Andrzej Zulawski's L'amour braque (1985)

Sophie Marceau's Marie tells Francis Huster's Léo, "Here, with you. It's not like in the movies or in books, where everything is precise, thought-out, organized with a clear-cut goal. Everthing's chaos, chance, pain, disorder..." These playful lines from within Andrzej Zulawski's L'amour braque (1985) are an apt description of his film itself: a powerful and complex film, which Zulawski somewhat simply describes as a film about a man who becomes a catalyst for a sequence of bad events or situations which would not be nearly as bad without his inclusion. The narrative of L'amour braque is based upon Fyodor Dostoyevsky's The Idiot, set in modern-day Paris.

L'amour braque begins with a playful and colorful bank robbery by thieves donning Disney masks and, later revealed, led by (appropriately named) Mickey (Tchéky Karyo). The heist is successful, and Mickey and his crew board a train. Aboard the train, Mickey meets Hungarian immigrant, Léo (Francis Huster) and feeling, perhaps, an outsider kinship, upon arrival in Paris, Mickey asks Léo to accompany him. With a handful of cash, Mickey wants to see Marie (Sophie Marceau), the woman he loves. At first glance, Léo falls in love with beautiful Marie. Mickey, his crew, Marie, and Léo go to a cafe in the late evening to dine, after having disrupted Marie's posh dinner party. A violent shootout happens at the cafe, tied to a gentleman named "The Venom." Mickey, Marie, and Léo survive, while for the remainder of the film, L'amour braque follows Léo and his relationship with both Marie and Mickey, as those two close in for an encounter with "The Venom."

While I've attempted to describe the initial scenes of L'amour braque, no plot synopsis could truly and adequately describe Zulawski's kinetic, chaotic, violent and bloody, fiercely sexual, highly emotional, densely-packed and richly-filled cinema. Zulawski's description of modern Paris, spoken much later in an interview after his film Szamanka (1996) gives some insight into the Paris canvas of L'amour braque and describes Léo's journey, perhaps incidentally:

It's an extremely conservative culture now here in France, and they "know" everything, they've "organized" the world, you know. In a museum you know exactly who is a "good" painter and who is not. They organize their world and they can't understand after this 250 years of organization they now have behind them, why the people in this country are so unhappy. Why are they so gloomy? Why is there so much hatred and just...plain sadness? If you stay in Paris for a week you become so...a heavy burden, I don't know what, falls on your shoulders and you feel...so responsible...for everything, and nothing works. It's idiotic, because things, more or less, like everywhere, it's a rich country and they have the problems they've invented, so... They want to control. People in front of a TV set want to control the TV set, they want to control you if you walk in the street, they yell if you do something wrong at the wheel of your car, they want to control. And having control they are very unhappy! Because this is the way to get unhappiness, to control. (taken from an interview with Zulawski by Daniel Bird and Stephen Thrower from Eyeball Issue No. 5, Spring 1998, edited by Thrower, published by FAB press.)Reluctant Léo follows his heart towards Marie throughout the film, as she follows, both literally and metaphorically, in the footsteps of her mother. Mickey shadows Marie towards her destination (with "The Venom"), while becoming a brother to Léo, sharing his love for Marie, although quite a different love from Léo. The journey within the film is beautifully and hauntingly rendered by Zulawski and cinematographer Jean-François Robin. Nearly every frame of L'amour braque appears an artistic composition; however, the edited film (by Marie-Sophie Dubus) appears organic and chaotic. Léo and Marie's first love scene in a blood-red hotel room goes beyond being visually jarring: it speaks to the emotions of the two lovers (in several ways). The scenes of violence are done playfully, as are most scenes of the film, yet they never fail to be intense and disturbing. The violent scenes often involve Mickey and his crew towards his final confrontation. I view Zulawski's cinema as a portrayal of outsiders, which perhaps why I'm attracted to it, and L'amour braque is an amazingly complex tale of outsiders. Huster and Karyo give affecting performances. However Marceau is amazingly affective, beautiful, and vulnerable as Marie (she was not yet twenty years old). Mondo Vision has released L'amour braque on DVD in two editions. I have the Premiere edition and it's loaded with specs here. Mondo Vision has also put out Zulawski's La femme publique (1984) and L’ Important C’est D’aimer (1975) in two editions each. These DVD releases are true labors of love. The audio and video is absolutely brilliantly rendered. I've only just gotten into the supplements. The recent interview with Marceau is fantastic, as she gives insights into her complex character, anecdotes of the production, and her thoughts on L'amour braque today. The video interview with Zulawski, filmed apparently during the post-production of L'amour braque, is also interesting: Andrzej Zulawski is a unique and interesting artist. I own all three of Mondo Vision's releases in their Premiere Editions and I will purchase and support this label with their subsequent releases. All of these releases are available for purchase at Amazon.

