Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence

Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence; war drama, Japan / UK / New Zealand, 1983; D: Nagisa Oshima, S: David Bowie, Tom Conti, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Takeshi Kitano, Jack Thompson

Java, World War II. The Imperial Japanese Army is running a POW camp for British prisoners, under the supervision of Captain Yonoi. Lieutenant Lawrence knows Japanese and is thus used for translation, and is friends with Japanese officer Hara. Major Jack Celliers is accused of guerilla activity and subjected to a mock execution, but he doesn't flinch, which brings him the fascination of Yonoi. When a radio is smuggled inside the camp, the Japanese send Lawrence and Celliers to a prison, but Hara releases them for Christmas. When Yonoi wants to excute a British officer, Celliers makes a step forward and kisses Yonoi, who faints. The new commander buries Celliers up to his neck in sand, and the latter dies from the heat. After the war, Lawrence visits Hara, sentenced to death by a Tribunal.

A thematically similar "twin" to Lean's "The Bridge on the River Kwai", Nagisa Oshima's prisoner-of-war drama "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence", based on the memoirs of Laurens van der Post, is an analysis of the inner conflict between two groups (in this case, the British prisoners and their Japanese guards) as a synecdoche for the wider observations of such manifestation in war in general, where one side wants to dominate the other. Some of the quotes have merit ("They were a nation of anxious people and they could do nothing individually. So they went mad en masse."; "You are the victim of men who think they are right... Just as one day you and captain Yunoi believed absolutely that you were right. And the truth is of course that nobody is right"). The two main actors—pop stars David Bowie and Ryuichi Sakamoto—were probably deliberately chosen for their roles for their lack of acting experience, to bring across how "out of place" their two characters are in the war, and who would rather be doing something else during peacetime, but the movie still failed to bring a more articulated point across, whereas it feels way too overstretched in its running time of two hourse. Some of the random moments of shocking violence and cruelty startle the viewers, most notably in the lingering sequence where the Japanese Army forces a man who failed to perform "harakiri", and who has a bandage over his stomach, to "finish the job", so the man takes a knife and takes a long time to stab himself in the abdomen area, whereas one of the prisoners is so shocked he bites part of his own tongue while fainting. These kind of moments weren't really necessary in the story, and fail to be anything more than cheap shots at shock attention, whether or not this was based on real events. The storyline meanders across several directions, not really knowing where it is going nor what it wants to say, but Oshima has a sense for some aesthetic shot compositions (for instance, the blue filter of night scenes) and shows irony in the ending where the tables are switched and the situation between prisoners and guards has been turned upside down. 

Grade:++

The Apprentice

The Apprentice; satire, Canada / Denmark / Ireland / USA, 2024; D: Ali Abbasi, S: Sebastin Stan, Jeremy Strong, Maria Bakalova, Martin Donovan, Charlie Carrick, Catherine McNally

New York City, 1 9 7 0s. Rent collector Donald Trump meets lawyer Roy Cohn and persuades him to represent his family in a lawsuit filled by the federal government that alleges his father Fred Trump discriminates against Black people by renting mostly to White tenants. Cohn blackmails an official to make the lawsuit go away. Trump wants to re-build the Commodore into Hyatt hotel on East 42nd Street, and Cohn is able to blackmail officials into giving him a tax abatement, thereby making the investment profitable. Cohn mentors Trump that he needs to be willing to do "anything to anyone" to be a success. Trump marries Czech model Ivana and builds the Trump Tower, gaining a fortune. With time, Trump falls out with Cohn, dismissing him as a loser. Cohn dies of AIDS. Trump hires a writer to write a book, "The Art of the Deal".

A biopic on the early days of the Razzie Award Winner for Worst Supporting Actor Donald Trump, "The Apprentice" is a dark satire on abandoning any scruples and doing anything for success. The director Ali Abbasi directs the movie conventionally, but efficiently, with no empty walk, presenting the first half in an objective, restrained way, almost with a human dimension, showing Trump as insecure, humble and struggling, while the second half becomes its exact opposite, a clinical, cynical depiction of a cold Trump-businessman whose only goal is to earn more and more money. "The Apprentice" is an 'origin story' in which the ruthless lawyer Roy Cohn is depicted mentoring a young Trump into becoming ruthless to succeed, giving a philosophy where victory and success are the meaning of life. He will sell his soul for success, but doesn't realize what kind of a system he is invoking—an economy based on endless cruelty. Jeremy Strong gives an excellent and energetic performance as Cohn, while Sebastian Stan also delivers a very good performance, but he does not physically resemble Trump that much, and his voice is not that close to Trump's voice. Maria Bakalova is also powerful as Trump's first wife, Ivana. 

