A story for Halloween:

     Snuffles and Whimpers of an October Night; or Halloween Fantasy

         Dad came into dinner with blood on his knuckles, blowing hard through his teeth.  Our neighbour four houses down the street, Mr. VanMeer, had waylaid him on his way home from downtown to solicit his help removing a large rock from the VanMeer's garden.  The rock was difficult to dislodge because it was so deeply planted in the soil and because so much grass and weed and who-knows-what had grown around it.  The garden was a mess of strange and bizarre looking foliage.  Trying to haul the rock from the ground, my father scraped the knuckles of one hand on a particularly nasty root of some kind.  He said it hurt so much that he cursed the old man who was just standing by watching, letting my father do all the work.  Under his breath, the old man returned my father’s curse, but not so quietly that my father couldn't hear.  I guess the old man mumbled something about old Jack o' Lantern giving my father some light for brains.  According to Dad, this just proved that old man VanMeer was tetched.

         This incident took place sometime in the spring.  Mr. VanMeer had said he was planning to transform his jungle of a backyard into a more formal garden.  Dad said he could care less about Mr. VanMeer and his garden; he didn't like the old coot.  Fact is, no one on the block much liked Mr. VanMeer.  He was queer and, on the whole, reclusive.  My mother explained that he was elderly and lonely; his wife had died some years before and after her death Mr. VanMeer had become morose and silent.  His kids seldom visited. He didn't have much to do with his neighbours, and we rarely saw him.  Even his backyard was private, enclosed by a tall solid fence, the only yard on the block that was fenced off in this way.  As far as I know, no one had seen inside the VanMeer house for years and years, although people on the block would talk about his strange ways.  Dad cursed his bleeding knuckles and shivered as he remarked on the frigid air of the VanMeer backyard.  "Old Harry VanMeer is the devil himself," he remarked.  Then he laughed and he told us that the old coot, trying to smooth over bad feelings, had said he would give him a pumpkin in the fall.

         I suspect we all forgot this incident; I know I did.  But sure enough, when October rolled around my Dad received the gift of a pumpkin from old Mr. VanMeer.  Once again he was waylaid as he returned home, this time late one evening near the end of the month.  Mr. VanMeer called to him from the gathering dark, and placed in his arms a large and brilliantly orange pumpkin that came, he said, from his own garden, from right where the ugly brute of a rock that Dad had helped dislodge used to be.  When Dad came in, my sister, mother, and I were in the kitchen cleaning up after dinner.  Dad plunked the great pumpkin down on the counter, and all of us stood around it admiring its size and colour. My mother gazed at it and reckoned it would make five pies or more; my sister and I looked at each other and we knew each of us wanted the pleasure of slicing the pumpkin's outer shell to make the wicked eyes and leering mouth of a jack-o'-lantern; but my father glared at the shining gourd as if somehow he couldn't do anything else.  He seemed transfixed. The rest of us stared at him, and I confess that I felt my skin lift into a roulade of goose bumps. The sight of my father staring with eyes glittering and unblinking at the huge pumpkin, as if he were bewitched, was eerie and unsettling.

         Some time passed--how long I don't know.  The seconds seemed to me to swing with excruciating slowness through the kitchen.  We stood engrossed, watching my father's glazed eyes.  Then my mother plucked his sleeve to get his attention, but he didn't move.  He just stood there rapt in the glow of the large pumpkin.  And then we noticed it--the three of us together, I think.  The kitchen took on an orange glow cast from the pumpkin that actually appeared to be palpitating.  The pumpkin seemed to be imbued with some living powerful force.  All of us could feel it, I think.  Certainly I could.  And clearly my father was reacting to this force.  Whatever was at work in that glowing pumpkin, it frightened me and I could see similar fright in my sister's eyes. Some wickedness was at work.

         "I'm getting rid of this thing," my mother said, and she grasped the rolling pin from the sideboard.  However, before she could raise it and squash the orange menace, my father suddenly lunged forward, and with a great guttural growl he seized the pumpkin.  He stood before us, his eyes blazing, his arms around the huge gourd.  Then he began to back away toward the pantry door.  As soon as he bumped into the door, he turned, opened it, crossed the small pantry, and sped down the cellar steps.  We heard some grunts from the basement, and then the door to the small workroom down there slammed shut.  Everything went quiet.  The kitchen seemed darkened now that the pumpkin was gone.  From below nothing could be heard.  The three of us looked at each other.  "I guess we should go down and see what he's doing," my mother said, and she began to usher us towards the pantry and the cellar steps.  

         When he had run downstairs, my father had not stopped to flick on the cellar light.  He had just descended into darkness. One of us flicked on he light, and then we proceeded to descend to the cellar.  Down there, we carefully went past the coal bin and the furnace to the back end of the cellar where the workroom was.  Back here the feeble cellar light hardly cast any glow, but we could see a bright orange light coming from beneath the workroom door.  My mother called out, asking if my father was all right.  No answer came from behind the closed door, but we could hear snuffling and whimpering noises.  Again the three of us looked at each other and I know we feared something terrible was going on behind that door.  My mother reached out and tried to open the door.  It was locked.  Again she asked if father was all right.  Again, no answer.  Again, those snuffles and whimpers.

         For several minutes we just stood there not knowing what to do.  My mother finally announced that she was going to call Frank Cooper, the local police constable and father of my friend Donny; she said that he would know how to help us.  But before we could move back through the cellar, the workroom door opened with a "BLAM!" It flew back against the outer wall with great force.  A bright orange light flooded the cellar, giving it a strange otherworldly glow.  And there in the midst of this light, standing in the doorway, was a hideous figure, my father or not my father, I couldn't tell.  It must be him, but his head was gone and in its place, as a kind of prosthetic skull, was the pumpkin, the same glowing pumpkin from the kitchen, but now with jagged holes for eyes, a triangular opening for nose, and a crooked gash with stumps of pulp for mouth and teeth.  The whole thing was a living malignancy.  The horrible shape stood there, and then a terrible cackle rattled the room.

         My mother screamed.  I think I started to cry, and my sister cringed in the corner.  Another great growl from the pumpkin head, and then it lunged forward.  I thought the creature was about to grab me and I thought I would be dashed to the floor in a flash.  But the hideous thing sped past all of us and ran up the stairs.  We heard the front door slam, and once again all was still. The three of us were paralyzed for several minutes.

