This is the tenth entry in my series of thumbnail reviews of films I’ve been watching on the Criterion Channel streaming service since September 2021. I watched these ten films in April 2022, which means I a a year behind in writing about them! Whereas the majority of films I’ve watched on Criterion have been from the mid-twentieth century, there were coincidentally a number of contemporary films in this set.
The films include a French-Belgian comedy-drama, a Japanese anthology about love, a Danish drama that won the Oscar for best foreign film, a Mexican film that delves into the little-known lives of hotel maids, the 1978 adaptation of a famous Agatha Christie novel, the sequel to one of the best-known blaxploitation films of all time, an early directorial effort by celebrated Italian screenwriter Pier Paolo Pasolini, a classic American romantic drama from the pre-Code era, a Palm d’Or winner from Romania, and the screen adaptation of a classic Jack London novel.
My Worst Nightmare / Mon pire cauchemar (2011): If you are looking for a lightweight film featuring heavyweight actors, this movie is worth your time. 16-time Cesar nominee, Isabelle Huppert, pairs off with Belgian multi-hyphenate, Benoît Poelvoorde, in this pleasing but formulaic comedy-drama. It seems to me that Huppert typically choses to portray characters who are stern, cold or uptight, and that’s certainly the case here, as she plays a perfectionist art dealer Agathe, who lives with her son and her partner in a wealthy Parisian district. Into their lives arrives Patrick (played by Poelvoorde) a fun-loving, skirt-chasing, building contractor whose irreverence and free-thinking approach upends Agathe’s orderly lifestyle. Director/co-scriptwriter Anne Fontaine introduces some twists and turns to keep this typical “clash of the classes” romance from becoming too predictable. Fontaine previously worked with Poelvoorde in the 2005 drama In His Hands and more recently, was widely celebrated for the 2016 film, The Innocents.
Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy / Gūzen to Sōzō (2021): Director Ryusuke Hamaguchi hit the headlines in 2021 for his slow-burning and thoughtful Oscar-nominated drama, Drive My Car. It was actually his second feature release that year, with the first being this engrossing three-part anthology spotlighting three different female characters experiencing intensely emotional interactions with other people. In Episode 1, Kotone Furukawa plays a model who discovers that her best friend is in love with her ex-boyfriend. In Episode 2, Katsuki Mori plays a woman who agrees to participate in a deception to help out a friend, but her actions have unintended consequences. In Episode 3, Fusako Urabe plays a woman who is at a train station and has a chance encounter with an old school classmate; their reminiscing leads to the unexpected dredging of long-buried, unresolved feelings. Hamaguchi does not take sides in his storytelling, his lens is an objective watcher of people, using a filmmaking style hewing closely to Dogme 95, the now discarded Danish filmmaking movement which eschewed the use of props, background score or artificial lighting in films. It allows us to focus entirely on the conversations and emotions of the characters; well worth the effort of a patient viewer.
In a Better World / Hævnen (2010): Celebrated Danish director Susanne Bier won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film for this fascinating story that straddles two worlds connected by its pacifist protagonist’s response to violence. Anton (played by Mikael Persbrandt) splits his time between a Sudanese refugee camp and his native Sweden. He witnesses unimaginable horrors inflicted by Sudanese warlords on innocent civilians, but is compelled by his principles to offer his services to both victims and perpetrators. His furloughs home are not stress-free either, as his young sons find it difficult to reconcile their father’s pacifism to their first-hand experience of bullying. From this helpless situation, Susanne Bier and her frequent writing collaborator Anders Thomas Jensen, bring Anton’s narrative threads together to a satisfying resolution. Jensen incidentally directed the entertaining 2020 revenge drama Riders of Justice starring Mads Mikkelsen. In the past decade, Bier has expanded her footprint into some impressive English-language thrillers including the post-apocalyptic Bird Box and two mini-series, The Night Manager and The Undoing.
The Chambermaid / La camarista (2018): Much as the maid Cleo occupied the moral and narrative center of Alfonso Cuarón’s award-winning Mexican drama Roma in 2018, another film from the same country in the same year took the audience on an insightful journey into the life of a hotel housekeeper. Lila Avilés graduated from small acting roles to directing short films to this extraordinary feature directing debut. The film could easily be a companion-piece to HBO’s The White Lotus anthology series, as it lays bare the lives of the privileged as seen through the eyes of the hotel support staff. Gabriela Cartol portrays housekeeper Eve, toiling to cater to the exacting whims of the hotel management and its wealthy customers, while striving to make incremental improvements in her own life during her off-duty hours, many of which are spent in the bowels of the hotel; one can’t help but think of the Eloi and the Morlocks in H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine. With absolutely no melodrama, Cartol’s stoicism quietly tugs at your heartstrings; well worth the watch.
Death on the Nile (1978): I am an unabashed fan of actor-director Kenneth Branagh‘s two sumptuously produced Agatha Christie adaptations – 2017’s Murder on the Orient Express and 2022’s Death on the Nile. Having watched the latter upon its release on Netflix in early 2022, I was curious to know how the 1978 version compared. As with all Agatha Christie adaptions past and present, this film too boasts an all-star cast, with Peter Ustinov playing Poirot, supported by Mia Farrow, David Niven, Bette Davis, Maggie Smith, Angela Lansbury and cultural icon Jane Birkin. The only characterization that I found annoying was Indian actor I.S. Johar’s portrayal as the obsequious Mr. Chaudhury. Of course, with source material of this calibre, the film is wholly serviceable, but I must admit that the eye-popping production design of Mr. Branagh’s modern adaptation (along with the equally noteworthy cast) has an advantage, and its his version which pops up in my visual memory when the name comes up. The 1978 version was directed by John Guillermin, one of the go-to directors for big-budget adventure films of that era, having helmed The Towering Inferno and the King Kong remake in the preceding four years.
