An early Bresson film gives some hints about his later works of genius

Robert Bresson's 1944 film (his 2nd I think), Les Dames de Bois de Boulogne, doesn't quite have the open and improvisatory feeling or the interest on the outsiders and the lonely that we see in his later great films, such as Pickpocket or Diary of a Country Priest, but it's a good story - based on a short novel by Diderot, apparently - and shows us some of the talent that Bresson would develop further: the haunting closeups of faces in moments of torment, the careful pacing, and the occasional - I wish there had been more - plein air  scenes, particularly at the rendez-vous point in the Bois and the nigh-time scenes in the rain at a scruffy Paris "place." The story, briefly, involves a society woman who's tired of her on-going but going-nowhere relationship with a society gentleman; she tells him she wants to break if off, but, instead of pleading for her love he tells her that this is great, he was going to make the same suggestion, but they can continue as friends, etc. Obviously, she is insulted and horrified by his reaction and she sets off a plot against him. She arranges for him to meet "by chance" a pretty young friend of hers, and by making the friend "hard to get" she increases his ardour; he falls in love w/ the young friend and eventually they get married. One the night of the wedding, however, she tells him the truth: his new bride has been a cabaret dancer (horrors!) and I suspect the movie is playing it safe and we're to read between the lines and assume she was a prostitute (the title may give that away; I expect the Bois was a known pick-up place at that time). The plot moves along nicely, but a few key points are left murky, at least to me: How did this society woman know the nightclub dancer in the first place? How or why did she support the dancer (and her mother), paying their rent, etc., and for how long? Anyway, a good if not a great film and the first steps on a path that lead to some truly great works by Bresson. 

A potentially good project that falls flat: Alias Grace

I suppose the Sarah Polley six-part Netflix series Alias Grace, based on Margaret Atwood's novel, which in turn is based on historical fact, is watchable - I watched it, anyway - if you can take six hours of all men are horrible (w/ one exception, and he's a complete weirdo) and all women are victims. Maybe that's true; anyway, that's not what bothered me. Mostly, this could have been a taut and provocative series about a 19th-century Canadian murder case - the eponymous Grace, along with a fellow servant (a guy) were charged w/ murdering their boss and his head servant; the man was hanged and Grace sentenced to life in an asylum, where she is horribly mistreated. A group of benevolent Canadian church folks took up her cause and invited an American doctor, one of the first to treat mental illnesses, to come to Kingston, Ont., to treat Grace; he does so through a series of interviews in which she is supposed to live through and narrate the events of the crime. This is something like a 19th-c version of Mindhunters, but w/out the drama. In effect, we go up to the 5th episode/hour before Grace even begins to talk about the crime; do we really need that much information on the hardships she endured and the system of domestic servitude? Things pick up a bit in the final two episodes, but things also get obscured rather than clarified: Grace undergoes hypnosis and gives a completely different account of the murders, and in the end we never know to what extent she lies, hallucinates, distorts, suppresses, or tells the truth. Essentially, this series is a literary adaptation that's far too dependent on the source text - there are far too many scenes in which we get long voice-overs from Grace or long passages of her discussion w/ the interviewing doctor and almost nothing of interest happening on screen - it's like a reading from a novel at times, in other words. Polley has done some great work (e.g., her documentary/memoir The Stories We Tell), so it's especially disappointing that this potentially good project should fall flat.

