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A Day at the Beach (1970)
Unpleasant and useless
With a script by Roman Polanski and featuring renowned actors in supporting roles, such as Peter Sellers or Eva Dahlbeck, also lost by Paramount for over 20 years, this film has everything to arouse the curiosity of the attentive viewer.
In addition, there is a convincing performance by the protagonist Mark Burns, who mitigates the effects of rampant alcoholism with a certain British, ironic and elitist spirit.
But despite these attributes, what remains of this rainy day at the beach? A handful of nothing. A narcissistic and depressive exercise in nihilism that cannot even be described as a denunciation of the perverse effects of alcoholism, as if these effects needed to be denounced and were, in and of themselves, suficient for a film plot.
Unpleasant and useless.
Ieri, oggi, domani (1963)
Journey to Italy
I confess that I am not a big fan of segmented films, which were fashionable in the sixties, seventies and even the eighties, especially in Italy.
But I do recognise that this one is different from the others. With three different segments, it maintains, however, not only the director in all three, but also the main couple, Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni, who play different characters, of very different conditions, in three different Italian cities, Naples, Milan and Rome.
If Naples appears in all its popular splendour, Milan assumes itself as bourgeois and vain, while Rome shows its contrasts, as both saint and sinner.
There is thus an evident common thread, which passes not only through the main couple, but also through a broad vision of a very diverse Italy, from the poor and ignorant south, to the industrial and modern north, passing through the capital, in the centre, where everything comes together, under the aegis of the Pope and in the grand setting of the beautiful Piazza Navona.
The plots are of different value, as is normal in these films. The gold medal goes to Naples by Eduardo de Filippo and Isabella Quaranttoti (Adelina segment), the silver to Rome by Cesare Zavattini (Mara segment) and finally the bronze to Milan, adapted from Moravia by Zavattini, Bella Billa and Lorenza Zanuso (Anna segment).
In fact, this is de Sica at his best level, not least due to the presence not only of his usual performers, but also of the scriptwriters, Filippo, Zavattini and Moravia, who are recurrent in his work, but, in a short format.
However, one always gets the impression that each of the segments would deserve a complete film on its own, thus making this adaptation poorer, of stories that could have been developed much more.
However, the memorable characters, played by Loren and Mastroianni, remain.
Pane, amore e fantasia (1953)
Folkloric Optimism
Pane, Amore e Fantasia is a light, romantic comedy of manners that seems to have been resurrected from the fascist era, when, just like in Portuguese cinema during the Estado Novo, everyone was poor but honest, happy and God-fearing. The comedies exuded a social peace and collective well-being that only propaganda could create.
However, this is a post-war film, produced in the era of neo-realism. Vittorio de Sica himself, although behind the camera, had already made Sciusciá, Bicycle Thieves and Umberto D. What a contrast with the folkloric and innocent optimism of this Pane, Amore e Fantasia! Never has a title summed up a film so well.
And yet, the film also has virtues, despite its simplistic anachronism. Gina Lollobrigida plays a magnificent character, with a wild sensuality. The closed environment of the small provincial town, with its old men who know everything and control everything about other people's lives, has a delightful charm and irony, reminiscent of the best of Pagnol.
It is a light, nostalgic work, but certainly enjoyable to watch, which won the Silver Bear in Berlin and was even nominated for an Oscar for best original screenplay. A luminous island of peace and love, amidst the shadows of post-war Italian neo-realism.
I girasoli (1970)
Fatalism of War
Vittorio de Sica achieved a remarkable feat in this eye-catching 1970 production, bringing together Americans and Soviets, in the midst of the Cold War, in the co-production of a Franco-Italian film.
From the Americans he got a memorable soundtrack, written and directed by Henry Mancini and nominated for an Oscar. From the Soviets he received the footage from Mosfilm, directed by Andrey Konchalovskiy, as well as the actress Ludmila Saveleva.
The script by Tonino Guerra and Cesare Zavattini has everything it needs to work, but the film gets lost somewhere in between so many attributes.
