Suspicion (1941)

*may contain mild spoilers*

Second viewing; first seen between 1983 and 1986.

After a brief courting period, woman gets married to a playboy, only to find out he is not what she expected. As time passes, she comes to harbor terrible suspicions about him.

Narrative works dealing with doubt about a character tend to be fairly interesting. The object of that doubt usually expresses a prevailing concern of the audience at the time of the production of said work. For example, there is the late 19th-century novel Dom Casmurro, by Machado de Assis, about a suspected adultery that is kept unresolved (although some argue otherwise). Recently there was the film Doubt, about sexual abuse (not an extremely successful film, though). Regarding Suspicion, many viewers were left deeply dissatisfied with its resolution; some, however, see its ending as an open one, and I tend to align with them. The dramatic strength of Suspicion resides in the careful building up of a monstrous possibility. You may call it suspense if you like, but I was more interested in what the male protagonist was than in what the female protagonist would suffer. Although the ending appears to deflate our fears, a doubt persists, and, whatever the case is, one might ask oneself whether the relationship between the protagonist couple can ever return to its initial purity. The questions posed by the narrative are not as simple as they may appear on superficial analysis. There are several angles from which one might look at it. The wife's angle is mainly structured on the decision to marry someone, and, later, on the decision to leave one's husband. Also, there is a generic value problem which questions whether it is licit to establish a correlation between lax morals on issues like work and domestic finance to the capability to murder someone. There is a case to be made that these are merely accessory narrative devices that allow one to expose a more fundamental human question, summed up in an exchange at the dinner sequence at a mystery writer's house ("Do you suppose those murderers are happy, Johnny?/I don't know, dear. I don't see why they shouldn't be."). I believe this is the real dramatic core of the movie, the possibility of completely immoral behavior, which translates into the most absolute egotism. Can happiness stem from such a position? This is a modest yet interesting, well-made film.

Rating: 61 (up from 54)

The Set-Up (1949)

*contains spoilers, sort of*

Second viewing, probably. Previously seen between 1983 and 1986.

A boxing manager fixes a fight but does not tell it to his fighter so he does not have to share his fee with him (he thinks he will lose anyway). Things do not go as planned though.

Interesting film, with a good premise and a picturesque depiction of night-time city streets and of a boxing gymnasium before and during a fight. It seems no one has understood it, from the reviews I read. The major point of the film is a demonstration of the concept expressed in "in the heat of the battle". Simply put, it remains indeterminate whether the protagonist would or would not have thrown the fight had he been warned in advance. We know only that he did not throw it after having been notified of it at midfight. On the contrary, he seems to have fought even harder after that point, despite probably being aware of the tremendous risk he was taking. Fact is, his emotions spoke louder. The bottom line, a person's reaction to a stimulus is highly dependent on the conditions under which he receives it. The incidental elements and characters of the movie offer a complement to that central analysis, depicting several instances of emotional behavior and human apparent irrationality.

Rating: 65 (unchanged)

Clear History (2013)

After becoming financially ruined due to an impulsive decision, man moves to a small island city bearing a new physical appearance and a new name. His past, however, eventually revisits him in the person of his old partner, now a billionaire.

Moderately interesting collection of observations about human behavior in matters of money, sex, race, and electrical outlet placement, displaying the apparently irrational -- yet fairly typical -- component of that behavior. Not exactly great, but it carried me through it painlessly.

Rating: 53

Gloria (1999)

A woman who has just been released on parole pays a visit to her former boyfriend, right after the latter has ordered the execution of an entire family and got stuck with a boy of seven as the sole survivor of the massacre.

I cannot fathom the reason why they had to remake the 1980 film. And, unless I am severely deluded, they set it in the same era as the first, which is puzzling also. Anyway, I disliked this remake, and am beginning to have doubts whether the original was as good as I thought. I remember when I was a University student in the 1980s and for a very brief period (of approximately two weeks) was part of a group of students who showed films on campus (on video, I think), and I suggested the 1980 Gloria, against a colleague who suggested Rollerball. I won, chiefly because my pick had been easier to find, and after the exhibition this colleague (I do not remember his name, and barely knew him) called the film "cretinous", probably intending it to be heard by me. I am wondering now whether he was right after all. Anyway, what is obvious and nearly everybody has noticed is the lack of energy of this 1999 film. What is perhaps less obvious, and probably applies to the 1980 film as well, is that this is a curious case of liberal propaganda. It tries to pass off its protagonist's motivations as a belated case of motherhood instinct, which is a concept with universal appeal, including (and perhaps especially) among conservatives. But in the movie this motivation is very unconvincing, and might be seen as a flimsy disguise for its liberal message of whites taking care of "the other". If the film had taken a different turn at its midpoint, it might had made the excellent point that people who are in trouble should take care of themselves first. But that would be deemed insensitive, I guess.

