My 2024 Watchlist Obsession!

It's been quite an opening few weeks. If the whole year turns out like this then wow.

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Wistfully downbeat, Scarecrow manages to slowly and evenly pace out the foundations of a loving friendship from it's inception - an unlikely one between the paranoid, gruff and violent Max Millan (Gene Hackman) and softer, playful funny guy Francis Lionel Delbuchi (Al Pacino). It's a road trip movie without ready transportation as Max and 'Lion' hitchhike their way across the United States. For Lion it's to see the kid he's never even met, and for Max a dream of opening a car wash business in Pittsburgh. What constantly threatens to derail the whole enterprise is Max's propensity to get into fights and take his side too far - he's already spent 6 years in prison for hurting someone, but what Lion brings to this coupling is a tendency to soften Max's view of the world, and bring him to a more happy place. Their meeting is what kicks off the movie, and Max is the kind of guy that needs constant work on Lion's part to get through those outer defenses. Max's barbs and insults are like water off a duck's back to him, and he's not easily turned away.

Well, this is one of those films that would have truly disappeared into obscurity never to return if it weren't for some beautiful work by cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond (who I know from Altman films McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Images and The Long Goodbye) and brilliant dual performances from Pacino and Hackman. The screenplay isn't up to all that much, but the chemistry the two leads build with their characters managed to truly touch me, and I have to admit the film gets gritty and brave when it comes time for both Max and Lion to spend a few months in prison - the less physically forthright Lion beat up pretty badly in an attempted rape. It's a moment when Max's dam wall really breaks, and his protective instincts take the friendship to a new level. More powerful scenes of that nature could have elevated this film, but that coupled with quite an ending provide some counterpoints to it's occasional drift. Apparently the acting methods of Hackman and Pacino clashed - but you'd never guess that from watching the movie.

I kind of feel a little incredulous that I'd never heard of this film before - despite the fact that it was a box office flop. Another Cannes top award winner as well, taking home the Palme d'Or equivalent (the Grand Prix du Festival International du Film - I see why they changed the name.) So, all up, a movie that you have to have a look at if you're all about the great actors giving "at their peak" performances, and cinema itself. Gene Hackman pointed to this one as his personal favourites performance-wise, and this was a guy with a great body of work behind him. Anyway - my take is a growing awareness of a certain slow sift upwards of films that had very short lives at the box office, but are very slowly gaining the appreciation they either never got or was not due to them at the time, because the film didn't mesh with the age it was released in. Films no longer disappear into voids - and it's strange thinking that they once did (apart from the occasional showing on television) once they stopped playing. This is another that I intend to casually drop into conversations so word spreads - Scarecrow is very much worth seeing.


Glad to catch this one - another Cannes top prize winner.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Scarecrow.

God help those who have brothers like Osman (Erol Taş) - he works his plot of land with Hasan (Ulvi Dogan), and being the older brother gets to dictate how everything operates. When he decides to prevent the water's natural progression from his property to the land below - denying all of those farmers the precious water they need while he gets it all - all Hasan can do is lodge a protest, and try to convince him not to go that route. Young Hasan has just married Bahar (Hülya Koçyiğit) - who Osman lusts after - and when the latter accidentally kills an unhappy marauder on his property he convinces Hasan to take the blame - leading to him getting an 8 year prison sentence. Once gone, there's nobody left to temper Hasan's worst impulses and inclinations. Quite the tale about greed, honor, community and this moral lesson : just because something is within your legal rights and boundaries doesn't mean you should just go ahead and do what you want despite the implications.

