Movies Watched -- Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (2011)

157 minute running time, which I’d normally say is an hour too long, but I loved this movie so it gets a pass. This was even better than The Wild Pear Tree, which led me to this movie (same director). This is a deep movie, very cerebral, 99.99% of the viewing public couldn’t possibly sit through it. It’s a movie only for special people like me and … you?

SPOILERS: Let me explain the ending. The doctor, who represented science and logic and rationality, did not include the fact that the murder victim had been buried alive in the autopsy report because he wanted to spare the child, the murderer’s son, the full truth about his father’s crime. It was horrible enough as it was and didn’t need the added indignity that he had buried a man alive. After a long night and many conversations, he understood that it’s sometimes better to hide the truth. It’s the children who suffer most from their parents’ crimes. People of the present suffer the sins committed by those in the past. Who writes history?

The fleck of blood on the doctor’s cheek represents his being sullied, being stained … he’s human now and making choices which humans make, for good or ill. The last line is: “Doctor, step back a bit, or you’ll get stuff on you.” Too late for that!

The screencap below is of the village mayor’s beautiful teenage daughter who serves them tea and causes each man to stop in wonder and astonishment … it’s a religious moment … she’s like a vision and in fact moves the murderer to hallucinate that his victim is there among them and makes him weep and shortly after confess more details about the crime.

It’s a great, great movie.

The beautiful usually have a bad fortune, doctor.

Movies Watched -- Like Someone in Love (2012)

109 minute running time so about 10 minutes too long … I watched it at 2x fast forward … strange recommendation from John Farr, I didn’t really get it I guess … commentary on contemporary Japanese society from an Iranian director? No one has guns in Japan. You can give it a miss.

A millipede sex joke for grandpa

An Ethnically Bipolar State

From Philip Gourevitch’s interview on Booknotes:

“Hutu and Tutsi, although they're called ethnic groups or tribes or races, they--nobody knows exactly how they came into being as social categories in Rwanda. The difference is that, for our--the entire colonial period, a very strict concept of Tutsis as a superior race and Hutus as an inferior race, this elite minority of Tutsis who lorded it over them--the rest and who essentially harnessed their labor and exploited them as a monarchist class, they became privileged and an almost apartheid-like system was imposed by the Belgians, with identity cards defining your ethnicity.“

With the Wave of a Wand

From Lani Guinier’s interview on Booknotes (sharp cookie, I like everything about her):

“I believe that no one is irredeemably anything, so the claim that white Americans are implacably hostile to black progress is not something that I believe. I certainly have seen parts of this country in which the majority, who is white, have refused to cooperate with the minority, who is black, and have done more than refuse to cooperate. They have deliberately excluded the minority. I had a case in Louisiana in which the black legislators were deliberately excluded from the key reapportionment meeting, and we put members of the Louisiana Senate, staff on the witness stand who, number one, admitted that they had deliberately not invited the black lawmakers, although everyone else who had an interest in the plan had been invited. And then they said the reason that they didn't invite the black lawmakers to this critical meeting is that they knew that they, the black legislators, would not like the outcome. So I have seen instances. People have been even more blatant in their language. In this same case, one of the white legislators was adamant that he did not want to see ‘another nigger big shot’ in Louisiana because ‘they already have one nigger mayor.’ Does he represent all people in Louisiana? No, but he represented a key player in this particular case, and because of his influence I believed race was a factor in the decision as to how to draw the lines in that particular congressional reapportionment.“

Movies Watched -- Darling (1965)

127 minute running time so at least a half hour too long. I’m usually a fan of Schlesinger and this was sort of interesting as a cultural relic, but geez, I wasn’t in the mood for this “satire of jet-set alienation,” as John Farr (recommender) put it. Young Julie Christie does remind me of one of my closest Chinese girlfriends though, same bones.

I don’t take whores in taxis.

Movies Watched -- A Hijacking (2012)

99 minute running time, a good length, but I watched it at 1.5x ffwd since these hijacking / hostage negotiation over the phone movies can be sped up … it’s not a bad movie, but I can’t recommend it, unlike John Farr, who recommended it to me. Søren Malling looks amazing in a well-cut suit while wearing Nazi icBerlin eyeglasses. I don’t regret seeing it, it’s really pretty good, but it’s not a Top 500 movie, won’t make it a green-go.

Hello Omar, how are you?

Movies Watched -- Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)

119 minute running time so at least 20 minutes too long … another lesbian love story from France … mind you, Blue is the Warmest Color was one of my top ten movies from 2013 (and maybe even number one from that year), so I’m not averse to lesbian love stories from France, but I wasn’t into this … a period piece where everything is spanking clean … it didn’t help that the one girl had a really ugly mouth … you can give it a miss.

Aflame

Movies Watched -- The Wild Pear Tree (2019)

188 minutes … I’d usually say that’s about 88 minutes too long, but will make an exception in this case since I liked this one … admittedly I watched it at 1.5x ffwd since it’s in Turkish anyway and I’m reading the subtitles … this is a cerebral movie, not for the masses … it’s funny and sad and sort of maddening, I liked it a lot, can’t exactly say why (something about an alienated poor boy with artistic ambitions, maybe) .. it’s about growing up, and accepting your flawed parents (father specifically), and “coming to terms with one's place in society,“ as one critic wrote. What’s fantasy and what’s reality? A movie to watch again for sure.

This is a green-go, but only for the select few who can handle it intellectually.

I'm dappled and drowsy and ready to go to sleep with you.

H.C. Strider, Horrible Racist

From Christopher Benson’s interview on Booknotes:

“… you had White Citizens Councils throughout Mississippi, who I heard described as the KKK in business suits, who would publish lists of registered voters, and if there were black who had attempted to register, they were fired from their jobs. Their home mortgages were foreclosed on, and they were not allowed to buy feed for seed for planting, if they were farmers. They could not get loans for equipment. They were driven out of business. And there was no forgiveness. Even after they would remove their names from the voter rolls, they still were not allowed to have a livelihood. So it was a horrible state, at that point.

But beyond the economic reprisals, people were actually murdered for attempting to exercise their rights. Just before Emmett arrived in Mississippi, Reverend George Lee, in nearby Belzoni, was murdered. He was an NAACP leader in the state. He was murdered for attempting to register people to vote. There was a major cover-up of his murder. And you know, the sheriff said, Well, it wasn’t a shotgun blast, as everybody had determined, but it was, in fact, a car accident. He was shot as he was driving down the highway. And even though the lead pellets were retrieved, the sheriff denied that that ever happened.”

Movies Watched -- The Souvenir (2019)

119 minute running time so at least half an hour too long … ultimately boring, it’s about a rich British girl who falls for this charming slightly older guy with a repaired harelip who happens to be a heroin addict. Tilda Swinton plays the old mother (she’s always good) and I think the lead actor is her daughter (nepotism is alive and well). She has a nice posh accent and sort of an interesting face, but this movie was no good. John Farr did me dirty by recommending it. You can’t tell what era it’s supposed to be from (it’s the early 80s), so you’re always confused about whether it’s a story in the present or not, no visual clues, pretty maddening and a big mistake. Figures the pretentious asses at Sundance would give it an award. You can give it a miss.

Dick Brody once again the only mainstream critic willing to write the truth:  “In the end, ‘The Souvenir’ is a movie about experience that doesn’t itself offer much of an experience.”

Can I borrow a tenner?