The River (1951)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The River (1951) – J. Renoir

Renoir’s take on Rumer Godden’s novel is part colonialist  narrative and part documentary footage of the real India (Bengal) of the time. To me, it is an uneasy blend – but in glorious color.  The film is narrated by Godden’s adult alter-ego but she recounts her early adolescence and the arrival of a disabled ex-soldier who was her first crush.  He is the American cousin of a British man next door who had taken an Indian wife (now deceased) and raised a multi-racial daughter.  The film reflects on her status as one who doesn’t belong anywhere but her angst is not very palpable nor is the treatment of her by others very negative -- so Renoir doesn’t hit this theme very hard.  Instead, the mood is more of an extended reverie on childhood and its events; there is one great fantasy scene told by Godden’s stand-in Harriet who is a budding writer.  In this scene, there is birth, a wedding, and rebirth plus Indian music and dance.  The film also includes death in the endless cycle that mimics the river’s flow.  All things must pass, including this moment in time (for both India and the characters in the story). 

Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne (1945)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne (1945) – R. Bresson

Although he hadn’t yet developed his mature visual style (focused on hands and feet engaged in action), in this, his second feature film, Robert Bresson had already identified his key theme of transcendence through suffering.  True, many of his later characters were pure, naïve, and innocent, and their suffering lends a spiritual dimension to those films (Diary of a Country Priest, Mouchette, Au Hasard, Balthazar, etc.) whereas here we see a victim who has sinned herself and needs to be forgiven.  However, the plot is much more intricate than this simple theme might suggest.  Indeed, there is a deviousness of purpose that sets the plot into motion, courtesy of Maria Casares who tricks her ex-lover into wooing the heroine and former cabaret girl (i.e., prostitute) without his awareness of her checkered past.  Yet, somehow true love triumphs over all (and the dialogue by Cocteau surely helps to highlight this romantic theme).  Nevertheless, as the film fades out, Bresson’s intense focus on the moment of release from sin prepares us for his substantial body of work yet to come. 

La Rupture (1970)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

La Rupture (1970) – C. Chabrol

The late ‘60s-early ‘70s psychodramas from Claude Chabrol ranging from Les Biches (1968) to Just Before Nightfall (1971) – six films – all have something to offer.  La Rupture (The Breach) is a particularly weird one, starring (again) Stephane Audran (Chabrol’s then wife) as a young mother whose child is injured by her (depressed substance abuser) husband.  She seeks a divorce but the husband’s parents want custody of their grandchild; to discredit the mother, they hire a childhood friend of the husband (played by Jean-Pierre Cassel) to follow her and possibly to attempt to put her in a compromising position.  So, these characters are placed in some extreme situations (accented by intense electronic music) and viewers can expect to experience emotional stress at times.  This film is less Hitchcockian than some of the others from this period of Chabrol – perhaps we never quite expect Cassel and the in-laws to succeed so suspense isn’t built.  Yet, there is enough oddness here to hold your attention, especially if you have gotten the taste for Chabrol.

’71 (2014)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

’71 (2014) – Y. Demange

A British soldier gets stuck in the Catholic section of Belfast and has to escape or die in this searing and intense action flick.  It is a “confused situation” to be sure, and we are privy not only to the soldier’s experiences but also the backroom conversations of members of the IRA and the Ulster Rifles.  Our soldier (Jack O’Connell) becomes a bloody pawn in the political machinations of the times.  And those times are very nicely recreated with cars, outfits, hairstyles, furniture and wallpaper.  In some ways, what we have here is the inverse of Carol Reed’s Odd Man Out (1947) which saw injured IRA man James Mason passing the night (and from life to death) on the run from the law/Brits also in Northern Ireland.  Similarly, we meet an array of characters and situations as O’Connell moves from location to location in and around the Catholic tenement flats but the focus in ’71 is less on creating a parable and more on gritty pulse-pounding action done well.

Design for Living (1933)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Design for Living (1933) – E. Lubitsch

The Lubitsch touch was a certain wink-wink naughtiness put forth in a sublime comic way that kept things elegant rather than crass or raunchy.  Or at least that’s my interpretation.  Here, Gary Cooper and Frederic March are best friends, a painter and a playwright, who fall in love with Miriam Hopkins.  However, she can’t decide which she prefers and instead they decide to live together as a threesome – but no sex allowed.  Of course, this doesn’t quite work out (or does it?).  Edward Everett Horton is the fuddy-duddy foil to the merry three -- although somehow he is less funny than in the Astaire/Rogers films.  In fact, the whole package is somewhat less delicious than other Lubitsch hits (Trouble in Paradise, The Shop Around the Corner, Ninotchka, Heaven Can Wait, To Be or Not To Be) – this may be a result of the screenwriter, Ben Hecht, who excelled in a different kind of comedy (His Girl Friday, Nothing Sacred, Twentieth Century).  Nevertheless, Design for Living crosses many lines in its review of the plausibility of the menage a trois (something the censor would never allow a few years later) and it has a distinct feminist flair with Hopkins definitely in control.  Not quite a revelation but never less than enjoyable. 

Greetings! (1968)

☆ ☆ ½

Greetings! (1968) – B. De Palma

It’s hard to know what to make of this early film from Brian De Palma – it’s sort of a cross between those Godard films where everyone just delivers monologues to the camera and those Warhol films where non-actors sit around and talk about or engage in trashy behaviour.  And it’s a comedy or filmed in a comic vein that is pretty easy-going and never really boring.  Three guys try to get out of going to Vietnam by flunking their draft physical, debate the Warren Commission results, engage in computer dates, and create films that peeping toms might love.  But mostly they just talk.  Some of their monologues are dirty and some are funny.  You feel like you are with a bunch of goof-offs who are pretty good at enjoying themselves.  One of the guys happens to be Robert De Niro (in his first film).  Allen Garfield has a good bit as a smut peddler.  But, yeah, De Palma seems to have been a pervert from the start.  Godard and Warhol may have had more to say.    

The Black Pirate (1926)

☆ ☆ ☆

The Black Pirate (1926) – A. Parker

Doug Fairbanks leaps and bounds and slides down the rigging in this early two-strip Technicolor swashbuckler.  Sure, it has a bunch of pirate clichés (buried treasure, walking the plank) and lots of swordplay but it also seems to lag sometimes.  The early color processing leaves things a bit more red and green than we are used to – especially in the outdoor shots.  Doug swears to defeat the pirates after they capture his ship and kill his father, so he does what anyone would do – he joins up to defeat them from the inside.  In the process, he also has to rescue Billie Dove who is on the next ship they capture – of course, he marries her in the end (when they are both revealed to be royalty).  A bit of fun for Doug’s fans but nowhere near as good as The Thief of Bagdad (1924).