Before I begin my movie review I wanna do a shout out to Elizabeth : "Hey Elizabeth"! This one is shouted at full blast through a megaphone so she can hear me all the way over in Japan. Elizabeth, I am very much enjoying the pictures and video clips you've been posting. The autumn leaves are beautiful there, wow. I liked the bamboo forest too, and of course the architecture. Japan, at least in the villages, looks like a fantasy world. Are you there for a film, or just as a vacation? I hope you are having a great time, and I got a kick out of the time difference too. I Googled it because when you posted your pics on FB, it was 2 am here, so I wondered, "hmm, what time must it be in Kyoto? Hawaii is three hours earlier than Los Angeles.....is it yesterday in Japan"? Then I found out the opposite. It is 17 hours later over there, so as I write this, for you it's dinner time tomorrow! Now that is really far out. No wonder you mentioned jet lag. :):)
Well anyhow, keep posting as I always say. :)
Tonight's movie was called "Diamonds of the Night" (1964, original title "Demanty noci"). I had never heard of it, nor it's director Jan Nemec, but it was from Criterion and the premise looked good : two inmates of a German concentration camp have escaped and are running for their lives through a dense forest. It turned out to be more of an Art Film rather than a conventional story, almost like the work of an exceptional graduate student who is still experimenting with format, and it was Nemec's debut.
The movie opens with a close tracking shot of the two young men running up the side of a muddy hill. We can hear their every breath, their grunts and footfalls, we can hear birds in trees, the sounds of nature.......and we also hear gunshots. Their captors are closing in. Right away, the camera pulls us tight, as if we are running with the boys. The pictures are all hacked up, focusing on parts of their bodies : Feet encased in filthy shoes, pushing in the mud to find purchase. Arms wheeling for balance. Heads hanging with exhaustion. Meanwhile, the rifle shots keep coming. The soundtrack in this film is relentless. The boys do outrun their pursuers, though. A hollow in the woods provides shelter for the night, and they are safe, temporarily.
But the bigger deal, as far as the movie is concerned, is that we become aware within the first ten minutes that this is going to be a minimalist work. There won't be much dialogue, and no exposition whatsoever. There won't even be a single dramatic scene in the standard sense, so we will be left to figure out for ourselves what is going on. It's not that the plot is indecipherable. Only a few actions take place : The boys escape; they search for food; they try to find permanent safety. That last act takes place mostly in the mind of one boy, the protagonist, who daydreams of life back in pre-war Czechoslovakia. He imagines being back with his girlfriend, but it's hard to tell if this is a hopeful premonition or only a memory. One of the problems I had with the movie is that in the "daydream" sequences, it looks like Nemec took his sections of film and spliced them at random, so you often don't know which is past, present or future. In certain pivotal scenes, he also offers alternative outcomes. In other words, imagine a movie scene in which a man is shot, followed immediately by a repeat of the same footage leading up to the shooting, only this time the man is not shot, then followed a third time where he once again is shot. I think in one scene here, this happened four or five times. I realize the effect Nemec was going for - that the alternative actions are being pondered in the boy's mind - but it doesn't play as well, in my opinion, as would a more straightforward take of the scene.
That's why I say the film feels a bit "studenty". Now, don't get me wrong because it's an excellent work. The grainy black and white photography is outstanding, as is the camerawork and especially the soundtrack. Every noise is attenuated, to illustrate the boys' level of fear. In one lengthy sequence toward the end, a group of elderly men - some of them senile - enjoy a celebratory meal in a local hall. I won't reveal the circumstances, but as we watch them raise their glasses and eat their chicken, we can hear every "smack" of their lips as we are shown their toothless, foodstuffed grins. It's all quite disgusting, as it's meant to be, knowing that the boys are starving.
I'm not generally a fan of ambiguity in movies, and I've found the trend in some recent films to "let the viewer decide" is more a result of a lack of creativity on the part of the filmmakers rather than an innovative concept. I spoke of alternative outcomes in certain scenes in this film. I won't comment on the ending, other than to say that - while it's basically fine and does not detract from the movie - I just think that, again, it has an experimental feel. Nemec, being a young filmmaker from the Czech New Wave making his debut, might've thought "let me try something different".
"Diamonds of the Night" feels like a debut film. It's brilliant for what it is; Nemec has created a harrowing and fulfilling story in only 67 minutes and I give it Two Big Thumbs Up. I just think it could've been even better, probably a masterpiece, had it been the director's third or fourth film, say, when he'd gained more experience. Still, make sure to see it! ////
That's all for the moment. Rams won big over the Chi-Town Hustlers.....er, I mean Da Bears. Cue Chris Farley : "Bearss, Bearss, Bearss, Bearss......". I'm gonna predict that next week, the Rams are gonna shock the world by beating LaMar Jackson and the Baltimore Ravens on Monday Night Football. You heard it here first! See you tonight at the Usual Time.
Tons of love! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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