Review of The Other Side of the Wind (2018) by Rory W — 12 Nov 2018

The Omega to the Alpha of Citizen Kane. ...And with its jarring time out of mind appearance, after 45 years of being kept from the world through its labyrinthine enmeshment in legal battles, and the financial impoverishment of Welles' later and most exotic aspect of his career, carries all the more impact as it lands to earth now, like a time machine from the past, to take its, long overdue, and uncanny, place in the History of Cinema. .

Remember, we are viewing a film from 1975, despite a half century of editings and re-editings, this was birthed in the time of Fellini and Pasolini and Antonioni. Therefore the actors are like Icons, or Greek Tragic Figures, Huston and Bogdanovich playing purposefully one-dimensional roles, and eerie caricatures of themselves, at a time when the history of this art form had to stop, and stare at itself, and what it was morphing into, in the face.

Not to be unnoticed is the Male Lead, along with the Female Lead, Oja Kodar, of the "Film-within-the-Film", Robert Random, (playing "John Dale") who for all his youthful adonis-like personhood in the film, had well over one hundred roles under his belt by the time Bogdanovich, then Welles, called him in for auditions. .

For Random to play this one dimensional, and drenched with nihilistic meaning, adonis-like, but mono-focused erotic being, one can see a parallel with how, in reality, the extremely experienced Baryshnikov, at the apex of his own career, departed from the florid classicism of traditional ballet, into uncannily stark and minimalistic work in his White Oak Dance Project, where his performance would totally consist of him walking in circles like a robot, and in a business suit, alone, across a stage. .

So even as Huston and Bogdanovich become satires of themselves, uttering countless words but only conveying one single meaning, Robert Random, along with Welles' exotic life-partner Oja Kodar, play their roles in the film-within-the-film, almost as motionless as the white masks on the faces of Japanese No-Drama players, and yet with a similarly building intensity.

Remember, attempting to judge or discern this film as if it were part of today's genres, would be as ridiculous as attempting to compare the aforementioned Japanese Noh-Dramas with, for example, Avatar, or The Shape of Water, although upon reflection there is a certain similarity to the persona of John Dale (Robert Random) and the mythic male lead of The Shape of Water. Whereas the "The Shape of Water" deals with, and is communicate through, "fluidity", "The Other Side of the Wind" is crafted with, surreal freneticism and a paradoxically contrasting stark minimalism.

I do not like to say what I believe is the meaning in a work of art, when the work of art, itself, is communicating its own meaning. So take it with a grain of salt, or the tininess of an atom, when I say that I think the film, "The Other Side of the Wind" raises up, then crucifies, the self serving narcissism, that had come to rule in Cinema. In that sense, its core message is perhaps even yet more important for us to consider, to this very day, when we struggle to get out from the toxic shadows, and deathish rule in both film, and in society, of Weinsteins and Trumps.