The Queen of Spades [dir. Thorold Dickinson]

Based on a story by the famous Russian author Alexander Pushkin, 1949's The Queen of Spades (QoS) is a fabulist melodrama on the themes of want and greed. When the Russian captain Suvorin (Anton Walbrook) visits the clubs where women and wine are aplenty, and games of chance are played, he himself refrains from gambling. Unlike his rich royalty-descended fellow-soldiers, he must scrimp and save for his future. In his own words he cannot afford to 'risk the necessary for the lure of the superfluous'.

In a tome purchased from a rather sinister (one could say Mephistophilean) bookseller, he learns the story of a certain countess Ranevskaya (Dame Edith Evans), who after selling her soul to the devil, obtains the secret of winning at cards. He becomes obsessed with extracting the secret from the Countess, now aged and crippled, yet still a strong-willed dominating woman (and looking rather like a Queen of Spades). He decides to make his way to the Countess by seducing her ward Lizaveta (Yvonne Mitchell). Liza is an innocent, bullied by the Countess who uses her as a lady's maid, and not wise to the ways of wily men. She succumbs to Suvorin's (copied) passionate love messages and secretively admits him into the house.

Suvorin instead makes his way to the Countess' room, to beg her to tell him the secret. He first offers to take her sin upon his head, then threatens her with his pistol. The countess falls dead from fear, and a frazzled Suvorin runs to Liza's room where he confesses all. Disgusted to learn the true motives for his 'passion' and his role in the Countess' death, Liza asks him to get out of the house and her life.

Later, Suvorin gets (or imagines?) a visitation from the dead Countess, who gives him the secret of the winning cards (Three...Seven...Ace), on condition that he marry her ward. He tries desperately to mollify Liza but is soundly rejected. Armed with the Countess' secret, he draws out his life's savings and enters the club. In a febrile humor, he plays a succession of games, each time betting the total of his previous winnings. In the third and last game, when he thinks he has the winning ace, he reveals his card, only to find that it is the Queen of Spades. He has been damned.

QoS is less a horror film than The Innocents (1961), more a fevered melodrama with supernatural underpinnings. Incidentally, Jack Clayton who directed that one was associate producer here. Director Thorold Dickinson (who was apparently hired only a few days before shooting began) generates, through deep focus and shadowy corners (DoP Otto Heller), an atmosphere of eerie unease that surely inspired Clayton (as does the impressive production design, contrasting the Countess' overbearingly lavish homestead with Suvorin's bare quarters). Anton Walbrook and Edith Evans are the two main cornerstones in the cast, and they are terrific in their respective parts. I also love that Suvorin's greed comes from his hatred of his circumstances and the derision he faces from his more prosperous fellowmen at the cards table. If I have any complaint, it is only that in the quest for a more cheerful final image, the film focuses on its least interesting characters.

But if B&W gothic melodramas are your thing, then you definitely need to deal yourself this hand.

A few words on the UK blu-ray from Studio Canal:

The disc boasts a terrific transfer, equaling Criterion's work on The Innocents, if we're talking B&W masterpieces. Comparing with screenshots of the earlier Kino Lorber release, I'd say the image is appreciably refined with better contrast and grain resolution. The lossless mono audio is clear, both dialog and the evocative audio effects (the scene where Suvorin hears the thump of the ghostly Countess' walking stick and the swish of her gown approaching his room is a sterling example). Extras include a commentary track, multiple featurettes, and archival audio interviews with the director. There is also a slim booklet included in the case. The slipcover is useless for me as it's the same front and back image as the inside cover.

Love, Sex aur Dhokha - 2 [dir. Dibakar Banerjee]

If one were to look for a common thread in all of Dibakar Banerjee aka DB's filmography (at least the  full-length features), it would be the interplay between truth and deceit. His comedies Khosla ka Ghosla! and Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!  prominently feature swindlers that live by pulling the wool over people's eyes. The characters are either deceiving someone else or blinding themselves to reality for the sake of wealth / happiness. Shanghai and Detective Byomkesh Bakshi! have protagonists driven by a search for the truth hidden behind the wall of deceit. In the fitfully interesting Sandeep aur Pinky Faraar (which was almost buried for want of takers) the characters are a bit of both. It would appear that, like his favorite detective, Mr. Banerjee is also through his films a 'Satyanweshi' (Truth-Seeker).

