"Le Crabe-Tambour" (1977)

Honneur et Patrie

In 1940, France was occupied by the Third Reich. After that, the country was plagued by civil war, which was, mainly, in French consciousness. The French officer corps was also affected. Some officers swore allegiance to Marshal Petain; some joined the Free French. After the war, the French was labelled as cowards (which was spread by Americans and not by Germans).

In the 1950-1960s France took part in brutal war in Indochina and Algiers. The fighting officers had to deal with new plague – hostility. The newspapers were full of articles that «The French Female Union is with Vietcong» , the officers were treated as criminals. Despite that, the French Armed Forces almost succeeded in destroying the insurgency. On the 1^st of June, 1958, Charles de Gaulle was appointed as the Prime Minister and the French officers were overjoyed.

After taking office, on the 4^th of June, Charles de Gaulle went to Algiers. The joyous crowd applauded the General and de Gaulle said the following words to the crowd «I understood it» (Je vous ai compris). A lot of French thought that de Gaulle would save the French Algiers. When officers found out, that de Gaulle started negotiations, the officers, along with the population, were divided once more.

Fighting officers, including such illustrious men, as the most decorated General Raoul Salan and the youngest Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry joined the mutiny, and proudly faced prison or execution. Other officers stayed away and continued to serve in the military, but some of them were plagued for the rest of the life by their weakness.

Captain of destroyer Jauréguiberry found out that he got lung cancer and he understands, that he is days are counted. Before death, he wants to sail for the last time and he encounters an old acquaintance – military doctor Pierre. Destroyer escorts the fishing flotilla to Newfoundland, but the Captain wants to meet for the last time one of the «lost soldiers» - Navy Lieutenant Willsdorff, more knows as «Le Crabe-Tambour».

Who could be considered an officer. Officer is a man, who always acts with his honor, integrity and loyalty (quoting the Code of the French Soldier). If an officer gives his words, no circumstances could force him to break it. And the important of all – the real officer would always be remembered by soldiers and people alike, even if the life would force him to poverty.

Navy Lieutenant Willsdorff is the real officer. He perfectly knows the military science, he is respected by officers and soldiers and he is «consciousness» - black cat – became legendary. In any situation, including Vietcong prison camp and African slavery, Lieutenant Willsdorff always saves his face. And the most important of all – he is loyal to the French nation, not to the French politicians. When his brother is killed in Algiers, he transfers to the parachute regiment and joins the mutiny.

During most of the film, we will see Lieutenant Willsdorff as a memory but, despite that, it seems that he is on the ship. Even after he became an ex-jailbird fisherman, Lieutenant Willsdorff maintains his officer’s honor and stays internally young, compared to exhausted and worn-out active duty officers.

All of the battleships are decommissioned and sold for scrap or used for target practice. Almost all decommissioned ships are forgotten and left to rot near naval bases. But some ships are remembered in books and films. The same words could be applied to retired officers, some of which will always be remembered.

Pierre Schoendoerffer made an honest film about honor, courage and loyalty. Those words would resonate with anyone. I recommend to watch this film along with «La 317e Section».

"The Hitcher" (1986)

Guess

Rutger Hauer, how could you act in second-rate films? You could have won all major film award; you could have acted with the best directors! Remember Roy Batti, Eric and Martin – in all those roles he was 146% authentic. Instead of following this path, Rutger Hauer torpedoed himself with second-rate films. Despite that, if a great actor takes his job seriously, he could make a second rate film shine like a diamond.

Jim Halsey got an easy job – to deliver a brand new Cadillac from Chicago to San Diego. The ride a rather joyful, until Jim picks in West Texas a hitchhiker, who goes under a name of John Rider.  For a first few minutes, everything goes smoothly, but then the hitcher starts acting strangely and threatening Jim with knife. The hitcher tries to make Jim say «I want to die», but Jim is able to dump him on the road. On the next day, Jim again spots the hitcher and he realizes, that it won’t be an easy trip…

The 1980s were an age of supernatural creeps, as Freddie Kruger and Jason Voorhees.  Those film paid a lot of attention to explanation of the creep’s past and modus operandi. The American folk, especially the Southern, is full of stories about maniacs and maniacs families. Such folk was a ground for some rather creepy films. Remember the original low budget «Texas Chainsaw Massacre», which was scarier, than both Freddie and Jason.

