Keyhole: Home Sweet Home of Dangers

Keyhole

Directed By: Guy Maddin

Written By: George Toles and Guy Maddin

Starring: Jason Patric, Isabella Rossellini, Udo Kier, Brooke Palsson, and David Wontner

Director of Photography: Benjamin Kasulke, Editor: John Gurdebeke, Production Designer: Ricardo Alms, Original Music: Jason Staczek

            The world of Guy Maddin, a director who defies pigeonholing in every frame, has never been one to create a world even close to logic. His films exist in a bizarre universe that pulls together his personal memories, the silent and B-movies he grew up with, and subtext often sublimating to the foreground, which often discards the primal text in doing so. What are we left with? It’s often hard to describe what exactly he’s doing (you can watch a number of his shorts on YouTube), but if the word “auteur” still has meaning in film, Maddin is certainly exemplary of it.

            His latest film, Keyhole, may, somehow, be the strangest yet, or at least the one that made me feel the most uncomfortable. Gone is the sense of wonder and nostalgia that pieced together films like The Saddest Music in the World and My Winnipeg. Keyhole, whatever it exactly is, seems driven by paranoia and fear, both of the outside world and the repressive sexual anxiety from inside. It’s probably also the most opaque of Maddin’s work, which is saying a lot, given the director’s tendency to avoid any idea of a clear narrative. And perhaps Keyhole doesn’t work on every level, but it’s still a unique piece of art that is clearly something out of the ordinary.

New York Film Festival: Béla Tarr's The Turin Horse

The Turin Horse

A Film By Béla Tarr

Hungary

            When the “plebeians” below us think about art cinema, they may imagine long tracking shots where nothing happens, filmed in black and white without dialogue, on subjects that seem moronic and too mundane to ever demand the attention of cameras. Of course, those men and women are certainly entitled to their opinion (as well as their Transformers), but they may be missing out on something that even most filmmakers would refuse to do: stare into the abyss of life with much disdain and fear as it stares back into us.

            And thus comes the final film from Béla Tarr, The Turin Horse, a two and a half hour masterpiece that is brutal truth at 24 frames per second. This deeply disturbing work borderlines on parody of art cinema, mainly because Mr. Tarr is a relentless filmmaker who never compromises in his portraiture of a life void of hope and the impossibility to fight against the idea of a progressive world. I had somehow missed Mr. Tarr’s previous features—most notably the 450 minute Sátántangó—but knew to be prepared. A mutual friend of mine and Mr. Tarr’s suggested to let the film “wash over me.” And bathe in despair I did.