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He Who Gets Slapped (1924)
Wildly preposterous story - Surreal, macabre, deeply felt and unsettling film.
It's been a while since I've watched and enjoyed a silent film. Not that I'm dismissive of silents. I've seen plenty and liked plenty - Charlie Chaplin's and Buster Keaton's terrifically inventive comedies and the dark and disturbing "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" immediately come to mind. It's just that, spending so much time watching modern films, I find, makes me less inclined to travel back into the pre-sound, much more technically primitive era, of this - by far, my favourite - art form.
So, I approached "He Who Gets Slapped" with some hesitation. Though, I did order it online and did have high hopes for it.
Suspension of disbelief is a tricky concept - thanks Samuel! It's different for each individual. What is believable to me is not always what is believable to others and vice versa. In considering a film like, "He Who Gets Slapped", the percentage of folks who would suspend disbelief might be in the minority, but, boy are they ever going to be glad they died.
A young scientist, Paul Beaumont, (Lon Chaney), who has just had a major breakthrough, has all of his revolutionary ideas, and his wife, stolen from him by his benefactor - the cunning and amoral Baron Regnard (Marc McDermott).
That's not the preposterous part. In the process of Beaumont confronting Baron Regnard, the Baron slaps him. At that point, some sort of psychological break occurs in Beaumont, as the promising young scientist recedes into a kind of primitive state, where laughter shields him from having to process the trauma of losing his life's work and the woman he loved at the same time.
From there, the years fall away quickly as we find our deeply wounded scientist transformed - with the help of a very baggy outfit, skull cap and generous layers of ghostly white face makeup - into a clown named, HE.
As part of a larger circus, HE's feature act consists of HE being slapped over and over again to the delight of crowds who are overcome by fits of uproarious laughter. HE has taken a very profoundly scarring moment from his life and has turned it into a kind of cruel, deranged comedic ceremony where, nightly, again, to the delight of packed houses, HE re-enacts that awful, life altering moment over and over again, but, this time, in a comic context. While there may be psychological benefits for HE, the re-enactment of his trauma plays as deeply disturbing and self-annihilating.
So, you see what I mean. That's some character and story development. It's off the wall, yet, I went with it. And, I didn't find it difficult, either. It works and works well.
I've known of Lon Chaney for years. From time to time, I've stumbled on little bits of writing about his genius - his ability to disappear into compelling and strangely sympathetic, oddball characters. And, yet, for years, decades, I never saw any of his films. Very happy that has changed.
Once he slips on his disguise as HE, Chaney is devastating. HE is at once disturbing and pathetic and sympathetic and cruel and gentle and everything under the sun and moon and the stars, too. HE is Frankenstein's Monster and Dracula and Dumbo and Quasimodo all at once. Horrific and heroic in look and deed, Chaney wrings every last bit of emotion and action out of HE until you are left dazzled. Lon Chaney is a master storyteller and his page is his face and his face gives, "He Who Gets Slapped", an emotional centre and weight that, without it, would leave the film lacking - like a car with no wheels or a wolf with no teeth.
The circus is also populated by a secondary set of clowns who director Sjostrom has dressed up in baggy white suits with black buttons, black fringe, blinding white face makeup and tall pointy hats. Photographing and choreographing them mostly as a group, the effect is unsettling. They seem to act and think in unison and often play unfeeling spectator to HE's deranged descent into the darker corners of his psyche.
Visually very strong, director Sjostrom plays with imagery to lend, "He Who Gets Slapped" a bizarre, loopy-surreal look. A big circus ball, spinning on the forefinger of a deviantly smiling HE, keeps reappearing after scenes as a literal representation of the march of time and, maybe, just maybe, as a literal representation of the dizzying nature of the narrative. At one point, a large globe in the Baron's study, switches places with the ball to communicate Beaumont/HE's journey from profound inquiry into simplistic spectacle. Very late in the film, the globe makes a final appearance in a dazzling little moment of macabre inspiration.
Beside all the clowning, we have a love story that evolves between two other circus performers, Consuelo (Norma Shearer) and Bezano (John Gilbert) who, together, make up a bareback horse riding act.
Their delightful romance is played as pure and innocent. In one memorable moment, they frolic in a wooded area suffused in sunlight, surrounded by tall trees whose leaves shake furiously in the wind. They are in love and all of nature seems to approve.
And, HE? He watches and waits, patiently, for his own time in the sun.
