Reviews

"The Godfather Part II" is both a prequel and a sequel.

In the prequel we see how Vito Corleone, this time played by Robert de Niro, becomes the Don Vito from part I.

In the sequel we follow Michael Corleone, again played by Al Pacino, after he has succeeded his father.

Sequels and prequels got a bad name in the '80s with the Rocky and Rambo films being commercially exploited leading to an ever lower quality. This is however not the case in "The Godfather Part II". According to some people this film is even better than the original "Godfather" (1972). There are a number of reasons for this.

In the first place cinematographer Gordon Willis, Prince of darkness. His dark images fit perfectly with the shady dealings the Corleone family is involved in.

In the second place the melancholic music of Nino Rota, making you identify with even these criminal characters.

But last and not least the two leading actors Robert de Niro and Al Pacino, at that time still at the beginning of their careers. It would last until 1995 before we could admire them together again in a film ("Heat", Michael Mann).

In the sequel, in my opinion the strongest part of the film, we see Michael Corleone becoming more and more paranoia. He trusts nobody and, as a result, is eventually trusted by nobody. In the final scene, just as brilliant as the final scene of the original "The Godfather", he sits in his luxurious, well-guarded house by Lake Tahoe, all on his own.

The prequel is in my opinion of lesser quality. In some scenes the young Vito Corleone is portrayed as some kind of Robin Hood. Maybe this is done to make the contrast with the cynical Michael Corleone even greater, but from the first part of the movie we know it isn't true.

"The crowd" follows the fortunes of a couple consisting of John (James Murray) and Mary (Eleanor Boardman) Sims.

The story is about the American dream not coming true. The man is a newspaper boy and despite all his dreams about becoming a millonaire he remains a newspaper boy (figuratively speaking).

The misfortune remains however not limited to a disappointing career so that the story of the film starts to resemble the Biblical story of Job.

The production company was afraid that the sadness of the story would hurt the result at the box office, and so the ending is happy. But it is one of the most mixed happy endings I have ever seen.

Because of their mutual love the couple survives their misfortunes and the film ends when they go to the theatre, having their first happy evening in a long time. So the modern book of Job story ends happy.

After this scene however the camera zooms out and the couple becomes part of the anonymous mass of the theater audience. They are still little people. The American dream remains without reach.

Stylistically the film is very interesting. Some scenes (for example the scene in which John as a young boy is confronted with the death of his father) are influenced by German expressionism. The daily life in New York is an important element in the film and in this respect the film is an American counterpart of a "city genre" that was popular at that time in Europe. See for example films like "Berlin, Die Sinfonie der Grosstadt" (1927, Walter Ruttmann), "Man with a movie camera" (1929, Dziga Vertov), "Menschen am Sonntag" (1930, Robert Siodmak, Edgar Ulmer and Rochus Gliese) and "A propos de Nice" (1930, Jean Vigo).

The film is however above all innovative where it comes to depicting an anonymous crowd. Not very astonishing given the title. This is done on the streets but also in a theatre (ending scene) and in a hospital (when Mary delivers their first child).

The most famous example is however in the beginning of the movie. The camera moves up along the facade of a gigantic skyscraper. On a certain floor the camera goes inside and we see an endless room with countless identical desks. The camera slowly moves towards John Sims' desk. This scene has had a great influence on the way in which office spaces would be depicted in films to come. Two very clear examples are "The apartment" (1960, Billy Wilder) and "The trial" (1962, Orson Welles).

"The Godfather" is the ultimate mafia movie. It portrays the mafia from within, that is the Corleone family.

The film highlights above all the importance of three (related) concepts: family, food and succession.

The importance of family is typical for societies with a weak state (and certainly no welfare state). This concept is illustrated right at the beginning of the movie. A father whose daughters haven been dishonored by some guys aks Don Corleone (Marlon Brando) to take revenge on those boys. Don Corleone is not surprised at all about this request. He is however offended by the fact that the father had first reported the issue to the police (= the state).

In this family driven society business is done in an informal way, not by formal contracts. The ultimate event to make these informal agreements is dinner. The film has numerous memorable dinner scenes. These dinners can be in a restaurant or at home, but when business is done they are always without women. Part of being a mafioso is therefore the ability to prepare a good meal. One would not expect something so emancipated in such a patriarchal environment!

Also the last concept of succession is tightly related to family. Succession is not a matter of ability alone but a matter of both ability and the bond of blood. After the death of Sonny (James Caan) Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) becomes the crown prince. At first he is a an unwilling crown prince, prefering a career in legal businesses. During the scond half of the film however we see him coming to terms with his destiny, even embrace it as a vocation.

In the brilliant last scene Micheal Corleone's wife (Diane Keaton) watches her man while his subordinates kiss his hands. Much to her disgust Michael Corleone is now the Don. After this the door of the room of the men is closed. I don't know if during the making of the Godfather there were already plans for a sequel, but in any case this ending scene is the perfect cliffhanger.

"The Godfather" was the comeback film of Marlon Brando and the breakthrough of Al Pacino. It is a good film but in my opinion not as good as his reputation.

"Green border" shows immigration from a different perspective than is slowly becoming mainstream in Europe, being it Poland (the land in which the film is situated), Holland (in which the anti-immagration party PVV won the election of november 2023) or England (that want to send refugees to Rwanda).

