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I forgot the opening line.


THE VAST OF NIGHT (2019)

Directed by : Andrew Patterson

Something of a potent mixture - the 1950s, paranoia, Twilight Zone sci-fi imagination, strange noises, mysterious stories and two characters with a gift for fantabulous dialogue. Those characters are the hip, free-wheeling Everett Sloan (Jake Horowitz) and the resourceful, eager-to-learn Fay Crocker (Sierra McCormick) who work to get to the bottom of the strange events occurring in the small town of Cayuga in New Mexico one night. Sloan works at a local radio station, WOTW, and 16-year-old Crocker finds herself working the switchboard when strange noises send them on an odyssey into the vast of night - urged on by stories told to them by an ex-military man and an elderly woman whose son once disappeared without a trace. Are the Soviets about to launch an invasion, or is there some other peril looming in the sky - some unknowable thing beyond our comprehension, and something we're powerless to confront? Our two intrepid seekers are determined to follow the clues and find out what's going on - fearful the fact that most people have gathered together for a local basketball game makes them especially vulnerable to attack. They're off into "a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination."

There's an interesting framing device used in The Vast of Night - it makes everything that's happening an episode of a 'Twilight Zone'-type show on an old-style television, which transitions into a more modern colour image. Because the main body of the film feels more true-to-life than your average 50s/60s television show it means that there's this strange duality going on as we're constantly reminded that we're watching this 'show'. There's a tenuous connection being made between reality and our imagination, especially when that concerns solving mysteries. During one sequence when Everett and Fay talk, Fay mentions a bunch of articles she's read in science journals which postulate future life-changing inventions that will one day become the norm. With the benefit of hindsight, we know that none of them will actually come to pass - and that's pretty much a constant when it comes to predicting outcomes, despite our imagination. It alone can't provide answers - only investigation can. Imagination spurs us on and inspires us - and sometimes it's all about asking the right questions. Our imagination works hand-in-hand with our ability to inquire, test and observe reality.

The Vast of Night is a really well written sci-fi mystery - I was so impressed with the dialogue in this, which goes beyond drab necessity and adds a clever, inventive style all of it's own. Everett Sloan has an imaginative way with words, at times inventing his own smart twist when describing just about anything. Everett and and Fay are a lot of fun to listen to. In the meantime the period immersion feels very real - and that's one of the funny things about this being set up as an episode of a TV show, because it really doesn't feel like it is one. Instead it feels like that device is simply reminding us that this is a peek into our own imagination - into that dimension not only of sight and sound but mind. Remarkable, when you consider the assured direction in this that this is Andrew Patterson's first feature - leading a team that transformed Whitney, Texas into a period playground for a virtuoso audiovisual sci-fi odyssey. I also nearly forgot to mention how great the scene with old Mabel Blanche (Gail Cronauer) is - telling her strange story in monologue mode in a way that really gets under your skin, adding to the uneasy sense that this might be a mystery best left avoided by our determined duo. This was a movie good at getting under your skin - an imaginative sci-fi mystery out in 50s rural America where something may very well be out there.

Glad to catch this one - it's in Steven Jay Schneider's 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, and won/was nominated for dozens of international and domestic Film Festival and critics awards.





Watchlist Count : 427 (-23)

Next : Ponette (1996)

Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch The Vast of Night
__________________
Remember - everything has an ending except hope, and sausages - they have two.

Latest Review : The Big Clock (1948)



You and I wrote very similar things about The Vast of Night. It took me two viewings to really click with it, but then I really enjoyed it.



I forgot the opening line.


PONETTE (1996)

Directed by : Jacques Doillon

When I was little there was this kid who assured me that when a person died they were just taken to hospital and fixed - that death wasn't permanent. I knew that wasn't true, but still remember that age where death isn't clearly defined in the mind yet. Ponette is a very sad film dealing with the aftermath of a car crash which kills the mother of four-year-old Ponette (Victoire Thivisol), and leaves the little girl with a broken arm. Ponette struggles to understand the nature of her mother's death, and takes great pains to find out if there's a way to bring her back or, failing that, a way she can talk to her mother again. Along the way she encounters the religious beliefs of various people, and is confused by the various theories of her peers, who know even less about death than she does. Her grief affects the way she relates to the children around her, and forces her to confront a certain emptiness when it comes to the promise of prayer or assurances that her mother is "in heaven" and "happy" despite the fact that her broken body now lays in a coffin buried deep under the ground. What makes it all worse is the fact that all of her friends still have a mother - it seems unfair that she must bear this hardship when others don't.