"The Apprentice" starts with a sly archive footage of former US President Richard Nixon holding a speech: "I've made my mistakes, but in all my years in public life, I have never profited from public service... And in all my years of public life, I've never obstructed justice... I welcome this kind of examination. Because people have got to know whether or not their President is a crook". In one sequence, as Trump visits Cohn's apartment, he observes photos in which Cohn is seen with many famous people, so they have these dialogues: "How do you mix with all these people?" - "Everybody wants to suck a winner's cock". In another sequence, after blackmailing an official with photos of his gay relationship, and ordering him to make a lawsuit "go away", Cohn says to Trump: "You played sports? They probably taught you to play the ball, not the man. But you see, in reality, it's the total opposite. You play the man, not the ball... This is a nation of men, not laws. There is no right and wrong. There is no morality. There is no truth with a capital T. It's a construct, it's a fiction, it's man-made. None of it matters except winning. That's it." A sobering, nihilistic and sharp psychological analysis of the mentality of success under any cost, and the interwoven link between capitalism, blackmail, bribery and corruption—as well as success being used for therapy for some people's personal neurosis—but the ending feels incomplete and abrupt, failing to bring a more articulated point in the final scene.

Grade:++

The Spy

The Spy; thriller series, France / USA, 2019; D: Gideon Raff, S: Sacha Baron Cohen, Noah Emmerich, Hadar Ratzon Rotem, Alexander Siddig, Waleed Zuaiter, Nassim Lyes, Yael Eitan, Saïd Amadis, Hassam Ghancy

Tel Aviv, 1 9 6 1. After the Syrian Army strikes Israeli farmers again from the Golan Heights, Mossad official Dan decides to recruit office clerk Eli Cohen, an Egyptian Jew, to spy in isolated Syria. Lying to his wife Nadia that he is going for business abroad, Eli assumes a fake identity as Kamel Amin Thaabet, an importer-exporter born in Buenos Aires to deceased Syrian emigrants. Establishing contacts with Syrian emigrants, he gets a visa and travels by ship from Buenos Aires to Beirut, and from there to Damascus. He rents an apartment and makes friends with politicians and military, including the alcoholic lieutenant Ma'azi Zahreddine, the nephew of the Syrian commander-in-chief Abdul Karim Zahreddine, who shows him the Golan Heights and Syrian underground bunkers. When the Ba'ath Party takes over in a coup d'etat, Kamel bribes his way into their ranks, all the way sending telegraph messages back to Israel. Syrian intelligence agent Suidani is able to detect Kamel is Eli, a spy, and thus has him executed. 

Thriller series "The Spy" is a story composed out of pure intelligence. It takes the viewers inside this spy world, but it is all done with such a sophistication, finesse, prepared directorial strategy and delicate care that the audience is in the end engaged more intellectually than by simple suspense or thrills. There is sometimes no need to invent stories when history already has so many fascinating true events at disposal, and the case of Israeli spy Eli Cohen who took on the fake identity as Kamel Amin Thaabet and infiltrated not only the reclusive Syria, but also bribed himself to rise through the ranks into the Damascus government, is one of the most incredible life stories of the 20th century. As much as comedian Sacha Baron Cohen is known for his comic creations of Borat and Ali G, this dramatic role might remain as his finest acting performance. The writer and director Gideon Raff engages thanks to several clever details: for instance, a Mossad operative is instructing Eli about his equipment as a spy—a hand mixer device has a double bottom that can open, revealing pieces of the telegraph devices which can then be assembled and used to send radio signals back to Israel. He also gives Eli a cyanide bottle to have, just in case. 

