Spike Lee, Dardenne Bros.,Three Colors,:LeCarre, Savior Complex. Bpstpnm Marathon bomb, Lupin

 La Promesse (The Promise, 1996), the first major film from the Dardenne brothers (Jean-Pierre and Lucy), who  I think will, or at least should, someday win a Nobel Prize for Literature, is a gut wrenching, revealing, sorrowful brief story of an odious opportunist who rents at exorbitant rates to newly arrived immigrants in Belgium, drawing his teenage son, like it or not, into the family business. West , without a maudlin veneer, exactly what the migrants suffer and endure in their search for a better life; yet the film is dark, never mundane, and is cinema verite in its veins. The teenage boy, Jeremie Renier, is at the heart of the story, slowly drawn into sympathy with the migrants’ struggle, which brings him into direct conflict with his odious dad who exploits the immigrants while under the delusion that the’s doing them a favor. Many fantastic scenes (the fortune teller, forgone!) and great, understated writing throughout the drama - in short, one of the best break-out films of the 90s, to say the least. 

Krzyszlof Kieslowski’s Three Colours: White (1994) is the 2nd in his colors trilogy - don’t waste too much time trying to discern how the colors work other than as references to the French flag - it seems to me that there is not evident line connecting the colors to the films but one can feel free to theorize - sort of a love story, quite different from the first in the series - opens with the protagonist, Karol, facing a divorce hearing from his wife who claims that he couldn’t gratify in their sex life - ah, the French - and when the divorce goes through she sets fire to her beauty salon recognizing that the police would consider the arson to be Karol’s vengeance - so he goes underground and lives homeless in the Metro - where he meets a man who says he knows of a man who will pay a late sum for someone to kill him (It doesn’t take a genius to know he’s talking about himself) - complications ensue -with a lot of ambiguity at the end: happily ever after? or estranged? Very complex plot not worth dwelling over the probabilities, as there are none, but some really fine scenes notably smuggling Karol out of France - and a great performance by then rising superstar Julie Delpy. 

Another great film from the Dardenne Brothers, w/ an amazing lead performance in title role from Emilie Dequenne; Rosetta (1999 is innate teens, no evidence that she’s in school at all - she’s looking desperately for work - lives in a trailer park w/ her alcoholic mother - and is clearly responsible for every aspect of familial and social. Her mother’s a wreck and there are no apparent friends, neighbors, or family (w/exception of one hideous exploiter slash drinker). At outset we see Rosetta in a burst of fury about being let go from a hospital job - simply because she’s the only temp not in the union; then we follow her on a jagged course of frustration as she tries to get another job - but the world is cold and indifferent. In a heartbreaking sequence she gets take-in by a friendly young man who runs a waffle stand (this is a Belgian film) - it looks as if fortunes have turned, but didn’t take long for Rosetta to hav to fend off unwanted advances. This film is unusual if not unique for the Dardennes in that the focus is entirely on the sole protagonist and the film seems to be in constant flight as we follow Rosetta through her day(a) - it’s almost dizzying, long passages chasing her via hand-held camera (un-Steady Cam) - and as the film builds toward a dramatic conclusion Rosetta’s life seems to be at a low point, until a moment of stasis at the end and then an explosion into all black, meaning exactly what? It’s not clear on first viewing, nor is it meant to be - neither happy nor sad, but most of all like life. 

Spike Lee’s monumental film Do the Right Thing (1989) is a true masterpiece and feels as real and present among us as it seemed and felt 30 years ago - clearly a different era but nothing feels dated or passee - in fact, the opposite, as it was incredibly prescient about life in a black urban community and the contentious relationship with the all-white police force. Plus ca change, right? What makes this more than a screed and a lament is the wonderful balance among the characters, some played by well-known actors (eg Danny Aiello, Ossie Davis),some by newcomers (Rosie Perez), and also the amazingly versatile Lee himself. The film consists of a series of snapshots or sketches of one city block though you could say it’s about all in the culture of BedSty in the ‘80s in the midst of a record-breaking heat wave that puts everyone at odds and out of sorts: the “mayor”of Bed Sty self-proclaimed, a radio voice that provides some occasional observations, an pizza parlor as we used to call them run by an Italo-American family and the focus of much of the film, and old men sit around and reminisce and laugh and joke in some really funny sequences - it seems a peaceable kingdom at first but one that erupts into racial violence, and other layabouts. There’s lots of laugh-out-loud humor - tho it hardly ends on an amusing note - the neighborhood explodes, and everyone comes out a loser, though it’s also likely that life will move on, as Lee raises the question, without polemics, of whether a multi-racial community can survive in a racist environment. The theme song throughout (as well as a terrific score that draws on many musical vocabularies), Public Enemy’s Fight the Power (sung and danced to by Perez), a haunting phrase, or command, heard throughout but one that leads to a devastated neighborhood, to death and destruction, and brings up the question of: Fight the power with what? How? To what end? 

