Mrs. Doubtfire (musical)

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  • Mrs. Doubtfire (musical)

9/12/24 (Thurs), West End

I was wary of yet another musical retread from a beloved old film. In the movie, Robin Williams had a field day with the story of a divorced man who, granted only limited visitation rights with his children, disguises himself as a female nanny in a bid to stay close with them. It’s essentially the Robin Williams Show, so dominated by its central performance that it was hard to imagine how another actor could put his stamp on it. In any case, the musical was the unexpected choice of a friend, so I went along politely, albeit with expectations in check.

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Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (Ieri, oggi, domani)

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  • Ieri, oggi, domani (Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow)

10/2/24 (Wed)

I had seen De Sica’s later Sunflower, also starring Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni, not too long ago, and a friend strongly recommended this 1963 comedy as well. Comedy is not the first thing that comes to mind for a De Sica film, but it did win an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film and was a big success in its day.

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Past Lives

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  • Past Lives

9/23/24 (Mon)

Canadian writer/director Celine Song’s debut work is a romantic flick about two Korean childhood friends who are forced to separate at age 12 due to their parents’ jobs. The quiet boy remains in Seoul, while the more vivacious woman emigrates to Canada and then to the US to become a writer. After a 12-year blank, they reconnect thanks to the wonders of Facebook. They begin to chat regularly online, obviously still smitten with each other. The chats become a distraction for the woman, however, perhaps tying her to a past that she no longer recognizes. She impulsively asks him not to contact her anymore.

It is only another dozen years later, marking another turn in the 12-year cycle of the Chinese calendar, that they finally meet in person again when he comes to see her in New York. By this time, he has been dumped by his girlfriend and she is married to a Jewish novelist. They reunite in joy, or what passes for joy in the man’s introverted personality, but soon realize that their chance has gone. Seeing the woman in her new life, the man humbly sacrifices whatever hope he might have held and tells her he is leaving. In a moving ending, they wonder, in the context of a Korean concept known as inyeon, if this life is a past life that they are simply recalling in the future. They might previously have been strangers on a train or a bird and a branch, and who knows how they might meet next time. As he returns to Korea, he tells her that he looks forward to seeing her then, as they separate forever.

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Evil Does Not Exist (悪は存在しない)

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  • 悪は存在しない (Evil Does Not Exist)

9/11/24 (Wed)

Hamaguchi Ryusuke’s (Drive My Car) latest. Small-town folk deep in the Nagano countryside lead a hard-scrabble life in their beautiful natural setting, their basic needs met thanks to the wealth of resources in the area. The main character, a widowed father of a teenaged girl, spends his time chopping logs and gathering water, often so absorbed that he forgets to pick up his daughter from school. A company is eyeing the spot for a gramping site in order to take advantage of soon-to-expire pandemic subsidies. It employs a television talent agency to give a presentation to the local population in what it sees as a mere formality. However, the locals prove less pliant than anticipated. Continue reading →

Monsieur Klein

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  • Monsieur Klein

9/6/24 (Fri)

Joseph Losey’s 1976 film is another identity-challenging work reminiscent of his intriguing The Servant. A successful art dealer in Vichy Paris runs a thriving sideline buying up art on the cheap from Jewish collectors desperate for cash to escape the country. One day a Jewish newspaper arrives at his door addressed to him. Assuming that he’s been mistaken for someone with the same name, he goes to the police. It turns out that the other Klein is wanted by the police, and the art dealer’s efforts to convince them that he’s not the Jewish Klein only prompt suspicions that he’s trying to throw them off the track. This marks the beginning of a Kafkaesque spiral ending in a concentration camp.

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L’Eclisse

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  • L’Eclisse

8/28/24 (Wed)

Antonioni’s 1962 film was part of the Alain Delon series offered by Criterion following his death last week. It’s one of those “movies you must see before you die”, which usually puts me off, and I wasn’t planning to watch any more Antonioni works in particular after the enigmatic Blow-Up. Nevertheless, the Delon connection and the film’s critical reputation persuaded me to give it another try.

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La Piscine

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  • La Piscine

8/19/24 (Sun)

Criterion wasted no time in marking Alain Delon’s death the previous day with a special section of his most famous films­. I picked Jacques Deray’s 1969 iconic work in its original French, not knowing that he simultaneously filmed it with the actors speaking English. Watching part of the English version the next day, I was surprised that it’s edited somewhat differently to match the different takes and, less happily, has an inferior alternative ending to match prudish Anglo tastes. (There’s a brief scene early in the French film where the woman is talking on the phone to a Frenchman in English, which made me wonder if they mistakenly edited the wrong version into that space. But in the English version, she speaks German. I have no idea what that’s about.)

The story is secondary here. Continue reading →

The Barbarian Invasions

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  • The Barbarian Invasions

8/17/24 (Thurs)

I had thought Denys Arcand’s 2003 work was supposed to be a parody of the bumbling Canadian health care system, but that’s only partly true. It’s also a celebration of a hospitalized randy ex-professor who decides to take his life – and death – into his own hands. This is apparently a sequel to a popular film of 17 years earlier, and I’m sure that knowing those characters would have helped here. But it works perfectly fine as a stand-alone piece. The reviews are sharply divided, with a number of critics decrying it as a glib and cynical attempt to cash in on the older film, especially the soppy ending between the father and son. While I see their point, I’d prefer to enjoy it on its own terms.

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Blow-Up

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  • Blow-Up

8/7/24 (Wed)

I had heard of Antonioni’s 1967 Blow-Up and figured it was about time I got around to it. Its reputation precedes it, of course, and it’s supposed to have been highly influential in its nihilistic cool. It seems a movie made more for critics rather than audiences – it was a big commercial success back in its day, but I suspect that had more to do with the brouhaha over the boobs and pubic hair.

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The Great McGinty

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  • The Great McGinty

8/3/24 (Sat)

A goofy political satire of 1940 by Preston Sturges, who apparently sold his Oscar-winning script to Paramount for $10 in exchange for letting him direct. Its relative success paved the way for the great Sturges films to come.

The city’s sleazy Boss offers money to a bum named McGinty to vote for the incumbent mayor. When the brazen McG manages to vote 37 times, the Boss is impressed and hires him as a debt collector. McG’s ability to squeeze the money out of people with a mix of sweet talk and threats leads to further promotion to alderman, mayor and ultimately, after a marriage of convenience, to governor, but all under the sway of the big Boss. When the bum-cum-governor pushes things too far, he discovers that the system is bigger than he is.

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Alexandria…Why? (Iskanderija… lih?)

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  • Alexandria…Why? (Iskanderija… lih?)

8/26/24 (Sun)

Youssef Chahine attempts to make an Egyptian version of Amarcord to mixed results in this autobiographical 1979 film. Set in Alexandria during the war, the film portrays the determination of the teenaged Yahia, a stand-in for Chahine, to become a film actor and director. Continue reading →