Some Fritz Lang for November

Fury (1936), directed by Fritz Lang. This is Lang’s first American film, and like his magnificent film M (1931), Fury deals with justice, revenge, mob rule, and human ugliness. The plot is loosely based on an incident that took place in 1933, the same incident that is the basis for the later film Try and Get Me (aka The Sound of Fury ,1950). Lang’s film has an unusual structure, the first half or so dealing with common man Joe Wilson (Spencer Tracy) and his fiancé, Katherine Grant (Sylvia Sidney) who are working to save money for their wedding. Joe finds himself mistaken for a kidnapper and murderer and jailed for trial. The next turn in the narrative presents the local townspeople growing more and more furious and then forming a mob. The mob attacks the police station and burns it down with Joe inside. We have yet another narrative turn when we discover that Joe has not perished in the conflagration. He turns up at his brothers’ place and initiates revenge. Twenty-two members of the mob are indicted and put on trial for murder. The film has Lang’s cynical take on humanity in full form. Perhaps not the most visually impressive of Lang’s films, Fury nevertheless delivers a dark work in purposeful black and white photography. This is a chilling portrait of human stupidity. People are quick to judge and easily brought to frenzy by a few rabble-rousers. The scenes in which the mob attacks the precinct are eerily familiar after the events of January 6, 2021.

 

Woman in the Window (1944), directed by Fritz Lang. This is Lang’s dry-run for the following year’s Scarlet Street. Woman in the Window has its moments. It opens with a scene in a lecture hall, the psychology professor Richard Wanley (Edward G. Robinson) intoning about the various types of murder, premeditated, accidental, manslaughter, etc. On the blackboard behind him we see the name Freud. This is a clue to the focus of the film on the good professor’s psychological state and also on his middle-aged libido. If we miss the point, then the following scene with the professor having drinks with two friends at his club underlines the theme of middle-aged men who worry about their waning sex lives. Professor Wanley, indeed. Suffice to say, the film has ingredients of noir such as a woman in the night (not, however, the standard femme fatale), a man trapped by his own missteps, rainy nights and dark streets, and a thug on the make. And yet, this concoction makes for more of a melodrama than a menacing noir, and a somewhat light melodrama at that. Robinson’s professor is a mixture of timidity, resolve, naivete, loyalty, and anxiety. He bumbles along, at times incriminating himself in front of his two friends, one a doctor and the other the District Attorney who is on a murder case that has everything to do with Professor Wanley. Did I forget to mention that a murder takes place, and the murder involves that woman in the window and the professor? Lang handles everything with a sure directorial hand, even the somewhat wry ending.

 

Scarlet Street (1945), directed by Fritz Lang. Christopher Cross (Edward G. Robinson) is a mild-mannered, unassuming, cashier who has worked at the same place for twenty-five years. He has a harridan for a wife, and to find solace from the drudgery of everyday, he takes to painting on Sundays. This is the second of Lang’s films with Robinson, Joan Bennett, and Dan Duryea. Both films have something to do with painting. Here the painting proves more of a plot catalyst than in the previous film. Late one night, Cross encounters two people, a man and a woman, quarreling on a dark street. The man strikes the woman more than once, and Cross intervenes. Thus begins his descent into darkness. This woman, Katherine ‘Kitty’ March (Bennett), proves much more fatal than her counterpart in Woman in the Window. She and her beau, Johnny Prince (Duryea), set out to bilk poor Mr. Cross for all they can. As things go along, they discover that Cross’s painting, painting Cross thinks are worthless, prove to be a cash cow beyond their wildest dreams. Kitty soon passes herself off as the artist, while hapless Christopher toils away painting one work after another. As one character notes in a comment about Cross’s paintings, “he has no perspective,” and this is true both of his painting and his grasp on life. This milquetoast proves no match for Kitty and her abusive boyfriend. As you would expect, things keep on going south, until we have death and dissolution. Things do not end well for Mr. Cross or for the other two. This is noir at its darkest. We also have wry jokes, such as the apartment Cross rents for Kitty, an apartment once lived in by one Diego Rivera. Yes, that Rivera. Christopher Cross is no Diego Rivera, although once Kitty claims to be the creator of these his paintings the art world finds them worth lots of money. Greed, duplicity, desire, and failure are at the heart of this film.

