My 2024 Watchlist Obsession!

I stand back, and look at La Commune (Paris, 1871) with one hell of a lot of admiration and respect. This isn't a movie that's different for the sake of being different - it's eccentricities yield concrete results for both the casual viewer and those who might want to analyse it with more thoroughness. The hard part is the fact that this has a running time of 345 minutes - but more about it's length later. This is about a moment in French history when revolutionaries set up their own government in Paris during the Franco-Prussian war, and were put down by the French Army despite their Commune being defended by the National Guard. But more than that, this film is about revolution as a whole, as well as economics in our current age and world politics. The events aren't filmed as they normally would be - we're given a tour of the set before everything commences, and are introduced to some of the actors who talk about their characters. Then, when the story does commence, performers often stop to explain how their characters are feeling, or else about how the actors themselves are feeling about anything they may wish to express during peak moments of tension or emotion. It's all a very free-form process where there is no fourth wall anymore, with both real world and imaginary world bleeding into each other.

Another difference you'll find in the Paris of 1871 is that in this version television and the media exist as they do today. No other modern technologies or differences are apparent but that - so we get to see news broadcasts and television interviews during the months of revolution in Franco-Prussian-war era Paris. A large portion of the film is devoted to on-the-street interviews - and Watkins has hundreds of actors at his disposal here all playing their parts. Throughout the film we get regular intertitles that explain in detail all of the events as they transpire - something I really appreciate, because that makes it much easier to follow proceedings. They impart much information, and it means the actors don't have to constantly worry about exposition - they can simply get on with playing their roles. Many of these roles consist of people attending committees and meetings where passionate revolutionaries debate about what actions to take, but there are also convent schoolgirls, wealthy older ladies who are against the Commune, soldiers from the National Guard and historical figures like French President Adolphe Thiers (played by Jean Giacinti). Everyone plays their part as if this is all 100% real while at the same time free to express themselves in any way they see fit and make comparisons to today's world. It's as if two worlds have fused together into one.

So this one requires stamina to a certain degree - (but it's by no means the longest film made by Peter Watkins - that would be Resan, which tops the list of "longest non-experimental movies in history" at 873 minutes.) I could have watched the "short version" of La Commune, the theatrical cut, but even that goes for 220 minutes. Watching, we can see how the revolutionaries frequently shoot themselves in the feet - often making conditions for the poor even worse than they were before, seeing wages continually cut as they try to do too much too quickly and lose sight of the bigger picture. They waste time debating, and their debates are never filtered - there should be a process where ideas can be seconded, voted on and then implemented into real-world action. Instead, energy and time is wasted. When the French troops do eventually arrive, despite having months, they catch the National Guard flat-footed and unprepared. While many revolutionaries are happy to give their lives for the cause, the civil war ramps up until terrible atrocities occur - monstrous even by today's standards. Throughout Watkins manages to glean what's pertinent for today's world, perhaps in the hopes he can wake people up from their slumber. Some historians think much of what's rotten with today's system of governance and finance started in Paris, 1871. I don't know about that - but I do know that this is an insane movie-making feat that does something profound to both filmmaker and spectator.

Glad to catch this one - Michael Atkinson of The Village Voice listed this as the #1 film made since 2000. It holds a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch La Commune (Paris, 1871)

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Why couldn’t the British play the British? How very odd.

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I’m here only on Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays. That’s why I’m here now.

I probably understate the importance of a film's score in many of the reviews I write - but it's impossible to overstate the importance of Irène Drésel's pulsating, heart-pounding electronic musical accompaniment to the action in Eric Gravel's Full Time. Without it, I don't think we'd be fully in tune with our protagonist's mental state. She's Julie Roy (Laure Calamy) - a single mother with two overactive little dervishes who lives a high-pressure life, her career, menial job, parenting and social life precariously balanced and in constant threat of careening out of control into outright destruction. She works as a head maid at a serious 5-star hotel for demanding, wealthy clients which requires a lengthy commute each day, but is secretly slipping out for job interviews in the hopes of restarting her serious marketing vocation. Juggling that with raising children is not for the faint-hearted, but when transport strikes hit Paris she finds that getting to and from work while also slipping out for interviews and not completely betraying her overworked nanny - all the while trying to chase up critical alimony payments from an non-communicative ex-husband - is setting the stage for the utter disintegration of everything she's worked so hard for. Facing the prospect of losing everything, Julie has to fight on any way she can and hope that her fortunes don't destroy her altogether. Amongst all the trouble and turmoil, she has to carry on and host her kid's birthday party as if nothing at all is amiss - another stress to add to an almost impossible load as her funds run out.

