Film: Mulholland Drive

What's on Mubi was relevant for today, as Meetup's only offerings for the day are in person (which I can't yet get to, with travel restrictions), or on BBC's iPlayer, which I can't access from abroad. The next-highest rated offering on Mubi was Woman at War, an Icelandic film about a woman whose environmental activism may threaten her ability to adopt a child. But gee - they just uploaded Mulholland Drive! A David Lynch film, it stars Naomi Watts as a Hollywood ingenue who gets involved with trying to help a young woman who's been in a car crash recover her memory. And somehow, I missed seeing it.. well yes, that was quite acceptable! What excellent timing..

I had some buffering issues, but nothing major. And as I watched the rain lash the window, it felt just right to be watching a film.. And wow, what a film. Award-winning, and apparently featured on various "favourites" lists, it's surreal, vivid, sexy, completely unexpected. Everything is exaggerated, it feels as though the emphasis is always placed on the wrong thing. It's film noir, but with some hilarious scenes - and as the story reaches an end, you might wish it reached a conclusion.. instead, you must hope that you paid enough attention throughout, as it gets quite confusing. In fact, there's an in-depth analysis of characters and possible plot on the Wikipedia page devoted to the film.

Not for everyone, but if you don't mind being confused by a film, this may well be the film for you! I adored it. Available for the next 30 days on Mubi.

Tomorrow, Up in the Cheap Seats is watching The Hired Man - too late in the day for me, so I'm thinking of watching it earlier. Who knows when I'll get to a Meetup again..?

Film: The Past

Today was film; Meetup isn't exactly hopping with events. I Vitelloni is no longer showing on Mubi - but the next-highest rated is The Past, which is still showing, and which I was actually much more interested in, having seen a couple of the Iranian director's previous offerings.

It was a little late in the afternoon when I started watching - but as I say, I was keen. Now, I adore films that tell a story without talking - and, as shown here, Asghar Farhadi is a past master at it. The film opens with a woman picking up her estranged husband at the airport and driving him back to her place - and for minutes, there is no dialogue. They're on the opposite side of a partition when we first see them, and afterwards it's the sound of the pouring rain, the traffic.. When they get back, almost the first thing she does is dry her hair, and all we can hear for a bit is the hairdryer. It happens again several times throughout the film - no dialogue for a bit, just background noise. Fantastic stuff - when we don't need dialogue, there is none, and we have a chance to absorb what's happened so far, and to observe the characters.

So, the story is, she's asked him to return to France (where the film takes place) to finalise their divorce. He's Iranian, you see, and apparently returned there when they split up. However, he discovers he's walked into a minefield - nobody seems to be telling the truth (or at least the whole truth); he asked her to book him a hotel and she didn't, but is putting him up instead; she has a new partner she didn't tell him about (who's living with her!); the new guy has a son, and a wife in a coma; she didn't tell the kids he was coming; and her elder daughter, who knows him from before and missed him, has taken to staying out all evening because she disapproves of her mother's new relationship, only coming back to sleep..

And believe me, that's not the half of it - the divorce turns out to be the least complicated part of the whole thing. He asks her, in one scene, why she dragged him into all this.. his being there makes things more complicated, of course, with the new partner being jealous and the teenage daughter taking her stepfather's side against her mother. But you know what? He's the sanest person in the film. A good cook, a good listener.. and as the story unravels, he unwittingly becomes the catalyst for the opening of a whole Pandora's box. The rows, later in the film, are a perfect contrast to the long periods of silence.

It's a beautiful character study, with a nice detective story thrown in there to keep our attention (why is the guy's wife in a coma?). Elegant and stylish - highly recommended. Available till Saturday on Mubi.

What's on Mubi could be relevant, as Meetup's only offerings at the moment for that day are in person (which I can't yet get to, with travel restrictions), or on BBC's iPlayer, which I can't access from abroad. If I'm back on Mubi, the next-highest rated offering is Woman at War, an Icelandic film about a woman whose environmental activism may threaten her ability to adopt a child.

Film: The Stranger (1991)

London Literary Walks has now given the results to the final (sigh) round of their quiz.. or is it? Given that he's moved the date forward again! Now, today is actually a bank holiday in Ireland. And gee, for me too, as my company introduced an extra day off some years back, in return for overtime worked to get a release out - and decided to keep the tradition! And that bank holiday happens today. So I get two in a row, hah! Looking for something to do tomorrow afternoon, I decided to watch something on Mubi. Highest rated film currently showing is The Stranger (1991) - an Indian film about a well-off family that receives a visitor, claiming to be a long-lost relative..

And then I ended up watching it last night! Lordy, I had trouble sticking with it, TBH - it trundles along languidly, as this guy rocks up, is perfectly charming, answers only the questions that are put to him. It is, in fact, like a dinner party, where he proves the perfect guest - erudite, well-travelled, philosophical. Throughout, his niece and nephew are dubious about his identity, and produce a variety of acquaintances to question him in a way that they can't, out of politeness - and still they doubt him. Matters are finally resolved at the end, you'll be glad to hear.

Gee, I just can't find much to recommend it, though! There isn't really anything revolutionary in it, nothing we haven't heard before - technology doesn't provide all the answers, we need to get back to basics, civilisation is overrated. He doesn't seem terribly wise to me - "temperamental", they call him at the end, and I agree. Shies away from difficult situations, which is probably why he took off in the first place. There's nothing funny in the film, nothing really sad, nothing very dramatic.. the only point in the whole film at which I engaged was one beautiful scene where the wife plays a tanpura and sings. Anyway, if you fancy a look, it's also available on YouTube.

