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Executive Suite
Fahrenheit 9/11
Fallen Angel
The Fallen Idol
Die Fälscher
Familia rodante
Fanny and Alexander
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Executive Suite 1954 Robert Wise (wr. Ernest Lehman) 3.0 William Holden as honest, idealistic researcher who ends up running for president of the company vacated by the sudden death of the president (Bullard); June Allyson in typical 50s role as the pleasant, husky-voiced, supportive wife (vide ‘The Glenn Miller Story’ and ‘Strategic Air Command’); Barbara Stanwyck in cameo-style role as one of the company’s principal stockholders; Fredric March as scheming, back-stabbing accounting mastermind of the company who wants to be president; Walter Pidgeon as the old number two and heir apparent, who however decides he is too tired to compete for the top job; Paul Douglas as weak-willed milquetoast vice-president who waffles about who to support (his mistress is Shelley Winters); Louis Calhern as sleazy, dishonest board member who is concerned only with making a buck; Nina Foch as old faithful executive secretary and one of the few actually concerned with the welfare of the company (AA nomination!?); Dean Jagger in minor role as one of the board members. Often interesting part soap opera, part (timid) critique of American business meant to be a companion to ‘All About Eve’ (the theater) and ‘The Bad and the Beautiful’ (Hollywood). It has a stunning all-star cast recalling ‘Grand Hotel’, etc.; it plays something like a stage play with most of the scenes shot inside board rooms, offices, or the stunning 50s international-style house of Holden and Allyson. Bullard, whom we never see or hear, dies suddenly of a heart attack or stroke in front of his office (remarkable first person camera for about a minute); therein ensues a struggle for succession among all the vice presidents; March, playing against type a ruthless and presumptuous operator, plots and maneuvers to get the four votes on the Board necessary to be elected president; the unassuming Pidgeon and the idealistic and dashing Holden team up to stop him; to do so, Holden has to (reluctantly) agree let go of his research interests and to run for the office and of course his spirited wife has to come around to support him; the vote is a cliffhanger, since Douglas waffles back and forth and Stanwyck has to let go of her affection for Bullard(!) and begin to think about the good of the company; Holden finally wins them over in a rousingly idealistic speech, and to the discomfiture of Calhern and March, the board agrees to elect Holden by acclamation. The film is filled with good performances, but it would seem March deserved an AA nomination rather than the low-key and sad-eyed Foch. It is gracefully and effectively directed by Robert Wise, although one rather tires of the inexpensive indoor sets reused from other films. The film is fairly informed by corporate goings-one – the maneuvers within the Board of Directors, the importance of profits and loyalty to the stockholders (more or less themselves?). Although critical of some aspects of corporate culture (the egos, the maneuvers), it lacks the satirical bite of ‘The Bad and the Beautiful’ and ‘All About Eve’. In any case, the virtuous Holden wins the day with his on-screen speech about the importance of responsibility to the whole community, workers included, and his commitment to high-quality products rather than cheap ones intended only to make a buck and keep the stockholders happy with high dividends (March represents the cold corporate profit culture). Interesting film, a tad predictable, and with a great all-star cast.


