2023 - February
Late Spring (1949) 4/4
High and Low (1963) 4/4
Rashomon (1950) 4/4
Purple Noon (1960) 4/4
Safe Place (2022) 4/4
Ripley's Game (2002) 4/4
The Night of the Hunter (1955) 4/4
The Castle of Sand (1974) 4/4
The American Friend (1977) 3.5/4
An Actor's Revenge (1963) 3.5/4
Suspicion (1982) 3.5/4
Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) 3.5/4
Zero Focus (1961) 3/4
The Talented Mr Ripley (1999) 3/4
Boy from Heaven (2022) 3/4
Romance & Cigarettes (2005) 3/4
Nancy Drew (2007) 3/4
Nancy Drew... Reporter (1939) 3/4
Uncle (2022) 3/4
The Beheading of St John the Baptist (2022) 2.5/4
Inspector Lavardin (1986) 2.5/4
Ripley Under Ground (2005) 2.5/4
Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase (2019) 2.5/4
Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase (1939) 2.5/4
Nancy Drew... Detective (1938) 2.5/4
Flag in the Mist (1965) 2/4
Cop Au Vin (1985) 2/4
Hammett (1982) 2/4
Nancy Drew... Trouble Shooter (1939) 1.5/4
High and Low (1963) 4/4
Rashomon (1950) 4/4
Purple Noon (1960) 4/4
Safe Place (2022) 4/4
Ripley's Game (2002) 4/4
The Night of the Hunter (1955) 4/4
The Castle of Sand (1974) 4/4
The American Friend (1977) 3.5/4
An Actor's Revenge (1963) 3.5/4
Suspicion (1982) 3.5/4
Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) 3.5/4
Zero Focus (1961) 3/4
The Talented Mr Ripley (1999) 3/4
Boy from Heaven (2022) 3/4
Romance & Cigarettes (2005) 3/4
Nancy Drew (2007) 3/4
Nancy Drew... Reporter (1939) 3/4
Uncle (2022) 3/4
The Beheading of St John the Baptist (2022) 2.5/4
Inspector Lavardin (1986) 2.5/4
Ripley Under Ground (2005) 2.5/4
Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase (2019) 2.5/4
Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase (1939) 2.5/4
Nancy Drew... Detective (1938) 2.5/4
Flag in the Mist (1965) 2/4
Cop Au Vin (1985) 2/4
Hammett (1982) 2/4
Nancy Drew... Trouble Shooter (1939) 1.5/4
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- DirectorCharles LaughtonStarsRobert MitchumShelley WintersLillian GishA self-proclaimed preacher marries a gullible widow whose young children are reluctant to tell him where their real dad hid the $10,000 he'd stolen in a robbery.02-02-2023
A sinister dark-clad preacher with the words love and hate tattooed on his knuckles is one of the most iconic images in cinema parodied and referenced everywhere from "Do the Right Thing" to "Seinfeld" and yet the movie it originates from, actor Charles Laughton's sole directorial endeavour "The Night of the Hunter", is still a vastly underseen and underappreciated gem.
Perhaps that is because the film is so difficult to pigeonhole. It is often categorized under film noir or as a fairy tale for adults. Its singular look is frequently compared to chiaroscuro and described as dreamlike. But the truth is that "The Night of the Hunter" is like no other movie ever made. It has a tone and an aesthetic all on its own that even its many imitators have never managed to emulate. It ranges from the tough realism of its Great Depression opening all the way to its phantasmagoric last third which is visually closer to a shadow play than to any movie I've ever seen. The closest analogy that occurs to me is that it bears a passing resemblance to what a film noir directed by Jean Cocteau might be like but such a simplification goes only so far in describing the wonders of this unique movie.
Unlike Cocteau's films, "The Night of the Hunter" is set in a very real context - that of the religious, patriarchal, and crushingly poor American South of the Great Depression. Laughton sets that tone immediately with the opening scene in which we see a desperate father (Peter Graves) conceal the money he just robbed from a bank and swear his two small children to hide it until they are old enough to spend it. The police come soon after him and he is sentenced to the gallows even though the money is never found.
"I robbed that bank 'cause I got tired of seeing children roaming the woodlands without food," he pleads in his final moments, "children roaming the highways in this here Depression, children sleeping in old abandoned car bodies and junk heaps. And I promised myself that I'd never see the day when my younguns had want."
These words immediately conjure those powerful images from the Great Depression taken by Dorothea Lange of mothers cradling their children, worry lining their prematurely aged faces, as the billowing dust bowl bears down on their rickety caravans. The plight of the children is where the film's sympathies lie and the key sentence in the movie is "It's a hard world for little things".
Just like a fairy tale, however, "The Night of the Hunter" places a lot of stock in fortune - good and bad. As bad luck would have it, the father shares his cell with the iconic tattooed preacher played brilliantly by Robert Mitchum. This is that great actor's finest hour as he imbues the sinister yet dangerously charming Harry Powell with all the brimstone and treacle of the Devil himself.
Once the preacher hears the father's story he stands at the barred window of his cell and prays: "Lord, you sure knowed what you was doing when you put me in this very cell at this very time. A man with $10,000 hid somewhere - and a widow in the making."
Harry Powell gets out of prison and the father doesn't. The preacher makes his way to the unfortunate robber's home where his widow Willa (Shelley Winters) lives with her two children, a single-minded boy named John (Billy Chapin) and his beloved little sister Pearl (Sally Jane Bruce). Harry has no trouble ingratiating himself with Willa once he gains the trust and reverence of the town's naive, religious busybodies. Mitchum plays these scenes perfectly with all the charm and the simplicity of a small-town bumpkin. Watch how easily he manipulates the local innkeeper with songs and Biblical quotes. She purrs around him like he's the second coming and practically pushes Willa to marry him because she is too old and too married to do so herself.
But the one person who doesn't buy Harry's schtick is the one person whose confidence he needs - John. He is the only one who knows where the money is hidden and he isn't talking. Thus begins the children's ordeal as Harry wages psychological warfare against them to get to his money. Laughton and his brilliant cinematographer Stanley Cortez portray the tension in the small house evocatively. They envelop the rooms in true, deep, oppressive blacks pushing the figures of the children down towards the bottom of the frame. Darkness dominates the image broken up only by weak, flickering candlelight which illuminates Mitchum's sinister, glowering features. This is one sadistic, terrifying villain.
Shelley Winters is also first-rate in her role as the weakminded Willa who, of course, doesn't believe her son when he tells her what Harry is truly after. There is a scene between her and Mitchum, on their wedding night, which is as terrifying a portrayal of spousal abuse as I've ever seen on screen.
A contrast to Willa is the kind but stern Ms Cooper (Lillian Gish), a local woman who takes in stray children and whom John and Pearl meet by a turn of good luck. With her band of orphans who follow her like Mother Goose and her unwavering will and faith, she proves to be the one obstacle that the false preacher won't be able to get over by charm alone.
"The Night of the Hunter" deals in stereotypes quite gleefully. Based on a novel by David Grubb, adapted for the screen by James Agee, it feels like one of those campfire tales as old as the mountains. It has a certain picturebook quality to it. But if ever a movie proves that it is not the story that counts but the telling of the story it is this. Laughton's bold, unique, stylish direction and Cortez's expressive cinematography are what make "The Night of the Hunter" a masterpiece. Of course, only when paired with Walter Schumann's music-box score and some truly iconic performances.
Watching it, I couldn't help but draw comparisons with another favourite film of mine, Ingmar Bergman's "Fanny and Alexander". Not only do the films have some strikingly similar images (compare the final bedroom scene with Mitchum and Winters to the bedroom scenes in the bishop's home - those white, stark rooms lined with darkness) but they also seem to share some of the same characters. The false, brutal, sadistic man of god. The weak-minded mother who is taken in and then horrifically abused by him. The single-minded, stone-faced child looking after his wide-eyed sister. And the kindly old person who rescues the children with almost magical willpower.
Both films paint a striking portrait of the cruelty of the world against children. How hard it is to survive when you're too small to bite. But both films end on a similar note, one that seems like an ending to a fairy tale. Singing praises to a child's endurance Ms Cooper notes that they are "man at his strongest. They abide, and they endure."
4/4 - DirectorYôji YamadaStarsChieko BaishôOsamu TakizawaMichiyo AratamaKiriko attempts to hire a well-known lawyer to defend her brother's murder case. The lawyer turns Kiriko down as she cannot afford him. Some time later, Kiriko encounters the lawyer again, but this time it is he who needs her help.02-02-2023
Kinzo Otsuka (Osamu Takizawa), one of Japan's most successful lawyers is in a rush to leave his office and go golfing with his girlfriend when his clerk knocks on the door. There's a woman here to see him. She's come all the way from a faraway city to beg the great lawyer to defend her brother who has been accused of murdering a loanshark. But the woman can't afford the famous lawyer's steep fees and, after all, he is a busy man, so he turns her away saying there must be good lawyers in her city too. As it turns out, the brother is wrongfully convicted and he dies in prison leaving his little sister all by herself.
This is the scene we will keep going back to in "Flag in the Mist", a curious morality play of a thriller based on a novel by Seicho Matsumoto. The film is concerned with the notion of the cost of justice which poor people like the unfortunate siblings at the heart of the story simply cannot afford. This is certainly an important issue and one which is rarely portrayed in thrillers where it seems that even the poorest of defendants can afford good and dedicated lawyers.
And yet, in the first problem I have with this film, I don't entirely buy the premise. Apparently, Matsumoto was inspired to write "Flag in the Mist" after seeing Andre Cayatte's film "Eye for an Eye". But Cayatte's thriller revolved around a doctor who has a duty of care turning away a dying patient. In such a case, the doctor's culpability is clear and defined. A lawyer has no such duty. He is not compelled to take on clients especially if he is genuinely busy as Otsuka seems to be. It's not like this famous lawyer owes anything to this accused man he's never even met. His sister merely comes to Tokyo on the off-chance that Otsuka might take on the case. Not only is the lawyer not to blame for turning down free work but his actions are quite understandable.
Of course, the sister Kiriko (Chieko Baisho) doesn't see it that way. She bears a grudge against Otsuka and, after a series of truly preposterous coincidences, finally finds herself in a position to execute revenge. More accurately, the ideal vengeance lands on her lap by pure providence. It would take me another page to outline the plot of "Flag in the Mist" but suffice it to say that the chain of events the film expects us to believe would strain the most elastic of credibilities.
Seicho Matsumoto is an interesting writer of psychological thrillers but solid plots have never been his strongest suit. This one barely hangs together on a wing and a prayer. It is also one of those plots which require all the investigative officers to be idiots, all the wrongfully accused to be utterly unable to defend themselves, and all the vigilantes to be diabolical masterminds who either have the luck of the Irish or god himself on their side.
Now, I'd be willing to forgive this film a lot if it had interesting, layered characters but besides Otsuka, we don't really get to know any of them. Kiriko remains a cypher throughout the film, a seemingly decent woman who turns into a cold, manipulative vigilante for a rather prosaic reason, directing her righteous rage at a man who doesn't really deserve it. Wouldn't she be better served executing vengeance on the person who really killed the loanshark? Or maybe the judge who convicted her brother? Or the prosecutor? Why is she so fixated on Otsuka?
On the other hand, Otsuka does prove to be a more interesting character especially after he has been put through the wringer of Kiriko's revenge and his blustering ego has been reduced to shreds. But if the film wants us to identify with him then it focuses far too little on his plight. I wanted to know more about him, about his home life, about his backstory, about the secret relationship he is conducting with a client of his. But, like all the other characters in the film, Otsuka's girlfriend, a potentially interesting person, is reduced to a mere pawn in Matsumoto's plot.
Now, there is plenty to enjoy in "Flag in the Mist". I loved the mood of the film helped by some truly striking, misty, noirish photography by Tetsuo Takaha. It's set in the boozy backrooms of smoky Tokyo clubs and it does a good job of emulating the atmosphere of such places. I liked Hikaru Hayashi's French-inspired score which lends the film a sense of irony its script sorely lacks. Most of all, however, I loved the performances. Especially good is Cheiko Baisho's icy turn as the woman scorned. She would have been a wonderful avenger in a Lady Snowblood-type film.
But the script by Shinobu Hashimoto is too full of coincidences, thin characterizations, and vague moral queries. The film never quite works either as a thriller or as a psychological drama because we cannot truly get behind either of the characters. We don't sympathize with Kiriko's misled vengeance nor do we sympathize with Otsuka, a character whom we don't get to know until far too late in the film. On top of it all, director Yoji Yamada imposes a leaden pace on the proceedings. The plot doesn't get going until close to 70 minutes in, at which point, I must confess, my patience was being severely tested.
2/4 - DirectorJuraj LeroticStarsJuraj LeroticSnjezana SinovcicGoran MarkovicFollows Damir, who's trying to take his own life while his family wants to save him. Everything happens over a period of just 24 hours.03-02-2023
The film opens on a still shot of a quiet night at a block of flats. A man passes by with his dog, a gust of wind blows through, but there's barely any sound. This stillness lasts for about a minute, lulling us into the boredom of a summer's night before a figure of a man, Bruno (Juraj Lerotic) frantically runs up to the front doors kicking them in.
When he makes his way into the apartment building, he finds his brother Damir (Goran Markovic) severely wounded but still alive after what is later described as a "serious suicide attempt". The rest of this anxiety-inducing, difficult, complex, and utterly compelling movie follows Bruno and his harried mother (Snjezana Sinovcic Siskov) as they are ferried from one institution to the next, filling out endless forms, conducting mind-numbing interviews with various officials in the futile attempt to save Damir's life.
As "Safe Place" goes on, however, it becomes increasingly clear that Damir does not want to live. Goran Markovic in a terrific performance plays him as a dead man walking. He's quiet, slow, his eyes staring off into the distance, his mind racing towards a foregone conclusion. The movie establishes very early on that Damir will not survive, an inevitability which adds a further layer of anxiety to the film's already opressive atmosphere.
The film brilliantly evokes the Kafkaesque experience of going through the aftermath of a tragedy. It's a point of view we rarely get to see - the paperwork, the waiting, the helplessness of being pushed along through a dysfunctional system. We get a taste of this early on when Bruno is literally dragged away from his brother's hospital bed for a police interview. The unsympathetic officers pissed off that they have to attend a suicide attempt, callously interview him about the only thing they're interested in - blood stains on the walls that appear to have been wiped off. What are they implying?
Marko Brdar's phenomenal cinematography places us right in these stuffy, dull rooms with peeling brown paint and sickly LED lighting. Shot in a 4:3 aspect ratio, the actors are consistently pushed towards the bottom and sides of the frame as if they are being crowded by their own anxieties. The oppressive atmosphere is further evoked through their hushed delivery and careful movements as if they are afraid to even speak lest a wrong word sends Damir into another tailspin.
