Waiting for the Barbarians (2020)

One grows to be a part of the place. A fair-minded magistrate (Mark Rylance) at an isolated desert outpost of an unnamed empire reevaluates his loyalty to his nation when police Colonel Joll (Johnny Depp) uses cruel tactics to interrogate the locals about a possible uprising. The Magistrate is horrified by his interrogation methods and finds an elderly man bringing his nephew for medicine with his eye gouged out. A beautiful girl (Gana Bayarsaikhan) who has similiarly been tortured – her ankle has been broken, her eyes singed and her back burned – catches the Magistrate’s fancy and he nurses her back to health and is saddened by her desire to return home to her nomadic people. After his journey to the desert with her, where the nomads take his silver as payment for not killing him and his men, he returns to his post to find Joll has gone through his records and lovingly curated library and he is now a suspect in some kind of non-existent insurrection while Joll’s second in command Officer Mandel (Robert Pattinson) dreams up outrageous ways to torture the locals and then the Magistrate himself for consorting with them … This is the border. This is nowhere. There is no history here. Adapted by J.M. Coetzee from his novel, this is a scathing – not to say shocking – takedown of imperialism. Rylance is superlative in his best feature role to date – the aggravating vocal mannerisms and tics are a thing of the past (literally) as one senses a real, moving being; while Depp is scarifying as the Colonel in sunglasses, a steampunk monster whose horrifying actions in just one week will take years to fix, if at all. Pattinson is in a race to catch up and does it rather well, revelling in blood lust. The mechanisms of torture are so ingenious as to elicit a kind of horrified wonder. And the Magistrate is silenced into moral awakening by a beautiful blind woman yet he is blind to her real desire – for her home: white saviour complex undone. This narrative about colonialism, conscience and control is non-specific yet universal. Shot lovingly in sequences of astonishing beauty by legendary cinematographer Chris Menges, this is as close to art as cinema can get. And yet it’s a political film and a film about love – of people, romance, culture. And it’s about the horror of what humans do to one another. Happily, the colony strikes back. Directed by Ciro Guerra in his English-language debut. We have no enemy that I know of – unless we ourselves are the enemy

Trent’s Last Case (1952)

 

The crowd is very friendly. English newsman Philip Trent (Michael Wilding) wants to retire and carry on with his art but he is lured back to the fray and reckons American business tycoon Sigsbee Manerson’s (Orson Welles) suicide was murder and that his widow Margaret’s (Margaret Lockwood) lover John Marlowe (John McCallum) did it but a series of interviews yield a very different perspective … Never cultivate a luxury until you can afford to support it as a habit. The third version of the 1913 E.C Bentley murder mystery adapted here by Pamela Bower is a stop-start affair with three flashbacks giving us the story as it might have been, a la Rashomon or even Stage Fright (which also starred Wilding) but there’s so much repetitive staging it might be twenty-three. Producer/director Herbert Wilcox had made a star of his wife Anna Neagle and for reasons one suspects might be nefarious gave her box office rival Lockwood her comeback here after two years away and tied her to a contract that ended her screen career. Hmm. One staid hour in finally sees the appearance of Welles (in the style of The Third Man) or more properly his huge prosthetic proboscis and the brows which enter the room ahead of him, then the plot really unfurls and it’s not as straightforward as the outline suggests. Kenneth Williams gives his best Welsh accent in the witness box, Sam Kydd shows up as a policeman and there’s an opportunity to see the acclaimed pianist Eileen Joyce perform in the concert sequence. For the second time the Manderson case is closed

Black and Blue (2019)

