.
No 5-star classics this month, but everything else is represented, from one-and-a-half miserable lumps to four-and-a-half dazzling stars. Enjoy ruminating with me!
(All films are rated on a 5-star basis and must be over a decade old to be deemed a 5-star classic.)
(Titles in purple have been expanded for Flix Pix columns.)
> This month I review the following 16 films:
CROCK OF GOLD:
A FEW ROUNDS WITH SHANE MacGOWEN (2010)***+
GREENLAND (2020)****
COLOSSAL (2016)***
UMBERTO D. (1952)****+
TILL THE CLOUDS ROLL BY (1946)***
THE SILENCERS (1966)*+
LISZTOMANIA (1975)**
OSLO (2021)****
ARABIAN NIGHTS (1974)**
HOUSE (1977)*+
RED SEA DIVING RESORT (2019)***+
BETTER DAYS (2020)***+
KILL LIST (2011)***+
THE EMPEROR JONES (1933)****+
BETWEEN TWO WORLDS (1944)****
TRANSIT (2018)****+
– – – – – – – – – – – – –
CROCK OF GOLD:
A FEW ROUNDS WITH SHANE MacGOWAN (2010) ***+
> Ouch! What a fuckin’ painful document of the way addiction can destroy genius.
. Julien Temple, the accomplished musical director behind ABSOLUTE BEGINNERS and scads of fun music vids, turns his documentary eye on the former Pogues frontman and diehard alcoholic, iconic drunken Irishman Shane Fuckin’ MacGowan. Shane’s big claim to fame was the way he married traditional Irish tunes with the raw, sonic gut-punch of the burgeoning punk movement of the time, but he really deserves to be remembered for the fantastic music he created. The songs he wrote with the band will stand the test of time, whether or not you can stomach his nearly incoherent mumbling through gruesomely rotting teeth in the maws of an alcoholic bender.
. Shane’s whole life has been one extended alcoholic bender. He tells stories of his auntie giving him a shot of whiskey and a cigarette at six-years old, and setting him up on the table to sing old Irish songs for the evening’s entertainment. There is some great archival footage here from his home and stage life, and sequences of barside conversations with the likes of a pitifully sycophantic Johnny Depp, interspersed with animated sequences by underground gonzo illustrator Ralph Steadman. Amazingly, the reprobate/poet has finally overcome his apparent terror of dentistry, because he has a new set of pearly white choppers, which look kinda strange on the guy- after decades and decades of hosting a riot of decay in his mouth. He still growls and grumbles and mutters to near incoherence at points, so it’s a good thing there are subtitles! But the Shane MacGowan of storied glory days is not the man we see here.
. This Shane MacGowan is the post-success Shane MacGowan. After being thrown out of the band he helped form, halfway through recording their fifth studio album, for being too terminally pickled to be in a serious band, he formed his own damn band and called them “The Popes”. (The record’s producer Joe Strummer replaced Shane on the tour) The lads in The Popes were talented musicians with endless patience, apparently. They released one really fine album and another that was somewhat lesser, before that venture too collapsed, under the weight of Shane’s monumental thirst. Now, he is confined to a wheelchair, and even though his doctor warned him many years ago that even one more whiskey could kill him- he is rarely seen without either a beer or shot glass in his trembling hand. There is no way to interpret the man as anything but pathetic, and pitiable.
. I saw him once with The Popes, at The Catalyst- a local venue that has morphed into a grubby dive. Sure enough, when the band took the stage, he was nowhere to be seen. The boys played rockin’ instrumental music, vamping, for about ten minutes, as the audience grew increasingly restless. They came to see Shane! Was this some unannounced opening band? Where was Shane?! Finally, a Pope stepped forward to explain that Shane was in the house, but he was feeling too sick to go onstage. (Everybody in the house knew what “sick” meant”!) With some luck, he would amble out and join them soon. And after about ten minutes more, he did. It was the first time in my life that I’ve seen a performer wheeled onstage on a dolly! Propped up precariously at the mic, he placed his hand in the position that said: “I am ready to receive a libation, now!” and sure enough, a handler raced out to put a beverage in his hand. Now that he was properly equipped, the concert could begin in earnest. And the celebrated bad boy was… bad. Not good, anyway. Serviceable. Even as he sang fantastic song after fantastic song, he seemed completely uninspired, as though he would rather be pretty much anywhere else, if it served alcohol. But the Popes were a solid kickass unit, and the concert was certainly memorable.
