Night Passage (1957)

A man is employed by the railroad to prevent a payroll robbery.

I watched it last Saturday. It's not very good, and I didn't find the prospect of writing this review too compelling, so I kept postponing it. It's a very overplotted movie, and overcrowded with characters. It is sort of entertaining in a way, but everything seems quite irrelevant and improbable and very pulp-fiction-ish.

Saw it in pan-and-scan.

Rating: 37

Quem sabe... sabe! (1956)

Alternatively punctuated title: Quem Sabe, Sabe!

Musical comedy. A card reader operates in partnership with her brother, who gets information on her clients through their female servants.

Rather weak, but with a marginal value of cultural document. This is not one of the morally sounder films I have seen, what with its protagonists being a couple of crooks, and much of the cast of characters getting involved in shady deeds of one sort or another. As usual with immoral films, it purports to have a moral message, which in this case is that discrimination against chorus girls is bad. It seems to be a case of defending one's own backyard, since there is really no difference between the profession of the young actresses and that of the characters they play.

Rating: 31

Bar Esperança (1983)

Second viewing; first viewed between the date of its Brazilian release and December, 1986.

U.S. title (according to IMDB): Bar Esperanza

It centers on a writer's decision of quitting his TV job and on his wife's decision of leaving him because of that. Other characters are the patrons of a bar where the couple regularly goes.

While it depicts Brazilian TV as a place where artists are slowly killed, or transformed into zombies, much like its mass of spectators, it follows the strictly TV-like template of sitcoms, which is another kind of artistic dead end. A shallow movie, with one or two interesting sequences (e.g., when the barfly pesters the protagonist into a fake duel), and fine camerawork.

Rating: 49 (down from 52)

The Pigeon That Took Rome (1962)

World War II. Two Americans are assigned an espionage mission in Nazi-occupied Rome. They stay with an Italian family and must relay information to the Allies.

It is clear from the latest reviews here that love in film is an excellent dramatic vehicle to analyze a vast array of human endeavors and the psychological traits they entail. The love triangle is one of the structures that have been used to show how human conflict evolves and is resolved. There is no explicit love triangle here, or rather, one of the vertices has only a virtual existence, so to speak. One character will marry a woman who has been impregnated by an enemy soldier; his sergeant falls in love with her sister, who gives her sexual favors to German officers. This type of cuckoldry plays like an individual metonimy for the collective War phenomenon: every level of the fight consists of someone giving his life for the profit of someone else, who may be, according to the scope of analysis, a top ranking officer, the government, the capitalist establishment, etc. The messaging aspect of the plot adds another angle of correspondence: just as cuckoldry inserts noise into the communications system in which human semen is supposed to relay the biological message that propagates one's genetic characteristics, war communications are constantly subject to all kinds of interferences which may revert the outcome of the conflict. The film itself is part of a deeper level of miscommunication whose purpose is to conceal behind patriotic notions the identity of those who profit from all the killing and maiming -- one's real enemies, in short.

Rating: 39

Le combat dans l'île (1962)

English festival title: Fire and Ice
Proper English translation of the title: The Fight in the Island

A woman has a relationship with a rightwing militant, who is assigned to perform an assassination. After the act, the couple take refuge with a childhood friend who is a leftwing militant who prints political material and despises violent action.

An earlier exploration on the Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands theme, with a diferent take that eschews the economic angle. The film seems to be biased toward the Left, which seems to be comprised of peace-loving and family-oriented individuals, whereas the Right is violent and egotistical in personal relationships. That is obviously belied by a long view on History, although it may make sense in connection with that particular moment in France. Viewed as a political allegory, the implication seems to be that the Left is reluctantly, yet inevitably, drawn into Violence by the actions of Reactionaries.

Rating: 31

Dona Flor e seus dois maridos (1976)

Second viewing; first viewed on some indeterminate date before January 1987.

English title: Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands.

Based on the novel by Jorge Amado (1st ed., 1966), which has some plot elements borrowed from or simply coincidental with the 1941 play Blithe Spirit, by Noel Coward.

A young widow remarries but her new, methodic, husband can't ease her lust the way her late one, a gambler and a womanizer, did.

An allegory of Brazil, a land which, as the theme-song succinctly puts it, "can't be governed, now or ever". The actual comedy is precisely conceived in the typical Brazilianate style, which does not allow for high flights of sophistication but gets the message through. As the previously reviewed here O Homem dos Papagaios, fiscal irresponsibility plays an important part in the plot. Here, the twist consists in making the suffering wife the dramatic center, thus deepening the analysis carried out in that movie.

