March 2022: A great anti-war movie, Murakami in film, Roumanian film, Karel Reisz, Fassbinder, Jarmusch, Lincoln, and Will Smith

March 2022

The 40-part AppleTV series Lincoln’s Dilemma is engrossing and informative on so many levels; while fully acknowledging the pain many Black Americans today feel in the presence of statuary or landmarks that claim Lincoln as the great emancipator - arguing vehemently and correctly that Blacks earned their own emancipation, through their years of suffering and their uprisings during the Civil War and their valiant service in the still-biased Union army - the series recognizes the great accomplishment of Lincoln and, most important, his evolution over time, over the course of his presidency - initially only pledging to restore the union w/out any particular view on slavery or emancipation, gradually, in part through his own suffering and loss, feeling bold enough to use emancipation in order to move the war toward its conclusion and hold the union of states - and up to the time of his death by which point he recognized the importance of emancipation regardless of political or military expedience. Told with excellent use of period photographs and documents, with lots of voice-over readings of key statements by Lincoln, those who knew him, those who suffered in the war and in the confederacy, and in particular Douglass, who spurred Lincoln on like a living conscience, though they met face to face only three times. The series is narrated by a collection of Lincoln schools, historians, and journalists, all of them on point and clear, giving me faith that there must be many great young historians at work today and teaching their craft and knowledge to today’s generation of college students - a really impressive group effort. Jacqueline Olive and Barak Goodman direct, based on the book Abe by David S. Reynolds.

Elem Klimov’s Come and See (1985) has to be the best war, or actually anti-war, film I’ve ever seen - why it’s so far under the radar is a bit mysterious and must have something to do w/ its being one of the few great films come of the post-Stalin era Soviet Union (another being the much more recent Beanpole). Come and See (yes, bad title) is in the tradition of All Quiet on the Western Front (the first anti-war film I ever saw) as we follow a young man’s induction into military life and armed combat. The setting both geographical and temporal is a little muddy at first, at least to this American viewer, but I see by the end that it was set during World War II and involves an small Soviet military unit taking up arms against the invading Nazi army - always a morally confusing moment, as it seems strange to be on the side of the Soviets, but an enemy of my enemy is a friend. Apparently it’s set in Belarus, and the film goes through what feel like several “acts”: initially the young man is essentially impressed into the Soviet Army to the horror of his parents who need him on the small family farm. He is taken in by an Army unit on the march, and all seems well and jovial for a time - it’s like a camp!- and on a mission he encounters a young woman whom he seems to fall for (the film, like many Soviet films, is quite chaste); suddenly they’re under aerial attack - vivid, realist, scary. He later makes his way back to his family farm, which in now deserted - everyone’s been killed by the Germans. On he goes - the next “movement” being the appropriation from a farmer of a dairy cow - an incredible sequence that ends in despair. And then the most amazing part - a segment of may 20 minutes, maybe longer, of the German overthrow of and occupation of a small town - just an astonishing sequence of cruelty and brutality, that never feels gratuitous - just horrifying; I know of no other sequence like this. (The young woman reappears, somewhat changed.) So the film is 2+ hours and it’s without any redeeming humor or sentiment; insofar as it’s a justification of Soviet brutality (to its own), to hell with it, but insofar as it’s a filmmakers view of the horrors of war, it’s must-see. 

The quirkiness and oddity of Haruki Murakami’s fiction has at last become evident to contemporary filmmakers (years ago I tried to persuade friend director AW to adapt Wild Sheep Chase to an American setting), with the latest venture being Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car (2021); should it be 3 hours long? Probably not (we watched in the 3 one-hour segments, making it much like a miniseries) but in any format it’s an excellent film about a theater director coping with the death of his wife and with several realizations about his wife’s infidelity, all of which lead to surprising outcomes and developments across the span of this epic; much of the film has do w/ the director’s taking on a multi-language production of Uncle Vanya (another fave among filmmakers, for obvious reasons), which at first looks as if it will become one of worst productions ever staged but surprisingly it becomes a beautiful project that touches on various aspects of the lives of the actors (and others). The highlight-reel segment is the long car ride in which the lead actor in the play gives the director (Hidetoshi Nishijima) a spill of info about his late wife, most of which surprises us, some of which surprises him, all of which may or may not be a lie.  Definitely an intelligent film; the slow pacing and lack of high melodrama will mean it’s not for all viewers, but patience pays off - the film becomes better as the plot moves along and we become accustomed to its pace, so to speak. I’d like to read or re-read the source story. 

Radu Jude’s 2016 film from Romania, Scarred Hearts (the title is awkward, at least in English) is a beautiful if painful medical odyssey, as we follow a young man (early 20s) in 1935 Romania as he enters a TB asylum; the care he receives may have been adequate in its day but from our vantage looks brutal and ineffective: essentially the well-meaning doctor punctures the patient’s stomach to siphon off infectious pus - extremely painful - the puts the patient in a body cast, essentially making him immobile for months - with obvious physical (and mental) deterioration. The actor portrays a well-known (in Romania) poet and novelist of the 30s, Max Bletcher, whose words open each segment of the film; it’s obvious to all viewers that Bletcher (played as “Emmanuel” Lucian Teodor Rus) is dying - but over the course of his demise he falls in love w/ a young former patient who spends time at the facility. Obviously this film evokes Magic Mountain, but this is hardly in the same social (or intellectual, or medical) orbit - as the life of the patients is painful and difficult, there are several riotous episodes, lots of carousing, much open, even encouraged, often painful sex, some anti-Semitism directed at Emmanuel - it’s by no means a resort or a place anyone would ever choose to stay for a minute. His well-off Jewish family members do the best they can for “Manu,” but there’s only so much that medical science of the day can do; his awkward journey at the end to Hungary for more extensive supposedly helpful surgery is horrifying and sorrowful to watch. The whole film is photographed beautifully as a series of long takes from a still (or slowly approaching) camera; I don’t think there’s a single close-up in the whole film - especially strange in that most of the dialog is spoken by actors immobilized and on their backs facing the ceiling. In short, a unique, troubling, yet powerful film. 

Don’t ask me to tell you the plot of Harry and Jack Williams’s series, The Tourist (2022, HBO) as it is almost impossible to recount let alone relate all of the twists and turns, many surprising, most of which make sense - I mean, yes, you could log off saying “that could never happen,” but throw yourself into the unlikelihood and go for the ride, which is a lot of fun, often laugh-out-loud funny, and engrossing - right through to the conclusion which leans hopefully forward to a 2nd season. Roughly, this (poorly named) series follow a man driving in the Outback who is pursued he knows not why and, following a brutal crash, has lost all of his memory; over the course of the 6 episodes we learn that the is being pursued by gangsters - or maybe he is a gangster? - and aided by a beautiful woman whom he may (or may not?) have known her in his previous life and pursued by the Australian cops - incompetent? just inexperienced? or in on the scheme? You get the picture, or maybe you don’t, but it’s fun and engaging all the way. 

Karel Reisz’s Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960) still stands as one of the great films of its era, capturing the look and mood of post-war (I think the story was set sa 1948?) London - shot in industrial Nottingham, every moment - from the first moment of men like automatons in some sort of factory to the close overlooking a once-pastoral hillside now scarred by housing developments - dark and oppressive; as with the other Angry Young Man films, this one focuses on an angry Arthur, played well by Albert Finney, fun-loving but ultimately destructive, cruel, self-centered, dreaming of a better life but doing nothing bring that about, full of hate toward all authority figures, belligerent and unfaithful to women and to his “pals” - yet, somehow, we feel, what choice does he have? At least he’s full of life and not shut off from life his fellow oppressed workers. The film is based on a novel by Alan Sillitoe - who also wrote the screenplay - and it will of course remind most viewers of The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner, based on a Sillitoe story - probably a better film because of a more rounded central character and its beautiful, sorrowful ending - whereas SN&SM ends abruptly and ironically in a way that doesn’t do justice to much of the rich material. 

