Edge of Tomorrow [2014]

MPAA (PG-13)  CNS/USCCB (A-III)  ChicagoTribune (3 stars)  RE.com (3 1/2 stars)  AVClub (B+)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RE.com (M. Zoller Seitz) review
AVClub (I. Vishnevetsky) review

Edge of Tomorrow [2014] (directed by Doug Liman, screenplay by Christopher McQuarrie, Jez Butterworth and John-Henry Butterworth based on the graphic novel "All You Need is Kill" by Hiroshi Sakurazaka) makes for an interesting D-Day tribute movie, released indeed on the day of the 70th Anniversary of the Normandy Invasion.  It's basically Saving Private Ryan [1998], meets Starship Troopers [1997], meets Ground Hog Day [1993] / The Source Code [2011] (reviewed here) all making for the film's lead character (played by Tom Cruise), a truly very, very long, indeed arguably, The Longest Day [1962].

As I watched the film, I wondered if I should recommend (yes, in good part lightheartedly) it to my 82 year old dad (who has actually donned 3D glasses with me to see such recent films as Life of Pi [2012] and The Great Gatsby [2013] ;-), who was 12 at the time of D-Day growing-up then in the Nazi-occupied Czech half of Czechoslovakia, er the "Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia" and first heard of the invasion back home listening to the BBC on (illegal but commonplace throughout occupied Europe) shortwave radio (called affectionately by the Czechs a "Churchillovka").  Yes, the pace of the current film's battle scenes is kinda crazy -- I don't think the film would be particularly good for "folks with heart conditions" -- but in a way the film comes across as a remarkably sincere tribute BY A GENERATION that's "parachuted into" / "landed in" Normandy time-and-again via "Brothers in Arms" / "Call of Duty" video games TO THEIR PARENTS' / GRANDPARENTS' GENERATION that HAD TO DO THIS _FOR REAL_.

There's also a interesting "PC" (politically correct) aspect to the film.  In this story, Europe had been over-run, not by Nazis but by metallic hive-minded bug-like space aliens -- so all Europeans including Germans can go to the film and presumably play the inevitable video game that will certainly follow.  As the film begins, England and the Americas are about to launch a D-Day like invasion codenamed "Operation Downfall" to relieve the Russians and Chinese fighting the metallic hive-minded bug-like space aliens "on the Eastern front" (so the Russians and the Chinese can also go to the movie and play the inevitable video-game as well).  

Then there's another amusing swipe at (or "nod to") the today's young "social media savvy" generation: WHILE "Downfall" KINDA SOUNDS LIKE "Overlord" (the actual codename for the 1944 Normandy Invasion) IT ALSO EVOKES the German film Downfall [2004] about the last days of Hitler (which has subsequently become YouTube "meme" cult classic with countless parodies of the crest-fallen/crushed Adolf Hitler yelling at his generals but now for all kinds of more contemporary concerns: he couldn't get his Vista update to work, he broke his tv playing wii video-bowling, he couldn't believe that Kayne West dissed Taylor Swift so badly at the VMA's one year, etc, etc ;-).

Finally, there's even a potential nod to a contemporary conspiracy theory that has suggested that the Nazi's ultimate secret weapon that they were trying to develop in the closing years-months-days of the war was some sort of a time-machine called "Die Glocke."  (In the film, the hive-minded bug-like space aliens have the ability to time travel into the near future to reconnoiter / discern their enemy's (humanity's) intentions.  Thus humanity's frustration that the aliens seem _always ready_ for anything that humanity throws at them).

It all makes for an interesting mishmash giving tribute to the Normandy invasion while recognizing that the bravery and horror it entailed is getting (in part, THANKFULLY) clouded over by more contemporary concerns.  After all, our parents and grandparents landed on those beaches so that we (their children and grandchildren) would be able to LIVE FREE and thus HAVE THE LUXURY TO-BE-ABLE-TO-HAVE more care-free, even at times GOOFY "more contemporary concerns." 

Indeed, I even wonder if Franz Kafka (a Czech-Jewish German-writing expressionist writer who Hitler absolutely hated) would appreciate a film that reduced the Nazis to "metallic hive-minded bug-like space aliens." After all, Kafka's most famous book was Metamorphosis (wikip) which was about "Gregor Samsa" discovering one day that he had "turned into a cockroach." ;-)  (And while he even he himself would have never guessed it at the time, he was _dead-on correct_ as to guessing what was going to happen with fast-arriving Nazi rule: The Jews as a people, HIS PEOPLE, were going to be QUITE SUDDENLY considered little more than "cockroaches" during Nazi occupation, until the Nazis themselves were finally crushed).


So then, to the film ... the story's about Major (soon to be Private) Cage (played spot-on throughout by Tom Cruise) an "ad-man" arriving in London on the eve of the long-expected re-invasion of Europe to take back the continent from a race of metallic insect-like space aliens that had crashed into Central Europe (Germany?) some years before and had conquered / laid waste to most of the Continent ever since.  The Russians and Chinese had contained them "to the East" (presumably after horrific losses), but in the West they these metallic bug-like monsters had long since reached the Atlantic coast.  Only England remained free.

The only bright spot in the West, up to this point, was a victory, temporary it turned out, some years before at Verdun (a name recalling French heroics during WW I) led by a woman named Rita Wratkowski (played by Emily Blunt).  Despite having had only 1 day of training (apparently, the French/Allies were desperate) she somehow over-came metallic bug-like space aliens there at Verdun, and her legend (sort of like a modern-day Joan of Arc) was then used by recruiters (including the above mentioned "ad-man" Major Cage) to assemble a million+ army to face said metallic bug-like space aliens: "See they are not invincible."  (But no one really knew _why_ Rita had been so successful back then at Verdun ...)

So the film then begins on the eve of "Operation Downfall" where the joint allied plan appeared to be simply drop said, assembled, 1,000,000+ army on the beaches of Normandy and beyond and ... apparently _hope_ that at least a number of them would become as successful as Rita had been at Verdun.  (Again, nobody really knew _why_ she had been so successful, and yet, all the other training that they were giving their soldiers didn't really matter either.  The battle was going to be simply a no holds barred / anything goes / total war slugfest).

