#cate held yvonne's hand
Text
Movies watched in 2017 (11-20)
Continuing my 2017 film journal. So far, I’ve continued to find some real gems!
Three Came Home (dir. Jean Negulesco, 1950)
Documenting the true story of the American Agnes Newton Smith, a writer interred with her son in a Japanese POW camp during WWII, Three Came Home is a decent film, with solid performances and a few standout scenes. It is a movie which the censorship codes held it back from being a more powerful work; you always get the sense that the filmmakers wanted to show more of the graphic and harrowing side of Smith’s ordeal, which included torture and almost being raped. nevertheless, the filmmakers go as far as they could at the time, even allowing star Claudette Colbert to get in front of the camera sans make-up. Everyone is coated in sweat and grime. Sessue Hayakawa is there too as the sympathetic Colonel Suga. He gets one strong scene toward the end of the movie, where he evokes immense grief and guilt without words, a reminder of his power as a performer and his heyday as one of the best starring actors in Hollywood during the 1910s. (7/10)
BBC Sunday-Night Theatre: Nineteen Eighty-Four (1954)
Peter Cushing as Winston Smith—who can resist that? Once again, this man proves he is one of the most underrated actors to have ever stood before a camera. Despite the obvious low budget, this is a great adaptation of Orwell’s novel, much superior to the American feature adaptation made a few years after. In fact, I would say the low budget and cramped sets add to the desolate, gloomy, claustrophobic atmosphere of Oceania’s dystopian world. Everything is dingy and depressing. The ending retains the bleak outlook of Orwell’s novel and Cushing’s great depiction of brokenness only makes it all the creepier. I also want to highlight the great work Yvonne Mitchell does as Julia; she’s pretty and sensual, but not at all a glamorous starlet like the American ‘50s adaptation. Overall, a great version. If you love the book and care about your adaptations being accurate, then you’ll probably enjoy this picture. (9/10)
Reaching for the Moon (dir. Edmund Goulding, 1930)
I wouldn’t really call this movie good and the only folks I can recommend it to are old movie buffs like me, but if you are into pre-code movies, art deco, Bebe Daniels, and/or Douglas Fairbanks Sr., then Reaching for the Moon is worth watching once. The plot is frivolous and forgettable, the pace is slow even for a 70 minute picture, and poor Fairbanks is kind of wasted. He spends some time doing his usual acrobatic thing, but it always feels slapped on and not organic to the scenes. Apparently the movie was originally supposed to be a musical, but the studio cut most of the songs at the last minute since audiences were getting tired of musicals in mid-1930. To be honest, I wish they had kept them in, because the musical numbers are the most energetic and engaging parts of the film. I especially enjoyed Bing Crosby and Bebe Daniels in the jazzy, very Depression-era number “When the Folks High Up Do the Mean Low Down.” Easily, that scene and the art direction are the best assets the movie has to offer; William Cameron Menzies does lovely work on the art deco sets, which are like a dream of 1920s glamor. (6/10)
The Eternal Mother (dir. DW Griffith, 1912)
Like the Griffith short I watched in the last batch, not an essential among his early work. Mabel Normand and Blanche Sweet are wasted as a wanton woman and a virtuous wife. The plot is incredibly thin and silly: a man leaves his good wife for a tart; the tart bears his child and dies on cue. The wife is so good that she takes in the child and the husband spends his years alone until he and the wife reunite as elderly folks. Not much of interest on the technical or story scale. (4/10)
Three Outlaw Samurai (dir. Hideo Gosha, 1964)
I got interested in this one after figuring out Rian Johnson used it as an influence on the next Star Wars movie. I’m guessing most of the influence came from the way Gosha shoots the swordplay, which is very kinetic and rough, but there may be some of the film’s cynical treatment of justice and honor in the new Star Wars too… maybe, since Star Wars is rarely cynical when it comes to good and evil, but we shall see. Regardless, it is a good film, an essential if you like chambara. (8/10)
The Dentist (dir. Leslie Pearce, 1932)
To say WC Fields is weird is an understatement. I would not say I am a fan, but I do adore his surreal and deadpan Yukon parody The Fatal Glass of Beer and generally like The Bank Dick. The Dentist isn’t as impressive as either of those, but it has plenty of good, misanthropic laughs as well as some very risqué humor for 1932 (but then again, this is from the pre-code era). (7/10)
The Fall of the House of Usher (dir. JS Watson Jr. and Melville Webber, 1928)
While not as good as the later Watson and Webber offering, Lot in Sodom, their surreal adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s short story is still dazzling. It actually feels quite modern. It is a modern dress adaptation and conjures more of the dreadful, claustrophobic spirit of the original story rather than sticking closely to the letter. It also has a lot more obvious Caligari influence than the later Lot in Sodom. (9/10)
Fire Over England (dir. William K. Howard, 1937)
I’ve been reading a lot about the Tudors lately and Elizabeth is my favorite of the bunch. After watching the pretty poor Cate Blanchett movie, I went sixty years back to this 1937 adventure film produced by Alexander Korda. While not focusing exclusively on Elizabeth, it does tell a rousing yarn about an English spy (playing by a young and totally adorable Laurence Olivier) out to do business in Philip II’s court before the legendary English victory over the Spanish Armada in the 1580s. It’s a fun swashbuckler complete with broad characters, a hiss-worthy villain, swordplay, and daring escapes, also of historical interest since the conflict between England and Spain is meant to reflect the then-contemporary conflict between most of Europe and the Nazi Germany. Flora Robson is a great screen Elizabeth, commanding and charismatic while also sporting a fierce temper. And though given little to do, Vivien Leigh is ravishing, and even in this early film, she and Olivier are wonderful together. (8/10)
