Hiroshima, Mon Amour

Hiroshima, mon Amour (1959) directed by Alain Resnais

I wanted to see this when I learned that Emmanuelle Riva starred in it.  She's the oldest woman to be nominated for best actress, for her role in the very excellent Amour (2012 dir Michel Haneke).  This was her first film, though she was involved in theatre for many years before.

I watched some of the supporting material on the Criterion disc I borrowed from the library.  I actually watched them at the library, since I had to return the disc and didn't have time for the final interview unfortunately.

It's not like any other film I've ever seen.  It started off as a documentary project, but evolved into a meta film with elements of docudrama condemning the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima with very graphic and powerful imagery.... but mostly it's a tragic romance.

In one of the interviews on the disc, Riva said she'd never been asked to play a grown woman before, (just girls), so she was pleased to play one and and an adulteress, and emancipated woman, no less.  That her character is also put in a loony bin because she loses her mind over lost love, is perhaps par for the course for women who dare to challenge the narrow confines of appropriate and constrained sexual behaviour.  Yeah, it's definitely a feminist flick, because she's autonomous in her sexual appetites - the man she takes as her lover, tries to own and dominate her to his will, but she ain't having none of it.

I wondered about the power imbalances between them, especially in terms of racist attitudes being more pronounced and accepted when it was made.  With her being white and him Japanese, I think the idea of miscegenation was fairly ingrained and considered rather shocking and improper, never mind the fact that they were both adulterers. We've come a long way since then, supposedly, but I couldn't help question that racial aspect of their romance and if it was an obstacle to their love.  Mostly though, it wasn't addressed and actually the taboo of them getting together was likely a turn on and created more interest in the film too.  In terms of story motivations though the real roadblock to further entanglements seemed more due to the fact that she was only visiting his country and even more important, in spite of their compatibility, that they already had life partners.

I really enjoyed this one, it's got a lot going on, and it's tres tragique with that doomed love the French know how to do so well.

Headhunters

directed by Morten Tyldum (2011)

My first impression with this film was geez, this is ripe for a remake with Tom Cruise as the greedy art thief.

My second impression?  I didn't think much of the set up.  It's got a corporate headhunter, (Aksel Hennie), who steals and sells art work, because he's got to keep up with the beyond his means lavish lifestyle his blonde trophy wife is accustomed to.  He's a pragmatic, amoral, sort,  and his art thieving is not much different from his day job where he looks for executives to poach, usually stealing them out from under the employ of one corporation for another.  The relative poverty driving the artwork snatch and sell sidejob, is not a situation most people can relate to; "Oh no I can't afford the payments on my luxury mansion or luxury car!"  Actually a whole lot of people can relate to not being able to afford the lifestyle they have,  it's just that the lifestyle he felt he needed to maintain was a bit much.

As the plot unspooled I was feeling all sneery about seeing another story about rich white people, and thinking, "fuck these greedy resource pigs and their stupid money problems!",  because greed and lavish lifestyles like you see at the upper echelons of society, rather than impressing me, more tends to disgust me. Excessively excessive is just plain fucked up.  The other day a friend was telling me about a guy who renovated his G5 jet so all the surfaces were gold plated or marble.  He spent x amount of dollars, untold millions, I guess, and for what?  So his JET was shiny?

Jesus.  Of course it's Donald Trump's jet.

The movie got better though.  It's got good heists with twisty drama, and what I appreciated most, aside from the great cinematography, was the moral thread running through it. The protagonist is interesting too.  He's vulnerable; his narration reveals his weaknesses,  and that's what got me to liking him.  The movie had been hyped to me though, so it took me awhile before my expectations wound down and I got into it for what it was - a well shot action/crime story with some characters growing.   Near to the beginning,  I turned to my guy and said, I don't LIKE anybody in this film.  They're all selfish fucks.  Pretty standard character types for noir type works, but this one also has some redemptive realistic qualities in the characters, except when it comes to the antagonist, (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau).  He was a little too much of a phony baloney, comic book, super soldier, spy guy, human monster, stereotype for my taste.  Still, all criticism aside, it was a good ride, and I liked how it ended.

I think in the remake, they'll do it from the perspective of the bad guy and have him triumph, because greed is still good in the eyes of the majority of the haves making media in America.

Dial M for Murder

directed by Alfred Hitchcock (1954)

I got kinda bored with this one.  It's too easy to figure out, and you gottta wade through a whole lotta yadayada before you get to the denouement satisfactions.

Ray Milland is defintinely evil, and nasty, greeedy, coldhearted, so I wanted to see him suffer.  He's always got the stiff upper lip though, so his suffering isn't that entertaining.   It's definitely the devious selfish machinations where he delivers; his duplicitous actions are what'll get you all incensed and rooting for him to get nailed.