When you hear about Ponette one factor about it is so extraordinary it will always be the first thing that's mentioned - the performance of young Victoire Thivisol, which is one of the most remarkable things you'll ever see in a film. I can't figure how Jacques Doillon managed to get that out of her, and I'd hate to think that little Victoire had to suffer by imagining that her mother had died. She won the Best Actress Award at the Venice Film Festival - at a younger age where I was quite happy and proud with a Certificate of Achievement at school. Four years of age, and winner of Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival! The camera really kind of slips into the whole realm of childhood, and all of the kids seem quite natural - these aren't kids acting like pint-sized adults, but instead innocent young minds with ideas that resemble dream-logic. Ponette's little cousins have no time for grief, and instead feel aggrieved that Ponette doesn't want to play. From time to time adults invade this world, but most of the film takes place fully immersed in it. The camera sidles in closely, and the kids have an intimate relationship with it and each other.

Boy oh boy - okay, this one is a sad one. I used to get really upset when, as a child, I'd think to myself that one day my mother would die, and I'd have to say goodbye forever. If it happens when you're only 4-years-old, then it's truly heartbreaking and unfair. Little Ponette is so cute, but the poor little girl is the very image of sadness and loss, desperately searching for answers or a way to reconnect with her mother. Her father (Xavier Beauvois) is good with her, but typically absent, and so Ponette must subsist with her cousins and at a boarding school - which just seems to make her emptiness worse. Still, this is a very worthwhile film to see, because even though it's sad it gives a lot more to it's audience than it takes from them. You feel richer for having seen it. It imparts wisdom in that it gives you access to a world you ordinarily wouldn't be able to be a part of. Ponette is so well made that the journey into that world is magical, and almost transcendental. You see grief from a perspective that's totally unfamiliar, while at the same time being easy to understand, and very much a part of who we all are. In a way, we spend our entire lives doing what little Ponette does - trying to come to terms with what it all means once we've lost what made us whole.

Glad to catch this one - this won 4 awards at the Venice Film Festival, including the FIPRESCI Prize, along with various other international film festival awards.





Watchlist Count : 427 (-23)

Next : The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On (1987)

Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Ponette



I forgot the opening line.


THE EMPEROR'S NAKED ARMY MARCHES ON (1987)

Directed by : Kazuo Hara

Kenzō Okuzaki is not okay. There are parts of The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On that underline that, and add exclamation marks, but we see immediately that this man is not okay. What he wants to say is written clearly, all over the car he drives - and he didn't have enough space, which means he had to add placards to the car's roof. In fact, not even that was enough, because he shouts through a microphone at the police who try to stop him doing the latest crazy thing he's up to - words of nihilist rage, anti-establishment fury and general pique fly from his lips. Kenzō Okuzaki has spent 10 years in solitary confinement, because in the past he's gone a little too far when losing his temper, killing a man in 1956 - and showing no remorse for having done so. He wasn't okay then, and he's not okay now - but instead of just filming Okuzaki generally causing trouble, and hoping for the day when people follow him as a particularly unstable leader, director Kazuo Hara suggests that Okuzaki channel his energies into exploring his painful past. Who knows how cathartic that may be - and so we join filmmaker and subject on a journey back in time to the horror of the 2nd Company, 36th Independent Engineering Regiment in New Guinea during the Second World War. Some wounds never heal.

Kenzō Okuzaki visits relatives of long lost brother soldiers who died bad deaths in the jungle, where there were many different ways to die. Even though 40 years have gone by - more - the pain is still so evident, and it's hard to watch the grieving. But let us not forget also - Kenzō Okuzaki is not okay. His mission is to talk to the officers who were in his regiment, and try to get to the bottom of an injustice that still bothers him. The execution of two privates that cruelly came weeks after the war had officially ended - for reasons that aren't completely clear, but could possibly have something to do with either desertion or cannibalism. Like a tabloid journalist Okuzaki likes to surprise these men at home without any prior notice that he's coming - and he (most probably correctly) assumes that if he were to call beforehand these guys would either refuse to see him or not even be there by the time he showed up. These men, troubled themselves, and with guilt written all over their faces, make facile, pathetic excuses, pass blame, deny they were even there and tell unlikely, constantly changing stories. So, when Okuzaki has had enough, he physically attacks them. This man's assaults complicate an already dark issue - but it also makes the trauma stand out. Some wounds never heal.

It's impossible to walk in Okuzaki's shoes. The 2nd Company, 36th Independent Engineering Regiment, like many in the Pacific, had been abandoned by a navy that had been virtually wiped out, and ordered to fight to the last man. With no supplies, they all eventually began to starve to death and along with madness, cannibalism took hold. These painful occurrances come up in a halting, uncomfortable manner in this documentary - truly there were things that happened that are too frightful to even remember, or say out loud. Kenzō Okuzaki went through this (he returned to New Guinea with this film crew, but Indonesia confiscated the footage) and will obviously never be over it. He's tried to attack the emperor, and served time for that. He brutally assaults a poor, old, sick man as we watch on in horror. By the time Kazuo Hara was getting near to completing the filming, Okuzaki asked him if he'd like to film him as he murders one of these ex-officers. Hara refused, but Okuzaki went anyway, intending to shoot his target dead. The target wasn't home, so Okuzaki shot his son instead. I feel for all the victims here, of which there are so many - everyone seems a victim in my eyes, with memories so troubled that I doubt any of these survivors felt any peace until the day they died. Such a strange, sad, and mad documentary.

