Elliot’s Reading and Watching - January 2024

Season 3 of the British serio-comic thriller Slow Horses, based on Mick Herron novels,  maintains the fast-paced narrative from previous years with good acting, actual relationships among the various players in the dungeon for the worst-performing and/or problematic employees of British secret service (MI5?); unlike most other series we actually get to know and usually like all members of the team, with glaring exception of the boss whom we hate and enjoy hating - just as he hates all those around him and is a slob and malcontent and the last person you’d want to have on your team though he turns out in the pinch to be a pretty good analyst of the situations that arise; season 2 focused on efforts to unearth a long-buried secret report, the process involves lots and lots of gunfire and other dangers, maybe too much, but it does keep you glued so to speak - one of the better because so unconvetional shows going (another season has been promised. 

The strangely titled Reading Turgenev is the first of William Trevor’s Two Lives (1991), and it shows Trevor at some of his best work - a sad tale of a young woman in Ireland from a  conservative Protestant family, who marries a man she never really loves - and in fact her one true love was a cousin who was sickly and who died just as he and the cousin, Mary Louise, expressed their long dormant, forbidden love - not clear the extent of their sexual relationship if any; following death of Robert, Mary Louise showed strange behavior and became a figure of fear and sometimes loathing as she seemed incapable of any attempt at normal social behavior - eventually hospitalized and, after many years in the hospital she manages to be set free and she becomes a danger to herself (she has stopped her Rx) and to others - one of WT’s many great novels and esp stories about the lonely lives led by many in the working classes in England and Ireland. 

No question that Barbie (2023) is at times really funny - how can you not laugh at “Ken”s” cowboy outfit or Barbie’s lines such as, to a team of ogling construction workers: “I have no vagina.” And the concept of multiple “dolls” living their lives and wondering about the big mystery, wo is “running” them. And the team of uptight all-male Marvell execs in pursuit of the escaped duo? So kudos to all involved, but I have to say lied of the whole scene once I got it, had not desire to see it thru to the end, tho I recognize it would, like most comedies, have been a better experience to see it in a theater among enthusiasts. (Reminded me of PeeWee Herman. bit which I felt similar but did with tilll the end of “Adventure,” because I was soon assignment. ) 

The final (6th!) season of The Crown (Netflix, 2023) is obviously a must-see for those shoved watched this series from Season 1 when Elizabeth was a child and then a teenager. This final season deepens our understanding of her personality - she’s actually quite funny - and paints her in softer colors: She comes around to telling off the Bishops and at last supporting Charles’s 2nd marriage. There are enough glimpses of trouble ahead re the 2 sons, esp Harry - but that will have wait another generation I think. This final season once again gives us dazzling and lavish depictions of the royal households, down to the last detail of furnishings and clothing. Byand large the casting is perfect, esp the lead roles for women (Eliz and her sister and and of course Diana - alll 4 liz’s have been excellent) with the one exception of Dominic West as prince Charles - he’s far too rugged and handsome and self-assured than Charles is or was or seems. Writer Peter Morgan has created quite a theater masterpiece - he wrote nearly every single episode. 

Dan Levy’s Good Grief (2023) Is a sensitive and sensible portrayal of the (mostly) romantic/amour-ish life of a group of queer (mostly) male friends stuck by tragedy - a simple and hardly original motif - but of course without Levy’s well-known sense of comedy we all saw in Schitt’s Creek. As too Good Grief, a great movie for the right viewers but not for me. Did not finish.

The second novel within William Trevor’s 2-novel collection, Two Lives (1991) is set, as the title - My House in Umbria - suggests, is set at a guest house in Italy whose owner (and first-person narrator) manages the boutique hotel and inserts herself in the private lives of her tenants, perhaps too aggressively for some of the group - though she’s oblivious of her over-stepping the line between grace and intrusion. Trevir seems at his weakest here (his forte remains the short story) as the first half of the narrative, which focuses on one of the staff members and his back story and then he more or less disappears. It’s almost as if WT was figuring out his story as he went along, as the second half begins with the narrator is a victim of what seems to be a terrorist bomb on a train; several die, and she, mostly untouched, invites the other injured to stay gratis at her house as they nurse their wounds. Here, the story line improves, as she inserts herself into the life of a man who arrives to take an injured child back to his family in the U.S. - his niece, whom he had never met due to family feuds. The narrator has no apparent idea of how hateful she is making herself, as she comes on to this conservative and indifferent (to her) man. She’s what we used to call an unreliable narrator. Second half of the story is by far better than the first half. He would have been better off beginning at Part 2 and developing more thoroughly the people on the train, the politics and police procedures following the bombing, etc. 

