All right let's talk about some movies.
The new adaptation of The Stranger slaps. Some of the most gorgeous black-and-white filmmaking I've ever seen, a searing presence of the sun at all times, complex simmering homoerotic undertones, a heartbreaking performance from the neighbor with the dog and precise, needling ones from the attorneys, and an engagement with the French presence in Algeria that feels thoughtful and purposeful throughout the film without ever taking the viewer out of the story. Absolutely un-shy about being the kind of black-and-white movie in French that will include a gratuitous nude scene.
I caught Calle Malaga at a film festival screening; it's about an elderly lady of Spanish descent living in Tangier, who has to make a decision about her future when her daughter comes to visit and says, come live with me in Madrid, the deed to your apartment is in my name and I'm putting it up for sale. The mother loves her life and her apartment and doesn't want to move. Movie shenanigans ensue. I enjoyed the performances in this movie 100% but the script only about 70%; it kept careening between tones, from madcap comedy to romantic heartwarmer to family drama, and it would have stuck with me more decidedly if it had had a real ending. A dedication does not a conclusion make.
Joybubbles, also at the film fest, was a unique cinematic experience because the screening I saw was both open-captioned and audio-described; the subject of the film was blind, and the filmmaker wanted blind audience members to have access to it. I've never watched an audio-described film before, and it was rather fascinating. I'm also just glad that somebody undertook to tell the story of this guy, who was a groundbreaking phone hacker, lifelong whimsy-spreader and subcultural and local legend; a number of people spoke during the Q&A who had known him or talked to him on the phone hotline he maintained for years.
The History of Sound was released with minimal publicity; I loved the book (a collection of short stories, from which this movie adapts only the first one) but missed its theatrical run completely and ended up borrowing the DVD from the library. Considering how no one seemed to care about distributing this film, it's a little surprising how much was apparently invested in making it: there are locations and characters that never appeared in the original short story, and it's cast with some legit movie stars. I was surprised that Josh O'Connor didn't play the lead (the narrator of the story) but perhaps they considered it more important to put him in the role the audience needs to be fascinated and tantalized by. I kind of was and kind of wasn't. He's good in this but Paul Mescal, the lead, plays the character's repression a little too effectively, considering he needs to carry 75% of the film on his face. This is, among other things, a film about folk music, and it was a joy to hear a couple songs I know (I sat up straight when a bar full of men started singing "I like to rise when the sun she rises") and a bunch I don't. I wished someone would sing with their whole chest sometimes. Folk songs are not 100% for singing on a high wistful edge of your voice that evokes the melancholy of everything you've lost. And I thought it all went on for too long--twice as long as it took Chris Cooper to read the entire story for the audiobook, and he didn't rush; there's no reason for this to have gone over 90 minutes. There were ideas it conveyed beautifully in one minute and then, for some reason, drew out for five minutes of empty dialogue, or just an actor staring at the wall. I don't not recommend this...the pervasive moodiness of it takes too long, but it works, and I love the central metaphor of the story. I recommend the book more, though.
The animals in The Sheep Detectives are conspicuously computer-animated; their wool looks fantastic but their movements are never convincing. The movie is fine but it's no Babe.
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