Frezno's Criterion Challenge: April 2023 Trip Report

Welcome back, my friends, to the cinema which never ends! It's the Criterion Challenge and it is April, which means it's time to start another month of cinematic adventure. Last time was a bit of an eclectic selection, so let's see what April can have in store for us. We left off on the quite moving and depressing Mishima, a film which I could have said more about if I hadn't been miserable with a cold at the time. Well, no more cold, so now I can afford to be a little more detailed as we dive into our next film... and let's.

13. The Last Temptation Of Christ (1988, dir. Martin Scorsese)

If you're diving into fine cinema, you've just got to get good old Marty in there. We were just talking about him with Mishima, but here he is directly. As it turns out, he's not just good at making die-hard Marvel fans seethe but is also an incredibly talented filmmaker. So, on the most fitting of days, Easter Sunday, I threw on his film that dared to ask the question "What if Jesus Christ were really really fucked up, actually?". From what I understand, Scorsese was making die-hard Christians seethe with this movie and its controversial choices, so there's definitely a bit of a theme with the man. Mad respect.

Actually talking about the movie, for all its controversy it's such a simple little idea. Show the Son of God as a flawed man, messy and complex and incredibly human, falling into the same pitfalls and perils that all men do. Jesus Christ in this film is not a perfect paragon of Christian faith, but a cowardly and fearful hot mess who sees his destiny as the savior of man's soul and runs screaming from it. The entire film is about his struggle between the two halves of himself, the human and the divine, and it's a fascinating and thought-provoking look at this religious symbol as a man.

That whole dichotomy reaches its zenith in the final act, which dares to threaten 2000 years of holy symbolism and have Jesus choose mortality instead of sacrifice for our sins. The moment he does so, you can see the shift: where the rest of the movie is dull drab desert with a color palette worthy of a Marvel movie (hey, if Scorsese can make 'em mad, so can I), once Jesus chooses to abandon the cross we get lush greenery and vibrant colors. It's beautiful, transgressive, and shocking... and that's the temptation. He doesn't give into it at the end, so I fail to see the objection. Unless, that is, the objection is making the Christian savior flawed in the first place. Which, that's massively more interesting in its own right. Much like this film. Damn, Martin Scorsese makes good movies. Who knew?

14. Three Ages (1923, dir. Buster Keaton)

And so we go from Jesus Christ to a silent movie that is literally a century old. Well. How about that? This sets a new record for how far back in time I've gone with the Criterion Challenge, but it's not even the oldest film I've seen. That would be Capybara Walking from 1887, and now you've seen it too. Fine cinema indeed. Much like this film, which is the silent film legend Buster Keaton doing his thing of silent slapstick. You've got lots of good gags, and some impressive stunts that really do seem to be Keaton just throwing himself into life-threatening danger for a funny bit in his silent movie. Impressive.

Telling a story of love, courtship, and competition that resonates throughout all of human history is quite the scope, but Keaton and friends pull it off. A few bum gags here and there, but I appreciate the structure of the film and how it keeps mirroring itself in interesting ways. I especially liked the competition part, as they manage to tie cavemen fighting, a chariot race, and a football game together in a unique way. There's not much I can say to this because it's physical comedy, and just explaining to you how Buster Keaton bumbles around and gets into hijinks isn't nearly as funny as just seeing it. I was struck, though, by just how much formative childhood things like Looney Tunes and The Simpsons took from this film specifically. Buster Keaton's a rosetta stone for comedy in that way, and it leads to an entertaining way to spend an hour watching a silly goose fall down in the pursuit of love.

15. A Night On Bald Mountain (1933, dir. Claire Parker & Alexandre Alexeieff) 

Well, holy fuck. I don't know what I was expecting when I threw this one on. At 10 minutes, I deliberately was saving it for a rainy day when I needed to quickly get an entry out because of some other delay. That early April cold was just such a delay, and so I needed to get a fourth film onto the list quick. What the hell, I just did a silent movie too, so let's do this. Some 10 minute adaptation of Night On Bald Mountain. Maybe there'll be a cool devil like in Fantasia. The Disney comparison isn't entirely off, but in a way which you wouldn't expect. I was thinking about Disney during this in the terms of special effects.

These days, the question of how special effects are done is mostly a solved one. The answer is "we filmed a bunch of people in front of a green screen and then worked VFX artists to the bone to put shit all around them with a computer". I wonder what corporation I could be thinking of with that statement? By contrast, here is A Night On Bald Mountain. It is 10 minutes of surreal and awe-inspiring animation set to classical music. I have no idea how in the fuck it was made in 1933, and I do not want to know. What I do know is that I was utterly enraptured by its bizarre shadow-play, simultaneously floating along with its vibes and wondering just how they made this thing 90 years ago. It calls to mind the strange animations of Gerald Scarfe or Terry Gilliam, and I kind of love it for that. A 10-minute portal to another world, a world of monochrome and classical music that is too strange and odd to comprehend. That's my kind of jam. What a film.

16. Vampyr (1932, dir. Carl Dreyer)

And so I end the month of April with this film, an odd culmination of everything I've seen so far in this post. This one was very interesting to lay back and let unfold in my presence. If you describe it on paper, it sounds like a stock horror film. A guy wandering around the German countryside, dealing with the aftermath of an undead vampire stalking her prey? It owes more than a bit to Stoker's Dracula, with its slow reveal of the rules of vampires and the vampire's prey being a young girl. It almost sounds boring when I just put it like that, doesn't it? 

Lucky that it's crafted with talent and a deft eye. Dreyer's direction turns this into a gothic horror masterpiece, a black and white film with spoken dialogue that still feels like it has one foot in the silent era. The first 15 minutes of this film, where it only vaguely explains itself, are a damn fine mix of spooky atmosphere and vibes-based filmmaking. Even when you understand the basic idea of who the vampire is preying on, and what her human thralls are doing to ensure that the girl will be turned, that vibe never goes away. There's two things which stood out most. The first is when protagonist Allan Grey has some sort of terrible nightmare or premonition about himself dying and being buried, and all the while he wanders around the scenes as a ghost, complete with being see-through. 

The second is the vampire's prey, Leone. There's this bit where she goes from sobbing terror at the fact that the vampire's bite has damned her to this rapturous evil grin. I'll tell you what it reminds me of. It reminds me of Sheryl Lee's fucking nightmare grin from the deleted scenes of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. That should have been in the movie, but I feel a little vindication knowing that Dreyer put something similar in his film 60 years prior. It fits his theme, too, as there's a lot of faith in the film. Vampires are seen as creatures of sin, and there's a bit about suicide being an unforgivable sin that will damn you. That religious power ties us back to the start of the month, and it'll let us end this month. Onwards, to May!!