The story is basic and excessively melodramatic. The soundtrack is beautiful but quickly becomes cloying. The footage of the sunflower fields and the cemeteries of Russian combatants is powerful and eloquent, but inconsequential. This is, after all, a story of the living, not the dead. Only the final notes of the fatalism of war, which determines people's fates, far beyond their individual will, remain to give the film any meaning.
But it is not enough. A final result clearly less than the sum of its parts.
La ciociara (1960)
A late classic
Vittorio De Sica revisits the traumas of war by following the story of a mother and daughter who experience an epic journey, first fleeing Rome for the countryside in an attempt to escape the bombings, and then returning to Rome to escape the dangers of the invasion and the front lines.
A magnificent performance by Sophia Loren, which earned her an unexpected Oscar for best actress, the first time it was awarded to a non-American production.
The director who gave us classics of neo-realism such as Bicycle Thieves and Umberto D., thus returns to a genre that was already out of fashion in 1960, but still clearly held the interest of the public and critics.
A late classic.
Poslusne hlásím (1958)
Svejk Popular
The Fateful Adventures of the Good Soldier Svejk During the World War (original Czech title of Jaroslav Hasek's unfinished work, known internationally as The Good Soldier Svejk or The Brave Soldier Chveik) is a classic of world literature and the most translated novel in all of Czech literature.
It is the story of the adventures of a poor private soldier, of little intelligence but enormous loquacity, in the meanders of the great war, symbolizing the innocence and ignorance of the people, dragged into a terrible war by the ruling aristocracy and bourgeoisie, without even knowing the reasons why they were fighting.
This poor idiot, who nevertheless possesses an enviable instinct for survival against all adversities, the result of luck and his natural stupidity, is a tragicomic hero, a toy in the hands of power who survives against all logic and probability. A symbol of the absurdity of war.
The work has been adapted into everything from films, plays, an opera, comics, and the hero even has multiple statues and monuments in several countries.
This 1958 Poslusne hlásím, known as I Dutifully Report, is the sequel to the cinema adaptation of the novel made by Karel Stekly the previous year and is probably the best-known film adaptation of the work.
It is an unpretentious and popular film, a result of the success of the work and the previous adaptation, which, despite some funny moments, rarely captures the critical and philosophical spirit of the novel.
It is much more a comedy aimed at a less demanding audience than a fair tribute to the immortality of this modern Sancho Panza. But, even so, it is worth watching.
Sedotta e abbandonata (1964)
Questions of Honour
Pietro Germi presents us with his delightfully ironic vision of Sicilian honour and its consequences in that deeply closed society.
Honour is the islander's most precious asset and he will do anything to defend it. Better dead than dishonoured. And the Sicilian, more than anyone else, defends his honour, and that of his family, to the point of ridicule.
These are the aspects wonderfully explored by Germi in this dark, intelligent and hilariously dramatic comedy.
Magnificent performances, with special mention to Saro Urzì, a true Sicilian who knows all about matters of honour for his fellow countrymen, who leads a large and superb cast.
A special mention goes to the beautiful and charismatic Stefania Sandrelli who, at 18 years of age, not only charms the audience with her character Agnese, but also shows a surprising experience, built by someone who start making films at the age of 15, em 1961, and was already on her tenth feature film at the time.
One of the most entertaining and intelligent visions of Sicilian society ever brought to the screen. An unmissable classic.
Divorzio all'italiana (1961)
Deliciously Noir
Pietro Germi looks at Sicily and its customs with great irony and an intelligent sense of black humor. A closed society, dominated by ignorance, the mafia, the Church's stale moralism and the privilege of an old and vicious aristocracy.
Marcello Mastroianni has a masterful role, giving life to a manipulative and hypocritical Baron Cefalú, who will stop at nothing to achieve his romantic goals, ending up a victim of his own success.
The very young Stefania Sandrelli, just 15 years old, makes her third film here, still in a secondary role, looking gorgeous and anticipating a brilliant future career. Also noteworthy is Daniella Roca in the role of poor Rosalía, fatally Sicilian, innocent and manipulated by her sinister husband and the society in which she had the misfortune of being born. A film that won an Oscar for best original screenplay and nominations for Mastroianni and Germi, a Bafta for Mastroianni, a prize for best comedy (and nomination for the Palme d'Or) at Cannes, Golden Globes for Germi and Mastroianni, among many other awards.
