May Films - 2021

What are you watching in May?

The Last Blockbuster
Interesting documentary about the very last Blockbuster still operating in Bend, Oregon. This probably will only appeal to those of us who rented movies and games from video stores. I had forgotten that rentals were only for a few days. I get my DVDs now from the library and you can keep them out for a couple of weeks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_rental_shop

https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-last-blockbuster-video-20190307-s...

>2 JulieLill: Our last Blockbuster closed in January. I never rented DVD's but I did buy some from them really cheap. I have 1000 DVD's...not all from Blockbuster...but I also get the ones that I want to watch but don't want to own, from the library. They even renew them for me without me having to ask.

>3 Carol420: Our Blockbuster's closed years ago. It was fun to go and look at all the movies.

Recently premiering on HBO, Tenet (2020). 2 hr 30 min. Director/Writer, Christopher Nolan. Cinematography, Hoyt van Hoytema. Film editing: Jennifer Lane. Production design, Nathan Crowley. Music: Ludwig Goransson. Heard some complaints that the story was incomprehensible, but I thought it was quite entertaining, even though the physics was probably loony. Opens with an attack on an opera house in Russia where you can’t tell who’s who because all of the attackers are wearing opaque helmets but they seem to be shooting at each other as much as they are shooting the spectators. This will eventually become a factor in the penultimate action/set piece. Think of it as the Marvel Endgame parodied with deadly seriousness, though a lot of it (Tenet) struck me as funny. Somebody’s idea: We can save on the spectacular action scenes by running them twice, or even three times, the second or first time or third time backwards or forwards! Basically (!), since time doesn’t valorize past or future, future sends some of its artefacts to past, but in the past the artefacts of the future run in reverse. Once you get the hang of it and create a suitable Macguffin, you can create a giant apocalypse and destroy the past, which in the movie is the present, on the assumption that the Grandfather Clause won’t hold and post Apocalypse the future can change the course of time somehow, even if it obliterates its predecessor. One of the funny bits of casting has Kenneth Branagh (as Sator the villain) married to estranged wife Elizabeth Debicki (as Kat), who is in a hopeless custody battle (where it is often the case where the past depends on whose creating it – I’m currently reading What Maisie Knew – since Debicki looks to be about 6’ 6’ and Branagh appears to be the size of a dwarf.

On Amazon Prime, I finally caught up with I Saw the Devil (2010). 2 hr 24 min., Korean with English subtitles. Director Jee Woon Kim; screenplay, Park Hoon Jong, cinematography, Moe Jai Lee, film editng Na-Young Nam. A slasher/revenge film with top production values & epic length (for a slasher/revenge film). Secret agent Kim Soo-hyeon (played by stone faced Lee Byung Hun) on the trail of serial killer Jang Kyung-chui (ultra-villainously played by Choi Min Sik) who murdered agent’s pregnant wife or girlfriend. Choi likes to dismember his victims & scatter their remains, but draws the line at eating them, unlike his pal who turns up late in the film. Notable, and somewhat comical as this happens again and again, Choi seems to be unkillable no matter how much Kim mangles and beats him (hence the long drawn out story). Some critics and viewers thought it was too long, but bashing on Choi and his cannibal friend couldn’t go on long enough for me, as my mind replaced them with a senator from Texas I don’t care for even as my better self kept repeating “Revenge is not the answer. Revenge is not the Answer.” Ostensibly the director/screenwriter’s point but obviously they get too carried away on the revenge part.

>5 featherbear: I gave up on Tenet. My brain was going into a deadly tailspin, Although I might return to it after a fish binge. I really enjoyed the film of What Maisie Knew. A long time ago, but I think Alexander Skarsgard was in it.
I Saw the Devil has been a go to film for me. I've lost count of the times I've seen it. Lee Byung Hun is a terrific crier and was put on this earth to look sharp in a suit. Choi Min Sik is just the dog's ********.

I saw Tenet last month and I thought it started out strong but then it went on and on.... I did finish watching it but it was just okay for me.

>6 .cris: I'm rewatching Tenet so far made more amusing now that I can see how the opening reflects both the future of the story and its past. The custody battle between Kat & Sator for ownership of Max is a microcosm of the larger battle over who will own the future.

Anyways, Choi Min Sik & Sator are maybe 2 of the most despicable villains in movies, but my favorite (possibly because I watched it when I was too young) was Robert Mitchum in Night of the Hunter.

The Secret Garden 2020
I thought this classic film remake was beautifully done and beautifully filmed. I enjoyed it.

I'm re-doing the Hunger Games.

From TCM’s weekly offerings: Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday aka Les vacances de Monsieur Hulot (originally 1953, restored version incorporating director/writer’s re-edits, 1978). 1 hr. 53 min. B&W, sound (dialog is very sparse, French w/English subtitles plus some of the dialog is English). Director/chief screenwriter, star: Jacques Tati as M. Hulot.

