Tavernier Triple Feature

I watched three Bertrand Tavernier films at the end of June. Tavernier died recently (in March) and the Criterion Channel put a bunch of his films up for us. 

A Sunday in the Country (Un Dimanche à la Compagne) (1984) is understated and lovely.

Daddy Nostalgie (1990) is smart and slow and sad. It's Dirk Bogarde's last performance, and I love that man so much, so this is a pleasure in many ways. It's also a very interesting character study. Jane Birkin's character is constantly getting angry for no reason, or rather, there's something in her character that prompts her to quick rages. It's a very, very interesting film.

And then there is La Vie et Rien d'Autre (Life and Nothing But) (1989), which is plainly Bertrand Tavernier's masterpiece. This is an incredible, moving antiwar film set in the year following WWI. Tavernier's focus on the dead, on the absolute and total loss of life is extraordinary, humane, and almost unbearable. I loved this film. Philippe Noiret and Sabine Azéma are wonderful.

High Heels (1991)

High Heels is a total melodramatic delight. This is campy fun that's also serious. In the vein of La Ley del Deseo and Atame! especially. There are murders, there are lost pistols, there are prison lesbians, there is a drag queen performing as one of the other characters. There's an outrageous dance sequence (in the women's prison) and an incredible sex scene. This has something for everyone. What is especially important are the Joan Crawford–Lana Turner connections here. Daughters trying to live up to mothers, Mildred Pierce, Autumn Sonata, Imitation of Life, Mommie Dearest. All of these films come up numerous times in Tacones Lejanos. I was especially reminded of Where Love Has Gone with Susan Hayward and Bette Davis, a film ostensibly about Lana Turner and her daughter. And there's Douglas Sirk, who made melodramas exactly like this in the 1940s and '50s and is obviously an enormous influence on Almodóvar in general. In any case, all of this makes the film even richer.

Strangers in Good Company (1990)

The Company of Strangers, which was released in the U.S. as Strangers in Good Company, is a gorgeous Canadian semi-documentary film. And it is amazing. This movie deserves to be legendary, and I'm not quite sure why it's not. Cynthia Scott's feminist exploration of growing old is really, really wonderful. I saw this as a bit of a fluke with my unseen movie club, and every one of us adored it.

I loved this movie so much that I started reading a memoir by one of the cast members, the painter Mary Meigs – she was a lesbian and (in 1990!) she appeared in this movie as herself.

The Reflecting Skin (1990)

Oddly enough, The Reflecting Skin was not as weird as one of Philip Ridley's plays. But make no mistake, this is a very, very weird movie in which a young boy's friends and family all begin to die very mysteriously. First his friend is found dead, drowned in the family's well, and then his father lights himself on fire after fellating a gas pump. More deaths ensue. The script is actually pretty good, but it's directed (by Ridley) with almost total ineptness. One really has almost no idea what is going on, and the twist of the film is never really communicated to the audience, even at the very end. It's a strange, strange picture.