Hot, steaming pantomime on order today for the FAM as we present The Triplets of Belleville (Les Triplettes de Belleville), the surreal animated adventure from 2003, written and directed by Sylvain Chomet.

Triplets tells the story of Madame Souza who is raising her son, Champion. Noticing his sadness one day, she purchases for him a dog named Bruno and though this does cheer him up, his joy is short-lived. It is only after she realizes his interest in bicycle racing and gives him a bicycle of his own that Champion finds real happiness. Fast forward and, years later, Champion has become a world-class cyclist, competing in the Tour de France. It is during this race that a mafia boss kidnaps Champion and two other cyclists, bringing them to the town of Belleville in North America and hooking them up to a virtual-reality cycling machine, allowing patrons to gamble on the races. Madame Souza and Bruno follow, of course, attempting to rescue him from the mafia’s nefarious clutches; meeting along the way the titular triplets, a trio of retired cabaret singers.

It’s a strange arc, then. Triplets starts off easily enough, slow and methodical, but upon the kidnapping of Champion things surge into overdrive, getting progressively weirder and the two don’t quite mesh as well as they perhaps should. It’s almost like they stitched together to different films. That said, this observation does little to detract from my enjoyment of the film. Chomet has created a beautifully realized world here with his characters barely uttering a single word. The version above features no English subtitles, an omission you will hardly notice. Every emotion and thought is spoken with subtle, expressive animation. In addition, the movie features an outstanding soundtrack inspired by the jazz of the 20s and 30s (the film even goes so far as to reference both Django Reinhardt and Josephine Baker in the first few minutes.)

In animation at least, I find myself drawn to pantomime. It strikes me as a testament to an animator’s talent, this ability to abandon the spoken word. In that way it’s interesting to note that Pixar, who’s Finding Nemo beat out The Triplets of Belleville for best picture has begun incorporating this aesthetic more in their recent films, most notably Wall-E (perhaps my favorite from them). Chomet’s new film, L’Illusionniste will see a release in the States in December and I find myself just as anxious as when I first saw a trailer for The Triplets of Belleville. I just can’t see his oeuvre losing its charm.

Introspection and retrospection reign supreme on this day, the Ninth day of July in the year of our Lord Two Thousand and Ten. Today the FAM presents Krapp’s Last Tape starring John Hurt and directed by Atom Egoyan for the series Beckett On Film for Irish broadcaster RTÉ, British broadcaster Channel 4, and the Irish Film Board and which began showing in 2001. The project’s aim was to film 19 of Samuel Beckett’s 20 plays; the exception being the early play Eleutheria which at the time remained unperformed and, in fact, was only staged for the first time in 2005, 58 years after Beckett wrote it. Along with Hurt and Agoyan, Beckett On Film featured an impressive stable of acting and directorial talent. Seriously, look at that list.

We, however, are here to focus on one. Krapp’s Last Tape is the story of Krapp, who is celebrating his sixty-ninth birthday and, is his habit, has hauled out his reel-to-reel tape recorder in order to review the tapes he has made upon every instance of the “awful occasion”. Those are the words used by Krapp, but the Krapp of 30 years previous and from whom we learn the majority of what we know about the man. It is this man, pompous and sneering, who narrates most of Krapp’s life and Krapp sneers along with him, laughing along condescendingly with his 39 year-old self at the idealism and naivete at the 20 year-old man he used to be. We learn from this incarnation of his mother’s death and the women he has loved.

But even Krapp at 39 cannot escape the bitterness that he hurls at his youth. At 69, there is little else left in him but bile and regret; his last book has sold next nothing, his sex life revolves around the periodic visits of an old prostitute. He has no years left for idealism. The only future for Krapp is death; and now in full light of that realization he retreats to the dim memories on those tapes. As the tape ends he can only sit frozen, the only sound the hiss of the reel as it runs down.

The most famous production of Krapp’s Last Tape, no doubt, is 1972 for the BBC, starring the late, great Patrick Magee. In fact, Beckett wrote the play specifically for McGee, it’s original title being “Magee monologue”. I must admit that, much as I love Magee’s work, Hurt seems almost as if he was born for this role. Watching him is hypnotic, every movement seems to take incredible effort and it seems as if he’s willing he joints to creak. Hurt is also in possession of an incredibly expressive face and he uses it to great effect here, betraying the sadness and despair of character with a subtlety that keeps the whole affair from becoming maudlin. It also contains the only instance in which I have laughed at the slipping-on-a-banana peel gag.

