The Travelling Players

O Thiassos; art-film, Greece, 1975; D: Theo Angelopoulos, S: Eva Kotamanidou, Vangelis Kazan, Stratos Pahis, Aliki Georgouli, Maria Vassiliou, Kiriakos Katrivanos 

A group of eight actors travels across Greece between 1 9 3 9 and 1 9 5 2 to perform their play “Golfo the Shepherdess”. During their journey, they witness history in the making: the invasion of Italian fascists; the occupation by the Nazis; the clashes between communists and democrats after World War II, leading to the follow-up Greek Civil War; and finally, the ‘52 elections in which the anti-communist leader Papagos was elected. Several of the actors join this or that cause during these years, and get either killed or disappointed.

Theo Angelopoulos’ most famous film, sometimes even regarded as the best Greek film of the 20th century, "The Travelling Players" is an overlong and overrated historical allegory, yet due to its contemplative amalgamation of important historical events and evocation of the cultural heritage of the wisdom of the Greek myths, it deserves to be seen at least once. Angelopolous crafts only 80 scenes across the running time of 230 minutes, relying on Tarkovsky-style long takes, yet, as elegant and aesthetic as these are, they are of rather standard fibre, without that much true ingenuity. The major problem in this approach is the lack of investment in the characters: while in his other films, such as "Landscape in the Mist", this worked because he had only three main characters and thus their identification was easy, here Angelopoulos presents eight characters—all nameless performers, and shows them all in shared wide shots, without cross-cutting or close-ups to introduce each character, aggravating the efforts of the viewers to figure out who is who. Only certain scenes manage to distinguish them, such as the one which shows the determination of a young actress who is willing to sing topless in front of a man masturbating on a rocking chair in order to get a bottle of wine for her troupe. Instead, it seems that the entire Greek nation during this era is the main protagonist, in a sort of collective observation.

The leader of the performers is a modern Aegisthus, a Nazi sympathizer, and snitches a man, the modern Agamemnon, an anti-fascist sympathizer, who is thus executed by the Nazis—in order for Aegisthus to have an affair with Agamemnon’s wife, the modern Clytemnestra. Her daughter, the modern Electra, thus summons her brother, the modern Orestes, a communist resistance fighter, who shoots Aegisthus and Clytemnestra, while performing live on stage—but the audience just erupts in applause, thinking it is all part of the play. It may have been that all the protagonists are deliberately one-dimensional because, as film critic Roderick Heath observed, the intent was to show how these characters are reduced to archetypes—they are interchangeable performers, only their roles are permanent. In one scene near the opening act, the performers are seen walking from the right side of a street, while a truck with a man throwing leaflets is shown, and a loudspeaker announces that people should vote for Papagos, indicating that the setting is ‘52. However, just a couple of moments later, the performers are seen walking on the other side of the street, while a man announces Goebbels’ visit to Olympia in ‘36. This demonstrates how different time eras can overlap on the same location, whereas the first scene is also the film's last scene, coming full circle, to bring the theme across: there is no history, events fluctuate, and some archetypal human cycles (loyalty, betrayal, scramble for power, greed...) are repeated again and again through time, just with different names and peoples. 

Grade:++

Star Trek: The Next Generation (Season 5)

Star Trek: The Next Generation; science-fiction series, USA, 1991-1992; D: David Carson, Winrich Kolbe, Les Landau, Peter Lauritson, S: Patrick Stewart, Brent Spiner, Jonathan Frakes, Michael Dorn, LeVar Burton, Marina Sirtis, Gates McFadden, Wil Wheaton, Michelle Forbes, Whoopi Goldberg

In the 24th century, Captain Jean-Luc Picard is commanding the Federation spaceship Enterprise, with the goal of exploring space and seeking out new civilizations, and containing the Borg aliens. He is assisted by Commander William Riker, android Data, Klingon Lt. Worf, Dr. Beverly Crusher, Counsellor Deanna Troi, engineer La Forge, and others. They have to be careful of not to interfere into the development of other, less advanced alien cultures, while they also have to keep up the fragile peace between the Federation and the antagonistic Klingon and Romulan Empires.