 A few from October.

Island of Lost Souls (1932), directed by Erle C. Kenton. This is an adaptation of H. G. Wells’s The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896), with Charles Laughton as the redoubtable Doctor. Wally Westmore’s makeup work stands out in this one. The film also stands as one of the most devastating examinations of colonial brutality and hubris that we have. Moreau remarks at one moment on the feeling of being God. His macabre scientific quest to make animals human results in the House of Pain, and in a set of rules that include not letting blood and not eating meat. Moreau rules his island by fear, with his snapping whip and pistol. This is Paramount’s entry into the early 1930s horror sweepstakes, and it has elements of White Zombie of the same year and Frankenstein from the year earlier. The creation of the island jungle with peering faces between the fronds is impressive. The film’s only soundtrack consists of the howls and screams and groans of pain we hear from the creatures the bad doctor vivisects. This is a chilling portrait of the evil of power-hungry colonialists. Charles Laughton is smarmy and sinister. His creation of Lota, the Panther Woman, is his greatest achievement, or so he thinks. The presence of Lota allows for the film to suggest libidinous acts, forbidden attraction, and so on and so on. We also have Bela Lugosi, barely recognizable beneath his facial hair, hirsute beyond excess. “Are we not men?” he intones as only Bela Lugosi can intone.

 

House of Dracula (1945), directed by Erle C. Kenton. The opening scene of this film shows a bat flying toward the window of a bedroom in which a fetching female sleeps uneasily. The bat hovers outside the window, and then morphs into a tall gentleman in tails and a top hat. This is Dracula (John Carradine). My first though was – where did the top hat come from? This silliness sets up a film filled with silliness. Not only does Dracula make an appearance, so too do Larry Talbot, the Wolf Man, and Frankenstein’s monster. Instead of Igor, the assistant with the humped back, we have Nina (Jane Adams), Dr. Edlemann’s assistant with the humped back. Those familiar with the horror films of the 1930s might also recognize Jekyll and Hyde in the character of Dr. Edlemann (Onslow Stevens). The plot, such as it is, has Dracula and the Wolf Man seeking the aid of Dr. Edlemann; both say they wish to be cured of the curse that plagues them. Dracula, however, really just wants to seduce the fetching female he saw in the film’s first scene. This is Miliza (Martha O’Driscoll), the doctor’s nurse. The local town’s people are a ragged lot eager to burn things. Then there is the stalwart Police Inspector Holtz (Lionel Atwill). The gang’s all here, and having fun. I neglected to credit Lon Chaney, Jr. as Larry Talbot and Glenn Strange as Frankenstein. This is the final installment in Universal’s cycle of horror films that began so well with Frankenstein and then Dracula, both in 1931.

 

The Undying Monster (1942), directed by John Brahm. If you are looking for a film with atmosphere, an atmosphere dripping with dread, an atmosphere expressive of uncanny things, then this is the film for you. The first of three ‘horror’ films Brahm made for 20th-Century Fox in the forties, The Undying Monster is a werewolf story with more interest in place and people than in the werewolf itself. Lucien Ballard’s sharp contrast cinematography, lighting, and low angles give the film an expressionistic look as good as we have. Clearly, Fox was setting out to rival the horror films coming from Universal Studios, and in Brahm they found the director who could deliver the goods. Darkness pervades the action, darkness and starkness. The plot involves an old family curse (ho-hum) and we have the requisite large mansion by the sea with mysterious butler and housekeeper, a suspicious doctor, a police detective from London who knows a thing or two about science, his sidekick who here is (unconventionally) a lively woman who thinks she knows a thing or two about the occult. Then we have the brother and sister whose family suffers the curse. The mixture may be familiar, but the execution (if I may) is most satisfying. This is a good film to begin the October festival of film.

