So far I have been able to fend off the germs that Deb is giving out for free, as she battles a horrendous cold and cough virus. She came down with something last Thursday (April 25th) that began in her throat and quickly spread to her chest. She sounds like a two pack a day smoker when she coughs. As a result she lost a lot of sleep, but seems to finally be coming around to something resembling normalcy, though she still coughs.
I've been getting back into a bit of film photography again, though the results won't be known until I've finished shooting the film. I'm using my trusty Rollei 35 mm again, likely the best camera that I have. Here are a couple of recent digital shots, just to help fill some space here.
In film watching news, there are several to report. I finished up my festival weekend last week with a film from Criterion and one from Prime. The Prime one was another Screen Two film from the BBC, called Black Easter. From 1995, it depicts the near future (1999), when the European Police Force (???) try to control the arrival of immigrants into Germany. The bad European police have teamed up with the Russian Mafia to insure that there are no loopholes for entry. With a truly horrible climax and very contrived ending sequence (I wouldn't have stopped at night on an expressway to help the survivors either), the film is often confusing in its story telling. There are many unnecessary details added in, such as the 'good' cop's failed marriage. However, the film does give a good indication of the scale of the refugee problem facing Europe and other civilized countries that normally accept refugees, such as the US and Canada. At best it is unmanageable, and at worst it is a complete and total disaster.
The festival concluded with Ida, a b & w Polish film from 2013. It won the Oscar for best foreign film that year. Usually the quiet ones have the most to say. This film is European art house to the core, and could never be made by a big studio. It is a nearly perfect film, in fact. A young Polish woman is preparing to take her final vows and become a nun. She appears to have no relatives, until an aunt is traced. Mother Superior convinces her to go and visit the woman before her vows are taken. She realizes that the girl has never really faced a test of her faith, as she was raised as an orphan in the convent and knows little of the outside world. The growth of the relationship between the aunt, an alcoholic judge, and the young novice is a true wonder to behold. It is handled minimally and perfectly, and we are able to piece together much that is not revealed.
The girl wants to discover anything she can about her family, and the story gains emotional depth as it goes along. The growth in the young woman is mesmerizing to watch. She eventually learns all she needs, and much more, about her background. She also meets up with a young sax player and they strike up a relationship. The film is worth more than a single viewing. Very highly recommended.
Deb was too sick to take the effort to choose a film, so we just watched two more episodes of Detective Anna, a supernatural detective story set in Russia before the Revolution. There are 96 episodes, each about 50 minutes long. We are near the end, with about a dozen episodes remaining. Besides a different murder mystery every two episodes, there is an ongoing story arc as well. Pay little attention to the ongoing story, and just enjoy Anna two episodes at a time.
Deb did pick a going away feature, Repeat Performance from 1947. A Hollywood Noir film, it stars the very pretty Joan Leslie as the murderer of her husband in the opening scene. It's New Years' Eve, and she wanders the streets afterwards in her nightgown, wondering if she could have the year to live over again to avoid the murder. Voila! It's New Years Eve the year before, and we get to live her life for the past year over again. An interesting idea, but the husband is such a jerk that if I were the wife, I'd have shot him again on New Years' Day, not waiting a whole year to see him murdered. Anyway, some things are different in her year, but events seem to lead up to the same sort of climax she was hoping to avoid. The movie fails mostly because she is so dedicated to loving him, even though he truly despises her and doesn't mind showing it. Who would ever put up with that guy?
Back to my two regular weekly choices again. My leaving choice was from Mubi, a Brazilian film from 2019 called The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao. This near perfect film is hampered by one scene near the middle, a scene that is such a trope in films of this type that it really is unforgivable that it was included in the final cut. Two very close sisters become separated when the eldest runs off with a Greek sailor to Greece. By the time she returns home, she is pregnant, without a husband ("He was a scumbag"), and her younger sister has married and moved from the family home. The father throws out the eldest sister, saying that he disowns her. She is unable to find out anything about her younger sister, except that she moved to Vienna to study music (which she didn't). To make a long story short, the two sisters spend the movie trying to find one another in Rio (it's the 1950s), and to no avail. They lead very different lives, both unfulfilled without one another. The scene in question has the women in the same restaurant at the same time, but of course they don't meet. One happens to be in the powder room. It is a frustrating scene, not a tragic one, and viewers cannot help but feel horribly manipulated. The ending itself is far from satisfactory from an emotional point of view, though at least it is believable. Recommended viewing. Both sisters' acting is outstanding. The deflowering of the younger sister on her wedding night has to become a classic of awkward cinematic moments. Based on the novel by Martha Batalha.
My regular selection was a one hour biography called The Adventures of Robert Louis Stevenson, produced by the BBC. It is showing on Prime, along with a lot of other very fine BBC productions. It is from 2005 and runs just under one hour. With lots of photos, reenactments of parts of his life, and interviews with Stevenson scholars and writers, it is a fascinating watch. He died very young (44) in Samoa, where he lived the last years of his life. His first success was Treasure Island, followed by Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. His family produced a long line of lighthouse engineers, and of the 70 or so lighthouses built by them, all remain standing and active today. Pretty remarkable. Stevenson was pegged by his father to carry on the tradition. It was not to be. Millions of readers the world over were glad he became a writer instead.
Mapman Mike
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