My Week of Movie Watching

The Music Room – This Satyajit Ray classic has been on my want list ever since I first read about it years ago in Roger Eberts Great Movies feature. I finally got to it this week, and it didn’t disappoint. An elderly wealthy landowner lives in his mansion, holding on as his money and prestige dwindle away. His neighbour is an up-from-the-gutter money lender who he sees as an ill-mannered poseur. Whereas the old man still rides a horse and lives in an opulent but decaying mansion, the neighbour drives a car and irritates the old man with his loud generator and his modern music. The foundation of the film is the changing of the guard in India, with the old money fading and a new breed emerging who look at the old guard with bemusement. The culmination of the film is a lavish concert that the old man stages with his last scraps of money. He knows this is his last gasp, but he cannot surrender his reputation. His young rival, on the other hand, seems to need the respect of the old man, even though both know that the pendulum has swung. The conclusion of the film has a great sequence showing all the candles in the music room going out, one after another. As beautiful a metaphor as you will ever see.

Woman in the Dunes – This is the second time around for this brilliant offering from the Japanese titan Hiroshi Teshigahara. A teacher working in the desert accepts an invitation to sleep over in the house of a mysterious woman who lives in a pit, and finds himself trapped. The inhabitants of the hole have to shovel sand out every day to avoid being buried alive. If this preposterous encapsulation turns you away, think again – This is a terrific examination of free will, and how people get ensnared in lifestyles. WitD is also an exhilarating visual experience, with shots of flowing dunes and super close-ups of grains of sand stuck to sweaty flesh. There really isn’t anything else that this can be compared to, and it is an enthusiastic recommendation.

The Naked Island – Unique 1960 film from Kaneto Shindo. Shindos Onibaba is probably one of my five favorite films of all time, so I watched this expecting to be impressed. I was impressed, but in a way I would never have anticipated. Island tells the story of a family who lives alone and farms on a remote island. They have to boat to the mainland every day to bring water across to irrigate their crops. The story is as simple as it could be, but there is one kicker – There is no spoken dialogue in this film. Not one word. Shindo instead focuses on the routines of everyday life; the carrying of buckets of water, the rowing of the boat. There is an event that I won’t divulge which threatens the routine, and it is in these passages that I really fell in love with this film. There is a notable late scene on a hillside, where fireworks are going off in the distance, which is just so perfect and sad that it brought a lump to my throat. The best compliment I can give is this: The absence of dialogue starts out as a distraction, but in the final passages, I found myself hoping that the film wouldn’t give in and have a character speak. Very highly recommended.

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M – This is not the Fritz Lang original, but rather the Joseph Losey remake from 1951. The plot is the same – a child killer is on the loose, and the cops and the underworld begin parallel investigations to find the man. Veteran character actor David Wayne plays the Peter Lorre part. The Lang version made a specific point of showing us the similarities between the two pursuers, whereas this one is a bit more like a standard police procedural. I was glad to see Losey re-cycle the most famous image from the original: The stray balloon of a child hung up on power lines. It’s a daunting task to remake a milestone film, but this one stands on its own pretty well. Recommended.

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