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i-did-not-mean-to · 2 years

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Bodyguard Haldir + secret Royalty

This is for my lovely friend (I love you baby)

Words: 2,25 k

Warnings: violence, blood

Haldir was a professional – the very fact that he had to tell himself this in so many words might have hinted at the fact that, maybe, he was not as aloof as he tried to make everyone believe though – and he would behave accordingly.

In all his years in the service of Galadriel, a strong and ruthless businesswoman, he had never had any job even remotely as emotionally taxing as the one laid before him now; he was to play the bodyguard for a foreign dignitary, a young woman, while she was in the city of Lothlórien for diplomatic talks of the utmost importance.

“Haldir,” his boss had smiled – tight-lipped and charmingly enough for him to know that he was in serious trouble – as she had handed him the file of the young lady in question, “as she is such a tremendously vital part of these negotiations, she will be undercover; nobody is to know who she is.”

“I am to babysit a person who pretends to be someone else?” he had gasped in reply, “You seriously want me to supervise a young woman who’ll probably want to do all the things she’s never been allowed to due to her upbringing and name?”

Lady Galadriel – as the staff called her not without affection behind her back – had merely nodded and grinned.

That had been 2 weeks ago, and since, Haldir’s whole world had shifted.

“Princess Aahana,” Galadriel had introduced the most beautiful woman he had ever beheld, “this is Haldir; he shall be your shadow from now on.”

Oh, how those eyes – black as jet and ink – had radiated as they fell on him and – for the first time in his career – Haldir had wished, be it only for a single moment, that she might have seen him in his own well-tailored suits rather than the black on black uniform he was expected to wear while on a job.

“You’ve got to lose that suit,” she had giggled, “everyone will know that I’m travelling with a bodyguard otherwise.”

“As Milady commands.” He had hated the hollow sound of his own voice, but it had taken all his strength to dissimulate the treacherous tremor of admiration and breathless captivation he felt for that princess from a faraway land.

Already, minutes after that very first meeting, he felt his resolve mellowing; all his words of stern refusal of whatever fancies a young woman might have dissolved like snow in the sun upon seeing her fresh, open face full of life and joy.

Galadriel merely chuckled; she had been sure that Haldir was the right man for this job – conscientious to a fault but gentle enough to not disregard the princess’s well-being and happiness in the name of safety and decorum – and she loved being right.

“Ah come on,” Aahana, as she demanded to be called, laughed, “you look cute!”

Haldir made a face; he did not want to look cute, but – truth be told – he would have done almost anything to make his princess – for she was his for the time being – laugh; of course, he would have preferred to be called ‘handsome’, but any compliment falling like stardust from her perfectly shaped lips was a blessing he accepted in grateful humility.

It was hard to put into words how different she was from all the other people in his life; Aahana was a special kind of light that blinded his heart without hurting his eyes.

Looking at her felt as if he had slept through every single night of his life before, as if he had never seen the stars, for – unlike the pale and colourless beauty of those he called kin and friends – she made him discover and adore the endless nuances of duskiness.

Her skin was like velvet the colour of a sunset over the deserts he’d only seen once during his training years, and her eyes were as dark and mysterious as a moonless night.

Nevertheless, he had never seen anyone half as luminous as that young woman who could laugh and cry about almost anything; she had a quick wit and a tender heart, and – professional or not – he was already half in love with her.

On this fateful day, she had taken him into one of those malls where predominantly young people hung out to buy him a new set of clothes that would be less conspicuous as they walked down the street – discovering sights and restaurants – and visited museums of all sorts.

“I don’t know, Aahana,” Haldir muttered, looking down miserably at the tight jeans and the preppy sweatshirt she had chosen; it was the very opposite of the sober, clean style he usually preferred in his own private wardrobe.

“I like it,” she grinned, “it accentuates your butt.”

Haldir twisted and turned to check, freezing when Aahana’s soft fingers closed around his chin and directed his face and gaze to the mirror that stood in plain view just a few steps away from him.

“You look great, Haldir,” she repeated.

Someone cleared their throat and they both turned to the source of the ominous sound only to find an elderly saleswoman grinning at them.

“Is everything to your satisfaction, you lovebirds?”

Haldir froze, but Aahana only chuckled and assured the woman that they were more than satisfied with the wares; despite pretending to be normal citizens, nothing could dissimulate her good breeding and expensive wardrobe or – for that matter – his military precision and protective demeanour around her.

It was absolutely normal to think that they were lovers, Haldir tried to assuage the panic rising like acid in his throat, they were – after all – a man and a woman who went shopping for clothes together.

Also, Aahana stood suspiciously close to him, holding his face tenderly while she gave him one of those radiant smiles that always turned his insides to goo.

There was nothing strange about this and yet, he felt like he was breaking some sacrosanct rule by letting her encroach upon his personal space and break through the barriers of his heart so.

“You need to relax, Haldir,” Aahana laughed as they stepped out of the shop, “nobody will believe that I am not important if you keep looking at me as if I was made of pure gold.”

“It has nothing to do with your status, princess,” he muttered and bit his lip when he realised that he had said that out loud.

“Oh, really?” she pounced on this moment of inadvertent weakness with a sunny smile; her voice sounded like milk and honey – inflections of a faraway realm spicing it like her secret ingredients made her tea a symphony of subtle flavours – and he couldn’t help the slight shiver running up his spine upon hearing that sweet voice flow like a river of serene joy around him.

“You are precious,” he simply stated, hoping she’d leave it at that.

Truth be told, Haldir cared nothing about the peace talks or the monumental role this young woman was to play in them anymore; all he could think of was how pearly her laughter rang out and how beautiful she looked in the silken robes of her people.

She was colour where he was blankness and – whenever he saw his own skin on hers – he couldn’t ignore the jolt of pleasure the contrast gave him; Haldir had never wasted a single thought on his own appearance before, but he could admit that he felt more handsome by her side as if they brought the best out in each other – inside and out.

Sometimes, when she was distracted by other things, Aahana would almost walk into traffic and Haldir necessarily held her back – his hand hard and white as marble on the dusky satin of her skin – which would elicit an apologetic giggle from her that made his heart cramp with longing.

Beyond a doubt, Princess Aahana was the most gorgeous and enchanting woman he had ever met and ever since he had clapped eyes on her and exchanged the first words with that sweet soul, his mission had become secondary.

He would have died for her, he would have walked into the inferno of lethal flames and off a cliff to protect her, and it had nothing whatsoever to do with his loyalty to Lady Galadriel or professional dedication.

At night, he would dream of exhausting all his life savings to cover her in jewels and precious metals for he didn’t doubt that the most valuable of gems in this world deserved to be worn and showcased on the smooth perfection of her pristine skin.

“Haldir?” Princess Aahana interrupted his shameful daydreams, “what are you thinking of?”

He would not, he could not tell her; his fantasies of holding her in his arms, of carding those stiff, white fingers of his through the thick, silken hair presently held by an exquisite pair of pins, or of kissing those warm, smiling lips were preposterous, for they would never come true.

“Nothing, Milady,” he sighed, tightening his grip around her wrist as she tried to hasten across the street.

Haldir realised that he had been momentarily distracted by her beauty, but – in a painfully blinding flash – his awareness returned with a sharp sting, the metallic taste of apprehension making the hairs on the back of his neck stand up; someone was watching them.

“Milady,” he called, damning propriety to hell, as he wrapped himself around her like a shield.

To the people passing by, they looked like an ordinary couple hugging in the street, and nobody heard the muted ‘whoosh’ of a bullet finding flesh even though it missed its target by a hair’s breadth.

“Haldir?” Aahana stared up at the tremor of shock and pain that flashed over those features she had come to admire so much before all colour drained from them.

“Haldir!” she repeated, frantic now, as his cold fingers tightened around her upper arms; it didn’t feel as if he was trying to keep her from doing something injudicious anymore, on the contrary, she got the distinct impression that he was clinging to her like a man afraid of drowning.

“Get…to…safety…” he panted, his eyes huge with an emotion too close to fear to leave her unfazed, “run!”

That’s when – trying to pat his back reassuringly – she felt the sticky heat seeping through the new sweatshirt they had just bought.

“Go, princess, please,” he croaked, squaring his jaw in a heroic attempt not to topple and – in the worst case possible – take her down and pin her under his lifeless body.

Damn her pride, Aahana thought feverishly, damn the whole secretive nonsense; clearly, her enemies had found her after all and despite all the precautions that had been taken to keep them in the dark.

“HELP,” she screamed, a sob shredding her words into a cacophony of feelings, “help me! Call an ambulance!”

People started turning around, hastening to her side; they were all in danger, Aahana knew, but she accepted to build a human shield if only it would boost Haldir’s chances of getting to the hospital before bleeding out.

“Aahana,” he wheezed, “don’t! You need to…”

Words failed him as the pain and the numbing cold flooded his senses.

“Hush, friend,” Aahana caressed his cheek tenderly, “it will be alright. I’ll alert your people from the ambulance; don’t worry.”

For weeks now, he had kept her safe – physically as much as emotionally – and she would be unworthy of her title and its honours if she could not repay his dutiful kindness by stepping up in his hour of need.

It had been her fault; she had become too confident and frivolous.

If only she had listened to careful, measured Haldir, but now it was too late, and she prayed to her gods and his alike that he’d be fine; she knew not how she would deal with the guilt and the emptiness if he was to succumb to that insidious wound.

Wasn’t it funny that a man so discreet and stoic was taken down by an attack equally as silent and dignified?

“Milady,” Haldir gasped – jolted awake by a bump in the road – and felt around the sterile cloth for her hand, “why did you…? How could you put yourself in danger for me like that?”

“I don’t often get the chance to talk to someone like you,” Aahana replied softly, “let alone be with someone like you, or be myself for that matter; I owe you not only my life but what little happiness I have known in the last year.” With a gentle hand, she brushed away a strand of hair – tacky with sweat – from his fair brow as she went on: “I am not more important than you, Haldir, no matter what people tell you…what else did you want me to do?”

“Run, as I told you,” Haldir frowned at her, but he didn’t manage to look quite as severe as he would have liked to, “get to a safe house and call Lady Galadriel.”

“And leave you behind?” Aahana was aghast.

“Yes, I am but a small cog in the works,” Haldir replied without false modesty.

“Wrong,” Aahana protested, “you are the only thing that mattered in that instant to me….” He managed a sad smile – allowing himself for a single second to believe that the way she looked at him now was proof of more than just professional courtesy and basic human decency – and then, the world went black around him.

I hope you enjoyed this, baby, once again, I love you truly <3

You are a really pretty girl and I hope I didn't say anything offensive. Love you ❤️

@eunoiaastralwings have her read this one to you <3

@fellowshipofthefics second entry :D

#fotfics may challenge #may challenge #haldir #haldir x OC #haldir x southasian OC #bodyguard #secret royalty #fluff #and violence #first part?

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strqyr · 3 years

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my "hot take" of the day:

to the branwen tribe, it's "the weak die, the strong live."

to raven, it's "the weak die, the strong live."

in other words, it's not really strength that raven cares about – those are mostly just empty words – it's survival she's after by any means necessary;

– "i've stared death in the face over and over again! and every time i've spat in that face and survived, because i'm strong enough to do what others won't!"

when you actually listen to what raven says when she's not putting up an act that fits the tribe's views, it becomes clear that strength doesn't really rank that high for her;

cinder: aren't you perceptive.

raven: it's what's kept me alive.

that doesn't sound very "the weak die, the strong live", does it?

even the lessons / advice raven gave weren't the "get stronger" kind. they were to ask questions, to not just sit and obey and believe everything an authority figure tells you – all very relevant things in post-v5 volumes.

i don't really know where i'm going with this. i just think there's a lot more to raven than just "strength is all that matters and that's the only thing she respects in another person" – i'd even go as far as saying that strength is very low on that list, actually.

#rwby #raven branwen #i have many feelings about raven #and this is very high on that list #the writers have said that raven is very troubled person and someone who fakes confidence and wears the mask to seem more intimidating #and i just feel like that should be acknowledged more #instead of just reducing her into this ''strength is all that matters'' character #my mysterious dark troubled ladies are very nuanced and i would like to see that showcased within the fndm too aight

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whitewitchdani · 4 years

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Laters, Baby: Chapter 5

Read Chapter 4 Here

Word Count: 1302

Pairing: Winchester!Sister x Lucifer

Warnings: angst, fluff, language, canon typical violence

A/N: I’m bored during this quarantine so here’s chapter 5. If this keeps going you all are going to get chapters much quicker than anticipated. lol. Let me know what you think and if you’d like to be tagged!

Laters Baby Masterlist

When they finally let you leave the motel room, you began to walk down the road it was on. Every thought was flying through your head at a million miles an hour, not being able to settle on a single one. Your life had pulled a full 180 in only a few hours. Should you expect anything less though? Your last name was Winchester.

A few minutes into your walk, you stumbled upon a park. It was beautiful, even in the dark. You walked further in and sat on a bench in front of an illuminated fountain. You needed to sit for this internal battle you knew was approaching. The rushing of the water through the fountain helped calm you. You took a deep breath and let your mind slow to the first item that needed your attention before all the others: your brothers.

Part of you wanted to be pissed. Dean lied to you for your whole life. You understood why he didn’t tell you while Dad was still alive; orders were orders and nobody followed them more loyally than Dean. But after he died? You were in your 20’s when John died; there was no reason for Dean not to tell you. It’s not like you would have left them, just like you wouldn’t now. You may not be related by blood like you thought, but they’re still your brothers and you’re still a Winchester. Although, you’ll probably still give Dean shit for a while, he deserves it.

You smirked at that thought and looked up behind the fountain to see the sun begin to rise. Was it that early already? The sun began to turn the sky into shades of orange and pink; it was breathtaking. Maybe getting the opportunity to see a sunrise for once is the positive to come out of this hell.