The situation on the Eastern border of Poland is different in this respect that the Belarus of Lukashenko uses refugees as a weapon against the European Union (EU). They lure refugees to Belarus with the promise that the transit to the EU (i.e. Poland) is without any difficulty, which of course is not the case.

"Green border" is a documentary like film that shows the story from different perspectives. These perspectives are those of a Syrian family, Polish border guards and Polish activists.

The episodes about the Syrian family and the border guards are heavy stuf and the episode about the Polish activists is desperately needed to bring back some confidence in humanity.

The conservative Polish government was very angry about the movie and even called director Agnieszka Holland a Nazi. This is of course ridiculous. The anger was most probably directed against the episode about the Polish border guards, but even these episode is not totally negative as its shows that the border guard these episode is about has increasing psychological difficulties with the job he is doing (pushing back refugees to Belarus). The episode is indeed very critical about his superior, telling the border guards that the refugees are not human beings but bullets fired by Lukashenko.

One perspective that is missing is the Belarussian one. One can criticize the harsh behaviour of the Polish border guards but there can be no doubt abourt the fact that Belarus started using the refugees as pawns in a cynical political power struggle.

Also from Western Europe we have to be carefull with too much criticism. The push backs on land by the Polish border guards are illegal, but what about the push backs on sea by Frontex? Moreover, we have easy talk, not bordering on a cynical regime like that of Lukashenko.

Images say more than 1000 words and in this respect the film is in my opinion a must see for those who want to understand more about the immagration crisis. In the Netherlands I had the feeling that the film was in roulation very short. I had to hurry to visit the last performance and was accompanied by only one fellow visitor.

To conclude one point of critic. In the epilogue the film shows how welcome Ukrainian refugees were when in february 2022 their country was invaded by Russia, strongly suggesting that there is a racist element in which refugeest are being supported and which not. I would like to qualify this suggestion. In the first place the aggressor in the Ukranian war is also a threat to Poland, unlike the aggressors in the other conflicts generating refugees (such as Assad in Syria). In the second place has the loyalty with Ukraine cooled down considerably (not in words but in deeds) after two years of war.

"I confess" is not the best Hitchcock movie, but with a 23rd place according to IMDB rating (07-02-2024) I feel it is nevertheless underrated.

Besides, it is one of the movies that illustrates the way in which the master of suspence liked to tell a story very clearly.

Hitchcock liked to inform the viewer in a very early stage of (some of) his films about the real perpetrator. He thereby converts a "whodonnit" in a "willtheycatchhim".

In "I confess" he stretches this technique to the limit. Not only does he tell in the first 25% of the film who is the murderer, but also:

In which way the murderer tries to make someone else a suspect.

Why this suspect cannot and will not make use of his alibi's.

The only question left open is if a third person is willing to provide the suspect with an alibi? The answer to this question is given in the other 75% of the movie, which remains surprisingly tense, a spicy additive being that the suspect knows who the real murderer is.

Montgomery Clift has a great performance as the suspect and the much less well known O. E. Hasse is on the same level as the real murderer. Compared to these great performances Anne Baxter is a little bit disappointing as the love interest of the suspect. Regular Hitchcock cinematographer Robert Burks has shoot this film in noir style.

In "The best years of our lives" (William Wyler) a couple of soldiers return home after the Second World War. They discover that the civil society is not eagerly awaiting them.

In "Homecoming 1945" not soldiers but Jews that have survived the concentration camps return. Also these Jews are not very welcome. Some people in the village have actively participated in their deportation (guilt) while others have taken their properties and are afraid that they will ask them back (greed).

The way in which the story is told has some similarities with "High noon" (1952, Fred Zinnemann). In that film a dreaded criminal will arive by train and the town pins all its hopes on the sheriff. In "Homecoming 1945" the Jews also arrive by train and the village has nothing to expect from the head of the municipality, because he is as corrupted as the average villager.

All the Jews are doing in the whole film is arriving by train, loading their luggage on a carriage and walking behind this carriage through the village. It is enough to cause a lot of unrest.

There are no shocking images in "Homecoming 1945" as there are in "Son of Saul" (2015, Laszlo Nemes), another Hungarian movie about the Second World War from a couple of years earlier. Some may find this way of treating the Second World War too sterile but in my opinion images don't have to be shocking to be disturbing.

"Der Hauptmann" is situated in the last months of the Second World War. A German soldier (Willi Herold played by Max Hubacher) on the run finds the uniform of a high officer in an abandoned car. He uses it as camouflage and starts behaving more and more violent.

In the first decade of the new century a surprising number of films illuminate the Second World War from the German point of view (whether or not made by a German director). With respect to the post war period there are for example "Im labyrinth des Schweigens" (2014, Giulio Ricciarelli) and "Der Staat gegen Fritz Bauer" (2015, Lars Kraume). With respect to the last months of te war we have "Lore" (2012, Cate Shortland).

When we compare "Lore" to "Der Hauptmann" there are some similarities. Both films are situated in the last months of the Second World War and in both films the main character is on the run. The differences however are even greater. Lore is a young girl, Herold an adult man. Indoctrinated by her parents Lore is a convinced national socialist, Herold a pragmatic survivor. Lore has the responsibility of her even younger siblings, Herold is on his own.