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Celine Song's beautiful firm Past Lives (2023) focuses on a threesome, whom we meet obliquely in the clever first scene from the POV of some people sitting near the 3 40-somethings in a bar and trying to figure out the relationships among them: a Korean woman, Jewish-American man her husband, Korean man. Yes, what are their inter=relationships? The story that unfolds centers on the Korean woman’s childhood when she has a 12-year-old’s crush on a fellow student (the guy); her family emigrates to Toronto, and she pursues a career in the arts - and wonders of the I-worled some 30 years back who has looked up friends and lovers from the distant past? She does, and engagers on long conversations with her counterpart, though at this point in their lives they are no longer similar nor close - she she breaks off their near-nightly conversations, to his lament. Jump forward some 15 years and she’s married to a very nice man and they have a happy marriage - until the Korean friend comes to visit; he’s changed, everyone is - and without getting lurid or tragic they all are tested and they take stock of their lives - and reflect on the element of chance that 2 people meet and somehow fall in love, across time and cultures. That’s jus a summary, but there’s so much subtlety and insightful conversations on line and off - that no summary can capture the mood or poignancy that Song develops (and resolves). Past Lives should get a best picture nomination and in my view it should win, though it won’t - but I hope o see more work from Song and her team. 

The 2020 documentary from Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine, Boys State, follows few of the some 2,000 students in Texas who participate in the Boys State contouring in which they young men (!) are divided into two “parties” and they each draft a platform and put forth candidates for various set offices, the real prize becoming the Governor and what seems dull and dutiful is anything but - own fact its a terrifying event in which the boys’ ideas and ideals get pushed to the side as the would-be candidates build a team and develop a strategy to win the top prize - and winning is all (for all but 1) - they quickly engage in dirty politics, name-calling, fibs and lies and misinformation - all in a week, idealism and public service is a wreck, winning is all at any cost - and where did the boys get this idea? It’s a terrifying look at the future 0 through the lens of the present. 

The British crime thriller Top Boy (Ronan Bennett) has made it to US screens and what took it so long? The first series of Top Boy -with a lot more seasons set to screen I hope - is a great and complex cast of characters who run or are brushed by the drug-dealing gang in a couple of dismal apartments in vast housing development in East London (ca 2011 for the first season) - It doesn’t quite measure up to the Sopranos for character development or TheWire with its insight into both the gangs and the police - but on its own it has the power and the of honesty and inside knowledge about the workings of the Rx trade and how it endangered, ruins, and ends the life of many people in the complex, and particularly troubles how not affects th children who in some ways idolize the gang leaders. The relationships of the gang members to their families and their children drives the series - w/out that tlemenet it would be almost unbearably bleak and hopeless, but in fact this series. though not for young kids o watch, is a powerful indictment of the drug trade and out public indifference to the harm it bringsL we get to like the characters and to despise what they do.

The Danish film Rose (2022, dir Niels Arden Oplev) is one of the (many?) under-the-radar- productions that rarely gets attention in the U.S. - but this film, nominated for exactly zero awards from the Academy is as good a blend I’ve seems mixing humor and pathos, a story that could so easily off the rails into sentimentality or bitterness or tragedy but that touches on each of these notes and puts forward a terrific film that will make you laugh out loud and, if you’re the crying type, move you to tears. Briefly, the story involves a bus tour bound for Paris and environs, carrying a group of Danish people; the ones we’re interested in make up a 3-some of an adult couple newly married (for at least the 2nd time for both of them) and the woman’s sister, maybe about 40 years old or so, and suffering with schizophrenia; her behavior and odd outbursts disturb the other passengers on the tour bus, but, over the course of their journey, they learn about this young woman’s affliction (as do we) and come to like her and appreciate her skills and sensibility - but all this to say that it’s by no means a “happy ending” film - trouble and heartbreak will continue to gnaw at this family; there is no schmaltz ending, the leading characters are troubled right down to the last moment = no easy, simple-minded resolution but a glimpse of a life of sadness and some occasional moments of happiness, always fragile and elusive. 

Two I did not finish: Rustin (2023) , a worthy biopic about a man who was instrumental in the mostly Black struggle for human rights, though the film felt stagy and awkward, lots of meetings and arguments but it just never seemed to get on the move and never quite got the King-Rustin antagonism   off the mark. Then there’s Tetris (2023), a docudrama about the struggle to get the popular video game licensed and patented and profitable and as one who never played the game and can’t see why it was so “addictive” as was noted repeatedly during the film I just don’t care about the game (so why was I watching this? good question) and hence about the tedium and tangles of getting it off the ground. 