Shaft’s Big Score (1972): Confident in the success of Shaft, their seminal 1971 blaxploitation film, MGM had already contracted writer Ernest Tidyman, director Gordon Parks and star Richard Roundtree to return a year later with another adventure featuring the tough-talking, hard-loving private detective, John Shaft. The result is Shaft’s Big Score, which like all sequels has more of everything, but naturally loses the spontaneity of the original. However, the film delivers on the strength of Roundtree’s charisma, the action set pieces (cars, boats, helicopters), the big brassy 70s score and of course the obligatory nudity; in fact, the character was marketed as a brash American version of James Bond. In between the two Shaft films, writer Tidyman had won an Oscar for best adapted screenplay for The French Connection, with which the Shaft sequel shares a few action beats. One year later, John Guillermin directed the next entry, Shaft in Africa, after which the character moved to the small screen with a TV series and TV movies.
Mamma Roma (1962): Pier Paolo Pasolini was a giant of Italian 20th century art and politics, with a body of work that spanned novels, poetry, essays, theatre and film. He co-wrote the screenplay for the Fellini classics, Nights of Cabiria and La Dolce Vita, and other well-regarded dramas such as Il bell’Antonio and Girl in the Window, before launching his own directorial career in the early 60’s. I had read so much about Pasolini and enjoyed watching the aforementioned films which he had written, so I was looking forward to watching something directed by him. I had also heard a lot about the film’s star, Anna Magnani, known for portraying boisterous, earthy characters. That’s certainly the case in Mamma Roma, in which she plays a prostitute who leaves her profession so that she can bring up her teenage son in a more wholesome environment. As with most Italian neorealist films, one shouldn’t expect a happy ending. Honestly, I was a bit underwhelmed by the film with the unsympathetic characters (particularly her son) and the depressing subject matter putting me off, which was surprising, given I’ve felt intense empathy while watching many other neorealist tragedies.
Morocco (1930): Marlene Dietrich shot to fame with The Blue Angel directed by Josef von Sternberg in 1930. The film’s success in Germany brought her to the attention of Paramount studios, who put her under contract, and quickly paired her opposite Gary Cooper in Morocco, with the same director. Morocco thus became the first Marlene Dietrich English language film released in the US in 1930, and created the famous on-screen Dietrich persona of an exotic and daring femme fatale (the English language version of The Blue Angel was released in the US the following year). Dietrich was cast as a night club singer in both these films, giving her the opportunity to show off her singing and performing talents. In particular, the night club sequence in which Dietrich performs wearing a man’s formal evening attire and kisses a female member of the audience was considered scandalous for its time (this was before the Hays Code of self-censorship was adopted by Hollywood in 1934). The film is set during the late 1920’s in Morocco and focuses on a unit of the French Foreign Legion, coming into town after a military campaign. Gary Cooper plays a hard-living, womanizing soldier in the unit, and needless to say, sparks fly when he meets Dietrich’s character at a local night club. Their relationship is complicated by romantic entanglements that each of them has with other partners on the side. Various twists and turns ensue putting their relationship in jeopardy before the inevitable melodramatic ending.
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days / 4 luni, 3 săptămâni și 2 zile (2007): I have had this film on my watchlist for years, ever since it won the Palm d’Or at Cannes. The film is set in an unnamed Romanian town in 1987 during the period of communist rule; at this time, the country had an abortion law, Decree 770, that made it very difficult to get a legal abortion. Naturally, a black market emerged for illegal procedures, resulting in medical complications and thousands of fatalities over the years. These are the circumstances under which a young woman Găbița (played by Laura Vasiliu) finds herself pregnant, and enlists the help of a close friend Otilia (played by Anamaria Marinca) to find a doctor willing to perform the abortion. The two women then enter a downward spiral involving bad luck and bad people. I struggle to find the right words to describe their harrowing experience, and the uncaring social underbelly that exploits their need. This hard-hitting drama is more relevant today than ever before, and a must-watch for any cinephile or student of the human condition. Director Cristian Mungiu‘s career will probably be defined by this film, although he has continued to win awards for his subsequent efforts like Beyond the Hills (2012), Graduation (2016) and R.M.N. (2022).
The Sea Wolf (1941): Jack London’s classic 1904 adventure story got its fifth screen adaptation, this time helmed by Michael Curtiz for Warner Bros. studio. Powerhouse actor, Edward G. Robinson, is aptly cast as sadistic boat captain Wolf Larsen, a learned man with the heart of a beast, who makes life hell for his crew. Larsen’s boat picks up a man and a woman from a sinking ship, and the captain incorporates them into his on-going psychological games, driving his crew further to the edge of mutiny. British actress Ida Lupino and character actor Alexander Knox play the two hapless rescuees, Ruth Webster and Humphrey Van Weyden, while John Garfield switches on his standard on-screen brooding persona as George Leach, one of the mutineers. The film adaptation deviates from the original novel to dial up the adventure angle, and creates a romantic relationship between Ruth and George, whereas none exists in the novel. I can’t say that I “enjoyed” the film, as there was a bit too much melodrama and negativity for my liking. Director Curtiz had previously delivered several Errol Flynn hits such as Captain Blood, The Charge of the Light Brigade and The Adventures of Robin Hood and his next film Casablanca, would make him a Hollywood legend for all time.
Here are the links to the previous thumbnails: #1-10, #11-20, #21-30, #31-40, #41-50, #51-60, #61-70, #71-80 and #81-90.
Chronophlogiston 
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