"Passing" by Rebecca Hall (2021)

 

Wow, what an excellent movie! 

My head is still reeling from last night when we watched this - after a sweet and slightly theatrical argument over my preferences towards old b&w classic movies - the subsequent compromise resulted in fairly recent 2021. movie directed by British actress Rebecca Hall in her directorial debut. She is one of those actresses with familiar faces but impossible to actually place - I have exactly the same problem with Keira Knightley, Natalie Portman and Anne Hathaway, I understand its not all the same person but to me they are totally undistinguishable, pretty young faces successful in their domains but even under the torture I could not tell you one from another. However, from now on I will remember Rebecca as the only director amongst them and believe me, she is a fine auteur. In fact, this was so brilliant that I don't see how is it possible to follow it. 

"Passing" is based on 1920s novel set in a so called Harlem Renaissance when a new generation of Afro-Americans flourished in the big cities and were looking forward to upward mobility, class and success. To my knowledge this is the first generation that - despite obvious racist society - brought successful writers, musicians, artists, philosophers, etc. Even so, "passing" was a widely spread social phenomenon where light skinned people would silently slip into Caucasian society for the sake of social climbing. It was controversial back than and its still controversial today, because as much as we love to claim that race is not an issue, unfortunately it still is - we still have a long way to go, just look at the treatment of all non-Europeans as they come to the West. Who is still doing manual, dirty work but ethnic minorities from all over the world. 

The movie has a claustrophobic, small cast with only several characters: two friends Irene and Clare, their husbands, servants, children. The ladies meet after a long time and are thrilled how each of them lives completely different lives - while Irene has a relatively comfortable, middle class life with charities and parties, Clare had married a wealthy white husband who is openly racist and had no idea she is black. From this start, the story unravels and I can't go into more details but it turns really hypnotic and mesmerising, with beautiful black & white photography, tinkling piano and dreamy atmosphere that occasionally turns ominous and scary. It's not only that Clare passed for white, almost everyone in this movie passes for something else - Irene passes for a happy wife, her white journalist friend (based on a real-life Carl Van Vechten whom I know because he patronisingly praised Bessie Smith and many other artists of the time) passes for a straight man, etc. Almost everybody here has a secret and their polite demeanour is just a mask. Its just mazing how director Rebecca Hall created something so brilliant without big budget, in fact it might be said that the brilliance is exactly because she had a limited budget so she was forced to be creative - for example, because she could not show a whole street full of people in 1920s costumes, the opening scene gives us a bits of dialogues and feet of people passing by, we immediately know and understand everything even though its just being hinted at. Somehow this all turned out beautiful to watch and very memorable, despite a limited budget. I have just read that even black & white cinematography was more choice out of necessity and it works wonderfully here. I think its one of the best movies I have seen recently. 

Yasujirō Ozu

 

Luckily for me, I live in a cultured city with a lots of little art cinemas and right now they were showing a mini retrospective of a famous Japanese director Yasujirō Ozu - who is very highly praised by film critics but nowhere near known as Akira Kurosawa in my opinion. It might be that he is one of those cult figures known to his fans and followers. A friend was pointing me at his direction for a longest time and I did watch "Late Spring" (1949) but it was strange experience - this way of film making is so different than anything in the West that I wasn't sure what to think of it. It is like entering a completely new world with its own rules and aesthetic, definitely an acquired taste. However, Ozu kept lingering somewhere at the back of my mind so I welcomed this retrospective and two days in a row walked after work to a local little art cinema to watch these movies.

"Early Spring" (1956) was like typical Ozu movie incredibly slow. I mean, dead slow. The man had a style where everything important was happening outside of the camera and we are only casually told that something happened elsewhere. For example, a typical Ozu dialogue goes like this: 

"Would you like a cup of Tea?" 

"Yes, I would like a cup of Tea"

"Here is your cup of Tea"

"Thank you'

It is difficult to describe exactly what is the story of this movie because there is no main story - we follow several intertwined lives of individuals working for big corporate company and how they all slowly come to realise this is their life and their destiny, to be a little wheel in a grinding mechanism that will eventually replace them one day. Ryō Ikebe lives in a cold, loveless marriage with Chikage Awashima - later we find out what happened - and out of sheer emptiness has affair with a work colleague (radiant Keiko Kishi) all the while as we are introduced to people who are around him. Even though the story as such is basically non-existent and Ozu is more concerned about impressionistic outline of his character's feelings, something very beautiful happens along the way and suddenly I found myself truly caring about them and being indeed very moved by it all. It was truly like a magic - once you get caught up in his style and slow-burning story, suddenly it feels just right and you actually enjoy it. It have actually left the cinema all dazed and it stayed with me for a long time.