Haunting and heartbreaking, "He Who Gets Slapped", is a dazzling and deranged work powered by a darkly compelling Lon Chaney performance that thrills throughout.
You Can't Cheat an Honest Man (1939)
Fast paced, a few laughs and an awful sign of the times
I'm a big fan of classic films. I count, "A Nous La Liberte", "The Third Man" and "Vertigo" as some my very favourites. But, classic films are a product of their time and that means that, occasionally, they feature moments that are awkward or just plain offensive. Those moments are often the product of views and values that we, in 2019, have for the most part, thankfully, discarded. For the most part. Ahem.
Now, I know there's a counter argument always lurking in the grass somewhere that says, "Well, those were the times." I've used that same argument with my girlfriend whenever she has expressed her dislike of sexism in an old black and white film. Ah, but how would you feel if you were the target and a historically discriminated against demographic?
That brings me to WC Fields' film from 1939 called, "You Can't Cheat an Honest Man." 1939...the beginning of WWII; pre-Martin Luther King and his transformative effect on American society; pre-second wave feminism. In other words, a long, long time ago.
So, when Edgar Bergen applied shoe polish to his dummy Charlie McCarthy's face just so the wooden puppet could make a joke about being all "...blacked out", well, that, for me, landed about as well as a turd in a bowl of soup.
WC Fields plays Larson E. Whipsnade (get it?), the owner of a circus up to its' eyeballs in debt. Edgar Bergen and Charlie play an act in the failing circus as well as Whipsnade's constant irritants.
Much of the very slim, barely plotted, 79 minute running time is set at the circus and chronicles the raucous battle between Larson E. and the Bergen-McCarthy twosome. And some of it is funny. And some of it is not. The highlight being when Larson E. feeds Charlie to an alligator. Ha! A raucous game of ping pong, late in the film, is also a delight.
This was the first time around for me in the deliriously bent world of WC Fields. His cantankerous, cynic, con-man character, who spits out venom at pretty much everyone he interacts with, was, mostly, a delight. His nihilism is in your face. There's no sugar coating it for him. He is who he is and too bad for you.
He taps into the cynic in all of us who can easily remember a day - month? year? - where we, too, came to the sorry conclusion that life was a sham and adopted a "to hell with all of it" attitude.
That brings us back to the blackface scene which just sunk any goodwill or kindness I'd otherwise show towards the flim for its' missteps and shortcomings.
Slight, occasionally bright, with offensive material that taints the entire movie.
Juliet, Naked (2018)
Loved it. Loved it. Loved it.
Are you or have you ever been an obsessive music fan? Have you ever dived down deep into an ocean of a particular artist's musical history and eagerly wetted your ears with every last song, half-song, quarter song and brief snippet of high or sometimes even very low, low quality, barely intelligible audio both officially and unofficially available? Have you ever tracked down, with a bloodhound's determination, every book about that artist and every book in which that artist is even only briefly mentioned on page two-hundred and something and then only for a sentence or two that does nothing other than merely confirm to you something you had already had confirmed to you a hundred times before? Have you ever compulsively visited countless websites committed to that same artist's work where other, even more intensely obsessive fans than you have documented and analyzed every last lyric, note, hiccup or cough crafted ever-so-carefully by that same artist, to such an extent that you feel so close to that artist that they are practically a part of you? Well, then, do I have the film for you.
"Juliet, Naked" is a film about a very unique love triangle. The three points of that triangle are: Duncan (Chris O'Dowd), an obsessive fan of an obscure and no longer active singer-songwriter named, Tucker Crowe; Annie (Rose Byrne), Duncan's long suffering girlfriend who feels like she's in competition with Crowe for her boyfriend's attention and is losing; and the object of obsession himself, Tucker Crowe (Ethan Hawke), an easygoing dude, who long ago tossed away his music career, and who now lives in his ex-wife's garage trying to resemble a reasonable facsimile of a father for their son, Jackson (Azhy Robertson).
Based on a novel by Nick Hornby, this, mostly, light and funny, pleasant breeze of a film is a delight from start to finish.
What's mostly on the mind of the writer is the way in which these characters have chosen to lead their lives. Rose has been, and continues to be, way too cautious and, as a result, is suffering from emotional and psychological paralysis. Tucker has been way too reckless and, as a result, is the eye of a rapidly revolving hurricane of relationships that will soon swirl and crash around him with hilarious results. And in the middle, is Duncan who spends way too much of his time focusing on the emotional content of Crowe's songs and very little time focusing on the emotional content contained in the heart of his neglected girlfriend, Annie.
