Evil Does Not Exist 2023 Directed by Ryūsuke Hamaguchi (Drive My Car). I needed watched to watch a director's interview to help understand it. The title seems to refer to the idea that when wild animals harm each other it is not considered "evil". Maybe this should be true in some situations for humans as well. The story takes place in a remote village in the moutain woods of modern Japan. The conflict is between the villagers and a company that wants to build a tourist site there. The vilagers think it will harm the environment and the ecology. The movie starts out slow in the first hour by dwelling on the peacefulness and beauty and harmony of the location and the villagers. This is backed by an excellent musical score. Then there are interesting conversations especially inside moving cars. The events of the final ten minutes are unexpected although they were foreshadowed. The ending has baffled reviewers but the movie has still been well-received. I don't want to spoil. I give it a grade B, worth watching but it is a bit dull and enigmatic.
Finally got to see The Mother and The Whore on Criterion . It's one of those films that's been nearly impossible to see. Plot involves one man, his live-in girlfriend and another woman he pursues. Eventually they all end up in the same bed, but it's not a menage a trois in the usual sense.
There's a great monologue at the end of the film by the woman who is being pursued.
I think the film speaks to a post May '68 malaise when the '60s become the '70s.
Satirical, biting, and uncomfortable, it's very French. It may be a great film, and at nearly four hours it doesn't drag.
I watched Close Encounters of the Third Kind again. Still a terrific movie, and I love the references to Hitchcock's North By Northwest, the notes to the theme from Jaws played by the alien ship, and "When You Wish Upon a Star" played by one of the kid's toys.
I think it's one of those movies that you need a heart of stone not to like it.
I have a thing for visiting shot locations when convenient. For example, coming back from NE last summer, stopped in Joliet and saw the state prison from the opening of The Blues Brothers (and Field of Dreams later that day, but that did less for me).
Anyway, some years ago, I climbed up the exact same little hill where Dreyfuss and Dillon got their first view of Devils Tower. That was pretty cool to me.
okay, I just finished the preposterously bad but still entertaining shark-in-the-Seine movie, Under Paris, about a giant shark who starts munching on triathletes, climate activists, and various police in and, well, under Paris.
Was not expecting that kind of ending lol.
But I have a question:
Spoiler:
What the hell made Paris flood? The bridges collapsing? The detonating shells? the sharks? None of that makes a lick of sense. So I'm befuddled.
