One of the best Ozu films: Late Autumn

Yasujiro Ozu's Late Autumn (1960) has all the great Ozu elements: A smart and beautifully written screenplay (by Ozu and Kogo Nota, writing partner throughout their careers), subtle and careful direction, beautiful production and art direction - practically every interior scene is a work of art; if nothing else, watch some of this movie for the color-coordinations - and terrific acting, esp from the two frequent Ozu stars, Chishu Ryu, who appears in Ozu films over the course of his entire adult life, and Setsuko Hara, frequent female lead). This is by no means an action film; the plot unfolds quietly and deliberately - and over the course of 2 hours gives us a careful look into the lives and mores of a small group of characters: A group of 3 men, old friends who meet up at a memorial service for a friend who'd died 5 years back, and who begin a discussion about the widow and her 20-something daughter. In a somewhat comical, rueful manner the 3 old guys become matchmakers, seeking a suitable husband for the young daughter - who seems to claim that she will never leave her widowed mother - and trying to arrange for one of the guys (the Ryu character) to marry the widow (Hara). It looks as if this is headed toward a comic conclusion w/ multiple marriages and everyone happy, but it's much darker and more subtle than that, with various bruised egos,  arguments, estrangements, shame, and reconciliation along the way; in part, this is an examination of Japanese culture of its time, understated, feelings rarely expressed directly, everyone smiling and being polite even as they grit their teeth. In other ways, it's a universal story of love, devotion, loneliness, and the clash between generations - one of the finest scenes is the young office worker telling off the 3 old, meddling men. Like many Ozu films, this one ends on a plangent, sorrowful note that will surprise most viewers - one of his best works for sure.

A Netflix series about police interrogations, and a Japanese film by a little-known director

2 posts today, first, the British 3-part segment of the Netflix series, Criminal: United Kingdom; apparently this series is based on police interrogations of suspects, showing us how the team of police officers nail the cases, or don't, with some pretty lame attempts to build drama and relationships among the members of the team involved with the interrogation (usually 2 doing the interrogation and the other four in an observation room - though the team assembles during breaks and at the conclusion). The first 2 episodes were weak, in my opinion, in particular that it didn't seem that the interrogation drew out the key facts: In the first, the suspect pretty much incriminated himself after a long stretch of his saying nothing but "no comment"; in the second, it hardly took a genius to see the amateurish mistakes that the interrogator made. The 3rd episode was by far the best, as the team races the clock to get a truck driver, suspected for transporting immigrants into the country, to tell where he'd abandoned his truck and his human cargo, who may be freezing to death as the interrogation goes on. In part this episode is the strongest because there's so much ambiguity around the man under questioning, and also because there's a big surprise regarding one of the interrogators, prompted by an odd observation by the truck diver's attorney.

Second post follows on viewing of a 1937 Japanese film with the weird title of Humanity and Paper Balloons (don't ask), directed by Sadao Yamanaka; it was in fact his last film (he'd done many movies, mostly silent), as he died at age 28 in the war against Manchuria. It's by no means a great film (though at least one critic would disagree w/ that), but it does show the lost potential, who might well have risen along w/ his contemporaries Kurosawa and Uzo. This film is a little difficult to follow, especially at the outset, but centers on the lives of several characters in decrepit, crowded tenement in the Samurai era (18th or 19th century?). The main plot line follows a would-be Samurai who tries to get the support of a wealthy man for whom his father used to work but is continually rebuffed, driving him to drink; his best friend and immediate neighbor takes on the local criminal gang and tries to run how own gambling operation, with predictable results. The strength of the film is its depiction of horrible living conditions; it seems obvious that the powers that be would not allow a contemporary setting for this film - the misery and poverty had to be in the past, of course - but viewers today, and then no doubt, get the point.

A strong Netflix series based on pursuit and capture of a serial rapist that took place 2008-11

The Netflix 8-part series, Unbelievable, about the pursuit and capture of a serial rapist, is based closely on true events that took place in Colorado and Washington in 2008-11, fully revealed in reporting that put ProPublica  on the map and led to a Pulitzer and a Polk award and to a book (by T. Christian Miller and Ken Armstrong). The TV series, developed by Susannah Grant (plus Ayelet Waldman and Michael Chabon) is a terrific account of the hunt for the rapist with special attention to the two lead detectives, played brilliantly by Merritt Wever and Toni Collette - too bad there's no likelihood of a 2nd season, as these to make a great team of opposite types (one cool and quiet and devout, the other tough and belligerant and profane). The strongest performance though is from the lesser known Kaitlyn Dever, as the first victim, Marie (whose real name has never to my knowledge been published). The series is in essence a police procedural, with many false leads that will keep viewers guessing and thinking, and it's also a profound indictment of the behavior of far too many police officers, skeptical about any report of sexual assault. A technical detail: Unlike most series this one includes no opening credits, and "thanks" to the ridiculous Netflix practice of cutting off credits at the end of view (and quickly jumping to the next episode, whether you want that or not) you have to look up the credits on your own if that matters to you. Quibble aside, it's a very strong series throughout and highlights an issue that is still troublesome and significant.