Upon arriving at Damascus, Eli, now under the alias of Kamel, seemingly randomly walks the streets and leaves some coins every day to a street vendor, buying his newspapers regularly. He also buys every kitchen table from a company. Eli then hides microfilm with photos he made inside the hollow parts of the table legs, wraps them all up in newspapers, and sends them for shippment, since he works as an importer-exporter. The Mossad office then receives not only the microfilm inside these tables, but also valuable info in the Syrian newspapers. In episode 4, Eli gets a golden opportunity to go to the Golan Heights, a demilitarized zone, thanks to his friend, lieutenant Ma'azi. The military bases are under ground, and thus the Israelis do not know where they are hidden. Upon exiting said bunker, Eli feigns that the soldiers at the entrance must be exhausted from the Sun, so he arranges that high trees are planted above them, ostensibly for shade. Cue to Mossad agents observing with binoculars the newly planted trees, happily concluding how their secret targets are now at full display and marked in plain sight. Eli Cohen is such a fascinating character because of all these little details: he is small, alone in enemy territory, yet can achieve so much using his intelligence, meticulously planning so much, disguising his every ploy as innocent action. A shining spy series, one of the best Netflix shows of the decade, concise and without a single empty scene (the entire series has only six episodes), giving a valuable and rare insight into the Syrian-Israeli relations and society of that time, whereas even the dialogues ("You're insulting me with your luck"; Eli and Julia's exchange: "Kamel is not married. Eli is married" - "There is no Eli." - "It just sometimes helps me feel a bit less lonely" - "Kamel doesn't get lonely;" "I am in the presence of real Syrian soldier. A one who tonight single-handedly defeated two whole bottles of votka") and visual style have inspiration (in episode 5, a TV set in the center is divided between a split screen, featuring a soccer game for both a Mossad agent on the left and Eli on the right side of the frame), meaning that "The Spy" can be analyzed and praised from any perspective.

Grade:++++

The Concert

Koncert; drama, Croatia, 1954; D: Branko Belan, S: Nada Škrinjar, Viktor Bek, Branko Špoljar, Miroslav Petrović, Mirna Stopić

Zagreb. A group of music students arrives at a Kaptol apartment and bring a piano with them, where they find the former piano player Ema, now reclusive. Her story: in 1 9 1 4, Ema is a little girl and likes to play the piano of the store owner for employs her mother, the cleaning lady. As the news of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand spreads, the store owner sells the piano, Ema wants to stop the sale, but people accidentally drop the piano on her, breaking her hip and leaving her with a limp... 1 9 2 2. Ema plays a piano and is spotted by piano teacher Berislav across the next building, but since she limps, she decides to not go on a date with him... 1 9 2 9. Ema and a band of three other musicians is summoned during a rainy night to play after the wedding of Jurica and Greta, but one of the guests bought a radio so he doesn't want to waste money on live music... 1 9 4 1. During World War II, Ema spots Berislav being chased and shot by the Ustashe. Back in present, Ema collapses on the piano.

Included in a film critics' poll as one of the 10 best Croatian films of all time, Branko Belan's "The Concert" is still a notch below all this hype, dazzling more with its modern style of flashbacks, but underwhelming in its drama parts and emotions. Told as a series of four flashbacks in the life of a tragic piano player, Ema (a solid Nada Skrinjar), the movie is surprising in denying Ema her due as the main protagonist, and instead pushes her in the background, only as a passive observer of events, until the viewers feel as if she is the supporting character in her own lifestory. This imbalance wrecks "The Concert". The director Belan has a sense for some fine directed moments: for instance, when Ema, as a little girl, observes a newspaper reporter typing on the typewriter, there is an association dissolve to a scene of two hands playing the piano keyboard. In another story, while limping slightly, the grown-up Ema spots a disabled man, barely walking with a cane on the streets holding on to the hand of another man, while later the camera zooms in to a close up of a random woman observing the limping Ema in the same pitiful manner, whereby the movie says everything the viewers need to know about why she would all of a sudden be ashamed to go on a date with Berislav. The best sequence is the one in the fourth story, where Ema is in a bar, observing a singer and a piano player, the camera zooms in on Ema's face and then there is a flashback to a brilliantly directed sequence of her playing the piano on stage at the national theater, wearing a wedding dress, imagining all the people she knew from her life to be in the audience. The leitmotive of a piano influencing her life and emotional state throughout her lifetime is clever and well made, implying the fatalism of destiny, yet overall one wishes Ema was the leading catalyst of the story, and not just the mechanical toy of this fatalism, whereas some random moments of episodic characters lead nowhere (for instance, Edmund, convicted of embezzlement, or his deranged father, a retired military official, committing suicide in the bathtub).

