The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001) – J. Coen & E. Coen

The Coen Brothers love film noir, from their first feature (Blood Simple, 1984) through Miller’s Crossing (1990) and possibly including Fargo (1996), The Big Lebowski (1998) and No Country for Old Men (2007).  These latter films are genre-bending masterpieces but the Coens playfully toy with form and content in even their straightest films. On the surface, The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001) feels like a very sincere homage to the noirs of the 1940s (think James M. Cain) but, on second glance, it doesn’t shy away from some other literary references and comic asides (in true Coen style). Shot in faux-black-and-white (colour but converted in the lab) by Roger Deakins but still featuring the chiaroscuro lighting preferred by noir cinematographers, as well as perfect period sets and costumes – you get the sense that this was a labour of love for the team, reconstructing the past and its dark moves.  It may be no surprise that the film’s smalltown locale is Santa Rosa, CA, where Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt (1943) also takes place. Billy Bob Thornton plays Ed Crane, a barber (narrating the film in a voiceover from the unknown future) who suspects that his wife Doris (Frances McDormand) is having an affair with her boss at the department store, Big Jim (James Gandolfini). When an opportunity to get in on the ground floor of a new entrepreneurial venture (dry cleaning!) appears, he decides to (anonymously) blackmail Big Jim for the $10K he needs, threatening to expose the affair. As Big Jim’s wife is the actual department store heiress, this puts him into a desperate situation – and soon things spiral out of control. The plot takes many twists and turns, reeling in Scarlett Johansson’s Lolita-reference Birdy, Tony Shalhoub’s cocky lawyer Freddy Ridenschneider, not to mention Coen stalwarts Michael Badalucco and Jon Polito in quirky supporting roles. There are a fair few things you’d never encounter in the noirs of the Forties! This time through, having just re-read Camus’ The Stranger (1942), it struck me just how much Ed Crane’s character echoes Meursault from the book – a man of few words, who responds spontaneously in the moment, absorbed by perceptions and sensations, who ultimately comes to accept the absurdity of existence with no regrets.  Stir in Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle and the poem Antigonish and there’s a bit more than meets the eye here.

 

Sentimental Value (2025)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Sentimental Value (2025) – J. Trier

Aito claims not to like movies, but when I was pondering what to watch, I asked him.  He said he prefers character-driven drama to plot-driven genre films (“anyone can write a superhero film”, he claims).  After that, there seemed no other choice than Sentimental Value, the Grand Prix winner from last year’s Cannes Film Festival (second place to Jafar Panahi’s It was Just an Accident) and Best Foreign Film at the 2025 Academy Awards.  Actress Renata Reinsve (who plays eldest daughter Nora Borg here) is having her time in the sun, after success with director Joachim Trier’s earlier film, The Worst Person in the World (2021), which I haven’t yet seen, and the 2026 Cannes Palme d’Or winner, Fjord, directed by Romanian Cristian Mungiu – plus cult hit Backrooms (2026; youngster Kane Parsons). She’s excellent here, playing an unstable actress experiencing success on stage and TV who is approached by her estranged father, Gustav (Stellan Skarsgård), a world-famous director who has not made a film for 15 years but wants her to star in a personal project he hopes to get funded. They’ve made contact again at the funeral for her mother, his ex-wife, but she still feels hurt by his long absence from her life. Her younger sister, Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas), also starred in one of her father’s films when she was a child but is unwilling to have her own son join the cast of his latest venture, having felt her father’s attention dwindle as soon as that film wrapped.  Indeed, when his daughter refuses to participate, he turns his attention to Hollywood starlet Rachel Kemp (Elle Fanning) who attracts Netflix funding but requires the film to be in English, rather than Norwegian (or Swedish; Borg is a Norwegian who moved to Sweden as a child, but Skarsgård is Swedish and Reinsve is Norwegian -- as is director Trier).  As far as character-driven drama goes, there is more than enough psycho-dynamically-speaking for this cast to sink their teeth into (they do!) and Trier handles the unfolding tensions with flair (and a nice use of music, for punctuation or transition). Although it portends to be yet another film about making films, it is much less invested in the craft of making films and much more invested in the family relationships here (implying that we keep these relationships out of sentimental value only, perhaps); that said, the title might just be a wink at audience members looking for the kind of meta-commentary often found in films like these – it hints at the healthy dose of sentimentality front-loaded in the film which yields several cathartic moments and is tied up with a bow at the end.  Trier clearly knows what audiences want – and critics too.  Worth your time.