         Well you can imagine my mother, sister, and I were in shock.  We didn't move too swiftly, but we did go upstairs.  Without speaking, we understood that it was no use looking for father in the workroom.  Whatever and however things had happened, we were certain my father was possessed by some hideous demon.  What we didn't know was where he had gone, when he would come back, or what to do to help him.  Finally my mother decided that she would have to call Frank Cooper.  Frank, as you might expect, was somewhat puzzled when we told him the story of the pumpkin and Dad's disappearance.  He thought perhaps my father was having some early Halloween fun; the whole thing was a prank he said.  He assured us that Dad would soon come home, his usual self.  To tell the truth, the three of us began to second-guess what had happened.  Perhaps Dad's head wasn't a glowing jack-o'-lantern; he was only carrying the thing in his arms.  Perhaps the strange whimpers and snuffles and other sounds we heard weren't the sounds of a ghoulish demon; they were only familiar house sounds--creaks, cracks, clicks--amplified by our imaginations.  And perhaps the strange glowing light we saw wasn't coming from inside the pumpkin; it was only the blush of sunset coming through the kitchen and then the cellar windows. Perhaps Dad was his usual self after having tippled a bit.

         For an hour or so we were convinced that Frank was right.  But Dad didn't return.  All that night we waited in trepidation for Dad's return.  He didn't come.  In the morning, mother told me to go down to Mr. VanMeer's to ask him whether or not he had given Dad a pumpkin.  That way, she said, we would at least know we hadn't all dreamed the whole thing.  She added that maybe Mr. VanMeer could give us a clue as to Dad's whereabouts.  Needless to say, I didn't look forward to a visit with Mr. VanMeer, but off I went.

         The morning was fresh and I could see my breath as I made my way down the street.  Past the Weir's, past the McCoon's, past the Doyle's, to the sidewalk in front of VanMeer's house.  I went up on the veranda and over to the front door.  The doorbell was one of those with a thing like a key that you turned.  It made a loud ring, like the sound of a bicycle bell.  I waited.  No one answered.  I was about to ring the bell a second time, when the door opened by itself, slowly and with an elongated squeaking noise.  I craned my neck to see what I could, but inside everything looked grey.  I decided to beat it and turned to go, but before I could move away from the open door something gripped me by the shoulder.  I turned to see the familiar face of old man VanMeer.  I had known this man for years, but now he looked demented, like a wild and crazy person.  His eyes bugged out and rolled in his head, and saliva dribbled from one corner of his mouth. He was hunched and looked as if he had something under his shirt on his back. I managed to ask whether he had seen my father.

         "Yesterday even," he said, "I had occasion to give your father a present." And he cackled.

         "Yes," was all I could say.

         "A pumpkin," he went on, "a devilish pumpkin."  And his laugh sent shivers down my back.

         "We--my mom and I, and my sister--we are worried about Dad," I said.  "He hasn't been home since early last night, and we wondered if you had seen him."  

         "I?" he said, looking surprised.  "Not I."

         Then he turned to go inside his house, and as he shut the door I heard him say:

                          “Old Harry can deliver a curse,

                          No one does it worse.

                          You'll wear a pumpkin for a head

                          'Til jack-light brings you a-bed;

                          Only the young can restore

                          The head that always asks for more.

                          He who cringes beneath the tracks

                          Seeks the restorative whacks.

                          Under the tracks, look for the felon

                          Whose head resembles a large melon.”

The door closed.  I felt as if I had been given a clue.  But what did it mean?  As I walked back down the block, I mulled the whole thing over.  Who “cringes beneath the tracks?” We lived just one house away from the freight sheds and the CPR railway yards.  My father worked for the railroad, and I knew that he sometimes gathered with other trainmen in back of the freight sheds to gabble about work.  I also knew that if he had gone back of the freight sheds last night, someone would have reported him or brought him home.  After all, a man with a pumpkin for a head was not something you could ignore.  What, then, could "beneath the tracks" mean?  And what did "jack-light bringing someone a-bed" mean?  Then it came to me.  The only place that could conceivably be beneath the tracks was the cavern-like space underneath the freight shed itself.  The freight shed was built up on what might be called stumpy stilts, probably about 4 and a half  to 5 feet high near the south end and growing shorter and shorter towards the north end.  The kids in the neighbourhood played under there regularly, and we sometimes went there to smoke.  Regularly, we were ferreted out by Constable Cooper.  Perhaps my father had fled under the sheds, like an animal seeking the safety of its den.  Perhaps he was still there, sleeping; maybe he was ill or hurt or just plain humiliated and scared.  I would find out.

       Without going home and telling my mother, I went across the road and up to the freight sheds.  On the south end was an easy entrance to the crypt-like spaces beneath the building.  In I went - deeper and deeper into the quickly shrinking space.  The farther I went the darker it became.  Just when I thought I could go no farther, I was stopped by a low snuffling, whimpering sound, a sound that reminded me of last night.  I strained my eyes in the poor light, and sure enough I saw something crouched beneath a great wooden beam.  As my eyes focused, I was certain this was my pumpkin-headed father.  No longer did a light shine from that great gourd. I approached him carefully.  I wasn't sure whether he was crying or snarling deep in his throat.  Of course I could get no impression from the hideous jack-o'-lantern face except evil.  I decided to leave and tell mother that I had found him.

         Then something stopped me.  It was only a voice.  From somewhere deep inside that huge pumpkin head I heard a small voice say, "Help me!   Help me!"  I could only move closer.  I heard the words again.  "What can I do," I asked?  The answer came thinly but clearly: "Break the gourd."  I wasn't prepared for this.  "Break the gourd?" I repeated.  "Yes, break the gourd, smash it, destroy it, pulverize it. Just clobber it, please." Had I heard this correctly? And had the voice said “please”? Wonders will never cease.

         But could I actually do this?  The pumpkin rested on the neck of my father; it was his head. I acted mechanically, as if I were programmed, acting automatically, without urgency or will.  I left the den beneath the freight sheds, walked back across the street, and into our back yard.  In the garage I found a crow bar my father kept there; as long as I could remember I had been fascinated by this crow bar without having the faintest idea what it might be used for.  Now I dragged it back to the dens.  I retraced my way to my father's hiding spot.  He lowered his head as if in supplication. He was a lugubrious figure now, not terrifying in the least. Without a word, I heaved the heavy bar over my right shoulder and then swung it with all my might at the pumpkin head; I swung as if I was hitting a baseball hoping for a home run.  The crowbar struck the gourd with a squelch.  Pieces of orange pulp flew every which way.  I heard a piteous groan, and then I blacked out.