Grade:++

One False Move

One False Move; crime, USA, 1992; D: Carl Franklin, S: Bill Paxton, Cynda Williams, Billy Bob Thornton, Michael Beach, Earl Billings

Los Angeles. Criminals Ray, Pluto and Lila "Fantasia" enter a house and kill the people inside to steal their money and cocaine, and then flee. A neighbor recognizes Ray's car. The police discover a tape from the house where someone says they are heading for Star City, Arkansas, so detectives McFeely and Cole are sent there to team up with local sheriff Dale Dixon to arrest them when they show up. Along their drive, a police officer randomly stops them at a road, so Ray, Pluto and Lila shoot him. In Houston, Texas, Ray and Pluto want to sell the drugs, but when the dealers want to give them only a small financial compensation, they shoot them. Lila arrives at Star City, where she meets up with Dixon, with whom she had an affair and secretly had a son, Byron, who lives with her brother Ronnie. When Pluto and Ray arrive at the house, Dixon ambushes them, but in the shootout, they are all killed, with only Dixon left wounded on the ground.

"One False Move" retroactively achieved a re-newed interest when film critic Gene Siskel named it as his no. 1 favorite film of the year. However, in reality, the movie is still two notches below this overhyped statement: it is a fluent, astringent and multi-layered crime film, yet it is at times sloppily written and "rough" in its structure. For instance, the murders in the opening sequence are chaotic, banal and disjointed, never really ringing authentic. The criminals Ray, Pluto and Lila enter a house and randomly tie up the inhabitants, kick them, slap them, Ray even pours some inflamable liquid over the hair of a woman and threatens to put it on fire using a lighter, asking for where some Marco lives, but since the viewers are not given any context, this whole sequence just feels "off", like random violence without any sense or purpose. Two people were dancing and a third one was filming them with a camera, which even catches the conversation where Lila says she is heading for Star City, yet, remarkably, later Pluto is seen watching the tape, but just leaves it in the house when he leaves, allowing for the police to obtain it and have a clue where they are going. Wouldn't it have made much more sense for Pluto to destroy the tape and any possible evidence from the scene of the crime? It just feels illogical. 

"One False Move" is very slow in its set-up, and it doesn't really ignite all until some 43 minutes into the film, when there is a great sequence where Ray and Lila are at a store in Texas and spot a cop shopping there, so they try to discreetly buy and leave as fast as possible. However, the cop follows them and pulls them over, just to check out their suspicious behavior, allowing for a suspensful and electrifying showdown which ignites the film. For some reason, the film tries to portray Star City sheriff Dixon (Bill Paxton) as some sort of misunderstood hillbilly with a good heart, but he doesn't come across as such: for instance, Dixon arrives at a house where an angry husband thrusts an axe at the door of his house, having a feud with his wife inside, and even resists Dixon who tries to restrain him, pushing him backwards and breaking the window. Instead of arresting him on the spot, Dixon talks to the husband, tells him to make up with his wife, and then gives him the axe back (!), turns around (!), and considers the situation solved, which feels so wrong it's painful to watch. The character of criminal Pluto hinted at a much more complex character than we got: he wears glasses and is clearly much more intelligent and articulate at talking than Ray, played brilliantly by Michael Beach, but there is no character growth, no change, no insights or lessons, and he just ends like any brute criminal would in the finale, which is a letdown. There are some fresh camera angles towards the end (the frog perspectives of a man playing a harmonica or Ray driving the car), and a plot twist involving the secret relationship between two people, yet the dialogue is rather standard, and the ending a typical bloody shootout cliche, leaving a good film that could have been much better.

