Films by Rohmcer, Bunuel, Bujalski, Malick, Leigh, and season-enders from Succession, Barry, and Mrs. Maisel - plus One in a Billion

 Elliot’s Watching - May 2023

Rohmer, Leigh, Bunuel, Malick, Bujalski, Mrs. Maisel, Succession, and Barry

The second work in Erich Rohmer’s late-life quartet, A Tale of Winter (1992)  is a sweet yet strange love story, centering on an appealing young woman, mother of a young daughter from an early relationship and now faced with choosing a life path w/ two suitors: Mr. Wrong (a beautician, as is she), a potential Mr. Right (a devout intellectual librarian), and Mr. Lost - the love of youth and father of daughter who through some cockamamie mishap involving lost addresses has slipped away from the woman’s life but for whom she still waits - hoping to find him, by chance, in all of Paris or beyond - he may be traveled to America, who knows? What gives this film a bit of a push, as hinted in the title, is the analogous Shakespeare play A Winter’s Tale, which involves the disappearance of a queen who was punished thoughtlessly by her husband. The film even includes the characters viewing the play: the woman (Felicie) and Mr. Potential, Felice in tears, as the king and queen reconcile, through some of S’s most ridiculous contrivances; the scenes as shown are among the worst and most pompous stagings of S. and would more likely bring forth hoots rather than tears but so be it. The film itself is pretty good in that we really get to care about and root for this obviously troubled and confused young woman. 

 A definite two-thumbs-up for Deborah Cahn’s Netflix political drama The Diplomat, with an excellent performance from Keri Russell as the newly appointed American Ambassador to St. James (i.e., the UK) just as a missile attack on a British navy ship kills 41 soldiers and draws in successively Iraq, Russian, and maybe more. Unlike so many shows of this ilk The Diplomat has the sense of accuracy and likely reality - the intrigues and egos and romances and alliances of British, American, Iranian et al agents and diplomats, all struggling to fulfill their divergent agendas - in particular Russell as a dynamic, tough, analytic, and in some odd ways obsessed with her appearance force of nature. Lots of surprises along the way, many moments of intrigue some of which might elude on first viewing, and t’son secret that a 2nd seasons has been green-lit, with makes the dramatic conclusion of season 1 a great stepping-off point. 

So….what’s there to say about Luis Bunuel’s The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz (1955) except to say that Bunuel must have needed the money. The film has none or nearly none of the satiric and imaginative visuals and strange encounters that of any other Bunuel film I’m aware of - ranging from the slice scene in Andalusian Dog to the weird sexual predatory behavior in Tristana to the slings and arrows aimed in Discrete Charm and the list could go on; the list could go on. Criminal Life centers on a chid in a well-to-do Mexican family who watches as his governess is shot to death and he imagines that he is responsible for this shooting and the scene governs the rest of his life as, for unexplained reasons, he plans to kill a series of women: All of them do die, but not at his hand, and he’s puzzled and troubled that the police cannot arrest him for his though-crime. Maybe some potential here, but it’s acted out of conceived in such leaden and preposterous manner that the film is hard to watch and I would have dropped it at some point but for the very few flashes of Bunuelian insight: strange behavior with a lookalike mannequin, for ex. This is not the place to begin watching his movies, however. 

The 3rd in Eric Rohmer’s late-in-life quartet, A Summer’s Tale (1996), is the lightest and most true to life of the series thus far, a love story of sorts that centers on a young man -(Gaspard)  a grad student in mathematics - on summer vacation but quite shy and aimless. We feel sorry for him because of initial isolation and seeming loneliness or at least shyness (this film in the sense of a story of loneliness and wasted youth it brings to mind Rohmer’s Green Ray). A perfectly lovely young summer waitress (Margot) befriends him and is obviously interested in him, but he pushes her off: He has a girlfriend who will visit him later in the summer, and she as well is waiting for a boyfriend who someday will arrive. And this starts the pattern; over the course of the film Gaspard will begin dating 3 young women, but none of the relationships will quite work out; is he a cad or a predator or just morbidly shy and awkward? The film seems to be Rohmer’s look-back at wasted opportunities of youth, but without deep regret or sorrow; it’s a film in which all of the major characters are sweet and longing and trying to figure out their paths in life (Gaspard, played by Melvin Poupaud dreams of becoming a song writers/singer - and he’s pretty good but aimless, not driven it seems to a career in such a competitive field). We can easily imagine him years later reflecting on his youth and wondering at his missed opportunities and broken pathways. 

Inevitably there will be spoilers in any report on Andrew Bujalski’s Computer Chess (2013) so read no further if you’re about to watch: What makes this film so astonishing is that it appears in all regards - the low-resolution camera work, the awkward cuts and pans, and of course the look of all the actors, most of them classic geek in style, big awkward eyeglasses, huge collars on dress shirts, cheap-looking rugby shirts, etc. - and of course the whole concept of man v machine, very1980, when the most advanced computers were big, heavy devices about the size of large TVs of the era, noisy clunky printouts of all info, and a game of chess took hours. The catch is that this is an entirely enacted and scripted film about an imagined competition some 30 years ago - and I am sure it will take any viewer, including this one, some time to recognize that this is a film set ca 1980 and not a more nearly contemporary film about an imagined competition some 30 years back. What gives it away? I guess the footage of one of the loners knocking doors and asking if he could sleep in their/her room - who’s going to allow this?, I thought, as it came clear that this is a sly comedy we’re watching and it’s a great sendup of the types of personality that would congregate at such a competition - in some ways not so distant from today and in other respects a whole generation or even 2 in the rear view. 

The plot of Terrence Malick’s second film, Days of Heaven (1978) is about as thin as it gets - migrant worker (Richard Gere) on the rails with girlfriend/wife (but posing as his sister) and young daughter derail at site of a vast wheat field run by a handsome and perhaps kindly wealthy farmer (Sam Shepard); as harvest progresses, farmer increasingly attracted to Gere’s partner, and she agrees to marry him, but as part of a robbery scam - which of course goes awry as she falls for her new husband and arouses Gere’s hostility, ending in a chase and shootout - and none of it particularly believable, motivated, or surprising - yet - it’s still a great film to watch, preferably not on a laptop, for the extraordinary photogram, landscape and otherwise, from the incomparable Haskell Wexler and Nestor Almendros - not just the obvious beautiful images on the Texas [supposedly, but film was shot in Alberta] plains or sunsets and so forth but even in the most ordinary settings his eye brings everything to life and continuously surprises - that said the film score is powerful as well from the great Ennio Morricone. So plot, character and credibility are not Mallick’s credentials - for just one example - why does the kid/narrator speak w/ an indelible NY accent? Makes no sense. Who cares?

