A leader keeps people subjugated by fear and
emotion, pursuing a religion-based agenda while letting the top official in
charge of justice pervert the law to his own ends. Fahrenheit 9/11? Nay, Cobra Woman! This delicious nugget
from 1944 kicks off the Not on Video series at the Dryden.
Maria
Montez plays the evil high priestess who rules Cobra Island, much to the
despair of the helpless Queen, whose more levelheaded ways have been set aside
with disdain. So that would make the queen… democracy? Paper-based voting
systems? But no, let us set this analogy aside, for the film hardly needs it.
And it doesn’t need status as “so-bad-it’s-good-camp” either — you will miss
a lot if you come to sneer.
Don’t
get me wrong: There’s a lot to laugh at, but the film offers its own warm humor
as fun and ridiculous as any of its gaffes. Even the utterly artificial quality
of the matte paintings filling in for the background transcend ineptness to
arrive at something more like marvelous, lending the film the feel of an
illustrated storybook come to life. In fact, visually, the film is a knockout.
Even
if this were on video, it could not hope to match the brilliant intensity of
the print the Dryden will be screening. (If it ever does find its way to video,
it would make for an excellent drinking game. Down a shot every time the Cobra
Law regarding strangers is invoked.) The Technicolor is so vivid and sharp it
could bite you, and it’s put to plenty good use.
There
are some truly dazzling costumes for such a low-budget pic (and some truly
silly ones). The High Priestess is introduced in a getup that would be more at
home on Park Avenue than a South Seas island, and the tableau of her holding
court with her color-coded maidens in a Broadway musical-like sacrificial
dungeon is the most ravishing image I have seen on film in a long time.
The
whole scenario of Cobra Island is like something extracted from the poisoned
mind of a Disneyland Imagineer (including some interesting racial divisions in
the casting). A good bit of the movie pokes along in the somewhat rote way of
an old, forgotten Disney program, but then it will explode with delicious style
— usually when Montez shows up. I’ve resisted mentioning the movie’s
highlights for fear of spoiling them, but nothing could prepare you for the
dance she performs in the dungeon.
Director
Robert Siodmak would go on to direct more
reputable fare like The Dark Mirror,
in which he set Olivia de Havilland opposite herself
as good and evil twins. That film took determined, earnest pains to exploit the
cinematic and psychological possibilities of the feat. Cobra Woman also features a good twin played by Montez, but about
as much time is spent on that as is spent on a chimpanzee threading a needle
elsewhere in the movie. Which, for a charming compendium of slightly deranged
exotica, is really all you need. Cobra Woman screens at the Dryden Theatre on
Tuesday, July 6.
A
less watchable cult film, Sweet
Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971), was nonetheless a groundbreaking piece
of independent blaxploitation whose reputation has endured. The filmmaker,
Melvin Van Peebles, wrote a book afterwards about the struggle of making it,
and his son Mario has now made a film based on that, called Baadasssss!, in which heplays his own father.
Melvin’s
callous tenacity is well put across, and he presents a compelling character at
the helm of an eventful odyssey. But where the meager budget of the first film
launched a raw, junky salvo at The Man, the meager budget of this one launches
something that often comes across — in look, content, and style — like a
better-than-average TV movie. Broad, playful strokes sometimes veer into thin
caricature, and devices meant to get us inside Melvin’s head are usually
reminiscent of a TV movie that is less than average, not more.
It’s
never less than entertaining, though, and as it settles down and gets serious,
it manages to shake off most of its R-rated-sitcom vibes. The parallels between
Sweetback and Melvin’s struggles are never stressed too heavily, but it’s
impossible not to root for him the same way audiences rooted for Sweetback —
even if he is a jerk. Baadasssss! opens Friday, July 2, at the Little Theatre.
— Andy Davis
Despite having spent the better part of the last
decade immersed in the art and commerce of independent film, I’d never seen a
movie by Canada’s Guy Maddin before watching The Saddest Music in the World,
though he has well over 20 of them under his belt. I’ve even been to the
Toronto International Film Festival a handful of times and haven’t crossed
paths with any of his movies — no mean feat considering how Canada-centric
the festival is. Truthfully, I’d never even heard of the man until last year. I
probably should let someone else do this review and just go lick frosting off
my fingers while I rock back and forth in the corner and wait for some hack to
greenlight Die Hard 4.
Winnipeg,
1933: “The World Capital of Sorrow in the Great Depression,” as proclaimed by
the Times of London. This dubious
distinction inspires beer baroness Lady Port-Huntly (Isabella Rossellini) to
hold a contest in search of the world’s saddest music. Entering the competition
are former Broadway big shot Chester (Mark McKinney, The Kids in the Hall’s
Chicken Lady) and his girlfriend (Maria de Medeiros, best known for being on
the receiving end of the line “Zed’s dead, baby” in Pulp Fiction), representing the US; Chester’s father, representing
Canada and once his rival for the romantic attention of Lady P-H; and Chester’s
brother, representing Serbia and haunted by memories of his late son and
estranged wife. Needless to say, old wounds are opened, secrets come to the
fore, and the winning countries celebrate by zipping down a slide into a vat of
ale.
Saddest Music looks like a silent movie,
or a dream with exceptional production design, as velvety black-and-white gives
way to occasional scenes of color. The actors deliver their lines in what can
only be described as that forced ’30s kind of way which would be considered bad
acting in any other film but works in a movie rife with vaudevillian slapstick,
bizarre melodrama, and overblown musical numbers. Maddin and co-writer George
Toles adapted their screenplay from an original script by Kazuo Ishiguro, who
wrote the decidedly different The Remains
of the Day.
Actually,
I might be the perfect person to do this review. Saddest Music will be the inaugural experience with this cult
filmmaker for most moviegoers. I’ve read that this is the most accessible of
Maddin’s films. So while it may not be representative of his oeuvre, it’s
certainly an entertaining place to start. Saddest
Musicopens Friday, July 2, at the Little
Theatre.
— Dayna Papaleo
This article appears in Jun 30 – Jul 6, 2004.
