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Prelude to a Kiss (1992)
It Deserved to Be Better...
If "That's Entertainment!" is Hollywood's motto, many movies betray it: you go out to see a product of Hollywood entertainment, which has been sold as relaxing and amusing, and you return home more bored and depressed than when you left. «Prelude of a Kiss» is a good example. In this so-called comedy, the soul of robust Meg Ryan enters the octogenarian body of Sydney Walker and vice versa, to the uncontrollable crying of her husband Alec Baldwin.
An interesting premise taken from a play by Craig Lucas for the time of AIDS, it aims to show that we fall more in love with people's soul than with their bodies, but it soon has to admit that the body is also important, when Baldwin is in front of Walker's wrinkled face, under which Ryan's soul lives. If the exchange had been with the body of "bodies" of 1992, as Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt, what direction would this story have taken...?
Somehow the film reminds me of the sequence in «Ghost» when the yuppie widow (Demi Moore) has a reunion with her dead husband (Patrick Swayze), through the body of a African American medium (Whoopi Goldberg), and when the time comes for the kiss, "the magic of cinema" conveniently replaced Whoopi with Swayze.
A verbose comedy to death, «Prelude to a Kiss» soon loses its charm, which director Norman René rarely avoids, as in his previous work, «Longtime Companion» (also with a script by Lucas) that suffered of the same theatricality.
Il prefetto di ferro (1977)
A Political Drama for All Times
"Il prefetto di ferro" is a very good political drama, set in Sicily, significantly madre in the 1970s, a decade in which Italy was going through sociopolitical and economic crisis, that affected the national film industry. It tells the story of a prefect sent by the Fascist regime to fight the maffia and corruption. Based on true facts, Giuliano Gemma, who we had previously seen in peplums and European westerns, took the part of Cesare Mori and gave the performance of his life, with strong support from Claudia Cardinale and Stefano Satta Flores. Gemma won the Best Actor award at the Moscow Film Festival and the highly plausible work by director Pasquale Squattieri received the David di Donatello Award for Best Film of the Year.
Pour la suite du monde (1963)
Cinéma Direct at Its Best
I first saw this seminal documentary of direct cinema in Paris, while attending a workshop of cinéma direct with Jean Rouch and his disciples. It was in French with no subtitles, so I understood very little, but perceived its significance and inner beauty. Then I saw it several times again while adding Spanish subtitles to it, and I reafirm my opinion that this is an immensely beautiful film. The agents of political correctness may object to whale hunting, but this is a document of a time, of a culture, of a village, of one of its labor practices and of a tradition on the verge of extinction Truly a great ethnographic motion picture.
Porgy and Bess (1959)
Gershwin's Legacy
The all-region DVD available of «Porgy and Bess» is definitely not a good representation of the motion picture released in 1959, as directed by Otto Preminger. It is also pertinent to say that, as far as cinema goes, this is not the great motion picture some persons say it is. It is neither a remarkable film adaptation of a stage play. Many persons exalt the motion pictures for reasons that are foreign to it.
For whatever reasons Preminger decided to make it entirely in long takes, and as if we were witnessing a live performance on a stage, the filmmaker turned a passionate tale into a too cold experience, keeping the characters too distant from us viewers, even in the most intimate moments. It must have been very good to watch this «Porgy and Bess» screen version in a wide, huge screen, but even in this case the end product is still filmed theater.
On the other hand, as long as purists and defenders of Gershwin's legacy interfere with people's right to access American film heritage, the poor copies, which keep the wide-screen format, are one of the few options we have to watch Otto Preminger's «Porgy and Bess». It takes some imagination to compensate for the lack of definition and color of the images, but it gives you an appreciable idea of what everybody, artists and technicians, did.
Perhaps with a fine, restored copy I would rise one star or two.
Poor Things (2023)
A Little Trimming Would Benefit This Fine Film...
Masterful execution, good performances and beautiful visual effects that complement the story, the directing concept and the narrative tone, but lenient in editing and script, which results in excessive length. I have no idea on whom the balance of the components of the story depended, but the fact that the director and actress are producers may be the reason, to a large extent, for this imbalance.
The central drama of the genius surgeon, the woman he has created and the infatuated assistant is fascinating, but in the middle of it there is the story of the seductive lawyer who induces her into an endless and repetitive adventure that ends up blurring the film along the paths of melodrama, surreal fantasy, pocket philosophical drama, and erotic comedy. None of the vignettes is unimportant. All they just need is a fine, good cut and reduce the screen time of the adventure.