         When I came to, I was in my bed, a hot water bottle at my feet.  My mother came in shortly, and I asked what had happened.  She said I had fainted over by the freight sheds and Frank Cooper had carried me home.  "But my father," I said.  "Oh, not to worry," she replied.  "He's in bed too.  For some mysterious reason, he came home with a terrible migraine headache.  We called the doctor, and he's been to look at both of you.  What you both need is rest."  I asked about the pumpkin.  "What pumpkin?" she returned.  "You know.  The one old Mr. VanMeer gave to father."  "You must be dreaming," she said as she left the room.

         Much later that day, I got up.  Sure enough, my father was all right, just grumpy.  Whatever had happened seemed over and done with now.  Life returned to normal.  That evening, not long before my sister and I were to go to bed, we heard the doorbell ring.  I followed my father to the front door, and I saw as he opened it old man VanMeer standing just outside on the veranda. He held something in his hands. I stared and I was sure I saw him grin as he handed my father a huge vibrantly orange pumpkin.  And as he turned to go, I saw the old man look me in the eyes and toss me a wink.  Then he turned and left. Shutting the door, my father said, "Look what old Harry VanMeer brought us."

 October is nearly at an end. Here are a few films.

The Mummy (1932), directed by Karl Freund. Karl Freund is a superior cinematographer whose credits include Fritz Lang’s brilliant Metropolis and F. D. Murnau’s amazing The Last Laugh. He also directed a number of films, The Mummy being one of them. The Mummy is one of Universal’s horror franchises, and it offers excellent special effects along with a hokey story. The titular Mummy is Imhotep/Ardeth Bay (Boris Karloff) brought back to life after 3700 years by a British archaeologist who stupidly reads out loud from the Scroll of Thoth an incantation that once Isis used to bring Osiris back to life. This time the incantation revives Imhotep. Imhotep goes on a quest to find and revive his long-lost love, Ank-es-en-Amon. He finds her in the person of Helen Grosvenor (Zita Johann), a young woman whose parents are British and Egyptian. Helen bears an uncanny resemblance to the ancient Egyptian princess. Go figure. If this all sounds orientalist, it is. At one point, a British archaeologist remarks on the audacity of the Egyptians wanting to put ancient artifacts from Egypt in a Cairo Museum. And then we have Helen Grosvenor lamenting that modern Egypt is not the “real Egypt” of antiquity. If this all sounds predictable, it is. Predictability is, however, not the point. The photography, special effects, make-up are all top notch, and Karloff makes an effective antagonist with his unblinking eyes and gaunt figure. Ardeth Bay is, by the way, an anagram for ‘Death by Ra.’

 

The Wolf Man (1941), directed by George Waggner. Coming ten years after Universal’s Dracula and Frankenstein, The Wolf Man is the studio’s second attempt at a werewolf film, and it proved to be highly successful and influential. Even dopey Lon Chaney as Larry Talbot manages to strike a chord as a rather simple man who finds himself caught in a horrific web of circumstances. Perhaps not as atmospheric as the earlier Universal films, The Wolf Man does have the low-lying mist among the stylized trees, the large, even cavernous, mansion, the shadows, and the montage of wild imaginings as Larry begins to go bonkers – all things we are familiar with in earlier features of this kind. We also have an impressive cast that includes Claude Rains as Larry’s father, Ralph Bellamy as a local policeman, Evelyn Ankers as the love interest, Bela Lugosi as ‘Bela’ the fortune teller, and the most creepy Maria Ouspenskya as Maleva who gets the last word: "The way you walk was thorny through no fault of your own, but as the rain enters the soil the river enters the sea, so tears run to a predestined end. Your suffering is over. Now you will find peace for eternity." At first, I thought that Larry’s peeping Tom routine near the beginning when he spies on Gwen Conliffe (Evelyn Ankers) through his father’s telescope was just an ill-advised bit of fluff, but now I realize that it serves to indicate something deeply gone awry within this seemingly simple prodigal returned to the family home after some 18 years. This film sets the template for later werewolf films with its silver-topped cane, full moon, pentagram, and so on.

 

Cry of the Werewolf (1944), directed by Henry Levin. This is Columbia’s contribution to the monster flicks that Universal popularized in the 30s and 40s. It has something of the atmosphere of the Val Lewton films such as Cat People (1942). The werewolf here is a woman, Celeste LaTour (Nina Foch), who is a gypsy princess. The studio saved money on make-up and special effects by using a German Shepard to play the werewolf, and this sort of works. The plot is straight forward. Celeste suffers from the same malaise as her mother did, lycanthropy. She tries to keep her affliction a secret by savaging the good doctor Charles Morris who has discovered the secret of the LaTour family. The doctor’s son, Bob (Stephen Crane), comes home and begins to investigate his father’s murder. He begins a romantic relationship with his father’s assistant, Elsa Chauvet (Osa Massen). The two of them are on the trail of the werewolf, and therefore targets of Celeste. Barton McLane plays Police Lt. Barry Lane who investigates. All the players take things seriously. Matters play out as we would expect. Bob save Elsa and Celeste receives her quietus.

 

House of Dracula (1945), directed by Erle C. Kenton. The penultimate of Universal’s series of horror films in the 1930s and 40s, House of Dracula brings Dracula (John Carradine), the Wolfman (Lon Chaney, Jr.), and Frankenstein’s monster (Glenn Strange) together in the house of Dr. Franz Edlemann (Onslow Stevens) for a delightful romp. The opening scene has a flying bat transform into the Count, who sports, along with his cape and dapper clothes, a top hat. I saw no hint of a top hat on the bat! Anyhow, this is how the fun begins. Dracula has come to Dr. Edlemann’s house ostensibly to seek a cure for what ails him. Soon another arrival comes seeking a cure for another dreaded ailment; this is Larry Talbot, and we all know what ails him. Larry is sincere in his desire for a cure, but the Count has come to seduce Edlemann’s nurse, Miliza (Martha O’Driscoll). Add to the mix a female Igor, here Edlemann’s assistant, Nina (Jane Adams) and local police inspector with his artificial right hand, Holtz (Lionel Atwill), and you have a cast of stalwarts. Others, such as Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi, make quick appearances in bits of film swiped from earlier films in the series. One dream sequence stands out here as a filmic tour de force. By 1945, these Universal horror films were running out of inventiveness, but this one has its pleasures, despite the melancholy decline of the good doctor Edlemann. I especially liked the hunchback assistant, Nina. Happy Halloween everyone.

