Reviews

"Aparajito" (1956) is the second episode of the "Apu trilogy" by Satyajit Ray. Recently I saw the first part "Pather Panchali" (1955) and wrote a review about this film.

In this review I talked about some characteristics of the "Apu trilogy" as a whole of which the most important ones are:

The trilogy has been very important for Indian cinema. It is different either from English directors such as David Lean ("A passage to India", 1984) or Powell and Pressburger ("Black Narcissus", 1947) situating some of their pictures in India but also from Bollywood. In the first instance the director (consciously or unconsciously) looks at India through colonial spectacles. The second example is pure entertainment.

The trilogy (and this is one of its strongest points) has both an Indian flavor but also illustrates universal problems in human relations.

The trilogy is based on two novels. "Aparajito" is based on the last part of the first novel and the first part of the second novel. Added to this are some autobiographical elements from the director. Nevertheless the endings of both "Pather Panchali" as "Aparajito" are both very natural cliffhangers.

In "Pather Panchali" Apu is approximately 5-7 years old, during most of "Aparajiti" he is a student between approximately 16-18 years old.

"Pather Panchali" is situated on the country side, most of "Apparajito" is situated in the big city's of Varanasi / Benares and Calcutta.

There are also similarities between the two films. In "Pather Panchali" there already was a hint about the train stimulating mobility and migration from the countryside to the big city. This hint evolves into the train playing a big symbolic role in "Aparajito".

Another similarity is the suffering of the mother. In "Pather Panchali" she suffers from a rather care free husband failing to bring in enough money to support the family. In "Aparajito" she suffers from an ambitious son. Children "flying out" is of course a universal theme, but in "Aparajito" it leads to a number of heartbreaking scenes. For example the scene in which the mother writes in a letter to her son with between the lines the message that her health is detoriorating. The son is to busy passing exams, reads the letter not carefully enough only to find out too late.

Last but not least the music for both movies was composed by Ravi Shankar. This famous Indian musician would later have a great influence on the pop scenes of the 60s and 70s. In my opinion his score is more prominent in "Aparajito" than in "Pather Panchali". It is very beautiful but on the verge of manipulative in some emotional scenes.

There are a lot of reasons why I wanted to watch "Handling the undead".

In the first place the land of origin being Norway. In stead of other Scandinavian countries like Sweden or Denmark, Norway does not really have a film culture. For a long time "Insomnia" (1997, Erik Skjoldbjærg) was the only film from a Norwegian director I had seen. The last couple of years Joachim Trier has put Norwegian film on the map but the female debutant Thea Hvistendahl is nevertheless a more than welcome addition.

Secondly the film is based on a novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist. In the past I had already seen two films based on his writings ("Let the right one in" , 2008, Tomas Alfredson and "Gräns", 2018, Ali Abbasi). They were both strange but also very good.

Thirdly I would like to mention (one of the) lead actresses. Renate Reinsve was the star in "The worst person in the world" (2021, Joachim Trier) but didn't succumb to the temptations of Hollywood (until now).

Last but not least are the very different opinions in reviews, ranging from brilliant to this debutant director has a lot to learn. Good reviews are a recommendation but vastly differing reviews are in my opinion an even greater recommendation. They promise an interesting and controversial movie.

"Handling the undead" indeed is an interesting movie. It is classified as "horror", more specifically "zombie horror". Thinking of the films of George Romero (for example "Night of the living dead" , 1968) is however totally misleading (although in a few scenes it is evident that the director was inspired by Romero). The undead in "Handling the undead" are neither anonymously nor agressive (at least at first). They are instead recently deceased loved ones of the main characters (a child, a partner, a mother).

"Handling the undead" is more a film about mourning than a real horror movie. The comparison with movies such as "Three billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri" (2017, Martin McDonagh) and "Departures" (2008, Yojiro Takita) is just as legitimate as a comparison with Romero.

"Handling the undead" is a film with very sparce dialogue. The undead don't talk at all and their relatives talk little because there is no one to talk to.

The ending is very beautiful. Coming to the conclusion that the undead isn't the person she once knew the mother realizes that she has to let go in order to continue with her own life.

"Everybody's fine" is about a father from Sicily (Marcello Mastroianni) with 5 children living on the Italian mainland. Normally the children visit their father on Sicily, but in the film the father goes on a railtrip to Naples, Rome, Florence, Milan and Turin to visit his children. During this railtrip many illusions are shattered.

"Everybody's fine" has approximately the same theme as "Tokyo story" (1953, Yasujiro Ozu), but there are important nuances. In "Tokyo story" the children are primarily to busy to receive their parents and the disappointment of the father about their careers comes in second place.

In "Everybody's fine" the children put a lot of effort in the visit of their father, but this effort mainly goes into keeping up appearances. A lingerie model pretends she is an actress and the ex partner of a divorced daughter temporarily moves in again. As these examples illustrate the disappointment of the father is not restricted to the careers of his children.

"Everybody's fine" in his turn generated a couple of remakes, most notably an American one (2009, Kirk Jones) with Robert de Niro as the main character. Robert de Niro is of course a great actor but,as Roger Ebert remarks: "There are many things he does better than anyone else alive, but playing nice isn't one of them.". Marcello Mastroianni in a late role is a more convincing nice old man.

There is also a Chinese remake (2016, Zhang Meng). An interesting question relating to these different versions made in different countries is to what extent a film like "Everybody's fine" depends on the country's culture having extended families.

Not a remake but nevertheless an interesting comparisson to make is with "Eight grade" (2018, Bo Burnham), a film I wrote a review about recently. "Eight grade" is also a film about keeping up appearances, but this time in social media and not by means of a white lie.

The success of "Everybody's fine" was not as great as director Giuseppe Tornatore had two years earlier with "Cinema Paradiso". In a very good review at You tube they tried to guess the reason why. The only answer they could find was the absence of a happy ending, because otherwise "Everybody's fine" is a very good movie. A few examples.

