“This is really a movie about chain of command, and about people diminished and decimated by authority. In this case you have a colonel who’s middle management, and with middle management you can look up or look down. And when you have a system without oversight, about power fortifying itself at the expense of the non-powerful, this is what you get.” — David Simon, creator, executive producer, head writer and show runner for all five seasons of The Wire (’02 to ’08). (Essay posted on 5.10.18.)

In a word, Pawel Pawlikowski‘s Cold War is brilliant — an impressively grim, beautifully shot, wonderfully concise portrait of a compulsively hot if constantly frustrating love affair. Romantic bindings can be fatiguing, turbulent, infuriating, painful or even destructive, but the fires are not easily quenched.

Right now Cold War is the leading candidate to win the Palme d’Or, hands down.

Set in ’50s-era Poland and France (mostly Warsaw and Paris) and spanning about a decade, it’s about a musician-arranger (Tomasz Kot) and a headstrong femme fatale singer (Joanna Kulig) who are drawn to each other but never quite come together or achieve even a semblance of stability, much less synchronicity.

Cold War director Pawel Pawlikowski, actress Joanne Kulig during this morning’s press conference — Friday, 5.11, 11:35 am.

Kot pursues, wins, then loses Kulig, over and over. But she keeps returning, affirming her love then changing her mind and ducking out the side door.

Pawlikowski employs the same glorious black-and-white palette and 1.37:1 aspect ratio that he used for Ida, and it’s just pure dessert, an ice-cream sundae — I was in boxy heaven.

And Cold War is only 84 minutes. I love it when a world-class director reminds us all that narrative discipline and pruning things down to essentials are still active options.

Heralded as a kind of African-cinema breakthrough, banned in Kenya for encouraging homosexuality and finally becoming the first Kenyan film accepted by the Cannes Film Festival, Rafiki is…well, pretty good. Set in low-rent Nairobi, it’s a nicely finessed lesbian love story that plays in familiar ways.

Wanuri Kahiu‘s second film is good and winning but in a mild (but not meh) sort of way. The lovers, Kena and Ziki (Samantha Mugatsia, Sheila Munyiva), are daughters of opposing political candidates, which obviously piles on the pressure. Kahiu’s decision to deal head-on with Kenyan homophobia and intolerance is understandable, but the result is that the first half loses its aura of intimacy and tenderness. The second half is a little too adamant and on-the-nose. There should have been one or two straight characters who don’t give the couple so much grief.

But I loved the two leads (especially Munyiva); ditto Kena’s mom (Muthoni Gathecha). And I loved getting to know native Nairobi culture to some extent.

It began to drizzle before Thursday evening’s Salle Debussy screening of Sorry Angel. Most of the press people waiting to get in didn’t have umbrellas. Thankfully the rain didn’t intensify but if it had suddenly begun to rain cats and dogs, the Palais security guys never would’ve taken pity. They would’ve stood there and just watched as everyone got soaked. They stick to their schedules and never alter them, come hell or high water.

Set during the early ’80s Leningrad rock-music scene and focusing on a largely factual, less-than-ardent romantic triangle, Leto (Russian for summer) is a kind of monochrome dream trip — more about feeling the vibe than savoring the story. It’s something you need to sink into rather than judge and evaluate with a fine tooth comb.

Directed by Kirill Serebrennikov, Leto is based on the saga of three fact-based characters — Zoopark‘s Mike Naumenko (Roma Zver), his wife Natasha (Irina Starshenbaum) and Asian-born Viktor Tsoi (Teo Yoo), who went on to form Kino.

The screenplay is reportedly based on a memoir by Natalya Naumenko. (Natasha and Natalya are essentially the same name.)

It’s a trippy, at times rhapsodic recreation of the beginnings of Russia’s rock-music movement, a couple of years after the death of Leonid Breshnev and four or five years before Mikhail Gorbachev, the architect of glasnost and gradual liberal reforms within the Soviet Union, came to power.

Leto costars Roma Zver, Irina Starshenbaum during today’s 11 am press conference.

Leto kind of runs out of steam over the last 25 or 30 minutes and is therefore something of a mixed bag, but the first half to two-thirds are mesmerizing.

Anyone who expresses a “meh” reaction to Vladislav Opelyant‘s velvety black-and-white cinematography, framed within a lavish aspect ratio of 2.76 to 1 (the same as the nearly 60-year-old Ultra Panavision 70 or Camera 65 process), not to mention the monochrome hand-drawn animation used in the musical sequences…anyone who watches and says “aahh, no big deal, seen stuff like this before” really and truly has something wrong with them.

Call me a music-video rube but the musical sequences are electric and exhilarating and just great fun. Leto is definitely worth seeing for these alone.

Serebrennikov, an anti-Putinite, was arrested by government forces last August on trumped-up charges. He’ll apparently remain under house arrest until next fall, and was therefore unable to attend last night’s premiere or this morning’s press conference. The Leto costars held up a sign with his name on the red-carpet steps.

