Max,(not the manager), who is unable to post his vote, says:
Pere Portabella (Nocturno 29) —1 vs. John Frankenheimer (Ronin) —0
Pere Portabella (Nocturno 29) 1 vs. John Frankenheimer (Ronin) 0
Pere Portabella (Nocturno 29) 1 vs. John Frankenheimer (Ronin) 0
Pere Portabella (Nocturno 29) 1 vs. John Frankenheimer (Ronin) 0
An easy choice for me, Nocturno 29 was fantastic (I like it a lot better than the R1 pick which was already great) and I’ve never really considered Ronin to be a great film. The characters in Ronin have always annoyed me deeply, especially the girl.
Nocturno 29 was fascinating and beautiful. It feels like a breath of fresh air that is most welcome at this point in the cup.
Pere Portabella (Nocturno 29) 1 vs. John Frankenheimer (Ronin) 0
Pere Portabella (Nocturno 29) 1 vs. John Frankenheimer (Ronin) 0
Pere Portabella (Nocturno 29) 0 – John Frankenheimer (Ronin) 1
Not much in the way of commonalities for comparison here, and I like both films, but since it’s currently 6-0 Portabella . . .
Ummm, sorry to the Frankenheimer manager but this is really one of the most appalling choices in all of the DC, WC tournaments which also marks the beginning of the end of De Niro’s career and the beginning of the crap-pot for Jean Reno.
I find it hard to believe that Portabella will lose after this match ends…
Pere Portabella (Nocturno 29) 0 – John Frankenheimer (Ronin) 1
It really irks me here when people don’t leave any comments with their votes, even one sentence would be nice as I can’t find much of value in Nocturno 29. A few of the shots are captivating but that’s about it.
I haven’t seen Ronin for many years, probably when it first came out. I remember it was fun with of course the locations and car chases being the highlights, but I don’t need to watch it again to know I like it much more than Nocturno 29.
Pere Portabella (Nocturno 29) – 1 vs. John Frankenheimer (Ronin) – 0
@ Riss
It’s a tough film to talk about without getting down to image-by-image dissection, I think. Portabella says that it is made up of “super-realist fragments exposing the irrelevance of everyday life.”
I take him to mean specifically everyday life in Franco’s Spain, as the film seems to be implicitly (if not explicitly) anti-Franco. Everybody knows that the “29” of the title refers to the number of years Franco had been in power when the film was made, right? And that it had to be circulated in secret after it had been made?
Pere Portabella (Nocturno 29): 1 —vs— John Frankenheimer (Ronin): 0
Ronin 1 – Nocturno 29 0
Ronin is a fun assassin thriller which has a lot of flaws but is successful in getting you engaged in the melodrama.
Judging Nocturno based on the strength of the images themselves, it just isn’t that strong. I didn’t know about ‘29 years of Franco’s rule’, but knowing that in retrospect doesn’t add much to it. It seemed to me to be about power relationships, and though the film is elegant, it doesn’t say much to me.
It’s a tough film to talk about without getting down to image-by-image dissection, I think. Portabella says that it is made up of “super-realist fragments exposing the irrelevance of everyday life.”
I take him to mean specifically everyday life in Franco’s Spain, as the film seems to be implicitly (if not explicitly) anti-Franco. Everybody knows that the “29” of the title refers to the number of years Franco had been in power when the film was made, right? And that it had to be circulated in secret after it had been made?
Nope, I didn’t know that’s what the 29 meant. Thanks.
Was life really “irrelevent” in that situation though? If so, what was it irrelevent to?
PLEASE NOTE I MISTAKENLY PUT NOCTURNO 29 IN BOLD ABOVE EVEN THOUGH MY STATEMENTS AND NUMBERING INDICATE MY VOTE FOR RONIN.
Just didn’t want to confuse anyone trying to count quickly and it’s too late for me to edit.
