"Un long dimanche de fiançailles", (Eng:"A very long engagement", 2004), Jean-Pierre Jeunet

Typical Jeunet whimsy contrasted with graphic war horror.  The absurdity of the Great War trenches is framed as a mystery about the whereabouts of a young French soldier condemned of desertion by self-harm.  Her fiancee (a beautiful Audrey Tautou) does everything to find him. However it is impossible to solve the case with the clues given in the script, which jumps between plot points. We join her ride while recognizing this or that actor on the way. It is visually gorgeous but flimsy, illuminated in crepuscular yellow tones and continuos camera movements. Worth watching once. 

"First Cow" (2019), Kelly Reichardt. Capsule Review

Exemplification of (an attempt) at capitalist originary accumulation. As in "Lone Star" (John Sayles), old remains are discovered in the field and the following is the reason why bones ended in such a place.  The setting is somewhat similar to Lucrecia Marte's "Zama" and its slow and methodical historic reconstruction. This time is post-colonial and filmed in Academy ratio (1.33:1), emphasizing the non-epic nature of the story.  Two migrants in the American Northwest of the early 19th century are trying to make their own fortune.  One has the smarts, the other the qualities of the value-producing artisan. But they lack capital, so they must steal.  Is this their only choice? The tale itself is simple, and after a long and tedious beginning it becomes somewhat engrossing, but the wait makes it inaccessible to the same public that would benefit the most from the understanding of the basic mechanics of capitalism and capital ownership.  It is a shame because there are many beautiful elements in this film, from the authenticity to the great acting. Recommended with reservation.

IMDb link

"Mind Game" (2004), Masaaki Yuasa , Kôji Morimoto

The cliché says that Japan is technologically in the future.  The truth is that the country predicts quite well the social problems that other developed countries will have in a couple of decades. This animated movie was made sixteen years ago and already presents (like many other Japanese films) the crushing alienation of the young undesired man, which, as it is (a modern) tradition, is an aspiring manga illustrator. 

Nishi wants to date his childhood friend, Myon, but their impromptu and random day out is interrupted by the local mafia.  Nishi gets to meet God, and back on Earth he escapes and find himself stranded inside a gigantic whale with Myon.  The question is: should they escape and go back to disappointing reality? 

The prevalent style is animated hyperbole, exaggeration of a situation to the breaking point of attention.  The director brings the viewer to the brink and back, but often falls into overlong indulgence, as with a musical sequence inside the whale representing our characters' isolated happiness.  And in the opposite side I wish that the film would have shown the history of the characters at the end at a lower speed, to better appreciate the history of Japan surrounding them. 

It is still a minor achievement and way more interesting that anything that the corporate artists at Pixar could dream of. 

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0452039/

Capsule review of "El Dorado" (1966), Howard Hawks

Late western with a standard plot, which Howard Hawks uses as a playing sandbox for a variety of themes and genres.  A powerful ranch owner trying to coerce a self-made family of cattle wranglers to sell their water rights. Against him stands a sheriff (Robert Mitchum), a young adventurer (a dashing James Caan), and an old no-nonsense gunslinger (who else but John Wayne). 

There's action and there's comedic relief (including an old fashioned "yellowface" bit). There's drama and also sexyness. Above all, there's paranoia.  Constant paranoia at  every moment, with every movement.  The Wild West is represented by the rule of the gun.  Hollywood is telling contemporary Americans in the 1950s and 1960s that the US is "now" a safe place where upholding the law doesn't require constant shootouts. Scenes are thus full of standing tension, as the adversaries position themselves in space preparing for the inevitable. The sheriff can't wait the official forces of order to reach town, the US Marshall is not coming, men need to fend for themselves. It is truly America. 

It is all very matter of fact, both by the practical men and the surprisingly modern (strikingly beautiful) women, that stand alongside, not below, the men they love, hurt and help. There are lots of Spanish-speaking roles, colors are vibrant but appropriately dusted.

An entertaining time at the movies. Recommended. 

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0061619/

"Me, You and Everybody we know" (2005), "Kajillionaire" (2020), Miranda July.

Miranda July is a multidisciplinary artist known mostly for her quirky movies. 

I can declare that she is the queen of the post-meet-cute scene. The meet-cute is the scene when our protagonist couple see each other for the first time. On the next minutes, they confirm the meeting and the future with a follow up. In "Me and You..." a stretch of street represents a life-long relationship which the characters traverse sharing years with each step. In "Kajillionaire" the entire last third of the movie works as a date culminating in the sight of a cash register panel, posited between the two, signaling forever freedom. It is all very enchanting.  In both cases, the notion of a Manic Pixie Dream Girl (MPDG) saving somebody with her strange manners and aloofness is rapidly dispelled.  July's movies don't have a Zooey Deschanel arquetype. Despite the surrounding weirdness, characters respond like adults would in real life. 

