Love and Anger

This film is an attempt by five different directors to present their take on the theme of "Love and Anger". Five well regarded film personalities were gathered to offer their views in a disjointed attempt to make sense of theme. Alas, what comes out on the screen is, at best, a boring display by some of these men, who have done much better work, to try to interest us with their mostly leftist views without convincing us. As DB Dumontiel commented in this pages, the more modern the five creators wanted to be, the more dated their contributions become.

Of the five segments shown, Carlo Lizzani's "L'indifferenza" is the only one that makes any sense. Filmed totally in New York, without an Italian dialog, it clearly illustrates one of the big problems in our society, and a phenomenon in our bigger cities where people totally ignore situations that claim for human intervention, as in the case of the selfish driver in this piece who tells the cops he doesn't want to get involved, and succeeds in doing so.

The Bertolucci vignette is a heavy critique on religion, as he directs the New York based theater group headed by Julian Beck and Judith Malina and members of their eclectic group performing a ritual as a church higher up is dying. The Passolini contribution shows a young actor, Ninetto Davoli, cavorting on Rome's Via Nazionale while over imposed pictures of legendary leftist icons like Che Guevara appear over the action in the film. The Godard piece, is pretentious, at best, and the last piece, by Marco Bellocchio, shows a university class as they discuss nothing.

This film might have appeared as revolutionary when it was released, but viewing it today, the only thing it elicits from the viewer is boredom and surprise in realizing that even great directors like the ones participating in this film can lay an egg without really trying.

These kinds of collective films that were released in the 60 and 70 are frequently quite inconsistent in quality with one or two good shorts and a few bad ones. Amore e rabbia is no exception to that. The first film is by Carlo Lizzani. It is well shot and mostly harmless. My only complaint is that the concept and how it is developed is painfully predictable and redundant, but other than that it is a decent film. The second one is by Bernardo Bertolucci. This one is offensively bad. I fail to understand how he got away with such an annoying, empty and borderline unbearable piece of film. Pasolini's film is quite a bit unexpressive which came as a surprise because Pasolini is usually quite good. Godard's one is my favorite amongst them, it is very beautiful and in line with what he was doing back then. The last one is by Bellochio. It is good but nothing that impressive. Overrall its not a good collection of films. For me however it was worth it for the Godard segment.

Five short films joined together. I guess they're all about Love and Anger but then just about any story could fit that vagueness.

'Indifference' by Lizzani shows people being indifferent to a woman being attacked, homeless people, and some car-crash victims. It has an unsatisfactory ending. Was probably pretty topical at the time - a woman called of Kitty Genovese was killed in New York in 1964 while others looked on.

'Agony' by Bertolucci is awful - just a bunch of people in a room dancing around and occasionally making cryptic statements. I strongly recommend you fast-forward this one and stop it only if you seem some interesting images. At this point in watching the film I started to get worried: pseudo-intellectual artsy stuff. And we hadn't even got to the Jean-Luc Godard segment yet.

'Sequence of the Paper Flower' by Pasolini shows an idiot wandering the streets of an Italian city (Rome?) and chatting to people. Double-exposed over him are shots of war and politicians so this is probably trying to say something deep but it wasn't clear to me what.

'L'Amore' by Godard is actually pretty good! Witty dialogue between a couple talking about another couple in a film, along with some striking images. This one warrants a second viewing.

'Talk, Talk' by Bellocchio and Tattoli is also good, showing a group of students acting out a protest against university establishment. In May '68 there were many student takeovers of universities in France and around the world so this was pretty topical. The arguments are great, tackling whether to reform the system from within or to strike at it from without. My guess is that the title implies that students were engaging in too much talk and not enough action.

So only two of the five films work but at least all the films try to say something interesting which is more than most films today do.