It Was Just an Accident (2025)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

It Was Just an Accident (2025) – J. Panahi 

Jafar Panahi’s 2025 Palme d’Or winner is admittedly not an easy watch, despite its use of comedy to cut its tension. That comedy made me think of Waiting for Godot before it was inevitably mentioned by the characters themselves (it is comedy rooted in absurdity). The parallel is that these characters spend the entire movie pondering whether the one-legged man they have captured really is or is not their former torturer – but they can’t know for certain because all of them were blindfolded during their time in prison as political dissidents (or simply people who ran afoul of the State). Panahi himself has spent time in prison in Iran and has been banned from making films there, but still has found ways to complete his projects, outlaw style.  Where in the past he has criticised the government for their treatment of women and their violations of human rights more broadly, here it feels more personal – a bitter recitation of the terrible injustices inflicted on innocent civilians by their own government. The plot feels like a loose framework (they drive around Tehran in a van seeking to find others who can identify their captive) to allow the characters to speak their truths, directly to the audience. Only late in the film, in a scene shot entirely in red filtered lights, do we hear a version of the government’s response, that political opposition can’t be allowed because it undermines support for the revolution.  This seems to be the hallmark of those who know that their power is invalid, without support of the people as a whole.  Yet Panahi’s message is that, despite the injustices and horror wielded against them, protesters must maintain the moral high ground, as it is in empathy, social justice, and respect for human rights, even of those who transgress against us, where strength lies.

The Invisible Man (1933)

 

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

The Invisible Man (1933) – J. Whale

Inexplicably, I never reviewed James Whale’s classic version of the H. G. Wells’ story, even having watched it many times before (and now in 4K Ultra HD).  This is Claude Rains’ Hollywood debut: even if you don’t actually see him for most of the film, that voice is enough! We begin somewhere in the middle, after Rains as Jack Griffin has already discovered the secret of invisibility (through chemical means) and now desperately wants to find the antidote, to become visible again.  He’s holed up at a local British pub/hotel owned by Una O’Connor and Forrester Harvey (playing as broadly as they can for comic relief), becoming more and more disagreeable (under his bandages, hat, and false nose) until they call in the constable.  Meanwhile, the head of his lab Cranley (Henry Travers) and scientific colleague Kemp (William Harrigan) have figured out that Griffin is the Invisible Man and even know the unfortunate side effects of the chemical he’s used that will eventually make him go mad.  Although Cranley and his daughter, Griffin’s love interest, Flora (Gloria Stuart, later in Titanic, 1997), want to help Griffin, his rival Kemp wants to turn him over to the police.  Of course, it doesn’t end well for Griffin.  Whale pulls out all the stops with regard to the special effects and, as this is still the pre-Code era, it shouldn’t be a surprise to find out that Griffin has to spend most of his time naked – although he’s too preoccupied with finding a way back to visibility to get up to much mischief (apart from a couple of murders and some monomaniacal rambling).  Quite a few sequels followed this.

The Odyssey (2026)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Odyssey (2026) – C. Nolan