Many takes on Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s vast and diverse collection of works, some great some just eccentric, and one of the latter would be Chinese Roulette (1976). It starts as a surprisingly “French” drawing-room comedy as a husband and wife each set out for a weekend tryst w/ mistress or lover (the lead character was supposedly heading for a meeting in Osloa) when both couples converge at the same getaway, a “mansion” that one of the couples owns. These are 4 sophisticates so rather than blow up in anger they accept the switch of couples and engage in smirch civilized if repressed chatter and recreations, such as an on-going chess match. The movie never becomes what we viewers were led to believe: it’s not Cosi nor Midsummer Night’s Dream - it’s just - I don’t even know what; the 4 adults (and one of their kids who’s the most malevolent of all) begin to engage in some weird party games including the eponymous roulette but for me it was impossible to follow the rules of significance of that game nor of any of the other distractions. By the end I was just puzzled: Who are these weirdos, including the household staff, one of whom is writing some sort of Nietzsche-like profundities and absurdities, so who is he and who cares? WMF seems to have lost interest in the film aside from its being an opportunity for shots from many odd angles and perspectives; otherwise, it was probably a quick one-off for this highly productive filmmaker but one that would fall at or near the bottom of his list, and mine.

Jim Jarmusch’s Stranger Than Paradise (1984) is great to watch today, a time capsule of roadside life - America looked so different then, in some ways much more industrial and grimy and in other respects vacant, untouched - and of life in a dingy apartment in Brooklyn, now probably renting or a condo in the millions. The story - classic motif, a stranger comes to town - involves the unexpected arrival in a young man whose 16-year-old cousin suddenly appears at his doorstep, a new arrival fro Hungary. As we watch her hang around with cousin Will and his pal Eddie it becomes obvious that they’re going nowhere - petty grifters, aimless - and that she’ll do all right in America: she’s attractive, animated, and she picks everything up fast. The plot, thin as it may be )(which is ok in the totally non-=commercial film0, involves a road trip to Cleveland and an extended trip to Florida, where they boys blow their $ at the track; the end is deliberately open and inconclusive, much like a Joyce story. The cinematography, b/w, a series of scenes in which the camera is nearly still and we are allowed to absorb the scene in detail (I think these are called master shots - what’s unusual is that this film is composed solely of such shots). All of these shots help us understand the context of the time and place of these characters - so distant today! - and some are beautiful in their own right and hilarious, as for example the long shot - 2 minutes? - of the threesome with one picked-up friend (interested in the girl) as we watch them watch what seems to be a Kung Fu movie. And almost forgot to mention the terrific, highly dissonant, score for a string quartet (I think), mostly in the 2nd and 3rd acts of the film, plus the added bonus of clips from Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’s Got a Spell on You, terrific performer froth 50s little known today (nice touch making the Hungarian teen her champion). Really nice debut (?) film from JJ, who’s gone on to a great career in non-Hollywood cinema, about as far from the studio system as one can get. 

King Richard (Reynaldo Marcus Green, 2021) gets it about right, as far as I can tell from following the Williams sisters and their rise to stardom over the year. We’re left with a suitably ambivalent feeling about their father/coach, Richard Williams, in Will Smith’s (deserved) Oscar role: yes, RW deserves praise for his raising his 5 daughters in a wholesome and loving manner, and esp for doing so in the challenging environment of Compton/LA, where he is threatened and beaten by thugs who harass his daughters Venus and Serena. His faith in their abilities and his intelligent coaching and managing their careers - despite so many potential pitfalls and such hostile and racist reception by so many in and on the circuit. That said, it’s not hard to sympathize with the neighbor who suspects him of child abuse, as he is extremely hard on his daughters and a martinet on certain aspects of family discipline (his wife, Aunjanue Ellis,  is a good counterweight, and I loved the scenes where she told him off - the only person who could possibly do so). RA knew that his daughters would become stars - but we also have to recognize that the world is full of parents who overestimate the brilliance of their kids - and to an outsider he would seem like one of those, at least at first. The film culminates in the ultimate success of the girls, Venus in particular - and does not even touch on the issues of what about the other girls in the family? If memory serves, at least one did not come to a good end. I would not say the film is “scrubbed clean,” as we definitely see some of the flaws in RW’s system and his confrontational behavior, but it was obviously made w/ the cooperation of the W family so it was definitely not going to cross any lines. All told, worth watching, esp for tennis fans and for those curious about what spurred Smith on to such hostility at the awards ceremony: he’d been primed for anger, 

Elliot's Watching February 2022: Some I'd recommend (Scenes from a Marriage, As We See It, Coda, Crit Camp); others, not

 Elliot’s Watching Feb 2022

West Side Story - barely watchable. Spielberg and Co. decided to expand and narrative aspect of the story, which is by far the worst part - if anything it should be trimmed and just get us to the music and even to the dancing. Overall, the two gangs looked like a ballet corp (or corpse for that matter) and it was hard not to laugh when the gangs get tough, so-called, with each other. Ditto when the do flying leaps, jete’s, pirouettes, whatever on the mean streets of NYC. The 1960s v wasn’t great and probably has not aged well (not as well as Rita Moreno) but it was far, far, better than this mess of a film. 

Somebody, Somewhere - speaking of musicals - didn’t do much for me in the first 2 episodes, despite its good hear and good intentions. Just not funny (or sad) enough. As We See It, about a group home for adults on the “spectrum” was much more moving and credible for me, though my viewing partners were not in agreement so I probably won’t see much more of this one, either.

On the other hand…there’s Ingmar Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander, which I first saw around its release date (1982) and I think I was too young to understand or appreciate this work. Or maybe it’s that I saw the movie version and have just finished watching, for the first time, the “theatrical” v., at 5 hours or saw and 5 episodes. I suspect that the film version included all of the emotional highlights, most notably the horrendous interrogations that the evil bishop/stepfather inflicts on the intelligent and sensitive Alexander (young Bergman) - in other words, the movie version was almost unrelenting horror whereas the theatrical presents a broader social canvas - esp in the amazing first episode that intro’s us to the Ekdahl (Bergman) family, which at first seems fun-loving the boisterous in their lavish xmas celebration - and we recognize, over the course of the episode, one night, we see that the family is deeply flawed by infidelity and failure. In any event, the series is breathtaking, and the Bishop has to be about the most noxious and hateful character in any dramatic film of the century. 

Other shows I will not finish include: The After Party, juvenile and preposterous; Red Notice (feature film) thinks it’s another James Bond except the characters are bits of fluff and the plot is absurd without being funny, charming, or devious; South Side, yes I did laugh a few times at this series about the Black community and its denizens in Southside Chicago - but not funny enough to hold my attention over a full season; Gilded Age, paper thin and completely unengaging in first episode, not even close to the standards that the BBC has - can anyone not see where this is headed? - so why not just adapt one of the great novels or stories?of the era rather than try to write something anew? And adding more to this list: What went wrong for Julia Garner/Shonda Rhymes on the interminable series Inventing Anna, which seemed phony and strange and just plain uninteresting from the outset, despite the all-star lineup. Do they have any idea how a newspaper/magazine office manages? Do they have any sense of how to create dramatic tension as reporter tries to convince her editors that this story, of a woman who faked her way into the upper crust of NY society, would be interesting or tense in the least? No, no, and no. Sorry

However, what a nice surprise to come across the under-the-radar Best Pic nominee Coda; it won’t win the Oscar, for obvious reasons (sorry, Apple TV), but it sure could attract a wider audience - a terrific, heart-warming, never soporific or gratuitous, of a teenager girl who works on her family fishing boat out of Gloucester while a full-time h.s. student with dreams of becoming a pro singer, with the catch that her family member all have complete deafness. The film gives us unusual insight into the world of those without hearing and is full of surprises and twists of fate as the young woman breaks free, to a degree, from her family - but finds a way to bridge the gap between her aspirations, which her parents and bro can obviously only partially appreciate if that, and the need and desire to be close to those who love her no matter what. 