The Exorcist 1973 William Friedkin 3.5 Ellen Burstyn as actress mom living in toney Georgetown townhouse who fights to save her daughter from the clutches of the devil; Jason Miller as Fr. Karras, who although a scientifically trained psychiatrist and chagrined by the death of his lonely immigrant mother, agrees to perform an exorcism; Linda Blair as cute and innocent pre-pubescent 12-year-old Regan, who is possessed by the devil; Lee J. Cobb as conscientious and kind police inspector is an outside observer of the lurid proceedings; Max von Sydow as elderly priest, who is a Middle Eastern archeologist and is called in to perform the exorcism with Fr. Karras' assistance; Arthur Storch as psychiatrist who is attacked in a delicate place of his body when he tries to help Regan. Very scary and well-made film (AA for best adapted screenplay) about a possession of a young girl, the horrifying effects of the experience on her, and the self-sacrificing heroics required to cast out the devil. After a more-or-less irrelevant introductory sequence of Van Sydow discovering disturbing satanic images in Iraq, the remainder of the film takes place in the "normal", elegant upper middle class surroundings of Georgetown on the shore of the Potomac River. The direction is effective in establishing a convincingly normal time and place in the USA. Regan's progressively worsening condition is portrayed through the usual tricks of Satan – opening windows to her room, freezing temperatures, banging furniture around and opening and slamming doors, turning the child into an unrecognizable caricature of herself with white skin, bleached eyes, dry, parched lips, monstrous, growling voices emitted from her mouth, projectile vomiting of pea-soup-like, gooey substances from her mouth; when challenged by priests or sprinkled with holy water, she/he shrieks obscene insults. The film depicts modern medical science – neurologists, psychiatrists, etc. – as incompetent, blinded, and unwilling to accept that Regan's problem may be something other than medical. It becomes quickly obvious to the audience that the possession is real and not some rare psychiatric issue; not taking the possession seriously almost costs Regan her life. The two priests team up heroically to confront Satan amidst ice cold air, shrieking, growling, furniture banging, levitation of Regan's body, and the devil trying every trick in his book to defend himself against the supernatural powers at the Church's disposal. Armageddon between the forces of good and evil is dramatic and moving; Von Sydow, whose weak heart has been established, dies of a heart attack, and in the final confrontation, Karras calls Satan to possess him instead; his eyes are blanched, he struggles, and the throws himself out the window and falls to his death down the fated stairway outside. The paladin of modern psychiatric science has performed the exorcism and sacrificed himself to give life back to the girl. In Armageddon good has not won a clear victory over evil: the girl is saved, but two good men are dead, the devil still roams the world. Film is first-rate spectacle and drama: the special effects are mustered effectively to show the violation of the girl; and her salvation is dramatic and moving.


The Eye 2002 Pang Brothers (Hong Kong) 3.0 Anjelica Lee as cute, placid, but periodically emotive young woman with troubling visions seen through her new eyes; Lawrence Chow as impossibly cute and young psychotherapist to Lee – he falls in love with her and becomes her protector. Sometimes scary Hong Kong film about blind young woman who begins to have frightening visions when she receives a cornea transplant and is able to see. When she returns home to her mother, she has visions that alternate between views of rooms and of people that we assume are related to her previous life and encounters with unknown characters who had unfinished business when they died (e.g., the boy who keeps asking her if she has seen his report card) or who have just died or are about to (she is able to see the shadowy figures that escort the souls of the people who die to some unknown destination, e.g., the little girl she made friends with in the hospital). Chow awkwardly announces that he has fallen in love with his patient, and he accompanies her to Thailand to find out what they can about the Thai girl that donated the eyes; it turns out that she committed suicide and naturally there is much scary unfinished business to take care of until Lee believes that she will finally have peace; she has a big surprise in store, however on the way home in a large city, where Lee intuits a huge disaster about to happen when she sees shadowy figures drifting between the cars caught in the traffic jam; the ensuing explosion destroys Lee’s new eyes; the postscript shows her walking blind with a stick down a Hong Kong street, where she implies that she is better off without sight. The film has some rough aspects: the male actors, all of whom are young and cute, seem to have been chosen to appeal to teenage girls; the middle part of the film is weak on plot and character developments and sometimes seems just a succession of scary shots; and the final shocking disaster in Thailand is out of keeping with the quiet, more subtle ethic of the rest of the film. However, the Pang Brothers show a cinematic flare that keeps the viewer engrossed. They play expertly with point of view throughout the film, especially in the first and middle parts where out-of-focus shots are used to mimic Lee’s imperfect eyesight and to suggest the ghosts that are haunting her in the distance. Also hard-hitting visual sequences, e.g., during the lead-up to the street disaster very vivid visuals (e.g., of gasoline leaking out of the overturned tank truck and of an electrical impulse traveling down a wire to the spark plug producing a spark in the firing gap) combined with rapid-fire editing to produce suspense that leads to the catastrophe. Film is fun to watch.