Metin Erksan had me where he wanted me - my lord, I hated Osman. Dry Summer is just an endless procession of scenes which prove how awful the man is. As soon as his younger brother gets married, Osman wastes no time making a hole in the wall so he can watch them both make love. His worst act though is coming up for the reasoning for diverting the water - the spring is on his land so all the water is his. He's too dim-witted to understand that if he goes to such extreme measures he'll never again endure any kind of peace or good standing within the community. All of the senseless tragedy that occurs in this film does so because of his decision, and the fact that no matter what he won't be diverted from his insistence on it. I found this all made for a very nice analogy concerning nations and especially corporations. Many corporations do things that are morally reprehensible, but because they're within their legal rights they consider any course of action "okay" - and justify it by claiming that it's a dog eat dog, savage corporate world and they must do whatever it takes to maximise profits.

Dry Summer is a very easy film to watch because of it's very basic moral story. I thought the performances from Erol Taş and Hülya Koçyiğit were excellent - Osman is a very hard character to sell, but Taş makes him utterly believable in a boorish, primal manner. The cinematography was much better than what I was expecting from a Turkish film made in the 1960s, but apparently the 60s was something of a heyday and peak for Turkish cinema, Dry Summer being the key film which is at the top of most lists of great Turkish films of the period. I'd been watching quite a bit of avant-garde stuff, so it's nice to come back to very elemental storytelling - especially if it's making an agreeable point. One last take-away : I'm not so sure of the wisdom concerning a culture where the oldest brother gets to basically dictate matters to the younger ones - and this is a great example of how that tradition can go awry. Sometimes, you simply have to mutiny - even if it's in-family. There's no way I'd have taken an 8 year jail sentence for something my brother did while acting like a jerk.

Glad to catch this one - Golden Bear winner at the 1964 Berlin Film Festival.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Dry Summer.

Wow - that was a surprise. A film noir directed with incredible panache by Nicholas Ray that features one of Humphrey Bogart's finest ever performances, and I don't think I'd ever even heard of it before. Like the best of it's kind, it gave me that special kind of feeling the moment it ended - a mixture of sadness and shock mixed with excitement and supreme satisfaction. Bogart plays screenwriter Dixon Steele, accused of murdering a girl he had over at his apartment one night, and given an alibi by neighbour Laurel Gray (Gloria Grahame), who saw the girl leave his apartment alone (and alive.) The film keeps the door open as to whether Steele really did have something to do with her murder, but what's certain is that this is a troubled man. Talk about methods of murder excites him, and he explodes into violence at the slightest provocation. When Steele and Laurel fall in love, the former starts to work again after a long hiatus - but the latter has yet to witness the terrifying change of personality that occurs when he's angered.

It's refreshing to see a film that wants to examine violence in a serious and meaningful way. So many are forced to excuse it because of it's essential necessity as part of the conflict in a story - with protagonists forced to depend on it. Here it's senseless - much like road rage, which I was thinking about quite a bit during the film. Steele's first moment of anger comes early in the film, while he's in his car waiting at the lights and gets into an altercation for talking to a jealous man's wife. Later he takes out his fury on a motorist he swipes while rage-driving, where all sense of proportion is lost and he nearly takes to the man with a rock he picks up on the side of the road. It looks primal and savage - like Bogart has suddenly become a cave man in some paleolithic era exhibit. That along with the possibility he murdered that girl has poor Laurel's internal alarm triggered - exacerbated when Steele starts pressuring her into huge decisions like marriage. Steele's disintegration is terrible to sit through, but we can't look away.

I read that Humphrey Bogart came closest to presenting his real-life persona on film as he ever did in this feature - which is both sad and a little unnerving. So many have that kind of rage trigger in them (and I think the number could possibly be halved if they stopped drinking.) Here we see it poison a love story still at the height of it's honeymoon phase, adding extra weight to the "did he kill that girl?" question which would probably have been dismissed if he didn't seem like the guy that'd do it. But overall, I found In a Lonely Place to be a tremendously gripping movie, and one that forged it's own way forward without relying on clichés or formulas. Loads of talent both in front of and behind the cameras, and a frightening intensity in Humphrey Bogart's performance. I'm all too happy to add it to the pile of films that are new favourites of mine, reminding myself to drop the odd, "Have you seen In an Lonely Place?" into conversations as if I've known about it all my life. Absolute masterpiece.


