Cold War, Pawlikowski - 2018

R 1hr 29min Drama, Music, Romance

At first glance, the title and sparse pictures that announce this film on IMDB or in my case my Amazon Prime, make it appear to be a gritty version possibly of something like Red Sparrow, only B/W, to make it more of a period piece.  And considering the atmosphere we've been in since Trump has taken office, not taking sides here, just commenting...Cold War seems to be a more contemporary and relevant term that Millennials and 00s are getting to know, while the rest of us review Dr. Strangelove and Trumbo.

So, enthralled by the fact that this is Pawlikovski that directed (knew that name instantly when I saw it), and that it was included with my Prime membeship!  awesome....I took off time from my regularly scheduled 3 or 4 Film Fest films and watched this instead.  Ok, let me back up here....where in the world have I been, you may ask that you have not seen or even heard of this film yet?  Yes, it took a blogger on Tumblr of all places to bring my attention to it, and someone I'm not even following.  First of all, I missed the Oscars, not such a big deal, but since January I've seen over 190 films now for the Heartland International Film Festival.  So it took Pawel's name at the bottom of the row of Black and White stills from the movie to get my attention and look it up only to find that it swept awards in EU and was nominated for Oscars here.  Wow, instantly on the new "must watch" list.  So...like I said, I decided to take a break from HIFF and do this instead.  I really needed a full-length break into something else.

And as I mentioned, even up through the first 20 min. of this film, and beyond, I had the suspicion that this was one of those plot-driven works where she makes love with this man so he's thinking with his pants and she ends up spying in the U.S. and becoming some major faux-pas in the intelligence gap right after the war, and this is how she got in. 

Could not have been more wrong.  I'm going to enjoy going back now and viewing this again with the right frame of mind.  This is an analogous dance between the romance and the times, the times themselves being the echo and taking a back seat to the relationship on screen, a perfect mirror in fact, perfectly played as a game of ping-pong across the borders of 3 countries and 3 major cities, and they, the couple in love..with really no country to go to.  The Polish immigration official put it fairly accurately to Wiktor, the lead male character, "I don't know how to help you.  You are not French, and you're not a Pole either.  As far as we're concerned you don't exist."

But exist they did, for a time, always finding each other amid their other parallel lives. They become the object of hope that was carried through that time across the generation that followed the great war, and also the ultimate object of despair and resignation.  The ending is one of the most controversial and yet perfect ones I've ever seen.  But the stuff in between...wow...

 This is near perfect cinema.  I could go on and on and talk about the cinematic features of this film that make it the captivating and great piece of art, poetry, and especially music that it is, commenting mostly on the absolutely opaque similarity to films made in the 60s (if you had sat me in front of this with no indication of when it was made, it absolutely would have fooled me - a perfect rendition of that period, right down to the types of shots and cuts made and the grain and lighting- incredible film study here).  But I believe I'll drop off here and defer to a New Yorker article that does a better summary than I could. (see this link: CLICK HERE).  Instead, I believe I'll do a follow up at some point with another post at a later time, and just say this...I rarely go directly to the purchase page and buy the BluRay version of any film.  This one...no brainer...I got it right away.  Will be here tomorrow.

In the meantime...See the film.



- Agitatus

Jerry Saltz - Tiffany Primer on Art photos - Rated 8yo or less

Tiffany & Co.
The NYTimes
Art that is Digital


Senior art critic Jerry Saltz steps on the screen hosted by Tiffany & Co. and placed in the NY Times web space.  Cutesy, expensive, and well-produced product telling us that Art is important, and that digital art changes things. Yes.  But evidence of flawed thinking abounds.  The moment I'm referring to the most, out of many in this #1 of the series is the moment near the end when Jerry holds his phone, vertically I might add, which rebels against good media convention in the first place, and takes a picture of a live art piece that was just invented on set of the video, and is MUCH wider than his screen is allowing.  Ok, so it's for posterity.  But then he turns and states (his one vertical picture of the horizontal art in place on his phone now)"This is going to look so good on my wall".  And then he talks to the camera in the next shot and goes on to say, "You see what I did there?  It's the same cave, but it just got a lot bigger."  Ok, he's trying to tell us that his photo made the artwork more accessible because it's going out to the internet, or it's going out via his fairly bad or at best limited representation of that.

