OK, I’m doing an 80s Arthouse Film Festival thing here on this blog, and this movie is slightly off track. I mean, it was released in the 80s, but Tarkovsky was definitely huge at the Cinematheque at the time, so it’s technically part of that thing, but Tarkovsky is, of course, more of a 70s director.

But what the hey. I think I watched this on VHS at the time? I don’t remember anything about it except the final scene.

Ah, yeah, Tarkovsky basically used Ingmar Bergman’s team for this movie? At least that’s what I assumed when I saw it at the time…

Well, even though this has Bergman’s team, and they’re speaking English, it’s still very Tarkovsky. I’m riveted.

But this movie just reminds me of a rant I’m not sure I’ve typed before: Filming movies without sound and then adding the sound afterwards was OK in certain parts of Europe for a long time (*cough* Italy *cough*), but it makes audiences go WHAT!?!? When the lips don’t match the dialogue, it’s hard to get past that. And I know! There’s so many movies that was made that way, and it’s like dismissing all movies that are, what, black and white? But I think that’s a major reason why much of Italy’s cinematic history now isn’t part of what people are watching.

And in this movie — a Swedish movie from 1986 — it’s particularly disturbing. But many of the shots are done at a distance where you can’t even see their lips, so it’s less of an issue…

OK, *re-rolls*.

Allan Edwall is my favourite actor.

OK, I was totally riveted by this movie at the start, but now it’s all christianey and stuff? But there may be a twist.

If you want to be really really uncharitable about this movie — it’s about an old man who has to bang this young chick, and if he doesn’t, the world will end.

I know! Really uncharitable reading, but it’s such a cliche the entire thing. I mean, there’s certain (male) authors I’m following, and almost invariably when they reach their 60s, their books start being about older guys who bangs younger women. These younger women usually find these old guys mysteriously hot, but Tarkovsky takes the trope one step further: This time around, the young woman has to have sex with the old guy or (literally) the world will end.

It’s like… there’s not even a subtext? Oh sure, it’s all mystery and woo hoo and christianity and whatever, but the major part of this movie is about an old guy getting laid to save the world.

So the movie is basically bullshit, but I loved the start of this movie, and it has some really powerful scenes. And it has Allan Edwall! So:

The Sacrifice. Andrei Tarkovsky. 1986. ⚃

Ah, yes, Michael Nyman… I wasn’t really a big fan of his.

These shots are really well staged, but…

… but it’s all a bit jejune, innit?

The impetus for (re)watching all of these 80s arthouse movies was because I wondered why almost all the 80s arthouse directors are excluded from lists like this. It’s like everybody’s decided that the 70s had great movies, and the 90s had, but prefer to skip over the 80s.

And… I’m starting to think that’s for a very good reason?

But perhaps I’m jumping to conclusions.

For the first two thirds of this movie, I was sitting here with crossed arms and thinking “this is such sophomoric bullshit”. But then I was totally gripped by the last third, despite myself. It’s really quite something…

I wondered whether this movie got any votes at all at the S&S poll, and nope. But Greenaway did — if I count correctly (not very likely) and Google shows all results (not very likely), The Cook, The Thief, The Etc and the Etc got four votes, and The Pillow Book got two votes. So it’s not that the votes were split over a large number of Greenaway movies, either…

Anyway, I ended up respecting this movie, albeit grudgingly.

A Zed and Two Noughts. Peter Greenaway. 1985. ⚄

I’ve heard the name of this movie like forever, so I think it made a splash on the scene back then? But I’ve never seen it.

It’s like a hyper-active version of Jim Jarmusch? Or perhaps… a hand-held Robert Altman? It’s very appealing, in any case.

I’m guessing the dialogue is partially improvised? And none of these are professional actors…

It’s a kind of mystery movie — they’re trying to find out what happened to Chan.

I think this is what they’d call “promising”? That is, I think the premise is really interesting, and the approach is fun, but then it sort of peters out and loses interest as it goes along.

Chan is Missing. Wayne Wang. 1982. ⚃