FIFTY years on, film noir classic Kiss Me, Deadly still hits like a punch in the guts - or perhaps a "low blow" would be more accurate, given the hulking, punch-first-think-later-if-at-all thuggishness of its private-eye protagonist Mike Hammer (Meeker). 'Hero' is a word which in no way applies to this vicious, quasi-fascistic brute - and, in a departure from most movies in the detective genre, we're never invited to sympathise or identify with him as he traverses Los Angeles in search of a mysterious stolen suitcase (containing a McGuffin known only as "the great whatsit.")

Adapting Mickey Spillane's first-person-narrated novel for the screen, ace scriptwriter A I Bezzerides (whose work on 1942's Juke Girl was named by Francois Truffaut as the birth of genuine American noir, and who is still alive and kicking at the age of 97) eschewed the usual hardboiled voiceover and instead allowed Hammer's strongarm tactics to speak for themselves. And while Spillane's Hammer obtained what might be described as a satisfactory outcome to the case (which revolved around cash purloined by the Mafia), Bezzerides and Aldrich's Hammer is little more than a blunderbuss punchbag (he gets knocked out cold no less than half a dozen times) whose cloddish 'strategy' leads to the worst possible results for all concerned.

Indeed, the climax of the film is abruptly apocalyptic in a way which still catches viewers off guard - and was part of the reason why the picture was such a favourite with the directors of the French New Wave (Robert Altman's masterpiece The Long Goodbye is among Kiss Me Deadly's too-numerous-to-mention descendants.) Aldrich and his cinematographer Ernest Laszlo create a monochrome, nightmarish, atom-age netherworld: suitable backdrop for a drama in which only the basest and most venal are able to survive. The film is nothing if not a product of its time - populated by the children of Robert Oppenheimer and Joe McCarthy, if you like. But Aldrich's fast pacing and no-nonsense style ensure that it hasn't dated a jot.

Neil Young

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PAGES FROM A WARM ISLAND
report from the third 'Kino Otok' Film Festival, Slovenia

Cannes may attract the stars, the paparazzi and the column inches, but if you're after an intimate, extremely laid-back, effortlessly stylish, genuinely "cine-maniac" film-festival on the European coast at the end of May, then you'll have to look a little further east and north and head up to the Adriatic to Izola.

For the last three years, under the unassuming stewardship of director / programmer / documentarian / soccer-nut Vlado Skafar, the small fishing-town has played host to a five-day event known as 'Kino Otok' in Slovene and 'Isola Cinema' in Italian (the street-signs are bilingual all along the 46-km Slovene coast, wedged between Italy and Croatia.)



'Cinema Island' is only slightly a misnomer: Izola may have actually been connected to the mainland for 200 years now, but it still feels like a place apart. And when the film festival is under way - in two "hard top" cinemas and an open-air venue in the town's central Manzioli Square - the island becomes a magic-carpet transporting you to the corners of the globe. Kino Otok shows films from all over the place, but specialises in what's sometimes called 'world cinema' - showcasing African, Asian and South American directors whom the bigger, brasher festivals may tend to overlook.

And part of the deal is that, wherever possible, the directors are invited (even gently pressurised) to attend in person: and the geographical compactness of Izola, plus the warmly genial atmosphere that prevails (even when the weather turns unkind) means that festival goers have plenty of chances to chat to and generally mingle with the film-makers.

The vibe is democratic, cosy, egalitarian - and has already proved a magnet to sufficient numbers of young people from Slovenia, Austria, Italy and further afield that at certain moments (especially when the nightly dance-till-dawn party on the 'Punta' [headland] is in full swing) Izola resembles (a more civilised) Ibiza than its grand 'rival' on the Cote d'Azur.

And what of the films this year? Pick of the bunch (at least among the dozen titles I managed to catch) was undoubtedly American photographer / ethnographer / experimental-documentarist Bill Daniel's Who Is Bozo Texino?, a dazzling 55-minute chronicle of the graffiti 'tags' which have adorned the sides of railway boxcars for decades, and offer an entry into the fascinating, vanishing world of the American hobo. It's a terrific subject, but Daniel's maverick, gloriously rough-edged style is at least as compelling as (and a perfect counterpoint) to his material.

