The Current Cinema - Barrie Pattison tracks down new movies from Russia and Thailand YOLKI 7 (Egor Baranov, Anna Parmas, Alexander Kott, Russia, 2018) and FRIEND ZONE (Chayanop Boonprakob, Thailand, 2019)

The weeklong, or more, events which have dominated local non-mainstream exhibition here, seem to be fading. 

The Japanese and Hispanics are doing one offs. The Russian Resurrection Festival is still headed towards us but they are doing monthly Sunday shows of popular movies at Event George Street (a more digestible way of delivering product)  as well.

Last week’s Yolki poslednie (Yolki 7) proved to be an intermittently entertaining and determinedly feel good addition to the Russian annual "The Last Six Degrees of Celebration" series with Timur Bekmambetov credited among the producers. It cuts among five interlocking stories of events on New Year’s Eve across the country, complete with a light-up map to locate them.

We jump into an impressive police car chase on frozen roads with dumpy blonde Valentina Mazunina at the wheel of her vehicle and the TV celebrity hand cuffed in the back. 

Flashbacks link into the story of her video consultant doctor husband’s alienation from his aged father to whom the girl in the bank returns a passport arousing his suspicions that she is a scam artist. Recurring character buddies Ivan Urgant & Sergey Svetlakov are at odds because Svetlakov is off to Yakutsk with his extended family whose so many acres a head land grant (praise for Russia) will be big enough to start a native animal zoo. 

Elena Yakovleva has given up hope that her military suitor Dmitriy Nagiev, who is building their dream home, will propose and her son intervenes dragging him back to the family flat. 

A winning station kiosk attendant is swept away when a star actor flirts with her and, after giving him the wrong number (“I’m an actor - of course I will remember”) overtakes his train driven by a local motorist with his own agenda and the young skier attempts to set up his snowboarder chum as the nervous suitor of a counter girl in supervisor Ekaterina Klimova’s local McDonalds (!) 

Narrator Konstantin Khabenskiy makes a surprise last minute on screen appearance.

These stories vary in conviction but good ‘scope production values with onion dome drone scenics for insets and the winning, unfamiliar players carry things along.

Popular cinema like this is a long way from the more sombre material we are usually served to represent Russian production. 

The entertainment cinema of Thailand is even harder to come by. I just checked a Thai local’s idea of the hundred best of the country's movies and was hard pressed to recognize six - the nice  Bad Genius, the turgid Jan Dara, Cemetery of Splendour, Chocolate, Tears of the Black Tiger  and  Ong Bak.

Now, along with their usual Chinese and Korean material, Event Cinemas are running a teenage romance piece called  Friend Zone.

Chayanop Boonprakob’s movie pivots on the strained proposition that the fresh faced young couple retain a friendship over ten years without actually getting it on, all in gleaming wide screen. 

We kick off with school girl Pimchanok Leuwisetpaiboon dragging her friend boy, rather than boyfriend, Naphat Siangsomboon off on a flight (close up of his credit card going into the ticket machine) to follow her father Chertsak Pratumsrisakhon on what she is convinced is an affair. What happens to him?

Over the next ten years Siangsomboon, sustained by using his points as an airline cabin attendant, squires her through failed romantic excursions in tourist destinations in Myanmar, Malaysia or Hong Kong announced in screen filling captions. The climaxing footage in Krabi (Thailand) is particularly scenic.

Their activities are monitored by his three dorky friends Benjamin Joseph Varney, Nutthasit Kotimanuswanich and Sukhapat Lohwacharin similarly unable to actualize their romances as they stand, two tall beers in their hands, in the different locales. 

Throw in a thinks inset of Siangsomboon breaking his friend zone friend’s boy suitor’s guitar over his head, comments from shaven headed monks crosslegged in temples, karaoke, Siangsomboon simulating bearded lover Jason Young by spreading chocolate desert on his face and a hotel porter wheeling her around on a luggage stand with her broken leg.

The last of her failed affairs, has Young needing to record winning local girl singers around Asia for his multi language commercial jingle. Our heroine flings his top of the line product placement gift watch into the surf in pique. 

 We get spotless five star hotels and spotless complexions. (it’s a welcome break when they finally manage to find a couple of extras with eczema scars) Even the Hong Kong bus on which Leuwisetpaiboon does her Jackie Chan stunt, is impeccable. 