Glad to catch this one - this documentary won awards at the following festivals : Berlin, Blue Ribbon, Kinema Junpo, Mainichi, Rotterdam and Yokohama.





Watchlist Count : 426 (-24)

Next : The Murderers Are Among Us (1946)

Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On





PONETTE (1996)

Directed by : Jacques Doillon

When I was little there was this kid who assured me that when a person died they were just taken to hospital and fixed - that death wasn't permanent. I knew that wasn't true, but still remember that age where death isn't clearly defined in the mind yet. Ponette is a very sad film dealing with the aftermath of a car crash which kills the mother of four-year-old Ponette (Victoire Thivisol), and leaves the little girl with a broken arm. Ponette struggles to understand the nature of her mother's death, and takes great pains to find out if there's a way to bring her back or, failing that, a way she can talk to her mother again. Along the way she encounters the religious beliefs of various people, and is confused by the various theories of her peers, who know even less about death than she does. Her grief affects the way she relates to the children around her, and forces her to confront a certain emptiness when it comes to the promise of prayer or assurances that her mother is "in heaven" and "happy" despite the fact that her broken body now lays in a coffin buried deep under the ground. What makes it all worse is the fact that all of her friends still have a mother - it seems unfair that she must bear this hardship when others don't.

When you hear about Ponette one factor about it is so extraordinary it will always be the first thing that's mentioned - the performance of young Victoire Thivisol, which is one of the most remarkable things you'll ever see in a film. I can't figure how Jacques Doillon managed to get that out of her, and I'd hate to think that little Victoire had to suffer by imagining that her mother had died. She won the Best Actress Award at the Venice Film Festival - at a younger age where I was quite happy and proud with a Certificate of Achievement at school. Four years of age, and winner of Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival! The camera really kind of slips into the whole realm of childhood, and all of the kids seem quite natural - these aren't kids acting like pint-sized adults, but instead innocent young minds with ideas that resemble dream-logic. Ponette's little cousins have no time for grief, and instead feel aggrieved that Ponette doesn't want to play. From time to time adults invade this world, but most of the film takes place fully immersed in it. The camera sidles in closely, and the kids have an intimate relationship with it and each other.

Boy oh boy - okay, this one is a sad one. I used to get really upset when, as a child, I'd think to myself that one day my mother would die, and I'd have to say goodbye forever. If it happens when you're only 4-years-old, then it's truly heartbreaking and unfair. Little Ponette is so cute, but the poor little girl is the very image of sadness and loss, desperately searching for answers or a way to reconnect with her mother. Her father (Xavier Beauvois) is good with her, but typically absent, and so Ponette must subsist with her cousins and at a boarding school - which just seems to make her emptiness worse. Still, this is a very worthwhile film to see, because even though it's sad it gives a lot more to it's audience than it takes from them. You feel richer for having seen it. It imparts wisdom in that it gives you access to a world you ordinarily wouldn't be able to be a part of. Ponette is so well made that the journey into that world is magical, and almost transcendental. You see grief from a perspective that's totally unfamiliar, while at the same time being easy to understand, and very much a part of who we all are. In a way, we spend our entire lives doing what little Ponette does - trying to come to terms with what it all means once we've lost what made us whole.

Glad to catch this one - this won 4 awards at the Venice Film Festival, including the FIPRESCI Prize, along with various other international film festival awards.





Watchlist Count : 427 (-23)

Next : The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On (1987)

Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Ponette
Excellent movie.
__________________
I’m here only on Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays. That’s why I’m here now.



I forgot the opening line.
SEPTEMBER RUN-THROUGH

I tried to pick up the pace in September, and that led to me adding another 21 movie reviews to the pile I've stacked up this year. That pile, as it turns out, is now at 213 movies watched and reviewed for this thread. I can't really remember how sure I was that I'd make it this far, but I think I was pretty confidant. I was really excited to be tackling my watchlist, and since I've had such a great time doing it I'm still excited pressing on into the future. No matter how strict I am adding movies to this watchlist (there are no "maybes" placed there - only movies I must see) it seems to keep pace with what I watch. Honestly - I did not know there were so many movies out there that I'd find so enjoyable. The ratio of good to bad so highly favours the good that it's kept me going stamina-wise, and my horizons have been broadened.