 

The Lodger (1944), directed by John Brahm. First made in 1926 by Alfred Hitchcock, The Lodger visits us again in this 1944 feature directed by Brahm. The Hitchcock film has the famous glass ceiling/floor through which we see the Lodger pacing restlessly in his room above stairs. The Brahm, film has the gothic effects of labyrinthine streets, wet and foggy, and canted angles with harsh lighting, reflections and shadows. The expressionistic sensibility here is impressive, as we would expect from Brahm. The story is a fictional account of Jack the Ripper, told mostly from the Ripper’s point of view. The staging is elaborate. Complete with dance numbers fronted by Merle Oberon, the female lead who becomes the centre of Mr. Slade’s (the Ripper’s) attention. This is a monster movie without a monster in the sense of a creature such as a werewolf or a vampire or a mummy or a homemade creature. What is stunningly effective is the end of the film when Mr. Slade finds himself cornered with his back to a large window that leads out to the river Thames. With knife in hand, eyes wide and piercing with fear and rage, Mr. Slade confronts his adversaries as they crowd closer to him. Here the seemingly mild-mannered gentleman reveals the beast in him without the benefit of special makeup. As many have pointed out, this film blends the later Hammer Horror atmosphere with Psycho, ten to fifteen years before the Hammer films began to appear and before Hitchcock’s famous thriller. Laird Cregar as Mr. Slade manages to be powerful, sensitive, beastly, gentlemanly, attractive, and repulsive. This is a masterful performance. Cregar made just one more film before dying at the age of 30.

 

Hangover Square (1945), directed by John Brahm. A slim Laird Cregar plays classical composer/pianist George Harvey Bone in his final film. Made to follow the success of Cregar’s previous film, The Lodger, this film has many of the same actors and offers a similar period atmosphere. Whereas water is the important element in The Lodger, fire takes the prominent role here. Mr. Slade in The Lodger finds water soothing, inviting, and restful; indeed, he takes his final rest in the Thames. George Bone, on the other hand, uses fire to burn away his frustrations, to release his libidinous energy. Both films play with scandalous (for the time, anyway) sexuality and fire and water offer clues to this sexuality. In Hangover Square we also have the road works with the deep trench and the Guy Fawkes bonfire (40 feet high, if I remember correctly) as reminders of the workings of the id. Like many films made in the mid 20th century, Hangover Square takes an interest in the workings of the mind. In other words, Freud and his talking cure play a role here. Cregar, as always, is impressive, if somewhat gaunt. Linda Darnell is suitably irritating as the vamp who sucks Mr. Bone’s creative energy until he has one of his ‘fits.’ The two films Brahm made with Cregar are all worth viewing for the performances, the mis en scene, and the ambiance of terror.

 

Tarantula (1955), directed by Jack Arnold. During the 1930s Universal Studio has the famous five: Frankenstein, Dracula, The Wolf Man, The Mummy, and The Invisible Man. During the 1950s, Universal had Jack Arnold. Arnold made some if the best creature and horror films  of that decade, and Tarantula is one of them. Perhaps not as impressive as The Incredible Shrinking Man or The Creature from the Black Lagoon, Tarantula nevertheless has clever special effects and a story that resonates. The story foregrounds population growth (rather funny given the location of the story in small town Arizona), and the possibility of food shortage to feed the burgeoning number of people on the planet. Professor Gerald Deemer (Leo G. Carroll) has concocted a nutrient that causes animals to grow at an accelerated pace. Of course, one of these animals, a tarantula, escapes and goes on a rampage in the Arizona desert. Mayhem ensues until Clint Eastwood flying a jet equipped with napalm arrives to sort things out. Along the way, we have a country doctor who suspects strange goings on in the desert (John Agar as Dr. Matt Hastings), and a young woman scientist who assists Professor Deemer (Mara Corday as Stephanie ‘Steve’ Clayton). Finally, we have three cases of acromegalia in humans, including the good Professor. The film has quite an effective opening with a man wandering the desert. When he turns to the camera, we see a distorted face. The film is about acromegalia or giantism run wild. It is also not a film for those with arachnophobia. 

