Fire Walk With Me (4½ Stars)

This is the September selection for the monthly "Best Of Cinema" It's a film I own on DVD, but I haven't watched it for a long time. It was made in 1992, and it's a prequel to the television series "Twin Peaks". I first watched "Twin Peaks" in 2004 (according to my Amazon purchase history), and I watched "Fire Walk With Me" immediately afterwards. I re-watched "Twin Peaks" in 2014, but I didn't watch "Fire Walk With Me" again. I'm not sure why.

Let me start by saying that I don't think "Fire Walk With Me" is a well made film. It makes no concessions for the viewer. The characters appear randomly in the film, some named, some not, and anyone who hasn't seen the series probably has no idea what's happening.

But it's a David Lynch film, so is it necessary to understand it? The psychedelic imagery is compelling and drew me in, and I'm sure it would have had the same effect if I'd never watched the series.

The film is made up of two parts. In the first part we see an investigation of the murder of Teresa Banks. The murder isn't solved, and one of the detectives mysteriously disappears. The second part, which takes place a year later, shows the last seven days of Laura Palmer. In the series special agent Cooper spent weeks painfully researching clues to figure out what happened. Many of the clues pointed in the wrong direction. In the film we see exactly what happened.

After watching the film I checked the availability of "Fire Walk With Me" on 4K, and I found that the release date is November this year, alongside a 4K release of "Lost Highway". Wow! While reading up on it I found rumours on social media that "Twin Peaks" will be released on 4K. I've only watched my Blu-ray box set once, but that wouldn't stop me buying it yet again.

"Fire Walk With Me" is a film that overwhelms me. I've only deducted half a star because there's too much smoking.

Success Rate:  - 2.4

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Christiane F – Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo (4 Stars)

This film is based on the autobiography of Christiane Felscherinow about her experiences as a 14-year-old heroin addict. The film is interesting to me, because it takes place in 1976 to 1977 at a place that I visited several times a week. The events related in the film were happening all around me, but I was blind to them.

Bahnhof Zoo was the main train station in West Berlin until the reunification in 1990. After that it gradually lost importance, because it was too far from the new centre of Berlin. Trains were diverted to other stations which had previously been in East Berlin, especially the Friedrichstrasse Station. Since the completion of the new Berlin Central Station in 2006, Bahnhof Zoo is barely used. There have been repeated calls for it to be torn down, but due to its cultural importance it will probably remain standing.

When I arrived in West Berlin in September 1976, the first I saw of Berlin was Bahnhof Zoo. It was also my first experience with German police. I had the address of someone I would be staying with until I found a room. It was about 6 am. I saw two policemen walking in the station, so I asked them where the street was. I realise in retrospect that it was a stupid question, because West Berlin was a city with 3.5 million inhabitants and so many streets that it's impossible to know them all. The reaction of the policemen was a mixture of arrogance and rudeness. They looked at me, then they looked at each other, then they walked away without replying. Since that day I've disliked the German police.

After that I sat outside the station at a café and drank a Fanta. I can't see the café in the film, but I remember roughly where it was. Were Christiane F and her friends running around while I was naively sipping my overpriced drink in a new city? I don't know. What I do know is that I caught the U-Bahn (underground train) to Bahnhof Zoo every day, and from there I walked to the university where I was studying.

Christiane is 13 when the film starts. Like any young teenage girl, she wants to be an adult. She puts on make up and goes to Berlin's biggest discotheque, Sound. The security is lax. They ask her if she's 16. She answers Yes, and they let her in. (16 is the minimum age for visiting nightclubs in Germany, but anyone under 18 has to leave at 10 pm).

Do you think she looks like she's 16? Hardly. She was played by the 13-year-old actress Natja Brunckhorst in her first film. Watching the film today, I have to say that she was perfect for the role. Katja Bienert also auditioned for the role, and she was favoured because three years earlier she'd appeared in the unofficial adaptation of the biography, "Die Schulmädchen vom Treffpunkt Zoo" (engl. "The schoolgirls who meet at the Zoo train station"). Eventually she was turned down because she looked too old. I'm a big fan of Katja Bienert, but I agree with the decision. The new film wasn't the right type of role for her. In the film Christiane starts out as a pretty 13-year-old, but she ends up as an ugly 14-year-old. Katja Bienert could never look that ugly.