In the scenes when the father goes to the next child by train, the child just visited puts off his mask, tired of keeping up appearances.

The dream sequences when the father sees the child he is going to visit as a toddler. Towards the end of the film there is a (spooky) sequence when the father sees all his children as toddlers, telling him the things the adult versions have tried to hide for him with so much effort.

The scene when the father is in hospital after a haert attack and all his children are around his bed. He remarks : "Finally I managed to get you all together".

His advise to his grandson whose girlfriend is pregnant to raise the child as a normal person and not as person who should become important.

Best of all is however the very end when the father is back in Sicily and reports his finding at the grave of his wife. He also tells white lies. Hypocrisy or progressive Insight?

"Pather Panchali" (1955) was the debutfilm of director Satyajit Ray. In effect it was the debutfilm of nearly the whole cast! The film would become the first episode of the Apu trilogy, the other episodes being "Aparajito" (1956) and "Apur Sansar" (1959).

The film is about the poverty of the leading family and has much in common with the work of the Italian Neo Realists directly after the Second World War. Reading other reviews after watching the movie it was no surprise to me that a major source of inspiration for director Ray had been "Bycicle thieves" (1948, Vittorio De Sica).

"Pather Panchali" was very different from other films situated in India. Films made by an English director such as "Black Narcissus" (1947, Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger) and "A passage to India" (1984, David Lean) view the country through another (colonial) spectacle. Bollywood films on the other hand are primarily entertainment, as is befitting to a dream factory. As a matter of fact the government of the still young independent India was not very pleased with the film so cleary showing the excisting poverty.

Ray may have been inspired by the Italian Neo Realist movment, this is not to say that "Pather Panchali" hasn't unique elements of its own. The poverty of the family is partly due to the very easy going character of the father. At least this is my interpretation. This way there creeps an element of own responsibility into the poverty, at least as long as the father is concerned. You will never find such an element in the Italian Neo Realist movies.

It is the mother who tries to manage the family and handle the poverty the best way she can. Seen in this way there is already a feminist touch in the movie. In his later movie "The big city" (1963) (which I will see soon, as it is part of the Ray-retrospective showing in Dutch cinema's at the moment) Ray even introduces a woman having her own job, very rare in the India of those days.

Also prominent in the film is a very old aunt that weights heavily on the family (no working but still eating). I doubt if this is a typical Indian element. Also in Europe the social security for retired people came in most countries not earlier than the sixties.

The movie has not a real plot but is very rich in special scenes. I will mention only a few.

The train was something special in India in those days. Apu and his older sister are prepared to take a long walk to see one. This train takes on the symbolism of freedom and more or less foreshadows leaving the region at the end of the movie.

The older daughter catch a fever and her mother is of course very worried about this. Somehow the film manages to convey these worries. During the scene you are no less worried than the mother!

At the end of the movie the familie leaves the house that contains so many bad memories by now. This to the dismay of the rest of the village, because the house has been a family dwelling for a couple of generations. How can you do that! While the family drives away in a carriage (a cliffhanger to the next episode) a big snake crawls into the now empty house.

It becomes a (good) tradition to restore and re-release classic movies at their anniversaries. Not long ago it happened to "Pulp fiction (1994, Quentin Tarantino) on its 30th anniversary, and now it happens to "Paris, Texas" (1984, Wim Wenders) on its 40th anniversary. I wonder which film of 1975 they wil re-release in the coming year?

At the beginning I saw a strong connection with "Rain man" (1988, Barry Levinson). A normal brother in search for his strange brother who also has a fear of flying. Later the similarities with another movie became more pronounced, about which later.

Lets first consider what a bunch of talent came together to make this movie.

Director Wim Wenders (Neue Deutsche welle) assisted by Claire Denis, who would become a respected director of her own ("Beau travail" (1999)).

Cinematographer Robby Muller, sometimes compared with the Dutch painter Vermeer, who would later make "Breaking the waves" (1996) with Lars von Trier Actor Harry Dean Stanton ("Alien" (1979, Ridley Scott)) and actress Nastassja Kinski with whom Wim Wenders had already collaborated in "Falsche bewegung" (1975).

A soundtrack by Ry Cooder, with whom Wim Wenders would collaborate again in "Buena Vista Social Club" (1999).

The story of "Paris, Texas" is about Travis (Harry Dean Stanton). We encounter Travis at the beginning of the movie, walking in a desert. The marriage of Travis has broken down, and little by little it is revealed why. Jane (Nastassje Kinski), the former wife of Travis, has disappeared and his son Hunter (Hunter Carson) is raised by his brother and sister in law. Once he has moved in by his brother, Travis tries to re-establish himself as the father of Hunter. When this is accomplished the next step is re-uniting the boy with his biological mother.

"Paris, Texas" is above all a film about redemption. Travis does penance for his earlier sins. The opening shot with Travis walking through the desert even has something Biblical. Travis starts lonely and after improving his social skills (see both his picking up Hunter from school and his monologue with Jane at the end of the movie) in the middle part of the film he ends lonely again at the end. Re-establishing the relation with his son ultimately is only a means to re-unite him with his mother, sacrificing his own part in the family. Evidently Travis still don't trust himself in this respect.

Earlier in this review I indicated that there is another film with which "Paris, Texas" has a closer relationship than with "Rain man". This film is "The searchers" (1956, John Ford). Travis is a bit like the Ethan (John Wayne) character in this film in multiple ways. The most important way is the unyielding effort to restore family life (in "The serachers" with respect to niece Debbie). The question is of this always is in the best interest of the "beneficiary". To be honest in my opinion there was nothing wrong with the way (and the love) with which Hunter was raised by his stepparents.

Apart from the psychological themes "Paris, Texas" is also a road movie, and a very good one. A piece of "Americana" created by a German director. This alone is an achievement in itself.