The first of Tati’s Hulot movies. On my bucket list ever since I saw Mon Oncle. Even funnier than the later film, recalling slapstick silents. M. Hulot is taller than everyone else in his films, and this alone gets him into a number of pratfalls. Although there is very little dialog, the use of sound effects is crucial: the sputtering of Hulot’s jalopy engine, the creaking of the hotel door, the sudden blasts of sound from Hulot’s Victrola.

Takes place at the French seaside; Hulot is on the top floor of the beachside hotel. First sight gag is of vacationers trying to find the proper train landing, though in the next scene, it’s clear that Hulot, like a number of other travelers, is driving to his vacation spot. The humor never seems to be mean-spirited – despite the aggravation caused by Hulot and others – nice scene on the trip where a sleeping dog is aroused by the honking of a (for that time) modern car and leaves the roadway but doesn’t move for Hulot’s old car – but the gag ends with the dog finally giving in and getting up to allow the jalopy to go by, and Hulot pats it on the head.

The film is structured as a series of vignettes, though I couldn’t spot a larger arc: the tennis match where Hulot does not use “proper form” & beats the pants off all opponents, leading to the next scene where he seems to be triumphing at table tennis as well (another great sound effect) – Hulot chased by two small dogs into an oceanside fireworks shack and somehow setting it on fire (sound and visual splendor) – Hulot’s troubles with a horse he hopes to accompany a pretty equestrian. Echoes of Chaplin & Keaton all over the place. Strongly recommended.

By the way, also available via HBO Max, which is involved with some kind of licensing agreement with Turner Classics. Meaning you can access the Apu trilogy & other Criterion classics without having to purchase the expensive discs if you have an HBO subscription. (Unfortunately, it appears that despite my HBO subscription I can’t stream HBO Max to my TV w/out getting a replacement DVR, which probably means I lose all my recordings. On my to-do list is watching & deleting my cache)

White Collar -Season 4
5/5

I have season 5 and know there is only 1 more after that. Will be sorry to see this one end. Might even have to start again.

>12 Carol420: I enjoyed that series when it came out!

Could I suggest that next month we use just one thread for movies & TV? Often posts about TV shows appear in the film thread, which is confusing to me. Also I notice that there are only 2 postings on the TV thread for May (one of them being mine), so I don't think a movie/TV thread would be cumbersome.

>14 featherbear: Good idea. I can do that.

>15 Carol420: Thanks!

The Bride Wore Black aka La mariée était en noir (1968). 1 hr 47 min. French w/English subtitles. Director/co-screenwriter: François Truffaut (adapted from the novel by Cornell Woolrich). Cinematography: Raoul Coutard. Film editor: Claudine Bouche. Music: Bernard Herrmann. Not from TCM for a change (my cable provider’s popular on-demand pix channel).

Supposedly a Hitchcock homage, and indeed the Hermann score makes the French location seem like Vertigo’s San Francisco to me, at times, and some of Coutard’s shots reminded me of Hitchcock’s James Stewart/Marnie period, though Truffaut probably had something to do with the mise-en-scene. Don’t know who gets credit for Jean Moreau’s wigs, one of which looks like a furry animal with a tail.

Moreau plays Julie Kohler, a bride whose husband is killed on her wedding day, who goes on a planned revenge tour for the men she believes were responsible. Moreau largely goes through the film with her standing frowny face, though she does an impersonation of a child’s kindergarten teacher about which the father should have been a bit more suspicious -- the point being, probably, that he is too full of himself to imagine something off. Most of the interest of the film is actually generated by the victims when they are around Julie, who reveal their characters when they try to flirt with, condescend to, or seduce her. No Hitchcock twists, and the revenge cycle seems to be routine. Truffaut idolized Hitchcock, but this seemed to be a rather dull homage.

>16 featherbear: You're welcome. The two topics can be easily combined. I don't watch TV so I just didn't think about it. Next month one topic combining both medias. Thank you for the suggestion.

Goodland (2017). 1 hr. 24 min. Director/screenwriter: Josh Doke. Cinematography: Iain Trimble. Editing: Edward Schroer. Music: Nathan Towns. Indie movie that doesn’t appear to have had much success, I’m guessing because of the snarky ending, which apparently goes against audience expectations. Doke’s only feature film.

On location: Goodland Kansas actually exists, by the way. On the outskirts of Goodland, the body of a vagrant turns up in a cornfield, mutilated by a thresher. Recognized by the deputy sheriff who ran him out of town for public drunkenness. Though the deputy assumes the vagrant was sleeping off a drunk and got caught by the thresher, but sheriff Georgette Gaines (Cinnamon Schultz) finds the death suspicious.