So ... given that training to fight these vicious, metallic, bug-like aliens didn't really matter but bodies (and at least some degree of bravery or at least instinct for self-preservation did) Major Cage finds himself, to his horror ORDERED by the invasion's commanding officer General Brigham (played by Brendan Gleeson).  "But I'm an ad-man."  "So what?"  "I helped recruit for you this 1,000,000 strong army."  "So what?"  "But I'm not even trained for combat."  "So what?  "This is WAR, a DESPERATE WAR, and WE NEED EVERY SINGLE SOUL TO FIGHT."  So Major Cage, now stripped in rank down to PRIVATE is dropped-off, "boots" still not "on the ground" but IN HIS HANDS, at the "Forward Operating Base" of Heathrow Airport outside of London to join a squad of not necessarily better trained but at least more psychologically prepared soldiers set to "drop down into Normandy" THE NEXT DAY for the Invasion.

Is anybody concerned that Cage doesn't have a clue what he's doing?  NO.  But the squad's commander Master Sgt. Farell (played by Bill Paxton) seems convinced that "the true crucible for the soldier is the battlefield" and whatever he needs to learn, he'll learn there.

So ... the next day, there's Private Cage, strapped in a ridiculously cumbersome futuristic sci-fi looking exo-skeleton suit, armed to the teeth with weapons that he doesn't know how to operate (he spends most of his flight from England to "the drop zone" in Normandy scrolling through the 100 or so language-choices on the small 3x5" video screen attached to one his arms TO TRY TO FIND ENGLISH AMONG THEM.  And then, he finds himself, helicopter transport already hit and burning JUST DROPPED (FREE-FALL) ONTO THE BEACH IN NORMANDY (the exo-skeleton apparently good for something as he didn't just die with the drop ...) with couple of his squad-mates getting wiped-out by the helicopter crashing on top of them.

Utterly terrified, Cage, is only able to successfully duck debris from other transports (and pieces of other soldiers' exo-skeletons) crashing all around him.  Then he and the others first see these hellish, multi-tentacled metallic insect-like aliens swarming over, on top of, as well as from under the sand toward them.  Again, Private Cage is just trying to scroll through the @#$ video screen settings on his monitor to finally set the @#$ thing toEnglish.  FINALLY, he manages to do so ... and gets off exactly one shot ... before he himself is killed ... by the hot molten orangish ooze coming out of the alien that he had BY TOTAL LUCK SHOT ... and ...

... TO HIS UTTER SHOCK, HE WAKES UP AGAIN, on the tarmac at Heathrow, boots in his hand, like the day before.  WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED?

Now, I would suspect that many surviving World War II veterans could be appalled by the presentation of the battle so far.  "WE WERE TRAINED FOR NORMANDY, D**MIT.  WE SPENT TWO YEARS (!!) PREPARING FOR THAT DAY." 

And you're ABSOLUTELY RIGHT.  BUT ... today's kid who buys a "Code of Honor" video game and plops it into an X-box to "play" NORMANDY INVASION ... "ENTERS THE BATTLE" FOR THE FIRST TIME with ABOUT AS MUCH "EXPERIENCE" as good old Major / Private Cage had ;-) ;-).  And it's actually a good reminder to the kids that Normandy (UNLIKE A VIDEO GAME) was A ONE TIME DEAL (and REQUIRED PRECISELY A LOT MORE _TRAINING_ and a _LOT MORE BRAVERY_ than playing a video game.

However, given the scenario that Cage finds himself in, the story's "Master Sgt Farrell" is actually right: All that "Private Cage" needs to know, _he will learn_ "on the battlefield" as he plays this day OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN ;-)

And that's what happens.  Each time Private Cage dies, he finds himself waking up on the tarmac at Heathrow and the scenario resets itself and as time goes on, Private Cage gets better and better at what he's doing.

Now, of course, Private Cage IS VERY CONFUSED as to why he's waking-up EVERYTIME "after dying" on the tarmac at Heathrow (and _nobody else_ believes him when he tells them that "he's been there before.") but ... he does notice in the battle on the beach the above mentioned "angel of Verdun" Rita among the combatants ... and since, she, if nothing else, was by legend a very good soldier, he asks her to help him.  She replies: "The next time you die, LOOK FOR ME..." (SHE SEEMS TO KNOW THAT THERE'S SOMETHING STRANGE GOING ON IN THIS SCENARIO).

So ... after he dies on the beach there ... the next time he finds himself again on the tarmac there in Heathrow, he sets about "looking for her."  It takes him a few more iterations to find her ...

When he does, she explains to him, that the SAME THING that is happening to him, HAPPENED TO HER "at Verdun" (THAT'S WHY even though she was a raw recruit, with only one day of training was able to win the battle there BECAUSE ... she spent a VAST NUMBER OF CYCLES THERE repeating THAT SAME ONE DAY OVER AND OVER AGAIN.  Now the same thing appears to be happening to Private Cage, when he dies, he seems to be going back to the beginning of his own "one day cycle."

She also explains that the bug-like aliens were winning this war because _they_ do the same thing.   Each time they lose a battle, they just go back to the previous day and adapt.  Key in this short term time travel were relatively rare bugs called "alpha aliens."  When _they die_ they are the ones who teleport back a short time in time (about a day...) to start over.  HOWEVER, since these aliens have a hive-like mind, whatever they learn, gets transported back to basically the "mother beetle" named an "omega alien" who then instructs all the other bug-like aliens as to what to do defeat the humans the next time.

The key then to defeat the aliens is to find and kill the mother (omega) alien.  Kill it (presumably without killing any of the alpha aliens) and the bug like aliens can't reset and therefore will be defeated.

Good ... but why can Private Cage (and before that Private Rita Wratkowski) "reset" as well ... It seems that Private Cage (and Private Rita Wratkowski before him) had killed one of the "alpha" bug-like aliens and the molten orangish blood that had spilled on him gave him the ability to also bounce back in time (one day) following his apparent death.  She had lost her ability to do so:  To reset you have to truly DIE (and one time she had been merely wounded, and the blood transfusion that she received killed her ability to go back in time any more ...).