Above I called Herold a pragmatic survivor. He was lucky to find the uniform of the high ranked officer, but when he decides to wear this uniform he has to behave himself accordingly. When the film unfolds you get the feeling this is not the whole story. Herold begins to overact above what is expected from his rank, and this relates both to the (ab)use of power as to violence. He seems to enjoy it in a way that reminded me of the novel "Lord of the flies" (1954, William Golding).

Where there are leaders there are also followers, and in "Der Hauptmann" there are a lot of them. Long ago Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau made a picture about the German fascination with uniforms ("The last laugh", 1924). "Der Hauptmann"seems to reconfirm this fascination.

The story of "A quiet place" is more or less that of a classic dystopia. Aliens have taken over the planet and killed all but a few human beings. The special thing is that these aliens are blind but have a very strong hearing. So in order to survive it is essential to be very quiet.

Up till now the Abbott family has done just that. They communicate with sign language and have constructed a network of sandy paths around their house. But Mrs Abbott has become pregnant. A silent delivery is hard to imagine and babies don't talk sign laguages.

Horror is a genre with a lot of B-movies that does not linger in the memory for long when the film is finished. For the horror genre 2018 was however a good year. Two young and fresh directors made their debut in this genre with above average horror movies. Apart from John Krasinski making "A quit place" I am talking about Ari Aster with "Hereditary".

The first half of "A quiet place" is really good. It made me think of "Night of the living dead" (1968, George Romero). Admittedly this film is about the undead and not about aliens, but on closer inspection this makes not so big a difference. Both are aggressive and in both films there is no explanation where they come from. They are just there. What matters is how the survivers organise their defence. In "Night of the living dead" this is problematic because of disagreement. In "A quit place" the Abbott family on the other hand is highly disciplined, but the coming baby is a danger looming in the future.

Unfortunately director Krasinski does not manage to maintain the high quality in the 2nd half. This is due to a couple of reasons.

In the first place the aliens appear more and more in the second half. In "Cat people" (1942) director Jacques Tourneur learned that suggestion is often more scary than explicit images. Maybe it would have been better if Krasinksi had took this lesson to heart.

Secondly the explicit images c.q. The special effects of the aliens were disappointing to me. The aliens in "Aliens" (1986,James Cameron) were scarier.

Last but not least, towards the end (when the baby is approaching) family values become more and more prominent in the story, thereby passing the line beyond which the story becomes moralistic.

In "The sea hawk" Errol Flynn plays Geoffrey Thorpe. A pirate who attacks Spanish galleons without the official permission but with the informal approval of Queen Elizabeth I of England.

The story is situated in the time that Philip II of Spain builds an Armada to conquer England.

"The sea hawk" is a typical Errol Flynn vehicle, but not as good as "The adventures of Robin Hood" (1938, Michael Curtiz and William Keighley). In that film (and many others) Olivia de Havilland was the female co-star. In "The sea hawk" Brenda Marshall plays Dona Maria, the love interest of Geoffrey Thorpe. She plays rather well, but fails to make us forget Olivia completely.

The film invites the viewer to to make a connection with the present, which at that time was of course the Second World War, Philip II playing the role of Hitler. This is particularly obvious in the speech of Queen Elizabeth I at the end of the film.

"And now, my loyal subjects, a grave duty confronts us all: To prepare our nation for a war that none of us wants, least of all your queen. We have tried by all means in our power to avert this war. We have no quarrel with the people of Spain or of any other country; but when the ruthless ambition of a man threatens to engulf the world, it becomes the solemn obligation of all free men to affirm that the earth belongs not to any one man, but to all men, and that freedom is the deed and title to the soil on which we exist."

This speech is very much like and made me think of the one in "The King's speech" (2010, Tom Hooper).

One of the consequences is that the story in the 1940 version of "The sea hawk" has very little in common with the 1924 version of "The sea hawk" (Frank Lloyd).

The film is shot in black and white. In the Caribbean scenes the film is tinted brown to suggest a warm climate. This is a very old trick in black and white films. The first time I saw it was in "The phantom carriage" (1921, Victor Sjöström) in which brown was used for interior scenes (warm) and blue for exterior scenes (cold).

"The grapes of wrath" plays during the great depression. The "dust bowl" causes farmers to lose their farm and sending them on a journey West to California, hoping to find work as a day laborer.

John Ford has made many films about men moving West, but most of the time these were adventurous frontier men moving out of their own free will. In "The grapes of wrath" men are driven out of necessity.

"The grapes of wrath" is the adaptation of a novel of a liberal writer (John Steinbeck) by a conservative director (John Ford). The result is a film that is fairly critical about capitalism and capitalists.

Look at the way the capitalist bosses are portrayed. They pay low wages, oblige their workers to shop in the expensive camp shop and call everybody who stands up for their rights a troublemaker and communist. If necessary they remain order with the help of their own private gangs. It is if you look at a Russian movie in which Sergeij Eisenstein portrays the boyars.

In contrast, the government is portrayed as just and decent. A very curious combination in an American movie! Maybe John Ford is not so conservative after all. A year after "The grapes of wrath" he would make "How green was my valley" about workers in a Welsh mining village.

The journey to California is portrayed in a Biblical way, including the crossing of a desert. On the other hand the journey is typical American, the family Joad getting their kicks on route 66.

