the above shot, we don't ever clearly see the vampire's face and the mixture of light and shadows shows a terrifying image.

The next three pictures show how Kathleen's expressions change as she becomes an unwitting victim.



It is not very clear but in the next picture you can see the blood dripping on a satisfied vampire's mouth.

After this attack, Kathleen goes through a physical and mental change. She is constantly sick and throws up frequently. Her body is weak and her mind forces her to look for quick fixes like drugs to ease her pain. But it is her mental change that is even more drastic. Previously, she had been horrified at images of man's evil. Now, she only looks at the pictures of horror with cold gazes. She is trying to understand the evil but her emotional attachment to humanity is weakening.

"There is no history. Everything is eternally with us."

Her hunger and thirst grows to a point where she starts lusting for victims. She hunts down people close to her with some strangers thrown in the mix. She does not spare her teacher and even her closest friend. When her friend wants to be spared, Kathleen responds with "Prove there is no evil. Then you can go." She is still struggling to understand all the horror around her.

On a particular night, she lures a man. But this is not an ordinary man.

Peina (Christopher Walken) is a supreme vampire at ease with his situation. He quotes Nietzsche and gives a lesson to Kathleen on the meaning of being a vampire.

"You are a slave to who you are."

Then Peina inflicts more pain as he re-bites Kathleen with more gusto than her first experience.

"Eternity is a long time. Get used to it."

But Kathleen does not want to get used to it. She is tired of her life and tries to end it but she can't. In way of advice to cope with her situation, Peina tells her to read Sartre and Beckett.

After she dives into existentialism, she starts to make sense of the evil around her.

"Our addiction is evil."

She draws a conclusion between man's killing nature and even her habit of finding victims to satisfy her thirst. Her thesis impresses all the professors and she proudly gets her doctorate.

On the way to a party arranged by her, she is content and composed:

"We drink to escape the fact that we are alcoholics.... Existence is the search for relief from our habit and our habit is the only relief we can find."

In moment of her supreme confidence, she comes across a man on the street preaching the word of God and giving out fliers. The flier has an image of Christ on the cross. That simple photo throws Kathleen off balance. She screams "I will not submit" and goes into a fit of rage. In her anger, she and her vampire friends descend on innocent people in a gruesome blood orgy buffet.

But the fit of anger revealed something about Kathleen. Unlike the other vampires around her, she is still torn inside between religion. Peina & Casanova (Annabella Sciorra) have freed themselves from thinking about God because they have chosen the path towards existentialism. Kathleen can't completely give up a part of her catholic upbringing and she finally realizes that the only way she can save herself is by religion.

The final sequences of the film shows her finding redemption only by fully accepting the word of God and throwing aside everything else she has learned.

Bad Lieutenant (1992): Rating 9/10

As the title indicates, Harvey Keitel plays a lieutenant who commits every imaginable sin -- gambling, drugs, lying, stealing and killing. He is not afraid to speak his mind and even shocks his colleagues when he shows no remorse at learning about a nun getting raped. He is made part of investigating the nun's case but he is not interested. The only interest he has at the moment is trying to learn how the New York Mets will do as that will help ease the gambling debt he incurred by betting on baseball games.

He is not afraid of the criminals to whom he owes a huge debt. The following words convey his state of mind:"No one can kill me. I am blessed. I am a fucking catholic."

In a drugged state, he goes to the nun asking if she wants revenge on the two men who raped her. He is shocked when the nun tells him that she has already forgiven the men. He can't understand that.

After the nun leaves, he sees an apparition of Christ. At first he is angry and starts by throwing a rosary towards the image of Christ.


His emotions go from anger to sheer misery.






In the end, he finally comes to peace with himself and only finds redemption by going back to his religious roots.



This is not an easy role but Harvey Keitel has fully given himself to the role. He is both naked on screen in the physical sense and lays all his emotions bare for everyone to judge.

Both the above films had two very different characters but in both cases, the main characters only achieve peace by giving themselves completely to God.

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Part Three: Cops and Killers

Fear City (1984): Rating 5/10

Beware. The killer is on the loose. But he does not just kill random people -- he targets prostitutes, exotic dancers and pimps. This does not please Matt Rossi (Tom Berenger) who owns most of the girls getting killed. Matt is a former boxer and images of his fights are spliced in between the scenes to convey his anger. The killer is a karate fighter (and a follower of other Eastern martial arts) who is on a mission to clean the city of filth. Naturally, the film's climax is a battle between the two men and no prizes for guessing who wins.