So now "the rules of the game"  are known by at least Rita, Private Cage and one other scientist, a Dr. Carter (played by Noah Taylor) who had somehow suspected that this was what the aliens were doing to win.  When Rita (during her near infinite number of reboots) ran into him, he the only one who believed her when she told him that she was not dying when she "died" but instead finding herself one day in the past to relive that day anew.  Together the three then set-about finding a way to (1) "get off the beach" during that invasion and (2) "find and kill the omega beatle."

The rest of the film follows ...

It's a fascinating movie, isn't it? ;-) Strange yes, but in its own way it _can_ lead the younger generations of TODAY to appreciate the total-war stakes that were involved during World War II as well as the reality that UNLIKE Private Cage and Private Wratkowski, the allied soldiers fighting the war DIDN'T have any chance at a do-over.  NORMANDY WAS FOR REAL where there wasn't the luxury to "learn from one's mistakes."  IT SIMPLY HAD TO WORK.

And thanks be to God that, after YEARS OF PLANNING AND TRAINING, THE "GREAT CRUSADE" OF NORMANDY DID, IN FACT, SUCCEED.

So God bless you WW II Allied War Veterans!  YOU REALLY DID SAVE OUR WORLD!


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The Constant Factor (orig. Constans) [1980]

MPAA (UR would be PG-13)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
Filmweb.PL listing*

Culture.pl article
en.wikipedia.org article*

Martin Scorsese Presents: Masterpieces of Polish Cinema: [MSP Website] [Culture.pl]


The Constant Factor (orig. Constans) [1980] [IMDb] [FW.pl]* [en.wikip] [pl.wikip]*(written and directed by Krzysztof Zanussi [IMDb] [FW.pl]* [Culture.pl] [en.wikip] [pl.wikip]*) is a "small" yet thought provoking / challenging film about a young man, an "every man," named Witold (played by Tadeusz Bradecki [IMDb] [FW.pl]*) who just wanted to lead an honest/meaningful life in a world of both randomness/uncertainty and seemingly endemic petty corruption.  The film won the Ecumenical Jury Prize at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival [IMDb] and played recently at Chicago's Gene Siskel Film Center as part of the Martin Scorsese Presents: Masterpieces of Polish Cinema.

Like the other films of Martin Scorsese's series on Polish Cinema, this film was made during the Communist Era in Poland, hence in the context of a more-or-less obvious censoring authority that would cause film makers trouble if they strayed too far into subject matters considered problematic or even "verbotten."

So how then to make a film that "pushes the envelope" without getting oneself into too much trouble?

Well what censoring authority could possibly object to a film about a young man, portrayed as a patriot -- in the beginning sequences of this film, we see the film's central protagonist, Witold (despite height / "small in stature" issues), pushing to serve his time in the military (at the time compulsory for all young men in Poland) as a PARATROOPER (voluntary, far beyond that required of the average young man) -- who just wanted to lead an honest life especially if the character is also portrayed as taking the requisite pot-shots against, that is largely rejecting, the primary competing ideologies of the time (western democracy/capitalism and the Catholic Church)?  How could a censoring authority object to such a film, even if the film _repeatedly_ exposed the contradictions in the system between its ideal and its lived out reality, when the film's hero presented as the system's ideal "young, proletarian every man" studiously puts himself squarely _against_ each-and-every-one of the failures / contradictions that the film presents?   Basically, how can a censoring authority oppose a film about someone who's "just trying to be honest?"  (Yes, these are the games that an artist has to play to get challenging/meaningful works made in a society dominated by a simultaneously insecure yet pretentious, totalitarian ideology). 

Yet, then, having jumped through the requisite "ideological hoops" to be made at all, a film about a young man simply seeking to lead an honest / meaningful life becomes a story about universal aspirations, hence this film's well deserved acclamations coming from outside of its original context.  (I suppose I'm expressing here a frustration with the whole of Scorsese's project.  Yes, almost every one of the films in this Poland under Communism film series is _great_ BUT I can't help but feel that they are "great" IN SPITE OF THE OPPRESSIVE CIRCUMSTANCES IN WHICH THEY WERE MADE.  And there have been plenty of excellent / great Polish films (and films from other former Soviet bloc lands) including Avé [2012] from Bulgaria, Chrzest [2010] from Poland, and Klauni [2013] from the Czech Republic, that I've reviewed here, that all tread similar ground as the current film but didn't require the ideological "hoop jumping" that so characterized Communist era film-making).

HOWEVER, then be all this as it may, young Witold found himself in this film confronting the same questions / challenges that would confront anyone seeking to make sense of the world and then seeking to make one's way through it honestly, whether one was born in Sparta or Athens, Babylon, Beijing, Mecca or Jerusalem of the ancient past, or Poland, India, the Netherlands or the United States of today: Life seems random / capricious at times.  Witold is haunted by the fact that his father, a mountain climber, had died of a seemingly random mountain climbing accident (on a Polish expedition to the Himilayas) when Witold was a child.  Then during the film Witold's mother comes down, again seemingly randomly, with cancer.

The caprciousness (random awfulness) of life however seems to be made worse, rather than better, by the petty corruption of people.  Witold lived in a socialist country.  It was supposed to be "All for One and One for All," right?  So when Witold's mother (played in the film by Zofia Mrozowska [IMDb] [FW.pl]*) lay in a bed in a drafty corridor of a hospital awaiting cancer treatment, it should not have required a bribe to get her into a decent room, right?  BUT APPARENTLY IT DID.  Realizing this, after getting nowhere with the doctor on duty, Witold, exasperated, becomes TOO BLUNT asking "Okay, how much do you want?  Just name a price."  The doctor, of course, leaves 'offended.'  The nurse on hand, Grażyna (played by Małgorzata Zajączkowska [IMDb] [FW.pl]*) who comes to be impressed by the surprisingly honest Witold, tells him "Look, you went about it the wrong way.  There's no talking. You just come with an envelope, preferably with dollars inside ..."  "But I don't have any dollars ..." Witold responds (that would clearly be a problem ...).  But then Witold recovers and askes tellingly if rhetorically, "Is the doctor short on money?  Does he really need it?"   Grażyna's expression says it all ("of course not..."), but she adds "He just expects it, because he can."  (ISN'T THAT THE TRUTH?  Right there is the origin of almost every abuse of power ... People are tempted to wield power _badly_ BECAUSE THEY CAN.  Indeed, the Latin root for the word power, potens, means EXACTLY THAT: "CAPACITY, TO BE ABLE TO").  So in a society where doctors, already in positions of power/prestige, use their power/prestige to shake down the loved ones of their patients, we can pretty much guess what eventually happens to Witold's mother... 