Not sure what’s left to be said about The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (Season 5, 2023), but a few notes here: After a tenuous start, which didn’t really pickup to the great Rachel Brosnahan (as the Eponymous Midge) in the first season until RB stepped into her role as a comic, upending her husband’s future and that of their marriage. But after the first season the series seemed to founder - an asinine visit to Paris, some overwritten passages such as the ferris wheel conversation, and we stopped watching, but, curious, we began 5, the final series, and were pleasantly surprised: Lots of cutting humor, Midge struggles to find her place as a writer for the top late-night show (compared w/ Jack Parr, for ex) - and building toward the inevitable conclusion as she gains her footing first as the “lady” writer for the show and, more important as a stand-up. There was a lot of pressure on the creative team, notably Amy Sherman-Palladino to come up with a killer final season, and she/they succeed where so many have failed: esp Midge’s surprise standup, which had to be hilarious or the show would’ve flopped and they came through perfectly. Overall in this series I found the segments focused on Midge’s parents, particularly her father, to be clumsy and absurd; the more the show was about Midge and her generation, the better. So it was far from a perfect series, though the end was perfect - and Brosnahan’s world is her oyster, so to speak - a great comedic actor who will probably want to stretch to avoid stereotyping. 

And praise for yet another great Mike Leigh TV drama now released as a feature (Criterion, thank you), Grown-Ups (1980), absit  young couple that move into “council” housing where they try to set up and settle in to their new space (and from her POV, the excellent Leslie Manville, star in many Leigh films, to prepare to have a baby and raise a family), but 2 obstacles impede their potential happiness: LM’s sister has become a real pain - she’s lonely and socially extremely awkward and bossy - and she spends way too much time in their marriage as her own life is so pallid (she still lives at home with Mom), and the adjacent apartment - not Council (ie not Welfare, as we might put it) owned by (their former) h.s. teacher; tensions build among all characters on all sides and all lets loose in an incredibly confrontation among all the characters in a powerful sequence that’s both terrifying and heart-breaking - a good film in the Leigh style of Chekhov of the British working class, that rises to the level of greatness in the brutal confrontation toward the end of the performance. 

Everyone in the world has already written about Succession Season 4 (the finale, 2023) so I might as well jump in w/ a few observations. For one thing, how could it be so much fun to watch the cavorting of a group of people whom we truly despise - selfish, privileged, right-wing, immoral, the list of adjectives could go on, but in the end, or perhaps I should say from the beginning, we lavished in watching their lives of extremity, sometimes with envy, let’s face it who wouldn’t want to travel by private jet?, and most of the time with repulsion. Yes they’re so witty and so credible, that’s what made it work. As to the final season, and there will be spoilers here, I wasn’t as keen on the last episode as most seem to have been - to me the extra 30 minutes was time wasted and too much, and the sharpness and precision of all of the preceding episodes is one factor in the success. Most of the commentary I read today puts it at face value that the show is now over, but I’m not so sure: Doncha think we need a few more episodes, watching Tom’s total failure as ceo and his constant humiliation by his new owner/boss = who will/should torment him about his attraction to Shiv? And Shiv - she cannot stay on as a corporate wife, no way. Shouldn’t we watch her devour Tom? I had said from the outset that the final victor would be the hapless Greg, and I still think that’s possible. And can we end w/ Kendall looking out from Brooklyn Heights? Surely he has a scheme in mind - perhaps relating to the still pending outcome of the presidential race - some Trumpian mischief, yes? That all said, it was a highly intelligent, well conceived, scripted, and performed - including, btw, terrific use of a musical score. Kudos creator Jesse Armstrong + Kieran Culkin, Jeremy Strong, Sarah Snook, and others + bonus points to Nicholas Britell for the score. 

Another excellent and somewhat overshadowed bowed out this week as Bill Hader’s 4-season run of Barry came to a close. Part of the underachievement medal comes from the nature of this series - 30-minute episodes and billed as a comedy, where in fact it’s a fine, multifaceted drama series, with a lot of twists and turns and strong character development throughout. A one-sentence plot summary has it that Hader/Barry, suffering shell shock froths time in military service, takes on the job of an enforcer for mostly mob conglomerates; he disembarks on assigned to kill a member of an acting troupe, and in the process he steps into acting and finds himself leading a double-life, and many conflicts and dramatic scenes ensue - a sure-handed mixture of a doomed-love romantic drama, a send-up of Hollywood values and the pressures of writing and seeing through to the end of an original script, acting lessons, a murder involving active police officers, and disputes with various at-war drug gangs vying for c control of LA (led ultimately by Anthony Carrigan’s great portrayal of gay Chechen enforces NoHo Hand), a prison drama, and the list could go on - but the riches are plentiful and not the least of which was a wholly satisfying and credible final episode: s rarity. 

Zarna Garg’s hilarious one-hour comedy special. One in a Billion (Prime, 2023), establishes her as a best of all India-born female comics living and performing in the U.S. today - Ok, how many others are there? But that of course is part of her schtick: Women born in India are just not encouraged to enter the entertainment field, and that’s even more so for those who emigrated to the U.S. - and that’s part of her material: the parents who push their kids relentlessly toward success in a few fields, ie engineering, finance, technology. Which leads to a # of laugh lines, notably her take on her beautiful daughter at Stanford who’s taking required arts elective in pottery: $80,000 for this!! Who makes pottery? Old men in villages in India! Because the have to! And so it goes. The show builds as it moves along; her delivery, from a minuscule stage, is flawless, and the show is remarkably clean and good-spirited, with a delightful surprise at the end. 

Elliot's Watching - April 2023 - Hitchcock, Tati, Rohmer, Songs from the Second Floor, Beef

 Elliot's Watching - April 2023

Mon Oncle, Rohmer, Hitchcock, Mike Leigh, Beef, Songs from the 2nd Floor

Roy Andersson’s Songs from the Second Floor (2000), in Swedish (wouldn’t   Songs from Another Floor be more accurate?) is without a doubt one of the strangest and most unsettling films I’ve ever seen, veering and swaying in its mood and intentions as the so-called story unfolds via about 30 vignettes of about 3 minutes each, some feeling close to a plot line, others mood-establishing only; the many scenes include abortive sex among 60+ couples (touching and moving, not exploitative at all), one weird scene in which all the passengers on a subway car harmonize in some kind of medieval religious chant, a magician whose “saw the audience volunteer in half” goes dreadful wrong, et al., all centered on a crisis that disrupts the lives on one Stockholm business family, a mysterious fire that destroyed all their possessions: The family is tormented in many ways, not the least of which is an adult son who has undergone a complete breakdown (the father attributes it to his love of poetry - and in fact there are Vellejo, one of my faves, throughout) - there are some weird and violent moments as the distraught dad visits his wreck of a son in a psychiatric hospital, and all the while in the background is a complete gridlock freeze of all Stockholm roadways; the ruined man’s younger son, working as a taxi driver, has adventures of his own, notably his conveyance of a military sort to a celebration of the 100th bd of a once powerful general now living on a bed with sides like a child’s bed (during the ceremony of recognition, the old general is seated on a bed pan: nobody notices). Clearly not a film for everyone, but for those of us who like to take risks sometimes it’s a truly provocative and strange work of art. 

