Jeff Wells

Knowing my Millennial sons’ aversion to monochrome films from an early age, I’ve long presumed that Sutton, age 2 and 1/2, would never consider watching any black-and-white movies, classic or otherwise.

Hence my surprise on Sunday when we watched about a half-hour’s worth of the original King Kong (’33), which she was pretty much enthralled by. It was the first time Sutton and I had absorbed a critically approved, historically important movie together. Quite a moment.

Sutton’s basic tastes run to stuff like Bluey and animation, etc. Then again she’s watched The Wizard of Oz, sepia footage and all, so she’s already gotten her feet wet in that regard.

She and Jett had been watching Kong: Skull Island (’17), which is basically (we’ve all endured it) an empty crappo CG-propelled Super-Kong flick.

I asked Jett if she’d ever seen the original, and he flipped it on. We both presumed Sutton would be bored if we started from the beginning as the first 35 or 40 minutes are pure dialogue and set-up, so we went straight to the native sacrifice scene.

I offered no coaching or commentary except in one instance. I explained to Sutton that Kong loves Fay Wray‘s Ann Darrow, and that while she’s very scared by his size and whatnot he’ll never hurt her, that he only wants to care for and protect her.

Alas, harumphy HE commenter “bentrane” disapproved. He asked if I “really think King Kong is suitable for a two-year-old,” blah blah.

HE response: “King Kong is epic and historic and iconic — a film that’s emotional and tragically sad and unmistakably about unrequited love. In short, it’s a human-scaled movie about serious feelings, and one that reflects certain emotional realities, unlike the bullshit super-Kong films of the last decade or so, which are merely about size, spectacle and jizzy CG…basically garbage.

“What you seem to be saying is that the crap-bullshit Kong films and their ruthless super-violence (along with the Godzilla–Kaiju films) are okay in a common-gruel, eye-candy sense because they’re empty cartoons but an exciting, 90 year-old adventure-spectacle that touches upon serious human behaviors and tragic sadnesses (including cruelty to animals, greed, delusional dreams of glory) should be kept away from little kids.”

HE commenter “riboleh”: “There is a realistic depiction (albeit stop-motion) of Kong ripping open a dinosaur’s jaw. It’s quite violent, and I would suggest you reconsider creating nightmares for her. It’s so obviously not akin to today’s empty spectacle CGI, not because of how it looks, but how it plays…which feels quite real, and certainly to a two-year old.”

My bottom-line feeling is that King Kong is, at the end of the day, a nutritious film, and that today’s entertainment fare, especially the kind aimed at tykes, is wafer-thin and informed by banal sugary sentiment — pretty much dedicated to eliminating nutrition at all costs.

I figured that exposing Sutton to nutritious content on a brief, one-time basis is worth the risk, as she’s unlikely to see any quality films for quite a few years.

Netflix’s limited theatrical release strategy for Richard Linklater‘s Hit Man is pretty much the same they used last October for David Fincher‘s The Killer, to wit: no major chains, the Paris on 58th, Regal Union Square, various Alamo theatres, the Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville, etc.

Here’s how I explained the Killer deal on 10.26.23:

Yesterday I wrote that the under-performing of George Miller‘s Furiosa is due to a lack of an unequivocal, no-substitutions Mad Max character in the lead as opposed to a second-banana girlboss figure.

Charlize Theron‘s Furiosa in 2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road was a formidable, enraged, go-for-broke protagonist, but she wasn’t the lead — Tom Hardy was.

No matter how you slice it Anya Taylor Joy faced a daunting challenge — trying to carry a major action franchise flick when she’s not playing an actual, historically verified lead but a strong supporting character.

The failure of Furiosa was due, I wrote, to “the absence of Mad Max and his being replaced by a girlboss, and a story about a girlboss out for vengeance upon Chris Hemworth’s Dementus — essentially a feminist woke plot (i.e., you go get the evil bad guy, girl). Action bros have never felt much passion or enthusiasm for proverbial girlboss characters.”

The biggest exception to the girlboss rule, of course, is Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley in the first two Alien movies. She was unquestionably the lead in both and decisively kicked ass…no question about that.

If you were a senior production exec in a position to make greenlight calls, what would your attitude be about new potential girlboss action projects? Would you be indifferent about what happened to Furiosa last weekend or would you be saying “hmmm…I don’t know”?