Speaking of people “not from here,” the sheriff & deputy run into a new person in town with the unusual name of Ergo Raines (Matt Weis), who claims to be working on a photography book with the theme of small-town America. He asks about lodging & he chooses a run-down, out of town motel instead of the newer and successful one “with a pool” (a running joke), where he meets a young woman Ida (Sarah Kennedy) at the check-in desk who wants to get out of town desperately and gets aggressively flirty with Raines in the hope of doing so. Raines does not respond; turns out he chose the motel as an appropriate place for a bathroom darkroom instead of hijinks. The photography will create a turning point that throws off the best laid plans. In case you are wondering, Sarah Kennedy was in her late 20s at the time of filming, but her age & the photography are crucial, & set off a bloody series of events.

Not serio-comic like the Coen brothers’ Fargo, and doesn’t spend as much time bringing the characters to life but a tight Midwestern noirish thriller nevertheless. All of the actors are unknowns, but I liked the lack of emoting. Good production values on a limited budget (only one action scene at the end of the film) -- wouldn't be surprised if the filmmaker named the movie after the town in exchange for the on location shooting. Started watching it on Amazon Prime to kill time before SNL, & continued watching it until its ironic conclusion in the wee hours of the next morning.

3 documentaries on boomer musicians from various sources.
TCM: Bob Dylan: Don’t Look Back aka Don’t Look Back (1967). 1 hr 36 min., B&W. Director, writer, film editor, cinematography: D. A. Pennebaker. Additional cinematographers: Howard Alk, Jones Alk (also sound department) and Ed Emshwiller.

Kind of like a reality show before reality shows were a thing. As I recall Dylan comments that the photographers/sound recordist constantly following him & his entourage around eventually became unnoticed background. Pennebaker, covering Bob Dylan’s 1965 London tour (March-April), uses a lot of footage of Dylan et al. in the green room prior to shows, traveling by car from one concert to the next, & dealing with reporters, occasionally cutting in performances.

One scene with manager (& film co-producer) Albert Grossman finagling with an English promoter & someone else over the phone, in the promoter’s office, trying to get the performance fee for a concert up to $2000 from $1200. Inflation, I guess – crowds seem large & he is already a celebrity among “the youth.” Another times they are a’changing bit has Dylan in a hotel room filled with partying hangers-on, losing his cool trying to determine who threw a bottle out of the hotel window. Like concert earnings, partying also inflated in later years among rockers, Led Zep being a typical example.

At this point in his career Dylan is turning away from protest folk-songs to more personal-sounding, surrealistic & sometimes lengthy poetic rambling during an extraordinarily creative period. He is introducing songs from the record Bringing It All Back Home (released before the tour), which included Tambourine Man & It’s All Over Baby Blue (the latter a precursor of his one hit single, Like a Rolling Stone (the record on which it appeared, Highway 61 Revisited, came out in August 1965).

At this point, reporters & fans still think of him as a folk/protest singer, but he really does his best to avoid pigeonholing; his exasperation with clueless reporters is evident. He has amazing powers of concentration, in one scene typing away at a new song while Joan Baez is sitting behind him singing & playing the guitar. Baez always seems to be friendly and likable, while Dylan is often aloof, in his own world. Manager Grossman seems like the sort of fellow who would stab you in the face without changing expression on his own. If you like Dylan (Bringing It All Back Home I played again and again in high school) at any point in his career, you’ll want to see this.

Netflix: No Direction Home(2005). Originally a multi-episode series on the PBS American Masters series, the Netflix version appears to have been abridged from the original length (5 hr. 59 min.down to 3 hrs. 26 min.). B&W & some Color. Director, Martin Scorsese. Cinematography, Maryse Alberti, Mustapha Barat, et al. Film editing, David Tedeschi.

This is the style of most PBS documentaries: archival footage and interviews with Bob Dylan & people associated with him. Two people who died before the documentary were Albert Grossman (who probably wouldn’t have wanted to be interviewed) & Michael Bloomfield. A full range of his associates were interviewed, including Maria Muldaur, Allen Ginsberg, Pete Seeger, Dave Van Ronk, Suze Rotolo (Dylan’s girlfriend during much of this period), Al Kooper (the organist featured in Highway 61 Revisited, Peter Yarrow, and, of course Joan Baez. I’m pretty sure some of the interviewees have passed since then (e.g. Pete Seeger, who died in 2014).

Unlike Don’t Look Back, this one covers Dylan from his beginnings in Duluth Minnesota to 1966. The motorcycle accident (Blonde on Blonde), which put pause on the frantic pace, is still on the horizon, and unlike D. A. Pennebaker, who appears in one of the interviews, Martin Scorsese is immersed in boomer popular music & who is able to survey Dylan’s early career from the perspective of the late works.

Scorsese focuses on Dylan’s transition from folk singer/protest singer to electric blues/rock/country music. When we see footage of his performance backed by the (electric-powered) Butterfield Blues Band at the Newport Folk Festival, as he sings “I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more,” and “It’s all over now baby blue,” before shocked, booing folk fans who regard this as the corruption by commercial greed, the savior become Judas, one can’t help seeing the lyrics as a snarling farewell to the folk phase of his career. Years later progressive Pete Seeger looks back at that night in his interview and still seems to feel the shock of the event (in some of the interviews he is remembered as being held back so he wouldn’t cut the power cables).