Fortunately, with the woman's return to London, the film regains its focus and reaches a consistent conclusion, more in line with Tim Burton than with the initial dramatic proposal. (However, as a screenwriter, I would have preferred to transplant God's brain into Alfie's healthy body.) Enjoy.
La Pointe-Courte (1955)
Varda's First Feature
«La Pointe-Courte» was Agnès Varda's first feature film and the first film-manifesto of the "nouvelle vague". In it, Varda broke with some narrative traditions, following neorealist strategies, distancing Bertolt Brecht style and a "mise-en-caméra" close to direct cinema, which was gaining ground around the world at that time, including France where it was euphemistically called "cinéma vérité".
The different influences blend well in the same story, but not all ot them have the same appeal and, in the final analysis, my balance leans more towards the narrative of fiction of anthropological affiliation, than towards the aesthetic compositions of a couple in crisis with which Varda disguises melodrama, aurally reinforced by self-referential declamations of the man and the woman. In fact, in the synopsis that I have read (and in Varda's own words), the story of this couple is taken as the principal storyline, when, in fact, the neighborhood and its fishermen are the true "anti-stars".
With natural actors (the inhabitants of the fishing neighborhood of La Pointe-Courte, in the South of France) Varda tells a story that serves as a unifying thread of the different influences, in which local men insist on fishing in a small contaminated maritime "lagoon" and are consequently persecuted by the Department of Health. At the same time, the filmmaker shows us events that animate their lives: the first love, the patriarchy confrontations, the sporting joust, the death of a child...
On the other hand, Varda, who always alluded to happiness or its absence in her filmography, takes us away from the neorealist liveliness and immerses us in long affective ramblings (which were common in the "nouvelle vague" works, especially in the films by Godard, Rohmer and Resnais), which are nothing more than the process of sentimental adjustment of one La Pointe-Courte native (Philippe Noiret) and his Parisian wife (Silvia Monfort).
As if sensing the strength of the La Pointe-Courte people and their lives, Varda opened and closed the film with images of the neighborhood and its faces: in the first sequence, morning breakfasts are interrupted by the appearance of officials from the Department of Health, and in the end, a popular dance is enlivened by a band that is frozen in the final shot. Without intending to, Agnès Varda left us a moment of film history, of a corner of France, of a popular culture on the coast, as a worthy preamble to her prestigious career.
Petite nature (2021)
Perceptive, clever drama
«Petite nature» is, at last, a film that speaks with sincerity, respect, and intelligence about those difficult moments in childhood or adolescence, in which the confusion caused by the social environment, the reaffirmation of sexual orientation, and the pressure to decide how we will face and assume adult life lead boys and girls to take decisions and actions that define their lives, not always in the best way.
This is not one of those movies in which someone sell us the idea that this "happy" phase is a constant in our lives or has melodramatic phases that can be easily resolved with a mellow song, when idenfiying in particular with any of the non-binary options means having a lot of courage to face prejudice and exclusion and, above all, understanding what your option means, beyond having pleasant relationships with people of your same or different option. «Petite nature» is a semi-autobiographical drama written and directed by Samuel Theis, a French filmmaker of working-class origin, about the sexuality of children and adolescents, in which Theis was able to give it a universal dimension in the growth of any human being.
«Petite nature» is the story of Johnny Jung, a 10-year-old boy, intelligent and sensitive, the son of a broken marriage among the French working-class in Forbach. When his mother Sonia decides to separate from her current partner, Johnny, Sonia and his two brothers move to another sector, where the boy attends school and meets Jean Adamski, a young teacher who has come from Lyon with his wife Nora. Johnny is emotionally attracted to Adamski, who opens the doors of knowledge for him, and he starts to become aware of what he can obtain or lose, because of his position on the social ladder.
Adamski and Nora help Johnny when Sonia hits him, and later they take him to see the Centre Pompidou in the city of Metz. Both are middle class professionals and Johnny associates them with options he was unaware of firsthand. A quiet neighborhood, a cozy home, good food, careers with more perspectives, and educational options. On the contrary, although Sonia loves him, is combative for her three children and aggressively reproaches him for being soft and not confronting the "bad boys" in the neighborhood, her example is not what Johnny would like for his future: work in a neighborhood store where she may not even earn the minimum wage, being promiscuous, angry, and abusive. At a key moment in the story, Johnny, in a hysterical outburst, accuses his family of being "clochards", lazy and useless bums, resigned to the crumbs thrown at them in the country's socioeconomic context.