 Ozu again.

Early Spring (1956), directed by Yasujiro Ozu. Ozu is one of the truly great film makers. His work is remarkably consistent and consistently beautiful. Early Spring comes after his best-known film, Tokyo Story (1953), and it focuses on the "salaryman," a white-collar worker or office worker, the type of worker who rises early, shaves, and catches the commuter train into the city day after day. Shoji (Ryo Ikebe) is the main character. He is married to Masako (Chicago Awashima). They have had one child who has died. While on a Sunday walk in the country with fellow workers, Shoji strikes up a relationship with Goldfish, a young woman with designs on Shoji. Soon they are having an affair that puts Shoji's marriage in jeopardy. The characters are all young or middle-aged workers, employees of a fire brick manufacturing company. This film lacks the inter-generational conflicts that dominate so many of Ozu's films, but it does remain focused on family life in that the main concern is marriage. We have the signature Ozu style with static camera, clear compositional lines, especially horizontals in the way of doorways, windows, walls, corridors, narrow streets, signs, chimneys, telephone poles, and so on. As always with Ozu, we view the world from just about two or three feet above the floor or ground, except for one or two crane shots such as one showing workers walking through the bus parking lot (see below). Ozu's camera delivers a stillness that often accentuates the tensions emotions the characters try to contain. The still camera is nicely at odds with the moving of the state of things. This is post war Japan just entering the modern industrial world. To cope with this world, characters do a lot of drinking. The gathering of people to drink, party, or play mahjong is one of the many attractions of Ozu's world.

Tokyo Twilight (1957), directed by Yasujiro Ozu. There is a scene in this film that sets the tone. This scene is unlike anything I might expect from Ozu. The action takes place in a dark nightclub. People sit about in the shadows with their drinks looking moody and holding secrets. Well they look moody and secretive, not their drinks. On the rear wall is a large picture of Robert Mitchum. Yes, really. The scene plays like something from an American film noir. The police come to take a young woman away. Of course Tokyo Twilight has the trademarks of Ozu's work: unmoving camera, insistence on verticals and blocked compositions, interest in family and also generations, and a quiet insistence on the importance of everyday commonality. But this film has a darkness not often found in Ozu's work. Here we have adultery, abortion, single parenthood (both a single father and a single mother), and an apparent suicide. All this plays out in Ozu's world of narrow streets and alleys, small rooms, skylines of wires and telephone poles and signs, and so on. I found the story compelling, that is until the final 15 or 20 minutes. It is not that the final moments of the film disappoint from a narrative standpoint; it is simply that Ozu drags out the denouement far too long, or at least far too long for my patience. Make no mistake, these long moments are important and moving. It is just that they would have been more moving had they been shorter. Let me just conclude by saying this crepuscular story is well worth your attention.