Heroin destroys. There are other illicit drugs, some more dangerous than others, but heroin is the drug that has the biggest and most drastic effect on its addicts. When I lived in Birmingham I knew a drug dealer called Alexis Thomas, the son of a friend of mine. He introduced my wife to crack and heroin. She said that she "just wanted to try it", but she was soon hooked. This is what destroyed my marriage. She repeatedly said that she wanted to give up drugs, but she couldn't. I can't blame her for that. If I'd been taking heroin I wouldn't have been able to stop either. With heroin it's important that you don't start.

I remember meeting Alexis' girlfriend, Maisie. She told me, "Everyone says that heroin's bad, but it's wonderful and totally harmless". I asked her how long she'd been using heroin. "One week", she replied. I wonder what she would say to me today, if she's still alive.

Christiane made her first contact with drugs in Sound. First marijuana, then LSD, then heroin. It wasn't a slow decline, it was a rapid crash. She and her boyfriend Detlev injected themselves together, sharing their needles. Their friends began to die around them, but that didn't stop them. Not permanently, anyway. In early 1977 Christiane and Detlev went cold turkey with the help of her mother. They became clean again. Then they met their friends at Bahnhof Zoo, and they told themselves that they could still use heroin occasionally, as long as they remained in control. One injection was all that it took to renew their addiction.

"Dedicated to Andreas W, Axel W and Babette D, and to everyone else who wasn't lucky enough to survive".

David Bowie assisted in the making of the film. He appears in a concert where he's looking down at Christiane from the stage, but it's more than that. He was personally interested in the film, because he'd lived in Berlin from 1976 to 1978. At this time he too had been struggling to overcome his drug addiction, so he remained closely involved on the film set giving advice to the cast and crew.

A slight fault in the film is that David Bowie's music is overused. I have no problem with his songs being used as background music for the film, but it seems artificial that every time Christiane walks into Sound a David Bowie song is being played.

Maybe this film deserves a five star rating. Probably it does. It's an intense film from beginning to end. However, I have to give it a lower rating for personal reasons. I find drug use abhorrent. The use of drugs in the film is explicit. It needs to be explicit to tell a message, but it makes the scenes too unpleasant for me to enjoy. As good as the film is, I can't watch it very often. Today is the first time I've watched it since 2006, and I don't think I'll watch it again for years. It churns my stomach.

The Man who fell to Earth (5 Stars)

"I'm not a scientist, but I know all things begin and end in eternity" (David Bowie, 1976).

When I was compiling my list of 30 films to watch before you die this was a near miss. It would definitely have been included if my list had been 50 films long. It would even have been included in a 35 film list. It's a masterpiece of cinematic art created by the legendary director Nicolas Roeg, who sadly passed away last month. He wasn't a prolific director, but whatever he did was good. He only made 12 films from 1971 till 2007, and no films at all for the last eleven years of his life. Two of his films belong to the best films ever made. One is "Don't look now" (1973), and the other is "The Man who fell to Earth" (1976). Both are films of such brilliance that they leave a lasting impression on anyone who sees them. I talked to my ex-wife about "Don't look now" after hearing about Roeg's death. She saw it only once in 1981. She says she didn't like it, but it's remarkable that she remembers it vividly, and she even remembers where she was when she watched it. That's the mark of a great film.

Both films have a similar style. There are quick cuts from one picture to another, often with unrelated scenes being shown in parallel. This was Nicolas Roeg's style. This is the style that became popular in music videos, which hadn't yet been invented, but Nicolas Roeg did it better.

One of the things I like most about "The Man who fell to Earth" is the way the story is thrown at the viewer, rather than being a steady narration. Many things pop up that aren't explained until later. Some things are shown, such as the observer in the opening scenes, that are never explained. He isn't relevant, but we don't find out till later that he isn't relevant. It's like a dream in which random things happen that seem more important than they really are.

There are some questions left open in the film. How did the alien played by David Bowie come to have a British passport? How long was he on the Earth? The events in the film seem to take place over a 30 year period, but flashbacks hint that he might have been on Earth for at least a hundred years before these events. We aren't told, and it's not important that we know. We're told just as much as we know in order to enjoy the film.

Nicolas Roeg
15 August 1928 – 23 November 2018

I'm sad that Nicolas Roeg has left so few films behind him after passing away. On the other hand, I have to admit that I haven't watched them all. For now I'll just re-watch the three films of his that I already have in my DVD and Blu-ray collection. I checked Amazon and found 11 of his 12 films on sale for reasonable prices. Four of them are on Blu-ray, the rest only on DVD. I also checked Netflix, and there are none of his films available for streaming. Not one. But what do you expect from Netflix anyway?