The experience of being the one who has to clean up the mass after a suicide is so accurately and authentically portrayed that it could have only been done by someone who's gone through it before. And indeed, the film is autobiographical. Juraj Lerotic is speaking about his own experiences after his brother's suicide. In what is an act of incredible artistic bravery, he not only directs the picture but also plays himself. In a touching scene that's neither a dream nor reality, he speaks directly to his deceased brother.
But the film is not a hermetical confessional nor is it a weepy melodrama. It's a harrowing, direct look at the experiences of those who are left behind. As all great movies do, it places us right in their shoes. Makes us go through all the moments of sadness, boredom, and even humour with them. Last year, another marvellous Croatian film "The Staff Room" achieved the same effect and even though the two films are very different, they are both my favourite films of their respective year. I love it when a movie makes me so intensely feel the emotions of its protagonists.
Over the years, there have been many movies made in the world about suicide but I can't recall seeing one that is this honest, emotional, and open about the subject without ever being preachy, pretentious, or melodramatic.
4/4 - DirectorYoshitarô NomuraStarsYoshiko KugaHizuru TakachihoIneko ArimaTeiko's new husband disappears on a business trip. She discovers a pair of mysterious postcards hidden away in a book that may be clues to his fate.03-02-2023
There's a great shot near the beginning of Yoshitaro Nomura's "Zero Focus" that perfectly encapsulates its protagonist. It is a close-up of her high-heels as she battles through the December snow of Kanazawa. And just like that, we understand two of the key characteristics about her: she is ill prepared for her mission but she will soldier on through the hardships and eventually reach her goal.
Her name is Teiko (Yoshiko Kuga) and she is a typist, a drone in one of those faceless offices you get in big cities like Tokyo. Already well into her 30s and unmarried, she worries that she will remain a spinstress all her life. Her mother, a caring and overbearing woman, does not help sooth that worry with her constant questioning. "When will you be married, Teiko?"
So, to calm her worries and get away from her mother, Teiko does get married to what seems to be the first man who came along. But her married bliss lasts only a week because her husband, a salesman by the name of Uhara (Koji Nanbara) goes on a business trip and never returns.
Teiko goes out to the snowy Kanazawa, the last place where her husband was seen, on a mission to find him. Interestingly, her motivation is not love, nor even worry. They've known each other for such a short time that one gets the impression they haven't even had a chance to fall in love. No, it seems that what drives her is more a sense of curiosity about the man she married. Her investigation into his disappearance then becomes one of the strangest ways to get to know your husband I've ever seen.
The investigation leads her to three mysterious deaths: a poisoning and two suicides, and two other married women. One of these women is the intimidating Sachiko (Hizuro Takachiho), the wife of a local businessman who is not entirely content with her position as a rich man's housewife. She strives for more and possess the kind of destructive ambition that simply invites trouble for all of those around her. The other woman is a lowly receptionist who works for Sachiko's husband. Her name is Hisako (Ineko Arima) and she got the job because of her fluent knowledge of English. "She probably picked it up entertaining American soldiers at night," is the kind of snide comment she hears every day.
The film is based on a novel by Seicho Matsumoto, a very interesting writer of dense psychological thrillers. Like most of Matsumoto's plots, the one in "Zero Focus" is preposterous, overcomplicated, and utterly unconvincing. Especially silly is the way Teiko seems to divine the solution to the tangled web of mystery from the clear blue sky. And yet, I liked this movie.
I liked the characters and the entanglements they find themselves in. The fates of three very different women intertwined through past transgressions which hark back to the tragic days of the post-war American occupation.
I very much liked the cinematography by Takashi Kawamata which makes the cold, unfriendly, and picturesque landscape of northern Japan a vital character in this melodrama. "There's nothing there except dark, gray, cloudy sky," says one of the characters, "and out of those dark clouds comes snow in winter and a rough sea."
The mysterious, frigid atmosphere of the film comes to a head in one of the finest summations I have ever seen in a mystery. Set on a dizzyingly high clifftop overlooking a stormy sea, the women reveal their secrets in a downright operatic conclusion.
I especially liked the performance of Yoshiko Kuga who has one of those emotive faces that the camera loves. She is the keen observer of all this human drama much like Martin Sheen was in "Apocalypse Now".
Scored throughout by Yasushi Akutagawa's ballad-like music, "Zero Focus" has a mournful, engrossing atmosphere that far outweighs its silly potboiler plot. While it is true that it would have been a far better film had the script by Shinobu Hashimoto and Yoji Yamada further streamlined and simplified Matsumoto's novel, Yoshitaro Nomura has constructed a very affecting and moving film nonetheless.
3/4 - DirectorDavid KapacAndrija MardesicStarsPredrag 'Miki' ManojlovicGoran BogdanIvana RoscicThe film appears to be set in Yugoslavia in the late 1980s, as a family welcomes their beloved uncle, who has returned home from Germany for the holidays.04-02-2023
It's difficult to explain the phenomenon of the uncle from Germany to anyone who didn't live in a socialist or otherwise impoverished country. He was an iconic figure, a kind of patron saint of the family, a favourite relative who went to work (usually a minor, menial job) in Germany and earn, in a year, the kind of money that he couldn't make in a lifetime of work in his own fatherland. Occasionally, typically for Christmas, he would return for a visit, bringing gifts that his family could only dream of. Nothing was too expensive for this mythical man who would be treated as a king for the duration of his brief visit. I've always suspected, however, that these visits were as beneficial for the uncle as they were for his family because once the visit was over, he'd go back to Germany where he was a minor, insignificant cog in a very large machine.
David Kapac and Andrija Mardesic's feature debut, fittingly entitled "Uncle", depicts one such visit, or at least it appears to. The period detail is perfectly recreated - the wood-panelled ceilings, the itchy, tacky sweaters, the dusty armchairs, the fancy dinnerware... We see a family nervously prepare for the arrival of this giant among men. The father (Goran Bogdan) hurriedly chopping wood, the mother (Ivana Roscic) clumsily making dinner, the son (Roko Sikavica) insolently refusing to help.
Then he arrives. The uncle (Predrag Manojlovic) in his Mercedes limousine with gifts under his arm. The picture seems to be perfect and yet something is also wrong. At first, it's the little, nagging details. It's supposed to be Christmas and yet it's clearly summer outside. The uncle treats the son as if he's a small child and yet he's in his twenties. The mother seems a little too cold and passively aggressive. The father seems to be scared.
The image is finally broken by a ringing telephone. A mobile phone to be exact, a brand new smartphone that the uncle has in his pocket and which seems to confuse his family. What is going on? Or rather, when is it going on? Are we in socialist Yugoslavia or is this all some kind of an elaborate game being played for the benefit of one sad man's nostalgia?
The premise is terrific. It examines in a very witty, unusual way the ever-current issues of Yugonostalgia and the complicated family dynamics that occur when one part of the family is poor and the other is rather better off. And indeed, the first half hour of "Uncle" is fascinating. But as the film unfolds, it becomes clearer and clearer that the filmmakers didn't really know where to go with their intriguing premise.
Once they begin revealing the backstories of its characters and especially when they get tangled into increasingly preposterous thriller trappings, the film begins to fall apart. The truth behind the game being played before our eyes is significantly less interesting than the game itself. The characters become banal once their secrets are revealed and their motivations are utterly unconvincing. I won't reveal the film's twists but it is one of those plots that rely entirely on the fact that its characters won't call the police for whatever reason.
Why did the film have to go down this route? Couldn't it have been a simple family story? Couldn't it have continued in the black comedy tone it begins in? Whenever a film turns into a thriller in its final third, you can bet it's because the filmmakers didn't know how to end it. Indeed, the climax is the weakest part of "Uncle". Not only is it quite unconvincing and illogical it is also a complete anti-climax.
This is a shame because "Uncle" is a very well-made film. The two directors display tremendous skill in building suspense and a creepy, bizarre atmosphere that, at one point, tips the film over into horror territory. The script is also surprisingly funny, full of clever takes on Yugoslavian iconography and cliches which, when put into a new context, take on a rather more sinister meaning.
The performances are first-rate, as well. Goran Bogdan is perfectly cast as the teddy bear-like father pushed about by everyone and respected by no one. It is, however, Predrag Manojlovic who is the standout in the cast and this is his finest work since "The Trap". As the titular uncle, he is quietly menacing, clearly a demented, dangerous man always on the edge of turning violent. There's a palpable tension, an air of imminent danger that follows him whenever he's on screen. It's a captivating, terrifying, impressive performance worthy of being mentioned with the best thriller villains.
Maybe this should have been a short film. Indeed, the first third of "Uncle" is superb. Funny, scary, and incisive. It only begins to fall apart once the filmmakers begin extending it to feature length and getting too involved with the hows and whys of the plot which should have really remained on the level of allegory.
Truth be told, there are various paths that "Uncle" could have gone down. It just so happens that Kapac and Mardesic chose the least interesting one. The thriller tropes they bring into the film's second half are tired, predictable, and quite illogical and they ultimately make the film a far less rewarding experience then it could have been.
3/4 - DirectorDaniel KwanDaniel ScheinertStarsMichelle YeohStephanie HsuJamie Lee CurtisA middle-aged Chinese immigrant is swept up into an insane adventure in which she alone can save existence by exploring other universes and connecting with the lives she could have led.04-02-2023
"Everything Everywhere All at Once" definitely lives up to its title. It's an almost constant barage of ideas, gags, effects, and emotions. It is also one of the most original, unique, and inventive films I've seen in a long time. What's more I was impressed with the way it was original, unique, and inventive with the very language and possibilities of cinema itself. It uses such givens as aspect ratio, editing rhythms, and transitions not only as a tool but also as the very foundation for its quirky and frequently utterly messy story.
The film tries to wrap up its chaos into a coherent whole which is a less good idea. I would have preferred to see it embrace its insanity as a force unto itself. Instead, it tries to justify it with a kind of half-baked philosophical hodgepodge of anti-nihilism, relentless positivity, and the power of love. The script spends almost half of its runtime trying to explain itself and it utterly fails. Having sat through the whole film with my eyes peeled to the screen, I still can't explain what it was all about.
But my eyes were peeled and that's all that really matters in a film like "Everything Everywhere All at Once". I couldn't very well blink and miss some of its delicious, hilarious, kooky lunacy. Who'd want to miss seeing people with hot-dogs for hands, or a cook being controlled by a racoon under his chef's hat, or James Hong rolling around in a robotic wheelchair, or Jamie Lee Curtis kung-fu fighting Michelle Yeoh with a tax receipt stapled to her forehead.
The plot, overcomplicated and silly as it is, revolves around Evelyn (Michelle Yeoh), the owner of a coin laundrette who feels she could have done so much better in her life. She could have been a singer, an actress, a dancer, or anything other than an owner of a coin laundrette had she only not met her ineffective, retiring, shy husband Waymond (Ke Huy Quan). She's also the most important woman in all the multiverses, she just doesn't know it yet.
Enter Waymond from an alternate universe - nicknamed Alpha Waymond - to explain it all. Namely, Evelyn is a super-talented multiverse hopper, able to take on the ability of any of the infinite Evelyns out there and utilize them in a fight against the nihilistic supervillian Jobu Tupaki (Stephanie Hsu) who is out to destroy all the multiverses because she's a depressed teenager. Oh, and she also happens to be Evelyn's daughter.
The rest of the film is a madcap race through all the multiverses with tonnes of eye-catching fight scenes, goofy visual effects, and insanely creative gags some of which I've listed above and some of which I couldn't really describe. My favourite is the one in which Evelyn is a rock merely existing on top of a picturesque cliffside. That's all.
What is most impressive about the film, however, is that you grow to care for these people. And they are people, by the way, not caricatures or pawns for the filmmakers to puppet around. They feel like real human beings with emotions and disappointments and a very complicated but annoyingly typical family dynamic. I credit a lot of the film's success to its wonderful cast led by the always charismatic and wildly agile Michelle Yeoh in one of her best screen performances. It's wonderful seeing her lead a movie again especially one as unusual and popular as this one.
Also terrific is Ke Huy Quan in his first major role in decades and James Hong in his 400th or so role in one of the most impressive film careers of all time. I was most taken, however, by Stephanie Hsu's performance and her ability to add such gravitas and sincerely to the line: "I got bored one day and put everything on a bagel". She plays a very interesting, complicated, and most human of bad guys. I really cared for and understood Jobu Tupaki which is rare. Hsu brings an understated, sinister energy to the part on top of a kind of chaotic ennui which domintes her character's contemptful philosophy.
"Everything Everywhere All at Once" was directed and written by Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan, the guys behind the controversial and deliberately offputting gems "Swiss Army Man" and "The Death of Dick Long". I very much admired those films for so openly not wanting to be liked. Here we see them play to a wider audience. "Everything Everywhere All at Once" is more of a crowd-pleaser. It bends over backwards to be positive and make you love it. Nevertheless, I enjoyed it very much and admired the creativity and artistry behind it. I wish it were shorter, I wish it dared to be less coherent and less loveable, but I laughed all the way through, had a whale of a time, and got out with a big grin on my face. That alone counts for so much.
3.5/4 - DirectorYoshitarô NomuraStarsTetsurô TanbaGô KatôKensaku MoritaDetectives investigate the murder of an old man found in a Tokyo rail yard.10-02-2023
Based on a novel by Seicho Matsumoto, "The Castle of Sand" would make for a great double feature with "Points and Lines", another Matsumoto adaptation that could similarly be termed an anti-thriller. Both films are nominally whodunnits but which focus intently on the minutia and tedium of police work. There are no fight scenes, no car chases, few twists, and yet they are astonishingly engrossing films, especially "The Castle of Sand".
The atmosphere of intense concentration is established from the very opening shot of a boy building a sand castle on a picturesque beach. The shot lingers on his process as he meticulously adds more and more sand to his impressive fortress before solidifying it with a splash of seawater. My attention was immediately grabbed by the care with which he carries the water from the sea to the beach staring at it intently as if his eyes alone are preventing it from spilling from his tiny hands.
Continuing in a similar vein, the film then cuts to a lengthy sequence in which we see a forensics team gather evidence around a newly discovered corpse at a switchyard. They collect soil samples, hairs, and blood samples which they then take to the lab for examination. Meanwhile, on-screen text informs us that the unfortunate man has had his face smashed in with a rock and that the police cannot identify him due to a lack of personal effects.
Investigating the case are Inspectors Imanishi (Tetsuro Tanba) and Yoshimura (Kensaku Morita). One is an experienced, older detective, a keen haiku poet. The other is an equally dedicated but hotheaded new recruit. Despite such an obvious set-up, "The Castle of Sand" never goes into buddy cop movie territory. Instead, screenwriters Shinobu Hashimoto and Yoji Yamada use their different approaches to policing to the benefit of their investigation. While the older man meticulously collects statements and pieces together the story, the younger man jumps to conclusions and then goes to insane lengths to prove them right. In the end, their separate methods bring them to the killer.