Highest rated film now is I Vitelloni, a 50s Fellini coming-of-age drama about five young men.

And on Saturday, I'm back with Up in the Cheap Seats for another musical - Reasons to be Cheerful. Interestingly, for the talk after, we're back on Jitsi again..!

Film: Hoop Dreams & Play: Venus in Fur

I was thinking film for Sunday. Had the same thought a few nights before, actually - but being sick to the teeth of nature documentaries, I thought I'd finally avail of my Mubi membership. Three months' free trial, and I hadn't availed of it yet! Highest rated on it at the time was Kurosawa's last epic (as advertised) - Ran. The Japanese version of King Lear, really. So, I tried to watch it. Twice. The first time, I gave up after about 10 minutes - there was so much buffering, I'd got through under 3 minutes' worth of material. The second time, I did a bit better - managed 26 mins worth of material in just over an hour. Both times, I got tired and gave up. Third time lucky..?

What I can say about the first 26 minutes is - it's quite shouty, the (16th Century) costumes are really weird, and the scenery is spectacular. Well gee, by the time I got around to watching something, there was a higher rated film on Mubi - and not particularly fancying listening to bearded Japanese men shouting at each other, I went for Hoop Dreams instead. It's a (very long) documentary about two black teenage boys from Chicago, both talented basketball players, who are scouted for a school just out of town called St. Joseph's, which has a strong focus on basketball, with a number of players headed towards college basketball, and professional careers.

I kind of sorted my Mubi problem - they must show films in very high res, because in the settings page, you can choose among three (high, medium, low). I tried each, and settled on low (described as standard res) - I still had some buffering, but manageable - less than half an hour added to a three-hour film.

So - I have zero interest in basketball. But the film does delve deeply into these kids' home lives, and their careers through high school - they briefly mention what happened to them next, but I had to do my own search to find out more. And by the end, I was interested - it's something of a marathon, but you do find yourself getting hooked, and wanting to know more. What a journey it is - although they mention a successful alumnus, neither of these kids reaches those dizzy heights (spoiler).. and with the litany of problems they face, you can see why.

You expect the standard problems - one has terrible trouble with recurring injury, both struggle to keep their grades up, which is a requirement. Then the other's family discovers that what they thought was a full scholarship is nothing of the kind, and they can't afford the balance - so the school unceremoniously kicks him out, and requires a further payment before they'll even release his transcript to the school he returns to! I don't know that St. Joseph's comes out of this too well - on top of this, the coach is a slavedriver, criticising the injured kid for not having the killer instinct he did before his injury, then making him come back too soon, just making it worse.

Well, there is life outside basketball, and they'll be ok. But hell, the background they come from.. random attacks (not to mention deliberate fights) shorten lives, and the father of one was shot dead by robbers shortly after the film was released. The brother of the other was shot dead some years later. There's jail, teenage pregnancy, redundancy leading to inadequate welfare, which in turn means the power is cut off.. it's no wonder that they dream of a glittering future away from this. The shots of them strolling around college campuses, at the end of the film, are a sight to behold - a new world awaits. I remember the feeling, although all I was trying to escape was boredom! You don't know when you have it lucky..

So, I enjoyed it - although there is no way it needed to be that long.. As for Ran, it's no longer showing on Mubi. Which doesn't distress me too much.

I've been quite busy since, with a decent tv schedule as well. So I had no chance to blog. Yesterday being a bank holiday, I planned to watch Venus in Fur, showing on YouTube, as suggested by Up in the Cheap Seats - in the end, it was tonight before I got to it! Definitely not the best recording - probably not intended for public consumption, with the camera jerking around, and most particularly, dreadful sound quality. They don't get the mic right until about 15 minutes in - the beginning is really faint. All the worse because the audience inexplicably finds the start hilarious, and keeps bursting out in raucous laughter! When you have the volume turned up so you can hear the actors, then you get a burst of deafening laughter (the mic must have been at the back) - you begin to wonder whether it's worth continuing.

Do give it a shot - it's really very good. And audiences laughing at inappropriate moments is, sadly, something I'm used to. And, as usual, the laughter stops after a while, when they realise it's not a comedy (why does everyone seem to expect everything to be a comedy?!). The play is a two-hander, with a theatre director about to leave for the night after a day spent looking for the female lead for his new play. Suddenly, in bursts a young woman, who's been delayed, and is desperate to read for the part, and persuades him to read with her.. and wouldn't you know it, it's as though the play was written for her! But has he bitten off more than he can chew with this mysterious woman..?

It it funny - the more so when you can hear it, with the volume at a suitable level, and the audience not drowning it out. And it's sexy. The play that he's casting for is based on a 19th Century novel, and is all about domination.. it's fascinating to watch Lauren Kampman completely manipulate the director as he tries, bemusedly, to figure her out. By the end, I don't think we're any more sure than we were about who she really is, but it doesn't matter - she's given him a masterclass in how to be dominant. And struck a blow for feminism! Recommended, with a caveat about the laughter and poor audio at the start.

This weekend is all about the same group. On Saturday, I'm seeing a remake of Beauty and the Beast with them, broadcast by Chichester Festival Theatre.

On Sunday, we're on YouTube, watching a production of Hairspray, with Jennifer Hudson and Ariana Grande. Part of Andrew Lloyd Webber's channel, The Shows Must Go On.

And on Monday (or thereabouts), London Literary Walks gives the results to the final (sigh) round of their quiz..