Will Smith - Men In Black (Video Version)

Fun movie and fun video! One of the best ever movie songs.......

Like I've written about so many times before, there are always connections between things, whether it's songs, books, films, or a combination of them. 

Odds and ends, part two

As I get older, I am more willing to accept that I won't get the answers I seek, particularly where faith is concerned. Faith is a mystery that I will never truly decipher. My faith in God has wavered from time to time up through the years. Ditto for my desire to attend Sunday mass. But I've realized that I won't get firm proof that God exists; he/she is not going to suddenly appear before me (like in the story of doubting Thomas) and convince me that way. So I accept God's existence on faith. Attending mass is similar; I go, no matter how I feel. Ten to fifteen years ago, I often wondered why I should go to mass when so many things seemed to be topsy-turvy in my life and definitely in the world. Not anymore. It's become something I do without thinking about it too much. That works for me. I like being there, being part of something larger than me. Being together with (presumably) like-minded people, in the sense that they are also believers. Even if they aren't, it wouldn't change my wanting to be there. I've realized that I can just offer up who I am on any given day--happy, sad, moody, bored, angry, irritable--and hope that I am acceptable. Being human means being imperfect. That is my reality, even though I try hard each day to be the best version of myself (as Matthew Kelly says). 

I watched the film Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret from 2023 last night. It's a touching, funny and sweet story about a twelve-year old girl on the cusp of adolescence, and how she deals with life at home and in school. The film is based on the book of the same name by Judy Blume; I never read it when it was published back in 1970. Margaret is the daughter of an interfaith marriage--Jewish father and Catholic mother, but neither of her parents are religious and they have chosen to raise Margaret without any religious affiliation. She does however hope to eventually find some sort of religion to belong to. She is assigned a school project that allows her to explore different religious beliefs, which she hopes will give her some idea of what religion to eventually embrace. She does talk to God however, telling him about all the things that are happening in her life and sharing her joys as well as disappointments. Abby Ryder Fortson did a wonderful job as Margaret, as did Rachel McAdams as her mother and Kathy Bates as her grandmother.

I also watched the film Dog from 2022 with Channing Tatum the other night--also very good. He played a former Army Ranger suffering from PTSD who wants to return to military duty but whose superiors deny him that chance due to his condition. However, he agrees to bring his former partner's dog Lulu to his funeral (he has committed suicide) as part of a deal for him to return to active duty. Lulu is anxiety-ridden and aggressive (suffering from a kind of PTSD too) and destined for eventual euthanization, and the trip from Oregon to Arizona is fraught with different problems and troubles along the way. It's a beautiful story about the bond that forms between man and dog, and how they both save each other. 

I've spent the past four days without tv news of any kind to invade my life. Bliss. I don't want to know what's going on in the world because I know it's the same old, same old--wars, aggression, conflicts, shootings, murders, political divisiveness--the list is long. And the news media love reporting it all; sometimes I get the feeling that 'the worse, the better'. I know that's cynical, but hey, the news media are cynical institutions. You get back what you give. 

I haven't been on social media much either. Also bliss. I don't really miss it. As I've written about before, I'd remove myself from most of it if it wasn't for the fact that friends in the US still use it. It's a way of staying in touch with them, although these days we mostly chat via Messenger and WhatsApp. 

Count your Blessings (Instead of Sheep) from the film White Christmas

The 1954 film White Christmas is a sweet and sentimental film to be sure, one that's worth watching. I had seen it many years ago but didn't remember it. We watched it the other night and I really enjoyed it. It will join my list of Christmas films to watch each year. The song Count Your Blessings (Instead of Sheep) was written for the film by Irving Berlin, who wrote the songs for the film. Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney sing this beautiful song. I'm including the lyrics here:

Count Your Blessings (Instead of Sheep) 

When I'm worried and I can't sleep

I count my blessings instead of sheep

And I fall asleep counting my blessings

When my bankroll is getting small

I think of when I had none at all

And I fall asleep counting my blessings

I think about a nursery and I picture curly heads

And one by one I count them as they slumber in their beds

If you're worried and you can't sleep

Just count your blessings instead of sheep

And you'll fall asleep counting your blessings

If you're worried and you can't sleep

Just count your blessings instead of sheep

And you'll fall asleep counting your blessings

What is a soldier without a war?

All Quiet on the Western Front (All Quiet on the Western Front (2022) - IMDb) won an Oscar for Best International Feature Film last night, among other awards. The film, directed by German director Edward Berger, is about a group of young German soldiers whose experiences of the brutality and hopelessness of war during WWI contrast with their initial eagerness toward going to war to valiantly fight the French on the western front for the honor of Germany. The film is based on the book by Erich Maria Remarque, who described the horror and suffering of war as a German veteran of World War I. The book has been adapted into film several times--in 1930, in 1979, and in 2022. I have not seen the other films, but if they are anything like Berger's film, they are probably quite harrowing to watch. 

It would be hard to say that I liked the film; films about war are too distressing because you know there will be bloodshed and death. Berger's film has plenty of both. There really is no plot other than that young men go to war, have their idealistic expectations of valiance dashed, fight to survive on a daily basis, and learn to deal with the brutality and trauma of watching their comrades maimed and killed. There is no time to process death or the intense emotions surrounding it. There is no time for humanity. There is no humanity in the trenches. Tanks roll over them, crushing soldiers and collapsing the trenches. Bayonets do the job that shootings do not. Grenades likewise. Berger does not spare his audience. But no filmmaker does when he or she makes a film about war. 1917 (from 2019) was another example of a brutal war film. 

Berger is clearly not pro-war. He presents the pointlessness of much of what goes on, and the arbitrariness of some decisions. When a ceasefire is signed, one of the German commanders whose entire life has revolved around fighting and war, sends his troops into battle fifteen minutes before the ceasefire is to take effect. His arrogant decision results in fatal consequences for the main characters. This commander asks the question--what is a soldier without a war? He is really talking about himself, about how he will have no identity if the war ends. But he is not the one fighting it, he is not the one in the trenches on the western front--his soldiers are, and they are dying like flies. Dead bodies are scattered on the battlefield and one soldier is assigned to go around and collect the dog tags after battle. After all, families must be informed that their heroic sons died serving Germany's interests. 

There is very little that is heroic about war, that much we know at this point in time. Most of us would agree that we should avoid war at all costs. The importance of diplomacy cannot be underestimated. But what happens when one of the warring parties does not want peace? What happens when that person is blinded by wanting to win, wanting to be the victor? That person will send his soldiers into battle with no thought of the consequences for them. They are just pawns on his chess board. That's the way it's been for centuries. And therein lies the problem. What do we do when one country invades another? What do we do when no amount of diplomacy helps, when no amount of diplomacy stops an aggressor? It's depressing to admit, but the world will always have wars as long as dictators and tyrants exist. Invaded countries have the right to defend themselves. Imagine if the USA had not gotten involved in WWII. What would the layout of Europe have looked like then?

It's staggering to read the death statistics of WWI and WWII. In WWI there were 10 million military dead and 7 million civilian deaths; in WWII over 60 million people died (World War I vs World War II - Difference and Comparison | Diffen). My husband and I visited Normandy and the D-Day beaches in the summer of 2016 (A New Yorker in Oslo: Visit to Normandy (paulamdeangelis.blogspot.com). What I remember most about the beaches was that the sand was reddish in color. A reminder of the bloodshed on those beaches. It made me think about all the men who lost their lives there, far from home. It was overwhelming emotionally to be there, but I'm glad I was there. Because it crystallizes the history--it makes it real. There is nothing glamorous about war. Blessed are the peacemakers indeed. There is a special place in hell (if it exists) for the invaders, the aggressors, the dictators, and the tyrants--all those who drag the rest of the world into war. May they suffer there forever. 