. In this document of decay, director Temple is bold enough to ask a man who appears to have no future whatsoever, what he sees in his future. Shane looks pained (he usually looks pained), as though the question forced him to confront the way he has ravaged his body and squandered his monumental talent. His only hope: to one day be prolific again, the way he used to be in the 80’s, and early 90’s. One look at this shell of a man and you know- it’s a pipe dream that ain’t gonna happen. Listen to the lively Sally MacLennane or the now classic modern Christmas song Fairytale of New York to get a glimpse of the enormous talent this man once had- and maybe still does, if only he could get out of his own damn way.
– Curse his fucking auntie for addicting him to booze as a wee lad! Bitch.
GREENLAND (2020) ****
> This thriller with the enigmatic title is another “Earth-Go-Boom” flick, and it’s quite a bit better than most of ‘em.
. It’s a genre that is often a guilty pleasure. But there is no need to feel guilty about enjoying GREENLAND. It’s a solid thriller, featuring some fine acting by Gerard Butler and a script that offers both tense action and real human emotion, never asking you to make one leap of faith too far, like most of these genre films do. How unlikely is it that an existential threat would someday emerge from the heavens, in the form of a big, nasty comet, drawn inescapably into earth’s gravitational field? How ‘bout: 100%! It’s not a matter of “if”, but “when”. Given the infinite nature of Time, the question is: will humans and other lifeforms still exist on this planet when the inevitable happens? How much notice will we have before impact? And if there were time, infrastructure and planning- what measures would world governments take to increase the odds of long-term existence of the species? If there were some top-secret survival base, how would they decide which citizens would be allowed to go there, and possibly live, and which would be left behind, and certainly die? This film is less science fiction than science speculation.
. Butler’s architectural engineer is deemed one of those essential workers, and sent the fateful text just as the devastating news and resultant anarchy hits the streets. It appears there is a refuge deep beneath the icefields of Greenland, if he can make it there. His estranged wife and son are authorized to join him, but things go horribly awry, when they reach the military airfield only to leave their son’s life-saving insulin behind. Oh, the kid’s a diabetic? Never mind, then. This survival bunker is for perfectly healthy human specimens only. But how does either parent leave their boy behind? The worst possible thing happens, and the three are separated, facing terrific trials to be reunited in time to flee to Greenland, experiencing the best and worst of humanity, stripped bare for all to see.
. This is exciting stuff! There is barely a moment’s relief from the tension of impending and unpreventable doom. Few of these existential disaster films are as compelling or successful as this one.
– Thumbs up to GREENLAND.
COLOSSAL (2016) ***
> This movie is driven by a curious and imaginative concept that intrigues and entertains, but loses steam before the final credits.
. Too bad. Not every movie can be as good as the trailer, or even the idea that sparked it.
. A sloppy, unkempt Anne Hathaway is Gloria. Gloria is a hot mess. Unemployed, uninspired and drug-addled, Gloria’s life self-destructs when her boyfriend du jour kicks her out of their apartment- probably with good reason. With nowhere else to go, she retreats to the sanctuary of her small hometown, returning to the home of her uncomfortable parents- to mope and molt. That is, until very bizarre news reports emanate from South Korea, that a giant monster straight out of a B-horror movie is rampaging across Seoul, smashing buildings and squashing people, and Gloria gradually comes to the realization that this beast is somehow a manifestation of the beast within her- and that she can control its actions from halfway around the globe! If she dances, (lamely), the beast dances (lamely). If she stomps around angrily, the beast stomps around angrily, squashing the denizens of Tokyo underfoot like ants. The two inexplicably and inextricably interconnected.
