Monthly Archives: March 2021

The Story of Adele H. (L’histoire d’Adele H.)
Directed by Francois Truffaut
Written by Francois Truffaut, et al from the diaries of Adele Hugo
1975/France
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime rental

Adèle Hugo: I’m your wife. Forever. We’ll stay together until we die.

Isabelle Adjani is fantastic in Truffaut’s true story of obsession and madness.

The setting is 1862.  The British are still undecided about whether to enter the American Civil War on the side of the Confederacy.  A battalion is posted in Halifax, Nova Scotia on the ready.

Adele Hugo fell in love with handsome young British lieutenant Albert Pinson (Bruce Robinson) in Guernsey where her father Victor Hugo lived in exile.  They evidently had a sexual affair and he spoke of marriage.  Her father disapproved and before Adele knew it Albert was transferred to Halifax.

Adele bravely crossed the ocean alone and incognito in search of her man.  By the time she arrives in Halifax he has lost interest and basically wants her to leave him alone.  She believes that she belongs to him and that he will eventually see reason.

Adele takes up lodging in a boarding house under an assumed name.  She will not take no for an answer and resorts to using increasingly desperate and humiliating ways of persuading or coercing Albert into marrying her.  She knows he has gambling debts and gives him most of the money she gets from home.  He accepts the money but not Adele. She maliciously interferes with his engagement, puts marriage announcements in the papers, and generally stalks him to an intolerable extent.

In the meantime, she uses up reams of paper writing her diary in a secret language.  It is not too clear whether she was mad before her fling with Albert or developed her crazy ways after being rejected by him.  At any rate, as time goes on she runs out of money and starts living in abject poverty.  When Albert is transferred to Barbados, she follows him there using the money her father had given her to return home.  Her madness intensifies.  

I really enjoyed this.  Truffaut makes great use of the period setting and Adjani is simply fantastic at every stage of her downfall.  It might not be a must-see but if the plot appeals I can recommend it.

Isabelle Adjani was nominated for the Best Actress Oscar.

English-language trailer (i watched the subtitled version)

Mother Küsters Goes to Heaven (Mutter Küsters’ Fahrt zum Himmel)
Directed by Ranier Werner Fassbinder
Written by Ranier Werner Fassbinder and Kurt Raab from a story by Heinrich Zille
1975/West Germany
IMDb page
First viewing/Criterion Channel

Emma Küsters: Everybody’s out for something. Once you realize that, everything is simple.

I loved this dark, savage, political film.

The setting is contemporary Frankfurt, Germany.  Emma Küsters (Brigitte Mira) is a humble working class housewife who makes ends meet by putting together electronic gizmos at home.  Her weak son and horrible pregnant daughter-in-law Helene (Irm Herrmann) share the apartment.  One day as Emma is making dinner, a knock on the door comes to inform her that her husband Herrmann killed the foreman at the factory where he worked and then himself.  This is not the quiet, decent man she knew.

Almost immediately, the apartment is filled with reporters and photographers who want to get the scoop on the sensational story.  Emma calls her daughter Corinna (Ingrid Caven) in Munich with the news and asks her to come home.  She is not too keen on this until she hears about the reporters. The bewildered Emma and her live-in kids are manipulated into making statements that will be taken out of context.

The most persistent of the reporters is Niemeyer (Gottfried John) who calls the next day for an exclusive interview.  He persuades Emma that he is on her side and will get her story out.

He offers to take Emma to pick up her daughter Corinna, a “singer”, who uses her body and general decadence to cover up her lack of talent.  She exploits Herrmann’s funeral by carefully posing herself for pictures as the grieving daughter.  Helene and Emma’s son go on a planned holiday instead of attending.  They move out soon after returning.  Corinna moves in with Niemeyer, whose article portrays Herrmann as a monster.  Corinna also gets a singing job in a dive that uses her father’s notoriety to draw a crowd.

Next, Karl Thälmann (Karl-Heinz Böhm) and his wife Marianne (Margit Carstensen) befriend Emma.  Both are devout Communists and promise to use the paper Karl writes for to clear Herrmann’s name.  The couple see the husband’s actions as a response to capitalist oppression.  After Emma is deserted by her children, she turns to them for comfort and eventually joins the German Communist Party.  She is ultimately disappointed by the failure of the Party to take action or even publish a story.

Then she is befriended by an anarchists who suggest occupying Niemeyer’s newspaper’s office and demanding a retraction of the article.  I will stop here.  Fassbinder came up with two alternate endings.

Fassbinder once again produces a sordid and beautiful film.  He skewers just about every aspect of West German life and politics.  The acting and production are splendid.  If you are interested in having your faith in humanity restored, give this a miss.  If you are a Fassbinder fan like me, I highly recommend it.