The Ornithologist: An interguing film, but what's it all about - if one may ask

Portuguese director Joao Pablo Rodrigues's 2017 film, The Ornithologist, is visually stunning - not just the shots of birds, though those are great as well - mysterious, and engaging, up to a point. It's definitely not a movie for anyone who likes everything in a film to tie together and to "make sense." This is a film of puzzles and enigmas, and though many segments of the film may be subject to interpretation others I think intentionally defy interpretation. They're "real" because we see them on film; whether they mean anything at all is another matter. The film, briefly, involves the eponymous ornithologist, Fernando, who sets off in a kayak on a river in what we later learn is part of a pilgrim's trail in NW Spain. At the outset, ominously, he receives a message reminding him to take his meds. Shortly into his bird-watching jaunt he gets swept away in a current, loses pretty much everything, including his pills - so is all that follows his hallucination? Rodrigues doean't give into the movie cliche of dreams and visions; everything is photographed with a "realistic" lens. Strange things begin to happen to Fernando, including some episodes that seem impossible if taken literally (e.g., two female Chinese pilgrims tie F up in the night so that he can barely move let alone escape; how could they do this?). I won't give away crucial information, but will only note that there are many religious overtones, especially involving the crucifixion, and a completely puzzling (to me) closing sequence that may suggest the successful completion of a pilgrimage or rite of passage. To me, this kind of narrative would never work in fiction/in print - we wouldn't buy the events for a second - but when we "see" these events quite literally before our eyes we're much more credulous, we're drawn in. The question is: Into what? Was there a point to this journey? If so, it eluded me.

Netflix series Wanted entertains right through the end of Season 2

The Netflix (via Australia) two-season series Wanted has flown completely under the radar - I can't find a single review or article on this series - but we found it completely entertaining and engaging right through the end of season 2: The two women on the run, initially because they witnessed a botched mob hit involving Rx and a crooked cop, are a great pair, very different, both odd, each smart and brave in her own way. Over the 12 episodes their characters grow and evolve (and in fact learn that they're not as different as first it appeared), and given the extreme nature of this plot, in which there are any # of hairpin turns and split-second life/death decisions, it's surprising how winning and credible these two are: We like them both from the outset, and they're not superheroes, just wily and courageous and all their decisions seem to work out, up to a point. I actually found myself at times thinking what will Lola do next, how will she get out of this - as if she were a person and not a character (i.e., the real question should be: what will the screenwriters think of next?, right?). Season 2 ended pretty conclusively - I won't give anything away  - though as always there are a few loose threads that possibly could get picked up and wound into a 3rd season - but why not quit while ahead?

A highly literary film with a few truly great scenes: Meyerowitz Stories

Noah Baumbach's 2017 The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) makes not effort to hide or smother its literary ambitions, evident from the title of course, obvious to those who know that NB himself is the son of a somewhat avant-garde writer who struggled for recognition, never quite attaining the first rank, and from the tone it establishes right away: a series of set pieces, stories if you will, that seem very scripted and literary, but in a good sense for the most part: These are scripted, literary people, players in the New York academic and intelligentsia and the arts community. It's a little hard to warm up to this film at first, as Danny Meyerowitz (Adam Sandler, who is great in this role) is such a sad sack and so domineered by his father, played by Dustin Hoffman, Harold M, an officious, self-important sculptor retired from a teaching gig a Bard and living very well w/ 4th wife in Manhattan and obsessively worried about his reputation. The film brightens considerably when Ben Stiller, playing youngest son, a successful investment counselor living in LA, shows up to deal w/ various family issues. Though the ending feels loose and out of control - as if made up of snippets that didn't fit elsewhere - there are a couple of great scenes that make the film totally worth watching - in particular the two half-brothers getting into it w/ each other, the toasts at the "show" featuring one of Harold's sculptures (by this point it's obvious that Harold was an overblown hack, but it gets even worse), and Danny's final confrontation with the frail, weakened Harold. There have been a ton of films about dysfunctional, highly educated and creative families, but Baumbach has created his own little postage stamp of urbane backbiting and misery, with just a touch of lightening humor and humanity (esp if you can buy the closing image), and this film is almost like a culmination of his work to date.

