In addition to Ralph Fiennes’ Macbeth, “Evil Doesn’t Exist,” “H2: The Occupation Lab,” “Earth Verses” and movies.
Conflict abounds in this week’s releases, old and new, as the forces of oppression, harassment and violence show their many faces, whether they be complex bureaucracies of military, cultural and/or government persecution, threats from criminals or simply Boris. Karloff. .
The latter returned to Universal Pictures, generator of the original horror film craze, with The Black Cat, originally released about 90 years ago. It was the first in a series of pairings with Bela Lugosi, who (like Dracula from Boris’s monster Frankenstein) had been the other star “created” and caught up in this genre wave. It was also the most productive of them, as well as an unwelcome career peak for its talented director.
In fact, it would be more or less the first and last official assignment in a giant studio for Edgar G. Ulmer, a Hungarian expat. It was a success, but then he was more or less blacklisted for the crime of having a romantic date with the wife of the studio boss’s nephew. That sin relegated him to the “Poverty Row” films for the rest of his professional life, though his sublime wit in very low-budget cases (see: Detour) also earned him eventual adulation from the cult. (For what it’s worth, he and Shirley Ulmer, née Kassler, also married and happily stayed forever. )
Seemingly “suggested by” a Poe story, The Black Cat is a crazy 66-minute marvel whose ridiculous script elevates Ulmer into a zone of black comedy, not in the dizzying tenor of James Whale, but in something more coldly ironic and perverse, like (yes, I know it’s an exaggeration) Alain Robbe-Grillet.
An American couple on their honeymoon (David Manners, Jacqueline Wells) falls into the company of a brilliant psychiatrist (Lugosi, an unlikely guy) who returns to his home country for reasons that are difficult to understand. A twist of fate forces them to seek refuge under the roof of the man-turned-nemesis (Karloff), whom he suspects of having trapped and/or killed his wife long ago. Needless to say, those suspicions turn out to be true, and the satanic cult that claims his life now has its attractions set on the recent girlfriend who is (of course) his doppelganger.
The Black Cat is unique: the story of an “old dark house” that, like a ruined castle, submerges an ultra-modern and incongruous mansion in the Hungarian countryside. Karloff is designed to resemble a Rocky Horror supporting character, while Lugosi gets lines that no actor can get away with, such as “Supernatural?. . . Maybe. ” . . . Maybe not.
In fact, this whole probably planned combination of camp and nauseating sadism has a complicated boom-boom that distinguishes it from anything that might emerge for eons: It happens to be the closest thing in your brain to something like Re-Animator, part a century later. This macabre delight is the subject of a rare big-screen revival of the Roxie on Tuesday the 14th. (And for something completely different, the Roxie also presents, from Friday the 10th, Andrzej Zulawski’s 1981 Possession, an exaggerated phantasmagoria of conjugal horror that I have already sung the praises and will certainly repeat. )
Speaking of bloody divorce grounds, Macbeth is already playing in Bay Area theaters on select dates, a filmed footage of a still-touring high-level production with Ralph Fiennes as Cawdor’s Thane and Indira Varma as Lady M. Simon Godwin. in the midst of a war-torn Scotland where we still can’t help allocate Ukraine. Fiennes’ eccentric warrior discovers a touch of comedy in the dissolution of this climber, who naturally exasperates his ultimate ruthless wife.
It’s an actor I’ll be watching, although, in reality, this functionality, like everything around it, is rarely encouraged but uneven. The most productive Macbeth I’ve ever seen is still very classic in Shakespeare’s Holy Cross from years ago, with just the right point. James Carpenter of the Bay Area in the title role. But even if this edition won’t eclipse this one in memory, it’s still appealing to Shakespeare fans. Local venues include Berkeley’s Rialto Elmwood Cinemas and the Rafael Film Center, with dates and venues to have it here.
The trees may not be Birnam Woods, but a forest is nonetheless the scene of conflict in Evil Does Not Exist, the latest film from Japanese director Ryusuke Hamaguchi. A snow-covered rural domain in the shadow of the mountains is home to a still-tight-knit community, bewildered when told it would soon be overrun by a high-end “glamping” progression that would provide “a sumptuous outdoor experience” as businesses retreated to Tokyo’s urbanities. The city corridor with its representatives makes that small effort clear. Efforts have been made to ensure that this development does not adversely affect the environment or local residents.
I admired Hamaguchi’s foreign breakthrough, Drive My Car, not liking it as much as many observers. This much shorter and more lyrical workout also turns out to be a somewhat toned-down and mannered remedy of a strong premise. So much so that when conventionally melodramatic elements (the disappearance of a child, the violence of an adult) erupt in the last round, they seem very out of step with the meditative, rarely funny, tone of the past.
