House of Gucci

                   

Ridley Scott's House of Gucci filled me with ambivalence and not in a good way. He is a superb producer, stars flock to work in his luxe concoctions. He shoots films in an objective and commercial style that can turn good scripts into such superior films as Alien, Thelma and Louise, and The Counselor. Otherwise, his impersonal style fails to uplift middling material and House of Gucci is a subprime example. 

I won't go into the machinations of the Gucci clan that fill the two and a half hour run time. The film is at least a half an hour too long. It doesn't lumber, but no spark is lit. Lady Gaga and Adam Driver are well cast as a mismatched couple. Gaga provides the guttersnipe feistiness of a social climber and Driver can certainly do tall and awkward.👾 The rest of the cast is more than adequate, though Jared Leto seems to be in another movie, maybe a Super Mario Brothers reboot. However, a movie about the fashion industry needs a little campy outrageousness and Scott's anonymous craftmanship has none of that.

The film's attempts at humor, not Scott's forte, flounder. A raucous rugby game that introduces Leto's character is badly bungled. The disco and opera numbers on the soundtrack are tres obvious, tunes that have been done to death. House of Gucci, despite the obvious care of the production, is unfocused. Not really a melodrama, a true crime yarn or a chronicle of the fashion biz. Not really much of anything.

👾A number of people I am close to have mentioned how much they dislike Adam Driver. People, he can't help his looks! I find him a supple and versatile actor. He would make an interesting Lincoln.

Paterson

                    

I savored Jim Jarmusch's Paterson like a nice sorbet, but found it a bit slight. It is more a meditation on the poetry to be found in everyday existence than a traditional narrative film. We follow Adam Driver as the titular character, a poetry writing bus driver in New Jersey, as he goes about his daily routine. He drives his bus, walks his dog, canoodles with his wife and chats with his friends at a bar. There are a few incidents, but, on the whole, not much happens to our hero. What is Jarmusch's locus of concern are the poetic reveries contained in the seemingly mundane details of life that spark the poet's imagination.

Jarmusch's collaborators are instrumental in bringing forth this theme: the cast is winning, Frederick Elmes' cinematography is subtly beautiful, and the costume and set design are just so. If there is a fault in Jarmusch's schema it is that the character of the wife and her endeavors are overly precious. Also, Jarmusch is self indulgent in picturing his obsessions. There is a wall of heroes in the bar, much like the one in Only Lovers Left Alive, that a black bartender adds a picture of Iggy Pop, subject of a recent Jarmusch documentary, to. A bit of a stretch, I think.

The theme of doubling seems a bit tacked on. Paterson the character lives in Paterson the town, home to the poet William Carlos Williams whose work is echoed by the poems Ron Padgett provides to the film. There are at least three sets of twins pictured during the course of the film. Jarmusch, as earlier in his career, flirts with cutesy knowingness. That said, I found the contemplative quality of Paterson to be a balm to the soul in a cinematic landscape littered with CGI carnage. (4/14/17)

Une Femme Douce

Dominique Sanda in Une Femme Douce

Robert Bresson's Une Femme Douce, from 1969 is an astringent amalgam of Bresson's and Dostoyevsky's sensibilities. Despite their stylistic differences, there is a shared moral concern between the two. In Dostoyevsky's A Gentle Creature, the source of Une Femme Douce, the spiritual stagnation (kosnost) of the narrator drives his wife to suicide. The narrator in both versions is a pawnbroker who castigates his young bride when he thinks she is being overly generous in settling with clients. 

Dominique Sanda, in her film debut, plays the young woman, named Elle. She marries in haste, a union that brings both partners torment; as in a good number of the love pairings in the curdled and crazed oeuvre of the Russian master. Une Femme Douce marks a shift in Bresson's work. This is his first color film and the first of his films in which any hope of escape from one's confines, be they material or spiritual, is refuted. Cages and containers are a constant motif in the film, most obviously in the visits to the zoo and natural history museum. Bresson shares Dostoyevsky's abhorrence of modern spiritual stagnation. The opening sequence in the pawnshop, with numerous closeups of hands exchanging trinkets for cash, establishes the capitalistic France of 1968 as a transactional culture. Christian values of love and charity, which Elle seeks to emulate, are in short supply. Bresson would continue pursuing this condemnation of usury, most forcefully in his ultimate film, L'Argent.   