At the same time, we follow the life of a superstar composer named Eiryo Waga (Go Kato) who is currently composing his magnum opus, a piano concerto ominously named "Destiny". He is a hard, ambitious man, the kind who doesn't let anything or anyone get in his way. We see this by the way he cooly instructs his mistress Reiko (Yoko Shimada) to get an abortion. After all, he can't risk his upcoming marriage to the daughter of the finance minister. Such an engagement can only serve to further his career.
Waga's role in the murder mystery is not revealed until the very end but we quickly notice how director Yoshitaro Nomura contrasts the composition of his concerto with the progress of the investigation. As Imanishi and Yoshimura collect more and more clues, so Waga adds more and more notes to his eagerly awaited piece. This contrasting climaxes in the film's astounding 45-minute finale, a real tour-de-force, memorable and unexpectedly emotional. We watch Waga premiere his concerto as Imanishi finally explains the complicated solution to the murder at hand. It is the kind of sequence you'd never expect to find in a whodunnit. A sequence that fully exploits the potential of cinema to marry beautiful images and music and use them to tell a harsh, sad, evocative tale. A special commendation then is due for the work of cinematographer Takashi Kawamata and most of all pianist Mitsuaki Kanno who composed the powerful and revelatory concerto that plays over this brilliant, beautiful sequence.
The final 45 minutes alone qualify "The Castle of Sand" as one of the finest Japanese films ever made, but it is easy to overlook the brilliance of the first 100 minutes, a masterclass in the quiet building of tension. Nomura focuses on minor details such as papers floating in the wind forcing us to look deeper and interpret the meanings behind such seeming trivialities as a detective would. Engaging us in such a way, he makes us feel like we're a part of the investigation.
Like "Zodiac" would many years later, this film puts us in the uncomfortable shoes of its detective protagonists. We deeply relate to their every stumble, every dead end, and eventually every triumph. The twists are few and far between but once the revelations do come they are absolutely earned. For example, when Imanishi finally figures out the meaning behind the words overheard at a crowded bar, we are thrilled and excited because we went on the journey of discovery with him. We spent the past 40 minutes intently working on this problem, going down dead ends and coming up empty-handed time and time again. It is a daring experiment, one which could easily lead to boredom, but Nomura pulls it off with apparent ease.
"The Castle of Sand" is one of the best thrillers I have ever watched but even saying that I feel like I am shortchanging the film. It is not only a genre piece. It is a film of great beauty and artfulness. It is a smart, profound musing on the nature of art and the artist. It is one of the most emotional portrayals of the bond between a parent and a child ever committed to celluloid. It is also endlessly engaging, engrossing, and unusual. It is a thriller that spends more time building up to its excitement than basking in its thrills.
4/4 - DirectorYoshitarô NomuraStarsKaori MomoiShima IwashitaAkira EmotoThe story follow a court case of a woman accused of having killed her husband.10-02-2023
Have you ever noticed how few courtroom dramas actually revolve around the question of whether a character is guilty or not? Usually, you know from the start that the accused person is innocent and you follow a crusading lawyer's desperate attempts to save them from a corrupt system ("Suspect", "My Cousin Vinny", " A Few Good Men"). Occasionally, the tables will be flipped and you'll follow a good lawyer trapped in the horrid situation of defending a person they know is guilty ("Guilty as Sin", "Jagged Edge"). Most courtroom dramas, however, are not even about the people on trial. They're about issues and present the courtroom as a kind of public soapbox for clever lawyers to debate various moral ambivalences ("The Accused", "A Time to Kill") or take on giant corporations for the sake of the little people ("The Verdict", "Rainmaker").
Yoshitaro Nomura's "Suspicion", based on a novel by Seicho Matsumoto, is that rare courtroom drama that is actually about the guilt or innocence of the person on trial. It takes a raw, honest look at the way the presumption of innocence is treated not only by the courts but also by the press and the general public. It is a smart, incisive movie that refuses to take a side. It is never easy or straightforward. It paints a complex, multi-sided picture of a murder trial in which, as is often the case, justice cannot be delivered through a simple binary decision.
The person on trial is one Kumako Shirakawa (Kaori Momoi) accused of murdering her rich husband in a staged car crash. She claims he was driving and that the crash was accidental but there is much circumstantial evidence that cast doubt on her claims. For one, there were no signs of breaking. For two, her husband's body was found in such a position inside the car that it was impossible to determine whether he was driving or not. For three, she managed to get out of the crash alive and he didn't.
Not helping matters is the fact that she is a self-confessed gold digger. She married a rich older man not for love but for profit. When faced with the possibility of not inheriting his vast estate she callously asks what was the point of her moving to Tokyo then? A former hostess and double divorcee she is the kind of woman "decent people" love to hate. Egged on by the dead man's relatives who claim she "destroyed their family", the press set upon her, printing stories that convict her in the public eye before the case even gets to trial.
She is also a brash, unlikeable, aggressive person. Not your perfect Hollywood victim of an unfair, misogynistic society. She is disruptive, rude, and potty-mouthed. She openly scorns the judge, refers to the case as "bullshit", and shouts at the policeman interrogating her. She makes enemies wherever she goes. At a press conference where she is supposed to be professing her innocence, she chastizes the gathered journalists for writing sensationalist stories and refers to them as hacks.
Kaori Momoi gives a superb performance here, laidback and callous she's the kind of person you're supposed to hate, right? Indeed, the film revolves around this issue. Even people who are unlikeable and hateful deserve a fair shot in court. Did Kumako kill her husband? We don't know. There is compelling evidence on both sides of the argument and yet the press and the bloodthirsty public have already convicted her! Why? Just because they don't like her? Is that evidence enough to send someone to their death?
Of course, no lawyer wants to touch the case so the court appoints Kumako one. The first thing she says upon meeting her lawyer is "I hate your face". But the lawyer is not to be shaken so easily. Her name is Ritsuko Sahara (Shima Iwashita) and she is just the right kind of opposite to Kumako in order to balance her brashness. Shima Iwashita plays her with the kind of conscious self-control and coolness that reminded me of Isabelle Huppert. You get the impression that her every hand gesture is carefully calculated.
In a hacky Hollywood thriller, the two of them would slowly develop a grudging respect for one another and even an uneasy friendship. That doesn't happen in "Suspicion". The two remain at loggerheads throughout mainly because they are both able to see each other for what they are. Ritsuko knows Kumako is a self-serving manipulator and Kumako knows Ritsuko is a repressed, self-loathing snob. But, as Ritsuko puts it in one of the film's best scenes: "The accused and her lawyer are together in the same boat. It goes round in circles and ultimately capsizes if they don't row together".
"Suspicion" is the perfect antidote for all those underwritten, predictable American thrillers. Just look at the wonderful parade of characters that show up at Kumako's trial. There's her former madam who refuses to tell the judge her age, her ex-husband who shows up in the loudest lounge suit you've ever seen, and the eyewitness who bragged to his girlfriend about seeing the whole thing go down and who now cannot bring himself to admit that he didn't see anything because he'll look dumb in front of the girl.
Their testimony slowly reveals the truth behind Kumako's marriage and a clearer image of her husband Fukutaro (Noboru Nakaya) emerges. He was an unhappy, weak-minded man, pushed around by his controlling, money-grubbing family, who fell in love with Kumako not for her beauty or her kindness but for her freedom. Sadly, as Fukutaro soon found out, there's no prison quite like wealth and no guards quite like greedy family members.
3.5/4 - DirectorAkira KurosawaStarsToshirô MifuneMachiko KyôMasayuki MoriThe rape of a bride and the murder of her samurai husband are recalled from the perspectives of a bandit, the bride, the samurai's ghost and a woodcutter.11-02-2023
A small number of movies and filmmakers have achieved such a legendary status that their names have become adjectives. Thus we get Hitchcockian thrillers, Kubrickian stares, and the Rashomon effect. Alternatively known as a Rashomoniad, the said effect refers to a kind of storytelling which contrasts differing accounts in order to relate a single event. The name, of course, originates from Akira Kurosawa's 1950 classic "Rashomon".
The event related in "Rashomon" is a chance meeting between three people in a forest grove. They are a samurai (Maayuki Mori), his wife (Machiko Kyo), and a deranged bandit (Toshiro Mifune). The encounter ends with the samurai dead, his wife raped, and the bandit half-crazed writhing around in mud after being thrown off the horse he stole from the unfortunate couple. What happened?
An inquest is convened in a courtyard, a set so brilliantly simplistic and plain that it achieves a surrealistic effect. It evokes images of an otherworldly courtroom where truth is to be established and punishment meted. The bandit, the wife, and the samurai (speaking from the dead through a medium) convene to tell their differing accounts before the unseen judges. Their stories, however, inform us more of their own personalities and the ways they would like to be perceived than they do of the fateful encounter in the grove.
The bandit's tale is an exciting samurai yarn. He sees himself as a skilful and brave combatant, a dapper swordsman who beat the samurai in a fair fight and claimed the wife as a prize.
The wife's tale is a melodrama. She casts herself as the tortured victim of both the bandit and her judgmental, disapproving husband. This is easily the finest sequence in the film. Look at the masterful way Kurosawa uses the Kuleshov effect to portray the tortured woman's emotional torment. Looking at this almost wordless ballet underscored by Fumio Hayasaka's magnificent score, I found myself saddened by the fact that Kurosawa never directed an opera.
Finally, the dead samurai himself speaks through a medium (Noriko Honma) portraying himself as a stoic man of honour who, like a character in some ancient epic poem, did what needed to be done when bad fate fell upon him.
Adding to the complexity of the matter is the fact that all of these stories are in fact flashbacks within flashbacks. The framing story involves a different trio altogether: a woodcutter (Takashi Shimura) and a priest (Minoru Chiaki) who attended the inquest and who are now relating what happened there to a passing stranger (Kichijor Ueda) while they are waiting under the titular Rashomon gate for a thick rainfall to stop.
It is thus impossible to determine what is true and what is not in "Rashomon". Everything we see has layers upon layers of invention, self-aggrandizement, and old-fashioned lies. It is interesting to see the reactions the three men under the Rashomon gate have towards the question of deception. The woodcutter is troubled by it all and determined to get at the truth. The priest holds on like a blind man to his wavering faith in humanity. Meanwhile, the stranger doesn't care if the stories are true as long as they are entertaining.
And entertaining they are. One aspect of Kurosawa's films that is rarely talked about is just how much fun they are to watch. He was an expert filmmaker who (especially in this period of his career) possessed an admirable lightness of touch. Even when discussing such weighty issues as the very nature of truth his films never feel portentous or self-important.
He also exhibits a wonderful sense of humour and "Rashomon" is curiously funny throughout. It's a stroke of genius to have the samurai speak through an over-the-top medium. I also love the way he shoots the flashback in which the woodcutter recounts his morning routine as if walking through the woods with an axe is the most grandiose and heroic thing a man can do.
This is one of those rare films in which everything, and I do mean everything, works. The fabulous, naturalistic cinematography by Kazuo Miyagawa. The intense, moody score by Fumio Hayasaka. The wonderfully conceived script by Kurosawa and Shinobu Hashimoto which uses flashbacks so well, so cleverly, that it shows us that every filmmaker who merely uses them as exposition is just being lazy.
Toshiro Mifune is wonderfully unhinged as the bandit who in his brutality, self-aggrandizement, and lack of morality is curiously one of the most self-aware of all the characters. Also wonderful is Takashi Shimura as the troubled woodcutter. His face is so expressive and emotive. My favourite performance, however, comes from Masayuki Mori, so dignified and stately in his role as the samurai. His close-ups are unforgettable.
I must also mention that the final fight scene between the bandit and the samurai is easily my favourite fight scene in movie history. It is so gritty, so unglamorous, and yet so wonderfully exciting! It works so well because Kurosawa shoots it in a manner that doesn't aim for stylishness and coolness but rather focuses intently on the men's emotions, the adrenaline racing through their bodies, and their fear of that fatal blow of the sword.
The fact that "Rashomon" is not Kurosawa's masterpiece (I still make a case for "Ran" as his greatest cinematic achievement) only serves as a testament to his greatness. This is one of the smartest, most precisely executed, and utterly enthrallingly entertaining movies in cinema history. A masterpiece that definitely deserves the high praise it has received since its release more than 70 years ago.
4/4 - DirectorClaude ChabrolStarsJean PoiretStéphane AudranMichel BouquetIn a small provincial French town, Dr Morasseau, Mr Lavoisier and butcher Filiol decide to create a significant estate business but Mrs Cuno and her son Louis do not want to sell their house. Louis presumably provokes the death of Filiol.12-02-2023
"Cop Au Vin" tackles some of Claude Chabrol's favourite topics: the decadent bourgeoisie, corpses hiding underneath the perfectly cut lawns of the picturesque French countryside, greed, sex, more sex, and vast amounts of backstabbing, deception, and infidelity. However, despite some wry humour and a charmingly Agatha Christie-like premise, this is not one of the director's more notable endeavours.
The film is nominally a thriller and sure enough about 45 minutes into it a couple of corpses show up followed quickly by the arrival of a mysterious police inspector. But Chabrol doesn't seem to care all that much about who done it and why. He's more interested in having fun with the buffoonish and frankly cartoonish characters inhabiting the village.
There's the young postman (Lucas Belvaux) who steams everyone's letters open. There's his bitter, paraplegic mother (Stephane Audran) hanging on to her crumbling family mansion as some kind of a monument to her dead husband. There's the sinister local doctor (Jean Topart) who spends his nights caressing the statues in his garden. Finally, there's Inspector Lavardin (Jean Poiret) himself who strikes a distant, professorial figure but whose methods are closer to those employed by Clint Eastwood than Hercule Poirot.
Chabrol chooses to focus more on the characters and the easygoing Gallic atmosphere than the intricacies of the murder mystery which would be fine if the characters were better written. Instead, the screenplay by Chabrol and Dominque Roulet is populated by thinly drawn caricatures rather than fleshed-out human beings in whom we could become interested.
Truth be told, there are plenty of wryly amusing moments in the film and even several characters I grew to like. I enjoyed the kooky love affair between the postman and his horny colleague (Pauline Lafont), for example, and the scene in which they go on a date in a fancy restaurant and try to act posh is the film's funniest.
But most of the cast is comprised of unlikeable, stuffy, grotesque caricatures of the French bourgeoisie. The film shows no compassion for them nor does he grant them any hidden depths, so why should we care about their decadent affairs? Chabrol at his best made smart, incisive films about human entanglements and the complicated, often paradoxical male psychology. Here, he seems content to simply sit back and laugh at his own jokes without imbuing the film with any depth or social commentary.
And boy is this film laidback. It's slow to the point of sedation. In fact, nothing at all seems to happen until the final third when the plot finally gears up thanks to a lively and genuinely interesting performance from actor and playwright Jean Poiret who gives the film the drive and complexity it seems to lack.
Sadly, Poiret is only in the film for about 30 minutes, the rest of this 110-minute movie is quite uneven and fairly unfocused. Some scenes (such as those between Belvaux and Lafont) are quite funny. Others fall flat. What Chabrol never manages to accomplish, however, is a feeling of cohesion and urgency. There never is a feeling that all of these characters are existing in the same film nor is there a sense of a story unfolding. Everything and everyone seem to exist as separate entities, peacefully floating in some kind of cinematic negative space.