Jacques Tati directed, co-wrote, and stars as the title character in Mon Oncle  (1958), one of a set of 4 playful comedies, in which the Oncle, M. Hurot, is ever-present as a comic, comical, eccentric - friendly to kids and dogs, not so much to family members and others, to whom with his bumbling, irresponsible presence is often annoying or worse. In Mon Oncle he takes a job in a factory - producer of colorful plastic pipelines - owned by his well-off brother-in-law. Hulot/Tati is a direct descendant of Harpo and Chaplain, though Mon Oncle is a much more highly stylized film than anything from the b/w era - in fact, the star of the show may well be the set design and the costumery (although Hulot sports only his droopy trench coat though it’s never raining and his ever-present stem pipe seldom lighted). The sets - particularly the super-modern showpiece where his sister lives - brash colors, odd gradient layout, doors that open automatically when one passes through a beam of light, and in particular the near-lethal garage door that slams up and down and entraps those who are too late in gaining exit. The clothing - esp. that of the flamboyant neighbors who visit the abode for a party that is suitably effusive and - flashy and overdone by any standard and a sharp contrast to Hulot’s drab, Holmesian attire. The film is whimsical though never exactly riotous and doesn’t really have a point of view or much of a plot or even a message other than that it takes all kinds and be kind to your neighbors, a good enough message I guess. 

Eric Rohmer’s A Tale of Springtime (1990) is the first ion a non-chronological group of 4 films each “about” or at least set in a different season, put together over a six-year span late in Rohmer’s life. Anything but grand and melodramatic, these films or at least for the moment Springtime only, is small in scope and, presumably, in budget: Springtime has a small cast of characters - 5 but only 3 playing a major role - a short spinoff time (a week?) and a point of crisis or at least of tension the central marital or romantic setting. In this instance, Jeanne (Ann Teyssedre), a philosophy instructor age about 30, meets a young woman, Natacha,  who in return for a ride at a pretty dismal dinner gathering back to her home in Paris offers to put up Jeanne for the night (as several other housing arrangements have fallen through). Over the course of a few days and nights, some spent at a country house, the two young women bond - though Natacha is much younger and less experienced; N’s big lament is that her adored father, now divorced, is dating a woman near N’s age. Other course of the few days there’s lots of discuss - typical of Rohmer’s style from the outset (My Night at Maud’s, Claire’s Knee, the more recent Green Ray) there’s lots of talk and teeth gnashing, plus several “moral” choices: and indeed, as we suspected of course, something starts to develop between Jeanne and Dad. The film is captivating in some ways, though very talky and with a minimum of technique - it’s like a play transposed, or what’s sometimes called a Chamber Play (Strindberg wrote several in this mode). The settings are minimal and uninspired, and intended to be so I’m sure; the ending is a bit contrived - but, again, we could all see it coming, which makes me think that’s part of Rohmer’s style as well ()cf Green Ray). I’m curious enough to watch the other 3 plays in this set. 

Home Sweet Home is a 1982 television film from Mike Leigh and it is without doubt his darkest and most ominous work - hard to believe the same guy could do this film as well as Happy Go Lucky, a testament to the range of his work and the breadth of his vision. This one, though, is only for those who could stand to watch 90 minutes of terrible marital relationships, infidelities, and constant nagging and bullying - not for everyone, but still it stands as a remarkable work in its own dark way: three co-workers in some tedious letter-sorting and -delivery for theRoyal Mail, seemingly reasonably good co-workers and near-neighbors but eventually shown to be deeply faulted: the central figure a terrible cad who has carried on a long affair with the wives of the other 2 and is totally indifferent to his sullen and withdrawn daughter living in an institution for young women with mental illness of various sorts; a terrible drunk and a man with some kind of learning disabilities, a target for all bullies including his wife; and the most sorrowful figure of all, married to a vengeful shrew who does nothing but carp at him from which he offers no defense or responses, somethings retreating into mumbled verses from popular songs or nursery rhymes or into cascades of riddles and puns. Enough, already? It’s a powerful film but not for all tastes. 

Hitchock’s highly entertaining if unlikely at at times - esp regarding the instant-love plot angle, man (Joel McCrea) falls for woman (Laraine Day) who at first scorns him but he wins her over although god forbid that have sex before marriage! - Foreign Correspondent (1940) sets McCrea, a NYC crime reporte,  on a publisher’s whim to serve as a/the foreign correspondent for this NY paper to Europe - with no experience but under orders to provide good stories - on the eve of war. Shortly after his arrival a major peace-advocate diplomat is assassinated (in a great scene), or is he really? This leads JMc to pursue a good lead about a group of radeical militants that wants for some reason to bring on the war. Complications (and revelation) ensure, and though we don’t really care about all the nuances there are some really rich moments notably the hideout and shootout in a Dutch windmill - a totally strange and probably unique crime scene - and, without giving anything away, I have say that the ultimate sequence toward the end of the film that has to do with air travel is one of the greatest chase/war/disaster sequences of its era and of ours, despite all our technological advances, as well. 

Lee Sung Jin’s10-episode series Netflix series, Beef (2023) is a completely engaging, dramatic, multi-faceted crime/romance drama that begins with a road-rage incident between a young Korean-American construction worker (Steven Yeun) and a wealthy (but not wealthy enough) businesswoman (who’s married to a mother-supported artist), played beautifully by Ali Wong, who’s herself well known for some hysterical stand-up, adults-only comedy specials. The series goes well beyond the bounds of most crime/romance shows, with some surprising yet convincing plot strands that pit two families against each other and that, over time (others have made this point) come to seem increasingly alike. The 10th episode is about as good, and as unusual, as any final TV act I’ve seen, a long twosome speaking to each other through the night in what could be taken alone, I think, as a serious drama - with no obvious antecedents except maybe Bergman? Will there be a follow up? Doubt it - and it’s best to quit while ahead anyway. 

Mike Leigh’s Who’s Who? (1979) was a play for BBC  later made into a film and clearly not one of Leigh’s major works although it’s in its satiric, biting manner worth a lot of laughs garnered from a thin and familiar motif. The film follows two gatherings: one of a set of 5 completely self-centered and largely repulsive adult children of the upper crust - a group that in its insularity con survive the satiric bards of this (and other - think Python) films for TV; the other a “middle class” man who works as a low-level stockbroker (along side one of the upper crust from the other set), who is completely obsessed with the aristocracy and, in his own words, his collection of signed photos of members of Parliament and there with titles -“This is my life!” - is inflicted on everyone he meets or knows; meanwhile his wife shares none of that interested but her passion is her collection of cats. The”action”of the movie consists largely of back and forth between 2 simultaneous events: a disastrous dinner party served by the aristocratic youth and an equally disastrous pet photo session.All told, a film worth a few laugh at the expense of some easy targets, funny but without the passion and empathy of ML’s greater works. 