Stranger Things: Better, the less you think about it

In short, Stranger Things (Season 2) is better the less you think about it; the plot - building on Season 1 - in which monsters and monstrous forces generated by a secret government installation in central Indiana are threatening to multiply and destroy the nearby town and beyond, and they somehow devour the consciousness of some of the children whom come into contact w/ them (never mind that in Season 1 the nefarious nature of the government agents involves capturing newborns and treating them like lab rats in hopes - successful - of endowing them w/ supernatural powers), is entirely incidental. The show is about good folks v evil forces, about a mother in distress and a couple of good men who risk and even give up their lives to protect and save others and most of all about a group of teenagers who work together to fight the evil monsters as they do battle w/ the equally strange, alien forces of adolescence. The greatest character is Eleven, subject of the mind-control experiments who has escaped from the government lab and now wants nothing more than a normal teenage life, but she can't quite decode all the messages of the world around her - taking undo risks, struggling to understand friendship and, later, the first blush of teenage love and affection. Unfortunately, Eleven plays less of a role in Season 2, but she still dominates the story line whenever she touches it. Despite the strong production values, the supernatural elements of the story make no real sense, but never mind - these series is really about people, and as such it rings true. The Duffer Brothers, writers and creators and directors of some of the episodes including the season finale, have a great sense for how kids talk and think and interact, they touch the right moments without getting overly sentimental or cliched, and they have a good sense of the period (circa 1980) as well. Thought the conclusion of Season 2 wraps up almost all of the loose strands, the door for another season was left ajar - I suspect we'll see more of these kids until they outgrow their roles.

A good Australian TV crime drama about 2 women on the run

A note on the surprisingly good series Netflix has picked up from Australian TV, Wanted, which in some ways is just a good old crime story with lots of plot twists and betrayals and close escapes and schemes gone wrong and entrapments and evasions and couple of shootouts and chases rough terrain, of crooked cops and innocent victims. What propels this series (Season 1 was 6 episodes) is the partnership between the protagonists: Two women waiting at an urban bus stop witness a drug deal gone wrong, they get drawn into the fray and one of the women, Lola, shoots to death one of the drug dealers - who, it turns out, was a cop involved in the deal. Lola and the other witness, Chelsea, run off and the police pretty quickly ID them and thus begins a hunt across Australia for these two women, who as we quickly learn are polar opposites and great comic foils for each other: Lola is tough, a rule-breaker (with a past), working class, outspoken, smart, fearless. Chelsea is from a wealthy family, she's timid, conservative, even prim, has supposedly never been in trouble - but she has a past two and a criminal predilection, as we gradually learn. There's lots of great comic dialog between these to and, over time, of course they bond into friendship and both evolve as characters. The scenes of rural Australia are great, especially for American viewers, as we for the most part of completely unfamiliar w/ life in the "bush" and in the other remote regions of Australia - this is not a movie about the hip city of Sydney or the beautiful tourist destinations; rather, about rundown roadside motels and desolate gas stations miles from any other outposts. Like most crime dramas, it's really hard to keep all the plot elements clear in mind and some probably make no sense under close examination, but the movie's a fund ride and pretty exciting all the way through. Whether Season 2 can build on this momentum, well, probably not, but worth a look.

The success of Season 2 Stranger Things

Stranger Things Season 2 is actually better than we'd thought it would be; Season 1 was fresh and imaginative and ending on a pretty sharp note, and so many of these miniseries are unable to build on the first season and most just shrivel up and die the quiet death of non-renewal - but Season 2 of Stranger Things, at least at the half-way point, keeps up the nice spirit of the first season. Most of all the show is about the kids and their friendly, slightly nerdy relationships, and that carries on really well, even w/ the isolation of the central figure in Season 1 - Eleven - who unfortunately has only a peripheral role in this season. (The young actor who takes on the mantle of the one girl in the guy-group is a little too cool and pretty for the part, I think.) Winona Ryder carries on with her role as the mom outraged and frightened by what's happening to her son, Will - she's great for the part, as is a new character, her kind of goof and insecure boyfriend, Bob. I'd also say that the technical scenes - that is, largely, the goings on the "upside down" world are more sophisticated visually and musically than in Season 1 - budget must have been upped. All this, though, goes with a caveat: The series is good as long as you never stop to think about it, as the premise of this government-sponsored lab of evil doctors and scientists who manage to create some weird fungal virus that various appears as lizard- or slug-like creatures or as a mass of slime or as something like a giant spider or - I don't know - none of it makes any sense nor is it credible for a minute, but the point of a series like this is to just give in and let it take you were it will. ST works because it never takes itself too seriously (compare with, say, Glitch, which tries too hard to be credible) and stays close to the kids-eye-view.