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J'ai perdu mon corps (2019)
Is there any hope for a sensitive young man who's on his own?
The movie follows an episode in the life of a young Maghreban called Naoufel who lives in Paris. To me, he seems to be autistic.
Naoufel is clumsy and chaotic and works as a pizza delivery guy. One evening, he arrives half an hour late and the pizza is a mess. Over the intercom, he speaks to the woman who's been waiting for him and they end up having a conversation that just keeps on going, perhaps because Naoufel is honestly dejected rather than defensive and the young woman, Gabrielle, is very direct.
Naoufel lives with his derelict uncle and horrible cousin because his parents died in a car crash when he was a child. He's lonely, passionate and obsessive enough that Gabrielle hanging out with him over an intercom is enough for him to decide to track her down at the library where she works.
Following her on the metro, he watches as some other guy sits down next to her and wishes it was him. This made me think of a scene in this Flemish movie from 2007 called Ben X, in which Ben, who is autistic, tracks down his online gaming friend 'Scarlite' and just sits next to her on the train. For him, it's a profoundly wonderful experience.
Having followed her all the way back to her apartment, Gabrielle spots Naoufel peering into her uncle's carpentry studio and confronts him. He pretends to be interested in a piece of paper advertising for an apprentice and manages to get hired by the uncle and moves into an apartment in the same block. Because they now run into each other regularly, he can get to know her. This kind of behaviour always prompts the nastiest people to cry out 'Stalker!'. What Naoufel is is a romantic fantasist, but his devotion is unlikely to be reciprocated and may not even be tolerated.
In their first conversation over the intercom and then later when they had a chat at the library, Naoufel learnt that Gabrielle longs to visit the North Pole and dreams of living in an igloo, so naturally he starts building her one made of wood on top of her building using the skills he's acquired from training as a carpenter. His focus is on making her dream come true because his dream is her.
He brings her to the igloo and shares an idea he has that you might be able to change your fate by doing something extreme that you wouldn't normally do, like jumping onto a crane. He then reveals to her that he's the pizza delivery guy from before. It's a bit heartbreaking when she's angry with him for his elaborate covert pursuit of her but she does have a point that he was using her uncle, who is unwell, to get close to her. This is a shattering blow that sets off a chain of events that culminates with him accidentally cutting off his own hand with a motor saw.
Another autistic trait of Naoufel's is his heightened appreciation of sounds. In flashbacks to his childhood, we see him recording all sorts of noises on a device given to him by his parents before they died. At night, he listens to recordings of his parents' voices.
Throughout the movie, the scenes of Naoufel's hard life and pursuit of Gabrielle are intercut with scenes of his severed hand escaping from a laboratory and making its way across Paris on a quest to reunite with its body. When the severed hand finally gets back to Naoufel, it's unable to re-attach.
It's not a movie that leaves you with much hope for the fulfilment or even survival of someone like Naoufel who is weighed down by so much loss and regret. A bit like Jen throwing herself off Wudan mountain at the end of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Naoufel makes his leap onto the crane. Also, Gabrielle hasn't lost her fondness for him - he did pick a nice girl. These are the few crumbs of hope that the movie leaves you with.
Unlawful Entry (1992)
A thriller with plenty of pace and a well-written psychopath
Officer Pete Davis is just dreamy, but then psychopaths often are. Ray Liotta's Officer Pete is very well-written. He wants to take Karen (Madeleine Stowe) away from Michael (Kurt Russell) and he is in fact impotent without that sense of victory over someone he's insecure about. He infantilises and emasculates Michael having first become a trusted friend which makes it that much more difficult for Michael to resist being identified in that humiliating way. Michael manages to listen to his instinct that something is wrong and Pete begins to torment Michael into anti-social behaviour while being charming and unobjectionable. He can always claim his intentions were friendly when he crosses boundaries and often he can even defend his actions with a reminder that Michael had actually said that he wanted this or that thing to happen - in each case, Michael had quite obviously just been speaking casually.
Michael is onto him first and Karen thinks he's overreacting - people are usually quicker at spotting dodgy behaviour in members of their own sex, perhaps because of background intrasexual competition that underlies nearly all social interactions - but he is eventually able to get her to see it. Any woman who Pete fails to seduce is devalued and discarded. Karen ends up having to play along with his delusion in order to avoid being killed.
Unlawful Entry came out the same year as The Hand that Rocks the Cradle which features a female psychopath employing similar tactics and who is just as deadly.
Rudeboy: The Story of Trojan Records (2018)
A lovely little documentary, especially for big fans of the music
There are interviews with lots of old reggae gods, several of whom are no longer with us five years later (Toots, Lee Perry, Bunny Lee). Dandy Livingstone, aged 74, features throughout because he's so good to listen to. He has a beautiful speaking voice, is very composed and happy to share memories. At one point, he sits down at his keyboard and sings a bit of 'A Message to You, Rudy', and it's just wonderful.
There are dramatizations of Jamaicans in London in the 60s and 70s that are low key and not jarring or cringey like you might expect.
'If that shuffle not in the music, it's not reggae' - Bunny Lee.
A Boy and His Dog (1975)
Full of shocks and twists. Great fun.
A young man and his telepathic dog are surviving in a post-apocalyptic wasteland by being skillful and ruthless in the hunt for food and sex. Quite a premise and it comes from the mind of legendary sci-fi writer, Harlan Ellison.
The segment in the 'Down Under' is like a bonkers episode of The Prisoner and features totalitarian followers chanting 'Lack of respect! Wrong attitude! Failure to obey authority!'.
The apocalypse scenes look like they might have been an inspiration for Mad Max.
The ending is truly a shock and hilariously satisfying, especially if you're one of those men who would follow Susanne Benton just about anywhere, even if your dog was telling you not to.