But the petty corruption of society isn't simply present in the hospitals (even if perhaps there, the consequences are most determinant), it occurs elsewhere.  Witold, who after leaving military service becomes an electrician, with a friend's help lands a job that actually offers him some outside/international travel ("WHAT A DEAL!" for someone from a Communist country where travel was often terribly restricted).  BUT ... Witold, good honest person that he was, actually didn't care much about the possibility of travel.  True, he didn't necessarily mind that his job gave him the opportunity to travel to India (where, in the Himilayas his father, had died previously).  HOWEVER, WHAT DID OFFEND HIS HONEST SENSIBILITY WAS THAT ALMOST EVERY OTHER WORKER IN HIS GROUP, INCLUDING HIS BOSS ROUTINELY OVERSTATED THEIR EXPENSES (pocketing the extra cash they'd receive on return for themselves).  So he asked his boss (played by Witold Pyrkosz [IMDb] [FW.pl]*): "DON'T YOU CARE that our tax-payers are paying for our travel overseas and when you _routinely_ overstate our expenses, THEY have to fork-up the money for that?"  (Of course he didn't, and neither did the other workers in the crew.  They did this, again ... BECAUSE THEY COULD).  So needless to say, Witold eventually had to get in trouble with his boss / co-workers ... and this couldn't end well for him in that regard ...

The society, nominally "socialist" mind you, was thus portrayed as one made-up of people mostly just gaming the system for themselves.

BUT EVEN BEYOND THIS, LIFE ITSELF SEEMS SO RANDOM, _INCONSTANT_, for Witold.  His father died in a fluke accident, his mother was dying of a random but uncompromising illness (cancer) AND NO ONE / NOTHING SEEMED TO HELP.  Near the end of her life, Witold, went to a priest -- the Catholic Church was portrayed in this film as something of a "relic of the past," inconvenient perhaps even embarrassing but still an unavoidable reality in Poland -- to ask if he could come to his mother to give her "Last Rites."  The priest corrected him, "The Sacrament is now called 'Announting of the Sick'" to which Witold responds: "Oh my, even the Church seems now to downplay the (One) Certainty of Dying." (It's actually an interesting criticism ...).

So where does Witold come to look for CONSTANCY in this world of capriciousness (randomness) and corruption?  Not in people (they are corrupt), not in religion (it's superstitious and even it changes with time), but in ... mathematics (where laws can be discerned but presumably remain constant).  He has some interesting discussions with a mathematics professor (played by Edward Żebrowski [IMDb] [FW.pl]*).  Together they discuss the possibility of being able to prove statistically (mathematically) that it is better to live an honest life -- less lies, less stress, less heart attacks, etc.

But the world with its capriciousness and corruption also has its say: The professor asks Witold if he ever considered getting a degree in mathematics to pursue such a study.  Witold, by then reduced to being a window washer on high rises, because he had gotten fired from his electrician job for refusing to go along with "cooking the books" with his boss and coworkers tells him that at this point he doubts he'd ever be allowed to enter the university.  And then even a job as a window-washer on high rises carries its own (random) hazards ...

This is, indeed, a story that would "make the Buddha proud."  An excellent, indeed haunting, visual reflection on impermanence, the central preoccupation of Buddhism, can be found in the film Samsara [2012] previously reviewed here).   My irritation with the current film is that it arrives at this place arguably by accident.

Finally, like several other films in Martin Scorsese's film series, the Polish film studio, TOV, that has the rights to the film has made it available (with English subtitles - click the "cc" option) FOR FREE ON YOUTUBE.  Despite my quite _many_ irritations with this film, only _some_ of which I list above (others include aesthetics -- Western viewers, please understand that the film-makers CHOSE to make this film "under grey skies and in incessant snow" FOR THE SAKE OF MOOD, Poland, certainly TODAY, is much prettier than shown in this film) the film's well _worth the view_.


* Reasonably good (sense) translations of non-English webpages can be found by viewing them through Google's Chrome browser. 

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Pharaoh (orig. Faraon) [1966]

MPAA (UR would be PG-13 / R)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing
Filmweb.PL listing*

Culture.pl article
pl.wikipedia.org article*

Martin Scorsese Presents: Masterpieces of Polish Cinema: [MSP Website] [Culture.pl]


Pharaoh (orig. Faraon) [1966] [IMDb] [FW.pl]* [Culture.pl] [en.wikip] [pl.wikip]* (directed and screenplay cowritten by Jerzy Kawalerowicz [IMDb] [FW.pl]* [Culture.pl] [en.wikip] [pl.wikip]*, along with Tadeusz Konwicki [IMDb] [FW.pl]*[Culture.pl] [en.wikip] [pl.wikip]*, based on the novel [en.wikip] [pl.wikip]* by Bolesław Prus [IMDb] [FW.pl]* [Culture.pl] [en.wikip] [pl.wikip]*) is an 1966 Oscar nominated (for Best Foreign Language Film) Polish "Speculative Fiction" / "Sword and Sandal" Epic that played recently here at Chicago's Gene Siskel Film Center as part of the Martin Scorsese Presents: Masterpieces of Polish Cinema.

American / Western viewers will find similarities between this film and BOTH Hollywood "sword and sandal" epics being made at the time like the Charlton Heston starring Ten Commandments [1956] (directed still by Cecil B. DeMille [IMDb]) and Ben Hur [1963], the Kirk Douglas / Lawrence Olivier starring (Stanley Kubrick [IMDb] directed) Spartacus [1960], and especially the Elizabeth Taylor / Richard Burton starring Cleopatra [1963] AS WELL AS the later much beloved and becoming enormously influential Sci-Fi ("speculative fiction" / "space opera") projects like Gene Roddenberry's original StarTrek [1966-] [IMDb] television series and George Lucas' Star Wars [1977-] [IMDb] film franchise.

