Le Doulos (1962)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Le Doulos (1962) -- J.-P. Melville

This could be my favorite Melville film.  He masterfully hides things from the audience, leading us purposefully astray.  The central characters are also taken in and make poor decisions as a result.  The film is shot in contrasty black-and-white, not unlike some of the low-budget American noirs that Melville must have loved, but much more artful in set design, mise-en-scene, symbolism, jazzy soundtrack, than many of those.  The opening tracking shot alone is worth the price of admission. We follow Faugel (Serge Reggiani) who has just been released from prison and needs to settle old scores and get back to work.  Unfortunately, his next job goes wrong because the police are tipped off by an informer (le doulos of the title).  From there, the plot cascades in a complicated fashion until all is revealed in a sudden rush with three characters sitting in a bar talking over flashbacks.  But yet their fates still await them in a final coda.  

Cutter's Way (1981)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Cutter's Way (1981) -- I. Passer

Jeff Bridges plays Richard Bone who is drifting through life, as a part-time gigolo and boat salesman, whereas his friend, Alex Cutter, a Vietnam vet who has lost an arm, a leg, and an eye (played sharply by John Heard), is passionately and pointedly committed to a singularly bitter viewpoint (that the rich and powerful will screw over everyone).  Cutter is an exceptional character (almost doing an alcoholic and manic early Tom Waits impression) -- as memorable as any to appear in any film -- but ultimately the movie may be more about Bone's ability or inability to make a real decision.  A conspiracy theory plot remains resolutely out-of-focus as a kind of lingering hangover from 1970s films, but this is almost purely about characters and not about how they get from point A to Z.

Claire's Knee (1970)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ 

Claire's Knee (1970) -- E. Rohmer

Perhaps only the French would concoct a movie about a summer place (around a lake) where a 35-to-40 year old man about to get married discusses the possibilities and implications of an affair with a teenage girl.  Perhaps only Eric Rohmer would make such a movie.  The film itself is chaste but evocative.  Jerome stumbles into the plot because he runs into his friend, Aurora, a writer, who is lodging with a single mother of two teen girls (from different fathers, although it matters not).  She wants to experiment with an idea for a novel (about an older man and a teenage girl).  The acting of the principals captures the right blend of awkwardness, especially for Jerome who is very out-of-place at times in the young person's world.  Of course, in a somewhat Bunuellian (or Nabokovian) fashion, the film becomes focused on Claire's knee as an object of desire.  What would be the various meanings or effects of a gentle touch of that knee? A film that unwinds through talk that seems natural enough, though literary in scope, and which pulls you in through the ordinary suspense created when we wonder what people will do when they have moral choices to make. 

Silver Linings Playbook (2012)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Silver Linings Playbook (2012) -- D. O. Russell

Sometimes a movie takes you by surprise.  I approached Silver Linings Playbook like many would, expecting something different or quirky from director David O. Russell (I Heart Huckabees), but unsure how enjoyable a portrayal of people coping with mental health issues might be.  I was right on the first point but wrong to be worried about the second.  Russell has put together a complete package here -- a funny, warm, humanistic and seemingly realistic film that manages to be sharp and eccentric and ultimately romantic.  Bradley Cooper is astonishing as a man coping with bipolar disorder and the legacy of his own actions after finding his wife cheating on him.  Jennifer Lawrence is the unlikely love interest coping with her own issues after the death of her police officer husband.  A dance contest brings them together.  Robert De Niro and Jacki Weaver star as his parents, also coping as best they can.  The plot synopsis makes the movie sound like a downer or a didactic preachy movie-of-the-week social issues film, but I assure you it is not.  David O. Russell's own son apparently struggles with similar emotional issues and he brought his own insights to the challenges the film offered.  The acting is top notch throughout (including Chris Tucker in a small but funny role). And despite the fact that I work in a psychology department, I still felt that the film granted me more empathy toward people with serious mental illness and the ability to see them more easily as the rounded whole people that they are.  A rare recent five star film. 

A Wife's Heart (1956)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

A Wife's Heart (1956) -- M. Naruse

I think one reason why Naruse's films are so compelling is that you just don't know how they are going to end.  Hollywood melodramas were guaranteed to conclude on a happy note (even if it sometimes rang false). However, Naruse could go either way, often spiralling downward into a melancholy landing, but very occasionally offering a glimmer of hope.  In A Wife's Heart, we share Hideko Takamine's point of view as she and her husband plan to build a café next to the family grocery store.  However, her mother-in-law is against it, her older brother-in-law begs for their money, and her husband starts staying out late nights avoiding the situation.  What will she do? Toshiro Mifune plays an attractive bachelor who offers some alternate possibilities.

They Live By Night (1948)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

They Live By Night (1948) -- N. Ray

Nicholas Ray's first film is about DOOMED LOVE (yes, in all caps).  Bowie and Keechie meet in the old gas station when he busts out of jail (been there since he was 16) with a couple of older cons keen to continue robbing banks.  Her dad runs the place but he's a drunk and not very good to her.  Farley Granger (with hints of Keanu Reeves) plays Bowie and Cathy O'Donnell plays Keechie.  They hit the road to get away from it all (travelling only by night) and to fulfill the portentous intensity of their DOOMED LOVE.  Nick Ray is out of the gates like a shot with this gorgeous and "dilated" film full of giant head close-ups of kids who have to be tough but would rather swoon.

Il Grido (1957)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Il Grido (1957) -- M. Antonioni

Who would make a movie like this other than Antonioni?  Yet, even having seen most of his later features, I wasn't prepared for the encroaching inevitability of the plot's finale.  Steve Cochran (American noir star) plays a guy whose longtime companion (Alida Valli) suddenly up and leaves him.  So, he takes his 5 year old daughter on the road with him, across the barren wintry fields of the Po Valley.  He occasionally shacks up with the women he meets, who often have their own problems that he doesn't want to take on.  He's lost, sad, unsure of what he's looking for, unable to commit to anything (a job, a relationship), and unable to return to the past. Antonioni's early film is stark but beautiful in many ways with strong echoes of Visconti's Ossessione (and other neo-realist films) but this director is unable to escape the gravitational pull of the alienation that would later dominate his oeuvre.