Sheez. Modern life is completely stupid - the pressures so psychologically draining. I find that most of the people I know hover on the brink of complete financial ruin as if that's the natural state of modern man. These days it takes two incomes to support a family, which means if there's kids then parenting and housework are an added pressure to people who are out burning up all their energy working. Don't even think about losing that job - you might never find another one. Don't even think of moving - rents are sky high, vacancy rates are near zero, and if you're paying off a mortgage than may God have mercy on your soul. Nobody is holding the power company to account for increasing the cost of electricity to absurd levels, and the same goes for the supermarkets who find it necessary to do much less competing with each other so prices can be fixed at nice high ranges. The car that's so essential to all of your life's crucial pursuits costs a king's ransom to run and keep legal as petrol prices skyrocket, and don't forget your phone and internet bill. All of this is why just about all of us can relate to Julie Roy and her battle to just keep it all together without crashing her life into a reef and sinking - being a parent, working a demanding job and simply looking after all the critical elements of her existence. It'd be interesting if a test group could watch this film while doctors monitor their stress levels! I bet they'd go through the roof. As mentioned earlier - the pounding score gives this all a rapid, fight-or-flight level heartbeat of it's own.

Laure Calamy's performance is extremely praiseworthy as well - every emotion writ large on her very expressive facial features. She reminds me of someone I know and kind of regret not keeping in touch with. I found the work maids have to do in 5 star hotels fascinating - there's an exactitude and perfection required that is up at obsessive compulsive levels, and as you can imagine it's the perfect job for Éric Gravel to give the heroine in this story. It ups the pressure by giving her an extremely demanding menial job. He also gives her two of the loudest, most obnoxious kids possible - although they're cute and not monsters, just hard to deal with. Julie's nanny is always on the verge of quitting, and as with her job she's never able to keep her appointments or promises as far as she's concerned. It all makes for an extremely tense and exciting movie - although I kept wondering why Julie had money troubles considering the fact that she had a pretty good job. A hint at some kind of issue would have quelled that constant irking question that kept bothering me. I mean, it didn't look like she lived an extravagant life or had any other avenue that would burn up large amounts of cash - and she even used public transport. I do get it though - from what I learn in movies along with what I hear in the news, life in Paris is expensive. I don't think this is a film I could watch multiple times - but for a one-off it is particularly excellent and timely.

Glad to catch this one - it won a couple of César Awards in '23 - one for Irène Drésel's music (go figure) and the other for Best Editing. Full Time also snagged the Best Director Award and Best Actress for Laure Calamy at the Venice Film Festival. Nice.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Full Time

⬆️☑️☑️☑️ LOVED THIS MOVIE

First love can be a one of the largest deflection points of our lives depending on how it goes, and I don't envy those who happen to land on some kind of "forbidden" romance. Religion often plays a part in this, and it complicates the matter in more ways than one - which is what You Can Live Forever shows us in it's telling and emotionally searing way. Young Jaime (Anwen O'Driscoll) has just lost her father, and has ended up living with her aunt Beth (Liane Balaban) and uncle Jean-François (Antoine Yared) - who just happens to be a devout Jehovah's Witness. Invited to a meeting of the local congregation, Jaime attracts the eye of the daughter of congregation leader Frank (Tim Campbell). Her name is Marike (June Laporte), she's a true believer and the two share a hot and heavy kind of chemistry that's like a humid, overcast day when thunderstorms are forecast. Jaime also finds a firm friend in Nate (Hasani Freeman) - someone she can relate to on a more normal wavelength, because the world of Jehovah's Witnesses is one of head-spinning rules and restrictions. As Jaime's aunt and uncle start to become concerned with the time alone she spends with Marike, life becomes a dizzying, intoxicating paradise just waiting for two terribly different worlds to collide.