I write this because whereas the Hollywood "Sword and Sandal" epics listed above tended to be based on historical and/or bibilical texts, Kawalerowicz' / Konwicki's film, based on Prus' original novel (written in the latter part of the 19th century), was far more speculative / allegorical in nature, having at least as much in common with Gene Roddenberry's Star-Trek series as R. Burton / E. Taylor's Cleopatra [1963].  Set at the time of a fictional Ramses XIII (played in the film by Jerzy Zelnik [IMDb] [FW.pl]*), sometime in the 11th century BCE, the story is a study of the power politics of the time (and a more or less obvious allegory to the late-19th century / 1960s European present): There were two regional super-powers Egypt and Assyria.  There were smaller states in between, notably Phoenicia and Israel (which the two "super-powers" sought to divide up among themselves), a state to the west already in Egypt's orbit (Libya) and "a distant realm over the horizon" (Greece) to which one of the characters during the course of the story actually defects.  The Pharoah, who seeks to lead a modern and militarily powerful state, is also held back by a powerful (and wealthy as well as educated) inherently far more cautious / conservative Ra-worshiping Priesthood. 

Add then that at the time of the filming, Egypt then under Gamal Abner Nasser was arguably a Soviet-bloc aligned client state (making filming there by a Polish film crew far easier than in years either before or after, though apparently most of the film was "filmed on location" in then Soviet Uzbekistan anyway, something that could be fascinating to American/Western viewers/readers in its own right).  It all makes for fascinating consideration by Cold War / 1960s (as well as ancient) history buffs.

Finally, LIKE MANY OF THE FILMS BEING SHOWN IN MARTIN SCORCESE'S SERIES ON POLISH CINEMA, the Polish film studio, KADR, that has the rights to the film has made it available (with English subtitles - click the "cc" option) FOR FREE on YouTube.  Honestly, WHAT A DEAL! 

I do hope that soon enough there will come to be way for the film studio to make at least some money off of making its films available in this way (the Amazon Instant Video service generally charges $2.99 for rental of equivalent American movies like this).  However, I'm VERY HAPPY that the film is available, LEGITIMATELY, for people to see, because IMHO it's well worth the viewing!


* Reasonably good (sense) translations of non-English webpages can be found by viewing them through Google's Chrome browser. 

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Cold in July [2014]

MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB ()  ChicagoTribune (3 Stars)  RE.com (2 Stars)  AVClub (B-)  Fr. Dennis (3 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB () review
ChicagoTribune (B. Sharkey) review
RE.com (S. Abrams) review
AVClub (A.A. Dowd) review

Cold in July [2014] (directed and screenplay cowritten by Jim Mackle along with Nick Damici based on the novel by Joe R. Lansdale [IMDb]) is a hard-R “Texas Noir” tale that’s not for the squeamish.   Then again, “Noir” films have never been exactly “light” in nature.  Indeed, the French didn’t coin them “Noir” (dark) for nothing.  Even in their golden age, in the 1940s-50s, these films tended to be descents into "black holes" of dysfunction and Evil that approached the unpresentable.  And at the center of a classic film noir story would always be some "unspeakable secret" that only upon its discovery would render the behavior those effected by it ("caught in its orbit") explicable.  Mores may change, but even today the 1950s films would leave most viewers with a shudder.

Okay, what's this story about?  The story set in 1989 begins with a random / regular East Texas couple, Richard and Ann Dane (played by Michael C. Hall and Vinessa Shaw), being woken-up in the middle of the night with the sound of an intruder inside their house.  Being (East) Texan, upon realizing that his house is probably being broken into, Richard jumps out of bed and heads quickly to the closet where he has his revolver.  Being a good, salt-of-the-earth East Texan, who follows good fire-arms safety practices, Richard keeps the revolver unloaded, with a small box of bullets nearby.  Most of us could probably relate to him as we watch him nervously, hands-shaking load his six-shooter with the requisite bullets before heading out the couple's bedroom to face whatever awaits him downstairs.  As he heads down the hall to the stairs, he stops to check on his young, 8-10 year old son in the bedroom next door (he's safe asleep) and then continues down the stairs ...

Below in the living room, he encounters an intruder, who, startled turns to face him.  Identifying him as someone he clearly did not know, Richard fires and shoots him in the head, dead.  Blood and pieces of bone/brains splatter on the wall behind the intruder and the intruder, becoming a bloody mess even as he drops, crumples onto a couch that the Danes had there against the wall.

The Danes call the police, who soon arrive.  Much of the night is taken-up with the police writing-up the crime scene.  The body's eventually taken away.  Richard is asked by the police to come to the station to give a statement, assured by the small town's chief of police (played by Nick Damici), a friend, that he didn't do anything but act in self-defense.  So he goes down to the station, the chief of police himself takes his statement.  And finally, near dawn, Richard returns home.

The film documents then quite well the next day's small town chaos.  Richard and Ann again are "regular people" living in a "regular town."  So the story of a local resident / neighbor / friend, shooting a burglar in his house quickly becomes news all across town.  Richard goes into a diner and everyone wants to buy him breakfast.  Ann, a middle-school teacher, is rather irritated that all her 7th graders want her to talk about is about how her husband "blew-away the burglar."  And then they have a kid in 3rd or 4th grade and a house with blood and bits of the burglar's head sill splattered on back wall of the living room, a couch and possibly a carpet ruined by said burglar's blood and various photos and other keepsakes splattered by blood as well.  Taking care of all that awaits them when they get home.

I found the film's documentation of this unwanted yet necessary if also rather distasteful "chore" of "cleaning up the mess" remarkably well done.  And it's another invitation to the audience to identify with this "regular family."  It clearly had to "suck" to have to clean-up the house after this terrible, violent and thankfully _brief_ incident (that could have actually ended worse) that took place in their home: Richard comes home with a new couch in the bed of his truck.  Ann rolls her eyes because he's, of course, bought the wrong couch (with a rather ugly gold and black checkered motif) when "they had decided" that the new couch should have had the same, more cheerful, pastel colored "flowery motiff" as the old one had (the one now covered in blood...).   While Richard was out quickly buying the wrong couch, Ann's also called over workmen to repaint the famous 'blood-splattered wall," behind the once flowery, now blood drenched couch that they have to get rid of.  As Richard enters with the poorly considered new couch, we see one of the workmen dutifully "plastering over the bullet hole" left in the wall ...