It would be hard for most to rank this as Beckett’s greatest play, especially when compared to his most famous play, the incomparable Waiting For Godot, but there is a reality present in Krapp’s Last Tape that is absent from the tale of Vladimir and Estragon that I find deeply affecting. Much of Beckett’s life is reflected in Krapp’s Last Tape and at the time he wrote it his outlook was, one could maintain, quite grim. Perhaps therein lies crux of my position. It’s effectiveness may hinge on just how much of one’s self one sees reflected here.

It’s another summer holiday weekend, here in the United States. Independence Day weekend no less, the 4th of July being the day when Americans get inebriated and spend the day basting themselves in the hot juices of meats, both various and sundry. Such is the joy we feel when we think about how we could still all be English. We at the FAM are here, however, with you pre-basting. We are unbasted, clean and virginal at least for the moment though this will no doubt soon change. For now, however, you may sit near us and enjoy today’s offering knowing you will be unsullied.

Today the Friday Afternoon Movie presents the first four episodes of Satoshi Kon’s weird and wonderful television series Paranoia Agent (Mōsō Dairinin) from 2004, which represents the entirety of the Complete Collection’s disc one, entitled Enter Lil’ Slugger. Paranoia Agent begins with a mysterious attack on Tsukiko Sagi — a character designer best known for the incredibly popular pink dog Maromi — by an assailant who will become known as Shōnen Batto (Bat Boy in the original Japanese and Lil’ Slugger in English). Soon detectives Keiichi Ikari and Mitsuhiro Maniwatwo become involved as more people report attacks by a boy on golden skates, armed with a golden baseball bat.

What follows is tried and true territory for Kon, beginning all the way back in 1997’s Perfect Blue and, some might say, culminating in 2006’s Paprika. Given it’s thirteen episode run, Paranoia Agent gives him the most room to explore it. Kon’s work is primarily concerned with the examination of the lies we tell ourselves and pop culture. It’s the symbiotic relationship between these two aspects of day-to-day life that form the crux of all his films and is firmly entrenched in the story of Paranoia Agent. Indeed, the main thread that emerges, connecting all the attacks by Lil’ Slugger is that all the victims are attacked during a time of great stress and, moreover, seem almost relieved once an attack has occurred. It is this commonality that will eventually lead the detectives to the truth, long after the case has almost completely destroyed both men’s careers and personal lives.

Kon is a masterful storyteller and he proves it here. Nothing is out of place in Paranoia Agent, each episodes fitting in neatly with the others at a measures pace; taking time here and there to focus on events happening at the periphery of the case, only to deftly weave them back in. Best of all unlike many television mysteries of this sort, anime or otherwise, Kon is aware of the importance of a satisfactory conclusion; and while there are still some smaller aspects left open for interpretation, the main plot of the series is lead to a logical, if surreal, conclusion. The rules of Kon’s world may be different from ours, but they are well defined and his tale adheres to them.

Five years out from the English release I still find new things to enjoy in Paranoia Agent. The animation is top notch, the story is of a caliber rarely seen on television, and the acting (at least the Japanese) stays away from what most people think of when they think of Japanese animation. This may be one of the few cases of FAM in which I feel I need to be outright evangelical about the piece on display. Paranoia Agent is a series worth your time. Even if you don’t like anime you should give this a shot. More so than any other director, I feel that Satoshi Kon manages to transcend the medium. The stories he tells, by and large, do not require animation but he uses it to spectacular effect. Few others choose to use it to examine the human psyche in such detail beyond having androids ponder the subtleties of being human in opaque pseudo-philosophical prose. This isn’t a story about what it is to be human; but about just how hard we make it for ourselves.

I don’t know about you but we here at the FAM are beat, dog-tired, perhaps even, knackered if you’re of the sort who use that specific verbiage. It’s been a long day and after a long day nothing soothes the soul and calms the nerves like a dose of the dulcet tones of David Attenborough. Here, then, is the naturalist (at the spry age of 45) in the BBC documentary A Blank on the Map from 1971, which details the first meeting of a previously uncontacted tribe in New Guinea. As I’ve noted before, the man could read a Denny’s menu and make it sound interesting. The FAM apologizes for the brevity and will return next week, fully refreshed, with a healthier helping of exposition.

I must admit, I’m afraid I might be doing a great disservice with this week’s FAM. Not in the sense that the film chosen is of inferior quality or offensive; indeed I have plenty of those which I will no doubt post in the future, without any feelings of guilt. No, my unease comes with the inferior method of delivery. It arises from the fact that I may be exposing people to a film that should only be viewed in the highest possible fidelity which the above offering on YouTube is decidedly not.