"It's not that I have something to hide.....I have nothing I want you to see."

Anon is a futuristic dystopic sci-fi film from 2018 (Anon (2018) - IMDb) where everyone has a digital signature that is available at all times on society's augmented reality grid. Individuals are tracked every minute of the day, every day, on government orders, rendering privacy and anonymity non-existent. The tracking is essentially done by others around you, and is accomplished via ocular implants that record everything individuals see in order to provide augmented-reality displays to them and others.  In other words, the implants overlay this recorded information onto real-life situations almost immediately. If you see a person on the street, the overlays let you see all the digital information that exists about that person because all that information from everyone's ocular implants has been uploaded to the grid. It's almost like having a search engine in your brain. This makes policemen's jobs easier, because they pretty much already know who the criminal is immediately after a crime has been committed or while it is being committed. Policemen can tap into the scene of the crime using coordinates and gather the information that is needed; in principle they don't even need to be present. In practice, they visit crime sites in order to gather forensic clues that confirm their case against perpetrators. 

But there is a person who is not on the digital grid, a tech-savvy young woman (The Girl/Anon, played by Amanda Seyfried) whose analog life makes her invisible to anyone looking for her. It turns out that she has cleverly disguised herself in the system using algorithms that 'disseminate' information about her. It is impossible to gather a complete picture of her or to get complete information about her. Those who pass her in the street register her presence but get no information about her. She is a glitch in the system, and that makes the detective (Sal Frieland, played by Clive Owen) who is working on a series of inexplicable serial murders, curious. The murders are committed from the murderer's perspective, not the victim's, and the victims' views don't provide any information about the killer. He passes The Girl one day on the street, and when he cannot retrieve information about her, it occurs to him that she may be the murderer for whom he is looking. I won't divulge the plot or provide any spoilers, since I thought the film was a pretty good (albeit a little confusing) sci-fi film. 

But at one point toward the end of the film, The Girl says to Sal, "It's not that I have something to hide.....I have nothing I want you to see." Think about that for a second. She wants privacy for privacy's sake. She wants to be anonymous to the system. She is not doing anything criminal, she just wants her life to remain untracked, to remain outside the digital universe. She wants to be free, to say and do things without worrying that she is being tracked and recorded at all times. Although this is a futuristic sci-fi film, it made me realize how far we have come toward creating this exact society, where all of us are digitally connected at all times. We do not lead anonymous lives, nor is there that much privacy left. For example, our cell phone use provides information about our whereabouts at all times as long as we have our phones with us and turned on, which most of us do. The Alexa devices in our homes listen to everything we say and record our conversations, unless we turn off the recording function (The creepy reason why you don't want to put Alexa in your bedroom | Fox News) and Amazon’s Alexa Never Stops Listening to You | Wirecutter (nytimes.com). If you ask me, the society of Anon has already arrived. It's just that our governments have not mandated that we be on the grid if we don't want to. But we already do most of our banking online, the use of paper money has declined drastically, likewise the writing of actual paper letters. We can order food, clothing, concert tickets, and plane tickets online and never have to leave our homes if we don't want to except to attend the actual events or take the actual trips. But if the day comes when governments mandate having a digital signature, freedom as we know it will disappear forever. But rest assured, some few tech-savvy people will find ways around the system. It would be the height of irony if we begin to pay large sums of money to such people in order to return us to an analog society. We may find that an analog society is preferable if the digital one we live in imprisons us by forcing us to have our digital signature available at all times. 

The film--The Farmer Takes A Wife, from 1935

The 1935 film The Farmer Takes A Wife was based on the popular 1934 Broadway play of the same name (see The Farmer Takes a Wife (1935) - IMDb). Sandy Schuman talked about this film in his presentation about the Erie Canal (see A New Yorker in Oslo: The Erie Canal: A Story of Building the Impossible--a New York Adventure Club webinar (paulamdeangelis.blogspot.com). Henry Fonda had a leading role as farmer Dan Harrow in the play, and reprised his role in the film. The film depicts life on the Erie Canal before the railroads were built; it was an important waterway that connected the mid-West with the Atlantic Ocean via the Hudson River in order to transport goods between Europe and America. There were many freight boats on the canal and a lot of life in the small towns along the canal. The active boat life on the canal was dominated by boat drivers who employed cooks, all of them loyal canal folk. They didn't want to hear any talk about railroads being built that would put them out of business. Few of them believed that railroads would replace their livelihood, and in the film, they were willing to fight anyone who supported the building of railroads and/or who believed that railroads were the future of freight transportation. Dan Harrow works on a canal boat in order to save up money for his life's dream--owning his own farm. He meets and falls in love with Molly Larkins (played by Janet Gaynor), a cook on one of the canal boats owned by Jotham Klore (played by Charles Bickford), a drunk and a bully. Molly can take care of herself; she's in love with canal life and has no intention of leaving it. Until circumstances change and she grudgingly has to realize that the time has come for her to leave it; she accepts Dan's proposal of marriage, but not without a few monkey wrenches thrown into the drama before it ends happily. The nice thing about the film was its depiction of canal life, the hustle and bustle of the small canal towns, the idyllic landscape along the canal, and the quaint characters that populated the canal towns. 

I recognized some of the songs from the film: Fifteen Miles on the Erie Canal (the Low Bridge, Everybody Down song); I've Been Working on the Railroad; Buffalo Gals Won't You Come Out Tonight. They're all songs that I remember from childhood from an LP that my parents had. I especially remember I've Been Working on the Railroad, especially the refrain Dinah blow your horn..... After watching The Farmer Takes A Wife, I understood more about life on the Erie Canal and how that came to an end once the railroads took over the same routes. 

What a rich and eclectic history America has. The more I learn about it, the more I want to learn. For example, DeWitt Clinton, who lived from 1769 until 1828, was a US senator, the mayor of New York City, and lastly the governor of New York State. As governor, he was responsible for construction of the Erie Canal, which was a big deal in the 1800s (construction started in 1817 and was finished in 1825). Think about this--the canal was 363 miles long and was finished in the course of eight years--very impressive. Clinton lived long enough to see it finished. 

There were thriving societies in America in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and a lot of progressive thinkers lived during those times, DeWitt Clinton was one of them. Those who built the railroads in the nineteenth century were also progressive thinkers. Compared to our current society, household activities back in the 1700s and 1800s took longer to get done, travel and transportation were slow, and there were no telephones (until 1876) and computers (not until the twentieth century, at least in the form we know them). My point is that there was no lack of visionaries in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Many of them achieved great things and pushed the society around them to evolve and change. 

The BBC detective series--C.B. Strike

Good detective tv series are hard to come by, but as luck would have it, I stumbled upon the BBC series C.B. Strike on HBO (C.B. Strike (TV Series 2017– ) - IMDb). I'm a Columbo and Mike Hammer fan from before, and the recent Sherlock series with Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman caught my interest as well. My criteria for 'good' are several: I have to be drawn into the plot almost immediately; the detective(s) have to have some appealing qualities--they can be gruff or rude at times, but at heart be decent people; the story has to make sense and to have a reasonable conclusion. C.B. Strike fits the bill. Tom Burke plays private eye Strike with a certain gravitas; Strike doesn't laugh too much, he's not silly or a caricature of a private eye. He's served his country militarily and come back from the Afghanistan war as an amputee--missing part of his leg after an explosion. He worked as a military policeman in the British Special Investigation Branch until he left to become a private detective. He ends up taking on a parter, Robin Ellacott, played by Holliday Grainger. There is undeniable chemistry between Strike and Ellacott, but their personal lives are complicated and they don't pursue their attraction to each other. I find myself thinking about The X-Files and how the series kept us waiting for Fox Mulder and Dana Scully to get together; it was part of the attraction of the series for many years. Interestingly, once they did get together, some of the excitement of the series was diminished. Both Burke and Grainger are superb in their roles; at this point, Tom Burke is Strike because he plays him so well. It's like the character was written specifically for him. 