Admitedly, I've gone to town here describing the first part of the movie, because, truth be told, if the story had happened to us or to a neighbor and just ended here, it'd still be remembered "as an event" to be recalled in family and neighborhood lore for years to come AND YET, THIS WAS JUST THE PROLOGUE TO THE PROLOGUE TO THE STORY TO COME.

The story descends to a new, "Cape Fearish" level when Richard stops by the police station a day or two later and told by his friend, the chief of police, that (1) some church chipped in to buy a casket for the burglar that Richard had shot dead in his living room and the burial was to take place at some cemetery outside of town later that day, and (2) that the crook that Richard shot dead was the son of some felon recently released after serving many, many years in jail: "The s*&t doesn't fall far from the tree" the chief of police adds.

Richard, good decent Southern Man that he is (Lynyrd Skynyrd honestly could have made a song about him), decides to go out to the cemetery to see the poor guy that he had shot dead being buried.  A pastor's there, the grave diggers are there, and ... well, so is the dead burglar's "dad" (played to a truly well-calibrated level of "troubled-ness" by Sam Shepard).  "Dad" might not have been there for his son since, "oh, about the age of your's there Richard" (A picture of Richard, Ann and their eight year old son had made the local paper in the hoopla of the recent days' past..) but ... he kinda felt he need to "set things right" for him now that he (dad) was out (and his son's now tragically dead).

Now what the heck would "setting things right" mean in this context to this poor, quite scary-looking recently released felon?  Was he threatening Richard?  Kinda looked like it.  The poor dead burglar's dad (named actually Russell) starts hanging out by Richard's son's school, breaks into their house again (but as a former time-serving felon, he seemed to be "more professional" and certainly "less noisy" about it ...).  Eventually, Richard heads over to the police station "for protection," which the chief of police, again a friend, is quick to offer / provide. 

HOWEVER ... when Richard's there in the police station, filing the requisite paperwork for an Order of Protection he notices on the board the "Wanted Poster" still with the name of the burglar that he supposedly shot in his house.  And he quickly tells his friend, the town's chief of police, "Hey is this the guy who I supposedly shot?  He doesn't look ANYTHING like the burglar that I killed in my house." "Well, it's an old, poorly made mug-shot." "Nah, the shot's not that poor.  He's a totally different guy."  "Richard, no, you shot this guy."

Okay, you get the picture ... the rest of the story follows.  During the rest of the story that follows, Richard's able to convince the rather scary, disturbed, but mostly old, Russell (the "dad" of the "son" that he supposedly shot dead in his living room) that he really didn't kill his son.  And that, of course, would take some convincing since both Richard and Russell saw someone being buried in that pine box in that cemetery that fateful aftertoon when they met.  So (1) who did Richard actually kill? And (2) if Russell's son wasn't in that box, where was he? 

To help them out, Russell calls an old friend, perhaps his only remaining friend, a buddy he served with in the Korean War named Jim Bob (played again quite well by aging Miami Vice alum Don Johnson).  He "arrives in style," driving a big "Texas sized" red cadilac convertible with Texas Long Horn" horns on the front of it, and well, works as a "private eye."

What does Jim Bob dig up?  A story, that's IMHO still worthy of the lengthy set-up.  For yes folks, THIS STORY IS STILL NOT NEARLY YET OVER.  There are still a number of levels more to descend in this tale of increasing corruption and, as the levels go deeper, increasing depravity.

And I write this because a truly noirish story worthy of the genre could not end with simply at the doorstep of an incompetent and perhaps somewhat corrupt "small town police department."  That's small potatoes.  For the secret to descent into truly UNSPEAKABLE territory, to be truly depraved, it has to go deeper than that.  And ... it does.  And IMHO the film does leave the viewer new, rather visceral insight into how "the Law" could be co-opted into the service of Crime (and why Southerners are often SO SKEPTICAL of Government / "the Law")  And then if the Criminals are protected by "the Law" how far their Crimes can go?   Well ... purty far ...

Again, this film is certainly not for the li'l ones nor for the squeamish (by the end, the film is certainly  a hard-R) but it's also not without its point.


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A Million Ways to Die In the West [2014] / Malificient [2014]

As part of my contribution to our parish's participation in the Archdiocese of Chicago's Campaign "To Teach Who Christ Is," I've decided to forgo seeing (and therefore reviewing here) one or two movies a weekend and instead contribute the money I would have spent to the campaign.

I'm trying to be strategic about this, picking movies that would "hurt somewhat" to miss, that is, films that are not "so bad" that I wouldn't see them anyway nor movies that I really would need to see/review or else my blogging effort would cease to be worthwhile.

As per my custom, I will try to provide links to usual line-up of reviews that I also consider as I write my own.

This week, the films I chose not to see / review here are:

A Million Ways to Die in the West [2014] - MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB (O)  ChicagoTribune (1/2 Star)  Chicago SunTimes (B-)  RE.com (1 Star)  AVClub (C-)

Maleficient [2014] - MPAA (PG)  CNS/USCCB ()  ChicagoTribune (2 1/2 Stars)  RE.com (3 Stars)  AVClub (C+)


While I considered seeing A Million Ways to Die in the West [2014] in some solidarity with a fair number of parishioners that I know will probably go see the film (and I have seen / reviewed some fairly raunchy films here in the past, notably Bad Teacher [2011] (in solidarity with our school teachers), Seth McFarland's previous film Ted [2012] and Movie 43 [2013] a almost total gross-out fest) I honestly could not bring myself to shell out the money to see this one, especially since I'd give the money to the campaign.