BEST OF THE BUNCH

The standards for September are extremely high! I could have had 5 movies up here in this category - each one of them brilliant - but instead I'll put forward the absolute masterpiece, and give those other amazing films a place in the second category. I need to watch more Wong Kar-wai movies, and rewatch the ones I've already seen - they're absolutely sublime, and speak directly to me in an emotional and spiritual manner. Beautiful, and soulfully elevating.



BEST OF THE REST

Yeah, in previous months I think any of these could have been in the above category, but I felt it would have made that "best of the best" section too crowded. These are the films that I also felt were incredible, amazing and far beyond what I was even expecting.


Honorable mentions have to go to Jeremiah Johnson, The Blue Caftan, Showing Up, The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On, The Vast of Night, Two Men in Town (1973), ...And Justice For All, Godland and Arrebato - all of which I enjoyed immensely. Can't wait to get right back into it October-wise, and for the rest of the year - and probably next year as well. Who knows how long I'll be compelled to do this for - I honestly thought I'd have chopped my watchlist in half by now - and I know I mention this a lot, but I'm amazed at how the new additions I make to it keep pace. So many great recommendations come my way - so for those I'm especially thankful. Keep 'em coming, and keep up the good work on these messageboards as far as writing about what you watch goes - I never tire of hearing people excited about a newest cinematic discovery.



I forgot the opening line.


THE MURDERERS ARE AMONG US (1946)

Directed by : Wolfgang Staudte

The pain is visceral - nobody could say Germany hadn't suffered for what the ignoble had caused, which was in effect a catastrophe unparalleled in all of human history. Millions, many millions had been murdered, and what faced the survivors wasn't only a spiritual reckoning, but the rebuilding of an entire nation. The Murderers Are Among Us takes place in the rubble of Berlin, where Susanne Wallner (Hildegard Knef) returns from a concentration camp to her semi-intact apartment. There she finds a squatter - Dr. Hans Mertens (Ernst Wilhelm Borchert) - who is in a state of despair and instead of throwing him out she makes the determination that he's to stay. Survivors should stick together. Hans retains in his memory, however, events that have a suffocating hold on him, and lead him to an old comrade - Ferdinand Brückner (Arno Paulsen), once he finds out that he has survived the war. Brückner, a killer of innocent women and children, is suffering from little guilt or trauma, and is already reaping the financial benefits from his rapid pivot from pulling off massacres to pulling off business deals. Can Dr. Mertens forget the past and forge a new future with Susanne, or will he give in to his impulse to deliver justice on behalf of his tortured soul?

Turns out the spectacular destruction of a German city gives a film crew many opportunities for interestingly devised shots. Over and over again while watching The Murderers Are Among Us, it's easy to be impressed by the inventiveness on display - and it's sure surreal to be a Berliner at this time in history, where a walk down the street means you have to climb piles of rubble, and meet people who pop out from virtual holes in the ground. It's easy to project despair, crookedness, shattered dreams, destroyed hopes, discomfort and darkness when you can shoot through shattered windows. It must have been useful to play with light and darkness too, and I liked the ultra close-ups on Ernst Wilhelm Borchert's face during his torment while we hear the recent past - the Horst Wessel Lied and screaming. On the other side, Susanne Wallner is the hope of this story, in a steadily brightening apartment she works at making a home of. The shot of Susanne and Hans walking through a ruined street, with what looks like a great deal of careful lighting that accentuates the crumbling facades, should be an iconic shot that's more well known in cinematic circles. The unusual angles of some shots add to the sense that this is an expressionistic film aided by the fact that the surroundings it has been shot in have been rendered such by chance.

The Murderers Are Among Us is famous for being the first German film made after the end of the Second World War - and I'm kind of blown away by the fact that there's so much artistry and complexity to such an effort. There's a scene that offers redemption not only for the character of Hans Mertens, but Germany as a whole when he forgoes an attempt at murder to instead save the life of a German girl amongst the ruins. The girl's mother, wishing to thank the doctor somehow, simply tells him how glad she is. "I'll let you in on a secret," Mertens says, "I am too." There has to be some hope, because the reckoning is only just beginning for the German nation. While Mertens is performing an emergency surgical procedure on the girl, the war criminal, Brückner, is carousing with girls and drinking in a bar. No matter how obvious the discrepancy though, it doesn't feel heavy-handed. I've learned enough about post-war Germany to realise the issue was real, and that The Murderers Are Among Us does capture a moment in time unique in world history. A nation remaking itself from the ground up. Nothing needed to be faked or exaggerated, and there's a grim sense of fascination I have regarding how people survived this terrible situation after years of Hitler's rule.