C.B. Strike is based on the novels by Robert Galbraith (the pseudonym for J.K. Rowling of Harry Potter fame). Rowling is a very good writer who knows how to invent good plots, weave excitement into them, and keep us on the edge of our seats waiting for resolution. I've read all the Harry Potter books; most of them are very long, but Rowling's dramatic pacing is such that the pages fly by. I haven't read the Strike books, but I imagine they are very much the same. So it's been enjoyable so far to watch the tv series--good entertainment, very good stories, and very good actors. You can't ask for much more. I should also add that the opening graphics and title song are also excellent; the song 'I Walk Beside You' is sung by Beth Rowley and was written by Adrian Johnston and Crispin Letts. As always, I like to include the lyrics to songs I like; here they are:

I Walk Beside You

You and me
Me and you
Somehow we made it through
I may be gone
I may be far away
But I walk beside you
Every step of the way
When you're used
Bruised
Black and blued
I'll think about it
Never doubt it
I'll walk beside you 

The Wolf's Call--movie from 2019

Antonin Baudry wrote and directed the French film The Wolf's Call (Le Chant du loup) from 2019, now streaming on Netflix. You might think from the movie's title that we're in animal/nature territory, or even in horror movie territory, but the plot of the film is about as far away as you can get from either genre. It's a thriller about two ballistic missile submarines, one of which (the Titane) has been commissioned to take out the other (the Effroyable) that has been commanded to launch one of its nuclear warhead ballistic missiles against Russia in response to a (presumably) Russian launch against France from a decommissioned Russian nuclear sub (the Timour III). Unfortunately, it was not the Russians who were responsible for the latter; it was a terrorist organization called Al-Jadida (who illegally bought the decommissioned Timour III) that launched a ballistic missile (without its nuclear warhead) against France so that France would think it was a Russian attack. The idea being to start a nuclear war between major world powers. 

The film's focus is on the sonar expert Chanteraide (very well-played by François Civil), whose excellent sense of hearing is crucial to tracking down the position of the Effroyable and ending the threat of nuclear war. I was previously unaware of the importance of sonar experts to submarine activities. I knew that subs rely on sonar to detect objects around them, but I didn't know about the importance of sonar experts to that onboard activity, but it makes sense that such experts are needed to interpret the sonar printouts and graphs. The "wolf's call' is an active sonar alarm that indicates that a submarine is detected and targeted; the term 'wolf's call' is navy slang for this event.

I found the film to be very good; it has action, suspense, and the plot complexities that characterize a good thriller. It gave me a new understanding of life onboard these types of submarines and a new appreciation of the men who risk their lives in the service of their countries. I have climbed down a steel ladder into a small submarine once in my life, and climbed right back up again; the claustrophobia was overwhelming. Kudos to the men (and women) who manage to live their lives at sea in this way. I could never do it. If something goes wrong, e.g. as in this film where one of the subs is hit by a missile, it's game over for all onboard. The dead are honored in a poignant scene at the end of the film; I found myself very moved by that, a good indication that the film managed to engage viewers' feelings in addition to being a good thriller. 

The movie--The Banshees of Inisherin

You won't see a stranger film from 2022 than The Banshees of Inisherin (written and directed by Martin McDonagh). You also won't see a better one. My husband and I saw it today in a mostly-empty theater (the afternoon showing); one can hope that the evening showings are more packed, because it's definitely not a film to miss. It's been described as a comedy, albeit a dark one, but I would describe it as more of a drama with some comedic elements and some bizarre (almost horror) elements. It's the story of a friendship between two men; one older--Colm (well-played by Brendan Gleeson), and one younger, Pádraic (wonderfully acted by Colin Farrell)--that ends abruptly one fine day when Colm decides he no longer wants to be friends with Pádraic whom he describes as dull. His explanation for ending the friendship is that he simply got tired of listening to Pádraic's inane conversation. Colm seems to have become acutely aware of his mortality and the legacy he will leave behind; he wants to be remembered as a musician rather than as a nice man who did little with his life, something Pádraic does not understand or really care about. The severing of the friendship leads to all sorts of nastiness, mostly on the part of Colm who is not afraid to act on his threats of what he will do if Pádraic does not stop pestering him to remain friends. And Pádraic continues to visit Colm in the hope that somehow the friendship will right itself and everything will continue on just as before--going to the local pub at 2 pm for their beers and hanging out until it's time to go home. The year is 1923, Ireland is in the middle of a civil war, and the island on which they live, Inisherin, a fictional island off the coast of Galway, is as far removed culturally and politically from the mainland as it could possibly be. The people who live on Inisherin spend their entire lives there and die there as well. Few leave. They are churchgoers, farmers, shopkeepers--simple folk--but underneath their genial surfaces lie a fair amount of cruelty, pettiness, malicious gossip, and small-mindedness. These are not people with whom one becomes friends with overnight, if ever, since it's hard to envision their accepting any outsiders into their fold. It's not difficult to understand that Pádraic feels quite hurt by Colm's actions and refuses to accept that the friendship is over, until he does, and by that point, we have been witness to the conversion (evolution) of a simple nice man into one capable of cruelty himself, driven to it by the cruelty of Colm and the local policeman Peadar, the latter who baits him and threatens to kill him after Pádraic calls him out for sexually abusing his son Dominic. Dominic is a sweet simple teenage boy who takes a liking to Pádraic's sister Siobhán (also wonderfully-acted by Kerry Condon). Siobhán is unmarried and lives together with Pádraic in their family's home; she takes care of the house, reads books, and generally appears fairly well-educated. Her life changes when she gets a job offer from a library on the mainland, which she takes. She knows that she is far too smart to end up as the wife of any of the men on Inisherin, and she is not afraid to say so. At one point during the film she tells Colm that all of the men on Inisherin are boring when he tells her that Pádraic is boring. And she's right. She's smart enough to know that she needs to change her life, and she does. Pádraic does not have her intelligence or the skills necessary to change his life; he likes his routines and does not really embrace change. He is a simple farmer at heart and remains one, despite the tragedies that unfold around him. For anyone who has experienced the loss of a friendship as he did, it's not difficult to relate to his hurt and his feelings of grief at the loss of something he valued so highly. 

I wondered about the title of the film, The Banshees of Inisherin. The word banshee describes 'a female spirit in Gaelic folklore whose appearance or wailing warns a family that one of them will soon die' (Banshee Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster). There is an old woman in the film (Mrs. McCormick) who wears long black dresses and a black veil, whom some of the island residents refer to as 'the ghoul'. Several times she announces to some of the residents that one or two people are going to die, and there are in fact two deaths that occur. She qualifies as Inisherin's banshee. But Colm has written a song of the same name as the title of the movie, and he used the word 'banshee' because he liked how it sounded together with Inisherin; there is no logical reason for using the word other than that. 