Errol Morris’s 90-minute interview with John le Carre (The Pigeon Tunnel, 2023, Apple TV) held my attention and interest and made me want to read more of JLC’s work - Ive read I think 3 of his spy novels and have never been hooked but maybe I was looking for something more nuanced and literary and his work seems to be at least i part about personality and betrayal - taken as a whole there might be more than I'd thought, not just an entertainment but a world view. Notably, friend AW found this film terrible because he’s read most of maybe all of JLC’s work and, ergo, found little new or revealing in this interview - true enough, EM hardly ever pushes back against his subject, just gives him a forum. So, in the end, it’s good film for novices but of ,such less interest to lifelong fans.f the author and the genre. 

TV

Jackie Jesko’s series Savior Complex (2023, Max), like most of the best crime series leaves viewers not with a case-solved but with some mysteries and ambiguities. Here doc focuses on a young (19 or 20) woman raised by devout, evangelical Xtians, home-schooled in rural Va., who gets a calling that she should go to Uganda to help the starving children - which, amazingly, and all credit other for this, she does so, opening a clinic of sorts that provided food to man - but as might be expected she gets somewhat carries away by her zealotry - actually believing she’s taking Rx orders from God! - so that she was, eventually , stopped in her tracks by accusations, which she doesn’t really deny, that she’s administered Rx and procedures within license and no medical training. In her care, a # of children have died - though it’s indisputable that the % saved and back to health was much greater. That said, the deaths have roused a group of activists, No White Saviors (weird that a white American is a leader of this group) bring a suit for damages that essentially shuts down the clinic. The woman, Renee Bach, is a mysterious, driven personality - as are most of those who oppose her and have revealed her unsound decisions. But so many she treated are so much better off. I guess the subtitle could be “no real answers.”

The documentary American Manhunt: The Boston Marathon Bombinmg (2023, Netflix) really captures the terror, excitement, and tactical and technical (and some medical) that all in or near Boston felt at the time of the 2013 attack, the multi-agency effort to ID the killers, the frightening confrontation with the killers, all re-creating the sense it was like to live in or near the events - of done with fidelity to the rue events (much security footage used, only small moments re-enacted, for technical reasons), lots of interviews with victims and law-enforcement (maybe too much of this?), but overall a great job, especially viewed for those with a connection to the event (aside I through some running circles, and my family as a daughter was relatively near the bombsight). I wonder why it’s so under the radar - it’s difficult with a few clicks on major sources don’t reveal the name of the filmmakers, even!

Like the first two seasons, the third season of Lupin (Netflix, 2023), Season 3 is highly entertaining, highly challenging at time to follow or figure, and highly unlikely and improbable, but who cares? Though it stages as a crime series, it’s really a concept series, but the main character - Omar Sy as Assane Diop, the fictional hero based on the Arsene Lupin novels by Maurice Leblanc: He’s the man of a thousand disguises, and that’s at the heart of the comedy - he takes on daring robbery schemes that throw him into the public eye and make him a living folk hero and newspaper fodder - yet he’s able to get away with more and more audacious theft, never being recognized (and he’s not the type to blend into a crowd at about 6 foot 6? ) - only one guy, in the PD, recognizes that Arsene bases all of his theft and vanishments based on the Lupin crime novels - but no one will hear this guy out. The storyline can be challenging at times - leaping back and forth in time -  but it’s not a show to drag us along through a series of crimes and solutions, it’s pure entertainment. 