As part of the transition to electric rock and blues, we get archival footage and several interviews with Dylan & the studio musicians as they create Highway 61. The general impression from the interviews is that none of his associates can claim to fully understand the trajectory of the repeatedly self re-creating artist. Lots of bleeding chunks of concert music performances from the protest songs to “commercial” pop. What I missed was a fuller discussion of his incorporation of American popular music. The Band becomes his backing group at the end of the film, where the incorporation of popular music tropes is more explicit, but this would only be explored after 1966. It appears the 5 hr version can be rented or purchased for streaming via Amazon Prime, and the program was also issued as a 2 DVD set. Might be available at your local library?

Horn From the Heart: The Paul Butterfield Story (2017) 1 hr. 35 min. Color, B&W & color. Director & Film editor, John Anderson. Cinematographers, Stan Eng & Peter Trilling.

Mostly a folk fan in high school, I happened to hear an AM radio interview with members of The Lovin’ Spoonful talking about their listening preferences, including the feedback opening of a Beatles 45 (I Feel Fine if I recall), which caught my attention since I liked the use of electronic distortion as well. The DJ closed the interview by playing The Spoonfuls’ Night Owl Blues with John Sebastian & Zal Yanovsky on amplified harp & electric guitar respectively, the first time I’d heard blues played through amplifiers. Browsing in a record shop I ran across an anthology album, What’s Shakin' featuring three bands, The Spoonful, Eric Clapton & the Powerhouse, & The Paul Butterfield Blues Band. Bargain price, maybe a remainder, picked it up hoping to hear more electric blues from Sebastian & co. Brought it home. No blues from The Spoonful but the Butterfield Band was all electric blues, with an outstanding cut of Good Morning Little Schoolgirl with a furious harp opening & solo quite beyond John Sebastian, still more of a folk-rock artist.

This eventually led me to the LP The Paul Butterfield Band, their first, with Butterfield on harp, Michael Bloomfield & Elvin Bishop on electric guitars, Mark Naftalin on keyboards, & the former rhythm section of Howlin’ Wolf’s band, Jerome Arnold (bass) & Sam Lay (drums). I played the album throughout high school – never hooked up with anyone who had heard of it or liked that kind of music. It was one of my touchstone recordings. Even taped it to be able to listen to it in college in New York. Butterfield’s band – with the same personnel – played at a Greenwich Village club I visited several times, but I missed them by a year or two – they even played at a dance at my college – I was one year too late.

Bloomfield did studio work with Bob Dylan. He & the band backed up Dylan (sans Butterfield) at the historic Newport Folk Festival as described in No Direction Home (at one point in the documentary he plays the intro to the Otis Rush song It Takes Time, which he would record at the Fillmore West many years later). By the second album Sam Lay had left the band & the music was more experimental, both anticipating the improvising jam bands of the 70’s & the psychedelic music of San Francisco. After that, Michael Bloomfield left the band and became co-founder of The Electric Flag group. The Flag combined amplified horns with electric guitar & keyboards, like many of the high-end African-American blues bands (e.g. B.B. King), and Butterfield was not far behind; he used similar configurations for many years.

Butterfield grew up in the Hyde Park area near the University of Chicago, which he briefly attended. Hyde Park was close to the South Side ghetto where blues clubs were flourishing. In high school he was a choir boy (he had a wide ranging tenor) & studied flute, which probably gave him the breath control needed for harmonica, or “harp,” as it was called in the Chicago clubs. It appears he spent most of his college days in the South Side blues clubs, and he was an extremely quick study. The blues harp is sometimes referred to as “The Mississippi Saxophone,” but Butterfield’s distinctive early style sounded to me closer to a trumpet, with wonderful “fat” tone.

Like Dylan, he had a personality that did not encourage intimacy. Unlike Dylan he may have been an addict of controlled substances most of his life, though his drinking was probably the key factor in the acute peritonitis that contributed to his death at an early age. He may have gotten Michael Bloomfield on heroin; Bloomfield died of an overdose at a young age. At least they missed the introduction of OxyContin. He had a post-horn band period with his Woodstock group, Better Days, which included Geoff Muldaur, who became a fan at the Newport Festival. But the band only released 2 records, and he seems to have lost touch with his family in Woodstock -- he kept relapsing whenever he was on the road. He had a lot of gigs with Robbie Robertson in California, which I wasn’t aware of. Not a glorious life story, but the archival footage and the interviews are treasurable. An early version of the original Butterfield Band LP rejected by the producers was turned up in the record company’s warehouse years later, and bears comparison with the band’s first record.

Guest House
A couple buys a home but there is a nutcase (Pauly Shore) who is living in the guest cottage. He is supposed to move out but they can't evict him and he ends up ruining the life of the couple.
I thought this might be funny but this film is the worst thing I have seen in quite awhile.

>23 JulieLill: Saw it and agree with you.