Elliot's Watching March 2023: Hitchcock, Mike Leigh, Denis, Women at War, Last of Us, Cassavetes, Navalny, Goodfellas, Godard

 March 2023

Elliot’s Watching 

March 2023

Alfred Hitchcock’s 1936 thriller Sabotage (based on the Conrad novel The Secret Agent (also the title of another 1936 Hitchcock thriller, got it?) is plenty dark if far less so than the Conrad source: the plot line involves an member of hard-core, radical group of insurgent terrorists in London (we never know what it is that they actually believe or intend other than creating chaos - but that’s all we need to know; the Conrad original has much more on the European political agenda of the day, if I remember); rather, it’s a human drama in which the boy waylaid by his stone-cold-hearted stepfather into carrying a timed bomb into a populace London area (Piccadilli) - in the H. version he’s a lively, charismatic little guy; in Conrad’s he’s a somewhat older child with significant disabilities. AH also introduces a highly improbable love angle - the terrorist’s wife falls for the Scotland Yard cop assigned to investigate. All that said, when you get right down to it, the Hitch version is funnier and much more fun, win suspense thanks largely to AH’s use of cutting and setting: a riot outside of the small cinema run by the evil stepfather (Verloc) in which the lights blow out and the customers demand a refund, the weirdly drawn-out trip to Piccadilly carrying the bomb, and the young boy (Stevie) gets waylaid by a salesman hawking hair tonic and toothpaste - only Hitchcock! - the ghastly explosion itself, the unexpected murder (much softened here to let the romance play itself out), the pricey lunch at a famous restaurant (Simpson’s), and many other moments illuminating the London streets and street-crowds that give us a sense of a great country teetering on the edge of domestic terror, with most of the populace ignorant or indifferent. Sound familiar?

The British director Mike Leigh not only has major chops for his many films but turns out he was a really good playwright as well - perhaps not surprisingly in that his films are propelled by lengthy rehearsal periods and lots of creativity and improv on the part of all his major players - but a good place to look at his dramatic work is Abigail’s Party (1977), which he also seamlessly adapted for an excellent filmed version. It’s a small-scale drama, with only 5 characters and played out in real time - and the drama evolves over that course to broad comedy - the 5 (2 couples + 1) are the most awkward characters ever to appear in film - it’s probably the worst, most uncomfortable drinks for 5-some ever - more than Pinter, even. But what started off as a broad comedy by the end, fueled my much alcohol (and cigarettes, consider the era) into hysterics, brutality, and malevolence: How will any of them recover?, we wonder - and we’re glad we’re none of the above. 

And just a look back at 5 of the films up for 2023 Oscars in “short film” categories, posted by the New Yorker: Watched the 2 dox + one short feature, all of them good, not sure how I’d rank the chances, but was particularly moved and troubled by Stranger at the Gate (Joshua Settle and Connell Jones), about a Marine who returns home with a tremendously vitriolic hatred of Muslims - and the film reaches a surprise ending - and maybe the drama’s still ongoing, who knows? Haulout, another doc, is about a scientist who is studying a certain effect of climate change, and I won’t give away the particulars as it’s quite a surprise when we figure out what he’s studying. The only live-action short in this posting, Night Ride (Eirik Tveiten and Gaute Lid Larssen), a Norwegian film about a winter caper - a woman “hijacks” a suburban trolley late on a winter night, with a few surprises along the way as to some of the characters she encounters in her midnight heist; not sure this film has any great allegorical significance but fun to watch, and, hey, it’s only a short. 

And another brief catch-up: Season 3 of C. B. Strike (Tom Burke) gets off to an intriguing start as Stark and sidekick Robin (Holliday Grainger) get hired to track down the fate and possible whereabouts of a 30+ years ago missing person. Good luck with that. Despite some intriguing clues and leads in the first half of the series and despite the gradually developing relationship between Strike and Robin - inevitable, obviously - this season had the worst imaginable crime solution, absolutely ridiculous and improbable and unsatisfying in every way, a solution so ridiculous that the only way to present it the leads go through  long process of telling - rather than showing or dramatizing in any way. JK Rowland, the famed creator, has obviously run out of ideas - or out of time. 

Claire Denis’s The Intruder (2004) is another one of her visually stunning, exciting and hard-driving score, and an elliptical puzzle of a narrativeShe has no problem going back and forth in time with out clear demarcations and she intentionally presents various plot elements out of order so as to immerse us in the story - though sometimes even she goes too far, as some aspects to me on first viewing at least are obscure or inscrutable. From what I can tell the story is of a physically fit and imposing figure of a late-middle-age man, living alone in I think the French Alps (near the Swiss border anyway) having a relationship with a much younger, touch woman who works in the PO. Over the course of the film he travels to Asia (Korea?) to undergo a heart transplant - strange in such a seemingly vigorous man, but symbolically sound - and, as we later learn, he travels to put together a deal to sell something - ships? weaponry? - to a conglomerate with the hope of leaving all the profits to his son from out of wedlock, now an adult, whom the lead - Michael Subor as Louis Trebor, get  it? It’s an absorbing if sometimes frustrating film - I wish she’d more clearly delineated the various settings - Tahiti? Korea? Who knows? - and gave more depth to the improbability of his making this strange bequest: What does he seek? Absolution? So much of this film, even the title, are subject to interpretation: for ex., what does the long sequence at the border patrol signify? And why does Louis make a cash payment on the street to the husband/partner of the customs inspector? Or does this matter at all?  Of course the best way to enjoy this or maybe any film is to give yo your preconceptions and immerse yourself in the world put before you - waking? dreaming? central? peripheral? All possible, and likely. 

The French mini-series Women at War (Les Combattantes, 2022 - Cecile Lorne, creator, and Alexandre Laurent, dir., starring Audrey Fleurot) is a really fine historical romance/drama, with tremendous attention to the setting of its epoch - in a French mountain village just within reach of the expanding German front in the first year of WWI - with great attention to period details as in so many fine British productions, notably recently The Crown (as well as the similar series set in WWII, A French Village). Probably because it’s in French and not dubbed (thank God) this series has fallen under the radar so to speak; it should be better known outside France: The intricate plot is full of great dramatic moments and moral crises - and what makes it especially fresh and innovative is the focus on women behind the lines: many working as legal (or at least tolerated prostitutes), others working in a cloister where the “sisters” do their best to end to the many seriously wounded without nearly enough trained medical staff. At the top  it all: a group of prostitutes, lead by Fluerot, take on the task of running an ambulance service to bring the wounded from the front into the make-shift hospital. There are a wide range of characters, back stories, motivations, and rivalries 0 all told succinctly so the plot, while vast and somewhat complex, is credible and easy to follow. One would suppose from the conclusion that there will be no second season - which is also good, as for too many episodic productions play it out till its withered on the vine. 