Elliot’s Watching - Week of 7/4/2: Lupin and Bunuel

 Elliot’s Watching - Week of 7/4/21

Luis Bunuel’s 1972 film, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, is far from this best work, but it has its moments of weirdness, maybe too much weirdness and not enough charm. Posing as a social satire - in which the wealthy lead corrupt lives of selfishness and dissolution while maintaining throughout a strangely courteous and acquiescent demeanor, the social commentary is mild rather than biting and obvious rather than subtle (or discreet, for that matter). The film begins as two well-to-do couples arrive at the country house of another couple for an expected dinner party - but the hosts are nowhere to be found. When they turn up, it seems there’s been a confusion about the date - so the 3 couples go out for dinner. At the restaurant nearby, it seems that they’re open, but no food is available. Profuse apologies, but their founder has just died and he is lying in state in just off the dining room. And thus begin a series of missed connections - and the 6 never really get a chance to eat anything (some repulsive appetizers aside). This apparent reality mixes with many scenes that seem and feel realistic and vivid, at least within the established terms of this film, but turn out to be dreams - usually involving shootings and death (one of the sextet, played by the great Fernando Rey, is an ambassador from Latin America and involved in Rx-running). The film ends with the six, still hungry I guess, walking down a long, flat stretch of (Normandy?) highway, aimless and confused. I’m not really sure what any of this amounts to, though it’s worth watching once for the dark humor and for the depiction of a group of the privileged who get what they deserve. 

The George Kay Netflix series Lupin Season 2, based on the detective stories about the eponymous Lupin from early 20th century and set in present-day Paris, is a great star vehicle for Omar Sy and is entertaining but also totally preposterous, so much so that the unlikelihood of any of Sy’s escapades and schemes working out becomes part of the humor. Just to imagine Sy himself - a distinct and massive star - going unrecognized on the streets of Paris when his face is on every screen as the most wanted man in France - well, it’s all part of the joke. His schemes are so outlandish, elaborate and dependent on every step along the way going right as to be comically absurd. The episodes are well-paced, even frantic, with a dominating score (I enjoyed watching some of the chase and fight sequences while imaging no background track - and without the music they were for the most part mundane and boring. Bring it on!) So, OK, yeah, quite binge-able, but in the end you’ve feasted on froth and air. 

What I've been watching, January 2021: Murder on Middle Beach, Zodiac, I May Destroy You, I Hate Suze, Kurosawa, The Flight Attendant, Elizabeth Is Missing, Lupin, Bresson, Truffault,

 Here's what I've been watching in January 2021:

Elliot’s Watching 2021

Murder on Middle Beach. HBO. Documentary. Debut for young director, examining the murder of his mother - who dunnit? But this quest becomes his examination into his family history, and first real knowledge that his father was/is a con man, that his mother and all of her siblings was/are severe alcoholics, that his mother was deeply involved in a ponzi scheme (Gifting parties) - and that the police of his small Conn. town, Madison (strangely, his first name) were/are reluctant to pursue various leads and are letting the case die after 10 years - until his intervention, which prompted a renewed investigation. Totally engaging series of 4 episodes, and we await a 5th as the filmmaker presents new evidence to the Madison police Many possibly guilty, including father (via a hit man?), even his only sister, who has relocated to Argentina.   1/2

Saw David Fincher’s 2:30+ Zodiac, from I think about 2010 and looking back on the pursuit of the eponymous, pseudonymous madman who terrorized the Bay Area in 1969 and beyond. I defy anyone on first viewing to keep straight the myriad leads, clues, and red herrings that waylay us along the way toward identifying and arresting the allusive killer, who tantalize police, press, and public with taunting, threatening messages. But following the nuances isn’t the point; mainly the film is about 2 obsessions - the killer’s and that of a young newspaper cartoonist at the SF chron, played well by Jake Gillenhall (sp?), who lets his personal pursuit of the killer turn into his own obsession and overturn his life. The tension at times is almost unbearable, but it’s leavened with some moments of laugh-out-loud humor, particularly the children of the protagonist (who wrote the book on which this screenplay, mostly factual apparently, is based). I do have two quibbles: hating the role of the nagging wife played well enough by Close Sevigny but such an ignoble stereotype, and of course the dynamics and politics of the news room are completely off base on a # of matters - for ex., the crime reporter and the cartoonist would never be part of the daily meeting of the editors (unless there were a specific reason for them to be present). 1/3