On streaming sites, like many, I spend more time searching their enormous databases than I'd like to admit. I took a look at the New York Times's What to Watch on Amazon Prime some time ago, and it seemed pretty conventional, but after a long hiatus I revisited the list (constantly updated since Amazon doesn't offer the popular ones for very long) & was struck by how many bucket list films were on it, as well as some I've never heard of that sound interesting, e.g. Tanna, though there were a couple I've seen that I didn't care for & consciously avoid, e.g. WarGames. If you have access to Prime, check out The Night of the Hunter featuring Robert Mitchum's fake preacher, in the only film ever directed by Charles Laughton.

NYT, 04/15/2021: The Best Movies on Amazon Prime Video Right Now.

>25 featherbear: I loved Tanna. I believe the actors were all locals. Nominated for Best Foreign Language Oscar 2017.

Billy Jack
This was a repeat for me and when it first came out in 1971 I saw it and loved it. However, watching it again, I couldn't believe I loved that film. I thought it was terrible. I did recognize Howard Hesseman who was a teen in the film. He was great in WKRP In Cincinnati .

This film was part of a series. I had seen at least one other of them.
Born Losers
Billy Jack
The Trial of Billy Jack
Billy Jack Goes to Washington

White Collar - Season 6
5/5

The sixth and final season kicks off with Neal trying to secure his freedom once and for all by making a deal with the FBI brass. To do so, however, he must gain access to the leader of an international crime syndicate.

There are some things that you wish could just go on forever and this series is one of them. I guess the writers and producers knew enough to stop while they were ahead. Good final season. A really really possibly sad thing happened...but it turned out okay but wish it hadn't exactly occurred like it did. I am gonna miss Neal Caffrey.

TCM’s tribute to Satyajit Ray on the occasion of what would be his 100th birthday – he died in the 1990s. Films viewed: The Apu Trilogy consisting (in order): Pather Panchali -- Aparajito -- The World of Apu. Other films: The Music Room -- The Big City -- Devi -- Three Daughters: The Postmaster -- Monihara -- Samapti. PS: I believe all of these, certainly The Apu Trilogy, are also available for streaming. Might check out Amazon Prime, though I haven't.

Pather Panchali (1955). 2 hr. 5 min. B&W, in Bengali w/English subtitles. Director & screenplay, Sayajit Ray. Based on the novel Pather Panchali by Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay. Cinematography, Subrata Mitra. Film editor: Dulal Dutta. Music: Ravi Shankar. Fabulous restoration that brings out the shots of the forest in all their glory. Shankar’s score follows the story faithfully.

I’ve seen this before, I know who dies, but the scene with the sari when the father returns still brings me to tears – really, even remembering it does it to me. Emotionally overpowering because we follow the family’s life in the village as they grow. Takes place ca. 1910. Brahmins (the top class in Hinduism), but living at subsistence level in a rural village: mother Sarbojaya (Karuna Bannerjee), father Harihar (Kanu Bannerjee), daughter Durga (Uma Das Gupta as a teenager, Runki Bannerjee as a child) and the youngest, Apu (Subir Banerjee). The TCM introduction indicated none of the Bannerjees were related, but according to Andrew Robinson’s Satyajit Ray, the child Durga was the daughter of Kanu B. There is outstanding work by Chunibala Devi as Indir Thakrun (“Auntie”). (If I understand correctly, in the Hindu caste system only Brahmins are allowed to perform religious rites – it is largely how Harihar makes a living)

Traditionally, the film is seen as the story of Apu’s childhood, but for me, the most important figure is the mother, Sarbojaya. We’re introduced to her as something of a petty scold, uncharitable to the aged Auntie, but also the family dogsbody, constantly trying to keep her family one step away from starvation. In addition, she is concerned with her lowly economic status among the women in the village, worrying that her children will disgrace the family, but when Durga is accused of being a thief she is fiercely protective. (It turns out the accusation was correct, but by then it’s too late).

Later in the film she has to protect her children during a monsoon, and her daughter when she becomes ill. We see further aspects of her life in Aparajito. Karuna Bannerjee is outstanding; a professional actress in the theater, this was her first film. Railroad sounds sometimes interrupt the village & forest sounds, but there is a key moment when the children see the train for the first time, from the vantage point of a field. The film is a foreshadowing of the movement of the family, and of India, into the Industrial, “modern,” age, a theme that continues in the 2 subsequent films of the trilogy, but it's the human moments that make the film a classic.

Aparajito aka The Unvanquished (1956). 1 hr. 50 min., otherwise same technical details as Pather. At the end of that movie, the family moves to Benares, sharing an apartment near the Ganges River, where Sarbonjaya supports the family by sewing & cooking for wealthier neighbors. Apu explores a city for the first time. Father Harihar earns a living reading Vedic scripture on the broad steps leading down to the river, and we see Apu watching various activities performed on the steps & around the city.