Late Autumn (1960), directed by Yasujiro Ozu. Transition is once again front and centre in this gentle but compelling Ozu film. On the soundtrack I detected the strains of music from The Beggar’s Opera and at first I thought this strange. But Frances points out that despite the veneer of gentility and warmth, the knives are out in the interplay of generations and genders here. The young woman, Ayako (Yoko Tsukasa) is determined not to marry and leave her widowed mother Akiko (Setsuko Hara). She does not wish to leave her mother alone, and she does not wish to marry at the insistence of three older men who, without asking, meddle in the affairs of this mother and daughter. Ayako expresses her independence. And yet when the possibility of her mother remarrying surfaces, Ayako becomes intensely resistant. Here she follows the old ways. In other words, she is caught between the past and the future. Two thirds of the way through the film the focus shifts to a friend and co-worker of Ayako’s, Yuriko (Mariko Okada). Yuirko lets the three older gentlemen who have set out to arrange marriages just how meddling and intrusive and impertinent they are, and she does so in no uncertain terms. This is quintessential Ozu, quiet, intense, gentle but emotional, and deeply human. As always, his camera underscores the meaningful stillness of things. And as one of Ozu’s few colour films, Late Autumn never forgets that one spot of red to set thing off. The final shot is bittersweet as it rests on Akiko and her sad smile.

 Three by Ozu.

The Only Son (1936), directed by Yasujiro Ozu. I have probably said this before, but I will say it again: Ozu is the most exquisite director I know. His films are consistently intense, minimal, probing, reflexive, painterly, delicate, subtle, and downright beautiful. Ozu’s style is unique, his placement of the camera low and fixed. The Only Son is another film about family, here a family of two, a single mother and her only son. They live in some poverty and the mother hopes to see her son get an education and become a success. The son leaves for school in Tokyo and becomes a night-school teacher, a humble job that pays barely subsistence wages. The shots of the machines at which the mother works are reminders of the daily round of drudgery workers experience. The shots of clothing and fabric hung on clotheslines and flapping like rags in the wind remind us of the fragmentary nature of life lived on the edge. The shot of the mother and son out for a pleasant stroll and sitting not far from a station that burns refuse is a reminder of life’s hopes. This is a quiet film, obviously influenced by the depression, but serving to as a portrait of working people then and now, in Japan and elsewhere. When the son takes his visiting mother on a tour of Tokyo, we see nothing of the bustling city, just a skyline from the fender of the vehicle in which they ride. The Tokyo we do see is a barren land on the city’s periphery that contains refuse, smoke, and chimneys and run-down abodes. The final shot of a closed and locked wooden gate is, perhaps, the most powerful shot in a powerful film.

Equinox Flower (1958), directed by Yasujiro Ozu. This is Ozu's first colour film, and he knows how to use that one spot of red (kettle, afghan, carpet, flower, belt, and so on). This is an amusing contemplation of a changing society. The men are confused, befuddled, and contradictory. The women are smiling and resolute and independent. The women are resolute in a gentle way. Indeed, this film is gentle as well as genteel. The wife patiently picks up after her husband when he comes home from work and takes off his clothes and drops them carelessly on the floor. But she stands her ground when it comes to her daughter's marriage. Ozu is so distinctive. His camera stubbornly refuses to move. He gives us portraits more than movement, and we see things from a consistent level. This level somehow levels everything in a world that strives for an unequal terrain. Style is consistent even if the husband's advice to others is inconsistent with his treatment of his daughter. Style wins the day. So too does a gentle humour.

Floating Weeds (1959), directed by Yasujiro Ozu. This is Ozu's remake of his 1934 version of the story, A Story of Floating Weeds. Once again we have Ozu interested in family dynamic, here a fractured family. An itinerant actor returns with his troup to the place where he has left a woman with whom he fathered a son. The son has only known him as an uncle, the supposed brother of the mother. In short, the leading lady of the acting entourage is not pleased to learn that the man she has been having a relationship with has another woman and a son. Therein lies the drama. But what makes the film so absorbing are the shots of empty space, confining space, and the stubborn insistence of the camera to keep everything still, slow, cornered, straight, and direct. The snippets of the actors' performances remind us how pervasive performance is both on and off the stage. Performance, whether a father performing as an uncle or a young woman performing as a temptress or an actor performing as a street hawker of posters or a barber performing her craft, is bound to lead to complications, unexpected turns, and variations in script, and even a nick of the razor.

 A couple of double features.