The 5th season of the beloved "Star Trek: The Next Generation" continued the strong impression of the previous two seasons by offering several inspired, creative and even philosophical episodes, whereas also giving a neat little role to Michelle Forbes, who is great as the sassy Ensign Ro, a recurring character. However, the pendulum of quality swings back again due to an too episodic nature of the series, since even great episodes seem isolated and without a bigger influence on the routine flow of the rest of the storyline. One gets the impression that "Star Trek" is sometimes a tad naive in certain aspects, not only in the notion that the crew teleports to unknown planets without any protective spacesuits (as if unknown viruses do not exist on alien planets), but also in the concept of a universal translator which is able to immediately establish a translation of a new alien culture. Episode 5.2 is a welcomed requestioning of the latter, since it revolves around Picard and the Enterprise crew trying to understand the Tamarian aliens who only speak in metaphors, which is a problem many episodes simply brush off, though even this "communication problem" was elaborated even more realistically in Villenueve's "Arrival". While Tamarian language has some catchy lines ("His eyes opened!"; "His arms wide!"), it is also questionable how an advanced civilization would function without precise vocabulary. Double episodes 5.7 and 5.8 attracted attention since they featured a guest role by Leonard Nimoy, alias Spock, who wants to unite the two contradictory cultures, the rational-pacifist Vulcans and the aggressive Romulans, yet for such high expectations, his role was underwhelming and he, sadly, never manages to create chemistry with Picard. Ultimately, these two episodes are good, but are just a calculative "clickbait". Ironically, the most memorable sequence in these two episodes is delivered not by Spock, but by Data, who just stands there, staring in the room at night, while Picard is trying to sleep underneath him, but is so uncomfortable by the constantly awake android that Data has to turn around and stand in front of a wall. Episode 5.9 is an interesting contemplation on humanitarian intervention and passivity when faced with a possible massive threat of deaths, with an alleged time traveller refusing to tell if an inhabited planet is going to explode or not. While the twist ending is neat, the story could have been better written.

Episode 5.13 is also interesting, though presented as a rather dry PowerPoint presentation, which somewhat hinders the story from coming fully to life. The concept is a sly commentary on the limitations of isolationism: a human colony cut itself off from the Universe on planet Moab IV to perfect an eugenics society without any flaws, but now a stellar fragment is approaching the planet and threatens to destroy it, forcing the society in a Catch-22: accept outside intervention from the Enterprise and reform or stay true to their dogma and die out? Some good points are raised, such as how a society cannot unilaterally declare themselves as perfect, but can only be objectively judged by a third party, yet the writing should have been more fresh and energetic, instead of this stale. Episode 5.14 seems like an alternative plot direction to "Clues" from 4.14: the Enterprise crew loses their memory after a mysterious incident, while a new crew member orders them to attack (and kill) the alien spaceships, because, allegedly, they are in a war with the Lysians and must act quickly. A powerful and great little episode, it is a clever and revealing commentary on war propaganda, especially how the masses can be mislead to rush into war even though there is no danger at all. When the murder of Lysians approaches the level of persecution, Picard rightfully protests that it is like someone giving him a gun and an order to shoot a perfect stranger in a room. Episode 5.16 is disappointing (Worf is left paralyzed and wants to die), an obvious morality play on euthanasia, which is misguided anyway since there would probably be no disabilities in such a technologically advanced future. The next episode is also bland, as well. A grand compensation arrives in one of the best episodes of the entire series, 5.18, which has a fascinating story of a time loop—a whole year before "Groundhog Day". The Enterprise encounters a fog in space, malfunctions, a spaceship (Commander played by Kelsey Grammer) emerges from the fog and scratches the Enterprise, causing it to explode. But the time repeats itself, everything is reset, and only Dr. Crusher seems to realize there is a deja vu going on. The episode is mysterious, exciting, with a few disorienting camera "shakes" and works down to a T. The sequence where Dr. Crusher is able to predict all the cards Data is going to deal during Poker is great, as is the moment where she goes to sleep in her bed, but hears noises of people in the dark. All the little details contribute to the overall picture: truly, an excellent episode.