The film climaxes when Adamski reacts violently and perhaps cruelly when Johnny tries to seduce him. And I have not ruined the film for you. This may well be the climax: there is no return, what follows is the most valuable part of the film: how Johnny faces this multifaceted crisis.
Theis combined professional actors (Antoine Reinartz, Izïa Higelin as the Adamskis) with natural actors from Forbach and Metz (Melissa Olexa as the mother, her children and boyfriend) and found Aliocha Reinert in Nancy for the role of Johnny. Son of a father specializing in adult education and a professor, Aliocha, upon receiving the proposal, asked for days to think about it and finally accepted because he felt he could "defend the character", resulting in an outstanding performance.
An excellent film, highly recommended.
Paris - When It Sizzles (1964)
Never Too Late
When this movie opened in 1964 I was 13 years old, and I walked out the cine for some urge, proper of my age, that I cannot remember... All I know is that leaving was not hard at all.
But then I finally saw it complete in my 60s and I enjoyed it very much. I don't know it this is a movie for senior citizens, but I think it was quite easy and relaxing for my brain and spirit, with funny moments and one of my favorite film ladies, Audrey Hepburn.
George Axelrod could be very good at writing, whether by adapting others' ideas (as "The Manchurian Candidate") or by writing his own originals (as "How to Murder Your Wife", also directed by Richard Quine).
Quine is not a favorite director of mine, but I also enjoyed the movie he made before this one, "The Notorious Landlady" (1962) with Jack Lemmon, Kim Novak, and Fred Astaire, and after both films, "How to Murder Your Wife" with Lemmon, Virna Lizi, and Terry-Thomas.
Para Onde Foram as Andorinhas? (2015)
Long Gone Swallows
Just as Maria Luiza Aboim did with lyrical simplicity in "Cidadão Jatobá", to illustrate the harmony with nature in which the native Americans live in Brazil, Mari Corrêa achieves the same effect in this documentary that says so much in little time. Several chiefs of tribes, as well as common men and women who live in the jungle surrounding the Amazonas river, tell how they no longer receive nature's signs for every change of seasons, just as the punctual swallows used to announce the time to sow or harvest, so they could sustain the agricultural cycle with precision. The swallows flew, they were gone from the panorama, due to the devastation of the jungle. Very good short film.
Paper Moon (1973)
Oscar Time
The chemistry between Ryan O'Neal and his daughter Tatum is probably the main reason why this is one of the greatest comedies of all time. Based on a novel by Joe David Brown, this product about two rascals who steal and cheat to survive was made during the Hollywood "nostalgia fad" in the 1970s. It does not avoid reenacting the harsh conditions among the poor during the Great Depression, but what really counts here is the humour that emerges from the relationship of the con man and the ill-bred kid who might be his daughter. See it if only for the wonderful one-take scene that probably gave Tatum O'Neal her Oscar.
Pantaleón y las visitadoras (1999)
Maybe next time...
This 2000 version of Mario Vargas Llosas' excellent novel was an improvement over the 1975 adaptation, co-directed by the Peruvian author, which seems to have vanished from Earth. But in neither case the films do justice to Vargas Llosa's work.
Just average, zero-degree style of moviemaking, that pale in comparison to the writer's prose and original narrative techniques, which make the novel so good, beyond its plot about a young captain of the Peruvian army who creates a traveling service of international prostitutes to appease the sexual desire of the troops stationed in the Amazon jungle of Peru, who have begun to attack the virtuous young native women.
Vargas Llosa uses all kinds of resources (as Bram Stoker did before in his novel "Dracula"), such as reports, dispatches or memoranda, while managing to advance the action, dynamizing the use of verbs, through the annotations made to every line of dialogue. As they say, "Comparisons are odious", but if the novel was a real milestone in the history of Latin American literature, neither of the two films is significant for Peruvian, Latin American or world cinema.