I’ll join the chorus here and shout out in praise of The Last of Us (Craig Main and Neil Druckman, 2023), which amazingly is based on a video game, but don’t let that dissuade you. Sure it’s over the top in some ways - drawing at times on horror conventions and fears of the dead rising into new life as mushroom-like, hideous killers - and anyone bitten by these zombies will inevitably face the same fate. That said, the series has sinister echoes and exaggerations of the Covid infestation, and its drive is as much built political and historical speculation as it is from horror conventions: Could it happen? Could most of the world population fall to a deadly infestation? What kind of world would exist if 99 percent or so have died? In other words: Is it likely. No. Possible, yes, just barely. The series is exciting from start to finish with several big surprises along the way (no spoilers here) and of course it ends with an open field, as Season 2 is already inked in - I suspect a more definitive ending episode had to be scrapped in light of the success of season 1. Special kudos to the lead actors in their search for civilization across the US, Joel (Pedro Pascal) and esp Ellie (Bella Ramsey), a highly winning teen actor from Britain no less whose future is wide open I would say. 

John Cassavetes’s great, probably his greatest, film - A Woman Under the Influence (1974) is an extremely painful account of the mental and emotional breakdown of a 30-something suburban mom of 3 young kids Gena Rowlands), married to a volatile, sometimes bullying member of a repair crew for the LA water system (Peter Falk), both of whom deserved Academy Awards but must have been up against heavy competition or burdened by JC’s sometimes strained relationship to the film industry. Clearly these acts and the minor players as well all come with a strong background in theater and improv, but most of the genius is JC’s, with one fantastic scene after another; the blocking and so forth is nothing too unusual for film, but the performance and the insight are what makes this film so stunning - starting w/ GR’s drunken infidelity as PF works an emergency night shift and then through her bizarre behavior with her kids on a  play date and it gets worse from there; Falk, too, is highly dramatic, and his histrionic and unstable outbursts at the planned “return party” when GR comes home from an institution is just chilling and, seemingly, dead accurate. From all reports, JC had serious problems with alcohol himself, which makes this film in some ways a confessional. It’s not for everyone - some may find the pain too intense - but if you can take the gut punch it’s a classic. 

The Oscar-winning documentary Navalny (2022) from Daniel Roher is an incredibly bold and thoughtful account of the rise of the brave Russian leader who dared stand up to Putin (and to get under Putin’s thin skin in many ways), done w/ full cooperation from Navarnly, his family, and his coterie. N is unafraid to confront the Soviet leadership on many points and in many bold appearances, culminating in the near-fatal visit for a rally in Siberia in which N became violently ill - the Soviets, laughable, blame it on an infection - when it was obvious even to a dolt that he’d been poisoned - but exactly who and how did the dirty work was never made clear - until this film, which gives an inside account of a team of cyber-experts who managed to track down exactly who administered the poison - but their research couldn’t quite nail who knew about and ordered the attack; everyone surmised Putin knew and approved, but was there proof? Yes, thanks to the world’s greatest prank phone call since Alexander Graham Bell - a great triumph, but to no avail: As all well know, Navalny, on the road to rehab and recovery, was re-routed en route to Moscow (huge demo in the airport waiting to greet him, met with thuggish “security”) and waylaid at an outlying airport and eventually shipped off for 20 years in Siberia - where he today still languishes - a brave man, a disgraceful government, and a sad and brave documentary. 

The British film A Whole Lifetime with Jamie Demetriou is a series of sketches purportedly (loosely) covering the various stages of life of the lead performer (JD); the sketches include a wide range of satire and skit-humor: a takeout on RealityContest shows, a sight gag regarding awkward entrances to an office, send-up of the contemporary spoken-language musicals such as Hamilton, a touching and weird scene about a couple n their late ’50 trying to disprove the notion that life ends at 50, and others - almost too strange to recount: It’s like Monty Python brought up (or down) to a whole new level. Many will find it hilarious, some won’t get it at all, and others, like me, will appreciate the ups and downs and laugh out loud at the best moments and scratch my head at the rest. A+ for effort, though!

After 30_ years, Martin Scorsese’s GoodFellas (1990) still reigns at the pinnacle of American gangster movies, part of the elite troika that includes The Godfather series and The Sopranos, which single-handedly made serial dramas the metier of its time and ours. As to GoodFellas, it’s probably the crudest, cruelest, and most violent of the three - the outbursts of violence are quick and unexpected and show absolutely no mercy for the victims. There is also no focus whatsoever for the children (central sep in what made the Sopranos accessible and in its day unique), and it’s impossible to imagine any of the leads submitting to years of analysis (even though L. Bracco spanned the S’s and GFs, her distinct voice  creating a great internal echo). Unlike the others, GF is based on the memoir by the lead player and is purportedly based on “true events,” notably the Lufthansa job, widely played in media at the time. How much liberty the protag, Henry Hill, who grew up with reverence for the gangs but had no chance of rising about a supportive role because he was not of Italian descent, took w/ the facts is unknown, or not known to me anyway. But whatever liberties he took still left MS with plenty of elbow room to create a cast of frighteningly violent criminals, esp Joe Pesci’s Tommy, who kills in a flash without remorse. So many great scenes define this film: Pesci’s “You think I’m Funny?,” the famous Copa shot (extremely difficult to plan and produce), the mob housing in prison, Ray Liotta’s breakdown, the killing of the lackey in the private club. Probably too violent a film for many viewers today, but in its way and in its time: a classic. 

Like them or not, the recently departed Jean-Luc Godard’s films are unique in their style and in fact in their intentions. His film A Woman Is a Woman (Une femme est one femme, 1961) is a romantic comedy, featuring the always-great Anna Karina, the suitably stuffy Jean-Claude Brialy, and the superstar of the era, Jean-Paul Belmondo in kind of a love triangle, perhaps a dig at Jules and Jim (with a cameo by Jean Moreau). The essential conflict: Karina wants to have kids; Brialy says, no, not until they’re married; Belmondo is the alternative solution. But: Unlike any other treatment of love triangles (see above) of the struggles of young, turbulent romans (see millions), Godard does not want to suck you in with visions of romance, tears, fights and reconciliations, etc. He does not want you to get lost into the movie and its emotions: au contraire! He wants you at all times to be aware that you’re watching a movie - cinema verite; not New Wave but, a better term?- nouvelle blague. So he entertains us with a lot of in jokes (eg, Belmondo ways he wants to get home early to watch Jules and Jim on TV), strange interpolations (characters burst into song and dance, weird tricks with the camera (Karaina tosses an egg in the air leaves the kitchen, talks through a scene then returns to the kitchen to catch the egg in a pan), etc. All this grabs and holds your attention without moving you emotionally or ending with the characters. Still, it is what it is, or was - for some an avenue of genius and for others - me, among them - a good film marred by its over-reaching and uber-direction. 

