★½
Mrs Harris (2005) - Nagy
Despite a cast bursting with talent; the director got hopelessly tangled up in the telling of his story. The lack of budget was really evident in certain scenes. The film includes two different reconstructions of the crime (a woman murders her jerk husband) but incredibly blows the film by beginning with the wrong one.
★★
La Petite Lili (2003) - Miller
An aspiring actress crashes the summer retreat of a cinema family; she jumps from starring in the black and white experimental film of the painfully idealistic son of a famous actress, to the mainstream films of her successful husband-director. The film then re-tells that same summer years later with another effort by the son; this time he has gone embarrassingly mainstream. All the actors get a moment to completely reveal their characters---save for the ingénue who never once shows her cold bloodedness to sacrifice everyone and everything to her movie career.
We Live Again (1934) - Mamoulian
A bit didactic and the character arc is unbelievable where a debauched Russian prince gives all his possessions and wealth away for socialist ideals, which include following a former summer fling’s conviction to a forced labour camp in the Siberian gulag.
Love, Simon (2018) - Berlanti
This is an epistolary film; all the character growth and the plot points are signalled with e-mails. The mother, despite being a professional therapist or a psychologist is unable to read the clues her son bats for the opposing team. The filmmakers err completely by constantly stressing how unimportant and mundane their story really is. This is just a boring teen romance you’ve seen a thousand times before, no reason to get excited, move along people. I flashed on the ten best high school teachers characters in film after some of the heavy mugging in the film---none of them can even approach Ms. Perky from 10 things I hate about you.
Bad Samaritan (2018) - Devlin
This includes the stock cliché of a Mensa level serial killer (aided by scary state of the art technology) who has been on a decades-long killing spree but never wonders for a second why he is such a nut-bar. The film depends on the audience swallowing a major hunk of cheese (along with several smaller bites) when a small time hood finds a woman tortured and chained inside a locked room while robbing the house, but he can’t be bothered to get involved---not once, but twice.
★★½
Grand Hotel (1932) - Goulding
A bit dated but some nice acting bits still resonate. This was the first use of the galaxy of stars as a marketing device for a film. What caught my eye here was a certain fetching, doe-eyed beauty playing the stenographer; who turned out to be the same hardened old bitty from What Ever Happened to Baby Jane. Wow, what a vamp! She was dazzling as a young actress.
… And the pursuit of happiness (1986) - Malle
A documentary about immigrants in America; not an exhaustive effort but a nice array of people making a new start in America; some poor people are fleeing injustice while other rich dudes are avoiding justice. He interviews people who made it big; astronauts; writers, and just normal people whose only dream is to make a better life. As always---whatever their political stripe, the director lets his subjects speak their minds.
Purgatorio: a journey into the heart of the border (2013) - Reyes
This is a documentary about the area around the US /Mexican border with various snapshots of Mexican social reality. Little vignettes like the old American doffer on the other side of the border who goes out on the week-ends to cleans up the trails, thinking every empty water bottle or candy wrapper is a trail maker directly orientating a marching mariachi band to his doorstep. Anything he can do to make sure these people die from exposure at mile 999 of a thousand mile journey is all fair and well. There is a painfully obvious observation that a poor country doesn’t have the financial resources to compete with the quality of life of a rich nation. The film could have been stronger had there been a deeper thematic connections between the slice of life scenes the director selected.
The Cow and I (1959) - Verneuil
A POW’s escape from Nazi Germany is simple; he’ll simply walk to France with a cow in hand, telling the Germans he meets that he is just bringing her to the farm down the road. There is a lot gentile humour here, like when he says goodbye to the farmer next door. He spends all day walking only to unexpectedly cross paths with him again at the end of the day, who good naturedly loads up him and his cow in his U-haul and drives him all the way back to where he started out in the morning.
Tully (2019) - Reitman
This is three different versions of the same woman. The first section is about the trials and tribulations of a woman in her third trimester who maintains the family household with two young children (one with special needs) while hubby comes home after a long day at work then plays video games all night. Is she dog-tired and a little frazzled? Cue the Frances McDormand voice: You betcha! The second part is a celebration of female friendship. The film is a little neat and tidy; she is always placed alongside pencil thin younger women to exaggerate the monstrosity she has become. Charlize Theron gained 50 pounds to play this character---this is method acting at its absolute worst, you can bet your mortgage payment she skipped over any dedicated research and preparation for the third story.
Murmur of the Heart (1971) - Malle
All the adults here are hypocrites or deeply flawed in this coming-of-age story; like the priest who takes a keen interest in our hero’s intellectual development, all the while groping his thighs during confession, His mother (who could be an older sister) is openly having an affair. The middle aged father is distant. In the background France is getting it’s ass handed to them at Dien Bien Phu and is about to pull out of Vietnam.
At first this seems like total anarchy, his two older brothers are like the spawns of hell about to be loosed onto an unsuspecting world. However this brief rebellion against their great privilege will soon evaporate once they realize they are going to inherit all that lucre. In a couple of years, they will be two bespectacled, balding men who spend their days sitting quietly behind desks as the financial advisers to the family fortune.