Rose Byrne, as Annie, is plain stuck. She's in a relationship with two men - one who is physically present, but not emotionally, and another who is emotionally present but not physically. Though she is smart and charming and attractive, she is sort of like an airplane waiting at the edge of a runway for permission to take off. Permission that never seems to come and permission she probably doesn't need after all.
Convincing as a woman who fulfills all of the requirements that her outer life demands without actually fulfilling any of the requirements that her inner life does, Byrne is all apologies and accomodations. She is a Rube Goldberg contraption made flesh - balls rolling, dominoes falling, ramps see sawing one way, then another, but, without any greater purpose other than to keep itself going, one day after another, for enjoyment of others.
As the obsessive fan, who runs a comprehensive website about everything and anything Crowe, frequently chats with other Crowe obsessives on-line and has a well maintained and more than slightly creepy shrine to the man in the basement of his and Annie's home, O'Dowd is just goofy enough to trigger the necessary laughs without being so goofy that he becomes a one note joke.
The film pays real careful attention to Duncan's emotional connection to Crowe and his songs. Sure, the film, and I assume the book, plays his obsessing for laughs, but, it also respects it, too. That is no more clear then in a pivotal scene, somewhere in the middle moving towards the end of the film, where Duncan and Crowe come face to face, sharing a dinner table with neglected girlfriend and no longer neglected son. Obsessive fan collides with the object of his obsession and the results, though predictably awkward, cringe worthy and painfully funny, also reveal each character's sensitive sore spots. The scene sticks its' landing and then some. It's wonderfully played out.
Overall, O'Dowd manages to create a memorable human being in Duncan who is, ultimately, deeply flawed, but, nonetheless, understandable and sympathetic. He sees so much in others who are far away and so little in those who are close by. He is so intensely focused on his obsession for the words and music of Tucker Crowe that he has no more energy left for his afterthought of a girlfriend. If his life could be summed up in an album's worth of tracks, the first twelve songs would be about Crowe and a thirteenth, hidden track, would be about Annie.
And Hawke? He plays casual, broken and messed up with an ease that is always charming and affecting. He does a fine job of slipping into the skin of a man who has just recently caught up to his responsibilities and is making a genuine, though clumsy, attempt to unscrew up as much of his screwed up life as he can. He's like someone walking through the rubble of a neighbourhood recently devastated by an 9.0 earthquake with all the concern of a man browsing for swim trunks at a local department store.
The direction is unobtrusive and workmanlike. The pace is steady and never lags.
A real surprise. Catch it if you can.
Puzzle (2018)
Carefully considered drama
Kelly Macdonald plays a woman whose whole world opens up when she takes a first few cautious steps outside of her life as housewife and mom in this warm, predictable, but moving drama.
"Puzzle" opens with a party scene. Everyone is having a grand old time. Everyone except, Agnes (Macdonald), that is. She's in housewife mode as she dotes on the invited in her quiet, dedicated way.
Her husband, Louie (David Denman), a big, burly man, accidentally breaks a plate. Agnes is not only there to pick up the pieces, but, back in the kitchen, she even tries to glue them back together.
The scene continues as, Agnes places candles on a cake, lights them, and then walks the cake out into the living room.
As party goers sing, "Happy Birthday", we realize that it is, in fact, Agnes' own birthday party. Opening with a more moving and clear-eyed view of a central character's sad life circumstances would be difficult to imagine. "Puzzle" earns our respect right from the get go.
In broad strikes, what follows plays out with few surprises. Though, it is in the directorial details, and in the carefully considered performances, in which, "Puzzle", succeeds and delights.
A popped champagne cork for Macdonald's steady and charming portrayal and another for the unique talents of Irrfan Khan. He's fun to watch. Of the major characters, he probably has the least screen time, but makes the most of it.
A film about the limitations we put on ourselves and the limitations others put on us, and what happens when we break through those limitations, "Puzzle", is a slow, gently offered drama that fits together quite nicely.
The Spikes Gang (1974)
So-so western with the great Lee Marvin
A wily old bank robber takes three boys under his wing in this decent, at times entertaining, yet, ultimately, unremarkable tale of life on the lam in the Old West.
Lee Marvin plays the titular Harry Spikes, a wise, cold-hearted, yet, generous when he wants to be, veteran of the art of the unauthorized withdrawal.