The next one, 5.19, is at times a dry court drama, but still surprisingly effective of an allegory on honesty and ethics. 5.21 received a lot of backlash for the concept in which an alien woman has the sole purpose to please—and adapt to the wishes—of her future husband, yet it is overall an interesting thought experiment on the dilemma of how to react to cultures which are completely different than the accepted standards, whereas Famke Janssen is effective as the said woman, Kamala. Episode 5.24 seems to owe a lot to the popularity of the movie "Ghost", since in it Ensign Ro and La Forge become ghosts of sorts after a strange transporter malfunction, with the Enterprise crew going through them. The two work as a good team in order to get back their physical bodies, and the story is both creepy and clever at the same time. The penultimate episode, 5.25, "The Inner Light", is also rightfully hailed as one of the best "Star Trek" episodes of all time, a small chef-d'oeuvre. In it, Picard is zapped by an alien probe and he finds himself living as Kamin, married and with a family on planet Kataan. Out of sheer respect towards it, the best thing is to say as little about the plot as possible, since the surprises and revelations at the end are so rewarding that they must be experienced in person. Suffice to say it is a philosophical contemplation about some timeless themes in life (transience and the fragility of memory; an interrupted life; the "what if?" alternative life). Its finale is a catharsis, and is arguably the saddest, most mature and emotional "Next Generation" episode ever. The final scene featuring Picard is so subtle that it is a delight: only few writers are able to say so much with just one little gesture. The last episode, 5.26, is a mixed bag: it starts off great and mysterious, with the Earth archeologists finding a relic of Data's head in an area that was shut for 500 years, and then the Enterprise crew teleports to a different planet, to a cave, where strange beings are "out of phase" in time and are thus invisible to everybody. Data thus volunteers to use a device to go "out of phase" in time, disappears, and the whole sequence where Riker, Troi and Worf are only hearing Data's voice of how he describes the alien beings made out of light has some suspense that is stronger than a horror film. Unfortunately, this is followed by a silly plot where Data finds himself on Earth in the 19th century, which is kind of corny. Still, the guest appearance by Mark Twain is delicious, especially when the said writer has a long rant about Creationists during a party: "That the whole world got by for such a great long while with no humans around to fill up space. I suppose Mr. Wallace and his supporters would say that the Earth needed all that time to prepare itself for our illustrious arrival. Why the oyster alone probably required 15 million years to get it come out just right. Heh!"

Grade:++

The Favour, the Watch and the Very Big Fish

The Favour, the Watch and the Very Big Fish; black comedy, France / UK, 1991, D: Ben Lewin, S: Bob Hoskins, Natasha Richardson, Jeff Goldblum, Michel Blanc  

Louis is a photographer re-enacting religious photos. His friend, Zelman, has flu and thus asks Louis to take on a voice dubbing job for him as a favour. Once in the recording studio, Louis is surprised he has to dub an erotic movie with Sybil, who finds him sweet and goes on a date with him. She tells him how she once worked as a waitress in a restaurant where she started a relationship with a Pianist who mourned his deceased mother. After he attacked a Violinist in an act of jealousy, the Pianist was sent to jail for three years, but is now going to be released and Sybil wants to meet him again, so she asks Loius for money to buy a suit. Sybil thereafter disappears. Louis hires the Pianist to play Jesus on his photos, which prove very popular. When the Pianist imagines he is indeed Jesus, he decides to walk on water on a river, but drowns. Louis meets Sybil again and they fall in love. 

