Buzzard (Joel Potrykus, 2014)

Joshua Burge in Buzzard

Cast: Joshua Burge, Joel Potrykus, Teri Ann Nelson, Jason Roth, Joe Anderson, Alan Longstreet. Screenplay: Joel Potrykus. Cinematography: Adam J. Minnick. Film editing: Joel Potrykus. 

Marty Jackitansky (Joshua Burge), the hangdog protagonist of Joel Potrykus's Buzzard, is the consummate slacker, a temp worker fueled by junk food, energized by video games and horror movies, and sustained by petty scams. He's not the typical loner who lives in his parents' basement: He lives in his friend Derek's parent's basement -- or at least he does after pulling a scam that's likely to get him jail time. Eventually, even that hideout becomes too perilous, and he hits the streets of Detroit where, in one possible interpretation of the film's trick ending, he vanishes from sight after taking his scam a step too far. Potrykus, who wrote, directed, edited, and acted in the film (as Derek), gives us a pungent sketch of contemporary life that blends itchy black comedy with  keen satire of the fringes of finance that include mortgage companies and payday loan operations, along with a touch of actuality where the comedy and satire sour into something more disturbing. If it occasionally gives way to independent film self-indulgence -- an overlong scene of Marty eating spaghetti and meatballs in bed -- it succeeds largely on the strength of Burge's performance and Potrykus's keen eye and ear. 

Les Abysses (Nikos Papatakis, 1963)

Francine Bergé and Colette Bergé in Les Abysses

Cast: Francine Bergé, Colette Bergé, Pascale de Boysson, Colette Régis, Paul Bonifas, Jean-Louis Le Goff, Lise Daubigny, Robert Benoit, Marcel Roche. Screenplay: Jean Vauthier, Louis Jouvet. Cinematography: Jean-Michel Boussaguet. Film editing: Edwidge Bernard, Denise de Casabianca, Pascale Laverrière. Music: Pierre Barbaud. 

Nikos Papatakis's raw, unsparing Les Abysses is one of the many films, plays, and even operas inspired by the case of the Papin sisters, Christine and Léa, who in 1933 murdered their employer's wife and daughter. The most distinguished of the artistic treatments of the case are probably Jean Genet's 1947 play The Maids and Claude Chabrol's 1995 film La Cérémonie, but Papatakis's version stands up well against them. It opens with the mad antics of the two maids, called Michelle (Francine Bergé) and Marie-Louise (Colette Bergé) in this version of the story. They have been left alone in the country house of their employers and have spent the time wreaking havoc in the property. The employers, the Lapeyres, have been taking advantage of the two women, withholding their wages for three years but promising them that they will be given part of the property as recompense. Now the Lapeyres return unexpectedly to discover the house, which they are planning to sell, in chaos. When Michelle and Marie-Louise discover they're about to be cheated out of their expectations, things escalate. The film was widely interpreted as a fable about capitalism and the class system as well as a kind of allegory of the exploitation of colonial Algeria by France. It's a mad, brutal work with uninhibited performances by the Bergé sisters, and a nerve-racking score by Pierre Barbaud adds to the dissonance of the relationships shown in it. 

Stranger Eyes (Yeo Siew Hua, 2024)

Lee Kang-sheng in Stranger Eyes

Cast: Wu Chien-ho, Lee Kang-sheng, Anicca Panna, Vera Chen, Xenia Tan, Pete Teo, Maryanne Ng-Yu, Anya Chow. Screenplay: Yeo Siew Hua. Cinematography: Hideho Urata. Production design: James Page. Film editing: Jean-Christophe Bouzy. Music: Thomas Foguenne. 

In Stranger Eyes, Yeo Siew Hua attempts a deconstruction of the missing child thriller to make a comment on voyeurism and video surveillance. As we're trying to figure out how and why Little Bo disappeared and follow the attempts of her parents to find her, we're also thrust back into the life of the chief suspect, Lao Wu (Lee Kang-sheng). It turns out that well before their child vanished, he has been spying on Junyang (Wu Chien-ho) and Peiying (Anicca Panna), who live across from him in a Singapore high-rise. Eventually we're thrust into a web of motives and secret relationships documented on a variety of cameras. The narrative scrambling that lifts Stranger Eyes out of the routine keeps the viewer off base, but it also becomes a distraction, calling attention as much to the way the story is told as to the story itself and its implications for a world in which privacy is an illusion.  