Religion is a common theme or element in Abel Ferrara and Nicholas St. John's films and Fear City is no exception. Before his major fight, Matt heads to a church to ask God for strength. Overall, the film is typical of 80's TV -- dramatic scores, quick cuts, sloppy action and bad acting. The only thing carefully constructed is Melanie Griffith's strip show.

Note: there is a line of dialogue in the film which would have passed without much comment back in 1984. Matt is very angry and can't wait to kill the person hunting his girls. But he is asked to show some calmness by one of the mobsters, who has seen enough through the ages. He wants Matt to understand the enemy and says the following: "You can never prevent terrorism. You can only find its root and destroy it." Such words today would carry a completely different context.

King of New York (1990): Rating 8/10

Christopher Walken plays Frank White, a gangster boss who has just gotten out of prison. While he was away, his boys led by Jimmy (Laurence Fishburne) did his dirty work. Slowly, Frank's gang starts taking over all the illegal operations in New York. A trio of cops try their best to stop them. But no matter what Dennis Gilley (David Caruso) and his colleagues do, Frank's boys get out of jail because of their expensive lawyers.

In a interesting scene, Frank visits the head investigating cop and tells him that he is only killing gang members that were corrupt and immoral. He mentions that drug trade existed before him and will exist after him. All he is trying to do is to ensure that the illegal activities are run in a clean businesslike manner.

Notes:

-- One can find shots of rosaries hanging in a car when a gang member is dying. The tiny hint of religion still finds its way among killers.
-- Wesley Snipes plays one of the trio of cops who do everything within and outside their power to stop Frank. In one scene, Snipes makes a harmless comment about a vampire. Little did he know that 8 years later, he would play a vampire hunting Blade.

The Driller Killer (1979): Rating 4.5/10

The following message is shown before the picture starts:

Coupled with the film's title, I imagined the noise would be from gruesome killings in the movie. But as it turns out, the loudness in the movie is because of the nonsense music played by a band which contributes towards driving an artist into becoming a killer with a drill.

Reno Miller (played by Ferrara himself) is an artist working on a piece that will bring him and his girlfriend much needed cash. But all around him there are distractions and noise. For example, in the downstairs apartment a band is constantly playing loud music at all times of the day. The constant source of noise prevents Reno from getting any rest or focusing on his work. Eventually, Reno starts to lose touch with reality and his nightmarish images start entering his daily life. His character is closely related to Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver. There is even a scene which is a tribute to De Niro's famous "are you talking to me?" monologue. Reno is looking at his masterpiece painting of a buffalo. He feels the buffalo's eyes are glaring at him and asks the creature: "what are you looking at?". In Taxi Driver, it was a mirror that reflected Bickle's dual personality. But in The Driller Killer Reno finds meaning in his painting.

**** A spoiler -- word about the ending ****

Reno runs around unleashing his terror on homeless people or whoever he comes across. At first, his killings are done when he is taken over by his dual personality. But by the end, the two personalities mesh and in his conscious state, he goes out to seek revenge on the woman who left him. In the film's final scene, his ex-girlfriend gets into bed thinking its her lover who is under the covers. The screen goes black and we can hear her asking her lover to come closer. We can only her muffled responses from Reno. The credits roll but we know what will happen to the woman.

The title and the weapon of choice may lead one to believe this is a slasher film. But despite few gory scenes of blood, the film spends most of its time examining Reno and showing his character's transformation. It will be interesting to see how the version Hollywood is remaking in 2008 will play out.

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And finally, some shorts:

Ferrara started his career with a trio of shorts -- Nicky's Film (1971, 6 min), The Hold Up (1972, 14 min), Could This Be Love? (1973, 29 min).

The grainy video transfer of the silent short Nicky's film make it hard to understand the story but it appears to be about a character trapped in a nightmare. The Hold Up shows how a character who is guilty in stealing money is able to get away because of his connections. Such a theme would be explored in King of New York when Frank's men got away with murder (literally).

The most interesting of the shorts is Could This Be Love? which looks at how high society looks down upon middle class hard-working people. The film is about an artist who believes she is above the filth of society. Her boyfriend is no better even though the artistic shoe he designs appears to be completely unusable. The two throw parties where their like minded friends laugh at other people who they feel are below them. In terms of theme, this short stands out from Ferrara's other work which have focussed on the underground aspects of society where criminals and hookers thrive. Ferrara has also equally explored the layer of heroes and cops who fight the underground criminals. Quite often in his films, the two layers collide with justice sometimes taking a back seat to the harsh reality of life on the streets of America.

