Daughter of the Dragon (Lloyd Corrigan, 1931)

Cast: Anna May Wong, Warner Oland, Sessue Hayakawa, Bramwell Fletcher, Frances Dade, Holmes Herbert, Lawrence Grant, Harold Minjir, Nicholas Soussanin, E. Alyn Warren. Screenplay: Lloyd Corrigan, Monte M. Katterjohn, Sidney Buchman, based on a novel by Sax Rohmer. Cinematography: Victor Milner. Music: Rudolph G. Kopp, John Leipold.

It won’t do, of course, these sinister Asians and hapless Europeans all under the spell of Dr. Fu Manchu (Warner Oland in yellowface – his last outing in the role). But although today it’s more artifact than art and more likely to elicit guffaws than shudders, Daughter of the Dragon does give us a needed glimpse into what we are: a country always likely to fall into suspicions about the Other. The rise of Asian-bashing after the emergence of Covid, which our ineffable president persisted in calling “the China virus,” should be enough to remind us of that. Otherwise, the movie is a welcome opportunity to view the talents of Anna May Wong and Sessue Hayakawa, two of the most important Asian actors to emerge in the silent era and to continue their careers on the margins of Hollywood film in the sound era. 

 

The Black Phone (Scott Derrickson, 2022)

 

Cast: Mason Thames, Madeleine McGraw, Ethan Hawke, Jeremy Davies, E. Roger Mitchell, Troy Rudeseal, James Ransone, Miguel Cazarez Mora. Screenplay: Scott Derrickson, C. Robert Cargill, based on a story by Joe Hill. Cinematography: Brett Jutkiewicz. Production design: Patti Podesta. Film editing: Frédéric Thoraval. Music: Mark Korven.

Horror movies usually don’t scare me: I know their tricks and tells, and as an amateur film scholar I’m as absorbed in the techniques of camerawork and editing as I’m involved with the story. So The Black Phone, which blends two horror movie tropes, the serial killer and the ghost story, never made me jump out of my seat or threatened to come back at me in my dreams. Still, it’s a good one, with some involving performances, especially by the young actors Mason Thames and Madeleine McGraw but also by the invaluable Ethan Hawke, even hidden behind some scary masks. It’s as much a story about the dark side of childhood – Finney (Thames) and Gwen (McGraw) are abused by their father, played by the usually creepy Jeremy Davies, and Finney is being bullied by some of classmates – as it is about predators and ghosts. But Scott Derrickson handles both sides of the story with finesse and without too many horror movie clichés.

Husbands (John Cassavetes, 1970)

 

Cast: Ben Gazzara, Peter Falk, John Cassavetes, Jenny Runacre, Jenny Lee Wright, Noelle Kao, John Cullers, Meta Shaw Stevens, Leola Harlow, Delores Delmar, Eleanor Zee, Claire Mallis, Peggy Lashbrook. Screenplay: John Cassavetes. Cinematography: Victor J. Kemper. Film editing: John Cassavetes.

There are those who think Husbands is a masterpiece and those who think it’s a self-indulgent mess. While I incline to the latter opinion, I’m willing to hear what those who admire it have to say. Cassavetes is a favorite of those who admire his uncompromising individuality as a filmmaker, and he never displayed it more thoroughly than in Husbands. He compiled months of raw footage shot in New York and London, which he then submitted to an editor, who made what previewers though was a superbly commercial comedy about suburban husbands on a spree. But that wasn’t what Cassavetes wanted, so he took the footage back and edited it into a wholly idiosyncratic film with flashes of comedy but extended scenes of pain. It opens with still photographs, snapshots of some family gathering attended by four buddies: Harry (Ben Gazzara), Archie (Peter Falk), Gus (Cassavetes), and Stuart (David Rowlands). But Stuart appears in the fim only in these photos because he’s dead: The actual movie starts with his funeral, after which Harry, Archie, and Gus express their grief by going on an extended bender, which eventually winds up with the three carousing with any women they can pick up in a London hotel. I can see what Cassavetes is up to with the film: a searching look at the 14-year-old boy in every middle-aged man. And I have to admit that it works. But is it a satisfactory movie? Why do scenes like the beer-sodden song contest in a bar, and the consequent vomiting scene in the bar’s men’s room go on so long? Does Cassavetes not trust the viewer to get the message? Admirers of the film argue that this is exactly the point: the message is in the experience of enduring these and other scenes. We squirm in our seats because Cassavetes wants us to. But is that art or torture? 