"Paradies: Liebe" (2012) is the first episode of the "Paradies" trilogy of Ulrich Seidl. The other episodes are "Paradies: Glaube" (2012) and "Paradies Hoffnung" (2013). The epsisodes are about the desires of respectively the mother, the sister and the daughter of one family.

I watched the film with a group discussion afterwards and that is really helpful in writing this review. Beforehand the film was announced as confronting. This is of course the case, but having seen a trailer of the earlier Seidl film "Import Export" (2007) it wasn't too bad.

The film is about a middle aged woman going on a sex vacation in Kenia. The debate afterwards centered around the questions:

How to compare the subject with a (hypothetical) film about a male going on sex vacation to for example Thailand?

What to think about the relation between the (older) white women and the (young) black beach boys?

To begin with the first question I think there are three main differences.

In this film the main character initially comes for love and not for sex. Only gradually it dawns on her that the boys are only selling sex (despite talking otherwise).

There is no pre arranged price. Only afterwards the gigolo begins to talk about his sick sister or father. It is amazing how long the women choose to believe these lies, of course against better judgment.

The balance of power between the women and the boys seem not totally one sided. Of course the economic power lies with the women (very rich in the eyes of Africans) but the emotional power seems to reside with the boys who are less fragile because they don't have the illusion of romance.

All in all I think that a film about male sex tourism would be more characterized by the perpetrator (the dirty old man) - victim (the young prostitute) contrast. In "Paradies: Liebe" both parties are victims. I am rather sure that the middle aged woman returns from her vacation more sad than she ever was. By the way the same also applies to the visitor after seeing this film. Sadder and wiser.

On closer inspection the considerations I have made about the balance of power in relation to the first question are in fact the answer to the second question.

This does however not keep some women from thinking that their money allows them to treat the African boys horribly racist.

An image I found very impressing (and symbolic) is the one with the Western tourists on comfortable sun loungers and a lot of African men waiting on the beach (until their services were needed). The two groups are seperated by a rope. You can see this image also on some posters of "Paradies: Liebe".

The movies of Ulrich Seidl often have a documentary flair about them. Such images as described above show that in "Paradies: Liebe" there was more attention for designing the frame. Maybe this is due to the fact that apart from his usual cinematographer Wolfgang Thaler also Edward Lachman, known for some beautifully photographed Todd Haynes movies, was involved.

Ali Abbasi is one of the most interesting directors of today. Born in Iran he went to Sweden to study architecture and afterwards to Denmark to study film. Before "Holy spider" (2022) he made the strange, not to be categorized film "Border" (2018) and thereafter he made the biopic "The apprentice" (2024) about the young Trump.

"Holy spider" is a neo noir film about a serial killer. This killer targets only prostitutes, so one involuntarily thinks about Jack the Ripper. Another comparison frequently made in reviews is with Travis Bickle (Robert de Niro) in "Taxi driver" (1976, Martin Scorsese). Bickle admittedly not only targeted women, but he also saw his role as a sort of garbage man cleaning the city from scum. Just as the Iranian serial killer Bickle was also a war veteran having problems to re-integrate in civil life.

There have been other films about serial killers and "Holy spider" will not be the last one. The Iranian context nevertheless makes the film special in several ways. In the first place the Iranian drugs- and prostitute scene is really something different from ordinary downtown in a Western city. Of course it couldn't be filmed in Iran itself and so production took place in Jordan.

In the second place a religious motivated serial killer is more plausible in a country like Iran, and especially in a city like Mashad. Mashad is a very religuous city in which Imam Reza is worshipped. I was in Iran in 1998 during a relatively liberal period, but Mashad was the city I felt least comfortable in. By the way, the story is not only plausible, it is based on real facts (as far as the murders are concerned).

Some reviews argue that the murders are shown too explicitely. I don't think so. The stills I saw from a rather old film such as "Frenzy" (1972, Alfred Hitchcock) were not less explicit. By showing the murders and the removing of the dead bodies we can see the clumsiness of the whole process. In some films serial killers are portrayed as disturbed masterminds. This killer is certainly disturbed but not a mastermind at all.

The character of the female crime reporter (Arezoo Rahimi) was added to the story and not based on real facts. She is played by Zar Amir Ebrahimi, an Iranian woman who has emigrated to France. It is an important character because it shows that women in Iran need not only be afraid of a serial killer but also experience everyday "inconveniences". When Rahimi in the beginning of the movie tries to check in in a hotel as a single woman she gets remarks about her scarf in the first place and is initially refused (despite a reservation) in the second place. That the word "inconvenience" is a terrible understatement was revealed in the same year that the film was released when the 22 year old girl Mahsa Amini was arrested and died under suspicious circumstances because she did not wear the hijab according to the official standards.

Perhaps the most scary part of the movie is the final part, when the killer has been arrested. This part reveals that (a) some conservative citizens consider him a martyr and not a criminal and (b) his successor is actually already there to keep up the "good" work.

"Quand vient l'automne" can be translated as "When fall comes". In this film this can be taken literally as the film has many beautiful images of fall but also figuratively as the film is about two old ladies who are overtaken by their own past.

The film starts with one of the old ladies serving a meal of self-picked mushrooms to her daughter. The daugther becomes very sick but survives. Because the tension between the daughter and mother was already there before the meal the question is, was this an accident or an assassination attempt? This is the beginning of a film full of plot twists.

The mushroom poisoning theme made me think of "Fiorile" (1993, Paolo and Vittorio Taviani).

The film full of plot twists made me think of the earlier Ozon movie "Huit femmes" (2002).

Compared to "Quand vient l'automne" "Huit femmes" is a purely artifical movie. "Quand vient l'automne" is much more naturalistic although not in every respect plausible.

In "Huit femmes" there are only female characters, in "Quand vient l'automne" there are also male characters, but not in a father role. There seem to be only mothers.