In the end, Evil struck me as a clever and flawed film through an unnecessarily pretentious technique to an undeniable allegory. However, most of the story helps to keep things interesting, and there are facets of genuinely clever gazes in Yoshio Kitagawa’s cinematography. and with original music by Eiko Ishibashi. La film premieres on Friday the 10th at Opera Plaza and Rafael, then on Friday the 24th at Roxie.
Two new films about the Middle East paint significantly harsher and more damning portraits of societies squandering their own destiny. The Dark Earthly Verses by Ali Asgari and Alireza Khatami (premiering at the Roxie on Friday the 10th) is a series of dramatic single-shot vignettes. in which the protagonists find themselves crushed by invisible voices of a Big Brother-like authority in Tehran. A guy who tries to sign his newborn baby’s call is told he’s too “Western”; An exuberant little woman in a clothing store is slowly suffocating under the head-to-toe fabric of her favorite “modest” garment; a rideshare driver accused of cutting her hijab at work; A man seeking his driver’s license is subjected to a virtual strip search.
These and other episodes (including the one in which a filmmaker is harassed by the Kafkaesque when his new assignment fails) range from sexual harassment to absurdity. However, they all share one goal: the crushing of the individual brain through an authoritarian regime. It’s a rather virulent complaint and difficult to formulate in today’s Iran. . . but the administrators seem to have fired it on the sly, with a harsh crackdown on participants after its premiere at Cannes. (Asgari is now barred from continuing his activities and leaving the country. ) If you’re one of those people who feel guilty that some Iranian cinemas are too ascetic and “pure,” you’ll find this short, sharp feature film remarkable for its simplicity. The top-down technique can be devastatingly effective.
Another filmmaker duo, Idit Avrahami and Noam Sheizaf, will offer an indictment of nonfiction in H2: The Occupation Lab. It’s been betting on festivals for two years, but now it’s available on U. S. platforms on-demand at a politically opportune time. time. His documentary focuses on Hebron, an ancient city that until recently was the largest in the West Bank. Since the 1967 war, a segment of the “Old City” and the Cave of the Patriarchs, a historical funerary monument of wonderful importance to Jews, Muslims, and Christians, has been under the control of the Israeli army. The following year, 50 Jewish families settled in the area, which was perceived as a gesture of non-violent coexistence rather than an existential risk to the existing population.
Numerous archival photographs tell how this initial incursion turned into a split. Over time, this was accompanied by checkpoints, sniper posts on rooftops, and welded doors to homes where Palestinian families have lived for generations. There is no apparent argument here in the independent gathering of materials. But the main fury is still emerging, that of a methodical and hostile long-term takeover amid escalating violence and chaos on both sides. Important viewing: H2 will air on Film Movement starting Friday the 10th.
After the last two, you might feel thirsty to escape, the highlight of which is at your disposal with The Last Stop in Yuma County. A bit like the very serious work of Robert E. . Sherwood from 1934 (made into a 1936 film) (film starring Bette Davis and Humphrey Bogart) The Petrified Forest, if crossed with Blood Simple and Pulp Fiction, this feature film from writer-director Francis Galluppi is a hit: a modest but fiendishly clever combination of thriller, black comedy and eccentric character ensemble. piece.
An unhappy knife peddler (Jim Cummings), addressing his son through an ex-wife, finds himself trapped in a well in the Arizona desert when the last gas station in a hundred miles around runs out of fuel. in the restaurant next door, where the lone worker (Jocelin Donahue of La Maison du Diable) soon waits for other passers-by who have to wait for the opportune moment before the fountain truck arrives.
Unfortunately, two of them are fugitives from a high-profile bank robbery, one tall and stupid (Nicholas Logan), the other skinny and nasty (Richard Brake). Once they guess his identity, everyone else becomes a hostage. But the sardonic twists of fate keep replacing the dynamic, whether before or after a shootout that drastically reduces the number of active actors.
Many referential and sarcastic neo-blacks have tried similar antics since Tarantino appeared on the scene. But Last Stop doesn’t just strike a pose: it’s smart, both in writing and execution. You also get extra emissions from specifically satisfied usage. from “Let’s Live For Today,” a private Grass Roots favorite that’s just one of many wisely selected alumni that reinforce the vaguely outdated atmosphere of the ’60s to mid-’70s. Lately, the film seems to be bypassing Bay Area theaters when it screens. It premieres nationally this Friday the 10th, but that day it also premieres on virtual streaming platforms.
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