In real life, you wouldn’t know a damn thing about a creep and no nun would tell you about his Achilles heel. In real life you would be left alone again a scary maniac and you would be left only to decide, whether he would be merciful enough to kill you instantly or he would like to play. The best thrillers and horror movies won’t spend much time on pseudo-psychological side (quoting Stanley Kubrick), they would leave all fantasies to the scared viewer.

A Rutger Hauer’s creep – is a creature without past and name. He doesn’t belong to no database and he perfectly spots weak-spirited victims. From the beginning, the man with a strange accent radiates an aura of ruthlessness and disregard for any constraints. He perfectly feels the impotence of John and he wants to play. He is like a street smart big cat, who is bored with merely eating a mouse, instead of that he would play and even let the mouse ran, but he would jump and catch the mouse again.

The mouse is trapped on the cat’s territory, who perfectly know the terrain of West Texas. The cat would all Texas against the mouse, and from every corner mouse is in constant danger. But this mouse belongs to the cat and if someone else would get close to the mouse, the cat would slaughter him and continue his sadistic and unpredictable game. Only in «Tom and Jerry» mouse is able to beat the shit out of a cat, but in real life mouse have almost no chances. Or naïve viewer is an optimist?

Coolness of «Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man» was a result of Mickey Rourke and Don Johnson, and following their lead, Rutger Hauer turns «The Hitcher» into a creepy thriller, which keep you tense until the last second. After watching this films, I am willing to beg Rutger Hauer on my knees to show us again his capabilities. Come on, Rutger, show us what you are capable of!

"The Sheltering Sky" (1990)

Tunner, we're not tourists. We're travelers

In foreword to 1998 rerelease of «The Sheltering Sky» Paul Bowles wrote not-so-praising words about screen adaption of this book, done by Bernardo Bertolucci, summarizing them by those words: «But the less said about the film now, the better». Bernardo Bertolucci, recalling the experience of making «The Conformist» - an adaptation of the same titled novel by Alberto Moravia, said, that sometimes necessary to «betray» the book in order to make the film faithful to it. «The Conformist» was such good betrayal, that it even surpassed the book. Could we say the same words about «The Sheltering Sky»?

In the early 1980s, Bernardo Bertolucci was in a state of the great artistic crisis and in order to overcome it, he went to LA in order to fulfill his old dream – to make an adaptation of «Red Harvest» by Dashiell Hammett. After spending four fruitless years in LA, Bertolucci went to, back then the most unusual place, China. In this country, he regained inspiration and made «The Last Emperor». And the most important of all, after visiting China Bertolucci started again to love the West. So, the story about a couple, which travels to Sahara, in order to repair the marriage, seemed interesting to the Director.

Paul Bowles book is quite hard to adapt as a standard two-hour film. «The Sheltering Sky» is full of stories and important dialogues, which all should be adapted in the film. And, finally, the director must picture the alienation of two Americans in alien and hostile Sahara, which destroy any intruder. Before watching, I thought, that Bertolucci would be able to pull it off.

In the beginning of the novel, an Arab Smail tells Port Moresby a parable about three Arab girls, who are desiring to drink tea on the highest dune of Sahara (which were not, strangely, integrated in the film). They were able to get to the highest dune of Sahara and have decided to get a little sleep before tea. A few weeks later, a passing caravan found three dead girls and their cups were full of sand.

Port and Kit Moresby are the representatives of NYC intellectual bohemians. Port is a composer; Kit is a playwright. Their feelings have ceded and Port, hoping to breathe new life into dying marriage, convinces Kit to take a trip to the Northern Africa. Tunner forces himself as a companion on the trip, and they start their trip. After getting rid of Tunner, Port takes Kit to the heart of Sahara, but he gets a typhoid fever.