Grade:++

The Eighth Door

Osma vrata; thriller-drama, Serbia, 1959; D: Nikola Tanhofer, S: Milivoje Živanović, Rada Đuričin, Ljiljana Krstić, Nada Škrinjar, Slobodan Perović, Jovan Miličević, Pavle Vuisić

Belgrade, World War II. Retired professor Predrag walks along the street and spots a resistance member being chased by Nazis. The resistance member boards a street car and puts a notebook in Predrag's pocket, before being arrested. Back in his house, Predrag realizes the notebook contains the names of secret resistance members, and those whose names are underlined will be arrested soon. His wife and his daughter Vera cannot agree what he should do. The wife of the killed resistance member enters the house and asks Predrag to give her the notebook. When the Gestapo shows up and searches for the entire house, Predrag hides the notebook in a baby carriage. Having found nothing, the Gestapo leaves, and Predrag gives the notebook to the wife of the resistance member who leaves the house.

Excellent war thriller-drama "The Eighth Door" is a surprisingly gripping 'kammerspiel' playing out only inside one location (the protagonist's house) 90% of the time, and a meditation on finding courage to do the right thing even when the threat of evil forces you to remain docile. The Croatian director Nikola Tanhofer directs the story in a very efficient way, displaying a sense for a movie language, using match cuts, flashbacks, unusual camera angles and pans to keep the viewers engaged, whereas the simply story about the protagonist Predrag who doesn't know what to do with the notebook containing names of the secret resistance members during the Nazi occupation is easily accessible. The theme is summed up in a great little dialogue where Vera, the daughter, says to Predrag: "In order to be the man you always wanted to be, you only missed that for what you have the opportunity to do now". Even though Predrag wants to remain neutral, like many people want to during crisis times, he has to make a choice eventually. It is remarkable how Tanhofer is able to create suspense through simple situations: for instance, in one of these, Predrag receives a phone call from an unknown man, claiming the be the arrested resistance member, and wants Predrag to bring him the notebook to the bridge in half an hour, but Predrag's wife rightfully concludes that the man is an impostor, since the said arrested resistance member would certainly not have the chance to make a phone call. The finale, where Predrag hid the notebook inside the baby carriage during the Gestapo search of his house, but the baby starts crying so the guard at the door browses through the carriage to find a toy to calm down the baby, reaches almost Hitchockian levels of suspense, but the ending feels somewhat abrupt and anticlimactic, somewhat reducing the high impression up to it.

Grade:+++

The Strategy of the Snail

La estrategia del caracol; drama / comedy, Colombia, 1993, D: Sergio Cabrera, S: Frank Ramírez, Fausto Cabrera, Vicky Hernández, Humberto Dorado, Victor Mallarino, Carlos Vives

Bogota. A derelict, abandoned residential building, "Casa Uribe", is inhabited by over twenty squatters who live there. However, the authorities show up one day and demand that everyone inside must be evicted because its landlord, Dr. Holguin, wants it cleared. Romero, who has not graduated as a lawyer, manages to postpone the eviction citing the law that they have a bed-ridden sick man inside, Lazaro. Another tenant, anarchist Jacinto, devises a plan: they will dismantle the entire building from inside, piece by piece—leaving only the four walls outside—and move it to a meadow on a hill, where they will rebuild it. They manage to postpone the eviction again and again, and even send trasnvestite Gabriel to crossdress as a woman and seduce Dr. Holguin's lawyer, Victor, to have him arrive late for the eviction. As the police arrive, the tenants blow up the empty for walls from inside, which collapse, revealing an empty space.