Rating: 32

Red Rock West (1993)

*contains implicit spoilers*
 
Second viewing; first seen on February 13, 1994.

A penniless ex-military is looking for a job in a small town and comes across a risky way of getting rich when he is mistaken for a hired killer.

Neo-noir which at face level simply reworks a known formula. An alternative and admittedly wilder take on it might place it as a radical reworking of The Mechanic (1972). Whereas in that movie we see a young man going through the explicit apprenticeship process as a contract killer, here this process is subconscious and involuntary, and its very existence may be put into question depending on how one construes the film and its ending, and speculates about what follows it. The fact that both the 'Lyle' character and the protagonist are ex-marines is a hint that their interaction should entail consequences on the latter character that the film never openly shows. Furthermore, the structure of the film consists of constrasting a moral person with an immoral environment. After being exposed to Greed as personified in the corrupt sheriff and his wife, the hit man may have come off as a relatively more honest human being. At any rate, this is a very entertaining film which never lets the viewer down.

Rating: 71 (up from 69)

King Kong (1933)

Probably seen twice before; my latest previous viewing happened between 1983 and 1986.

A film crew and cast travel (by ship) to a remote island, where a fearful creature is said to inhabit.

Exceedingly entertaining and well-made tale about greed and stupidity, undoubtedly the two biggest problems of the world today. A fascinating subtheme is Masculinity, which, as embodied by the titular character, is shown in its simultaneously hyperbolic and ineffectual form.

Rating: 69 (down from 81)

Laura (1944)

Third viewing, if I am not mistaken; the first one was, I think, in 1983, and the second one was on February 14, 1988.

The investigation of the brutal murder of a young woman has as main suspects a middle-aged columnist who is famed for his arrogance and misanthropy, and a young man from an upper-class family who is in a sort of mutual dependency relationship with a middle-aged woman. The detective in charge gradually becomes emotionally entangled in a peculiar way.

I see I have certainly changed my taste in movies over all these years of film viewing; if I have become wiser or dumber (or neither) is, I suppose, undecidable. At any rate, I feel I have overrated this film on both my previous viewings. While it is engaging and interesting on many aspects, and hints at some marvelous ideas, they do not get satisfactorily developed. I think one of these ideas is that of falling in love with an absent person who is constructed in one's mind from a portrait and other people's testimony. I think this is the aspect of the movie that mostly caught my attention previously. On this present viewing, however, I focused on another angle, which better defines what the film is about. It may be seen as an exploration of the concept of masculinity, as it relates to a woman's needs. Two suitors are successively found lacking in this regard, and a third finally fits the bill.

Rating: 68 (down from 90)

El Dorado (1966)

Second viewing; first seen between 1983 and 1986.

A gunfighter helps a sheriff fight a rancher who threatens to dispossess another rancher in order to get his water supply.

So-so western, entertaining in a formulaic way. The quirky interplay among its characters and the overall deflated dramaticity reveal it could only have been written by a woman. That is no fault in itself, except its tricks just aren't successfully pulled off. By that time, audiences in search of more masculine emotions would turn to Italian productions.

Rating: 52 (unchanged)

Devil in a Blue Dress (1995)

Second viewing, first viewing with original audio; first seen on February 5, 2000.

An unemployed black man in 1948 Los Angeles is hired to locate a missing woman, supposedly the sweetheart of a politician. He gets in a lot of trouble.

This is a decent black noir, in which white characters are depicted either as oppressive towards the black characters, or as otherwise repugnant. The farcical treatment of violence sets the film apart from most neonoir incursions. The cast is mostly impeccable, the exceptions being the lady who plays 'Daphne' (she is not very good, but not bad enough to ruin the movie), and the guy who plays 'Mouse', whose performance in this film has been vastly overrated. Of course, an exceptionally good director could improve such deficiencies, but that does not seem to be the case here. Now, consider this dialogue near the end:

[begin quote]
Easy: If you got a friend that you know does bad things -- I mean real bad things -- can you still keep him as a friend even though you know what he's like? You think that's wrong?
Odell: All you got is your friends.
[end quote]

This has interesting conceptual connections with the hue and cry over allegedly racial incidents in recent times. In a broader view, I am convinced that black films bring important matters for reflection to discerning white viewers.

Rating: 60 (up from 49)