So glad to catch this one - Criterion number 810 and included in Schneider's 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch In a Lonely Place.

I think that In a Lonely Place does really interesting things with the trope of a love story where it sort of hinges on whether one of the people murdered someone.

This movie dares to say, "If someone seems like they might have killed someone, maybe don't, like, become intimate with them?"

I bought this movie when I was 17, and decades later, even fans of Pacino and Hackman haven't heard of this movie. It's too bad. I would have thought after Hackman winning his 2nd Oscar, Pacino being in "The Godfather" and in retrospect, this would be more popular, because it's a nice independent movie with a lot of the gritty realism of the 70s.

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Here is a film you simply can't seperate from the year it was made in - 1963, when the Cuban Missile Crisis was still fresh in everyone's mind (interesting to note that those "duck and cover" civil defense videos for kids were made in the early 1950s - I thought they came out around the same time.) Yeah - Ladybug. Fly away home. Your house is on fire. Or at least, the "nuclear attack is imminent" alarm has gone off, and the teachers at a secluded countryside elementary school aren't quite sure what to do. For me, they're all a little too lax for my liking - but I know that this is a movie, and that anything is possible (the more dramatic, the more probable) so excuse my paranoia. In the end there's nothing to do but go through all the steps put in place, and carry out what everyone has practiced during all the drills. This involves walking all of the students home so they can bunker down in their various bomb shelters and cellars. It feels crazy to be thinking "This might be it." It might be the end of life as we've always known it.

Now, I know I usually go through the films on my watchlist particularly blind - that's the way I like it, and seeing as though I put them there at some unknown time in the past for a long forgotten reason, I'm often completely clueless as to what's coming. Bar, that is, for an occasional odd sneaky look at a synopsis - and often an eyeful of a letterboxd banner still. The still for Ladybug Ladybug features a teacher leading her children along a peaceful country road (and the poster also alludes to the same.) So, obviously this isn't about fire, fury, survival and radiation sickness - it's about that uncertain walk home. Are bombs on their way? What will happen? All the kids process this in very different ways - but the one thing we can be certain about is that this long drawn out cold war tension has had an effect on them. The movie is based on a real event - an incident at a California elementary school during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis on which an article had been published in McCall's magazine. Despite happening over 60 years ago, it's still interesting to consider.

Although Ladybug Ladybug only goes for 82 minutes, the constant drumbeat speculation of the kids and their worried teacher can drag a little at times (are we there yet?), although that's eased a little when we follow one home and see how this or that one adapts. Overall, I can't see this as a film I'd return to multiple times. Still, for the most part it grabbed me, and I think it was a particularly noble attempt to make people take notice of what the cold war was doing to the kids who knew - in a general kind of way - what would happen if the Soviet Union and United States kicked off an exchange of their immense firepower. The tight close-in cinematography and some decent child performances help make this film from Frank and Eleanor Perry hit it's mark pretty much spot on. It also does a good job at making us uncertain as to whether the alarm is real or not. Radio broadcasts continue as if nothing is amiss...but, is that because there's nothing wrong, or because they've incorrectly assumed a true alarm is a false one? Like, say, being tested for cancer - you can't really relax until you know 100% that the prognosis is negative. Just - don't hide in a 1960s refrigerator. Please.

Glad to catch this one - the least seen film from my watchlist so far.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Ladybug Ladybug.

You've been watching many of my 10/10s lately (or close to it)... One thing I also loved about "Ladybug, Ladybug" is how the narrative is seen through the children's eyes, and how they develop a hierarchy for power.. "This is MY shelter", etc etc..

You just made me realise how Ladybug Ladybug and the other film I watched, Monos (which I didn't really cover here) fit together - Monos was about child soldiers, and as such it was another film from a kid's perspective. Kids are great rule-setters as well. Whatever situation they find themselves in, one of the first things done is a setting of rules, job-assignments and boundaries.

I very well may have heard of some of these films from you!