Pere Portabella (Nocturno 29) – 1 vs. John Frankenheimer (Ronin) – 0
I actually kind of like Ronin, and, in the interest of full disclosure, I even own a copy of it. And this isn’t like "Oh, yeah, I own that, but, I mean, that was SO LONG ago that I bought that, it shouldn’t even count, I’ve been meaning to sell it . . . " No, I like Ronin, and I like the ghostly feel to the characters, they aren’t really explained, and don’t seem to have a ton of motivation other than to act out this thing that it feels like they’ve done plenty of times before. It’s atypical of what I think of as THOSE types of action movies because it doesn’t feel the same. Now that I think about it, only Jonathan Pryce brings that element of “it’s one of THOSE” action movies to it.
But that’s part of my problem with this matchup – I’ve watched Ronin what feels like eight billion times, and I’ve never really ever thought about it. As compared to Nocturno 29, which I’ve watched once. I thought more about Nocturno 29 in the first ten minutes it was on than I’ve ever thought about Ronin. So, yeah, Ronin is fun, maybe a little bit better than it’s sister films out there, but I like to be engaged by my entertainment :).
Nocturno 29 – 0 – Ronin – 1
Nocturno 29 – 0 – Ronin – 1
Nocturno 29 – 0 – Ronin – 1
I will stick with mondo trasho. I like mediocre over incomprehensible
10-4 Portabella.
“Was life really “irrelevent” in that situation though? If so, what was it irrelevent to?”
Well, in one sense it’s irrelevent in the film in the sense that there’s no apparent linkage between the various parts. As to the specific political and cultural relevancy, maybe there’s someone out there who is Spanish and can speak to the matter better than I, but my take on it would be that Portabella and his co-writer Joan Brossa were both from Catalonia, and during the Franco regime, Catalan culture, politics, and even use of the Catalan language in mass media was suppressed, so in a sense there was a very deliberate attempt to make Catalan culture “irrelevent” in Franco’s Spain.
Thinking about it, although I voted for the Portabella, I really liked Ronin. I mean I liked the story, but everything else was weak I suppose. Throughout I was constantly thinking of what the film would be like if Frankenheimer made it earlier on in his career. Like around the time he made Manchurian Candidate and whatnot. I think the character, as unbelievable as they are, would have been wholly believable if it were made about 40 years ago.
_“Was life really “irrelevent” in that situation though? If so, what was it irrelevent to?”
Well, in one sense it’s irrelevent in the film in the sense that there’s no apparent linkage between the various parts._
Yes, I think what portabella handles masterfully is such a connection between political and filmic critiques/elements, or worlds, or themes or whatever. The opening scene, which feels a sort of idyllic piece of film, presents itself as a contrast to ‘accepted norms,’ with the sound of the camera audible, the pores of the faces visible, the hair greasy, long and blowing in their faces, their nudity, the close up of a wound in the foot. Idyllic in one sense, for portabella, in the self-reflexivity in the camera’s presence, it’s associated placed restrictions often correlating with Franco-era everyday counterparts. In another sense, the scene is followed by what may be the ‘accepted’ cinema, the urban woman whose screen time is of putting on make up, face cream to cover such pores, fixing her hair, etc. which begins a thread line of the pervasion of vanity, which often acts alongside the presence of the ornate and the bourgeois. Some examples I recall, for the ornate, when she walks through a garden, stuffs flowers in her nose and mouth and ears, a sort of escape in nature, before crying out upon seeing a rat, tied in with the image of the ornate catholic church and ceremony, similarly vain (and, unlike the frenetic style of the film, empty in intellectual discourse beyond a glossy facade, which can return to a parallel general film criticism). For the bourgeois, one of the more (comparatively) blatant examples, are the scenes at the country club, who revert to chicken-esque squawking and it becomes clear they have little to say, behind the same gloss of silly sport outings and appearance. Other such varied critiques, the scene in the bank, the cacophony of a capital-driven urban life as he can only hear and see the glances and whispers towards the checking out of money, both of paranoia of loss and, again, the vanity of fearing public knowledge of his affluence. Or an urge for machismo masculine presentations of control, when after the poker game the man sends the woman into a greenery maze while watching her moves and confusion from above. But a culmination, somewhat, is during the discussions as they walk through the forest, that “freedom should be freedom for something, what’s the use of just saying freedom?” That acceptance of an ideology, on a mass scale, is often reduced to the espousal of a word, of a confidence in total understanding of a concept and one’s own, or a leader’s, stance/belief. That a freedom can be found in the confusion of a surreal smorgasbord of fleeting images, collective memory, pictures and worlds both decipherable to an audience, and indecipherable, as a product of the individual. And in the final scenes, browsing through flags as if in a fabric store, she chooses none of them, establishes no facile nationalism in a relation to simply an image. For a necessity, as in film, is the constant awareness of bolstered or exaggerated image/speech, the smoke and mirrors of commercial cinema, to move towards that simple a in which naked bodies lie and start anew.