Friend Zone is pitched at teen age Asian girls. I don’t meet any of those criteria so it outstays it’s welcome with me. Occasionally involving or funny but mainly an implausible exercise in wish fulfilling, this one exceeds its quota in tourist attractions and will they or won’t they. 

It all leaves you wondering if we couldn’t have been better served by the other ninety-four titles on the list. On the other hand, by their nature films like these are unlikely to hit festivals and broadcasters and any attempt to ring up the celluloid curtain is welcome. We could do worse.

On ANATOMY OF A MURDER - Ira Joel Haber recalls his first viewing of Otto Preminger's great courtroom drama of 1959

It's 60 years ago this past July that Anatomy of a Murder opened in New York City at the Criterion Theatre (above, click on any image for a slideshow), and even though I was only 12 years old, the film caught my attention. The main reason for this attention grabbing was the bold logo for the film of a cut up body that was designed by the great Saul Bass (poster below). I had no idea who he was, even though I had been seeing his designs for titles and ads for a few years. But this one was different, it inspired me. It made me want to be creative, to spend my life making things. 

I didn’t understand really what graphic design was or for that matter what art really was, but I knew that I wanted to do something with my imagination. I wanted to be an artist. The film of course was taboo and out of bounds for me to see. There was trouble with the censors over some words that Preminger refused to change or take out, but in the end he did make one change using the word violation instead of penetration. And then there was the big brouhaha over the use of the words “panties” and “bitch”, hard to imagine so much controversy over these words today. 

This was not going to be a Saturday afternoon movie outing for me at my neighborhood Loew’s eating my popcorn and drinking my coke. Just the year before at 11 years of age I was turned away from an afternoon showing of Some Came Running, and I finally had to wait to until my Mom took me to see it on a Friday night. I wanted to see Anatomy as I referred to it when talking it up with my mother at the Criterion, but this didn’t happen and I had to wait until it was on the 3rd run Neighborhood circuit at the lousy run down Beverly Theatre on Church Avenue. 

I sat in the darkened balcony watching the movie in shock and awe with smoke from my mother’s Raleigh cigarettes swirling all around me. This was an adult movie, a sleazy murder and trial based on a real incident that took place in some backwoods small time town in Michigan. We never see the actual murder nor the alleged rape, there would be no movie if we did, but I was still engrossed by what was happening on that screen. I finally repaid a visit to this childhood film of mine via the beautiful Criterion transfer. 

James Stewart, Joseph N. Welch, Lee Remick, 

Directed with assurance by Otto Preminger (this is to my mind his last good film) and superbly acted by an impeccable cast including James Stewart, Lee Remick, Eve Arden, Arthur O’Connell, Ben Gazzara, George C. Scott and, in an imaginative touch of casting, Joseph N. Welch as the presiding judge. Welch (middle above) was the head counsel for the army during the Army-McCarthy-Army hearings and scolded McCarthy with his statement “Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?” which was the beginning of the end for the evil senator from Wisconsin. 

James Stewart, Eve Arden

The film starts with the superb title sequence by Bass with the great Duke Ellington score laid over it and pounding away. We are soon introduced to James Stewart in a smooth tracking shot driving home after one of his many fishing trips. Stewart plays an ambiguous lawyer and bachelor Paul Biegler, (Polly to his friends) who lives in a rundown smudged house (this was the real life home of the author of the book John D. Voelker, who was a sitting judge and wrote novels under the pen name of Robert Traver). Soon we also meet his much put upon and rarely paid secretary-assistant played by the great Eve Arden (above), and his rummy ex-lawyer friend played perfectly by Arthur O’Connell who rises to the occasion when asked by Stewart for his help.

Ben Gazzara

There is a message waiting for Stewart asking him to call Laura Manion whose husband a lieutenant in the army played by an intense Ben Gazzara (above) is in jail awaiting trial for the murder of a bar owner who allegedly raped his wife played by the luminous and sexy Lee Remick. The film is lavish and leisurely with its exposition and not very fluid, with most of the second half of the film taking place in the courtroom. 

The fun of the film, (and it is fun) comes from watching the actors strut their stuff especially when Stewart goes up against the big hot shot city prosecutor Claude Dancer, played with oily presence by the terrific George C. Scott in this his second film, and watching Lee Remick throw her sexual attractiveness around with loose abandonment as if she is saying to us I know what I got, and I’m going to spend it while I can. 

