Should have seen it coming.

Prick Up Your Ears, which was Halliwell’s suggested title for the film for the Beatles that Orton came under contract to pen, is an intelligent and ruminative look at a married couple and their difficulties, and how the instability of one both caused loyalty and dissolution (oh so often it does). The film contains a somewhat awkward structure, framed as an investigation into the biography the film is based upon, which allows the literary agent (a fantastic Vanessa Redgrave) to provide some slippery meta-commentary on the action we’re seeing her participate in (for example, when Joe Orton takes her, Peggy, to receive an award instead of Halliwell, who must continue to pretend to be the ever-more successful Orton’s personal assistant). The author of the biography, John Lahr, is portrayed as an absorbed writer with his own “personal assistant” suffering some burgeoning animosity of her own (his wife, who may or not be a construct of the screenplay — all biographies that I can find note that he was married in 2000, with no prior marriages — which suggests more about Lahr than it does the subject of his book).

It’s also a great showcase as to how a complexly layered series of timelines (before Orton and Halliwell met, after they met, before & after success, before & after their deaths, etc) can be jumbled together in a coherent way without obvious and pandering title cards to orient the audience(!). Small physical details that just exist are enough to signify change, for example, take note of the scene split across the beginning and the end of the film, where the only acknowledgement of this is Orton’s jacket, and yet you know and feel plenty comfortable with this, or the varying degrees of completion to which Halliwell’s collage covers their bedroom wall (filmed in Halliwell and Orton’s actual flat, barring the death scene).

The performances are also fantastic, with Gary Oldman once again disappearing almost completely, and the warmth of Alfred Molina’s most recent performances (such as in An Education) giving his performance here an even greater sense of desperation to foster his connection to his lover as Orton slips away into success.

So are the vignettes really deconstruction? Or does the title really just refer to the outrageous statement by the girl at the end? Is deconstruction really such a simple thing that the unhappy are actually happy? My Lit Crit professor always thought deconstruction was a little too cute. I wrote a persuasive deconstruction of L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz in which I argued the breakdown of the main Home, Other (really “not Home”) binary due to the language used in the actual text. It’s easy to see, given the drab uncomfortable descriptions of Kansas vs. the joyous descriptions of Oz. So I guess I’m saying deconstruction can seem pretty slight when it’s removed from the rigors of its “point of reference.” Deconstructing Harry is a funny approach to a writer’s work, functioning as filmed short stories entrapped by biography. The film encourages us to think about the connections between writing and the life we see outside, and occasionally it cheats a little bit, such as the scene where we see Lucy’s (Judy Davis) reaction to Harry’s new love affair. The scene works as a new story written about the actual people as filtered through an old character met by the actual writer, but otherwise it’s a little ‘Dickensian’, isn’t it? (Literally.) It doesn’t much matter in the end because Lucy’s reaction is both hilarious and a little sad at the same time.

But I guess who cares if the movie isn’t so much deconstruction as it is hilarious and fun to watch. The center of the film, Woody’s Harry Block, seems to invite a deconstruction of Woody himself, rather than his stories. The private vs. public question is most uncomfortably funny in the scene where Kirstie Alley, as an ex-wife, shouts at Harry while a patient (she’s a psychiatrist) sits uncomfortably in the chair enduring her meltdown. What do we show and let people know about our private lives in view of what they already know? Here Woody seems to dance around the most significant cost of what a deconstruction of his persona would really be, but a portmanteau representation of self-hood is not deconstruction (rather, it is deconstruction), and it’s best in scenes where Harry attempts to find meaning through his writing which has, of course, already been filtered through his actions as a writer. These complexities are at the heart of why the pat statement at the end by the student is so annoying. Can tradition really be an illusion of permanence if everything is just peaches? (Look out for Paul Giamatti in a non-speaking role toward the end; I assumed this was from before he was in anything, but it’s 7 years into his career and the same year he tears it up in Private Parts, so uh, maybe there were some deleted scenes?)