"Cop Au Vin" is occasionally amusing and has an unusual detective in the form of Inspector Lavardin but the thin, unfocused screenplay and Chabrol's often listless direction failed to ever fully engage me. The experience of watching it reminded me of the long car journeys I used to go on with my family as a child. The landscapes are gorgeous and occasionally there are interesting sights to see but most of the time you might as well spend asleep.
2/4 - DirectorClaude ChabrolStarsJean PoiretJean-Claude BrialyBernadette LafontInspector Lavardin investigates on the murder of a famous writer, whose widow happens to be Helen, a woman Lavardin once loved. She has a daughter from a first marriage, who actually killed her stepfather, as he was trying to abuse her.13-02-2023
Jean Poiret's sardonic Inspector Lavardin was the most memorable character in the otherwise forgettable Claude Chabrol comedy of manners "Cop Au Vin". So it is not surprising that two years later he got his own same-named spin-off. Whereas in the previous film he was only one of the ensemble players, here the enigmatic detective takes centre stage as he investigates the murder of a religious zealot (Jacques Dacqmine) in a picturesque seaside town.
Complicating matters is the fact that the zealot's wife is his former girlfriend Helene (Bernadette Lafont) whom he still has a crush on. Not enough is done with their emotional connection as the film becomes distracted with its varied supporting cast but the subplot exposes a softer side to the titular character and adds a welcome if underplayed complexity to the otherwise disappointingly straightforward thriller plot.
"Inspector Lavardin" is a better film than "Cop Au Vin" if only for its screenplay which is tighter, more focused, and altogether more sensibly structured. The murder mystery offers a decent if not exactly enthralling throughline and Lavardin is an interesting if not exactly likeable lead.
That is not to say that like its predecessor this spin-off doesn't have a cast of kooky supporting characters most of whom feel like they belong in different movies. Also in the picture is Helene's parasitic brother Claude (Jean-Caude Brialy) who has an obsession with people's eyes, a drug-addicted stage manager (Florence Gibassier) working on a play entitled "Our Father Who Farts from Heaven", and a local Hugh Heffner-like club owner (JeanLuc Bideau) with a nefarious camera set-up above his bed. Lavardin also gets a sidekick in the form of an overweight local copper whom he refers to as Watson (Pierre-Francois Dumeniaud). I liked their surprisingly amicable interplay even though Watson is not as funny a character as he should have been.
The real pleasure of "Inspector Lavardin" is without a doubt watching Jean Poiret. He has so much fun playing the unusual detective and is so good at it that he almost carries the whole picture singlehandedly. Indeed, Lavardin is a terrific character. At first, he appears to be a straight-laced policeman with his sweaters, ties, and raincoat. However, he is actually France's own Dirty Harry. A sarcastic, laid-back bully who uses blackmail, frame-ups, and outright violence to solve his cases. What's more, he seems to derive a kind of sociopathic pleasure out of making his suspects squirm and beg as he squashes them beneath his thumb with a wry smile.
And yet despite Poiret's first-rate performance the film doesn't quite work. The mystery is awfully simplistic despite some Nancy Drew trappings involving secret compartments, hidden video tapes, and mysterious meetings in the night. The pacing is once again langerous and sedate which wouldn't be a problem if the characters were more layered and interesting. Instead, most of them remain nothing more than quirky caricatures who are amusing at first but are far too shallow to sustain our interest.
With its thin plotting and Chabrol's workmanlike direction, "Inspector Lavardin" has a distinctly televisual feeling. Indeed, the character's next outing would be a TV series making this film feels more like a pilot than a standalone cinematic achievement. Occasionally, some of Chabrol's visual flair shines through the ennui (mostly with some very clever use of dolly shots and long takes) but most of the film has a distinctly "that'll do" approach to it.
I enjoyed "Inspector Lavardin" more than "Cop Au Vin" mainly because of its streamlined plot and more screentime for Jean Poiret. However, these Agatha Christie-lite mysteries are far from Chabrol's best work and are sunk by their less than intriguing scripts.
2.5/4 - DirectorJohn TurturroStarsJames GandolfiniSusan SarandonKate WinsletThis down-and-dirty musical set in the world of working-class New York tells the story of a husband's journey into infidelity and redemption when he must choose between his seductive mistress and his beleaguered wife.13-02-2023
"If God's gift of grace
or the light on your face...
could make me forget your vagina is wet."
Those are the opening verses of a love poem written by Nick Murder (James Gandolfini) and found on a crumpled up piece of paper tucked up in a drawer by his wife Kitty Kane (Susan Sarandon). The poem, however, is addressed "to Tula, my Tula, my red flower of love".
Predictably, Kitty doesn't take her husband's poetic flair well interpreting (correctly, by the way) his artistic liberty as mere infidelity. A row breaks out and harsh words are exchanged. Kitty calls Nick a "whoremaster". Nick posits that Kitty doesn't even love him anymore. Then Kitty's gaggle of adult daughters join in and the women (literally) kick Nick out of the house.
Dejected, Nick walks out onto the street and starts singing Engelbert Humperdinck's "A Man Without Love". A chorus of garbagemen and neighbours join in and a conventional married spat evolves into an all-out musical number on the streets of New York.
I suppose this is where a vast majority of the audience lacking in spirit and imagination will tune out. It's also the moment when I perked up in my seat, got involved with this wacky, bizarre, and frequently messy movie. It immediately reminded me of the work of my favourite screenwriter Dennis Potter. His seminal "Pennies from Heaven" similarly uses popular songs and dreamlike musical numbers to allow its characters to express feelings they could never put into words.
Notice, for example, how smartly director/writer John Turturro portrays the relationship between Nick and his mistress Tula (Kate Winslet) through the songs he has them sing. First, we see Nick's visions of Tula. Set to the seductive and lively Latin rhythms of the Buena Vista Social Club, the hot-tempered temptress Tula dressed in a blood red dress and high heels stands at the window of her room as flames licks her thighs. She sets fire to everything she touches and not even a team of firefighters comprised of Nick and his mates can put her out.
Later in the film, Tula and Nick share a tender moment in bed. It turns out that she geniunly likes this tubby, moody construction worker. Speaking in the only language of love she knows - sex - she tells him that "the next time the flag rises you can knock on me back door". Then after some huffing and puffing from a taken-aback Nick she asks him a loaded question "tell me what you like about me." After he can't give her a good answer she sings an old Connie Francis song: "Too many times romantic words were spoken / Too many words were lovers said in vain / Too many times a foolish heart is broken / And left just the memory for a token / How do I know you won't hurt me too!"
Unlike his characters, however, Turturro can definitely speak in words as well as songs and there are some wonderful dialogues in "Romance & Cigarettes". I love the philosophical conversations between Nick and his co-worker Angelo (Steve Buscemi) about the pros-and-cons of circumcision and homosexuals in Hollywood. "You should have been a scientist," Nick tells him. I also love the scene in which Nick's tough mother (Elaine Stritch) shows up to give him one hell of a talking to.
The characters in "Romance & Cigarettes" are caricatures but Turturro has real affection and empathy for them and allows them to share genuine, honest, sometimes warm, sometimes bitterly cutting moments. Although at first they appear grotesque, all of them really grew on me as the film went on. Of course, it helps that they are played by James Gandolfini, Susan Sarandon, Kate Winslet, Steve Buscemi, Mary-Louise Parker, Aida Turturro, and Christopher Walken among others.
The cast list is long and starry and indeed the film maybe has too many characters. Or perhaps it has too short of an attention span. All the scenes are wonderful and funny and entertaining but Turturro really struggles to pull them all together into a sensible narrative. The film lacks focus. By right, it should be about Nick and Kitty falling out of love with each other and then slowly falling back in love with each other. But Turturro gets so wrapped up with all the side characters and subplots that their warm, funny, intriguing love story becomes just another tune in the cacophony that is "Romance & Cigarettes".
Don't get me wrong, I love the quirky characters in this film. I love Kitty's three overgrown daughters who act like teenagers. I love her Elvis-obsessed brother who dances even when there's no music playing. I love her foreign neighbour who is still pining for her husband who's had four wives since he left her. But why do they get as much room here as Kitty and Nick? Why does the silly neighbourhood greaser Fryburg get more scenes than Tula, a character far more interesting and instrumental to the story?
Ultimately, the point does get lost in the messiness of the script. What was it all about? I'm not too sure. Turturro seems to have had a lot to say but he made the mistake of saying it all at the same time. "Romance & Cigarettes" has enough material for three movies. Perhaps Turturro was worried that he would never get to make all of them so he decided to pack them all up in this one.
Now, normally I would struggle to recommend a film this uneven and unfocused, but the way Turturro styles this picture is irresistable. It has so much joy, so much wit, so much colour, and so much pure, unbridled, unbound energy that I found it impossible not to enjoy. The musical numbers are especially wonderful and the one in which Christopher Walken performs Delilah could stand on its own as one of the finest and funniest short films ever made.
"Romance & Cigarettes" is not as great a movie as it could have been. It definitely needed a sharp re-edit at the script phase to cut away the excess and some of the quirkiness for the benefit of the very real and very engaging human drama between Nick, Kitty, and Tula. However, it is such a fiercely original, joyful, and energetic artistic vision from John Turturro that I can't help but admire it and go along for the wild ride.
3/4 - DirectorRené ClémentStarsAlain DelonMaurice RonetMarie LaforêtTom Ripley is a talented mimic, moocher, forger and all-around criminal improviser; but there's more to Tom Ripley than even he can guess.14-02-2023
Tom Ripley (Alain Delon) is the best pal a man could have. He can do anything: be a butler, cook, accountant, helicopter pilot... He can even forge signatures! We first meet him living it up on the sunny shores of Italy with his rich childhood friend Philip (Maurice Ronet). "His father didn't like us being friends," says Tom, "I wasn't of the right social standing." But as usual, Philip doesn't pay much heed to his father's opinions.
Philip and Tom are a pair of rascals and they spend their days drinking and romancing girls on the streets of Rome. Still, even in the jolly atmosphere of the Italian summer, their relationship still reflects their differing statuses. "Entertain me," says Philip coolly and Tom obliges picking up a blind man's stick and performing an agile vaudeville routine.
But Tom isn't in Italy to see the sights and his rekindled friendship with Philip is no accident. He claims to have been sent there by Philip's father to convince the wayward son to return home to San Francisco but Philip isn't so sure. You see, the two men aren't really childhood friends. That's just something that Tom says and Philip is going along with because the spry young man is just so much fun. But what is really his purpose?
I don't wish to spoil any of "Purple Noon's" simmering delights so I will only say as much as is generally known. The film is based on Patricia Highsmith's now classic novel "The Talented Mr Ripley" which made the titular Tom one of the most famous and bizarrely most beloved fictional sociopaths.
Unlike most movie villains, he doesn't really seem to have a purpose, a goal which only makes him all the more terrifying. His motivation is pure hedonism and his endgame acquiring all of Philip's earthly goods including his fetching fiancee Marge (Marie Laforet). Only in retrospect can one read into Tom's actions a kind of sociological revenge. A poor man forcing his way into a rich man's life to ruin it from within like a virus. I'm not sure, however, that's what's on Tom's mind. At least not this Tom's. He is just having fun.
Rene Clement's "Purple Noon" is the first of five Ripley movies. Each has its unique strengths and styles. This one has all the suspense and atmosphere of the Highsmith original but with a slightly softened edge. Her particular brand of pitch-black cynicism would have been a tough sell for a 1960 movie audience.
However, Clement replaces her nihilism with a disturbing sense of romance. This is definitely a Ripley to fall in love with and, no matter how horrifying his actions are, by the end you want him to get away with it. He is played in a career-best performance by Alain Delon whose wiry figure, stunning beauty, and piercing blue eyes make him an ideal evil seducer. It's a real shame he played so few out-and-out bad guys.
Henri Decae's picturesque cinematography plays along with Tom's plans. The film looks eye-poppingly gorgeous and you can't help but go along with its laidback atmosphere. Sunny Italy has rarely looked more appealing even once blood stains the beautiful blue sea.
Finally, there's Nino Rota's music. Haunting is a word that's definitely overused but I can't think of a more apt descriptor here. I first saw "Purple Noon" when I was a boy and I have been humming the theme ever since. It's one of those melodies (and Rota is the master of them) that lodge themselves in your ear and echo in the deepest reaches of your mind forever.
Clement pulls all these elements together into a thrilling, suspenseful, and wickedly ironic thriller. How many movies do you know that have a pan from a corpse to a delicious chicken slowly roasting in the oven?
A lot of criticism has been levied at "Purple Noon" for its ending which differs wildly from Highsmith's and which was obviously a concession to the censors. I, personally, absolutely love it and always have. Sure, it's less cynical and realistic than the one in the novel but it has a witty, sardonic edge in its tail. I love the fact that even after all the trouble that Tom goes through, all the perfect planning, meticulously executed cons, highwire escapes, and near misses it all ends on a sunny Italian beach with an unpredictable act of fate.
4/4 - DirectorWilliam ClemensStarsBonita GranvilleJohn LitelJames StephensonAfter a wealthy dowager who has made a substantial donation to her alma mater suddenly disappears, Nancy Drew sets out to solve the mystery.14-02-2023
Carolyn Keene's immortal girl detective Nancy Drew has starred in plenty of screen adaptations although none of them has yet managed to capture the charm and mystery of the original novels as well as the video game series that has been running since 1998. In those games, many of which are even better than the books, Nancy is an emancipated, low-key, serious presence and all the better for it. There is no attempt to pander to children by making her goofy or "relatable". That, along with some terrific mysteries and puzzles, is why I think the games work.
Back to the movies. The first big screen Nancy Drew adaptations were a series of four films produced in 1938 and 1939 by Warner Bros. They were the kinds of unambitious but perfectly diverting quickies that were dime a dozen at the time and as such I don't think there's a lot to say about each film individually. That's why I intend to cover all four of them in one go.
The Nancy Drew featured in these films, as played by Bonita Granville, is very much a Nancy for the 1930s. She's a ditzy mademoiselle concerned as much about her prized flowers and her boyfriend as she is with solving mysteries. She's a bit of a klutz, faints at the sight of an unloaded gun, and always seems to need saving by the two men in her life. One is her absent-minded lawyer father Carson Drew (John Litel) and the other is her boyfriend Ted (Frankie Thomas).
In all honesty, there's little sense in condemning these movies for their lack of feminism but there is clearly an attempt to make Nancy into a more standard movie heroine. Even in the earliest novels published as far back as 1930, she was a more proactive and capable figure than she is in these movies. Oh, sure, she always gets her man but not without a lot of flustering, squeaky-voiced goofiness, and help from the more level-headed Ted. Furthermore, she credits all of her detective skills to "woman's intuition".