In an indelible debut, Ms. Sanda is otherworldly. As her husband, Guy Frangin is appropriately chilly and repellent. This is his only film credit, testimony to Bresson's desire to work with non-professionals. This strategy yielded some of the most indelible and non-actorly performances in the cinema, but it is off-putting to a lot of viewers. Nevertheless, Une Femme Douce, which jettisons some supporting characters from the original story, is a succinct and discordant masterpiece. 
 

Quick Takes: March, 2022

Michelle Pfeiffer and Susan Coyne in French Exit

Scott Cooper's Antlers is a lugubrious horror film with little originality or invention. Hot button issues like opioid addiction, methamphetamine abuse, child abuse, environmental degradation, and native American genocide are trotted out for virtue signaling in the first half hour and then dropped like a hot potato when the monster starts eviscerating the gifted cast. A waste of time and talent. 

M. Night Shyamalan's Old is a typically high concept project that provides diminishing returns as it unfolds. By the time we have reached the inevitable final reveal, Old has long since exhausted its possible permutations. The film looks good and is intelligently constructed, but the performances are subpar for a Shyamalan film. The leads, Gael Garcia Bernal and Vicky Krieps, are well matched solely by their ESL deficiencies. Only Rufus Sewell is aptly cast and believable.

Azazel Jacobs' French Exit is a more than fine adaptation of Patrick deWitt's sly and knowing novel. Lucas Hedges, Imogen Poots, and Susan Coyne win the acting laurels. The only fly in the ointment is that Michelle Pfeiffer is merely serviceable as the broke socialite pondering her own demise. Pfeiffer does well portraying her character's pain, but cannot manage her character's delusional grandiosity.

Jonathan Nossiter's Last Words is a post-apocalyptic head scratcher that goes nowhere slowly. Nick Nolte, Stellan Skarsgard, and Charlotte Rampling are among those stranded in a scenario that is unbelievably mushy for a take on the annihilation of our species. 

There is a good yarn at the heart of Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Wife of a Spy, but it is hampered by some very dull filmmaking. Kurosawa's camera setups are obvious in an objectivist fashion and his blocking is overly languorous. Spy films should be a bit more exciting than this one, I think. Yu Aoi is good in the title role and I especially liked lanky Masahiro Higashide's underplaying. Kurosawa can't seem to decide if this is supposed to be a melodrama or a suspense film.

I much more appreciated the subjective power of Blerta Basholli's Hive in which sympathetic direction conveys the emotional toll of the heroine's plight. Yilka Gashi plays Fahrije, a woman struggling to make ends meets after the disappearance and presumed death of her husband during the war in Kosovo. Fahrije must cope with the festering psychological wounds of the conflict and the misogyny that greets a single woman fending for herself and her family. Despite its tale of woe, Hive has a narrative momentum totally lacking in Wife of a Spy. As in Oregon novelist Eileen Garvin's The Music of Bees, beekeeping becomes an act of both economic survival and spiritual regeneration. Fahrije, through necessity, becomes an entrepreneur, selling not only honey, but also ajvar, a pepper relish. The hive is not only where the bees work, but the social network humans need to survive.

Yilka Gashi in The Hive

The Love Witch

Anna Biller's The Love Witch is a sex positive feminist fable that wants to have its cake and eat it. I felt a distinct frisson of pleasure seeing Biller utilize rear projection technology straight out of Marnie in the film's opening sequence. While Biller produces some eye popping imagery, an interesting hybrid of Hitchcock, Demy, and exploitation films, the characterization and narrative are directed so broadly that this leisurely paced feature doesn't maintain momentum during its two hour length. A pity, because Biller's camera provides enough striking, candy colored images to enliven five features. Biller has some interesting ideas at play here, particularly the way people can don a sexual personae like a mask in order to feel empowered. She also takes pokes at the different guises of the patriarchy whether they be clad in the hip accoutrements of the counterculture or the Botany 500 suits of the establishment.