Voted in one poll as one of the best movies of Colombian cinema, "The Strategy of the Snail" shows what a blessing resourcefulness and humor are when applied to a depressing social issue—in this case, when authorities want to evict over twenty homeless people from an abandoned residential building, these tenants simply decide to secretly dismantle and "evacuate" the building from inside and live on a hill. The concept is genius, though the writing and execution are on a lesser level. The overlong running time drags at certain moments, indicating that the movie could have been cut by 20 minutes, and the dialogue is rather bland and routine. Nontheless, the director Sergio Cabrera shows craftsmanship through several aethetic shots (a hill overseeing the Bogota metropolis), clever ideas (lawyer Romero pays a kid to go to an office and say to the evasive official Don Mauro that "some blond broad is waiting for him at Roma Cafe", and when Mauro arrives there, Romero tells him: "I'm the blonde"; in order to postpone the eviction again, Romero changes the address plaque number on the building, causing confusion among the police which have to wait until someone double-checks the veracity of the address) and directorial intervention (at the cafe, Romero asks Mauro about the new schedule for the eviction: "When will that be?", and then there is a match cut to Romero in the house, saying: "Tomorrow morning they'll come for the house"). The scenes of the tenants dismantling the building from inside, piece by piece, are the most fascinating, showing, for instance, how they tie a bathtub to a pulley, raise it up through the ceiling, and then move it horizontally via a rope outside to another place; or how they dismantle windows, tiles and even a whole block of a wall, which they then slide across the ground. The movie needed more of these scenes, and more humor. The ending literally brings down the house and is impressive for its sheer scale and ambition, though the lack of budget reveals its limitations, whereas the final scene feels kind of incomplete, lacking a resolution, yet one feels that spirit of pumped up energy as the small are trying to outrank the big authorities through their sheer cleverness, also inadvertently revealing the corruption and incompetence of this government.

Grade:+++

Godless

Godless; political drama, USA, 2024; D: Michael Ricigliano, S: Anna Ortiz, Harry Lennix, Patrick Breen, Dan Grimaldi, Thomas G. Waites

New York City. Governor Angela Porra signed the first gay marriage law, and now intends to adopt another one, allowing for late-term abortions. Due to this, Bishop Reginald Roland decides to publicly excommunicate her from the Catholic church, which causes a lot of media attention. Angela's associates back her, including Nico, a gay Jewish man. The Roman Catholic church nullifies Reginald's excommunication. Years later, Angela is President and goes to visit Reginald in a small parrish. She confesses that she had a miscarriage, while he confesses a murder when he was in the Vietnam War.

Michael Ricigliano's feature length debut film, independent drama "Godless" follows the interwoven political and religious life typical for the USA, though it is less relevant for today's time than it would have been had it been released 50 years earlier, when the influence of religious figures was stronger. Despite an interesting concept of a Bishop, Reginald, excommunicating politician Angela for adopting gay marriage law and attempting to adopt abortion laws, the storyline doesn't really know what to do with this premise. Not much changes, and in the end there is no real pay-off. There is only one intriguing little moment that captures the viewers' attention: the one where Angela is in the church and wants to get the Communion, but the priest refuses to give her the host, and covers the chalice with his hand, forcing her to leave while the other attendees just observe this. Other than that, the movie is just standing on the same place, without much creativity or higher amplitude of events, yet it offers a few philosophical contemplations about religion and politics, and which side has more leverage, whereas it has a great cinematography. In one such contemplation, a politician at a private conference tells to Angela: "We are just a litmus test for the catholic church to see if their base will vote", whereas in another Reginald calls her one of those "cafeteria Catholics". A fresh scene also shows up when Angela is about to meet Reginald, so she has this exchange with her cynical associate Nico: "Please, don't be an a***" - "I'll try". The two actors Anna Ortiz and Harry Lennix are excellent, delivering strong performances from pale, underwritten roles, sometimes even going beyond what is expected and pronouncing their bland dialogue with such an enthusiasm as if it is the best thing ever. "Godless" will be more interesting for American viewers than universal audience, since its story is thin and doesn't have a clear point at the end, yet it offers food for thought.

Grade:++

The Clockmaker

L'Horloger de Saint-Paul; crime drama, France, 1971; D: Bertrand Tavernier, S: Philippe Noiret, Jean Rochefort, Jacques Denis, Yves Afonso, Sylaian Rougerie

Lyon. Clockmaker Michel is visited in the morning by two police detectives who bring him to a place where his van was left on the road. Michel discovers that his missing son Bernard and his girlfriend Liliane are suspected of murder of factory guard Razon, setting also his car on fire. Devastated, Michel talks to Inspector Guilboud and gives interviews to reporters. Gradually, Michel hears from two women who worked in the factory that Razon caught Liliane trying to steal something, forced her to have sex with him, fired her, and that she said that to Bernard. The police catch Bernard, and even though Michel hires a lawyer to present the case as crime of passion, Bernard is sentenced to 20 years in prison. 