Bonita Granville, to be fair, is a very energetic and likeable performer. She is especially good in her scenes with Frankie Thomas as the two of them develop a patter and chemistry akin to those often seen in screwball comedies of the era. Not all of the jokes land (some are decidedly leaden) but they are fun to watch.
And that's kind of how I see these movies in general. They have almost no real, cinematic qualities but they do possess an innocent charm that eventually spellbinds you into enjoying these slight adventures that are disappointingly light on snooping or mystery or suspense.
All four films were made by the same people and share a recurring cast which means they are of a piece in style if not always in tone. They were all directed in a dullish and workmanlike manner by William Clemens, feature a lot of hot-diggity-dog dialogue from Kenneth Gamet whose thin scripts are more concerned with gags than plots, and have some nicely atmospheric music from Heinz Roemheld.
The first film in the series, "Nancy Drew... Detective" concerns the search for a kidnapped and rather wealthy old lady. It's based on a novel called "The Password to Larkspur Lane" which had a lot more intricate puzzling around the workings of carrier pigeons and heraldry. All that has been simplified into a rather straightforward plot in which twists and revelations land in Nancy's lap without her having to sweat too much. The film has some entertaining goofiness from Granville and Thomas but it is a very unremarkable affair.
The second picture, "Nancy Drew... Reporter", is a step up in quality as it features a greater variety of comical situations Nancy and Ted find themselves in. It also tones down some of movie-Nancy's more annoying characteristics and actually allows her to display that wit and creativity that make her the defining kid detective. Bonita Granville raises to the challenge and gives an even more charismatic and funny performance than in her debut outing. Less likeable are the pair of annoying kids Nancy and Ted are saddled with but thankfully their scenes are few and far between.
The story is also far better in "Reporter" and revolves around a vital piece of evidence in a murder trial. A city-wide hunt ensues for the incriminating can of poison which involves a cauliflower-eared boxer, his femme fatale girlfriend, the real killer, and, of course, our pair of amateur detectives. I also enjoyed Jack Perry basically playing himself as the goofy bruiser.
Undoubtedly the worst in the series is the third entry "Nancy Drew... Trouble Shooter". It's a mostly unfunny domestic farce and an in-name-only Nancy Drew film. The troubles Nancy faces in this film are not mysterious puzzles and daunting historical clues but rather a burning lunch and her father's budding romance with Edna Gregory (Charlotte Wynters) a woman neither Carson nor we, the audience, ever find anything about.
Oh, sure, there is a murder somewhere in the film but since we find out who the killer is almost immediately there's not much of a mystery. It takes a long time for Nancy to become involved with the case, however, and even though the finale is quite thrilling the rest of this picture decidedly isn't. I don't know whose silly notion it was that audiences would want to see Nancy Drew of all characters in an apron cooking away in the kitchen. It's such a dumb and regressive idea and an affront to the whole point of the novels which aimed to teach young girls of the 30s that homemaking was not all a woman is good for and that adventures were not reserved solely for the lads.
"Trouble Shooter" also co-stars Willie Best playing another one of those crude, cringeworthy racial stereotypes. He's Apollo, a chicken-stealing country bum who lazies about and who is so stupid that he has no idea he's witnessed a murder! These kinds of characters are a rude awakening to the fact that the 1930s were not a million years away from the age of "The Birth of the Nation".
Thankfully, the final Bonita Granville/Nancy Drew film, "Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase" returns to the jovial adventuring of the first two films and, in fact, manages to be the closest in spirit to the book series. Featuring an admittedly modest amount of ghosts, secret passages, and a murder disguised as a suicide, it actually manages to feel like a true blue Nancy Drew mystery.
In it Nancy Drew attempts to find out who is trying to scare a pair of kindly old ladies away from the creaky mansion they live in. The plot is the best of the four films. I know that's not saying much but for the first time in this series, I was actually interested in the solution to the mystery. It doesn't quite reach the joyful heights of "Reporter", but "The Hidden Staircase" is the one to watch if you're a Nancy Drew fan.
As a big fan of the Nancy Drew character, I think it's a shame there's no definitive screen adaptation of the nosey girl detective. Even though these stories would seem a cinch for the movies it is obvious that Hollywood is yet to dare have a teenage girl lead a movie all on her own without throwing all kinds of dumb gags, romance subplots, and unnecessary sidekicks into the mix.
The Bonita Granville films are an obvious product of the 1930s. They're stodgy, simplistic, and occasionally flash the bigotry of their age. And yet, if you are used to the style of 1930s B-movies and can forget, for a moment, what a Nancy Drew movie should look like, they can be moderately entertaining in their own charming way.
It doesn't sound like much of a recommendation and it's not. Only "Reporter" is a genuinely fun, good movie, but it seems somewhat churlish to be overly critical of a series of unambitious movies that seek nothing more than to be another in a long line of studio quickies. If you can stomach those kinds of flicks, you'll enjoy Nancy Drew. If, however, you're after a good adaptation of the books, I'd suggest playing the video games.
Nancy Drew... Reporter (1939) 3/4
Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase (1939) 2.5/4
Nancy Drew... Detective (1938) 2.5/4
Nancy Drew... Trouble Shooter (1939) 1.5/4 - DirectorWilliam ClemensStarsBonita GranvilleJohn LitelFrankie ThomasNancy Drew, contest-reporter for the local newspaper, clears a young woman of murder charges.14-02-2023
See "Nancy Drew... Detective" (1938) - DirectorWilliam ClemensStarsBonita GranvilleFrankie ThomasJohn LitelWhen a close friend of the Drew family is accused of murder in a rural community, Nancy, aided by boyfriend Ted, helps her lawyer father expose the real killers.15-02-2023
See "Nancy Drew... Detective" (1938) - DirectorWim WendersStarsDennis HopperBruno GanzLisa KreuzerTom Ripley, who deals in forged art, suggests a picture framer he knows would make a good hit man.15-02-2023
Jonathan Zimmerman, expert picture framer and art restorer is dying. He has leukaemia and even though his friendly neighbourhood doctor claims he is doing fine and will live for at least a few more years, Jonathan is convinced that his days are numbered. He is played by Bruno Ganz, probably the finest German actor, who does a splendid job of portraying Jonathan's resignation. Look at the way he walks, hunched, limping, like a man with an added weight on his back.
The world director Wim Wenders builds around him is similarly resigned to bleakness and despair. Robby Muller's photography is drained of lively colours, antiseptically blue and silver like a hospital corridor. The streets Jonathan walks down are covered in graffiti and littered with trash. His little framing shop is surrounded by scaffolding which Jonathan doesn't mind. He uses it like a little cubbyhole anyway, a cave where he hides away and drowns his sorrows in precise, dedicated work.
Then, one day, Jonathan is approached by a French gangster (Gerard Blain) who offers him a lot of money and a chance of seeing a top doctor in Paris for killing a man. After some thought and rather obvious manipulation from the Frenchman, Jonathan eventually accepts but not for the money or the treatment but for the chance to feel alive.
The scene in which Jonathan executes the kill in the Paris metro is absolutely exhilarating but not because of the suspense of what will happen but rather because of what we know is happening to Jonathan. Wenders' greatest trick in making his only thriller is focusing it so intently on one man's experience of a world and behaviour he's completely unfamiliar with. Most of the sequence, painfully elongated, is played out in close-ups of Ganz's worn, tired face. We can feel every one of his emotions intently - the excitement, the fear, the worry, the doubt, and eventually the triumph. As he walks away from the metro with blood on his hands he cracks a huge smile.
Lurking on the edges of the film is the titular American friend. He is none other than Patricia Highsmith's sociopathic antihero Tom Ripley, now involved in art forgery. He is played by Dennis Hopper here in a performance which is a far cry from Highsmith's novels. Wearing horn-rimmed glasses and a cowboy hat, he is a lot more twitchy, wiry, and unpredictable. He is also experiencing a severe identity crisis and spends his days narrating his depression into a tape recorder.
The way Zimmerman and Ripley's stories intertwine is quite unpredictable and unusual for a thriller. Even though they bond over a shared crime, their relationship does grow into a friendship, one which is uneasy and bizarre but surprisingly warm and honest.
Another smart move on Wenders' part is not getting too entwined in the gangster plot. We never find out who these Frenchmen are nor what exactly their beef is with one another. We only know Zimmerman's part of the equation and we only care about his experience. I do wish, however, that Wenders did away with the big shootout finale which is a bad fit for this otherwise low-key and intensely psychological movie.
Like in all of his films, Wenders is paying homage here to movies he grew up with. I suspect that he shot that actioner ending with a grin on his face picturing himself as Samuel Fuller shooting "Pickup on South Street". He even casts the great director and five others here as a variety of criminals, liars, cheaters, and one nice guy. I was especially taken with Nicholas Ray's role as a painter who has faked his own death and is now forging his own artworks for Ripley to sell.
Wenders' other fascination, photography, is also prevalent throughout the film. Zoetropes, gyroscopes, stereoscopes and other photographic illusions are prominently featured signifying both the illusion that is being built around Jonathan to make him kill and the illusion that Wenders is pulling on the audience.
His direction here, by the way, is absolutely superb. He is an immensely capable thriller director which he proves with one thrilling scene after another. Besides the wonderful metro scene, there is also a suspenseful and quite entertaining scene set in a rather Hitchcockian setting - a moving train. Note also how well Wenders uses diegetic sounds - humming especially - to create an uneasy, oppressive atmosphere that envelopes the whole film.
The shaky and unconvincing final 20 minutes aside, "The American Friend" is an enthralling and fascinating character study about a dying man and a friendship he develops with someone on the completely opposite side of the world. And I'm not only talking geographically.
It is probably worlds away from what Highsmith had in mind when she wrote "Ripley's Game" but even she had to admit, eventually, that Wenders has created a stylish, exciting, and startlingly original genre piece that stands out even among the superlative thrillers of the 1970s.
3.5/4 - DirectorWilliam ClemensStarsBonita GranvilleFrankie ThomasJohn LitelNancy helps two aging spinsters fulfill the byzantine provisions of their father's will, but the murder of their chauffeur complicates matters.15-02-2023
See "Nancy Drew... Detective" (1938) - DirectorSinisa CveticStarsPavle MensurBojan ZirovicMarko GrabezFamily gathers on their annual St. patrons day and as tensions rise among them hidden conflicts become obvious.16-02-2023
Once a year, on a particular day, every good Serbian Christian family (and quite a few bad ones) is made to give a dinner party. It's one of those quirks of religion that sound more fun than they actually are. The dinner (and usually lunch and breakfast as well) is meant to celebrate the family's patron saint. It's the day in the year when all the family, family friends, and that weird couple you were friends with once but now see only at weddings get together at your house and demand to be fed by the right vested in them by the Orthodox Church. As you can guess, it's a mess.
There have been plenty of films over the years dealing with family gatherings, but Sinisa Cvetic's "The Beheading of St. John the Baptist" is the first to focus on this particular holiday. I wish it were a better movie because as someone who has attended many such dinners as both a host and a guest, I know there are plenty of absurd and farcical situations worthy of a hilarious fly-on-the-wall comedy. That's sort of what I expected going in to see this film - a documentary-style comedy documenting the chaos and drama of a family gathering. What I ended up seeing, however, is an entertaining but uncertain film that seems to be aiming for a Ruben Ostlund-style satire but consistently settling for low-hanging fruit.
The core family unit consists of Bane (Bojan Zirovic) and Mila (Aleksandar Balmazovic), a quarrelling couple heading for divorce. Bane, a former quiz show winner, is a traditional, quiet sort of man, unambitious and overly content for Mila's liking. She is fed up with him and after a cancer scare has decided to go looking for more out of life.
The only reason they haven't gone through with it yet is Jovan (Pavle Mensur), their 22-year-old son, a drug-addicted layabout still living at home in a deteriorating and depressed state. Their older son, Dusan (Marko Grabez), the pride of the family has long since moved out and got himself a job and a fiancee (Jovana Gavrilovic) but Jovan does not seem intent on following in his footsteps.
So, the atmosphere in their home is already tense when the guests start pouring in.
The family dynamic between the four lead characters is quite interesting if a little overly familiar. Still, the most interesting and effective scenes are the ones between them.
The first guests to arrive are indeed Dusan and his fiancee. She is pregnant but they have agreed not to tell anyone until they decide whether they want to keep the baby. As the evening progresses, it becomes clear that each of them has already made their decision but that their ideas of their future are not compatible.
Next up are Mila's bougie sister Lela (Milica Janevski) and her husband Gagi (Aleksandar Djurica), a controversial businessman (as if there's any other kind) who consistently overshadows the already put-upon Bane much to his annoyance. Coming along begrudgingly is their suicidal daughter Ana (Anita Ognjanovic) who is shifted off to Jovan's room. Even though they are cousins, an unusual romance develops between these two troubled young adults.
Finally, there's Bane's brother Milan (Zlatan Vidovic), a recovering drug addict who has recently returned from a sojourn in Australia and shows up unexpectedly much to the consternation of his former girlfriend Nena (Dubravka Kovjanic), another guest at the feast. We never quite find out what their story is but there is a lot of bad blood between them which they seem to sort out fairly easily in the background because the film largely has no time to devote to them.
Along with the family's grandparents, two utterly underdeveloped and unimportant characters who could have and should have been cut, the film has twelve actors in a single dining room craving attention. The script by David Jakovljevic, however, never manages to strike a good balance between all their intertwining stories leaving most of them underdeveloped and without a proper finale.
Milan and Nena's storyline is introduced in the final third of the film and plays out over less than three scenes. Gagi, who is introduced as a kind of nemesis for Bane, rapidly loses importance as the film progresses until he becomes a glorified extra in the final hour. Dusan's fiancee leaves the dinner party so soon that we almost forget she was ever in the picture by the time the credits roll.
Furthermore, all of their stories are so soap-operatic and contrived that they severely test our credulity. As I said, I've been to many such dinners and met all kinds of people there but I've never seen so many crises pop up in a single day. Jakovljevic's script is so "cinematic" that I could never truly accept it as reality. It doesn't help that the way these situations are resolved is often phoney and artificial. The love story between Jovan and Ana, though very well played, especially rings false and puts one in mind of the worst kinds of Hollywood movies in which a romantic subplot is crowbarred in without rhyme or reason.
Another intriguing subplot introduced and then dropped is the Covid pandemic. A lot is made of it at the beginning of the film. Everyone is uncertain about hugging, they wash their hands before touching anything, and they are uncertain about whether they should keep their masks on or not. However, the pandemic is quickly forgotten as the stories unfold and is almost never mentioned again. I would have been very interested to see more about how a family gathering is different in pandemic times but in this film, it all seems like an afterthought hastily written in during the 2021 shoot.