The overall amateurism of the players has led many to put down this film as a parody of late 60s and early70s horror. Biller has emphasized that this was not her intent and I half believe her. What she captures is how gender roles have pretty much stayed the same since the 60s despite the rise of feminism and the widespread availability of contraceptive devices. The rap against the atrocious supporting performances in this film is true, though lead Samantha Robinson is fine and Laura Waddell is quite good in the Suzanne Pleshette/Diane Baker role. Biller's serious intent must be noted amidst the intricate detail of her mise en scene. The Love Witch's heroine's beautiful visage masks real trauma. Whether Biller can build on the critical success of The Love Witch remains to be seen. If not, she may be a future cult figure like Curtis Harrington or Stuart Gordon, famed among the cognoscenti for visual flair in genre films. (4/18/17) 

OJ: Made in America

Ezra Edelman's OJ: Made in America is the most highly praised documentary of 2016, the deserved winner of the Academy Award for Best Documentary. Sports fans, like me, who have viewed films in ESPN's "30 for 30" documentary series will not be surprised by the quality of this film. Most of the films in this series have been of extremely high caliber (this Baltimore Colts fan particularly adored Barry Levinson's film about the team's band) and OJ... is no exception. At over seven hours in length, Edelman is able to fill his film with intricate detailing that gives weight to his efforts to make the saga of Orenthal James a modern tragedy. Edelman's interviews with African-American church leaders, for example, gives us a richer portrait of black urban churches than in, say, Ava DuVernay's 13th. This is not to denigrate Ms. DuVernay's fine film, but to point out that the corporate resources Edelman had on hand have given him the time and funds to create a broad canvas.

If I have any petty complaints about the film, they stem from the film's liberal establishment groupthink perspective; a common complaint these days about ESPN's editorial slant. For example, the talking heads are filled with familiar figures from documentaries about race, such as Harry Edwards and Jim Brown, who offer the usual bromides about the struggle for racial equality. These figures are contrasted with OJ who shunned activism and became an Uncle Tom figure to some. I think this is a false dichotomy. Frankly, some jocks, black, white, pink or blue, are not equipped to be advocates for social change. A man like Kareen Abdul-Jabbar has much to offer as a social commentator, but most famous athletes do not and it is silly to have that expectation. Being a famous athlete does not mean one is wise or has an interesting point of view. As OJ: Made in America itself proves, sometimes a dumb jock is a dumb jock. 

Edelman compounds this simplistic contrast by juxtaposing inane footage of OJ performing with Bob Hope or shilling for products with scenes of turmoil from the 60s: riots, beatings, assassinations. There is a case to be made for this type of juxtaposition as a true evocation of the schizoid nature of the era. It was weird to sit in front of the tube with one's friends and relatives and switch from Cronkite reciting the daily Vietnam body count to Carol Burnett mugging or Lawrence Welk counting off a one and a two. However, I think it is shooting fish in a barrel to portray OJ as a corporate stooge who fiddles while Watts burned. All in all, though, these are puny caveats. OJ: Made in America is compelling and thoughtful viewing. (4/12/17)

American Honey

Andrea Arnold's American Honey, the distinguished English director's first film shot in the US, is a warm portrait of youth on the outskirts of society. The protagonist, Star, leaves her Midwest home to join a roving band of magazine subscription salesmen. She is initiated into the group, both literally and figuratively, by Shia LaBeouf's Jake. He serves as the group's de facto capo, but is under the thumb of his boss and keeper, Krystal. Riley Keough is Krystal and, as in her previous screen appearances, provides a compelling presence, showing more than a little of her grand pappy's charisma. LaBeouf has never been better as a scuzzy con man with charm and ADD. Sasha Lane, as Star, makes an adept debut. Indeed, all of Arnold's performers register vividly amidst a seedy and colorful backdrop. 

Essentially a road movie, American Honey mostly chronicles the crew travelling in a van from cheap motel to grungy squats. The crew sing along to hip-hop and country songs with equal fervor and Arnold views their debauched frivolity with affection. She gives each crew member a chance to riff on their characters through extended cameos, a strategy that increases the three dimensionality of the film.

Arnold's screenplay never cheapens the narrative by resorting to mean and small-minded caricature. Most of the denizens of the Midwest who Star meets treat her with courtly grace and kindness. Most affecting is star's interchange with an older trucker which features them singing along to Springsteen's version of Suicide's "Dream, Baby, Dream". When three much older good old boys entertain Star poolside, the viewer is apprehensive about their intent. But it is Jake who spoils the party by reacting violently. Indeed, it is Jake and Krystal who are the film's villains, amoral capitalist exploiters the both of them. 