 

James Stewart, Lee Remick

Filmed on location where the actual story took place with terrific black and white cinematography by Sam Leavitt. The film is ambiguous and the ending is swift, cynical and hard. One of the years 10 Best Films, Best Supporting Actor Arthur O’Connell and Best Supporting Actress Lee Remick.

Vale Ningali Lawford - Phillip Noyce pays tribute to the great actor

Ningali Lawford passed in Scotland on Monday night surrounded by her loving family who had flown from Western Australia when she suffered a heart attack between performances of “The Secret River” at Edinburgh Festival. 

Ningali will be remembered as an extraordinarily loving artist who gave her all to everything and everyone.

Without Ningali my film Rabbit Proof Fence would have been half the movie that we managed to create. 

Ningali was a cultural advisor, actor, drama coach and inspiration to all who worked on the film. She was the grand dame of Indigenous female performers, through her family linking pre-contact days with the 21st Century. 

Australia has lost one of our greatest.

The Current Cinema - An A-Z guide to ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD (Quentin Tarantino, USA, 2019)

Quentin Tarantino

A for Alcohol a giant amount of which is consumed throughout the movie

B for Bounty Law a TV series of the kind made by Warner Bros and others in the 50s. It lasted two seasons and after it Rick Dalton’s career goes into decline…also for Brandy, Cliff Booth’s dog.

C  is for Cinephilia This film drips in it. Maybe someone should start a competition to list all the film references. Probably need to wait for the DVD and the pause button. Since writing that I have come across this terrific piece by Jeff Smith on David Bordwell's blog Observations on film art which must not be read until you have seen the movie. …C is also for Clu Gulagher long ago a great one shot role in Siegel’s The Killers then a million near-bit parts. He’s the bookstore owner but I only learned that from IMDb?.... also for (Mama) Cass on the periphery of the Playboy Mansion party… also for (Sergio) Corbucci correctly dubbed ‘the second greatest director of Spaghetti westerns’.

D for (Rick) Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio)  a fading star …also for Drugs a massive amount of which are ingested during the movie…..and for (Bruce) Dern a brilliant turn as the owner of a Hollywood movie set ranch that has seen better days and has now been taken over by the Manson family…for Debate (not controversy). There is not universal enthusiasm for this movie. Opinions range from A O Scott in the New York Times to Rich Juzniak in Jezebel. Beware of reading reviews in advance.  They may give away something that makes the film.  

E for (Clint) Eastwood and by association Lee Van Cleef, Lex Barker and all the other then middling names, to say nothing of Eli Wallach and Rod Steiger, who took the Italian and German and Spanish money on offer to make westerns in Europe. Their ghosts hover over the scenes where Rick goes to Italy and Spain to make four movies in six months. QT couldn’t contain himself however and had to also put Rick into one of those 60s Italian crime thrillers by the likes of Fernando Di Leo just to show off a bit more.

F for FBI. Tarantino, according to my impeccable sources, apparently located the same two trucks used by the show for his re-invention of the episode guest-starring Rick Dalton. Or that may be instant Tarantino urban myth…. F is also for Flamethrower. The joke was set up about two hours before.

G for The Great Escape which Rick Dalton was up for while Steve McQueen dithered. Apparently Tarantino removed the photo-shopped scenes from the movie for the Cannes screening but put them back in later. They are quite droll.

 

H for (Damon) Herriman and a memorable mini-moment as Charles Manson (left)....also for another Oz actor (Nicholas) Hammond for what a cinephiliac friend describes rightly as his great impersonation of Sam Wanamaker, the former blacklisted actor now directing scuzzy westerns.

I for Intertwining the various real-life actors in Hollywood back in the day. Most notable are Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie) and Mike Moh enjoying himself immensely as Bruce Lee until Cliff Booth takes him down in a casual fight while the actors are having lunch.

J for Jay Sebring. It takes Steve McQueen (Damian Lewis) at the Playboy party to explain just what was going on in the menage involving Sebring, Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski…..and you have to be paying attention to follow it…..also for Julia Butters (below with DiCaprio), a child actor who has a phenomenal scene with Di Caprio

K for Killer. One flashback explains much about Cliff Booth when we learn the story of how his wife was killed. Sets up the finale.

L for (Damian) Lewis whose impersonation of Steve McQueen is another one of those turns  which reminds you just how good classically trained Brit actors can be. I thought the hair was a bit longer than I remember but Lewis has ‘got’ McQueen’s look down perfectly.