So, I haven’t seen Ronin yet and can’t comment on it, but would be tough for it to win a vote over Portabella.
Also, just wanted to mention, @Risselada
It really irks me here when people don’t leave any comments with their votes, even one sentence would be nice as I can’t find much of value in Nocturno 29.
Well, I know for myself, when I feel I don’t have time to comment, I prefer just the vote because, leaving only a sentence or two would seem more useless, as it would likely force me to say something like ‘this was just too boring’ or any sort of one line summary which, even if there are good reasonings/arguments behind it (not saying those who leave fewer words have nothing to say, probably more likely they’re hiding them in their mind crevices), can come off sounding like a flat response to make a manager who loves the film cringe.
I think it’s actually 9-5 Portabello. (Me, Riss, Den, Jirin and Come and See have voted for Frankenheimer thus far).
Oh, so you did. I made allowances for ComeandSee’s accidental double post, but not for Risselada’s accidental mis-highlighting (even though I noticed it earlier). Eesh. 9-5 it is.
Pere Portabella (Nocturno 29) 0 John Frankenheimer (Ronin) 1
Sorry but to me Nocturno 29 is the typical work of a inscrutable, arbitrary and narcissistic filmmaker.
9-6 Portabella.
Well, I know for myself, when I feel I don’t have time to comment, I prefer just the vote because, leaving only a sentence or two would seem more useless, as it would likely force me to say something like ‘this was just too boring’ or any sort of one line summary which, even if there are good reasonings/arguments behind it (not saying those who leave fewer words have nothing to say, probably more likely they’re hiding them in their mind crevices), can come off sounding like a flat response to make a manager who loves the film cringe.
Well, I’m glad in this case you did have time to comment because your comments above this about Nocburno 29 were incredibly valuable. Thank you greatly. Without them I would have walked about from this film a lot more confused.
Nocturno 29 – 1 vs. Ronin – 0
House of Leaves
The extended voting period for this match lasts until 7:00 pm BST (6:00 pm GMT) on Wrednesday, July 13, which means that users will have over 48 hours in order to publish their votes. The world map which lists all current time zones can be found on www.worldtimezone.com, so that everyone can be up to date about how much time is left.
After the voting period is over the votes will be counted and the results published. The next match will begin before 7pm BST (6pm GMT) on Tiesday, July 12.
Each user can vote on any match as long as he/she has watched both films that are lined-up against each other. An explanation for the preference in each case would be greatly appreciated. Managers are not allowed to vote on matches that their director participates in. The voting should be handled like this:
Film A 1 (or 0) – Film B 0 (or 1)
Please mark the winning film/score in large or heavy print.
PLEASE NOTE: IF YOU DO NOT NAME BOTH FILMS IN YOUR POST YOUR VOTE WILL NOT BE COUNTED
The match (managers in parentheses) you´re going to vote for on this thread is:
Pere Portabella (Jose Sarmiento – Hinojosa) Nocturno 29 vs. John Frankenheimer (Max Slobodin) Ronin
If you have not seen these films and are not able to access them on your own then pm me and I may be able to give you access to the streaming links.