Fahrenheit 9/11 2004 Michael Moore 3.0. A supposed documentary, but really a polemic against Bush and his administration. Voice over often sarcastic and makes sure you get the point. Fairly entertaining, although fewer gotcha interviews than in ‘Roger and Me;’ the attempted interviews with the congressmen in the street were anticlimactic. Focuses on making Bush look like a nonentity and an idiot, which it succeeds in doing – doing nothing in the reading class in Florida waiting for instructions from his staff! (Cheney?); missing his punch line at the end of the movie; telling reporters to ‘watch this drive’ after he finishes denouncing terrorists. Basic idea = U.S. run by an oligarchy; Bush and Co. has intimate connections to the Saudi oil interests; Cheney (who is often photographed leering and sneering and talking out of the corner of his mouth) is right in the middle with his Haliburton interests; Bushies maintain the appearance of democracy by instilling fear in the American public, and thus inducing many of us to rally behind our savior president; the Bush presidency was a dismal failure until 9/11 happened, which was exploited ruthlessly to raise the prestige of the president. Will probably convince few Bush supporters to vote against him, but is reasonably entertaining for a Bush-hater.


Fallen Angel 1945 Otto Preminger 2.5 Dana Andrews as well-dressed drifter who arrives in small California town somewhere on the coast looking for fortune; Linda Darnell smashing as diner waitress, who dates a lot of men and resists commitment unless her partner can offer marriage an lots of money; Alice Faye a bit fay and goodie-two shoes as conservative girl in town with some money; Anne Revere as her old-fashioned and rather forbidding sister; Charles Bickford as rather brutal temporary police investigator, who turns out to be the murderer; John Carradine in bit part as séance con man trying to make a buck. Intended as a follow-up to the popular “Laura”, this film mixes personal melodrama (will Andrews ever find love and settle down) with a murder mystery. First half of film has the viewer following the low-key, taciturn, evasive, dapper, suit- and fedora-clad, cigarette-smoking Andrews around town wondering who he is, where he came from, and what he wants. Since he wants to marry the reluctant Darnell, he hatches a thoroughly incredible plot – marry Faye (you have to overcome the resistance of her straight-laced sister), get her money and then divorce her! When she is discovered murdered, the rest of the film is devoted to find the guilty one – we even think it might be Andrews, another suitor, or even Anne Revere, who thoroughly disapproves of Darnell. It turns out to be Bickford, who is arrested at the end, and a remorseful and wiser Andrew throws in his lot with his wife, Faye – he won’t divorce her after all! Film is generally well-acted, Darnell is deliciously sultry and hard-to-get, and Andrews has an easy laconic charm. Several incredible situations: Andrews’ plot to marry Faye for her money and then divorce her; Faye’s willingness to go along with him despite his ill treatment of her, and even Revere’s weak objections, which are hard to swallow after her strong initial dislike of Andrews; the resolution, which has a basic heel living happily ever after with the girl next door. Quite pleasurable is Preminger’s objective (we don’t get inside the heads of the characters) and elegant camerawork. Scenes are often shot in two shots, with the camera moving modestly to frame and reframe in smooth and soothing way. Some shadowed cinematography, but not many signs of film noir.


The Fallen Idol 1948 Carol Reed (writer Graham Greene) (Britain) 4.0 Ralph Richardson in strong performance as Baines, an “ordinary man” who is a butler in as larger London embassy; Michèle Morgan as pretty, simple embassy typist that Baines falls in love with; Sonia Dresdel as the autocratic, unhappy, Mrs.,-Danvers-like housekeeper and wife of Baines; Bobby Henrey as Phile, an innocent, brutally honest, and inquisitive child interacting with the world of adults (working with him during the filming was however an ordeal). Fascinating and impeccably executed film about a child trying to cope with an adult world. Most of the film takes place in an elegantly spacious mansion in London – a huge foyer, a sweeping staircase, a lot of banisters, potted plants, and large French windows all around through which pours bright light. The film is shot from the child’s point of view: we often see him through the posts of the railings; the camera is always with him, we hear and see the same things he does, and we are constantly comparing his perceptions and understandings with our own adult ones. The first half of the film establishes the characters and their relationships – particularly Baines’ adulterous one with Morgan –, Mrs. Baines unsavory nature, and Phile’s uncomprehending knowledge of Baines’ situation. With what we suspect are tall stories, Baines enchants the boy, who is deprived of his parents who are often away from the embassy. The second half deals with the rage of the wife, her accidental death, and the police investigation. The patterns of the narrative are confusing until one realizes that the true subject of the film is the difficulty of communication and understanding between adults and children. The lack of emotional consistency in the child’s performance contributes to the viewer’s impression that he does not understand what he is experiencing. He tries to keep the secrets valuable to his hero, but he rarely succeeds and in revealing them (e.g., using the word “they” when describing what Baines had been doing supposedly alone) he often makes things worse for his hero. He contributes to the roundelay of confusion surrounding the investigation of Mrs. Baines’ death. Since Phile erroneously believes that Baines pushed his wife down the stairs, he decides to lie again to protect Baines, but again the lie (again the use of “they”) temporarily incriminates him. The police are able to exculpate Baines through their own efforts, and even then Phile has an observation – a true although irrelevant one – which the police won’t listen to, since they are already convinced that he does not tell the truth. The film just comes to an end with the return of Phile’s mother and father, and all of them still living with Baines; the incomprehension between the boy and the adult world lives on; one wonders whether he and the boy will continue to be such good friends. The pleasure of the film is largely in its impeccable classical style – smooth, expressive editing, expressive choice of mise-en-scène, a general impression of cinematographic elegance. The film is sometimes puzzling, but pleasurable and rewarding upon reflection.