"Tokyo Story" (1953) has a gigantic reputation as one fo the best movies of all time (if not THE best) and according to critics it enjoys totemic place in the history - actually I would not say that is any better than two previous movies I have seen by Ozu. Each of them is like some beautiful dream that is slowly unfolding (very, very slowly) and perhaps the only reason why "Tokyo Story" resonates so much with audiences across the time and place is because it touches a nerve common to everybody, namely the question of parents getting older and children living their lives. Where ""Late Spring" dealt with arranged marriage of unwed spinster and "Early Spring" with adulterous affair, "Tokyo Story" is about the passage of time and how we all find our places in life - parents get old, children grow up and must live their lives. Its interesting to recognise the actors that Ozu preferred for his movies - it is only my third Ozu movie but I can tell he loves the very much the same team, including wonderful Setsuko Hara and Haruko Sugimura. Again, it was very slow but at this point I kinda knew what to expect so didn't really mind, this was his style. These movies are not for everybody and it might be that viewer must be in particular frame of mind in order to enjoy them - if you are looking for lots of action, this is definitely not for you - this is more philosophic reflection on life and very stylish cinema that gets under your skin. Be warned, the other "entertaining" movies might look very banal after this. 

"The Rose Tattoo" by Daniel Mann (1955)

A friend's casual remark suddenly reminded me that I have never seen a movie with Anna Magnani. Now, I know who she was, but besides my friend (whose mother was a fan) I guarantee that none of my other friends, colleagues, acquaintances or proverbial man on the street would know her name. In her time, Magnani was one of the biggest international movie stars in the world and in fact the very first Italian actress to win Academy Award (I think she was the first Italian person, period) - but the dust of time has fallen over her work and she seems quite forgotten nowadays. What strikes me immediately is that in the post-WW2 Europe she was so highly respected for her talent and spirit, but everyone understood she was never a great beauty - that was not the point in actress of her calibre - and decades later, the industry has completely focused on a cellophane so now it is looks, diet, fitness and fashion that what we judge in actresses today - someone like Anna Magnani might not even get a chance today. Perhaps she lived in the time that was perfect for her, perhaps we all do. 

"The Rose Tattoo" was a theatre play by Tennessee Williams and as expected, it happens in Mississippi, so the humidity and heat reflect the passions of the characters. Its a story about a jealous and passionate Italo-American housewife who becomes grieving widow and builds a shrine to her grief, in fact she wallows so much in her grief that it suffocates her young daughter and all the neighbourhood. Until young Sicilian truck driver comes her way and suddenly she wakes up from her slumber and becomes flirty indeed. Williams wrote the script himself and insisted Magnani should be casted as Serafina Delle Rose because in his opinion, she would be perfect. I didn't know what to expect at first and was watching Magnani being all theatrical and hysterical and her sexual obsession with her husband (that later grew into another kind of obsession as a widow) was almost like caffeinated Judy Garland - I even wondered, is this was audiences liked in the 1950s? Over the top women who were throwing themselves on the floor and tearing heir hair? Than suddenly, like clicking the fingers, drama becomes a comedy - at one point, when daughter's boyfriend came to visit, Magnani somehow switches from grieving widow into a earthy, sassy Italian mamma and from that moment the movie is all about her being sharp as a nail, while the world turns around her. I don't care about anybody else in the movie, specially not about Burt Lancaster as a feather-brained, lusty young Sicilian truck driver (he gives it his best, but I still think he was all wrong for the role) but my oh my, was she funny! 

This was the very first time that I was watching Magnani so I still have to wrap my head around her art - she was not a great beauty, in fact she was not beauty at all - we could perhaps compare her somehow to great Bette Davis in a sense that both had charisma that rules the screen, but where Davis could have been dolled up to be a lady if necessary, Magnani was kind of tired, everyday face that we see behind the counters of the bakery or the supermarket's cash registers. Because she light up so much during her comedy scenes, I have impression she might have been great comedienne who was pigeonholed as dramatic actress too long? I know for sure that women loved her, probably because there was something really earthy, motherly and honest about her face - she was never a treat to other women, but probably represented one of them. Very interesting, because I can't think of any other actress whose looks was so defiantly unglamorous. We are now conditioned to associate term actress with beauty and looks, but Magnani is a completely different species - a serious actress. And a brilliant one. Must find more of her work. 

"Chandu the Magician" by William Cameron Menzies (1932)

After I enjoyed watching Netflix's "Hollywood", I moved on to allegedly popular "Stranger Things" but there was something so derivative about it - apparently this was a homage to both Steven Spielberg and Stephen King, which means I was very familiar with the story frame about kids on the bicycles running away from dangerous secret agents. I have seen shows like these, in fact I grew up watching shows like these so suddenly this was just too annoying and I gave up after two episodes. In a spur of the moment, I knew intuitively what would work and what would make me happy - one of those wonderful old black & white classics. 