Willard Huyck's Messiah of Evil (1973)

A man is running frantically through a neighborhood (future film director, Walter Hill). A gate is opened by a young girl which offers the grateful man sanctuary from who or whatever was chasing him. She slits his throat with a straight razor.

Point Dune. From a brightly-lit hallway, the voice-over narration warns of the location. The voice-over narrator is revealed to be Arletty (Marianna Hill) who is now driving the location. Point Dune is the home of her artist father to whom she corresponds only through letters. His letters have ceased which has prompted Arletty to visit. She stops outside of the town at a gas station and receives a not-so subtle warning: The gas station attendent is seen firing his pistol into the darkness. "Fill'er up?" Arletty doesn't seemed fazed by the attendant's odd behavior but she is struck by the appearance of the next patron. A trucker (Bennie Robinson) arrives, and the attendant begins pumping his gas. Curiously, he peeks into the bed of the truck, where two corpses are nuzzled. The attendant shoos Arletty away without paying, only to now be alone with the trucker.

Arletty arrives at her father's house where there is no sign of him. She finds his sketchpad and flipping through, the sketches give away to words. Her father began chronicling the strange events of Point Dune. The following morning, Arletty goes to an art gallery to learn the whereabouts of her father. The art dealer knows nothing but leads her to Thorn (Michael Greer) who came inquiring earlier that morning about her father. Thorn is currently in his motel room tape-recording the narrative of the history of Point Dune by local drunk, Charlie (Elisha Cook Jr.), while Thorn lays on his bed with his lady Laura (Anitra Ford). Thorn's other lady, Toni (Joy Bang) comes out of the bathroom, and Arletty sizes up the situation. Why did you ask about my father at the art gallery? Thorn gives a cryptic answer, and Arletty leaves. Drunk Charlie gives Arletty a cryptic warning as she exits. Thorn, Laura, and Toni show at Arletty's father's house, after Charlie is found dead.

Drunk Charlie's narrative speaks of the "Blood Moon" over Point Dune, while Arletty's father's chronicle mentions a "Dark Stranger," who visits the town, changing it forever. Co-producer, co-screenwriter, and director Willard Huyck admits that his Messiah of Evil (1973) was influenced by H.P. Lovecraft and "pretentious arthouse cinema" of the late 60s, such as Antonioni and Godard. Screenwriters, Gloria Katz and Huyck (who shared an Oscar nomination with George Lucas for their script on Lucas's best film, American Graffiti (1973)) pen an Innsmouth-ish mystery to carry Messiah's narrative; however, the arthouse influence and the atmosphere permeate throughout the film, truly giving this low-budget film its unique status.

The arthouse influence brings an air of artificiality to Messiah of Evil: character actions are often contrived and not naturalistic; the frame compositions are meticulous (and well-filmed by Katz's brother, Stephen M. Katz in glorious use of widescreen); and the narrative is secondary. Two of the best characters are Thorn's lady companions, svelte, beautiful, and cold Laura and impulsive and cute Toni, who also bring a healthy dose of sensuality to the production. Laura and Toni are ancillary characters to the narrative (Arletty and Thorn drive the mystery), yet their inclusion is wholly necessary. Laura and Toni each have a pivotal scene: both wonderfully and hauntingly orchestrated: Laura's getaway visit into the town, which ends at a grocery store confrontation, and Toni's ill-fated visit for a cinema show within a sparsely-packed movie theatre. Laura's encounter begins with Robinson's trucker from the gas station scene and becomes steadily more mysterious and tension-filled. The quiet atmosphere of the town isn't created with set-pieces: the normal-looking town is shot to look alien and other-worldly. Laura's sequence begins as a slow simmer and escalates to a roaring boil. Toni's sequence is similar in tone yet different in execution. Point Dune's residents reveal themselves as monsters not through solely their appearances but they way they are filmed.

