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.

Carlos Saura's Flamenco Trilogy

Laura del Sol and Antonio Gades

During the 1980s, Carlos Saura collaborated with dancer and choreographer Antonio Gades on three flamenco oriented films: Blood Wedding (1981), Carmen (1983), and El Amor Brujo (1986). The three films are now available in a new and spiffy blu ray set released by the Criterion Collection's Eclipse series. As with all Eclipse releases, the extras are nonexistent, but the films themselves are choice: dynamic detonations of movement cut exquisitely to stirring music. All the films celebrate Spanish culture, but also mock up the mythos underlying representations of Spain. The scenarios of the three ballets filmed are all based on material that stresses themes of reckless passion, infidelity, and murder. The dancers, singers, and musicians in these films perform as if conjuring the joys and torments of their ancestors. Saura escapes any high culture bugaboo and gives us the thrill of live performance.

Saura had been invited to witness a rehearsal of Gades and his troupe performing a dance adaptation of Lorca's Blood Wedding. This provided the impetus for a film that stays strictly within a rehearsal studio for its 71 minute entirety. The film is the most like a documentary of the three and the focus remains fixed on the artistic process. We never see a final performance of the piece. Indeed the first half of the film documents the dancers and players filing in, applying makeup, and warming up. Gades discloses a personal anecdote and we get a little insight into the performers by the talismans and gnomes they unpack from the fishing tackle boxes that carry their makeup. Despite the documentary facade, Blood Wedding is shot and cut more like Stop Making Sense or Shine A Light then Gimme Shelter. The three or four camera angles used in the rehearsal space maximize the kinetic impact of the dancers and the editing syncs it perfectly to the thunderous guitar and vocal accompaniment.

Carmen

Pretty much the same performers and their talents will leave viewers similarly agog in the followup, Carmen. The film is also primarily made up of rehearsals, but Carmen has more color, a bigger scope, and the semblance of a plot. Gades has to find a new dancer for his Carmen and, of course, he does so in the person of a young hoofer conveniently named Carmen played by Laura del Sol. Does life imitate art? Well, reality and artifice are so intertwined in the film that it is hard to say what came first. Gades and his fellow performers are not actors, so when he asks guitar great Paco de Lucia for romantic advice, the dramatic interchange comes off a little awkward. However, all my objections were swept by the bravura birthday celebration in which the cast performs a delightful burlesque of Prosper Mérimée's novel. 

El Amor Brujo makes the move to total artifice which Saura also employs in his subsequent musical films: Tango, Flamenco, Fados, Flamenco, Flamenco, and J: Beyond Flamenco. El Amor Brujo is based on Manuel de Falla's ballet and is centered amidst the Roma and Andalusian roots of flamenco. A stylized sound stage represent an expressively colored Granada slum in a lurid love saga with spectral emanations. There is no rehearsal footage this time. We finally get to see a show en toto. As before, there is a wedding, infidelity and a murder in a film that is an apt culmination to the series. This Eclipse set would make an ideal gift to dance and film lovers alike. 

El Amor Brujo

Eagles of the Republic

Fares Fares and Lyna Khoudri

Tarik Saleh's Eagles of the Republic is a twisty and compelling drama about an Egyptian film star who unwittingly becomes involved in dangerous political intrigue. George Fahmy (Fares Fares) is that top-flight movie star with the usual problems of the rich and famous. His films are universally adored in Egypt, but his personal life is a mess. He is separated from his wife, has an uneasy relationship with his teenaged son, and has little in common with his young mistress, Donya (Lyna Khoudri). Government officials give him an offer he can't refuse, the starring role in a hagiographical film about the current (mythical) Egyptian president. Fahmy is a Christian and is uneasy about both Islamic fundamentalism and his country's leaders, but, once his family is threatened, finds he has no choice. The filming is overseen by the stone faced Dr. Mansour (Amr Waked), a government agent who makes plain the fact that Fahmy and all those around him are being surveilled. 

To further complicate the plot, Fahmy embarks on an affair with Suzanne (Zineb Triki), the wife of the Minister of Defense. Fahmy becomes increasingly entangled in a web of many intrigues. An actress friend named Rula (Cherien Dabis) asks him for help after she has been blacklisted by the regime, presuming that he has pull with the powers that be. Fahmy does what he thinks is best, but tragic consequences, most unforeseen, result. Some have labeled Eagles of the Republic a satire, but I feel the body count is too high to describe it as such. I think it is more mordantly ironic than funny, akin to The Threepenny Opera. I also feel that the film has more depth of characterization than satire usually does. The supporting characters, some of whom I haven't mentioned in my summary, are all indelibly drawn and expertly played.

Best of all is Fares Fares. Eagles of the Republic, the third film of Mr. Saleh's Cairo trilogy which includes The Nile Hilton Incident and Boy From Heaven (all starring Mr. Fares), displays the full range of his talent. By the two thirds mark, Fahmy's mask of charm has been discarded for a visage of true terror. The film culminates in a replay of the Sadat assassination: the past as the future's prologue. It helps to know Egypt's recent history, but the picture ranks as one of my favorites released in the US in 2026. Mr Saleh is not much of a visual stylist, but my previous comparison to Sidney Lumet stands. Like Lumet, Saleh is a social realist of the first rank, able to embellish his characters with heart and intelligence. Eagles of the Republic is his most outstanding picture to date.