A good comparison to American Honey is David Mackenzie's Hell or High Water, both visions of American rural decay by UK directors. Both show individuals struggling to retain their humanity and stay ahead of the law amidst a pitiless economic landscape. I liked both films, but prefer American Honey for the generosity of its vision. (4/11/17)

Book Review: Hollywood's Eve

Eve Babitz 1943-2021

Lili Anolik's Hollywood's Eve: Eve Babitz and the Secret History of L.A. is more than a character sketch and something less of a biography. The book grew out of an profile Anolik wrote for Vanity Fair which sparked renewed interest in Babitz's books. Several of Babitz's books crept back into print and Anolik deserves some of the credit. However, Hollywood's Eve resembles an extended and misshapen magazine article. The full story of Babitz's tumultuous life remains to be written.

Anolik is good on Babitz's interactions with the L.A. art scene and her literary output, but frustratingly incomplete on her dalliances with titans of the music and film business. Some of Babitz's more sordid trysts are written as blind items for fear of litigation, but Anolik was unable to gain access to such Babitz intimates as Jackson Browne, Earl McGrath, Don Henley, and Harrison Ford; among many others.

Babitz's life and work cast a wide net. She was a writer, groupie, artist, and muse. She was also a needy narcissist with a mean streak who liked to play Queen Bee. Her personal life provided grist for her fiction and helped her concoct a mythos about herself. Her insatiable starfucking seems to have been fueled by the need to feed her voracious ego. Why else would anyone claim to be the inspiration for Michael Franks' "Popsicle Toes"?

Hollywood's Eve is more than a gossipy read, but it is a tantalizingly frustrating book. It namedrops on nearly every page, but has no bibliography or index. Anolik covers Babitz's family well, but shrinks away from revealing too much of her subject that might be unappealing to her audience: Babitz's substance abuse, her cruelty to those close to her, and her late life attraction to conservatism. Like Anolik, I respect Babitz's talent and feel that she is more of a full blooded writer than her friend/rival Joan Didion. Anolik is right to call Slow Days, Fast Company Eve's best book, but Hollywood's Eve suffers from Babitz's guardedness and Anolik's adoration of her subject. Perhaps the answer to the book's shortcomings partially lies in a quote from Eve's Hollywood, Babitz's first book, that Anolik approvingly cites: 'You can't write a story about L.A. that doesn't turn around in the middle or get lost..."

Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn

Katia Pascariu

Radu Jude's Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn is a Romanian art film guaranteed to polarize audiences. The plot concerns Emi (Katia Pascariu), a teacher at an exclusive secondary school, whose life is upended after a sex tape she and her husband have created is uploaded to the internet. The prologue of the film, which consists of the (seemingly) hardcore footage contained in the video, is enough to send some viewers scurrying to the exits, but they will miss one of the more remarkable films of 2021.

Even besides the sex footage, Jude has fashioned a film to try the patience of mainstream audiences from Bucharest to Boston. The first section of the film eschews drama and shows Emi going about on a typical day, mostly walking to and fro down the boulevards of Bucharest. Jude presents enough signs and signifiers during the course of Emi's travels to give us a startling portrait of modern day Romania. The architecture of Bucharest, shown in graceful pans, documents its layered history. Classical architecture from the era of the Romanian monarchy stands uneasily next to Soviet monstrosities from the Ceausescu era and capitalist era kitsch. 

Emi's plight recedes even further into the background in the second section which consists of a "dictionary" of Romanian history. This provides Jude an opportunity to give a sardonic take on his country's troubled legacy. Romania's history of totalitarian rule, both Communist and Fascist, is touched upon, as is Romanian complicity in the extermination of its Jewish and Roma citizens.

Jude returns to Emi in the third and final section which depicts the meeting with the school children's parents intended to decide her professional fate. After the kinetics of the film's first two thirds, the lack of dynamics in the third section drags the film down a bit. Still, this section displays that the culture wars being fought in American education are not isolated. Both Putin and the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church have cited the decadence of Western influence as a factor in their attempt to "liberate" the Ukraine republic. Jude demonstrates in Bad Luck Banging... how the shadow of intolerance and xenophobia has never left the Balkans despite the fall of the Iron Curtain. 