Marvin is cool and charismatic as usual - his line readings are a treat even though the material is mainly ho-hum.
The boys - Gary Grimes, Ron Howard and Charles Martin Smith - are fair to good. There is some chemistry between them, though, they never truly gel.
The real problem is the script and the direction. Nothing imaginative in either. There are a few good scenes, but, too much of them are shot and edited as if the director and editor had guns held to their heads and were told to do nothing fancy or else.
I picked this up on-line because I'm a big Marvin fan. His presence alone gives the film much more punch than it deserves.
For Marvin completists only.
Park Row (1952)
Fast paced and fun flick about a newspaper war in 1880s New York
Getting fired for confronting his boss, Charity Hackett (Mary Welch), for using her paper, "The Star", to get an innocent man found guilty and executed, tough as nails idealist, Phineas Mitchell (Gene Evans) decides to start up his own newspaper and christens it, "The Globe."
Successful right off the bat, "The Globe" quickly earns the wrath of Charity, who immediately launches an unrelenting and quickly escalating war against her tiny upstart competitor.
Evans brings lots of crackling energy to the role of a scrappy, cigar chomping goodie two shoes determined to sail a clean ship in waters teeming with pirate vessels.
As a side note, I couldn't quite put out of my mind Phineas' similarities to another young, brash newspaper owner, in a film made a decade earlier, who was equally as determined to publish an honourable paper much to the amusement of his good friend Jedediah Leland. Of course, Welles' turn as Kane is near impossible to match, though, Evans has nothing to be ashamed of - few could match Welles at anything.
Welch is a bit cardboard as the scheming Hackett, but, does a decent job filling out the role of the heavy. The chemistry between Welch and Evans is so-so to good with Evans doing most of the heavy lifting.
Fuller's restless, searching camera swoops and sails over and in between its' actors adding a lot of energy to scenes that would otherwise be a tad on the talky-stagy side.
On the downside, the film is a bit corny and the early section of it sees one too many scenes taking place in the same small bar - revealing its' limited budget a bit too much.
But you have to give Fuller, who wrote, produced and directed, high marks for writing a tight, witty script and directing it with energy and flair.
Though clocking in at a scant 83 minutes, "Park Row", is bursting at the seams with so much going on, that, in the end, it feels like it covers more ground than films a half an hour longer.
Worth a look for sure.
Pociag (1959)
Haunting, minimally plotted slow burner is worth a watch
There's some of Hitchcock, Tati and Tarkovsky in this expertly directed slow burn of a film.
Following the passengers on a train that travels through the Polish night, "Night Train" is a study in people watching. Featuring a cast of a dozen or so, "Night Train" works best when it does very little.
Suspense films always benefit from revealing their information in a very drip-drip manner. Some do it better than others. The makers of "Night Train" may be accused of keeping things vague for a little too long. Fair point. I felt like that at some points during its' running time. However, when the final image flickered from the screen, I was left, not with a sense that I had been cheated, but with a sense that I had been witness to a very unique film experience.
If anything, "Night Train" is part suspense film and part fake doc as it pays close attention to a number of brief, dramatically quiet, yet enjoyable moments shared between various passengers. Though focused primarily on 2 characters, "Night Train" features a number of background players - who line the corridors of the travelling train - chatting, flirting, philosophizing with each other. These secondary characters are all very memorable and interesting for one reason or another and, in an astonishing scene late in the film, they share a very powerful moment that takes them from euphoria to something approaching mild disgust.
In the end, "Night Train" is less concerned with satisfying the requirements of a genre demanding twist after twist and more interested in observing humanity in all its' flawed glory.
This film stays with you. I'm glad I watched it.
The Guest (2014)
Not exactly a Guest-ing Game
I don't think this film is about anything.
By that, I don't mean that "The Guest" lacks a plot or story or characters, but, that, I don't think its' trying to send a message or make a statement or even re-create a genuine human experience.
I think we've all seen films that try too hard to do the opposite - that is, use a sledgehammer to send a VERY IMPORTANT MESSAGE to the audience. Those films can be irritating, and, I, generally, try to avoid them.
But what do you make of a film that isn't about anything? Despite this obvious flaw, "The Guest" is still well made, has good production values. Well shot and edited, "The Guest" also features a solid cast. Also, on the plus side, it has a self-awareness that makes it all go down a little easier.