Sinisa Cvetic's direction is frustratingly uncertain about what stylistic direction it wants to go down. I often got the impression that he wanted to make a more stylized, satirical, colourful film full of fantasy, farce and excess but that he kept pulling back into the safe zone of realism. Some scenes are shot like a fly-on-the-wall documentary. Some scenes have a garish stylishness to them with dutch angles and wide lenses. Meanwhile, the film is scored with Correlli's violin music and broken up into chapters which put me in mind of Ruben Ostlund's brilliant "Force Majeure". Eventually, the wheels come off in the finale which I won't spoil except to say that it doesn't belong to any of the many films Cvetic seems to have tried to blend into this one.
The film is at its best when it merely steps back and takes an honest look at the rituals and absurdities of the festivity. I loved the inane small talk that goes on around the table. I laughed out loud when Gagi goes on a rant about how there are no more tasty oranges in Serbia. I loved the small crisis that breaks out when Bane forgets the fish he just bought at a shop. These are the kinds of stories and situations I would have rather followed instead of divorces, love affairs, cancer scares, and unwanted babies.
The cast is uniformly excellent especially Pavle Mensur as the black sheep of the family. They are so good in fact that it becomes even more frustrating the film couldn't focus more on their individual characters. Just watching them interact with each other is entertaining enough.
"The Beheading of St John the Baptist" is an occasionally entertaining film but one that gets lost amid its many overcomplicated and increasingly contrived storylines none of which gets a satisfying conclusion. The idea is so good and the cast is so much fun to watch that it almost works but its unfocused script and uncertain direction keep getting in the way.
2.5/4 - DirectorAkira KurosawaStarsToshirô MifuneYutaka SadaTatsuya NakadaiAn executive of a Yokohama shoe company becomes a victim of extortion when his chauffeur's son is kidnapped by mistake and held for ransom.17-02-2023
Akira Kurosawa's "High and Low's" Japanese title is "Tengoku to jigoku" which translates to "Heaven and Hell", a much more apt title for this thrilling and utterly enrapturing thriller. It divides neatly into two halves, one indeed set in heaven and the other in hell.
Heaven is the vast, modern, antiseptically white house belonging to the indicatively named Kingo Gondo (Toshiro Mifune), an imposing businessman about to make the move of a lifetime. He has taken out a number of loans and credits in order to gather enough money to buy shares in the company he works for. He is finally about to achieve his ambition of being the big boss of National Shoes.
The house is located on top of a hill overlooking Yokohama, a city in the grips of a sweltering summer. Gondo's house, however, has air conditioning.
And then, just as he is about to cash the cheque securing his future the phone rings. "I have kidnapped your son," says the disembodied voice on the other end of the line. "Pay me 30 million yen and I'll let him live." But the kidnapper has made a mistake. Instead of kidnapping Gondo's son, he has kidnapped the son's best friend who is the child of Gondo's impoverished driver (Yutaka Sada). Never mind, says the kidnapper, the deal stays the same. 30 million yen or the kid dies.
This makes Gondo's decision an even more complex one. When he still thought his son was in danger he proclaimed loudly "I'll pay anything to get my son back". Now that it is someone else's child at stake, he is less certain. Should he feel responsible for the driver's son? Should he ruin his own life by paying the kidnapper with money he has borrowed only to save someone else's?
This first half is an incredibly intense chamber drama. Set entirely in Gondo's lavish house, the four walls slowly close in as the hours tick away. The spacious living room is invaded by a group of police officers. The tables become cluttered by recording equipment. The curtains are drawn over the scenic windows so that the kidnapper can't look in.
Meanwhile, the pressure on Gondo grows. His own wife (Kyoko Kagawa) becomes convinced that he must pay. She is willing to make any sacrifice for the boy's life, even live a life of poverty. But is Gondo? His pride and his morality will have to battle it out as the heat from hell invades Gondo's heavenly realm.
The second half of the film is a meticulously detailed and intently observed police procedural as the dedicated Inspector Tokura (Tatsuya Nakadai) and his team work effortlessly to close the net around the kidnapper. There is a spellbinding 10-minute briefing scene in which each of the officers delivers a terse report about their findings. Kurosawa knows that it is always engrossing to watch professionals at work, so he allows us to peek in on the minutia of the investigation.
The cops gather their clues slowly but surely. They look for cars that were stolen in the period shortly before the kidnapping. They listen to the recordings of the kidnapper's phone calls and notice there's the sound of a tram in the background so they begin examining all tram lines that go through Yokohama. An expert informs them that the sound they are hearing is from an old-style single-pole trolley and not the more common pantograph trolley which narrows the search even further.
I love Japanese thrillers precisely because of their obsessive focus on details.
Then the cops descend on the streets which is the film's hell. They go looking for their man in the filthiest reaches of the city, the slums, the nightclubs, the opium dens. There is even a masterfully executed horror sequence in which they follow a suspect into a street entirely occupied by heroin addicts who lumber about in a zombie-like haze. Meanwhile, the city sizzles from the sweltering heat and everyone's faces are covered with sweat. You can smell the stench in every room as fans try in vain to cool the indefatigable policemen.
"High and Low" is a genre masterpiece that encapsulates everything a thriller can be. It's an intense character-driven chamber piece that suddenly explodes into an exciting and suspenseful city-wide manhunt. The hunt for the kidnapper is on and Kurosawa makes us feel the thrill of the chase. He is on top of his game here with his eerily precise camerawork. Look at the brilliant mise-en-scene of the first half in which he uses the Tohoscope format like a theatre stage. I love how he always frames Gondo either in the middle of the screen between two groups of people all of whom are waiting on his decision or on the outer reaches of the screen illustrating the loneliness of the position in which he is placed.
Toshiro Mifune is a force to be reckoned with in this film. He moves through his living room like a caged animal or a boxer before a fight. But then the entire cast is superb. Tatsuya Nakadai is marvellous as the logical policeman, a calming influence on the more impulsive Gondo. Also wonderful is Kyoko Kagawa in a very subdued performance as Gondo's wife. She spends most of the film in the background of shots but her reactions and the looks she gives her husband are absolutely lethal.
It is hard to imagine a more perfect thriller than "High and Low", a movie that wrapped me up in its story so much that I cheered along with the detectives every time a clue would turn up. It is yet another proof that Kurosawa was a master at every genre and that his place in the pantheon of cinema is richly deserved. Not even Hitchcock has reached the level of intensity that Kurosawa brings to "High and Low".
4/4 - DirectorYasujirô OzuStarsChishû RyûSetsuko HaraYumeji TsukiokaSeveral people try to talk 27-year-old Noriko into marrying, but all she wants is to keep on caring for her widowed father.17-02-2023
"Late Spring" is a quintessential Yasujiro Ozu film. A precise deliberately paced meditative portrait of everyday family life in post-war Japan punctuated by lengthy "pillow shots" - montages of landscapes or empty rooms meant for the audience to contemplate the situation and characters presented to them in the previous scene. I find Ozu's films oddly relaxing and comforting even though they are never simplistic. In fact, "Late Spring" is a deceivingly ambiguous movie, a film that continually evades any kind of a straightforward interpretation or any kind of a true finale. At the end of an Ozu film, life goes on with all its subtleties, complexities, and rituals.
Where I find myself confused is when I hear people say that little happens in an Ozu film. "Late Spring" is a film full of occurrences, conflict, and torment. It's a movie about the separation of a child from her parent, one of the most important and difficult periods in a person's life. The separation is made even more difficult by the fact that the child in question is a grown woman named Noriko (Setsuko Hara), the name which signifies a good daughter in an Ozu film.
She spends most of her days doting on her absent-minded father (Chishu Ryu), a professor who is silently growing concerned with his daughter's devotion to him. Oh, he's also extremely devoted to her and would be happiest if she would never leave his side, but isn't it normal and traditional for a daughter to get married, and start a family of her own?
But Noriko doesn't want to leave her father. She protests the very idea saying she is happy beside him and could never be as happy by anyone else's side. The father, ignoring his own feelings as well as his daughters, however, continues to gently nudge her towards marriage. "It's wrong to think that marriage will instantly make you happy," he explains in one of the film's most poetic dialogues, " Happiness is not something to expect but something you create. It may take a year or two or even five or ten years' work for a couple to create that happiness. But only then can you claim to have become a true husband and wife."
Making matters worse is the fact that everyone around Noriko seems to be divorced or widowed and quite happy about it. Her best friend (Yumeji Tsukioka) left her husband a while back and claims she would never get married again. In fact, if she ever sees her ex-husband she'll kill him with a look. But, she too tries to convince Noriko to marry. After all, she's the only one in their school who is still single and isn't it normal and traditional that she should get hitched already?
Even less subtle is her meddling aunt (Haruko Sugimura), a terrifically funny character who goes so far as to arrange a husband for Noriko. He's a nice, employed young man who supposedly looks like Gary Cooper. I say supposedly because we never get to meet the proposed groom. This is one of Ozu's most masterful decisions. If we had met the suitor, it would have been impossible for us not to decide on what kind of a life Noriko would have with him. If he was indeed a nice, good-looking chap, we would have rooted for their marriage. If he was a boring, plain person, we would have wanted Noriko to stay with her beloved father.
Ozu doesn't allow for such easy and obvious answers. This is not a propagandist film. It doesn't take a stand for or against marriage. Because we never meet the man or see his interactions with Noriko we are forced to focus solely on the emotional torment of the daughter and her father. Neither of them wants to leave the other but they feel obliged to do so. In a way, they both sacrifice themselves for the sake of the other. The father is left alone so that Noriko could marry as is customary and Noriko marries so that her father's wish for her to leave would be fulfilled as is customary.
The film is slow and Ozu spends most of the runtime following the daily routine of family life. However, he still manages to make the film absolutely heartrending without being sentimental and tense without being sensationalistic. There is a scene in the middle of the film, a real breaking point for the character of Noriko, in which her father and she go to a Noh play. Ozu achieves a tangible feeling of suspense with nothing more than a few striking close-ups.
He is a masterfully subtle director and "Late Spring" is the kind of film that slowly creeps up on you. For the first half, I found it a light, sweet, relaxing portrayal of everyday life. Then, without even noticing the shift, I began to feel very deeply for Noriko and her father. The final scenes are anything but relaxing. They are sad and sombre. Ozu makes us feel the importance of this tectonic shift in their lives by slowly integrating us, the audience, into them. We become a part of their routines, their interactions, and the pleasurable banalities of their everyday existence.
A note must also be made of the fascinating backdrop to the film. It is a superb portrayal of life in American-occupied Japan. A bizarre time when these two totally opposed cultures mixed. There is something wonderfully perverse about this quintessentially Japanese movie taking place with Coca-Cola signs in the background. Ozu uses the scenery of 1949 Japan to illustrate the changing attitudes of Japanese youth who are beginning to slowly abandon the traditional ways and embrace the supposedly more liberal Western beliefs.
4/4 - DirectorKon IchikawaStarsKazuo HasegawaFujiko YamamotoAyako WakaoYukinojo, a Kabuki actor, seeks revenge by destroying the three men who caused the deaths of his parents. Also involved are the daughter of one of Yukinojo's targets, two master thieves, and a swordsman who himself is out to kill Yukinojo.19-02-2023
"As you might expect of an actor's revenge, it's going to be a flamboyant performance." Especially, when it's being directed by Kon Ichikawa!
The actor in question: Kabuki star Yukinojo (Kazuo Hasegawa), a specialist in female starring roles. The crime for which he wants vengeance: the suicide of his parents. The targets of his wrath: a trio of wealthy and powerful Edo men who drove his father to ruin and raped his mother.
Yukinojo is a trained and highly skilled swordsman, an ability he frequently shows off in the picture but the method of his revenge is more devious than that. Instead of using violence, he decides to use his acting skills first to worm his way into the house of Judge Dobe (Ganjiro Nakamura), the most powerful of the three men, then into the heart of Dobe's beautiful and naive daughter Namiji (Ayako Wakao). After he has accomplished this, he will manipulate the considerable greed of the three men to turn on each other and destroy themselves in the process in the same way they destroyed his father.
Reading the summary alone makes "An Actor's Revenge" sound awfully familiar. Indeed, the story is deliberately archetypal and all of its characters play their assigned roles with precision and gusto. However, the way Kon Ichikawa and his DP Setsuo Kobayashi shoot the story is what makes the film truly special.
Seizing on the theatricality inherent in the story, he shoots the entire film on sparsely decorated stages. The exteriors are a black void with only a solitary wall or a line of trees signifying the location. The action is similarly stylized using obviously artificial effects. Thieves climb walls which in clearly reversed shots, stunt doubles exchange actors in plain sight... Meanwhile, Kobayashi envelops the film in almost complete darkness, as dark as the rage that drives the titular character. Otherworldly keylights pick out our main actors in Caravaggio-esque tableaux. Ichikawa's style is bold, striking, and quite unique.
It is not only the visuals of the film that imitate the theatrical experience. The actors all give heightened, melodramatic, broad performances punctuating every emotion. Kazuo Hasegawa is an absolute revelation as the Kabuki actor who never drops his feminine role. Even though his demeanour is carefully planned and rigid, his expressive eyes betray his emotional turmoil.
Hasegawa plays a double role in "An Actor's Revenge". He also appears as Yamitaro, a legendary thief nicknamed "Child of the Night" who steals from the rich and gives to the poor. Edo has more than one thief, however. Competing with Yamitaro for the number one spot is Ohatsu the Acrobat (formerly Ohatsu the Water Ghost) played superbly wittily and charismatically by Fujiko Yamamoto. The two serve as a kind of Greek chorus observing Yukinojo's vengeance from the rooftops and the shadows astounded by the actor's skills of deception.
Besides being a wonderfully operatic drama, "An Actor's Revenge" is a surprisingly funny movie. Most of the comedy comes from the thieves themselves all of whom develop a fascination and fondness for this strange actor who is bettering them at their own game. Ohatsu even falls in love with Yukinojo but her firey emotions are turned down at every step.
Also lurking in the shadows is an unfortunate Yamitaro imitator Hirutaro (Raizo Ichikawa) who nicknames himself "Child of the Day" but whose exploits are either entirely unnoticed or credited to his more famous colleague.
The plot of "An Actor's Revenge" is indeed quite ordinary and proceeds in a fairly straightforward fashion. Ichikawa himself seems barely interested in it and in the final half of the film, he seems to be deliberately rushing through plot points to get to the comedy or his strikingly original visuals.
It is, after all, those visuals and the excellent cast of actors that make "An Actor's Revenge" a film well worth seeing. It's more of an experience than a meticulously told story and if you don't get hung up on the details of the plot you'll end up being completely swept up in its theatrical atmosphere.
3.5/4 - DirectorAnthony MinghellaStarsMatt DamonGwyneth PaltrowJude LawIn late 1950s New York, a young underachiever named Tom Ripley is sent to Italy to retrieve Dickie Greenleaf, a rich and spoiled millionaire playboy. But when the errand fails, Ripley takes extreme measures.22-02-2023
There has never been a bad movie based on a Tom Ripley novel. Created by Patricia Highsmith, Tom is one of those immortal, iconic literary characters who are so rich, so interesting, and so complex that they have proven irresistible to a number of first-class filmmakers and actors. What is it about him that is so attractive? I think it is the fact that, like Hamlet, he can be interpreted in so many different ways with such differing, yet equally fascinating results. Alain Delon played him as a charming sociopath who lies, cheats, and kills for kicks. Dennis Hopper played him as a lonely man in the midst of a severe identity crisis in desperate need of a friend. John Malkovich cut a more professorial figure in his elegant yet bland suits but was capable of shocking acts of violence. Finally, Barry Pepper gave him the air of an international playboy. A devilishly sexy gamesplayer. The scary thing about Tom Ripley is that, after all, he is all of those things.