I had a feeling Memoria was going to test me a little, but I gave it my patience and it ended up being a mix of furnishings and essence which really did something for me, and placid fabric that wasn't quite my kind of jazz. Like most cinema of it's ilk though, I'm drawn to it's mysteries - and with arthouse movies these days, I'm into almost anything as long as it's expressive. This one threw me a little at first, because for what turns out to be such a surrealist slice of life it begins in a fairly standard kind of way apart from the moments devoted to "that noise", which come across as if Memoria is about a haunting - and I guess it is in a kind of way. So I was perplexed as to whether this was just going to swim around in a realist kind of way or get freaky. It gets freaky, but eases us in as if acclimatizing us to the philosophical scope which is an unusual side-effect of Jessica Holland's (Tilda Swinton) tinnitus.

Memoria is surreal in it's words and thinking - if it were playing and somebody wasn't paying attention they'd never guess it was anything less than an extremely slow drama where nothing much really happens. Perhaps that's why Apichatpong Weerasethakul never wanted to release the film on any streaming platforms or DVD/Blu-Ray - you have to focus and be on it's wavelength, or else it will almost literally be nothing to you. I wonder now why Neon backtracked and did end up releasing it - but I'm glad they did. I don't need any lifelong frustrations about movies I missed during their theatrical runs, even if I do eventually get to see illegal bootleg recordings of them. (I'm still waiting for VR cinemas at home.) Anyway, I concede that many films can lose a little something once seen at home, and Memoria is one I'd say rates highly on that scale because it would have been the perfect place to hear that sound. Fomp!

I kept on thinking of the title The Woman Who Fell to Earth while watching Memoria, and if you need some kind of description of the film's vibe, that's my best approximation. She's just involved in some kind of flower business, and visits various people while in Columbia - including her sister in hospital, a sound engineer to help pinpoint the exact sound she keeps hearing, a paleontologist excavating land that has ancient humans buried in it, a doctor, and a whole variety of strangers. Her discussions with these people do their own kind of excavating, and are much more free-form and searching than your regular garden variety conversations are. The final scene (which is a really, really long scene) is what really transfixed me, and as such I left feeling like the experience had been really uneven for me. That makes it really hard to rate. It didn't work perfectly, but there was so much in this I thought exceptional.

Glad to catch this one - won the Jury prize at Cannes in 2021, and was Columbia's entry for possible nomination at the 94th Academy Awards.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Memoria.

The Brand New Testament's brand of humour didn't mesh with me, and since it goes really hard at it, I didn't have a very good experience with this movie. The idea behind the film is really great though. God is real, and is in fact an overbearing schlub (played by Benoît Poelvoorde) who lives in a spartan apartment in Brussels. He sits at his computer and makes up new universal rules such as "bread always falls on the floor in a jam-down position" and "the person you love the most will be the one you don't end up with" - but one day his put upon daughter, Ea (Pili Groyne) sneaks into his computer room, and sends everybody their "date and time of death" - so people end up living with a renewed sense of freedom, knowing that whatever they do, it won't matter since their death has already be pre-ordained. Therefore God's one purpose in life - to make our lives hard - is thwarted. Ea then escapes the apartment to gather 6 new apostles to help her write "The Brand New Testament". Once God discovers her acts of sabotage, he enters the real world for the first time ever, and discovers it's a tough place to visit.

I was looking forward to watching this film, but like I said - the comedy wavelength it was on happened to be a wavelength I don't connect with. Not connecting with what's meant to be funny in a comedy absolutely destroys a film - even if it's based on great ideas and is well made. I sat through each outrageous Amélie-like blast of comedy without any laughter or joy. I found it a little too energetic and forceful. The film's explosive pace and monumental use of farce and slapstick just kept me off-balance and never let me into the narrative or put me in a good place. So, it's one of those difficult situations where an antagonistic feeling builds whereupon the film isn't necessarily as bad as my negative feelings towards it. Whereas I'd normally be into any sense of whimsy and fun a movie might throw at me, with The Brand New Testament it just felt painful simply because of the chip I had on my shoulder.