Every time one is tempted to say that life away from civilization, from the mainstream, is idyllic, along comes a film (like this one) that demonstrates otherwise. There is nothing idyllic about Inisherin. Yes, the landscape is lovely, but the people are not. Many of them are strange, some mentally-ill, others quite superstitious. They go to church on Sunday, but you can wonder why, for all of the heartless behavior they exhibit toward their neighbors and fellow residents outside of church. Granted, the story took place in 1923 and times were different then, but people are people, and those who live an insular existence remain insular in many ways. They may prefer that way of life and think they are better than the city folk they often criticize, but that is not necessarily so, and that holds true for modern times as well. 

The lies we tell others and ourselves

I am currently watching The Lying Life of Adults series on Netflix, based on the book of the same name by Elena Ferrante. I read the book in 2021 and wrote a post about it (A New Yorker in Oslo: Elena Ferrante's The Lying Life of Adults (paulamdeangelis.blogspot.com). The Netflix series encompasses six episodes, and I've already seen four of them. Elena Ferrante has been involved in the writing of the script for the series, and you can always tell when she has had her hand in things. There is a certain identifying mark that raises the overall quality to very good (this series: The Lying Life of Adults (TV Series 2023– ) - IMDb) to superb (My Brilliant Friend on HBO: My Brilliant Friend (TV Series 2018– ) - IMDb ). The series was created by Edoardo De Angelis (every time I see his last name on the screen I have to smile since it is my last name as well, spelled the same way). His wife Pina Turco plays Nella, whose husband Andrea leaves her for Costanza, a family friend. But by extension, he leaves his teenage daughter Giovanna as well. The series is about Giovanna (very well-acted by Giordana Marengo) and her growing up amidst the turmoil around her: her parents' separation and divorce; her father's eventual remarriage to Costanza and his new home in Posillipo (an affluent area of Naples) on the Gulf of Naples; Giovanna's introduction to her aunt Vittoria (wonderfully-acted by Valeria Golino) and to the family of Enzo, Vittoria's now-deceased lover; her relationships with her two best friends, Angela and Ida, who just happen to be Costanza's daughters. But it is her relationship with Vittoria (Andrea's sister whom he cannot abide) that changes her life and moves her firmly into adulthood. 

Andrea, Nella, Costanza, Mariano (Costanza's ex-husband), and Vittoria all lie to others and to themselves. Andrea and Costanza have lived a lie for years by having an affair and keeping it secret. Nella has either refused to see the truth or has turned a blind eye to it; in any case, she continues to defend Andrea and to call him a good man. Vittoria initially seems to be the most honest of all the adults in Giovanna's life, but she too turns out to be a liar who tells herself and others (particularly Giovanna) that she loved only Enzo and has never been with another man since he died, but this is not true. Giovanna learns that she cannot trust very many people, which of course is the demarcation between childhood and adulthood. What do you do with that knowledge? What do you do when you find out that the adults in your life are no better at handling/navigating their lives than the teenagers they are trying to raise? What do you do when you find out that their lives are as miserable and chaotic as yours? 

The lies we tell others and ourselves, when others ask us how we are, how our lives are going. How many people really answer honestly? We do so with those few people we love and trust, with our closest friends. We know we can trust them to listen to us without judging us, without abandoning us. That is a rarity in a world that seeks to judge (and cancel) another immediately without knowing or being interested in the facts. Of course we can ask, what is the truth? Is your side of a story truer than mine? We all lie to ourselves to some extent; we do so in order to deal with each day. We tell ourselves that our spouses and children are better than those of others we know, but the reality is otherwise. All families have problems, perhaps the same types of problems but to varying degrees. All families have squabbles, some have real fights, and some are on the outs with other family members for entire lifetimes. We may not have much of a relationship with a sibling, but we say that he or she has a busy life and we talk to them when we can. A spouse may not be all that involved in the family life at home, and we make the same excuse--he or she has a demanding job that keeps him or her busy. Those who are workaholics know that they are overworking to avoid something else in their lives, perhaps an unhappy home life, and those who are diehard alcoholics, drug addicts and overeaters tell themselves that they have their addictions under control, that they can quit drinking, doing drugs, or overeating any time they want. But deep down inside, they know the truth; they can't quit overworking, drinking to excess, doing drugs, or overeating, not without help and a lot of motivation to change. Lying to ourselves, even just a little, helps to mitigate the intensity of our problems. And for most of us, it does; we get through each day without major calamities ensuing. But for those with serious problems, those problems just get worse. 

It might not be a good thing if we were always honest about our thoughts and feelings in relation to others. Little white lies help us survive in what could be awkward situations with loved ones. We do our best to be truthful, but sometimes you have to weigh the situation and ask yourself if others (or you yourself) can tolerate hearing the truth or the answers to the questions they've asked. I think of those I know with health problems; is it better for them to hear that their overall prognosis could be good if they do this or that, rather than dismal because of the type of illness they have or because of one's hereditary tendencies? Nobody wants to be told straight out that they are going to die in a few months or years. And if people are told that, they often want to consider themselves the outliers--those few who fall outside the norm. Can you blame people for thinking this way? I think we are hotwired to think this way to some degree, due to the idea of self-preservation and the instinct for survival. We lie to ourselves in the hope that it will turn out alright. And sometimes it does. 

Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky

The Soviet-Russian Strugatsky brothers Arkady and Boris wrote a brilliant book in 1971 that I have finally gotten around to reading--Roadside Picnic. I took the long way around to arriving at this book; as I've written in previous posts, I first watched the film Annihilation, which led to the film Stalker, which led to my reading the Southern Reach book trilogy (Annihilation, Authority, Acceptance). Book I-Annihilation--is the book on which the film Annihilation is based. After reading the trilogy, I read Roadside Picnic on which Stalker is based. I love when one book or film suggests another; that is the moment when everything around me feels expansive, limitless, full of possibility. A wonderful feeling of freedom, the freedom to move in any direction and to explore boundlessly......

I gave Roadside Picnic five stars on Goodreads, and wrote a review of it that I am posting here: 

The Strugatsky brothers' sci-fi novel draws you into the world of the Zone and the Stalkers immediately. An alien visit to Earth (was it an alien roadside picnic) results in their leaving behind litter and artifacts that are localized to specific areas called Zones. One of these is located in the fictional town of Harmont in an unnamed English-speaking country. The Zone is not a safe area for human beings, rather, it is a minefield of dangers lurking almost at every turn. Few people who venture into the Zone return alive. But there are some few who do--the Stalkers. Redrick Schuhart is a Stalker, a man who leads others into the Zone so that they can explore/ retrieve items left by the aliens, as there is a black market for such items. He is married to Guta, and they have a little girl (nicknamed Monkey) who was born with a mutation (excessive body hair, almost like fur) like most of the children of stalkers. Normal life in Harmont is interspersed with descriptions of the Zone and the oddities/dangers that exist within it: hell slime, spacells, bug traps, the meatgrinder, vibrating 'ghosts', and a Golden Sphere that grants one's innermost wishes. The latter has legendary status, having only been seen (not experienced) by one old stalker named Vulture, who has lost his legs after contact with hell slime. He had wanted to retrieve the sphere for his own purposes, but ends up giving the map showing its whereabouts to Red. Red and the Vulture's son (Arthur) venture into the Zone in order to find the sphere, and their trek is the subject of the latter part of the novel. The novel is a phenomenal read from start to finish.