Grace Kelly is very gorgeous in this, but she's so bland and helpless too.  I felt like her character was being punished too much by the script, though. She's so tortured!  So often the damsel in distress is a boring character of function, just there as a beautiful thang to get threatened and rescued.  Even though she's put through the wringer, at least she had some complexity beyond just being a victim.

I guess I was expecting this to be more crazy than it was.  It's so highly rated, that set me up for something more than what it is - a tightly wound mystery thriller - sorta like a CSI episode.  It feels like a play and that makes sense since it was originally a Broadway production by Fredrick Knott, and he adapted the screenplay as well.  Maybe I'd have liked it better if I saw it in 3D, like it was originally shot.

One scene made me laugh, one cop is walking off with some evidence: a women's purse.  He's got it dangling dainitly on his arm, and as he sets off on his way back to the station, a detective stops him short. "You can't walk around like that, you'll get arrested." And the cop puts the purse inside a satchel to cover up the gender crime.  Holy eh? You'll get arrested!  This is really true though.  At one point in English history, you could be arrested for wearing clothes that didn't define your gender "properly".  It's the actual legal reason behind Joan of Arc getting burned at the stake.  In hindsight, it makes more sense that Albert Nobbs was so terrified to be outed.

In case you're wondering, the Hitchcock cameo is in BITD school photo of the blackguard Milland.

Sunshine

directed by István Szabó (1999)

This was a strange flick, half pretentious period drama, part weirdo tragic taboo romance, and Ralph Fiennes plays all of the characters.  I exaggerate some, it's not a Being John Malkovich experimental thang, but Fiennes does play 3 successive generations, father to son to grandson, and it's narrated by him too.  It's set in Hungary and tracks a Jewish family from the late 1800's to just after the 1956 Hungarian Revolution.

The generations spanning epic starts off with a bang, a couple of them actually.  The first patriarch, (who should have been played by Ralph Fiennes too,) is tavern owner who dies in a distillery accident.  His 12 year old son sets off with the secret recipe for his father's elixir, Taste of Sunshine, and eventually though it's not shown, builds  a successful business based on that drink.  The next bang is figurative, though more shocking. Ralph Fiennes is the son of the Taste of Sunshine elixir maker, and he falls in love with his cousin/sister Valerie (Jennifer Ehle) What?!!  I know! It's weird and the transgressive coupling happens so quickly - within the first 10 minutes of the film.  It's kinda cheeseball, but it does creates great tension.  Taboo love is so much more fraught.

Since it covers such a great length of time, the cyclical nature of history is established.  The new boss same as the old boss kind of thing.  The nasty repercussions of and abuses of political power are not limited to Imperialism, Fascism, Nationalism, or Communism.  The all had their secret police.  The effects of anti-semitism are illustrated well, especially along the subtler lines of assimilation and self hatred, repression of religion and identity to get ahead, identifying with the oppressor and such.  I thought this was the best part of the film.  

The romance stuff is pretty juicy, but overwrought and awful too.  The 2nd generation Ralph Fiennes, Adam, is also a taboo buster.  His sister in law Greta, (Rachel Weisz), has the hots for him and tries to seduce him in a scene with dialogue that made me literally laugh aloud.

(Fiennes/Adam just had a fight with a man)

Adam:  I nearly killed him.

Greta:   But you didn't

Adam:  No, I didn't

Greta:   Perhaps you'll kill me one day when you've had enough of me.

Adam:  Perhaps I will.

Greta:   How will you kill me?  Strangle me?

Adam:   Good idea.

Greta:   Try it. Hold my neck. Tight.

She puts his hands around her throat and leans in to kiss him.  He pushes her away.

Adam:  What are you doing!

Greta:   I can't bear not being with you.

Adam:   You're my brother's wife Greta.

Greta:    I'm not anybody's wife. I am myself.

Adam:   Ishtvan is my brother! I love him! What makes you think that I would steal his wife.

Greta:   You can't steal what's already yours.  Why don't you let yourself be loved?  You are the great love of my love Adam, not Ishtvan.

Adam:   No.  (shakes head.)  No Greta.


Another wrong love!  His mouth says no, but his body says yes.  There's nudity in this, boobs and such.  You'll see a bit of humpety bumpety.  It's definitely not the main show, but there is some R rated action, probably because you get to see Fiennes's butt and tackle too.  Man junk almost always means an R rating. 

It has a whole bunch of interesting bits, aside from the Fiennes dangler, but it's far too long (that doesn't sound right), and it was bizarre casting having Fiennes do 3 roles. He did a really good job, it's just why go that way when you could simply hire more actors?  When Fiennes would show up playing his son it was always jarring to the suspension of disbelief.  Another bit of stunt casting that actually worked was having Jennifer Ehle's mother, Rosemary Harris, play the elder version of Valerie.  I think it would have worked better as a mini series.
 
The end of the movie ties up everything with a great monologue when the final Ralph Fiennes is reading a letter from his grandfather.  It brings home the value of NOT surrendering your identity and ideals in order to get ahead.