A classic to watch over and over again, always with great pleasure. A delightfully dark comedy.
Full Throttle (1995)
The Bentley Boys
Rowan Atkinson's passion for cars is well known, so it was certainly with great pleasure that he was involved in this project of a television film (just 50 minutes long) dedicated to the biography of one of Bentley's heroes of the 1920s, Tim Birkin, winner in Le Mans twice, in 1929, for Bentley, and in 1931, with an Alfa Romeo, after Bentley was acquired by Rolls Royce and abandoned the competition in 1930.
Despite being short, low budget and clearly intended for television, it features an impressive collection of old four-wheeled glories in action, filmed with special enthusiasm and with a main actor in pure ecstasy, clearly delighted, to flesh out this character and for the opportunity to drive so many historic machines, on a pleasant journey back in time, to the automobile competition of the 1920s.
Motorsport fans will certainly love it. Rowan Atkinson's will criticize the lack of humor, as the film is much more a biographical drama than a comedy.
Tsubaki Sanjûrô (1962)
Yojimbo, part II
Less known than Yojimbo, released the previous year, this Sanjuro is, in fact, a sequel to the first, albeit with different characters, but with the same main actors, Toshiro Mifune, in the role of the invincible ronin, and Tatsuya Nakadai, in the role of the villain.
Yojimbo's success led Toho to ask Kurosawa for a sequel. He then took a previous project, which was intended to be a faithful adaptation of Shûgorô Yamamoto's novel "Peaceful Days", and transformed it into this Tsubaki Sanjûrô, reusing the musical theme, characters and main actors from Yojimbo.
Interestingly, the same thing that Sergio Leone did with the success of "For a Fistful of Dollars", a remake of Yojimbo, and "For a Few Dollars More", a sequel with an original script, which only takes advantage of one character, the theme and the main actor of the previous film.
Sanjuro is a good samurai film, in the best style of Kurosawa and Mifune, but it is not Yojimbo. It's fun, there's a lot of action, it even has what some say is the first blood explosion scene in a duel, in what would become a hallmark of the genre, copied by Tarantino, but it lacks the charisma of the prequel. There is a side of farce that corrodes the drama of Yojimbo, even with the final duel at sunset, like in cowboy films.
Still, it is highly recommended for lovers of the genre.
Shurayukihime (1973)
Revenge in the Snow
Lady Snowblood is a manga written by Kazuo Koike (author of the also famous Lone Wolf and Cub) and illustrated by Kazuo Kamimura, published between 1972 and 1973.
It was immediately adapted to the cinema in 1973, in this film directed by Toshiya Fujita, with Meiko Kaji in the main role, and a sequel was produced the following year.
This character and film were also Quentin Tarantino's main inspiration for his Kill Bill films and for the main character, the bride, played by Uma Thurman.
I am a self-confessed admirer of the original manga and Kazuo Koike's work, so it was with great curiosity that I saw this contemporary film adaptation. The result inevitably falls short of the manga, but it doesn't disappoint either. The character is well embodied by Meiko Kaji, although not as sensually as in the manga, and the environment of obsessive revenge is well recreated, with the plot being, in general, faithful to the original.
There is, however, a touch of gore, of pulp fiction, which does not appear so much in the manga and which would have been especially attractive to Tarantino. The abundant blood, the severed limbs, the kitsch music, the exaggerated, photo-novel color (the manga is in black and white), are distinctive features of the film, which are not present in the original work. Good cinematography, however, gives this whole an original character, which transformed the film into a cult work, parallel to the manga itself, with its own personality and public appeal, influenced by a pulp/kitsch aesthetic, which culminates in Tarantino.
A classic that, although not a masterpiece, is an unavoidable reference to a style, a time and a cinematographic genre.