Bertrand Tavernier's feature length debut film, "The Clockmaker" shows how this director makes movies about life, not movies about movies. Tavernier follows his characters and their little details and private lives, because he is more interested in them than the cinematic experience, which doesn't always work in some overstretched, "plain" or trivial moments, yet the viewers can almost feel and taste the lives of this milieu. This is already visible in the opening sequence: a group of men sit for a dinner at a tavern and talk about various topics, ranging from elections ("The French want Communist mayors as long as the government is right-wing!") to everyday life (the protagonist Michel, played by the excellent actor Philippe Noiret, is shown in his first scene fixing a clock on the wall in the kitchen, and then goes to eat and comments: "That's the advantage of bachelors. We can eat onions"), which feels genuine. The viewers still don't know what kind of a movie awaits them just from this opening sequence. The next morning, as two police detectives show up and inform Michel that his son murdered a man, the movie transforms into a character study about the older generation that lost touch with the new, young generation, whose radical conduct they cannot understand anymore, especially connected right after the rift of the '68 protests in France. 

Tavernier is a conventional director, sometimes allowing the events to almost lead the film more than the (vague) story itself, especially since the arrest of Michel's son doesn't happen all until an hour into the film, yet he has a knack for good dialogues, mostly between Michel and the Inspector ("France is a strange country. It has 50 million people and 20 million snitches"; "I don't think anybody ever loved me that much as that little boy, even though it lasted only for a minute. I was unhappy only twice in my life. And I think I am starting to recover from this"; "We cannot even understand our own kids, let alone the other people's kids"), but also between the Inspector and the reporter, speculating about the motive for the burned car ("I wouldn't want to pronounce the word the left..." - "But you already pronounced it"). The best sequence is a suspenful one: two men randomly throw rocks and break the windows of the store, so Michael and his friend take the car, chase the two thugs, breat them up, whereas Michel even throws one of them into the river! It stands out the most because it is dynamic, and one wishes the movie had more of this, and less of overlong sequences of Michel wandering through the streets. Tavernier's characters are his main focus, though: in the end, as bad is it is that his son is arrested and awaits trial, Michel finally re-connects with him and begins talking and finding out more about him. "The Clockmaker" is a very good film, yet it is still below the status of a classic, as something is missing in Tavernier's lukewarm approach at times, which underwhelms occasionally.

Grade:+++

Monday or Tuesday

Ponedjeljak ili utorak; drama / art-film, Croatia, 1966; D: Vatroslav Mimica, S: Slobodan Dimitrijević, Fabijan Šovagović, Sergio Mimica, Jagoda Kaloper, Gizela Huml, Pavle Vuisić, Olivera Vučo

Zagreb. 24 hours in the life of Marko. He wakes up, has breakfast, and goes to work in his job of printing press. Intermittently, he has recollections from his childhood—his father was killed during World War II; his grandmother brought him up—and thinks about his contemporary time—he divorced from his wife who takes care of their little son; he has a new lover, but she is pregnant and wants an abortion; he writes novels, but nobody wants to publish them. While watching some men beat up a horse on the street that doesn't want to move, it starts to rain and Marko imagines he talks with his late father. At the end of the day, Marko returns back to his apartment, has dinner, watches TV, and then goes to bed.

"Monday or Tuesday" continues the director Vatroslav Mimica's 'stream-of-consciousness' phase ("Kaya, I'll Kill You!"), depicting 24 hours in the life of Marko, where recollections and flashbacks of his childhood are filmed in color, while the present is filmed in black and white, to symbolize the alienation of that generation with the current time they are living in. The overall result has its ups and downs: some moments are better than the others. The opening 8-minute sequence, for instance, is brilliant—it depicts Marko having a dream of himself, in color, in a park as an old grandmother with a red umbrella is shouting: "Marko! Marko!" Marko says: "Grandma, here I am!", but the woman just walks pass him to talk to a child that represents Marko as a kid. The strange flashbacks are filmed in surreal way, sometimes interwoven with fantasy—for instance, a wall of an orange crust melts and collapses in slow motion, and then the movie jumps to grandma covering the eyes of the kid Marko as Fascist soldiers, with Freddy Krueger-like masks, take his wounded father, bleeding, away from the house. 