★★★
Vive le tour (1962) - Malle
A very energetic short documentary of the Tour de France bicycle race; beginning on the sidelines with the spectators of each village and town turning out to watch the pageantry. The camera then gets mobile and joins the race up close and personal, focusing on several facets; keeping the energy up; crack-ups; doping. I liked the mountain portion with the close-ups on their faces, the sweat literally pouring down their faces inrivulets intercut with little flashes of themselves imagining standing victorious on the podium.
Mistress America (2015) - Baumbach
Tracy makes a friend. A freshman college student calls up the older woman living downtown who is about to become her sister-in-law. This is filled with snappy dialogue and crackling one-liners. So much so, at times they appear to be one of those cell phone couples walking down the street elbow to elbow in animated conversation then at a stop light, they turn and reveal they both have ear phones and are not even aware of each other’s existence. Mistress America has a great introduction, descending the stairs like a bad-ass diva but she is clearly anxious about stumbling and doing a face plant in public. The timeline (a couple of weeks) is too short and the director fails to commit to whatever story he was telling, it’s kind of a cheat he doesn’t supply the tragic beats contained within this tale.
Game Night (2018) - Daley & Goldstein
Comedy is all about setting up the premise and exploiting it mercilessly. I thought this was really well constructed, you can see the gags being set-up; the incoming punch-lines; then a twist to the original joke; then the double twist; like the next door neighbour, they are not going to sneak a single thing by his vigilance and the humour becomes the futility of even trying. Or the player who always loses game night because he brings a bimbo with him---so he finally breaks down and brings in a ringer and he becomes the bimbo. Visual gags, like the monopoly game pieces are actual items in the film; or throwaways like the woman walking her dog at night and she glances down an alleyway then quickly hurries on.
The Rider (2017) - Zhao
Brady Blackburn is an up and coming rodeo star and kind of a horse whisperer, although he is the only one who doesn’t seem to know his rodeo career is over when a bucking bronc puts a metal plate in his head. But cowboys never quit; they saddle up and ride through the pain; he has to accept the bitter truth and let go of all his dreams. He has a permanent side effect from the head injury where his left hand suddenly clamps up uncontrollably and he has to pry open his fist, finger to finger to let go … metaphorically. There is a strong documentary vibe to this; the family in the film is a family in real life. His best friend in the film who suffered the catastrophic rodeo injury is confined to a wheelchair in real life.
The Lovers (1958) - Malle
There is a really great bait and switch here, setting up a confrontation then simply side-stepping the whole affair with something much more intriguing; which was done with a hitchhike, a haunting midnight stroll and a “boat ride”. I loved how the stranger was just idly commenting on her life, and when they pull into the driveway, it is the exact tableau of what he sketched out earlier is there in all its glory, but rather than weeping, she bursts out in uncontrollable laughter.
If you were young: rage (1970) - Fukasaku
When their factory closes, five guys decide, instead of getting picked off one by one, they should pool their meager resources and fight collectively for a decent future. Their plan is to buy one dump truck and over time, add another one and over time create an entire fleet. There is an exuberant mise en scene with freeze frames, skewed angles, and micro flash backs supplying the back stories. Needless to say, the system conspires against them, knocking them down and out one by one, until only two remain standing.
Place de la République (1974) - Malle
A very simple premise---for about 10 days around a Parisian park, Louis Malle simply accosts people in the street to see they will talk to him. Since the people inside the stores never come out, the street vendors, the older people who populate the benches and the unemployed become the natural cast of the film. The lady who sells lottery tickets from the open air kiosk says people share their most intimate thoughts and feelings because they are bored and unhappy, and we get a few examples of this, when people just pore out their life stories with a simple greeting. On one hand, this is brutally mundane; on the other hand, some people do have dramatic stories.
God’s Country (1985) - Malle
This documentary is major step up from Place de la République, where each passerby only had a moment to continue walking on or reveal themselves---invited into the comfort of their own homes in this farming community; the subjects of his film completely spill the beans about their lives in Glencoe, Minnesota. There is a kind of epilogue to this small town portrait when Malle returns five years later reconnecting with a few of the people during a strong economic downturn and the bitterness of the once optimistic farmers is shocking. No one wants their children to grow up to be farmers.
Human, too human (1974) - Malle
The film consists of short vignettes of assembly line work in an automobile plant. Everyone is aware of the film crew; and the workers fall into three neat categories: the main group are workers who can look at the camera while working, or if the pace is too swift, steal a glance while fixing a twist of wires, punching a precise hole or securing bolts. Another group of workers are those stuck in mind numbingly repetitive abstractions, pushing something into the maw of the machine or simply turning over a metallic shield---these people don’t even dare to look at the camera, it’ s almost as if they were embarrassed to be caught doing this. The best scenes are the ones where the job demands real skill, and the thing they are working either looks vaguely or exactly like a car. They become like dancers in a ballet that never ends. At times it gets a little hypnotic; you begin to wonder about their day dreams, and imagine the untold other half of their lives.