Hagai Levi’s re-take on Bergman’s Scenes from a Marriage doesn’t quite measure up against the original, but it’s still a powerful and sometimes frightening intense, close look at a youngish (30+) Boston-area couple and who they deal directly and painfully with issues that arise over the course of their endangered marriage: pregnancy and medical abortion, infidelity, separation, sexual longing, and, in the episode closest the Bergman original, heart-felt reparation. The series reads like 5 intense two-person plays, and the leads, Jessica Chastain and Oscar Isaac give it their all. Probably not a show for everyone, but in an age of too much streaming drivel and lackluster comedy, this series wins props for intensity and credibility.

Then there’s Douglas Sirk’s Imitation of Life (1959); in my admittedly fading memory the 1934 v was more powerful and moving, but the Sirk remake (both based oh Fannie Hurst’s novel) is far the more lush and operatic - too much so, by today’s standards, which tend to favor minimalism and subtlety rather than over-the-top melodrama. So much depends on the score! As you watch it try to imagine it w/out the scare and it would be laughable. The story, groundbreaking in its day for its honesty about race relations, today looks too condescending at best and puzzling in ways that really aren’t so great: It’s a “passing” story, with the young girl, a light-skinned Black child who identifies even from an early age as “white” and as she gets older she rejects her Black mother and is embarrassed any time her mother is on the scene. Despite its strengths as a mother-daughter drama, the film doesn’t really give voice to the Black girl’s struggle: She’s right, in a way; to ID as black in the 1950s was to cut oneself off from most opportunities for success. The overacting, the schmalz, make the film laughable at ties, but it’s best to accept it as a product of its era and ponder: How would a director/writer take on this theme today? 

The much anticipated season 4 of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, at least based on the first episode, is a crashing bore with almost no good laugh lines and some long passages that are painful to watch, notably the long ride on the ferris wheel; yes, Rachel Brosnahan can still bring it - and Susie Myerson commands the screen at times, but something’s missing here and I think it’s comedy. I can’t be the only on who thinks Tony Shaloub is just plain not funny. But what about Brosnahan? In this season so far, which is as far as I’ll get, she just seems angry and deranged. Anger is not necessarily humor. This show has drifted far from its roots. And btw the same holds true for Ali Wong, whose 3rd Netflix comedy special is, based on the first half-hour, just a rant - provocative, sure, but not really funny, just gross and indecourous. Loved her previous special - which has real insight into relationships, class, ethnicity - but this one just was going nowhere good, despite the hilarity from the audience (much good-will laughing and cheering, as with so many comedy audiences - handpicked?).

First noting that we have returned to As We See It, a moving and provocative series about a group home for 3 young adults with severe autism and their medical aide, a terrific series that gives us insight into a world and a malady about which most of us know little, plus it’s comic without being condescending and dramatic without being melodramatic or, for that matter, predictable.

Over past couple of days have watching Max Ophuls’s late (last?) film, The Earrings of Madame de… (1953), which unlike above series (in every way) is melodramatic and romantic and an evocation of a long-gone era - Gilded Age Paris - with a distinct focus on the world of the aristocratic and privileged, though not without several snide remarks and actions throughout that, if we absorb these moments, show us privilege, cruelty, and obduracy of the aristocracy on its last breath. The main reason to watch the film is a technical one: the astonishing camera work of Ophuls, the camera moving so much as it follows the characters through and across various settings, most of them interiors of a belle-epoch mansion somehow brought to life and re-created by MO’s design team. The camera work - esp in the ballroom-dancing sequences - is literally dizzying. And how can you get enough of the performances of the 3 leads, Charles Boyer, Danie;le Darrieux, and especially famous director Vittorio DeSica? The plot - based on a then-current novel set ca 1900 - is almost incidental; the eponymous earrings figure in several white lies and social upheavals and by the end I couldn’t keep the earring-story clear in my muddled head - but there’s no need for that, just watch what’s before you and it’s amazing and unlike that of any filmmaker since (and few previous, Welles being one). BTW we never learn Madame’s name - every time its uttered some intrusion - the noise of a passing carriage, for example - blurs it out. 

I had it completely wrong about the Netflix doc Crit Camp, for some reason expecting this doc to be a heart-warming visit to a camp for children with disabilities, much like Paul Newman’s much-touted camp, but it happens that Crit Camp is so much more and so different from my expectations. It begins as a focus on a camp called Jen Ed, but always by the participants called Crip Camp, using much documentary, low-quality video footage from the 70s or so (not sure of precise dates) of a left-wing, counterculture camp for these admirable and brave young people; the spirit of the camp led to the formation of an advocacy group by some of the campers, who over the years built a national, even an international, recognition of the rights of those w/ disabilities and fought some valiant battles against authority, many of whom - even in the Carter administration - were reluctant to sponsor legislation guaranteeing most basic right: access, transportation, housing, schooling that was not “separate but equal” - a tremendous example of the power of advocacy and peaceful demonstration. The world has changed radically, thanks in this regard to the brave souls who found their voices in youth in this “special” camp - a powerful documentary that will bring you near tears and make you proud of what can be and has been accomplished. 

I’m no big fan of ballet - in fact I don’t understand it at all and I skip any story in the arts section that’s about dance - but the 1948 weepy The Red Shoes (Powell and Pressburger) is a good entertainment in so many ways: start w/ the highly stylized Red Shoes dance full of illusion magic, something not able to re-create in a live performance but that lifts the performance to another level in film; also, Red Shoes gets as well as any other film I’ve seen at the real tensions and emotions of the cast - stars, extras, business interests - all the love and jealousy and camaraderie and exploitation and irascibility, all there and seeming to this viewer on the money, nothing romanticized. The end of the show is operatic and over the top, but it’s earned the right to that - stepping out of the real world of dance/the arts and all of the attendant struggles for success and balancing stage life with personal life; a beautiful film just to watch, right up the the conclusion which is a cornball. Reminded me altogether of Children of Paradise - which was made at roughly the same time, but Red Shoes feels much more contemporary (of course it was a present-day setting, unlike CofP) and also of Day for Night. Fun to watch, and, as the Criterion Channel notes, beautiful use of technicolor. 

 

January 2022: Lost Daughter, Beau Travail, Ozark, Magnificent Ambersons, Spirit of the Beehive, and others

January 2022: Being the Ricardos, The Lost Daughter, Beau Travail, Ozark, Magnificent Ambersons, Spirit of the Beehive, Fanny and Alexander, and some series I abandoned 

The Prime feature Being the Ricardos by writer/director Aaron Sorkin and starring Nicole Kidman as Lucy (w/ a NYC accent that I don’t think Lucy shared) and Javier Bardem as Desi Arnaz (and J.K. Simmons in a show-stealing role as the actor who portrayed the Ricardos’ neighbor, Fred) is a lot of fun to watch at least up to a point; in particular I liked its dissection of how a 22+-minute comedy broadcast is put together over the course of a week, with close focus on the writing team and on nuanced directorial decisions, many or most of them developed by Lucille Ball (not sure if that’s true at all but I makes for a good story); would have liked to see more of the actual show, but so be it. Some of the scenes - notably Lucy w. Simmons in a neighborhood bar and lucy meeting with the woman only woman in the writers’ room - are of the kind of excellence we’ve come to expect from Sorkin w. the only quibble being that: Everyone sounds like Sorkin! Can’t have everything. Not sure how close any of these events come to the real lives of the characters - as they struggle through a # of crises, notably accusations that Lucy was a Communist - but, though it’s about 20 minutes too long, it’s still a good show that helps us understand (as the Dick Van Dyke show did some years after Lucille Ball) how difficult it is to write, direct, produce, and perform a weekly comedy show. 