I don't want to rip into this movie because it would sound mean-spirited, and I can see that most people really liked it. Either way, it doesn't really matter - because my entire experience boils down to me not finding it particularly funny. It looked great, and I was looking forward to seeing it - but no. Fantastic idea - but I really didn't like it. Any comedy that finds the inclusion of a gorilla a winning card (and there are a few) I don't like. That's one thing I've never really understood - why so many comedies add one to the mix, as if they're inherently funny. Poor Catherine Deneuve. Her character, Martine, falls in love with one - which is one of the many flights of fancy that did nothing for me. I was on a remarkable run with my watchlist films, and it came to an end with this one - a movie that my personal taste was diametrically opposed to.

Most critics (and I guess people) enjoyed this more than I did. Not my kind of comedy. Didn't like it.

Oh what a wonderful, heartbreaking movie this was. What Happened Was... is one of those films based on a play that has been elevated to a great cinematic standard, but has also stayed true to it's stage origin. It all takes place in one apartment - Jackie's (Karen Sillas), who is fussing around before her date arrives. His name is Michael (Tom Noonan) - and these two people are the only two characters in the film. What plays out is a date which goes through many of the phases most of us will be familiar with - there's a heightened awareness and tension during dates that make every awkward lull or moment of connection feel very intense. As the two become more comfortable with each other we see sides to their personality we weren't expecting - masks slip, and when reality begins to exert itself there's a completely new understanding of who these two people are. One that we never would have expected.

I loved this, and I would have loved to have seen the play before this was made (the film's eventual producer went to see it with only 11 other people - one of those intimate theater experiences that I often love.) I was glued - I mean, every moment is brimming with subtext and that special kind of tension that exists in situations like this. There are many unexpected turns, but we never for one moment feel that there's anything fanciful here, despite the fact that we're taken to so many psychologically varied places - both familiar and unusual. The performances of our two leads are both phenomenal, and I have to say absolutely perfect in every way conceivable. It's a really easy film to become involved with simply because we've all been through these experiences and can completely sympathise with the characters, and feel the tension.

Something I loved about this was the complete change of mood that occurs when Jackie reads the first chapter of her story to Michael in what turns out to be a very creepy room in the apartment - completely altering the balance between the characters and shifting the tone of the film. But I have to admit I loved the film as a whole, and every small shift in location brought with it an interesting change in the dynamics. Such a well-written piece of work from Tom Noonan, who I never knew had made a handful of what look like interesting films adapted from his theater work. This is my kind of film on so many different levels - I love these intense dramas that almost take place in real-time, in which we find ourselves bound to the one location (another great one like this is 2014 HBO film Nightingale.) I was completely wrapped up in this film emotionally, and it spoke to me on a very deep and personal level - so the ending moved me a great deal. Such a great movie - another favourite from my watchlist.

Glad to catch this one - won the Grand Jury Prize and the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at the 1994 Sundance Film Festival.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch What Happened Was....

I just want to point out that the still you've chosen is like a gender-reversed shot of a certain sequence from Manhunter.

Carry on!

EDIT: Why is this the best image I can find? Am I misremembering her touching his face while they are sitting on the couch?

I had a look at the scene and she doesn't touch his face in that specific one. Perhaps there's a bit of Manhunter/Red Dragon crossover going on for you here - or, ooh, my favourite, the Mandela effect.

I think she touches his face when they are at work, and then the couch scene is different. The moral of the story is be very careful sitting on a couch next to Tom Noonan.

