Bad Timing (1980)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Bad Timing (1980) – N. Roeg

Let’s face it, after the high-water marks of Walkabout (1971) and Don’t Look Now (1973), director Nicolas Roeg never really made it as an auteur (he also co-directed Perfomance, 1969, with Donald Cammell and served as cinematographer for Lester, Schlesinger, Truffaut, others).  This might be his last hurrah (though there were other attempts to follow this theme to come). Perhaps following on from the cut-up technique he used to edit the Julie Christie-Donald Sutherland sex scene in Don’t Look Now, he used that technique for Bad Timing, although for the entire film.  Some reports suggest the film was shot as a straightforward erotic thriller and only later sliced and diced (à la William Burroughs) but I prefer to see it as a puzzle film, intended as such. After Tom Waits’ “Invitation to the Blues” plays, we are in an ambulance with Art Garfunkel tending to a comatose Theresa Russell (subsequent versions of this scene include “Who Are You”). From there, we jump back and forth in time across their (intense) relationship. It’s an “opposites attract” scenario with free spirited Russell living in the moment and Freudian psychotherapy professor Garfunkel trying to control her. In keeping with Garfunkel’s occupation, sex and death are the main themes here, but it isn’t clear who is unravelling more as the film “progresses” (or just as more details are added to beginning, middle, and end).  At some point, we realise that Harvey Keitel is actually a police detective investigating whether any malfeasance has taken place on the night that Russell was sent to the hospital and suspicion rests on Garfunkel. Things do conclude with a revelation and I guess that cements the feeling that both characters are equally damaged by this oil-and-water affair. But the reason to watch this film (if you are fully prepared) is for the madness and intensity and brave acting by both Russell (who subsequently married Roeg) and Garfunkel (previously in Carnal Knowledge, 1971, another risky choice) who don’t shy away from nakedness (physical or emotional).  Reviews suggest this is polarizing (no surprise).

Anora (2024)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Anora (2024) – S. Baker

This is the fourth Sean Baker film I’ve watched and I came to it a bit late, after all the hype surrounding its Best Picture Oscar win (and the Best Director, Screenplay, and Editing wins for Baker) has died down.  I wasn’t sure if I was prepared to like it, given the Cinderella story marketing frame, to which I only barely paid attention, seemed a bit cliché. And, as the film unfolded, the blue-collar erotic dancer meets spoiled Russian heir plot seemed just an opportunity to show decadence on the screen rather than to explore any meaningful ideas about class differences.  But then the fairytale plot evaporated and the intensity and stress racheted up, scene by scene, so that this felt more like a Safdie Brothers outing (although I haven’t yet seen their solo efforts) than the keenly/wryly observed naturalistic films of Baker’s oeuvre (e.g., Red Rocket, 2021; The Florida Project, 2017; Tangerine, 2015). The chaos and breakdown of relations between the characters is both comic and harsh and although Anora (Best Actress Mikey Madison) remains the heart of every scene, there are some excellent character turns by Karren Karagulian and Vache Tovmasyan. Still, it was hard to tell if this was just a thrill ride for viewers or something deeper – and then the final scene between gangster/minder Igor (Yura Borisov) and Ani/Anora made the film for me. Not only did this provide the necessary emotional release for the character but it revealed just how many defenses had been up, perhaps for a very long time, as a protective shield necessary in a hard hard world (even if the temptation to dream about that fairytale might be omnipresent, if not fully conscious).

No Other Choice (2025)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

No Other Choice (2025) – C.-W. Park

I was very enamoured with Park Chan-wook’s previous film, Decision to Leave (2022), a hazy film noir romance that felt like an ode to Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958).  Now his new film takes a Donald Westlake novel (The Ax, previously adapted by Costa-Gavras, to whom this film is dedicated) and turns it into a dark comedy about our era of industrial transformation and the mass layoffs it is creating.  Man-su (Lee Byung-hun) works for a large Korean paper company that is taken over by an American corporation that promptly sacks a chunk of its workforce including Man-su.  An expensive present from the company (an eel dinner) foreshadows the pink slip.  The film then follows Man-su and his family, including his wife Miri (Son Ye-Jin) and two children, Si-one and Ri-one, a possibly autistic cello prodigy and a typical teen getting himself into trouble, as they cope with the disaster. The family struggles to make ends meet (Miri goes to work as a dental assistant) and with the bank about to foreclose on the family home, Man-su hatches a desperate plan to ensure that he is the prime candidate for any job opening at other paper companies (there seem to be quite a few).  The film takes its time as Man-su identifies his competition and builds up the courage to take them out. Of course, it’s messy, and Man-su creates too many clues and loose ends for the police to follow -- but director Park revels in the opportunity to create eccentric characters, stage some magnificent shots in beautiful colour (kudos to cinematographer Kim Woo-hyung), and basically let things get weird and goofy.  Lee Byung-hun holds it all together with a charismatic performance (rightfully nominated for a Golden Globe). Another highlight in Park’s already excellent oeuvre.