Zatôichi umi o wataru (1966)
Zatoichi Yojimbo
There is an indelible connection between this saga of the samurai masseur Zatoichi, blind but invincible and avenger of injustice, and spaghetti westerns, at their best, such as the work of Sergio Leone.
Kurosawa set the tone, with masterpieces such as Seven Samurai (1954) or Yojimbo (1961), both adapted into westerns, the second by Leone in A Fistful of Dollars (1964) and the first by John Sturges in The Magnificent Seven (1960), this one with several sequels.
Also Zatoichi, debuted in cinema in 1962, based on a literary character created by novelist Kan Shimozawa in 1928, is a direct heir of Yojimbo, Kambei Shimada and his North American disciples, played by Yul Brynner and Clint Eastwood, among others. And it originated 26 films and a 100-episode television series, with a North American remake of the seventeenth film in the series, Zatoichi Challenged, under the name Blind Fury (1989), directed by Philip Noyce.
We are thus faced with an institution of Japanese cinema and television, which I cannot help but see as an extension of these classics, of Kurosawa and Sergio Leone's solitary hero-villains.
This episode, Zatoichi's Pilgrimage, the thirteenth in the series, is particularly evocative of Yojimbo and, therefore, of Toshiro Mifune and Clint Eastwood, at their best. And Shintarô Katsu, the man who embodied Zatoichi, during 26 films and 100 television episodes, between 1962 and 1979 (with a final film in 1989 which he also directed), is certainly not behind them, in terms of the charisma and talent with which he enriches the character.
Out of curiosity, it appears that Miramax purchased the rights to this film, allegedly to make a remake, directed by Quentin Tarantino.
Himmelskibet (1918)
A Piece of History
This celestial journey, which takes humans to Mars for the first time, is very much a result of the time in which it was produced, in the middle of the First World War.
More than science fiction, the film expresses a desire for peace and harmony among men. The planet Mars, far from the values of the God of war that gives it its name, reveals a peaceful and vegetarian civilization, which managed to abolish violence and live in an Olympic paradise.
Highlight for the fantastic restoration. Not only was the image impeccably repaired, but the entire film was colored, in a soft tone, inspired by the first techniques before Technicolor.
The weakest point is the representation, a prisoner of the dramatic mannerisms of silent cinema, here made more evident by the excellence of the restoration.
A piece of history, stolen from the past for future memory.
Goto, l'île d'amour (1969)
A brief and bitter reflection of humanity
An interesting work that seems to present an allegory about power and the human condition.
In an absolute, immobilist monarchy, installed on an isolated and sparsely inhabited island, we witness the meteoric social rise of an unscrupulous thief.
Everything served in a decadent, minimal, grotesque environment, but well framed, with a good taste in black and white cinematography (with rare and brief incursions of color), which does not go unnoticed.
The film is certainly pretentious and at times even hermetic, but the end result is still a very interesting challenge for the viewer.
More than a critique of regimes, social inequalities, customs, the work seems to provoke a deeper and more philosophical reflection on the very essence of humanity.
The Trap (1946)
The Farewell
This was Sidney Toler's last film as detective Charlie Chan, the last in a series of twenty-two, produced between 1938 and 1946.
The physical fragility of the actor is visible, as he appears in fewer scenes, moves slowly and even demonstrates a relative verbal economy that is not characteristic of the character. There is, for example, not a single "correction please" in Toler's farewell to the character. A film where we have more "number 2 Son" and Birmingham than Chan.
The plot is what you would expect from a banal television police series and the value of this work is above all historical and sentimental, for fans of the character.
The Noose Hangs High (1948)
Weak
Bud Abbott and Lou Costello formed a successful comedian duo in the 1940s, especially in the United States, following traditional parameters of circus and vaudeville comedy, such as the rich clown (Abbott) and poor clown (Costello).
The duo's best moments were certainly the equivocal dialogues, often based on homophones, which they explored to the point of exhaustion. In this film there is one of those dialogues, at the dinner that they don't intend to pay for, which is probably the highest and most entertaining point of the film.