Emi mounts a heroic self-defense at her meeting with the parents and Katia Pascariu is up to the challenge. Jude succeeds in offering an ambivalent portrait of his homeland under COVID. His mix of sex and politics recall the films of Dusan Makavejev, particularly WR: Mysteries of the Organism and Sweet Movie. Bad Luck Banging... is confrontational art cinema that will not be everyone's cup of tea, but I found it to be an invigorating look at a troubled land. 

Tower

                

Keith Maitland's Tower is a very good documentary that chronicles the infamous 1966 shooting when Charles Whitman unleashed rifle fire from a tall tower on the University of Texas campus. As on his previous feature, Maitland utilizes animated footage to augment a polyphonic portrait of the survivors. Similar to Richard Linklater's Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly, Maitland films actors and then animates the results, tweaking them to suggest the subjective state of those going through the ordeal.

Maitland interweaves this with archival footage, mostly from television broadcasts. This is a bold artistic gamble that pays off. A sixties romantic montage overdoes it a bit with the flower power imagery, but, on the whole, Maitland is a servant of the story. By largely ignoring Whitman's story, Maitland avoids morbidity. When we eventually see the actual aged faces of the survivors, it is with a jolt of bittersweet pleasure because we recognize a shared humanity that passes with and throughout time. (4/10/17)

The Best of William Hurt

William Hurt 1950-2022

 1) Body Heat                                        Lawrence Kasdan                   1981

 2) Broadcast News                              James L. Brooks                     1987                    

 3) The Accidental Tourist                   Lawrence Kasdan                    1988

 4) Eyewitness                                      Peter Yates                              1981

 5) Altered States                                  Ken Russell                             1980

 6) The Big Chill                                   Lawrence Kasdan                    1983                             

 7) A History of Violence                     David Cronenberg                    2005

 8) Tuck Everlasting                            Jay Russell                               2002                   

 9) AI: Artificial Intelligence               Steven Spielberg                       2001

10) Jane Eyre                                       Franco Zeffirelli                        1996

Typecast as a chilly WASP, it figures that the Academy would reward him for being miscast in Kiss of the Spider Woman. The Manuel Puig novel is much more rewarding, even the jocks in my South American lit class enjoyed it. I also enjoyed Hurt's work in The Doctor (a slightly better film than Children of a God from the same director), Until the End of the World, Smoke, The Village, I Love You to Death, Sunshine and Gorky Park. 

Because of a long friendship with Allen Nause, longtime Artistic Director of Portland's Artists Repertory Theater, locals were fortunate to see him trod the boards from time to time. Hurt died in Portland, an indication that he never fully embraced Hollywood or film work. It is a pity he never, in film, got to explore the playful side of his personality he displayed in Eyewitness. 

 

Border Incident

                     

Anthony Mann's Border Incident, from 1949, is a very effective film that falls just short of Mann's best. The climax of the film, in which one of the main characters is crushed to death by a mechanical tiller, occurs a little too early and the villain's comeuppance is not nearly as memorable. As someone once said of Torn Curtain, which also climaxed too early, even Hitchcock couldn't top a murder by gas oven. The other drawback is that this is an MGM production during the dreaded Dore Schary years. The film seems a little too eager to wrap itself in the American flag. Mann was getting better actors and production values here than he did earlier in his career, but this film lacks the hysteric edge of films like The Furies and The Naked Spur.

However, there is much to enjoy and appreciate. This is the fourth of five films Mann did with cinematographer John Alton and it is a visual wonder to behold. Alton's high contrast black and white photography conjures a noir vision out of the Southwest. Grotesque faces in the foreground of deep focus interiors have a similar feel to Welles' use of space in The Lady from Shanghai. The border towns and ranch houses on the screen are striking and sinister, harboring many varieties of homo sapiens reptilius.  

