The Fourth Man (1983)

☆ ☆ ☆

The Fourth Man (1983) – P. Verhoeven

Paul Verhoeven is a provocateur who crosses the line in a way that deliberately reinforces stereotypes and controverts “politically correct” notions.  For example, his new film (Elle, 2016) is being called a “rape comedy” – but I don’t think I will have the stomach for it.  Basic Instinct and Starship Troopers are what they are.  So, it took me a while before I decided to watch this earlier film (in Dutch) but I took a chance because it was described as Hitchcockian (oh that much maligned adjective).  In essence, the film works as a character study of an alcoholic writer who has a rich fantasy life that intrudes on reality, such that we don’t know whether we are watching “true” events or some anxious fabrication until the fantasy or dream sequence passes.  So, when Gerard meets the young woman who has had three prior husbands die in an accident, we don’t know whether this paranoia about becoming her fourth victim is valid or not (particularly because he is bisexual and really more interested in her current beau than her).  In the end however, Gerard’s obsessions and visions, which have always had a religious flavour (cue symbolism, I guess), turn out to be more than what they seemed – but one can still doubt whether the interpretation is a creation of fiction.  Verhoeven wants to have it all ways and, guys, watch out for the scissors.

  

Trafic (1971)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Trafic (1971) – J. Tati

M. Hulot is back and he is an automobile designer. Of course, he gets into many jams (not all of them traffic jams).  Tati’s fifth and final outing as Hulot is gently humorous as in M. Hulot’s Holiday, Mon Oncle but not as ambitious or abstract as Playtime.  Still, it is a “nonverbal” comedy that features sound effects cranked up high on the soundtrack and dialogue kept relatively low, as if it were unimportant.  The plot involves getting a special camping car from Paris to Amsterdam for an auto show.  Unsurprisingly, Hulot and his crew don’t make it on time. The movie is all about the predicaments that they find themselves on the way.  While not uproarious, Trafic is wry and amusing and French.  Nevertheless, I think it is advisable to start in the beginning with Tati and move forward to see his development over time; or in fact, to see how Hulot remains the same as the context around him changes.

Armored Car Robbery (1950)

☆ ☆ ☆

Armored Car Robbery (1950) – R. Fleischer

The title says it all – except that the robbery itself is over in the first 15 minutes of the film (admittedly only 67 minutes long in total).  All that follows is the aftermath, which is actually a pretty taut police procedural. So, we shift from learning the plans of the clever crook who masterminds the heist (played by William Talman of Perry Mason fame) to the methods of the police lieutenant who tracks him down.  Director Richard Fleischer knows how to increase the tension (e.g., a car engine stalls out at just the wrong time) and to keep things moving, just as he did in the subsequent Narrow Margin and Violent Saturday.  Not sure what happened with him later as he moved into Disney fare and other oddities (Soylent Green, Conan the Barbarian).  This is a good example of its genre, with a tough-as-nails cop going head to head with a bad guy who keeps his wits about him (until the somewhat inexplicable, but apt, ending punctuates the affair).

  

The Stalls of Barchester (1971)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Stalls of Barchester (1971) – L. G. Clark

The first of the BBC’s classic Ghost Stories for Christmas series, featuring dramatizations of tales by M. R. James.  The best versions of James that I have seen so far are “Whistle and I’ll Come to You” (1968) and “A Warning to the Curious” (1972) for TV and, of course, Curse of the Demon (1957), one of my all time favourite films.  The Stalls of Barchester is in the same tradition, as an archdeacon who may have murdered his predecessor is mysteriously haunted by a cat and other shadowy figures.  This has something to do with the carved figures in his stall of the church, the wood for which was apparently taken from a famous hanging tree.  The story involves a framing device (two scholars are reading the archdeacon’s diary) which allows the “truth” of the story to come out.  Not quite as spooky as others but if you imagine yourself alone in the house at night, it just may give you the creeps.    

Mata Hari (1931)

☆ ☆ ☆ 

Mata Hari (1931) – G. Fitzmaurice

Pre-code Greta Garbo talkie (that was edited to remove some of its risqué content sometime later) tells the story of the famous WWI spy who was also an exotic dancer.  Of course, Garbo epitomized exotic glamour at the time, but she is a bit gayer and more free than her later melancholy and tragic image might suggest.  Still, the story is tragic in the end, because Mata Hari was ultimately revealed in Paris and died by the firing squad.  Her source of information, General Shubin of Russia, is played by pre-wheelchair Lionel Barrymore who gives the role his usual zest, overshadowing nominal leading man Ramon Novarro (a Russian soldier).  It doesn’t end well for either of them either. George Fitzmaurice’s direction is unobtrusive and the sets and costumes create the right atmosphere of romantic intrigue but generally things are a bit static.  The script is surely melodramatic enough, yet Garbo somehow isn’t able to indulge her torments to the fullest extent.

Pim & Pom: The Big Adventure (2014)

☆ ☆ ☆

Pim & Pom: The Big Adventure (2014) – G. Smid

Aito and Amon and I went to see this Dutch animated kids’ movie at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image.  It is based on the drawings of artist Fiep Westendorp (who died in 2004) and the story follows the titular cats who get lost and have to find their way home to “the lady” with whom they live.  They are chased by the lady’s two nieces who want to steal Pim & Pom away for themselves, if they can find them (“why are they so mean?” said Aito, aged 6).  The look of the film is very stylized, all flat 2-D and very colourful – these cats have no mouths.  Of course, it has been redubbed in English and there are songs (of the schmaltzy popular variety about friends and sharing and responsibility).  Amon (aged 3 ½) was more-or-less transfixed, although he wanted to leave when things got a little troubling on-screen.  Aito’s attention seemed to wax and wane but, in the end, he gave it four stars out of five and we watched a few related you-tube clips when we got home.

  

The Wolfpack (2015)

☆ ☆ ☆

The Wolfpack (2015) – C. Moselle

A Sundance winner, this documentary uncovered the secret life of seven children (six of them boys) who were confined to their Lower East Side NYC apartment for most of their lives, learning about the world from home-schooling and more importantly from movies, which they re-enact with glee (and paper maiche).  We are treated to excerpts from Reservoir Dogs, Batman Begins, and Pulp Fiction.  Of course, the documentary can’t begin until the children have been found, around the time that the oldest was 20 years old, perhaps.  There is no explanation about how the director, Crystal Moselle, stumbled into this story but she is offscreen most of the time as the four older kids reveal their secrets (and we also see found video-recorded footage from their childhood).  The mother and father show up to explain themselves (the father is a control freak who was afraid of the NYC environs).  Although there are hints of darkness, the film is largely optimistic, tracking how the young men start to reassert themselves once the parental controls are lifted.  Some of them would like to be film directors, naturally.  Amazingly, this is not a freak show but that may be testament to the careful and ethical shaping of the material by Moselle that lets the protagonists speak, but leaves many unanswered questions (and hence, drags a bit).