The unreal atmosphere of Messiah of Evil rings loudly and speaks more than its narrative. The visuals are powerful. The Lovecraftian mystery is very intriguing yet doesn't cohere completely. This is an intentional artistic choice by Huyck and Katz, yet it also results from the production running out of money and being unable to film a final sequence which explained all. The resulting ending of the film is still very haunting and well-executed, however; and I was impressed with Messiah's atmosphere and hypnotic vibe to allow the plot to slip to the wayside. Messiah of Evil is a terrific film, worthy of cult status. It has been recently released on DVD by Code Red Entertainment. The film is properly presented in its 2.35 to 1 aspect ratio, which really shows the power of Katz's cinematography, and looks terrific. An approximately twenty-minute featurette is included with many of the film's participants, including Katz and Huyck (from where and from whom I gleaned the objective facts about this film's production), who give a in-depth insight into the production. An audio commentary with Katz and Huyck is also available (which I haven't yet listened); two short films by Katz and Huyck; and an audio interview with Joy Bang. Not least of all, several Code Red trailers are included. Code Red is an excellent DVD label which I financially support and applaud. They have been putting out cult classics and films which should be cult classics onto DVD which have only previously been available on VHS. Buy it here and here.

Jess Franco's Dracula's Daughter (1972)

In 1972, Jess Franco was in a period referred to by the authors of essential tome, Obsession: The Films of Jess Franco, as "The Peak Years: 1970-1973." Of the fifty to sixty films that I've seen from Franco, these years hold some of my favorites. This span also sees the end of the Spanish film maker's creative collaboration with producer Harry Alan Towers and with gorgeous actress, Soledad Miranda; this period also predates Franco's collaboration with German producer Erwin C. Dietrich; and finally, these years would see the beginning of a lifelong collaboration with actress, Lina Romay. Although she doesn't seem to grab as much attention as Maria Rohm, Miranda, or Romay, Britt Nichols would make a handful of films with Franco during this period. Around the time of his formal yet decadent The Demons (1972) and poetic and affecting A Virgin Among the Living Dead (1973), Franco and Nichols would make Dracula's Daughter (1972).

Atop a seaside cliff sits ruined Castle Karlstein where legendary Count Dracula once resided. The notorious nobleman lives today only in legend, but the Karlstein family lives on. However, not long for some: the Baroness Karlstein (Carmen Carbonell) is ill and perturbed. Her granddaughter Luisa (Britt Nichols) arrives to see her. The Baroness makes a near-deathbed confession: the original Count Karlstein was a vampire; and although the Castle has been abandoned for many years, his corpse still resides within. The Baroness tells Luisa to take the key to the crypt and go. Perhaps the recent murder of a young woman whose body is found at the shore in the shadow of the Castle is the source of the Baroness's immediacy.

While Luisa takes a leisurely stroll to the crypt, the rest of the seaside town's inhabitants begin speculation and investigation of the recent murder. Journalist Charlie (Fernando Bilbao) asks Inspector Ptuschko (Alberto Dalbés) for information on the murders at the local inn. Ptuschko doesn't have much yet; but innkeeper, Cyril Jefferson (Franco) believes the Castle has more to do with the murder than cast a shadow over the sea. Luisa stays in town with Count Karlstein (Daniel J. White) and her cousin, Karine (Anne Libert), after she has visited the crypt.

The authors of Obsession write, "Despite a captivatingly unreal atmosphere, La Fille de Dracula is too chaotically thrown together to really hold an audience, which probably explains why the film was only released theatrically in France and Belgium." This chaos results from "some obscure reason Franco decided to shoot about a third of the scenes in tight close-up, with the result that the erotic scenes become artistic, a sort of mosaic of areas of flesh, which works against the voyeurism that is so characteristic of him." Later the authors add, "After Dracula Prisoner of Frankenstein, Franco was hardly likely to control his imagination."

Dracula's Daughter comes from what I informally call Franco's "right side of the brain" group of films: less of an emphasis on narrative structure and more of an emphasis on the rendition of the images and atmosphere. Like a lot of Franco's cinema, Dracula's Daughter appears shot on a low-budget with few (yet powerful and atmospheric) locations and as the Obsession authors note, on sets from another film. The narrative is carried by a redundant mystery: the Inspector, the journalist, and Cyril are hunting for clues to the killer, but the viewer is well aware from the beginning who's the perpetrator. There is an unexpected twist to the mystery but it is only revelatory to the characters and not to the viewer. Franco needed some narrative for his wild images, like a jazz trumpeter using a standard tune to allow him to riff. I don't even think Franco hides this sentiment: from the beginning with the opening imagery of the castle shadowing the seashore, where the first victim is found, with the accompanying voice-over narration about the legend of Dracula in Castle Karlstein, I believe Franco assumed the viewer would make the associational link between vampires and victims.