This unusal farce seems to be assembled from two disparate stories which never truly complement each other, though it has some fun moments and the three main actors are charming. The first story works as a satire on exploitation of the masses through religion, including the delusional tendency of these role models to start believing in their own grandeur, in this case when the Pianist imagines he is truly Jesus. However, the second one fails as a love story between Louis and Sybil, since they meet only once, and then it takes for too long until they see each other the second time around, not until the end of the film, due to numerous complications, misunderstandings and obastacles which become silly and annoying after a while. Though, even the first story is confusing, since it is not clear why the Pianist would believe he is Jesus nor where this is going in the end, unlike the similar and much more consistent "Jesus of Montreal". Bob Hoskins is amusing as Louis, speaking with a surprisingly gentle voice, and a moustache that would secure him a casting in "Super Mario Bros." two years later. He is the best in the sequence where the shy Louis has to dub an orgasm in a studio for an erotic movie, together with Sybil, and their “orgasm match” reveals why they would sense they can be a couple. Louis, a photographer of religious iconography, also complains that "if God exists, I did more for him then he did for me. He never performed miracles for me!" This ties neatly into the ending, where a small miracle of sorts does happen when, due to a string of wacky events, Louis and Sybil do end up together. The jokes are mostly disappointing or lukewarm, without much inspiration. One particularly lame one is when a blind boy is healed when a lost golf ball hits his head, and this is attributed to the Pianist who looks like Jesus. Something more imaginative could have been done out of this, to not allow the movie to look like a dozen of isolated episodes when these three characters always stay the same.   

Grade:+

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker; science-fiction action, USA, 2019, D: J. J. Abrams, S: Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, Oscar Isaac, John Boyega, Anthony Daniels, Richard E. Grant, Carrie Fisher, Billy Dee Williams, Ian McDiarmid, Naomi Ackie, Keri Russell, Mark Hamill  

Kylo Ren took over the control of the New Order which aims to rule the Galaxy, but finds out all of this Empire revival stuff was organized by ex-Emperor Palpatine, who survived and is hiding on planet Exegol. Rebels, led by Rey, Poe and Finn, travel to a planet to obtain a pathfinder with a map that leads to Exegol. Leia dies, which shocks Kylo. The Rebels start an attack on Exegol, while Rey takes on Palpatine. Both die in the duel of the Force powers, but Kylo revives Ray, yet dies himself in the process of energy transmission. Rey flies off to Tatooine, burries Luke’s lightsaber and takes on the name Skywalker.

With "The Rise of Skywalker", a negative impression was consolidated regarding the "Star Wars" sequel trilogy: with a combined total budget of 750 million $ at their disposal, the authors and the producers had a historic opportunity to rally all the actors from the original series and use them wisely one last time to deliver something special, but in the end just wasted all their potentials to rehash (and nullify) the original trilogy with a routine copy-paste storyline that any 12-year old could have written. By having Emperor Palpatine return in this film (without any foreshadowing in the previous two films), the heroic efforts and achievements of the characters in "The Return of the Jedi" were retroactively "stolen" by the Grinch, without having the same effect of triumph brought back here as a compensation. Not even time travel films could mess up the continuity as this sequel trilogy.

Had they really cared about "Star Wars", the producers could have hired 50 people to read post-"Star Wars" fanfiction stories from everywhere, find the best ones and then buy the rights for them, instead of predictably just flashing the fans with "clickbait" in the form of the Millennium Falcon and the light saber, which had a short term effect which wore off much sooner than a great story with a permanent value would. The director J. J. Abrams spends a lot of time correcting the misdirections from "The Last Jedi", and thus in one scene Rey even returns to the self-exile planet to live like Luke Skywalker, only for the latter’s ghost to dissuade and tell her: “I was wrong!” Kind of late to realize that, producers. High production values make even this film appear very nice to look at, but at its core it lacks a soul and inspiration: it is just a bland, tiresome and calculative end to an unnecessary new saga, narrowed down by having to obey industry expectations which set all of its steps in advance, which became its burden. The "Star Wars" sequel trilogy seems like a bunch of drivers started a long caravan without a plan where they were heading, got lost somewhere along the way, drove around in circles, until they stopped in the middle of nowhere and proclaimed this as their destination.   