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Jessica Palud‘s Being Maria was screened last weerk (5.21) in Cannes as an out-of-competition premiere. Based on Vanessa Schneider‘s 2018 memoir “My Cousin Maria Schneider“, it allegedly pushes a contrary viewpoint about the making of Last Tango in Paris and the filming of the anal sex assault scene in particular — contrary in that it argues with statements from its late director, Bernardo Bertolucci.

World of Reel‘s Jordan Ruimy, who attended the Cannes screening and is not given to fanciful distortion as a rule, says that Palud’s film “pretends that the rape scene was unscripted. I went into the film not realizing it was about Schneider. What the film suggests is that Marlon Brando and Bertolucci were unsatisfied by a take and plotted to add the rape scene without Schneider knowing it [in advance].”

I wasn’t on the set of Last Tango in Paris and am only going by online accounts, but please consider a piece that I posted on 12.5.16, titled “Bernardo Bertolucci to Last Tango Outrage Crowd: ‘Cool It…You’ve Got It All Wrong’“:

Last Tango in Paris director Bernardo Bertolucci has issued a statement about the anger that ignited after an Elle article summarized comments Bertolucci made during a 2013 interview, specifically about he and Tango star Marlon Brando having surprised the late Maria Schneider with an idea to do a butter-enabled anal sex scene.

The hoo-hah is based on a “ridiculous misunderstanding” of what actually happened, Bertolucci says.

“I would like, for the last time, to clear up a ridiculous misunderstanding that continues to generate press reports about Last Tango in Paris around the world,” Bertolucci wrote.

“[Three] years ago at the Cinematheque Francaise someone asked me for details on the famous butter scene. I specified, but perhaps I was not clear, that I decided with Marlon Brando not to inform Maria that we would [use] butter. We wanted her spontaneous reaction to that improper use [of the butter]. That is where the misunderstanding lies.

“Somebody thought, and thinks, that Maria had not been informed about the violence on her. That is false!”

Bertolucci explained that “Maria knew everything because she had read the script, where it was all described. The only novelty was the idea of the butter.”

This argues somewhat with a Schneider quote given to a Daily Mail interviewer in 2007, to wit: “I felt humiliated and, to be honest, I felt a little raped, both by Marlon and by Bertolucci. After the scene, Marlon didn’t console me or apologize. Thankfully, there was just one take.”

I wouldn’t mention this if it wasn’t a thing, but what difference could it possibly make to anyone what kind of lubricant is used in the matter of backdoor action? If Schneider knew what the scene would be about because it was in the script, why would she be alarmed about the use of butter? What’s the issue as long as something was used…right?

Variety‘s Nick Vivarelli reports that when Schneider died, Bertolucci said to ANSA: “Her death came too soon, before I could tenderly hug her again, tell her that I felt close to her like the first day, and, at least once, say I was sorry. The strong creative rapport we had during the Last Tango shoot had been poisoned with the passing of time. Maria accused me of having robbed her of her youth and only today I wonder whether there wasn’t some truth to that. In truth she was too young to sustain the impact with the unpredictable and brutal success of that film.”

“The world has to be reminded that watching a film at home, while scrolling through your phone and checking emails and half-paying attention, is just not the way, although some tech companies would like us to think so.

“Watching a film with others in a movie theater is one of the great communal experiences. We share laughter, sorrow, anger, fear and hopefully have a catharsis with our friends and strangers.

“So I say the future of cinema is where it started: in a movie theater.” — from Sean Baker‘s 5.25 acceptance speech after winning the Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or for Anora.

It’s always a little heartbreaking when a special film connects big-time in Cannes, as Payal Kapadia‘s All We Imagine As Light did last week, and then opens in the U.S. to a certain lack of enthusiasm if not shrugs.

Please don’t let this happen to Kapadia’s film. She’s more than just a confident, first-rate filmmaker, but a master of uncanny simplicity, possessed of an Antonioni-like focus — in my view she’s part of that stellar crew that includes Agnes Varda, Jane Campion, Jennifer Kent, Celine Sciamma, etc.

Accomplished Indian social realism is such a rare thing, plus All We Imagine As Light isn’t the least bit anger- or revenge-driven — it couldn’t be farther from the girlboss mindset. Janus Films and Sideshow have the North American rights…here’s hoping it all works out.