Hell. What a poor choice of words. You leaned back on the bench and massaged your temples. This is the one thing you didn’t wanna deal with. How was this even possible? An archangel with a human soulmate? It made no sense. And why you? Why were you meant to be with the devil? You tried to live a good life, be a good person, save everyone that you could. Why was God punishing you? You ran a hand through your hair as the tears you’d been trying to fight all night finally slid down your cheeks.

Suddenly, there was a whoosh sound, like a wing. You sat up and looked to your right to see Castiel beside you. “Cas, what are you doing here?” you asked wiping the tears from your face.

“I sensed your distress. As a neutral third party I thought perhaps you could benefit from speaking to me about the matters troubling you.”

“Right now, I’m just trying to come to terms with the whole ‘soulmate to the devil’ bullshit. Why me, Cas? I’ve tried all my life to be a good person and not just the killer my dad trained me to be, so why am I destined to be with an archangel who literally does nothing but cause death and destruction?”

Cas sighed, “I do not believe this is a punishment, Y/N. As you humans say, God works in mysterious ways. I believe he intends for you to mate with Lucifer as a way to possibly change him. Make him come to terms with the fact humanity is not the burden he believes it to be. If anyone could change Lucifer into a better person, it’s you.”

You looked at Castiel in awe, “Do you really think so? I’m not anything special. I’m just a hunter. I drink too much, I kill something every week, and look at me; I’m covered in scars and I wear hand-me-downs from the boys. I’m not worthy of an archangel, even if it is a fallen one. God made a mistake.”

“Please do not put yourself down in such a way. You underestimate yourself. When I first came to Earth, you were patient with me and my misunderstandings of human nuances. I’ve seen the way you comfort surviving victims on your hunts and how you mourn those you were too late to save. You pet every dog you see and you give to others when you have very little to begin with. You may kill, but you kill to save innocents. You are a good person, Y/N. My father chose you for a reason.”

You smiled at the angel as a tear escaped; did he really notice all of that about you? Dean gets annoyed with Cas but you appreciated his naïve nature and his protective tendencies over you and your brothers. You opened your mouth in an attempt to thank him for his support, when you were overwhelmed with the scent of sulfur. You stood and looked around in front of you.

“Cas...”

“Yes. Demons are nearby,” he said as he stood next to you.

“Damn Winchester, it must be nice to have an angel for a lapdog. He’s pretty cute. Can I pet him?” The female voice came from behind you and Castiel. You both turned to find a brunette woman, her eyes flashing black at you as you did.

“You know, Meg, I’m getting real tired of seeing your ugly mug,” you sassed at the demon.

“I’m not thrilled to be around you either baby Winchester but orders are orders. Boss wants to get to know his new lady friend in private. That means you aren’t invited Clarence.”

“That is not my name, demon.” Cas growled and dropped his angel blade into his hand.

You sent a prayer to Cas. Cas I don’t have any weapons. This is going to end badly. They’re going to take me to Lucifer; you need to warn my brothers. Cas looked at you like you had two heads. He didn’t have to speak for you to know what he was thinking: he wasn’t leaving you. You rolled your eyes and when you looked back to Meg, two more demons had appeared behind her. Marvelous.

“Look our orders are to bring you in alive. If we kill you Lucifer will be very angry. Doesn’t mean we won’t hurt you in the process. Come with us now, and we won’t hurt you or Christmas-tree-topper over there.” Meg said sweetly.

You looked at Cas who just shook his head. Guess we’re fighting then. You looked back to the demons, “Tell Lucifer to shove it up his ass.”

The smile wiped from Meg’s face with your statement. She nodded at Cas and the two demons behind her began their attack on the angel.

“CAS!”

Meg walked closer to you, “Pretty boy can’t help you now, Winchester.”

You squared up and smirked at the demon, “Bring it on, bitch.”

Meg lunged at you and the fighting began. Luckily, she didn’t have any weapons but still, hand-to-hand combat with a demon was no walk in the park. You each got a few hits in on the other, Meg’s nose bleeding and your lip split. You glanced over at Cas who was holding his own with the two demons, finally shoving his angel blade into the chest of one of them.

Meg used your distraction to get in a cheap shot to your stomach. The wind rushed from your lungs and you dropped to your knees unable to breathe.

“Y/N!” Castiel stabbed the last demon and tried to make his way to you, but Meg threw him away with a flick of her wrist.

“Sorry Clarence, but the boss needs his soulmate.” With that, she punched you in the face one last time, sending you reeling. The last thing you heard was Cas call your name and felt Meg pull you into her arms before you gave into the darkness.

Read Chapter 6 Here

Tag List:

@lovesamwinchester

@tomhiddleston-is-mischief

@loco-latte

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movienotesbyzawmer · 4 years

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October 19, 2020: Friday the 13th

This is happening. I am going to watch the first eight Friday the 13th movies over the next eight evenings.

Am I an idiot. Will I even get through them all. Why.

The earlier movies in the series came out at a time when I was a pre-teen movie fan who really wanted to get past the too-scary barrier and just enjoy horror movies. I think rewatching the first couple on cable back in the early 80s helped me get used to horror movies. But it's not like I ever was a huge fan of, just, straight slasher movies. I'd appreciate the effects and the gore, but I never thought they were excellent movies.

So here we are at the first one, still the most famous one. I remember it well enough that I don't think anything will be scary or surprising, but it's been so long that I suspect it will look very, very dated. Let's pop this sukka in…

Right away we get to hear the familiar "riff" or whatever you want to call this bit in the score that goes CH CH CH CH CH HA HA HA HA HA HA. Good job coming up with that.

So they tell us that it's Camp Crystal Lake in 1958, and we cut between teenage camp leader people doing a singalong and a POV stalkercam creeping around. It really doesn't look like 1958 in any way. But that turns into a POV murdering of two boinking teenagers; definitely owes a debt to Halloween, which came out two years earlier. But that ends with the title of the movie shooting out toward us all and shattering some glass we didn't know was there! Oh mercy what a surprise how will I ever get any sleep.

Ha! A crazy old man jumps in front of the nice girl and be-s all scary at her with the portentous "death curse" warning. Kinda hard to believe this movie came out in the same decade as Blue Velvet, is my comment on its dramatic maturity.

0:12:45 - Kevin Bacon's first appearance! Do people remember that this is one of his earliest roles? Still a couple years after his small role in Animal House though, so he was actually known.

So now we're at the camp and we see the girl who makes it to the end. She's talking to the dude with the mustache who is, what, the owner of the camp? There's a creepy tension maybe because they will want us to suspect he's a bad guy later. Or maybe because awkward exchanges are a consequence of movie budgets being small. But there's also dumb plot exposition about how, okay, fine, she'll stay on the job until Friday but then she has to move to California to pursue her real interests. You know, art drawings!

Ooh, now the first girl, Little Miss Backpack, catches a second ride, but we don't see the driver, it's all POV! She's in trouble, and we don't know who it is! Is it Moustachio? She's on the run through the woods! Limping, oh no! And… SLASH! That's kind of interesting because it was looking like she might be the protagonist. But in the brilliant clarity of this very nice, newly-restored Blu-ray presentation, we see her cruelly dispatched by way of some pretty mediocre gore makeup. Good enough for what must have been a pretty low budget I guess. But hard to believe this came out just one year before An American Werewolf in London.

0:26:20 - "What Do I Do", says the snake-chasing counselor guy. It's a funny delivery! And I actually like some of the angles in this scene.

Now there's this motorcycle cop character who shows up to Be A Cop at them. The actor seems like he's not very experienced, but like he was cast because he has a weird way of talking that was amusing during the casting sessions.

Bah ha ha ha, the weird dude from town is lurking in the pantry! He emerges shockingly to deliver another warning! The only reason that happens is to make us wonder if he is the stalker. "You're doomed! You're all doomed!" Way to embrace that dialogue, buddy.

It's kind of like the director didn't give these counselor actors individual character notes; he just told them all "you are spunky young camp counselors, that's it, that's the direction".

So Kevin Bacon and his girlfriend have repaired to a little cabin so they can Do It, and something that's occurring to me is that, unlike what we're more used to seeing in slasher movies, they aren't focusing on the sexual attractiveness of the females. The guys and the gals are all just kind of good-lookin-enough young adults who are all into each other. I'm going to keep an eye on how this progresses as I get deeper into the series, if I even last the whole eight movies.

Whoa a dude is dead in the bunk above where they're Doing It! We didn't see that guy get killed even, right? He looks enough like another one of the guys that I might not have noticed his character was absent.

The KB death scene I totally remember, and at first it looks quite good and is a good shock! But because this restoration is so clean, you really notice the color difference between where it's KB's head and a fake body getting speared. Other than that, though, that is pretty exquisite horror movie violence, that death.

KB's girlfriend is looking like she's about to get murdered, and while she is in skimpy underwear, I still don't think it's like that to titillate us as much as to make her seem vulnerable. Am I being naïve? Maybe. The rest of the gang is playing strip poker in their quarters, but they're such regular people and not being filmed in any kind of steamy way.

The pace really slowed down after those couple of bloody murders, but audiences at the time were probably pretty shocked by how bloody they were. Both of those deaths were very much in close-up. At this point in the movie, though, there's a more careful suspense. We go back to Moustachio, chatting in a diner, then having car trouble. It's plodding in a way that seems actually pretty smart. I feel suspense building.

0:56:58 - I don’t remember this scene at all… one of the girls is all by herself and she clearly hears someone calling for help. It's not done in a "maybe it's the supernatural echo of the drowning boy's screams" way. It's just a lure. The girl goes outside, someone turns floodlights on… and we cut away just as she's ostensibly about to get all killed up.

So now it's just the short-haired girl and the dark haired guy that didn't die yet. Are they the last ones left? Other than Moustachio? That happened quick!

1:02:10 - First mention of it being Friday the 13th. It's really not significant to the story or to the whole series. They were clearly just stoked that they claimed "Friday the 13th" as a property.

Moustachio just got killed; no violence; it was just so we could see that he recognized the killer. Plus also now we know for sure he's not the killer, even though we figured that because he was off at the diner while killings were happening. Our minds are really spinning trying to solve this diabolical mystery!

I do like how they are drawing out the suspense at this point. Lots of little moments where maybe a lurker is about to get them.

How come people used to make coffee in the exact same was as they make hot cocoa? Just get a mug and put some coffee crystals in there and some sugar, then pour boiling water in there and serve?

Boom! After all that meticulous slow action, dude is dead on the door! Up until this point, the main girl had no idea that actual deaths were going on, and suddenly she's the only one left alive! It is exciting to watch her figure out what she'll do.

What she does first is go all in on blocking one door. It's kind of unintentionally funny, and also maybe that's what any of us would come up with.

In case she wasn't sure if the other gals were still around, a cadaver of one of them is heaved in front of her through a window! Just like that she undoes all her door work because she sees a jeep pull up. Are we supposed to recognize it as Bad Jeep from earlier? I think we are. It's a nice lady, but we are suspicious because Bad Jeep. But why would she throw a girl through a window and then just a few minutes later arrive in a Jeep?

The Jason's Mom actress is awesome, super intense. Only problem is that it's a little hard to believe that she's twenty years on from being a mother of a kid who was at a camp.

The main girl is on the run and found a rifle, and is just like OMG where is ammo, and she looks as desperate as I'd be. This is fine, you guys. Fine work. Fine, fine work.

1:26:40 - We're near the end. The chase devolved into an I-found-you-hiding-in-the-pantry fight. Jason's Mom got laid out on the floor and there was a little blood, so the main girl was like, time to just kneel by a canoe with my back to all of everything. But Mom is there and the fight ends with her being beheaded, because somehow there was a machete there that only the main girl knew about! The machete from the snake incident earlier that was in a totally different place, I guess. So she rewards herself with a midnight canoe ride by herself on the lake, which honestly should have been pretty free of murderers, not that dumb a move.

What is dumb is this ending. She wakes up in the hospital, vocally convinced that The Boy Jason pulled her under, even though she didn't see what happened because he grabbed her from behind. But there were cops there looking right at her at that time, they should have seen. Also, like, so do you slip into a coma when you fall overboard or something? Last time I got fully submerged in water I didn't wake up in the hospital with lots of questions.

So that's that! I watched Friday the 13th and told you what I was thinking as I watched it. It is not without virtues and the Blu-ray transfer looks very nice, but it is a slasher movie whose intended audience is no more nuanced than the undefined blob of camp counselor characters that make up most of the movie.

(next: Friday the 13th Part 2)

#Friday the 13th

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ratherhavetheblues · 4 years

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INGMAR BERGMAN’S ‘THE TOUCH’ “Can I do something for you?”

We live in a time when there are many who bid to confound the orthodox. Great gobs of rebels roam the town, threatening to install jurisdictions putting an end to the easy days for what is left of a mainstream. Our entertainments, for instance, smack of concussion. All these game-changers never doubt that their look and ways are destined to happily rule.

There is the possibility, however, that all of that critique will slip back to the defaults of religion and science (and their minions of humanism). It’s one thing to feel that something very important is not in play. It’s quite another thing, it seems to me, to define and embrace what that elusive phenomenon is.

One remarkable effort in that area is the output of the films of Ingmar Bergman (1919-2007). The latter’s career was not without renown and homage. But looking for responses, in such a direction as we’ve mentioned, have not found cogent takers amidst film enthusiasts.

There was a quite unique showdown, as to this silence—within the trilogy of three extremely violent films, namely, Hour of the Wolf (1968), Shame (1968) and The Passion of Anna (1969)—which embedded itself on the heels of the production of Shame and the overtaking of The Passion of Anna, namely, The Rite (1969), with its remarkable emphasis upon deploying the motions of hands and fingers to open the elements which have been imprisoned for so many centuries. The Rite was a prototype, and yet a rich study of the vagaries of depending upon exotic and flawed rebels. A subsequent film, having more completely delivered the imperative of taking upon one’s self to find the riches of sensibility, namely, The Touch (1971), our film today, runs a gamut for all to see, while being doubly ignored within its drama and being known to the world as the worst film Bergman ever created.