Rating: 58 (up from 57)

O homem dos papagaios (1953)

Epaminondas is a man experiencing financial difficulties who crosses paths with a former schoolmate; the latter tries to help him by employing him as janitor in a vacant mansion. The people in the mansion's  neighborhood get the idea that Epaminondas is the new owner and he takes advantage of the misunderstanding, with problematic consequences.

A reasonably well-made film, watchable but lacking in real creativity. The curious thing is the similarity in structure with Catch Me If You Can (2002). The film also works as an allegory for the present situation of the country in which it was made (in this case, however, the ending is, for the moment, just wishful thinking).

Rating: 40

Chato's Land (1972)

Western. A half-breed kills a sheriff in self-defense, and some of the town's people form a posse to go after him.

While an entertaining film, it is a bit disgusting to see such intense White self-loathing. The times were of burgeoning liberalism, but Hollywood sometimes preferred to approach such candent themes as segregation and Vietnam by using a third party, in this case Native Americans. Truth be told, a few modern viewers think it was a bit early for such a clear-eyed consideration of that East Asian fiasco and credit the similarities to coincidence.

Rating: 51

An American Werewolf in London (1981)

Second viewing; first viewed between January, 1983 and December, 1986.

Two American guys are touring the English countryside when they are attacked by a werewolf. Their fates are different but equally ghastly.

I don't much see what the fuss is all about when it comes to this movie. It's moderately enjoyable but that's about all. If I can indulge in a bit of analysis, I would say that what strikes me as singular about it is that this is one of the forerunners of a new trend in what I would call evilless horror. Werewolf movies are ideally cut out for this kind of take because ever since the 40s they are somewhat unlike most horror movies in that the monster is also a victim. But this films takes it one step further by erasing all references to absolute evil as a source of the events; things just happen, and then it is an ethical problem of sorts for the afflicted protagonist. Vampires, on the other hand, were traditionally distinct from werewolves in that they were just pure evil, unworthy of sympathy -- well, until one day of course they were not.

Rating: 50 (down from 60)

Alexis Zorbas (1964)

Second viewing; first viewed on February 25, 1997.

English title: Zorba the Greek

An Englishman is traveling to Crete to take over a mine he has inherited. In the ship he meets a Greek old man who offers him his services.

Lately I don't know how to explain my feelings towards movies. It is certain that I deeply dislike most of them, and yet I enjoy them in a cynical, detached way. This is exactly what happened with this film. I basically despise anything that tells me to "enjoy life to the utmost" or that sort of thing. My response to that is: will I regret it if I don't? When?

Rating: 56 (down from 57)

My Man Godfrey (1936)

A rich young woman brings a homeless man to live with her family and persuades them to employ him as a butler.

The satire of rich people is purportedly the more serious aim of the film. The actual development of the plot has more silliness than seriousness, though. Neither the really serious bits nor the silly ones are devoid of amusement value, in my view. I think the crucial factor that makes the film work is its felicitous casting. The nice TV Guide review may be read here.

Rating: 55

Hombre (1967)

Third viewing; previously viewed on August 16, 2002, and, before that, between January 1983 and December 1986.

Based on a novel which is itself a reworking of Stagecoach, also a novel adaptation, which in turn was a reworking of the short story Boule de suif, by Guy de Maupassant, first published in 1880.

A stagecoach with a motley assembly of passengers is held up. One of the passengers, a half-breed, saves the day.

Not as remarkable as I thought previously, but still an engaging, well-made Western, albeit with an unmistakeable undercurrent of white guilt-tripping. One of its themes, perhaps the main one, is how social prejudices crumble under situations of distress in which the social outcast's skills become an essential tool of survival for a group of people. The problem is that the situation here feels a little more contrived than the previous avatars of 1939 and 1880, and the main character is obviously only a conceptual entity devoid of psychological verisimilitude.

Rating: 64 (down from 82)

Mary Poppins (1964)

Based on the novels Mary Poppins and Mary Poppins Comes Back, by P.L. Travers, first published in 1934 and 1935, respectively.

The Banks family's last nanny quit and they're looking for a new one to take care of their two kids. Mary Poppins applies. She has eccentric methods and habits, such as flying.

Agreeable musical fantasy. The mood is light, the songs are nice, the choreography is interesting. The plot and characters include airhead suffragettes and cold capitalism, but the problems they cause are eventually solved by sheer goodwill.

Rating: 64

Rooster Cogburn (1975)

Marshal Cogburn from True Grit is reinstated and assigned the task of capturing a gang who stole nitroglycerin. A middle-aged woman whose husband was killed by that gang joins him, along with a young Native American.