And I was perfectly right. I wanted a glorious escapism, the opening credits waved by magicians hands because the hero of this movie was Frank Chandler known as Chandu and he is a perfect gentleman who somehow acquired occult knowledge from yogi in India. He is bowing to them, they are bowing to him, than he walks trough the fire to show them how much he has learned from them and everybody is happy. But - there is always but - there is a danger somewhere in Cairo and yogi are sending Chandu there to take care of great threat to humanity. You see, its not yogi but destiny that sends Chandu there because his family is there, threatened by mad Bela Lugosi and to add some spice, Lugosi also kidnaps beautiful Egyptian Princess Nadji (who looks nothing like Egyptian and wears jodhpurs) who is Chandu's old flame. It is all wonderfully silly and naive, with a lot of old-fashioned special effects that must have been thrilling in 1930s but are naturally just charming today - I have seen enough of these kinds of movies to recognise every cliché ("oh mother!", "oh father!", Middle Easterners are evil, British must be good, etc) and its still great to watch because it is so cartoonish and wholesome. Because the roots of Chandu are actually in than-popular radio show, its all very much like a pulp fiction, each scene motivated by the next, lots of cliffhangers and characters basically being one-dimensional - well, never mind. I thought it was wonderful and loved every single moment of it. Honestly, when it comes to cinema, I love nothing better than old black & white movies. I do seriously think that the scenery here might in the future inspire the adventures of Indiana Jones. 

"Late Spring" by Yasujirō Ozu (1949)

A little background: I really disliked celebrated Korean 2019 movie "Parasite" to such degree that I even asked myself am I stranger to Asian cinema. After all, besides Akira Kurosawa I don't really know much about Far East cinematography and if pressed, could probably just name a few titles or actors but nothing more. Director Yasujirō Ozu apparently comes from the same generation like Kurosawa and is highly regarded but unknown to me - until I was obliged to watch this movie, my very first introduction to his oeuvre. It took me a few attempts, because nowadays I suffer from short attention span and can hardly watch a movie in one setting (forget about reading books) but finally I did finished, with some serious rewinding and re-visiting earlier scenes. 

First of all, there is a superb, clean version available on youtube and the movie is glorious in a sharp black & white technique. It really looks stunning and this might be the only movie that I have ever seen where every single scene makes a sense and I would not take anything away from it. The story itself is interspersed with glimpses of the nature that serves almost like a Greek choir commenting on the happenings. It is very simple story - so much that it took me some time to accept it because it felt so mundane, Ozu just loves to linger on things that have no genuine importance except creating the atmosphere. It is about the elderly widower Chishū Ryū (I feel strange describing him as elderly since he is actually close to my age) who lives quietly and contentedly with his grown up daughter Noriko (Setsuko Hara) until the whole family started pressuring her into marriage - the reason being that at 27 she is already dangerously close to status of old maid and if her father died, what would happen to her. 

The rest of the movie feels like a big drama happening under the calm surface of the lake. Everybody is super polite and bowing, smiling and exchanging pleasantries while leading Noriko to a pre-arranged marriage that feels like a slaughter. Neither she or her father are truly happy with what is going on but the social pressure is too strong. There is a meddling aunt who is really pushing this subject, although to be honest she feels genuinely happy once the arrangements are being made. Noriko herself is all polite smiles and giggles but my impression is that her character and feelings are completely hidden behind this mask - the mask drops only when she finds out that her father plans to re-marry and basically replace her with someone else who will mend his socks and pour his tea. 

It is difficult to understand what exactly this movie meant to contemporary audiences because we are so far removed from 1949 that to us this is all very alien. From the very first scene (where Japanese ladies enjoy a tea ceremony that looks extremely formal and stiff) everything is this movie seems very old-fashioned and lovely but stylised - all the characters here are politely nodding and bowing to each other, all the women are subservient and here only to please men of the house. Even the lovely Noriko who definitely has her own mind is basically shoehorned into a marriage with someone she met only once and although its perfectly clear that she would rather stay with her father, she must play her role and go away, because this is expected from her. (There is a very, very Freudian thing about this father and daughter harmonious life together, in one unforgettable scene we witness that they even sleep next to each other so its basically a marriage in all but consummation) At the end they both make sacrifices believing its for each other, but ultimately it feels a bit pointless as neither father or daughter will be truly happy. Not sure did this occur to Ozu but the story does feel a bit incestuous between the lines or its just me watching it from a different perspective. It is a very, very slow burning movie with a lot of big emotions rolling somewhere deep under the surfaces and quite impossible to compare to anything else I have seen. 

"The Private Life of Henry VIII" by Alexander Korda (1933)

Last night I went to bed angry and this morning I woke up angry. And while making my morning coffee I mused about what happened last night on the Capitol Hill - to keep my mind off these thoughts, its better if I write about the classic black & white movie I saw. It was a continuation of what started with previous two old British movies, where I thought it might be interesting to poke my nose a little bit in a British cinematography - of course I am familiar with the biggest hits and names, but just out of curiosity I wanted to take a look into something that is not part of Hollywood machinery. Interestingly, I saw a documentary about "Dead of Night" where someone mentioned a quite common practice that US editors would often cut out completely a first two reels of UK movies because they thought they were too slow and US audience would not care for them. So even though they share the same language, it seems as we talk about two completely different branches of cinematic family: Hollywood and British.