The value of "The grapes of wrath" is enhanced in no small part by the cinematography of Gregg Toland. For his work in "The Godfather" (1972, Francis Ford Coppola) cinematographer Gordon Willis earned the honorary name of "Prince of darkness". In my opinion Gregg Toland earned this title more than 30 years earlier for "The grapes of wrath" in which many scenes are very dark and sparsely lit. Gregg Toland went on to become very famous for his use of deep focus photography in "Citizen Kane" (1941, Orson Welles).

Israeli films are not on my daily (film)menu. In fact I think I have seen only two of them. "Waltz with Bashir" (2008, Ari Folman) and "Foxtrot" (2017, Samuel Maoz). Both films have dances in their titles and in both films the memories of the directors of their time in the Lebanon war of 1982 was one of the inspirational forces.

This is not to say that "Foxtrot" is a war movie. Far from that. I would rather describe it as a movie about the whimsicality of fate, who cares little about human plans. In this respect the film has something in common with the old Greek mythology.

The film consists of three episodes, all of which have a very different mood.

The first episode is situated in the (luxurious) apartment in Tel Aviv of the parents. It tells the story of the father and the prominent emotion is anger.

The second episode is situated in a remote army camp. It tells the story of the son. The prominent feeling is that of innocence.

The third episode is once again situated in the apartment in Tel Aviv. It tells the story of the mother. Its prominent mood is that of grieving and resignation.

The description above suggets that the structure of the movie is clear to the viewer while watching. This is not the case. During the second episode for example it remains in doubt for a long time if the main character is really the son of the parents of the first episode or someone else.

The foxtrot from the title is danced in every episode. In the first episode by the grandmother in her retirement home, in the second episode by the son with his gun as dancing partner and in the final episode by the parents. In this final episode the father explains that the foxtrot is a dance whereby you always return to the same starting point. There must be a symbolic significance in that, although I don't really know what it is.

A symbolism I did understand was the tradition to pass along a family heirloom across generations. Originally this heirloom was a Jewish Bible, until the father traded this Bible for an edition of the Playboy magazine. This exchange did however not alter the tradition, so when the son became an adult he receives this episode of playboy. In an interview the director said that passing along a playboy is celebaring life just as much as passing along a Bible.

I am not sure how this statement was appreciated by the more orthodox segment of the Israeli population. What definitely was not appreciated by the Isreali army was that the second segment showed some useless violence against Palestinian people. Violence that afterwards was hushed up.

In "All quiet on the Western Front" a couple of German students is seduced by the nationalistic talk of their teacher to volunteer for the First World War. Once at the front they die one after another, just like in "And then there were none" of Agatha Christie. Unlike the Agatha Christie characters however these German boys are not guilty of anything.

Main character Paul (Lew Ayres) survives and when he is on leave in his home town he sees that the same teacher is telling the same story to pupils a few years below his age. The teacher recognizes Paul and invites him to tell his story to the class. He doesn't like the eyewitness account of Paul.

"All quit on the Western front" is THE classical film about the First World War. Only "Westfront 1918" (1930, Georg Wilhelm Pabst) from the same year came close.

After the Second World War the First was no longer fashionable when it came to making a war movie. Only when the start if the First World War was 100 years ago in 2014, this war was rediscovered.

Although the First World War would soon cease to be the main subject of war movies, "All quiet on the Western front" continued to influence war films about other wars. To mention just a couple of examples, think of the drill sergeant in "Full metal jacket" (1987, Stanley Kubrick) or the nervous breakdown in "The deer hunter" (1978, Michael Cimino), both films about the Vietnam war.

The film is an adaptation of the novel "Im Westen nichts Neues" (1929) by Erich Maria Remarque. Where the novel tries to remain as factual as possible, the film clearly has a moral anti war message. In this respect the film is a little bit old fashioned because after the Second World War we all know that war is a terrible thing.

More important to me than the slightly overdone morality is the fact that the film shies away from the hero epos as far as possible. The soldiers in the trenches are terrified and only the teacher at the school and old men in the pub (all of them far away from the front) are using tough language.

A few scenes emphasize that ordinary German and French people do not have problems with each other. It is only their countries, or more precisely their leaders, that are at war. I am referring to the scene with a German and a French soldier in the same pit in the "No man's land" between the trenches. I am also referring to the scene in which German soldiers and French girls are having a good time together, doing what boys and girls of their age wants to do in peace time (and also during a war).

I am afraid these scenes are examples of the slightly overdone morality of the film. Before the First World War it was hoped in socialist circles that workers of different nationalities would not fight against each other but would give priority to the class struggle. In reality they didn't.

The ending of the film is really superb. Everybody knows the scene with the butterfly, but the images after that are in my opinion even more insistent. We see a column of marching soldiers, some looking back, looking us right into the eyes. Slowly these images fade into the image of a gigantic graveyard.

In one of the last days of the First World War Edouard Péricourt (Nahuel Perez Biscayart) gets his face seriously disfigured in saving his fellow soldier Albert Maillard (Albert Dupontel). The two of them were sent on a senseless mission, aiming above all at a promotion for their commanding officer Pradelle (Laurent Lafitte).

