IN: Review: I am normally not compelled to write a review for a film, but the only commentary for this film thus far on is rather unfair, so I feel it necessary to share my point of view.

"Krisana" (or as it was titled at the theater I saw it, "Fallen") follows Matiss, a lonely Latvian archivist, as he tries to learn about a woman whom he didn't try to stop from jumping off a bridge, as well as her reasons for doing so. That's the plot in a nutshell, but this film is not concerned with story as much it is in depicting the guilt of a man who failed to act. As a detective who investigates the incident tells him, we usually don't bother to care about the anonymous faces we pass every day until after they die.

Comparisons to Michaelango Antonioni and his "Blowup" will most likely abound in any review you read about "Krisana." The influence of Antonioni's philosophical and austere style and the story of "Blowup" are clear and, in fact, writer/director Fred Kelemen makes an obvious reference to that film in scenes in which Matiss attempts to come to know the woman who jumped off the bridge, or at least who he thinks did.

The only other person to share his or her views on the film detracts the "college film class" look and sound of the film. He or she neglects to consider the budgetary constraints that an existentialist Latvian film most likely faces, but the atmospheric black and white cinematography and ambient sound succeeds at an artistic level to depict the solitude of Matiss. The background sound of wind and street noises lend an ominous aura and reminds one of a Fellini film, whether or not that was Kelemen's intention. The filmmakers undoubtedly had little money, but this constraint is used to the film's advantage.

"Krisana" succeeds as a character study with enough humor thrown in to keep it from being too self-serious. It could have easily fell into the trappings of a mystery story, but it avoids that and becomes an intelligent film about loneliness and guilt. If you are more concerned with plot, this film and its ending may frustrate you. Otherwise, take the time to be engaged by it. It is well-worth seeking out.
What is this review like?
OUT: positive

IN: Review: As someone who has seen and followed Hartley's public work for several years I think much of what used to be fiction told through true stories has been elevated into obscure philosophical mind games.

While entertaining, Fay Grim is another step in the Henry Fool line of thinking, where the movie reflects the quality of an object within the movie itself. In Henry Fool, the object is the memoirs... In Fay Grim, the object is encrypted memoirs - which are themselves stolen, forged and trans-mutated into something so obscure it can't really make any sense - i.e. the process of script writing and film-making in the modern era - where most blockbuster films are little more than a mash-up of the past. That is, in a philosophical sense, what Fay Grim is all about. The object, perhaps, is the tragedy that shock is now cliche and dull (as hinted in the opening scenes at the publishers office).

That being said, many of the movie best points are lost if you do not understand Henry's character and the significance of the memoirs being looked for. Henry is a thinly veiled devil, first visiting Simon as a modern Faust, etc. Without understanding how tragic Henry's character is, much of the quality of Fay Grim's plot and story is lost.

And there is not enough 'detail' expressed through verbal flashbacks - knowing the plot of Henry Fool cannot compare to 'feeling' the quality of the characters as one did in Henry Fool, and so I think for someone who walks into this movie cold there is about 10 minutes of 'so what' responses to highly constructed dialog and then that's it.

However, Henry Fool was also my least favorite Hartley film until I realized that it was bad - putrid and infested - precisely because Henry Fool's confessions were bad... not just raunchy or dirty, but inescapably broken. Henry can not even be a proper villain - and this is perhaps the tragic flaw that makes him most endearing... like Gollum in Tolkien's works, Henry is pitiable.

That doesn't come across in Fay Grim, although Henry's dialog is excellent. What does come across is that the entire movie is constructed as an encryption - a sort of molding of another plot around what ends up being yet another bad story to add to henry's confessions. It is an interesting twist, but one that can't really be digested without viewing the first film. Perhaps showing more of Henry earlier on would have been better than having the publisher describe the basic storyline of the first movie - although this plot is also not really what the first movie was about - unless perhaps one is a casual observer.

Part of the encryption? Hard to say... a little disappointed at the sex gimmicks though. Cheesy.
What is this review like?
OUT: positive

IN: Review: ... Oxford, Mississippi, at least. Okay, the Paris we get is Paris, Culver City apart from the Establishing library footage of the real McCoy but it IS Paris in spirit than which nothing, nowhere, is better. Okay, Kelly is no Astaire but then who is and Caron is no Hepburn, ditto but Alan Lerner is light years ahead of the vastly overrated Comden and Green who scripted Kelly's other 'big' 50s musical Singin' In The Rain (a curious replication of lyricists writing screenplays featuring songs by OTHER lyricists and just to balance things the Gershwin numbers are far superior to the Arthur Freed/Nacio Herb Brown numbers so Alan Lerner didn't have to feel too outclassed). The story needn't detain us any more than the anomalies -Kelly hasn't got change of a match and is a painter, i.e. bohemian, yet he is able to scare up a perfectly good suit at a few hours notice when Foch invites him to dinner at her hotel; in the well-documented Love Is Here To Stay sequence the lovers are strangely unmolested by passers-by, other lovers and the bridge in the background is totally free of both pedestrian and vehicular traffic - this is, after all, a feelgood musical so it stands or falls by the score and in this case it stands four square. As feel good musicals go it's definitely in the top 10.
What is this review like?
OUT: positive

IN: Review: As I was watching this movie I was thinking,OK it'll get good any moment...I was wrong. The real best part of this movie was when it was over. A complete waste of 92 minutes. All seriousness aside the best part was when the Wendigo finally showed up which was at the end and you couldn't really even see him that good. And the tail end was really kind of dumb as well. There was too many sections in the movie where you thought something was going to happen but was a let down. The worse part is there was more talk of the Wendigo then there was Wendigo. For the creature to be so bad,you definitely couldn't tell it by this movie.
What is this review like?
OUT:
negative