It seems that I only go to the cinema for “event movies” these days, since everything else seems to eventually come to the small screen (which has gotten increasingly sophisticated across my lifetime).  Somehow, I scored some $7 tickets, so Amon and I headed out to see Christopher Nolan’s latest this afternoon (though not in iMax or even 70mm).  I purposefully hadn’t read too much (except parts of one essay declaring it not true enough to Homer’s original).  Amon and I have watched a lot of the classic adventure films, so it is good to be able to say that this is a fine example of the genre.  Nolan introduces some of his typical flashback structure to the film, where we first meet Penelope (Anne Hathaway), wife of Odysseus (Matt Damon) and her son Telemachus (Tom Holland), who have been awaiting Odysseus’s return from the Trojan War for the past 20 years.  We know his exploits have been passed among the people of Ithaca in song, but no one knows if he is alive or dead, even though many of his men and even his King (Agamemnon) have long since returned home.  We soon discover that Odysseus has been stranded in a mental fog, eating lotus flowers, on an island with Calypso (Charlize Theron) recovering from his injuries for the past 7 years. We see his exploits in flashback, featuring the classic episodes involving the Trojan Horse, the Cyclops, the witch Circe (Samantha Morton), Scylla and Charybdis, the Sirens, and more. Nolan knows how to manage the pacing of the adventurous bits and the more talky parts of the narrative (mostly involving Robert Pattinson and other suitors for the hand of Penelope and their conflict with Telemachus and with Odysseus’s aging servant Eumaeus (John Leguizamo)) to keep things moving across nearly 3 hours. As he journeys home to Ithaca, Odysseus is occasionally visited by Athena (Zendaya) who serves as his guide and inspiration. I’m not sure having Zendaya and Lupita Nyong'o (in a bit part as Helen of Troy) in the cast is enough to make this film “woke” (although perhaps some MAGA viewers may also have concerns about Elliot Page, who has a key role); the American accents on display from Hathaway and Damon alone are enough to require suspension of disbelief that this is really ancient Greece. (and let’s leave the boring-old culture wars out of this anyway). Moreover, although there is a lot of fighting, ultimately there is some anti-war sentiment here too, as we learn of Odysseus’s regrets at the terrible killing and raping of civilians in Troy by his own men/army. He wants to repent. (This doesn’t stop him from becoming a one-man army late in the film though). As a spectacle, the film is loud and action-packed although pretty sombre through-and-through.  I only occasionally thought of Jason and the Argonauts (1963) and Ray Harryhausen’s special effects but that was for kids and this is for adults (with similarly wondrous cinematography but less of a sense of wonder).  Perhaps this would be diminished on the small screen and perhaps I have over-rated it due to the big-screen. Nevertheless, for an escapist day out, it ruled.

 

The French Connection (1971)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The French Connection (1971) – W. Friedkin

Paul Schrader recently said (on Letterboxd) that he was surprised how much “shoe leather” was involved in The French Connection – and it is true, this is an action movie where the characters are constantly on the move. Director William Friedkin and editor Jerry Greenberg do a great job with the pacing of the film, introducing us to Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle (Gene Hackman) and his partner “Cloudy” Russo (Roy Scheider) as they do some routine drug busts in seedy parts of Manhattan then gradually showing them start to suss out a much bigger deal going down.  That bigger deal involves Marseilles businessman (and major drug lord) Alain Chartier (Buñuel favourite Fernando Rey) who arrives from France to make the exchange in person.  Doyle and Russo have to tolerate the involvement of the Feds as they stake out the principals, tail them on the subway, and even chase an El train by car (one of the most famous car chases in cinema).  As befits ‘70s America, it’s a downbeat affair, but gripping all the way.  Hackman’s Doyle is a shitty guy, racist, single-mindedly willing to do anything (including break the law) to bust the perps; Scheider’s Russo is along for the ride. Based on a true story and you aren’t surprised that this is how the NYPD may have operated – the location settings add to the gritty allure.

The Ladykillers (1955)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

The Ladykillers (1955) – A. Mackendrick

Positioned near the end of Ealing Studios’ amazing run of comedies, many featuring Sir Alec Guinness, The Ladykillers is also a caper film where whatever can go wrong does.  This is no knock on the very clever armoured car heist planned by Professor Marcus (Guinness wearing some very scary false teeth) and his gang (including Cecil Parker, Herbert Lom, a young Peter Sellers, and Danny Green).  They just weren’t prepared for Mrs Wilberforce (Katie Johnson), an old lady whose particular way of doing things makes trouble for just about everyone and throws a spanner in the gang’s plans.  Although perhaps it made sense for them to rent her spare room in the house by the railway tracks (pretending to be a string quartet needing practice space, ha, ha), they didn’t realise they’d have to contend with her parrots, nosy elderly friends, fondness for reporting things to the police, etc. etc.  The pivotal moment in the plot here is not dissimilar from the final catastrophe in Kubrick’s genre-related The Killing (1956), which came out the next year. After that, the gang just can’t hold it together in the face of Mrs Wilberforce’s scrutiny and will.  Director Alexander Mackendrick went on to make Sweet Smell of Success (1957), an extremely bitter and cynical look at the media in New York, while Guinness graduated to David Lean’s The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), both leaving comedy behind (perhaps not completely).  But what a way to go!