The Rite would be validly recognized as an avant-garde film, drawing upon Theatre of the Absurd, particularly, Eugene Ionesco’s Rhinoceros (1960), and Jean Genet’s The Balcony (1958). (In The Passion of Anna, Samuel Beckett’s, Waiting for Godot [1954], rides pretty high.) And although, in The Touch, a protagonist does reprise Rhinoceros (1960), nearly, all the viewers believe Bergman has produced a soap opera. Soaps galore, there are; but what you don’t want to get suckered with, as to the tedious narrative of “unique David,” the American archaeologist and his “ardent” student, Karin, finding small-town Sweden far from enough, is that Bergman would waste time on a vehicle of domesticity.

Start with the title. Our helmsman, as good as it gets for theatrical dialogue, has put the viewer’s feet into an absurdist fire which might deliver not only a drastic migration but a wise one. Humankind on earth, being what it is, however, another resource becomes paramount. The forces of anxiety, in which Bergman excelled, becoming, as viewer ignorance piled up, demanded a more visceral presentation of cinematography, in hopes that a more powerful physicality would cotton on to the communications. Not that inventive cinematography had not already been deployed in films twenty years before, but now requiring a sort of shock treatment to catapult the attention to something very different. At the era where Bergman was now intent upon radical disclosure, he was blessed with a cameraman, namely, Sven Nykvist (1922-2006) who, along with Bergman’s drive to the uncanny, constituted a long parade of optical strangeness at the infrastructure of our film on tap. Not only would Nykvist fit the bill as to unearth incisive visual mood, but he and Bergman coincided in their range of history and priorities in significant ways. They were born in Sweden about the same time—right after World War I—and their parents were intensely involved with the clergy. Nykvist seldom saw his parents, who were based in Africa as missionaries; and Bergman was far from tolerant toward his pious parents. Coming of age during World War II, they both found film work under the Axis powers—Bergman’s first screenplay being produced in 1944, and Nykvist doing cinematography in Italy. Bergman’s ambiguity about Hollywood would be a long-term collision with the Jewish owners of the heyday of American filmic drama. On casting his male protagonist for this blow-out of a movie, he chose the hyper-Semitic, Elliot Gould. Why? Because wordy self-promotion and desperate virtuousness are the farthest contrasts needed to elicit real lucidity, a lucidity of touch. On casting his other two protagonists—long-term Bergman stalwarts, Bibi Andersson and Max von Sydow—there was their recent outings, in The Passion of Anna, bemusing and troubling. The Andersson role finds her married to an internationally renowned architect, tasteful, sensitive and cynical to the self-serving portal to nihilism. At a dinner party, Andersson, named Eva, is asked if she believes in God. Her reply is to ask of her husband, “Do I believe in God, Elis?” The von Sydow role is that of a passive artisan being pushed around by a pathological brute of a wife. Now it’s Bibi, once again asking for direction, in the person of Karin; and Max, a sensitive physician in the person of Andreas—also his name in The Passion of Anna—left shattered and angry.

The outset, as always by Bergman, is elegant and primordially engaging. Karin parks at a hospital, and the lush foliage reflects upon her windshield, a trademark more calming than thrilling. But now we do have a major figure, despite her having died a few minutes before, and Karin enters this stage as an extra, more distracted than touched. The blur of the coat room during the rush of the emergency upstages her emotionally pat mission. While the doctor assures, “It was very peaceful”—she strangely distancing by way of, “May I go in”—we know by the inflected sensibility that she and her mother were not very peaceful together. Karin slowly walks toward the bed, and then there is a cut to her mother, her eyes open and showing a calm, handsome visage. Then a close-up of the lady’s hands and fingers. The inertia stages a rally of sorts in the form of her handsome portable clock and its showing 5 to 3. (A playful, dialectical hope in the midst of possibly carrying on to a sort of dance, a roundelay consisting of two opposing forces reaching a synthesis, a special truth.) Then a glass of water, half-full, on a table, along with a wristwatch and jewelry. Her daughter comes to the bed, sits rather gingerly on an edge and then she holds her mother’s hand. She touches her cheek, her forehead and her hair. A nurse suggests, “But perhaps you’d like to take the wedding rings now…” She closes her mother’s eyes with her fingers. She suddenly, in a sort of panic, kisses her. The tone, the touch coming across, in this, amounts to more a formality than compassion. She quits the room as if having escaped from a chore. (At the end of the film, Karin will cancel an affair on the basis of duty to her husband and children, who by that time hate her. In a flashback the now deceased is visiting her daughter’s family. Her mood, her body language, emits of not being welcome, a somewhat annoying foreigner. Karin and Andreas cherish their garden, but the love becomes eclipsed by its technology and show of advantage. During a slideshow, Andreas, losing control of the jist, blurts out, “That’s my mother-in-law, she’s dead.”) Back at the hospital, the camera lingers on the mother. A field of light nuance presents. A pan down to her hands, and a delicate embroidery.

The nurse delivers the jewelry in the corridor, without eye-contact. Karin begins to make some formality pertaining to the attentions of the recent patient. “Mother was…” The busy nurse cuts her off with a dry, “You’re welcome.” On the way out she cries for many reasons. A cut to her hands and fingers, caressing the jewelry. By the time she had placed the two rings on her finger, in a dark exit, there were loud footsteps approaching. The newcomer turns on the light, disclosing his very overweight presence, having arrived as if an oncoming rhinoceros. In fact, Bergman, now intent upon the ins and outs of avant-garde endeavor, nails him as a version of Ionesco’s Rhinoceros, a figure of anger and destruction and soft self-pity, becoming a wake-up delivered toward myopic bourgeois carelessness. His hard eyes become soft. “Can I do something for you?” She tells him to leave her alone. He races along with, “Oh, I’m sorry,” now in the register of the nurse.

They meet again, but their faring means nothing. We have reached a home of the dead—soap opera style. All we can do is notice that there is so much more trailing them. Nykvist, come on in!

It turns out that our “reckless lovers,” supposed paragons of the new and the deeper, generate a sea of emotions, going nowhere for them, but going somewhere for us. Their first extensive meeting is on the ramparts of an ancient fortification, more than inert in seemingly overwhelming the river far back in the scene. As they perform their walkabout in a world of ancient stones a slight view of that sea appears, a portion of the kinetic. A ship in the distance. The known and the not wanting to know more. While this encounter mounts quiet motion wasted, the new man, bizarre as a troupe of pornographic superstars in the film twinning this film, has become a mysterious, unearthly monarch to Karin. She brings that David to her almost palatial home one sunny weekend, in hopes that her passion for gardening could meld somehow with her treachery. “We work in the garden every spare minute. Andreas adds, “Our garden is actually our pride.” Then she goes on, “Oh, you must come here in the spring or early summer… We’re both very fond of flowers and trees as you can see.” The many blossoms and trees in view surely reach a facsimile of magic. But, when delivering their understanding of the boon, all of their fund of majesty, disinterestedness, rapidly withers. This feast running to famine puts, for the one and only time, an entry to Karin’s sense of more than one magician. David delivers the routine praise, and she therewith lets her hobbyist priority take over. “And all winter we dream about what we’re going to do next summer.” Andreas is called away on the phone by his medical duties and, when David iterates, “Everything in the garden is lovely,” she touches upon a major challenge: “You know it’s very difficult to talk about that kind of thing.” Her malaise at that crucial point, instead of initiating a hard and solitary investigation, finds her leaning on a flashy but weak savior. On to a “confession,” from the guest, “I suppose it’s hardly the thing to tell you, but I fell in love with you…” (The little judge, in The Rite, comes to a confessional to supplement his generally solitary researches. He comes to grief in consulting a mob of useless nihilists. The two, pledging love here, do stand as looking for a change. But not a brave change. Bravery being a rare instance, where so much is obsolete, or at least hugely overrated.) A glowing Karin rises to, “Please have some raspberries.” Bergman’s raspberries being a broad hit. Moreover, a feeble dialectic leans upon what should be fluent. A grey, skinny candle near the window; yellow roses unfocused. The great lover, saying, “No, no, no, I couldn’t eat anything more. I’m stuffed…”

Andreas having settled the phone emergency, he takes up an undisclosed earlier conversation, pertaining to David, of a mysterious wooden sculpture of the Madonna, hidden in a long-forgotten chink in a small minor church in the vicinity where he was carrying out one of his archaeological duties and loves. The two technicians find easy-going pleasure therein, and David actually musters a sense of singularity about how the craft and care had come to such a resting place. But Andreas cuts short the “mystery,” with, “Would you like a whisky?” and then it’s off to the less than interesting slideshow and the carelessly addressed deceased—another locked away treasure. The medic trots out some blossom highlights—one being an orchid named “insectaria.” “It attracts the interest of the fly.” (David being an incubus curiosity to Karin’s fly.) The jiggling show, being something else, unnoticed. “Are you sure David is interested?” she cautions. Another hit to the easy-wise, is the portrait of their donkey. “It died two weeks after this photo was taken…” Long before the mother-in-law’s death, there she is, onscreen (as having noted), sharply different from that of the others, in being seriously poised and reflective. That touch being, arguably, all this film seriously amounts to. (“Uh, she’s also dead,” speaks volumes about this family, and also the newcomer-insect he’s found to be jagged to his liking.) Scotch helping along, the visiting pedant blurts out, “Have you a picture of your wife nude… I would like to see a picture of Karin nude.” Andreas/ Max (having a long history of Bergman films being shocked and embarrassed) laughs it off. But this little bomb marks the end of smooth sailing for that family, left to settle into forces of sensibility apparently without accommodating the beauties of blossoms. The coda of that night is optically and viscerally firming. A close-up reveals a rambling kiss curl for David, Bergman having broached a similar ripple in the film, Dreams (1955). His hands are shown, tightly locked. (“Don’t worry, there won’t be a scandal.”) David refusing Andreas’ offer to drive the Scotch bomb home, the man of the house settles for, “I’d love to see the church.”/ “Yeah,” is all he gets. Before bed, we see a limp dialectic having squelched any mystery: Karin along a wall; a gold lampshade; and, beyond that, the non-magical film screen. An errant prayer. Here’s the night, as they would have it. He declares, “I’m glad he didn’t stay too long.” She asks, “How did you like him?”/ “A damned nice fellow, I thought. But he drank a bit too much, didn’t he?”/ “Did he? I didn’t notice, actually.”/ “Foreigners, you know…”/ “How did you meet?”/ (His friend, Jacobi [a long-term name and desperate signal of trouble in Bergman] directed David to Andreas. The diagnosis given, to her, was a kidney stone. As we will hear later, the “Rhinoceros” had attempted suicide. Andreas’ hands are seen to be tightly held.) In bed, he holds her at her shoulder. His fingers are stock still. Then their hands are locked in profile. A flow of bedding looks as if he has a large flow of mucus.

The preamble of the budding lovers comprises her at home doing domestic chores, with the lightest and most tedious play-list on the radio. She tells her young son, “Let’s get a move on!” She hears staunch church bells at their rendezvous. He would show up with a corn-cob pipe, perhaps imagining being as tough as General MacArthur, but in fact just corny, a ludicrous excuse for getting a move on. Now he’s at left, she at right, and between, a painting at the altar. Making such a trio of magic needs more than corn, girlie sentiment and gloomy piety. The disinterestedness and love, of the presence of the statue on this site, being light years away from our shabby protagonists. David’s flashlight plays over the major figure and a smaller one, as to companionship. Far more than our protagonists will ever know, there is a touch capable in their own hands and fingers to convene a consummation truly astounding. He directs Karin to the subtle smile of the figure. Easy subtle. While there is a world of subtlety to engage. On reaching the façade of the antiquity they come upon a stone figure, a sort of map or warning. A trail, in the manner of a serpent, conspicuously showing a vise or wall. A serene church being only part of the mystery. She returns for a second look of the trail. She runs an ignorant hand over the point of contention. He lifts her hand from the pictograph, simulating the snag. From the depths to the soaps. His hand, lifting hers, describes a knot. He rushes a finger over her palm. A logo on the cuff of her shirt is a pussycat.

There are many moments of Andreas’ career and Karin’s matrimony. They mean little here, beyond the ironies of their distractions. He, once again, on the phone at home: “I think so, too. But the symptoms are kind of vague, don’t you think? If only she wasn’t so damned hysterical. It might be just nerves.” She tells him, on the subject of her adolescent daughter, Marie, “She’s going out with some friends tonight. Mind that she’s home by midnight.” Then Karin, about to invade for the first time, the supposed lair of the vague and the perfect, changes clothes many times, perhaps a habit of Marie. The hurricane of bourgeois seductions finds, beyond hysteria, a policy of simplicity, namely, an old woolen number. (The judge, in The Rite, also hoping to strike the perfect tone in face of questionable priorities, frequently changes his clothes due to a medical weakness. Woolens speak to the issue of desperate Anna, in her film, The Passion of Anna, where sheep become butchered.) Karin’s apologetic gambit when being late here, “It’s one-way streets all the way from where we are,” becomes an unintentional disclosure of deadly childishness. Her one-way involves ticking off his one and dying plant and his filthy apartment. But then, perhaps not so out of the blue, the rendezvous begins to sound like a Hollywood charmer. “You’re nervous, David.”/ “Yes, I’m nervous. My pulse must be 690. Aren’t you nervous?”