Glad to catch this one - the first and a great example of " Trümmerfilm" (rubble films), another of which is Rossellini's Germany Year Zero. Bulgarian director Angel Wagenstein said that the film "...renewed our faith in a nation capable of self-reflection, of looking into the mirror and acknowledging its own guilt, of making a confession that very few nations would be able to make.”





Watchlist Count : 434 (-16)

Next : Poison for the Fairies (Veneno para las hadas) (1986)

Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch The Murderers Are Among Us



The pain is visceral - nobody could say Germany hadn't suffered for what the ignoble had caused, which was in effect a catastrophe unparalleled in all of human history. Millions, many millions had been murdered, and what faced the survivors wasn't only a spiritual reckoning, but the rebuilding of an entire nation.
I really loved this film. Here's the review I wrote up last year.

I'm sure you've seen Cranes Are Flying (maybe even in the same HoF where I saw it?), and this one made me think a bit of that one.



I forgot the opening line.
I really loved this film. Here's the review I wrote up last year.

I'm sure you've seen Cranes Are Flying (maybe even in the same HoF where I saw it?), and this one made me think a bit of that one.
The Cranes Are Flying is a good one. I think I saw it when I went through the Foreign Language countdown films, and have it on Criterion now. Looking at when that HoF took place, I watched it around the same time coincidentally, but that was just prior to when I first discovered the HoFs and started participating in them.



I forgot the opening line.


POISON FOR THE FAIRIES (1986)
(Veneno para las hadas)

Directed by : Carlos Enrique Taboada

Don't worry about witches, goblins, fairies, zombies or the devil - we cause enough trouble for ourselves without the need for the boogeyman to be hiding underneath our bed at night. Poison For the Fairies is basically about a toxic friendship between two 10-year-old girls, Verónica (Ana Patricia Rojo) and Flavia (Elsa María Gutiérrez). Flavia is the new girl at school, and comes from a wealthy family - she's easily influenced and skittish. Verónica is the odd bird of the class - she collects insects, and is right into anything that evokes witchcraft, Satanism and horror. She influences Flavia, and when piano lessons get in the way of their friendship she tells her she can cast a spell to free her from a part of her life Flavia hates. When it appears that the spell works, and Flavia starts having terrible nightmares, Verónica takes advantage of the power her friend thinks she has. It's a dynamic that leads to more and more bad behaviour, which in turn sets the stage for real horror to rear it's ugly head. This is a friendship that is always giving the viewer a bad feeling, with jealousy and resentment being as much of a foundation as shared interests. Verónica is domineering, and instead of comforting Flavia when something bad happens, she takes advantage.

I thought this was a great movie. We've all come across these personality types in our lives, but children have little experience of the world, and are at the mercy of circumstance sometimes. So, we must simply watch on - director Carlos Enrique Taboada seals the audience in Flavia and Verónica's world by not even having the camera see anything above shoulder height adult-wise when it comes to Flavia's parents. It's maddening not being able to guide these kids, and having to watch on as they build a friendship a little too focused on Verónica's need to scare Flavia, and in turn see what she can take from her. This is a movie that reminds us children are still learning about the world around them, and as such are easily led astray. Verónica herself has been gifted her specific frame of mind by her nanny, who reads her stories that focus on witchcraft and horror - and it doesn't help at all that her home feels dysfunctional, with the only other person we know is there her deformed and invalid grandmother - lost in her own dark world. It makes sense that Verónica envies Flavia, and it also makes sense that Flavia is a little afraid and in awe of Verónica, who seems to be living with witch-like adults instead of cozy, no-nonsense parents.

I don't know if it's great acting or great casting (probably both), but Ana Patricia Rojo looks like a spoiled brat, and Elsa María Gutiérrez simply looks like a nice little girl. I've seen those looks smug self-satisfaction in people used to getting their own way - the kind that's a bully one minute and then when adults walk into a room pretend to be suspiciously nice and friendly. Carlos Enrique Taboada takes the situation of the dominant and submissive here and takes it to a place where the audience is on edge, twisting things in such a way that we can't imagine a catharsis that isn't going to be tragic and horrific. I thought the writing and direction was perfect for this kind of film - one which includes frequent nods to the genre, and maintains a fantasy vibe which often alludes to the witchcraft Verónica is so obsessed with. Spells are cast and operate in the subconscious, where dark magic really does it's work. I really loved this movie, and was blown away by the ending - what a great pair of child actresses as well! Oh, and well done to Ana Patricia Rojo for what looks like handling a really, really big spider. I shuddered at the thought of that.

Glad to catch this one - this was nominated for 10 Ariel Awards (Mexico's Oscars) and ended up winning 5, for Best Film, Best Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Editing and Best Score.