After the war Pericourt and Maillard keep in touch with each other and start a trade / scam in War memorials. Ultimately this will bring them in to contact again with Pradelle, who in his turn scams with war graves.

Films about the First World War are still outnumbered by those about the Second World War, but they are no longer exceptional. After classical movies such as "All quiet on the Western front" (1930, Lewis Milestone) and "Paths of glory" (1957, Stanley Kubrick) the First World War became again a subject from 2014 (centenary commemoration of the start of the war) onwards. Recent films about the First World War are "They shall not grow old" (2018, Peter Jackson) and "1917" (2019, Sam Mendes).

"Au revoir là haut" plays for the biggest part in the aftermath of the First World War. In this respect one may be tempted to see it as the counterpart of the Second World War movie "The best years of our lives" (1946, William Wyler) In my opinion this is not the right comparison. "The best years of our lives" is a serious movie while "Au revoir là haut" is rather absurdist. Maybe a better comparison is with "La vitta è bella" (1997, Roberto Benigni), a film trying to combine the Second World War with the comedy genre.

In 1997 this led to much commotion, in 2017 much less so. The passing of twenty years has apparently reduced the sensitivity surrounding the two World Wars. Keep however in mind that in France the sensitivity surrouding the First World War (la Grande Guerre) is no less than that surrounding the Second World War.

Last but not least, there is a father - son theme hidden in this comedy / war film. Because of his mutilation Edouard Pericourt cuts the family ties after the war. "Between the lines" you can however also "read" that the combination banker (father) and artist (son) was not a lucky one before the war. At the end of the film father and son reunite. This side plot made me think of the Dutch film "Karakter" (1997, Mike van Diem), although in this film the father - son relationship is the main theme.

The films of Jonathan Glazer are always special, whether they are good or bad.

Not long ago I was captivated by his "The zone of interest" (2023). Amazing that in 2023 it is still possible to make an innovative film about the Second World War.

I was much less enthusiastic about "Under the skin". This film is about an alien (Scarlett Johansson) that is on earth to hunt lonely men. After a while she begins to identify with her victims and wants to become human herself.

The scenes in which Johansson captures her prey are mesmerizing, but for the rest there are better movies about the theme of a non human that desires to become a human. Some examples are:

"Blade runner" (1982, Ridley Scott) with respect to robots.

"Der himmel uber Berlin"(1987, Wim Wenders) with respect to angels.

"ET, the extra terrestrial" (1982, Steven Spielberg) with respect to another alien.

The main defect of "Under the skin" is that it never becomes quite clear (at least not to me) what the purpose of the hunt is and which trigger sets the desire of the alien to become human in motion.

"Under the skin" was one of those films with a big gap between critic reviews (high) and user reviews (much lower). Often this is an indicator that the film is difficult to access and somewhat elite. In the case of "Under the skin" this indicator is right.

"Sweet country" is a Western situated in the Australian Outback in stead of Monument valley of the USA. When Sergio Leone took the Western genre to Europe in the '60s this subgenre came to be known as Spaghetti Westerns. Much to my surprise Westerns situated in Australia are also a subgenre of their own: the Meatpie Westerns. By the way the beauty of the Australian landscape is in no way inferior to (the also magnificent) Monument valley.

Situated in Australia as it is, the role of the Indians in the mainstream Western is now played by an Aboriginal. The racism however has remained the same. When the Aboriginal killed a white man out of self defence he fled, because he had no illusions of getting a fair trial (and he is right).

At least since "Dances with wolves" (1990, Kevin Costner) we are accustomed to the white men being the "bad guys" in Westerns. "Sweet country" continues this tradition, but with some nuance. Indeed a white man is the villain in this movie, but in his defence can be said that his sufferings as a soldier in the First World War has caused him severe psychological damage.

At first this way of justifying racism irritated me. A man fighting a war at the other end of the World, is this not far fetched? The answer is no! About 10% of the Australian men fought in the First World War on the side of the English army. See also "Gallipoli" (1980, Peter Weir).

The title of "Walkabout" is about a "rite de passage" of Aboriginals. To become a man an Aboriginal boy had to survive on his own in the wilderness for some time.

In "Walkabout" such a boy meets a teenage girl and her little brother, who has got lost in the Australian wilderness. They move on together.

The teenage girl and her brother depend on the Aboriginal boy for their survival. The Aboriginal boy depends on the girl with respect to his sexual desires, so the film could develop into an arthouse form of "The blue lagoon" (1980, Randal Kleiser).

This is however not the case. In the first place because the girl has no romantic interest in the boy. In the second place because the emphasis of the fllm is much more on cultural differences and surviving in a beautiful but als brutal nature than on romance. A comparison with "Dersu Uzala" (1975, Akira Kurosawa) is much more obvious.

Nicolas Roeg began his career as cinematographer. "Walkabout" was his debut film as a director. Also his next film "Don't look now" (1973) was of a high quality. Thereafter his oeuvre became more uneven, with sometimes a pleasant outlier, such as "The witches" (1990).

"The Stepford wives" is an adaptation of an Ira Levin novel. Of this writer several books are adapted to the silver screen, of which the most famous is without any doubt "Rosemary's baby" (1968, Roman Polanski).