"Huit femmes" is a pure "who-donnit", "Quand vient l'automne" is much more of the "why-did he/she do it" nature

"Quand vient l'automne" is entertainment in the first place. It is good entertainment but in my opinion a bit less entertaining as "Huit femmes". This is due to the fact that the film contains a few little flaws. I will mention two of them.

For the first one I return to the accident / assassination question I mentioned in the beginning of this review. At the start of the film memory disorder is suggested as a third possible reason by way of a few "absences" of the main character. This possibility remains up in the air for the rest of the film.

In the second place the character of daughter Valérie is very one dimensional (and very unsympathetic). Valérie is played by Ludivine Sagnier, who can do much better. She proved this for example in (you might guess it) .... "Huit femmes".

There are other films about alcohol addiction. Examples are "The lost weekend" (1945, Billy Wilder) and "Under the volcano" (1984, John Huston).

"Leaving Las Vegas" is however in my opinion not primarily about alcoholism. The phase of getting addicted is practically skipped (although I missed the first few minutes of the movie) and later in the movie there are only a few indications of the reason. In a scene where lead character Ben Sanderson (Nicolas Cage) burns all his possesions after being fired, we also see a picture of a woman thrown into the flames. This maybe his former wife although she looks more like a pin up. Later in the movie Sanderson says: "I don't know if I started drinking 'cause my wife left me or my wife left me 'cause I started drinking".

Also skipped is the phase of trying to quit. The quote I just mentioned was incomplete. The full quote is: "I don't know if I started drinking 'cause my wife left me or my wife left me 'cause I started drinking, but fuck it anyway.". When Ben gets a relationship with the prostitute Sera (Elisabeth Sheu) he warns her as follows: "Sera... what you don't understand is - no, see, no. You can never, never ask me to stop drinking. Do you understand?".

What remains is the phase of pure self destruction. In this respect the film resembles in my opinion "La grande bouffe" (1973, Marco Ferreri). To my surprise I didn't read about this resemblance in other reviews.

By the way the writer of the book on which the film is based also commited suicide after writing the book. His father even called the book a suicide note.

Just like in "La grande bouffe" this sort of self destruction seems to need the accompaniment of prostitutes, but unlike "La grande bouffe" in "Leaving Las Vegas" a serious and tender relationship evolves. From the viewpoint of the prostitute there seems to be no logic at all behind this relationship. The film contains a couple of monologues of the prostitue to an invisible psychologist from a period after the story. These monolgues doesn't explain the relationship either. For the average viewer the relationship between a prostitute and her client evolving in "Pretty woman" (1990, Garry Marshall) is easier to understand.

In 1924 Buster Keaton made two movies, and both were of good quality. I am talking about "Sherlock Jr" and "The navigator".

Both are typical Keaton movies, the plot in the boy meets girl format, but essentialy being only a framework for the gags.

In "The navigator" the plot is about a boy and a girl finding themselves all alone on board of a cruiseship adrift on the ocean. How they got there is a complicated story (watch the movie!) but more important in my opinion is that both the boy and the girl are rich and spoiled. On their own they need to collaborate to survive.

The gags in "The navigator" are frequently of a man versus machine type. In this way they are more typical for Keaton than the gags from "Sherlock Jr".

Some of the gags are maybe a bit too long, I am thinking about the one in which the two inhabitants of the ship (knowing of each others presence) just nearly miss each other all the time walking over the ship, but others are brilliant.

I give two examples.

The first example is the one in which cabin doors perform a strange choreography under the the influence of the waves of the sea.

The second example is even more noteworthy as it has an echo later in the film. It is difficult to prepare a meal for many persons in the small kitchen of your apartment. The gag however is about the opposite situation. It is also difficult to prepare a dinner for two in a professional kitchen mean to accommodate hundreds of meals a day.

Later in the movie we see how Rollo Treadway (the Buster Keaton character) had overcome this difficulty using tailor made equipment of his own.

In "Nights of Cabiria" we follow a naive prostitute nicknamed Cabiria (Giulietta Masina).

Although her profession is selling sex for money she is also desperately looking for love. In her quest for love she meets various bad men so that effectively she is "buying" affection.

Towards the end of the film she meets a guy that seems nice to her for a change, but can he really be trusted. That's the question!

While watching the movie I had to think about "The match factory girl" (1990, Aki Kaurismäki). In that film there is also a girl deceived by a treacherous man.

There are however also differences between these two films. In "Nights of Cabiria" there are several bad man, Cabiria has a real talent finding them! On the other hand Cabiria finds some support by her co workers, while the girl in "The match factory girl" only has exploitative parents, living on her wages.

The main difference is however resilience. Whereas the Kaurismäki muze Kati Outinen becomes ever more desperate, Giulietta Masina is somehow capable to overcome the umpteenth blow of fate.

In this combination of naivety and resilience Cabiria resembles the little tramp character of Charlie Chaplin. Probably not by coincidence because Fellini was a big fan of Chaplin.

In the original release one scene was deleted. It is a peculiair scene because in it Cabiria meets a man who is not bad at all. He provides some homeless of Rome with their basic necessities. Although the scene is peculiair it is hard to see why it is deleted. In it there is no violence or sex whatsoever. I later read that the Roman Catholic church objected to this scene because charity was their job. Amazing!

"Nights of Cabiria" is an important film in the oeuvre of Fellini, being a sort of transistion between his Neo Realist work ("Il bidone", 1955) and the later films in his own unique style ("La dolce vita", 1960).

In 1969 Bob Fosse made a remake of "Nights of Cabiria" with "Sweet charity" that was however unable to make people forget the original.

I am a big fan of Louis Malle. Especially his "Au revoir les enfants" (1987) is to be recommended. Very touching.

