104 in 2009 Week 26: The Exterminating Angel and Phantom of the Paradise

We're officially at the halfway point of the year, and I'm holding steady at just a sliver ahead of the curve. I kind of wish I was doing better, but this isn't bad. Plus, I can expect a pretty big boost come October.

El Angel Exterminador (The Exterminating Angel)
Luis Bunuel, 1962

The guests at an upper-class dinner party find themselves unable to leave for weeks on end. Nothing prevents them from leaving, though – they just can’t.

The Exterminating Angel is built around a simple idea – people trapped in a room for no apparent reason – and never really moves too far from it. Most of the characters are relative ciphers, and even by the end of the movie, I really couldn’t tell several of them apart. This isn’t really a problem, though, and may even be intentional – after all, Bunuel is criticizing a class of people, and their interchangeability is an obvious part of that. It’s a conceptual piece, where story trumps character and idea trumps story. This may sound tremendously dull, but it’s actually a very funny film, if a bit stretched. The core idea – that the bourgeoisie have built their own prison out of social mores and behavioral codes that they don't really believe in – isn’t really enough to sustain a full length movie, but Bunuel also manages to work in all manner of bizarre images which keep things interesting, and he adds an extra layer of depth by roping the Catholic church into the whole mess at the end. It may not be the best that Bunuel has to offer, but it’s still quite good.

7.5/10

Phantom of the Paradise
Brian De Palma, 1971

A demonic record producer named Swan (Paul Williams) steals the life’s work of a geeky songwriter (William Finley), who is then horribly disfigured by a record press when he tries to take revenge. The songwriter puts on a mask and mucks about Swan’s new theater, the Paradise, while becoming obsessed with a young singer (Jessica Harper).

This is said to be De Palma’s 70’s rock and roll version of Phantom of the Opera, but it really is only marginally related. The biggest connection is the backstory of the Phantom – but this film only shares that backstory with the 1943 Claude Rains film, not with – well, any other version of the story.

One nice thing about De Palma is that he’s never boring. The man never met a goofy stylistic quirk (or Hitchcock movie, for that matter) that he didn’t like, so even when a movie drags, you can still enjoy the random split-screen or lengthy tracking shot that he’s sure to throw in. This is fortunate, because once the Phantom is created about halfway through the film, things kind of drag to a halt, despite a few bravura sequences (the restoration of the Phantom’s voice, the chaotic on-stage finale). I can’t entirely put my finger on why, but I suspect it may have something to do with Jessica Harper. As much as I love Suspiria, she seems to be a lead weight around the neck of any other movie she appears in, at least in my experience. She’s barely present in the first half, but becomes much more prominent later on. It could also be that Finley’s doofily affable performance as the songwriter did a lot to carry the first half, and once he seals himself away behind a mask and a vocoder, that element is lost. Whatever the reason, even the back end of the movie is never less than watchable, and the piece as a whole is occasionally quite good. Just not often enough.

6.5/10

Progress: 55 (Par + 3)