The Manster (1959), directed by Georg P. Breakston and Kenneth G. Crane. Perhaps the first Japanese-American co-production, this film is a precursor to The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant (1971), although here the two heads result from the injection of a serum concocted by the zany but kindly scientist, Dr. Suzuki (Tetsu Nakamura). Dr. Suzuki injects a few people with his serum, including his wife, his brother, and the American journalist Larry Stanford (Peter Dyneley), a sort of lower-budget version of Larry Talbot. Larry is on assignment in Japan when he meets the not-so-good doctor Suzuki who serves Larry spiked tea and then injects him with the serum that is supposed to result in a new kind of creature. Lurking here may be the shadow of radiation poisoning. Anyway, the serum has the effect of altering Larry’s personality and sending him into a mid-life crisis before it actually transforms him into a two-headed monster. Before this happens, Larry goes on a binge with alcohol and women. His wife from New York arrives to see what is happening to her husband, and she arrives not long before he develops a third eye on his right shoulder. Yes, that’s right – an eye on his shoulder. This signals the emergence of a head from that shoulder. Ultimately, this head grows to – well you have to see this to believe it. If you are a fan of 1950s horror films, then you have to see this one. The production values are quite good for this sort of film.

 

 Before we leave September, here are a few more jottings on films.

The Cranes Are Flying (1957), directed by Mikhail Kalatozov, cinematography by Sergei Urusevsky. I add the cinematographer’s name here because the camera work in this Soviet film is nothing short of stunning. The mobile camera tracks, swirls, lifts, falls, angles and generally serves as another actor in this anti-war film that focuses on the home front, and especially the women/woman left behind. Veronika (Tatyana Samoylova) and Boris (Aleksey Batalov) are young lovers. As the film begins, we see these two skipping happily by the water and generally displaying the vigours and energy of youth. They stop and watch cranes flying above them, and then they are sprayed by a passing truck that is washing the streets. This dampening forewarns what is to come. War is declared. Boris leaves for a tour of duty and the two young lovers are separated. Scenes of departure are chaotic and distressing. Anyway, what follows lets us know that Boris dies in battle, while Veronika waits for his return. Meanwhile, young Mark (Aleksandr Shvorin) sets his sights on Veronika, pressing her into marriage. Mark turns out to be dishonourable and things fall apart. The story is conventional and perhaps even predictable. However, the actors are fine and the filming offers something special. What we see looks forward to a film like Tarkovsky’s Ivan’s Childhood (1962). The Cranes Are Flying stands with Kubrik’s Paths of Glory as two of the finest anti-war films; both come out in 1957. One focuses on the women at home, the other on the soldiers in battle.

 

Ahed’s Knee (2021), directed by Nadav Lapid. Here is a film seething with anger. Its protagonist is a movie director, Y, played by Avshalom Pollak, who is preparing to make a film concerning the young Palestinian activist, Ahed Tamimi, who was sent to prison for slapping an Israeli soldier, an event that was on TV. Apparently, a man who saw the news footage tweeted that Ahed ought to be shot in the knee. The film begins with a montage of knee shots and some actors reading for parts in the proposed film. Meanwhile, Y travels into the desert to a small town where he is to screen one of his films at the local library. He meets his host, a librarian who now works for the government as a Deputy Minister for Culture, Yahalom (Nur Fibak). The two of them form something of a bond, and Y confides in Yahalom, telling her of his unpleasant experiences while serving his military service. These two appear to share a dislike of the present government’s curtailing of free speech. Despite their seemingly similar views, Yahalom asks Y to sign a form that stipulates what topics he can and cannot address during the question period following the screening. Y is filled with anguish and even rage. His only other confidente appears to be his mother who collaborates with her son on the films he makes. She is ill with lung cancer. By the end, things have come unstrung. Anyway, the film has some wonky camera swirls and cuts, much desert dreariness, and lots of anger as Y monolgues his way to the end. (Can ‘monologue’ be a verb?) This is a film about the artist’s commitment to free speech.

Red Cliff (2008-9), directed by John Woo. This is a four hour and forty-eight-minute film about the battle of Red Cliffs that took place in 208 AD. It is lavish in the extreme, even breathtaking. It is also very much a film about male friendship and male enmity. A driving force of the plot is the nefarious Cao Cao (Zhang Fengyi), Prime Minister of the Han Empire. He desires Xiao Qiao (Chiling Lin), wife of Zhou Yu (Tony Leung) who is leader of rebel forces. Then we have master strategist Zhuge Liang (Takeshi Kaneshiro) who forms a bond with Zhou; they are brothers in arms, although Zhou does all the impressive fighting. Aside from Xiao, we also have Sun Shangxiang (Wei Zhao), a spunky young woman who infiltrates the Empire’s forces to gather useful information. Of course, there is an assortment of other characters, and a huge cast of extras. Woo was allowed to use 1,500 government soldiers to helps with sets and action, and to provide men for the battle sequences. The battle sequences are complex and spectacular. Woo also had two full-sized ships built for the action on water and the many other ships appear courtesy of CGI. It is quite amazing how Woo and his collaborators find multiple ways for soldiers to die. Mostly what the film offers is eye-popping action, although it does manage a bit of romance (and bromance too), a smidgen of political scrutiny, and a lesson on how to make tea. The actors are attractive, the action furious, and locations, sets, costumes, and camera work as good as it gets. The length of the film is kept in check by separation of the narrative into Parts 1 and 2, Part 2 beginning with a short visual summary of Part 1. In other words, you may watch the film in two sittings, if you prefer.

Three Thousand Years of Longing (2022), directed by George Miller. Miller is known for his Mad Max films, and so you can expect exuberance. What you may not expect is a fantasia of colour and weirdness in an Arabian Nights vein. The screenplay is an adaptation of a story by A. S. Byatt in which an academic, a professed narratologist, finds herself inside a story thousands of years in the making. She releases a Djinn who pleads with her to make three wishes so he may be released from long years inside a bottle. She knows about story and so she knows that stories of genies and wishes are cautionary tales. The academic is Alithea (Tilda Swinton) and the Djinn is, well the Djinn (Idris Elba). Seeing the Djinn traipse about in Alithea’s hotel room wearing a torn white bathrobe might make you think that the academic had made her wish and it has come true. Anyway, we have a lavish recounting of several stories. Costumes are colourful and voluminous. The whole thing is strange, but in an interesting way. Ultimately all the finery, all the time skipping, all the opulent sets, all the discussions of desire and fear and power and so on devolve into something like, ‘tis love, ‘tis love that makes the world go round. 