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The Prestige (4½ Stars)

Yesterday I loved you. Today I don't. Tomorrow I'll love you. Next week is too far away to decide, but I can love you till Tuesday.

David Bowie is very calm and dignified in his portrayal of the inventor Nikola Tesla, the only real person in this film. He's a man I know very little about. He worked together with Thomas Edison in finding means to distribute electricity, but they didn't always share the same goals. Edison's aim was to distribute electricity by wires, which is the method taken for granted today. Tesla wanted to distribute electricity without wires, but this was too difficult to achieve in his lifetime (1891-1943). Maybe this is a project that could be tackled by scientists today. It's something we need to keep our mobile phones fully charged at all times.

Nikola Tesla was also critical of the striving of women to gain equality with men, because he believed that it's the destiny of women to be superior. He was a very wise man.

Zoolander (4 Stars)

"I'm pretty sure there's more to life than being really, really good looking".

The fashion industry is so shallow that it's difficult not to make fun of it. Sacha Baron Cohen did it in "Bruno" (2009). But before then Ben Stiller did it just as effectively in "Zoolander" (2001).

Ben Stiller stars as Derek Zoolander, a man who has been named the Male Model of the Year four years in a row. When he fails to win the award the next year, the prize going to his rival Hansel (Owen Wilson), his world falls apart. He's vulnerable to attacks from people who want to exploit him. The fashion company executive Jacob Moogberg (Will Ferrell), better known as Mugatu, hires him to assassinate the Prime Minister of Malaysia, who wants to abolish child labour in his country. Without child labour Mugatu's clothes can't be manufactured as cheaply and his profits will fall.

The film features cameos from a multitude of celebrities appearing as themselves. One of them is David Bowie. Rest in peace.

Another is Donald Trump, who is now campaigning to become the American president. He has gained a lot of support by populist rhetoric, aided by the current fear of terrorism by Islamic extremists. He over-generalises when he judges people, as all populists do. He also polarises opinions sharply. People love him or they hate him, there's no middle ground. Recently one of my oldest friends unfriended me on Facebook because I called Donald Trump stupid. Maybe I was wrong to use that word, I'm sure he's a highly educated man, but he has many viewpoints which I consider to be stupid. For instance, he says that in order to protect America from terror attacks no Moslems should be allowed to enter the country. Judging everyone who carries the label "Moslem" is an act of bigotry. Not all Moslems are terrorists, and more importantly, not all Moslems are Moslems. What I mean by that is that Islam is part of the racial identity of many people, for instance Pakistanis. I have many Pakistani friends who don't read the Koran or visit a mosque. They have no interest in religion at all, but they carry on calling themselves Moslems because it's what they think is expected of them. This is in contrast to British people in England who have no problem in saying they aren't Christians. Donald Trump doesn't understand this.

I first watched "Zoolander" with my friend Tamara, and I'll always associate the film with her. We were lying entwined on her sofa watching the film, but like a good film fan I didn't let myself get too distracted. We've known each other for nine years. I've always liked her, but she's temperamental and frequently turns against me, later forgetting what she was angry about. I'd do anything for her if she needed me. We still talk occasionally, but we're not as close as we used to be. I don't know if she reads my blog. In case she does, she should leave a comment on this post to tell me what she thinks of me.

The Man who fell to Earth (5 Stars)

It's not often that I watch the same film twice in quick succession. It was only nine days ago that I watched "The man who fell to Earth". Click here to read my review. Nine days ago I watched the film to remember David Bowie. Today I watched it for the sake of the film itself. I can imagine that I'll return to watch it repeatedly over the next few years.

I didn't intend to write about David Bowie himself in this review, but it's difficult not to. He's inseparable from the film. He makes it what it is. His performance is detached, shy, elusive. This is what the man himself was. In his first concert performances in 1970 Bowie was criticised for not putting on a stage show. He just stood motionless on the stage and sang. That was the real Bowie. That was how he was in himself. He was introverted. He was overwhelmed by having hundreds of people staring at him. His managers and advisers must have told him that this wasn't good for business, so after the release of "Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars" his image changed. He didn't just sing about Ziggy Stardust, he became Ziggy Stardust. He wore sparkly outfits and he danced on stage. He became a real rock star. If he wasn't an extrovert he could at least play the part.

David Bowie was never Ziggy Stardust. That was just acting. David Bowie was the man who fell to Earth. He was the shy awkward man who spoke little and thought a lot.