So, yeah. It would be hard enough navigating being gay as far as parents are concerned, but to be part of a somewhat cult-like organisation, with parents like Marike's, I doubt if life would ever be completely okay. My parents sighed with relief that I wasn't gay when I first brought a girl home, and even that reaction was disappointing for me, because they basically let it be known they were at least a little homophobic. What if I had of been gay? Sometimes it's not easy to just say "leave your parents" or "run away" - and when a person believes like Marike does, the whole situation becomes even more complicated. I loved the way You Can Live Forever explored the complexity of family, belief, sexuality and teenage love by mixing so many different elements together and not veering too far into outright melodrama but keeping a steady hand on the wheel. I loved the way it explicitly and patiently showed that see-saw of confusion and uncertainty that often accompanies falling in love at such a young age, and gave it all plenty of time to breath. By the time the film ends you'll have a much clearer picture of our two characters and a deep sense of sadness in general - it glides home like poetry.

Co-director Sarah Watts, who also co-wrote, grew up in a Jehovah's Witness community, so she has first-hand knowledge of the kind of life that can lead to, and the kind of beliefs you either adopt, struggle with or reject. I'll bank on the fact that nobody reading this is one when I say that they're completely ridiculous, and that nobody in their right minds would ever simply adopt these beliefs - but you can instill this belief in children if you bring them up with no alternate beliefs or alternatives. It makes for an interesting situation in a film of this sort however, with a non-believer kind of invited inside a community because of a family tragedy. A great source of conflict - in every single direction you take the narrative. The young performers here really acquit themselves well, and don't overdo anything - a temptation for a drama involving such heightened emotions. Not many of the actors in this are established cinematically, but that often makes for a much more genuine and carefree presentation of real life. Overall it hits a similar tone to Never Rarely Sometimes Always in that regard - and if I'm mentioning a film in comparison with that great 2020s release, then it has for sure done something particularly well. I thought it was an excellent feature.

Glad to catch this one - won best film at the LGBT+ Film Festival in Grenoble, while it's directors were nominated for Best Direction at the Canadian Guild Awards.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch You Can Live Forever

Quentin Tarantino would probably like Sisu, and although the dialogue doesn't quite match up, this is a very Tarantino-ish movie. It's an action film set in Finland suring the Second World War, but gets very cartoonish, and won't please you if you're hoping for any kind of realism. It is, of course, ultra-violent, with people getting squished, blown up, stabbed, shot, strangled, drowned and hanged. Our protagonist is Aatami Korpi (Jorma Tommila), a crack commando who has retired from the forces having had enough of war. We meet him searching for gold, which he duly finds, but a platoon of Waffen SS soldiers retreating from Finland cross paths with him - and when they try to steal his gold all hell breaks loose. During Russia's invasion of Finland the Red Army ended up giving Korpi the moniker of "Koshchei" - which means "the immortal", but what really keeps him going is the Finnish concept of "sisu", which has no English translation, but means stoic determination, tenacity of purpose, grit, bravery, resilience, and hardiness. In other words, Korpi never gives up and simply refuses to die - his resolve stronger than the Grim Reaper and his ability to kill greater than the Nazis at first realise. When naked, you can't help but notice that this guy has received cuts and wounds you'd only ever expect to find on a corpse after an autopsy has been performed.