I’m Not There (2007), directed by Todd Haynes. "Poet, prophet, outlaw, fake, star of electricity," so we are told as this film begins. We might add, vagabond, trickster, singer/songwriter, welder, painter, jerk, joker, actor, ragman, man in black, and probably any number of other labels. The film captures not only the person, Bob Dylan, but also the times that were changing. It captures the person by confessing that capturing the person is a futile, but joyful endeavour. It opens with a train and it ends with a train, a reminder of the ever-rolling thunder that is the subject of the film. Always on the move, never standing still, elusive, mysterious, mercurial, dodging, now here, now there – this is the singer and the song. Haynes’s film plays out like a Dylan song, skipping here and there and yet always with a clever coherence, and always with a cogent allusion. References abound to the life and the songs of Dylan, and to the movies of his most energetic times. We have visual nods to Fellini, Godard, Lester, Peckinpah, Nichols, Goulding, and others. We have songs from the early years to Time Out of Mind, most covered, but a few by the elusive tramp himself. We have children with guns and sharp swords, we have a child beside a dead pony, we have a geek, we have characters who tell tall tales, who womanize, who take seriously the call for everybody to get stoned. We have six characters pretending to be the same person, and doing a fine job of being different persons. Finally, no matter what the matter was, he simply will not talk. All the time, of course, he never ceases to say what is in his mind, one hand waving free. This is a film that aspires to the condition of music, and manages to achieve greatness.

 

 Before September is out, here are a few Billy Wilder films.

Irma La Douce (1963), directed by Billy Wilder. Wilder’s early films in the 40s and 50s deliver gritty street views and ruined lives. By the 60s, he and I.A.L. Diamond were delivering Hollywood set pieces such as Irma La Douce, a film that has a colourful set that purports to be the meat-packing and market area of Paris. Most of the action takes place on one block where the Hotel Casanova welcomes a bevy of prostitutes and their ‘clients.’ Across from the hotel is a café and bar run by Mr. Moustache (Lou Jacobi) – but that’s another story. One of the prostitutes is the titular Irma (Shirley MacLaine) who has the best spot on the street for herself and her small dog, Shorty. Irma meets Officer Nestor Patou (Jack Lemmon) on his first day patrolling this district. Officer Patou is unaware that previous patrolmen took money from the local pimps to turn a blind eye to the goings on here. In short, Officer Patou becomes civilian Patou and then the ‘Tiger,’ the pre-eminent pimp in the place after a brawl with Hippolyte (Bruce Yarnell). As things go along in screwball fashion, Nestor finds himself pretending to be Lord X from England where he has a castle of some 90 or more rooms and 400 acres. Nestor and Irma are by now living in the same small upstairs apartment with a window overlooking the busy street – “Paris never sleeps” or at least this street never sleeps in a Paris that only exists on a Hollywood backlot. The shenanigans are fun, and the jabs at bourgeois life are also fun. Just what we are to make of the women here is awkward. On the one hand they are brassy and strong, living their lives with zest and a certain independence. On the other hand, they are indentured workers who hand over their earned cash to the men who sit around drinking or playing pool. Add to this, a long-windedness in the filming and we are left with a film that has its delights, but also has its lapses and unfortunate ambiguities.

 

The Fortune Cookie (1966), directed by Billy Wilder. This is the first of ten films that would pair Jack Lemmon’s everyday guy with Walter Matthau’s more cynical fellow. It was also Lemmon’s fourth film with Wilder. As for Wilder, this is his second look at the Insurance Industry in America, after the quite different Double Indemnity (1944). Looking back at The Fortune Cookie, I find the film striking for is romantic interest in male friendship, and in this case it is not the friendship between Lemmon and Matthau, but rather between Lemmon’s Harry Hinkle and Ron Rich’s Luther ‘Boom Boom’ Jackson. Hinkle is a television cameraman who, at the beginning of the film, is shooting an NFL football game between the Browns and the Vikings, when he suddenly gets bowled over by the Brown’s star punt return specialist, Jackson. Hinkle ends up in the hospital none the worse for wear, but his brother-in-law, ‘Whiplash’ Willie Gingrich (Matthau), who happens to be a shyster lawyer, sees an opportunity to make a load of money if only Hinkle will pretend to be severely injured. Soon Hinkle’s ex-wife, Sandy (Judi West) is on the scene looking to cash in on Hinkle’s continuing affection for her. Meanwhile the bevy of high-priced lawyers for the insurance company hire a detective to spy on Hinkle hoping to discover he is faking. This is a lot of hokum, and pretty good fun. The script, as you would expect when Wilder and his long-time mate I. A. L. Diamond are responsible for it, is acerbic and often quite funny. But as I started to say above, what distinguishes this film is the relationship between Hinkle and Jackson. Jackson is a black football player who suffers remorse at having apparently injured the cameraman, and he becomes something of a houseboy to Hinkle suggesting the sadly familiar positions of black people and white people. However, as the film moves toward its finale, these two become friends and end, in the film’s final and evocative shot, as equals cavorting on the football field together. This is a powerful ending and re-envisions the usual Hollywood romantic ending in an important way.

 

The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970), directed by Billy Wilder. The film should have been a labour of love, Wilder having planned a story about Holmes as early as the late 1950s. And there are good things for the finding here: some quick quips, an effective mise en scene, a clever use of Sherlock’s brother Mycroft (Christopher Lee), etc. On the whole, however, this is not Wilder at his satiric best. He does, perhaps, take Holmes too seriously. Robert Stephens and Colin Blakely as the two principal characters acquit themselves adequately, and Genevieve Page as Gabrielle Valladon, Holme’s client and adversary is attractive. These characters are set to work in a less than effective plot. The bit with the Loch Ness monster is hardly mysterious or even believable, although I guess it is memorable since it is the only bit of the film that I remember from a viewing many years ago. Wilder also tries to tackle the implications of Holmes and Watson living together, erring on the side of convention. We are to rest assured that these two jolly fellows are as straight as they come! So what to conclude? This is not, by any means, in the upper tier of Sherlock Holmes films; on the other hand, it offers a pleasant enough way to spend two hours.

