The Devil's Bride

Groovy!

Arunas Zebriunas' dotty film The Devil's Bride is a Lithuanian rock opera released in 1974. Mr Zebrunas was assisted in constructing this slice of counterculture kitsch by composer Vyacheslav Ganelin and poet Sigitas Geda who penned the libretto. The plot is loosely based on the folklore fantasy novel Whitehorn's Windmill by Kazys Boruta. The good people at Deaf Crocodile have released this film on a beautiful disc which contains a host of extras in addition to the 76 minute feature. Ten minutes into this picture, you'll feel as if someone has given you a few shots of mead and a dark rye crust with ergot clusters. 

An agent of the dark lord spreads mischief amongst the inhabitants of a lakeside village. Men sell their souls and brides are left waiting at the altar. The thorough composed score drives the frenetic, cartoon like action. The film hurtles along. If you don't like one tune, here comes another. The tone is akin that of Ken Russell in this period, if Mr. Russell had liked people. The invocation of national myth, Catholic imagery, and pagan folklore stands as a finger in the eye of staid, godless Communism.

As with most rock operas, the score for The Devil's Bride is not rock and roll, but a listenable mishmash. Because of his background in jazz, I'd group Mr. Ganelin with jazz composers who went all in on baroque pop when the commercial opportunity arose, like John Barry, Quincy Jones, and Burt Bacharach. Ganelin injects some fuzz-tone guitar whenever Satan's minions cut loose with orgiastic impishness, but he can't compose around an electric guitar like Morricone. The Devil's Bride is much more engaging than such visual atrocities as Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell. And don't get me started about the 1973 Lost Horizon, an all time turkey that put the kibosh to the Bacharach/ David partnership. It was a bad era for musicals, rock opera or not, The Devil's Bride is colorful and kooky fun. The flick is currently streaming on Tubi.

The Love That Remains

Saga Garoarsdóttir

Hlynur Pálmason's The Love That Remains strikes me as one of the more original and impressive pictures I've seen this year. The film repeats the man as a single grain of sand vibe explored in Godland, but adds a depth of characterization that lifts this work to a higher plateau. The film is ostensibly focused on the ongoing separation between artist Anna (Saga Garoarsdóttir) and her mismatched mate, Magnús (Sverrir Guonason). The pair share a teenage daughter named Ida and a set of ten year old twins. Magnús has not quite processed that Anna has given him the heave-ho. He slinks into his former household like a wary sheepdog and is usually graced a meal or a beer. However, he cannot reignite a spark with Anna who is clearly bored and irritated by her more simplistic spouse.

Magnús works on a fishing trawler. He is gone for weeks at a time as it is herring season and is bored and down in the dumps. The fish harvesting sequences alone would make this worth seeing, but The Love That Remains contains multiple strains and themes. Anna is an artist who weathers her work. Not in a random way, but deliberately so that it is infused with the elements of Iceland. The film traces the arc of the seasons from spring to winter. The fractured family joins together to pick wild berries and forage mushrooms. Among Ann's art pieces left out in the open is a Joan of Arc figure affixed to a stake. Her children use the figure for archery target practice, but the figure also stands in contrast to the ever changing face of natural Iceland. Ann's work grounds her to her land. In contrast, Magnús ends the film, literally, at sea.

Pálmason punctuates his narrative with surrealistic asides that amplify the film's themes. Some of these are dropped matter of factly. Some with flashy effects like split screens and whip pans. However, Pálmason never allows his film to be overcome with effects and uses them judiciously. Most of the surreal moments display an aptly unconscious tug. The exception is Magnús' dream of himself being menaced by a giant rooster. This is in response to his having killed a misbehaving cock at Ann's request. The dream is a too literal illustration of guilt, but it pays off when Ida tells off Magnús because of this foul deed and his subservience to his ex. The killing was played for laughs, at Magnús' ineptitude, but it hinges on one of the film's central themes: Are we instinctual beasts preying upon each other or can we deny or self-interest for the common good? The film's humor is predicated on the unease with which we regard out ambivalent state. There are no easy answers or good guys or bad guys in the film.

Ida's animal rights stance and the children's overall attitude towards sex and violence signals another of the film's themes: shifts in generational perspectives. The arrows into Joan of Arc and the recovery of World War 2 mines show that violence is an ever present reality even in peaceable Iceland. Ambivalence, the hallmark of maturity, is in evidence even in the film's appreciation of ugliness and beauty. Even the spectre and reality of death has its strange beauty in The Love That Remains. Brilliantly acted and memorably filmed, this is surely one of the best features released in the US in 2026.

                          

Disclosure Day

Emily Blunt

I was somewhat disappointed by Steven Spielberg's Disclosure Day. Technically, the film is superbly wrought, no surprise, and the contributions by longtime Spielberg collaborators John Williams and Janusz Kaminski are noteworthy. This is one of Spielberg's best casts and I enjoyed the efforts of Josh O'Connor, Eve Hewson, Colman Domingo, and, especially, Emily Blunt. Spielberg's direction has not curdled into aged lassitude. He can still direct a train wreck as well as anybody. However, the presence of an elaborate train wreck in the middle of already overly complicated conspiracy film about UFOs seems gratuitous, as if old Steve signed on so he could recreate the train wreck from The Greatest Show on Earth for the umpteenth time.

David Koepp's script is a mess. The picture involves a lot of cross cutting and chase scenes, yet generates little suspense. From the title of the film, we already know the cache of UFO footage held by Mr. O'Connor's character will be eventually released despite the desperate attempts by corporate titan Colin Firth to suppress "the truth". Firth's motivation for this is shaky, the usual old saw about people not being able to handle "the truth". Regardless, the picture is not named Non-Disclosure Day, so the audience knows in which way the picture is heading throughout. Koepp plunges us into the plot with nary a character sketch or motivation. To start the film, Mr. O'Connor is at a pro wrestling match to trade his alien footage to the corporate baddies who have kidnapped his missus (Ms. Hewson). We eventually get the back story, ad nauseam, but this opening sequence lacks suspense because the audience has no bearings. Spielberg color codes the wrestling sequence in red (capped), white, and blue, but this faint slap at MAGA is the only bit of attempted cultural relevance in Disclosure Day. 

I was also bugged by the film's whole mind melding schtick. Heck, if Colin Firth can read the minds of the good guys, then I think he should be easily able to thwart their plans. Koepp and Spielberg do get some yuks from Ms. Blunt's mind reading capabilities, but this is mostly due to Ms. Blunt's skill at having her face and posture convey what she is thinking. The film's other attempts at humor fall flat, particularly the character of Ms. Blunt's hapless musician boyfriend. While Mr. Koepp is responsible for some of the faults of Disclosure Day, the ultimate responsibility lies with the director. The disclosure footage show provide the director a good opportunity to strut his stuff, but the results are underwhelming. The footage of Nixon showing Jackie Gleason alien remains is botched. How could a scene like that be unmemorable? The CGI bits lack the bite and flair of even Ready Player One. In addition, we get B movie level footage of Roswell and Close Encounters redux. Are we still stuck on little green men after all these years?

As with super heroes, I admit to being less than fascinated with the subject of UFOs. If our alien overlords have not deigned to contact us, I'm sure they have reasons, but I'm not waiting to be enslaved or turned into a cosmic butterfly. You might as well wait for Godot. Though if any alien overlord is reading this and contemplating putting me in their zoo, please take Biff circa 1985 and pair him with a cloned Mary Astor. The fascination with UFOs seems a hallmark of the second rate mind. That is the nature of Steven Spielberg, a first rate film technician who does not possess a rigorous intellect.