. Enter Jason Sedakis as an old homie, who seems friendly and non-threatening… at first. He undergoes a disturbing metamorphosis of character, or perhaps- gradually reveals just how craven and wanton he is. Good casting, because this former SNL funnyman has such a likable persona, but Jason shows us that he does indeed have a dark side. In the end, Hathaway and Sedakis face-off in a high-stakes contest of wills that is quite entertaining.
. Fun idea! Middling film. COLOSSAL charms, in a twisted kind of way, and both these actors are always fun to watch, but the finished film does not seem to live up to the inspiration of the concept. It takes too long to get to the good stuff at the end.
– Too bad.
UMBERTO D. (1952) ****+
> Celebrated Italian neorealist Vittorio De Sica helmed this social criticism of his postwar country in the guise of a heartbreaking case study of an elderly pensioner struggling to survive in the high inflation and sparse social safety net of peacetime.
. Umberto Domenico Ferrari lives in a boarding house, with a sympathetic maid (pregnant and abandoned), and a nasty landlady who lets out his room while he is away, for quick trysts between prostitutes and their Johns. Umberto is significantly behind in rent, making the mercenary shrew openly hostile to the vulnerable old man. She demands that Umberto pay all the debt by the end of the month, or he and the little mutt he adores will be forcibly ejected, for a life on the streets with all the other desperate old folks Italian society has left behind, in the self-imposed wreckage of World War II.
. I had heard this was a terribly depressing film, a value judgment that kept me at bay for decades. I support reality in filmmaking, as painful as it may be- but that doesn’t mean I am eager to wallow in the bleakest of truths. Turns out, that buzz was off the mark. I have seen many, many tougher movies. (Almost any Bergman film, for instance!) UMBERTO D. is more a character study than anything else, and we grow to care about the fate of this old codger and his scruffy dog, so it works. And (SPOILER ALERT), we are not left with the grim, sobering outcome I feared. In fact, this seminal film ends on a very upbeat note, that works against the inherent tragedy. It’s a beautiful day! Umberto frolics in the park with his dog. Both seem somehow younger than their years. It is the lightest moment of the entire film, and leaves the viewer not with despair, but with a resilient hopefulness that is welcome indeed. (Shades of Bergman’s transcendent CRIES AND WHISPERS.)
– Well-acted and perfectly photographed, this Italian import is a near classic of the cinema.
TILL THE CLOUDS ROLL BY (1946) ***
The stunning array of talent behind this tuneful, colorful musical suggests a much better film. With talent like Frank Sinatra, June Allyson, Judy Garland, Lena Horne, Angela Lansbury, Van Johnson, Dinah Shore and Cyd Charisse singing the classic showtunes of Broadway stalwart Jerome Kerns, one would expect a 5-star classic. Whenever the musical sequences are unfolding, this is exactly the case. The problem lies in the hackneyed wooden biography between the show-stopping numbers. Robert Walker as the successful tunesmith and Van Heflin as his muse do their best with trite, cliched, heavy-handed material, but whenever big stars are not singing or great dancers like hoofer Gower Champion are not dancing, this too-earnest biopic feels D.O.A. ‘Great’ minus ‘awful’ equals ‘3-stars’. Fast-forward through the turgid drama to get to the good stuff and TILL THE CLOUDS ROLL BY is a 5-star Hollywood musical!
THE SILENCERS (1966) *+
Hm. I remember seeing one of these Matt Helm 007 spy satires as a kid (probably MURDER’S ROW), and quite enjoying it. Ha! Those days are gone. Dean Martin’s Matt Helm is certainly not James Colburn’s Derrick Flint. Same idea, vastly different outcomes. For a satire, THE SILENCERS takes itself awfully seriously. The Flint adventures never made this mistake. THE SILENCERS seems to forget at times, that it’s supposed to be a parody- not the real deal. The plot involves a sinister criminal cabal called the “Big O” (a counterpart to Bond’s SPECTRE), who (naturally!) plot to trigger worldwide nuclear war, which is apparently good business for very bad men. Called back into action against his will (how many hundreds of times have we seen this?), the retired spy must put his playboy lifestyle on hold long enough to save the world. I did enjoy watching supporting actors Stella Stevens as his hapless sidekick, and Victor Buono as cucumber-cool mastermind Tung-Tze. I did not enjoy anything else about it. Avoid.