The poetic power of Dracula's Daughter resides in the juxtaposition of its voyeuristic sequences. The murder victims are shot from the p.o.v. of a literal voyeur: the first victim is coldly and statically shot as she undresses to then bathe. The camera from behind the threshold of a cracked door continues to watch as she bathes only then to descend upon her for the kill. The subsequent murder of a cabaret dancer is shot similarly. These scenes of female nudity are no doubt designed to titillate, yet Franco creates an unsettling and sinister atmosphere with the images. The murder of the cabaret dancer is even more jarring, because of her previous scene, where she was dancing nude to a jovial group of onlookers. The two scenes of her undressing create total opposite emotions in the viewer, arousal and repulsion, respectively, despite both scenes' attempts to titillate.

Juxtaposed to the literal voyeuristic sequences are two love scenes with Nichols' Luisa and Libert's Karine. These scenes are shot "objectively" and are filmed, as the Obsession authors allude, in Franco's "characteristically voyeuristic" style: stationary camera on tripod, panning left or right, or hand held, slowly-moving, wide to medium shots, with intense use of zoom, whose speed ranges from slowly to quickly, to sometimes very intimate close-ups on the actresses' bodies. This style is almost like Franco attempting to match his camera with the movements of his roving and discursive eye. Luisa and Karine's first lovemaking scene follows after Luisa has visited the crypt and met the Count (Howard Vernon). Now infected, Luisa's seduction of Karine is a vampiric one and a feeding. All appearances, however, give way to a very erotic love scene with cross cuts of Count Karlstein (Daniel J. White, who wrote the music with Franco) playing the piano with the beautiful score segueing the two. Both Nichols and Libert are, to put it mildly, strikingly beautiful and Franco's camera doesn't hide it: the soft light gives a soft feel to their skin which accompanies their soft caresses, as their loose hair brushes against each other, lightly. Franco brilliantly ends the first lovemaking scene with a zoom shoot to a close up on Libert's fingers, slightly coiling after Luisa's feeding.Whatever chaos results from Dracula's Daughter is the result of Franco's poetic imagination. The emotions and imagery clash as the narrative fades away. Franco's cinema is often a haunting experience.

All objective facts and the quotes are taken from Obsession: The Films of Jess Franco.

Cesare Canevari's Matalo (1970)

Cesare Canevari's Matalo (1970) begins with a powerful image of a woman covered completely in black, presumably a widow, in the foreground of a quiet, dusty town, where its inhabitants are standing at the threshold of the jail. A criminal (Corrado Pani) is being led to the noose. The solemn widow gets a wink and a smirk from the soon-to-be dead man, before a gang of bandits raid the town. In the commotion, the criminal gets set free and ducks into an office to loot a satchel of money. The widow meets him at gunpoint, and he lifts the black veil: the two embrace for an intimate kiss, and the criminal leaves the young window, standing with her gun unfired.

Matalo is a unique Western, perhaps most notable for Lou Castel's character, Ray, and his choice of weapons: boomerangs. Mario Migliardi's score is unlike most typical Westerns: electronic and contemporary, even with occasional flashes of what sounds like reverb. Director Canevari's film also has a unique atmosphere: at times, it feels like a traditional Western, with shoot outs and stagecoaches, and at others, like a Gothic horror film; and even at times, Matalo appears as a psychedelic experience.

Pani's criminal is Bart and the satchel of looted money, he gives to the group of bandits, who presumably were hired to free him. Bart smiles and winks at the group as they ride off, only to pull his rifle when their backs are turned to gun them down. After reclaiming the money, Bart gives an odd soliloquy about how life is preferable to be on the opposite side of the gun barrel and the one holding the cash, literally at all costs. Bart meets his two compatriots, Phil (Luis Dávila) and Ted (Antonio Salines), at the crossroads, and after another smile and a wink from Bart, the trio rides off.

In another series of powerful images, the trio ride by a cemetery, with all the headstones reading the last name Benson. Migliardi's accompanying score during this sequence is ominous and haunting with wailing sounds. The trio ride into a ghost town, where the sign, "Benson Bank," hangs by one chain. They hole up. One more arrives the following day, and she is stunning beauty, Mary (Claudia Gravy). Mary is Phil's fiercely sensuous lady, but she likes the wink and the smirk that Bart gives her at her arrival. The four execute a highway robbery of a stagecoach, escorting a cache of U.S. government cash. The robbery ends in a bloody shootout with Bart dying. The robbery is easily Matalo's most traditional sequence and for all purposes, tradition is abandoned at its crime scene.