I woke up this morning around 3 am…naturally, having operated by a European clock for the last two weeks. Come daybreak I couldn’t do much except sit around and chat with Jett, Cait and Sutton and, you know, do grandfather stuff. And then I crashed for a couple of hours. All to say this is more of a recovery than a filing day.

But I’ll have at least three topics to wade into when I return to Connecticut — watching the original King Kong with 2 and 1/2 year-old Sutton, re-watching the original Ant Man and a rehash of the whole Bernardo Bertolucci-Maria Schneider Last Tango in Paris thing, thanks to Jessica Palud‘s Being Maria, an out-of-competition Cannes film that I didn’t get to but have read about. From what I’ve gathered and have personally been told, it distorts big-time.

From “The Power of the Kennedy Look,” a 5.21.24 N.Y. Times piece by Vanessa Friedman:

“Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the most attention-getting independent candidate for president since Ross Perot, may not have the poll numbers to end up on the debate stage next month. But he increasingly has something else: a reputation as the electoral ‘X factor.’

“In an election fought partly through the images that inundate social media and pit archetype against archetype — Donald J. Trump, the 1980s red-tie-wearing sultan of reality TV, versus President Biden, the aviator-clad deal maker of D.C. — Mr. Kennedy offers a Rorschach test of a different kind. At least stylistically speaking.

“His look — skinny rep ties, button-downs, shrugged-on suits, shock of gray hair and weather-beaten tan — not only sets him apart. It also speaks directly to associations with the early 1960s, a golden age of promise that represents ‘vigor, wit, charisma, change, said Sean Wilentz, a professor of American history at Princeton University, and that are buried deep in the American hive mind.”

Mohammad Rasoulof‘s The Seed of the Sacred Fig, which I saw at the Grand Lumiere a few hours ago, is a political metaphor film — an embrace of Iran’s anti-mullah, anti-sexist “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement, otherwise known as the Mahsa Amini street protests.

The historic rebellion was triggered by the 9.16.22 killing of protestor Jina Mahsa Amini while in police custody. Furious reactions went on for months.

It follows that the motivation behind the widespread Cannes cheering (and I got an earful of it following today’s 3 pm screening) is two-fold.

One, admiring the film equals supporting the movement, and nobody wants to sound blase or neutral about this, myself included. And two, supporting Rasoulof during his time of trial and nomadic uncertainty has been deemed vital, as he recently escaped from Iran in order to dodge eight years of prison time, which he was sentenced to over the content of this film.

The story is basically about the older, bearded, barrel-chested Iman (Misagh Zare), a Tehran civil servant recently promoted to inspector. He’s married to Najmeh (Soheila Golestani), whose nature is basically submissive and go-alongish, and they have two college-age daughters, the politically outspoken Rezvan (Mahsa Rostami) and the sullen and resentful Sana (Setareh Maleki).

Iman’s odious job partly involves interrogating malcontents (principally students) who’ve been arrested for protesting, and in some cases placing the lives of the accused in jeopardy.

And yet Iman isn’t initially presented as a flat-out villain — he’s a defensive-minded bureaucrat who’s mainly terrified of incurring the wrath of his hardline boss. And yet he is in lockstep with the Iranian regime and therefore a bringer of harsh authority.

The first half of this three-hour film is about the tensions stirred by the protests and particularly Iman’s daughters as they try to protect a college-age friend who’s been hurt in a street protest.

The second half — here’s where the problem kicks in — begins when Iman’s pistol, which his work colleagues have given him for protection, suddenly disappears. Who stole it and why? It seems surreal that one of Iman’s daughters might be the thief, but somebody’s clearly responsible.

Iman’s strategic reactions become more and more authoritarian and then paranoid, and we’re encouraged (along with his wife and daughters) to feel more and more alarmed by his punitive thinking, which has been exacerbated by lying.

It all comes to a head when Iman drives his family to a rural Iranian village.

Boiled down, The Seed of the Sacred Fig is two movies — the first half comprised of complex social realism, and the second half (stolen gun) driven by metaphorical symbolism and the ‘22 Jina protests. It’s really two separate films, and while their content comes from the same place the styles don’t blend.

And the 180-minute length really isn’t necessary.

Critic friendo: “Cannes critics are investing heavily in praising this film…they’re going along with this emotional wave that everyone’s feeling up and down the Croisette. I’m thinking it might win the Palme d’Or.”