Betty Blue (Jean-Jacques Beineix, 1986)

Jean-Hugues Anglade and Béatrice Dalle in Betty Blue

Cast: Jean-Hugues Anglade, Béatrice Dalle, Gérard Darmon, Consuelo De Haviland, Clémentine Célarié, Jacques Mathou. Screenplay: Jean-Jacques Beineix, based on a novel by Philippe Dijian. Cinematography: Jean-François Robin. Production design: Carlos Conti. Film editing: Monique Prim, Pablo Ferro. Music: Gabriel Yared. 

Jean-Jacques Beineix's "director's cut" of Betty Blue is three hours long, more than an hour longer than its theatrical release, padding out its story of the relationship of a man and an unstable woman to epic length. I have to admit that it didn't feel that long, partly because its whiplash changes in tone and its constant introduction of new, oddball characters kept me wondering what might happen next. Some credit, too, must go to the actors who play its protagonists, the hapless Zorg (Jean-Hughes Anglade) and the unpredictable Betty (Béatrice Dalle), whose undeniable chemistry holds the whole thing together. It's often quite beautiful: Jean-François Robin's cinematography makes the most of its various French settings, and the frequently naked Anglade and Dalle are pleasant to see. But is it anything more than an overextended tale of an ill-fated couple, laced with soft-core porn? Is there a point in its switches from comedy to pain? Unfortunately, Beineix doesn't give us enough substance to make me feel that answering those questions is worth the effort.  

Four Murders Are Enough, Darling (Oldrich Lipsky, 1971)

Lubomír Lipsky and Jirina Bohdalová in Four Murders Are Enough, Darling

Cast: Lubomír Lipsky, Jirina Bohdalová, Iva Janzurová, Marie Rosulková, Frantisek Filipovsky, Jan Libícek, Josef Hlinomaz, Karel Effa, Lubomír Kostelka, Vlastomil Hasek, Stella Zâzvorková, Josef Kemr. Screenplay: Milos Macourek, Oldrich Lipsky, based on a novel by Nenad Brixi. Cinematography: Jirí Tantrík. Production design: Jirí Hlupy. Film editing: Miroslav Hájek. Music: Vlastimil Hála. 

Oldrich Lipsky's Four Murders Are Enough, Darling is a throwback to the anarchic comedy of the silent era, so much so that for those of us who don't speak Czech the subtitles are almost a distraction. It's non-stop visual gags with only a thread of a plot to hold them together. All you need to know is that the MacGuffin is a check for a million dollars that rival gangs are trying to get their hands on. Caught in the middle is a mild-mannered schoolteacher, George Camel (Lubomír Lipsky, the director's brother), into whose hands the check manages to fall. After that, everything mushrooms into an explosion of cops and robbers, mistaken identities, corpses in closets and cupboards, car crashes and gunfire and fistfights. It's interlarded with comic book illustrations of the actors and action, mock TV commercials, and probably more than a few topical jokes that go over the heads of non-Czech viewers. Many find it hilarious, and I can see why, though I found it exhausting. 

Farewell, My Lovely (Dick Richards, 1975)

Robert Mitchum and Charlotte Rampling in Farewell, My Lovely

Cast: Robert Mitchum, Charlotte Rampling, John Ireland, Sylvia Miles, Anthony Zerbe, Harry Dean Stanton, Jack O'Halloran, Joe Spinell, Sylvester Stallone, Kate Murtagh, John O'Leary, Walter McGinn. Screenplay: David Zelag Goodman, based on a novel by Raymond Chandler. Cinematography: John A. Alonzo. Production design: Dean Tavoularis. Film editing: Joel Cox, Walter Thompson. Music: David Shire. 