Die Fälscher 2006 Stefan Ruzowitzky (Germany) 3.0 Karl Markovics with plain rather ravaged face plays a German Jewish counterfeiter, Sally Sorowitsch, in prison for his activities; August Diehl as Adolf Burger, the character who wrote the book upon which the film is based, an idealist who plays against the opportunism of Sorowitsch; David Striesow as German SS officer in charge of the counterfeiting operation. Interesting and sometimes moving film about a German Nazi counterfeiting operation, in which the Germans "employed" Jewish prisoners in concentration camps to counterfeit British and American currency in an attempt to undermine the Allied war effort; they have some success with the British pound, but the war is over before they make much progress on the dollar; the pound forgery was so good that it was never discovered by the British authorities. The film is shown in flashback, starting with Sally disconsolately gambling in postwar Monte Carlo with apparently forged money (tango music is used to show his hedonistic proclivities); most of the film takes place in the concentration camp of Sachsenhausen. The members of the counterfeiting team were treated much better than the regular Jewish prisoners -- they even had mattresses and sheets on their beds, and Striesow treats them decently, even giving them a ping pong table for recreation. The main issue is moral: what is the duty of the Jewish prisoners – Are they morally allowed to cooperate with the Nazi authorities and risk being contributors to the destruction of the Allied economies (Sally)? Or must they resist the authorities and sabotage the project at the risk of their own lives (Burger). They end up cooperating on the pound project, but then sabotaging the dollar project (although it would have made little difference since the dollar could not have been ready until the last months of the war). In the course of the film Sally evolves from his egotistical indifference to everyone and everything around him to at least a sense of solidarity with his fellow prisoners; e.g., he always refused to compromise any prisoner to the authorities. Vivid portrayal of brutal SS behavior toward the Jewish prisoners.


Familia rodante 2004 Argentina: Pablo Trapero 2.5 Features a host of non-professional actors: the grandmother is played by Tablero’s own grandmother. ‘Typical’Argentine film – obviously low budget (no professional actors, no special effects, no sets, etc.) about a working class family living in the suburbs of Buenos Aires that decides to travel all the way to Missiones – in sight of Brazil – to attend a wedding. Twelve very disparate people – the elderly grandmother, a collection of daughters, sons-in-law and grandchildren, one of whom in dreadlocks has a small baby – pile into an over-the-hill homemade camper on a 1958 Chevy chassis (the film was made in 2004) to drive the 800 miles or so. At first they are on pretty modern-looking paved highways, but when they get into Corrientes and Misiones, they find themselves on almost impassible dirt tracks. In the process they pass hundreds of fearsome-looking trucks (no wonder the death toll on Argentine roads is so high!), and once deep into the provinces every man appears to ride a horse; they also visit a small town which was allegedly the birthplace of San Martin. The film kind of follows the little intra-family dramas – the wife of the driver of the camper (known as ‘Fatso’) almost has sex with her old boyfriend; one teenage boy is obsessed with sex and he makes out heavy with his two adolescent cousins; Fatso gets into a blustery, but fairly harmless, fight with the n’er-do-well boyfriend of his daughter; the camper breaks down and Fatso has to find a gasket head in a nearby village for repairs; one of the daughters has a terrible toothache – hence the trip to the San Martin village to visit the dentist (who seems competent enough – he pulls out the tooth). The portrait of the family is not particularly affectionate: there is a lot of bickering and fighting, sex experimentation with one’s cousins, with few demonstrations of solidarity or affection aside from the care of the baby. The film ends with a very long shot held on the face of Grandma, who says not a word and stares toward the Brazilian horizon; she is perhaps above the bickering (although she has done a fair amount of it herself), or perhaps she is just too old to do anything about it. The style is very ‘realist’ – a lot of handheld camera shots, hyper close-ups that make it sometimes difficult to know what is happening, an episodic plot structure, a tendency never to finish the current vignette, but just o cut to another with perhaps not returning to resolve the little story.

