tonight, while on the run from the digusting and ridiculous extravaganza organized by joseph blatter & his FIFA-gang, i entered the FIFA-free realm of bavarian television and came across two lovely old gems: dead calm [phillip noyce AUS 1989] (todesstille, for once the german title=not idiotic!), with nicole kidman looking like a young girl, and a maximum of suspense produced with a minimum of personnel en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Calm_(film), and right after that: comes a horseman [alan j. pakula USA 1978] (eine farm in montana, pfff...) with jane fonda, james caan, jason robards, richard farnsworth... in the words of the time out film guide, my favourite for short, blunt summaries: >from the first, with its graveyard claustrophobically hemmed in by mountains, comes a horseman is a misfit western, with pacula using jane fondas uncanny resemblance to her father to set up a curious tangential relationship, respectful and rebellious, with classic western mythology. fonda is the rather uneasy banshee woman boss of a montana ranch in 1945, fighting off cattle baron (and former incestuous cousin) robards, assisted only by a walter brennan-style old-timer and a reluctant recruit: anzio veteran caan. the sparring of veteran and banshee sits uneasily between conviction and irony, the set pieces - stampede, saloon fight - seem token; even the ranchers conflicts of interest are handled too precisely, too politically for genre material. only in the later stages, with some appropriate acknowledgements - that the ranches are both mortgaged, that the film is more interested in murder than battle - does conflict come alive. visually superb, though: a doomed attempt to make fordian metaphors speak a language of corrupting, intimate anxiety.< en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comes_a_Horseman looking forward to watching more great stuff until mr blatters circus packs up and buggers off in mid-july!
Posted on: Mon, 16 Jun 2014 00:44:28 +0000
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