Unfortunately, Harihar soon finds the steps too difficult to negotiate, and soon dies. Sarbojaya does good work & the family offers her a job when they move to Calcutta; further, she is harassed by another apartment dweller seemingly minutes after her husband dies. However, she instead returns with Apu to village life, where he is expected to learn the rituals of priesthood like his father under the tutelage of the relative. But he is attracted to a nearby school.

Though reluctant, his mother permits him to do so, and he proves to be an apt pupil, where he catches the eye of the district superintendent with his reading of the poet Tagore. Quick scene change, & child Apu (now played by Pinaki Sengupta) has been replaced by teenage Apu (Smaran Ghosal) who has just earned a scholarship to university in Calcutta. Sarbonjaya is even more reluctant to separate. The interplay of generations between mother & son, and old India and modern India is played out, but at an emotional level, for the mother who only had Apu left of her family, & an adolescent who wants to break away from her & seems indifferent to her, as is the case with many adolescents. Except this is heartbreaking to see.

Aparajito moves at a faster pace, analogous to India modernizing in the 1920s as compared to the slow pace of life in Pather. I was more absorbed by the slower narrative pace though I wouldn’t be surprised if some viewers didn’t like it for that reason. But still, Sarbonjay’s last scene with the fire flies in Aparajito is so great.

The World of Apu aka Apur Sansar (1960). 1 hr 35 min. Major technical details as in Pather & Aparajito.

In the last Apu film, he is a young man (now played by Soumitra Chatterjee), with university behind him, & working on a novel, practically in a garret, a movie trope that usually indicates self-absorption, already developing in the previous film. Ray brings out his discomfort with this isolation in the context of India then, & perhaps even now – think of how deeply Sarbonjaya is hurt by loneliness. In Pather the village neighbors who bickered with her come to her aid & she is shown in her worst light by her treatment of Auntie.

His university friend Pulu (Swapan Mukherjee) discerns his alienation from the community & invites him to his sister’s wedding in the country. A crisis occurs when the bridegroom arrives, obviously insane. Her aunt refuses to let her go through with the marriage. Pulu calls on the astonished Apu to save his sister’s honor (if she does not go through with the ceremony, she would be considered unmarriageable from that point on). He is finally convinced to do the honorable thing & marries Aparna (Sharmila Tagore).

According to Andrew Robinson, this is not unheard of – with arranged marriages still the practice in this time period, an arrangement of this kind is not that far from the norm. Some other cultural differences I noticed when watching Ray’s films: Aparna is practically a child – maybe 16? -- & this is not unusual, more the norm. The husband is expected to be quite a bit older. Food is consumed with hands – no utensils anywhere. Something called pan is frequently being chewed – a little like chewing gum, though in films with a later milieu, e.g. The Big City cigarettes seem to have taken over. I believe it is the betel nut component that results in very bad looking teeth. The color of the dot on the forehead indicates marital status (unfortunately not clear in B&W).

Customarily in arranged marriages, sex is postponed, and after the ceremony bride & groom stay together in a room to get acquainted. This custom leads to an excellent, moving scene when Apu & Aparna are locked in the getting acquainted room. Apu does most of the talking, apologizing profusely for being broke & without a job, facing responsibilities for someone else for the first time. I think another bridegroom would have expected his bride to thank him for saving her from disgrace. That her new husband is only worried for her well-being causes Aparna to fall in love with him, though she hardly speaks. Of course too, he is pretty good looking, as is she. Her silent realization seems to be a combination of good directing & acting.

Apu gets a job in Calcutta, and they live happily together in Apu’s little room, reminiscent of David Copperfield & Dora Spenlow, though Aparna proves to be an excellent homemaker. When she becomes pregnant, she returns to her family to have the child, and their parting at the train-station shows their love for each other. And also like the novel David Copperfield, she dies in childbirth (actually a miscarriage). This blow to his happiness returns Apu to his isolation – he refuses to see his son, who “killed” his beloved, and gives up on his novel. He wanders about for five years, and encounters Pulu again who shames him into visiting his son. The boy has become something of an undisciplined child, and rejects his father at first. But when one of his in-laws tries to beat the kid, the spirit of his mother takes over and he takes his son away; coming out of his isolation at last, one gets the impression he feels free again.

The Music Room aka Jalsagar (1958). 1 hr 35 min. B&W, Bengali w/English subtitles. Director/Screenwriter: Satyajit Ray, based on a story by Tarashankar Banerjee. Cinematography & Film editing, same as Apu Trilogy. But, although musical performances are arguably the core of the movie, not Ravi Shankar; instead, Ustad Alayat Khan & Robin Majumdar.

This is kind of like a William Faulkner story about the decaying Southern plantation owners being superseded by the Snopes family. From Robinson’s book I learned the location is East Bengal. Though the time period is not identified, the mix of horseback riding & trucks suggest the early 20th century.