Fanny and Alexander 1982 Ingmar Bergman (Sweden) 4.0 Bertil Guve as Alexander; Pernilla Allwin as Fanny Ekdahl; Jarl Kulle as Gustav Adolf; Christina Schollin as Lydia Ekdahl; Permilla Wallgren as Maj; Jam Malmsjo as Bishop Vergerus; Erland Josephson as Isak Jacobi. Extraordinary 3-hour film loosely based on Bergman’s own childhood. Charts Alexander’s experiences from 1) happy although mysterious days in the Ekdahl household, 2) terror and hatred in the Vergerus household when mother marries the Bishop, 3) happy resolution after the Bishop dies and the children and mother return home. Acting and characterization are extraordinary – practically every character is rich and believable – especially true of Alexander, the Bishop, and Grandmother Lydia. Sets and photography are striking with rich color and pageantry: the richly furnished home of Lydia, which provides every sort of pleasure and stimulus for the children; the Spartan and forbidding bare walls of the Vergerus household – even with bars on the windows; and the impossibly cluttered home of Isak after he rescues the children from the Bishop’s home by a clever stratagem. Film appears to convey the biographical path of Bergman through the odyssey of Alexander: the pleasure loving and imaginative life of his grandmother’s family; contrasted with the harsh, unforgiving, and pessimistic vision of the world of the Calvinist (Lutheran?) stepfather, who watches for sin in his stepson, exacts confession from him (by punishment if necessary), and then assigns him punishment; the women in the Bishop’s family are truly scary, contemptible and atrocious. The film then returns to the Ekdahl household, where the philandering Gustav Adolf delivers an impassioned speech in favor of freedom and pleasure in the context of family and loyalty: we cannot be sure of the big questions and the big mysteries (raised in forbidding fashion by the priests), so we just have to do our best and live in the moment, and enjoy the happiness and pleasure that God sees fit to give us. The happiness of the Ekdahl family includes acceptance of Gustav Adolf’s mistress, Maj, and the child she has with him: the film ends with a beautiful celebration of the birth of two baby girls. Film also makes much reference to the theater, since the family actually owns and operates one: imagination and fantasy is one of the great pleasures of life and perhaps a substitute for the certainty of religious faith. The sequence in Isak the Jew’s house, in which Alexander sees a mummy with moving head and eyes and in which he befriends a bizarre androgynous son, who appears to bring on the death of the Bishop, is puzzling and difficult to untangle. Also a lot of references to ghosts and phantoms, which seem to lurk everywhere – Alex is constantly visited by his dead father, although the latter does not say anything to his son; in the end Alex is bumped by the ghost of his stepfather, who tells him that he is not rid of him yet (and from our knowledge of Bergman’s pessimistic films, we know what he is referring to). It is difficult to know whether theses ghosts are real or exist only in the mind of Alexander and express his imaginativeness and philosophical uncertainties. The film’s strength: it immerses us deep into the life and culture of a family of a bygone era; it bonds us firmly to the characters, dividing the innocent and life-affirming clearly from the destructive and life-denying; it leaves the viewer on tenterhooks as we fret over the plight of the children and cheer when they are rescued; we are moved as the movie delivers Bergman’s mature message of happiness – be thankful for the happiness you have, and don’t ruin it. The film is similar to Thomas Mann’s ‘Buddenbrooks’.