Ruka [The Hand] (dir. Jiri Trnka, 1965)
I was turned onto the work of Czech animator Jiri Trnka by the Brows Held High episode on his 1959 feature adaptation of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. That film is a charming fantasy and heartfelt look at the power of art; however, Trnka’s most famous film, the short “Ruka,” is much darker and proved to be his swan song before he passed away in 1969. It is a political satire about the suppression of artistic expression in totalitarian regimes. It is both darkly hilarious and incredibly bleak. Considering Trnka’s work is usually characterized as nostalgic and whimsical, his final film is strikes a sad, but still powerful chord and remains incredibly relevant even today. (10/10)
Big Deal on Madonna Street (dir. Mario Monicelli, 1958)
So freaking funny! I watched this one because Martin Scorsese recommended it as one of his choices for essential foreign cinema. Though Big Deal is a parody of 1950s heist pictures such as The Asphalt Jungle and Rififi, it is nothing like the pathetic cinematic parodies we get now, like Meet the Spartans or Fifty Shades of Black. Like Airplane or Blazing Saddles, it still understands that it needs to work as an original story with characters we enjoy watching and good gags that don’t really on references to popular culture alone. Big Deal is also interesting in its presentation of everyday life and urban poverty, seeing as our heroes are a mix of sad sack, small time criminals and lower class working folk; in many ways, it feels like a comic romp set in the same universe as The Bicycle Thieves or Umberto D. (9/10)
5 notes
·
View notes
Text
Stateless Review (Spoiler Free): Classy Australian Immigration Drama With a Stellar Cast
https://ift.tt/eA8V8J
“The title of the series refers to statelessness in a more poetic sense,” explains Cate Blanchett, creator of six part Australian drama Stateless, the latest acquisition for Netflix, which originally aired on ABC, Australia’s national broadcaster. It also, of course, refers to some of the inhabitants of the immigrant detainee center at the heart of the show – many of whom are refugees who can’t be returned to country where they held citizenship (not necessarily stateless then, but as Blanchett also points out, the title is metaphoric rather than strictly legal).
It’s a weighty but accessible drama that would have felt at home on Channel 4 in the UK – HBO in the States – with a distinct Aussie flavor, elevated by excellent performances from the high quality and high profile cast.
The show focuses on four main characters. Sofie Werner (The Hand Maid’s Tale star Yvonne Strahovski) is an Australian citizen suffering severe mental health issues triggered by trauma experienced while she was part of a cult. Ameer (Fayssal Bazzi) is an Afghan refugee hoping for a protection visa for him and his family. Cameron (Jai Courtney) is a soft hearted blue collar worker who takes a job at the detention center to earn a bit of money. While Clare (Asher Keddie) is the new director of the center promoted out of her comfort zone and faced with politics and media every way she turns. Additional supporting characters in and outside the centre paint a picture of a flawed system that imprisons people who have committed no crimes often for excessively long periods of time while policy, publicity and red tape prevent asylum seekers from being given the support they need.
Not a bundle of laughs then, Stateless isn’t a didactic diatribe either. A non-linear narrative weaving flashbacks together to tell the backstories of the main characters adds colour and context while the linear elements follow the decline of the prisoners and staff stuck at the detention centre.
Strahovski is terrific as Sofie, a young flight attendant who becomes embroiled in a self-actualisation group run by charismatic leaders played by Blanchett and Dominic West. There she is encouraged to explore her difficult relationship with her family and becomes increasingly dependent on the group until a traumatic incident sees her expelled, rejected and losing her grip on reality. Strahovski’s performance is fearless and Sofie’s mental health issues are handled with sensitivity. Her journey is our introduction to the detainment camp and her story is compelling and unusual – she’s based on a real person, Cornelia Rau, who was detained for ten months in 2004 and 2005. It’s Ameer’s case that is the more tragic and the more typical, though, with political loopholes hampering his request for the protection visa that has personally cost him and his family so much.
Jai Courtney’s Cameron is highly sympathetic here too – and Courtney is fantastic. A gentle family man who takes a role as an officer to make a bit of cash, he’s a good bloke who tries to do the right thing but struggles to maintain his sense of self within a deeply flawed system.
As the title suggests, these characters are displaced, untethered in the never-ending no man’s land of the detainment center. The Australian setting and the heat and monotony of the yard the detainees traipse around even brings to mind Ted Kotcheff’s nightmarish outback horror Wake In Fright. Stateless is nowhere near as traumatic as that masterpiece but the sense of these people – detainees and staff alike – being drawn into a shared madness in a dusty liminal space is haunting enough. Stateless is a grown up and highly cinematic drama, innovatively told, with a great script, and powerhouse performances all round. Running at just under six hours in total, with (we hope) no plans for further series it’s an important, but never preachy, look at some of the problems with immigration law as well as a strange self-contained tale inspired by the truth, which may resonant even harder at a time where we’re all confined to small spaces in a world we hardly recognise.
Stateless is streaming on Netflix now.
The post Stateless Review (Spoiler Free): Classy Australian Immigration Drama With a Stellar Cast appeared first on Den of Geek.
from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3fk6bKM
0 notes
Last Seen Blogs
