Basically an episodic comedy, Jean-Luc Godard’s Soigne ta droite (1986, 82 min.), a French-Swiss coproduction, features Godard himself as the comic lead, rehearsals of the rock group Rita Mitsouko, a good many gags (some involving golf and travel), and a lot of cameos from well-known French actors, including Jane Birkin, Bernadette Lafont, and Jacques Villeret. The biggest surprise here though is Godard’s modification of his own persona: in contrast to the grumpy, would-be sages of First Name: Carmen and King Lear, his benign and ethereal character is positively Keatonian, with echoes of Tati’s Monsieur Hulot as well. (Early in the film, he executes a surprisingly deft Keaton-like gag of diving through a car window.) The main comic inspiration, by Godard’s own admission, is Jerry Lewis — specifically the airplane sequence in Cracking Up, though what Godard does with it seems even more quizzically eccentric than the model. Godard is also seen grasping a copy of Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot, which may provide some clues about what he’s up to. This isn’t one of Godard’s best features, though it certainly has its moments, and I much prefer it to his more recent For Ever Mozart. (JR)
Made in 1967 but released only in 1986, Kira Muratova’s acclaimed Soviet feature is about two women–a party official (Muratova herself) and the maid she hires (Nina Ruslanova)–who have both loved the same man, a geologist (popular Russian folksinger Vladimir Visotsky). As a huge fan of Muratova’s postglasnost The Asthenic Syndrome (1989) and Three Stories (1997), each an angry, despairing, and extremely stylized work in color, I wasn’t quite prepared for this quiet, touching, and basically realistic black-and-white drama, interesting at least in part for what it conveys about everyday Russian life in the 60s. I haven’t yet determined whether that’s what led to the film’s being banned for almost 20 years. In Russian with subtitles. 96 min. (JR) Read more
Juzo Itami’s third feature–after The Funeral (1984) and Tampopo (1986)–follows the fanatical efforts of a dedicated tax official (Nobuko Miyamoto, Itami’s wife, who also played the female lead in Tampopo) to catch a variety of individuals who cheat on their tax forms, ranging from middle-income businessmen to big-time crooks. Although the action covers about a year and is partially a string of vignettes, much of it concentrates on the official’s attempts to nail down a ruthless real estate speculator who runs a clandestine adult hotel (Tsutomu Yamazaki). Lacking most of the comic gusto of Itami’s previous films, this one has a pretty icy objectivity, and whether the director sympathizes more with his determined heroine or with her various antagonists remains an open question; there’s a fair amount of unpleasantness on both sides. The result is a thoughtful film about a lively subject in Japan–so successful in its native country that a sequel was made–that is still less compelling than Itami’s previous features (1987). (JR) Read more