To WHOM is Jerry talking to?  Some little kids?  This is kindergarten crap.

Jerry Saltz is creatively lecturing on the new platform afforded everyone today, and gaining his space online probably before funding runs out for further programs, and probably also compliments of the NYTimes as we are told they are as left-leaning and artsy a crowd as it gets.  I'm guessing NY Magazine and NY Times are not very far apart in ideology.

This is simply a saccharine space-filler from an art "fan" point of view and will make people feel good about spending so much money on colorful objects created from imagination and fashioned to look like something you've never seen before...because honestly you haven't...because it came from someone else's mind, and they are out to put it in yours.

Granted, art seen is better than art not seen, for the most part, but if you're going to talk about it, please do it justice and examine it for real, and turn the dang camera the right way.  

The Upside, Cranston/Hart/Kidman - 2017

The Upside 2017    Released 2018

R - 126 min

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This one looks both up and down.  Up a long way from the bottom where the reality of the street and life with each other seems impossible, and down a long way from what was a gloriously fulfilling life it would seem of money, privilege, invention, creativity, and a shallow bunch of followers, including those who could take advantage of that situation.

The crossed and ironic relationship between Dell, our man of the street, and Phillip, our man of the penthouse, is much like the Lion and the Mouse, comparable also to the Princess Switch, getting another side's view, or even at a distance, Rich Man Poor Man (ok, reversed because they knew each other and grew apart).  But the "upside" to this film and it's strength I believe is in finding the redemptive character that can lay in any person's kit bag, pulling it out, and giving it a chance to be nurtured.  It's not so much about the hustle, as it is laying the hustle aside when given an opportunity.  Ethical behavior and the thoughtful reflection of the effect of one's relationship on those we influence (Father to Son and Wife in the case of Dell) are key points on the very straight look at what could have/should have been (according to stats) the end of a family structure.  But the story doesn't pick a side and bring blame on the wealthy, or even the situation, rather it sticks closely to the view that, even on the bottom, you still have control of who you are. The story keys in on the actions and interactions and decisions of the characters, not looking for scapegoats here.  Hart's character gets confronted on many levels with regards to his sometimes unwise choices, and also brings up the vulnerability that he has for needing to prove, quite naturally so, that he is a provider.  It is a clear story about how that unravels in the hood, and how influence works in many directions to pull people down, and into a vortex of negative expectations. 

There is plenty of material for Kevin Hart the comedian to work with inside the script, and it comes out bold, yet contained from his live stage personality, which means.... Kevin has true acting ability and the range to draw the tear and the sigh as well as the guffaw.  His confrontations with every character are also balanced; teeter-totter like between him serving up a good dose of reality to the upper Crusties, as well as taking sometimes deserved hits to his own behavior.  Prejudices, we know are not completely undeserved, are also confronted as a barrier to the healthy function of repair to our social world, the most prominent case in point being made about the insipid neighbor that complains about Dell's presence in the building, and brings up Dell's prison record to demonstrate his distrust to Phillip.  Phillip turns the tables on the neighbor, with a comment on art that I'll not elaborate on because it's a spoiler.  So there is basically redemption all around in this film, putting it firmly in the class of "feel-good".

As for the Up-Side of Phillip's tale (Cranston), he definitely needed to care again, to be alive again, and that's the ironic hope that the man from the Bottom Side brings with him, reason to live, pointing out the vagaries of Phillip's position to the world, bringing a therapy that he was surely not aware of on hiring him.  Dell allowed Philip to...no actually encouraged him to get angry, to be real, to experience again (albeit at one point some of the experience had to do with some street poon that he had to bribe the doorman to ignore).  He did inevitably set him free on the inside, forced him out into the world, and became...the best candidate for the job.

The peripheral role played by Kidman as Yvonne was flawless, as usual for her.  She shines as a great actress once again and plays a pivotal "replacement" role in this story for the space where a spouse should have been, creating as well the inevitabilities of sexual tension as well as situation laughs that happen in a trio like this.  That character being drawn in the story also plays a huge role in her absence.  The vacuum of her leaving draws attention to the downward spiral of Phillip's near "2nd crash".  

Great stuff.  

- Agitatus