Canevari plays on the idea of a "ghost town": the cemetery imagery prior to the trio's arrival shows a literal ghost town. Canevari shoots the town night scenes like an atmospheric horror film, punctuated by quick cross cuts of a close-up of a human eye. Someone is watching them, but initially, given the music and the tone of the exposition, it is unknown to the viewer whether the eye belongs a living or dead person. As Phil, Ted, and Mary hole up in the town, and especially during the night scenes, Canevari increases the tension among the characters. Ted gives more than a roving eye towards Mary: he practically stares at her as if worshipping. Gravy's Mary is hypnotically seductive, not just to Ted, but to the viewer also. Her flirtatious nature hides a sinister power. Phil is spied through the window by Ted seen moving the crate of gold to another location. Ted wakes Mary to tattle: although it would seem two-hundred thousand dollars is Ted's motivation but the scene comes off as Ted trying to ally with Mary in order to have the opportunity to wrap his arms around her.

Three other participants play into Matalo: one is the hidden inhabitant of the town, and the other two are unfortunates who wander in: a pretty traveler, Bridget (Ana María Noé), who is widowed on the road; and Ray (Castel), decked out in a paisley coat with a sack of boomerangs under his arm and riding a pale horse. Bridget and Ray both enter the town looking for fresh water, and Ray's at the edge of death from dehydration. None of the three are treated well by Phil, Ted, and Mary; but it is Ted who suffers the most at their hands and through whose eyes Canevari shoots the remainder of Matalo. Mary, in another powerful sequence, swings above Ray's body on a child's swing while holding a knife above him. Mary's also teasing laughing Ted with smiles and laughs and seductive waves of her legs (which Canevari emphasizes in his compositions). Ted takes to beating Ray with a chain or cruelly teasing him with the promise of some water. As Ray's dehydration takes over, the shots become more subjective and hallucinatory. Through Ray's eyes, Ted becomes almost a literal monster.

Needless to say, Ray doesn't lay down the remainder of Matalo, and it is quite cool to watch Castel's Ray whip a little ass with boomerangs. The final action scenes are well-shot and edited. Still working today, Lou Castel is a fantastic actor. His early appearance in Marco Bellocchio's Fist in His Pocket (1965) is a phenomenal performance. He gave a sinister turn and excellent performance in Umberto Lenzi's Orgasmo (1969). Castel played a pivotal character in Damiano Damiani's masterful western A Bullet for the General (1966), and appeared in one more very odd Western before Matalo, Carlo Lizzani's Kill and Pray (1967). Cesare Canevari is a madman and unique film maker in Italian cinema. He directed Io, Emmanuelle (1969) with Erika Blanc, The Nude Princess (1976) with Ajita Wilson, the super-nasty Gestapo's Last Orgy (1977), and the very, very, very sleazy mystery Killing in the Flesh (1983) with Marc Porel, for example. All are notable works. However, his Matalo ranks alongside Alejandro Jodorowsky's El Topo (1970) and Roland Klick's Deadlock (1970) as one of the oddest Westerns to come from Europe. Truly unique and unexpected, Matalo should appeal European-Cult film fans. See it. Matalo has been released on DVD in the U.S. by excellent label, Wild East. Buy it here.

Takashi Miike's Crows Zero: Episode 0 (2007)

Although Crows Zero is not Takashi Miike's most commercial piece of cinema (that award goes to his 2003 film, One Missed Call), the film certainly is one of his most romantic, sentimental, and unabashedly escapist films that I've seen from his diverse filmography. Crows Zero is also as fiercely entertaining as it is violent; and coming from one of cinema's truest iconoclasts, it is very traditional.

Genji Takaya (Shun Oguri) is the new student at Suzuran all-boys high school, a.k.a. "The School of Crows," the toughest high school in the nation. Genji willingly transfered: his father, an alumnus, is a local yakuza boss. If Genji becomes the "King of Suzuran," then his father will allow him to succeed him as the syndicate's head. The current king at Suzuran is Tamao Serizawa (Takayuki Yamada) and he's not having much trouble staying on top. In fact, Serizawa's beating up the local yakuza, who come hunting for him one day at school. This group of yakuza is led by stooge, Ken (Kyôsuke Yabe), also a Suzuran dropout, but Ken gets sent away by his brothers. Good thing, since Genji was in the mood to beat them up himself. Ken later runs down Genji, thinking that he's Serizawa, but the two do not fight but bond: Genji doesn't know how to be top guy at school but Ken has a few ideas to help him.

When I was a teenager, I probably would have loved Crows Zero. The film really captures the sense of male youth which so desires peer acceptance, being cool, holding the heart of the prettiest girl, and being a total badass. Ken tells Genji that being number one will take more than beating Serizawa: Genji's going to have to win over the hearts of the students in the school.