The bad guys in this are exceedingly bad - and fair enough, since they're Waffen SS. Just like in Come and See, the platoon has it's own rape van which is transporting a group of half a dozen Finnish women for use as sex slaves and hostages. The men are literally filthy, fed up, scarred, burned, jaded and brutal. Sisu's make-up artists have really put a lot of work into making them look real, but any sense of realism eventually slips away once the action starts in this movie - and that's not necessarily a criticism. It's just a personal preference for me regarding action films that they be more realistic than silly - especially when they concern war. There are moments in Sisu that are blatantly impossible, and the movie doesn't really set itself up as being so frivolous when it first starts, but slowly sinks to that level. I might be overstating that a little - nobody screws their head back on or keeps walking around when they're flat as a pancake - but it was still an issue for me. Surviving because of skill is one thing, but surviving despite taking horrible injury after injury and walking away from incidents that would kill an elephant feels like cheating sometimes. "How did he survive that?" There's no clever answer - he just did. Korpi belongs to that group of immortal beings that include the likes of Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees - except in this case he's only a monster if you're a Nazi.

All that said, Jalmari Helander manages to give his film a fascinating look that often combines utter destruction with surreal beauty. There are some shots in this I'd like to frame and put up on display, they look so nice. The Finnish landscape at different times of the day/ dusk and at night can be magical despite the grittiness concerning the narrative and our characters - and I enjoyed that part of Sisu immensely. At one stage Korpi happens upon a village burned by the Nazis due to their "scorched Earth" policy when retreating from the Soviets and Finns, and the fires are at their peak - a vision that goes beyond what you might think hell would be like. The dialogue is something of a weak spot - and for a great part of the movie belongs solely to the Nazis. Korpi never speaks until the last scene of the film. This movie depends on it's action and look, and the action belongs to the new John Wick school of stylised violence - fast, exacting, inventive and brutal while being a step above what you'd consider a real fight would look like. I'd imagine a very mixed response from audiences depending on taste, and I could easily understand why some people might dislike it while others love it. It caters to a particular audience - and while I was absolutely entertained I do question some of it's more extreme, over the top tendencies.

Glad to catch this one - picked up Best International Film at the Saturns Awards in 2024. The great cinematography from Kjell Lagerroos won at the Jussi Awards and Sitges Film Festival in Spain.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Sisu

I have to keep reminding myself that Mark Lewis (Karlheinz Böhm) is a serial killer, because Peeping Tom isn't the kind of film that's going to relegate him to the role of villain or monster. It has other things it wants to do, and as such isn't anything like a slasher or regular horror movie. We meet our main character as he's in the process of stalking and murdering his first victim (or the first that we're privy to), so at first everything seems clear cut - but as we spend more time with him and he interacts with downstairs neighbour Helen Stephens (Anna Massey) we learn much more about him. Mark and Helen seem very sweet on each other, and what complicates Mark's character is that we see how he has the capacity to love, be kind and respect others. His killing is a project born from childhood trauma, but outside of this he holds down several jobs - he's a photographer for local newsagent (and pornographer) Mr. Peters (Bartlett Mullins), however his main job is as focus puller on a film crew. He's shy, hesitant to speak and eccentric - and despite the fact that he is pretty much insane, he's not silly insane. That's what makes it all the more painful that he's doing what he's doing.

Director Michael Powell was obviously one of the more brilliant and intelligent filmmakers of his generation, and Peeping Tom comes heavily laden with tons of subtext and meaning. Nearly every single time we get one of these films about voyeurism, cameras and such we're (the audience) implicated and become part of the film's aura ourselves. Films can't exist without an audience (if a tree falls in a forest and nobody is there, does it make a sound?) It's something we rarely question ourselves about - why do we keep wanting to sit down so we can watch other people play out private moments, or at times see people murdered, scared, hurt etc.? Is there something intrinsically wrong with that? Is there something inside all of us that makes us willing Peeping Toms? It's fun to reflect on just how curious Helen and her blind mother (played by Maxine Audley) are with what Mark films in his private moments - they probably aren't expecting snuff films, but is their curiosity not at all morbid? Helen stays keen on Mark even after she's presented with one of his father's films, which consists of him experimenting on his own son using various methods to provoke fear in him.