LISTZOMANIA (1975) **
> British lunatic Ken Russell was a music-man.
. Most of his lifetime’s output involved his obsession with classical music and celebrated composers. Russell has made documentaries about Elgar, and Debussy, and Bartok, and Vaughn Williams. He has made lunatic psychological biographies that skewered Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in THE MUSIC LOVERS, Gustav Mahler in MAHLER, and here- in the craziest film of the lot- Hungarian composer Franz Liszt.
. His reliably twisted take on Liszt is simple and anachronistic: Russell saw him as one of the rock stars of his era, applying all the heavy-handed tropes and trappings of today’s pop stardom to the culture of the mid-1800’s. Liszt and his pal Richard Wagner live lives of privilege and hedonist excess. The wine flows freely and groupies offer their bodies at the drop of a corset. Who better to play a man living this lifestyle than a man who lived this lifestyle for decades? This was the same year Russell brought The Who’s bloated rock opera TOMMY to the big screen, showing not one whit of restraint. Roger Daltry starred in that… Roger Daltry! Perfect! (Or not.) Roger was always an iconic rock star, but never much of an actor. Still, he certainly cuts a figure, pounding away on the piano to an opera house filled with screaming, clutching fans in period costume.
. I really loved THE MUSIC LOVERS, so I was eager to see LISTZOMANIA, but there is really nothing much to recommend this film- outside of Ken Russell’s usual visual shenanigans and Ringo Starr playing… the Pope! And then of course, there is that scene where Daltry seduces his mistress sporting a giant erect phallus about three times the mass of the rest of his body!
– There’s that…
OSLO (2021) ****
Terse, well-written and compelling, this heady true story tackles a heavy subject: the difficult birthing of the Oslo Peace Accords between Israel and their historical nemesis, as represented by the Palestinian Liberation Organization. It was a fraught mission, far more inclined to failure than success. All negotiations had to be back-channel, below the radar, as neither side could be seen publicly to be talking to the other. Ruth Wilson and Andrew Scott are the intermediaries, determined to remain neutral, and avoid inserting themselves into the precarious drama. (We’ll see how long that lasts…) I must say, I am very taken with this leading lady. I haven’t seen much of Ruth Wilson, but something about her face fascinates me. Ms. Wilson is a talented cutie! I find that I haven’t much to say about this, except to urge you to see it. The actors are uniformly fine, and the script crackles with life. OSLO is very nuanced and accomplished filmmaking, that sheds an illuminating light on a process that usually happens behind closed doors.
ARABIAN NIGHTS (1974) **
I rather enjoyed Pier Paolo Pasolini’s THE CANTERBURY TALES, so I thought I’d check out this third installment in his “Trilogy of Life”. As you can tell from my rating, I certainly did not enjoy much of anything about this stilted, turgid mess. Like that second installment (THE DECAMERON was the first), the film is kind of an anthology of short stories- in this case derived from the ancient Arabic adventure “The Book of One Thousand and One Nights”. The locations and costuming often dazzle, though they aren’t always photographed in the optimal light for such grainy film stock that robs otherwise grand scenes of detail. Being Pasolini, there is a good deal of ribald jocularity and pan-sexual eroticism. It’s an earthy affair. But ARABIAN NIGHTS is so scattered and unfocused, and the acting is often, if not usually, somewhere south of calcified. While there was plenty here to delight the eyeball, I certainly was not left with the sense of having watched a satisfying film. Pasolini? Never mind.
HOUSE (1977) *+
> Yikes! Beware the label “cult classic”.