The novel truly is an incredible read, and I will likely reread it at some point. The film Stalker by Andrei Tarkovsky really did not do it complete justice, even though it was a good film. The book is better. Tarkovsky's film ultimately became too philosophical; I would have preferred that he focus on the alien and hellish aspects of the Zone much more, e.g., hell slime, the meatgrinder, and so on. Essentially I wish he had made a more sci-fi-oriented film. He did manage to impart an eerie feeling when the Stalker and the men he was guiding enter the Zone and must take care not to 'disturb' it in any way. But in my online research about the movie, I discovered that the screenplay was written by the Strugatsky brothers and was loosely based on their novel. So Tarkovsky's movie is really the movie that the Strugatsky brothers wanted made. Both the book and the movie are considered to be sci-fi classics. 

Exploring connections and the Southern Reach trilogy

I'm currently reading the Southern Reach Trilogy by Jeff VanderMeer, which consists of three books--Annihilation, Authority, and Acceptance. I read Annihilation after I had seen the film of the same name directed by Alex Garland, who has admitted that when he made Annihilation, he was influenced by the film Stalker, which was directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, who in turn was influenced by the book Roadside Picnic written by Arkady Strugatsky and Boris Strugatsky. These types of connections are what I enjoy so much about the creative world; there's a kind of flow from one genre or creative art form into another. Sometimes that flow is successful, sometimes not. But it doesn't matter to me, what matters is that the author, filmmaker, or songwriter took a risk, stepped out of his or her comfort zone. That's what matters, in the end. There will always be people who love what you did, and those who didn't. Some will even hate the finished product. Does it really matter? Life goes on, creativity goes on, the flow goes on. As an artist, you know that you will have touched someone's soul, and that someone will remember that touch for life. I know that's true for me. I can list up books that I read as a teenager that touched my life forever; the stories have stayed with me for so long, that's how powerful the writing was. 

Authority is the weakest book in VanderMeer's trilogy, but I understand why he wrote it. He wanted us to really get to know Control, the new director of the Southern Reach. Control is a troubled soul, a middle-aged man who really doesn't know what he wants. He's a loner for starters, the son of a domineering mother and an artistic father. His mother is part of the organization, Central, that Control works for. His mother pulls a lot of strings, including for him. You could almost say that she is the puppeteer and he the marionette. They have a strange relationship, very difficult to define. The book is difficult to categorize overall, but it has its creepy, hair-raising moments. As I wrote in my review of the book on Goodreads: 

There are whole passages in Authority that are downright creepy, e.g., when Control discovers what Whitby has been doing and where he has been doing it. The description of his meeting in the 'secret room' with Whitby will make your hair stand on end. Or when the building wall dissolves, and the former director shows up. I live for those moments in these kinds of books. VanderMeer has a way of building up the anticipation of something bad that's going to happen, even if it doesn't at exactly that time, as when Control visits the director's house. But you know disaster is coming. When he writes like that, this book is at its best. But there are also whole sections that are too drawn-out; I suppose VanderMeer wanted to enforce the idea that Control was a pawn in Central's bureaucratic game (and in his mother's as well). But this means that there are long descriptions of bureaucracy and chain of command, and of events that are illogical at best, e.g. why Lowry was the Voice. But in a place like Southern Reach, it would perhaps be hard to expect anything but irrationality and chaos. VanderMeer is a very good writer, but the book could have been shorter without losing any of the 'atmosphere'. I am currently reading Acceptance and hope that the mystery of Area X is explained satisfactorily. 

After I finish reading Acceptance, I will read Roadside Picnic. I'm looking forward to reading the book that led to the films Stalker and Annihilation. And after that I will watch a few more Alex Garland films, although I've already seen 28 Days Later and Ex Machina, both of which are excellent. If you haven't seen them, I recommend them highly. 

Two by Tarkovsky

I watched the sci-fi horror movie Annihilation on Netflix this past week for the second time; the first time was during the pandemic. I didn't remember some of the plot points, so it was good to see it again. A very good movie overall, with some interesting points to discuss. It was directed by Alex Garland of Ex Machina fame, another sci-fi (with some horror elements) movie that was excellent. In Annihilation, the 'Shimmer' is a land zone defined by continual mutation and which, once you enter, alters (mutates) a person inasmuch as the entry of said person alters the zone (its physical/biological/psychological/ emotional composition). All those that have previously entered the Shimmer have not returned and are presumed dead, with the exception of a man named Kane, who is married to Lena (played by an excellent Natalie Portman), a biologist and former soldier (like Kane). The reason for missions into the Shimmer is to find out what has happened at the lighthouse on the coast, where it is rumored that a meteorite has hit, bringing with it something extraterrestrial. The Shimmer seems to be mutating and expanding continuously with the expected repercussions (altered humanity and animal/bird life and death). Kane is completely disoriented upon his return and falls gravely ill within a few hours afterward. Lena joins a five-woman team of scientists who enter the Shimmer in order to find answers as to how to save Kane, what the Shimmer is as well as to what has happened to previous missions. Lena also wants to assuage her conscience of the guilt she has over an extramarital affair that Kane found out about, and which influenced his decision to join a military (suicide) mission to enter the Shimmer. I won't give away any more of the story, since it's absolutely worth seeing as much for the story as for the scares. The theme that runs throughout the film is that human life is characterized by a propensity for self-destruction (via our biology, psychology, personality and choices). When I was reading about the movie online, I found out that it was based on a book (book 1 of the Southern Reach trilogy) by Jeffrey VanderMeer, which I plan to read. But a major influence on Alex Garland's Annihilation was the 1979 Soviet sci-fi film Stalker by Andrei Tarkovsky, which Garland has acknowledged. 

I rented Stalker last night and watched it on GooglePlay. Like Annihilation, Stalker got under my skin. I thought the film, although long (2 hours and 42 minutes) was very good, but it's definitely not for everyone. It's a bleak film with a bleak message, no doubt influenced by Tarkovsky's personal resistance to the oppressive Soviet communist regime (dark, bleak, cold). The story is about a Stalker (a guide) who leads a Writer and a Professor into a zoned-off secure area where no one is permitted to enter, so they must sneak their way in. The Zone is an unpopulated nature preserve where there exists a house with a magical room that grants a person's most fervent wishes. As the Stalker explains to the two men, they must not wander off or disturb the Zone in any way, because it is dangerous to do so. The Zone senses the presence of the men, and as in Annihilation, few to no people return from the Zone. The Stalker's work is to guide unhappy people into the Zone and guide them out again; he earns money doing this, but he himself is not allowed to enter the wish room. The Stalker's life is not very happy; his wife berates him for leaving her and their crippled daughter for days/weeks at a time, they have very little money, and they live in a small flat that vibrates when the trains go by. As the film progresses, there is much discussion about the meaning of life, the meaning of art and science, the meaning of the wish room and the repercussions of having one's wishes granted. It is a philosophical film in that regard. I found it bleak because I felt for the Stalker, a good and simple man whose sole goal was in helping others to be happy and not worrying about himself. He believes in hope and the possibility of a better life for others, less for himself as he seems to have accepted his fate as a poor man. He does not want the Zone destroyed as it would destroy the meaning for his existence. He believes in the Zone and that the Zone has to be respected and preserved. He has faith that his work is helping others, but by the end of the film, that faith has been shaken. Again, I won't give away the story, as it is worth experiencing. What compounded the sadness for me was learning that Tarkovsky, his wife Larisa, and the man who played the Writer (Anatoly Solonitsyn) all died of the same type of lung cancer after the film was released--Solonitsyn in 1982, Tarkovsky in 1986, and his wife in 1998. It is thought that their cancers resulted from exposure to toxic chemicals from the chemical plant located upstream from the movie set--a deserted hydroelectric power plant in Estonia. 