In the beginning of «Lawrence of Arabia», Diplomat Dryden tell to Lieutenant Lawrence the following words: « Lawrence, only two kinds of creatures get fun in the desert: Bedouins and gods, and you're neither». Port thinks that the desert would purify him, and after crossing it with Kit, they would emerge as new people, who love each other. In order to achieve this, Port even agrees to forfeit his identity. In reality, the desert would do anything to destroy the aliens.

Sadly, Bernardo Bertolucci was not able to completely portray the ideas of Paul Bowles. While watching, you constantly feel, that the film lacks something, which makes it great, compared to «The Last Emperor». The Director focuses on a theme of combatting the family crisis and basically kept out such themes, as the said «three sisters» parable, clash between European, American and Arab culture and threw away a certain amount of secondary characters.

Another substantial weakness of «The Sheltering Sky» is a choice of an actress for the role of Kit. While Debra Winger is assisted by John Malkovich, she is quite OK. But in the third part of novel, Kit steps out and Debra Winger is not too convincing.  That is why, the process of Kit’s spiritual degradation is not portrayed good enough. Despite that, the other actors filled their roles quite convincingly.

Despite the flaws of meaning, the form is beyond all praise. Bernardo Bertolucci was able to capture a very beautiful shots of desert , which is ruthless and hostile for strangers, and views of shabby Arab towns, full of flies and beggars. Ryuichi Sakamoto soundtrack deserves a separate mention. His music tunes a viewer to a right wave, which is never quite fully emerges.

The best films of Bertolucci are visually and intellectually stunning. Sadly, this time, the visual thing has prevailed over the intellectual one, and that is why the film is weaker than the best films of Bertolucci. Despite that, I don’t agree with Paul Bowles critique and I consider this film as worthy of watching, but I recommend you to read the book before that.

"Pet Sematary" (1989)

Sometimes, dead is better

In teenage years, I admired the prose of Stephen King and even now some of his books makes a rather pleasant read. There were many screen adaptations of Stephen King, including too overrated («Shawshank Redemption), great («The Dead Zone»), average («The Tommiknockers») and below the average («The Shining» TV series). After watching an ad for a new screen adaptation of «Pet Sematary», I have decided to revisit the old version, which gave me some creeps after first watching (when I was 10).

The Creed family moves out of Chicago to a small town in Maine, whose main «attraction» is a pet cemetery for animals, who were killed on a nearby highway. Everything goes on as usual, until a favorite cat of Ellie Creed called Church is run over by a truck. Louis Creed is planning to bury the cat, but a neighbor Jud takes him to a Native American part of the cemetery and tells Louis to bury Church there. After some time, cat reanimates and goes back home.

Marcus Aurelius in his «Meditations» agitates us to treat death as a natural thing and not to be afraid of it. It is good and wise words, but most of the people are afraid of death. It is tough to explain to the children, what death really is, and some starts to lie to children that their beloved cat would come back. Also fear of death is carefully exploited by some founders of sects, who are promising eternal life in exchange for blind adherence to their teachings.

And what, if there is a certain supernatural thing, which would bring back our loved ones to life? It could work and reanimate someone, but what would be the price? Any used supernatural power would require more sacrifices and it would wake the hidden fears of humans, so they would sacrifice it the additional material. And the new reanimated creatures would not be sleepy and slow cats.

The good horror films don’t accent on latex monsters; they accent on internal struggle of characters (remember the first «A Nightmare on Elm Street»). Every film character is a separate hero with their internal fears and worries. Racheal Creed is deadly afraid of death; Louis Creed would do anything in order to spare his family from tragedy; Ellie Creed is too little in order to understand death. The supernatural force is starting to exploit those weaknesses.

Mary Lambert is one of those music video directors who has successfully transitioned to a mainstream cinema. She doesn’t use «pianos in the bushes» and flying monsters; she uses simple methods to grow the atmosphere of fear, hopelessness and despair.  Some scene could still cause shivers, and in the end we would encounter some great action scenes. Also the Director shows the illogical nature of a man, who are behaving as junkies, despite the experienced negative effects.