Just because she didn’t do it doesn’t mean she wasn’t involved. Witnessing her colleague Brown (James Moses Black)  and undercover narc Terry Malone (Frank Grillo) killing a drug dealer land rookie New Orleans PD officer Alicia West (Naomie Harris) into trouble. Falsely accused of the crime, she now has to fight both the corrupt police and evil gangsters while running through the back streets of New Orleans with body cam footage that will exonerate her from some very angry men. The victim is the nephew of one very pissed off drug dealer, Darius (Mike Coulter). She takes refuge with shopkeeper Mouse (Tyrese Gibson) who she knows from back in the day and he’s the only guy in the hood who’ll take her side and try to keep her alive as the cops close ranks and close in … Murder is murder, no matter who you are. Fantastically well performed, this is that rare thing, an action film boasting a great role for a female protagonist as a police officer (it’s thirty years since Theresa Russell and Jamie Lee Curtis had the pleasure). And boy does Harris nail it. She’s on the run practically from the first scene when she twigs that she’s witnessed a cold blooded murder by undercover narcotic cops, cleaning up those mean streets of N’Orleans in their inimitably corrupt style while pocketing their share of the goodies. In terms of race commentary, it’s a drama that demonstrates without making an issue of it that crime and corruption have no monopoly on ethnicity – what’s more important here is making the most of your particular skill set.  When it comes out that Harris was a former JD and a soldier who did tours in Iraq and Afghanistan we know we’re being set up for some explosive and decent can-do action – but she’s constantly under threat and literally runs for her life.  It turns out her options are very limited indeed as her old friends including Missy (Nafessa Williams) who’s mother to a young boy can’t figure a black woman in a blue uniform. Peter A. Dowling’s screenplay doesn’t pull punches and Deon Taylor’s direction never permits the action to be distracted by the visuals which are gritty and pointed in a story that is tough and well managed. She’s a ghost

Private’s Progress (1956)

The enemy does not play cricket. He abides by no rules. In 1942 university student Stanley Windrush (Ian Carmichael) is conscripted into the British Army where his uncle Brigadier Bertram Tracepurcel (Dennis Price), himself more interested in art than army, believes he will easily graduate to officer class. Instead upon landing at Gravestone Barracks in Kent for basic training alongside Egan (Peter Jones) a far more apt pupil, he is hopeless, failing officer selection and winding up at a holding unit commanded by Major Hitchcock (Terry-Thomas) where he meets up with several miscreants. They include workshy wide boy Cox (Richard Attenborough) who skives off work regularly and Blake (Victor Maddern) who runs away regularly and is caught in Scotland trying to join the Navy. Windrush is sent to train as a Japanese interpreter and is assigned to his uncle’s raid behind German lines by mistake but the Brigadier just tells him to keep his mouth shut, We don’t want any of that Where Is The Pen of Me Aunt stuff. The real purpose of retrieving art treasures is to sell them to crooked dealers. When Windrush is left behind following an unfortunate episode with a German General he is captured by the British and has a hard time persuading them he’s one of them with all his Nazi regalia and ID card … The producers gratefully acknowledge the official cooperation of absolutely nobody. Adapted by John Boulting and Frank Harvey from Alan Hackney’s autobiographical novel, this service comedy from the Boulting Brothers is equal parts farce and satire with the usual winsome act from Carmichael as the utterly unsuitable university prof shoved into the Army during WW2. Very funny without being outrageous, there are some great exchanges and the antics in Germany (which feature Christopher Lee as a Nazi!) are extremely funny indeed. And yes, Terry-Thomas says many, many times, You’re an absolute shower! The topper is worth waiting for. The delightful score is by John Addison. Being educated sort of limits you, doesn’t it

A Touch of Larceny (1959)

I was implying I might be a matrimonial hazard if I were wealthy. Rakish former Naval submarine Commander Max ‘Rammer’ Easton (James Mason) realises he needs plenty of cash to win the heart of American widow Virginia Killain (Vera Miles) currently the companion and soon to be wife of his Naval colleague Sir Charles Holland (George Sanders). Max disappears after faking treachery as a Soviet spy, planning to reappear and sue all the tabloids which libelled him so as to win the hand of Virginia but his plans go awry when he really does get into trouble in the Western Isles … One of the hardest lessons in life is to accept defeat gracefully. Adapted by Roger MacDougall, director Guy Hamilton and producer Ivan Foxwell from Andrew Garve’s (a pseudonym for Paul Winterton) novel The Megstone Plot, this sees Mason at his best as the breezy playboy and former WW2 hero who has finally met a woman he can see himself living with – and the sparks fly between him and Miles in a comedy that has wit, guile and surprising wisdom. He sets himself up and then spends a third of the film as a raffish beachcomber listening to rumours of his supposed defection. Sanders feasts on the prospect of revenging the man who appears to have compromised his fiancée, whose intentions are far from clear. You’ll recognise Martin Stephens the creepy boy from The Innocents as Sanders’ nephew. There are good jokes about newspapers and that year’s current scandalous novel, The World of Suzie Wong. Perhaps its occasional moments of true feeling guy the comedy’s intent so that the tone shifts but in the main it’s an impressive production and the performances are terrific. An interesting syncopated beat to Mason’s other Cold War movie that year – North By Northwest. You know Max, one of these days somebody may take you seriously