. I have to stop allowing myself to be duped by cinematic hype. If a film looks as bad as this did- it probably is! Promoted as an oddball melding of horror, haunted house ghost story and live-action Scooby-Doo mystery, HOUSE gets off to a great start, with the colorful, quirky singularity of stylized kitsch, but after 20 minutes or so, every succeeding moment is worse than the one that preceded it. This silly South Korean movie does not catch its groove, it catches fire and self-immolates in a smoldering heap of failure. What its cultists see in it escapes me. But then, most overt, graphic horror escapes me (as do most Korean imports), though I am not above enjoying supernatural thrills from THE EXORCIST to THE WITCH.
. In this goofball mash-up, we meet a tight clique of flighty, preening schoolgirls with self-consciously archetypal names to match their broad characters. The leader is “Gorgeous” whose broadly comic mates are: capable Brainiac “Prof” (for “professor” no doubt), piano-playing music lover “Melody”, athletic scrapper “Kung Fu”, gluttonous “Mac”, good-natured “Sweet” and doe-eyed daydreamer “Fantasy”. When Gorgeous discovers her widowed father is taking an unpleasant new wife, she writes to a distant aunt, and begs to come visit with her posse. Welcomed enthusiastically, the six giddy nubile innocents travel to stay for a spell at the mysterious woman’s remote rural mansion. When we see the dilapidated country manor it screams “HAUNTED HOUSE!” (Nothing in this film could be accused of being subtle.) Next, we meet the reclusive aunt who is wheelchair-bound… when she wants to be, and she is so creepy we never have a moment’s doubt of her malignance. Creepy, supernatural incidents commence at once. The house seems to be alive, with a malevolent agenda that Auntie is enabling.
. I wish HOUSE were as fun as it sounds. Up to this point, the film works a treat. But aside from the lurid sequence of Melody being graphically consumed by the carnivorous piano she is playing, the events of the film just feel cursory, and each scene offers diminishing returns.
– Oh well. There’s no accounting for “cult” status. This is one HOUSE you can bypass.
RED SEA DIVING RESORT (2019) ***+
> This title is a solid action flick based on real, and dramatic events.
. No one knows for sure the origins of the Black Jewish population in Ethiopia, but it is agreed they are the real deal. This geographical offshoot (which came to be called “Beta Israel”), might have slightly different cultural customs, but they are certainly Jewish people. In the 1970’s, conditions in their African homeland began to become gradually more intolerable, as a mix of economic, political and environmental factors placed the community under enormous stress. They found themselves on the wrong side of civil war, famine and ethnic cleansing. And Israel came to their rescue.
. “Operation Brothers” was only the first of three major efforts, saving roughly 8000 refugees from probable genocide, between 1979 and 1984, by smuggling them out by sea, via neighboring Sudan. It was an inspired ruse: Mossad could use black budget Israeli money to buy the ‘Arous Holiday Village’, an abandoned Italian resort on the shores of the Red Sea, transform it into a fake hotel and use it as cover, to spirit this lost tribe of Israel to their new Jewish homeland.
. Nothing too deep here, it’s a straightforward tale of nail-biting heroism- another “white savior” flick. In the real events, the Ethiopian rebels played a major role. Here, it’s the pretty white folk’s story. (Are all Israeli intelligence agents this beautiful?) Ironically, this population of Beta Israelis- once made so welcome in the state of Israel, struggle to this day to make a home of their new country. They complain of being ostracized for their differing customs (no circumcision, for one), and, sadly, for the color of their skin. Israel did a wonderful thing by welcoming these people in- but it helped expose the racist underbelly of a nearly homogenous culture. Wherever you have a large majority of whiteness- you have racism. But if the viewer does not let these realities cloud the film experience, this is a bang-up thriller! It has it all: good, if flawed people to root for, and nasty bad guys who ooze menace. The capable cast features Chris Evans, Ben Kingsley, Greg Kinnear, and comely Haley Bennett- her bulging breasts demanding your attention! (Awfully sexy for an undercover agent in a Muslim country.) It’s excellently paced and packed with tense close calls. But ultimately, RED SEA DIVING RESORT is a feel-good movie. It feels good to do the right thing, or to watch people doing it, under life-threatening conditions.
– And nothing is more giddy than the liberating flush of freedom, long denied.