Belfast (Kenneth Branagh, 2021)

 

Cast: Jude Hill, Catríona Balfe, Jamie Dornan, Judi Dench, Ciarán Hinds, Lewis McAskie, Lara McDonnell, Colin Morgan, Michael Maloney. Screenplay: Kenneth Branagh. Cinematography: Haris Zambarloukos. Production design: Jim Clay. Film editing: Úna Ní Dhonghaíle. Music: Van Morrison. 

Viewing terrible times from the point of view of a child is a familiar movie trope: In 1987, for example John Boorman did it in Hope and Glory and Steven Spielberg in Empire of the Sun. And Kenneth Branagh did it quite well in the semi-autobiographical Belfast, set in the titular city during 1969, the year when his family decided to emigrate to England to escape the bloody conflict between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland. Branagh has been a middling director of films except for his Shakespeare outings, particularly his Henry V (1989) and Much Ado About Nothing (1993) – I’d also include his Hamlet (1996), but it’s a little too gimmicky with its cameo roles for actors like Billy Crystal, Charlton Heston, and Robin Williams. Belfast, however, is a heartfelt personal project, which is its greatest strength but also – in a certain lack of distance and sentimentality in the storytelling – its chief weakness. The standout performances come from Catríona Balfe as the mother, whose grit and determination are finally undermined by the rioting, and Judi Dench and Ciarán Hinds as the grandparents. For once, Dench is not cast as a crusty old dame in the mode of her Queens Elizabeth I and Victoria, but rather as a sweet and slightly dotty old woman devoted to her husband, played also somewhat against type by Hinds. The whole thing is set to a score and songs by Van Morrison, another move in the film’s favor. Solid, somewhat old-fashioned moviemaking. 

All These Sleepless Nights (Michal Marczak, 2016)

Cast: Krzysztof Baginski, Michal Huszcza, Eva Lebuef. Screenplay: Michal Marczak, Katarzyna Szczerba. Cinematography: Michal Marczak, Maciej Twardowski. Film editing: Dorota Wardeszkiewicz. Music: Lubomir Grzelak. 

Youth, the adage goes, is wasted on the young. In All These Sleepless Nights, Michal Marczak’s pseudo-documentary, the young are hell-bent on wasting it. The film centers on two Warsaw art students, Krzysztof Baginski and Michal Huszcza, playing themselves in scenes both spontaneous and scripted, along with Eva Lebuef, the ex-girlfriend of Michal and the new girlfriend – at least for a while – of Kris. They lead a hedonistic life, with drug-taking and sex and cigarette smoking and partying, with only occasional reflections that this life can’t last. There’s only fleeting interaction with older adults and no indication that there is a price to be paid for self-indulgence – indeed, they seem to have unlimited means, as the apartment with the spectacular view that Kris lives in very much suggests. But this isn’t a moralizing movie: The tone is very much on the side of carpe diem. The ephemerality of this way of life is symbolically represented by the fireworks display at the film’s beginning, but there’s no hint of burnout in the story. Only near the end is there a scene that suggests self-awareness, as Kris does a bit of performance art in a public park, dressed as an Easter bunny and speaking via loudspeaker to passers-by, including an elderly couple whom he praises for their closeness and endurance. But then at film’s end he’s practicing dance moves in the middle of traffic, living on the edge. There’s no story to grab onto, and the film sometimes stretched my patience, but as an immersion into other lives it’s worthy of attention.