M for (Charles Manson) and the greatest Mislead in recent cinema. Tempting to list as well under S for Saving Grace

N for Nine. Having turned his gaze no further than the neighbourhood is there any chance that QT can come up again and get into double figures. IMDb tells us he has announced three more movies Django/Zorro, Kill Bill Vol 3  and  Untitled Star Trek Project. 

 

Mike Moh as Bruce Lee (see I)

O for “Once Upon a Time… a title that also comes up on Inglourious Basterds  as “Once Upon a Time in Nazi Germany.”

P for (Al) Pacino who, in the guise of a producer telling Rick what should be his next career move spells out the slow downfall of so many Hollywood actors who had a hit TV series and then nobody wanted to know them. Pacino is at his fattest ever seen. See also E.

Q for (Margaret) Qualley (left), brilliant as the Manson family member and street urchin who keeps running into Cliff Booth and finally gets him to the Spahn Ranch

R for (Margot) Robbie. My first reaction was that if Sharon Tate really was a ditzy Hollywood blonde then Margot nails it. But I'm in a rush to re-evaluate after reading Jeff Smith (q.v. on Bordwell's blog, link above, who says: "Margot Robbie’s performance as Tate is extraordinary. She reminds modern viewers of the verve, spirit, and sensuality that Sharon brought to the screen. Yet it is the image of Tate as a tragically murdered heroine that Tarantino, like Mark Macpherson in Laura, appears to have fallen in love with. And it is this image that continues to haunt me some fifty years after Tate’s death." 

S for Stuntman Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), the smartest, coolest, handsomest man in the room and for whom the long build-up for the finale with his dog and Tex, the Manson family member, is very funny indeed.

T for Timothy (Olyphant). First time I think I’ve noticed him since Justified. 

U for the USA. Only in…

V for Video Store where QT accumulated his encyclopaedic knowledge (on display) of every kind of movie…. 

W for Written and Directed by Quentin Tarantino. It’s all his own work, his own memories, his own take on Hollywood from the 50s to the end of the 60s. Maybe its fantasy but you don’t stop watching

 

Margot Robbie as Sharon Tate

X for the MPAA Rating it didn’t get notwithstanding the finale 

Y for Young Millenials who may well measure the progress of their life according to the nine Tarantino steps taken over 25 years since Reservoir Dogs.

Z for Rafal Zawierucha (who?) who plays Roman Polanski  and for Zzzzz…this film takes a long time to tell the tale.

David Hare's Blu-ray reviews - Links to notes on recent classic discs published in the US and the UK

A section of David Hare's collection

The regular appearance of David Hare's Blu-ray reviews make for a highlight on the Film Alert 101 blog. Below are links to some of his most popular recent posts. Click on the film title to go through to the notes. Click on any image for a slide show.

Kismet

Kiss the Blood off my Hands

Becky Sharp and Fox Fire

Easy Living

The Reckless Moment

On a fan DVD - Max Berghouse discovers a film by Ladislao Vajda IT HAPPENED IN BROAD DAYLIGHT (Switzerland/Germany/Spain, 1958)

It's not very often a film and/or a director about whom I know nothing comes to my attention. I limit this to the "western canon" of the Americas and Europe. I don't profess to have much intimate knowledge of Africa or Asia. So it was with considerable delight that I watched It Happened in Broad Daylight (Es geschah am hellichten Tag, 1958) by the Hungarian (presumably émigré) director Ladislao Vadja. 

The film is set in Switzerland, in the Canton of St Gallen, which is one of the German-speaking Cantons. I imagine it was a mixed European production even though most of the behind the camera staff have German names.

IMDb indicates that the director (1906-1965) had 48 credits as a director and was a judge at the 1958 Cannes Film Festival. He was obviously no slouch. But there is no need, indeed it would be entirely pointless, for any reader to observe that my knowledge of film is grievously deficient in not knowing this Vajda and his achievements.

The plotline concerns the murder of a seven-year-old schoolgirl with an old-fashioned cutthroat razor. While this would not be absolutely unique, violent murder of a young child is not frequently dealt with in films of this period. The initial suspect played by the great French actor Michel Simon, once arrested, and although denying heartily his guilt, commits suicide.  Whereupon the case is closed. Incidentally Simon either speaks extremely good German or is otherwise exceptionally well dubbed. 