In "The Talented Mr Ripley", he is played by Matt Damon in a tour-de-force performance as a rather sad fellow. Damon mines the characters' inner melancholy to create a strangely sympathetic Ripley. Unlike Delon, the Damon version of the character doesn't seem to take any pleasure in the killing and the lying. In fact, he becomes increasingly more haunted by his crimes the deeper he becomes involved in a web of his own deceit.
"You are a leech, Tom," says his best and only friend at one point in the film. It's the truth but Tom has no choice but to leech and impersonate others. He is a brilliant mimic but an empty human being. A bland, dull nobody whose only talent is to take on other people's characteristics. He is one of those people everyone knows who are able to perfectly integrate themselves into any group, pick up on all the in-jokes, and imitate the patter, the rhythms of their conversations. But once they leave no one really remembers them because they brought nothing of their own to the conversation. Tom is like that, or at least believes himself to be like that.
An interesting note Anthony Minghella's adaptation of the novel adds to "The Talented Mr Ripley" is the notion that maybe Tom could have become an interesting, vibrant, original person himself if only he'd been allowed to. But the rich, vacuous, free-wheeling people he gravitates toward aren't really interested in a piano tuner from New York, so he decides to turn himself into one of them. "It's better to be a fake somebody," he explains, "than a real nobody".
We first meet Tom as he is accompanying an opera singer at the garden party hosted by a shipping magnate named Herbert Greenleaf (James Rebhorn). He takes one look at Tom's Stanford jacket and assumes that Tom went there. He turns to his wife and comments that he and the opera singer are a charming couple. Of course, Tom never went to Stanford - he borrowed the jacket - and the opera singer is merely his friend, but Tom doesn't bother to correct Mr Greenleaf's wrong assumptions, especially when the rich man offers him an alluring job.
Mr Greenleaf will pay Tom a handsome sum of money to go to Italy and convince his wayward son Dickie (Jude Law) to return to New York. Dickie also went to Stanford and since Tom is an old boy as well this should be no problem. Tom accepts. After all, why shouldn't he? A free trip to Europe and a chance to hang out with the wealthy and the charismatic is all he's been dreaming of.
Once he gets to Mongibello, he finds Dickie and his beautiful fiancee Marge (Gwyneth Paltrow) living the life of luxury. Dickie, a jazz-obsessed loafer, spends his nights haunting the various clubs along the Italian shore and his days avoiding his many lovers some of whom may or may not be pregnant. Meanwhile, Marge is working on her book, blissfully unaware of her fiancee's extracurricular activities, or at least that's the way they like to pretend things are.
Tom stages an "accidental" meeting at a beach and the two become fast friends. Dickie finds Tom's subservience and talent for impersonations and Tom slowly falls in love with the charming, dazzling, talented Dickie. He is the man Tom wishes he were. The kind of man whose presence is felt immediately when he walks into a room. The kind of man whose attention is like the sun glowing on you.
Anthony Minghella's "The Talented Mr Ripley" adds a homoerotic connotation missing from the Highsmith novel. Tom becomes attracted to more than Dickie's money which unnerves the decidedly heterosexual Dickie. A tension develops between the two of them and Dickie decides he's had enough of the pleasant but mysteriously creepy Mr Ripley. Tom doesn't take the rejection very well and the film morphs into an increasingly more complicated thriller.
The second half of the film is less intriguing than the first. It becomes awfully caught up in a series of farcical situations which Ripley gets out of with ridiculous ease. He takes to manipulation and even murder like a duck to water and the way he evades not only the Italian police but also Dickie's friends and family borders on the supernatural.
The previous adaptation of the same novel, Rene Clement's astounding "Purple Noon" found far more believable ways for Ripley to avoid capture. Minghella's Tom is a little too talented for my liking and his luck eventually stretched my credulity too far. The only reason he gets away with all of his crimes is that everyone around him is absolutely dumb and wilfully blind rather than because he is so crafty and smart.
And yet, despite an increasingly ludicrous second half, "The Talented Mr Ripley" is an alluring, lush, and consistently entertaining thriller. The cast is a major component of its success. Besides the fabulous Matt Damon, the monstrously charismatic Jude Law, and a terrific turn from a vulnerable and likeable Gwyneth Paltrow, the film also features terrific supporting performances from Cate Blanchett, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jack Davenport, and Philip Baker Hall who turns up late in the movie to steal a couple of scenes as a private detective whose years of experience blind him to Ripley's brazen deceptions. Another very funny performance comes from Sergio Rubini as an incompetent Roman inspector.
The film is also quite beautiful with some strikingly picturesque photography from John Seale who maybe won the Oscar for the wrong Anthony Minghella picture.
Minghella, as usual, does an interesting job directing this material. He not only wrings the best possible performances from his talented cast but also gives us some clever imagery to look at. I love the shot in which Ripley closes the lid of a piano and the reflection on it shows two faces - one Dickie's and one Tom's.
I also love how he integrates music into the story. Not only Gabriel Yared's enchanting music-box score but also the jazz standards Dickie plays on his saxophone.
Characteristically for Minghella, however, the film is at least 15 minutes too long and the pace is uneven, suffering especially in the second half with several unnecessary subplots and a series of introspective monologues.
"The Talented Mr Ripley" is not the perfect movie it appears to be in its first half but it is a beguiling and fascinating thriller that enraptures us with its brilliant performances and picturesque recreations of the stylish 1950s. I appreciated the alterations and additions Minghella made to the Highsmith novel but I do find myself missing the unrepentant sociopath she created.
3/4 - DirectorLiliana CavaniStarsJohn MalkovichDougray ScottLena HeadeyA dying family man in need of money is persuaded to assassinate a European crime boss.22-02-2023
Knowing Tom Ripley is a dangerous game. As played by John Malkovich he has the look and the demeanour of a college professor. A meticulous sophisticate dressed in an elegant but bland suit. And yet he is a mercurial chap capable of switching from apparent calm to murderous rage at a drop of a hat.
The opening scene of "Ripley's Game", Liliana Cavani's adaptation of the same-named Patricia Highsmith novel, establishes his character extremely well. We first meet him conducting a sale of some forged paintings. The deal isn't going all that well. The buyer is stingy and the buyer's goon is getting his hands all over the drawings. "Please don't touch those," Ripley tells him quietly. The goon pays him no heed. Ripley repeats himself firmly but calmly and still, the goon continues pawing the art. Never a man to say the same thing thrice, Ripley pushes the goon away and proceeds to beat him to death with a poker.
This is why the following scene, set at a birthday party in a small Italian town, is so incredibly tense. Ripley arrives fashionably late only to overhear the host, a cynical British framer Jonathan Trevanny (Dougray Scott) badmouthing him. "The problem with Ripley is," Jonathan says to the gathered crowd of wealthy ex-pats, "he has too much money and no taste."
How is Ripley going to react? Is he going to smash a wine bottle over his host's head? Is he going to pull out a gun and kill everyone there? The great thing about Ripley as a character is that all of those scenarios are quite possible. The great thing about Patricia Highsmith as a writer, however, is that she would never stoop to something as obvious. No, Ripley merely makes his excuse and leaves earmarking Jonathan Trevenny for revenge.
The opportunity comes calling soon enough in the form of Ripley's ex-partner in crime Reeves (Ray Winstone), a loudmouthed cockney gangster with no manners. Reeves, an unwelcome guest in the Ripley household, has come to ask for a favour. He needs someone to kill his German competition. Ripley suggests Trevanny.
And that is Ripley's revenge and the titular Ripley's game. A kind of human experiment with Ripley as the cool scientific observer. He shares his author's fascination with the idea that ordinary men caught in extraordinary situations are capable of exceptional acts.
Trevanny becomes Ripley's guinea pig. He is desperately in need of money and, unbeknownst to Ripley, dying of leukaemia. He accepts the job even though he's never killed anyone before.
If the plot of "Ripley's Game" sounds familiar to you, it is because it has already been adapted into a wonderful film called "The American Friend" with the always superb Bruno Ganz in the part of Jonathan and Dennis Hopper as an unusually quirky, demented Ripley.
That film benefitted greatly from the edgy, arty, experimental directorial stylings of Wim Wenders. "Ripley's Game", however, benefits from a clearer, sharper script that tells Highsmith's tale of assassins, mobsters, and an ordinary, decent man caught between them with extraordinary clarity and a measured pace.
Cavani's direction is more-or-less pedestrian. She steps back and allows the cast to lead the dance which proves to be a good decision. The film does lack the suspense and intensity of Wenders' adaptation but it has first-rate performances that make it a delightful character-driven piece.
John Malkovich is an absolutely fascinating Ripley. He brings a kind of distance to him that makes him appear like an alien studying human emotion with curiosity and a bemused lack of understanding. There is a magnificent moment towards the end of the film in which Trevanny does something absolutely human and selfless but which goes entirely against Ripley's own credo. He stares at the man and asks simply "why did you do that" with childlike curiosity.
Dougray Scott is equally as good in the part of Trevanny, a man tortured both by his illness and the crimes he commits. He agrees to carry out the hit for the benefit of his wife and child whom he loves but by the end of the movie, he's not so sure where his allegiances lie - with them or with Ripley, this mysterious, dangerous man he used to hate but now owes his life to.
The film also contains wonderful supporting turns. Ray Winstone is his usual charismatic, witty self as the piggish gangster. Chiara Caselli brings an Italian sexiness to the role of Ripley's pianist girlfriend who mysteriously accepts her lover's dark side. Finally, there's Lena Headey as the gentle Mrs Trevanny whose acceptance, however, has limits.
Liliana Cavani's "Ripley's Game" does lack the experimental artfulness of "The American Friend" but as a character study, it is definitely the superior film. Not only are the performances in it top-notch but the script fleshes out each of its leads allowing them to change (seemingly never for the better) throughout this well-told and absolutely engaging story.
Supplanting the film's lack of visual style is Ennio Morricone's exciting, inventive score dominated by an urgent harpsichord melody and an unnerving electronic pulse like the buzzing you get in your ears in moments of great excitement.
4/4 - DirectorRoger SpottiswoodeStarsBarry PepperJacinda BarrettIan HartProfessional swindler hides the death of a famous artist in order to earn money by selling pictures on his own behalf.23-02-2023
Considering that the previous four films based on Patricia Highsmith's Ripley novels were all based on either "The Talented Mr Ripley" or "Ripley's Game", this film is a curio for delving deeper into Highsmith's oeuvre alone. It's based on "Ripley Under Ground", the second in the so-called Ripliad, a fascinatingly entertaining musing on art, forgery, originality, and the thin line between fact and fiction in the relationships between friends and lovers.
The film adaptation, directed by Roger Spottiswoode, plays fast and loose with Highsmith's tightly wound plot but retains the same core themes. It begins with Tom Ripley (Barry Pepper) hiding out in London after finagling his way into a group of pretentious art snobs crowding around Philip Derwatt (Douglas Henshall), a painter about to be given his first exhibition by a slimy art dealer named Jeff Constant (Alan Cumming).
But Derwatt is a mercurial fellow and after a particularly nasty fight with his girlfriend Cynthia (Claire Forlani), as nasty a female character as only Highsmith can craft, he gets into his car in a drunken stupor and dies in a fiery blaze.
His friends despair. Less so over the loss of Derwatt and more over the loss of the fame and fortune, his work was going to bring them. Then the talented Mr Ripley speaks up. What if they don't report Derwatt's death? What if they pretend he is still alive, get his less successful painter buddy Bernard (Ian Hart) to forge his artworks, and sell them to eager collectors who have more money than taste?
It is telling that the script for this film was written by Donald E. Westlake, another genius of the thriller genre whose work was markedly different from Patricia Highsmith's. He was the master of quirky caper novels and indeed "Ripley Under Ground" feels more Westlakeian than Highsmithian with its pesky corpses, farcical misunderstandings, and constant near disasters that Ripley has to deal with.
The good news is that the film has all the fun and fast-paced thrills of a Westlake novel. The bad news is that along the way it has lost all of Highsmith's intelligence and humanity. The film glazes over all the complex questions of forgery that troubled Highsmith. It also avoids examining the guilt and identity crises that the forgers go through in the novel. Spotiswoode's film instead boils the story down to a jolly jaunt through crime tropes peppered with plenty of black humour and moved along at a breakneck pace.
This is all moderately entertaining and diverting but it certainly isn't Highsmith. "Ripley Under Ground" is a fun sit but it will not please the knowing fans of her complex, compelling, and disturbing Ripley novels.
Speaking of Ripley, here he is played by Barry Pepper in a performance that simply doesn't reach the levels of complexity or sinister charm that his notable predecessors brought to it. In fact, Ripley is consistently the least interesting character in the film. He's a bland and charmless presence here and Pepper fails to convince us that he is this sociopathic manipulator. Without the context of the novels or the previous movies, his Ripley is a frustrating cypher. A posturing playboy who somehow takes to crime like a duck to water.
His drab performance is significantly buoyed by the terrific supporting cast. Alan Cumming is hilariously sleazy as the cokehead art dealer, Claire Forlani brings a suitable ruthlessness to her stock part of the unscrupulous sexpot, Tom Wilkinson pops up in the final third as a relentless police inspector, and finally, there's a delightfully quirky and inspired turn from Willem Dafoe an American art collector who is far smarter than Ripley and co. think.
Ian Hart and Douglas Henshall are somewhat less convincing as the painters if only because the filmmakers insist on turning them into bearded, haunted, alcoholic cliches. The one weak spot in an otherwise first-rate supporting cast is Jacinda Barrett as Ripley's French girlfriend whose accent goes from Berlin to Inspector Clouseau - usually in the same scene. Her character is the most interesting in the whole script and it is a real shame that her flat, gormless performance doesn't rise to the challenge. Chiara Caselli played the same part with more gusto and allure in the far, far superior "Ripley's Game".
But then it is quite unfair to compare "Ripley Under Ground" with the previous adaptations of the Ripliad. Whereas those movies mined the novels for their fascinating moral quandaries and studies of forgery and pretence, "Ripley Under Ground" is content to turn Highsmith's prose into a high-energy but wafer-thin caper thriller. Considering that Roger Spottiswoode's styleless direction is distinctly televisual maybe that's where this film truly belongs. After all, it is suitably lacking in ambition.