The HBO series I May Destroy You, a tour-de-force by writer/lead actor Michaela Coel, who plays the lead character, a young Ghanian-descent woman in present-day London and trying to break out as a published novelist (Arabella). She’s totally on the cutting edge of art, culture, and social issues (and way beyond where I stand in life - out of dozens of background songs that pulse throughout, I recognized the name of only 2 artists). This series has been described as a lesson and warning for young people, especially young women, who get deeply involved in recreational Rx, risky sex with strangers, heavy bouts of drinking, and obsessive on-line presence. And the series should stand as a warning for most viewers, one would hope - though first 4 of so of the (12) episodes seemed to be to be overly glamorizing the fast and loose life. But the series gets in gear by episode 4 of so, when Arabella gets knocked out when a guy “spikes” her drink and rapes her, an event she can only a moments recollect; froths point, the series becomes, at least in part, a search for the perp - and in the process a dissection of the life of Arabella and her closest friend, most of them Black; particularly notable are sections about her inability to get on w/ he writing and her mistreatment by her agents and publisher, as well as the sad and frightening depiction of rape among male homosexual pickups and long-term effect on one of the victims. I won’t divulge the conclusion, but will note only that many viewers will be puzzled or upset by the final episode - but that’s your call. 1/9

Netflix series I Hate Suze, about a child-star actor/singer now in mid-career and looking for a break gets a major gig in a Disney movie but, just as that happens, finds herself in an unDisney-like predicament as he files have been hacked and nude photos of her are appearing online. Based on first half of first episode - unfunny, unpleasant, not for us. 1/11

Kurosawa’s 1949 film, Stray Dog, starring a young T Mufone, is a great social document and an exciting movie as well. In essence, the story, quite simple in outline, has TM, a rookie Tokyo police detective has his gun stolen by a pickpocket while he’s riding a bus home after a double-shift day. Honor would lead him to resign from the force, but sympathetic older officers cut him a real and send him on an odyssey as he pursues his stolen phone through a series of underground and otherwise shady Tokyo settings. The how-and-why details of the pursuit, complex at times, aren’t the reason to watch the film. The strength comes from the many excellent scenes and even moments: The chorus girls at a shady club collapsing in exhaustion back stage after completing their routine, the scenes on the ubiquitous buses and esp trains (de rigueur for any Japanese film of the era), and even a scene filmed at a Japanese major league baseball game (Giants v Hawks). We see and sense throughout many of the traumas and forces shaping life on postwar Japan, notably the poverty and ruin of many cities, the PSTD suffered by many Japanese soldiers, the burgeoning new economy, emulating Western styles and values (baseball league for one example) - a picture of a society under stress and duress. 1/17

The current HBO series The Flight Attendant is by no means a deep and introspective movie, but it’s fun to watch throughout and that’s largely thanks to the 2 leads, the eponymous attending (Kaley Cuoco) and her bestie, young lawyer played by Zosia Mamet, with hilarious staccato brevity, and even the secondary characters are well-cast, sometimes against type (though I had trouble accepting the excellent Rosie Perez as a “Meagan” who speaks fluent Korean). The show in short entails the attendant, Cassy, meeting a guy on one of her flights and spending the night w/ him in Bangkok, waking in the morning to find herself in bed next to his corpse. From there the film become a genre pic - invoking many genres: police procedural, spy adventure, buddy movie, all lifted above the genre cliches, though, by 2 elements: Cassy’s struggle w/ alcoholism (not done in a maudlin nor judgmental manner) and her many interactions w/ the ghost of her murdered friend - handled very well, especially as we quickly understand that he’s not exactly a ghost from the supernatural realm but are her way of coping with her current predicament and other trauma in her life. In short, a much deeper and more inventive series that it seemed off the bat, and about as high in entertainment value as a B-movie can get. 1/17