BETTER DAYS (2020) ***+
> This Best International Feature nominee from China lays bare the fierce, soul-crushing social phenomenon of the annual state “Gaoko exam”, which determines who will be a scholar and who will be a worker drone.
. There are not nearly enough spaces in Chinese colleges to accommodate everyone who wants to attend. The government runs a kind of lottery of meritocracy. It’s social engineering: meant to direct its citizens into the roles that would best serve the state. Parents will do anything to give their children an advantage- and I do mean anything. It is a thoroughly corrupt system. Nasty tricks abound, bribes, merciless bullying- parents would probably kill to give their offspring a leg-up, if they could get away with it.
. In BETTER DAYS, one vulnerable scholar hires a cocky street thug as her protection from the mean girls who would cut her, if given the chance. But things go south when her worst tormentor dies in an accident that is mistaken for murder, and the two become prime suspects- each utterly faithful to the other, with a loyalty that could seal dark fates.
. There is much of interest here. It’s always good for insulated Americans to be exposed to foreign cultures. As Top Dog, we have an awfully narrow vision of the world. This is interesting for the sympathetic light the Chinese police are cast in. The detectives trying to solve the case seem almost unrealistically compassionate about the young couple. They seem to know they are victims themselves, of a social economic order that makes every individual compete against every other individual. China does not have “communism”, it has hyper-capitalism, rigidly controlled by a fascist party that has only one agenda: to use its people to achieve its own geopolitical aims.
– Illuminating. And sad. Sadly illuminating.
KILL LIST (2011) ***+
> I have been very interested in British filmmaker Ben Wheatley since I was gobsmacked by his stunning experimental drama A FIELD IN ENGLAND…
. When I dig a filmmaker, I try to see all their past work. I managed to see SIGHTSEERS, but was not very impressed. This has been on my radar for a while, but a film titled KILL LIST about the travails of a couple of hapless hitmen is bound to be violent, and I am actively trying to avoid gratuitous violence as entertainment. But, you know… Ben Wheatley! So I gave it a whirl.
. These two hitmen du jour are ex-soldiers in working-class England, out of the military to find British society doesn’t really have a place for them, off the battlefield. Naturally, they become contract killers. (Hey- you gotta use the skillset you have.) Jay is a family man, who returned form a disastrous gig in Kiev shaken, injured and gun-shy. His wife is hip to his unsavory, immoral and illegal profession, and tired of seeing him mope around the house all day brooding, while unpaid bills pile up. He feels pressured to take a new assignment, from a psychopath who takes the contract very, very seriously. (There is blood involved…) When the duo tries to bow out of the job, they realize how truly fucked they are.
. This is one of those thrillers that throws a wrench in the works at the last moment, pushing the narrative into wild, unpredictable terrain that teeters on surrealism. That is not always a good thing. But here: good news! KILL LIST gets much more interesting at this point.
– And in the process, Wheatley offers us weird, kabuki horror of an outcome that haunts after the closing credits roll.
THE EMPEROR JONES (1933) ****+
> Paul Robeson does Eugene O’Neill! And it’s a damn good thing.
. I remember reading the play as a theatre-mad 12-year old kid, and though I have never seen a production, it captured my imagination. 53 years later, upon finally seeing the film version, I can see why. And the backstory is even more intriguing than the film. I will have to stop myself from just regurgitating the many fascinating things I learned about the great American Playwright and Robson’s actor, singer, scholar and civil rights advocate from this movie’s Wikipedia page! (Like about the way O’Neill dropped crude racial epithets into his everyday discourse, and that he was once lost in the jungle alone, feverish and hallucinating- just as his tragic main character is here- or how racy it was considered to have a virile Black man like Robeson appear shirtless in a film in 1933. O, the scandal! Our white women might get… ideas!)
. It’s a tale of the rise and fall of a promising young man, and a stark ridicule of hubris.