La mulata de Córdoba (1945)
Lust for the Land
This is not a film adaptation of the Veracruz (México) legend of a woman, during the days of the Spanish colonies in America, who was accused of witchcraft and escaped from prison aboard a ship she painted on a wall of her cell. Although screenwriter Xavier Villaurrutia signed a stage play and an opera based directly on this account, the film is completely different.
It is a tale of rivalry between landowners, a story of lust and death, set on the island of Cuba. At the center of the controversy, the protagonist is Belén San Juan, the beautiful mulatto daughter of landowner Luis San Juan and a black slave. Both her father and her uncle Carlos San Juan own cane plantations during the golden days of the sugar industry in Cuba. When Luis dies, Belén inherits her father's properties, arousing the wrath of her uncle, who tries to appropriate her land with the help of his friend Antonio. However, the intervention of the young landowner Pedro, in defense of the interests of Belén, increases the tension by opposing the designs of Carlos San Juan.
As far as I know, it is very difficult to find copies of both the film based on the Veracruz legend and this Cuban story, which share the same title.
Pale Rider (1985)
Catharsis à emporter
Finally, after 36 years, I took some time and sat down to watch «Pale Rider.» During the spectacular beginning, in which a group of horsemen rides through vast landscapes with evidently malevolent intentions, with only the sound of horses galloping and the wind, I suddenly twisted in my seat when, in counterpoint, images of the mining community that is going to be the victim of an attack, are accompanied by sentimental guitar strumming, telling us "Look how good the miners and their families are", so that later we can assert "How bad those horsemen were!" I thought that, if there was a socialist realism, capitalist realism has always been in force. And it's just as bad.
And as melodrama from which we still cannot freed in the 21st century, this story is built and while you know the tale by heart and how it will end. Because after a teenage girl's dog is shot by the riders (another 10 more minutes of crying over the death of the pet, in the best Disney style), the young woman invokes God, asks for a miracle and (fanfare) Mr. Clint appears on the horizon as a preacher... but you know he is nothing but a butcher gunslinger.
When Clint Eastwood was not in the screen frame, as in «Mystic River,» he cared more about humanity and made better movies. But Eastwood has a catalog of narcissistic movies around his image that had never been so obvious to me as this time. I had seen it before when he stole the limelight from Kevin Costner and little T. J. Lowther in «A Perfect World» (1993), to impose the character he was playing, a criminal vigilante, a la "Dirty Harry". Since he appeared in Sergio Leone's Trilogy of Dollars, Eastwood did not stop taking advantage of the figure of the taciturn and murderous cowboy, but without a genius like Leone behind him, his westerns were more variants of the questionable version of the conquest of the West that American cinema sold for ages.
Here he recurred to Leone again (including deputies with long coats that have no other purpose than decoration to balance the widescreen composition) to tell a moralistic story between landowners, with romantic interludes that lengthen the film by almost two hours, and to exalt the "individualist and lonely hero" (who here makes a call to "unity is strength" among the miners). But everything was conceived to reassure the public's peace of spirit, after the ending we already know, and leave us doped with the idea that the world has reached its equilibrium, thanks to a "heaven sent" murderous exterminating angel. Something like a "catharsis à emporter..." Watch it, but be alert.
Once Around (1991)
Family Affair
The best explanation that I have found to understand my aversion for family reunions is through astrology. In my birth chart, my fourth house (related to home) is such a wreck, that it came as no surprise to find planet Uranus of destruction located in such house. So, it is a bit strange to me that I like «Once Around» so much... or maybe it is because of that, I do not know, wishing a happy home.
Anyhow, I find it one of Lasse Hallström's best movies about bonding between relatives, solidarity, and love. It has a particularly good cast, with Holly Hunter as the daughter of Mr. And Mrs. Bella (Danny Aiello and Gena Rowlands), who more liberally than strictly run their home as "headquarters of peace and love", and sister to Laura San Giacomo and Roxanne Hart. Hunter falls irremediably in love with a man of Lithuanian origin, who is the opposite of all the molasses that the Bella home drips. This friction is the center of the conflict, and his more ardent antagonist is Aiello.
However, everything is so submerged in affection, that things are fixed somehow. The free spirit of Malia Scotch Marmo's script touches every base, so if you have not seen this movie yet be prepared to some explosive emotions and intense declarations of love... and singing. I do not always like my movies to be perfect, and this is one of them. But I like it a lot.