The French title of Deconstructing Harry wisely employs difference in its translation: Harry dans tous ses états. Harry In All His States. If it’s just Harry in all of his states, then it’s really just Harry isn’t it? One thing worth deconstructing, mind you, is the representation of the Jewish Star Wars Bah Mitzvah mash-up. Is it really just a snipe at affluence excess and indulgence, or is there something else there? (Probably not.) I suspect it’s on the same level as Harry suggesting his father is a cannibal, and that from his view, it had to be done and so it was required. Who can judge what is required?

See all the Fishing with John posts.

See all the Fishing with John posts.

See all the Fishing with John posts.

Franz Biberkof has just been released from prison, after serving four years for killing his girlfriend. The first chapter of his story, as its title suggests, catalogues Biberkof’s readjustment to a society to which he’s afraid to reintegrate. It launches into a relatively difficult scene with a Jewish man telling a parable which we take to more or less summarize the next fourteen hours we’ll be watching. This, of course, would be a mistake, as the film points out the second the man’s brother-in-law comes in during one of the most portentous thunderstorms ever captured in film (maybe that should be capital). So he attends to the red light district for a whore, to prove his manhood this side of jail. It doesn’t work of course, and he’s ridiculed. This scene is particularly effective with its carnival-loop of player-piano music streaming in from the bar below.

Nevertheless, Franz is a sweet man, hopeful for the future and generous, but emotional. He returns to his apartment and the murder scene of Ida, the aforementioned girlfriend. It seems not much has changed in his absence, and the landlord welcomes him home with equal parts motherhood, worry and suspicion. Franz attempts to make peace with Ida’s sister by getting her flowers and nearly raping her. There are plenty of hints that the sister and Franz carried on prior to Ida’s death, but it seems more that Franz is invested in re-establishing his manhood with something that is familiar.

Ultimately, Franz runs into an old friend whom he goes drinking with, where he meets a young, impressionable Polish woman who moves in with him, and is instructed by the Berlin police department that as a convict he is not allowed to live in many neighborhoods of Berlin as a convicted murderer. The scene where Biberkof reads off the districts is the most effective and moving scene of the first chapter, as you can see not only the effect on Franz, but on the polish woman and his friend as well. Enrolling with a charter called Prisoner’s Aid allows Biberkof to stay in Berlin, provided he do work for them and check in once a month.

It must be said that the story of Biberkof resembles in more ways than one that of McTeague by Frank Norris. Considered the first “Gothic” American novel, both Alexanderplatz were constructed into monumental films of gargantuan length (McTeague as Greed by Erich von Stroheim). Both are about simpletons, big hearted men found to be in circumstances above their heads. I’m sure Biberkof’s struggle lands him in a metaphorical desert, with something a lot more guilt-inducing than a briefcase of money handcuffed to his wrist. Leave it to the Germans to obfuscate something so pure as a golden tooth outside your shop.

Use this link to find all posts about Berlin Alexanderplatz as they become available.

See all the Fishing with John posts.

See all the Fishing with John posts.

And there are some series I remember fondly, His & Her Circumstances, or FLCL (you pronounce that “Fooly Cooly”). But for the most part, I can do without it. So a friend at work has insisted I watch Texhnolyze and has provided me with the means of doing so. I finally put in the first episode tonight and it was baffling. But something about the stories that ABe aligns himself with (or maybe it’s just his pretty drawings) pulls me into this. There’s a characteristic of the animes he’s been involved with: yes, they’re annoyingly abstract but they don’t succumb you to needless explanation – instead, a lot of the images and actions are just presented as, and the rest is left up to you, almost as if it’s a challenge (unwinnable, if you ask me). But there’s something a lot more engaging about watching nonsense when its justification isn’t presented. If you prefer a good example of this in live action, see Mulholland Drive. If you want to see a bad example of this in live action, see Inland Empire. I thought Ghost in the Shell was such a superior version of The Matrix in my first year of college, but am so disheartened by that lengthy gas-bag conversation after the tank scene that I can’t bear to watch it again. That whole scene is imbued with such a sense of sorrow, of an acceptance of a fate that’s resolute – do we really need 5 minutes of un-animated explanation about this? I’m sure the explanation she gives is far more in-depth and interesting if you’re willing to give it the benefit of the doubt, but the emotion of the scene is what’s imprinted on me, not the philosophy. The emotion points a direct arrow to the philosophy. So that’s what Heibane-Renmei (kind of a perennial magic hour anime – it’s like Terrence Malick got a pen almost – at least you can always replace a brown pen when you run out of the color) and Lain and Texhnolyze (at least appears to be) are: the tank scene without the chattiness afterwards.