The first Love, Sex aur Dhokha (LSD) featured the camera as its ultimate protagonist, both an unbiased observer and a tool of deceit. In the world of 2010, it was handycams, CCTV and sting operations with hidden cameras that provided the voyeuristic view. 14 years later in LSD-2 (aka Like-Share-Download), it is reality TV, mobile phone cameras, virtual worlds and live-streaming / social media coverage that peers into our lives.

LSD-2's first episode focuses on Noor (Paritosh Tiwari), who after undergoing gender change surgery is now a participant in a talent show called Truth or Dance. Here the participants, challenged to dance or reveal a sensational truth about themselves, constantly work to up their audience ratings with emotional hooks. By choice I am not a major consumer of reality TV outside of cooking competitions, but this segment recalled my skims of shows like Kaun Banega Crorepati and  India's Best Dancer when sitting with mum, their naked attempts to hold audience interest by milking sob stories or generating "behind-the-stage" content that's supposedly candid/unrehearsed. Noor's game is to bring in the mother (Swaroopa Ghosh) she has not spoken to in years, and who still refers to her as male. Their on-camera meeting is all sugary tears, but behind it is a still uneasy alliance, forged not so much by rekindled love as an arrangement to share fame and money. Noor is also desperate for her lover, a co-participant on the show, to publicly acknowledge her. Banerjee's script - with co-writers Shubham and Prateek Vats - fluidly mixes Noor's growing destabilization with the on-camera drama she generates for audience points (with cheeky references to notorious Indian reality TV imbroglios like 'Iske oopar nahin bolne ka!'). He brings the proceedings to a furious boil, aided in no small measure by terrific performances from Tiwari and Ghosh as the estranged mother-son/daughter joined only by their common greed.

Episode 2 has Swastika Mukherjee as Lovina, manager for a social work outfit integrating transgenders into mainstream employment. When one of their subjects Kullu (Bonita Rajpurohit), a Delhi Metro attendant, is found raped and beaten, Lovina raises hell with lax law authorities demanding a full-scale investigation. But the truth is more complicated and it's not a black and white world. Lovina finds herself backed into a corner to get out of which she herself must play the games of power. This segment is remarkable mainly for how nuanced its characters are. Their natures are neither good nor evil, only human (with all that the term implies).

The last segment is probably what will polarize most viewers with its stratospheric launch into surrealism. Live-streamer Game-paapi (Abhinav Singh) garners a following for his channel where he dispenses macho trash-talk while playing a Counter-Strike clone shooter. When an anonymous hacker posts sleazy morphed pictures of GP in a homosexual context, he is outraged. But this makes for a giant spike in his online viewership, leading to sponsorship deals linked to his "new identity" as an LGBT spokesperson.Tormented by the insult to his heterosexual masculinity and the fickle warping of his 'social influencer' career, GP is driven to madness and even death...or is it? Banerjee here goes into full bore whatever the fuck mode, bringing in cyber messiahs and virtual celestial worlds. I can't say it made a lot of sense to me, on the other hand I couldn't help but admire his courage in pulling out something so audacious.

As my previous review would show, I wasn't too thrilled by the first LSD. The sequel on the other hand proved far more gripping and imaginative, maybe even profound. No late cash-in this, but a strong return to form for the auteur. Showing now on Netflix:

Run, Man, Run [dir. Sergio Sollima]

In Sergio Sollima's The Big Gundown, actor Tomas Milian played a character nicknamed 'Cuchillo' aka 'The Knife', who is chased by Lee Van Cleef's lawman. Cuchillo's a vulgar and shifty bastard, loud mouthed and slippery, amenable to all kinds of dirty tricks. The character was obviously a hit with audiences, because Sollima and Milian return to Cuchillo in Run, Man, Run (RMR). Here his braggadocio is a little tamped down and he is a touch more openly heroic. Cuchillo gets mixed up in an adventure pertaining to the Mexican revolution when an imprisoned poet he helps to break out of jail confides to him in a dying moment, the location of hidden gold in Texas meant to fund the rebellion.