Trucks. We watched Jonathan Hensleigh’s The Ice Road (2021) the other night and it brought to mind its original, Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Wages of Fear (1953), and so we re-watched that film too. What differentiates the two films? Well one takes place in northern Manitoba in April and the other takes place in some unnamed torrid zone. One is about graft, corruption, and greed involving diamond mining and the other is about graft, corruption, exploitation, and greed involving oil drilling and extraction. One has trucks that at any minute can sink through the ice into a couple hundred feet of water and the other has trucks that carry a lethal load of nitroglycerin. One has a character who sets out to sabotage the journey and the other has a character who is simply not suited to the job. One has Liam Neeson and the other has Yves Montand. One is in colour, the other in black and white. They differ in their endings, one having a typical Hollywood ending and the other having an ironic ending more suited to the characters. Both have tension. Clouzot’s film is justly admired for its thrill ride, filmed at a time when CGI could not help make things look believable. It has something of the “feel” of John Huston’s The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), although the characters have an insouciance, especially at the beginning, that the characters in the other films lack. As a coda, I might add that the story has been filmed at least once more in William Friedkin’s Sorcerer (1977).

 

Two from writer/director Preston Sturges: The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek (1944) and The Palm Beach Story (1942). The first of these takes Capra’s small-town America and gives it a twirl so that it lands on its head. The kerfuffle over pre-marital sex and a pregnancy out of wedlock may seem quaint now, but Sturges is taking aim at the production code instituted in the early 30s. His screenplay incorporates words taken from correspondence with the Hollywood censor, Joseph Breen. Sturges satirizes family, marriage, politics (McGinty makes an appearance, that McGinty from Sturges’s 1940 film, The Great McGinty), and small-town life. The action is zany, the plot convoluted, the female lead’s name, Trudy Kockenlocker (Betty Hutton) is wry, and the whole concoction delightful. The Palm Beach Story also satirizes marriage. Here we have a devoted couple who are down on their luck. The wife (Claudette Colbert) decides to divorce her husband (Joel McCrea) in order to help him get on with his dream of building an experimental airport landing area. She finds a wealthy bachelor (Rudy Vallee) she woos in order have him fund her “ex-husband’s” airport. Of course, we have the familiar screwball mix-ups and misunderstandings and dialogue that overlaps and silliness laced with slapstick. In these films, Sturges brings together silent era physical comedy with 30s screwball plots and dialogue. The first of these films, Morgan’s Creek, takes the war for its background, but Palm Beach Story, made at the beginning of America’s engagement in the war, offers nary a trace of soldiers or America’s participation in the European or South Pacific theatres. 

 The Land (1969), directed by Youssef Chahine. This is a film in the tradition of Alexander Dovzhenko's Earth (1930). It tells the story of a community of small farmers in Egypt who find their livelihoods put in jeopardy by a local landowner who sets out to build a road where the farmer's fields are. Their only hope rests in solidarity, a solidarity that proves illusory, impossible to achieve. Chahine's work, or at least the work of his that I have seen, champions the peasant and the worker, but rarely does this support for the common person end in disarray. We usually have a ray of hope at the end. Not so here. The workers cannot put aside selfish interests for the greater good. One member of the "camel police" proves a friend to the peasants, but his friendship is not enough to make things go well. Things definitely fall apart. The film sprawls, it tells a story with many characters and many story lines following the interaction of these many characters. The overarching theme is clear, but the intricacies of human interactions sometimes are less than clear.