I am not such a big fan however of his comic movies. This applies to "Zazie dans le metro" (1960) and it also applies to "Viva Maria" (1965). Just like Ingmar Bergman ("Smiles of a summernight", 1955) comedy was not the strong point of Malle.

"Viva Maria" is the story of two women, to be more exact two Maria's. These are not ordinary women but the French star actresses Brigitte Bardot (Maria I) and Jeanne Moreau (Maria II).

They can be as violent as "Thelma and Louise" (1991, Ridley Scott) but also as romantic as "Angelique" (1964, Bernard Borderie).

To be honest Brigitte Bardot is in this film less sexy than in other ones, for example in "Et Dieu ... crea la femme" (1956, Roger Vadim).

The film is situated in a vaudeville environment. Maybe Malle was inspired by great predecessors as Ingmar Bergman ("Sawdust and tinsel", 1953) and Federico Fellini ("La strada", 1954).

Strange as it may seem "Viva Maria" was in her turn an inspiration for the Spaghetti Westerns of the second half of the sixties.

The movie theater in my hometown somehow programmed "Young Frankenstein" as a Halloween special. I think there are films with a better fit ("Halloween", 1978, John Carpenter for example) but because the chances to watch "Young Frankenstein" on a big screen are rather limited I grapped the opportunity.

Horror and comedy are a difficult combination of genres. Examples to illustrate this are amongst others "The fearless vampire killers" (1967, Roman Polanski) and "Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein" (1948, Charles Barton and Walter Lantz).

"Young Frankenstein" evaded the pitfalls rather well I think. It does so in three different ways: (1) good casting (2) memorable scenes (3) taking the horror genre seriously.

The good casting not only includes the major characters of Dr Frankenstein (Gene Wilder) and the Monster of Frankenstein (Peter Boyle, in no way inferior to the famous Boris Karloff who played the same character in the original "Frankenstein" (1931, James Whale)).

It also includes the support actors such as Marty Feldman (playing Igor, Frankensteins assistent) and Cloris Leachman (playing Frau Blucher, the housekeeper of the castle of Dr Frankensteins grandfather). To be honest I am a big fan of Cloris Leachman since I saw her intense performance in "The last picture show" (1971, Peter Bogdanovich).

Next coming the memorable scenes. Most films would be proud if they had one memorable scene, but in "Young Frankenstein" I discoverd at least three.

The first one is the scene in which Dr Frankenstein has to pretend against a cop that the arm of the dead body he stole for his experiment is his own.

The second one is the scene in which the Monster meets an innocent child. In the original 1931 Frankenstein this scene ends tragically, in "Young Frankenstein" there is a really surprising comical twist.

The best scene in my opinion is however the cabaret number in which Dr Frankenstein and his creation are performing "Putting on the Ritz". The improvided screams of Peter Boyle are the icing on the cake of this scene.

The main reason however that "Young Frankenstein" is one of the best horror / comedy combinations is that it takes the genre of horror seriously. Certainly the film is a parody on the original Frankenstein movie, but it does not ridicules it. The themes of the original movie, the beauty and the beast theme relating to the Monster and the arrogance of his creator (playing for God) coming before a fall, have been more or less left intact.

In "2001, a space odyssey" (1968, Stanley Kubrick) one of the astronauts loses contact with his spaceship and vanishes into the big emptiness of space. It was a scene that always (I have seen the film several times) made a deep impression on me.

The same threat is ever present in "Gravity". Unlike "2001, a space odyssey" "Gravity" is however not philosophical science fiction but much more disaster science fiction. In essence it is about a space ship destroyed by space debris.

The disaster element in the film is quite obvious but multiple opinions are possible about the science fictoin element. The spaceship is not destroyed by some kind of monster, as in "Alien" (1979, Ridley Scott), but by space debris. Director Alfonso Cuaron has admit that the film is not always scientifically correct, but is is clearly based on existing technology. In this sense the comparison of "Gravity" ("Houston I have a bad feeling about this mission) with "Apollo 13" (1995, Ron Howard) ("Houston we have a problem") is maybe the most appropriate one (and this film is not categorized as science fiction).

In making this comparison I must admit that while the cinematograpy of "Gravity" is magical, the story and the tensity of "Appolo 13" was more to my taste.

On first glance this is strange because by a film based on a real event you know the ending. On the other hand the fact that the story is real increases engagement.

I said earlier that "Gravity" unlike "2001, a space odyssey" is not a philosophical movie. The image of a man disappearing in deep space is however not the only image the two films share. "2001, a space odyssey" also has some sequences about the evolution of men. A sequence of the dawn of men at the beginning of the movie and maybe a sequence about the future of men at the multi interpretable end of the movie.

In "Gravity" there are also some sequences that can be interpreted as handling not just about the main character Ryan Stone (played by Sandra Bullock) but about humanity as a whole. I do mean the sequence in which Ryan Stone takes a fetal stance and the ending sequence in which she crawls out of the water onto the earth and ultimately walks away on two legs, just like our predecessors did millions years ago.

The director-debut of Jack Clayton, adapted from a story bij Nicolas Gogol. It won Clayton an Oscar for the best short film and was also winner at the Venice film festival in the same category. Pauline Kael called it one of the best short movies ever. I don't know which of these "awards" is the highest honor. It surely helped Clayton kick starting his career, that was continued three years later with "Room at the top", another adaptation of a famous novel.

In a film of only 36 minutes the subjects of poverty, friendship, justice and professional pride are covered. All these subjects are illustrated using an overcoat as the immediate starting point. Amazing! As was te be expected in a story by Gogol these subjects are covered with a touch of lightness.

The film is very stage-like but the camerawork is perfect. The actors are the same as on stage, and they did their job for a busticket and a lunch-meal. After all the budget of the project was only 5.000 pound, which was even then extremely low budget.

In "Les quatres cents coup" (1959) Francois Truffaut introduced the character of Antoine Doinel ((Jean Pierre Léaud), than 14 years of age.

