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
