Phaedra (Jules Dassin, 1962)

 

Jules Dassin’s unappetizing Phaedra, vaguely rooted in Greek mythology, starts by immersing us in the opulent, hard-driving life of shipping magnet Thanos (Raf Vallone), his wife Phaedra (Melina Mercouri) positioned as a prize possession. He asks her to go to London to help talk his son and intended heir from an earlier marriage (Anthony Perkins) out of the dream of being an artist; instead, the two start an affair, of course knowing it can only end badly. There’s little sense of passion in the film though, given the significant lack of chemistry between the two actors: Mercouri is somewhat less grating than usual, but at the cost of merely being stiff and dull, and Perkins seems miscast and distant. The emphasis on wealth and privilege is off-putting from the start, attaining full-on moral bankruptcy in its climactic stretch, in which Thanos learns from his wife what’s happening and banishes his son, this taking place against the news that one of the company’s ships (the one named after Phaedra, naturally) has sunk off the coast of Norway; with the death toll yet to be reported, the black-clad wives of the crew crowd the corridor outside Thanos’ office to wait for news, the arrival of which is intertwined with the fate of the two transgressors. Whatever Dassin had in mind, the effect is of reducing calamitous loss and suffering to mere backdrop, embodied by the (albeit superficially arresting) image of Mercouri in a chic white dress and sunglasses pushing through the sea of black, gaining the entry denied to those others, her turbulent relinquishment of her place at the top flight of capitalism granted greater validity than the social tragedy unfolding around her (in which she shows not an iota of interest). If any aspect of this is intended to be damning, or even just darkly ironic, it’s hardly evident, any more than the film’s broader reason for existing.

Paterson (Jim Jarmusch, 2016)

 

Almost a decade on, Jim Jarmusch’s Paterson remains a sublime counterpoint to prevailing concerns and moods, its protagonist exemplifying the elevating capacities of a focus on small pleasures. That individual, Paterson (a perfectly calibrated Adam Driver) is a bus driver in Paterson, New Jersey, and also a poet, writing in his little notebook before each shift, during breaks, composing as he walks and in his little basement space at home. Paterson has at least one foot in a bygone age: he doesn’t have a smartphone – during an emergency he has to borrow one from a kid – and although we’re told his wife Laura has one, I’m not sure we ever glimpse it; in contrast, the shots of him holding and turning over beloved volumes of poetry carry a beautiful, unfussy weight, and when the couple goes to the movies, it’s to the 1932 Island of Lost Souls. Laura (a very sweet Golshifteh Farahani) is equally creative, but in a less-applied manner, more focused on notions of fame and money; during the film we see her paint (the apartment, the shower curtain, her clothes), start to learn the guitar, bake masses of cup cakes for a new stand at the farmer’s market, experiment with new recipes, all of which he’s supportive of in a sometimes rather nonplussed-seeming manner (we never learn how they got together, and the nature of their bond is a little mysterious, but unquestionably real and durable). Paterson, the city, probably isn’t many people’s idea of a must-visit, but the film establishes various points of beauty, and a diverse cultural history including as the birthplace both of Lou Costello and of a prominent Italian anarchist, the broader point being that even the most circumscribed life may find enrichment both through heightened attention to local possibilities, and by drawing on shared heritage. No doubt there’s an idealized aspect to the film, exemplified by how Paterson randomly meets not one but two fellow poets within a few days of each other, but the cumulative effect is at the very least warming, if not transcending.

Interview (Mrinal Sen, 1971)

 

Mrinal Sen’s Interview is in part a genial, sad-sack comedy of errors. Ranjit Mallick (played by Ranjit Mallick) gets an interview via his connected uncle for a job that pays double his current salary; he's led to believe it’s in the bag as long as he presents effectively, including wearing a Western suit. Mallick owns such a suit, but it’s been at the dry cleaners for months (he was worried about the moths getting to it at home), and now can’t be retrieved because they’re on strike, triggering a frantic against-the-clock attempt to find a replacement, which he then loses while intervening to thwart a pickpocket on the bus. The insistence on Western formality is depicted here as an imposition or affectation which nevertheless has severe economic consequences, as such symbolizing the ongoing pernicious legacy of the country’s cultural past. Sen’s critique further entails a disruption of familiar forms and conventions, a project dormant for the first half hour or so but then stunningly asserting itself when a woman notices how Mallick resembles a photo in a magazine she’s reading and he suddenly addresses the camera to acknowledge that it is indeed him, exposing the project’s artifice; the narrative continues, but playing now to a more critically heightened audience, culminating in a complete suspension of the filmic space, Mallick set down in a disembodied space and addressed by an offscreen voice that identifies itself as that of the audience, the ultimate tone a mixture of anger and defiance and plaintiveness. Sen further fractures and extends his film’s boundaries with documentary surveys of regular Indian life, of protest around the world, of (heavily Westernized) advertising posters, with written messages attacking the impact of computerization (that last item, at least, can’t help but appear quaint). It’s a remarkable, fresh, constantly surprising work, and surely far too little known, at least in the ever-bulldozing West.

Seven Days in May (John Frankenheimer, 1964)

 

John Frankenheimer’s 1964 drama Seven Days in May is inevitably dated, and a bit too arid, but remains a stirring reference point, not least for how its resonances shift with the times. The film sets out how Marine Corps. Colonel Casey (Kirk Douglas) stumbles onto evidence of a possible coup plot by his direct superior, James Scott (Burt Lancaster), and other military brass, in response to a recently-negotiated, highly divisive peace treaty with Russia (viewed in the age of Trump, one might almost shake one’s head at the inefficiency of plotting to subvert the democratic process by way of such cumbersome intervention, compared to the much more direct method of doing it from within). The movie’s aging President Lyman, embodied with great authoritative nuance by Fredric March, seems now like the kind of leader that’s lost in time (notwithstanding that Joe Biden was cut from similar cloth), even refusing out of basic decency to use some salacious letters that it seems would have done much to sully Scott’s reputation. But his instincts are sharp, seeing better than Scott that a United States in the hands of a military dictatorship would far more likely provoke Russian aggression than extinguish it, and here too, it’s impossible not to mull on how the current administration’s coup-like disregard for conventions and norms coexists with an inexplicable subservience to Russian self-interest and distortion of reality. Although some of the film’s devices now seem simplistic, such as the flurry of bland-seeming messages about a horse racing betting pool which turn out to be incredibly consequential communications about participation in the coup, these add to the pervasive sense of institutional vulnerability, to its excessive reliance on a few good men (and in this film, of course, they are all indeed men, a point underlined by the tediously shoehorned subplot involving Ava Gardner).