In subsequent years this character re-appeared several times in his films:

"Antoine et Colette" (1962). Antoine is 17 years old and has his first love. This short film is an episode of the feature length film "L'amour à vingt ans".

"Baisers volés" (1968) in which his future love Christine Darbon (Claude Jade) is introduced.

"Domicile comjugal" (1970). Antoine and Christine are married.

L'amour en fuite" (1979). Antoine and Christine are divorced.

In "Baisers volés" Antoine is in between an adolescent and a man. He is still experimenting to find out more about himself. This experimenting relates to both jobs and women.

With regard to jobs Aontoine eventually becomes an assistent privae eye, in which he turns out to be not very good (to say the least). This gives the film a flavor of comedy.

With regard to women it is obvious to everybody except Antoine that Christine is the love of his life. A situation slightly reminding of "When Harry met Sally" (1989, Rob Reiner). This gives the film a flavor of romance.

Putting his relationship with Chrisitine in jeopardy Antoine falls for the flirtations of a much older woman, Fabienne Tabard (Delphine Seyrig), the wife of his boss. A situation reminding (and not so slightly) of "The graduate" (1967, Mike Nichols), without however achieving the same level of quality than this classic movie.

A scene that stayed in my mind for a long time was the one in which Antoine talks, ever more agitated , to himself in a mirror. Eight years later Martin Scorsese included a similar (but much more famous) scene into "Taxi driver" (1976). The "You talkin'to me?" scene.

"Baisers volés" was released in 1968, a turbulent year in the history of France. The opening scene refers to what is called the "Affaire Langlois". Langlois was head of the Cinémathèque (The French Film museum) and was under political pressure. He was supported by various directors, under which Truffaut. The opening scene shows images of the Cinémathèque with a sign "closed" on the gates.

In "Au coeur du mensonge" (literal translation "At the heart of the lie", English titel "The color of lies") a 10 year old child is killed at her way home from drawing lessons. Because the painter that gives these lessons (René Sterne played by Jacques Gamblin) is the last who saw the child alive he is the main suspect of not only inspector Frédérique Lesage (played by Valeria Bruni Tedeschi) but also of the rest of the village.

"Au coeur du mensonge" fits in the tradition of films in which people are condemned by a crowd in stead of by a judge. An old example of such a film is "Fury" (1936, Fritz Lang) but a more recent example (even younger than "Au coeur du mensonge" itself) is "Jagten" (2012, Thomas Vinterberg).

Initially I found the similarities with "Jagten" very strong, and it was only on closer inspection that I discovered some not unimportant differences.

In "Jagten" there is no real crime, only an accusation. The filmviewer knows this but the people in the village of course not. In "Au coeur du mensonge" on the other hand there is a real crime but no specific accusation. René Sterne is suspect because he is the last one who has seen the victim alive.

In "Jagten" the crowd turns violent on the accused. In "Au coeur du mensonge" the village "only" secludes the suspect.

In "Jagten" the conviction if the crowd is independent of the criminal authorities (just like in "Fury"). In "Au coeur du mensonge" the two run far more parallel because the new inspector Lesage is very eager to solve the case quickly in order to promote her own career.

From the first difference it follows that in "Jagten" it is clear from the very beginning that the accused is innocent while in "Au coeur du mensonge" the innocence of the suspect is in doubt until the very end, also for the viewer. After all Claude Chabrol was not called the French Hitchcock for nothing.

In "Jagten" Mads Mikkelsen gives a brilliant performance, In "Au coeur du mensonge" the performance of Jacques Gamblin is not inferior. His character René is a man that has acquired scars in an earlier phase of life. He tried to find a quiet life at the coast of Brittany and now is unable to defend against unspoken suscipions.

By the way the coastal landscapes of Brittany with their occasional fog greatly enhances the mood of this film.

Roy Andersson has been active as a director for decades.

I have been active as a film buff for decades. Nevertheless I never had heard of Roy Andersson until the teacher at a flim course mentioned his name and showed a clip from his film "Songs from the second floor" (2000).

The first film I watched from Andersson was his most recent one "About endlessness" (2019). The style of this film is very idiosyncratic and in line with his previous films. "About endlessness" consists of 31 "tableaux vivant". One sometimes even wonders if this still can be called film or that it is some hybrid art form between film and paintings.

The mood of the tableaux vivant is however slightly different. In his previous films they were sometimes disturbing. In "About endlessness" they are some mixture between:

comedy (isn't it funny to start with calling a film of 78 min. Running time "About endlessness"?).

Loneliness (A man entering a bar asking a woman iif she is Lisa Larsson. The woman denies after which her husband returns with two beer. The man, evidently having a blind data, leaves the bar with his bouquet of flowers).

Tenderness (A man ties the shoes of his daughter in the pouring rain).

By the way some episodes / tableau vivant are still disturbing. What about the father mourning by the dead body of his daughter he just killed to protect family honor?

Most of the episodes are unrelated with the exception of the episodes about the priest who has lost his faith. Does Andersson with these episodes refer back to his great countryman Ingmar Bergman ("Winterlight", 1963)?

Most of the episodes are shot in one take with a static camera. This reminds of Bela Tarr, except that Tarr's movies are not funny at all. In the movies of Bela Tarr the Eastern European misery is grounded in deep poverty. Roy Andersson shows in "About endlessness" that in the rich welfare state of Sweden life can also be sad.

Two concluding remarks about style.

In the first place, as a debutant in watching a Roy Andersson movie, I was struck by the fact that most of the characters are middle aged and overweight.

In the second place I tought to notice some kind of symmetry at the beginning and the end of the episodes. There is a flock of geese in the first and the last episode. The second and penultimate episode are about the childhood friend Sverker Olsson.

