Pretty boy Lonnie gets what he wants. And he wants to be out of where he came from, and he wants to be wanted and rich. And he's got the looks and the voice and the ego. So he gets it, the getting out and the love and the money. And then some. And then some. And then.

“It's not my fault that opportunity came my way.”

– Lonnie

Rat Fink is not your pop-idol-turned-movie-star vehicle. Something's off, no good vibrations here. It's dark – not in the least thanks to cinematographer Vilmos “The Deer Hunter” Zsigmond's doings – and gritty – real-world pop singer Schuyler Hayden doesn't hold back in his portrayal of egomaniacal pretty boy Lonnie.

 

If it hadn't been lost for half a century you may be fooled to believe that it spawned a certain, fictional 80s investment banker.

Expecting an uneventful night at the Seattle Crisis Clinic, volunteering psychology student Alan Newell is left to his own devices. Alan takes his books to study, it is quiet after all. Then a call, a woman. We learn she's called Inga (Anne Bancroft). She's drowsy. She has taken barbiturates and wants to talk while slipping away. While Alan fights to keep the woman on the line, attempts are made to trace the call.

“Do you think that not getting caught in a lie is the same as telling the truth?”

– Mark Dyson

The Slender Thread is an excellent example of picturing the invisible. The two leads never meet, both bound to their setting. The call tracing scene, a very technical affair, bears echos of Soviet Montage. The warm #jazz soundtrack by Seattle's own Quincy Jones tones down the mechanics, making the human aspect even more harrowing, almost physical.

At a poolside #CocktailParty, the swimmer appears. He notes that the houses in between his hosts' and his are connected by a “river” of #pools and decides to swim home, from one pool to the other, superficially meeting people, crashing suburban pool parties, in an increasingly irrational state.

“And the water up there. Remember? That transparent, light green water. It felt different. God, what a beautiful feeling. We could've swum around the world in those days.”

– Ned Merrill

Simón is a stylite in the Syrian #desert on top of a pillar, close to God, #praying. People gather and pray to him, Simón. Simón prays for the people, the animals, himself.

“Come down off that column. Taste earthly pleasures till you've had your fill. Till the very word pleasure fills you with nausea.”

– The Devil

As with anyone who believes in the concept of #sin, or desires to be free of sin, sin comes to Simón.

Japanese author Yukio Mishima was, besides an aesthete, a fierce proponent of Japanese nationalism. In 憂國, based on his short 1960 story, Mishima plays palace guard Lt. Shinji Takeyama. Despite being one of the instigators of an ultra-nationalist coup, Takeyama decides he cannot overthrow the government as it would mean having to kill his friends and be disloyal to the Emperor. Returning home, he and his bride Reiko (Yoshiko Tsuruoka) perform #切腹 (#seppuku / #HaraKiri), as in line with Takeyama's #samurai heritage.

 

Yūkoku is a #SilentFilm that plays out like #Noh #theatre, with an extreme emphasis on the beauty and love of death and loyalty respectively.

 

After Mishima's own seppuku in 1970, his widow ordered all copies of Yūkoku to be destroyed. In 2005, in Mishima's house, a pristine copy was uncovered in a tea box.

Wild with today's eyes, it is not. Yet Rosemary's “very in” Vidal Sassoon #PixieCut was a shocking affair in 68. Director Roman #Polanski flew in Vidal Sassoon – the world's hottest hairdresser – all the way from London, to cut Mia Farrow's hair in a boxing-ring-turned-pressroom. All of a sudden, in her lunch break, Mia/Rosemary transformed from timid waif to women's lib.

“It's by Vidal Sassoon. It's very in.”

– Rosemary Woodhouse

Both the lady's movie husband Guy Woodhouse (John Cassavetes) and real-world husband Frank Sinatra were incensed by the bold move. Of course, in Rosemary's Baby the haircut is Rosemary's attempt to make sense of the changing world around her. Moving to a new city, an unexpected pregnancy, all those lovely new neighbours to socialise with… a girl needs to feel in control!

A Gen X-er, I grew up in a completely different world where so many films and TV that kids watched – if watched with today's eyes — were not particularly kid-oriented at all. I fondly remember Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) and reenacting the Black Knight scene in the school grounds. Yul Brynner as a faceless, rampaging cyber cowboy in Westworld (1973)? Sure, bring it on! Not that the official kid's movies were “clean”. Did you spot the chicken decapitation in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971)? Well, you will now.

“Once upon a time, or maybe twice, there was an unearthly paradise called Pepperland. 80,000 leagues beneath the sea it lay, or lie. I'm not too sure.”

– narrator

Alright, I'll keep it clean and suggest a dose of Yellow Submarine. A fantastic adventure starring The #Beatles (well, their likeness mostly) who are summoned to save utopian, music-loving #Pepperland from the music-hating Blue Meanies. Trippy fun, and lots to discover the older you get.

“The Kola Loka is the law!”

– Limonádový Joe

Hitman Jef Costello (Alain Delon) coolly drives a #Citroën DS 21 to his garagiste (André Salgues), who routinely switches the license plates in a beautifully wordless, efficiently lit scene.

“I never lose. Never really.”

In Mayan worldview, mortals move along the horizontal, gods along the vertical plane. A boy travels both worlds, united by music and wonder.

 

Juanito, a #Mixquic boy with hypersensitive hearing, finds solace from the hustle of #MexicoCity in the silence of the chinampas – the pre-Hispanic man-made agricultural plots in lake #Xochimilco. There he plays his cardboard fiddle for the nature around him, until the sound from a real violin reaches him. The violinist, an old hermit who lives on one of the chinampas, takes the boy in and teaches him how to master Yanco, his hand-built instrument. When the man dies, the boy goes out at night to be able to play Yanco. In a changing world where the living and the dead used to naturally cross paths, the strings stir different to some.

 

The #Nahuatl film Yanco is a small cinematic miracle that begs for a beautiful restoration akin to how Govindan Aravindan's കുമ്മാട്ടി [Kummatty] (1979) opened up the world to indigenous filmmaking.