The story is about a couple (Walter played by Peter Materson and Joanna played by Katharina Ross) moving from Manhattan to the sleeping city of Stepford. Joanna and a few other female newcomers notice that the Stepford women are exceptionally fond of housekeeping and very docile towards their husbands. When the other newcomers turn into typical Stepfords wives overnight one after another Joanna becomes afraid.

There are a couple of themes in "The Stepford wives" that it shares with other famous movies.

The first theme is the fear for losing your emotions and humanity. This theme "The Stepford wives" shares with "Invasion of the body snatchers" (1956, Don Siegel). The scenes in which Joanna's friends are suddenly a very different person look very much like the scene in which the love interest of the main character of "Invasion of the body snatchers" has lost her humanity.

The thread in "Invasion of the body snatchers" came from outer space. Even if one is inclined to see this science fiction movie as a disguised warning against communism, the thread at least comes from abroad. In "The Stepford wives" however the thread comes from within, from the own society. It comes from patriarchal men that believe they "own" their wife (or at least should be owning her). We see this theme of interior power inequality also in "Get out" (2017, Jordan Peele), although this time the power inequality is not between the sexes but between the races. Jordan Peele never made a secret from the fact that "The Stepford wives" was one of his sources of inspiration.

Joanna is undoubtedly the main character of "The Stepford wives", but I would also like to call attention to the character of Walter. In the opening scenes he seems a pretty liberal guy and it is amazing how easily he adapts when he becomes a member of the Steford old boys network. It somehow made me think of the transformation the husband makes in "Not without my daughter" (1991, Brian Gilbert), although in "The Steford wives" there is no religious reason for this transformation, only a gender reason.

To be honest the transformation of Walter is not very believable, taking the consequences for Joanna into account. In "The Stepford wives" the women are substituted and not transformed (using abstract words not to give the plot away). This is one of the weak points in the 1975 version of "The Stepford wives" and is altered in the 2004 version of Frank Oz. Also "Get out" uses transformations in stead of substitutions.

Last but not least I want to call attention to the terrific closing scene. We see Stepford wives (including the recently transformed ones) aimlessly circulating in a supermarket, just like planets in a solar system. Between them is one new not yet transformed woman. There lies a sense of foreboding in this scene, emphasizing the continuity of evil. It was the same foreboding I recently saw in "C'e ancora domani" (2023, Paola Cortellesi) when a woman that fell victim to marital violence sees the first indications in the boyfriend of her daughter.

The continuity message at the end has come true as of 2024. Although this women are no longer called Stepford wives but Tradwives.

In "Exotica" a complicated plot is situated around a striptease club.

Normally the motives of men visiting striptease clubs are very obvious, but in "Exotica" they aren't

The weakness of the film is that in the end the relationships between the characters are clear, but their behaviour is not. Hiring a babysitter without having a baby is and remains strange.

The strength of the film is the way Eric (Elias Koteas), the DJ of the club, introduces the girls and praises their innocence. Sometimes this is pure poetry:

"What is it that gives a schoolgirl her special innocence? Her sweet fragrance... Fresh flowers, light as a spring rain... Oh, my god, my god... Or is it her firm, young flesh, inviting your every caress, enticing you to explore her deepest and most private secrets?".

In the end however he answers his own question in a much more prosaic way:

"It's just, you know, you... They got their whole lives ahead of them, you know? And you've wasted half of yours away. Damn. What is it?".

"C'e ancora domani" is a neo neo relealist movie. The film is situated in Italy just after the Second World War and is (beautifully) shot in black and white.

In the films of the neo realist movement in Italy (directors such as Roberto Rossollini, Vittorio De Sica and the early Luchino Visconti) the first theme was poverty and the second theme (if it was a theme at all) was the role of women in society.

"C'e ancora domani" is first of all about the position of women (main character Delia (played by director Paola Cortelessi herself) is frequently beaten by her patriarchal minded husband Ivano (played by Valerio Mastandrea)) and the poverty theme is a remote second (but definitely is a theme).

Apart from being a tribute to the neo realist movement (with themes reversed) "C'e ancora domani" adds a few elements, although not all of them successful. I will mention a couple of them.

The most successful element are in my opinion the revealing or surprising plot twists. In one revealing scene Delia finds out that the boyfriend of her daughter starts being bossy as soon as the two are engaged. The curse of machismo threatens to transcend generations. Another couple of revealing scenes show how the authority of Ivan melts like snow in the sun when Ivano is alone with his old father. Surprisng is the way Delia ultimately rebels against Ivano in the last scene of the film.

There ars some comic scenes too. In one scene Ivano beats his wife Delia again. The violence becomes rhythmic and turns into a sort of "dance macabre". This scene is in my opinion quite successful. I appreciated much less the scene in which Delia flirts with her childhood love, both showing very rotten teeth. Teeth that recover miraculously in the rest of the movie.

The main defect of the movie is however exaggeration. This exaggerarion makes the message not stronger but weaker. In the first scene of the movie Ivano beats Delia just because she says "Good morning". Why?

In an interview director Cortelessi said that she was very happy that in Italy the film was not only a success but half of the visiters were men. I cannot report such a gender mix from the Netherlands, although my observations are limited to my own visit. I was the only man in the room. Maybe this was also due to the fact that I visited the wednesday afternoon performance.

"The usual suspects" was highly praised at the time of release. One of the main reasons for this was the highly complicated plot.