How can a film with sets by Bertolucci, JLG and Pasolini, amongst others, be so incredibly bad? I have spent a lifetime watching thousands of films from across the globe, and this junk easily fits into the top 3 Worst Films of All Time category. Indifference has nothing new to add after the first 15 seconds; Bertolucci's Agonia is just embarrassing to watch; Pasolini's contribution is pointless; JLG's Amore is beyond pretentious (to be expected, perhaps) and, as I actually tried to follow the student debate on Marxism, capitalism and Vietnam etc., I soon realised that they were saying nothing whatsoever. Perhaps - just perhaps - the directors had basic ideas about each set, but the execution is appalling. Of the directors, Bertolucci easily wins the WTF Award and should have been sent to prison in El Salvador as a prize.

Who knows - perhaps this film is the reason Pasolini was shot?

I am shocked that a serious film company would let this content be released - surely someone actually looked at it before it was distributed? But if they did, how could they not demand a total re-make? I really had to struggle to finish this film - the only thing that kept me sitting there was the hope that the next segment would be better. Which clearly was not the case.

I want my money back.

spotty collection of shorts by 5 directors. some are intriguing, others are just plain tedious. let's go through them in order.

the first short is a merging of two stories about women being violated. they're two different narratives that are combined to tell the story of a woman in danger and then being saved. the first one starts off with a man chasing a woman through the city with lots of shots of indifferent people in their appartments doing their everyday thing. there are several shots of appartment buildings that gives a sense that this women is utterly helpless, she is lost in a world of concrete buildings that don't give any heed to her cries for help. cut to a different story about a guy trying to rescue a woman from a car accident, which seems like it was from another american tv show.

the second one is one by bertolocchi (spelling?) and is the most tedious of them all. weird artsy dancing, montage poses and strange noises emitting from these dancers. at first you think this place is a weird therapy session cuz the dancers look like they were pulled off hte street and they sit in a circle chanting something. then they do these weird moves with lots of moaning and groaning and incoherent mutterings. i think the segment of this session is called agony, so i guess these people are doing artsy interpretations of agony. then an old man comes a long, who's dying and all these people start dancing around him. this one runs on for about 20 minutes...20 minutes i'll never get back.

the third one is one about a man running through the streets. various shots of streets with various political images superimposed on top. i don't know what a lot of these images are, but i deduct they're about the vietnam war and other various political wars around the world. then occasionally, this man has a huge flower in his hands and he starts to dance in the streets to this happy dated italien pop music. it's these scenes that put a smile on my face cuz it's just so rediculous and fun to watch.

the 4th short film is by Jean luc godard. i've seen many godard films and this is a very typical godard film. you've got a couple...the girl is jewish and the guy is arabic. he kisses her, carass her naked body and talks in a way only godard characters do...a mixture of musings on love and politics. intercut with another couple who talk about the film that they're in. saying things like...."what's that over there?" "why, i think it's the opening of a film..." "i think they're gonna break up..." "if they break up, the film will be over..." etc. i have a general understanding of what godard's references and what he is talking about, so it doesn't feel as tedious to me as it would to others. but still......those who don't have a bit of academic background in film...you'd most likely like to keep away from this.

the last film is one about a debate going on in a university as a group of marxist students interupt a class to debate about marxist ideology and general anarchy against the university system. these students want a marxist revolution and a overthrow of the general university system. the dean, proffessor and the students in the class call for reform from inside the system. and there goes on a debate between change within the system vs. overthrowing the system. this discussion actually captivated me, despite the fact that this is pretty dated politics. this film being released in 1969, this is obviously a depiction of the kinds of political debates between students and institutions around 1968. where university students basically rioted and demostrated for a fairer university system and rejected old institutions while embracing marxism. for those who have an interest in the political demostrations of 1968 in europe, this film documents this point in time pretty well. it's clear that the film maker is on the side of the marxist students with the final shot of the film.

so what can you say over all about this collection of short films? overall, it's mostly a political film, especially with the last three stories and the credits rolling with the sound of dull thuds of foam bats beating people symbolizing police brutality. i think this film has a very specific film audience...either young students in the late 1960s (this audience obviously no longer exists), people who have an interest in any of the directors here or people who are interested in the history of 1968 and want to see an artistic representation of it. to everyone else, you've been warned. it's a collection of artsy political films you'd probably wouldn't want to watch.