But, apart from tipping its' hat to Hitchcock's "Shadow of a Doubt", copping a bit from Polanski's "Rosemary's Baby" and revelling in a very bloody climax, "The Guest" is an exercise in waiting for very predictable story beats to play themselves out.
So, should you welcome "The Guest" into your home? Sure, but, it may just wear out that welcome before it wants to.
Faust (2011)
ugh...
First off, the film (video) looks horrid. I'm not saying that this is a result of incompetence. No, rather, the filmmakers clearly wanted their movie to look like this. Why? No idea. There isn't a decent shot to be seen. They also chose to use a distorting lens for long stretches. Unbelievably, that choice made the movie look even worse then it already had.
This is the second film I've seen of this filmmaker's and, most likely, the last. At least, "Moloch" looked okay. There were even a few decent shots. Not here.
Opening the film with a long, dreary autopsy scene was probably not the wisest choice. Beware!
Song for Marion (2012)
knew where it was headed - still enjoyed where it went
Predictable. Very predictable. Very enjoyable.
I don't find myself saying that very often. Predictability can kill a film's momentum - its' impact. I guess the lesson here is - if you have a predictable script, make sure that you hire Vanessa Redgrave and Terrence Stamp as the leads. Got it? Good.
From the first time we see them, the elderly coupling of Redgrave and Stamp seems perfect. Though they do make an odd couple - she full of life, he down in the permanent dumps - never did I question their being together. There is a comfort between them, an ease in each other's presence that immediately conjures up a whole history. Amazing.
Fine supporting work all around - particularly by Gemma Arterton as the young, perky singing teacher. Handling both comic and dramatic moments with ease, Gemma lights up the screen and more than holds her own opposite those two heavyweights of the British screen.
At a crisp 93 minutes, all the fat has been trimmed. Keep a tissue handy.
The Comedy (2012)
Out of touch
How do you recommend a movie that features a lead character who is an a--hole? Not only that, but he stays an a--hole. No redemption. No heartfelt realization that he has to change his ways and then goes about doing so - hello Scrooge! No scene where he explodes in tears and promises everyone that he loves that he's changed for good. I'm being half serious, but, really, most people go to movies to watch characters they like and root for or people they start off disliking and then, as those characters learn and grow and change, in the end, come to like and come to root for.
Swanson, a rich kid layabout who uses sarcasm as both armour and sword, is thoroughly unlikeable. He's selfish, cruel, condescending, lazy and not funny. Yet, you stay with him. At least I did. You follow him and his equally annoying friends as they hang out and drink beer and talk nonsense and bother people who are clearly just trying to ignore them. You do so because you realize that underneath all of this casual ugliness is a subtext that slowly asserts itself.
Filmmaker Richard Alverson, along with co-writers Robert Donne and Colm O'Leary, have created a profound movie about emotional avoidance that carefully ups the stakes until you truly do feel for Swanson. Strangely enough, the more cruel and vulgar Swanson gets - to a succession of people absolutely undeserving of that cruelty and vulgarity - the more it leads you closer to the heart of the character rather than further away. It is not that you grow to like him, but, you grow to understand him and, in doing so, begin to understand the true tragedy of this broken human being.
Take the opening scene - Swanson sits sipping scotch and tearing through one crispy chocolate cookie after another as, just a few feet away, his father, hooked up to an I.V., lies dying in his bed. A male nurse enters and Swanson starts laying into him. Attempting to embarrass the man by mocking the unpleasantness of his job and specifically as it relates to his father, Swanson fails. The male nurse says a lot by saying nothing - just staring at Swanson with contempt.
A simple scene, yet with complicated implications. Swanson's cruel attempt at mocking the male nurse actually tells us more about him than it does about his target. This is a stock scene, yet, what Alverson, Heidecker and company do here is play with our familiarity of the way this scene usually unfolds. As an audience member, we know this scene before a word is spoken. The shots reveal all - dying dad, son, nurse. Yet, what you get in THE COMEDY is a scene so far from what is expected that it, at first, throws you. As you slowly adjust to not getting what you expect, you realize that what you are getting is something far more interesting - an addition by subtraction experience. The subtraction is any dialogue or action dealing with the reality at hand - the father is dying - and the addition is what we the audience add in way of interpreting what Swanson - the son - is really trying to say. Of course, I can't be sure what was intended by the filmmakers and every audience member's interpretation would probably vary, yet still something universally understandable is communicated - emotional avoidance.