Stalker was made in 1979; Tarkovsky's probably best-known film, Solaris, was made in 1972. The film Solaris from 2002, directed by Steven Soderbergh, is also one of my favorite films (A New Yorker in Oslo: “There are no answers, only choices” (paulamdeangelis.blogspot.com); A New Yorker in Oslo: The Martian Chronicles and Solaris (paulamdeangelis.blogspot.com). Both films are based on the book Solaris by the Polish writer Stanislaw Lem. Both deviate from Lem's book; apparently Lem was none too pleased with Tarkovsky's changes to his book and was even less pleased with Soderbergh's. I rented the 1972 film today on GooglePlay. Like Stalker, it's a long film, clocking in at 2 hours and 47 minutes, with long sequences here and there focused on one object, e.g., waving grass, a picture on a wall, a pitcher, a broken container. Both the length of the film and the extended sequences can test your patience, and I can't help but think that the film could have benefitted from trimming at some points. But I fall into the category of viewers who give directors the benefit of the doubt. Are they leading us somewhere? Are they revealing small clues as to what's coming? Like Stalker, Solaris has an atmosphere of foreboding that hangs over it; you know that something's coming and that it's not likely to be good. Tarkovsky is excellent at creating 'atmosphere'; it can be uncanny, bleak, grim, mystical--sometimes all of them in one. Both films deal with metaphysical questions--who we are, what makes us who we are, the importance of memories, the meaning of existence, the acquisition of sentience and the implications of that for the definition of humanity. Again, as I wrote in my blog post 'There are no answers, only choices', that remains the conclusion (for me) after seeing both of Tarkovsky's films. He was not interested in providing pat answers for us, he was interested in probing these questions. As such, his films are not for everyone, especially not for those looking for sci-fi movies with alien monsters and the resultant body count. In Solaris, the 'alien' is a sentient ocean, one that is trying to understand humanity as much as humans are trying to understand it. The Solaris Ocean provides humans onboard the spaceship, who are probing and studying it, with 'gifts' in the form of people they have known and loved but who are actually dead in reality. These entities, called 'guests' in Tarkovsky's film, can be viewed as manifestations of an individual's nagging conscience regarding the deaths of his or her loved ones. The sequence when the psychologist Kelvin first arrives on the spaceship is eerie enough; the spaceship is mostly deserted, and the two surviving crew members have chosen to remain in their rooms rather than greet him on his arrival. Over the course of the movie, we learn that some of the crew members (now dead) went insane because of these 'guests'. I'll have to go back and reread Lem's novel, but both Tarkovsky and Soderbergh came up with interesting endings for their respective movies, even if Lem didn't approve. They are the kinds of endings I love, as they lead to discussion about what happened and what the director was aiming at. I like doing postmortems on movies, but I know that not everyone does. I also like a good alien monster move, because I love movies, period. If the movie is made well, I enjoy it. Stalker and Solaris are both worth watching and discussing afterward. 

The Nightmare Before Christmas--a Halloween film that's become a classic

I remember the first time I saw The Nightmare Before Christmas (The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) - IMDb). It was in 1993 and we were still living in San Francisco, although our year there was coming to an end. The film was released in the USA on October 29, 1993, just in time for Halloween, and I saw it during the first week of November in a movie theater on the north side of Golden Gate Park. I remember that day very well, because I was the only one in the theater for the 3 pm afternoon showing, which they did not cancel, thankfully. I had left work early in order to see the film and it would have been disappointing not to have seen it. I left the theater thinking that I had seen an amazing film, and some years later I actually bought a video cassette of the film and watched it one or two more times before VHS films were phased out. I never purchased a DVD version of it; it was always on my to-do list but eventually streaming channels came along and I figured it would be possible to watch it on Netflix or HBO or the myriad of other streaming channels at some point. Sure enough, it's available on Disney+ (no surprise there since it's a Disney production) and Apple TV, among others. If you haven't seen it, I recommend it highly. The story of Jack Skellington the Pumpkin King, who decides that he can better his life by 'producing' Christmas one year instead of Halloween as usual, is a memorable one. The songs, the text, the creatures, the animation--all of them combine to make a film that is truly exceptional. As I said, at this point it's a classic.

Apart from It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, which is a wonderful Halloween classic, there aren't that many films that can be considered classic Halloween films for the entire family (meaning kids and their parents), not in the same way as for Christmas films. I know that there are a lot of Halloween horror films and that many of them are classics, but they are for adults and teenagers (the Halloween movie series comes to mind, and yes, they are creepy). 

There is something about seeing some movies on the big screen together with other people you know are fans. That was my experience today. Frogner Cinema in Oslo, which dates from the 1920s, set up two showings this weekend of The Nightmare Before Christmas. I went to today's 3 pm showing and the theater was almost filled, which was good to see. The majority of the attendees were teenagers and young adults, men and women alike. At the end of the film, people actually clapped, and that hasn't happened in ages in my experience. It was good to see because it gave me hope that there is still 'room' in modern society for movie theaters. I don't want them to disappear because there is nothing like seeing a movie for the first time (or even second and third times) in a dark movie theater. It's always a memorable experience, especially if the film is worth seeing. Many of my memories from youth are of times spent going to the movies. I thank Frogner Cinema for setting up these showings this weekend; it was a fun way to spend a couple of hours on a rainy Sunday afternoon. Just in time for Halloween......

Water by Golda May

Water, sung by Golda May, is the ending song to the movie The Weekend Away, now showing on Netflix. The movie was a pretty decent thriller starring Leighton Meester, and the ending song seemed appropriate for what the movie was about. I'm including the lyrics: 

Water 

I hear water in my dream

Lapping at my feet, talking to me

All red shoulders in the heat

So I step into the sea, floating softly

It's tryin' to say somethin'

A warnin' or maybe nothin'

Oh, this water keeps on showin' up

Oh, I'm a daughter drownin' in a cup

It's filling my lungs up

Dripping from my tongue now

Oh, this water keeps on showin' up

In deep, sister by my side

These waves are twice our height in the high tide

In life I usually despise her

But here she saves my life, I don't die

It's tryin' to say somethin'

A warnin' or maybe nothin'

Oh, this water keeps on showin' up

Oh, I'm a daughter drownin' in a cup

And It's filling my lungs up

Dripping from my tongue now

Oh, this watеr keeps on showing up

(Oh, this water keeps on showing up)

It's filling my lungs up

Dripping from my tongue now

Oh, this water keeps on showing up

Ah ah ah ah

I thought I could hеar you

I thought I could hear you

When you came to me every night

I thought I could hear you

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Brian Brundage / Ariella Golda Sosis

Water lyrics © Bad Ponjo

Top Gun: Maverick and Tom Cruise

I went to see the movie Top Gun: Maverick today and was very impressed by it. I wasn't sure what to expect, since this sequel comes thirty-six years after the first Top Gun film. It's said that Tom Cruise held off on making the sequel; if so, I give him credit for having good instincts, because it comes at a time when society could use a real blockbuster film that draws viewers in and thoroughly entertains them. I'm talking about being entertained the way we were entertained by movies from the 1980s--'big' films, amazing flight/action sequences, little to no CGI, real stunts, decent plots and good acting. 