Genji begins by storming into a homeroom classroom and calling out the top guy, Chuta (Suzunosuke) and quickly beating him down, while as quickly drawing his notebook to quote his pre-scripted diplomatic lines to encourage Chuta and his group to follow him. Class C, a smaller band of poorer and more outcast students, is led by Makise (Tsutomu Takahashi), who's dirty, scarred, and pretty tough. Makise, beyond his looks, has a lot of trouble with the ladies; and Genji, Ken, and Chuta cook up a scheme to get Makise a date. The date goes far from well, but at the end of the evening, Makise agrees with his crew to follow Genji, since the outcast is so touched another would go to such lengths to help him. Finally, there's good-looking, sharp, and tough fighter, Izaki (Sosuke Takaoka), who's biding his time for the right opportunity to fight Serizawa. Izaki sees Genji as a threat to his quest to be number one, so Izaki and his boys stage a fight with Genji. Clearly outnumbered, Genji takes a severe beating, yet to Izaki's admiration, he keeps getting up and willing to fight, despite his body being able to. Genji creates his faction, but he gains something much more, a true group of friends who care for each other. Genji even gets the chance to rescue the hottest R & B singer in his area, Ruka (Meisa Kuroki), after she's kidnapped by a rival gang. Ruka and other female characters don't get much screen time in Crows Zero: this film's about fraternal love.

The best character is Ken. As Ken sits bloody in an alleyway, after taking another beating, a police officer comes up and tosses him his jacket. "You were an average student at Suzuran. And a dropout. Now, you're an average yakuza." Ken's vicarious living through Genji is the heart of the theme of Crows Zero. As Ken watches Genji and his friends having a good time at school, the look on Ken's face is jealousy. The ideal life back in school was when life was worth living. Ken has no friends or earns any respect in the yakuza. Adult life for Ken is a struggle, especially in the underworld, where he's often asked to some horrific things. Miike's film ignores the reality of modern children, in Japan or really anywhere: the younger generations have it harder than their previous ones. Competition in the adult world has forced the youth to give up a lot of its youthful amenities. Today's high school education is a true job, if one wants to be successful as an adult. The teachers are briefly glimpsed in Crows Zero and shown as completely ineffectual. Not one class of learning is shown nor is a satchel shown slung on a student's shoulder. The true focus is the kinship of youth. Even Serizawa is not the villain or monster he's painted out to be: most of his scenes are shown with his best friend, Tokio (Kenta Kiritani), who he loves very deeply. Serizawa's motivation to stay number one is rooted in his love for his friend, quite possibly his only motivation.

Although there is more than one brawl in Crows Zero, Miike saves his most intense scenes for the final confrontation, which occupies about thirty minutes of the approximately two-hour film. Beautifully shot in the rain, the scenes are shot kinetically with fast and brutal punches and kicks while the water showers everything. The fights truly are brawls: none of the fights feel contrived or choreographed: the participants throughout fight with emotion, and it shows. The blows look brutal and sound that way and are extremely realistic and credible. Finally, save the clownish characters, just about every character in Crows Zero takes the time to pose for the camera and look as cool as possible. The students at Suzuran look like real-life manga characters with outlandish hair, punk costumes, and each with his unique affectation. When one of the boys is smoking a cigarette, it's cinematic smoking: dangling from his mouth, against the backdrop of the sun, smoke floating in the air. These are the boys that each of us wish we could be or wish that we were once like.

Takashi Miike would follow Crows Zero with a sequel in 2009. For two hours, Crows Zero paints a portrait of idyllic youth on a canvas of blood. The iconoclast and the court jester of cinema does the most shocking: Miike goes completely commercial and traditional and succeeds. Mightily.

Raúl Artigot's The Witches' Mountain (1972)

Raúl Artigot's The Witches' Mountain (1972) has a very bizarre pre-credit sequence: lovely Carla arrives to her wealthy villa after a few days stint away. She notices immediately a wig on her lawn with a large butcher knife stuck into it. She goes looking for her cat and finds its corpse under her bedding. Carla is startled by her young daughter, Greta, who looks like a china doll with black fingerless gloves on, and the little girl is mad at her mother. The cat, who Greta dispatched while Carla was away, scared Greta's favorite pets. Greta goes running around the villa grounds looking, and the two end in the garage. Greta's pet is a large snake, and Carla opens a can of gasoline, setting a fire, and killing the child.

