The Conformist

(Il conformista). Bernardo Bertolucci's The Conformist (1970) is about a man who swallows the Fascist pill with everything in him because he desperately wants to be part of the group. Jean-Louis Trintignant plays Marcello Clerici, a man whose primary motivation is to "construct" his own normalcy (heterosexual, Christian, Fascist). The story takes place in Italy and France in the 1930s, during which time Marcello becomes a member of Mussolini's secret police. When his next assignment is to assassinate one of his former professors, who's anti-Fascist, Marcello must face the tension threatening to destroy him: can he sacrifice his loyalty to his ideals for his loyalty to the State?

Bertolucci captures the essence of how the pursuit of acceptance drives people, even brainwashes them. It's a hierarchical tool that becomes internalized: Marcello remakes himself--he tries to embody the qualities, the values, and the emotions required of him--in the hope that he will be accepted. It's the same form of control utilized in every school over the last centuries: a sort of institutionalized self-rehabilitation.

This was my first Bertolucci film, and I was surprised how much I enjoyed it, despite its general weirdness. It's one of those rare movies that visually thrills you, even when you're scratching your head at some of the logic--or lack thereof--of the plot. The characters do things that often make little sense at the time, and Bertolucci plays with chronology a bit. His movie works like a Modernist novel: it's impressionistic, and it zooms in on the details of a given scene. The entirety of the plot doesn't hinge on one major, climactic event the way many American films do. (This is not to say that either method is superior to the other, but it may be one of the reasons Americans have a hard time with European films and vice versa. We want everything laid out in clearly chronological order, and dammit, it had better all make sense.) The major "event" of the film, which would probably have come sooner in an American movie, and probably would have been one of several like it, is delayed into perpetuity, to the point that you wonder if you'll have the pleasure of the payoff at all. And even when it comes it's stretched out, but with a surprising level of facility. Bertolucci manages to create a really thrilling suspense sequence that takes place in the woodsy mountains on a lonely stretch of road). He's built it up so much that you're tense from the excitement.

The mood of The Conformist is what lingers with you after the movie's over. It's ominous and stark but also fluid. The camera continually finds innovative ways into each scene. At times it has a naive playfulness to it, usually when Marcello's wife, Giulia (Stefania Sandrelli) is onscreen. She's silly, playful, and superficial, relatively oblivious to her husband's dark vocation. And Trintignant handles his character's emotional deadness well--he's not boring but he's appropriately subdued, always aware of the gravity of his ambitions and the tasks at hand.

With Gastone Moschin, Enzo Tarascio (as the professor), Dominique Sanda (as the professor's sexually ambiguous wife), Fosco Giachetti, Jose Quaglio, Yvonne Sanson, and Pierre Clementi. The screenplay was adapted by the director from Alberto Moravia's novel of the same name. The lovely, lilting score was composed by Georges Delerue. Cinematography by Vittorio Storaro. 111 minutes.

Headhunters

Headhunters (2012) (known as Hodejegerne in its native Norway) is about a corporate executive named Roger Brown (Aksel Hennie) who moonlights as an art thief. He feels compelled to provide a certain lifestyle for his beautiful wife, Diana (Synnove Macody Lund), and swapping out priceless art pieces with forgeries provides him the right amount of thrill and stimulation. But then he picks the wrong flat to burgle: that of a cunning ex-military tracker (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) who once specialized in locating human beings. Thus begins a cat and mouse game that smacks of Hitchcock and operates like a ghastly horror thriller. You recall the unbearable intensity felt during something like No Country For Old Men. Headhunters grips you by the stomach and refuses to let go. It's a mixture of immense fun and dread: a nasty little movie that twists you into knots with a kind of calculating, twisted reverie.

And while it may seem like one long chase sequence, but this is a surprisingly clever and sophisticated thriller that plays you like a fiddle, which you discover just when you've started to cultivate a smattering of superiority toward it. There are rumors of a coming American remake, but watch this one instead. It's a devious little delight, and Netflix subscribers can currently access it for instant viewing.

The script by Lars Gudmestad and Ulf Ryberg is an adaptation of Jo Nesbo's novel of the same name. Directed by Morten Tyldum. With Julie Olgaard, Eivind Sander, and Reidar Sorensen.

The Harder They Come

The Harder They Come (1972) is the film that really put Reggae music on the map. It was made in Jamaica, and it may be the film that really captures the soul of its people and their poverty, the injustices they face, but also their resilience and their expressiveness. The film is set to the soulful and imbibed rhythms of Reggae. The story, which suffers more than a bit from continuity problems, involves a young hood named Ivan (played by singer Jimmy Cliff, who wrote and performed the title song), who's keen on making a hit record, but after too many failed attempts at making an honest living, turns to a life of crime: particularly selling marijuana. Soon he becomes a fugitive from justice--for killing several police officers--and his song becomes a hit as a result. It taps into the popular consciousness: a prescient moment in which the film paralleled its impact on the music world.

There were a handful of thoughtful, subtle (but imperfect) films about the African American experience made in the 1970s. Bill Gunn's Ganja and Hess (1973) was one, The Harder They Come is another. These two films aren't particularly concerned with narrative structure. Rather, they have a rhythm to them that feels more like music, like Reggae in fact. That's not to say they're more artistic than all the blaxploitation movies that were being churned out in the 1970s, although they do tackle issues like race, poverty, freedom, and culture with more finesse and more genuine curiosity than their exploitationist counterparts. In many ways, The Harder They Come feels like the precursor for City of God. This movie wants to dismantle the image we might have had about Jamaica as a tourist paradise. Instead, we're introduced to the real Jamaica, a land where the people are struggling to get by, just like many in the rest of the world. But the beauty of Jamaica also comes through, and not the cheap beauty of resort hotels but the natural beauty that is somehow missed by the tourist's agenda.

But the film lacks the power it needs to really strike its target. It meanders, and gives in to an aimless repetitiveness at times. You start to squirm with boredom, and somehow, there's no real empathy for the struggles of the people. (Or maybe that's what was intended: it may be that we're not supposed to watch this movie and feel the appropriately phony self-congratulatory outrage that prosperous people often do feel when they "experience" poverty in developing countries via the movies.

Still, it's not a total washout, and The Harder They Come found an audience eventually. It's a fairly impressive "first feature" to come out of Jamaica. The director, Perry Henzell, and the technicians (the cinematography is by Peter Jessop, David McDonald, and Franklyn St. Juste), are competent generally, and they capture some beautiful images of the island. And Johnny Cliff has an undeniable cult appeal as the self-interested Ivan, who's tired of working to find work. He seems destined to become the tragic "hero" of the people, although what he stands for isn't anything that will cure the country's stultifying poverty. But more than anything, Ivan--and the movie for that matter--is about Reggae. The music comes through loud and clear, even if the story doesn't.

With Janet Bartley, Carl Bradshaw, Ras Daniel Hartman, Basil Keane, Bob Charlton, and Winston Stona. 120 minutes. (Some prints run about 108 mins.)