On the other hand, Jean-Luc Godard’s 2nd film, Alphaville: A strange adventure of Lemmy Caution (1965) holds up well over time, though probably not in the way the JLG intended. The film is billed as sci-fi, but it’s  not a good fit with that genre; in fact it’s very much “new wave” French with its inside jabs, its ironies, its inventive storytelling and narration, and in its overall sense of cool detachment: it’s a commentary on the genre as well as a genre piece. In short, in some future epoch, the eponymous Lemmy travels intergalactically from a distant galaxy to investigate a form of hyper-intelligence in the eponymous Alphaville, which seems to be the last surviving civilization on Earth - although it’s a prosperous and highly urbane civilization. Various antagonists try to derail Lemmy’s investigation (he poses as a journalist writing a news story). What’s interesting about the story is how right Godard was in some major aspects - a future society in which computers and artificial intelligence will predominate - any how wring he was in others: the computers he envisioned were massive machines that “spoke” to us, to users, in a weirdly garbled voice. He had no anticipation of the gradual shrinkage and increased powers of computers; he just imagined bigger and bigger machines that do about the same thing on global scale (with all info provided in printouts!). He did not in any way anticipate iPhones, PCs, the instant and constant communication that we all live with around the clock, around the globe. So the mood of the film is both futuristic and nostalgic at the same time. The central relations is between Eddie Constantine and Anna Karina (as Natasha von Braun - many whimsical references to various 20th c. scientists and inventors and pop icons: ex.s, Doctor Heckle and Doctor Jeckell; Lemmy drives a Ford Galaxy); Karina portrays a high-priced “consort” who is robotic and without feelings or emotions until the end of this odd love story - even though the relationship between these two never clicks as he’s about 3 times her age - but that may be part of the point: She falls in love without any experience of love, somewhat like Miranda in TheTempest. As the couple escapes the terrors of Alphaville and heads off to a outer galaxy (G makes no attempt to make such a journey, such a civilization, credible) we know that it will never work out for them.

Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey (2022) is a 4-episode documentary (from Rachel Dretzin and Grace McNullty) about a fundamentalist Mormon church in southern Utah/northern Arizona (and later near Waco) led by an extremely disturbed many, Warren S. Jeffs, who considers himself a prophet and runs a militaristic enclave, birth-to-death, where the men in the leadership, esp. F\Jeffs himself, have multiple wives(dozens), controls all marriages within the so-called church, and, most disturbing of all and eventually  leading to his downfall, taking preteen “wives” and having sex with numerous children, brides or otherwise. A few aware women at last run from this atrocity - giving up family and all money/possessions - and a few victims bravely agreed to testify in court against Jeffs. The first episode drags a little but it’s needed to set the scene and by the end it’s an incredibly sad and troubling indictment of religious fundamentalism and of hypocrites and criminals who hide behind the cloth - or in this case, from the pulpit and from mysterious daily so-called religious messages from Jeffs.

Alfred Hitchcock’s (only?) film set in and about Australia, Under Capricorn (1949, based on a play by John Colton and Margaret Linden, in turn based on a a novel by Helen Simpson; AH’s2nd filming color) is atypical of his work: It’s clearly a romance drama, without (much) bloodcurdling horror and without a “wrong man” crime story. Despite its atypicality, it’s a worthy filming its own right - even down to the camera work that any viewer will notice: long, sweeping, in-motion settings and gatherings. The closest it comes to the Hitchcock type is with the plot element - think Jane Eyre and Rebecca - of the “madwoman in the attic” - in this case it’s Ingrid Bergman, who is victim of a gaslight scheme engineered by one of the servants in the house. Her husband, played by Jos. Cotton (though if you close your eyes you’d think it’s John Wayne) as an ex-con - who like many other cons sent to Australia stands accused of petty crimes mostly usually to avert starvation - who’s made it big financially but will never get the respect he deserves because of his “rank” in society. This film is classic Bergman, helpless and alone - much like her great performance in Dr. Jekyll. The plot as a whole isn’t all that great, but there are many good scenes: the dinner party gone wrong, Bergman’s last breakdown, among others. Btw I was unable to spot the AH cameo, which perhaps shows that the film was more elegant and less generic than AH’s previous work; it signaled a change in his style - but the change was only temporary, as he was about to transport to Hollywood, with all its demands and rewards. 

Could we ask any more from a film than we get in Mike Leigh’s Secrets & Lies (1996), a great family drama, an examination of race and class, a touching and heart-warming though never sentimental or anything close to saccharine, and fantastic acting, particularly from Brenda Blethyn as a middle-aged working class woman who to her astonishment receives a communication from the daughter (played by Marianne Jean-Baptiste) she gave up for adaption at birth when she was 15 - and complications ensue., and Lesley Manville’s brief appearance as a social worker Among the many unforgettable scenes - amazing what Leigh can draw out from his well-rehearsed actors, notably the many photo sessions of a pro photographer who’s at the center of the story, the meeting of mother and daughter esp the scene in the coffee shop, the grand conclusion when the whole extended family gathers in a tumultuous meeting that leads to many revelations and emotions at their highest pitch. Without a doubt S&L should be on anyone’s short-list of the best films of all time (why it’s not in Sight and Sound list I don’t know except maybe the weird idea that British filmmakers can’t be taken as seriously as French New Wave or World Cinema). 

War Sailor (2022), a Norwegian film from Gunnar Vikene with an unfortunately vague title, would have been a lengthy 2+ hours but Netflix wisely splits it into 3 episodes so as not to scare off viewers. It would be good, however, to watch the episodes in one gulp because the narrative is so smart and moving and at times terrifying that I think it deserved a straight-through - and in fact its deserves more attention, like why no Oscar nomination? The film in brief tells of two buddies, one with a family (w/ 3 kids?) and the other not, who ship out from their homes in Bergan, Norway, as merchant sailors near the outset of WWII; they assure their families - and themselves - that they’ll be safe from the war as Germany is unlikely to bring the war to Norway. Wrong on both counts: the 2 guys go through some horrific attacks and ordeals (the filmmakers note at the end that there were thousands of fatal attacks on Norwegian merchant ships - so this film, though not “based on a true story,” gives an account of a little-known aspect of the war. The film is both war film and a romantic drama - played throughout with wit and insight, a family drama and a friendship torn apart by war. All together it’s ambitious film of love and war, gripping from top to bottom, and it deserves more attention than it’s likely to receive. åå