Albert Moss and Alfonso Bedoya

The cast is uniformly good and it is an especial treat to see Arnold Moss chew the scenery (and some fruit) for Mann after his turn as Fouche in The Black Book. I don't remember seeing Howard Da Silva as svelte and effective as he is here. Andre Previn's score is interesting, but overwrought at times; a criticism I could level at a number of scores from this era. Aspects that have not dated as we set about electing a President in 2016, are the host of immigration issues this film investigates. It is a testament to the filmmakers how modern and germane Border Incident still is. (2/20/16)

Lizzie

Kristen Stewart and Chloe Sevigny in Lizzie

Craig William Macneill's Lizzie, from 2018, is among the best acted and written unsuccessful movies I have seen. Kristen Stewart, Chloe Sevigny, Fiona Shaw, Kim Dickens, and Dennis O'Hare all do first rate work. I particularly appreciated Stewart's subservient manner and posture throughout, totally appropriate for the role of the Irish servant, Bridget. Sevigny is not as gifted a performer, but Macneill utilizes her sullen taciturnity well to hint at the seething resentments bubbling within the notorious Lizzie Borden. Best of all is Jamey Sheridan as Lizzy's doomed Pa, a stony embodiment of the sins of the patriarchy.

Bryce Kass' script cannily balances the facts of the Borden case with speculation on whodunit and how. Whether Lizzie did it or not, she certainly had motivation. The script does do a good job of conveying the oppressive atmosphere of the Borden household and the economic hold their father had over the Borden sisters. The rigid class distinctions of the era are included unostentatiously. Kass adds abuse of Bridget by the paterfamilias and a sapphic bond between Lizzie and Bridget. The latter was first bruited by Ed McBain in his 1984 novel, Lizzie. Kass also cribs the murder in the buff aspect from the 1975 television film, The Legend of Lizzie Borden. 

That film is a good counterpoint to Lizzie. Directed by the underrated Paul Wendkos, the 1975 film is a lurid shocker with adequate performances and a palpable sense of unease. The film was released in an extended version abroad with more footage of nekkid star Elizabeth Montgomery whacking away at her father and step-mother and then having a nice tidy up. It was, in other words a high-toned exploitation picture, but it was mindful of that fact and, at least, had a pulse.

Elizabeth Montgomery and friend in The Legend of Lizzie Borden

Lizzie, on the other hand, is so intent on being realistic that it is, ironically, drained of life. The visual palette resembles that of a Rejuvenation Hardware ad. There are no memorable images in the film, it just sits there and the actors talk. It is not a heinous or particularly bad film, just a dull one. Macneill has mastered his craft, but has displayed little showmanship or personality in either this film or his 2015 feature, The Boy. 

Elle

                       
Paul Verhoeven's Elle is an off putting and perverse thriller that provides Isabelle Huppert a chance to show, once again, why she is one of the world's finest actresses. Huppert plays an executive of a gaming company who, in the opening moments of the film, is raped in her home by a masked intruder. Her reaction is peculiar, she does not call the police and proceeds with her day to day life, but she is curious about the identity of her attacker and seems to be plotting some sort of retribution. When she unmasks the rapist, a cat and mouse game ensues between the two; indicating Huppert's character experiences a frisson of pleasure from their interchange.

Verhoeven is drawn to this sort of dark, erotic suspense film, like Basic Instinct and The Fourth Man. His early films, such as Diary of a Whore and Turkish Delight, skirted close to being soft core porn exploitation films. This flaunting of eroticism in a vulgar, unabashed manner continues in his films up to Showgirls; a film, despite its dire reputation, I found to be more moving and less ludicrous than Basic Instinct. Even in an alleged disaster, like his flop medieval saga Flesh and Blood, Verhoeven's fascination with the ambivalence of sexuality gave his films thematic weight even when his narratives fall apart.

After a hiatus, Verhoeven returned with a more mature style in Black Book, his best film. Happily, Elle is also relatively restrained compared to Verhoeven's early films. The perverse and flamboyant sexuality central to Verhoeven's work is still evident, but is masked by bourgeois propriety. When the husband of Huppert's Character's best friend comes to her office for an assignation, Huppert is not in the mood, but will jack off the dude into a waste pail. Since the corporate world is here portrayed as a misogynistic, dog eat dog one where women have to act as macho as their male counterparts, Huppert's act is just a bit of business, like milking a cow.

The misogyny of her workplace is exemplified by the video game Huppert's company is constructing. It is a violent and hypersexualized fantasy game in which sexual assault is glorified. Huppert's character has no qualms about this, she even urges her charges to increase the violence level to appeal to consumers. 