Elevator to the Gallows * (1958) - Malle
This was Louis Malle’s first film. He cleverly puts the murder right up front which creates an entire new dynamic for the story. The guy commits the perfect murder---except for one minor error. He dashes back to fix it, leaving the keys in the ignition; and ends up getting trapped in an elevator when they turn off the power for the night. When he gets out, a young thug has gone on a crime spree using his identity. He can’t alibi out of a major crime without volunteering for another---talk about being between a rock and a hard place. Best thing about this film was Jeanne Moreau who was waiting for him. She sees his car streak by in the street with a beauty in the passenger side and assumes, not only has he chickened out on the plan to kill her husband; but he has dumped her and simply gone off with a younger woman. She walks the street at night revisiting all their old familiar haunts, slightly crazed and desperate, accompanied by Miles Davis’ wailing trumpet---this is so detached from the story it feels like it belongs to another film.
★★★½
Love at First Fight (2014) - Calley
This is a sly mediation about climate disruption with romance, depending on your tastes, either in the foreground or background. France’s decline is indicated where the only job options available for young people are fast food franchises (the zero hour business model) or the army (muscle for overseas investments). The young woman dropped out of her university program (and a very lucrative future) of future analysis and marketing trends when it occurred to her, hanging a diploma on the wall stating she could see the future was too absurd to even contemplate. Her career goal now is prepare for the apocalypse by making it into one of the army’s elite special force units. The guy has no interest in the army and follows her into the summer orientation program just to be around her. He of course, is a blue ribbon candidate who accumulates promotions in whatever he does, while she begins to collect demerit points. She is way too intelligent; pointing out the fly in the ointment to every training exercise. It begins to dawn on her, if she wants any future in the army she is going to have to ask for the regulation lobotomy---Sir!
You’re sleeping, Nicole (2014) - Lafleur
With her parents on vacation Nicole has the whole house all to herself and nothing really to do except hang out with her best friend after work. A couple of years out of high school and she is still unsure what she wants to do for the rest of her life. A heat wave makes it impossible for her to sleep, so she wanders around her tree-lined neighbourhood at night. The black and white photography really captures how exquisite the air conditioned evening feels after an unbearably hot and sticky day. Unfortunately, her older brother also profits from their parents absence to move in his band and turn the house into a recording studio; placing the only interesting guy within miles behind the drum kit in the living room. This is cute and poetic.
A touch of sin (2013) - Zhangke
This could also be called corruption city. This is four heartbreak stories from the precariat. The violent economic system we live with that ennobles thugs and promotes thuggery is not the problem; capitalism is only a problem when the poorest of the poor are driven to despair and use same violence that is visited daily upon them---only then do we get moral outrage about criminality.
One story has a villager slowly losing it. He embarrasses a multi-millionaire (someone he went to village school with) with a question at a photo-op (he pocketed the village mine free of charge and now travels with a private jet) the reaction is immediate, after the welcoming crowd disperses, one of his bodyguards beats him unconscious with a ceremonial ground breaking spade, forever giving him the comical new moniker of Mr. Golf. There are a couple of instances of sketchy CGI in the film, but lots of languid compositions and unhurried scenes that are a joy to savour.
★★★★
My dinner with Andre (1981) - Malle
When Wally was a kid, he rode around in checkered cabs and dreamt of making great art---as an adult, he only grubs for money. He gets wrangled into a dinner with a former hot shot theatre director who has fallen into obscurity. He has been avoiding him like the plague but since he gave him his start in the business, he is somewhat obligated to accept. His goal is just to endure the evening. He comes equipped with a secret weapon, during any lull in the conversation he’ll just pepper him with question the dinner will be over in no time.
However, sometime after the main course, he realizes Andre’s kooky avant-garde experiments actually serve a purpose, to discover authentic living representations of life and to chip aggressively away at the pretense. Some of the open absurdities that Andre points out strike a chord with Wally. The obligation of each individual is to live your life and not just endure it. Long after the thrills are gone, you continue to inhale and exhale from bad habit. This moment is signalled by a three-shot: Andre’s deepest self appears in the mirror behind him and Wally is actually having a genuine one to one connection.
Disobedience (2017) - Lelio
I was pretty much hooked within the opening minutes: a frail Rabbi is giving a sermon about angels (someone who accepts his wisdom) and beasts (someone who rejects his great erudition) then he collapses on the pulpit. Cut to a photography studio with a woman taking pictures of another kind of holy man (and rebel) all his talismans are tattooed on his body. She is interrupted by a phone call; has anonymous sex with someone she just met in a bar; goes for an ice skate; sits down on a bench then tears her sweater … a Hasidic gesture of mourning, meaning the old man has died and she was connected to him in some way. This also signals a woman with an extraordinary life journey. This is a very subtle film with repressed body language, small lightning and musical cues; listen to the way the people wish her a long life at the beginning of the film (why the hell are YOU here?) and listen to McAdams say goodbye at the end.
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