. Robeson plays the charming and clever Brutus Jones, just about to set out into the world on one of the only upwardly mobile jobs available to a Black man of his time- to be a Coleman porter on a train. His congregation gives him a thank-you-Jesus sendoff, certain their bright, moral young ambassador will make good in a White Man’s World. But they don’t know homeboy very well. Jones is a weak man- susceptible to the wanton corruptions of the flesh, with a weakness for drink and gambling, a quickness to violence, a sense of entitled impunity and superiority, and a Trumpian moral compass that always points to what’s in it for him. The big man’s flaws quickly come to define him, when Jones ends up not working for the railroad, but working on a chain gang. He manages to escape to sea, shoveling coal on a steamer, until he discovers the ship is headed to an unfriendly port that could send him right back to prison, diving into the ocean and swimming to a nearby island for refuge. Being the sly trickster he is, Brutus manages to go from condemned prisoner of the island natives, to their all-powerful “Emperor Jones”.
. Is there a downfall coming? Does night follow day? All that hubris in one man can only lead to one outcome: personal ruination.
. It is just wonderful to watch Paul Robeson at his peak, and hear him speak O’Neill’s poetic frenzy in the big monologue at the end- the only section lifted verbatim from the play. What a screen presence he was!
– THE EMPEROR JONES is near-classic tragedy of the early 20th century.
BETWEEN TWO WORLDS (1944) ****
> This wartime film is as dark as fantasies get.
. It’s a Twilight Zone kind of setup: A group of refugees gathers to flee the Nazi wave about to sweep over Europe. Without memory of how they got there, they find themselves underway on a large boat in a foggy sea. There is a friendly steward called “Scrubby” who seems eager to make them comfortable on the voyage, but he refuses to reveal any trivial details- like why they are there, or their ultimate destination. Curiously, there are no crew members, or other passengers to be seen. There are two souls on board though- outliers who know the answers to these questions all too well. Unable to escape the looming carnage, husband and wife duo Paul Henried and Eleanor Parker choose suicide. They know they are dead, and that every passenger onboard has died, and is on a journey to judgement day.
. Among the pilgrims to the unknown: John Garfield, who is perfect as a tough, jaded, cynical newspaperman who gets wise to the way things are before everybody else. (Ever since TORTILLA FLAT I have just loved this actor in every performance I’ve seen him give.) Eventually, a jocular but serious Sydney Greenstreet arrives, introduced as “The Examiner”, a judge who will serve as heaven’s proxy, to separate the wheat from the chaff, and determine who deserves redemption, and who does not deserve mercy.
. This fantasy is just a terrific mainspring for existential drama, and despite some inevitable Christian moralizing at the end, it’s a really good one. One could argue that (unlike the original 1930 film and the play it was based on), the inexperienced director gave away the central mystery far to quickly. That’s true, but any vaguely savvy modern viewer could have deduced this early in the first reel, so I didn’t feel the need to be coy about it. The real fireworks come once people know they have left their lives behind, but do not know their ultimate fates.
– BETWEEN TWO WORLDS is a four-star fantasy. That’s a boat we will all find ourself on one day.
TRANSIT (2018) ****+
Another accomplished film from an accomplished director, German cineaste Christian Petzold who brought the world BARBARA, PHOENIX, and UNDINE, delivers a very fine film about identity, loyalty and the heartbreaking fate of refugees. The whole thing feels impeccably constructed. In a fascinating device, Petzold sets his World War II story in modern day Paris- perhaps to lessen the distance between the ever-more distant events of the film and the lives we lead now. The protagonist is Georg, like countless thousands, desperate to escape the Nazi occupation. Through dumb luck, he assumes the identity of a dead author, traveling to Marseilles hoping to escape Europe by boat. But his plans are complicated by the binds of the human heart. Georg falls in love with a woman named Maria and her little boy- but there is a complication. He knows something Maria doesn’t: that the husband she searches so desperately for, is dead. Doing the right thing becomes an heroic act of self-sacrifice. It’s a story of desperation and redemption, expertly told. Christian Petzold is a filmmaker to watch!
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> Well, that does it for month 112 of this cinematic odyssey. Thanks for tagging along! Vive Cinema, my filmic minions!
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