Hungarian director and producer Sir Alexander Korda is behind this, the movie that put him on a map and in fact the very first UK movie that proved a genuine hit across Atlantic - it was also a first non-US movie that ever won Academy Award. It took me some time to warm up to "The Private Life of Henry VIII" mainly because initially it appeared so darn dated, contrived and exaggerated. It might be a little bit difficult for a modern day audiences to accept this because it was made so long ago - in the meantime we have developed so much of the cinematic vocabulary and our understanding of historical accuracy is completely different nowadays. From a modern perspective this movie comes almost like a parody with never ending mugging, clowning and big gestures: you could count on the fingers of one hand what is really true, like Tower of London and names of the characters. Everything else looks almost like a pantomime. But OK, I had to leave my complains aside and just watch the darn thing for what it is - an old-fashioned slapstick comedy.

It should be story about infamous Henry VIII and his six wives - but to be honest, it feels as one story has much more space than anybody else and that is a story about his supposedly unattractive German wife Anne of Cleves. It turns out that Charles Laughton and his real-life wife Elsa Lanchester actually had only this story in mind, but later producers expanded it on all wives. Actually the story completely skips first wife Catherine of Aragon, literally saying "oh never mind her" and goes straight for beheading of second wife. Like, really, never mind explaining who is who and why Anne Boleyn   is executed - the movie is really focused on the meeting of Laughton and Lanchester, which is genuinely funny and works quite well. But really folks, it should be about much bigger picture instead of mentioning everyone else like passersby. Laughton - who was only 33 at the time of the filming - gives a wonderfully grand and boisterous performance that might influence all the subsequent portrayal of Henry. Of course he is clowning but there is a trace of humanity in the cracks of the mask. For beautiful Merle Oberon this was beginning of the stardom and later she will even marry the director. I must say that after my initial suspicion and prejudice, I eventually relaxed and even enjoyed it. It looks as this was the true start of British cinema in the international waters. 

"It Always Rains on Sunday" by Robert Hamer (1948)

"Dead of Night" had excellent cast but where everybody else appeared more or less ordinary, there was one lady who was actually standing out as attractive and stylish - she appeared in a story about cursed mirror and her name was Googie Withers. Apparently big star in post-WW2 years and unfortunately so far completely unknown to me - in fact, I must say that just right now I realise how much were we conditioned to follow industry of Hollywood, where Europe (in this case UK) had its own production with interesting names, great ideas and original artists. Her biggest moment came with the movie "It Always Rains on Sunday" so  last night I dived into it with greatest pleasure.

To my biggest surprise, it was real British film noir - it used the same ingredients as US cousin (underworld, criminals, detectives, people talking in slang, etc) but this was happening in London's East End, in fact this was Bethnal Green where my good friend used to live, so I recognised the area. When I was around it was drab and grey part of town, where poor people lived and apparently in 1948. things were exactly the same - director Robert Hamer (who accidentally made the cursed mirror story) made a point by describing life in a post-war London, where people hardly survive in their shaky, overcrowded houses and apparently everybody lives in poverty. This time Googie Withers is neither beautiful nor elegant, but rather a neglected, unhappy and nagging housewife married to a middle aged man who also have two teenage daughters in a tow. We find out in a flashback that she used to work for her husband as a barmaid and years ago she was in a love with a handsome criminal (John McCallum, her real life husband) who got arrested so her marriage was basically a defeat out of necessity. It turns out that the guy escapes the prison and is hiding in her garden shed, so now she is trying to protect him from police and detectives who are searching all over the town for him. 

There are many quite fascinating things about this movie, in fact I might watch it again just to appreciate it more: naturally the focus is on stoic and strong Googie Withers who is all fire under the ice, but I must say that all the other characters are equally great. Its interesting to note that its not only criminal who tries to break and escape, almost every character in this movie is desperately wiggling and trying to find some way out of this horrible greyness - both teenage daughters are trying to escape joyless home trough love affairs with their boyfriends, there is a womanising married man, a detective, a naive boyfriend, each one of them having his own subplot and idea of escape. And they all live in a impoverished, crowded place where privacy and freedom are genuinely unknown. Everybody lives on top of each other and they have to move out of the way in order for someone to have a bath or a dinner. Naturally its impossible to hide the escaped criminal in such circumstances. This is now second movie in a row that I am watching Withers and she seems to be real interesting screen personality, definitely not a weepy doormat, she has a great charisma and is constantly overpowering her male partners. I am so impressed with all of this that I might go a little deeper into classic British cinema. As much as I love Powell and Pressburger work, obviously there is much more to explore. 