Whatever the meaning, I grew to really like Mark, which didn't sit right with me because of what he's doing murder-wise. We just spend so much time with him and he seems so nice! I mean, you can sense something is off about him, but he's so polite, well-meaning, introspective and even handsome. He just needs to see something on his projector screen - and that's where Peeping Tom merges with what's less sanguine about our need to be voyeurs. Our more prurient desires that open up marketplaces for societies ills writ large and repeated endlessly on screens all around the world. That schism which exists in Mark made this film a challenge for audiences in 1960 to accept, and was really way, way ahead of it's time. With the advent of the internet all doors were unlocked (there's a running theme about keys and locked doors in the film) and flung open - society has changed so much as to be unrecognizable to the world of 1960, and Peeping Tom is now a cult classic, revered by film scholars and cinephiles. It's the kind of movie ripe for endless analysis and also one that's hard to classify as horror or thriller - a psychologically complex and searching story about observation and the dichotomy between what we see on a screen and what's real in the moment.

Glad to catch this one - Criterion #58 and in Steven Jay Schneider's 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die. Also named the 78th greatest British film of all time by the British Film Institute.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Peeping Tom

Peeping Tom is pretty great. Nothing new for the genre. Just an incredibly well-done film which often gets left out of the discussion since Psycho from the same year overshadows it completely in popularity.

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Daniel (Bartosz Bielenia) is a vibrant, resourceful and determined young man - 20 years of age and a wide-eyed force of nature. He's a drinker, he's a drug-taker, he's a fornicator, he's a fighter - and he's finishing a stint in a juvenile detention center. What makes Daniel even more different than he already seems is his passionate yearning to become a priest - a vocation now beyond his reach due to the fact that he has a conviction against his name. He's obsessive about his Catholicism - but his mentor, Father Tomasz (Łukasz Simlat), wishes he'd be more focused on arriving in time to his probationary-period employment at the local sawmill in a distant Polish village. On his way there, Daniel stops in at the local church, drawn there, and can't help but cheekily tell the girl sitting just in front of him, Marta Sosińska (Eliza Rycembel), that he's a priest. This lie will eventually lead to Daniel taking over from the current old priest of the village who needs time away for a medical evaluation - and he'll be holding sermons, taking confession and doing all of the duties a real priest actually does. Nobody has a clue that he's not one. Slowly, Daniel becomes embroiled in the village's recent tragedy -the loss of 7 lives, where one man has been unfairly blamed and the man's wife ostracized and bullied - an injustice he can't let stand, despite the fact it might be something that blows up in his face.

What's right and what's wrong might be clear once all facts have been determined, but in this world both emotion and politics can twist everything so completely that all is clouded over and over again. Daniel comes up against the local mayor, who has all of the power - never mind if the young man is right or wrong. Daniel also comes up against the grieving relatives of those lost, who in their torment cannot bear to consider if their rage is misdirected - never mind if the young man is right or wrong. The whole matter becomes so engrossing that only occasionally do we again become aware that - "oh hell - this guy isn't really a priest", and that's one big bomb sitting there waiting to go off. What's frustrating though is that Daniel is a superb priest - probably even more suited to being one having seen many of the darker sides of human nature first hand. He takes his role super seriously, and loves the position so much he doesn't take advantage of all the free booze that comes his way by dint of who he now is - instead throwing himself wholeheartedly into bettering the community, and connecting with all of his parishioners. Can he last out his time before it's discovered that he was only pretending to have been ordained?

Based on a true story this one - although I have no idea how illuminative or illustrative the real-life events were. The characters in Corpus Christi did behave how real people often behave though - especially Marta's mother Lidia (Aleksandra Konieczna), who is disdainful of Daniel mostly because of his age, and refuses to see any other alternative to her grief other than what her preconceived notions will allow her to. A look and a sigh can say so much. In the meantime Bartosz Bielenia is electric and an actor with real talent because it's hard to fake the kind of belief, passion and enlightened fervor Daniel displays in the movie - while also willing to take detours into being sexual, getting high, and being downright mean. The movie really rests on his young shoulders. There's one other cool thing about this movie that really resonated with me - it was directed at (by being set in) the politically conservative right-wing portion of Poland, where certain brotherly and forgiving aspects of Christianity get payed lip-service to by older priests who go through the motions. It takes an odd interloper to show up the status quo. Very good movie this - it has a lot to say and does so in a wonderfully indirect way, while telling an interesting story nonetheless.