Whether it’s the fault of the author of the based-upon novel (Elena Ferrante) of of the screenwriter (Maggie Gyllenhaal) or of the Director (ditto) the much-anticipated Netflix feature The Lost Daughter is a mess. Fast it, anything with the suddenly omnipresent Olivia Colman is worth watching - for her facial expressions alone! - and the cast is good overall, but does this movie make any sense on any level? Does any woman in her right mind behave the way Leda (Colman) acts throughout? What explains her decision to keep in her possession a baby doll los by a little girl on the beach, as the child spends a week (unlikely) mourning the disappearance of her toy? Especially in that we get many broad hints that the child’s family are bunch of ruffians, often threatening and malicious? This behavior is not in any serious way accounted for by mistakes Leda made in her youth (young Leda played well by Jessie Buckley, a convincing young Leda/Colman); OK, so Leda was a bad mother who for a time abandoned her children rather than manage the pressures of young motherhood. But why the pointless cruelty some 25 years later? She’s an enigma, a mystery without a suitable clue. 

The Claire Denis film Beau Travail (1999) is at once a social documentary - tremendous footage of a French Foreign Legion company going through intense training and deprivation - this looks and feels like documentary, though I’m not sure if that’s true - set against the extreme poverty and barren landscape of Djibouti, where the company is deployed; it would have been enough just to do a documentary or if need be a docudrama about life in the legion, but CD takes the film to another level in that this film is a re-imagination of Melville’s Billy Budd (actually, it’s closer to a re-imagination of Britten’s BB opera, which emerges from a few of the scenes). Spoiler alert here: The film diverges, however, from the source in some key ways, most notably that the BB character, who punches out the cruel mid-rank officer, similar to the book, is not sentenced to die by the code of conduct - so, unlike the short novel and the opera, the captain remains largely guiltless, and the BB character survives. I think I like the original better, but this is a really daring and thought-provoking film; although it’s an adaptation, there’s really no other film quite like to my knowledge. (and would add on further reflection that Melville/Britten are wise to stay closer to the original as it makes both BB’s death and the Captain’s lifelong struggle w/ this execution far more poignant and searching)

Series I’ve started that are clearly not meant for me: Love Life and Starstruck, both appealing rom coms (the sex/love/romance life of a young woman single in NYC, ditto in London) but clearly for a much younger viewer and Stay Close, a Harlon Coben genre pic about a beautiful woman on the cusp of marriage with a mysterious past - so preposterous, cliched, and predictable as to be literally unwatchable. What’s with Coben, a highly respected writer? Sometimes what works on the page is exposed as vapid on a screen, not sure why. Truth is unmasked by the reality of the camera? 

Watched all of Season 4 Part 1 of Ozark, which continues to be an exciting and plot-driven series, w/ plenty of violence, tension, and dark humor. The lead performers have all grown into their roles - Jason Bateman, Laura Linney, Julia Garner in particular - the series has lots of surprises and overall makes you extremely grateful that you’re not part of an international drug cartel; all the chimes are run, so to speak, including a take-down of the sanctimonious Rx manufacturer who pushes her additive product on the world as recklessly as do the pushers of heroin - no difference, morally - just legally.

Watched for 2nd time Orson Welles’s The Magnificent Ambersons, a great though fatally flawed film: I love films that give us the portrait of an entire community, an extended family, a time and a place, which this one does - along with some incredibly powerful dramatic passages, notably with Agnes Moorehead, and extremely complex cinematically episodes such as the first evening ball and the sleigh-ride through the snow. Yet the film marred by extensive post-production cuts and re-shoots, including a ridiculous ending, and also by the relentlessly obnoxious George Minafer (Tim Holt), a character with huge mama-problems and an irredeemable personality. (Read some of the novel to make more sense of the story, but found it sadly dated and unreadable.)

Saw Victor Erice’s Spirit of the Beehive (1973), a little dated now with its interest intentional ambiguity and obscurity, but still worth watching for the visual imagery if nothing else: terrific moments as we follow over the course of a few days the lives of two young (8 at the most) sisters who play mind games w/ each other and who get glimpses of an adult life - e.g., discovery of a fugitive soldier - film sent in the 40s post Spanish Civil War - hiding in an abandoned farm shed - that they can neither understand nor explain. Nor can we, exactly: Is this soldier in fact the former lover to the girls’ mother. Is he trying to get back to her? Or is he just a random presence fleeing the authorities? Many of the scenes and events in this film cannot be definitively explained - very 1970s - but the accumulated moments - including a weird sequence incorporating footage from the silent v. of Frankenstein - spliced in to boot. 

Will also note that I’ve started watching Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander, television version, and found the first episode to be fantastic - a portrait of a bourgeois Swedish family in the early 20th century celebrating xmas with what at first seems to be a grand, lavish entertainment - but over the course of the evening (and of this first episode) we see the fault lines, the misery, the lies, the infidelity (as well as, to be fair, the creativity) that lurk just beneath the glamour surface - this brilliant celebration is a facade, beneath which lies ruined and failed lives and class exploitation. 

Finally, saw Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth (how nervy is Coen to take credit for re-writing this play, “adapted” from Shakespeare. It’s no more adapted than, say, 98 percent of productions - in essence, he introduces one - needless - character and makes some cuts esp among the witches’ chants). On the plus side, there are some visually striking moments - in particular the movement of Biornam Wood - but the film suffers from, for some reason, imagining a Scotland inhabited by about 10 people, for the weird choice of a setting in a castle that’s all weird angles and tall staircases - as if right out of Calgary rather than the Scottish moors - and especially because of the poor performances of Denzel Washington, star though he may be he is terrible at delivery of MB’s lines, which is kind of essential to any production, and a surprisingly tepid and understated performance from Frances McDormand sharing the lede. 

Elliot's Watching December 2021 - Sunset Boulevard, Eclipse, Hand of God, Children of Paradise, Succession, Landscapes, et al.

 Elliot’s Watching - December 2021

The Billy Wilder classic Sunset Boulevard (1950) holds up really well after all these years - the retro look that, say, 30 years ago looked quaint and out of date now adds to the beauty of this film, a hard-boiled narrative with not a surprise ending but a surprise beginning of all things. It’s a lot of fun watching William Holden get caught in the web of “Norma Desmond” (Gloria Swanson), a star from the silent era now pushed aside by the completely different skills and demands of the “talkies.” Her over the top performance is great - we’re repulsed by her bossiness and sense of privilege, we’re astonished by her lack of insight (and charm), yet we feel sorrow for her and her pathetic attempts to revive her career. Cecil B Demille, playing himself, does a brilliant turn as a kindly director who feels sorrow and pity for the diminished Swanson; there are other Hollywood cameos of the era (or earlier), including a surprise appearance by Buster Keaton (and Swanson herself does a good Chaplin impersonation. Holden is cruel and manipulative, but we feel sorrow for him as well, used onto the margins of Hollywood because of his own real but limited talent as a would-be screenwriter. All told, the film moves right along, and we go along, too - right to the gruesome and weird conclusion, where we all pause to look at the wreckage. 