The drawback of this type of dialogue is its difficult translation, which perhaps explains the duo's lower popularity abroad, when compared to other successful duos, such as Laurel & Hardy or Martin & Lewis.
The problem is that the argument of this film is very weak, it insistently resorts to physical comedy, on the part of Costello, and the narrative construction, which is not very consistent, ends up serving as a mere pretext for the succession of popular and somewhat cheap, vaudeville comedy duets , from the duo.
It certainly won't be one of the duo's best films, not even for Abbott and Costello fans. For others, it is just another consumer product, produced in Hollywood, for undemanding moviegoers.
O fovos (1966)
The Beast
The Fear, a 1966 Greek film written and directed by Kostas Manoussakis and with beautiful cinematography by Nikos Gardelis, is a powerful parable about human bestiality.
Humanity, reduced to its most basic condition, is nothing more than animal instinct, hostage to its basest desires and interests.
Man, victim to fear, lives under pressure, due to his uncontrollable instincts and the terror of the imminent loss of his worldly and material interests.
Served by black and white cinematography, which highlights this human beast and its harsh habitat, with an unsettling soundtrack by Giannis Markopoulos, and some memorable performances, especially by Anestis Vlahos, this is a film that will not be forgotten and that the most cynics will not hesitate to call it a masterpiece.
Warnung vor einer heiligen Nutte (1971)
Una Cuba Libre Por Favor
Fassbinder ends this film with a quote from Thomas Mann that expresses his tiredness in representing the human species, without being part of it. This could well be the key to interpreting not only this film, but almost all of Fassbinder's work.
In a world divided between capitalist tyranny and socialist hypocrisy, there is no real place for Fassbinder and his troupe, representative of a generation that wants to be above bourgeois values, but finds no alternatives, falling into nihilism and depression.
In retrospect, we can believe that Fassbinder's discomfort stemmed, in large part, from the rejection of homosexuality, whether by fascist moralism or socialist progressivism. The sexual freedom of the sixties did not yet include homosexuality, and Fassbinder, using shock therapy in his films, was one of the staunchest critics of this hypocritical sexual revolution.
The film tells the story of a film production, which takes place in a haphazard manner, in a Sorrento painted in Francoist Spain, as a metaphor for a society and a revolution of mentalities, which is also slow to happen.
Meanwhile, Cuba Libres are drunk, in honor of the revolution.
Les créatures (1966)
Between Luck and Destiny
A hermetic work, where fantasy and reality mix, in a surreal universe of a writer, locked in a strange beach house, almost a fortress, with his pregnant wife, while writing a literary work.
Both suffer injuries from a road accident. He has a deep feeling of guilt, marked by a scar on his forehead, which symbolizes a healthy madness, which he channels into literary creation. She, a loving muteness, the reverse of her husband's guilt, which she only overcomes at the end, with the birth of her son.
Meanwhile, like a demiurge of the small world that surrounds him, he plays the luck and destiny of his characters and of his own life and family.
Of course, with all the hermetic surrealism that dominates the film, everything could mean something completely different to other viewers.
It is certainly not Varda's most representative cinematographic language, nor is it her most inspired or influential film.
Ruusujen aika (1969)
Democratic Roses and Thorns
A surprising Finnish film from the end of the 60s, which proposes, in a science fiction environment that could have inspired Woody Allen's Sleeper, a reflection on the concept of democracy and the utopias it gave rise to, which kept the world divided and suspended at the time of the Cold War, which nevertheless caused episodes of enormous violence, permanently threatening the world with the total destruction of humanity.
The conclusion seems to be that totalitarian democracy annihilates the individual, and that only the imperfection of the democratic social struggle guarantees individual freedom, even if it generates violence and social confrontation.
However, totalitarianism inevitably imposes itself on the annihilation of the individual in the face of the collective interest.
An interesting reflection that well reflects the ambiguity of political thought at the time, which is still relevant, even in current times, when the Cold War has become history.
What is democracy after all? Are these regimes, in which we currently live, truly democratic?
Doesn't the ghost of totalitarianism remain suspended, waiting for the bankruptcy of social democracies, victors of the cold war?