A Man About the House (1947)

It may be an advantage to have a man about the house. The unmarried British Isit sisters Agnes (Margaret Johnston) and Ellen (Dulcie Gray) unexpectedly inherit their uncle’s Italian villa and have to deal with his sinister major-domo Salvatore (Kieron Moore) who manages the villa and vineyard. Agnes is overwhelmed by him and they marry, so he ends up owning the estate that once belonged to his family, believing Agnes to be the sole inheritor. Ellen’s suspicions are aroused when Agnes’s health begins to deteriorate and she consults Agnes’s former fiancé, visiting English doctor Benjamin Dench (Guy Middleton) …  Spinsters aren’t safe with such a man. A fun Gothic melodrama with an early opportunity to see Gina Lollobrigida in English-language cinema the year she came third in the Miss Italia pageant. Moore had played Salvatore in the theatre production of Francis Brett Young’s 1942 novel (which is adapted here by J.B. Williams) and he relishes his badness here – his speechifying about the differences between dried up Italian women and young unmarried Englishwomen has to be heard to be believed. Watching the sisters’ emotional unfurling as the vines are harvested is well done, their suppressed instincts vividly described against the emotional Italians nicely gauged in montages and changes of hair and costume.  It’s supremely ironic that it’s the stiff upper lipped older sister played by (the frankly weird) Johnston who succumbs to the determinedly sexual lure of the sleazy butler with murder in mind. Directed by Leslie Arliss. It is our duty as Englishwomen to set an example and not succumb to their lax foreign ways

 

 

Shoot-Out at Medicine Bend (1957)

Aka The Marshal of Independence. Thee has to talk like them and don’t forget it. Captain Buck Devlin (Randolph Scott) and cavalry troopers Sergeant John Maitland (James Garner) and Private Wilbur Clegg (Gordon Jones) all recently mustered out of the army, head to Devlin’s brother’s homestead to settle down and arrive just in time to drive off an Indian attack but just too late to save his brother. Faulty ammunition cost him his life. The three men set out for Medicine Bend to find out who sold the ammunition. The community also gives them all their funds to buy badly needed supplies. On the way however, they are robbed of everything – the money, their horses, even their uniforms. Fortunately, they happen upon a local church (who have also been robbed), and are given spare clothing. Devlin decides it would be a good idea to pretend to be Brethren while in town. They quickly connect the robbers, and later the defective ammunition, to Ep Clark (James Craig). Clark controls the mayor and the sheriff, and has his gang attack wagon trains of pioneers heading west and forces other local traders out of business. The men are up against it in their pursuit of the ruthless town boss … I prefer sour ‘bosom.’ It’s more refined. Directed by Richard Bare and amusingly written by John Tucker Battle and D.D. Beauchamp, this is standard western fare but it’s more fun than most with our leads gussied up as Quakers sorting out the decent wheat from the villainous chaff and doing the Robin Hood act.  Probably the only film you’ll ever see where that peaceable bunch do the necessary to end violence and it is of course interesting to watch Scott fulfill his contract at Warner Brothers while independently making classics of the genre under his own banner elsewhere. Garner says of the experience in his memoir, “It was always fun working with Dick Bare, and Randy Scott was an old pro, but the movie isn’t worth a damn. I was under contract, so I had to do what they put in front of me.” Angie Dickinson has a nice role as the storekeeper’s niece who is of course Scott’s love interest while Dani Crayne sings Kiss Me Quick in the saloon earning Garner’s attention. The title tells you all about how it ends. Get his partner. Give ’em a fair trial. Then hang ’em!