Fallen Leaves (2023)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Fallen Leaves (2023) – A. Kaurismäki

It’s probably easy to underestimate Aki Kaurismäki, the 68-year-old Finnish director. His films are short, understated, and droll. In Fallen Leaves, the characters interact in a version of Helsinki filled with movie posters – including for films by Bresson, Godard, David Lean, and Jim Jarmusch (whose film, The Dead Don’t Die, 2019, the central couple go to see). This provides some hints about Kaurismäki’s intent – his film may feel slight, but it is actually linked carefully to film history, though unique in its own style. Bresson is a clear inspiration because we often see the characters doing things, small things like looking at the expiry date on food or sweeping a factory floor, which puts viewers in an existential mindset (thinking about doing and being). This is part of the so-called “Proletariat Trilogy” (the fourth film, following 1990’s The Match Factory Girl) which speaks to the class differences which were pivotal to Godard’s politicised cinema; including ongoing reports of the war in Ukraine every time a radio is switched on also reminds us of Godard’s intertextual approach (his bold colour palette also shows kinship). As far as the plot goes, David Lean’s Brief Encounter (1945) seems to be a touchstone, although in Fallen Leaves, Alma Pöysti’s Ana and Jussi Vatanen’s Holappa aren’t married to others and approaching an affair – they are just lonely strangers who struggle to make their connection happen.  Kaurismäki observes them nonjudgmentally (even when Holappa’s behaviour is clearly self-destructive, but with a wry eye that suggests that finding humour in life is one way to survive its repeated letdowns. Bemusing sequences, such as in the karaoke bar, are played as deadpan as you can get (a tendency also shared with his friend Jarmusch). Things go wrong, yes, but it’s never as bad as it seems – or at least the characters pull themselves together and get on with it (as existential proletariats must do). Music ties the whole thing together, bringing the melancholy, especially with a Finnish version of the French song “Les Feuilles Mortes” (known in English as “Autumn Leaves”, and translating to the film’s title here) and a Finnish version of Gordon Lightfoot’s Early Mornin’ Rain. Holappa’s friend Huotari (Janne Hyytiäinen) sings a traditional Finnish ballad at karaoke and indie-rock duo Maustetytöt get showcased in a bar. Definitely worth 80 minutes of your time.

Nights of Cabiria (1957)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Nights of Cabiria (1957) – F. Fellini

My Fellini period was decades ago, in the 1990s; so revisiting Nights of Cabiria felt almost like seeing a new film.  Yet, Fellini’s early style, mixing (Italian) neo-realism with something more personal, poetic, episodic, remained familiar. This film belongs to Giulietta Masina (Fellini’s wife and muse) who plays Cabiria, a downtrodden prostitute with an indomitable spirit (she won the Best Actress award at Cannes for this performance). The arc of the film follows Cabiria (full circle?) from our first glimpse of her being pushed into a river (nearly drowning) by a seedy paramour only after her purse, through a series of encounters where we see other sides of her, sometimes disparaged but often her (not clichéd but perfectly acted) heart of gold shows through and invites warmer treatment, eventually from a gentle accountant (François Périer) who promises to take her away from the life. Emotions follow this same arc: bitter, melancholy, playful, amazed, despondent, resilient. Fellini started as a screenwriter and his talent shines here. The sets and locations, from squalor (older prostitutes living in caves) to astounding luxury (the film star’s mansion), allow Masina to act as the viewer’s emissary to unknown worlds, adding empathy and identification.  Is she looking for true love? Well, so are we.  After this, Fellini moved onto the decadence of La Dolce Vita.

La Chimera (2023)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

La Chimera (2023) – A. Rohrwacher

Director Alice Rohrwacher’s most recent feature and her first since her breakthrough with Happy as Lazzaro (2018).  (She seems to make a lot of shorts).  La Chimera feels very European (Rohrwacher is Italian), even if it stars British Josh O’Connor (he barely speaks and usually in broken Italian). Isabella Rossellini plays a matriarch (the mother of O’Connor’s lost girlfriend). As in Lazzaro, there’s a communal feel to the casting, with a lot of amateurs, possibly non-actors, in bit parts or just part of the gang. Is this Fellini-esque? Rohrwacher also seems to enjoy gazing at faces. The blurb at iMDb seems to position this as some sort of arthouse Indiana Jones but I have to tell you that even though O’Connor plays a sort of archeologist (or perhaps just a graverobber), this is not that (although there are some beautiful arthouse shots!). Instead of action, we get an elusive meditation on our connections to the past, both cultural (as in the hunt for artefacts or lost treasures) and personal (as in returning to one’s old haunts or dwelling in one’s thoughts about people who have passed). Not so much bringing the past to light in the present but perhaps escaping to the past, not necessarily but especially one’s own past, not an updated version? But that’s just one of the themes and ideas free-floating through the film. Rohrwacher again toys with magical realism with O’Connor also a sort of dowser for graves, overcome when near treasure-filled hollows in the ground. But how do these lost souls feel about giving up their riches?

It Happened One Night (1934)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

It Happened One Night (1934) – F. Capra

It seems to me that Frank Capra is one of those filmmakers that you first encounter as a child or youth (from It’s a Wonderful Life, 1946, to Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, 1939, and maybe to Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, 1936), when his “Capra-Corn”, full of sentimentality and simple populist politics, can have its biggest impact.  But there’s no denying the pleasures available to adult viewers in a film like It Happened One Night (1934), winner of 5 Oscars for Capra, screenwriter Robert Riskin, and stars Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable, not to mention Best Picture.  Gable is at his charismatic best as the no-nonsense straight-talking but principled reporter who gets drunk, gets fired, and then stumbles onto the story of a lifetime: heiress Colbert has run away from her over-protective banker father (Walter Connolly) to elope with an older aviator, acknowledged by all to be a fraud. When her bag is stolen, bystander Gable helps her to navigate the journey from Miami to New York to meet her fiancé (by night bus and other modes of transport), teaches her about hitch-hiking (the thumb!), piggy-back rides, and donut-dunking – and also falls in love with her. There are some highly-charged erotic moments when the couple are separated by the Walls of Jericho (a blanket suspended between two twin beds). When they aren’t fighting (which is most of the time), you can see the care developing between them.  Anyway, it’s a comedy with the kind of plot that puts all sorts of obstacles in the way of young love until we reach the requisite happy ending. They don’t make them like this anymore.