(1991)
Dir - Ryszard Bugajski
Overall: GOOD
Indigenous angst runs paramount through the Canadian thriller Clearcut; director Ryszard Bugajski's sincere and often brutal adaptation of M.T. Kelly's novel A Dream Like Mine. The title refers to the logging practice of removing trees from vast acreage, usually in order to support ecosystems that require more sunlight to expand. Also a controversial, deforestation practice, the issue is complimented even more here as such a project is undertaken across a native Indian reserve, prompting Graham Greene's militant indigenous activist to make an extreme last stand by kidnapping his people's lawyer and the logging plant manager in a twisted nature quest into the wilderness. Greene delivers a powerful performance and allegedly considers the movie to be the finest that he was ever in. Equally intimidating, frightening, funny, and sympathetic despite his volatile actions, Greene represents the story's central frustration with an unstoppable colonial takeover that will go on exploiting First Nation people and their land long after the sacrifice is made from those who stand-up to such injustice. Bugajski handles the sensitive material expertly, gradually building up to an intense yet ambiguous finish that appropriately offers no answers to an inevitably oppressive commandeering.
(1992)
Dir - Michael Haneke
Overall: GOOD
A deliberately detached musing on violence and a desensitized youth, Michael Haneke's second theatrically released film Benny's Video strips out all of the sensationalism from its subject matter, putting the viewer in the emotionally barren mindset of its title character. Opening with slaughter footage of a pig via captive bolt pistol, (which is rewound and then shown again later), Haneke pushes the viewer's buttons from the onset, presenting us with something that no one will willingly want to see. Several other moments throughout are portrayed through a voyeuristic lens as Arno Frisch's Benny films various episodes of his life, many of which are mundane yet one of which tragically sets the plot in motion. Haneke makes it a point to shine a light on wealthy, absentee parents who leave their privileged children alone with their hobbies and then cover for them when things go horribly awry, which emphasizes the latter part of the "nature vs nurture" concept. In this respect, Benny is a pitiful character; void of emotions and unwillingly groomed in an environment where his best interests are maintained at the expense of the most basic of moral rights. Utilizing no incidental music and a considerable amount of minutes coldly basking in an intense situation with no release, it is an arduous experience in many respects, but a perfectly realized one as well.
(1999)
Dir - François Ozon
Overall: GOOD
A perverse, quasi-retelling of the "Hansel and Gretel" fairy tale with a little bit of Bonnie and Clyde and Deliverance thrown in, Criminal Lovers, (Les Amants criminels), has a dark, sexual energy running throughout that twists the concept of high school romance and repressed homosexuality. As the third feature from French filmmaker François Ozon, his confrontational cinema du corps style is on full display, with full frontal nudity from both sexes and a subversion of gender stereotypes where the young woman is the sadistic one fulfilling her murder kink, her virgin boyfriend is wrought with bisexual frustration, and a nasty hermit living in the woods chooses the young boy to play with over the girl. All of these character tropes are formulaic to a degree, yet they are presented here in a provoking manner that forces the audience to take them at face value, mixing "taboo" sexual preferences with sadomasochism and cannibalism. No one on screen is entirely deserving of sympathy, yet they are tragic characters all the same, each engaging in morally askew behavior that is not excused yet is deeply rooted in various unfortunate flaws that eventually must be dealt with. Ozon's script refuses to patronize and lets the events play out in their own naturalistic, morbid fashion which will certainly make many a viewer uncomfortable, yet will reward the ones that are open to being challenged.
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