"Dead of Night" (1945)

Full of energy & enthusiasm for my New Year resolution to read more, I grabbed the latest book by Kate Summerscale ("The Haunting of Alma Fielding: A True Ghost Story") that didn't exactly left me breathless so far but it mentioned something really interesting: in her previous book, Summerscale was writing about a murder in Victorian England and this same murder was vaguely mentioned as a part of influential horror omnibus "Dead of Night". To my biggest delight, I recognised the movie, it was a delight of my childhood and before you know it, I started re-watching it again.

It is such an interesting experience to return to something after almost a lifetime - kind of meeting an old lover after many years - I have seen "Dead of Night" as a kid and back than it left a huge impression on me. Actually that is not completely true - it is an omnibus of paranormal stories, as told in a parlour by a group of polite people drinking their tea in a set up that would made Agatha Christie proud. Out of five stories (directed by various directors) somehow I remember the first two - a mysterious carriage with coffins, whose driver says "just room for one inside, sir" and a haunted mirror that drive its owners mad. These two thrilled me to death as a kid and I remember them well with a tingle of excitement combined with fear to this day, excellent example of how our memories are made. Very stylish and sophisticated, mind you. The rest of the movie I don't remember at all - either I was sent to bed or it was simply too much for my little brain. 

So with a biggest pleasure, I re-visited this wonderful omnibus and loved every second of it. The rest of the stories were just as brilliant - a Christmas hide-and-seek game brings a girl in a secluded part of the house where she finds a boy crying and this is no one else but boy mentioned as a victim in "The Suspicions of Mr Whicher" by Kate Summerscale (a real case murder). There is a little out-of-place Golfer's story based on H.G.Wells that kind of don't really belong here because its neither scary nor particularly memorable - more as a TV sketch - but the best of all is the last story about the Ventriloquist (Michael Redgrave) and his domineering doll Hugo. Interesting that I don't remember this story from before, perhaps it didn't appeal to me because it wasn't about the ghosts but rather contemporary - now I see it differently - young Redgrave was excellent and he portrayed his descent into madness not as a full blown extravaganza but very subtle, we could just sense panic in his eyes and he was just getting crazier and crazier from scene to scene, until the final frame gets really chilling and unforgettable. I was so thrilled with the re-discovery of this fabulous old classic that I instantly went further and decided to check another movie showcasing actress Googie Withers.

Old SF movies

Recently I treated myself with some very good old SF movies, kind of things I would usually watch with my parents on a Sunday afternoon after the lunch, when our bellies are full and the house still smells on food - we would enjoy a dessert and watch some family movie together. Both of these old classics were mildly scary but in a good way, since we all understand this is just a campy fun and viewer can easily slip to WC without missing a beat.

"Invasion of the Body Snatchers" from 1956. was remade twice more and this is actually the first time that I have seen the original that in my opinion completely eclipses the newer version away. As a kid I saw 1978. movie with Donald Sutherland (which was not bad at all) and Nicole Kidman was in 2007. movie but this old, black & white 1956 felt like a real deal to me, definitely because I absolutely love old black & white movies and there was something in it that reminded me on "Twilight Zone" and all those fantastic, classic TV shows - kind of small budgeted but it didn't matter, the story was gripping and captivating even without any supersonic special effects. Kevin McCarthy was perfect as a doctor caught into surreal experience where the small town gets invaded by Alien seed growing into human replicas. The role of his girlfriend Dana Wynter was very typical of the times - she was here to be beautiful and decorative distraction, but the moment when the things starts cooking, she is just a weak nuisance who can't run, hide or do anything physical. And this is perhaps the biggest difference between the movies than and now - nowadays we would just accept as natural that the girlfriend could fight, run, drive the car or do anything that main protagonist can do but back in the 1950s women were supposed to be fragile and delicate. I actually wanted Kevin to drop annoying girlfriend and let her die, because she was just whimpering and creating troubles instead of being helpful. 

"The Blob" was made just two years later but it feels like something out of the 1960s because it has a stunning colours, usually found in glamorous MGM musicals. From the first moment we hear fantastic, catchy title song (composed by young Burt Bacharach, of all people) we know this is going to be something fun, nothing scary or serious. Young Steve McQueen is the main character and he is all about cars, girls and saying "yes, sir!" to local policemen who threats him with telling his father that he drives to fast, backwards or whatever. His girlfriend is not so annoying, but she is also not very important either - when Steve goes to check what is going on and where is this strange noise coming from, she stays in the car, therefore when police later ask her did she see anything, of course she didn't, because she was a good 1950s girl and was not even looking. The alien creature is of course a blob that just rolls along and I am not exactly sure why is everybody screaming, since my first reaction would be to come close and inspect what is this strange mass wobbling around - but hey, this is a campy movie so the nurse screams terrified because a blob/pencil/trash bin is coming close to her. It was great fun but nowhere close to excitement of Body snatchers which I really loved and could watch it again. I don't have desire to re-watch "The Blob" again.