But to be fair, what it is not lacking in is fun and I did enjoy "Ripley Under Ground" when I could ignore that gnawing feeling inside me that great material was being wasted on a mediocre movie. Maybe if the filmmakers removed the names of Highsmith and Ripley from the credits I would be more generous but as an adaptation of a great novel, this film is a disappointment. A diverting disappointment but a disappointment none the less.
2.5/4 - DirectorAndrew FlemingStarsEmma RobertsTate DonovanMax ThieriotTeen detective Nancy Drew accompanies her father on a business trip to Los Angeles, where she happens upon clues to a murder mystery involving a movie star.23-02-2023
I really loved the opening of "Nancy Drew" - a hand-drawn credits sequence showing stills from some of the hundreds of adventures that the titular girl detective has had over the past 90 years. We see her investigating a ghost in a spooky cemetery, riding on horseback as a gothic mansion explodes behind her, and eavesdropping from the top of a tree. These opening seconds really nail the sense of mystery and fun that are the heart and soul of what must be the most popular book series in history. It really whetted my appetite for some exotic adventures in intriguing, far-away locales.
What a shame then that the film is set in Los Angeles! I don't think there's a more commonly used or more tired setting for a detective movie than LA, a place which has been essayed in far better movies and about which there's probably nothing new to say. It is a very boring locale to set a Nancy Drew movie in since so much of the appeal of the books and especially the superb video game series that is still the definitive adaptation of the character is precisely in learning interesting facts and legends about unusual and unexplored places.
The mystery Nancy solves is a 23-year-old murder of a movie star named Dehlia Draycott (Laura Herring) but most of the movie is set inside Draycott's crumbling mansion which means that we don't even get the obligatory "Hollywood people are crazy" tropes.
The story, credited to Tiffany Paulsen, is not all that interesting. It involves the usual kerfuffle around contested heirs, a missing will, and some evil goons trying to off the 16-year-old snoop. Nothing new there.
The bad guy is disappointingly easy to guess since there is only one viable suspect and the location of the will is a cheat since we don't get any clues about its hiding place until Nancy divines the solution.
All this is especially unfortunate since the rest of the movie is so damn good. It is the first Nancy Drew movie since the Bonita Granville 1930s film series and it does a far, far better job of emulating the adventurous spirit of the books. There are secret passages and clues in old movies for Nancy to crack and, to my delight, she actually does it by reading books and thinking rather than having the solutions merely fall into her lap.
The titular character is wonderfully embodied by Emma Roberts. OK, maybe she's a little more square and awkward than the character in the books but she brings so much wit, charisma, and bubbly energy to her performance that she absolutely lights up the screen. She's a first-class Nancy and it is an absolute disgrace that we didn't get more films with her in the lead.
The supporting cast is fine if not exactly inspired. I liked Tate Donovan as Nancy's doting dad and her faithful boyfriend Ned Nickerson is played by the likeable if bland Max Thierot. Thankfully, the writers know that Nancy is the star of the show and don't saddle her with too many nagging sidekicks.
Also in the film is the obligatory goofy kid. This is a movie trope I am not particularly fond of but surprisingly the young actor Josh Fitter quickly won me over with his quirky charm. He was a very good kid actor and I wonder why he didn't have any starring roles.
This, Andrew Fleming directed "Nancy Drew" movie is not what I would call a definitive screen adaptation due to a lack of an actually engaging mystery and its rather dull setting but it does such a good job of emulating the atmosphere of the books that I am willing to give it a pass for those not exactly minor failings.
Still, any movie that has such a likeable lead and a character named Dashiel Biedermeyer can't be all bad.
3/4 - DirectorKatt SheaStarsSophia LillisZoe ReneeMackenzie GrahamA bit of an outsider struggling to fit into her new surroundings, Nancy and her pals set out to solve a mystery, make new friends, and establish their place in the community.26-02-2023
Nancy Drew, the immortal kid detective, has had a chequered past of screen adaptation ranging from mediocre to disappointing. First, there was the 1930s film series starring Bonita Granville which unfortunately was very much "of its time" with some rather grating depictions of gender and race which undermine the spirit of the Nancy Drew books. Then we had three underwhelming TV attempts the first of which was a product of the 1970s mystery craze starring the decidedly unenthusiastic Pamela Sue Martin, an actress with a notable lack of energy saddled with an annoying supporting cast and some very thinly plotted mystery. Next up was a bizarre 1995 series which was more of a teen soap than an exciting adventure-filled mystery series and a failed 2002 pilot starring the always likeable Maggie Lawson as a Nancy Drew who was actually Veronica Mars in everything but name.
To my surprise, I actually rather enjoyed the 2007 feature film starring the wonderfully charismatic and bubbly Emma Roberts whose memorable Nancy overshadowed the dullish script. Now, 12 years later comes yet another attempt to bring one of the most iconic literary detectives to the big screen.
Produced by Ellen Degeneres and starring Sophia Lillis, "Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase" was clearly meant to be the first in a series of movie adaptations. This endeavour was scuppered, one suspects, by some rather bad timing. For one, the film came out the year before the COVID-19 pandemic put a stop to some far more prestigious productions. Second, it came out the same year as the much better-advertised CW take on the Nancy Drew character which, I must confess, I'm yet to see.
I am sorry that the sequels never materialized since "Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase" does show some promise. It has the sleuthing spirit of the books, the excitement of the adventure, and lots of heartwarming geniality. However, it's also a production that has no business being on the big screen. Everything from its production values to its very unambitious screenplay makes it feel more like a Hallmark movie. I suspect that had it aired on television as a feature-length pilot for a kids' show, it would have had much more success than it had impersonating a feature film.
The familiar story sees Nancy Drew (Sophia Lillis) investigate a haunted house with her best friends Bess (Mackenzie Graham) and George (Zoe Renee) and some unexpected help from Helen (Laura Wiggins), the local rich mean girl who turns out to have a heart of gold (what a surprise!). The haunted house belongs to her kooky aunt charmingly played by Linda Lavin.
There is more than a touch of Scooby-Doo to this story of fake ghosts and land deals but it is all played with just enough enthusiasm and self-awareness that I was happy to go along even with some of its most outrageous moments. Truth be told, it's not a very interesting or challenging mystery but since I liked the cast and the tone of it all so much, I am willing to give it a pass.
I'm less enamoured of the "adult characters" that surround Nancy, however. Their sole mission in life seems to be to stop her from sleuthing which makes them not only annoying but awfully square. I don't know why filmmakers think all the Nancy Drew movies need to surround her with disapproving family members and dumb cops. As the brilliant video games, still the best Nancy Drew adaptations out there, proved, all you need for a good Nancy Drew mystery is... well, Nancy and the mystery. Anyone getting in her way is merely distracting us from what we're all here to see.
It doesn't help, I suppose, that they're all very thinly drawn characters who only turn up to meddle in her business. The actors Sam Trammell, Andrea Anders, and Jay DeVon Johnson exhibit little of the charisma and enthusiasm that the "kid cast" has.
The film was directed by Katt Shea, an unusual choice for a kids' movie. Her flat, televisual direction lacks the style and atmosphere to make this mystery truly compelling. There's no real sense of threat or suspense here because it's all shot in such a dull, workmanlike manner.
But like I said before, all of these flaws would be far more palatable had "Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase" been shown on TV as a pilot. It's a whole lot more charming and enjoyable than any Hallmark mystery movie I've ever seen and it comes much closer to replicating the spirit and the fun of the original books than any of the previous TV adaptations.
2.5/4 - DirectorTarik SalehStarsTawfeek BarhomFares FaresMohammad BakriAdam, the son of a fisherman, is offered the privilege to study at the Al-Azhar University in Cairo, the center of power of Sunni Islam. Adam becomes a pawn in the conflict between Egypt's religious and political elites.26-02-2023
There's a conspiracy brewing at Al-Azhar, the guiding light of the Islamic world. The Grand Imam has died unexpectedly and the time has come for the council to elect his successor. The candidates include a sheikh who is close to the government (Jawad Altawil), a sheikh whose views reflect those held by the Muslim Brotherhood (Rami Choukair), and a blind sheikh whose views are fittingly neutral (Makram Khoury).
The state security which has been working for years to try and turn Al-Azhar into a government-run institution launches a complicated operation to have their favourite candidate elected. It involves blackmail, murder, and all other kinds of subterfuge designed to manipulate the power struggle at the heart of Al-Azhar to their advantage.
At the centre of this operation is Adam (Tawfeek Barhom), the oldest son of a fisherman and a true believer. He has only recently arrived at Al-Azhar hoping to study Islam and return to his village as an imam. But he is unwillingly taken at the flood and swept up in the conspiracy becoming its most valuable pawn.
His handler is a dishevelled state security colonel named Ibrahim superbly played by Fares Fares who cuts a very different figure than he did in "The Nile Hilton Incident". There he played a tough, determined policeman. Here, dressed in a bland, grey suit and sporting a main of unwashed black hair and a messy beard, he is utterly convincing as a minor cog in the Egyptian state machinery. He has long since become disillusioned by his work but is only now truly becoming unnerved by it.
Ibrahim has Adam become close to each of the candidates feeding them information and disinformation which slowly guide them towards the positions that the state security wants them in. But we have seen what happened to Ibrahim's previous informant. He was brutally murdered by masked men with knives and as the film unfolds we begin to suspect that a similar fate beckons Adam. More importantly, however, Ibrahim himself has seen what happens to those who play his game.
Despite its unusual setting and some fascinating insights into the problems that trouble Egypt, "Boy from Heaven" is really a very straightforward spy yarn. It repackages the same tropes you can read in John le Carre or Frederick Forsyth novels or see in their film adaptations. It devotes a lot of time to such cliches as a double agent's feelings of guilt, or an officer becoming aware of the corruption in his own organization, or, indeed, the fact that religious leaders are actually corrupt hypocrites themselves.
It also touches on more pertinent topics such as the radicalisation of young people, the abuse of myths for the purposes of manipulation, and the unholy bond between politics and religion but the film's depictions of these topics are at best shallow. It depicts the radical faction in Al-Azhar as some kind of a shadowy society that operates illegally within the walls of this Islamic institution but it never goes into their workings, their beliefs, or their methods for radicalizing new members.
A fascinating scene in which it's implied that Adam himself might have more time for their views than for Ibrahim's is quickly skirted over.
The portrayal of Adam himself is awfully simplistic. He is, simply put, not a terribly interesting protagonist. The film paints him in almost entirely positive colours turning him into someone who's more likely to become a saint than a spy. Maybe director/writer Tarik Saleh meant the title "Boy from Heaven" to be literal rather than allegorical but then he should have made a religious parable and not a spy thriller.
The bad guys that surround Adam are far more interesting. I've already praised Fares Fares' performance but I'd also like to mention some terrific work from Moe Ayoub as his terrifying boss and Mehdi Dehbi as Zizo, Ibrahim's ill-fated previous informer who befriends Adam and then gets killed. Their roles are stereotypical to a fault but the actors' performances cannot be criticized.
I have perhaps come down a bit too hard on "Boy from Heaven" but that is only because its setting and its unusual plot promised a far more incisive, edgy, intelligent film than the pretty straightforward spy yarn we got.
Director Tarik Saleh does a very good job of presenting this rather complex story and manages to craft several quite suspenseful moments. The film's pace does start to drag somewhat as it becomes awfully tangled up in double-crosses and twists, but it is, for the most part, an enjoyable and exciting sit even if it is not nearly as informative as I'd hoped it would be.
3/4 - DirectorWim WendersStarsFrederic ForrestPeter BoyleMarilu HennerFictional account of real-life mystery writer Dashiell Hammett, and his involvement in the investigation of a beautiful Chinese cabaret actress' mysterious disappearance in San Francisco.27-02-2023
"This is an entirely imaginary story about the writer Samuel Dashiell Hammett," proudly boast the opening titles of "Hammett". It could have been about anybody. The real mystery of this film is whom it's for. People who know nothing about Dashiell Hammett will find it to be a fairly lacklustre neo-noir and people who do know something about Dashiell Hammett will be disappointed this film tells us nothing about his turbulent, exciting, intriguing life.
In short, he was a former private eye who reinvented himself as the defining detective writer of the 20th century until his career was cut short by a brutal run-in with the barbaric HUAC.
This film takes his name and part of his backstory and then pins them onto a generic noir gumshoe who plods through a dullish and wildly predictable detective yarn. It introduces us to a fictional Dashiell Hammett (Frederic Forrest), still in the process of becoming a writer, who is rudely interrupted one morning by his former partner, the roguish Jimmy Ryan (Peter Boyle). He calls in a favour and soon enough Hammett is embroiled with the Chinese triads while following the trail of Crystal Ling (Lydia Lei), a prostitute in possession of some erotic photographs which could ruin the rich lives of many important San Franciscans.
It's a clever idea to have a detective writer go through one of his own plots but "Hammett" does nothing remotely interesting with the premise. For one, the plot is not really taken from one of Hammett's stories so we're denied any kind of satirical commentary on the nature of reality vs. fiction. Secondly, Hammett's writing career takes a backseat to his private eyeing very soon and becomes merely a curio in the protagonist's backstory.
No, despite the lead's name and profession this is nothing more than a lame noir homage which is surprising considering that the film is directed by Wim Wenders, one of the most interesting directors of his generation and someone who has always been fascinated by questions of fiction, forgery, and illusion.
The reason for the film's lameness comes from its extremely troubled production which was Wenders' Hollywood debut. Unfortunately, he was given the full Hollywood experience complete with meddlesome producers and extensive reshoots. In fact, the entire film was reshot from scratch after Orion was dissatisfied with Wenders' original cut. Hey, you don't hire Wenders to make you a Michael Winner picture.
I suspect that by the time the film was shot a second time everyone on board simply lost their enthusiasm for it. "Hammett" has a distinct lack of energy, turning it into a rather listless, tiresome movie. The pace is leaden, the story familiar and dull, and the atmosphere flat and televisual.
Despite the film's original version being shot on location in San Francisco, the reshoots were done entirely on soundstages which severely hurts the feel of the film. Soundstages can work if the aim of the filmmakers is to make them intentionally feel artificial. In "Hammett" they're supposed to pass for real streets, clubs, and apartments which make the film look at least ten years out of date.
It also leads to some truly bizarre moments in which original footage is clumsily intercut with new footage. In one frankly befuddling shot, a bad guy on a soundstage is stalking our heroes who are seen on location in some stunningly awful rear projection.
The one saving grace of "Hammett" is the cast which is made up of such interesting actors as Roy Kinnear, Elisha Cook, David Patrick Kelly, Jack Nance, and Samuel Fuller. The one performance I truly loved, however, comes from Frederic Forrest who is so good as the world-weary, hardboiled private eye that it's a crying shame he never got to star in a really good neo-noir.
Despite its Chinatown setting, "Hammett" ain't no "Chinatown". Hell, it's not even good enough to compare with some lower-rent 70s neo-noirs. Sure, it has some really good performances and a terrific jazz score from John Barry but its dull script and stagy atmosphere keep it from ever truly taking off. The idea is great but I found most of "Hammett" a relentless bore.
2/4