Glenda Jackson deserves all the praise she’s been receiving for taking on the lead role (Maud) in the (PBS) film Elizabeth Is Missing (2021). Maud is a highly largely unsympathetic and even for a +70 hardly attractive woman, not at all a glam role, not at all a glorification women (or men) in late life. Maud is suffering from what appears to be an advanced case of Alzheimer’s; as we first see her, alone in her flat (in a small city/village, unnamed, somewhere in the northern UK it seems) with typed notes placed everywhere reminding her to lock the door, turn off the kettle, etc. Someone’s watching out for her, although maybe not thoroughly enough. The story line has it the Maud believes that her best friend (Eliz.) has gone missing, and she fears the worst - but her intuition about Eliz may well be a delusion - certainly, everyone in her fam and of her acquaintance thinks so, in particular because Maud can be a nudge and a pest -multiple visits to the PD, posting a notice in the paper seeking info from possible witnesses, e.g. If left to that - a woman troubled about her best friend’s fate who cannot get her concerns through to anyone because of her mental deterioration - the show would have been fine. Unfortunately, the story line - adapted from a novel - includes several confusing subplots that at the least will raise eyebrows and that ultimately lead to a ridiculous resolution. Too bad; a less ambitious project would have been far better. 1/19

The Netflix series Lupin, Season 1 (2021), starring the excellent Omar Sy, is thoroughly entertaining as long as you accept that this is one of those crime dramas that is so far out of the edge of improbability as to be comical in itself. Sy plays Arsene Diop, a middle-aged man on a mission to avenge his father’s death, caused by the evil industrial magnate Pellegrini who frame Arsene’s father and had him accused of stealing a valuable necklace. The beauty of the series is Arsene’s audacity - posing as a potential buyer of the necklace, now being auctioned at the Louvre of all places, as just one example, in which every facet of the complex robbery goes perfectly as planned. The general conceit is that people like Arsene - a black man of African descent - are overlooked and ignored, so they can get away with all kinds of criminality - which I think is an inversion of the truth, that someone like A would have been looked on as immediately suspicious as the only black man at the auction, for example - but never mind. The series is fun and exciting and a good diversion. Beware that it ends abruptly at an episode 5 cliffhanger - though they say season 2 is not for behind. 1/27

Noting here that I also watched, for the 2nd or 3rd time, Bresson’s great film Pickpocket (1959) and, if you can put aside the unlikely love story that motivates the main character, Michel, and see this as almost a documentary about street crime - great to see all the little tricks and tics through which the thieves pile their trade - and most of all as a close-up portrait of an alienated young man living in deep poverty and persona despair who turns to crime, even though it’s against his better nature. Martin La Salle, an amateur actor, brings so much to the story line, esp through his long face, deepest eyes, searching expression - and of course Bresson had his unique method of cinema narration - spare sets, long takes, focus closely on characters, each scene taking a beat more than needed, not afraid to focus on a door after it’s closed, for ex. 1/27/21

And I also watched, probably for the 4th time spread out over probably 40 years … Truffaut’s great movie The 400 Blows (1959) and it has not only aged well but if that’s possible improved with age. The simplicity and power of the narrative remain as ever, filling us with empathy for the troubled young protagonist - Jean-Pierre Leaud as Antoine Doinel, a young boy in a very strict school - probably an early h.s. grade, age about 14(?), where he is rambunctious and energetic and consequently the subject of harsh discipline, even as his family - jovial father and cold, distant mother - is in the midst of upheaval, as one day Antoine sees his mother passionately kissing a mag not his father (her boss, probably); he bears this family secret with some grace, but he is tortured inside, and it’s almost painful to watch the struggles and isolation he endures. Alongside the sorrowful coming-of-age story we have some scenes of laugh-out-loud humor and gasps of style, most notably the phys-ed teacher leading the 30 or so boys in the class on a job through Paris streets (the kids desert the group one after another) and the famous closing sequence of the escape to freedom from the school for delinquents. The scenes of Paris in the ‘50s are reason enough alone to watch this great film; Truffaut teasingly includes panoramic view of the Eiffel Tower in the long opening sequences, only to turn away at least from the monument and the classic Gallic architecture of the “hotels” - and we are in a crowded urban district (and in the Doinels’ tiny run-down apartment) where the tourists do not ever venture - a place not at all romanic and scenic, which in fact reminds me of Newark from the same era. 1/30/21