Post credits, The Witches' Mountain remains quiet yet unsettling. Mario walks into his dark apartment and turns on the lights to find Carla sitting on his couch. He's not happy to see Carla, either, and presumably the two were married. The child's death has ceased the marriage. Carla asks to take a vacation with Mario, but he calls his employer, telling him that he doesn't want a vacation. Give me an assignment, he says, anything. You want me to do what? asks Mario. (The viewer, smartly, is not yet privy to Mario's assignment.)

Mario is at the seaside overlooking a cliff with a large camera. He spies a bikini-clad beauty on the beach and snaps her photo. He walks to the shore to introduce himself, and the young woman introduces herself as Delia (Patty Shepard). He invites her to lunch, and she accepts. He tells her that he has an assignment at the mountain. (Mario is a photographer.) Delia does not know the location. Would she like to accompany him? She declines but asks for a ride home. At her doorstep, Delia has a change of heart and accepts Mario's invitation. As she is gathering her things inside, Mario begins hearing a haunting and chanting tune. He queries Delia about it but she says, "You must've been dreaming."

Upon arrival at the mountainside during the evening at a local inn, Mario keeps his presumptuousness in check by requesting two rooms from the creepy innkeeper. Delia disrobes in her room and is frightened by a dark figure at her window, accompanied by the lights suddenly going out. Mario asks if the innkeeper has a ladder. Why? asks the innkeeper. How else would someone get to the window? It's only five feet from the ground, says the innkeeper, and the lights often go out at this time of night, because of flubs at the power station. Mario and Delia take shelter by the fire in the alcove of the inn, and in the morning, Delia is gone. Mario finds her outside not very far from the inn. I don't know how I got here, says Delia. Maybe you were sleepwalking, says Mario. The creepy innkeeper thinks Mario and Delia are a weird couple and he suggests to Mario to allow the lady to stay at the inn instead of going to the mountain. Thanks all the same.

Mountainside. Lush green grass. Cool wind. Mario snapping, what should be, beautiful photos. Delia spies their jeep being driven off, and the two give chase on foot. An elderly shepard is asked by the pair if the jeep was seen. The shepard cocks a finger behind him and then disappears within a second. The jeep is resting with nothing missing inside and the keys in the ignition. The jeep is also in the shadow of a house, located slightly up the mountainside. Let's go ask the inhabitant of the house if he/she know who took their vehicle.

The Witches' Mountain is film with a series of escalating encounters. Because Mario and Delia are so normal and unassuming, the viewer encounters these situations and asks the same questions. (To be fair, to the modern viewer, Delia's more normal. Mario's hair, clothes, and mannerisms are wonderfully dated but put the viewer slightly outside the narrative.) Do you believe that everything, asks Delia, has a logical answer? Mario believes so. If Mario is wrong, then the series of escalating encounters in the film might answer the question as to the existence of the folks alluded to in the English-language title. In my opinion, neither question is answered, and the narrative doesn't serve solely an intellectual exercise. The Witches' Mountain is an organic, slow-moving film. In adept hands, quiet moments can give resonance to loud scenes. Artigot is often successful. Over the course of the final two-thirds of the film, Mario and Delia are often separated. In one sequence, Mario is alone in a cabin and searching its contents. In a series of contrived, static shots, Artigot shoots a meowing cat in various places within the frames. The viewer's focus is on Mario and especially, the revelatory photos that he is finding. It's impossible to ignore the cat despite its arbitrary framing, because of the continuous meowing. As Mario wraps up his investigation, the shots become tighter and the editing quickens. The biggest revelation of scene (and an effective disorienting jump scare) then comes.

If The Witches' Mountain weren't so carefully and effectively constructed, then Patty Shepard as Delia would be worth viewing the film alone. The American-born actress made some fantastic films in Europe. Shepard is a natural beauty and she plays her character with little effort. Her sometimes aloofness gives her a mysterious quality. It was very hard for me to take my eyes off of her. The film also has some haunting sequences, excellent use of music, and an exciting conclusion. The Witches' Mountain is a film which seemingly asks nothing from the viewer in its execution then surreptitiously queries its viewer through its action. Along the way the film is simply and elegantly entertaining.