Glad to catch this one - nominated for Best International Feature Film Academy Award at the 2020 Oscars (the year Parasite won.) Also won 11 awards at the 22nd Polish Film Awards, including Best Film.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Corpus Christi

I LOVED Corpus Cristi (thoughts HERE).

I was watching an interview that a young Polish YouTuber was doing with Jim Cummings, and Cummings said his favorite film of the year was from Poland, which was the first time I'd heard of the movie.

It was such a pleasant surprise. I hope more people check it out.

Where has Straight Time been all these years? I remember once, as a kid, seeing a scene from this film. It's the scene where recently paroled Max Dembo (Dustin Hoffman), who has just been put through the ringer in a harsh and dehumanizing way, is travelling in a car with his parole officer Earl Frank (M. Emmet Walsh). In a fit of fury Max commandeers the car, drags Earl out and handcuffs him to a fence next to a highway only to then pull his pants down and leave him stranded. That scene (and I remember just catching it, but not seeing the whole film) has been stuck in my mind for years and years. The only problem was, for most of that time, I've been thinking that the actor playing Dembo was Jack Nicholson. A misconception has been put right. Anyway, this is a searing tale about how hard the system makes it for criminals to go straight in the United States. Once out of prison, parole conditions can be severely restrictive and humiliating, jobs impossible to get, old friends forbidden and any semblance of pride or dignity ground down into dust. Dembo tries hard to go straight - he gets a job at a cannery, his own place, a girlfriend (Jenny Mercer - played by Theresa Russell), and he plays everything straight with parole officer Frank. It's Earl Frank though who jumps on a minor transgression, sending this film careening over the edge into a very dark place indeed.

Honestly though, I wasn't on Dembo's side in this film. As much as I'd like to be a rebel, I'm afraid I have to admit to being a (probably overly) conscientious rule-follower. Max has just finished a 6-year prison sentence - but he's not free and clear yet. He should be more careful. Is Frank too overbearingly strict though? Maybe, maybe not. Where Frank does go wrong though is in taking away Dembo's dignity at every opportunity, humiliating him and treating him like he's a child, goading him, teasing him and in the end burning him. Dembo is so isolated and alone in his new world on the outside that the temptation proves too much when it comes to calling an old friend - obviously strictly prohibited. Meet Willy Darin (Gary Busey), his young son Henry (Jake Busey) and wife Selma (a young Kathy Bates). Later on we meet another friend of Dembo's who is going straight - Jerry Schue (Harry Dean Stanton). There's something terribly amiss in the straight world for these characters. The lack of excitement. The daily grind, where you're always under someone's thumb. All of the rules and regulations which stop an enterprising person from getting anywhere. The lack of the kind of camaraderie you get when you're undertaking a criminal enterprise. In some ways, for these people straight time is worse than prison.

In Straight Time Dustin Hoffman proved that he could play the other extreme to his Benjamin Braddock character in The Graduate - he's completely convincing as the hard-edged, dangerous and very masculine Max Dembo. We're cheering him on at first, and I guess it's up to the individual viewer as to whether they're still with him by the time the film ends. Did society not cut him enough breaks? Or does he genuinely want to go back to jail - a place he wistfully describes as one that provides it's inmates with a degree of certainty in their lives? That the film manages to explore so much of the issues concerning criminality, the justice system, the dehumanization of that system when it deals with criminals and so much else makes it a standout feature no doubt. It gets right in there - and obviously none of the actors here let us down. There are a few brutal body-blows and a final image that's going to stick with me (reminding me a little of the end to The 400 Blows.) Oh, and very notably this not only features a short cameo performance from Eddie Bunker, but it's based on his novel - No Beast So Fierce. That only adds to the feeling of authenticity that girds and strengthens the film's shape and tone. It deserves a much bigger presence than it currently has.