Whereas the “exotic” mob, in The Rite, were truly pathological mercenaries, David, as now revealed, is a humanitarian softy with an animus toward the likes of Andreas—modern, technically conversive and rather cold. That he doubles as a rhinoceros—a primeval poster boy—has fooled Karin into thinking that heights are just around the corner. (A lovely touch of dramatic irony occurs with David, having been working abroad, arriving on the same night Andreas was staging a gala at the end of a medical conference. Karin skips out of the techies, only to confront her “something else,” being dressed and coiffed exactly like the medics at play. Eventually he’ll tell her that his ideal is attaining an assistant professorship at a rural university. “We could live a settled life on your conditions.”)

With so much bilious churning to the fore, their supposed breakaway is a redundancy, a screwball farce. He asks, “What should we talk about now?” She suggests, “Shall we take our clothes off and go to bed and see what happens?… But we must close the curtains. I’m shy.”/ “Oh, so am I!” he assures. Karin’s one-way nude becomes a study of quirkiness so lost as to be a sort of sign of a plague. “I want you to look at me first. I’m 34. You can see that in my face, especially around the eyes. I have a scar here on my stomach. I’ve had two children, and Anders [their boy] was very big, you know. My breasts were nicer before… I’m not an experienced mistress, etc.” David, in this blizzard, feels, “I’m afraid I can’t today.” This somehow brings her to the point of duplicity. “I’ve no idea why I’ve come here to you… I don’t even know if I’m in love with you.”

The next time they meet, David kisses her till her lips bleed, and he rapes her, in a similar way to the rape of Thea by the judge, in the other experimental ball of fire, The Rite, chasing most of the viewers out of contention, while subsequent fireworks get down to smaller bits of delight. A short time before, she had, in the course of Andreas’ leaving town for a conference, found herself behind a light grey transparent curtain as she waved to him leaving from the carport. In her profile as she moved along the window, the curtain became animated, a ripple effect came to life, whereby she became active in an uncanny way, at a volume too weak to matter. In The Rite, Thea provides a credo of startling dynamics, only to provocatively turn her back on it. Now it’s Karin’s turn, having never been exposed to anything but domesticity. Heavy feeling, but merely destructivity, on tap. She attempts a rational experience. “What just happened? Don’t you think you were very childish?” (Childish [and more] when she comes to realize, on encountering his sister, that his story, about his Jewish family all killed by the Nazis [but him], is a fabrication. Advantage, and not a trace of disinterestedness.) His apologia runs as follows: “I don’t know what to do with my churned-up feelings. Isn’t it absurd? After all, I’m grown up.” (Even beyond the absurd.) The four candles behind them, obviously lacking the real deal of three. At the medical reception congress, six candles blaze. Overkill. Karin is a model of being in her element. Other elements are stillborn. On leaving there, for the supposed truth, an adolescent quarrel flares up. She tells him she’s a little tipsy from the zone of chemistry. Viewing herself in a mirror she lifts up her hands and her fingers are playful. He, on the other hand, proceeds to trash the apartment, rhino-style. As things get even worse, she’s heard to remark, “No one has ever struck me.” Impetuous Americans, right? Before the standard American movie redemption on the staircase, he ploughs into, “I hate that goddamn Andreas, that fucking, hypocritical idiot. He can go to hell!” (Here we could mention that his sister in London, while debunking the family war crisis, does float the idea that she and David are doomed by an incurable disease. What we do see from her is a lot of alcohol and cigarettes.) Karin places her hand and fingers over his obviously stupid mouth. Back at the love nest, a little bird is seen quickly passing by their window.

Back home with Andreas, their chess game shows her between two dim lights. Another arrangement features a small fireplace. Their son comes by and berates the film being played by him. “Just a lot of romance.” Andreas notices the split lip. She remarks, “Could it maybe be vitamin deficiency?” (That little ironic joke has a serious side, pertaining to comprehensive resilience. At this juncture of making waves amidst slugs, transcending cinema while cherishing its daring, our film—as with the coda of The Rite—must recognize and reveal the reflective imperatives integral to these meta-actions. We have to make the best of these two transcendent demands, in order to appreciate the range of the “vitamin deficiency” of the narratives, past and present, and why they still matter.) Bells are quietly heard. Before going to bed, Andreas does some reading of a favorite Swedish poet. Beyond all reason, could he actually collide with the uncanny? Next day Karin, an unlikely user of such vitamins, reads one of the poems to David, feeling the need of some couth. “I think he’s the best. ‘Wake me to sleep in you/ Wake my words to you/ Light my dead stars nearer you/ Dream me out of my world…/ Give birth to me, leave me/ Kill me near you/ Nearer the hearth of birth/ Take me warmer, take me nearer you.’” (A testament like Thea’s. What’s up?) During a long absence while David is currying advantages for his career, both of them know well that the excitement was bogus. (Nowhere near do there expressions recall the poetry.) A blur of his fingers touching his writing page to her. [Typed and sterile.]. Her report of interest: “We’ve all had colds. I was absolutely streaming…” Followed by, “David, dearest friend I have in the world, can you forgive me for not writing to you for several days. We’ve been spring cleaning…” He writes, “One day I stopped dead in my tracks and said to myself, ‘We’re painfully united!’”

On a brief visit after many months, the flat filthy, and she announcing she’s stopped smoking, her positions in space steal the show. There is a lineup—David to right, she in the middle and a mirror showing her. His preoccupation upon smarts well established; her presences lost. She invites him to lie on the bed with her. She becomes rigid, as if having been shot. He avoids her hungry mouth. She goes on to give him a hair wash, and then Andreas comes by, wanting to talk. With Karin ensconced in the bedroom, like a naughty adolescent, the doctor touches upon people beginning to talk about her cheating. David thinks to be helpful in recommending the cockold appreciate what he remains to have, his work, his children, his plants… Then, the host, garbed in dressing gown rhinoceros grey, rips up some turf with, “You’ve humiliated us both long enough with this ridiculous visit.” The husband replies, “I don’t understand why you’re so aggressive, David. I like you… I liked you at the beginning already, when I took care of you after your attempted suicide.” David’s entitlement-hunger rips up again, with the retort, “It was an accident with that ridiculous gas oven.” Andreas, not as liking the brute nearly as much as he claimed, crushes the wimp with data. “We were never to speak of it,” the born lawyer maintains. Well aware that Karin is on hand, he leaves, holding an advantage of feeble satisfaction. “She has to make up her mind for herself. She hates any form of decision.” Her, “Do you think he knew I was here?” puts her in her place, unequivocally. David’s use now of “touch” reflects how averse he is to the magic of touch. “Wasn’t that touching? That was too goddamn touching…”

Other touching moments prove to stage modest but memorable rallies. The two dwarfs observe that the Madonna is doomed. The specialist tells the seeming dare-devil, “Something peculiar has happened, something no one can explain. Before she was walled over, she was the home of some insect not known today. The larvae have been sleeping inside her in darkness for 500 years. And now they’ve awakened and they’re eating the image away from within.” (Her finale, small, quirky and magnificent.) His finger amidst the insects. Not a rite, but the unintentional makings of a finite true love. He opines that the insects are at least as beautiful as the image itself. He would, of course, discount the touches being integral to this death, and this creativity. Karin looks down. “I’ve lost my footing or whatever it is. I used to be fairly secure in my world.” David mocks, “That’s too bad!” Prefacing her bid to turn things around, she wonders if something is wrong with her. She envisages, “It’s possible to live two lives, becoming into one wise and good life that could benefit other people and make them happy.” (Irony, of course. But the inchoate effort to touch the elements. In that vein, she slams the rhinoceros, not particularly effectively. “I know you are going to leave me, because you hate yourself.”) She takes another look at the frieze on the exterior of the place of love. Next day, dressed in chic black leather, befitting an international power of coherence, she discovers that the indispensable man has left town. She smashes a glass, takes off her gloves and presses her hands into the shards.

When desperation takes over, complication races. She’s pregnant and Andreas, one night, now in separate bedrooms, refuses to help when contractions become extreme. Then, sometime after the birth, David resurfaces to announce that he can’t live without her. They meet in a plant conservatory, where birds of paradise are in great supply, and where neither of them notice. He woos her like a Junior High, a filibuster going nowhere. He bitches like a Junior High on realizing he’ll have to find another sucker. Karen explains, “I feel it’s my duty to stay where I am.” Staying where she is, she’s roundly hated.

And yet, the population being what it is, there’s good times ahead. Marie, the caution, is something else. Before the deep freeze, she joins her mother for a safari to find a new outfit. David, in an orange, woolen jump suit, had stalked them and was rapping on the store window. Marie backs out of that fun. She glares at David, knowing very well that the fix is in. Addressing the girl as if she were a duchess of long ago, the supposed new deal gushes, “Do you mind if I talk to your mother for a minute?” She has no time for that prowler. I like to think she’s about to become like her grandmother, which is to say, like the middle-aged lady arranging a divorce, in the film two years appearing after this (prototype) film, namely, Scenes from a Marriage, where a shallow, bourgeois lawyer, Marianne, cocooned in a mob of that sort, could piddle away a lifetime of schemes and never have a clue, never have love to give and receive.

As this second, and last, test drive of the frontiers of contemporary sensibility, comes to an end, there is, I think, a need to disclose how Bergman’s endeavor dovetails with other investigations. His title, The Touch, emphasizes that a locked away treasure of disinterested loving action calls for us to press open, by a touch, the full dynamic of not only human life, but the cosmos itself. That the forgotten crypt has reached its last phase does not undermine the process of greatness per se. A heart becoming lost forever in such a bid is a heart having delighted in playing a part of mustering the primordial heights. The host, therein, is far from simply delivering a mystical enjoyment. The host, in fact, teems with players, but to a test, a test, as we’ve just revealed, to be nearly completely lost in action. The Swedish Madonna had a career of serenity. Few of us are so lucky. But, on the other hand, where the going is very rough and swift, the pathology of advantage can prompt intensities to the liking of the true. Those truly on the go are equipped for shooting rhinos. Their range is their fortune. There are many masterful hands. A solitary play between immortal and mortal has its validity, as well as its blessings. On that note, however, there is full liberty to carve careers wherein the quick and the dead can be engaged for infinite permutations. Joiners being a doubtful policy, but, as we’ve indicated, rare moments do surface.

#ingmar bergman

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devilishdewitt · 5 years

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“Real Variety Show”, April 2019

Ah, dearest darling, hello!

Missed me?)

I feel like exploring new territory, care to join me?

A new format, to be precise.

I’m gonna call this…Short’n’Sweet.

First things first, the most important part of any review I shall ever write:

~The Eternal Disclaimer~

It is hereby declared that this little nook of the world wide web shall be devoted to the praise & critique of the art of Burlesque, specifically in Russia.

Let it also be known that I am first and foremost a benevolent force, and every single criticism is documented solely for the purpose of evolution, growth and inspiration, darling.

Never forget - it is fantastic that the burlesque scene in Russia has grown so much in the last few years. Brava, ladies! As a fact and a statement, it is absolutely fabulous.

However, I volunteer to wear the heavy crown of expertise, having seen many a show in many a place, and having a keen eye for detail and a heart hungry for that wow factor.

I always come with an open heart, am quite easily entertained, and know how hard the craft is - I can overlook many a fault when there’s stage presence, charisma and that fire of passion.

Oh, and self-irony.

All is sickly without self-irony.

Now, onwards! To fabulousness!

As we’re all busy, busy bees, my darlings - and I have already pirouetted my penmanship talent in before you in quite an unapologetic way, I shall indeed keep this short’n’sweet.

Though there’s not that much sweetness in this edition…

Leelah Zharkaya & Lyalya Bezhetskaya have now ventured into the tumultuous waters of dark cabaret, creating the “Real Variety Show”.

Same team, new...concept?

Being an avid admirer of the genre, I’ve been keeping an eye on its progress in Moscow and I must say, it’s not quite as fruitful as one could hope.

The Dark Cabaret Festival did not live up to expectations - mostly because of the confusion of the producers. It seemed like only 2 out of 10 organisers actually understood what Dark Cabaret is all about.

Well, in this case it’s more like 1/10.

I keep wondering why Dark Cabaret is having such a tough time in Moscow. It would seem that we have the perfect formula for it - the layers of natural national darkness, self-irony, a plague-feast mentality…what are we lacking?

Good taste, perhaps, and the understanding of the tender, intricate nuances.

Scroll up, darling, and take a look at the poster. It does indeed convey the atmosphere quite accurately.

The venue? Tolerable.

Imagine that you walk in, make your way to the auditorium, and find yourself encountering a lady singing with a noose. Singing with a noose? Kitty Orlova is uber-talented, and the noose did no one any harm (I hope), but somehow it just fell flat.

What was the intention? This is left unclear.

The story. The Narrator is the son of a legendary circus performer who mysteriously disappeared

(you’ll never guess who plays her)

(hint - it’s the director).

He takes us down memory lane, showing the quirks, kinks and kindness of each new character (usually Uncle Something or Aunt Someone).

Why not, darling, why the hell not.

This time round The Narrator was actually tolerable. As if he found a muscle of sincerity and tenderness that worked with the (extremely poorly written) story. In fact, he had moments of sheer brilliance when ad-libbing with the audience. He is no doubt a talented fellow, perhaps he just needs to find his director.

It must be said - Leelah’s creativity is ingenious at times. Some of her acts have incredible and well-executed ideas, a coldness that makes German divas of the 30’s envious and true emotion to captivate the audience. But there is something deeply off-putting about 80% of her stage presence, a nerve that adds a tinge demanding adoration…and not in an exciting way. At times there’s something porcelain about her, and at other times - something so self-absorbed, you’re not sure why you were invited.

Bezhetskaya, on the other hand, is warm. She adores (most of) her audience and the audience responds. Some of her ideas are fantastic, and you can see her beautiful attention to details, humour, playfulness, enjoyment of her own body and craft…but then what leaves a sour taste? Somehow the atmosphere just doesn’t come together. It sometimes feels as if she pretends to be something she is not - but what is this object of pretence?