Nuestras madres (2019)
A Welcome to César Díaz
It is difficult to convey and give an original plastic form to pain and wounded memory, even in a medium as ductile as cinema, and in a genre as apt as drama. «Nuestras madres» almost succeeds, but there are times when declamatory theatricality does not allow it to reach the level of classic tragedy, although the attempt is worthy.
As it is often seen in films from Argentina or Chile, the Guatemalan civil war (1960-96) that eroded the foundations of civil society, and the genocide of the Mayan people by the military dictators and the national army, are lacerations that will not heal soon and will emerge from time to time in the cinema of this Central American country. As the first feature of versatile Guatemalan filmmaker César Díaz, a director, writer, producer, and cinematographer who is mainly a film editor (he cut Jayro Bustamante's «Ixcanul» and assisted the editor of Iñárritu's «Amores perros»), it is curious that the aspect that I find somehow irregular in his film is the montage.
With gorgeous cinematography by Virginie Surdej, «Nuestras madres» tells the story of Ernesto (Armando Espitia), a young forensic anthropologist who works on the exhumation and identification of war victims. His father was killed by the military forces, and his mother (Emma Dib) hides truths from him and refuses to participate in the trial against the murderers. One morning, an old indigenous woman called Nicolasa (Aurelia Caal) arrives and asks him to exhume her husband, Mateo, who was murdered and buried in a common grave in the countryside. Believing to find a trace of his dead father in that group of victims, Ernesto travels to Nicolasa's town, where he discovers that the grave is on private property. Back in the capital city, the remains of his father suddenly appear.
Here starts a narrative imbalance, since Díaz sets Nicolasa's drama aside until the end, and concentrates on the past of Ernesto's parents, on his mother's anguish, on revelations and determinations that the exhumation provoked. Díaz did not work a way to harmonize both stories, through a better editing structure, that would not leave the Mayan old woman out of the picture, until the final shots. If such were the structure of the script, perhaps an alternate montage could have balanced it a bit. However, this structure does not detract from the story, nor does brief moments in Dib's performance, who turns highly theatrical, passing it on to Espitia in declamatory moments.
«Nuestras madres» is a film that marks contrasts and incites comparisons: a small, intimate film, about the dispossessed classes and the Guatemalan left, with a certain documentary tone that increases the impact of Mayan and mestizo mothers' suffering, it is also an achievement infinitely superior to Bustamante's «La llorona », a sensationalist drama set among the Guatemalan upper middle class, with old-fashioned horror film resources and an inopportune legendary character as metaphor of the grieving Mayan mothers. A laudatory welcome to César Díaz to the ranks of Central American filmmaking,
Nr. 10 (2021)
Highly Recommended Tale
It would be very easy to spoil your enjoyment of this film if I revealed the unexpected direction the plot takes in its final 30 minutes. It is a twist that strains the viewers' credibility, a twist exposed like someone pulling the proverbial ace up the sleeve, when we have been trusting that it is a comedy-drama about infidelity between theater people who are rehearsing a new production, but once one accepts and adapts to the genre that the film suddenly assumes, "Nr. 10" is a pleasant experience that makes you smile gently. However, when one reconsiders the plot and, if possible, watches the movie again, clues abound throughout the story suggesting that something strange is going on.
An original film with a good script that maintains the viewers' curiosity without ever betraying their trust. Of special interest to atheists, theater artists and mystery fans. In the end the film serves its purpose.
November (2017)
The Kratts Rule! - A Masterpiece
"November" is an extraordinary fantasy in black and white, based on a novel by Andrus Kivirähk that uses legends of Estonian folklore to tell a story of unrequited love, to the rhythm of nature. (Probably those who use the term "slow cinema" will not enjoy it). Here two lovers are pulled together and pushed apart by sorcery, arranged marriage, looters, groomed and hungry ghosts, and the Devil himself. The girl howls to the full moon and becomes a wolf in heat, but the boy is enthralled by a German sleep-walking baroness, while some incredible creatures called "kratts" do the peasants' dirty works in order to survive.
La notte dei diavoli (1972)
The Vourdalak Is Here
Many contemporary reviewers tend to bash and dismiss good vintage productions, according to the parameters of modern movies. This is an example, one of the last gothic movies to come from Italy in the early 1970s.