Watchlist Count : 433 (-17)

Next : The Cremator (1969)

Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Poison For the Fairies



I forgot the opening line.
I also thought very highly of Poison for the Fairies. Have you seen Darker Than Night by the same director? I liked it about as much.
I've got Darker Than Night on my watchlist already, and since I liked Poison for the Fairies so much I've ordered a Carlos Enrique Taboada DVD compilation with both movies on it.



I forgot the opening line.


THE CREMATOR (1969)
(Spalovač mrtvol)

Directed by : Juraj Herz

The Cremator is about a terrible man - Karel Kopfrkingl (Rudolf Hrušínský) - the very definition of the "banality of evil". He runs a crematorium in Prague during the late 1930s, just as Hitler's Germany is on the verge of occupying the Sudetenland and then Czechoslovakia. A talkative fellow, who at times breaks the 4th wall to talk to us, he espouses his views on just about everything - especially death, as it relates to his profession. He sees death as a mercy for those who have a lot of suffering in front of them, and is a firm believer in reincarnation - one of his most prized possessions a Tibetan book on the subject. He speaks with conviction, but without passion. He's not an unhappy man, but he's completely joyless. When the Nazis come looking for a collaborator, he has to be persuaded - but once onboard Karel Kopfrkingl is the perfect conformist, adapting his own ideas to a future that will deal with murder and cremation on an ever-increasing basis. This all unfolds in a dizzying fashion via an inventive combination of fish-eye lens cinematography, rapid editing and a haunting, operatic score.

This is the kind of man that finds himself at home when it comes to the macabre, which is something we return to over and over in The Cremator - talk of disease, physiological oddities, being buried alive, death and killing abounds during Karel's soliloquies, and he delights in the grotesqueries on display at carnivals. In his mind, though, he's the epitome of benevolence, and eventually turns into what he sees as an angel of mercy. Juraj Herz uses a fish-eye lens on the camera to accentuate this man's inner deformity in an external fashion - Rudolf Hrušínský comes off a little like Peter Lorre at his most villainous, sounding and looking immediately suspicious, which creates a little dissonance when you listen to him speak. You could easily be lulled into agreeing with whatever this man says, and get slowly led down a garden path until you realise where exactly you are. It feels almost like he's had to rationalize what he does to the point of making it beautiful and almost heroic - burning corpses is to this man pure transcendence and glory. He's freeing spirits, and hastening the perfect cycle of "ashes to ashes". Nothing could be more spiritually uplifting.

This film is chilling. There's a sense that Juraj Herz and Ladislav F uks (who helped to adapt his novel ) is hitting the nail directly on the head, as I imagine what we hear in this movie is the inner monologue that many Nazis who convinced themselves they were doing good work repeated to themselves. There's nothing crazy or hateful in it - and murder suddenly becomes the alleviating of future suffering, and the transference of a soul to a better home. Supporting all of this is an extraordinarily dark strain of comedy throughout - which seems almost a necessity considering the peculiarities of the Nazis and the need for some kind of release from the wrenching despair of this subject. I'd say all-up The Cremator is in the running as far as being considered the best repudiation of Hitler and his ideals in cinematic form goes. I think Karel Kopfrkingl is obviously modelled on him, and his descent into madness (at one stage he believes he's the next incarnation of the Dalai Lama) mirrors Hitler's messianic image of himself. All-up, I think this movie evocatively highlights the power movies have to demystify and undress the horrors of murderous states - a testament to it's greatness.

Glad to catch this one - Criterion #1023, and winner of Best Film, Best Actor (Rudolf Hrušínský) and Best Cinematography at the Catalonian International Film Festival.





Watchlist Count : 433 (-17)

Next : The Manitou (1978)

Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch The Cremator



I forgot the opening line.


THE MANITOU (1978)

Directed by : William Girdler

I swear there are an infinite supply of films made from the late 70s to the early 80s that share similar characteristics with The Manitou. They all involve some kind of mythology from an exotic civilization, an artifact or curse, one or two really big-name actors, and a need to really amp up the craziness during the movie's climax. These are modest-budget horror/supernatural movies that have many a poorer cousin (these without the big name star) that kept video shop shelves stuffed throughout the format's peak. For those who are in it for the fun the madness brings won't be disappointed by The Manitou, which is a rollicking good time for those who don't want to take a movie too seriously. Tony Curtis heads the bill - a little past his prime (he'd appear in the notorious Sextette the same year) and long separated from the caliber of movie he'd appear in during his heyday in decades past. He plays Harry Erskine a theatrical tarot card reader with a friend, Karen Tandy (Susan Strasberg), who has a tumor-like growth on her neck. This growth is soon identified as a foetus, which is turn is identified as a 400-year-old medicine man who is reincarnating himself via folk magic. Enter John Singing Rock (Michael Ansara) to help fight a battle for the ages.

