In the Mood for Movies
My November in Films
I got a bit obsessed last month with watching scary movies. Meanwhile I amassed a backlog of intriguing films that didn't fit the theme. It was inevitable, then, that my movie craze was going to extend into November. Here's what I watched.
Wong Kar-wai
I had seen Chunking Express some time in the last year and was curious about the rest of Hongkonger Wong Kar-wai's oeuvre. All of Wong's work is stylish with unbelievable color. And incidentally, he usually finds a way to fit mahjong in somewhere.
My favorite of these was In the Mood for Love, a romance full of yearning and regret. It also has some filmmaking tricks up its sleeve that bowled me over. This one is a new favorite that I expect to rewatch over the years.
2046 was the other that jumped out to me. It borrows some ideas directly from Wong's previous titles, but it's also unique among the set with its sci-fi flavor and shuffled structure. Where the former film expresses the erotic through tension, this one chooses the overt.
Thriller/Horror
I loved Seconds. It's like an episode of The Twilight Zone but starring Rock Hudson. I had no idea such a thing existed. It explores profound questions through a sci-fi conceit. It's full of ideas, and every scene is essential to the story. Titles by Saul Bass. It's right up my alley. A new favorite.
Eyes Without a Face shares a theme with Seconds: if you go under the knife, changing your looks, can you change your life? It's less focused, but it's engrossing and features an iconic design in the costuming of the character Christiane. Really cool hidden gem.
The Night of the Hunter is such a mixed bag for me. It’s magnificently shot and Robert Mitchum’s itinerant preacher character is unforgettable. But the tense thriller unexpectedly gives way to a drawn-out childlike fantasy before ultimately concluding in ham-fisted moralizing. Its highs are high though.
François Truffaut
Confidentially Yours is a crime/comedy/romance that I found to be so much fun. The female lead’s character is a delight. I love that, even though it was shot in the 80s, it’s black and white, a choice that harkens back to the era when films like this were a mainstay.
I was interested in The Soft Skin because I heard that it was Hitchockian. Truffaut made it after his project interviewing Hitch, and you can see the influence in terms of filmmaking, although not in theme which I was sort of hoping for. I’ve seen enough French films now—and this is the one that caused my revelation—to realize that mainly what French cinema is interested in is love triangles and extramarital affairs.
Speaking of love triangles and extramarital affairs, there's Jules and Jim, a film that starts off as a fast and free comedy which then takes a turn I didn’t expect or enjoy. I thought it was well done though, and it made me appreciate the innovations of the French New Wave.
40s Dames
Laura is my second Otto Preminger film; having enjoyed Anatomy of a Murder last month, I was ready to try this little noir starring Gene Tierney. Wait a sec, last month I viewed my first Gene Tierney picture too, Leave Her to Heaven. It’s connections all the way down. Anyway, this is a great, twisty mystery that I’d happily watch again when I’ve slightly forgotten how things play out.
The best thing about Gilda is Rita Hayworth. She dances, sings, and acts circles around her co-stars. This is the kind of performance that inspires an entire Shawshank Redemption. It’s too bad the rest of the movie doesn’t rise to her level.
I looked forward to trying the thriller Rebecca—by my count it marks the 20th Alfred Hitchcock picture I’ve seen—and it didn’t disappoint. Hitch’s signature craft is on full display here. The stars are great and Judith Anderson (who was also great in Laura) is memorable as the threatening Mrs. Danvers. I'd place this in the second tier of Hitchcock's work, second only to his all-time bangers.
Powell and Pressburger
Having loved the Michael Powell solo direction of Peeping Tom last month, I was curious about his legendary partnership with co-director Emeric Pressburger.
A Matter of Life and Death was my favorite of the four. I loved how it balanced law and love, reason and fantasy, black and white. I smiled the whole time. Double feature idea: It's a Wonderful Life, which happens to have been released the same year. Something was in the air in '46!
Black Narcissus features stunning compositions, vivid and evocative color, and a melodrama that enthralled me with surprising power. Double feature idea: Martin Scorsese's Silence.
Earlier this year I tried to watch The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp and I turned it off. I think I had confused it with The Adventures of Baron Munchausen so my expectations were off. After watching a handful of Powell/Pressburger films this month I decided to try it again. It might be their masterpiece. I think I prefer the previous two films, but I have to give credit where it's due; this one's great, a war epic with insights on friendship and aging.
I usually don't go for musicals, and The Red Shoes didn't inspire newfound fascination with the genre, but I did appreciate how the musical within the musical reflected the film's themes.
I Know Where I’m Going has its charms but ultimately it was not for me.
2024 Releases
Conclave is one of those movies where all the drama takes place between some of our best actors in only a few rooms. I had fun getting sucked into the intrigue and Ralph Finnes is, as ever, amazing.
A Real Pain is a charming movie that displays some profound insights into the human condition. It explores its title's theme on at least three levels, internal, relational, and social. But it's funny. It affords us the opportunity to reflect seriously about our psychies, and also to laugh at ourselves.
Movies with my kids
It was a joy to share these all-time classics with my kids.
Misc
La Jetée is a short film I saw at some point earlier in life, but my memories of it were vague. I remembered finding its sci-fi conceits striking, but I couldn't recall much else about it, and didn't know how to find it. I figured it was not well-known. But I did some sleuthing on the web, like ya do, and I found out it's a much-celebrated work! On the rewatch I thought its ideas fascinate and its visual language make for interesting experiment. Probably won't go down as a favorite short film for me though.
Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles tops BFI's Sight and Sound poll, so I thought I'd see what the fuss was about. I now count it among my least favorite films of all time.
Semi-spoilers follow: this movie plays a trick on its audience. It starts out by depicting its protagonist's mundane life in excruciatingly long takes. For example, you spend minutes looking at the actress' back as she does dishes. The camera doesn't move. After an hour and forty minutes of scenes like this, when the viewer's good faith attempt to find any meaning whatsoever in the film is broken, and their eyes are glazed over, things start to go slightly wrong in the protagonist's routine.
She'll leave a light on when she leaves a room, for example, or a cabinet door open. And I will say that it is an extraordinary feat to make such things surprise and seem meaningful. This section of the film goes on for an hour and thirty minutes. We've watched over 3 hours of movie so far. Then in the final ten minutes the film makes its point.
I was taught that art should cause a reaction, as since I've written more about this film than I have the others, I guess it succeeded, but my goodness.
The Heroic Trio is a nonsensical fantasy martial arts movie starring Michele Yeoh that is a lot of fun to watch when you are in the mood to take nothing seriously.