But since I was going to forgo A Million Ways ..., I couldn't bring myself to see Maleficient [2014] either, as the film seemed to me to be something of a second-tier Disney venture of doubtful purpose.  Question: When, if ever, is the musical Wicked going to be made into a film?  In the past couple of years, Disney has produced not one but two Wizard of Oz [1939] [IMDb] based films (Oz the Great and Powerful [2013] and Dorothy's Return [2013] both reviewed here) and it would seem that the concept behind Maleficient [2014] is basically the concept behind the story of Wicked only that the back-story being told is that of the "wicked queen" from the Sleeping Beauty [1959] [IMDb] story instead of that of the "Wicked Witch of the West" of the "Oz" universe.

However, I'm pretty certain that a number of our younger school / CCD kids are going to see Maleficient [2014] this weekend.  So I'll be asking them what they thought of the film and depending on what they say, perhaps put up a few of their comments about it here ;-).

Anyway, these are the the two films that I'm forgoing this weekend in support of our parish's campaign ;-)

A Short Film about Killing (orig. Krótki film o zabijaniu) [1987]

MPAA (UR would be R)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing
Filmweb.pl listing*

Culture.pl article about film

Martin Scorsese Presents: Masterpieces of Polish Cinema: [MSP Website] [Culture.pl]


A Short Film about Killing (orig. Krótki film o zabijaniu) [1987] [IMDb] [FW.pl]* (directed and cowritten by Krzysztof Kieślowski [IMDb] [FW.pl]*[en.wikip] [pl.wikip]* along with Krzysztof Piesiewicz [IMDb] [FW.pl]*[en.wikip] [pl.wikip]*) is a critically acclaimed / award winning film that played recently at the Gene Siskel Film Center here in Chicago as part of the Martin Scorsese Presents: Masterpieces of Polish Cinema film series touring currently in various parts of the U.S. 

A small yet very well-acted / crafted film made late in the Communist Era (Mikhail Gorbachev was already heading the Soviet Union and Polish Solidarity Union leader Lech Walesa was already released from prison / active once more in opposing the Communist regime), the film offers IMHO an excellent example of the kind of film, even "issue oriented film," that's possible even under otherwise restrictive / oppressive circumstances.  (Another example such small but certainly poignant even powerful film-making would be The Bright Day (orig. Rooz-e Roshan) [2013] an excellent recent Iranian film that covers much of the same ground as this film and which also played a number of months back at the Gene Siskel Film Center as part of its annual survey of contemporary Iranian Cinema).

The film here is very simple.  It has two central (both young) protagonists: Piotr Balicki (played by Krzysztof Globisz [IMDb] [FW.pl]*) a young lawyer who recently passed his (oral...) examination to Poland's (still Communist era) Bar, and Jacek Lazar (played by Mirosław Baka [IMDb] [FW.pl]*) an angry and confused barely 20-something youth.  Yes, "Lazar" would be Polish for Lazarus, invoking not so much Jesus' friend who Jesus raised from the dead (John 11) but "the poor man Lazarus" of Luke's parable (Lk 16:19-31).

Well one day angry and confused Jacek strangles and then bludgeons to death a random taxi driver (played by Jan Tesarz [IMDb] [FW.pl]*) to take his car in hopes of impressing a girl his age (played by Barbara Dziekan [IMDb] [FW.pl]*).  Most Cinemaphiles here would probably immediately appreciate why Martin Scorsese, whose breakthrough and similarly gut-wrenching film was Taxi Driver [1976] about a similarly aliened young man (played by a still very young Robert De Niro) trying to impress a young woman (played by a still very young Jodi Foster), would be impressed by this film that was almost certainly inspired at least in part by his.

So ... newbie lawyer Piotr is asked to defend Jacek  But Justice is generally quite swift in authoritarian regimes.  So there really wasn't much of a defense to be made: Sitting in the back seat of the taxi-driver's taxi, Jacek did direct the taxi-driver to take him out to a rather isolated area at the outskirts of Warsaw.  He did then try to strangle the taxi-driver with a clothesline and when that didn't work, he went to the trunk, got out the tire-iron, and bashed the taxi-driver with it.  Finally, he dragged the taxi-driver (tied up now with the above mentioned clothesline) to the (presumably) Vistula River and dumped him, still semi-conscious, into the River, where he presumably drowned.  Jacek _did_ commit a gruesome crime.  Found self-evidently guilty ... he was meted-out the Death Sentence for it.

But ... somehow a part of the Story appeared to not be told (or certainly the State / System was not interested in hearing) ... WHY would Jacek do such a terrible thing?

In the utter absence of telling / hearing of the story, the audience then is treated to a similarly gruesome portayal of Jacek's execution (by hanging).  Piotr does come to see Jacek prior to his execution.  Jacek does give Piotr (and thus the audience) a few tantalizing glimpses into his own story (that the Court had been utterly uninterested in) BUT THAT'S CUT SHORT.  After a time, the warden orders the guards to come in, who bind Jacek and then drag him (screaming and crying ... he is barely 20 years old ...) to the noose where they hang him.  A bowl had set neatly below the noose to collect any excrement that Jacek might let loose before expiring ...  

So the State / Society did to Jacek almost exactly what Jacek did that random taxi-driver.  And one's left asking, what was the point of disposing of Jacek in this way?  Yes, he was a murderer, but somewhere in there he had also been a human being too.

Since the film was studiously _non-political_ -- Jacek was portrayed as just a random, confused, angry young man, who committed a terribly and tragically stupid crime for a terribly tragic reason (to try to impress a girl) -- there was no reason for the State to ban (or cause trouble in the making of) this film.

But at the end of the film, one's left honestly with one's jaw dropped open asking/saying: "Wow."

Powerful film.


This film is actually available FOR FREE (with the option of having English captions) on the Studio Filmowe TOR's Youtube Channel.


* Reasonably good (sense) translations of non-English webpages can be found by viewing them through Google's Chrome browser. 

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Eroica [1957]

MPAA (UR would be PG-13)  Fr. Dennis (2 Stars)

IMDb listing
Filmweb.PL listing*

CSFD.cz listing*
Kinopoick.ru listing*

Culture.pl article
pl.wikipedia.org article*

Martin Scorsese Presents: Masterpieces of Polish Cinema: [MSP Website] [Culture.pl]

Eroica [1957] [IMDb] [FW.pl]*[en.wikip] [pl.wikip]* (directed by Andrzej Munk [IMDb] [FW.pl]*[en.wikip] [pl.wikip]*, screenplay by Jerzy Stefan Stawiński [IMDb] [FW.pl]*[en.wikip] [pl.wikip]*) which played recently at the Gene Siskel Film Center here in Chicago as part of the Martin Scorsese Presents: Masterpieces of Polish Cinema film tour playing in various parts of the U.S., proved to be a frustrating film for me.