The leading police investigator Lt Mattai refuses to accept this judgement and proceeds through the bulk of the film on a single-handed pursuit of the killer, despite the damage it does to his career prospects.

The development is very much a "slow burn"  dogged investigation with a number of plot inadequacies which are nonetheless suitably covered by the directors' skill.

It is a "film policier " in direct line of descent from the early 20th century onwards "roman policier" and the most famous examples of such films and indeed such novels can be found in the writings of Georges Simenon. Except at the very climax when several shots are fired, killing the murderer (played by Gert Frobe), there is neither violence nor much unnatural suspense. 

But the film is certainly engrossing. The credits indicate that within the "other crew" were a psychological consultant and a criminal consultant.

When I discussed the possibility of writing a short note on this film with the editor he mentioned that comments had been made about prior reviews of myself which seemed to emphasise "guns". I might like to add in my own defence that I am not especially interested in guns at all and am certainly not one of Mrs Clinton's "deplorables". I find that discussing such things as weaponry and also of motor vehicles is often a very good guide as to whether the "period" is fully and properly captured. So to be completely clear, there is very little violence in this film at all but I was extraordinarily happy to have encountered it. 

Probably the most interesting feature for me was the way it captured the very insular and inward looking life of Switzerland, at least at that time. Personally I think it continues to this day but it happens in the film with such naturalness, that I don't think anyone would have tried to create this; it was simply the natural understanding of the country at that time. One of the consequences of this is that it portrays very many Swiss driving very recent American large cars. The murderer in this case is driving an early 1950's Buick. This is a reflection of reality because most of Europe could certainly not afford to drive cars of such size and massive fuel consumption, whereas in Switzerland it was quite common indeed. I can't provide a reason.

For what the film was and presumably aspired to be, it gave me a great deal of satisfaction. Some things I still don't understand. For example the credits indicate that the great Roger Livesey provided the voice of one of the characters, Prof Manz. He certainly didn't in the version I saw. I would recognise his gravelly voice anywhere. Perhaps there is some edition about which is dubbed but from the credits his is the only English-speaking name I recognise.

I’ve seen enough to hunt out some of the other films of this director.

The Australian New Wave - In Melbourne Bill Mousoulis presents the work of three young film-makers

Australian New Wave filmmakers showcase

Thornbury Picture House website 802 High St. Thornbury, 

Tuesdays, September 17, 24, and October 1, 8:30 p.m.

Three bold new Australian indie features from emerging filmmakers.

Curated and presented by Bill Mousoulis, with assistance from Chris Luscri.

Over 3 Tuesdays starting on September 17, the Thornbury Picture House in Melbourne will present this series of screenings of low-budget, cutting-edge Australian feature films, from emerging filmmakers. Each screening will be a special event, with Q&As with the directors of the films.

Matthew Victor Pastor

On Tuesday, September 17, the film Repent or Perish! will have its World Premiere. This portrait of a Filipino-Australian family in Melbourne is an eye-opener, and it is directed by Melbourne’s maverick filmmaker Matthew Victor Pastor, who IF Magazine has labelled “Australia’s fastest and most prolific filmmaker”. An energetic slice-of-life, the film will be followed by a Q&A helmed by The Age’s film reviewer Jake Wilson.

On Tuesday, September 24, the film Reflections in the Dust by Sydney filmmaker Luke Sullivan will screen. Sullivan is Australian cinema’s enfant terrible at the moment, with outspoken comments such as “Our industry are a bunch of wimps”. His feature Reflections in the Dust is a post-apocalyptic sci-fi film delving into the terrain of female abuse, and has been called a “once in a lifetime masterpiece” by one critic. Sullivan will be flying down from Sydney for the Q&A.

On Tuesday, October 1, a truly unique film will screen, You Can Say Vagina, directed by Jack Baka (in reality: Siobhan Jackson and Mischa Baka). A coming-of-age story of a young woman (a brilliant performance by Lucy Orr), the film is part quirky comedy, part touching drama, part dance film, and it is directed in a magical way by Jack Baka, with whimsy but also realism. The directors will be present for a Q&A, in what will be the film’s first public screening in Melbourne.

For more information on the “Australian New Wave filmmakers showcase”, check the full program out at Click on this link.

Tickets available through the Thornbury Picture House website

Email contact, Bill Mousoulis – bill@innersense.com.au