The Torquil Jones documentary (on Netflix), 14 Peaks (2021) is worth watching if you’re into films about (mostly) guys who take incredible risks involving surfing, diving, hiking, free climbing, or as in this case scaling huge mountain peaks. There are moments of incredibly frightening footage involving injuries and white-outs as we follow Nepalese climber Nurmal Punjab leading an all-Nepalese/Sherpa team in a quest to scale the 14 +2,000-meter peaks in  months. (I always remember the Mad Mag spoof that suggested the Nat Geo photogs who take the pictures deserve all the accolades.) The quest itself is egocentric and in some ways cruel; I’m just not into these stunts that put not only the leader but the whole support team at great risk. Nurms’s quest is in some ways political - the first all-Sherpa team giving credit where its due - but for all that we learn little about anyone else on the climbs other than Nurms. Moreover, he/they never seem to appreciate the beauty of the mountains - they’re just objects to “conquer.” Still, you can chalk this up alongside 100-foot Wave if this type of adventure rings your bell.

Chris Marker’s 1982 film, Sans Soleil (Sunless), is built on 90 or  so minutes of Marker’s fantastic photograph, an incredibly visually interesting and complex visual study of street life and iconography most in Japan though some in Africa; scenes as diverse as street theater, department stores, pinball arcades, zoos, long train rides with most passengers asleep, all of which work together and give a portrait of developing and developed countries far from Europe (not sure the dates of the actual footage, though suspect some of it from well before 1982). Unfortunately, though, by about an hour into this 90+-minute film I felt I’d had enough; there’s no narrative line of shape to encompass these phots and film clips, and the voiceover narration - recited by a woman who supposedly received these images along with messages from CM - seem to go nowhere and by 60 minutes just feel obtrusive, and I bailed out. Got the picture. 

Going against the consensus here but I found Jane Campion’s “Western,” The Power of the Dog, (filmed in NZ?) to be largely unwatchable: The characters are drawn with such a heavy hand that nothing they say or do makes any sense.We’ve got here a cross between East of Eden and Brokeback Mountain, and the basic arc of the story is a preposterous tragic relationship between two of the men in the film. Jesse Plemons does his best to bring off is stupid and enigmatic character, owner of a cattle ranch and newly wed to a seemingly naive woman, Kristen Dunst, who biomes increasingly addicted to alcohol and bizarre in performance as the movie edges along. Benedict Cumberbunch show that the can do a decent American/Western accent, but who can believe his repressed homosexual character for even a minute? And then there’s the over-the-top effeminate Kodi Smith-McPhee. Who are these people? What drives them? What do they hope and think, why are they so mean to one another, does the death at the end of the movie make any sense at all? Is it a murder? Who knows or cares at that point? 

Jean Renoir’s 1937 classic, Grand Illusion, loses nothing even after 80+ years and multiple viewings, a totally engrossing narrative whose basic underlying image is that social class is more of a bond among men at war than patriotism - at least up to a point! Story is of a group of French POWs held in a German camp near the end of the first WW - and it’s a camp for “officers,” so they’re treated quite well compared w/ POW camps for the ordinary grunts, which we never see. The head of one of the camps (Von Stroheim again!) thinks he has a special bond of understanding with his fellow aristocrats, and French play along - but all the while concoct an escape plan. The German officers are astonished at such effrontery - esp. in that some of the Fr. officers come from bourgeois backgrounds - one of key players is a Jew! Ultimately, class and country don’t matter, as we see in the touching concluding episodes when 2 of the escapees are taken in and protected by a German war widow; the last scene, which I won’t divulge, with the escapees struggling to cross a field of snowbanks, is famous and rightly so. Sadly, this film, with its sympathy for most of the German soldiers, could not have been made a few years later or at any time since; the Jewish POW would have been doomed, and the other French POWs could not possibly have felt a shared ethos with those serving under Hitler. 

Everything you’ve heard about Succession is true; at end of Season 3 (no spoilers) the characters are just as loathsome, intelligent, driven, and clearly defined as established in Season 1, and this series - of course it will be picked up as a Season 4 - seems likely to be one of the few that builds an arc from opening to conclusion and that satisfies viewers to the end, that is, doesn’t tail off as every aspect of the series runs out of steam and the final episode is on fumes. No, these characters and their milieu (I hate myself for envying how they travel in luxury around the world and around NYC) are so fascinating and well delineated that to start watching is to stay hooked.  don’t think this series does any form of justice or benevolence, but it lets us into what appears to be the inner workings of a right-wing media giant (read, Fox news) and satisfied us by showing that these people are so mean-spirited and self-centered in every aspect of their lives: Nobody to root for; just watch the carnage. Huge props to writers/creator Jess Armstrong, as to the cast too many to mention; no misfits or lightness among them. 

Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1962 film, L’eclisse (The Eclipse) will knock you over if you like cryptic, enigmatic features - because that’s all you’ll get here, no plot to speak of, the characters are strangely abstract, the pace is glacial (for the most part). But it’s a film that accomplishes its ends, so props on that. Essentially the story is about  beautiful 30ish woman in Rome (I think), Monical Vitti as Vittoria, who breaks up w/ her fiancé for no clear or distinct reason, and after much meandering has a fling with a handsome ne’er do well young stock broker, Alain Delon, and that just plain ends leaving her alone on an empty street. What works well in this film, however, are the vast empty spaces on the streets of Rome; I know that by in the ‘60s we didn’t see the street-choking traffic of Rome today (that’s part of the fun in watching European films from this era) but MA engineered these streets for his movie so that they’re vast empty spaces, kind of like a Magritte painting - unsettling in their emptiness, an emptiness that is matched by Viti’s insecurity, inability to know herself or to connect with anyone else. MA balances these empty street-scapes against 2 long scenes on the trading floor of the Rome stock market, where buyers and sellers literally scream at one another constantly, a furious babble of noise that no outsider can comprehend; it turns out to be a terrible day for the market, and we see in some of the characters the aftermath of a big paper loss. The stock-market scenes seem almost like documentaries, and maybe they are, with the key actors emerging gradually from the crowd. Overall, the film won’t answer any of your questions, but will leave you with a weird unsettlement, such as after reading a troubling poem or hearing dissonant chamber music. 

Paolo Sorrentino’s The Great Beauty (2013) stands as one of the greatest European films of the century, and he continues that reign of excellence with his 2021 film, The Hand of God, marking him really as the living heir to the style of Fellini, the obvious avatar for TGB which was PS’s homage to La Dolce Vita - and HofG continues that reverence: The complex family and public gatherings and celebrations, with so much explosive passion and anger and a fascination with eccentric characters and body types; in HofG the celebrations range from the purely familial (often over dinner, of course - with one spectacular family outdoor gathering), outbursts of passionate anger and sorrow (in HoG in particular a tremendous scene of the adult children reacting to a family tragedy), and flirtation & fascination with the criminal underworld. The main divergence of these two masterpieces is that TGB was about a man in late-life crisis, feeling that despite profuse outbursts of admiration and respect from all of his many acquaintances realization that he is close to none of them and that he has wasted his life in not completing his 2nd novel; in HoG we have a more conventional “coming of age” narrative, centered on a young man, Fabietta (a diminutive), whose aim in life is to be a filmmaker - so we obviously suspect that there are deep autobiographical elements in this film, which, like many Italian films of 20th century that encompass a relocation from the provincial towns and cities toward success in Rome. Fabietta’s seduction is one of the greatest of sex sequences; his obsession with his beautiful and deeply disturbed aunt is one of the great depictions of hopeless young love and “sentimental education.” Not sure how I feel about the film director (based on Fellini? didn’t seem like it) who makes a late appearance and gives F hell for not pursuing his dream - seemed a bit crude and too much “on the nose.” But F emerges from that tongue lashing, as we see him recognize the vapidity of his earlier passion - pro soccer, which, as he recognizes, is a stand-in for and an obstacle to his pursuit of filmmaking. All told, an excellent film that almost demands another viewing, as you can only absorb so much of this beautiful film - including the art direction and the excellent dissonant score. 