Whoever put that wig and costume on Din-Din is either phenomenally cruel or innocently blind. But if they are blind, all of the people around them, who can in fact see, are phenomenally cruel. Give the girl a break!

Xana. Brilliance. Her Harlequin act is one of the best I’ve ever seen. Marrying acrobatics, heartfelt narrations and a bombacious attitude makes her an absolute feast for the eyes, mind and senses.

Now, I am quite biased about the poet Zkhous. I must admit I love him fondly, since the Dark Cabaret festivals! As always, he was he dear neurotic self and the poetry was as crude as it was lovely.

Orlova, Chess Queen, Lipsync?! What?! On a stage as tiny as this?! With her gorgeous voice?

Also, this act always confuses much, There’s so much going on, she always gets lost in the multitude of actions and doesn’t actually breathe in the story.

Janina Barabash…the voice gimmick was good.

That’s all.

That Silent Movie act…I don’t even know what it was. She’s surrounded by experienced mentors…couldn’t anyone ask her what the hell she was doing? Amoebing around with a velvet ribbon…okay.

Elisha the poodle! Excellent. As always. A story about purpose told through the sex appeal of a Furry. Elisha certainly found his niche and excels at it.

Marilyn Monroe’s “Daddy”. A song CREATED for an enticing act.

Apologies, my vocabulary completely abandons me here. This was unapologetically dreadful. I won’t even bore myself with analysing it. Amateur at its worst.

Madame Irenushkin as the trench-coated shooter…triumph of vulgarity. Shooting at the audience is mauvais-ton in any professional theatre, but if only that was the only sin…One word - sloppy.

Oh, how the audience perked up at the magical word Шашлыки (barbecue)!

KittenTits McGee! Shaving act! Sheer GENIUS. That girl is a marvel and I’ll never tire repeating it. The music, the rhythm, the concept, the layered references - FLAWLESS.

If I’m being nit-picky, the only thing I’d add is playing the pain of epilation more precisely - no one can escape the 4-second agony when that wax comes off.

Agneta Lincheskvaya, a rare guest in Moscow, made an appearance as Aunt Blanche with her “Streetcar named Desire” act. She is unapologetically her own brand and it works - her mix of confidence and fragility, her unique features, her dance skills and her gorgeous depth made the performance stand out. Enticing.

Long Live Aristocratic Erotism!

“Oh, I know! Let’s take the backing track of Katy Perry’s “California Gurls” and write a whole new song about SHOES!”

Well…hm.

Beautiful neon concept by Lyalya. Gorgeous self-irony.

But Kitty and Lyalya had ZERO chemistry. Kitty was just…standing there, by the side, kind of out of the lights, singing a song with very mediocre lyrics, seemingly uncomfortable.

Why must it be so?

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - endlessly re-playing the most banal gender stereotypes is exhausting. Re-affirming society of it’s deepest, roughest shortcomings (especially in Russia), is part of reason why society is in a state it’s in.

The final thought was poetic - “you must treasure hearts”. If only someone for a second thought of taking care of our audience hearts…

And, as always, the bow and the dreaded kiss.

Ladies, no one enjoys it apart from a few troubled, greasy men in the audience and you (which I doubt). A hint of a chance of a kiss would be more in tune with the nature of Burlesque, Dark Cabaret and the gorgeous culture of variety show.

Subtlety.

Teasing…

But I guess it’s all a matter of taste, isn’t it?

The next instalment of this groups creativity is called “Vampires on the beach” and is announced as “the best HElloween in town”.

I’m afraid the only word that comes to mind is...yikes.

Though the artwork is excellent.

PPS

Curious how this “short’n’sweet” idea actually turned into a decent sized text. Apologies! My muse could not be tamed, darling!

#Lyalya Bezhetskaya #variety show #burlesqueinrussia #russian burlesque #burlesque

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tumblunni · 7 years

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AAAAARRRRGH tfw u somehow sabotage your own idea by getting a new idea thats too good ???????????????????????? God, I had an idea for a villain for a thing and then I ended up reinterpreting a what if that character was actually a troubled misunderstood normal person who’s just like a red herring for the real villain EXCPET NOW I HAVE NO CLUE WHO THE REAL VILLAIN IS goddammit my undeveloped plotline just got even more undeveloped

long talks & stuff below th cut:

Okay, so this is kinda for that vague idea I had of the ‘spider legman story’, as its ended up being codenamed thanks to a friend XD

A sort of mystery dating sim thingie where u play as A Grody Farmin’ Man Who Luv Growin Dem Onions, and you have your best friend PTSD Sufferer Knight Bishie Man whom u Kinda Have A Larj Crush On and generally just relateable anxiety characters hav cyoot smoochies BUT THEN mr love interest man mysteriously vanishes one day assumed dead, with nobody giving a shit except you, cos he was a social pariah and you end up in an arranged marriage to a woman you don’t love and even worse you now have to deal with what may or may not be his ghost hauntin u or may be one of the demons from the forest masquerading using his face or even both or hey! maybe he’s just! totally fine! and alive! Ha.. ha.. ha..

So yeah you would be romancing or not romancing mr possibly an evil ghost and it may or may not go well and you might instead come to terms with his death and move on to dating another one of various love interests, which are not very developed yet only idea i have so far is a johnny bravo esque doofus travelling merchant guy who ended up kinda being a pure force of all that is good in the world one of his endings I’ve planned out would have him sacrificing his life to ressurect main love interest guy, even though it means losing you. and, well, losing his life. but you’re the more important part and you should be happy with ghost husbandu! that would be like the bad ending if you have equal relationship bars with both characters. everyone else gets some sort of regular cheating scene and he gets IMMA GONNA THROW MYSELF INTO THE CAULDRON OF THE DEAD TO PAY THE TOLL I dont have him very developed though except that he’s gonna be Very Buff and he’s kinda the only character who’s an outsider to the complex dark dynamics of this village, and kinda represents protagonist’s hopes of someday seeing the world and also he’d be a bff wingman character on everyone else’s route if you dont return his crush. he is just a very pure and kind man! who crushes logs with his bare hands!

ANYWAY THATS NOT THE CHARACTER I WAS STRUGGLING WITH, LOL

the big problem I had is that the original villain for this thing back when I dreamed it up three years ago was gonna be the lady in the arranged marriage like she’s basically gaston and she killed off your rival love interest so she could force you into this loveless marriage blablabla and he came back as a demon ghost thing to save you cos she was gonna kill you too after the marriage to steal ur inheritance and stuff

BUT BUT BUTBUTBUT then I ended up thinking about how the character could be way less boring and awful if it was Moral Complexity Instead

so she’s developed into like... She’s still kind of an egotistical rich jerkass princess who bullied mr love interest guy and wants you to marry her even though she knows you dont love her BUT she’s also suffering just as much as you are I just had the really depressing mental image of her staring at her reflection in the river and contemplating suicide. thinking about how everyone treats her as if she only has any value if she’s beautiful, and she’s looked at her reflection a million times trying to see what they seem to see. everyone thinks she gets more beautiful with every part of herself she sacrifices to please them, but its like she can see herself rotting away and everyone tells her it isnt there.. She’s only so determined to get you to marry her because she’s being treated by her family like her entire purpose for being born was to marry a stranger she hates and bring them money and status. And she feels like she’s a failure because she cant force you to love her, and she can’t force herself to love you either, but she still HAS to find ANY way to make you do it anyway because everyone is acting like she’s run out of time already... So all her egotistical mannerisms are just her trying to hide that she hates herself, and she’s just as terrified of this marriage as you are. She’s just like a future image of what you’d become if you also gave up on escaping your parents’s expectations...

also I think it’d be an extra level of sad nuance if she actually used to be one of your childhood friends, alongside main love interest ghost guy and then suddenly she wasnt allowed to talk to you anymore, and her parents started pushing her even more into the perfect wife role and you two never knew about any of this, and you just ended up resenting her for suddenly breaking friends with you, and its all hella complicated and confusing so her route would be like the one non-romantic one in the game you just rekindle your friendship with her and help her find a reason to live again, and manage to escape the arranged marriage that’s ruined both of your lives

and possibly there’d be at least one optional scene where she could end up meeting the ghost and getting to say goodbye to him in a super teary way cos like, you spend a lot of the game assuming that she was the one who assassinated him, and that she hated him for being your love rival when really she was never able to love you at all, she just felt she was forced to conjure feelings out of thin air and doom the both of you to an unhappy marriage ‘for the sake of the lineage’ and deep down she still saw her ‘rival’ as the friend she once had, and felt awful about having to be a jackass to him so her parents wouldnt punish her for consorting with commoners so she was crying just as much as you when he dissappeared, and realising he might be dead is what causes her suicide attempt (especially cos she also finds out that you loved him all along...) so there needs to be a lil addendum to this ending that even though you didnt go thru his route and you didnt romance anyone, ghosty guy still passes on peacefully after getting to see you reconcile with your former best friend or maybe if the game could not follow the typical route structure, then it could be possible to befriend a character and romance someone else during the same playthru? golden ending where the trio is reunited again! even if the inevitability of death must still cast them asunder once more! (tho I do have ideas for one super super super tricky ultimate ending for ghost guy where you’re somehow able to stay together. beyond just the bad ending route where you die, lol)

ANYWAY so now i have no clue who actually killed ghost guy I feel it’d probably be too predictable to make it one of the evil parents or something Unless like.. change the framing and have them be presented as benevolebt npcs throughtout the whole game? like, cos the protagonist is friggin brainwashed and depressed and going along with this awful arranged marriage plan, he sees them as if this is what normal loving parents are meant to be like. so they’re still here being horrible and controlling but the game never gives you any choices to disobey them until the very end, when all their secret crimes are revealed! maybe even have the mom or something be like the tutorial npc and she’s always giving really bad advice that sends you down the bad routes. TRUST NO-ONE. NEGGING IS A VIABLE STRATEGY. EXPRESSING YOUR PERSONALITY IS WASTING TIME U CAN USE 2 PREPARE FOR THE MARRIAGE.

lots of thoughts! very few answers! alas!

#spider smoochies game #so basically she's like renge

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youngerdaniel · 6 years

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2017: A Year at the Movies

It’s that time again, folks. A year has gone by, and I spent a lot of it on my ass in dark rooms watching moving pictures. But this year is special! For the first time, my annual list of films worth seeing comes with FILM SCHOOL CRED.

What does that mean? Well, I guess I could delve into a deeper analysis of the chosen flicks... But let’s be real, you’re not here for that. So let’s just give the cred its cred and get into it.

2017: The raging dumpster fire of a year seems to be built on a foundation of terrifying surprise and disappointment. Everybody’s saying it, because it’s very much the truth—the world has gone batshit.

But it’s also been a remarkably good year for movies. When I try to list my absolute favorites, it gets difficult to rank them. Some gems in the indie circuit; some solid blockbuster fare. So rather than rank ‘em, I say fuck the numbers. Here’s what you should watch. Top 10:

Call Me By Your Name

Jesus, Gawd. The last 20 minutes of this movie alone are worth the rest of it. A beautiful tale of friendship, love, identity... and how all of these things can be tremendously confusing. I wasn’t fully hooked until around halfway through, but good leftovers gravy am I glad I stuck it out.

The Big Sick

It warms my heart that this lovely gem of a film is based on a true story. This movie is... Well, it’s fucking great. Amazing comedy, perfectly timed and nuanced drama. For we of the cynical Gen Y/Millennial crowd, this is the rom-com we needed, because grand gestures don’t work, there is no rushing to the airport, and there’s some surprisingly deep work at play when it comes to a timeless conflict in matters of the heart: family values vs who you love. The cast is on fire. The script is gold. If you missed this movie, you’re using your smartphone wrong.

The Bad Batch

If you tell me Ana Lily Amirpour made a film, I already love it. I’d been wooed ever since A GIRL WALKS HOME ALONE AT NIGHT, and when the grapevine started juicing on Amirpour’s newest joint, a dystopian survival tale, I was sold. When I finally got to sit down and watch it, I was blown away by how much of a visual storyteller Amirpour is. The visual pallette alone is drool-inducing. But the amount of worldbuilding and character development done free of expository bouts of dialogue is just tremendous. Now, that being said, the story involves cannibals, a lot of dismemberment, and perhaps just a bit too much shirtless Jason Momoa... But if that’s your thing, this one’s for you.

Lady Bird

Look, everybody’s already ranted to you about how great this movie is. You should really see it. No? Okay. Fine. It’s a fantastic, fantastic coming of age tale. Herein you’ll find a dysfunctional family, some well-drawn mother-daughter tensions, and a beautiful exploration of the thing that happens to most well-adjusted adults—the moment where you realize you’re grateful to your parents for everything they’ve done, despite the fact you’ve been a shit about it for the past 6-10 years. If that doesn’t strike a chord with you, maybe watch this movie and get a therapist?

Wind River

And speaking of getting a therapist, you might need one after this. Wind River is not by any stretch an easy film to watch (CW: rape scene late in the second act), but it is a gritty mystery that does what any crime story should well: it highlights a particularly ignored dark spot in North American society: the unaccounted-for loss of countless First Nations women on reservations. The politics are tied to the heart of this story, but rarely does it come off as preachy or a gimmick. At its heart, this mystery is a character study. In fact, nearly all of the moments that really sing are the quiet moments between the bigger set pieces. That being said, there’s a standoff sequence that happens late in the movie that is FUCKING INTENSE. You need a strong stomach for this one, but I was really impressed with it; the simplicity and effectiveness of the writing, the stark visuals, the top-notch performances. It’s great.