At this point honesty dictates that I should own up recommending the film to Kino Otok after meeting Bill Daniel at the Vienna film festival last October, and that I'm also a semi-official member of Kino Otok's "programming board," so can't pretend to be entirely objective in this report. Bozo Texino proved a significant hit with audiences, however, and should be sought out when it obtains its UK premiere later this year (which may occur at the Sheffield documentary festival in October).

My other highlight was also briskly economic in its running-time: Apichatpong Weerasethakul's delightful 42-minute video-shot squib Worldly Desires. 35-year-old Weerasethakul has rapidly established himself as Thailand's leading film-maker with Blissfully Yours (2002) and Tropical Malady (2003) - both of which won major prizes at Cannes - and Worldly Desires is a small-scale project in between more 'serious' features. It depicts - in fragmented, elliptical, dreamlike fashion - the making of a film in a jungle (location of Weerasethakul's last two films), a film which may or may not be 'real'. The exact status of the film-within-a-film is rather irrelevant: if a dissection can be playful, then this aptly describes Weerasethakul's deconstruction of the grammar and syntax of cinema: a potentially arid exercise rendered joyous and feather-light by Weerasthekul's instinctive mastery of sound and image.

At the other end of the length scale, Filipine auteur Lav Diaz weighed in with his 8 1/2 hour Jeremiah: a daunting duration, until you consider that his last work was the 10-hour-plus Evolution of a Filipino Family (2004) and that he originally projected Jeremiah - the story of a farmer who fasts for 40 days and nights - as a 15-hour epic. A combination of festival commitments (I had to introduce films at other cinemas) and near-biblical downpours kept me away from Jeremiah, but those hardy souls who toughed it out were quick to proclaim a masterpiece - though one could cynucally speculate that, having devoted so much time and effort to a movie, they would hardly be likely to make any other judgement.

Slightly more accessible east-Asian fare was on offer in veteran director Koji Wakamatsu's Cycling Chronicles : Landscapes the Boy Saw (aka 'Scenes of 17 : What did the Boy See?', depending on one's choice of translator). The title sums it up: we follow a teenager as he mountain-bikes his way across a wide variety of Japanese environments, seemingly fleeing in guilt and confusion after committing an act of homicidal domestic violence.

After more than 100 movies (many of them in the popular pinkku or soft-porn genre) Wakamatsu is well into the 'grand old man' phase: which makes the freshness and formal innovation of Cycling Chronicle all the more noteworthy. The film isn't without its dead patches (ironically, these occur when the boy stops cycling and silently engages pensioners in nostalgic, one-way conversation), and the climax is predictable, but Wakamatsu deserves credit for tackling Japan's current spiritual malaise head-on, linking it directly with the unique circumstances of its ancient and recent past.

A more conventional - but no less acute - survey of a nation's woes could be found in Jorge Gaggero's Live-In Maid (Cama Adentro = 'bed inside'), one of a plethora of recent films analysing the economic strife which engulfed Argentina at the start of the present decade. Gaggero's approach is character-based, exploring the complex relationship between sixtyish entrepreneur Bebe (Latin American screen legend Norma Aleandro) and her indefatigable housekeeper/servant Dorita (the almost too aptly-named Norma Argentina, in a belated and striking movie debut).

Bebe is forced into straitened circumstances by her nation's financial woes - and after 28 years' employment, Dorita realises she may have to seek alternative work. Gaggero draws pitch-perfect performances from his two leads, mining a dry comedy of gesture and nuance (reminiscent of last year's Uruguayan arthouse favourite Whisky) out of fundamentally dire, even tragic circumstances. Live-In Maid is an intelligent, accessible treatment of pressing social and economic issues - a political film with a heart as well as a brain.

Neil Young




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