settima

1960s

Le pacha [Pasha / Showdown] (Georges Lautner, 1968)

Nov

14

Le pacha (1968)

Dany Carrel and Jean Gabin gloomily share a small dinner table. DP: Maurice Fellous.

“The day they put jerks into orbit, you won't stop rotating soon!”

– Comissaire Joss, le Pacha

하녀 [Hanyeo / The Housemaid] (Kim Ki-young, 1960)

Nov

13

Hanyeo (1960)

Adding one more ingredient. DP: Deok-jin Kim.

A memorable kitchen or cooking scene*

“Look at us. We're almost totally dependent on our maid. She cooks and washes for us, and is the first person to greet me when I come home from work. She is entirely at our service.”

– Dong-sik Kim

A housemaid works her way into a middle-class household and takes over the wife's tasks – cleaning, cooking, child rearing.

 

* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for November is, again, not date-based, but follows a sloppy schmaltzy all-American Thanksgiving-y narrative. Trying to make it work my way.

Bröllopsbesvär [Wedding: Swedish Style] (Åke Falck, 1964)

Nov

11

Bröllopsbesvär (1964)

Bride and groom, and resentfulness at front. DP: Rune Ericson.

A dysfunctional family*

 

On a wedding day, and night, a family's dirty secrets are laid bare.

 

* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for November is, again, not date-based, but follows a sloppy schmaltzy all-American Thanksgiving-y narrative. Trying to make it work my way.

The White Rose [The White Rose: Jay DeFeo’s Painting Removed by Angelic Hosts] (Bruce Conner, 1967)

Nov

9

1965

The White Rose (1967)

we are not what we seem

– words inscribed in the bottom of DeFeo's painter's stool

Jules et Jim (François Truffaut, 1962)

Nov

4

sweaters

Jules et Jim (1962)

A movie with gorgeous sweater fashion*

“She's a strange breed.”

– Jim

Throwing in a little Movember for good measure.

 

* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for November is, again, not date-based, but follows a sloppy schmaltzy all-American Thanksgiving-y narrative. Trying to make it work my way.

拳銃は俺のパスポート [Koruto wa ore no pasupōto / A Colt Is My Passport] (Takashi Nomura, 1967)

Nov

3

拳銃は俺のパスポート (1967)

A blurry shot of a man with a moustache in a space with chairs and a round table. DP: Shigeyoshi Mine.

 

3. November 1918 [Third of November 1918] (Edwin Zbonek, 1965)

Nov

3

1918

3. November 1918 (1965)

A calendar page for November 3, 1918. It's a Sunday. DP: Rudolf Sandtner.

Takes place on November 2 and 3.

 

I pugni in tasca [Fists in the Pocket] (Marco Bellocchio, 1965)

Nov

3

I pugni in tasca (1965)

Alessandro (Lou Castel). DP: Alberto Marrama.

“I'm a volcano of ideas.”

– Alessandro

Peace, little girl [Daisy / Daisy Girl] (Sidney Myers, 1964)

Nov

3

1964

Peace, little girl (1964)

Monique Corzilius aka Monique Cozy as the Daisy Girl. DP: Drummond Drury.

“One… two… three… four… five… seven… six… six… eight… nine… nine…”

– Daisy Girl

Bübchen (Roland Klick, 1968)

Nov

1

autumn

Bübchen (1968)

Lobby card. Achim (Alexander Kekulé) at a dreary, autumn-y scrapyard surrounded by several serious looking men in trenchcoats. Bübchen is an endearing term for a little boy (via (spoilers)). DP: Robert van Ackeren.

A movie that feels like autumn*

 

A family of four share the same house and live their own lives. When the parents attend a company party, the neighbour's teenage daughter reluctantly babysits the children then promptly runs off with her secret boyfriend. Left to his own devices, the bored 10-year old Achim plays a game with his little sister

“Junge, du bist ja ganz woanders!”

I Initially nomintad the RAF critique Deutschland im Herbst (1978) for today's challenge, when I realised that Bübchen too is about Germany's youth's antics and the society that planted its seeds. Here again, a repressed community dutifully finds a way to bury the terror into the fabric of mundanity. You'll find it again in Michael Haneke's Das weiße Band (2009), now foretelling the German youth that came to embrace Nazism.

 

Eternal return, ad nauseam.

 

* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for November is, again, not date-based, but follows a sloppy schmaltzy all-American Thanksgiving-y narrative. Trying to make it work my way.