A complicated plot is however not always an asset for a movie, although it can be. See for example the highly complicated (not to say incomprehensible) plot of "The big sleep" (1946, Howard Hawks).

There are a number of ways to make a plot or a film complicated.

Some films you have to see at least twice to be sure that the plot does not contain inconsistencies. A good example of this is "Memento" (2000, Christopher Nolan).

Other films contain multiple explanations of the same event, casting the existence of a single truth into doubt. Probably the most prominent example is "Rashomon" (1950, Akira Kurosawa).

"The ususal suspects" is in this respect slightly different. The story is about a heist by 5 criminals. The heist goes wrong, 4 criminals die and so we have only the story from the one that survives. But because this criminal was one of the participants in the heist, and he is interrogated by a police officer, he has to keep an eye on his own interests. So we have only one story and this story consists of fact and fiction. The (difficult) task of the viewer is to determine what is fact and what is fiction. Only at the very end the film gives the (surprising) answer.

After all the complicated plot is in my opinion not the biggest problem of the movie. Neither is the fact that the movie is plot driven, with no observable character development. What is a problem however is that the plot is highly dependend on the final twist in the last minute.

The heist of the film takes place on a ship, just as in "The man from London" (2007, Bela Tarr) a ship is the scene of the crime. But what a difference between the action packed "The ususal suspects" and the very slow Tarr movie. For me both films were too much at the extreme sides of spectrum. I suspect that there are few people who love them both.

"It happened in broad daylight" is about a killer with pedophilic tendencies. A very sensitive subject.

The screenplay for this film was written by Friedrich Durrenmatt, who later elaborated on this script to write the novel "Das Versprechen" in the same year (most of the time the order is the other way round). On the basis of this novel Sean Penn made the remake "The pledge" (2001).

The film can be divided into two parts.

In part 1 there is an innocent suspect who commits suicide during the investigation In part 2 a police commissioner, the only one who doesn't believe that the former suspect was quilty, tries to find the real murderer.

Part 1 reminds of "Fury" (1936, Fritz Lang), part 2 of "M" (1931, Fritz Lang). I suspect that the fact that both films are from Fritz Lang is not a coincidence.

The film has a cast of a very high quality.

The French actor Michel Simon, known from among other films "L'Atalante" (1934, Jean Vigo), plays the innocent suspect.

Heinz Ruhmann, by far the most popular actor in Germany those days, plays inspector Matthai.

Gert Fröbe plays the real murderer. He was so convincing that in 1964 he was casted as villain in the Bond movie "Goldfinger" (Guy Hamilton).

One of the most interesting aspects of the film is the motive of inspector Matthai to start his private investagation in the second half of the movie. There are three possibilities.

The rational one given in the film that as long as the real murderer has not been found there are children in danger.

Feelings of guilt towards the innocent suspect from the first half of the movie.

The pledge given to the mother of the murdered child that the real murderer would be found.

Given the title of the novel my choice is the third possibility.

"It happened in broad daylight" is a tense movie, proving that good movies were made in Germany between the expressionism of the '20s and the "Neue Deutsche Welle" of the '70s.

Both with respect to strong and weak elements of the film there is a relation with Alfred Hitchcock.

Strong is the way in which the film uses the technique of revealing the real murderer to the spectators at an early stage, but hiding this information from the other main characters.

Weak is the excessive reliance on (Freudian) psychology. In the film a psychologists makes a rather accurate perpetrator profile from the drawing of a child only. In "Spellbound" (1945, Alfred Hitchcock) we saw a similar overestimation of psychology.

"The tales of Hoffmann" (1951) is the last really succesful collaboration of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. After the success of the ballet in "The red shoes" (1948) they ventured into a combination of opera and ballet this time.

"The tales of Hoffmann" is an adaptation of an opera by Jacques Offenbach, which in turn was based on three short stories by E. T. A Hoffmann.

"The tales of Hoffmann" is al but a live registration of an opera, although there is nothing wrong with that. See the beautiful adaptation Ingmar Bergman made from Mozarts opera "The magic flute" in 1975. In "The tales of Hoffmann" however there are added animations and a color palette that is nearly hallucinant.

A major improvement in my opinion is the decision to record the soundtrack beforehand. This made it possible to seperate the singers (out of view) and the dancers / actors (in view). One thing that often undermines the credibility of a (real live) opera is the age difference between the singers and the characters they play. Personally I always have difficulties identifying with a singer way in his forties playing a teenager in love.

"The tales of Hoffman" consist of three tales. In all tales Hoffmann falls in love with a woman but finds his courtings precluded by a villain.

One review remarks that the three stories together form the erotic career of the average man. I am not convinced. I am much more inclined to distill the erotic career of the average man from the anthology film "Boccaccio '70" (1962). It runs from the timid teenager winning a night with the woman of his dreams (Sophia Loren) in a lottery (part directed by Vittorio de Sica) to the frustrated middle aged man protesting in the name of decency (he thinks) agains a billboard with a stimulating Anita Ekberg on it (part directed by Federico Fellini).

"Contempt" is based on a novel of the same name by Alberto Moravia, the same writer who wrote the novel on which "Il conformista" (1970, Bernardo Bertolucci) was based. The novel interpretes the relationship between Odysseus and Penelope from Greek mythology.