Now, it would be easy to accuse July of being a simple indie hipster, but there are indications that she has grown as an artist and does not belong with the nihilist retro consumerism of gentrified Brooklyn. In her first movie July packs multiple themes intercalated in a short runtime, as if it was the only chance she would had as a filmmaker.  However, "Kajillionaire" shows a mature director that can sustain interest by focusing on romance and family. 

"Me and You" lives entirely in the period between the birth of the popular Internet and the kingdom of smartphones, social media and Tinder, namely 2005. Digital art and the digital world are included as one of the main themes, both in the plots of July trying to make it as an artist (including criticism of the art scene) and young children arranging an online date with an adult through outrageous messages in a desktop computer messaging application.  A Boomer side character tells Julie to just take what it's hers, in this case the possibility of an exhibition in the local art museum.  In "Kajillionaire" angst again this kind of Boomer delusion is expanded into the main problematic of the movie. 

Two more things to add: July creates astounding tension out of thin air, in sequences that belong to a thriller but whose stakes are definitively small.  In "You and Me..." a father forgets a bag with her daughter's fish in the top of his car, and then drives. We are all witness to the impending disaster. Tension soars. In "Kajillionaire" the formal plot centers on a family of small-time crooks, thus it is part of the normal narrrative of heist films.

And finally, sexuality.  The unconventional pairings of "You and me... " include a child and an adult woman, a sexual scene between an early adolescence boy and two developed late adolescence girls, those girls and a young adult man, and the often hidden coupling between two old people in the last years of their lives. Nowadays some of those pairings would put Julie into the league of provocateurs such as Greg Arraki, Gaspar Noé or Todd Solondz.  Seems that 2005 is so close but so far away. 

"Me and You and Everyone We Know" - Recommended. 

"Kajillionaire" - Recommended. 

Bacurau, Never Rarely Sometimes Always, Red Beard. Short reviews.

"Never Rarely Sometimes Always" (2020), Eliza Hittman. 

NRSA is not a fringe hateful right wing political party, but a movie about a serious subject that puts all the fault in humans with a certain distribution of chromosomes in their DNA. Hittman (proper for a hit job on men) films her two characters in close-up for minutes, following their odissey to New York so one of them can get a late abortion. The movie, though, avoids any important controversy.  Is it in favor of abortions for unintended pregnancies or only those that are result of abuse? We don't know.  It remains unclear.  Because the center of the film is hate for men, for all of them. The message of this misandrist piece is "men are evil, always".  It is not even functional as a documentary, because the view remains so entrenched in the girls' faces and bodies that we can't even understand how the locations play in their troubles. Is the bus station far or close? What's their itinerary? Do they go in circles? You see them walking to a clinic with difficulty, when you note a metro stop right there at the door.  Is it because they're  inexperienced or because the director is not really interested in practical matters like script? The biggest question is not about the movie but the world of film criticism.  Why is this universally acclaimed? Fear. 

PD: Good acting by the two girls. 

"Bacurau" (2019), Juliano Dornelles , Kleber Mendonça Filho. 

Thinly veiled Brazilian allegory about American imperialism south of the border.  A minuscule town is being attacked in all fronts and could dissappear. The locals want to fight back.  It is very enjoyable albeit short despite the running time.  The set of notable characters presented are memorable, from the mathriarc's friend (the spectacular Sonia Braga) to the local young bandit/criminal/revolutionary leader.

"Akahige" (Red Beard, 1965), Akira Kurosawa.

Episodic humanist film about a young doctor learning the meaning of his profession from an old mentor in a public clinic in 19th Century Japan. Multiple shots are carefully constructed masterpieces of mise-en-scene, camera movement and lighting, in beautiful black and white. Episodes relate poverty to marriage, family, love and loss, and each one is memorable. There's even an action scene. It sits deep down at the end of the TSPDT list and like all classics it deserves  analysis which is outside of the scope of this short recommendation (I'm writing this in a bus in my way to work). I fear that nowadays this film would be "canceled".

"Space Force" (2020), Steve Carell & Greg Daniels

Greg Daniels' (The Office, Upload) "centrist" ideology shines though all the seams in this series, a thinly veiled attempt at hiding his nationalistic and pro-capitalism views wrapped in the sensibilities of an identity politics Democrat. Steve Carell is in charge of the new Outer Space division of the American military, hijinks ensue.  It is not a satire, because that would entail at least criticism of the establishment.  What we have instead are jokes about the poor and the uneducated, the working class and the fly-over Americans, treated with less respect than a monkey in space.  Coastal snobism is evident, even protecting a Theranos-like mogul from the consequences of her acts.  It's very bingeable though, with short episodes and high production values.