Elle's moral ambiguity is underlined by its conclusion. Huppert's son has killed her rapist when he catches him assaulting his mother again; an assault Huppert's character seems to enjoy on some level. When Huppert encounters the assailant's wife, she thanks Huppert for trying to help him with his "problem". This woman has already been shown to be a devout Catholic, unlike the majority of the characters in Elle. Her reaction to Huppert's complicity with her husband is one of Christian forgiveness. This point of view, that we are all sinners seeking absolution is in stark contrast to the Darwinian struggles we see most of the in Elle reveling in. Verhoeven does not favor either point of view though he is a Christian, of sorts. Just as Jennifer Jason Leigh's character in Flesh and Blood loves both the "bad' Rutger Hauer and the "good" Tom Burlinson, Verhoeven is acknowledging both the animalistic and transcendent in our nature.

None of this would matter if Elle were no so elegantly constructed. He has always gotten good performances from his players, but Verhoeven has often cheapened his films with outlandish sexcapades, crotch shots, and three breasted aliens. Here, as in Black Book, he shows taste and, even, restraint. Elle presents us a world with chic outfits and pads, dark avenues, and iron gates which create a menacing view of modern France. Paul Verhoeven has grown up. (4/4/17)

By the Bluest of Seas

Boris Barnet's By the Bluest of Seas, from 1936, is a Soviet collectivist musical with more than a whiff of eros and charm. Two men, one an engineer, travel to an island in the Caspian Sea to help the locals by repairing the village's only motorboat. The duo soon become rivals in romance over a local woman. The romantic triangle is not altogether different from those in Hollywood films of the era, certainly any number of Howard Hawks or Raoul Walsh films. Barnet displays an affection for the natives of what is present day Azerbaijan that links his work more closely to Alexander Dovzhenko than to such city slickers as Sergei Eisenstein and Vsevolod Pudovkin who were more apt to stereotype rustics as rubes and dupes. 

The closest analogy I have seen to this film is Enchanted Desna, a 1964 effort from Yuliya Solntseva, Dovzhenko's widow, that is a depiction of Dovzhenko's childhood in the Ukraine. Both films boast a poetic appreciation of the peasantry's bond with their natural surroundings. By the Bluest of Seas contains astonishing moments of plein air cinema, rejoicing in sensuality and the beauty of nature. You can take your CGI starships, but it is the majesty of nature that is truly magical, as shown in this film: whether it is a couple walking a deserted beach or skiffs skimming on top of the sea. The return of a presumed dead comrade rivals the climax of History is Made at Night as one of the most convulsively rhapsodic of 1930s cinema.

I write this as Russian forces are attempting to conquer the Ukraine republic. I still love Russian culture while being mindful that it is a country that has been ruled for centuries by evil autocrats with the occasional inbred dimwit. Currently streaming on Kanopy, By the Bluest of Seas is a beacon of hope and humanism in a dark world. 

Kongo

William Cowen's Kongo is a middling horror flick from 1932. A revenge tale set amidst MGM's African jungle set, Kongo has one chief asset: its leading man Walter Huston, dependable as always. Lupe Velez is nice to look at, especially when drenched by fake jungle sweat. Conrad Nagle and Virginia Bruce are serviceable. William Cowen's direction lacks intensity, which is unfortunate because what a potboiler like this needs is some juice. A point of comparison is the Tod Browning, Lon Chaney film West of Zanzibar, based on the same source material as Kongo. It has more juice. 
 

The Strange Little Cat

Ramon Zurcher's The Strange Little Cat, from 2013, pictures an extended German family gathering and preparing for a dinner. Pictures is the operative word because the film is virtually devoid of plot, drama or intrigue. Yet, within theses narrow confines and its scant 72 minutes, Zurcher conjures the god of small things and the many tiny pockets of drama and comedy that fill our daily lives.

Domestic portraiture is the meat of this movie. The human performers are pictured watching more often than talking. Figures are often facing away from the camera. A dog, cat, and a moth vie for space in the frame. The spaces displayed in the film are territories that are vied for amidst petty domestic conflicts with the more junior humans being the primary passive aggressors. Zurcher, however, also finds beauty in the space of a corridor or still life shots of oranges, glasses of milk, and a washer.

Three flashbacks illustrate moments of vulnerability shared with family. The Strange Little Cat is a singular film that is exquisitely crafted. The ensemble work is warmly familial. The film verges on the soporific, but I found its picturing of the universe in a few grains of sand to be bracing.