Glad to catch this one - the critics lauded this film but interestingly the creative control Dustin Hoffman had (he was originally slated to direct and have final cut) led to the film coming in over-time and over-budget. The studio took control, Hoffman sued the studio and the bad press meant this wasn't as big a hit as it should have been.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Straight Time

Straight Time is really great and underseen. That it takes its sweet time to get going ultimately works in its favor since it manages to trick us into sympathizing with Max, only for his true colors to gradually reveal themselves in the second half.

Straight Time is amazing, but I haven't seen it in years. Is it streaming anywhere?

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All over the place. Amazon, Apple, YouTube and Google being the more standard kind of places where it's available.

OK, sorry I guess I was thinking without paying additional charges. I have Criterion, Netflix, and Amazon Prime. It is on youtube and apple but costs and it's not streaming on Prime. Thank you though!

They have the DVD on the shelf in my library district... which helps you not at all. But that might be a local source worth checking on.

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Honestly, I think Hoffman was a better actor than DeNiro or Pacino.

Excellent three-part documentary for film nerds this - a comprehensive account of what five famous filmmakers went through when they joined up after America became embroiled in the Second World War. It all adds up to 195 minutes of history mixed with a recounting of the personal lives of John Ford, William Wyler, John Huston, Frank Capra, and George Stevens - five of the most prominent directors of their day, who would go on to make propaganda films and documentaries as well as compiling a visual record of the brutal conflict. Their tales almost feel like fictional creations, such is the drama, suspense and general arc of their experiences. Ford - the gruff and most rough of the five was a self-admitted coward, but put himself directly in harms way. He was sent home after his experiences during D-Day broke him. Wyler was rendered deaf while filming Thunderbolt! - he only ever recovered partial hearing in one of his ears. Many of Huston's films ended up being censored despite his determined efforts to portray war as it truly was. Capra's Why We Fight documentaries are still famous today, but less so are the likes of Know Your Enemy, which portrayed the Japanese in such a negative light that it was deemed as going too far, and never saw release - in any case, the war was nearly over. Stevens helped prepare Holocaust footage for the Nuremberg trials - he directed comedies before the war, but in the years after never made another comedy again.

Something that really struck me here is how these filmmakers made some of the greatest films of all time upon returning home after the war. Wyler came out swinging with The Best Years of Our Lives, which swept the Oscars the following year. For Huston it was The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, if you don't count the excellent documentary Let There Be Light, which was controversial and ended up being banned and not released until the 1980s. In the meantime Frank Capra ended up making his much-revered classic It's a Wonderful Life. I don't know whether these men made such enduring classics because of what they'd been through or simply because their domestic output had been stifled for so many years that they'd all been refining ideas in their minds all this time. Added together, these five have made so many films that I love that I really don't have room enough to mention them all in this review. It's a little astonishing that they were all at the front lines during America's fight against the Nazis and Imperial Japan. Five Came Back gives us more than their personal stories though - it includes a general background on propaganda films in general, and how the Americans were awe-struck by the Nazis ability at this (Leni Riefenstahl gets a special mention) and how they learned from what the British were doing before they really got their footing. The initial films from these guys fell way short of the mark, and many were flops.

So, all of what we learn is really interesting - doubly so for me, because I love history in general and of course I'm a film lover. Narrating is Meryl Streep, and at first this struck me as odd, but from the very beginning her voice is somehow a natural fit for what we're seeing - so much so that you soon forget it's her doing the talking. She ended up winning a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Narration. The various talking heads include many current-day filmmakers of note, and that includes Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, Guillermo del Toro, Lawrence Kasdan and Paul Greengrass. Jeremy Turner's score is so damn good it's something I could listen to apart from the film itself - especially if I needed some kind of inspiration, with it's heart-pounding, stirring force and presence. Loved the music. I came away from Five Came Back thoroughly entertained and more knowledgeable about these filmmakers, and that's what I call value for money (especially because this is a Netflix film so basically didn't cost me anything.) It gave me perspective on a number of movies that I otherwise didn't have as much context for, and that I think will make seeing them all the more enjoyable, as I'll understand them more. I might actually look into getting myself a copy of the Mark Harris book of the same title, to fill in even more of the picture. Really strong presentation all-up, with few weak spots - and definitely recommended.