If you can’t get enough of the one-man (or -woman) conquering incredible odds and surviving in a challenge against topography and against all reason - mountain climbing, endurance running, surfing in 100-foot waves, etc. - you should add The River Runner to your viewing list, as it’s probably the best ever of films about kayaking the world’s most dangerous rapids - and it has a pretty good back story as well about personal hazards and obstacles that the greatest kayaker faced and survived. Maybe too many talking heads in this Netflix (2021) film, but the kayaking passages make it worth at least a good look. 

A better man-against-nature and facing incredible risks is The Alpinist, which follows the endeavors of possibly the world greatest free climbs - enormous peaks in Canada and Argentina that he climbs without ropes, only equipment he can carry by hand and in a small pack, unsupported, climbing solo with no backup crew, truly incredible, though we see it with our own eyes thanks largely I guess to drone cameras. Heart in mouth the whole way.

Marcel Carne’s masterwork, Children of Paradise (1945) feels today, obviously, somewhat dated - in particular because it’s set in Paris in the mid-19th century and is completely old-fashioned in its narrative, a beautiful (supposedly, something I’ve failed to see) woman (Arletty) adored by 4 men: a criminal, a wealthy aristocrat, a young aspiring actor, and a great mime (Jean-Louis Barrault), in a particularly sensitive role. So, yea, it’s kind of corny - when I first saw it in youth I was moved by the sentiments of love lost, love regained, and despair, later viewings have taken the polish off - but it’s grand in its way, too, much like a Balzac or even, though not quite as beautiful, like a Flaubert or Stendahl. Well those are high peaks to summit, and CofP definitely accomplishes its goals of a throw-back romance and a re-creation of the world of theater from long ago - the crowded street scenes, the behind-the-scenes chaos, and the rowdy audience crowds are extraordinary, even today. Part of anyone’s dismay, however, in watching this film today comes from knowing that Arletty was later convicted of treason for her ongoing relationship w/ German officer. The film was meant to be, weirdly, an escape from the war and the Occupation, but of course there had to be many compromises that allowed for the film to be made; certain topics and plot elements, which we can only imagine, must have been “streng verboten.” 

Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza is about as appealing as the afore-mentioned snack. This preposterous account of a 15-year-old h.s. senior in a  Central California town who falls at first sight for a 25-year-old woman in a dead-end job just makes no sense from the first moment: We don’t believe the male character is possible or likely or even likable and the woman, though more sympathetic, is so out-of-character in falling for a guy about half her age - well, it makes no sense at all. So it could still be fun or funny if these two were powerful and eccentric characters, if their pursuit of wealth and of one another and weirdly of a career in acting led to some wit, humor, or even development and maturation of 2 of the misguided, but there’s nothing her I could believe in or care about even for a moment - well, there was one moment (no spoiler but, here: when the guy is arrested by 2 tough cops who rough him up) though that promising episode ends w/ a puff: Sorry, wrong guy.  PTA has a lot of stature in Hollywood, but who really likes or liked this movie. It’s a holy, wholly, mess. 

Another under-the-radar series you’ve probably never heard of is Ed Sinclair and Will Sharpe British true-crime miniseries (4 episodes), Landscapers (2021). Based on a true crime about which there’s no mystery - the first episode begins with the VO that the couple was convicted of murder some 20 (?) years back and still proclaim their innocence - this series follows a strange, middle-age couple, Susan (Olivia Colman) and Christopher (David Thewlis) charged with killing Susan’s abusive parents and burying the bodies in the back yard. It’s not so much the details of the case and the trial that make this series work: It’s the suffering and sorrow of the couple, our empathy for them mixed with disgust even revulsion, and some highly unusual narration that at times breaks the 4th wall and that delves into dreamwork and fantasy - and most of all for star turns by the two principals: Colman’s face can express every known emotion, in a flash, and Thewlis is unmatched in various roles as the British misfit and intellectual weirdo. This series deserves more recognition. 

Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm hardly needs a boost from me but I’ll just say that Season 11 loses nothing in the hilarity department. How many series can say that? I’ve only watched a scattered few of the episodes in past years but, new to HBO, we enjoyed watching a full season of the show and I was particularly impressed at how well individual episodes stand up - thanks to the continued wrangling about the smallest aspects of the protocols of life, e.g., tucking sweaters in our not, how men should and shouldn’t embrace, et al, while maintaining a narrative arc of equal hilarity across the 10 episodes of the season: in this case LD’s attempt to repeal the local ordnance requiring a “five-foot fence” around a swimming pool - all because a burglar drowned in LD’s unfenced pool and he finds himself threatened by a relative of the deceased with a huge lawsuit for negligence - but there’s an out, case will be dropped if LD casts guy’s daughter in his latest sitcom, which is OK but she’s terrible and so forth. All funny and at times poignant. 

Carol Reed’s 1949 thriller, The Third Man, is fun and beautiful to watch, all filmed in eerie b/w on streets of the near-deserted postwar Vienna as the protagonist, Holly played Joseph Cotton, seeks his vanished friend Harry Lyme, played brilliantly by Orson Welles, in fact many people probably think OW directed this or starred in it - in fact he has only one speaking scene before the long, complex chase at the end through the underground sewer system of Vienna, a symbol, obviously of the sinuous and rotting system of postwar management - and perhaps of European prewar life as well. The plot doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense - script by Graham Greene in the all-star production - but that doesn’t matter as the acidic, disillusioned dialog, the great manhunt at the end, and the weird ride on the Ferris wheel all are fun to watch. As to listening, I am definitely not a fan of the zither music that scores the entire film - totally annoying and not especially appropriate for the setting, either. 

The rogue McKay-Sirota comet heads toward Earth and global extinction, Don’t Look Up, turns out to be not a conventional world-on-the-brink thriller at all but a serio-comic, ironic, message-bearing, fun if too much on the nose and too easy to gloat about look at how a corrupt administration hand-in-hand with high-tech heavy donor trillionaires creat global confusion as half the world (or at least the country) fails to recognize the global threat and mocks those who do - does this sound familiar? DiCaprio as scientist though hardly world-renowned is part of team that discovers the comet gives a career performance in stepping out of character, Jennifer Lawrence good as always, Timothee Chalamet shows some range, Mark Rylance as a Steve Jobs-type is great, too - lots of fun in this sometimes message-heavy production that, like the comet, feels at times too close for comfort. 

Elliot's Watching - November 2021: Godard, Mizoguchi, Battle of Algiers< Unlikely Murders, Spencer, Passing, Home for the Holidays, La Jetee

 Elliot’s Watching - November 2021 

Jean-Luck Godard’s 1965 film Pierrot le Fou sends a young(ish) couple, played of course by Belmondo and Anna Karina, off on a jaunt across France, leaving a dead man behind, traveling in stolen car, and facing many close calls and adventures - in other words, a conventional gangsters on the run film, except that it’s Godard so there are numerous weird, incongruous, convention-breaking elements that gives the movie its charm and interest, even today. Especially notable are such plot elements or segments as the decision to put on a play for an audience of American GIs about the Vietnam War, with some screen moments simply filled w/ flames; the constant bickering about Belmond’s character’s name - Karini calls him Pierrot (the title translates roughly as Pierrot the Nut - to which he always replies that his name is Ferdinand; a long interval in which Karina sings as in a choreographed Broadway musical; some odd characters introduced toward the end - a woman who claims to be the Queen of Lebonon and a man who goes on at great length telling Belmondo of his failed seductions; even the unusual typography that prevails from the opening credits onward. Does the plot make any sense? Not at all - nor is it meant to; life is a jumble of improbabilities, in Godard’s world; the film is not for all viewers of course, but is still maintains its liveliness and imaginative spirit even a half-century down the road. 