Summarizing all of the above said, I must say, that there is a good adaptation of Stephen King’s novel. «Pet Sematary» is a smart horror film, which keeps the tense from the first to the last second. I don’t even feel the desire to watch the new version. Let’s hope that other Mary Lambert’s films would be as good.

"Year of the Dragon" (1985)

The Chinese eat the head

The United States were found by the Protestants and in the beginning all of the major political and business places were occupied by WASPs. For a long time, the Catholics were not allowed into the major positions, but being white, they were able to occupy the middle posts. The Chinese were quite different. They died massively during railroad construction of the XIXth century, but were not allowed to be photographed, unlike the Irish labor.

The Chinese were constantly kicked out of the US, but they methodically gained small territories in almost every major American city – Chinatowns. There, they methodically raised money and, after some time, started to outplay Americans on their own fields: entering and sponsoring the major universities, buying up real estate, entering prestigious funds and clubs, and sponsoring political parties. The same words could be said about Chinese organized crime.

Nevertheless, the Chinese en masse were not fully integrated into American society. They were ready to deal with «The White Devil», but were still living into their neighborhoods, where there were no American laws or customs. Americans take a refusal to accept their values as a major insult. You could easily be Polish American, Russian American, African American, Chinese American and etc., but if you refuse to add American to your nationality, then you would never become a trustworthy member of an American society.

In the 1980s, all American movies and news were full of panic, that the Japanese are buying up the US. Yes, for some time the Japanese economy almost succeeded in overtaking the US economy, but we all now the final result. Conversely, the «yellow n…...s» were quietly expanding in the US for a long time, and their effort began to bear fruit in the 1980s. The Chinese are masterfully playing the dumb and their truce with NYPD able them to do business smoothly. But one day the Chinese youth gangs are starting to terrorize the city and one of the most respected Chinese bosses is brutally murdered.

The explosion of violence leads to appointment of the toughest cop – captain Stanley White – as the chief of Chinatown police. He is a stereotypical Blue-collar American: impulsive, intolerant and disdainful towards anyone, who is richer/smarter/more educated. Also he is a member of the lowest White American class – Polish Americans, who are always heroes of the American jokes – and, even more, he is a Vietnam veteran.

He, as a lot of other veterans, is sure that the war was lost because of the lousy politicians and Stanley White is obsessed with idea to prove his toughness, by turning Chinatown into another typical American neighborhood. Captain Stanley White starts to recreate the Vietnam War into one particular neighborhood: insulting Chinese top men, conducting Search and Destroy police operations and, generally, «bombing Chinatown into the Stone Age».

On the other hand, the top men of Chinese Triads are also changing, because the new generation of Chinese are starting to take over, who had contacts with the US and partly absorbed the American values. Such, as young and ambitious Joey Tai, are no longer to content to wait for «4000 years» and they are starting a brutal passage to power and bloody war to overtake the drug operations from the Italians.

Chinese Americans, who are trying to become full Americans, are in the middle of the «battle theater». The Chinese consider them traitors and the Americans treats them, in the best situation, as sexy toys (reporter  neighborhood) and, in the worst situation, as low level servants and objects for racist jokes (young police officer Herbert Kwong). But there are no neutral sides in the total war and soon all would become a meat for the grinder.

These total war would be a full clash between Chinese and American mentality: «4000 years» against «history void»; patience against impulsiveness; numbers against fire power and, the most important of all, ability to sustain high casualties against fixation on short-term goals. Even remember, that B-52 bomber jet was perfectly able to turn jungles into deserts, but was unable to cut Ho Chi Minh trail.

And Stanley White, as 18 years ago, would lose everything and, perhaps, would be able to cut one out of one thousand heads of the Chinese «Lernaean Hydra». After edgy «Heaven's Gate» (I consider a not-so-good glued mosaic of some outstanding pieces), Michael Cimino made a great film about cultural clash in NYC, spicing it up by good action and charismatic actors. I recommend to watch «Year of the Dragon» in a pair with «Black Rain» by Ridley Scott.