Raymond Chandler's Farewell, My Lovely had been filmed before, as Murder, My Sweet, with Dick Powell playing Philip Marlowe and Edward Dmytryk directing, and it's in many ways better than this attempt by director Dick Richards and screenwriter David Zelag Goodman. What this version has going for it is the absence of Production Code censors blue-penciling the script. Goodman is able to be open about the fact that one character is gay and another is the madam of a whorehouse, and he can emphasize the homophobia and racism of some of his more unsavory characters. But his script lacks the wit of John Paxton's earlier screenplay, not to mention that of William Faulkner, Leigh Brackett, and Jules Furthman's script for The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks, 1946), the best of all the Philip Marlowe movies, in which Humphrey Bogart as Marlowe was paired with Lauren Bacall. That comparison is inevitable, because Charlotte Rampling in Farewell, My Lovely is made to look and act uncannily like Bacall, but there's no real heat between her and Robert Mitchum as Marlowe. Mitchum does what he can with the role, but he's too old for it. The standout in the cast is the Oscar-nominated Sylvia Miles as the alcoholic Mrs. Florian, one of the many gears and springs and cogwheels in the intricate, impenetrable plot. Dean Tavoularis's design and John A. Alozo's camera give us a gritty, neon-lit re-creation of 1940s Los Angeles, but there's something tired and perfunctory about the film.  

 

Bye Bye Love (Isao Fujisawa,1974)

Ren Tamura and Miyabi Ichijo in Bye Bye Love

Cast: Ren Tamura, Miyabi Ichijo, Atsuko Ami, Yuzo Morita, Satomi Oki, Enver Tenpai. Screenplay: Isao Fujisawa. Cinematography: Norimoto Ichinose. Art direction: Shinichi Otani. Film editing: Eiko Yoshida, Hisako Aizawa. 

Two young people go on the run when one of them shoots the man the other was living with, an official in the American embassy in Japan. The familiar fugitive road movie formula has caused Isao Fujisawa's Bye Bye Love to be compared to several films that are roughly of its era, like Bonnie and Clyde (Arthur Penn, 1967), Pierrot le Fou (Jean-Luc Godard, 1965), and Badlands (Terrence Malick, 1973). But the treatment of gender identity in Bye Bye Love makes it feel ahead of its time: One of the fugitives has chosen a female persona. The shooter, who calls himself Utamaro (Ren Tamura), is a cocky young nihilist who first encountered his fugitive partner, Giko (Miyabi Ichijo), fleeing from a street cop. Utamaro interfered, knocked the cop out and stole his gun. Giko and Utamaro turn out to be the perfect team: After the initial surprise, Utamaro isn't bothered by Giko's gender fluidity, and Giko isn't bothered by Utamaro's nihilism.  Fujisawa's only fiction film was thought to be lost since it first appeared, but a negative was discovered in 2018, and it has continued to astonish new audiences since then. Fujisawa delights in off-beat choices: The music track that accompanies the pair's flight is organ music by Bach, and there's a threesome with a prostitute that is literally shocking. (It involves electric wires and a radio.) Not everything in the movie works -- the murdered official is heavy-handedly named Nixon -- and it risks associating queerness with criminality, but so much of it does that Bye Bye Love is one of the most fascinating rediscoveries of recent years.

Downpour (Bahram Beyzaie, 1972)

Cast: Parviz Fanizadeh, Parvaneh Massoumi, Mohamad Ali Keshavarz, Manucher Farid, Esmat Safavi, Abbas Dastranj, Parvin Soleymani. Screenplay: Bahram Beyzaie. Cinematography: Barbod Taheri. Film editing: Mehdi Rajaian. Music: Sheyda Garachedaghi. 

Most of us are familiar with Iranian film only through the work of the audacious and often courageous directors like Asghar Farhadi, Abbas Kiarostami, and Jafar Panahi, who achieved international fame after the Islamic revolution. The restoration of a surviving print of Behram Beyzaie's first feature film, Downpour, once thought to have been destroyed, affords us a glimpse into the pre-revolutionary Iranian cinematic world. It's a charming, bittersweet tale of a schoolteacher who is transferred to an unfamiliar neighborhood, and immediately has to cope with his rowdy young pupils. Hekmati (Parviz Fanizadeh) also glimpses a pretty young woman, Atafeh (Parvaneh Massoumi), in the crowd that meets him as he moves into his lodgings. She turns out to be the sister of one of his pupils, and they meet face to face when she comes to complain that he has kicked the boy out of his class. Atafeh is being courted by her landlord, Rahim (Manucher Farid), whom she doesn't particularly care for, but she fears being evicted along with her elderly mother if she resists his advances. Eventually, the bookish Atafeh and the bullish Rahim confront each other. The post-revolutionary censors presumably suppressed the film because Atafeh sometimes wears short skirts and goes with her hair uncovered, and perhaps because there's a scene in which Hekmati and Rahim get drunk together. The sometimes had-to-read English subtitles of the original print had to be retained in the restoration, and some of the dialogue went untranslated, but the engaging and familiar story is simple and directly presented. 