I must confess to having a soft spot for these late 70s supernatural horror movies (those who like The Manitou should really check out The Medusa Touch, a Hammer Horror-like production which came out the same year.) Here you literally get fire and ice - along with laser beams, explosions, earthquakes, cosmic infinity, lizard demons and a lot more. There's one scene, where Harry is tarot reading for an elderly client that had a real The Producers vibe to it, and when this old lady is attacked by the demonic force now attached to Harry, her fit and mania is played with one foot firmly in the supernatural horror arena, and the other planted way over in wacky comedy territory. This weird dichotomy is only broken when the old lady takes off floating out the door and down the corridor before being violently launched down a flight of stairs - destroying the bannister on the way. She may be dead, and Harry may have been in some kind of trouble - but the incident is barely mentioned again, so apparently nothing much happened there. Later on, Burgess Meredith turns up as a Native American scholar, Dr. Snow, to generally help explain the folklore this film is basing itself on - a day's filming, but a welcome face to see all the same.

We all need a movie like The Manitou from time to time - out of this world while not taking itself too seriously, it keeps it's audience entertained throughout. Tony Curtis doesn't look at all like he's unhappy being in a movie of this sort, and as such gives a really generous amount of energy to his role and the audience. He was having a good time it seems. Influences abound from The Exorcist to 2001 : A Space Odyssey and there's one shot of a frozen nurse's severed head flying through the air that seemingly aspires to greatness - and even though this is more supernatural than horror, the latter gets enough of it's due to stamp some authority on the film. Every now and then something a little absurd pokes it's head up (the medicine man hoping to contain the entity must draw a circle around Karen's bed, but he ends up stopping short when he reaches the hospital wall! Good enough I guess) but that's all a part of The Manitou's charm. It might be ridiculous, but I'd say that a copy of The Manitou would be a welcome addition to my movie collection, and hope that there's a really nice boutique version on Blu-Ray for me to buy one day. It's a hoot - no doubt.

Glad to catch this one - William Girdler's last film before dying in a helicopter crash in Indonesia while scouting for his next film.





Watchlist Count : 432 (-18)

Next : The Hands of Orlac (1924)

Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch The Manitou



I forgot the opening line.


THE HANDS OF ORLAC (1924)

Directed by : Robert Wiene

I took a journey back in time last night - 100 years since audiences first viewed Robert Wiene's The Hands of Orlac. It's not my usual kind of movie-watching, watching these silent films, so I do feel a little removed from what I'm watching. The cinematic language is different, performances are far more theatrical, and I think I picked the wrong version music-wise. I can't put myself "in" the movie, because everything looks too different from reality. Other than that though, there are some surprisingly awesome sights to behold and I was shamefully caught unawares by the twist the narrative had in store for me when the film was ending. The story is that of a concert pianist, Paul Orlac (Conrad Veidt), who is badly injured in a train crash and loses his hands. A sympathetic surgeon transplants the hands from a recently executed murderer, and when Orlac finds out he now has the hands of a murderer his revulsion overcomes him - but that's the least of his troubles as it seems these hands have a mind of their own, and are committing crimes of their own volition while Orlac is unaware. In the meantime, debts are mounting and Orlac's marriage to his once-devoted wife Yvonne (Alexandra Sorina) suffers.

Getting the worst out of the way - I sorely wished throughout the whole film that Conrad Veidt could dial down his performance just a little, from time to time. I know, though, that this isn't something specific to The Hands of Orlac - theatricality and forceful expression is a staple of silent cinema, and as such all performances are exaggerated. For Veidt that seems doubly so, as his horror produces a consistent series of wide-eyed, trembling attacks of overstated and excessive terror. Now, I'm not saying they never should have been a part of his performance - I'm saying that they shouldn't have happened as often as they did (basically, constantly once he found out he had a murderer's hands.) The only other large problem I had was that the intertitles tended to stick around for too long (I'd have liked their time onscreen halved), and that slowed the pace of everything too much - the narrative and pace are already slow as things are. I watched the film on YouTube, and the music I got grated (I should have done what I kind of felt compelled to do, and found another version or just turned the sound off altogether.) All that said, the film looks amazing for it's time period (I was kind of expecting more expressionism - but I was fine with that being dialed back), and some sequences - like the train crash - were far beyond what I would have been expecting from a film in 1924. That whole sequence after the train crash was pretty amazing.