Logan

Logan made my cry. Actually, I’m pretty sure all of these movies coaxed a tear. But here’s the thing. I don’t actually give a shit about Wolverine. He’s not my favorite X-person. He’s definitely not my favorite anti-hero... But this movie was fucking exceptional. Not only does it take Logan’s character to an honorable and earned conclusion, it shows us that superhero movies don’t have to be for kids; they don’t have to follow the same old formula of “good guys learn something and win”... Of course, conventions are played with in this movie, but almost always to toy with your expectation as a viewer. You never know for certain if Logan’s going to make it out of this one on top... And when it ends, you won’t feel the same “Enh” that usually comes with the credits of a big I.P. movie.

Baby Driver

If you go into Baby Driver planning to take apart the story or to really delve into the character study of a young getaway driver... You’re missing the point of this movie. Instead, go in expecting a musical that happens to revolve around crime, and a young getaway driver’s learning that crime is only fun to a point. It’s a great thematic deconstruction of heist and getaway movies, showing us why we enjoy these things before peeling away the layers of heightened idealism until we just see the truth: crime is where people die and innocence is lost. (CW: Kevin Spacey, one of the newly minted shitstains of Hollywood garbage men... But he’s a nominal force.) It also has a killer soundtrack, some of the best driving sequences to grace the screen for a while, and it’s all tied together with that expertly stylized fantasy vision that belongs to Edgar Wright alone.

Ingrid Goes West

The thing I love most about this fiendishly unrepentant social media satire is that it will legit piss off people who buy into the whole “Insta-lyfe”. It picks apart how easily one can manufacture a personality or brand online that in no way represents who they actually are. It also, with zero subtlety, highlights just how fucking batshit our world can get when we start valuing our online avatars more than the people behind them. Of course, it wouldn’t be a proper satire if the facade didn’t shatter, and where that takes the story of this troubled young woman as she tries to manufacture the life she’s been double-tapping in her feed? Well... I thought it was bloody brilliant.

Band Aid

A small screen gem that totally destroyed me on the first viewing. Strap in with tissues and follow this quirky dramedy which follows a couple reeling from the fallout of a miscarriage. They’re not coping well, and in order to save their marriage, they decide to start turning their fights into songs. Sounds cute, right? But that’s the thing about cute band-aids: they don’t heal the wound on their own. Check this one out for some brilliant and bizarre bits of comedy, some hilarious songs, and some moments that are just heartbreaking. I wanted to give this movie #1 with a bullet, but then again, I’m not ranking this year, and how on earth could I forget...

Get Out

This movie was amazing. I knew it would be from the first time I saw its trailer, but good zombie Jesus on a popsicle stick, did it deliver. Social horror is the best horror, because as weird and horrible as the movie gets, everything that happens in it actually fucking happens every day of the year. No, not not a young person of color getting kidnapped and brainwashed by a bunch of upper-class white people... Jesus, do you actually watch movies literally? Do you not understand allegory? Does the subject of race, and how privileged upper-class assimilation looks through a Twilight Zone lens make you uncomfortable? Then...

You thought I was gonna write “Get out!” didn’t you? Nah. Go watch this movie. If it makes you uncomfortable, good.

BUT DANIEL, WHAT ABOUT THE LAST JEDI?

I liked it, okay? It wasn’t perfect, and I’m sure I’ll get into that in more depth in a later post (or perhaps even in a podcast... that’s right, I’m working on shit). But all in all, a great entry to the franchise, and the first SW movie for a while to actually have the balls to move the franchise in a new trajectory and build off what the OT started. If you disagree, you can go wank your Return of the Jedi Luke Saber in the corner and cry about the lack of fanservice. Your days are numbered, cannon police.

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

IT, GOTG Vol 2, and fuck it, I’m saying it: Dunkirk gave me a massive “meh.”

DID ANYTHING SUCK?

...The Election? Um... yeah, but I’m not going to the trouble of securing pictures for these. A list in short:

- Atomic Blonde

- Logan Lucky

- Kong: Skull Island

- Bright

- Max Landis in general

- Joss Whedon in general

And yeah. That’s a year at the movies. Toodles until 2018.

#journal #yearinmovies #2017

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classicfilmfreak · 7 years

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New Post has been published on http://www.classicfilmfreak.com/2017/01/26/good-girls-go-to-paris-1939-starring-joan-blondell-and-melvyn-douglas/

Good Girls Go to Paris (1939) starring Joan Blondell and Melvyn Douglas

“I’d be a much happier man if I’d never met you.” — Ronald Brooke

Of the three films they made together, all screwball comedies, Joan Blondell and Melvyn Douglas had their best pairing in Good Girls Go to Paris. The year before, in 1938, they had starred in There’s Always a Woman, a husband and wife comedy-mystery, and later that same year Douglas reprised his role as detective Bill Reardon in There’s That Woman Again, only now his wife was Virginia Bruce. The two films had the same zaniness, but Blondell’s magic and the chemistry with Douglas were missing in the sequel.

In the early part of his career, Douglas appeared in horror films—James Whale’s The Old Dark House(1932) being the best—and detective capers. His only appearance as the Lone Wolf was to launch the series in 1938 with The Lone Wolf Returns—the “return” heralding the first sound Wolf film since the silent days. Most often, however, Douglas settled into romantic leads, often tuxedo-attired, playing opposite such ladies as Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, Joan Crawford and Claudette Colbert.

During much of his early Hollywood career, Douglas said he was bored by his “one-dimensional and non-serious roles.” It was only when he began character parts in his sixties, this coinciding with the decade of the 60s, that he found meatier parts worthy of his talents. He received a Best Supporting Actor Oscar portraying the decent father of the amoral Paul Newman in Hud (1963). The next year, in The Americanization of Emily, he was loony Admiral William Jessup, insisting that the first dead man on a D-Day beach must be a U.S. sailor, foreshadowing another loony military Jessup, U.S. Marine colonel Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men (1992).

In 1970, Douglas was nominated Best Actor in I Never Sang for My Father, about an insensitive, then ill, father of Gene Hackman, and in 1979 the actor received his second Best Supporting Actor Oscar as a bed-ridden business man in Being There (1979), influenced by an inept Chauncey Gardner (Peter Sellers) taken for a political pundit.

That Melvyn Douglas might have been bored in his role in Good Girls Go to Paris isn’t apparent. He’s debonair, a smooth operator, his hair and clothes never rumpled, the dinner jacket, drawing room type. His dignity is threatened, sometimes to the point of controlled exasperation, by the antics of a waitress who comes into his life. She never seems able to tell the truth and leads him into all sorts of confusing and compromising situations.

Douglas’ co-star and, really, the only other actor in Good Girls Go to Paris who makes any striking impression, is the animated Blondell, one of the masters of the screwball comedy. If Douglas adds the dignity and a center of gravity, however tenuous—he’s almost stiff by comparison—Blondell sets the tempo and provides, all at the same time, the effervescence, charm and craziness that keeps him, and the plot, wonderfully off balance. This appealing mixture is found in few actresses.

Walter Connolly seems counterproductive to the best interests of the film. Known for over-the-top acting, his delivery is often loud and without nuance. He is best remembered for It Happened One Night(1934) as Claudette Colbert’s father, who is about to give her away at her wedding when she runs off to the man (Clark Gable) she really loves. In Good Girls Go to Paris, Connolly rehearses giving away his granddaughter for a wedding that never happens.

An exchange professor from England, Ronald “Ronnie” Brooke (Douglas), arrives to conduct his first class in Greek mythology. Born in Macon, Georgia, Douglas makes no attempt to sound British, except for the occasional long “a.”

In a hallway on his way to his classroom, Brooke casually mingles with some young men who assume he is a fellow student and expect their professor will be a “grumbling old fluff,” with a “long, white beard.” The students, expecting an easy course, are surprised when Brooke walks in as their professor. He uses the incident in the hall as an example of an Aesop fable—the wolf in sheep’s clothing—and warns that, at end of term, they must pass a rigorous exam.

In the university’s restaurant, Brooke is attended by waitress—not “server”; this is the 1930s—Jenny Swanson (Blondell), who demonstrates how to dunk a tea bag in his cup of hot water. Accustomed to proper English tea etiquette, he responses, “And then you . . . drink it?” In It Happened One Night, Gable had shown wealthy socialite Colbert how to dunk a doughnut.

Later, when Jenny has explained to Brooke how she plans to earn a trip to Paris by blackmailing some handy rich man’s son, he warns her with another Aesop fable. Seems a sick lion asks a fox to come into his cave and hold his paw, but the wise fox notices that the animal tracks leading into the cave never lead out. “Never venture into anything,” Brooke says, “unless you can see your way out.”

Literally moments later, she is almost run over by Ted Dayton’s (Stanley Brown) speeding roadster and is understandably upset until he mentions his rich father. She says she needs a ride and jumps in his car.

In her first effort to get to Paris, she attempts to blackmail Ted’s father (Clarence Kolb), saying she has his son’s letters of proposal in her purse, but when she doesn’t produce them, the father threatens to call the police unless she leaves town.

On the way out of town to her home in Maple Leaf, Missouri, Jenny stops in to see Brooke. She tells him she “forgot about the sick lion and walked right into his den.” She didn’t show the letters, she says, because she remembered his warning, which caused a funny feeling in her stomach. He explains it’s a “flutter,” her conscience talking, and reminds her that “good girls go to Paris, too.” After giving her a book of Aesop fables, he says he will soon finish his lectures and leave for New York to marry Sylvia Brand (Joan Perry), then return to England.

At the train platform—here happenstances really begin!—Jenny accidentally meets Tom Brand (Alan Curtis), Sylvia’s rich playboy brother, on his way to New York for her wedding. Seeing in Tom another way to Paris, Jenny buys a ticket for New York instead of Maple Leaf.

In New York, Tom and Jenny go nightclubbing and meet Sylvia with Dennis Jeffers (Henry Hunter). Eavesdropping, Jenny learns that Sylvia is in love with Dennis, not Brooke, and that Tom has a gambling debt. Also present is Sylvia’s mother Caroline (Isabel Jeans), out with boyfriend Paul (Alexander D’Arcy), a gold-digger himself.

The by now drunk Tom takes Jenny to the family home and she puts him to bed. In slipping out, she meets Caroline slipping in. They awaken the ailing grandfather, Olaf (Connolly). When Olaf loudly inquires about this stranger, Caroline improvises that Jenny is one of Sylvia’s bridesmaids.

Jenny quickly makes herself a part of the family and begins winning over Olaf with a Swedish remedy for his sore throat. One morning when the household assembles for breakfast, Sylvia is flabbergasted to find that Jenny, this stranger, is an “old friend from college,” and Brooke, who has arrived, is surprised to find Jenny is a guest in his fiancée’s home. Both Sylvia and Brooke play along.

The climax, although less civilized and scattered over numerous scenes, is reminiscent of the kitchen scene, the gathering of all the characters in Moonstruck (1987). A Mr. Schultz (George Lloyd) comes to collect Tom’s $5,000 gambling debt, but Jenny promises to pay him the next day, so Olaf won’t learn of it.

Earlier, when Sylvia was in Dennis’ car and his driving had injured a man, she had identified herself as Jenny Swanson to avoid a scandal. Now, when Sylvia asks Jenny to take the blame, Jenny demands $5,000 for her silence—money for Tom’s debt. As for Paul and Caroline’s planned elopement, Jenny exposes Paul as a leech out for her wealth, and Sylvia receives Olaf’s approval to marry Dennis.

After these couples have paired off, Brooke proposes to Jenny: “England, while the climate is not all that it should be, is very well known for honeymoons and has the added advantage of being just across the Channel from Paris.” So, you see, good girls do go to Paris!

The end is much, much more complicated than here described—and much funnier, with Connolly, in his best moment, bewildered by the confusing family revelations. A movie fan has to see the film to perceive all the, let’s say, “subtleties,” if that’s the word, and to appreciate this crazy comedy. Screwball, it certainly is!

Judging by Good Girls Go to Paris, it’s not obvious that the year of its release, 1939, was Hollywood’s greatest year. The number of memorable pictures, including Stagecoach, Dark Victory, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Wuthering Heights, Good Bye, Mr. Chips and, of course, Gone With the Wind and The Wizard of Oz, would never be equaled again, or even approached.

Appearing in one of the last years of the long Great Depression that had begun in 1929, Good Girls Go to Paris, is, however, representative of its era, the ’30s, when one point of the screwball comedy, like the concurrent Busby Berkeley musicals, was to lift the spirits of the American people out of their troubles. In that regard, the film succeeds admirably, coincidences, implausibilities, silliness and all, thanks mainly to the sparkling appeal of Joan Blondell and the stabilizing anchor of Melyvn Douglas. Not a masterpiece certainly but a fitting movie for late-night insomnia. If it doesn’t cure the insomnia, the film is still a suitable diversion until the dawn breaks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmNrIPunmP8

#Joan Blondell #Melvyn Douglas

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zookzilla · 7 years

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Great Uncle David and the Homecoming

I was doing my routine neighborhood walk to get my blood pumping and ease my ever growing antsiness and anxiety, Fugees blasting in my headphones when I passed a man sprawled across the sidewalk in front of the old antique warehouse across from the freeway underpass. He was dressed in a tattered tweed coat and dockers with mysterious black and brown stains, he had a prickly beard and long, greasy disheveled salt and pepper hair. “Hey lady,” he growled, “I’m hungry and sick, can you spare some change?” I took out my ear buds out, our eyes met. I recognized the look in his eyes. Pain. Raw, throbbing, the kind that leaves you dry heaving.

Since coming off the Seroquel, I had trouble sleeping. My talented herbalist friend had told me that 3am to 5am is when our livers do their hardest work. I’d wake up at exactly 3am, restless but grateful for my liver’s punctuality. I’d blindly walk in the dark to the bathroom, where I’d draw myself a bath and lay in tepid water in the bath tub to try to soothe my racing thoughts. Most of those early mornings while laying in tub, I could feel my grandmother’s presence. Although I didn’t say anything to my family, I was convinced that she was dying- within the day or week. In the tub, I’d picture her in her bed in the assisted living facility, with her arms outstretched, gripping the air and yelling for her mother and father who had perished in the Holocaust. In the darkness I would whisper to her and to myself, “it’s ok Nana. You’ve hung on for us for long enough. Go be with all of those you lost, go be with your grandson.” While waiting for the water to drain, I’d look into the bathroom mirror and into my eyes, Nana’s eyes beamed back at me. They sparkled with strength and resilience, and most acutely the pain of someone who has endured deep suffering.