In the coming years "The Exorcist", "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre", "The Omen", and other horror movies would grab fans' attention and adhesion. Italy would tend its own business, strengthening the subgenre of giallo they had created years before, and which has an indelible influence on Giorgio Ferroni's bloody and sexy film version of Aleksei Tolstoi's novel "The Family of the Vourdalak".
Ferroni was 64 and almost deaf when he shot it and would retire after making an action comedy in 1975. For this drama he did what he knew best, and it is a fine addition to his filmography, to the work of the man who made the classic "Mill of the Stone Women" in 1960. For its time, "The Night of the Devils" had the right tempo, tone, and rhythm, the right faces, hair styles and music (inheriting Edda dell'Orso's voice from the Italian westerns), while Carlo Rambaldi was developing his special effects techniques.
If the viewers put aside prejudices for old movies aside, I am sure they will enjoy Giorgio Ferroni's next to last film.
Nude Tuesday (2022)
Tired Formula in Gibberish
The original title card of this movie reads something like "Nøken Tisdøg" (the spelling of a few characters had to be omitted because IMDb do not accept them), which means "Nude Tuesday" in "Zobftanlik," a form of gibberish invented specifically for the film. "Nude Tuesday" is one of the rare films that uses an entirely fictional language for all its runtime. The title "Nûde Tuesdäy" (here I had to make another omission) is an English adaptation of the original, following the Zobftanlik resource of writing vowels and consonants according to different spellings in other languages.
This said, there is not much originality in this movie about a mature couple that goes to a retreat with a group of persons who want to add some "fire" to their sexual lives. I did not find it very funny, rather a bit boring, with tired situations you may have already seen in better films.
Noita palaa elämään (1952)
The Witch Returns to Life
Despite its too many sudden dramatic turns, this is a fascinating tale based on a play written by Finnish playwright Mika Waltari. However, the beginning reminded me of the first part of Mario Bava's film, "La maschera del demonio" (1960), when a scientist frees a witch by entering a crypt, breaking the cross that immobilizes her and accidentally giving her his own blood, a passage that is not contained in "Viy", the tale by Nikolai Gogol that inspired Bava's screenwriters.
In «The Witch Returns to Life», a Finnish scientist extracts a stake from the intact body of a witch buried in a swamp 300 years ago, and what follows is a wild tale about the duel between the flesh and the spirit, a classic theme that has inspired many great dramas, in search of catharsis. What lies beneath the story is the oppressive relationship between peasants and landowners, the same that caused a young girl's tragedy, accused of practicing witchcraft.
However, the treatment is often that of an erotic comedy, in which the sexual excitement of all characters predominates. Ultimately, it is not a titillating concession from the writers, but an indicator of what is really happening and what is revealed in the end. Recommended, but keep in mind that you are not going to see the typical witch movie of archaic inspirations (and aspirations).
Noah's Ark (1928)
Not Good
Michael Curtiz was not strange to dramas based on Bible texts. Already in 1922 he had made "Sodom and Gomorrah" in Austria, a melodrama that combines the story of a girl who is induced into prostitution by her adoptive mother, with the biblical story of Lot and her family in the corrupt city of Sodom. Upon emigrating to the United States, Curtiz would repeat the strategy with less luck in "Noah's Ark," by integrating the story of two friends that war unites and separates, with the didactic irruption of the biblical story of the universal flood (in the filming of which three extras drowned). But this new foray lacks the passion of the "mise-en-caméra" of the Austrian film. In the end, "Noah's Ark" is a disappointing melodrama that claims to be pacifist, but is pro-war all the way. In the edition I saw, the film contains a score with US marches, and the insufferable Guinn Williams, one more time playing a brute. It is surprising no one mentions the homosexual overtones in his relationship with George O'Brien. Silent expensive, inflated junk.
Nitram (2021)
Dramatization of Real Lives
Psychological dramas are highly favored by the public and even more so if they are based on real events. The audience feels safe, unthreatened, and knows the ending in advance. It is perhaps the "serious version" of nineteenth-century melodrama, but, apart from snooping and ruminating about other people's lives and the mental conditions of persons who are largely both perpetrators and victims, it does not contribute much exchange value to the cinematic experience of the viewer, compared to other films that may have more significant values.