And let’s add a 3rd to the list of unwatchable, and this one comes with a lot of hype and some potential: True Detective Season 4, with Jody Foster in the lead role, and lots of beautiful and daunting darkened mid=day winter scenes at a science outpost in a minuscule village in central Alaska, a series with a lot of strange and inexplicable happenstance but I’ll be damned if I could discern a plot that makes any sense (the entire crew at the science outpost seems to have vanished suddenly - so ridiculous that I couldn’t even follow it or pay any further attention. And to complete the list of unwatchables, there was Tore, a Swedish film about a young man (age 27!), probably homosexual or at least curious, who witnesses the death of his father struck by a truck while talking on cell with new partner, and who drinks and dances away his trauma at a gay nightclub and the evening climaxes with a rape and a runaway - all quite stark and depressing without much direction or insight or humor or pathos. Did not finish. 

Then there’s the 1950 film Panic in the Streets, directed by Elia Kazan (writers Richard Murphy and Daniel Fuchs, story by Edna and Edward Anholt) that feels strangely contemporary as it involves the (illegal stowaway) arrival of a guy who joins an all-night card game and leaves feeling ill - which seems suspicious to the “boss” and sends his men in pursuit of the sick man - turns out he’s dying of the plague - and when word gets around to the Navy health agent there’s immediate and highly tense confrontation: the Navy guy wants to shut down the city lest the plague spread and the local agents believe that the saga should be hushed - remind you of anything lately? In any event, the pursuit of the dead man and anyone he’d crossed is extraordinary. The film is set in New Orleans, and much of the action takes place on the waterfront, which Kazan and his crew to a great job depicting, based on a lot of observation and care: the boats in harbor overnight, the call for room where ship workers get updates on ships seeking crew, an amazing chase through the warehouses, beautiful b/w photography, and documentary realism. 

I first read E. M.Forster’s classic novel A Passage to India (1924) when I was an undergrad - I can’t believeI could have understood and appraised this work at that age tho marginal notes in my much-battered  copy suggest I got some it; read it again maybe in grad school and loved it once again on 2nd read - but again wondered if I really “got it.” And now i’ve taken a dive into some of the long-ago-read books on my aged shelves, and found Passage to be as good as I remember, even greater - truly one of the best works of British fiction in the century. I honestly still didn’t entirely “get it,” with its many references to, in fact its whole foundation, depend on knowledge about the Raj so-called, the British control of Indian government and customs - an incredible amount of info in this book that strips bare the racism, class ism, social class prejudice both within and beyond the British community - it’s truly a novel of sorrows. But it’s more than a social document, more than its times the story line and its link to the 4 or so main characters and their attempts, always failed, to build collegial or romantic love across class and background. Though the writing can be difficult at times it is more often enlightened - with several dramatic highlights, notably the visit to the Marabar caves which sets the tragic plot in motion, the riot outside the courtroom, the sad departure the lionized but fragile Mrs. Moore, the concluding awkward resolution between Fielding and Aziz - all of which establish the veracity of EF’s code of being: Only connect.   

Judd Apatow’s 40-hour documentary - The Zen Diaries of Gary Shandling (2018) - about his friend the comedian and talk-show host of a sort is much more than a tour-de-force showing GS’s amazing facility with words, jokes, and comebacks; this film is also an examination of the life of an entertainer and the life of a troubled man. Shandling went from high energy so soft depletion - so much so that his many friends feared for his life - and JA tries and mostly succeed in laying GS’s life bare: the main thesis, the driving force behind GS’s talent and passion centers on his childhood relationship to his adored but fragile older brother who died from cystic fibrosis complications when GS was about 10, and the incredible and damning aspect was that his family never ever talked with GS about his late brother - he was there one day and gone the next and GS didn’t even attend the services - and he carried that loss throughout his childhood and his adult life; his sometimes morbid and self-deprecating comedy was impart struggle to bring back what was lost and to protect his fragile self from further loss and abandonment; there are plenty of laughs in this film, but much sorrow as well. 

It would have been impossible for a reader of Willa Cathers’s first novel, Alexander’s Bridge (1912) could have foreseen the great novels that lay ahead for her: e.g., My Antonia, Death Comes for the Archbishop, to name just two. This fledgling novel is stagy, awkward, not really credible, building toward a tragic conclusion that was easily foreseen from the start. There are a few passages describing the urban beauty of London (and Boston) in a fog of early daylight. But the plot is thin, the characters undeveloped, and many passages are awkward, unexplained, not quite credible. I do offer this - which others have probably made as well tho I don’t know - but to offer an interpretation: the novel hinges on a man who is married to a lovely, dedicated woman but he is not truly in love with her, his true love is a bit more glamorous and pubic, an actress on London stage, and a refuge for the protagonist: as we today know and acknowledge WC was “queer” of homosexual - and perhaps the two beloveds, the two houses, configure a person troubled not between 2 women but between two paths of lie, two sexualities. And could the symbolism be ant more direct and heavy-handed than to conclude (spoiler!) with Alexander’s Bridge to break apart and get washed down the river taking with it Alexander (the engineer and expert on bridges) to his death - yes, it’s impossible to lead two lives. 