No trailer so here is a summary of the 44 projects Fassbinder completed between 1966 and his death in 1982

Love and Death
Directed by Woody Allen
Written by Woody Allen
1975/US
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Instant

Sonja: Oh don’t, Boris, please. Sex without love is an empty experience.
Boris: Yes, but as empty experiences go, it’s one of the best.

Woody Allen is still working up to Annie Hall levels of story telling in this hit-or-miss gag fest spoofing War and Peace and a bit of Bergman.

Boris (Allen) is a cowardly, wise-cracking Russian peasant.  He is in love with his cousin Sonja (Diane Keaton) who loves his brother and, eventually, everybody in St. Petersburg after she marries a smelly herring merchant when the brother marries somebody else. Sonja is a psuedo-intellectual and has long nonsensical conversation with Boris and others.

Boris is drafted to fight in the war with France.  He accidentally becomes a hero.  During a lull in the war, he has a one-night stand with a Countess.  Her fiancé challenges him to a duel.  On the eve of the fight, which he expects to lose, he asks Sonja to marry him.  She agrees figuring she has nothing to lose.  When Boris prevails, she goes through with the ceremony.  Eventually she falls in love with him.

Sonja decides that the two should assassinate Napoleon.  Boris is not enthusiastic to say the least but goes along with the plan.

This has a high IMDb user rating but it did not wow me on original release or on this latest viewing.  There are some funny gags and Allen’s technical proficiency is clearly growing.

Overlord
Directed by Stuart Cooper
Written by Stuart Cooper and Christopher Hudson
1975/UK
First viewing/Criterion Channel

Jack: Did you hear what Tom did this morning?
Arthur: No.
Jack: He went to see old Nickelby, and asked him if they gave out compassionate leave if there’s been a death in the family. So Nickelby said, “Oh, yeah, yeah, depending on the circumstances.” And Tom said, “Well, there hasn’t been a death in my family yet, but there’s going to be one very soon, and I request leave to go home and console my parents.”

Effective portrayal of how the steady approach of D-Day impacts the lives of British recruits.

This film is bracketed and interrupted by archival footage.  Tom is a raw British recruit.  His occupation category is combat and it is obvious the next big battle will be the invasion of France.  He and his new buddies are bored, lonely and terrified.  We see them train, relax, and finally board the landing craft that will hit the beaches of Normandy.  Tom even has the chance to fall in love.  In addition, Tom’s fantasies of battle are shown.  Only a couple of minutes of the actual invasion is shown.

This was OK.  Some of the cinematography is lovely.

The Terror of Mechagodzilla (Mekagojira no gyakushu)
Directed by Ishiro Honda
Written by Yukiku Takayama
1975/Japan
IMDb page
First viewing/Criterion Channel

Tsuda: Your heart is frozen and dry. Who’d love a cyborg, a person who is not a person? So remember, forget about Earthlings. They’re no concern of yours. There’s only one emotion that controls your mind. What emotion is that? What controls you?
Katsura Mafune: [listlessly] Vengeance and hate. Revenge.
Tsuda: Quite right. That’s good.

Ishiro Honda returns to the Godzilla franchise.  It certainly has changed over the years.

Some space aliens have decided to destroy our planet using space age metallic monsters Mechagodzilla and Titanosaurus. Interpol is onto the plot.  There is an ancient prophesy drawn on cave walls that says that when the red moon rises and the sun sets in the West, two monsters will arise to save the planet.  Island people know that only King Caesar (a giant furry Chinese lion type thing) can save the planet.  They would like to see the mainland destroyed first.  But some journalists steal King Caesar’s statue.  Also the space aliens kidnap a professor to repair Mechagodzilla. A whole bunch of stuff happens.  Every time an alien is killed his face turns into a gorilla’s.   I never did figure out why or much else about the story.  Unintentionally funny monster battles bracket the film and there is one scene of the mass destruction of a city by the alien monsters.

In just twenty years, Honda’s original monster has morphed from a terrifying metaphor for nuclear destruction to humanity’s savior.

Pros: No annoying little kid; lots of lame but spectacular effects; hilarious monster battle action. Cons: sitcom music; too much story, too little action; too many loose ends.  Firsts: Furry monster. Verdict: OK for when your inner 12 year old needs a workout.

Daguerreotypes
Directed by Agnes Varda
Written by Agnes Varda
1975/France
IMDb page
First viewing/Criterion Channel

They called me ‘The Ancestor of the New Wave’ when I was only 30. I had seen very few films, which, in a way, gave me both the naivety and the daring to do what I did. — Agnes Varda

Nobody does charming quite like Agnes Varda.

This documentary was made on Daguerre Street in Paris where Agnes Varda lived at the time she was tending to her young son.  It focuses on short interviews with the many shop keepers on the street, some of which look to have been there for a hundred years.  Varda is adept at affectionately catching all their quirks.  The vignettes are interrupted by parts of a second-rate magicians act.

Anyone with nostalgia for the old traditional Paris will adore this!  Others may merely love it.