Herman Yau's Walk In (1997)

Wai (Chien-lien Wu) is atop a large building and poised to jump. Police officer, Tommy (Chi Wah Wong) and his colleague and fiance, Laura (Li Yu) arrive to talk her down; yet Wai is adamant, because she has a plan: after her death, another spirit will "walk in" to her body, and Wai is very cool with that idea. Wai takes the plunge and smacks the concrete. To everyone's surprise, she eventually stands right back up. Meanwhile, Lo Bill (Yeung Ming Wan) and his cronies are waiting for Chicken (Danny Lee), who's going to be the wheelman for their next robbery. Chicken is an excellent driver but a stuttering buffoon with whom Lo Bill and his stooges are reluctantly working. The next morning, Lo Bill and his buttheads raid a crime syndicate's office and nab the loot. A bloody shootout ensues during the course of the robbery, and outside, officer Tommy is ticketing cowering Chicken. Lo Bill blasts a few cops on the way out of the crime scene and jumps in the getaway car. He pumps some bullets in Chicken's chest, since, hey you're kind of worthless, anyway, and violently hits Tommy with his car as he speeds off. Chicken and Tommy survive: Chicken's in a coma and a vegetative state, while Tommy's now a paraplegic. Perhaps another "walk-in" is in order?

Despite the seriousness of tone and bloody violence of the initial exposition of Herman Yau's Walk In (1997), this film is very much a comedy. Since Walk In is also helmed by Herman Yau, it is also irreverent, unique, and a little dark. Pretty jumper Wai, possessed by her new "walk in" spirit, is now a local self-help guru. Her advice is often obvious and direct, such as "you're fat, eat less." Laura comes to Wai to help Tommy, who feels life is not worth living anymore since he's lost the use of his body below the waist. Wai tells him to accept the situation and move on but perhaps feeling a kinship because of the rooftop incident, she tells Tommy about how to "walk in" to another body. Tommy approaches comatose Chicken and promises for use of his body, he will avenge Chicken against the people who harmed him. Tommy also promises not to touch any of Chicken's women, and if he does, he hopes to prematurely ejaculate at the first naughty thought. Chicken agrees, and Tommy with help from Laura, drives a car off of a cliff and dies. Let the shenanigans ensue.

Immediately, at Tommy's funeral and in his new body, Tommy wants to have sex with Laura. In the most romantic place, the bathroom at the mortuary, Laura cannot get into the mood: Chicken's face is a little much for Laura, and she needs some time to get used to it. Tommy is also learning that Chicken was pretty low for a human being: he's racked up debts all over his small village outside Hong Kong and has two mistresses, one pregnant. In addition, Chicken has treated his very plain-looking wife poorly, both financially and emotionally, and has an estranged relationship with his very beautiful sister, May (Ada Choi). The new Chicken is now forthright and righteous: he lines up everyone and starts paying his debts off; Chicken gathers his mother, his wife, two mistresses, and May for many a sit-down to adequately sort out their relationships; and virtually starting from scratch, he begins to gather clues about Chicken's attacker. However, Tommy's relationship with Laura is seriously suffering.

Some best scenes in Walk In involve Lee's Chicken and Choi's May. Of the six women who occupy both Tommy's and Chicken's "dual" life, May is the most enamored with the hybrid man. She learns of Tommy's body/soul switching with Chicken and becomes quite attracted to the new man. It doesn't help that May is also affectionate: more than once, she hops on to Chicken for a tight hug or a cat-like brushing up against his body. Danny Lee's character gives a ridiculously orgasmic face only to have to take a quick trip to the bathroom to clean up. "May, we can't have an affair," says Chicken/Tommy. "That's all right," says May. "Although it's my brother's body, I'm in love with the man inside." Despite his oath of premature ejaculation to Chicken, Tommy puts his foot in his mouth later when he promises to Chicken to be more diligent in his pursuit of his attacker: Tommy promises that if Laura touches him, he will prematurely ejaculate, as well. Soon after that promise, Laura warms up to Tommy's new body to Tommy's discontent. The low-brow sexual humor and the usually taboo theme of incest is creatively rendered, due in part to the performances by all of the participants and a well-timed and unique script. I love how Yau and company emphasize seemingly the most unsettling themes of the story by injecting them with the most ridiculous humor.

Tommy does find out the identity of Chicken's assailant, and Yau bookends Walk In with two fantastic action sequences. Herman Yau must have been born with low-budget exploitation in his DNA, because he executes it very well. The shootout at the beginning and the confrontation at the end is rendered with a lot more detail and nuance than expected. The editing is tight; the camerawork is tops; and the on-screen action is amazingly exciting. The final confrontation also involves a very dangerous-looking chase: two double-decker buses through the streets, colliding at times and going against traffic. The stunts are expertly executed, and I wouldn't be surprised if any of the stunt people injured themselves more than once. Often a ninety-minute or so low-budget exploitation movie offers little, yet Yau often offers packed ones. Rarely conservative, Yau goes where his contemporaries do not, and quite often, I'm the one who is rewarded. With Walk In, Yau impresses me again.