Then, there’s the Netflix Verified Stand-Up (2023) which over two episodes introduces 10 standup-comedians all of whom seem to be young and relatively new to the demands of the genre.The routines varied from the unwatchable - or at least the totally unfunny - to a few (intentionally, toward or at the end of the  two episodes) that break some barriers and actually drew sincere laughter (you have to believe that most of the laughter at the live event was from paid audience members, right?). The rule of the day seems to be ethnic stereotypes - a Black comedian, several queer, an Asian woman (possibly the star), an Indian, et al. And there’s a lot of obscenity, which is a fall-back these days and not laugh- or cringe worthy. Watch it, but skip forward to those who to not ring your bell.

A great movie for anyone to watch is the French director Bertrand Tavernier whose Mississippi Blues (1983) - his only documentary, I think - examines life in rural Mississippi and reflects on the traditions and the changes brought about in part because of better education for the Black community and in part because of the devastation of small businesses and farms. The documentary focuses on 2 group: the first half or so on Gospel music/musicians in the tiny rural churches of the state; the second half focuses on the amateur blues performers, in the tradition of Robert Johnson - still extend in the ‘80s, people (most of them unemployed) gathering to perform for one another on electric guitar, hand-held percussion, and in one case handmade paper flute. The scenery so to speak is much more familiar to Americans than to BT, but the music alone is all you need - fantastic, beautiful, but already dying and by today probably dead. 

Bertramd Tavernier’s film The Judge amd the Assassin (1976; co-written with Jean Aurenche and Pierre Bost) is a really creepy account, apparently based on true events of the 1890s, about a man with serious mental illness - between periods of self-pity, piety, and outbursts of vitriol at the conservative French government - engaged ion a terrifying walkabout through theFrench countryside during which he attacked, brutalized and raped a # of young women he encountered in his travels. After a short spell in an asylum, Joseph Bouvier (played by Michel Galabru) goes on several violent rages in captivity and awaiting trial. The judge assigned to the case, however (Judge Rousseau, played by Philip Noirel, the embodiment of duplicity and obsequiousness, schemes to get Bouvier to losany chance for a NG outcome and confinement to an asylum - he wants to be the judge who sentenced this madman, who really is quite frightening and menacing, to death by guillotine. (French judges at that time were in office via election, and the offices well paid and adorned with social status. Tavernier keeps up the pace, the tension as well as the over-riding question: What does a justice system accommodate an accused man who oscillates between an abject object of pity and strong man subject to sudden acts of violence. 

 

The 3-episode series American Nightmare (Netflix, 2024), from Bernadette Higgins and Felicity Morris, tells an nearly unbelievable le but all too true story of a a series of sexual assaults and kidnappings in several Cal. suburban/rural communities over a span of several decades - with particular emphasis on how the police up and down the state dismissed the assaults as unfit and perhaps even fabricated, an extraordinary failure of duty and protocol - until, predictably, a female police detective begins to see the connections. Admittedly, on first go round the incident seems non credible, but facts and patterns emerge - though it’s tragic how many warning signs the police ignored.  will say no more so as not to divulge key narrative points - so let’s just say it’s a tragic series of events, hard to believe at first, but finally an indictment of the actions and inactions of many. 

Davy Chou’s Return to Seoul (2022) is an excellent film, a strong and intelligent drama that unfolds over about 20 years through a series of “episodes” all of which are propelled by a great performance by lead Ji-Min Park as a 25-year-old traveller, “Freddie,” who has determined to return to the land of her birth, Korea, to find her parents - she was an orphan adopted by  a couple in France and knows/remembers virtually nothing about her birth parents. Over the course of the film the poignancy and pain of several of her “birth families” she learns - maybe  more than she wants to know or can handl. There are some surprises and many scenes in which Freddie’s eccentricity and self-destructive behavior a stressful and troubleful - she is a many-faced character, for whom we feel love and pity We sense that whether or not she finds her mother she will suffer. It’s a really strong, multi sad language (Freddie was raised in France; French is her native tongue) - and you can’t help but root for her, despite her many, or because of her may hurtful character flaws.