Road Worriers

Films I've recently watched...

Been sitting on my arse watching stuff on DVD, starting with...

TWO RARE AS SHIT FILMS by ALAN CLARKE (U.K)...The cinema of Alan Clarke has been getting a bit of how you say 'chi-chi' reappraisal in recent years, most notably via Gus Van Sant and every film he's made since ELEPHANT, which was inspired by Alan Clarke's short film of the same name, as well as alumni of Van Sant, Harmony Korine, who lists Clarke as one of his favourite directors. You also get Clarke's' influence in many of the trendy 'grunge' film-makers, most notably the films - at least up to TRAINSPOTTING of Danny Boyle, and other trendies like Lynne Ramsay who made MORVERN CALLAR or even that guy who recently made that Joy Division movie KONTROL, and then let’s not forget Belgian guns the Dardenne Brothers, who's steady-cammed social realism -owes more to Clarke's films than the easy comparison to Bresson made by 95% of Johnny-cum-lately film reviewers or whatever they call themselves these days. For those that want to dive into Clarke's work, well you don't have to look too far. The most-excellent cult-cinema label BLUE UNDERGROUND put out a box-set a few years back that comprised of his most well-known film, the borstal-basher SCUM, as well as the equally excellent MADE IN UK, THE FIRM and the previously mentioned ELEPHANT. The box-set it OOP, but the titles are available as individual film. Clarke's final film (he died too young in 1990), the dirty-comedy RITA & SUE & BOB TOO is also available from the UK... But Clarke's other stuff is extremely rare, made more so by the fact that most of Clarke's output for BBC television as one off 'movies of the week', so if you know someone who taped them when they screened in the 80s yr in luck...

The first of the two films I saw was the most excellent CHRISTINE, which is pretty much the day in the life of a young, working-class female junkie. Living in drab flat, Christine basically spends her days shooting up, and then walking to her friends’ houses to shoot up some more. Dialogue is kept to a minimum as Clarke's steady-cam stalks his main protag with a low-rent Kubrick styled efficiency. There's no drama, just the blunt, dull and monotonous process of the junkie shooting up, nodding off and then repeating. Clarke uses his signature of 'the walker' to great effect here. A running theme in Clarke's films, despite the overall bleakness of Thatcher's England, is the concept of 'the Walker'..Nearly every character in Clarkes' work is walking through a bleak, almost alien environment, as if they are stuck in a prison, in this case working class England. Steadycam is the method to follow his protagonist’s journey and events literally unfold along the way, in real time. CHRISITNE is no different; she walks, shoots up and nods off, all the way until the last fix, where she may have just found an inner peace...

The second Clarke rarity I saw was THE ROAD...Some rate this one quite highly but it didn't do much for me..based on a play, the film had too much talking heads complaining directly to the camera, punctuated by a brief steady-cam shot of each character...The film revolves around the lives of two disenfranchised woman and two guys they meet at a drab disco. Interspersed are the monologues of a sad old divorcee, a sad old man, and a sad young couple. The film sits very much in that Irvine welsh TRAINSPOTTING type mould with people talking in a heavy British vernacular and complaining about the system and whatnot. The film is a lot more stylised that Clarke's other work, with scuzzy settings and characters mugging for the camera in freeze-frame. If you want to know where Danny Boyle got a lot of his original ideas you should try and check out THE ROAD.

Finally I watched the totally off-its-head JE T'AIME MOI NON PLUS directed by French-frog pop hero serge Gainsbourg. Starring Warhol beefsteak Joe Dellasandro and French-fry junkie-chic Jane Birkin, the film tells the story of Krassky (Dellasandro), a gay truck driver who falls for a chick with no tits and look like a boy called Johnny (Birkin)...Poor Krassky, he thinks he's falling for this anorexic, until he has to sleep with her, and then in frustration can only consummate his love for her Greek-style! Yeah well, how do you interpret this film? To me it was like a Fassbinder movie meets one of the those 70's mid-western acid movies like something by Monte Hellman or an early Hal Ashby film..The premise is more ridiculous when you tell people about it, than when you actually watch it, but the whole film works on such a unique don't-give-a-fuck and provocative manner, that you can't help but be entertained, and realise they just don't make shit like this anymore! Oh, and for those who dig Monsieur Gainsbourg, this film is actually an adaptation of his hit song Je T'Aime Se Nous Plus, so suck on that one!