A once rich landlord (zaminder), Huzur Biswabhar Roy (Chhabi Biswas), lives alone in his decaying palace, with the exception of his two elderly servants, his horse, &, yes, an elephant. The land is flat as far as the eye can see, and as a result the river overflow (early sign of climate change?) has eaten up much of his estate. He spends most of his dwindling assets – literally pawning or selling the family jewels -- to pay for live performances of classical Indian music at musical soirees in the palace music room.

Perhaps the room’s most impressive feature is an elaborate chandelier, lit not by electricity but candles. He’s also petty (sometimes reminded me of Homer vs Flanders). Spending most of his time alone smoking a hookah on the palace rooftop, remembering past concerts, many involved with one-upping his neighbor Ganguly (Gangapada Basu), a merchant with hands dirtied by vulgar commerce (& lower caste I believe).

He heard Ganguly celebrating his son’s thread ceremony (sort of like a bar mitzvah I’m guessing) with music. The zaminder recalls his own son’s thread ceremony in the days of his lavish spending. The other love of Roy’s life is his little son. During the estate’s economic decline, he tries to recapture the past by staging another musical evening to celebrate New Year’s with traditional, expensive festivity largely to spite Ganguly. Late in the year, his wife & son travel downriver when her mother falls ill. Roy insists they come back early for the New Year’s festival, and as a result, they are caught in a cyclone & drown.

At another point Ganguly invites his neighbor to a concert in his music room. Roy refuses and spends the last of his funds on one final blow-out concert in his old music room. This is the golden moment in the film for me, an extended concert featuring Rashan Kumari, considered the best classical dancer of her time. To symbolize the end, Ray uses the image of the chandelier's candles burning out.

Robinson quotes a critic who found Indian music to be too foreign to be anything other than boring, though it turned out to be one of his most popular films. The Indian music in Ray's films, classical Indian with some Western touches, is almost always good. In this case, considering that the client is a connoisseur, the songs were traditional, unWesternized, as befits his conservative taste.

For me the sequence was hypnotic, the high point of the film. The tension within the film is between Ray’s social analysis of the events, and his aesthetic. Yes, the landlord is a self-regarding, petty jerk who ruins his estate, an outmoded traditional, and Ray clearly is on the side of modernization, but the music is so beautiful and for modernizers like Ganguly who dozes during one of the performances, to lose touch with that beauty is tragic, or tragi-comic. In some ways, you have to admire someone who would ruin himself for the art, and Ray’s aesthetics are closer to the landlord’s than to the aesthetics of Bollywood.

Three Daughters (1961) aka Teen Kanya is a trilogy of short films: The Postmaster (56 min.) -- Monihara (61 min.) -- Samapti (56 min.) (1961). 1 hr 54 min. total. B&W, Bengali w/English subtitles. Director, screenwriter, & music: Satyajit Ray, based on stories by Rabindranath Tagore. Cinematography: Soumendu Roy. Film editing: Dulal Dutta.

The standout short is the first,The Postmaster, taking place in rural Bengal. The new postmaster, Nandal (Anil Chatterjee), is introduced to the job by its earlier holder. Hovering in the background is a little girl of about 8 or 9, Ratan (Chandana Banerjee), whom the former postmaster identifies casually as the only servant. I suspect she’s ignored & ordered around not just because she is without family, but because she is of a lower caste, assigned as hewers of wood & carriers of water in the Hindu scheme of things. By the way, the villagers were untrained actors from the filming location, but Rata was spotted in a dance class in Calcutta. Despite her lack of training, she was so good in the part, Anil Chatterjee was afraid she would steal the focus from him.

An educated man, Nandal is probably a secularized Brahmin, & lower middle class economically. He has taken the job to work on his poetry, away from city distractions, with plenty of free time, the sort of literary type we’ve seen in Apu (Tagore based Nandal on the postmaster on his family estate, so he was quite a bit wealthier than a village postmaster).

We see the workings of a post office in its time & locality, the postmaster adding the government stamp manually, while the villagers look on, fascinated. But his introduction to the village is the local madman, who terrifies Nandal until Ratan shoos him off. This is the beginning of Nadal’s perceiving her as an actual identity & he gets her to talk about her lack of family & the cruel treatment of earlier masters. Wondering at his late night writing of poetry, he discovers she is illiterate, and he begins to teach her reading & writing Bengali. She takes an obvious shine to this figure of authority who doesn’t beat her & takes the time to talk to her & teach her. They are about to work on compound words when he comes down with malaria, and she nurses him through the crisis.

But the bout of illness convinces Nandal that country life is not for him, and he resigns from the job & makes plans to return to the city. Ratan asks him to take her with him, but he brushes her off. Later, as he is about to leave, he offers her a rupee, feeling guilty, but she refuses to take it & runs away. He asks the incoming postmaster to help her learn compound Bengali words. In the last scene he meets Ratan carrying water on the road. He begins to take out the rupee but she just walks by him, not even looking at him, and he watches her carrying the heavy bucket. Natal returns the rupee to his pocket & watches her until she turns off the road and tells her new master she has brought the water. Nandal walks off down the road.

