Arrebato (Rapture) (1979)

Iván Zuleta's Arrebato is surreal and weird and very sexy. I’m not sure I really get what was happening. Vampires… vampiric cinema… heroin… honestly I don’t know. But I was into it. 

Also Eusebio Poncela is even sexier in this than he is in Law of Desire and Matador. In many ways, Arrebato actually feels like it's in the Almódovar universe. Cecilia Roth is gorgeous and young and hot in this, and the vampire filmmaker weirdo is played by Will More, who was also in Dark Habits.

Arrebato was released in Spain in 1979 and only released in the U.S. in October 1982. I am not really sure why this was on my radar to watch, but Criterion is kicking it off the channel at the end of the month, so I prioritized it. I'm glad I did.

Two from Jerzy Skolimowski

I’ve been watching Skolimowski’s stuff since last year’s Io was so wonderful and because I’ve never seen any of his work. Moonlighting (1982), however… is not great. It feels like it’s tied down and is never going to get anywhere. And then it sort of just doesn’t. To make matters worse, the central character is very difficult. He’s nervous the whole time, but he’s sort of impossible to identify with because of how Skolimowski tells his story. I found Deep End and Rysopis much more successful than this movie.

Deep End (released in the US in 1971) is fun, and then the ending is not fun, but it has some gorgeous shots in it. 

Mrs. Brisby and the Rats of NIMH

The Secret of NIMH is playing as part of the art-house animation series running on the Criterion Channel, and it's a really lovely, delightfully dark and mysterious film. I can't believe I hadn't seen it before now. It's sort of nuts that this came out in the same year as The Last Unicorn! Both are really great, and neither is a Disney film.

The Last Unicorn

The Last Unicorn is pretty wonderful – aside from the America songs. It's magical and filled with lovely imagery, and it ends in such a gorgeous bittersweet way, so unlike the typical Disney fare.

I watched this on the Criterion Channel. Apparently everyone my age had already seen this film, but somehow I missed it when I was a kid despite my love of unicorns.

Making Love

Arthur Hiller, who directed Love Story, directed Making Love. Now, I have known about this movie for many, many years as an early gay movie (1982!), but I'd never seen it because I assumed it was going to be a) mostly a soap opera and b) kinda homophobic. It wasn't really either of those things.

Instead it's a beautifully realized, nuanced film about three very different people. It's a romantic drama in the truest, most serious sense, and it isn't really even melodramatic. It's almost sensible. I thoroughly enjoyed it. And it has a great supporting performance by Dame Wendy Hiller. Actually, all the actors are very good, and Harry Hamlin has a great part as the stud Bart who doesn't want a relationship. Most importantly, this is not a homophobic film, and it isn't sex-negative either.

Before I say anything else, I think it is also important to say that Michael Ontkean, who plays the film's lead, is dreamy as all hell. Kate Jackson is gorgeous. And Harry Hamlin is very, very sexy in this.

I think the most extraordinary section of Making Love is this insane sequence when the wife finds a matchbook from the gay bar with an address written inside it and decides to go to the address, announce herself as the husband of this man, and then ask the man a bunch of questions about her husband. The man, of course, knows nothing about this guy. He slept with him once. There is literally a tub of vaseline in the shot, just sitting on this guy's end table while he talks to her. But she asks him a whole bunch of questions including: Are you happy? He just looks at her and says, "Yeah. I get mad when I'm stuck in traffic; I don't like to pay my bills; I eat well; I live my life. I'm as happy as the next person." It's just a stunning sequence. Making Love is a film that actually wants to emphasize the idea of gay happiness, that being gay does not equate to being miserable. Happiness is actually possible for the gay men in Making Love. It's a really surprising film in so many ways.

Toute une Nuit (1982)

I think Toute une Nuit is my first Chantal Akerman movie. I was really into it. It's just a bunch of very short little stories about love and rejection and connection. We follow a whole bunch of different characters – some longer, some for only a few moments – and we get a portrait of a very vivid night, so much passion and so much confusion behind closed doors. One of the pairs of lovers is even two men. It was a nice touch, and I liked this movie. There isn't a lot onto which one can really latch, though, and my companions were both bored. Oh well.

Ticket of No Return (1979)

This movie is, as my friend Allison put it, David Lynch meets Jacques Tati. And... that is surprisingly a rather fun combination. Ulrike Ottinger's movie is bananas but in a good way. Bildnis einer Trinkerin (Ticket of No Return) is about a woman who books a one-way ticket to Berlin and then once she gets there she drinks. She wears the most elegant outfits every day – gowns and heels and fabulous makeup – and she drinks, hangs out with a bag lady, breaks many, many glasses, goes to a Nina Hagen show, rides on a boat, and stumbles around Berlin drunk. She never twists her ankle or ruins a shoe, but she isn't exactly elegant. She also never speaks a word. It's a fashion show without a real plot, and it's sort of delightful.

Labyrinth of Passion (1982)

Labyrinth of Passion (Laberinto de Pasiones) is a completely outrageous sex farce. It's Almodóvar's second movie, and it's about a gay Arabian prince and a female Spanish pop star nymphomaniac who fall in love. They're both singing for punk bands, but there's also a princess, a group of terrorists, a laundress, two psychiatrists, and an insane drag queen. It really is a labyrinth of insanity. This is delightful fun, and many of Almodóvar's later themes (drug induced affections, plastic surgery, incest) are already on view here. Pedro himself also makes a cameo singing an insane song in a nightclub.

The Nest

El Nido is a strange film. It moves along at an odd speed, occasionally fast-paced, and occasionally slow. This is typical for the films of Jaime de Armiñán; they can often jump many months without warning. Also typical is the slightly mocking gaze that the film always has turned to its characters. These are characters who are quirky and behave foolishly.

The film asks us also to be sentimental about their behaviors, to care for the characters. Armiñán places them in absurd circumstances, but these circumstances seem to be serving the filmmaker's mockery more than his affection. He certainly is affectionate toward his characters, it's just that the mockery so often seems to outweigh that affection.  

El Nido wasn't really for me. I wanted to identify with the main character, but it just didn't happen. Worse yet, I didn't laugh very much either.