 Daisies (1966), directed by Vera Chytilova. This is a zany surrealistic example of the Czech New Wave. Two young women take note that the world has gone bad. As the credits role, we see shots of bombs and devastation caused by war and toppling buildings, letting us see just how bad the world has gone. In response to this bad state of things, the young women decide to be bad. They set out on a wild adventure into excess, especially excessive eating. Their hedonism knows no bounds. Neithr does the cinematography that jumps about, just as the women jump about, and changes colour as often as the women change clothes or make-up. Some of this reminded me of Bunuel’s Le Chien Andalou, although there are touches of Pasolini and Parajanov here too. I also detected Chaplin as an influence. Without a plot, but with much bravado, this film explores both the excesses of the modern state and cinema itself. This is not a film to be taken lightly; it demands attention and thought. It was banned and Chytilova was not allowed to work for nine years. This ought to indicate just how effective this film is in its critique of state control. 

La Bestia Debe Morir (The Beast Must Die, 1952), directed by Roman Vinoly Barreto. This Argentinian noir has all the elements of a whodunit combined with the edge and visual appeal of film noir. The story is based on Ray Blake’s detective novel published in 1938. The plot is straight forward. Jorge Rattery (Guillermo Battaglia) is a rat of a human being who abuses his wife and his step-son and just about anyone else he can abuse. Soon after the film opens, he unknowingly drinks poison and dies. Who is responsible for this murder? As we begin to unravel the story behind the murder in flashback, we see that Jorge was a hit and run driver, having struck and killed a young boy one wet dark night. The boy’s father, a man named Frank Carter, who writes mysteries under the name of Felix Lane (Narciso Ibanez Menta), decides to seek out the man who killed his son and murder him. Things move along briskly as Felix Lane meets the killer’s sister-in-law, falls in love, finds himself involved with the sister-in-law’s family, becomes friendly with the beast of a murderer, and then briefly becomes a suspect in the beast’s murder. He has, however, a solid alibi. Who, then, did the deed? No, it was not the sister-in-law who has suffered the advances of the beast, Jorge, and who was in the car that fatal night. There are several other candidates, but what interests us more are the relationships between people. Perhaps the most powerful relationship is between Felix and the young step-son of Jorge, Ronnie Hershey (Humberto Balado). Ronnie reminds us, and Felix, of Felix’s deceased son. This is an impressive film with some impressive lighting and camera work.

 

Los tallos amargos (The Bitter Stems, 1956). This Argentinian noir opens with the clock sounding midnight as two men prepare to board a train. Thus begins the move to a perfect murder. This film has several features of noir: voice over, analepsis and prolepsis, cynicism, entrapment, a mysterious, if not fatal, woman, shadows and some dark nights. This is a noir without a villain in the usual sense. Oh, Alfredo Gaspar (Carlos Cores) does commit a murder, but he is really not such a bad fellow, just somewhat slow to grasp things. He is a poor schmuck of a journalist who embarks on a questionable venture with a new-found friend, the illegal immigrant Liudas (Vassili Lambrinos). Alfredo begins to think that his friend is out to con him a well as the customers the two of them are duping. This leads him to carry out an impetuous and extremely foolish act of murder. He buries the corpse, along with a number of seeds the dead man was carrying. From these seeds grow plants that are Alfredo’s undoing. He kneels in front of an oncoming locomotive. The end! This is all very dark and impressive. The camera work is effective, with lines of shadows that communicate threateningly early in the film and nice contrasts of dark and rainy nights with bright sunlit days. That opening with the signaling of midnight says it all. Midnight comes as the stroke of doom. Did I say “perfect murder”? Well yes, if only poor Alfredo knew anything about agronomy.

The Battle of Algiers (1966), directed by Gillo Pontecorvo. Yesterday was Remembrance Day and we watched Pontecorvo’s devastating film on the struggle for Algerian independence from France in the 1950s and 60s. The film begins with a notice that no newsreel film has been used, and yet everything looks very real in this documentary-looking film. We have several characters to follow, but no heroes or villains. Both sides accept collateral damage in this street-war, fought in alleys, streets, tenements, and markets. The point-of-view is quite balanced, although when push comes to shove, we know where Pontecorvo’s sympathies lie. At one point we have a reference to Sartre whose sympathies were with the nationalists. The French Colonel Mathieu (Jean Martin) remarks that Sartre always takes the liberal side. In any case, both sides kill indiscriminately. As a captured FLN leader says, one side uses women who carry bombs in baskets and the other side uses napalm dropped from planes. This very real-looking film has a structure, beginning, after a scene in which an abject fellow is tortured for information, with four people, two men, a woman, and a boy, hiding behind a wall while French soldiers, who have learned their whereabouts from the tortured man, seek them. The camera eventually focuses on one of the men, then things fade back years to when this young man was a street thief running from the police. We see how he becomes a member of the resistance. Although the action of the film takes place 50 to 60 years ago and in Algeria, what we experience is depressingly familiar, and similar atrocities continue to take place in various countries. Despite the remembrance of such things past, humanity does not grasp the idiocy, the stupidity, the injustice, the devastation of warfare.

 

Death of a Cyclist (1955), directed by J. A. Bardem. This film brings together Hollywood noir melodrama with Italian neo-realism in order to expose the failings of the social system under the Franco government in Spain. Behind most of the action here is the war, the Spanish civil war and the larger European war a decade ago. The noir elements include a hero caught in a fraught situation, a femme fatale, an arch art critic cynical to a degree, and some of the lighting and camera work we would expect. Then we have the neo-realist parts of the film, shots of poverty and dilapidation, kids in the street, a city divided by wealth, and intense close-ups. The editing is clever and sly pairing shots deftly bring out both emotion and meaning. For example, the cutting between gazes of the lovers as if they were in the same room, although she is actually with her husband and her lover is by himself in another place. Such cutting reaches its witty best when the lover, Juan, exhales cigarette smoke in one room/cut to Maria Jose, his mistress, who brushes smoke away from her husband’s cigarette. We also have the pairing of wealthy children in their finery with the street kids struggling to survive. There is much more to admire in this film, but suffice to say the cyclist has the last word – as it were.