Abel Ferrara films

Director Profile: Abel Ferrara, part I

Over the last few months, I have seen Abel Ferrara's name mentioned quite a bit both on film magazines and Internet film sites. A big reason for that has been around Ferrara's latest film Go Go Tales which premiered at Cannes and garnered a lot of attention. I must admit that when I first saw his name, I could not pin-point which films he had directed. But after a quick search, I found that I was familiar with a few of his films. I had seen Body Snatchers and knew about Bad Lieutenant. However, one film title stood out -- Crime Story. When I was a young kid, I used to love watching the TV series Crime Story. In fact, I used to stay up late (way past my bedtime) to watch the show. Even though I was too young to understand the plot intricacies, I knew enough to be able to identify Dennis Farina playing the good cop and the character Ray Luca (played by Anthony Denison) as the bad guy. And ofcourse, the opening credits song was burned into my head. Almost two decades later, I can still remember the lyrics clearly:

"And I wonder
I wa-wa-wa-wa-wonder
Why
Ah-why-why-why-why-why she ran away
And I wonder where she will stay
My little runaway , run-run-run-run-runaway"

So it was appropriate that I should start my Abel Ferrara spotlight with the pilot movie that started the series that I loved so much....

Crime Story (1986): Rating 7.5/10

The title song comes on. Memories gush in and a few seconds later, Dennis Farina appears on screen playing the tough no-nonsense cop, Lt. Mike Torello. The countdown starts until the smooth talking manipulative mobster Ray Luca appears. But after my happy memories fade away, I find myself faced with a film that was typical of what I remember about 80's TV -- tough macho men, cheesy dialogues and average production values. Ofcourse, it is unfair comparing TV of the past with the slick productions that exist today. Still, it was worth watching this film to know how the rivalry between Lt. Mike Torello and Ray Luca started.

In the film, I was surprized to find the presence of a younger David Caruso playing a punk gangster who is eager to make it big. Ofcourse, back then David Caruso was at the start of his TV career and his famous roles in NYPD Blue and CSI were still about 7 and 16 years away respectively.

Now onto some Ferrara films that I never saw before....

New Rose Hotel (1998): Rating 6/10

Based on a short story by William Gibson, New Rose Hotel is a story about corporate espionage. I can see what Ferrara was intending to do with this film but the end result is a dull hazy dream. Fox (Christopher Walken) and X (Willem Dafoe) have spent a year trying to hatch a plan to trap a Japanese genius, Hiroshi. But nothing they have come with is a good idea until Fox spots Sandii (Asia Argento) in a club. He offers her a million dollars to woe Hiroshi. She eventually agrees despite X not liking the idea because of his love towards her. How she manages to crawl into bed with Hiroshi is kept off-screen. This is a good strategy on Ferrara's part as it forces us to see the movie from X's point of view. X is in the dark regarding Sandii and what is going on with her after she leaves for Marrakesh with Hiroshi. And the lack of information coupled with a few tidbits of rumours tears him apart. The movie's grainy video footage adds to the nightmarish trip that X is going through. As he is trying to rehash the past, the same scenes are repeated over and over without any variation. While X maybe be thinking the same things over and over, having the audience see the repeated scenes adds nothing to the movie. As a result, the film loses any freshness and slowly grinds towards the end.

The Funeral (1996): Rating 8.5/10

"You know what your problem is? You read too many books. F***ing up your brain."

Johnny: "That's the American tragedy -- we need something to distract us. That's all we got is books[sic]. Maybe radios and movies. Keeps us alive."

Not exactly the words you would expect in a gangster movie, but this is not an ordinary mobster film. It is Ferrara's take on a mafia story seen through the eyes of the three Tempio brothers and the women around them.

Johnny (Vincent Gallo) is the youngest of the three brothers (22 years) and the only one capable of speaking the above words. Yes he is reckless but he does think every now and then. Chez (Chris Penn in an electrifying role) is a highly emotional person -- one minute he is calm and considerate, followed by a sudden burst of violent anger and a few moments later in tears and in a suicidal state. Ray (Christopher Walken) is the eldest and is almost a fatherly presence to both. He knows when to kill and when to not pull the trigger. Ray evaluates all his actions from a moral point of view and is not afraid to use religion to reason things out.

The movie starts with a funeral and has a few flashback sequences which are not entirely related but shed some light on each of the brother's personalities. For a change, we also get to see things from the women's point of view with Jean (Annabella Sciorra) being given the most interesting part as Ray's wife. As Jean mentions, the women can only stand on the sidelines and watch the Tempio men throw their lives away.

The film is raw and provides emotional scenes that other mobster movies wouldn't bother having -- family arguments over trivial matter, mobs discussing the merits of taking revenge or not, etc. Best to watch without knowing the story as Ferrara is not afraid to throw in a complete surprize or two just when we least expect it.

Next up: 5 more Ferrara features along with some early shorts.........

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Parts II & III of the spotlight.