As one who’s searched high and low for decent Times Square marquee photos, this full-color shot (from a reel of 8mm film) of the Astor marquee during the 1946 and ’47 run of The Best Years of Our Lives is one of the most striking I’ve ever come across. It’s not as dazzling as that color shot of Spellbound‘s Astor premiere on 10.31.45 [after the jump], but at least it’s in color.

As I didn’t care for Christophe Honore‘s Sorry Angel, I slipped out of the theatre after…oh, 85 minutes or so. Life is short.

Sorry Angel is actually a well-written, better-than-decent period drama (early ’90s) about a couple of gay guys separated by age and education levels, but influencing each other for the better in various open-ended, whatever-the-fuck ways. It’s not a terrible thing to sit through, but it kind of meanders along without a great deal happening. Then I began to realize that nothing actually would happen. I began to exhale audibly and glance at my watch around the 45-minute mark.

The main protagonist is Jacques (Pierre Deladonchamps), an HIV-positive writer in his late 30s, living with a young son. The romantic interest is Arthur (Vincent LaCoste), a 22 year-old bisexual lightweight. They both struck me as relentlessly self-obsessed, thinking about their schtufenhaufers above everything else, and given to blah-blahing about whatever comes into their heads. Plus they’re pathetically addicted to cigarettes. I started out merely disliking these guys, but I soon graduated into despising and then hating the ground they stood on.

A friend who attended my 7 pm screening has just written that “Sorry Angel had no reason whatsoever to be 132 minutes long.”

There’s a stand-out scene in which a dying gay guy with Kaposi’s Sarcoma lesions gets into a bathtub with Jacques. (He resists the idea at first but Jacques pulls him in.) They talk things over in a murmuring, open-hearted fashion, like old marrieds. I respect the inherent sadness and emotional candor and whatnot, and I doubt if I’ll ever forget this scene. But I’d be lying if I said it didn’t make me feel…uhm, uneasy? Does this make me an asshole?

And the cigarettes! There isn’t a single scene in Sorry Angel in which someone doesn’t light up. Jesus H. Christ, can you give those stinkweeds a rest? The smoking in this movie smokes is so relentless I felt I was getting early-stage cancer from just watching this.

On top of which I prefer modestly-behaved, straight-friendly gay films like Call Me By Your Name, Moonlight, Brokeback Mountain and The Times of Harvey Milk. Oh, I’m sorry — does that make me sound like a heterosexual straight-washer? If you want to call me that, fine, but I’m not a big fan of sticky, cummy, in-your-face sexual behavior a la Sorry Angel, 120 Beats per Minute, John Cameron Mitchell‘s Shortbus, Taxi Zum Klo and so on. I prefer films that hold back on that stuff. Sorry, p.c. brownshirts, but I’m allowed to have this opinion.

It’s 5:52 pm, for Chrissake. I’ll be catching as 7 pm Debussy screening of Christophe Honore‘s Sorry Angel. That’s my intention at least. God’s good humor, etc.

In Paul Dano‘s Wildlife, which is screening in Cannes under the Critics Week banner, the great Carey Mulligan plays an anxious, self-loathing infidel. In a Variety piece that accompanies a video interview with Mulligan, Brent Lang calls it “the kind of warts-and-all role that [is] usually reserved for men.” It’s actually call it the kind of warts-and-all experience with a broken person that you regret the instant it’s over and you’re on your way out to the parking lot.

“You very rarely see women on screen who are being unfaithful,” Mulligan says. “It’s so rare to see a woman allowed to fail on screen.”

My 1.20.18 review, filed from Park City: “Wildlife is a sluggish but otherwise strongly directed middle-class horror film — cold, creepy, perverse.

“I didn’t hate it because of Dano’s visual discipline (handsome compositions, a restrained shooting style, extra-scrupulous 1960 period design) and because of Carey Mulligan‘s fascinating performance as a youngish cheating mom in a small Montana town. But it’s a funereal gloom movie, and it makes you feel like you’re sinking into a cold swamp.

“On top of which I was appalled — astonished — by the cruel, self-destructive behavior of this sad 34 year-old woman, whose name is Jeanette, and particularly by her decision to invite her 14 year-old son Joe (Ed Oxenbould) to almost participate in some extra-marital humping with a rich, small-town fat guy (Bill Camp) while her irresponsible husband Jerry (Jake Gyllenhaal) is off fighting a forest fire with local volunteers.

Yes, the screenplay (by Dano and Zoey Kazan) is an adaptation of a 1990 Richard Ford novel so blame Ford, right? But who dreams up stuff like this? And what kind of mother has ever injected this kind of sexually odious poison into her son’s life?

Infidels hide their affairs, particularly from their kids. But Jeanette more or less whispers in her son’s ear, “I dunno but I kinda like this balding Uriah Heep…he’s rich and definitely not your father, and so I’m feeling flirty and thinking about…well, I’ve said enough.” And the kid just stares at her like she’s some kind of conniving ghoul from a Vincent Price flick.