I preface this review by stating up front that I do not care about Tom Cruise's religious affiliations, his personal life, or how much he stands to make from this film. He made a film he believed in and worked hard personally to get it made and to actually make it. He doesn't need me to defend him against any criticism, that I know. But I thank him for making this film, because it restored my desire to go to the movies and not just sit night after night watching series and movies on streaming channels. There is something about the experience of sitting in a movie theater in the dark together with others that appeals to me and always will. I used to love going to the movies. If the movie industry can get back to making films like this, I'll be going to the movies a lot more often. I made a promise to myself that I will try to go to the movies at least once a week from now on. I prefer going to the movies rather than sitting in front of the tv night after night mindlessly flipping through the channels trying to find something interesting to watch. I'm picky, I know. I don't care. I'm 'seried-out', as in, I'm tired of watching/binging an endless series of series. What I want is to watch a really good movie, and Top Gun: Maverick fits that bill. Seeing the film also restored my faith in actors, in the sense that there are still actors out there who love what they do and it shows. They're not just going through the motions. I've got to hand it to Tom Cruise; the man just turned sixty years old and still does most of his own stunts. He deserves a lot of credit for that. You can see in his smile that he loves what he is doing; it shines through. He is a true entertainer, one of the old school, and is probably one of the last top Hollywood actors. 

Of course it takes a village to make a movie; in this case the large numbers of people involved in the collaboration between the movie makers and the US Navy. The flight sequences that Cruise and some of the other actors are involved in are incredible, and that's putting it mildly. They of course did not pilot the F/A-18 Super Hornet planes themselves (non-military personnel are not allowed to do so); that was done by Navy pilots who are experts at piloting these planes. I read online that Cruise wanted the actors to experience firsthand the stress of the immense gravitational forces that the pilots of these fighter jets experience when they fly them, so he and the other actors sat behind them in the planes for some of the flight sequences. That's what makes the experience of the movie even more authentic. The story itself is touching and nostalgic at times, especially when it refers to the original film and the death of Maverick's wingman Goose. The relationships between Maverick (Cruise) and Goose's son Rooster (Miles Teller) and between Maverick and Iceman (Val Kilmer) tug at the heartstrings and actually makes you care about the characters. And the romantic relationship between Maverick and Penny (Jennifer Connelly) is respectful and humorous. 

So thank you to the movie makers, Tom Cruise, the US Navy and everyone else involved in making a memorable and thoroughly entertaining film. Quite an enjoyable way to spend a Wednesday afternoon....

The Kashmir Files

There are some films that will haunt you for the rest of your life. The Kashmir Files is one of them. I saw it last night with a friend who happens to be from India. She did not know the story of the 1990 exodus of the Kashmir Pandits, which is what the film is about, but she had heard that the film was very good. She invited me to join her and her family and friends to go and see the movie. We have previously talked about going to see an Indian Bollywood film together with some of our other friends, a group of women who happen to be former colleagues, and we will do that at some point. But last night's film was not a happy Bollywood film. 

The Kashmir Files is a Hindi-language drama film (with English subtitles) based on real-life stories of the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits during the Kashmir Insurgency. It was written and directed by Vivek Agnihotri and was released in March of this year. It has done very well at the Indian box office and it will be interesting to see how well it does globally. The film has been criticized for promoting anti-Muslim sentiment due to the brutality of the extremist Muslim insurgents against the Kashmiri Pandits. If you want to read about the film you can do so here: The Kashmir Files - Wikipedia. What I have understood is that the insurgents butchered not only the Kashmiri Pandits but also moderate Muslims and other religious groups. Their aim was to free Kashmir from India and to make it a Muslim state; their motto was 'convert, leave, or die'. In the film, the young male university student named Krishna Pandit (played by Darshan Kumaar) learns what happened to his parents and brother at the hands of the insurgents; he has not been told the truth by his grandfather who raised him. His speech at the end of the film to his fellow university students was electrifying. He tells the story of what he has learned about what happened in Kashmir after going there to spread his grandfather's ashes together with his grandfather's old friends, which leads to estrangement from his professor Radhika Menon (played by Pallavi Joshi) who has pushed him to front the new separatist movement. All the actors and actresses in this film delivered excellent performances.  

I leave the political discussions for the experts. I cannot comment on the history or the events of 1990 in Kashmir; I know very little about Indian history. But it struck me once again how much evil is committed in the name of religious sentiment. Religion has been the reason for many of the wars up through history and for the ensuing brutality. After seeing this film, I asked, why? Why can't we live in peace, coexist peacefully with each other? I firmly believe that most people want to do just that. Why can't we worship as we please without preaching and subduing others who believe differently? If you believe in several gods and I believe in one, so be it. We are different. I have no right to tell you that my beliefs are better than yours, nor do you have any right to tell me that yours are better than mine. I am not the sole possessor of truth in this life and neither are you. It is more important to me that we should live peacefully together. But I see that many political leaders do not want to do that. That is very clear to me when I look at what is happening in Ukraine. Man's inhumanity to man; I wonder if it will ever stop. 

One of the older characters in the film says that inhuman leaders rely on the hopelessness of the people they subjugate in order to retain their power. He says that one must always have hope, because if there is hope there is the possibility of change. I can imagine that for those who lived through this era in Indian history, that having hope was difficult, much like it must have been for the Jewish people during WWII. But it is hope that keeps you going. My friend said that one of her friends did not want to attend the film with them because she is from Kashmir and experienced what happened first-hand. I can understand that too. The film was tough to watch, and probably on my own, had I read about it first, I would not have chosen to see it. But I don't regret having seen it. Sometimes it is necessary for the bubble that we live in to be popped from time to time. Because we really have no idea what it is like to have to leave your country behind because an invader wants to kill you. We have no idea. 

The modern dance film Ritual In Transfigured Time from 1946

I am a Friend of Untermyer Gardens (located in Yonkers New York), and I often receive emails from Stephen F. Byrns who is the President of the Untermyer Gardens Conservancy. He sent out an email this week that included this clip of a modern dance film from 1946 called Ritual in Transfigured Time by Maya Deren, who was an American experimental avant-garde filmmaker. Born in the Ukraine, she was also a choreographer, dancer, film theorist, poet, lecturer, writer, and photographer (info from Wikipedia). 

The reason Byrns included the film clip was because Deren filmed the dance at Untermyer Gardens. I found the film to be moving and quite mesmerizing, almost menacing in some places. I'd never heard of Deren before, but I'm glad I know about her now. 

The Family Way--a touching film from 1966

The film The Family Way, starring Hayley Mills and Hywel Bennett as a young married couple who have problems consummating their marriage, is billed as a comedy/drama/romance. I watched it yesterday and found it less a comedy than a serious drama with some comedic moments included. My first thought when I saw that it had shown up on Netflix was that I will finally get to see this movie. When it was released in 1966 my parents told me that I was too young to see it, and after having seen it, I understand they were right because I wouldn't have understood it. But I was old enough to have read about the film in The New York Times, and because it starred Hayley Mills, I wanted to see it. 

Hayley Mills was an actress we grew up with and whom we all wanted to be. She starred in so many films that we loved as children--Pollyanna (1960), The Parent Trap (1961), The Moon-Spinners (1964), and That Darn Cat (1965), to name a few. Pollyanna was shown in our grammar school, in the auditorium as I remember. Schools did that way back when--got a hold of a film for general audiences and gathered us all together to watch it on 'movie day'. We didn't see it in 1960, rather around the late 1960s. The Moon-Spinners was shown on television's The Wonderful World of Disney and we were fascinated by the story as I remember, which was a crime adventure, a romance, and a travel film. We saw it on television in the late 1960s. I liked this film especially since it also had a romantic interest for Hayley Mills who was already a teenager (18) by that time. My mother took us children to see That Darn Cat when it was released in 1965; I remember the lines to get into The Music Hall on Main Street in Tarrytown. We enjoyed that film as well, as we did most films because going to the movies was always a fun time. 