My biggest surprise came from various rug-pulls that caught me napping - it's not often I'm genuinely surprised by a silent film's story, but in this case everything fit together in a really remarkable and satisfying way. Different threads are weaved, one of which has Yvonne's maid, Regine (Carmen Cartellieri) conspiring with a stranger (Fritz Kortner) in a plot that targets Paul and Yvonne, and the other involving Yvonne having to approach Paul's cruel father to plead for financial assistance. There are some really neat dream sequences, and the version I watched had the German writing in letters and newspaper articles dissolve into English (in a way that makes me think this is a recent revision.) So, overall, a pretty wild and crazy story. The world's first ever successful hand transplant was performed in 1998, which always makes me wonder how storytellers can just have this happen as if hand transplants are everyday medical procedures. It's no less ridiculous than Oliver Stone's 1981 movie The Hand however, that has Michael Caine's severed appendage crawling around doing it's own thing. I thought there was a lot about The Hand of Orlac that was outstanding, and only it's age and a handful of issues stopped me from absolutely loving it.

Glad to catch this one - fully restored to it's original length in 1995, once all the footage had been found. One of the most critically acclaimed Austrian-produced films.





Watchlist Count : 431 (-19)

Next : Leila’s Brothers (2022)

Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch The Hands of Orlac



I'd give The Hands of Orlac at least an extra point, personally. It's a great example of a film carried by its various twists, and plot twists are hard to get right. I also didn't mind the acting.



I forgot the opening line.


LEILA'S BROTHERS (2022)

Directed by : Saeed Roustaee

There's something about Iranian films that rouse me, and get my passions all stirred up. Leila's Brothers, a wonderful recent cinematic beauty from Saeed Roustaee, did more than just that, because it delivers on various different levels. I'd never seen a movie from Iran that can be as funny as this one can, but there's of course plenty of heartbreak to finally drive home an intimate family portrait of life in Iran in an era after Donald Trump scraps their Nuclear deal with the United States and sanctions are reimposed. Leila Jourablou (Taraneh Alidoosti) is a middle-aged woman looking after a family of particularly low achievers. Her father Esmail (Saeed Poursamimi), craves a high standing with respect to the larger extended family, at great financial cost. Her brothers are mostly either unemployed or barely scraping by, but she hatches a plan with Alireza (Navid Mohammadzadeh) - the most intelligent brother - which involves the whole family pooling their resources together to buy a shop in a busy shopping district, so they can be lifted out of poverty. Esmail has other ideas however, and is determined to give everything away as a wedding present so he can officially become the "patriarch" of the wider clan. Poor decision making on all fronts see them all lurch from one disaster to the next - with growing fractures threatening to tear this brood apart. In the meantime, Iran's economic situation starts to bite.

I loved this movie - all 164 minutes of it. Luckily, the pace and explosive narrative surprises are so engrossing that the considerable length isn't felt all that much - at least it wasn't for me personally. Leila's Brothers takes it's time to warm up, but the temperature keeps on rising until all is a raging fire and shockwaves are felt on levels that equate to how intimately we get to know the Jourablou family. The cinematography was fantastic, and rises a level during the wedding sequence which seems to aim for lofty heights - a very nice set piece which also proves to be a crux moment in this compelling story. The screenplay was full of subtle humour, and all of the younger actors were very well equipped for high farce and wry one-liners. I've never laughed as much at an Iranian film before - and at one stage I was starting to think that this was a comedy, but at a certain stage this darkens considerably and so like seasons we drift in and out of different moods and tones. Despite being the driving force behind the family, there's so much Leila can't actually do, being a woman in Iran. The bumbling force doing the actual work are her less savvy and more accident prone brothers, who always act on the rather bad ideas they have instead. This goes for her father as well. Cultural differences to what I'm used to show up in this film to a large degree.

Put this movie in your watchlist if you at all like Iran's distinct cinematic style and output. It was a tonic for me, and connected with me emotionally - this during a week when it seems like so many films have been trying so hard to do just that, and failing. I really felt stinging sadness, sorrow, and the warm glow of family - because these characters have close familial bonds which might be lacking in some cultures these days. I felt a great number of sentiments - searching my own experience and feeling every raw, almost terrifying moment when it seems like something has happened that can never be taken back. You experience the resounding shock when a lie is exposed, and freeze like most of the characters do when a culturally forbidden slap occurs. You stare, unable to look away when humiliation and betrayal are heaped on one person, but understand the motivations behind it. Leila's Brothers sets up a shocking clash between culture and economic necessity that leads and leaves people in the unenviable position of having to make impossible decisions. It all adds up to a really powerful drama that gives you an experience - that of what family means to average, everyday Iranians, and what it takes these days for a family to survive. Great stuff.

Glad to catch this one - nominated for the Palme d'Or at Cannes, it ended up winning the FIPRESCI Prize and Citizenship Prize for Saeed Roustayi.





Watchlist Count : 431 (-19)

Next : Brawl in Cell Block 99 (2017)

Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Leila's Brothers



Oh, I did not care for Brawl in Cell Block 99 all that much. I initially gave it a
, but my opinion has declined a bit since first watching it. Interested to hear your thoughts on it.