Late this afternoon the legendary Martin Scorsese sat for a mostly French-language q & a today following a Director’s Fortnight screening of Mean Streets. The questions were almost entirely about the genesis and making of this 1973 classic. Scorsese recalled his Little Italy upbringing in the ’50s and early ’60s, and the crackling atmosphere of the 1973 Cannes Film Festival, where Mean Streets premiered and actually got booed by some.

The healthy-looking 75 year-old (who again was wearing violet socks) mentioned that the troubled bond between Harvey Keitel‘s Charley and Robert De Niro‘s Johnny Boy is based on the relationship between Scorsese’s dad and his nee’er-do-well younger brother. Scorsese also recalled the real-life influence of a man of the cloth, a kind of “street priest” who counselled him during his early-to-mid-teen years.

But all this fell by the wayside when Scorsese mentioned that his forthcoming The Irishman, a $180 million gangster flick funded mostly by Netflix, contains about “300 scenes.”

Right away I leaned forward and wondered if I’d just heard that. Because 300 scenes could translate into a helluva running time, perhaps as long as 450 minutes or 7 hours and 30 minutes. I asked Scorsese’s rep for a confirmation or clarification, but heard zip. Then an Associated Press story run by The New York Times reported the “300 scenes” quote, and I knew I hadn’t been hearing things.

In other words (and I’m just spitballing here) The Irishman could wind up as an expanded Netlix miniseries in addition to being shown as a shorter theatrical feature. Who knows? I know that a film with 300 scenes will definitely be a bear, length-wise. Too much of a bear for theatres, in fact, if Scorsese intends to use all or most of that footage.

The average scene used to last two minutes, give or take. But scenes today are shorter, or roughly a page and a half or 90 seconds per scene. By this standard a typical two-hour movie might contain 75 to 90 scenes. If the scenes last 90 seconds a film with 75 scenes would run 112 minutes; if the scenes number 90 the running time would be 135 minutes without credits.

It was reported yesterday that 52 year-old Alex Winter and 53 year-old Keanu Reeves will costar in a third installment of the Bill & Ted franchise, titled Bill & Ted Face the Music. Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure began things in ’89; Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey followed in ’91.

HE’s reaction is roughly the same as my thoughts about Dumb and Dumber To, which I explained in a 9.25.13 piece called “Long of Tooth“:

When Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels costarred in the Farrelly Brothers’ Dumb and Dumber (’94) they were roughly 32 and 39 years old, respectively. Obviously not spring chickens but relatively buoyant, fresh-faced, elastic of bod. They’re currently costarring in the Farrelly’s Dumb and Dumber To, which I suspect will be funny and inventive (I was a fan of the Farrelly’s Three Stooges flick), but now we’re talking about a 51 year-old and a 58 year-old playing the same characters.

Dumbasses in their 30s vs. dumbasses in their 50s are different equations. You’re supposed to mellow down and gather a little wisdom out as you get older. You can fall into dumb-shit situations when you’re youngish but guys with creases on their faces are supposed to be craftier and less susceptible.

When Joseph McBride replied at some length to my questions about Irma la Douce and his commentary on a forthcoming Kino Lorber Bluray, I replied at length also. Here’s what I said:

“So unlike most critics, you’re not of the opinion that Billy Wilder peaked with Some Like It Hot, The Apartment and One, Two, Three? And that as a director he enjoyed two peak periods — his initial nine-year run (1944’s Double Indemnity to 1953’s Stalag 17) and then his seven-year run at the very top of his game, or between ’59 and ’66 (Some Like It Hot to The Fortune Cookie)?

“You believe, in other words, that Wilder’s decline period (The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes through Buddy Buddy) wasn’t about ‘decline’ as much as a commercially downspiraling artistic growth period, or something along those lines?

“Wilder’s first peak period began with his auteurist breakthrough via Double Indemnity (’44) and The Lost Weekend (’45). He greatly strengthened his hand with Sunset Boulevard, (’50) and then was dealt a stunning commercial setback with the release of Ace in the Hole. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’ve always believed that the commercial failure of Ace, not to mention a consensus that he’d succumbed to an overly hard-bitten, overly acidic tone, all but stopped Wilder in his tracks.

“I’m saying that Ace in the Hole either persuaded or forced Wilder to become a humorous, light-hearted, mainstream director-for-hire after Stalag 17, which ironically was quite the critical and commercial success, opened in mid ’53.

Background: “Wilder began working on Stalag 17 sometime after the original B’way play version began its run in March 1951. I don’t know the precise logline, but Wilder’s Paramount-supported involvement was probably concurrent with the opening of Ace in the Hole in July ’51. He began shooting Stalag in February of ’52 and presumably wrapped the usual eight or ten weeks later.

“According to Peter Graves ‘the film was held from release for over a year due to Paramount Pictures not believing anyone would be interested in seeing a film about prisoners of war…the 1953 release of American POWs from the Korean War led Paramount to release it on an exploitation angle.’

Back to letter: “For whatever reasons, perhaps best known by yourself and other Wilder scholars or perhaps just due to the bland mentality of the Eisenhower ’50s, Wilder’s first auteur phase ended with Stalag 17 or at least was put on hiatus for a five-year, five-film period from ’53 to ’58.