The German cinema had her glory days with the German Expressionism of the '20s and '30s and became relevant again not earlier than with the "Neue Deutsche Welle" in the '70s. At least that is the general opinion in film history. In my opinion there were also made worthwhile films in the meantime. In this respect I have a guilty pleasure for the films of Helmut Käutner and Wolfgang Staudte. Maybe not all of them classics but pleasant entertainment nevertheless.

"Montpi" (abbreviation for "Mon Petit") is no exception.

Special attraction are the lead actors, who were still at the beginning of their careers.

Horst Buchholz would become, at least for my generation, synonymous with inspector Derrick form the TV series in later years.

Romy Schneider is in "Montpi" not so demure as in the "Sissi" trilogy (1955, 1956, 1957, Ernst Marischka) but certainly not so worldly and cynical as in "La piscine" (1969, Jacques Deray). In fact she is beautiful and for 1957 standards very sexy.

At the beginning of the movie Buchholz plays a very clumsy boy. For a moment I was afraid of a slapstick kind of movie like "They're a weird mob" (1966, Michael Powell), the film I saw before this one and that disappointed me very much. Happily this phase doesn't last very long. At the end of the film you even wish for a more happy ending.

In between the film is a very pleasant romance. Paris is portrayed as it often is in films of the '50s: the romantic capital created for young people who live in shabby attics but are lucky in love. See for example also the opening scene of "An American in Paris" (1951, Vincente Minnelli).

As comic counterpoint to the Buchholz / Schneider romantic couple there is also a rich, bored and cheating couple.

In the appartment building of the Buchholz character we see various little sideplots through the windows of his neighbours. A feauture Käutner has copied from "Rear window" (1954, Alfred Hitchcock).

I have an eleven DVD collection box of the work of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger.

"They're a weird mob" (1966) is one of their last collaborations in time and one of the last DVD's in the box I watched. Some time earlier I saw the rerelease of Michael Powells "Peeping Tom" (1960) in the cinema.

All this made watching "They're a weird mob" a real disappointment. Powell and Pressburger could do and had done much better.

What makes "They're a weird mob" so disappointing? I think there are a couple of reasons.

In the first place the acting is over the top. This is best illustrated by a few scenes featuring someone drunk.

Secondly the message is rather unclear. The film is about an Italian who emigrated to Australia and encounters some adjustment problems. The portrayel of these adjustment problems can be divided into three phases.

In the first phase the Italian is portrayed as clumsy.

In the second phase you ask yourself if the problems are not also due to the strange customs and slang of the Australians. Particularly the frequent use of slang is overdone.

In the third phase the (somewhat didactic) message is that, how strange the Australian habits may be, adapting yourself is the best way to do.

In the film the message seems rather patronizing to me (from a 2024 perspective) but the book by John O'Grady, on which the film is based, was a big hit in those times. A few years before Michael Powell Gregory Peck attempted to acguire the rights on this book.

Apart from the ones described above there are a few other minor defects about the movie I must mention. The happy ending of this movie is predictable and artificial at the same time. The few musical intermezzo's of the movie would be well suited in a real musical but are rather out of place here. It takes a director such as Lars von Trier to integrate musical elements in a non musical movie, as he did in "Dancer in the dark" (2000).

Recently I have started with a Buster Keaton project, the reason being that I have seen many Charlie Chaplin movies but almost none Buster Keaton movies. As a film buff I thought I had to close this gap.

I started the project with "Sherlock jr", one of Keatons most famous pictures from 1924. Although I can't judge by myself at this stage of the project, according to some reviews I read this film contains a couple of standard Keaton ingredients such as:

A loser competing for a girl (and getting her in the end of course).

Use of dream sequences.

In "Sherlock Jr" the dream sequence takes the form of a film in a film. Keaton plays a film operator dozing off after he started the film. In his dreams he steps into the film.

The introduction to this stepping into is that the sleeping Keaton steps out of his own body. This is visualised with the help of double exposure, a technique that was also used for example in "The phantom carriage" (1921, Victor Sjöström).

After stepping into the film Keaton is confronted with ever changing backgrounds. He sees water and wanted to dive into it but the moment he does the backgroud changes into a winterlandscape with snow. The shooting of this scene required very precise timing. It reminded me of the work of Jacques Tati, who also was capable of (and had enough patience for) such precise timing.

At the end of the film Keaton the film operator wakes up again and finds out that the girl is no longer angry at him. However in stead of rescuing her (as in the film dreaming himself being Sherlock Jr) the girl has found out herself that other people had accused Keaton unjustly.

This is however not the end of Keaton's problem. The girl may not be angry anymore, but how to woo her? Again the film provides the solution. Keaton copies everything the main characher, who is wooing a girl onscreen, does. When the main character appears with two babies on his lap Keaton however starts to doubt.

Whereas the tramp of Charlie Chaplin depends to a great extent on his body language, Buster Keaton trusts in his fysical gags. These gags are not only brilliant but to a large extent also self performed, without stuntmen and of course without computer generated images.

The story largely is only a vehicle for these gags, and in some instances (such as in the scene with the ever changing backgrounds descriped above) there isn't even a story at all.

"Winterschläfer" is about the romantic adventures of four young people. It is also about a car accident resulting in a dead girl and a father eager for revenge. Between these stories there are linkages of which most of the characters are unaware.

According to the Internet Movie Database "Winterschläfer" is both a romance and a thriller. It is not very difficult to guess which genre is attribitable to which storyline. Maybe it is surprising that the romantic storyline has the upperhand. Although the car accident happens very early in the film, both storylines only begin to intertwine towards the end. The film is based on the novel "Expense of spirit" by Anne Francoise Pyszora, and in this book the thriller storyline is missing altogether.

The prominence of the romantic storyline is not the only way in which director Tom Tywker is misleading his viewers. There is also a film quotation towards "The Omen" (1976, Richard Donner) that never becomes a MacGuffin.