Alexandria…Why? (1979), directed by Youssef Chahine. The film opens with shots of Rommel’s desert campaign during the Second World War cut with a shot of Esther Williams swimming in one of her MGM extravaganzas. The connection between theatres, the theatre of war and the movie theatre, introduces what is a collage of a film. Perhaps the collage effect reflects the Alexandria we see here with its collection of Muslims, Catholics, Jews, British, Australians, Nazis, Communists, aristocrats, the poor, the young and the old, male and female. It is very ambitious bringing together cultural identity, personal identity, politics, war, class tensions, and religious differences. It tries to follow the stories of several people, perhaps just a few too many. It just misses coming together, at least for me. I felt lost at times. At other times the family predicament and the various relationships crossing religions and cultures are poignant. Moments do stand out, especially the abrupt shift to Palestine near the end and the Statue of Liberty come to life at the end. At the centre of the film is Yehia (Mohsin Mohiedenne) who aspires to leave Egypt and go to film school in America. I assume Yehia represents the young Chahine. His interest in the theatre and film is a reminder of performance; this is a film about performance and perhaps its failures. That final shot of the Statue of Liberty clinches this in an amusing and unsettling manner. For me, the most powerful relationship in the film is the one between the young Jewish woman and her Muslim boyfriend. This relationship is both endearing and doomed.

 

Alexandria, Again and Forever (1989), directed by Youssef Chahine. Whereas Chahine’s Alexandria…Why? (1979) focused on the young Chahine during the war years, this film follows the older Chahine during the 1987 strike in the Egyptian Film Industry. He continues to be obsessed with Hamlet! Like the earlier film, Alexandria, Again and Forever is a collage of a film bringing together a variety of genres, most notably the American musical (a scene of dancing in the snow, rather than in the rain), the political focus of films by the likes of Godard or Costa-Gavras, and the comic antics of the Marx Brothers, especially in Night at the Opera! The film has the meta-aspect of a film such as Truffaut’s Day for Night. The scenes that give us the filming of historical stories about Alexander the Great or Cleopatra are amusing. Also, we have clips from Chahine’s Cairo Station a couple of times. Although the focus of the film is diffuse, it does dwell on the relationship between the director and his young actor, reminding me of the famous director/actor relationships such as von Sternberg/Dietrich, Ford/Wayne, or Scorsese/DeNiro. I suspect I am missing much here; nevertheless, the film has its charms. It shows a love of the medium that is infectious.

 A couple of films from Africa.

I Am All Girls (2021), directed by Donovan Marsh. I wanted to like this film. Its story about abducted girls in apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa is important. Human trafficking is a huge problem and worthy of scrutiny. Race relations are a huge problem and worthy of examination. Corruption in high places is a huge problem and worthy of uncovering. In other words, this film has much going for it. However, the narrative is presented to us in a confusing (to me anyway) manner that gives us several timelines, the characters are sketched in a rudimentary manner, the social conditions are glossed over, and I cannot help but think we have another white person coming to the rescue. My apologies for all the passives in the previous sentence, but the film is a passive affair. It lacks grit. It lacks a firm grip on the narrative. It lacks characters we engage with in any important way. The cinematography delivers that murky dark look familiar to us from so many films of the thriller/revenge story kind. What we have is a sketch for a better film.

 

Mandabi (1968), directed by Ousmane Sembene. This is the first film ever made in an African language, Wolof. The title translates as “the Money Order.” The plot is straight forward: an unemployed Muslim man in Senegal receives a money order from a nephew who is working in France, and what follows involves neighbours looking for a handout and a bureaucracy nearly impossible to navigate. The system is corrupt, people are selfish and greedy. The man’s two wives are long-suffering. The sun is hot. The ground is dry. One moment in the film strikes me as crucial. As the man sits in the car of his relative who wears a suit and knows how the system works and participates in the corruption, he sees a white family emerge from the town hall with their papers and with their ease. We know that the troubles this man encounters, his name is Ibrahim Dieng (Makhouredia Gueye), stem from his not knowing how to cope with post-colonial life. He cannot read and he cannot understand how to deal with bureaucracy, a bureaucracy formed under colonial rule. The film has funny moments, but it is hardly a comedy. The final scene with the postman offers just a glimmer of hope, just a glimmer. This is an amazing film, an exercise in neo-realism and an indictment of the colonial past and what it leaves behind.