Nicolas Roeg's directing is magnificent. He has a story to tell, but he just tells it in bits and pieces, leaving large gaps for the viewer to figure out for himself. The film covers a long period of time. 30 years, maybe 40. We're not told how long it is, and it's not really relevant. We see the people in Bowie's life growing older while he stays the same, forever young. There I am again, calling him by his real name, not Thomas Newton as he's known in the film. I can't help it.

I hardly said anything about the plot in my last review, so I'll make up for it here. An alien flies to Earth in search of water for his dying world. He lands in Haneyville, New Mexico. He carries a fake British passport and a large number of gold rings, which he sells in different stores to avoid attention. Once he has enough money he presents a list of inventions to a patent lawyer in New York. He founds World Enterprises, which becomes America's largest company. He's making money to finance the building of a new space ship with which he can return to his planet.

Bowie's time on Earth doesn't leave him unscarred. He embarks on a relationship with Mary-Lou, a hotel room cleaner. She introduces him to alcohol, which he refuses at first, but as time goes by he drinks more and more to overcome the boredom. He has too much money and nothing to do, since he doesn't actually work, having delegated everything in his company to his chief employees.

Can a company grow bigger than the American government? Is it permissible? In the film it isn't. At first government officials are sent to use friendly persuasion to make World Enterprises downsize. When this fails strong-arm tactics such as murder are used. The film was made in 1976. Over the next 30 years a company called Microsoft grew to have a position of power unprecedented in American history. On paper it looks smaller than other companies like Walmart and various car manufacturers, but by positioning itself in the growing computer market Microsoft became more influential than any other company. There have been highly publicised trials against Microsoft because of its unfair business practises towards its competitors, but we don't know what else has happened behind closed doors. If Microsoft ever shrinks it will probably be due to competition from other companies like Google, or the result of risky investments.

It might surprise some people to hear that "The man who fell to Earth" was remade in 1987. If you don't believe me, here's the proof. Why? Supposedly the remake was closer to the original novel, but I haven't seen it and I don't want to. For me there's only one man who fell to Earth, and his name isn't Lewis Smith.

The Man who fell to Earth (5 Stars)

"We must have died alone, a long long time ago".

It was with great sadness that I heard about David Bowie's death today. It came so unexpectedly. I expected him to live forever. Does that make sense? What I mean is, he was one of the three stable things in my life that I take for granted, the three things that have been there as long as I remember:

Elizabeth is the Queen of England.

William Roache is on "Coronation Street".

David Bowie makes music.

Now he's gone. I just said that I was sad when I heard about his death. That's not quite true. It was something else that I felt and still feel. I'm stunned. I'm dazed. It's such a shock to me that it's killed my emotions.

I grew up with David Bowie. I first became aware of him when David Pace, my best friend at school, lent me Bowie's 1970 album, "The Man Who Sold The World". If you check out David Bowie's official discography you'll see that this was his third album, but Bowie always called it his first. The reason is that this was the first album that he conceived and put together himself. The first two albums were collections of singles, B-sides and assorted other tracks recorded in the studio. That's not to say that the albums don't contain good music. "Space Oddity" is the title track of the second album, released in 1969. Nevertheless, "The Man Who Sold The World" was the first album for which Bowie had full creative control.

When I was 17 I had a girlfriend who was crazy about David Bowie. He was practically the only musician that she listened to. I only dated her for a few months, but after spending all my time with her listening to Bowie's albums I was sick of him. After we split up I hardly listened to him for years. It wasn't until I was in my 30's that I rediscovered Bowie's music. I bought all his albums on CD. It must have been almost 20 albums. I admit that I hardly listened to the first two. They didn't have the appeal that his later albums did. At that time I was fascinated by "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars".

Unfortunately, I lost all of my Bowie CD's in 2000. They were stolen by Thomas Kuzilla of Dearborn Heights, Michigan. While I was in hospital he took everything I had. I wrote to him and asked for my property back, but he said I had to pay for it. He wanted an extortionate price, about 50% of what I had paid for the items. Due to the complications of being in hospital in England I was unable to take legal action against someone living in America. Thomas Kuzilla is one of the most evil people I have ever known. At that time, 2000-2001, I was going through very hard times, and he kicked me while I was down. He knew I was powerless to do anything, and he sent me countless smug emails with his demands.

After leaving hospital I only re-bought three of Bowie's albums: "The Man who sold the world", "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars" and "Pin-Ups". Those were my favourite three. They gave me great comfort as I began to recover after my time in hospital.