Another moment has kid Marko crawling through some tunnel, while a sleeping grown-up Marko in the present is seen releasing a tear from his closed eye. An indeed great start to a film, but the rest starts losing its power, especially in some banal and heavy-handed random archive clips of corpses and war crimes from World War II juxtaposed with the peaceful modern city milieu. Some moments repeat the greatness on their own, unique way—for example, at work, Marko asks a colleague if he knows someone who can make an abortion, but the guy advises him against it: "Keep the child. I'll be your best man!" - "Are you crazy? Where do we get the apartment?" - "Look at all the space. It wouldn't be bad to have another little Marko in the Universe", as he shows Marko a photo of a whole Galaxy in space. The rest of the movie struggles to justify this loose structure and meandering of random episodes, falling into the trap of empty walk. For instance, the episode revolving around a man (Fabijan Sovagovic) showing Marko his pigeon coop leads nowhere, save for some neat moments of freeze frames of a pigeon flapping its wings. Yet, all the scenes of Marko just walking through the streets without a goal can only go so far until he viewers' patience starts to get exhausted. A tighter narrative would have been welcomed, since various experimentals films feel less fresh today. As the movie abruptly ends, one cannot feels as if something is missing in the overall picture, though Mimica has a couple of interesting stylistic ideas (the camera pans from a black and white scene on the left, through dark, to a scene in color on the right).

Grade:++

El Cid

El Cid; historical drama, USA / Italy, 1961; D: Anthony Mann, S: Charlton Heston, Sophia Loren, Herbert Lom, Raf Vallone, Genevieve Page, John Fraser

The Iberian Peninsula during Reconquista, 11th century. General Ben Yusuf from the Muslim Almoravid dynasty wants Al-Andalus to continue fighting and annexing the Christian cities. The Christian nobelman Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar and his army capture two emirs, al-Mu'tamin and al-Kadir, but lets them go if they promise not to attack Christians anymore, so he is given the title "El Cid". Because of that, El Cid is accused of treason and kills Count Gormaz in a duel, the father of his fiancée Chimene. When Ferdinand, the King of Castile, dies, his two sons Alfonso and Sancho fight for the crown, and Ben Yusuf assassinates Sancho to start a civil war. However, Alfonso is declared the King, but since El Cid suspected he killed Sancho, El Cid an Chimene are exiled. They are summoned again to lead an army during the Battle of Valencia, and they win. When Ben Yusuf's army counterattack, El Cid is wounded, but is tied to a horse to charge the next day against the Moors, thereby assuring victory over the Almoravids.

"El Cid" is an example of duality among monumental epic films: on the one hand, it dazzles with thousands of extras, spectacle, lavish production values and aesthetic locations of the Peniscola walls and beach; on the other hand, it feels strangely stiff, mechanical, has underwhelming, pale characters and seems as a schematic PowerPoint presentation by a chatbot. The director Anthony Mann directs the film conventionaly, yet the sole story cannot be that easily bereaved of its intruige since it is one of the rare movie depictions of Reconquista, an era lasting over 750 years, since modern politics rather avoid films showing Christian-Muslim conflicts. The title protagonist is shown as an idealized hero, always true to his mantra of being just and fair—when he encounters a group of soldiers on horses, El Cid has a determined exchange with them ("Will you give me your prisoner, or must I take him?" - "There are 13 of us. And you're alone!" - "What you do is against God's law. Were you 13 times 13, I would not be alone!"), before he engages in a battle and defeats them all. After being exiled with Chimene, El Cid leaves a cottage and is surprised to find a hundred soldiers outside, waiting for him, and they have this exchange: "I am in exile!" - "Not you. We're all in exile!" It is difficult to find such a thoroughly honorable character in modern movies. Despite its running time of three hours, "El Cid" feels strangely as if it is told in ellipses and is missing some pieces of the bigger picture, since we don't find out more about neither El Cid nor Chimene, though their relationship is more complex than expected, especially after he inadvertently kills her father in a duel. The battle sequences, especially in the finale of the fights along the coastline of the walled city depictitng Valencia, are short and effective, as well as stylistically elegant due to being framed by such architecture, though they are no match for the choreography of future historical films, whereas the narrator's final line is strong ("And thus El Cid rode out of the gates of history... into legend"), and thus "El Cid" feels fluid and smooth even today.

Grade:++