Grade:+

Drive

Drive; crime thriller, USA, 2011, D: Nicholas Winding Refn, S: Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Albert Brooks, Ron Perlman, Oscar Isaac, Bryan Cranston, Christina Hendricks

Los Angeles. The Driver works part-time as a stunt driver for movies, and part-time as a gateaway driver who gives criminals 5 minutes to rob a place and get back into his car, before he evacuates them safely from the incoming police. His mentor is the car mechanic Shannon, who initiates a partnership with Jewish mobster Bernie and his collegue Nino, who run a pizza store. The Driver falls in love with Irene, mother of a little boy, and decides to help her recently released husband Standard into getting out of a debt for gagnster Cook. The robbery of a pawnshop gets the Driver a million $, but Standard is shot and killed. It turns out Nino arranged for a parallel robbery of the million $ because it belonged to a rival mobster who wanted to open up a rival business. Bernie orders that everyone must be killed who know of the operation. When Shannon is killed, the Driver kills Bernie and leaves the money with the corpse, but is wounded by a knife himself.

"Drive" is a good action-crime film about a gateaway driver that works in the first half, but is still overshadowed by Wright’s similar "Baby Driver" released six years later, which works in its both halves. This film builds a delightful mood in the first half thanks to several great shot compositions and camera drives, creating an aesthetic, somber, minimalist story that initially relies on sophistication, whereas Ryan Gosling is effective as the nameless driver, and comedian Albert Brooks surprises as the ruthless mobster Bernie. Unfortunately, the second half dissolves those efforts, finishing the last act only in the always same, banal ways of gangsters killing the protagonist’s friends, and then the protagonist killing gangsters, again and again, with disturbing outbursts of sudden violence (the slow-motion of a person's head being blown up from a gunshot), until the movie just becomes a depiction of two sides trying to outslaughter each other. A little more finesse, intricate plotting or creativity was expected from the authors, since such a predictably bloody outcome was already seen a hundred times already. 

Grade:++

Claire's Knee

Le Genou de Claire; drama, France, 1970, D: Éric Rohmer, S: Jean-Claude Brialy, Aurora Cornu, Beatrice Romand, Laurence de Monaghan 

Lake Annecy. Jerome (36) arrives for a summer vacation before his planned wedding with Lucinde in Stockholm. He accidentally meets his old friend on a bridge, writer Aurora, who is still single. She introduces him to Mrs Walter, who has two teenage daughters: Laura and Claire. Jerome goes mountain hiking with Laura, and the two kiss, but she is reluctant in starting a relationship with someone who is engaged. The two remain friends and talk about relationships. Upon meeting Claire, Jerome becomes fascinated by her knee. While taking refuge from rain, Jerome tells Claire that her boyfriend Gilles is seeing another girl from tennis, Muriel. Claire cries and Jerome comforts her by touching her knee. Jerome leaves the next day, while Claire reconciles with Gilles.

Eric Rohmer continued his film series about human relations and sensuality in this gentle, quiet and unassuming little film. "Claire's Knee" is, in a way, a typical representation of a French art-film: it has no plot, and is instead just a 'slice-of-life' observation where the characters only talk non-stop. And yet, it does stand out as a rather fresh depiction of unrequited love since it has some timeless depictions of human emotions, it seems. Not every line is inspired, since a lot of the storyline falls into empty walk, but you will still think about this film a long time after you have seen it: it stays on a subconscious level. The character of Laura is at times a stretch: she talks too wise and too articulate for a teenager. Rohmer's humor saves the impression, like in the sweet sequence where Aurora wants to write a story about Jerome and herself, but complains that nothing happened yet, or the moment where Laura gives a sly remark about her mother (“Sometimes I think you talk nonsense”), and when the latter protests, Laura replies: "I don’t talk without having nothing to say", and then humorously stands up from the table and runs away into the distance (W. Anderson must have given a homage to this moment in "Rushmore" in the scene where Blume runs away from a painting session). Aurora is also an interesting character, both lamenting and accepting that destiny does not allow her to find love: "Chance insists on offering me nothing, so I take nothing. Why try to fight destiny?" Claire shows up rather late, in the second half of the film, and is paler in comparison to the excellent Laura, yet her role is to tip Jerome out of his "cool state". If Laura is the symbol of rational love, exchangeable with friendship, then Claire is the symbol of wild infatuation which causes the person to lose control. By showing this range of states, from loneliness, lukewarm love up to intense love, Rohmer gave a quality little film, though it is rather too conservative and too shy to truly embrace such notions of passion to the fullest, as would a S. Imamura's film, for instance. 

Grade:+++