Hayley Mills was 20 years old when she made The Family Way. The film was quite a departure for her in terms of theme; it was a 'grown-up' film because she played a young woman, Jenny Piper, who marries a young man, Arthur Fitton (played by Hywel Bennett), about her age. Due to circumstances beyond their control, they cannot go on their honeymoon and they end up living in her husband's parents' house. There is very little privacy, and Arthur has a difficult relationship with his father Ezra Fitton, played by Hayley Mill's real-life father John Mills. Jenny and Arthur do not consummate their marriage on their first night together, and as time goes on, it seems less and less likely that they will. The reasons for this are not completely clear--lack of privacy is one of them, a practical joke played on them involving a collapsing double bed is another (Jenny laughs but Arthur doesn't), but his overall  inexperience with women is another. He is the bookish sort, a quiet, non-rowdy, serious young man. It is hinted at one point that he might be homosexual, which turns out not to be true. What he really needs is a push, but that doesn't come until close to the end of the film, after both sets of parents have gotten involved and after his humiliation (as Arthur sees it) is complete. When he finally gets angry and expresses his feelings, he overcomes the hindrance in the way of his being a true husband to Jenny. While this storyline could have been played for laughs, it wasn't, and that's why I liked the film. It made viewers feel sorry for the couple, it made them want to wish them well, to try and work out their marriage. It also presents their parents as real human beings with problems and regrets of their own. I won't give away the film's ending, but suffice it to say I'm glad I finally got to watch it after all these years. 

 

The film Orders to Kill--a morality tale from 1958

Netflix Europe has been expanding its repertoire of classic films, especially films from the United Kingdom. Many of them are black-and-white films from the WWII- or post-WWII era. Orders to Kill from 1958 is one of them that made a lasting impression on me (Orders to Kill (1958) - IMDb). It's a morality tale about an American soldier during WWII who is ordered by his superiors to kill a French lawyer (living in Paris and married with a teenage daughter) who is thought to be collaborating with the Nazis. The information that the US Army has on the lawyer is that several agents working in the French resistance movement have been killed after having had contact with him. The army believes he has sold out these agents to the Gestapo in Nazi-occupied Paris. The soldier who agrees to kill him, Gene Summers (played by Paul Massie), has flown bomber planes and is considered to be a good choice for the mission. 

The first hour of the film deal with the Summers' preparation for the task before him--assume a French name, familiarize himself with all the details about his new persona and the person he is to kill, connect with Léonie (played by Irene Worth), the woman in Paris who helps him with the practical aspects of being there (a place to live, having a 'cover' job, necessary papers to present to the Gestapo in case he is stopped on the street, getting him out of Paris when the job is done). This part of the film moves rather slowly in contrast to the last hour (the film is almost two hours long). When he finally makes contact with the lawyer Lafitte (played by Leslie French), the suspense builds as the viewer wonders when (or if) Summers will kill him and if in fact Lafitte is actually guilty of collaborating with the Nazis. 

Spoilers ahead--Summers gets to know Lafitte, an extraordinarily friendly man who takes Summers under his wing, allowing him to stay overnight in his office when the Gestapo are searching for a young man in that area of Paris who has killed a Nazi officer. Lafitte invites him home for a drink to meet his wife and daughter. Lafitte has had a cat stashed in his office that he feeds, which is against his wife's wishes since food is rationed and she does not want another mouth to feed. She finds out that he is keeping the cat in his office and tells him to get rid of it, so he tells his wife that Summers will take the cat to live on a farm outside of Paris, when in reality Summers is to return the cat to Lafitte the following morning at his office. Lafitte's friendliness, empathy and compassion (for both animals and people) creates a picture of Lafitte as a decent man, which Summers finds confusing. Summers is in a quandary--is this man a traitor who deserves to be killed, or is he innocent? He delays killing him as he tries to sort out his feelings and thoughts. He tries to share his hesitation with Léonie who is horrified that he is sharing any details of his job with her, since the less she knows the better off she will be if she is captured by the Nazis and tortured into giving them information. Ultimately she tells him that he is too sentimental and that Lafitte could in fact be a traitor. She reminds Summers that he has killed innocent people before when he has dropped bombs and that he had no qualms about that; her point is that in war, both innocent and guilty people get killed. When Summers brings the cat to Lafitte's office the morning following his visit to his family, he sees a Gestapo officer leaving the building. When he arrives at Lafitte's office, he sees him handling a large sum of cash and he assumes that he has gotten it from the Gestapo officer. He doesn't let on that he thinks this, but when he hands over the cat, Lafitte bends down to pet it and Summers hits him on the head with a heavy object. Lafitte falls facedown and the cat runs for cover, but when Lafitte moans and turns over on his back and faces Summers, he asks him 'why?' before dying. This pierces Summers to the bone as it tells him that Lafitte was innocent. He messes up the office to make it look like a robbery, and then takes the money that Lafitte had and goes to a cemetery where he buries it. Too late, he receives a message from Léonie telling him to not go through with 'the job', and when he tries to reach her, she uses a code word on the phone to warn him that she and he are in danger (she ends up captured, tortured and killed by the Nazis without revealing any information about the resistance). For the next month he drinks himself into a stupor, using the money to purchase liquor. When he is finally rescued by the US Army following the liberation of Paris, he ends up in a military hospital, where he is visited by two of his superiors, one of whom tells him that he has done a good job and that Lafitte was in fact a traitor. The other one tells him the truth when the first one leaves the room, that Lafitte was innocent, as Summers had surmised. Summers insists on knowing the truth, and when he understands that he has killed an innocent man, he absorbs the information and asks for all of his pay that has accrued. The film ends with his visiting Lafitte's wife and daughter and giving them this money, and telling them that Lafitte was his colleague and a hero in the French resistance and that they should be proud of him. 

Watching this film, especially the scene where Lafitte asks Summers 'why', was gut-wrenching, as it was intended to be. The knowledge that you have likely killed an innocent man must really break a person, mentally and emotionally, if not physically as well. But Summers, once he finds out the truth in the hospital, seems to 'accept' the reality that he murdered an innocent man. Perhaps he had to accept it in order to go on living. It made me realize what soldiers have to deal with during wartime, the moral quandaries that arise and that have to be dealt with every day. It is not always easy to know who is the enemy; in this film, based on circumstantial evidence alone, Lafitte could have been guilty. Even though Summers suffers knowing he killed an innocent man who looked him in the eyes before he died, was it any better that he flew airplanes that dropped bombs on people he could not see? Women and children died, men too--some of them enemies and most of them innocent civilians. The film doesn't answer these questions as much as it asks them and then shows the results of certain decisions in the life of one military man. It also raises the question of following orders; soldiers must do that, but sometimes the orders are wrong or immoral or both. If they follow orders that result in the deaths of many civilians and even fellow soldiers, what then? Who is responsible? Can one argue that all deaths are acceptable in a war? How many innocent deaths are acceptable? One need only look at some of the atrocities of the Vietnam War committed against civilians to know that this is a real problem in wartime.

Films like this are uncommon in today's world. We have become used to watching war and spy films where mass killings are de rigueur. The body count mounts and there is little reflection on that fact. We are witness to the atrocities, the violence, the brutality. We see arms and legs lost, soldiers shot up, twisted bodies on the battlefield. We rarely get a glimpse into the workings of a soldier's mind, much less into the workings of the minds of ordinary civilians. Orders to Kill is worth seeing, and I hope to watch more films like it, even though I know that most of them will probably be classic films like this one.