At what point does your natural desire for vengeance melt in the face of innocent humanity? Czechoslovakia, May 1945. Krista (Iva Janžurová) has just gone through the trauma of witnessing her husband get executed by retreating Nazi's for a trivial, trifling offence. Barely a moment passes before a German soldier, a deserter, orders her at gunpoint to help him transport his wounded comrade south to Vienna in her horse-drawn wagon. Bristling with fury, she plans to kill them at the very first opportunity - but how? The hidden axe underneath the wagon bed? The pistol left lying in the straw, practically unguarded? Or perhaps the rifle Hans (Jaromír Hanzlík) carelessly throws around - at times with a white handkerchief tied to the barrel. It'll take some nerve and good timing to catch them off guard - and she'll only get one chance. In the meantime, Hans showers her with gifts, thanks and friendliness - none of which she particularly wants.

I was quite surprised to come across a Czech film made so soon after the Second World War that paints it's German characters as very human, and in some cases innocent. By contrast the partisans are downright brutal - and of course this caused some controversy for the film when it was released. In 1968, when the Soviets strengthened their grip on the country, the film was banned outright. I never felt like this film was taking sides politically at all - it was simply a question of humanity, regardless of creed or country. Some Germans were evil, some were innocent. Some partisans turned to brutality, some were noble. Some civilians sought revenge, and some forgave. Hans is a boy, doesn't want to fight, and becomes quite enamoured with the undoubtedly good looking Krista - without even thinking about sides and conflict. Krista, on the other hand, has been pushed onto a different path after being on the wrong end of capricious cruelty.

Carriage to Vienna was very good, and another really simple straightforward film involving few characters and a virtually unchanging forest location (which the film makes great use of - it feels as if the characters are pinned in a claustrophobic self-imposed prison.) Injured soldier Günther (Luděk Munzar) only wakes occasionally, making it a mostly two-character story as well. It's not something that'll leave you with a warm fuzzy feeling though, despite it's focus being on humanity. When you reach the closing stages of the worst conflict in human history, brutality and bloodshed crouch around every corner. There was a reckoning awaiting in Czechoslovakia, no matter any moment of clarity a person could or would feel in passing. This 1966 Czech offering really puts a lot of the war films coming out at the same time around the world to shame, and was really decades and decades ahead of it's time. I couldn't help thinking all the way through how much it feels like the kind of film that would be made nowadays, and definitely not way back then. Brave filmmaking.

Glad to catch this one - deserves recognition.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Carriage to Vienna.

This was my No.1 film of its year.


(And you're right, in the theater that sound almost makes your bowels move.)

I was very high on this movie and sure I had it in my Top 250... But the thing I remember most is how she got the attention of the horse, "Brrrrrrrr"

The burning question I had was "How the hell do you make a film like Ucho during an era of Soviet repression and censorship?" It was answered as soon as I logged on to Wikipedia. Despite being made in 1970, it wasn't possible for this film to be released until 1990. I had already credited Karel Kachyňa as being brave for making Carriage to Vienna, and apparently there was nothing this filmmaker wasn't going to tackle in spite of the probable backlash he'd face for going to these places in his films. Officially, nobody in the Communist (Soviet puppet) Czech government spied on their various ministers and senior officials - and there could be a free flow of ideas without danger of being imprisoned. In reality houses were bugged, and agents listened in day and night - especially spying on people who had some kind of uncertainty hanging over them. It was all meant to be about ideology - but loyalty is the key issue at play here. When it comes to abuses of power, maintaining an iron grip on it is what mostly leads to the abuse of what's possible in a police state.

Ucho is about senior official Ludvík (Radoslav Brzobohatý) and his wife Anna (Jiřina Bohdalová) living in Prague, who come home from a big political party celebration in a state of inebriation and ill-temper. The two go at each other like Martha and George in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, but as they enter their two-story house (after forgetting their keys at the party) they're disturbed to find their spare keys hanging in the door, objects in the house moved around, and the back door hanging ajar. Their power is out, but their neighbours have power - and in what couldn't be a coincidence, the telephone isn't working either. As they bicker Ludvík comes to the conclusion that there are incriminating files he has to destroy, and that they better watch what they say - leaving their most private comments for places that aren't usually bugged. Their paranoia grows as the night goes on, which potently mixes with their intoxication, marital problems, inner demons and the increasing suspicion that it might be too late for Ludvík to save himself. Flashbacks to the party reveal moments that might have had more meaning than the couple thought at the time.