February 2023: Hitchcock, Tarkovsky, Mike Leigh, Elaine May, Godard, Eo, Manchurian Candidate, and Bollywood

 February 2023: Hitchcock, Cunk on Earth, Tarkovsky, Mike Leigh, Elaine May

Alfred Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes (1938) is further evidence, as if anyone needed that, to show at AH was one of the greatest film entertainers of all time, perhaps especially in the 1930s British period when he had fewer resources, distractions, and expectations that sometimes overwhelmed his films from the American period - a return visit to a few, such as North by Northwest, found them surprisingly long and convoluted, whereas the British films cut right to the chase so to speak. That that Lady V isn’t convoluted - who can possibly follow the machinations of the plot?, and yet who cares - there’s so much fun and verbal wit here, and lots of playing with our own perceptions: Did the lady truly vanish? Or are we seeing things, as the protagonist (Margaret Lockwood) seems to be? Are we fellow passengers, befuddled by her insistence that Mrs. From has been abducted or otherwise disappeared? Are are do we concur with her and assume a plot is afoot? AH keeps pushing questions at us: Whom to we believe? And if she hasn’t truly vanished, how do we explain the numerous coincidences? Throughout, there’s a lot of foolery, esp by the witty Michael Redgrave - animist of all AH gives us some amazing scenes: the daring ride outside the moving train, the British businessmen obsessed with the cricket results, the fight with the magician in the baggage car of the train, the big pointless shootout at the end that seems lifted from a Western, and more. Lots of fun to watch, and just don’t try to make sense of everything because, well, neither did Hitchcock. 

Lovers of the unique world of Bollywood movies will sure get their money’s worth out of V. Vjayendra Prasad’s epic RRR (2022), which has lots of everything: song, dance, extended fight sequences, chases, a dangerous rescue attempt, clear and two-dimensional heroes and villains, lavish set design, enormous crowd sequences - and all in the first hour of this 3-hour drama, which is clearly not meant for all viewers, which is to say one hour for me was enough but if it’s your cup of Darjeeling go for it. 

John Frankenheimer’s noirish film The Manchurian Candidate (1962 - based on Richard Condon’s novel, and remade in 2004)) is one of the great cinematic portrayals of psychological disorder - in this case, a popular concept of the Cold War era: Brainwashing (a trope that caused one Republican candidate to drop a presidential campaign [Romney sr.] - here treated as if brainwashing were possible - a way to get people to a permanent state of hypnosis and then to control them into, in this case, high-profile assassins. The concept on the face of it is absurd, but it was creepy enough to lead to mass hysteria, of which this film was the epitome: a group of US soldiers on patrol in Korea is captured and somehow “brainwashed” into doing anything they hear as a command, including the lead actor - Lawrence Harvey - in cold blood shoots to death one of this mates. Harvey, playing Sg Rayman Shaw returns to the states as a supposed hero but actually as an automaton who will kill on command. Others in the patrol group have vague memories of their imprisonment - notably an improbably cast Frank Sinatra, who does himself well. Frankenheimer used this film as a springboard to direct several other political thrillers of the 60s; this one has to be one of his best and most imaginative, with lots of superimpositions to get us into and out of Sgt Shaw’s head, and amazingly fast cuts, especially in the climactic sequence at the Republican National Convention in NYC. 

Chalk up more 2022 films that I couldn’t finish watching: Armageddon Time (what a bad title!) and You People, the first of which had serious intent but seemed to me to ha ve no sense of what it’s like to be an artistic young man from a relatively wealthy Queens community, ca 1980?, who crosses some boundaries (smoking marijuana in a hallway) and gets transferred to a private school - I could not buy into the character, his horrible teaches, his mean parents; the other, You People, had some broad comic scenes but ultimately none of the lead characters - 2 30-somethings (white male, Black female) who very quickly fall in love and get engaged only to face family issues on both sides of the family, funny at times but never for a moment true to life. 

There’s only one word for the British 5-part mocumentory series Cunk on Earth (2022) and that’s “very hilarious” (joke). A terrific sendup of pretentious and socially awkward mostly British academics and the grandiosity of many specials e.g. BBC’s David Attenborough and even PBS’s Ken Burns  as star performer Diane Morgan tours the world to give us the supposed history of civilization in 5 easy pieces of acerbic and comic excellence. No sense in giving away any of the great gags, scenes, and lines - except that I missed some of the gags because I was laughing. Thx, Netflix. 

One of the Soviet director Andrei Tarkovsky’s last films (2nd to last actually) Nostalghia [cq] (1983) is the perfect film (please don’t extract this fragment for use in publication [joke]) if you like extremely long close-ups, panning shots, and tracking shots, so slow and statioc that you may give your flatscreen a rap to ensure that it hasn’t fallen asleep. It hasn’t; you might. But to be fair: I watched the whole 90 or so minutes with great interest. In short, as w/ most of his Soviet films, it’s by no means plot driven and never crystal clear about the actual plot but, let’s face it, each shot is gorgeous (Italian countryside, ruined castles and courts, a decrepit mineral water, an awkward and ill-lit hotel… ) and two subtle, provocative lead actors (Oleg Yankovsky, an emotionally drained Soviet writer in Italy to gather info for a book he’s writing on an exiled Russian author who’d taken solace in these mineral waters and his “tour guide” for his time in Italy, Erland Josephson). There’s lots of sexual innuendo - Oleg is attracted to his beautiful guide yet yearning to return to his wife in Russia, Erland, in a hysterical outburst accuses him (unjustly, it seems) of coming on to her. It’s hard to determine - intentionally - precisely what might or might not have happened among these characters - but the movie has great clarity and insight about its topography and archeology - so many beautiful long shots of the building and the rock grounds, the remnants of the super baths. Nota film for everyone and without doubt not the best entree into Tarkovsky’s work (see other entries on this blog) but an unusual and sometimes disturbing (one of the main secondary characters apparently feared the world’s end and thus imprisoned his wife and son in their apartment for 7 years!) work of art-filmish art. 

Nate Bargatze's Hello, World comedy special is hilarious - a completely “clean” act (a note brought home when his 10 or so age daughter introduces him and we see her and comic’s wife backstage at opening of show - that finds humor in themes unlikely places, e.g., digging a hole to build a fish pond, tribulations of the first-born, a sliding door entry into a house … on the other hand Marc Maron’s well-meaning From Bleak to Dark touches all the right/expected places and is much aligned with us and the riotous NY audience re politics and culture and yet, the fact of the matter is, nothing in the first half (all we saw) of his routine was funny - we did not laugh once, so go figure. 

