What I'm Watching

The first time I encountered Netflix I was visiting my sister in Virginia Beach and she said, let's watch a movie--Netflix has everything. So I searched for a few movies I would like to see and, of course, none of them were available. I did finally sign up for both Netflix and Amazon Prime, but usually I can find nothing to watch--there were a few good shows, like Downton Abbey, but I ran out. Luckily I have a pretty good DVD collection. My advice, as with books is BUY PHYSICAL MEDIA. So here are some movies I have been watching recently, none of which is available on either of my streaming services.

Back in the 80s we all discovered a wonderful world of Australian cinema and in particular, Peter Weir. This is an early film and possibly the most perplexing one ever. There is no resolution. At all. But it is extraordinarily beautiful in a Botticelli three graces kind of way.

This is a later Peter Weir film and an early starring role for Mel Gibson. The music is especially well done. When this was a first-run film I went back to see it four times because I simply could not understand the ending. I finally realized that it is a Buddhist ending. This is a rare example of the film being as good as the novel that inspired it.

Two Australian films and now two French films, the first an early film by Luc Besson. An extraordinarily beautiful film and I will say nothing more.

I have mentioned this film before, but I make no apologies for recalling it. I came back to it after watching a bunch of Marvel Cinematic Universe films and the contrast could not be more severe. Instead of furious action and shots lasting fractions of seconds, here there are long, very long shots of as much as, oh, ten minutes or so. In the first hour of this four hour film, two couples and a friend have dinner in the most ordinary way. In the last three hours of the film, a painter sketches, then paints, a nude model played by Emmanuel Beart. That's the story. And it is the best depiction of the actual act of creation I have ever seen onscreen.

I first saw this in a film festival four decades ago and never forgot it. Whatever I watch on Netflix I have forgotten by the next day. This is a superb recreation of upper-class life in Sweden in the late 19th century with the eeriest transition from non-diagetic to diagetic sound I have ever experienced.

Finally, a film I have somehow never seen until now. But a knight playing chess on a rocky beach with Death has to be seen, after all.

So, two from Peter Weir, two French and two Swedish, which means Ingmar Bergman of course.

And I realized something recently. I don't like American cinema. I most especially don't like anything from Quentin Tarantino. But I make exception, of course, for anything starring Bill Murray.

I'm leaving out the wonderful Japanese cinema, so I will have to do another post on that.