The surprising strengths of Ozu's Record of a Tenement Gentleman

Yasujiro Ozu has never been known for great film titles - in fact, many of his greatest films have abstract titles that (Late Spring, e.g.) that deliberately provide no useful information and make it really hard to identify from a list which films you've seen - but the title of this one - Record of a Tenement Gentleman (1947) completely baffles me: I literally can't figure out what it means, who's the gentleman, where's the tenement, what's the record? So putting the title aside, this is a good film for a # of reasons but not yet at the level of Ozu's greatest works (e.g., Tokyo Story - same actor in the lead, though, I think): the characters are not nearly as fully developed, the denouement is a little melodramatic, the editing and cinematography are a little shaky (he had not yet fully developed his famous "tatami mat" perspective), and the young boy was clearly unable to convey some of the emotions that the screenplay demanded. But, on that other hand, the story is quite straightforward and emotional: a man is followed home to his village by a young (maybe 5 years old?) boy who has become separated from his father; none of the villagers steps forward to house the boy, even temporarily, and a bitter and unfriendly widowed (war widow?) woman reluctantly takes on the responsibility. She's mean to the poor troubled child, who barely says a word through the whole film, though - spoiler alert, kinda - toward the end she has a change of heart and warms up to the child, at least a little. But then the boy's father shows up: He truly had lost the child in a crowd, and he's overjoyed to have found his son. Now the mean widow feels great remorse about her coldness and about the mean things she said to the boy, especially telling the child that his father had intentionally abandoned him. So the end is quite a kick, and unexpected. But the real strength of the film is not its story line but it's depiction of post-war Japan: Many establishment shots show us a ruined landscape and streets filled with rubble and demolished buildings. We get the sense that there are thousands, at least, of abandoned children - either orphaned in the war or victims of the complete social upheaval. The film concludes w/ some shots of a village square, where dozens of children (all of them boys, for some reason) play and horse around, and we get the sense of a complete social catastrophe: This boy's story is just one of many, maybe one of the few with a positive outcome. The film becomes, as we look back on it, almost a documentary drama, or at least a social commentary rather than a sentimental tear-jerker.

Season 3 of The Sopranos: As good as television can get

You can't really say enough about Season 3 of The Sopranos, which is about as good as television can get. By this point, David Chase and his team have firmly established the personalities and the milieu of all of the major characters, and it's in this season that the interactions reach their peak and the plot lines continue to accelerate, surprise, frighten, and at times amuse us. The actors are all now seemingly living in their characters - most will forever be known for their roles in this series - and the writing, directing, and acting are at their best - both in individual episodes and across the arc of the season. To mention just a few highlights: The first episode in which the FBI goes to great lengths to install a bug in the Soprano basement - Chase et al. have us on edge rooting for the FBI - get the hell out of there before Tony comes home! - and the ending of the episode is a comic masterpiece. Speaking of masterpieces, an episode toward the end, Pine Barrens, is probably the best single episode in the entire show, in that it shows a side of the players that had been implied but never so effectively dramatized: Their love for and loyalty to one another. The episode (Chris and Paulie try to dispose of a dead man, who seemingly springs back to life) is both exciting and hilarious at every step (much praise to Steve Buscemi for his direction). Similarly, the Tim Van Patten written/directed episodes that present the Tony's troubled and tempestuous relationship w/ the fellow Melfi patient Gloria are fantastic - we see her fragility and the danger she poses for Tony far more clearly than he does, and the conclusion of this story line is one of the great Soprano moments. There are also two fantastic story lines re Dr. Melfi: first of all her rape and the terrific episode in which she ponders what to tell Tony about her evident injuries; second, the intimate look at the Soprano marriage as Carmella joins Tony for some analysis sessions - this, too, culminating in her harrowing visit to another psychiatrist. Other examples abound (a personal favorite: the golf-course confrontation w/ Junior's cancer surgeon), but a final strength is how well things elements are lined up for the next season: Ralphie's continued emergence as a malevolent sadist, Paulie's resentment and his drift toward the NY family (plus his efforts to get his mother into an expensive nursing home - all these moments that show the emotional and sentimental side of these cold-blooded killers are amazing), the FBI's planting an agent to befriend and spy on Andrea, Silvio's arrest, Junior's recovery: The season ends with the weird spectacle of Junior singing a beautiful song of love lost at the young Jackie Aprile's wake, and with all of the fear and tension around the room, held in check for a moment but poised to explode.

Impossible to overpraise the first season of the French series A French Village

It's hard to overpraise the terrific French series A French Village (creators: Emmanuel Daucé, Frédéric Krivine, Philippe Triboit), at least based on the first (of nine!) seasons: A completely engrossing and often frightening drama that brings us into a small and seemingly typical village in rural France, not far from the Swiss border, at the outset of the Occupation (1940) and presumably in subsequent seasons taking us through the course of the War and its aftermath. The series is exciting and provocative throughout, as just about every relationship that develops w/in the village and between the villagers and the occupying German forces is nuanced and troublesom. It's easy to set here on the outside 8 decades later and think we'd be active in the resistance and would give the Germans hell and would protect the Jewish residents - but would we? It was so easy to be quiet, to try to get along, to believe that cooperation w/ the Germans was a way to make life better (for some). We see it all: the resistance, the collaborators, the profiteers, the ordinary citizens, the careerists - up and down the whole social strata, but without melodrama or overstatement and with fine delineation of character and development of some of the central characters over the course of the season, some for better some for worse. The first season is entirely watchable, even without any special knowledge about the early years of the Occupation in France, and the series is of course especially disturbing now in the U.S. as we witness the rise of right-wing fascism and hatred with no sense of where it will lead this country over the next few years. Who will collaborate? Who has already?