Hard Labour (1973) is an early work, made the earliest work, by Mike Leigh, one of a series of TV dramas at the start of his career. It may also be the darkest work of Leigh’s career, as his characters, strange and eccentric as they may be, tend to come across as “rounded” and quite often as really funny (usually unintentionally). This film is light on humor to put it mildly; we follow a middle-aged working-class woman who helps support her family via working as a maid - where’ she is constantly mistreated and humiliated by the stone-cold, well-off woman for whom she works, constantly wiping surfaces or so it seems. Her husband, with whom she hardly communicates, works a night shift and is grumpy toward everyone. Her daughter, late teens?, makes some effort to confide with her mom, but the taciturn mother offers no comfort or solace. Toward the end, the mother  - Liz Smith as Mrs. Thornley - seeks comfort in confession,  but the priest hardly seems to be listening to her, quite an indictment of the Church. It’s not a joyous film, obviously, but it’s smart and credible, a great contribution to 60s/70s British films about the troubled working class. 

(Jean-Luc) Godard’s La Chinoise (1967) was (once) ground-breaking and imaginative and a showcase for every photographic and cinematic device Godard could devise or reconstruct, from VO narrative to unscripted rants, to lecture and response on various leftist tracts and treatises and thinkers, to sounding music clips and strange typographical observations about film itself unfolding - deeply influencing world cinema in its day, at least temperamentally if not politically, a film that today looks more antiquated than a Soviet/Maoist treatise, which in part in is. The plot such as I can isolate and explain let alone understand any of it covers 4 (I think - I only watched 3 for about half the film length) movements as we watch the 20-something radicals living and breathing in a Paris commune and plotting, however feckless it may be, some kind of attack, crisis, war on the bourgeoisie - all of which unfurls for us, to a degree at least, as the director (unseen) questions several of the youth about their background, politics, thoughts - I’m glad to have watched it for an hour but that was long enough as the film eventually seems flaccid and self-indulgent, lacking in some of the aspects I, and most viewers of film, like the most, that is plot, emotion, insight, beauty, fright, laughs, exotica, reflection, and character.

Aside from one highly troubling sequence (a performance at a music hall by a small orchestra in Blackface), Alfred Hitchcock’s really early film, one of his first “Talkies,” Young and Innocent (1937) is a funny, even charming - really unusual for the acidic AH - tale and one of the first to establish a key element in all of AH’s work, “the wrong man.” In brief a handsome, well-educated young man spies a body supine on a beach and runs off to fine aid (somewhat improbable, but, OK); witnesses find him running from the scene and ID him as the killer. At first he’s blasé, sure that his class statue will get him out of this mess, but he soon sees that his lawyer is a dolt and he’s probably going to be convicted - but he manages to escape from the courtroom and thus begins a chase, when a lovely young woman - who happens to be the police chief’s daughter, picks him up, takes pity, and the two of them make a run for it, in part in search of a belt that was the killing device. So we’ve to a “wrong man” story, police incompetence, guy and girl on the run, a Maguffin (the belt), and a budding romance all in motion - and it’s a lot of fun with plenty of laughs and narrow escapes that anyone will enjoy, except, dammit, for the blackface scene, so, why? AH was so busy setting a huge crown and crane shot that he didn’t see what was right before his eyes, not that he would have cared, troubled guy that he was in his own life. 

The Kiss of Death (1977) is another early work from Mike Leigh, this one part of anthology series from British TV, far from Leigh’s best work, this obscure movie with the quixotic title (this is not a vampire film!) is worth a look for David Threlfall’s debut as an Trevor, extremely shy and gawky youth in the British midlands (Birmingham?) where he works as an assistant to a funeral director and awkwardly tries to build a relationship with a young woman of his age. The scene toward the end in which Kay Adshead (Linda) guides Trevor toward his first kiss is justly renowned; for me the most powerful and disturbing scene, so underplayed and tense, involves the death of an infant. Overall, though, it’s a low-key film without a dramatic denouement - life just goes on for these poor “blokes,” although Trevor seems to have gained a bit of self-confidence. The main drawback, however, is that the film iOS too low-key - as the Midlands accent is nearly impenetrable to American viewers; give it a look, butI can assure you that you’ll miss a good half of the dialog. 

I can assure you that Jerzy Skolimowski’s 2022 film Eo. (Oi in Polish, if you’re counting) will not win the Academy Award for best International film but it’s worth a look; I though I was clever in noting that the film is very closely aligned with the Bresson’s famous Au Hasard Balhazar, from about 50 years ago so who’s counting now?, but I see that the credits recognize Au Hazard, as well they should: Both chronicle the sad life and demise of a circus donkey removed from the ring (by animal-rights protesters) and goes on to lead a peripatetic life of loneliness and abuse - a sad story for which parents should certainly be alert. Still, it’s quite an achievement to have donkey as the prime mover of a mover, aside from animal-dudded tearjerkers such as Homeward Bound, which I found terribly moving long ago. So the lead/title character has nothing to say, or nothing in language to say, but there are some powerful sequences as well as some artistic touches such as flashing red lighting during dream/thought sequences. The scene most will remember concert some “football” hooligans who take out their wrath on you knows who - and the last scene, although it’s thankfully palliated by the assurance that no animals were hurt, etc. 

The 3-part doc Murdaugh Murders (a title? a sentence?) from Netflix is groundbreaking in that the documentary is being aired just as the trial of the eponymous Alex gets under way, so we can get all the background and then watch it play out in a murder trial live as it happens. Thedocumentary itself breaks no new ground in regard to format, style, and conventions and the doc team faced a huge task in that there are so many people and possible crimes involves - plus of course the raw wounds that the trial has opened - but they did an admirable job in presenting the key moments of this years’-long drama, clearing away some of the underbrush and giving us a good idea about life in this small SC township and about the inter-relationships among the main players - some of whom seem to have started as spoiled teens w/ terrible judgement and odious behavior who, several years later, feel still sorrowful and wounded but, one hopes, matured and wisened by experience. 

Elaine May’s Mikey and Nicky (1976) is a nearly unique genre film, a story of two hoodlum gangster buddies (John Cassavetes and a young Peter Falk) who interact, squabble, fight, and engage in various low-life encounters over the course of done day - a rough-edged, fearless film - a film not generally associated with female directors and writers then or today - and totally engrossing it is. The plot in brief begins as JC calls his pal PF and asks him for help, he’s a dead man; Falk then guides Cass. out of his rented crappy hotel room and through a series of encounters = and we can see the strong tradition of improv at work, as these are 2 pro actors with strong backgrounds in live theater - culminating in a fight between the two guys and a tumultuous scene at the apartment of Cass’s girlfriend (one of the weirdest sex scenes ever) and a final visit to his long-suffering wife. Almost stealing the show is the dour hitman (Ned Beatty) who just can’t seem to catch a break - or a kill. We’re both repulsed by these guys and their dark milieu and we feel sad for them, smart guys who’ve wasted their lives, whose time is (almost) up - among the most personal and character-driven films of its time.