Europa (1991)

Aka Zentropa. I thought the war was over. Just after World War II Leopold Kessler (Jean-Marc Barr), an American of German descent takes a job on the Zentropa train line in US-occupied Germany to help the country rebuild. He becomes a sleeping-car conductor under the tutelage of his drunken uncle (Ernst-Hugo Järegård). He falls under the spell of the mysterious Katharina Hartmann (Barbara Sukowa) daughter of Zentropa railway magnate Max (Jørgen Reenberg) whose friendship with US Colonel Harris (Eddie Constantine) has raised hackles. Her gay brother Lawrence (Udo Kier) is the family embarrassment because like Leopold he didn’t serve his country. Leopold inadvertently becomes embroiled with a pro-Nazi fascist organisation known as the Werewolves who are conspiring to overthrow the state. Simultaneously being used by the US Army, Leopold finds neutrality an impossible position … I understand unemployment in Germany a lot better now. It costs too much to work here. Danish auteur Lars von Trier made this great train thriller long before he became a trying controversialist down the Dogma 95 rabbit hole. It plugs into that febrile post-war atmosphere which we already know from films of the late 40s like Berlin Express as well as sensational character-driven pre-war comedy thrillers like The Lady Vanishes. It’s the final part of the director’s first trilogy (following The Element of Crime and The Epidemic) and it gained a lot of kudos upon release, particularly for its visual style, principally shot in black and white with rear projections in colour (photographed by Henning Bendtsen, Edward Klosinski and Jean-Paul Meurisse) lending an eerie aspect to what is already an innovative production, shifting tone as surely as it shifts pigments. The hypnotic (literally) narration by Max von Sydow lulls you into submission like the mesmerising shuffle of the carriages along the tracks; while the charm of the leading man on his journey which is physical, emotional and political, all at once, carries you through a sensitive yet experimental scenario.The miraculous editing achievement is by Hervé Schneid. It feels like a new kind of film is being born, reformulating the grammar of the language with its surrealist nods and noir references. A cult item from the casting of Kier and Constantine alone, with Sukowa’s role harking back to her Fassbinder films, this is a classic of modern European cinema. Written by von Trier (who appears as a Jew) & Niels Vørsel with a shooting script by von Trier & Tómas Gislason. You have carried out your orders. Now relax

 

 

Ray & Liz (2018)

They can do anything nowadays. In England’s Black Country in the Thatcher era, Ray (Justin Salinger) and Liz (Ella Smith) raise their two sons Richard (Jacob Tuton/Sam Jacobs) and his younger brother Jason (Callum Slater/Joshua Millard-Lyon) on the margins of society in a Dudley council flat… A horrifying and virtually unwatchable portrait of the underclass with gruelling depictions of heavy drinking, parental neglect and familial dysfunction on a fathomless scale, told over a period of eight years as Richard becomes a teenager.  It’s framed within a flashback when Ray (Patrick Romer) is now an alcoholic separated from Liz (Deirdre Kelly) and neighbour Sid (Richard Ashton) is vying for his welfare benefits by keeping him drunk. Made by photographer and artist Richard Billingham about his impoverished upbringing and developed from a short film, this unsentimental fragmentary narrative is not without the odd millisecond of humour – perhaps when Jason runs away and meets his mother the following day wheeling a rabbit in a pram in a local park we are in the realm of Lewis Carroll. Her maintenance of a menagerie in their squalid surroundings is given a correlative in a visit to a zoo. Spot the difference between that and council accommodation. Then the social workers intervene, as you might expect but only Jason gets to go to a foster family: Richard is told he is almost old enough to leave and his coping mechanism to record and photograph his family throughout his childhood is the key to his freedom. It’s his recording that proved the nasty lodger Will (Sam Gittins) forced drink down the throat of retarded Uncle Lol (Tony Way) but tattooed drinker and smoker Liz destroys the evidence after she’s inflicted mindless violence. And returns to her jigsaw puzzles. Stylistically it’s slow, disconnected, anti-dramatic for the most part and pitiless and may remind you of Terence Davies’ work but other than feeling gutted for feral children born into such gob smacking fecklessness, when you look away from a work that refuses all possibility of empathy you’ll wind up thinking perhaps eugenics isn’t such a rotten idea after all – because bad people do bad things to the children they should never be permitted to have. Perhaps not the appropriate reaction. Kitchen sink realism for a new era, it’s a staggering if emotionless indictment of the kind of Britain that still exists for millions of people. This is what happens when you enact official policies of social isolation, austerity and poverty. It really is Grim Up North. Brutal.

The Cure for the Coronavirus Lockdown, Part 11

Uncle Monty and the toilet trader. The genius of Withnail and I. Bring me cake and the finest of wines this very instant! This is me, naked in a corner!  Oh Missus!