However: Last night we watched the first episode of the Danish murder-mystery The Chestnut Man (based on a novel by the author of The Killing, which was an excellent series), which is OK if you can believe that a serial killer leaves behind little toy “men” built from chestnuts and matchsticks, and that this would go on for years before anyone made a serious connections, and, hell, I don’t know, a totally improbable an uninteresting, despite its obvious debt to the great Danish series about national politics, Borgen, start to a series - we’re through. 

Kenji Mizoguchi’s A Story from Chickamatsu (1954) is not his best or best-known film but still worth a look - particularly the 2nd half of the film.  In fact the first half, set mostly in a print-shop that’s a major source of revenue for the irascible owner, who has “”won” a monopoly contract for a # of printing jobs such as the annual almanac, is kind of hard to follow and to distinguish among the many competing factions in this complex factory/estate - but the film comes into much more clear focus in the 2nd half as the story from that point on centers on a couple on the run - strangely, much like Pierrot that I recently viewed - at first the man is simply the servant rushing the woman to safety from her violent husband but soon they realize they’ve been secretly in love w/ each other the film changes direction and is much more emotional and strange. Fans of Mizoguchi will recognize the setting in which the loves make their escape by boat - same setting as in the famous Ugetso lake crossing; the ending is particularly bizarre as the couple head off toward their inevitable destiny.  

Here’s another miniseries that builds to a great conclusion/final episode, the little-known Italian series (or 4-part movie, if you prefer) from early in the century: The Best of Youth. I remember watching it, in the old days, on CD from Netflix, saw the 1st half with 2 friends, had to take the disk home, said we’d watch it at home the next night, and they said: No way you’re watching this alone! We’re gonna come over to watch it with you!

The docudrama Colin in Black & White, in which ex-NFLQB Colin Kaepernick narrates and comments, with emphasis on the racial discrimination that afflicts all young Black men, an enactment of his youth: He’s adapted by a white California couple who nurture and support his dream of becoming a high-school QB as he faces opposition on many fronts. Good information here, although most viewers will hardly be shocked by anything new, and imaginative presentation esp use of graphics, thanks I would guess to producer Ava Duvernay - but the problem is that the story line that CK narrates is full of cliches and obvious points that we can see from miles away. I hope it changes minds, but it will probably preach only the knowing. Watched only half the of the episodes.

Ryusuke Hamguchi’s 2015 giant of a film (5+ hours!), Happy Hour, follows for 30-something women friends over a course of a few months as we gradually (!) learn about their problems and their histories, especially about their past or ongoing divorce suits (handled very differently in Japancf with the U.S. - much more adversarial and litigated). I really wanted to love this film, as I tend to like films that build gradually and that seem true and organic, but the pace is so slow here that I finally had to give up after 3 hours: the 40 minutes or so spent at a yoga class the women attend seemed pretty tedious but I was willing to forego that in the interest of getting to know the characters - a celebratory evening of drinking with friends after the class with some outbreaks of anger won me back over - but then a later scene at a literary reading in which the author, a young woman named Ms. Nose (not sure if that a name in Japanese of a mockery) reads in the most dreadfully disaffected manner from a truly terrible story, followed by the most awkward author Q&A - why people didn’t walk out was beyond me. I did. 

Gillo Pontecorvo’s amazing film The Battle of Algiers (1966 - GP directed and co-wrote w/Morricone the great score) re-creates the struggle for independence events from the mid-50s; it looks exactly like a documentary film, and you have to wonder: How could he possibly have reenacted these events with such fidelity? Everything about this film looks “real,” but of course it would have been impossible to document the uprising at the time. The wheels are set in motion so to speak when a young Algerian/Arabic man (Ali) is arrested for some kind of street crime; in prison, he’s recruited to work for the Algerian resistance, and from the moment forward we are introduced into many of the strategies for terrorism and disruption, for example: women dressed for a day at the beach carrying handguns in their purses; bombs surreptitiously planted at night and in places of congregation, first by the Fr. in the Casbah (Algerian quarters), then in retaliation at public places in the “European” section. Of particular interest, the way in which Ali is tested for his strength and fidelity. By mid-point in the film, the French, for the first time aware of the likelihood or even the possibility of a successful Algerian independence movement, send massive troops and a skillful and tough Colonel to stop the terrorism - with predictable lack of success and increase in the carnage. Clearly the film is from the Algerian POV and builds our sympathy, even when the Algerians adopt the crudest forms of terrorism - quite a feat, I’d say. On one level, the events seem so remote today - why don’t the French just give it up? - and in other ways we can extrapolate and re-apply some of the lessons here to many independence movements that have ensued, from Vietnam to African nations to Israel-Palestine, and the list goes on. A remarkable and engaging film first to last. 

Is it possible to create a murder story in which we know from the outset who’s the perpetrator? Well, it worked out OK for Dostoyevsky. Can’t entirely say the same for the Swedish series on Netflix, The Unlikely Murderer. Based on a nonfiction account of the assassination of PM Olof Palme on a Stockholm street=corner in 1982 - a case that, as each episode informs us, has never been solved. But there has been from the outset a prime suspect, Stig Engstrom, and it’s he the series follows. And he is an unlikely murderer, at least what we see from the outset - yet at first he seems like a wannabe who claims to have been among the first to rush to the aid of Palme and his wife - but we also see footage of the killing (all re-created of course, though there are a few scenes using original footage) which puts the lie to Stig’s claim. And by the end we see that he was a tortured and troubled man, a lifelong victim of bullying, perceived lack of recognition at his workplace, troubled in love of course, seeking attention, nursing grudges - it all makes sense; wouldn’t have cared for the series as much if it weren’t based on fact - truth stranger than fiction sometimes - and it’s a little hard to follow with many jumps back and forth in time, but worth a look. 

The Pablo Lorrain disaster film, Spencer, wait, I mean, just disaster, invites comparison w/ the Peter Morgan The Crown, so here goes: Whereas TC makes the Eliz. II Royal Family into “round” characters - and in particular the episodes that introduce Diana and show us what life, we imagine, is like in the Scottish castle, Spencer reduces all of the characters, including Kristen Stewart’s Diana, to stick figures and seems to me to get the entire royal family dad wrong - it’s not that they’re strict formalists completely uptight and rigid - it’s that they’re at base shallow, protected, uncaring, and incurious: nights spent watching “telly” playing parlor games and days spent in the fields hunting and shooting ( see in TC how Thatcher was mistreated and unprepared for visit to Scotland). Among the disastrous elements the first rank goes to KS whose attempt to talk-British makes her largely unintelligible throughout: everything from her is in a hushed whisper and rushed, then pause, something that comes naturally to the Brits (and to everyone else in the film, therefor) but in KS’s nobody taught KS how to enunciate to make this work - or even understood. Many other complaints, notably that Diana’s breakdown is presented in the stupidest, heavy-handed manner - driving to the castle she gets “lost” - Oh, I get it! - and there’s no dimension to her misery other than a weird desire to visit her childhood home - now a boarded-up ruin (after maybe 20 years of misuse at the most?)  - and of course the ending, in which she heroically stands in front to the shooting party to get them to stop shooting pheasants (or peasants?) , one of which (pheasant) was found ominously dead on the roadway in opening scenes, oh, gosh, will Diana ID w/ the bird? What do you think? Anyway, she “demands” that Charles let go of the two boys  and come to mama - something any boy out on his first “shoot” would say: Leave me alone, Mom, I’m not a baby, but, no, Will and Harry run into her arms and they eventually dash off in her sports car at reckless speed (far more dangerous and bad modeling than the pheasant shoot), with amazingly no press or staff in pursuit?, an American song no less blasting from the radio, taking them out for ice cream on the banks of the Thames, with nobody nothing. (I will add only that the score is bizarre, including jazz trumpet pieces and a string quartet playing dissonant music - Shostakovitz sp.? - during the formal dinner. nonsensical. ) 