Today I watched "The Man who fell to Earth", the 1976 film in which David Bowie played the main role. I think of it as a companion to "Don't look now" (1973), which I'll probably review soon. Both films were directed by Nicolas Roeg, an English director who has only made a few films in his career. None of them lived up to these two films. It seems like "The man who fell to Earth" was written for David Bowie. It added to the mystique that he already had. He was an alien from outer space who fell to Earth. He was immortal, or at the very least he would live for a long time, hardly ageing while those around him grew old and died. He was weak and timid, insecure of himself in a busy, bustling world. In the film Bowie was effectively playing himself.

R.I.P. David Bowie
8 January 1947 – 10 January 2016

The Prestige (4½ Stars)

I remember seeing a trailer for this film in the cinema a few years ago. Based on what I saw, probably the same trailer I'm linking to here, it didn't seem interesting. A tail of rivalry between two stage magicians? Yawn. Set in London in the 1890's? I don't know how I stayed awake for the main feature. I have a thing about period dramas set in Victorian England. Somehow the whole society disturbs me. The gentlemen dressed in black suits with top hats. The ladies dressed in countless layers of clothing that must have taken hours to get into. The common people in dirty clothes and rags. Nobody in between, everyone is at one extreme or the other. In today's talk the word "gentleman" is used to refer to a man who treats women well, but in Victorian days it referred to a man who dressed in a certain way, because it was assumed that any man who dressed well would act in a civilised manner. Even today, in England at least, there are leftovers of this meaning. Though not impossible, it's not common to refer to a man who dresses in scruffy clothes as a gentleman.

Maybe that's my problem with the whole Victorian era. Unless the weather dictates otherwise, I wear jeans and a t-shirt every day. I only wear a suit to weddings and funerals. Having to live in the Victorian age would have been a horror for me. All those black suits and top hats? Awful! And yet I like to keep myself clean and tidy. I wouldn't have liked to wear dirty rags like a commoner either. I would have liked to be a middle case, the case between the two extremes that didn't exist.

Recently the film was strongly recommended to me, so I gave it a chance. And I wasn't disappointed, despite the Victorian setting. The big name actors, Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman, Michael Caine and David Bowie, carry a well written story to perfection. But first let me explain the film's title, using the words of Michael Caine as Cutter, because it's a word I'd never heard used in this context:

Every great magic trick consists of three parts or acts. The first part is called "The Pledge". The magician shows you something ordinary: a deck of cards, a bird or a man. He shows you this object. Perhaps he asks you to inspect it to see if it is indeed real, unaltered, normal. But of course, it probably isn't. The second act is called "The Turn". The magician takes the ordinary something and makes it do something extraordinary. Now you're looking for the secret. But you won't find it, because of course you're not really looking. You don't really want to know. You want to be fooled. But you wouldn't clap yet. Because making something disappear isn't enough; you have to bring it back. That's why every magic trick has a third act, the hardest part, the part we call "The Prestige".

Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale play Robert Angier and Alfred Borden, two junior magicians starting their career as assistants to a master magician. Michael Caine plays Cutter, an "engineer" who prepares tricks for a magician behind the stage. Cutter also acts as a father figure and adviser to both the young men throughout the film. One day a magic trick goes wrong and Angier's wife dies during a performance, drowning to death.

Both young men become magicians in their own right. Borden is technically better at performing tricks, but Angier is a better stage man, more entertaining to the audience. Angier blames Borden for his wife's death, so he disguises himself and sneaks into Borden's performances to sabotage his tricks, even to the extent of  trying to kill his rival before the eyes of the public, making it look like an accident.

This all changes when Alfred Borden begins to perform a spectacular new trick, "The Transported Man", in which a man disappears from one side of the stage and reappears at the other side of the stage less than a second later. Angier becomes obsessed with this trick, and his desire to learn its secret becomes more important than his revenge. But the biggest trick of all lies ahead. Angier dies in his quest and Borden is wrongly sentenced to death for his murder. Borden remains calm in prison and promises to return from the dead. Can Angier do the same?

None of what I've written is really a spoiler, because the film starts with Angier's death and tells the rest of the story in flashbacks, jumping backwards and forwards through time. This is my only real criticism of what is otherwise a close to perfect film. Some films profit from being told out of sequence. It heightens the suspense for the viewer wanting to know how things resulted in the scene we see at the beginning. I don't think that's the case here. The actual story behind the film is very simple. It wouldn't have lost anything of the drama or suspense by telling it in the order it happened. The lack of chronology just makes the story unnecessarily complicated. Nevertheless, it's a great film worth watching.