Glad to catch this one - apart from Streep's win, composer Jeremy Turner was also nominated for an Outstanding Music Composition Emmy Award, very deservedly. (Jeff Russo won that year for his work on the series Fargo.)




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Five Came Back

I loved Five Came Back and recommend it whenever documentaries come up. It's fascinating to see how the different men interpreted their traumatic experiences into their films. It's also shocking to see some of the footage they shot during the war: the part where the men are hosing blood and gore off of the deck of a ship, or the part where a man clearly having a breakdown is trying not to be too vulnerable even though what he clearly needs is to have a good cry.

Being a big fan of Christopher Abbott's talented range and ready for more Margaret Qualley after her breakout role in The Substance, I was of course interested in what Zachary Wigon and Micah Bloomberg's Sanctuary had to offer - but this is one I should have been really excited about. It is true that I happen to love movies like 1972 thriller Sleuth - two characters alone during a psychologically intense situation really do it for me, and while that Joseph L. Mankiewicz classic was based on a play, I'm surprised to learn that Sanctuary wasn't. Not that it matters at all - this intense psychosexual deep dive into the dynamics of a professional relationship between Hotel magnate Hal Porterfield (Abbott) and top-rate dominatrix for hire Rebecca Marin (Qualley) does a lot with the limited space it has to work with, but would be just as compelling as a radio play or even novella. The bonus is just how well Abbott brings to life the powerful but weak-willed and uncertain heir to a Donald Trump-like dynasty and Qualley equally shines as the psychologically astute game-player who is all-in for a reason we can't quite fully discern. Does this woman want money, or Porterfield? Or is this all just a complex consensual game?

I thought I had a firm handle on what Sanctuary was going to throw down as it's final card, but I was pleasantly surprised to have been proved wrong in that this film isn't so intent on tricking us with some clever twist. Instead the intensity of the experience is simply set to reveal layer underneath psychological layer concerning the two characters in it. Here we have on the very surface a masculine and feminine person who defy all gender expectations as soon as we start digging under the surface. It doesn't take too long to start that digging, but it also doesn't take long for what we'd consider more "normal" gender roles to start imposing themselves on what is meant to be a professional relationship - and this dichotomy, mixed with normal human emotions, large sums of money, mistrust, the nature of the game these two play and all the other elements which make up this strange relationship is set to cause some highly charged, unusual drama for us to watch as Porterfield tries to put an end to his and Marin's role-playing sessions so he can concentrate on succeeding his father after the "win at all costs" Porterfield Snr's death. The two often veer into extremely dangerous territory as Porterfield's hotel room starts to resemble a battlefield.

It was the ending that sealed the deal for me - in every regard. It happened to be a confirmation of all what I hoped this movie might have really been about, and I hope my wishes remain vague enough for that to not be a spoiler. I have to emphasise again - Abbott and Qualley are so good in this, and although the film isn't at all sexually explicit in it's imagery, there are of course a truckload of personal revelations which unveil the utter peculiarity concerning Porterfield's likes and mores - hence the fact that he hires this dominatrix to play out his bizarre fantasies and needs - something I find hard to contemplate when imagining myself as an actor. There'd be an urge to play that in a comical way - as pure farce, instead of opening up and becoming as vulnerable as his character is. It's a tough role, and so is Qualley's - for she's a master seductress, and as Porterfield keeps saying, "very good at what she does" - a role that needs the kind of perfecting that any actor needs when portraying a talented professional of some particular field. From my perspective, she aced the part of Rebecca Marin - crucial for the film to work. Anyway - this would make an interesting double feature with Dogs Don't Wear Pants, and I mean that as the highest praise.

Glad to catch this one - nominated for the Knight Marimbas Award at the 40th Annual Miami Film Festival - only 6.2/10 on the IMDb, with which I've become increasingly distant considering what gets good ratings there.




Thank you very much to whomever inspired me to watch Sanctuary