What's unique and kind of original about Ucho is the way it balances (and compares or analogises) the antagonism that goes on between this couple and their oppressive overlords and the situation they are in concerning their marriage. Kachyňa creates a very intimate portrait of a couple that have learned to hate each other - but at least they can openly express their feelings as far as that goes. There's also an unspoken contempt for their government, which is completely intolerant of any kind of dissent. The situation they are in evolves over the course of this one night though, as both characters are stripped down to their core components. There are surprises in store as this happens. It's amazing to think that this great film was made only for it to go unreleased and left to waste - at least until the 1990s - and it's kind of inspiring to see a filmmaker do something that could cause a lot of trouble for him, but nonetheless be something that needed to be expressed. It's a brilliantly edited, very well shot film with very good performances - and when you consider Carriage to Vienna it's not hard to see how good a filmmaker this guy was.

Glad to catch this one - included in Steven Jay Schneider's 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die and Karel Kachyňa was nominated for the Golden Palm at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Ucho.

To get the most dramatic satisfaction from A Bad Son (Un mauvais fils) it kind of helps to dwell on the intensity tragic French film star Patrick Dewaere gives the lead role - that of Bruno Calgagni. Bruno is just arriving back in France when we meet him - an ignoble return as he's just been released from a 5 year stint in a U.S. prison for drug dealing. While he was away, his mother has passed, and as such he only has a father to return to. A father, René (Yves Robert), who doesn't even know he's about to knock on his door. Bruno is an agreeable sort of guy, but it's his tendency to fraternize with addicts and prostitutes that creates much conflict between his father and him. During his time reestablishing himself, Bruno meets fellow addict Catherine (Brigitte Fossey) and shuffles in and out of jobs, all while his volatile relationship with his father has it's explosive ups and downs. In the end, Bruno might prove to be the best of them all though.

I was gutted to read about Patrick Dewaere. By 1982 (only 2 years after A Bad Son came out), after spending most of his life acting and being nominated for 6 César Awards for Best Actor over a 7 year period, the troubled thespian aimed a rifle at himself and took his own life. His wife, Elsa Chalier had left him for his best friend - and Dewaere had struggled with depression all through his life. Watching him in this film (for which one of his César Award nominations had been for) was a real revelation and I thought he had something special. A Bad Son is full of great performances though, from Yves Robert to Brigitte Fossey to Jacques Dufilho who, as gay bookshop proprietor Adrien Dussart actually won a Best Supporting Actor César Award himself. This is a very mature film with very varied characters whose relationships are in a constant state of flux - and another who is introduced early, Madeleine (Claire Maurier - also nominated for a César) also plays a very important role in how all of this evolves.

Hanging over Bruno Calgagni throughout this film is the death of his mother, who took to drugs herself when her son left, and was soon consumed when his troubles became more and more dire. Despite his happy-go-lucky personality, you can see it weigh on him - and further revelations will add fuel to some emotionally raging fire within. A Bad Son doesn't turn into a full-blown drug relapse/recovery film like I was afraid it would at one stage - instead revolving around relationships and really allowing the narrative to dedicate itself to the way these characters relate to each other. Bruno and Catherine weather familiar dangers, while Dussart becomes the strong father-figure René finds himself unable to be. Bruno himself is an interesting mix of easy-going, dependable and intelligent, but is something of a rolling stone. The mix we get has an interesting taste and Claude Sautet drives it to his own rhythms - not depending on huge melodramatic fireworks, but instead digging deep into a contemplation about a father/son dynamic skewed by generational distance and a loss of connection. Great stuff for good actors to sink their teeth into, and interesting to watch.

Glad to catch this one - nominated for 6 César Awards at the 1981 Awards Ceremony.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Un mauvais fils.