By the way one character in the film is having problems with his short term memory and tries to solve these problems with the help of photographs. Sounds like "Memento" (2000, Christopher Nolan)? Yes, but of course this logically can't be a quotation.

Most remarkable in the film to me was the use of colors. Wagner used in his operas sometimes "leitmotifs", music associated with particular characters. In "Winterschläfer" important characters are associated with colors.

Red for the romantic and fickle Rebecca (Floriane Daniel) green for the more balanced and calm Laura (Marie Lou Sellem) blue for the egocentric and opportunistic Marco (Heino Ferch)

"Winterschläfer" was the beginning of the international career of Tom Tykwer, who would later direct films such as "Run Lola run" (1998) and "Perfume" (2006). Recently it has become rather silent with respect to this director.

In "El buen patron" / "The good boss" Julio Blanco (Javier Bardem) is the CEO of a company producing industrial scales. His company has been nominated for an award of excellence. Julio wants to win this award very much, as is obvious from a speech he gives to the employees at the beginning of the movie. In this speech Blanco often uses the word "family" and seldom uses the word "employee".

Quickly the question rises how sincere this familiarity really is?

At first Blanco seems really interested. He supports an employee with marital problems.

However, cracks soon begin to appear in this mask of friendliness. Traces of opportunism and manipulation appear. Loyalty is expected but not given ("I hate to take this decision, but I have no choice").

The unmasking of Blanco is however (and this is a great compliment for the performamce of Javier Bardem) not 100%. There remains a part of sincerity that gives the character a touch of subtlety. In one review a comparison was made with the character of Michael (Al Pacino) in "The Godfather, part II" (1974, Francis Ford Coppola). Michael howver changes over time from a nice guy to a monster. Blanco is a nice guy and a monster at the same time, the film dissecting his two different faces mercilessly.

While lead actor Javier Bardem gives (as indicated above) a very subtle performance, the film as whole misses this subtlety. It seems as if the director was afraid to choose between an all out comedy and an ironic social drama, accepting the danger in the last mentioned genre that some viewers would overlook some subtle jokes.

As it is some elements of the film are in my opinion over the top, most notably the one night stand between Blanco and a young intern. I do not mean that a character like Blanco would not be capable of such an affair, but he certainly would do it more diplomatic.

Being a factory in scales, an old model of a scale is shown at the entrance of the building. Much to the annoyance of Blanco this model is out of balance during the whole film. Figuratively speaking the same can be said about the film itself. The only one who is in perfect balance is (the performance of) Javier Bardem.

In "Le feu follet" (1963, Louis Malle) a man in his early thirties (Alain Leroy played by Maurice Ronet) is about to quit the alcohol rehabilitation clinic. One day he visits some of his friends from the period when he was stil in his twenties.

This is more or less the full story of "Le feu follet". One might think that the film is about alcohol addiction like "The lost weekend" (1945, Billy Wilder), but that is not true. In fact the film is more about the suicide that Alain has on his mind.

The central question of the film is why Alain is contemplating suicide? Objectively speaking he doesn't seem to have a motive. He has no lack of money, no lack of female adoration and his health seems to be rather good.

There are a few possibilities.

In the first place Alain might be afraid of returning to the normal society after staying for a while in the protected environment of the rehabilitation clinic. This possible motive reminded me of the character of Brooks Hatlen in "The Shawshank redemption" (1994, Frank Darabont) who failed to adapt to life outside the prison.

Another possibility is that Alain is disappointed in his generation who has lost their ideals. This possibility is more prominently illustrated in films like "Return of the Secaucus Seven" (1980, John Sayles) and especially "The big chill" (1983, Lawrence Kasdan).

The final possibility is more or less a varation on the second one. Alain is disappointed not because his genearion has lost its ideals but because they have become so grown up and so dull. During the visits multiple hints are given that in the past Alain used to walk on the wild side with this friends, who now indeed have become very much middle class (Alains former lover Solange (Alexandra Stewart) has not only become very middle class but also very beautiful). This possibility reminded me of the character of Holden Caulfield from the famous novel "The catcher in the rye" (1951, J. D. Salinger).

The film does not choose between the possibilities given above, but in my opinion the last one is the most probable.

Not many films touch upon the topic of suicide, but the ones who do often treat it (understandably) as something negative or a moral problem. Remarkable about "Le feu follet" is that it seems to treat suicide in a more neutral way, although I am not completely sure about this. Lets look at the title of the movie and how it is translated into different languages. In French the title is "Le feu follet" which literally translates into "The will-o'-the-wisp". This is also the German translation ("Das Irrlicht") and seems to convey a negative connotation. In the United States however "Le feu follet" was translated as "The fire within", which conveys a more neutral connotation.

In one review of this film I read the remark that films based on literary novels are sometimes inferior to films inspired by literary novels because film language is a different language with different strengths and weaknesses than written language. I agree and with respect to "Le feu follet" can add that it was both based on a novel ("Will O' the wisp", 1931, Pierre Drieu La Rochelle) and inspired by a novel ("Babylon revisited", 1931, F. Scott Fitzgerald). As indicated above is the film in my interpretation also inspired by "Catcher in the Rye".

"Le feu follet" was an important film for director Louis Malle. He was not satisfied with his career until then and had the impression that he was being overtaken by the "Nouvelle vague" directors. So just like main character Alain Leroy he was somewhat frustrated. I dont know if at that time Malle was thinking about suicide but happily he didn't do it and instead made a lot more beautiful films.

Lead actor Maurice Ronet had already collaborated with Malle in "Ellevator to the gallows" (1958) but wasn't cast for "Les amants" (1958) because of overweight. Just like Robert de Niro for "Raging bull" (1980, Martin Scorsese) he had to lose a lot of weight to get his part in "Le feu follet". This slimming down both got him the figure that made the interest of women credible as the exhausted expression of someone who has just finished a detoxication program.