On Telegraph Avenue, I inched closer to the man, recognizing the look in his eyes and feeling safe. He seemed familiar. “How about some veggie soup? I live close by. I’m on a walk right now but when I get home I’ll whip us both up some dinner.”

“You look just like my daughter. She’s a beautiful girl, with kind eyes, like yours. My name’s David. I wasn’t always a fuck up like this. I’m trying to detox but I’m in so much pain.” David then proceeded to share with me about his past life as professor at Cal and his life long love affair with alcohol and drugs, but mostly alcohol. I listened to him talk about how he used to live in an artisanal home in the Berkeley Hills and about when his daughter still talked to him. He shared about his downward spiral and the many days and nights he finds himself in People’s Park surrounded by people with needles in their arms. I told him that David is the name of my great uncle, my Nana’s brother, who used to spoil me with chocolate milk when my family visited.

I noticed it was getting dark and asked him if he likes sweets. “ I do but I probably can’t hold down anything but beer and broth. Hey, do you have a camera on your phone? Take a picture of me, will you?” David sat up against the wall and gave me a big toothy smile, which glowed in the yellow light of the street lamps. He waived his hand in front of him, “Well let me see, let me see what a handsome man I am already.” I turned my phone toward him so he could see himself, “You are a handsome fellow,” he half-jeered while looking at the image in the phone . Fifteen seconds later, his toothy smiley re-appeared. “Hey, do you have Facebook?” David inquired. I nodded my head. “Please look my daughter up and show her the picture, show her I’m alive.I’m no good but I’m alive.” “I’ll see you in an hour and a half, David, I promise you. Please be here when I come back.” I waited a beat and then crossed the street and slipped my ear buds back in. Lauryn Hill always comforts me.

I continued down by the trail that snakes through the DMV parking lot and through the dog park. My favorite spot in Oakland. I took a deep inhale, watching a terrier bark at the passing car through the chain-linked fenced off area and then I made a connection. No, not just any connection. This is was a connection that would transport me back in time and through another dimension. An other worldly kind, Godly even. As I stood under the metal frame of the basketball hoop, overlooking the dog park, I knew that David was familiar because he was in fact my Uncle David speaking to me though my Nana. I felt it in my bones! I knew we knew each other and in fact are related! Thoughts racing, one to the next. Oh but aren’t we all brother’s and sisters? Aren’t we all blood? YES. YES. We are all family. But Uncle David had passed away years before in Jerusalem, this was bigger than global brothers and sisters. This was part of my Nana’s sweet homecoming. Uncle David was welcoming Nana to join him. God was transmitting me this message, as I was the youthful body that could help her live out her last days. I knew more than ever that I needed to make the last meal that the two could share together on this earth, Uncle David and Nana, Professor David and Bleeding Heart, Racing Thoughts, Could Not Sleep Until I Made Peace, God Sent Me to Make This Meal, Loving Granddaughter, Granddaughter of the Beautiful Soul that was Returning to the Creator.

I rushed back to the house with added vigor, open the door wide, dropped my phone and headphones onto the counter and began to scrutinize the contents of the refrigerator. Luckily, I had already started a slow cooker that morning with oats, coco powder, and ginger. The ginger and oats will be good for David’s stomach, I thought. Since stopping my medicine, often in the early mornings after my baths I would work on experimental food conoctions. My senses since stopping Seroquel were much more heightened and intense. Colors more vibrant, my sense of taste more precise, my sense of smell more intense. Experiencing the multitude and nuance of textures and aromas made cooking all the more interesting and calmed me. It was the only thing that could ease my racing thoughts, aside from my long meandering walks around the twists and turns of green and urban landscape in Oakland.

As I was pulling onions, vegetable broth, and mushrooms out of the fridge my roommate Lisa came through the living room and took a seat at the kitchen table. “Lisa, I have something incredible to tell you. I can’t tell you the whole story because it’ll take too long and I’m kind of in a hurry but the gist is that I’m making some soup to eat with a very nice homeless man I met.” “Oh, Jill.” I recognized that “Oh, Jill.” It was a “What are you thinking?” sort of expression that would come out periodically…and more in more in recent months. “Will you come with me, Lisa? I know I need to be safe and should have someone along with me ” Lisa looked at me, forehead wrinkled and eyebrows raised in concern.”Uh, it’s dark outside, Jill, that’s not a smart idea.” “Smart? This man is harmless, he’s hungry, he needs food. And he’s detoxing which means he’s in a lot of pain. I really think it’ll be fine, especially if I have company. Plus, I promised and I will not break my promise to him. He really needs this.” “Jill, there’s no way I’m going to come with you and I really don’t think it’s smart for you to go either.”

While the onions, mushroom and garlic were cooking in the broth and I was packing up the oats in a tupperware, my second roommate walked in. Her hair was swept up from her bike ride home. Mora worked at shelter with homeless youth; as she washed her hands in the kitchen sink it dawned on me that she’d be the perfect person to come with me. “Hey Mora, you gonna be free in the next 20 minutes?” Lisa, was sitting in the living room and yelled, “Mora, Jill wants to go eat dinner with a homeless man.” I yelled back, “his name is David and I’m really worried about him. He needs this. I wouldn’t do it if he didn’t need it.” Mora paused a moment, puckered her bottom lip out and then shook her head yes, “but Jill, I don’t think we should eat with him. Let’s just drop off the food. And we’re not going to walk there, we’re going to drive because it is dark.” Mora also recommended we bring him one of the beers we have in the fridge, which would be helpful because he’s detoxing.

In the 3 minute car ride to the spot, Mora and I mapped out our plan. We parked across the street, “He’s right there, sprawled out on the cement.” “Ok Jill, let’s say a quick hello and then drop the food off.” “I really think he’s harmless Mora, can we just feel it out?” As we crossed the street together, David looked up and saw us, “Jill, my angel, you kept your promise.” “I told you I would didn’t I? This is my roommate Mora. She’s also an angel.” Mora chimed in, “Nice to meet you.” We talked for a few minutes. I told David that I expected him to eat the soup, there was dessert if he wanted, and that I hoped the beer would help. I also told him that I would be back for him tomorrow during the day. “You’re the only one who thinks I’m not worthless.” As Mora and I walked away I yelled back “Because you are not, you are a human being. You are worthy. You are worthy, David.”

The next day morning, I found a copy of my one of my favorite drawings of mine of a disgruntled looking Chihuahua with a title which reads “Studies of the Dejected.” Perfect, I whispered. I flipped the drawing over and wrote David a letter about how when I looked in his eyes I saw his brilliance. I talked about my Uncle David, like him was a scholar, and about how I knew he had the strength to overcome his alcoholism, how he could find housing, how I hadn’t reached out to his daughter yet but I would and I would tell her what an incredible man he is and how he needs her in her life. I wrote with a ferocity, assuredness, and quickness that I almost never write with. I believe it was because it was supposed to be that way. I believed it was because I was given the godliness to be able bodied and fulfill my Nana’s destiny.

With my drawing in hand I ran with a sense of determination and hurriedness to the spot where Mora and I had last seen him. The contents of the soup were strewn all of over the cement. The yogurt container I had taken it in, flipped upside down. The beer can emptied, the dessert was uneaten. I crossed the street and spotted a man sitting under the freeway overpass laying on a beaten up mattress. “Hey there, Hey! I’m looking for David, have you seen him? Just want to check on him.” “Sorry, can’t hear you very well from down there.” I walked halfway up the slanted piece of concrete that led to the smooth flat area where this man was sitting with his legs crossed. A couple and a young man were stretched a few feet away on a flattened cardboard box. “My name’s Will, folks around here call me Free Will. How can I help you?” I laughed, Free Will, that’s clever! I’m looking for David, you seen him?” “Honey, I’m sorry but I haven’t. I know he hasn’t been doing very well. Go check the soup kitchen a few blocks down at the church.” I thanked Free Will and ran down to the church a few blocks down.

There were three older men leaning against the wrought iron gate, smoking cigarettes. As I walked toward them, they nodded their heads, I nodded back and asked where the entrance was. One of the men pointed toward the back to the building. I said thank you and walked toward the backdoor. I could hear people in the kitchen yelling for more garlic. I cautiously open the door and walked into a narrow hallway that led to the kitchen. I saw an older man and woman frying hashbrowns, while a younger woman sliced onions. One the other side of the kitchen there was a crowd of people siting down, eating breakfast. The young woman slicing onions turned around said, “Can I help you?” “Yeah, actually, have you seen David? Has he come around this morning?””Haven’t seen him.” “Can I leave this note for him, in case he comes by?” “Sure, hon, slip it next to the meal time schedule and I’ll be sure to give it to him if I see him.”

For the next week, each morning and afternoon and after work or class, I would walk by the spot where I first saw David. I would then check in with Free Will and then the soup kitchen. No sign of him. A few days before my hospitalization, my dad and I were getting gas at the station next the underpass. While my dad pumped gas I spotted Free Will sitting on a lawn chair in the median between the station’s parking lot and the freeway entrance. I told my dad I needed go say hi to a friend. I ran up to Free Will. Still sick with worry for David, I asked if he’d seen him. Free Will shook his head no but imparted his infinite wisdom. He shared that in his 30 years of being in the outdoors (he did not agree with the term homeless), he learned that there is far more kindness and beauty in the world than ugliness and darkness. Free Will pulled out a brand new Giants hat from a milk crate. With a winning smile he offered it to me. “I was waiting for the perfect person to give this too. The man in the store down the way got extras in his shipment,” he grinned. I put on my new Giants hat. My dad came up to us at that moment, Nana, David, and I had our homecoming.

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ratherhavetheblues · 4 years

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CLAIRE DENIS’ ‘BASTARDS’ “I figured a captain would be more serene…”

Our film today brims with startling distemper. It also provides one of the most handsome instances of generosity to be found, in and out, of the once-called “silver screen.” A woman in Paris, Raphael, accompanies, one morning, her elementary school boy son to a carriage trade, very private institute. Then she walks by an antique clock and watch shop which attracts her. She asks to see a waterproof wrist watch which had now become important to her, on account of her becoming an underwater athlete and investigator during her summer with her family at their villa on the Cote d’Azure. She chooses an alpha-trade item, sturdy and designed with great taste. There is an inscription of dedication, which runs, “To my son who sails the seas.”

The love in that missive means nothing to her. But with that good will, the writer, a skilled entrepreneur in the field of premier women’s shoes, has found himself, in his last days, without a valid successor. The shambles that follow are showy, but not terribly unique. What does take our breath away is the father’s benevolence. Claire Denis does not want of a compass, for her intense offerings. She finds all the work in the world in the filmic cataclysms of Ingmar Bergman. With the film, Bastards (2013), that stream of clannish patricians which became disturbing in the film, Scenes from a Marriage (1973), and followed even more violently (in subsequent films) when unity failed, transfigured to venomous proportions pertaining to clinging for generations to murderous advantage. Whereas the disinterested father, Mr. Silvestri, who had left Italy for the opportunities of Paris, had become a cosmopolitan, his daughter, Sandra, had remained a lead-pipe savage, not to be dealing in nuance when the going got rough. (Denis’ early experiences in Africa now putting on the table another range of clannish perversity to complicate an already challenged discernment.)

Sandra of the Dark Ages had a husband who had nominally taken over the business. We find him, Jacques by name, in the first scene, committing suicide due to financial and sexual bankruptcy. During the police presentation, to her, of the suicide note, she rails against that agency. “My husband filed a complaint against that pig, that piece of shit. The police questioned Edouard Laponte and our daughter. Then nothing! It’s your fault Jacques died… Alone, I’m not strong enough. I have no one now… besides my brother… who’s never here. He’s always abroad.” (That last remark delivered as if his brother had no right to leave the nest.) A police lady intervenes with, “Marco Silvestri is your brother? The letter is in his name…” Sandra goes on to explains that Marco and Jacques had been good friends, having met at the naval academy, and that Marco had introduced them. Far less routine, however, is Sandra’s response to the cop’s mentioning, “You can read it” [the suicide note]. She glances at it, but soon puts it away. Her excuse for not completing her husband’s last words is, “It’s embarrassing…”/ “What?” the coroner asks. “That you read it,” she says. Perhaps the communication was ambiguous. Sandra being hard to embarrass; but not wanting to touch upon the bankrupt couple’s involvement in prostituting their daughter, Justine, at a sadomasochist attraction and having trysts themselves with several adventurers at Laponte’s, the creditor and brothel owner, for more solvent business clients. Of course, that area of the family has no more significance than rabid hyenas. Our saga, on the other hand, pertains to Marco, who had given his share of his father’s inheritance to them.

At the end of Bergman’s film, Dreams (1955), the gullible but game protagonist is confronted with another’s wisdom that, “One has to say no, at some point.” Marco, on his slow boat to wisdom, had no one to encourage him to wake up to the shabbiness of pleasing gauche and poisonous appetites. That his weakness for being led has to be carefully grasped, constitutes the heart of this film. Some preparatory considerations are needed. While his father could thrill to a son possibly making an important difference, Marco would soon be exposed as unable to maintain the concentration of sensibility by which to reveal and share something very different. As he plods back to a lowest common denominator, we realize that his honeymoon with very rare love has waned, leaving him ready for less demanding adventure. However, Marco’s waning, remains rather wild (or, better, pretty crazy), a function of following in the melodramatic footsteps of Jacques. A wealth of cinematic primordiality being overlooked, along with an irony of cinematic also rans, will help establish the terrain for future venture.