Swanson's target is the male nurse, but, when you look at the scene more closely, it could just as easily be himself. Just think of it - a male nurse is caring for his father. He's doing all those unpleasant tasks that you, as a son, would be doing if not for him. Why would you have any anger towards this man? The only answers I could come up with pointed at Swanson's unresolved emotional issues with his father and his own shortcomings as a human being.
I wondered, does Swanson feel guilty for never having cared for his father in his time of need? Also, I wondered, does the pain of Swanson's emotional distance from his father run so deep that the mere presence of another man caring for him arouses a kind of emotional jealousy? I use the word jealousy because Swanson, as the full film will show, exhibits such a firm indifference to the emotions of everyone around him that to see one human being caring for another human being must cause him fits. That male nurse's whole career centres around having the capacity to feel for another human being. This is one fundamental characteristic that Swanson does not possess. He just doesn't give a s***. That must sting.
So, I guess what I'm trying to say is that this film, The Comedy, made so many unusual and interesting choices in scenes that it forced me to engage with it in a way that I just don't when watching more conventional films. And, look, I know you might think I'm just trying to fill in blanks and giving the film more credit than it deserves, but, you'd be wrong. Listen to the accompanying commentary track, which features Alverson and Heidecker, and you'll quickly realize that these guys had a lot on their minds when they were making this unusual and challenging film.
So hats off to THE COMEDY, a strange and ultimately deep moving film.
Take Shelter (2011)
Overrated one act copy of similar big budget flick
Had high hopes heading into this one.
What is essentially a film about paranoia and the damage it does to the paranoid and their loved ones, turns out, in the end, to be one long drawn out, easily predictable fake out.
An average, everyday Joe starts hearing things and seeing crazy visions of super storms ominously heading his way and swarms of locusts and strange creatures coming after his family. He grows progressively more and more paranoid and withdrawn, until he suddenly finds himself building a bunker in his backyard - much to the concern of family and friends.
To say that Michael Shannon is a good actor is probably not a controversial position to take. He is. Yet, here, in "Take Shelter", he is asked, for most of the picture, to play a character who, emotionally speaking, keeps everything inside. For the bulk of this picture, because of this extreme emotional restraint, Shannon gives an understandably wooden performance. Not just that, but, a wooden performance that seems forced. The choice of playing the character this way is all done in the service of one scene in particular - a freak out at a packed community centre that comes deep into the picture. It's a powerful scene, but, it left me feeling that the film was more interested in screenplay mechanics and cheap gimmicks than story credibility and emotional authenticity. This delay-delay-delay-big payoff treatment of the central character reminded me of Richard Jenkins' performance in "The Visitor." In that film, Jenkins is similarly playing a character whose emotions are contained until one key scene. His blow up isn't as dramatic, but, nonetheless has a similar effect.
On the film making front, the director makes it very clear that he thinks the audience is populated by a bunch of morons. There is a scene where Shannon's character is driving on a country highway late at night - wife and kid by his side. He looks out into the distance and sees one of those crazy-scary super storms heading his way. Pulling over to the side of the road, he gets out and walks towards the storm. Stopping, he looks at it and says, essentially to himself, but, obviously to us as well, "Am I the only one seeing this" or words to that effect. We already knew he was the only one seeing these visions. That much was clear. He, as well, already knew he was the only one seeing this wacky apocalyptic side show. The director, however, was so under confident about his abilities or so under confident about the audiences' intelligence, that he stuck this scene in there to make sure we knew absolutely, without a doubt that Shannon's character was definitely, make not mistake about it, the only one seeing all this crazy, end of world, environmental madness.
As you can tell, I didn't much like this film. There were other problems - his wife takes forever to notice he's going bonkers - but, I'm beating a very dead horse.
The Whisperers (1967)
Sad, dreary and moving
First off, I want to say that I am drawn to movies that have, at their core, a genuine feeling of sadness for humanity. It's not so much that these films offer a pessimistic view of the world - although, I guess you can label it that way - as they just seem to have a clear understanding of the horribly awful things we often do to one another.
Shot in black and white, in perpetually fogged out/drizzly England, this story of one older woman's loneliness and dementia tinged world is about 5 steps down into the dungeon of depressing. It offers a kind of sad relief - the kind that comes from knowing that, although things are terrible, they could be much, much worse.
I've always been one to not quite understand the desire for a "feel good" movie. All movies, if they work as they should, will leave you feeling better for having seen them - whether silly or serious. This is one of those films.