A lot of positives for Rebecca Hall’s current film on Netflix, Passing, based on Nella Larsen’s 1929 novel. Hall and her team perfectly create the look and feel of the era in part by making the film look very much like a (visually heightened) film from the Prohibition Era: the square screen format, sharp b/w cinematography, a smart and inventive jazz-age score, ingenious (and challenging) interiors in a NYC brownstone with furnishings or the era in particular many mirrors, and most of all an intelligent script and fine lead-actor performances as in a play, maybe too much so, as the film does take a good deal of time before liftoff. Three lead roles - Ruth Negga as Clare, a Black woman “passing” for white; Tessa Thompson as her (Black) friend and confidante, Irene Redfield; Andre Holland as TT’s husband, an MD, and one of the few in on Negga’s secret life. The only flaw in the design, for me, was due to the only minimal exploration of the conflicts and terrors and shame in Negga’s life (her husband and daughter don’t know her true race - and husband, we see in first segments, is a bully and racist); the film is largely about Negga’s Clare trying to insinuate herself in the the Redfield family and marriage. The film had surprisingly little to say or examine re the great secret of Clare’s life - her brutal husband appears only at the beginning and end. 

Would not recommend A Cop Movie unfortunately - the idea seemed good, a docudrama that follows the lives of 2 police officers (brother & sister?) in Mexico City, but in the portion we watched the blending of documentary footage (it starts w/ a dramatic scene in which the female officer assists in a birth and delivery) and scripted material - a long monolog in which the officer discusses how and why she joined the force - was awkward (several re-staged events, some brutal) and eventually just dull. Good idea, but not brought to fruition. 

Nop doubt Chaplin films were innovative and hilarious … in the 1920s, and the opening sequence in City Lights, in which CC is revealed as sound asleep in the arms of a statue that is unveiled as part of a big ceremony, is still quite funny, but overall the gags seem to me tiresome and long past their due date. I guess when you get down to it I don’t like silent features - yes, they are important as part of the history cinema but the advent of sound, and even better live sound as opposed to post-synch, has obviated the Silents. City Lights just seemed to me, over its first half-hour, utterly quaint and remote; I can only take or care about so many pratfall. At least, I’ll say this, it’s better than Keaton’s The General, in part because its sympathies are with the poor and oppressed. But I won’t stay w/ it for another hour or so, sorry. 

The Perfect Candidate (set in Saudi Arabia, about a young md. whose plans go awry and finds herself as a candidate for municipal office, through which she hopes to make repairs to her medical clinic) is earnest and offers a close-up view of life in Saudi Arabia but for all that it moves at a snail’s pace and was just plane movie-of-the-week predictable and obvious, despite its best intentions. Moved on to a similar movie (in Perfect Candidate the father is a renowned performer on the old and dragoons his daughters into performing w/ him) called The Disciple, about young man who aspires to be a great sitar performer - first 10 minutes or so mostly consumed w/ performances by his master/teacher and the student’s inept attempts at mastery and it’s altogether unfunny and even unwatchable. And these films make their way to respectively the Criterion Channel and Netflix, plus strong reviews of the latter. Grouch, grouch! 

The 1995(?) Jodie Foster film, Home for the Holidays, aimed, I think, to be for Thanksgiving what It’s A Wonderful Life has become for xmas, and it succeeds in a limited way - the closing sequences do pack an emotional wallop no matter what your view of the movie as a whole - but overall the film is a high-jinx, slapstick dysfunctional family vehicle with many star turns, some better than others. Basic plot: 40ish woman laid off from her job (for some reason they keep saying she was “fired” when that’s clearly not the case) goes home to family in Boston (apparently filmed in Md., tho) where sisters and brother converge and squabble; the house itself is a madcap jumble, a complete crowded mess at the outset and you wonder how they’ll ever clear up the post-dinner wreckage. A major plot line involves the “gay marriage” of the brother (Robert Downey Jr. in an over-the-top, nearly unbearable manic performance), making the film somewhat ahead of its time and suitably progressive. The lead is Holly Hunter - far too young (or young-looking) for the role, and for some dumb reason she speaks throughout in her native Southern accent, which makes no sense here (her mother, Ann Bancroft, speaks in a NY/Jewish-Italian accent so go figure). Some of the scenes are hilarious, most are head-scratchers - the family never seems credible or even bearable, but the idea, I guess, is to just write them off as lovable eccentrics. The movie feels as if it’s adapted from a play, but the credits tell us it’s from a short story - and many of the passages of dialog sound more “authorial” than natural. Overall, the film won’t kill you to watch it once, but this - some 20 years down the road (and the technology of the era gets a few laughs inevitably) this has not become a TGiving staple nor will it. 

Chris Marker’s film, La Jetee (1962) is sometimes called a sci-fi film though I think it’s more of a dystopian film with some speculative elements of the supernatural woven throughout. Marker’s film has the advantage of being short - 28 minutes - and that seems just about right, as the film makes its point and then moves on, unlike similarly ambitious apocalyptic films of recent years which belabor the narrative to the point of nausea, and that’s not even counting the inevitable sequels. In brief, Marker’s film posits the outbreak of a 2nd WW, in this case a nuclear, which leaves the entire nearly depopulated through radiation contamination; some of the survivors (German?) who’d taken refuge in underground crypts and caves beneath what once was Paris, embark on experiments (why?) that culminate in sending resuscitated man to the past and, in a 2nd “voyage,” to the future; in both narratives he meets and falls in love with a young woman. I won’t give away all plot twists, but it’s worth noting that this film, for all its apparent pretentiousness, is designed to make us think: Is anyone I know actually an emissary from the past? from the future? Am I a robot? The most striking feature of this short is that it is (with a minor exception) composed of b/w stills, many of them quite imaginative (the postwar ruins of Paris), and a few are quite beautiful in and of themselves. I think the film has been oversold by some rapturous critics - it does feel a little dated - but it’s worth a look, especially given its run time. 

Anyone watching the HBO series Black and Missing will be informed, troubled, and moved by the issue this series takes head-on: For too many cases of missing children are Black, missing Black children draw far less media (and police?) attention than other missing children, too many missing children are labeled “runaways” rather than victims of abduction and exploitation. The series focuses on a foundation, staffed largely by Black retired law-enforcement officers, that takes on cases of missing Black children, providing materials (posters etc.), expertise, and support to families or single parents seeking their missing children. The series does a great service and may help to shift priorities and assumptions on this issue. All that said, this series, based on the first episode at least, doesn’t have the dramatic focus we have come to expect from doc-dramas; it’s hard if not impossible to follow a case front to finish - like, say, the recent French series about a missing adopted daughter. There are way to many talking heads in the first episode, and only one case that we learn much about. Perhaps other episodes will be more dramatic, in the traditional sense (beginning, middle, end), but I feel I’ve got the message from episode one and can’t really bear further episodes of sorrow and loss.