"The Wasp Woman" by Roger Corman (1959)

I have stumbled upon this camp masterpiece completely by accident last night - it turned out perfectly, just as it should have been, without much planning or analysing - I simply found it on youtube and decided to check it out, not knowing anything about it before hand. It is kind of movies I remember watching back in my childhood on a Sunday afternoon on our black & white TV, cheap thrills and all - it worked perfectly for current, grown up version of me because it took me completely out of this reality to another sphere and just as the best works of literature (or simply great entertainment) it served as a escapism which is genuinely the only thing I expect right now. We might talk about cerebral inspiration, art and poetry all we want - sure, some things do touch the spot and inspire us, but from time to time there's nothing better than a good, old fashioned fun and this movie is a cinematic equivalent of pulp fiction. With all the avalanche of bad news, I need a step back from reality and something that would take my mind completely off this apocalyptic world. 

Mind you, not that I always had a soft spot for old black & white movies, but from time to time really love seeing something that is obviously less than perfect - there is a touching quality in something as a good B movie made on a shoestring budget, where interiors are obviously reused time and time again, where masks are crappy and perhaps only one actor actually looks convincing, while the rest are simply coasting. I am not really familiar with director Roger Corman (except "The Pit and the Pendulum") but he sounds like my kind of guy and whoever creates movies with titles like "Attack of the Crab Monsters"  rates high on my list - luckily his filmography is huge so I have tons of goodies to enjoy & discover. Funny thing is, "The Wasp Woman" is not even specially celebrated amongst Corman fans - he made so many movies that this apparently is just one of the titles but I loved it because I discovered it at the perfect timing and needed something to transport me away. 

The story is delicious in a ridiculous way, just as it should be: Susan Cabot is the anxious owner of the beauty products company that slowly sinks into bankruptcy. For someone at this position, she is surprisingly dowdy but we understand this is only used as a device to show us later how she blossomed - her young (she was only 32 at the time) face is heavily made up to look older and on top of it, they gave her thick rimmed glasses to appear even dowdier. Cabot holds the team meetings with her employees who don't seem particularly interested and are more concerned about non-stop smoking (it is really excessive, something I notice now as I stopped smoking myself). Her saviour turns to be a crazy professor Michael Mark who experiments on wasps and might produce a youth elixir - the catch is, both Cabot and Mark are desperate people clutching the last straw - the rest of the team is suspicious and snickering about this new idea, but in reality nobody else is really doing anything about the business and apparently only Cabot is really concerned. In fact, she is so desperate that accepts crazy professor experimenting on herself - just as her face start to suddenly blossom and appear younger, there are signs that experiment might be dangerous ... I can't say more, but it really turns interesting and even if special effects are crap and masks unconvincing, it is still a good, chilling fun and a proof that there are gems amongst old B movies worth exploring. The original poster has absolutely nothing to do with the movie itself, but this is part of the fun. 

"The Lighthouse" by Robert Eggers (2019)

Lo and behold, I saw the masterpiece last night and it was absolutely worth going trough the biggest storm this country experienced in a long time - I arrived in a cinema soaked to the skin with my umbrella demolished in the rain - intrigued with excellent reviews (but careful not to read anything about the plot) I waited and waited for months until this movie finally arrived in local cinemas and in fact, last evening was the first screening ever, the regular showing starting towards the end of the month. Must admit that this reviews following is not always successful, in fact its quite hit & miss - I hated "Parasite" passionately and was left cold with "Little Women" for example - but with this, I just had a hunch that it might be something for me. Boy, was I right.

In retrospective, it makes perfect sense that it was created and directed by the same person who did "The Witch" - that was an atmospheric, creepy and unusual movie set in 17th century New England and even characters spoke in some weird, old fashioned Puritan phrases that made the whole movie quite unforgettable experience - some audiences were left confused because it was advertised as a horror and it was actually nothing like cliché we were accustomed to expect, however it had stayed with me much longer than anything else so I guess "the nightmare quality" is what Robert Eggers will be known for. I am getting a bit worried about all this young, talented people who are really creating interesting things, directing great movies and writing brilliant books and they are all younger than me but hey, that's life I guess, we all have choices and our own destinies. This Eggers person is actually genuinely a great movie director and its clear now he is destined for Olympic heights. I rank him on the same shelf with Bergman, Kurosawa and any of those guys.