Today’s FAM is Alexander Sokurov’s Russian Ark from 2002, a film that I might describe as “decadent” and “luscious” were I a man given to pithy, vague descriptors, which I assure you I am not [Editor’s Note: He is.] Filmed in one fluid take we follow the disembodied voice of our narrator (in actuality the voice of Sokurov) and unseen gentleman who intimates that he, in fact, died in a horrible accident. Accompanying him is “the European” (based on the Marquis de Custine). Together they explore the Winter Palace, which is now the centerpiece of the Russian Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. As they wander from room to room, so to do they wander through Russian history, though those well-versed in said history will note that events depicted are not in chronological order.

What follows is a technically astonishing [Editor’s Note: See?] piece of film-making. Meandering through 33 rooms and featuring over two thousand actors and three orchestras, the result is a history lesson within a dream. As such, it’s all the more frustrating to not be able to see all the small details present on the actors’ costumes are the information overload presented by the splendor of the Winter Palace. I urge you to track down a copy if you enjoyed it here as the experience is really night and day.

And so it shall be that this work-week on Coilhouse begins and ends with Jim Henson. This week The FAM presents one of the greatest television series of all time, Jim Henson’s: The Storyteller. Only lasting 2 seasons the first was broadcast in 1988 and starred John Hurt as the titular storyteller. This was followed up two years later by a second season focused on Greek myths, which lasted for four episodes and featured Michael Gambon in place of Hurt. Today’s FAM features five episodes of the superior first season [Note: All episode descriptions come from wikipedia, ’cause I’m lazy]:

• “Fearnot”: From an early German folk tale. The Storyteller recounts the adventures of a boy who goes out into the world to learn what fear is, accompanied by a dishonest but lovable tinker.

•“Hans My Hedgehog”: From an early German folk tale. A farmer’s wife drives her husband mad with her desperate measures to have a baby. She says to him that she wants a child so bad, she would not care how he looked even if he were covered in quills like a hedgehog. That, of course, is what she gets: a baby covered in quills, as soft as feathers. His mother calls him ‘Hans My Hedgehog’ and she is the only one to love him; his father grows to hate him for shame. So eventually Hans leaves for a place where he can’t hurt anyone and where no-one can hurt him.

Deep inside the forest, for many years Hans dwells with his animals for companions. One day a king gets lost in Hans’ forest and he hears a beautiful song being played on a bagpipe. He follows the music and finds Hans’ castle. When Hans helps him to escape the forest, then king promises that he will give to Hans the first thing to greet him at his castle – which the King secretly knows to be his dog. Instead, it turns out to be his beautiful daughter, the princess of sweetness and cherry pie. Hans and the king have made a deal that in exactly one year and one day his prize (the princess) shall be his.

•“Sapsorrow”: From an early German folk tale, this is a variant on Allerleirauh by the brothers Grimm. There is a king, his dead wife, and his three daughters. Two are as ugly and as bad as can be, but the third, Sapsorrow, is as kind and as beautiful as her sisters are not. There is a ring belonging to the dead Queen, and a royal tradition that states that the girl whose finger fits the ring will become Queen as decreed by law.

•“The Heartless Giant”: From an early German folk tale. A heartless giant, who once terrorised the land before being captured and imprisoned, is befriended by the young prince Leo who, one night, sets him free.

•“The True Bride”: Based on an early German folk tale, The True Bride. A Troll had a daughter, but she left straight off, so the Troll took Anja, an orphan, to replace her to wait on him hand and foot.

I was 8 when these originally aired and two things made watching them a difficult proposition. The first was that the episodes came on dangerously close to my and my brother’s bedtime. The second was that we did not have television. That is, we had a television and VCR, but no cable or reception. My grandparents next door, however, did and we would give them a cassette so that they could record them for us. We must have watched these episodes dozens upon dozens of times, pushing the magnetic tape well beyond its intended lifespan — every story then taking place behind a veil of falling “snow”.

Henson and his team did a phenomenal job with the puppetry and make-up; and Anthony Minghella’s writing is top-notch. Tying it all together is Hurt, whose gravelly delivery is pitch-perfect. With his curmudgeonly dog, voiced by Brain Henson, at his feet he manages to outdo some of the visuals using only his words and that wonderfully expressive face. Time has done nothing to detract from the quality of the series, and upon watching them again, I find that they enthrall me just as much now as they did when I was a child. The low quality YouTube feed even manages to evoke that VHS-like haze on everything. Maybe I’ll put on some footie pajamas later and take this nostalgia trip as far as it will go.

In remembrance of Dennis Hopper, who passed away on May 29th, The FAM presents David Lynch’s 1986 masterpiece Blue Velvet, a film that did perhaps just as much for Hopper’s career as it did for Lynch’s. I would imagine that most, if not all, Coilhouse readers have seen this film at least once. Starring the aforementioned Mr. Hopper as the psychotic Frank Booth as well as Kyle McLachlan, Laura Dern, and Isabella Rossellini, Blue Velvet is the story of a small town that hides dark and terrible secrets. It’s a classic Lynchian theme by now, but coming after the disaster that was 1984’s Dune — a film that I must admit, I like very much and a book, I must admit, I dislike as equally — it was a revelation.