The actress playing “the woman in Paris,” with her child at the school house door, and her monied, sea-sport, has a fascinating and incisive pedigree. She is Chiara Mastroianni, the daughter of actress, Catherine Deneuve and actor, Marcello Mastroianni. In her role in the film, The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967), she is tasked to bring her elementary school brother, Boo-Boo, to the school house door every morning. In another of her roles, namely, the film, Donkey Skin (1970), she, a princess, finds nothing amiss about marrying her father, the king. The former film is implicated in the naval port of Rochefort. The latter film becomes implicated, for Denis’ purposes, with Sandra and Jacques’ resort to incest. (Jacques Demy being the filmmaker of the Deneuve “comedies.”) Mastroianni starred in the film, La Dolce Vita (1960), pertaining to anything goes. Good luck, Marco! The gloom pervading this gloomy tale could—and largely does, for the pundits—resemble the strictures of film noir, becoming neo-noir. However, the woes and woos of this action do not coincide with the sentimental perils of sweet but unstable business. The jaunty Raymond Chandler slogan, “Trouble is my Business,” does not even begin to touch the conflict, beauties and love which our protagonist had begun to fathom. Out there on the L’Avventura aerie, we find him on the craft’s bridge for the last time, embraced by light and waves and skies, soon bound for darkness and hatred.

After the tantrums at the police station, Sandra gets into her stylish and reddish car (reddish factors early on in a film being a staple of Bergman’s), and she slumps over the steering wheel, unable to drive. She’s seen from outside at the front, and the overhanging trees convey a reflection on the windshield, all but submersing her self-pity, a magical moment from our point of view, but entirely lost upon her. With narrative so nearly complete to being a travesty, such figuration as that reflection becomes an elicitation of what life can be. (On the other hand, the first imagery we encounter in the film is a torrent of nocturnal rain, its one-track force approximating the odds which Marco had recently retreated from, without consulting the gamut of knacks to turn the tide. Along with the rains, there is the soundtrack of the band, Tindersticks, beginning with a singular drive which transcends to richer ambiance.) It is such cinematic invention which we will track in detail here, the melodrama being oddly close to those Bergman parodies of Hollywood “sensations.” However, Marco’s mad bid, to dovetail his early seaboard serenity with subsequent mean Parisian advantages, increases the dimensions which Bergman found urgent about not speaking the same language.

We’ll march right through such optics and sonics, in order to touch upon agencies of sensibility defining the drama. Jacques, en route to his suicide, overlooks, in his mundane office, another crushing blast of nighttime rain, making of the façade of the factory a relentless and attractive cataract. His death is metaphorically presented by his gradually backing out of the film frame. A touch of couth, after a lifetime of tastelessness. Along with that, an aural complement of ringing maintains that life itself goes on. That the exiting executive is bald might imply that his was an anxious life, bereft of a poise which nature calls for. Three lights are displayed vertically upon the exterior. A pan to the sidewalk, like a fast-moving stream. Steel and cement. The triad could have rung out in a joyful achievement of sharing. But it didn’t. A life of harsh interruptions. A white shroud on the pavement. This is followed with a nude young woman wearing high-heeled shoes, walking away from us in a square. In this of the first of two such apparitions, she vaguely evokes the mysterious nocturnal nudes of the surrealist painter, Paul Delvaux. The school seen in the early part of the film is called, “Ecole Action Bilingue,” which is to say, “not speaking the same language.” (Meaning heavy weather for many, in the world of Bergman and the in world of all of us.) The school might have a sanguine touch. But its focus of advantage at that juncture could be enough to kill. In the second meander of Sandra’s daughter, she is bleeding from her vagina, having submitted to sadistic assault. This shock brings to light many concerns—a major embrace being “marionettes,” as in the Bergman film, From the Life of the Marionettes (1980). (Now underway to the impossible, Marco’s last glimpses of a once-seeming-Mediterranean-idyll evokes a filmmaker, Michelangelo Antonioni, whom Bergman hated, but shouldn’t have. Denis knowing better, along lines of something missing.) Now on the hunt in Paris, he’s seen driving up to the enemy’s chic digs in an Alpha Romero, which, from the perspective of upper floors (one of them now being his) recalls a batmobile. (Marco, in classic crime adventure style, having sold all he has but that prop, not to mention nearly a dozen of $400 white shirts. Such trappings being a reprise of bourgeois, same-language advantage, conformists in several Bergman films.) The amateur sleuth, having no trouble pretending being a majoritarian, checks his laptop for Laporte’s wherewithal: “a personal success-story… biggest chairman ever… seen in “The Expansion”… dancing with the stars… a golden girl [the mom at the schoolhouse]…” The latter being a chain-smoker, like chain-smoking and non-patrician, Katarina, in Marionettes and chain-smoking and non-patrician, Pauline, in In the Presence of a Clown (1997), she discovers late at night that she’s out of smokes and rushes to the tobacconist’s. Her grotty concern is not without magic. The dark reflections of the street with its bumper-to-bumper parking, and a swatch of gold light on the wet cobblestones reign as if in absentia. One of Marco’s young daughters from his divorce several years ago spends a weekend, where, at the beginning of the get-together, she is stranded at the Montparnasse train station due to his being late. She tells him, “I’m not here to be treated like shit.” At the premises, with a mattress on the floor, he presents her with a very stylish jacket, and is rewarded with a quick kiss on the cheek. The roiling mood has, however, unearthed a heaven on earth, in the presence of the Montparnasse district, where more than 200 years ago a site apropos of the arts of the City sprang up and thrives to this day. Denis’ trademark of an instance of “naïve,” art for the sake of food for thought, appears here in the form of the enormous woman’s shoe on the roof of the now defunct profit centre. A case of big shoes to fill, aspiration and its perils. The license plate of the Alpha: W319EK—WEAK. At the cigarette handoff, early on, Marco is graced with two lights, desperately needing a third. As he turns away, a third, being a blue neon, to the right of his head, appears—to no effect. The ship Marco sailed was a freighter. Do the mundane factors swamp the poetry? Raphael congratulates a young man working as a concierge while his mother recovers from some malady. He signs off with, “It’s family…” The virtually empty bivouac of his lodgings exposes his disarray in a field of great beauty. Something more directly gratifying finally emerges. He not only sells his expensive car at a premium, but the buyer is another former naval academy grad having enjoyed together the volatile two. (The three of them constitute a loose but quite striking dialectical process, only due to the disinterestedness of the newcomer. A “businessman;” a “daredevil;” and, now, someone who can see and feel.) The latter tells Marco, “There’s no denying I miss it” [the deep sea]. (But he, and his wife, have a sailboat—a dynamic force; and a solvent business, buying and selling cars.) More than a casual friend, Marco, unaware, is in the presence of an oracle—oracles being very important in Bergman films. Soon Marco is back. “I need a car and I’m broke.” The dealer doesn’t hesitate to say, “I think I can count on you [his having made a bid that few can]. Take back the Alpha. I don’t need it… We’ll figure something else later.” A moment of vision in a dynasty of blindness.

The most deeply ranging visual resource announces itself in the least auspicious form. Raphael, the mom and Laporte’s wife, is lying in bed and Laporte, nude, lies down with her. They clasp hands gently. He says, “Jerk me off…” Next morning, Raphael and the boy bump into Marco, and he repairs the boy’s bike. He expertly does the repair, his hands and fingers displaying grace and strength. She watches him with envy. Raphael misses that closing time of the tobacconist’s and alert Marco, again to the rescue, tosses down from the balcony several cartons wrapped up in one of his white shirts. As she retrieves the godsend, her fingers on the white cloth and the plastic sheets describe ironically receiving a treasure. The treasure in those hands carries far more than she recognizes. The ambient ringing which accompanies that moment complements a further nudge for the sake of disinterestedness. Lying in her bed, smoking, she misses the best part of such a manipulation. He’s wakened by a nightmare, and his fingers are frozen stiff. As the suspicion of Laporte rises, there is a moment showing the magnate and the boy with hands clutched. A statement, not a launch. During their first reckless swing at coitus, both of their hands caress each other like an insurrection. Their hands and fingers create a grinning mask. Her fingers are splayed on his chest. His hands and fingers are at her mouth, and then his fingers light upon her his arm. A gung-ho maneuver, lost in hostility and impotence. Then Marco walks through her doorway as if she were a stranger. Marco and Sandra, on the proceeds of the Alpha, crash the “daredevil’s” brothel in the afternoon, where a huge red ottoman, not so different from the playground of death in the film, From the Life of the Marionettes, becomes prominent. A girl matches her red fingernails with that bed. Her fingers are frozen on that surface. The second lovemaking at the best of Paris, this time in the stairwell, shows nuance and knack (that latter word being magic in Bergman’s endeavor.) Laporte takes the boy away from the lovers. On a large sailboat, the two enjoy the navigations, the handiness. Laporte’s skills match Marco’s bicycle repairs. Right touches; lost finishes. Raphael storms Marco’s flat, in fury that her son has been taken away. “He took him because of you… Because I slept with you. You used me.”/ “I had my reasons.” During the fracas, one of his fingers is in her face, in her eye. The film on the expensive key, shows Jacques, Justine and another woman—with Laporte watching in the wings. Also there we find an anonymous player outfitted with very long fingernails, for pain or gain. The gain occurring with the clown in the Bergman film, In the Presence of a Clown (1997), whose elongated touch could, given the right heart attending, race or poise, to lend a hand in nature itself.

How, the question is now, having seen an infrastructure of sensibility ignored in favor of hardware and software, can we confirm that Marco is not a killer but a tedious gamester, having overcome his fondest reflections because they were extremely difficult? Soon after reaching Paris, he visits an insurance office to max out his premiums. He tells the clerk, “It’s just a year off. Everyone is entitled to one.” (I doubt if Denis is a subscriber to that term.) “It’s nice in a man’s life. One year…” One year to do some good and have some thrills. The baying of Sandra (though the suicide would definitely have a melancholy appeal) must probably have come to Marco of more of the same hyperbole. Whereas his sister is a walking prehistoric, Marco, as we see him in action, is something more recent, more ambiguous. Though he was pretty much obliged to take seriously the crisis, he was not at all obliged to become a murderer, despite his sister’s personal and cultural hysteria. The cat and mouse game would, perhaps, get to the bottom of Sandra’s small war, which hopefully, to Marco, might develop into something, “nice in a man’s life…” Jacobean drama, with its fiery revenge, worked with a will in 17th century England. Those days are gone. Hot heads abound, and drag thigs down. But the complexities of major urbanism demand innovation, not devotion to the old.

Having not what it takes for his father’s hopes of dynamic logic, Marco faces a problematic in Paris not that far from where he deserted. His last moments on the bridge face a fixed fog in the middle distance. His early moments in the orbit of his sister come in the form of a fixed fog of calumny, clearly without transparency. “You’re hiding things! I gave everything up! I need to know, goddammit!” With this lack of acquiescence, she declares, “I wish I were dead!” (People like her being unfortunately and insectile resilient. Justine will insist she’s in love with her pimp. Marco had spoken to her in her hospital bed, “I’m here for you…”) Marco signs several checks to keep Sandra out of penury. She complains, “You’ve changed styles.” In face of the inventory of shoes, he complains, “Low quality and tacky.”/ “Thanks,” is her non-care. She hands over her dad’s gun. “What do I do with this?” is his response. She tells him, “Hold on to it, please. You’ll need it.” Hoping to solidify a modern love, he tells Raphael, “I can’t believe there’s any love. You’re not even part of his life. He treats you like a concubine. He’s turned you into his slut.” She argues, “He was younger when I met him. He gave me the confidence I never had. I had no ties. I was floating. Then I got pregnant with Joseph. I don’t judge…”

The doctor on Justine’s case also knows more than he says. We find him being dragged over the coals by Sandra, for one of Justine’s getaways. “You should have done your job beforehand. We pay enough. You’re in charge here. It’s your negligence.” He, fortunately, has drawn a more incisive bead upon his attacker. “You’re one to talk. She’s underage. You’re her guardian.” (A choir tone ironically sums it up.) Later that night, the doctor notices Marco at a bus stop and gives him a ride. “I figured a captain would be more serene.” The short-cut exponent excuses his disarray by way of poor form. “I came back for them. My kid sister and my niece… How am I supposed to stay calm with a suicide.” The no-nonsense doc states, “Justine has problems to work through. Part of the trouble comes from her family. Something went wrong.” By this time, Marco is able to report, “I’ve broken off from my family… I know little about them… I’ve cut myself off from everyone.” The driver adds, “It’s for what Marines do.” He trolls a red-light district, to confirm his sense of mountainous decadence. A solid citizen in the making. (The key, detailing the ways of the brothel, opens Marco’s eyes about as wide as they can be. To a refrain of Sandra yelling, “I’m so ashamed!” and adding, “You can’t understand. It all went wrong!” he slaps her and she falls to the floor. “Get up!” he demands. She sits on the floor, bawling. He grabs her by her hair and says, “You disgust me!” She cries out, “You weren’t here!” Then he prudishly declares, “I’m glad I divorced. My girls won’t be contaminated. So this is my family!”

Being prudish, as Marco will find to his horror, won’t get you far in the world of high stakes. Back at home, as it were, he enacts a nightmare, where the Alpha has been stolen for a joy ride by Sandra, Justine the pimp and Raphael. (A Hollywood melodrama, for prudes.) He goes on to interrupt the neighbors’ preparations for their summer, a brawl ensues and Raphael, picking up the gun from the floor, shoots him dead. The doctor accompanies Sandra for a viewing of the family at play. That big shoe being taken to the junkyard could be one way to start again; but where could it go? The treasure in the cinematic current awaits a true voyager, “who sails the seas.”

#claire denis

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