Monihar is a ghost story involving a woman obsessed with her jewelry. In The Music Room, the landlord’s wife, about to leave the palace for the last time, tells him she is concerned that he’ll get in trouble, i.e. spend the last of their funds, with the implication it will be the sale of the last of her jewels. In Monihar, the husband returns from a trip to refinance his business to find his wife missing, along with her jewels. She was afraid he wouldn’t get the financing and would pawn her jewels, so she runs off forever, until the last scene. Seemed quite routine to me.

Samapti is a changing mores story. Amulya (Soumitra Chaterjee) has done well in exams, & is about to return to Calcutta for law school. His mother, however, thinks he should think about getting married – she already has a suitable girl in mind, from a family she knows. Amulya insists on making his own choice, who happens to be the local “crazy girl,” (she plays with boys, which is apparently scandalous) & refuses to grow up: Mrinmoyee (Aparna Das Gupta). Amulya meets his mother’s choice, who turns out to be too shy to speak – a traditional village girl. The meeting with her & her family is interrupted by Mrinmoyee barging into the midst of the introductions, in pursuit of her pet chipmunk. Amulya considers himself to be a free spirit, and against tradition insists on marrying “crazy girl.” Mrinmoyee doesn’t seem to be on the same wavelength & doesn’t derive any pleasure from the constraints of marriage (not to mention a conservative mother-in-law). Amulya’s freedom to choose does not extend to Mrinmoyee, apparently, & her personality is still that of a young girl (literally: she’s about 13 or 14 it appears). Mrinmoyee runs off to hide in her favorite tree with her chipmunk. Amulya is unable to find her, and returns to Calcutta for law school.

When he returns Mrinmoyee has had a change of heart & is actually flirty with her husband, & seems to have reconciled with her mother-in-law, and the real marriage begins. The length of the last film’s narrative is too attenuated for all of this to make sense, assuming that is possible. Perhaps a full-length movie might show how Mrinmoyee was persuaded to marry Amulya (no doubt there was initially some attraction when Mrinmoyee steals his shoes), and how her perspective changed during Amulya’s absence.

Different Drummer (2013)
2.5/5

Different Drummers is based on a true story about two unusual boys in Spokane, Washington in the mid 1960s. In this more innocent time, when body builder Jack Lalanne ruled the airwaves, the two heroes, a couple of elementary school students, make a bold attempt to triumph over mortality through friendship. Eleven year old David is slowing down and is now wheelchair-bound by muscular dystrophy, while Lyle can't stop speeding up. Back then, he was referred to as having a condition called MDB (Minimal Brain Dysfunction) but today he would be diagnosed with "Attention Deficit Disorder." Lyle wants more than anything to get David out of his wheelchair and running again, and he concocts a wild scheme involving a science project, some firemen, drummers, the school principal, a cop and a hand-walk across the school gymnasium, among other things. It works like this: Inspired by his TV idol, Lalanne, and his message of "intestinal fortitude and willpower," Lyle manages to convince David that he can teach him to run and in exchange David promises to help him create the scariest science-project-bug-collection in fourth grade history. Secretly, Lyle is using his attempt to get David out of his wheelchair as a test to find out once and for all if God actually exists. Once the pact is made, this unlikely pair embarks on a journey of discovery, adventure and risk

I know if was supposed to be a clever plot by these two boys but I just found them annoying. Some of the storyline was good...what you'd expect from the description of the movie. But, overall, it was very dark and moody. Also the overtly religious sermons throughout were extremely off-putting.

Started to watch Bohemian Rhapsody the lead Rami Malek was not the Freddie Mercury that I remember, although Rami was given great praise, so I lost interest.
There is a new hour long doco series on ABC TV this evening A Life In Ten Pictures: Freddie Mercury sounds interesting.

I'm a huge fan of Mads Mikkelsen and wonder how he manages to choose such mediocre parts. I was a bit disappointed with Oscar offering Another Round, but I'll never give up on the man who gave us The Hunt and Adam's Apples. Riders of Justice gave Mads the chance to be as terrifying as he wants. A soldier returns home from his latest conflict after his wife has been killed in an underground train explosion. Nikolaj Lie Kass, an expect on probabilities was also on the train and insists the train was bombed. A very motley crew then goes on the hunt for the culprit. Dark, dark comedy and if the sight of Nicolas Bro in his underpants doesn't scare you, nothing will. Woo-hoo The Great Dane is back.

The Woman Who Loves Giraffes
"A profile of giraffe researcher Anne Dagg who, in 1956, became one of the first people to ever observe and report on animal behaviour." From IMDB
Excellent movie about Anne Dagg who researched giraffes and it discusses the difficulty of her chosen field because she was a woman. She reminds me of Dian Fossey who researched apes.

Hua Mulan
This is a documentary DVD that discusses the actual Chinese legend of Mulan and covers the making of the film. Not very long but I found it interesting!