El: This Strange Passion (1952), directed by Luis Bunuel. Apparently, Jacques Lacan liked this film, and it is easy to understand why this might be so. This film, like so many of Bunuel’s works, is about twisted desire, desire so insistent that it cracks open the Real. The opening scene in the church with the priest washing and then kissing the feet of supplicants, our protagonist Francisco (Arturo de Cordova) assisting in the ceremony, and then seeing the feet of a woman whom he instantly singles out as the love of his life indicates the theme of fetishism. Francisco pursues this woman despite the fact that she is engaged to an old friend. Francisco is wealthy and lives in a stately and singularly lavish mansion. His wealth impresses the young woman, Gloria (Delia Garces), and her mother, and Francisco is successful in his pursuit. He marries the love of his life only to fall into violent jealousy as early as the honeymoon. As the masculine definite article of the title suggests, the film is about masculine desire, paranoia, and irrational violence. Twice Francisco tries to kill his wife, failing to do so both times. He also tries to kill the priest who has defended him against the allegations of Gloria. But the film also gives us an opportunity to follow Gloria and her resistance to leaving a man who clearly frightens her. She keeps hoping she can change him. She can’t. Eventually she does manage to escape and find comfort in a marriage with Rafael (Ricardo Lujan), the man she was first engaged to before she met Francisco. The film ends with Francisco living a quiet and contemplative life with monks. His sanctuary is with the Church, an institution that, arguably, initiated all his trouble in the first place. Bunuel is one of my favourite directors. This may not be among the best of his films, but it holds my interest and it clearly deals with Bunuel’s recurring themes.

 

 

 Some spaghetti westerns for September.

Massacre Time (1966), directed by Lucio Fulci. This is Fulci’s first western and it is something of a prelude to his more famous horror films to follow. The opening pre-credit scene sets the tone. Here sadistic young Jason Scott (Nino Castelnuovo) and his men with their dogs chase a peasant across rough terrain until they come to a river where the dogs catch the man and tear him apart. Credits follow and we begin the tale of Tom Corbett (Franco Nero) and his brother, the inebriate Jeff (George Hilton), and their dealings with land baron Mr. Scott (Giuseppi Addobbati). This is a story of revenge and family romance. The film looks good, its cinematography crisp and colourful. Franco Nero looks remarkably like Clint Eastwood in the dollar films, complete with sheepskin vest and cigarillo. George Hilton gives a broad performance as the drunken brother (or is he really the brother?). The violence is strong, including a lengthy scene that takes the whip scene in Burt Lancaster’s The Kentuckian (1955) to exuberant lengths. The final shootout is something to behold, worthy of standing beside some of the pyrotechnics of the Shaw Brothers. Worth a look.

 

My Name is Pecos (1966), directed by Maurizio Lucidi. This Spaghetti western is as violent as they come, with shootings that include women and a child, beatings, rapes, hangings, and mayhem. Robert Woods stars as the eponymous character, a Mexican whose family has been murdered by the nefarious Joe Clane (Pier Paolo Capponi). The plot is straight forward, the action linear, and the conclusion expected. The formula was set with a Fistful of Dollars: a mysterious stranger rides into town, a town overrun with unsavoury baddies, he meets the town undertaker who is suitably slimy, then he has a shootout or two in and about the local saloon, next he takes a vicious beating, and is whisked away to hiding by a woman and a doctor whose hands have been crushed by that same baddie, Joe Clane, then he recovers and sets about eliminating the baddies until he arrives at the showdown with Joe, the man who is responsible for the murders of his family, and finally he rides off, perhaps not into the sunset, but into the arid desert. As the mysterious stranger, Robert Woods does not have quite the same charisma as Clint Eastwood or Franco Nero, or even Tomas Milian, but this film did spawn one sequel. That said, Pecos did not catch on the way Django, Sartana, Ringo, and Sabata did. The filming in this one is impressive, although the cast of extras who ride about furiously could have used a bit more practice riding.

 

Bandidos (1967), directed by Massimo Dallamano. Dallamano was the cinematographer for Leone’s first two “Dollar” films, and his way with a camera shows here. This is an exceptionally well shot Spaghetti western, with a camera that moves smoothly and follows a bottle as it slides down a bar top, follows boots as they move quietly on a western street, and captures men hiding and peeking out from behind a piano or a wagon or a corner of a building. As for story, this is familiar. It reminded me of Death Rides a Horse from the same year. An older man, Richard Martin (Enrico Maria Salerno), is a sharpshooter who has his hands destroyed by a former friend, Billy Kane (Venantino Venantini). This sets up the revenge plot. Richard finds a young man, Ricky Shot (Terry Jenkins), to mentor. He teaches Ricky to be a sharpshooter. What Richard does not know is that Ricky was on the train that was robbed when Richard had his hands shot by Billy. This event takes place at the beginning of the film. Anyway, the action plays out with the usual violence, lots of bodies falling here and there. What distinguishes this film is the cinematography, and it is quite astonishing. I don’t think this film has the reputation of such Spaghetti westerns as those by Leone or Corbucci or Questi or Solima, but it deserves a look. This one is as well made as they come.

 

And God Said to Cain (1970), directed by Antonio Margheriti, aka Anthony Dawson. A rather subdued Klaus Kinski plays ex-convict Gary Hamilton, who has spent ten years hard labour for a crime he did not commit. The person responsible for Gary’s incarceration is Acombar (Peter Carsten), who not only took Gary’s freedom, but also his girlfriend, Maria (Marcella Michelangeli) who looks as if she would be right at home in a Hammer horror film. Maria’s appearance suits this gothic western with its impending tornado, tolling bell, hall of mirrors, and creature of the night, the implacable Gary. Much of the action takes place at night in the streets, buildings, and underground tunnels of a western town. The tolling bell reminds us of Poe, the extreme wind signals Gary’s sweeping through the town like death itself, and the hall of mirrors works as it does in Welles’s Lady from Shanghai. The room with the many mirrors is perhaps the most impressive touch in this horror of a western suggesting the entrapment at work here. The pace is slow, but again this suits the slow twist of death as it moves wraithlike through the town. The title lets us know that Gary is forever cursed to wander between the winds. He takes revenge, but doing so dooms him. The score also suits the atmosphere with its organ music and trumpet. The story might be simple, but its darkness is perhaps only topped by Corbucci’s The Great Silence, another film with Kinski.