"The Lighthouse" is immensely bleak, black & white drama filmed in a such way to remind the audience of old, 19th century photographs so its all heavy grey and dark shadows. It reminded me quite a bit of "Earserhead" for some reason (nightmare quality, I guess) and it has only two characters who are stuck together in a Lighthouse at the end of the world where they slowly but surely descend into madness. Willem Dafoe is nasty Lighthouse keeper, limping and swearing, constantly farting and prone to bizarre monologues spoken in a almost incomprehensibly slurred, old-fashioned dialect ("Damn ye! Let Neptune strike ye dead!") while Robert Pattinson is young adventurer who came here to work as apprentice for only four weeks, but slowly reduced to a role of servant and slaving away trough the wind and the rain. Everything is very claustrophobic - two men share cramped little house where everything appears neglected and dingy, there is no warmth or comfort here, just desolation and wast emptiness outside, winds and the sea howling, foghorn blazing and occasional Hitchcockian seagulls that, like everything else, came straight from the nightmares. Forced to live together in a close proximity, two men cunningly fight for the authority - Dafoe insist that only he can control the light and young man has to serve, not only polishing the machinery and collecting the firewood but cleaning and emptying the chamberpots.

Pattinson initially refuses to drink but slowly accepts and thanks to alcohol, loneliness and genuine creepiness of the place itself (that drove previous helper to madness) both men eventually descent into completely raving lunacy, while brutal storms outside get stronger and stronger, matching their violence with bursts of natural destruction. Once they run out of alcohol and start drinking kerosene, we understand this won't finish good. Suffice to say, I watched almost the whole movie with my hands covering my mouth in shock and horror, completely aware that this is too brutal for words but I watched nevertheless - both actors are sensational and very brave, not afraid of physical tasks or to be ugly - in fact they both embrace the powerful roles completely and at times they play as one person. One watches this as a proverbial train crash - we know its horrible but we are still watching anyway - I left the cinema in daze and my head is still spinning the day after, what a sensational piece of cinematic art! True masterpiece - everything is perfect - naturally no for everyone and I just read how odious "Parasite" won four Academy Awards, oh well, to each his own, I think this movie was ten times better. 

"Vampyr" by Carl Theodor Dreyer (1932)

Since I always loved those early, black & white classics like "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari", "Golem" and particularly "Nosferatu" I thought this sounds just like something right up my alley. It was, but be warned: it takes some time to actually adjust to director's hallucinatory style and initially everything seemed very strange, until curiosity got the best of me and second time around I got completely drawn into it.

"Vampyr" must be one of the oddest, therefore amongst most unforgettable movies I have ever seen. I am not completely sure was Carl Theodor Dreyer actually capable of doing standard cinema-as-entertainment work and I even have impression he couldn't care less, since he appears to have been one of those rare cinematic birds, real artists with a vision, equivalent of brilliant scientist who refuses to be bothered with such mundane things as money, finances and budget. Here for example, everything is so highly stylised that it only vaguely resembles real life - yes, there are houses, people and some kind of story but it all takes second place to Dreyer's imagination where he decidedly creates eerie and sinister atmosphere. All the way trough, I was acutely aware that this is just an stupid, empty room with tattered furniture and a bookshelf, nothing to be afraid of but still it felt like some heavy, oppressive nightmare, with people moving very slowly and saying strange things. "Why is doctor coming always in the evenings?" I felt as nurse Ratched is coming to get me any moment. 

In addition to Dreyer being a director who could make your bathroom look like the most sinister place in the world, he is apparently also capable of doing magic with actors, many of them here being non-professionals collected randomly. Even the main actor was not really an actor, but aristocrat who financed the project (sort of cinematic Ludwig of Bavaria) and for this, largely wooden turn, he achieved immortality although he probably wasn't aware of it as the movie ended up being lost masterpiece and far from mainstream success. It languished in obscurity, known only to movie buffs but it has such a genuine power that it deserves any praise you could think of. While it starts slowly, "Vampyr" gradually catches on later and once you are hooked, you just can't stop watching it - it has a heavy, creepy quality and unfolds trough fogs and filters, with some stunning and genuinely unforgettable images that will probably end up in my dreams. Horror as a piece of art.

"How Green Was My Valley" by John Ford (1941)

A wonderful example of big-hearted, old-fashioned Hollywood sentimental melodrama, "How Green Was My Valley" was cinematic equivalent of "Angela's Ashes" (novel that looks back at impoverished childhood with affection and tenderness) - the world described here was already long gone by the time movie (and the novel that inspired it) was made, so it might appear almost unreal to modern audiences raised on all sorts of comfort and privileges but there is something warm and magical in this description of life in small Welsh coal mining village. 

Nowadays we are used to movies as grand spectacles, huge fireworks and all sorts of technical wizardry - nothing of it you will find here, this is all about everyday life in 19th century Wales, where strong, taciturn men lined up to work in mines and womenfolk waited for them at home with dinners. Nobody was allowed to grab the food before prayers were said and children (no matter how grown up they might have been) treated their parents with respect and gentleness. We follow the story trough the eyes of the youngest son (Roddy McDowall) who with touching innocence witnesses all the comings and goings in the village - the poverty, gossips, weddings, disasters, quarrels, births and deaths. He even falls in love. "I think I must have fallen in love with Bronwen even then and I must have been in love with her all my life since. It is silly to think a child could fall in love. If you think about it like that, mind. But I am the child that was, and nobody knows how I feel, except only me."