Not a disagreeable watch, but hardly a memorable one. There are some well-filmed action sequences, but the dialog's triteness may get cringeworthy at times. There may be even a subjective discomfort for viewers who liked the first movie a lot as I did, a feel of desecration or something of the sort.

Watched it in pan-and-scan.

Rating: 37

Midnight Run (1988)

Second viewing; first viewed on October 27, 1991

A bounty hunter is hired by a bail bonds company to find a man and bring him to Los Angeles to serve time. The bail jumper is an accountant who stole money from his mafioso employer and gave it to charity.

Consistently entertaining comedy, whose limitations nevertheless became more apparent on this second viewing. The interesting thing about it is how it performs a balancing act between multiple -- and at times colliding -- ethics: of resourcefulness, of integrity, of flexibility. This is not always convincingly resolved.

Rating: 69 (down from 86)

Swamp Water (1941)

Drama concerning a community in Georgia, near a swamp. A man encounters a fugitive hiding in the swamp area and establishes a business partnership with him.

This is one of those movies of which it is customary to say that Geography is the main character. Location shooting is the film's main asset. It tells a very melodramatic yet sufficiently entertaining story. The theme of miscarriage of justice is handled fairly; the death penalty is correctly seen as hazardous yet still profitable. Its risk of sacrificing good people is worth taking, since without it those people would still be harmed by bad people, and with it there is a good chance of getting rid of most of those bad people.

Rating: 54

The Lady Vanishes (1938)

Second viewing; first viewed on August 22, 1992

In a small Central European country several English people are at an inn waiting for the train which will take them back home. An elderly lady befriends a young woman and they sit together on the train. After a while the old lady disappears and all except the young woman claim to have no recollection of ever having seen her.

Intelligent mystery story with plenty of humor and a bit of suspense in the final section.

Rating: 73 (up from 50)

A grande cidade (1966)

Second viewing; first viewed on February 21, 1988

English title: The Big City

A young woman from poor Northeastern Brazil arrives in Rio de Janeiro in search of her fiancé who had left earlier and had promised to send for her but never did. In the big city she is befriended by a man who makes a living out of petty thefts and odd jobs. He finds her a place to live with a construction worker who is also a migrant from the Northeast. She learns that her fiancé is now a big criminal wanted by the police.

An examination of the plight of the migrant. Both imagery and dialog are strongly stylized away from realism, with moderately interesting results. A similarity in style with Italian Westerns is detectable in the form. The good camerawork and overall command of the technique is impressive for a Brazilian movie, but the script leaves something to be desired.

Rating: 51 (down from 60)

Mitt liv som hund (1985)

Second viewing; first viewed on February 18, 1989.

English title: My Life as a Dog

Ingemar is a Swedish boy whose father is allegedly away on business somewhere in South America. He has a brother with whom he is always fighting, and a mother who is a bookworm and has a serious debilitating illness. When the burden of raising two kids on her own becomes too much for her, the boys are sent each to a different relative. Ingemar gets to live with a very nice uncle and his wife, along with a couple of elders (the uncle's parents, perhaps). On his new hometown, he makes many new acquaintances, most notable among whom a tomboy who likes him and is good at soccer and boxing.

While I may have been too severe with this film on my first viewing, I still do not get exactly what is so special about it. The situations and characters are obviously conventional, even in their occasional attempted unconventionality. I had a less excrutiating time on this second viewing, and acknowledge that the film, within its limits, is well-made and well-acted. For those interested, it offers a glimpse at Nordic people's sense of humor and sense of pathos, or what they were like in the early 1980s anyway. Given that most of the Western world liked the film, one may conclude that there is a vast receptivity for this kind of humor and pathos outside its country of origin. As a final note, I was curious about the historical circumstances, if any, which the presence of a Greek family in a Swedish house was supposed to mirror.

Rating: 41 (up from 28)

O canto da saudade (1952)

The action is set in a farm, and in its adjacent little town. The farm's foreman, named Juvenal, has a daughter, named Maria Fausta, who is loved by a farm employee named Galdino, who plays the accordion as a hobby. She, however, does not love him back and is having a secret affair with another man, named João do Carmo. When Juvenal finds out about his daughter's affair and forbids her from continuing with it, she disappears from the farm. A subplot has the farm's owner, "Colonel" Januário, running for town's mayor.

Not altogether uninteresting little drama with some musical interludes. At times the filmmaker lets himself be carried away from realism into the display of aesthetically appealing images. The acting is mostly amateurish, but the diretor keeps it serviceable; his own performance in one of the main roles, on the other hand, is good. The political subplot is a fine register of Brazil's political culture of the period.

Rating: 33