Case for a Rookie Hangman (Pavel Jurácek, 1970)

Lubomír Kostelka in Case for a Rookie Hangman

Cast: Lubomír Kostelka, Klára Jerneková, Milena Zahrynowska, Radovan Lukavsky, Jirí Janda, Ludek Kopriva, Milos Vávra, Miroslav Machácek. Screenplay: Pavel Jurácek. Cinematography: Jan Kalis. Production design: Milan Nejedly. Film editing: Miroslav Hájek. Music: Lubos Fiser. 

The protagonist of Pavel Jurácek's Case for a Rookie Hangman is called Lemuel Gulliver, but the film owes as much to Lewis Carroll, Franz Kafka, and Luis Buñuel as it does to Jonathan Swift. It might almost have been titled Gulliver's Travels Through the Looking Glass to the Castle of the Exterminating Angel. Jurácek's Gulliver (Lubomír Kostelka) is on a trip through the countryside when he gets lost and his car crashes off the road. Extricating himself from the wreck, he comes across the body of a large white rabbit wearing a waistcoat and carrying a pocket watch, which Gulliver takes from the rabbit. He soon finds that he is in the land of Balnibarbi, the locale of the third voyage of Swift's story, above which is the floating city of Laputa. At this point narrative logic gives way to a series of extraordinary incidents, which Jurácek presents without being limited by time and space. The film has its admirers, but I found its dreamlike transitions and off-kilter events less startling than soporific. The Czech government wasn't lulled to sleep, however, and as usual when it didn't understand something, it suspected it was being made fun of (as of course it was), so it banned it, putting an end to Jurácek's career as a filmmaker. 

Tricheurs (Barbet Schroeder, 1984)

Bulle Ogier in Tricheurs

Cast: Jacques Dutronc, Bulle Ogier, Kurt Raab, Virgilio Teixeira, Robby Müller, Claus-Dieter Reents, Carlos Wallenstein. Screenplay: Pascal Bonitzer, Steve Baës, Barbet Schroeder, based on a book by Baës. Cinematography: Robby Müller. Production design: Zé Branco. Music: Peer Raben. 

Tricheurs are people who cheat at gambling, no easy feat in casinos where there are surveillance cameras and eagle-eyed croupiers. In Barbet Schroeder's film, they are a special breed, gamblers who add the thrill of possible capture to the compulsion to bet large sums of money. Elric (Jacques Dutronc) begins with the latter compulsion, and when we first see him he has lost big. And then he spots a woman in a red dress with a large number 7 on the back. Elric takes it as a sign and follows her to the casino, where she turns out to be his lucky charm, and soon he and Suzie (Bulle Ogier) have merged their compulsions. But then Elric meets Jorg (Kurt Raab), who claims to have a foolproof system for cheating at roulette, so Elric and Suzie go their separate ways and he begins touring the casinos of the world with Jorg, raking it in. Eventually Elric and Suzie meet again, and when Jorg gets careless and gets caught, Suzie tells him that she has met a croupier who knows a new way to cheat: a loaded roulette ball that can be triggered by remote control. The croupier, Toni (Virgilio Teixeira), wants to retire, and is willing to go in with Elric and Suzie on the scam, slipping the loaded ball onto the wheel. With a little practice, they can win big by triggering the ball at the right moment. Tricheurs is a clever morality fable and a shrewd portrait of compulsive behavior, but the techniques used by the cheaters -- distracting the croupiers, hitting the button on the remote at the right time -- seem clumsy, so that the film winds up feeling thin and contrived.