Cinema has spent almost a century and a half refining the way to tell consumer versions of the actions of fictional or real murderers. From Robert Wiene's «The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari» (1920), through Fritz Lang's «M» (1930) and Howard Hawks' «Scarface» (1932), this subgenre reached full refinement, in my opinion, with Martin Scorsese's «Taxi Driver». Based on the massacre of Tasmania (Australia) in 1996, there are no surprises in «Nitram», no matter if you have or have not heard about the killings. Everyone expects to see a monster on the screen and that is not difficult to achieve if you trivialize the real killer's complicated profile and if you have two "movie monsters" leading the cast, such as Caleb Landry Jones and Judy Davis.
«Nitram» is Martin spelled backwards and refers to Martin Bryant, the man who executed 35 people and injured 23 in 1996. The scriptwriter selected incidents from his life, taken from a catalog of painful events that, according to data published, occurred to Bryant for 20 years of the 28 he was on the day of the massacre. This selection builds a chain of repellent episodes that justify his life sentence. There is no diagnosis, there is no mention of an illness, we do not know what he is suffering from, nor do we know for sure where so much imbalance comes from. And this vagueness about Martin's psyche is no accident: during his real trial a psychiatrist even stated that Martin Bryant was mentally healthy. In this sense, a more ethical and totally fictional film like «We Need to Talk About Kevin» (2011) is preferable and more impressive.
That said, I do not deny the good performances of Jones (as Nitram) and Davis (as his mother), both awarded by the Australian Academy of Film and Television Arts, and much less the rigor of director Justin Kurzel's "mise-en-caméra", that keeps the corniness that usually piles up in psychological dramas at bay and creates a laconic film. In my opinion, for these portraits, the documentary would be a preferable genre, because the genre tends to be more objective and casts a shadow of doubt on the "official versions" of the crimes and their perpetrators.
The New Adventures of Tarzan (1935)
My Favorite Tarzan
Of all the classic Tarzans that I have seen in cinema until 1984 (of which I only think I am missing a few, such as the blonde Denny Miller) Bruce Bennett (or Herman Brix, his real name) was my favorite. He did not have a great participation as "the king of the jungle", apart from the serial "The New Adventures of Tarzan", but, in addition to the fact that this version was closer to the creation of Edgar Rice Burroughs, who served as co-producer, Bennett was a handsome Tarzan, with a more serious face, a lonely and unglamorous hero, mistreated by the jungle, who I think I only perceived in Jock Mahoney and Christophe Lambert in 1984, when I stopped watching films with Burroughs' character.
I saw an edited version of the serial running 75 minutes and it seemed like a more than adequate adventure, with a less show business and more dramatic approach, and that leaves you wanting to see more, perhaps the entire serial. Other sources indicate 70 minutes. This version has not been restored. There is also a 59-minute British dubbed version that was aired on American television since the early 1950s, with 10 minutes of additional stock footage of the African flora and fauna. That material was later removed and the original was issued on VHS.
If you find a copy, see it, it's a well-represented Tarzan film.
Nachthelle (2014)
Next, please...
What an obnoxious... and silly movie! A mature woman and her younger lover arrive at the house where she grew up, a cozy but run-down place in the countryside of the former Democratic Republic of Germany, where a mining project is slowly devastating the landscape and evicting the residents from the nearby town.
Although this setup is interesting, in the end it is nothing more than a trivial fact. What matters in this prudish drama is that a homosexual couple is also in the house to finish a legal process (not very explicit). The pair is made up of one of the woman's ex-lovers and his partner, a promiscuous psychologist, whose objective is to molest the woman and seduce her boy. The actor who plays the psychologist does so with a sign on his forehead that reads "I am a psychologist." And the script emphasizes it every time he opens his mouth, and delivers lines learnt in a course of Psychology 101.
In a mixture of dreams, double manifestations of the woman's psyche and games of seduction, the film ends up taking the path of "moralistic rectitude", when none of the four characters are worth a penny. I am sure you can find better things to do than watch this.
Myra Breckinridge (1970)
Myra in 1970
Everything you read about Michael Sarne's movie "Gore Vidal's Myra Breckinridge" is false. It is a good motion picutre, ahead of its time. It is even hard to believe that it caused a shock in 1970 when in the same year and by the same studio "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls" was released. It is unbelievable all the rubbish that has been written about it. It is among the best and most acerbic Hollywood satires ever, with a visionary look at sexuality, as it is practiced at the moment. Mae West seems dated and from another planet, but she was still part of that scene, while Raquel Welch and John Huston were both very good as mean characters. Enjoy it.