Shinkansen Daibakuha (1975)

Shinkansen Daibakuha (1975) – J. Satô

All of the disaster movie clichés are on full display in this 150-minute “bomb on a train” Seventies drama from Japan.  The plot was famously adapted for Speed (1994) starring Keanu Reeves, but here the train can’t slow down below 80 km/hr or the dynamite will explode.  It has been planted by Ken Takakura, a small factory owner who has been driven to bankruptcy and divorce by a larger corporation. He’s joined by a group of others who are disadvantaged by Japan’s economic and social changes (a kid who can’t find work, a former terrorist/activist) – there are a number of flashbacks that explain how the group came together. Takakura is from the hard cool school where acting involves not doing much, just looking tough, often while smoking a cigarette, reflecting. Apparently, all or most of this backstory was cut-out for an international version of the film that just focused on the train action which cuts between the engineer/driver (Sonny Chiba), frantic passengers (including a lady about to give birth and lots of people late for appointments), the shinkansen control centre (all 70s tech with flashing lights and ancient monitors), and the police headquarters (where the leadership team investigates leads to try to identify the bombers).  Takakura wants a cool US $5 million in a silver suitcase but there are several failed attempts to get it to him and then even when the money is paid off, there is additional trouble getting the bomb’s whereabouts and the instructions for how to dismantle it from Takakura to the people on the train.  Whatever can go wrong, does go wrong.  Yet with all the frantic plotting to keep the suspense going, this still feels like an epic TV episode (with an awesome jazz funk soundtrack) and that’s not unlike comfort food, albeit from Japan.

 

My Name is Alfred Hitchcock (2022)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

My Name is Alfred Hitchcock (2022) – M. Cousins

Film critic Mark Cousins (creator of The Story of Film TV series, 2011) typically narrates the documentaries (that he writes and directs) in his lilting Belfast accent, relaying his unique insights and film analysis over clips from the relevant films.  But here, tackling the films of Alfred Hitchcock, Cousins instead has professional mimic Alistair McGowan narrate the film as if the voiceover were delivered by the Master of Suspense himself.  This is peculiar, even off-putting (when Hitch talks about mobile phones and screentime), but works as a conceit that allows Cousins to suggest certain motivations on the part of Hitch, motivations that allow Cousins to impose some thematic unity across diverse films.  The themes (organised into chapters) include Escape, Desire, Loneliness, Time, Fulfillment, and Height.  These sorts of analyses (of the kind you often find on youtube) are fun – and its great to see all of the parallels across Hitchcock’s films – but as a whole the themes don’t add up to anything deeper, even if they are imagined to come from the horse’s mouth (not always believably). Hitchcock’s films do lend themselves to analysis, a seemingly endless wellspring, so it’s great to see Cousins manage to provide a novel take on this well-trodden ground.

 

The House of the Seven Gables (1940)

 ☆ ☆ ☆

The House of the Seven Gables (1940) – J. May

Shades of the gothic horrors that Vincent Price would do with Roger Corman decades later.  It is always great to see Price (and also George Sanders) but this should have been pushed a bit harder over the top into the kind of horror Universal was already known for.  Although I read the novel so long ago, wikipedia tells me that Nathaniel Hawthorne's plot is much corrupted here.

 

The Conspirators (1944)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Conspirators (1944) – J. Negulesco

Sure, it echoes Casablanca, with a number of shared cast members and similar plotline, but even if it's empty at the centre, it makes all the right moves and therefore I found it an easy and enjoyable entertainment.

 

The Teachers’ Lounge (2023)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Teachers’ Lounge (2023) – I. Çatak

One of those films that aims to put viewers in the middle of a moral quandary and then tightens the screws by ensuring that all possible viewpoints have some credibility. Carla Nowak (Leonie Benesch) is a Polish teacher who is new to a German school, teaching sixth grade.  When a rash of thefts takes place, the school leadership takes a heavy-handed approach to discovering the culprit which involves pressuring class leaders to dob in their classmates and even frisking students. Carla clearly disapproves but when she is the target of a theft herself things quickly spiral out-of-control and she finds herself spurned by both students and teachers. Benesch is solid in the lead role as the slightly paranoid and unsure teacher (who is otherwise caring and conscientious toward her students).  Director Ilker Çatak manages the tension exceptionally well (and seems to want to say something about the difficulties of managing a multicultural classroom/society), but the film falters at the final gate, leaving many loose ends untied.  Perhaps that sort of open ending plays well for the art house crowd but letting the plot unspool for another twenty or so minutes may have provided a bit more satisfaction (as it is, the ending teeters on the edge of plausibility, at least for me). Nevertheless, for most of its runtime, The Teacher’s Lounge was extremely gripping.  

 

Marshland (2014)

 ☆ ☆ ☆

Marshland (2014) – A. Rodríguez

Spanish take on the serial killer genre with two cops, one young and idealistic and one older and cynical, hunting a killer of young girls in the rural south of the country. The time is 1980 and Franco has been dead for five years but his loyalists remain in this area. The younger cop has been relocated from Madrid for writing an outspoken pro-democracy letter to the newspaper. The older cop is rumored to have been part of Franco’s secret police. Together they must track down the killer of two teen sisters who may have been the subject of pornographic photographs. So, the content is dark and the film moves slowly, taking its time to linger on the landscape (wasteland or marshland). The clues add up, as do the victims (some from the past).  Those in positions of power may be implicated.  As the plot takes several twists and turns, we learn more about the two detectives and perhaps they come to understand or accept each other. But by the time we get to the end of the picture, a few plot holes still exist (or perhaps I missed some important details or did not quite grasp the cultural context). And, not unlike some classics of the neo-noir genre (e.g., Chinatown), even as the mystery appears solved, justice remains somewhere in the distance.

 

The Crimson Rivers (2000)

 ☆ ☆ ½

The Crimson Rivers (2000) – M. Kassovitz

A star-studded French serial killer thriller offered a lot of promise and started off strong and gritty, albeit with some clichéd characters for this genre.  Jean Reno plays the jaded police commissioner who does not play by the rules, brought in to investigate a gruesome murder in the French Alps.  In a separate plot strand, Vincent Cassel plays another investigator who ignores the rules and can be a bit of a hot-head, investigating the desecration of a girl’s tomb, presumably by some Nazi skinheads.  Naturally, the two investigations come together in a focus on a prestigious but secluded University in the mountains.  Members of the Faculty are picked off one-by-one, with the serial killer using one death to point out clues to the next.  Reno suspects alumnus Nadia Farès who has a chip on her shoulder against the university (but still works there, helping to divert avalanches from descending on the school).  She is also his presumed love interest.  With its strong cast – and direction by actor Matthieu Kassovitz (who was so great in the political spy series, The Bureau) – things hold together well, until suddenly they don’t.  Reputedly, Vincent Cassel complained that he could never understand the plot and this permanently damaged his relationship with Kassovitz.  Reno returned for a sequel and a couple of decades later a French TV series appeared.  However, I’m with Cassel – this does not add up.