settima

crime

High Sierra (Raoul Walsh, 1940)

Jan

19

High Sierra (1940)

Roy Earle (Bogart) pensively smoking an after-meal cigarette while Marie Garson (Lupino) looks on. DP: Tony Gaudio.

“Roy, this is the land of milk and honey for the health racket. Every woman in California thinks she's either too fat or too thin or too something.”

– 'Doc' Banton

Les yeux cernés [Marked Eyes] (Robert Hossein, 1964)

Jan

11

baguette

Les yeux cernés (1964)

A young woman with big eyes and a dark bob (Marie-France Pisier) picks crumbs out of a fresh baguette. She's somewhere in a dreary small town. The snow's almost gone. DP: Jean Boffety.

A cavallo della tigre [On the Tiger's Back / Jail Break] (Luigi Comencini, 1961)

Jan

6

A cavallo della tigre (1961)

Two men in a doorway with a stunned look on their faces and their mouths stuffed with food. DP: Aldo Scavarda.

Ο Δράκος [O Drakos / The Ogre of Athens / The Ogre / The Vampire] (Nikos Koundouros, 1956)

Jan

2

Martini

Ο Δράκος (1956)

The boss, Hondros (Giannis Argyris), pours out a stiff drink on the floor of his cabaret with Mr Tomas (Dinos Iliopoulos) in the background. DP: Kostas Theodoridis.

The first film dinner of 2024.

Ο Δράκος [O Drakos / The Ogre of Athens / The Ogre / The Vampire] (Nikos Koundouros, 1956)

Dec

31

New Year's Eve

Ο Δράκος (1956)

Men in identical white shirts and dark slacks dancing in the club during after hours. Their upper bodies seem top-heavy, tending to lunge towards the ground. DP: Kostas Theodoridis.

New Year's Eve celebrations.
A mousy bank clerk (Dinos Iliopoulos), who bears an uncanny resemblance to a criminal on the run, finds himself hiding in a shady cabaret on New Year's Eve instead of spending a quiet evening alone. During his forced stay at the nightclub, he comes to enjoy and identify more and more with his newfound persona and assumes the role of the notorious “Drago”.

 

An initial box office dud, it is now considered one of the top ten all-time best Greek films.

 

Happy new year, everyone! On to many more cinematic discoveries!

Colloque de chiens (1977)

Monique (Silke Humel, R) spending Christmas Eve in a bar, looking for a way out. She's speaking to an elderly man in an expensive tuxedo. Is this it? DP: Denis Lenoir; still photographer Patrice Morere.

Colloque de chiens (1977)

December 24: the night before Christmas (Christmas Eve)

Colloque de chiens (Raúl Ruiz, 1977)

“Nobody knows why Monique, the cold and dry voiced whore, bears in her eyes the sadness and tiredness of her past.”

Filmed during an actors' strike, Raúl Ruiz's Colloque de chiens consists for the most part of still photographs with mixed in stolen moving footage of unsuspecting bystanders and stray dogs. Told in fotonovela format, we follow the pitiful account of Monique, who as a young girl, learns that her mother is not who she thinks she is. Rejected, she throws herself into a life of vice until she meets Henri, a handsome young television repairman. Together they buy a small café, and are happy for once. But the cyclical nature of life determines her faith.

Raúl Ruiz's work is, like Henri's modus operandi, determined by maps and patterns. Even in the short comically melodramatic breathe of Colloque de chiens, the map has been laid out for Ruiz's later, much more complex narrative.

Colloque opens in a barren landscape. There are the skeletal towers of a nearby city, and the endless barks of abandoned dogs. Obscured by tall reeds, a blown-up photograph of a young man. The face, soft and familiar, a distant memory.

“He wanted to be returned to the world of his childhood and to this woman who was perhaps waiting for him” –Chris Marker, dialogue from La Jetée (1962)
Amongst bare winter bushes a large photo of a friendly, young, familiar looking man. In the background against a grey sky multiple white apartment buildings.

Colloque de chiens (1977)

#Bales2023FilmChallenge #RaúlRuiz #SilkeHumel #EvaSimonet #RobertDarmel #JorgeArriagada #DenisLenoir #PatriceMorere #drama #crime #melodrama #ShortFilm #photography #animals #gender #prostitution #France #1970s ★★★★☆

#todo

شكاوى الفلاح الفصيح [El-Fallâh el-fasîh / The Eloquent Peasant] (Chadi Abdel Salam, 1970)

Dec

23

National Farmers Day – India

El-Fallâh el-fasîh (1970)

The peasant (Ahmed Marei) in a stone temple, flanked by scribes. DP: Mustafa Imam.

Farmers for Kisan Divas [National Farmers Day], India.
4000 years ago, Egypt, Middle Kingdom. A peasant, leading his mules past a stream of water, is tricked. With his animals gone, he pleads to the Pharaoh to restore Maʽat, harmony.

“He's a peasant. Without looking into his situation, words are all he has.”

Chadi Abdel Salam is not only this film's director, but also a trained architect, later set and costume designer. His eye wordlessly speaks the passing of time in the smallest of details. The withering of ferns, desert sand staining linen, the Sun merging with skin. At once, the universal presence of the gods becomes visible.

Nasser Asphalt [Wet Asphalt] (Frank Wisbar, 1958)

Dec

20

National Greg Day

Nasser Asphalt (1958)

Greg Bachmann (Horst Buchholz) walking the rainy streets of Berlin. The scene is a direct reference to Dennis Stock's 1955 portrait of James Dean. DP: Helmuth Ashley.

Someone named Greg for National Greg Day, USA.

“Sie können sich einen anderen Beruf aussuchen. Sie sind ein toter Mann.”

Si muero antes de despertar [If I Should Die Before I Wake] (Carlos Hugo Christensen, 1952)

Dec

19

National Hard Candy Day

Si muero antes de despertar (1952)

Lucio (Néstor Zavarce) and his new friend sharing one of her fancy 10¢ lollipop​s. DP: Pablo Tabernero.

Eating hard candy on National Hard Candy Day.

 

Lucio is the class clown, a ne'er-do-well relying on his police-dad's rank and classmates' homework. One of these classmates, a smart little girl, promises him fancy lollipops in exchange for protection. And she has a secret for him too, about the origin of the candy, and the nice man giving her those and other nice things. Under oath, she tells Lucio everything and then promptly disappears. With his friend gone, killed as he later finds out, and an oath weighing on his heart, what can Lucio do when another girl goes missing?

“Only a child can kill the monster.”

– narrator

Cornell Woolrich's haunting tales of childhood lost leaped from Ireland to Argentina. With some similarities with Fritz Lang's M (1931), this fairy-tale feels more oppressive; due to the helplessness of a boy's power in an adult world and his understanding of grown-up responsibilities. A restored version in wider circulation is long overdue.

Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (Fritz Lang, 1956)

Dec

18

late late night dinner

Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1956)

Dolly Moore (Barbara Nichols) and girlfriends amuse themselves over late late-night dinner. DP: William E. Snyder.

– This guy's got a lot of class.

– Yeah? If he's got so much class, what's he doin' with you?