Much of the film’s success must be placed at the feet of Mr. Hopper who, after accepting the role of Frank Booth (he was Lynch’s third choice for the part) was said to have exclaimed “I’ve got to play Frank! I am Frank!” His portrayal of Booth: impulsive, unpredictable, and terrifically violent, makes for one of the scariest characters in all of film. His constantly shifting moods and disturbing, recursive, Oedipal-tinged sexual proclivities, combined with his iconic nitrous oxide kit, are the perfect foil for McLauchlan’s naive, amateur detective. It’s a truly masterful performance.

In many ways Blue Velvet may be Lynch’s crowning achievement, and part of reason for that, I would maintain, is due to its relative simplicity. The imagery he uses here is powerful, but it is also far less obtuse than he has a tendency to be. In other words the signal to noise ratio of meaningful symbols and Stuff David Lynch Thought Looked Pretty is fairly low, making for what I feel is a much more complete and perhaps enjoyable experience.

At the very least, it’s a chance to see Dennis Hopper at his crazed, drug-addled best, every line spewed wild-eyed, frothing, and peppered with profanity. He shall be missed.

Memorial Day is almost upon us in the States, and we here at The FAM have chosen to begin our long weekend with sex, drugs, and violence, as is our wont. Today we present 1971’s Get Carter, directed by Mike Hodges and starring Michael Caine; quite possibly one of the greatest gangster movies of all time, British or otherwise. Based on the novel Jack’s Return Home by Ted Lewis — which took its inspiration from the “one-armed bandit murder” in the north east of England in 1967 — it tells the story of one Jack Carter as he weaves his way through Newcastle’s seedy underworld in search of the truth of his brother Frank’s death, supposedly due to a drunk driving accident. In his wake he leaves a trail of bodies and a river of blood.

There is an image of Michael Caine for many people, greatly influenced by The Cider House Rules and his role as Bruce Wayne’s butler Alfred Pennyworth in Christopher Nolan’s Batman films, of a kindly, wise, and lovable older man with a cockney accent. For this audience Caine will be almost unrecognizable here. His Jack Carter is a ruthless man; death in a well-tailored suit. Carter’s rampage through Tyneside is relentlessly brutal culminating on a lonely, gray beach and ends on a note that takes the viewer completely by surprise, though the more astute will recognize the players from an exceedingly brief appearance at the very beginning of the film.

Get Carter is a highlight in a storied career and it remains one of my favorite movies. To be sure Caine has played many memorable characters besides Jack Carter, but few have had that kind of presence on screen. It’s a role almost completely devoid of pathos. Jack Carter is out for revenge, and he really doesn’t care how you or anyone else feels about it. All that’s certain is that he’ll get it, one way or another.

Weirdness and misogyny this week on The FAM as we present 1987’s The Confessions of Robert Crumb produced by the BBC (which includes the wonderful Arena opening and song. Seriously, I love that intro.) Unlike 1994’s Crumb by Terry Zwigoff (which is seeing a Criterion release this August) Confessions is less concerned with Crumb’s bizarre family and more concerned with the man himself. In that regard it spends much of its time letting Crumb explore and contemplate his objectification of women and self-loathing, preferring to be a catalog of the man’s various fetishes, to merely witness a day in the life of a dirty old man.

Both documentaries illustrate how difficult it can be to separate the artist from their art. A great fan of his work I can’t help but cringe as Crumb displays his current wife to the camera, showing off her musculature as if he were trying to sell the viewer a horse. It is, perhaps, admirable that one would be able to be so honest with the world, willing to expose one’s Id to whoever passes by, and it has certainly worked out well for Robert Crumb. I just can’t help but think that those images made living, breathing flesh are not nearly as entertaining when not on the printed page.

Brevity is the word of the day both in regards to this post and the film it features. Matthew Gordon Long’s The Anachronism tells the story of Katie and Sebastian, two Victorian era, aspiring naturalists who while on expedition one summer day discover a mechanical squid on a rocky beach. What secrets does this mysterious cephalopod hold?

The Anachronism wears its steampunk aesthetic on its sleeve, from the squid’s nod to Jules Verne’ 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea to Katie’s parasol and Sebastian’s pith helmet and butterfly net. It’s a nice, well told little tale, with a surprisingly sinister ending. What it really comes down to is this: mechanical squid. Like you’re going to pass that by.