Boetticher tackling... a war movie? A bit outside his wheelhouse, but the crackling racial tensions within the squadron are pretty unusual and distinctive for 1952.
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Le Plaisir 1952
Magnificently sly, and unmistakably Ophuls... but of his late-career masterpieces (haven't seen Earrings yet), this one did the least for me. That's praising with faint damn.
Thought experiment: imagine the second episode as a John Ford movie.
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Valerie and Her Week of Wonders 1970
If this were by a female director, it'd be a compelling menstrual-hut-power fantasy ode to Goddess Reproductive Magic, but that's not a movie that any man could make, so...
Disturbing crypto-pedo fantasy that reads like Charles Dodgson and Roman Polanski brainstorming on heavy doses of MDMA.
It's got vampires + a very girly magic-realism drawn from fairy-tales and dream-work. A bit kitsch, innit? In a good way, though, like a lo-fi Nazareno Cruz.
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Vicky Cristina Barcelona 2008
Glib and carelessly-imagined ode to privilege. I tried to ignore my distaste for the superficial artsiness of the characters, but after the scene where the blonde girl decided it would be kicks to go to a slummy-looking neighborhood and photograph sex-workers I just couldn't. Esp. when the SW were all "Hello, American Lady Woman! We love you! Come taste the wines and cheeses of my village!"
An art-adjacent lifestyle is one thing, an arts career is another.