But the converse of that is: I’ve watched a 20+ minute episode of this anime, and written a whole two paragraphs about anime, and not said a single bloody thing about what it’s about. Here’s the “brief” description of the episode from this site:

In this episode, we learn that Ichise is currently living his life as a fighter in an underground fighting ring. He is incredibly strong and is rewarded for his efforts with a nice whore. She goes kind of crazy and he throws her off during their ‘love making’. As a result, her ‘employer’, Aida, calls up a member of Organ, Isshii, to punish Ichise. Isshii cuts off Ichise’s right arm.

At the same time, we see our first sighting of Yoshii, a member of the Class who has come down to Lux for reasons unknown at this point. When he gets to the bottom of the stairs that connect the two worlds, he meets Ran, a girl from the nearby village of Gabe, which is situated on the outskits of Lux. Ran leads him to the Elder of Gabe where they are soon accosted by a couple members of the Alliance. Yoshii protects Ran and the Elder and fights them off.

We are also introduced to Oonishi, the leader of Organ.

Hm. Really? I think I counted four lines of dialogue in the twenty minutes. Here’s what I took out of the episode: there’s a dude with nice hair, he has sex with a lady, some shit happens, and then they cut off the guy’s arm. There’s something about some guy being a leader, some girl named Ran, and then there are credits which have a song that references something about wearing a white t-shirt.

So here’s the thing: in order to ‘get it’, you need to watch it and then can you only retrospectively ‘get it’. It was the same with Heibane, where all the girls were angels, they came out of eggs, they baked bread. But the pacing was so deliberate and slow, when you eventually got answers to questions like why is it everyone seems so sad and where are the boys, you’re really invested in not only the world and the story, but the feeling. Less so with Texhnolyze I think – maybe because of the pacing, but it seems so intentionally oblique. The world is well rendered – everything looks great, and I have to admit, afterwards, I really wanted to watch another one, but I can’t exactly say why. I tire of the ‘question narrative’ that’s so popular in television, where mysteries are presented in compellingly well-rendered cliffhanger style for the purpose of viewership vs. answers. I think the story telling angle here is more that you’re being dropped head-first into a Sci Fi world with different rules, and instead of explaining everything, you just need to give it the benefit of the doubt for a couple hours. Sure, why not.

And take note – the version I got from Netflix was the 73 minute “expurgated” version, so it seems like they haven’t been replacing the discs (given it came out in November, and has only now made it to the top of my queue). Hopefully with a note to their customer service, they’ll take advantage of the recall on a case by case basis. So all this shouldn’t be a way of suggesting you don’t seek out this film. It’s definitely worth it, if only to see an earnest and sincere attempt to convert James Joyce’s short story to the screen, which is no small task.

I’m easing myself into my media-writing now. I intend (again) to write a little about everything I see this year. So far, that’s only been two movies: The Dead and The Fantastic Mr. Fox, so I’m not too far behind. Last year, I made it all the way through mid-February before I started falling hopelessly behind. But I am reinvigorated and with spirit renewed. It’s also a shame that this first movie is such a killer – expect to see me write more about it once I see those missing ten minutes.

I’m also considering inviting people over to my house to watch a movie, and then forcing them to write something on this blog about it. A conversational video club, as it were. There are plenty of things hanging over my head that I want, least of all The Wages of Fear on Blu-Ray. The whole intention of this blog is that the further I get away from school and the deeper I get into my career, I feel my brain becoming more and more cottony–and I wish to stem the tide against that. There was a time when I enjoyed engaging in, evaluating and critiquing the things I read. But with complacency in daily work seems to come an encompassing complacency that engulfs the whole of my off-time, a driving desire to be “off” and disengaged. Maybe a reflection here or there can help clear out some of the cob webs.