 Dekalog (1989), directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski. This is a ten-part television mini-series based loosely on the Ten Commandments. I will comment on it in two parts. Here is Part One. Dekalog: One deals with a father and young son who are both computer geeks. The father, a university professor of computer science, is at best an agnostic. His son, Pawel (Wojciech Klata), is a curious boy who asks his father questions about life and death, questions his learned father finds difficult to answer. But answer he does. The two of them make calculations regarding the safety of the ice on a nearby small lake, and Pawel takes his new skates for a try-out.  Meanwhile Pawel’s aunt is concerned for the boy’s spiritual training. The film presents us with believable people, and plausible situations. It also presents us with serious questions regarding faith, science, and human fallibility. Dekalog: Two turns to questions of love. Here we have a woman, Dorota Geller (Krystyna Janda) with a problem. Her husband is gravely ill with cancer and she carries the chid of another man. Should she have an abortion or not? She seeks the help of the doctor (Aleksander Bardini) who is treating her husband and who happens to live in the same apartment complex as she does. This doctor proves not to have the greatest bedside manner. Anyway, the film keeps us focused on the inner turmoil experienced by both Dorota and the doctor. Both have suffered and are suffering. Both face the dilemma of going on despite life’s difficult turns. The resolution here just may offer a bit of hope in a barren and chilly world – Coleridge’s “cold world.” Dekalog: Three introduces us to Janusz (Daniel Olbsychski) a taxi driver who comes home on Christmas Eve dressed as Santa Claus. He and his family are having a fine night before Christmas when the phone rings. Ewa (Maria Pakulnis), Janusz’s former lover has called to ask for his help in finding her husband who has apparently gone missing. Thus begins a night of searching and discovery. What we discover is that Ewa’s husband is not missing and that she has hopes of reigniting an old flame. The night’s events have something of the sensibility of Scorsese’s After Hours (1985) without the over-the-top surreal feeling or the comedy. Atmosphere is everything in this play with adultery and prevarication. Brightly lit Christmas trees dot the city streets and squares. The highlight is the station person who rolls up on a skateboard. She is amusing. All the actors are subtle. And morning brings resolution. Dekalog: Four focuses on honouring your mother and father, although the honouring here is closer to Sophocles than to the Ten Commandments. A young woman has lived for twenty years with her father, her mother having died just five days after giving birth. Father and daughter are close. He leaves on a business trip and while he is away, the daughter, Anka (Adrianna Biedrzynska), discovers a letter left for her by her mother. Does she read this or not? She tells her father when he returns that she has learned that he is not her father. She also confesses to having affection for him that is deeper than that of a daughter. Here the Oedipal theme finds a twist. The experience of this Dekalog is intense, very intense. And uncomfortable. Most of the action takes place inside the father and daughter’s apartment, giving what we experience a claustrophobic feel. Quite amazing. Dekalog: Five takes us to a dark place, and the look of this one reflects a glumness, a sickly green with a touch of orange letting us know we are in a hellish place. Thou shalt not kill. A young lawyer defends a young man who has murdered a taxi driver, but this young lawyer loses the case and the young man is sentenced to hang. The lawyer is devastated. Punishment, he asserts, is a form of vengeance and we know what the Lord saith. This short film on the evil of killing, no matter who carries out the killing, individual or the state, is expanded in Kieslowski’s A Short Film About Killing. Both the shorter and longer versions are released in 1988, the same year in which Poland abolished the death penalty. This film, Dekalog, appeared on Polish television, and it is quite stunning. Highly recommended. Stay tuned for Part Two. 

Part Two: Dekalog: Six warns about coveting our neighbour’s ass, as it were. Nineteen-year-old Tomek (Olaf Lubaszenko) spies on his neighbour Magda (Grazyna Szapolowska). After fiddling with her mail (he works in the local post office)  and arranging to deliver her morning milk, he finally meets her and admits that he has been watching her with her lovers. Rather than go to the police, Magda encourages the young man, going so far as to bring him into her flat and attempt to seduce him. The experience for Tomek is harrowing and he attempts to commit suicide by slicing his wrists. The film is intense and discomforting. Has Magda acted wisely? What motivates her? Has the young man’s loss of his parents driven him to this neediness? The film may raise such questions, but I am not sure it answers them. Dekalog: Seven asks “Can you steal something that is yours?” Thou shalt not steal, and yet who has stolen the child Ania (Katarzina Powowarczyk)? Ania’s birth mother, Majka (Maja Barelkowska), was 16 when she gave birth to Ania, and Majka’s mother, Ewa (Ana Polony) assumed the role of Ania’s mother. Six years later, Majka wishes to take on the role of mother. Since Ewa is unwilling to relinquish her role as mother, Majka kidnaps Ania. All of this plays out amid talk of wolves and fairy tales and family and lives broken by the events of six years before. Young Ania remains confused. Majka remains outside, expelled from school and from her life as mother. All that is left is departure. Dekalog: Eight concerns bearing false witness. University Professor of ethics, Zofia (Maria Koscialkowska) receives a visit from the American translator of her works, Elzbieta (Teresa Marczewska). Elzbieta attends one of Zofia’s classes where we hear recounted the events of Episode Two. We also hear Elzbieta’s story of a Jewish child turned away from a safe haven during the war. It transpires that Elzbieta is the child and Zofia is the woman who turned her away. Before going back to Zofia’s for dinner, the two stop at the place where the events in the war took place. Here Elzbieta disappears for a short while, effectively abandoning Zofia and allowing her to experience the fear of abandonment. The two women spend the night together and the following morning turning over the ethical knot that was their war time experience. Dekalog: Nine focuses on Romek (Piotr Machalica) and Hanka (Ewa Blaszczyk) who are trying to come to terms with Romek’s impotence. Romek had appeared briefly in Dekalog Six, and now we revisit the difficulties that love can cause. Romek suggests that Hanka take a lover, but when she does, he becomes obsessed with fear of diminution. Mirrors and distance shots suggest people beside themselves, people losing a sense of confidence and importance. The situation leads to near disaster. Dekalog: Ten actually has comedy, perhaps of the darker sort, but comedy nonetheless. It ends in laughter. The narrative, succinct and efficient as always (no need for “five days earlier” or that sort of slippage through time), concerns two brothers whose father has died leaving a fortune in stamps. Their attempts to decide what to do with this collection prove complicated, to say the least. These attempts involve barring windows and doors, getting a guard dog, dealing with a small assortment of people with designs for the collection, and a donated kidney. You will just have to see this for yourself. As a television series, this is daring and thought-provoking.