HE: “It’s not good enough to win the Palme d’Or. The two halves don’t blend together. It’s two separate films. It’s serious and thoughtful, but no one’s idea of a great movie.”

Critic friendo: “That’s what bothered me. Rasoulof should have adhered to the realism of the first 90 minutes. And yet everyone’s raving like nothing’s wrong and everything’s glorious. They’re all trying to duck the flawed second half.”

On my 11th and next-to-final day of the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, here’s my best-of-the-best rundown, and in this order:

1. Sean Baker’s Anora

2.  Halfdan Ullman Tendel’s Armand (yes, I promise to post an actual HE-styled review)

3.  Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine As Light

4.  Magnus von Horn’s The Girl With The Needle

5.  Ali Abassi’s The Apprentice

6.  Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance

7.  Jacques Audiard’s Emilia Pérez (deserves respect and a certain measured approval as far as it goes)

8. Paul Schrader‘s Oh, Canada (subdued dignity, excellent writing, Richard Gere’s caustic performance).

Which of these will have the biggest impact in the States? The Baker, Audiard and Abassi.

The abrasive nature of Kirill Serebrennikov‘s Limonov: The Ballad and the generally bizarre mood and extreme brushstrokes of Yorgos Lanthimos‘ Kinds of Kindness and Francis Coppola‘s Megalopolis…not my cup.

I’m sorry for failing to catch Andrea Arnold‘s Bird…every time I checked for opportunities the app reported COMPLET or the venue was in Cannes la Bocca, the next town over which is a huge pain to get to.

At one point I was determined to catch Caught by the Tides…not so much now.

I reported the other day about being blocked by festival security from seeing Three Kilometers to the End of the World.

I was never interested in Wild Diamond, which is about a young girl looking to make her mark in reality TV.

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It’s 12:45 pm and Mohammad Rasoulof‘s Tbe Seed of the Sacred Fig, the last noteworthy film of the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, screens less than three hours hence.

But my head is still spinning from last night’s surprisingly moving and undeniably artful All We Imagine As Light, a feminism-meets-impoverished-social-realism drama from Payal Kapadia, a 38 year-old, Mumbai-born, obviously gifted auteur.

Shot in Mumbai with a third-act escape to a beach resort, All We Imagine As Light is all about subtle hints, moods, observations and milieu. I knew within 60 seconds that it would deliver profoundly straight cards in this regard — one of the seven or eight humdingers of the festival.

It’s a quiet, soft-spoken, women-centric film but without any current of vengeance or payback or “look at what pathetic fools men are”…there are hints of militant #MeTooism but little in the way of thrust.  

What got me was the observational simplicity and restraint. I was deeply impressed with what can be fairly described as a reach-back to low-key Indian social realism, which is anything but the flamboyant Indian genre known as masala and regarded in some circles (I’m a little fuzzy about this term) as Dacoit cinema, which flourished in the mid 20th Century.

All We Imagine As Light, a title that’s very difficult to remember, focuses on three struggling women of varied ages who work in a second-tier Mumbai hospital (Kani Kusruti‘s 30something Prabha, Divya Prabha‘s younger Anu, Chhaya Kadam‘s 40something Parvaty).

There are only two noteworthy supporting males (a timidly amorous doctor and a bearded man recovering from having nearly drowned) — both are passive and of relatively little consequence.

The three women are all living in the massive, overflowing, sea-of-ants sprawl of Mumbai, and the tone is basically one of resignation and frustration or, if you will, “we’re all unhappy but social codes are very strict and so we believe in staying in our lanes…restraint and decorum…but we’re going a bit crazy underneath.”

And you can tell from the get-go that Kapadia knows what she’s doing.  Her film is solemn, visually plain, matter-of-fact, unsentimental — the work of a formidable, singular filmmaker who knows herself and isn’t into showing off. This is a truly masterful arthouse flick.

Languages spoken in Mumbai: Marathi (35.30% or 4.4 million people), Hindi (25.90% or 3.5 million people). Urdu and Gujarati are spoken by 11.73% and 11.45% respectively. Plus Tamil, Marwari, Bhojpuri, Telugu, Konkani, Bengali and Malayalam.

English is extensively spoken and is the principal language of the city’s white collar workforce. A colloquial form of Hindi, known as Bambaiya — a blend of Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Konkani, Urdu, Indian English and some invented words — is spoken on the streets.