On the one hand, I can immediately see how someone in film school in the United States in the late-1960s (during the height of the Vietnam War and its attendant with anti-War protests) would find this film appealing along with the apparent general thrust of the "1950s Polish Film School" with its rather iconoclastic / deconstructive portrayals of "old school" patriotism / war-time heroism.  I can easily imagine Eroica [1957] presented at a symposium or festival alongside similarly iconoclastic American films like Stanley Kubrick's Doctor Strangelove [1964], Mike Nichols' Catch-22 [1970] and Robert Altman's M.A.S.H. [1970] (and it's entirely possible that any or all of these American films could have been even been influenced by Andrzej Munk's film).

However be that as it may, as someone who does come from a former Soviet-bloc ancestry (as readers of my blog would know, my family was mostly Czech, my parents having left Czechoslovakia during the Communist Era), it's clear-as-day to me that even if this film was made sincerely (and Poles suffered enormously during World War II, hence there could have been plenty of Poles who had seen many/most of their relatives killed and almost everything that they held dear destroyed in the war who would have had no great love for "wartime valor") that this film which largely lampoons pre-Soviet Era (STILL INDEPENDENT) Polish nationalism more-or-less OBVIOUSLY worked to further the aims of the PRO-SOVIET POLISH COMMUNIST REGIME THAT WAS IN POWER IN POLAND WHEN THIS FILM WAS MADE.

And let's face it, it would not have been easy to make MEANINGFUL FILMS in post-WW II Poland that would still defend / further the aims of the post-WW II Soviet imposed Polish Communist regime.

Why?  Well the Soviet Army SLAUGHTERED 5,000 POLISH OFFICER P.O.W.s in the forests of Katyń [en.wikip] [pl.wikip]* [ru.wikip]* (while Stalin was still AN ALLY OF HITLER'S) and then STOOD BY AND WATCHED THE NAZIS SLAUGHTER 200,000 Poles mostly civilians in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising [en.wikip] [pl.wikip]* [ru.wikip]* (even though it had called on the Poles to rise against the Nazi oppressors).  So how does one go about trying to set-aside this ABSOLUTELY HORRENDOUS HISTORICAL FACT?  Well ... one tries to portray the Polish Home Army [en.wikip] [pl.wikip]* [ru.wikip]* that led the revolt as hopelessly disorganized, led by self-serving even egotistical Polish officers, who did not want to cooperate with others (including presumably the Soviets who, well, given that kind of leadership ... "presumed not to help" ...).

This film, in two parts, lampoons (in Part 1) the disorganization of the Polish Home Army [en.wikip] [pl.wikip]* [ru.wikip]* during the Warsaw Uprising [en.wikip] [pl.wikip]* [ru.wikip]* and (in Part 2) the egotism and pettiness of Polish officer Prisoners of War (the officers who presumably led Poland's army as WW II began and the officers that the Soviet NKVD put bullets into the heads of out in the forests of Katyń [en.wikip] [pl.wikip]* [ru.wikip]*).

Now honestly, in war, just about everything gets FUBAR.  That's true.  But note WHO IS NOT CRITICIZED AT ALL IN THIS FILM... the "Glorious Soviet Army."   And one would have to be an idiot to not see that as INTENTIONAL (after all, the Polish Communist security apparatus was looking over the shoulders of the Polish film makers making this film ... and the NKVD was looking over the shoulders of the Polish Communist security apparatus ... SUCH WAS POLAND IN 1957).

Then ... honestly, during the Vietnam War when all kinds of well-meaning, idealistic AMERICAN FILM STUDENTS WERE PISSED OFF AT THE U.S. GOVERNMENT / MILITARY FOR SCREWING THINGS UP IN VIETNAM ... A POLISH FILM LIKE THIS COULD HAVE BEEN REALLY APPEALING ("Hey those guys ... all the way in Poland .... understand").

But ... once more, honestly, what's missing in a presentation like this is a recognition that while films from the Polish Film School of the 1950s MAY HAVE INFLUENCED AMERICAN FILM MAKERS LIKE Stanley Kubrick [IMDb], Francis Ford Coppola [IMDb], and/or Martin Scorsese [IMDb] IN THE 1960s and 70s ... THE POLISH FILM SCHOOL APPARENTLY DIDN'T HAVE ANY MEANINGFUL IMPACT AT ALL ON SOVIET (or even TODAY'S RUSSIAN) FILM MAKERS.

Just about every country in the world seems to be capable of making films critical of its government / military EXCEPT THE RUSSIANS.

And as we applaud the ingenuity of the "Polish Film School" that had been struggling under the constraints of Soviet Domination, we should honestly ask why, a generation after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Russia, which used to dominate Poland during the Soviet Era, while geographically "smaller," remains artistically as oppressive as it's always been.

When will a Russian "Eroica" or "M.A.S.H." be made??


One final question: How to get this film?  In the United States many of the films being shown as part of Martin Scorsese Presents: Masterpieces of Polish Cinema can be rented through the mail-rental service offered by Facets Multimedia in Chicago.  Many of Andrzej Munk's films can be purchased (though often only in PAL / Region-1 format) via Amazon.com.

Additionally, excellent films / documentaries on the Warsaw Uprising [en.wikip] [pl.wikip]* [ru.wikip]* and the Katyń Massacre [en.wikip] [pl.wikip]* [ru.wikip]* include a joint BBC / Polish documentary directed by Wonda Koscia entitled Battle for Warsaw '44 [2005] (available presently, probably w/o permission, on YouTube) and Andrzej Wayda's Oscar-nominated Katyń [2007] available (presently FOR FREE) on IMDb via Hulu.com.


* Reasonably good (sense) translations of non-English webpages can be found by viewing them through Google's Chrome browser. 

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