La nona (1979)
She eats everything
Like José Afonso's vampires, this grandmother who eats everything, exhausting her family to death, would perhaps be, in 1979, when written and directed by Hector Oliveira, a metaphor for American capitalism and the Argentine ruling class, which, insatiable, consumed the country's resources to exhaustion, literally pushing its inhabitants to a miserable death.
There is always a grandmother in every political regime, in every country, in every family, so the metaphor remains timeless, capable of pleasing successive generations and different cultures.
A classic that, despite the years, remains lively and relevant.
Monsieur Verdoux (1947)
Chaplin Noir
Curiously based on an idea by Orson Welles, although written, directed and performed by Charles Chaplin, this Monsieur Verdoux adapts a true story, that of the infamous Bluebeard, Monsieur Henri Désiré Landru, a french serial killer, executed in 1922, specialized in seducing and killing widows and then make the corpses disappear, to construct a metaphor for the society of the time, still dominated by the terrible effects of the 1929 financial crisis and the Second World War.
When America emerged victorious from the conflict and reborn from its own ashes, as a global economic and military power, the public and some critics did not like seeing Chaplin playing the villain (although as tragicomic as always) nor the capitalist model criticized at a time when the Cold War began and the Soviet Union emerged as the new enemy to be defeated by the North American empire.
Chaplin, who was already persecuted and criticized by the FBI as a communist sympathizer, saw his destiny in exile determined after this film.
Monsieur Verdoux is a delicious black comedy where Chaplin plays a character as poetic and human as the others. He just has the peculiarity of having a business of killing wealthy widows, after being fired from a bank. But he does it to support a handicapped wife and a young son, so he has a clear conscience.
He ends up defeated by the economy and war, after years of deceiving the police.
Irony at the best level. It was a timing error. It emerged in a moralistic era that was unreceptive to the humanist theories of Chaplin, critical of war and savage capitalism.
Limelight (1952)
The False Farewell
Limelight is the film that marks the beginning of Chaplin's exile, after several years of persecution by American authorities, who accused him of communist sympathies.
Far from being a bitter and adversarial film, this cinematic response from Chaplin is a farewell of an old glory, full of panache, sweetness and poetry.
Chaplin says goodbye to Hollywood with a smile and a white glove slap, with the enormous elegance and critical sense with which he always acted throughout his career.
Interestingly, this film would give him the only competitive Oscar of his life, for the soundtrack (he would receive another, an honorary award, in 1972, for his entire career).
It wouldn't be Chaplin's last film, as he might have thought when he made it, but it is certainly among the best that has been done in cinematographic art, to this day.
A Night in Casablanca (1946)
Madness in Casablanca
One of the last films by the Marx brothers where, despite adding nothing relevant to their cinematic routine, they also don't clash, building a coherent work and where there is space for each of them to express their enormous humorous talent.
The theme of the hotel managed by the chaotic brothers is recurrent in their work (the four coconuts, a day at the races (here a sanatorium hotel), room service), and when it is not a hotel it is an opera or a circus company, a university or even an imaginary country called Sylvania. The important thing is to create chaos, where the healthy madness of the Marx brothers prevails, to the undeniable pleasure of the viewer.
This film is also a nice parody of the classic Casablanca, at the time at the peak of popularity.
A film that no Marx Brothers fan will want to miss.
A King in New York (1957)
A Bath of Humility
Charlie Chaplin, exiled in Switzerland to avoid answering to the infamous Commission on Un-American Activities, prevented from working in the United States and at the age of sixty-eight, returns to New York, in his metaphorical condition as king of comedy, in exile, to expose to North Americans the absurdity of McCarthysm and literally give a shower of humility to the members of the Commission on Un-American Activities.
It is certainly not one of the best films by the genius Chaplin, but he, as usual, is not afraid to put his finger on the wound (as he does with the hose in the elevator) to expose his democratic and inclusive ideals, which earned him exile, for alleged pro-communist sympathies, and refusal to testify before the McCarthy commission.
A respectable and courageous work by someone who never knew how to remain silent when time demanded to denounce injustice.