In fact "Le mepris" is however a film that is about making films. In this respect "8,5" (1963, Federico Fellini) comes to mind, but there are a few differences.

"8,5" is about a director, "Le mepris" is about a sceenwriter (Paul Javal played by Michel Piccoli).

In "8,5" the director has artistic problems (a "writers block"), in "Le mepris" the screenwriter has problems to finance an arthouse movie because the American producer is more interested in making profit. This theme of course fits in perfectly with the emphasis the "Nouvelle vague" (of which Jean Luc Godard was a prominent member) puts on "cinema de auteur".

In "8,5" the director tries to solve (or hide?) his problems by accumulating more and more women. In "Le mepris" the sceenwriter risks to lose his wife Camille (played by Brigitte Bardot). Much to Camille's annoyance her husband seems to use her as bait towards the producer to solve his problems.

The casting of "Le mepris" deserves attention in more than one respect. In 1963 Brigitte Bardot was a big star and sex symbol, but generally not associated with "serious" films. She broke through with "Et Dieu ... crea la femme" (1956, Roger Vadim). In "Le mepris" Godard casts this famous (and expensive?) star, but does not use her "unique selling point". That is to say, Bardot has only one nude scene in which she is illuminated very badly so that one can barely see anything.

This of course fits in with the theme of the film. A director gives in to the wishes of the producer to cast a big star but subsequently uses her according to his own wishes. It is however not so nice (not to say showing contempt) towards Brigitte Bardot. Godard casts her in a serious movie but does not allow her to prove that she belongs there. In this respect Henri Georges Clouzot showed more respect in "La vérité" (1960).

The other lead actor was a more pleasant surprise to me. Until now I had seen Michel Piccoli mainly as an old and wise man. "Le mepris" is an early performance in which he plays a young and insecure character.

Jean Luc Godard is a famous director. His heydays were in the early sixties. I have seen three films from this period ("A woman is a woman" (1961), "Vivre sa vie" (1962) and "Le mepris" (1963)). To be honest, I am not impressed. As a film about making films "8,5" is in my opinion much superior.

"Vivre sa vie" is one of the least experimental films of Jean Luc Godard, and in my opinion one of the best.

In this film no jump cuts and experimental camera movements, what is not to say that the use of the camera is conventional. In some scenes the camera looks away from the action, it looks for example out of the window while the action goes on inside. My interpretation is that this is meant to express ennui, something I will return to later in this review.

"Vivre sa vie" is about a woman (Nana played by Anna Karina) sinking into prostitution. The haircut of Anna Karina can be compared with that of Louise Brooks in "Pandora's box" (1929, Georg Wilhelm Pabst) but otherwise I would like to juxtapose the film to "Christiane F" (1981, Uli Edel) or "Lilja 4-ever" (2002, Lukas Moodysson).

In those films the main character is more or less forced into prostitution, whereas in "Vivre sa vie" it is much more a free choice. Nana leaves her man and child without much indications that she is abused by her husband. She gets a job in a record shop but this job is not glamorous enough for her taste.

For a film about prostitution "Vivra sa vie" contains very little nudity. Exception is one scene in which a client wants a threesome. Nana goes looking for a colleague, only to find that they are all "in full action". The emphasis of the film is on the way of doing business as a prostitute. The face of Nana shows above all boredom compared to her excited male clients, as is clearly shown on the poster of the movie.

In "Past lives" we meet two childhood sweatherts (Nora played by Greta Lee and Hae Sung played by Teo Yoo) in South Korea when they are 12 years of age. Nora emigrates with her parents to Canada and later lives on her own in the USA. Nora and Hae Sung meet again through social media when they are 24 and physically when Hae Sung visits New York when they are 36. During the last 12 years Nora had married with Arthur (John Magaro).

The first association I got when watching "Past lives" was "When Harry met Sally" (1989, Rob Reiner). Harry and Sally are made for each other, but they are the last ones to know. Nora and Hae Sung are also made for each other and they knew it, but fate decides otherwise.

"Past lives" is not so much about making wrong decisions (Arthur is a nice guy) but more about incompatible decisions. You can't live two lifes at the same time. Call it destiny, call it fate or call it (in Korean philosophy) "In Yun". In "Past lives" this relates not only to lovers but also to cultures. When talking about the emigration in the first part of the movie the mother of Nora gives an explanation that can be summarized as: "Something you win, something you lose". Well Nora lost Hae Sung and Korean culture but won Arthur and American culture.

Arthur maybe a nice guy it nevertheless is a strange situation to meet the childhood sweetheart of your wife. John Magaro plays his chracter with exactly the right balance of hospitality and jealousy. The film opens with the three of them eating in an Italian restaurant. In the background we hear other guests discussing the relationship between this two men and a woman. At the end of the film we return to this scene. Now we know how they relate to each other.

"Past lives" is the debut film of director Celine Song. She was born in South Korea and emigrated with her parents to Canada when she was 12 years old. Evidently the story has an autobiographical basis. A couple of years ago Chloé Zhao broke through with films as "The rider" (2017) and "Nomadland" (2020). Chloé Zhao was also born in Asia (China) and moved to the Western world at a relatively young age (15 years). The coming years will learn what other films Celine Song has in mind for us.