John Ford created something truly magical out of this ordinary story - the script is magnificent, mind you, it really inspires you to find the novel - and he gets brilliant performances from his actors who all show great compassion for characters. Each single villager, priest or gossipy housekeeper is excellent, no matter how small the role and for every depressing moment, there is a light comic touch that makes everything uplifting and beautiful. It is a starry-eyed look at the innocence and childhood, the time that each of us know it can never be repeated - reality might have been tough and full of hardships, but what we remember is love and affection. The movie tugged at my heartstrings big time and I am not surprised at all the accolades and praises won at the time. 

"Anna Karenina" by Clarence Brown (1935)

Seems I am on a roll with cinematic adaptations of famous novels, but in this case there is no worry because I have read Leo Tolstoy's novel some three decades ago and nowadays everything evaporated from my memory except vague idea that I felt not for Karenina or Vronsky, but surprisingly for Karenin (who in the novel affectionately accepted child Ana Karenina had with her lover). Obviously, it is a huge novel and it was necessary to tailor it for screen retelling so roughly half of it was skipped.

Make no mistake about it, this is grand Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer extravaganza helmed by David O. Selznick who created this as showcase for his Swedish sensation - even though is lavish production with beautiful costumes, tons of actors and spectacular scenery, focus is exclusively on Greta Garbo and she is so lovingly filmed that we miss her any time she is absent from the screen. Director Clarence Brown takes his sweet time to set the story, initially playing with every cliché associated with Tsarist Russia: sumptuous dinners, officers in shiny boots bursting in the song, gypsy singers and dancers twirling around, you name it, its here. When Vronsky finally glances at Karenina, she appears from a smoke, like a vision - Garbo's entrance couldn't be more carefully planned and from here we are so dazzled with her beauty, poise and elegance that somehow shaky script don't even matter. Strange, for the first time I became aware how androgynous Garbo was - her unusual features were completely sexless, which was the most visible when she was surrounded by other women - although everybody was smothered in heavy costumes, laces and hats, Garbo still stands out amongst them as some unearthly mirage. 

The relationship between Karenina and Vronsky has almost no chemistry, as Fredric March turns very perfunctory, one-dimensional act - than again, its a very ungrateful role as Vronsky is basically a cad - still, its not exactly clear why would woman like Garbo fall for him. Far more interesting is the energy between Garbo and excellent Basil Rathbone (yes, Sherlock Holmes himself) who plays her cold, unloving husband - the movie works very hard to present him as a monster who cares only about propriety and his status in society but for me he is real uncrowned star of the show as his character suffers in silence much more than lovers caught in heat of the moment. The real tragedy is that Karenin never understood his wife and even though he might genuinely love her, he is incapable to show her affection (all we see is jealousy and frustrated anger that she so openly defies him). The fact of Karenina making a choice between motherhood and love is dealt with very gingerly - we know she will suffer one way or the other, either staying in a cold, loveless marriage or leaving child behind (by the way, little Freddie Bartholomew played it as expected in the 1930s but I yelled at him angrily, annoying little brat and future Norman Bates). The ending is quite magnificent and Garbo is hypnotic - she is such a strong, magnetic presence that she carries the whole movie on her shoulders, without her this would be just a fairly amusing old fashioned sentimental melodrama but honestly, I could watch this again. 

"The 39 Steps" by Alfred Hitchcock (1935)

Because I detested film version of "And Than There Were None" I was very cautious about approaching another screen version of a novel, however I do have huge respect and love for that genius of British cinema Alfred Hitchcock, after all he is the only movie director who actually improved on novel (he made Daphne Du Maurier's "Rebecca" into even better experience and added Mrs.Denvers where in the novel she was hardly mentioned). Add to this that I am still not familiar with John Buchan so its all new to me. Had I read the novel, I might have been upset with liberties and changes.

"The 39 Steps" is quite surprisingly effective movie for something created in 1935 - its often cited as the real beginning of Hitchcock, with ingredients we grew to recognise as his trademarks. Innocent bystander gets caught up in the complex, Kafkaesque nightmare of international espionage intrigues and meets icy blonde who unwillingly becomes his fellow traveller trough dangerous situations. Its all a bit far-fetched but still very entertaining, although I didn't really care for Robert Donat and found small, supporting roles of greedy farmer John Laurie and his young, lonely wife Peggy Ashcroft much more fascinating. In her role as Hitchcock blonde, beautiful Madeleine Carroll is actually very good and surprisingly strong willed for the 1930s when most of the female roles were purely decorative - her assertive personality is delight to watch. Eclipsed by sheer wealth of Hitchcock's filmography, this is movie still worth visiting and checking out. Of note is his confident way with mass scenes in music halls, the now lost world of old London that looks like time machine.