But several other parties are interested in the gold, and perhaps for less altruistic reasons. There's former sheriff Cassidy (Donald O'Brien), a pair of French mercenaries, the Texan mayor (Gianni Rizzi, who frequently played oily villains) and his daughter, and the bandit Riza. Cuchillo's quest leads him to tight spots on several occasions: he is beaten, shot at, strung up, tied to a windmill. To survive, he must rely on his wits and his knife skills, and occasionally, the help of some unlikely allies.

While the political angle has a place in RMR, it is secondary to Cuchillo's adventure. There are even some moments of black comedy, like when Cuchillo steals food from a house and walks out the front door only to find himself facing a firing squad. Milian is a delight in the lead, conveying as much through shrugs, grins and glances as through dialog. There are some strong actors in the supporting cast. The action scenes are ambitious and fun. I know Leone is a bigger name, but I find Corbucci and Sollima's less pompous western tales more easily watchable.

A few words on the blu-ray release from Eureka:

Video-wise, the Eureka transfer is pretty fine. Detail is not always the greatest, but the colors look pretty good. In general, it resembles how I'd expect a low-budget Italian western of that period to look like. The Italian mono track I used (overdubbed, of course) sounded good. Bruno Nicolai's score has some nice moments (my favorite is a nighttime ambush where Cuchillo has to take on a gang of fellows with his knives, while an ally takes up sniper duty). The English subtitles are generally fine, although there is the occasional typo like when the rebel leader tells his henchman to "...get the keys to the 'panty' and double the men's rations". There is also an English audio track (with optional SDH subs).

Extras include a feature commentary with (who else!) Kim Newman, a 20-min video essay by Stephen Thrower, alternate English credits sequence and a lengthy trailer. The booklet has 2 essays by critic Howard Hughes, one on the film, and an exhaustive rundown of films featuring the Mexican revolution. The now OOP first run of this movie had a bonus disc with a 85-min badly truncated US cut (and its own commentary).

RMR is another fine specimen of the spaghetti western genre, and even if you didn't get the LE, the standard release has enough good stuff in it to warrant the purchase.

Godzilla Minus One [dir. Takashi Yamazaki]

You have to wonder, when Ishiro Honda helmed the first Godzilla film in 1954, did he have any inkling at the time of the enduring cinematic icon he was to forge? 70 years and 37 films later (and that's discounting the American studio films), his monstrous reptilian creation has been villain and hero, monster and god. In Honda's original film, Godzilla personified the horror of the destruction wreaked upon Japan  by nuclear explosives. It was a serious melodrama punctuated with memorable scenes of monster destruction. Later installments brought a more comic-book sensibility. Godzilla, either as destroyer or protector, grappled with other outsized creatures or technological threats in battles that increasingly resembled costumed wrestling bouts. 2016's Shin Godzilla was a return to roots for the franchise, re-emphasizing the big G as a nigh-insurmountable force of destruction upon humanity. My only issue was that the film's satire on the red-tapism of  Japanese bureaucracy while dealing with the Fukushima crisis took up huge swathes of the narrative without being dramatically interesting.

The long gap till the next live-action Godzilla feature was primarily on account of a no-competition agreement between franchise owner Toho and Hollywood based Legend Entertainment who'd obtained a license to make their own set of Monsterverse pictures featuring Godzilla with other giant creatures in more technologically advanced versions of the costumed wrestling bouts. The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic further postponed the project from 2019-2022. But it would seem that the additional time was well used by writer director Takashi Yamazaki, because at least in my humble opinion, Godzilla Minus One (GMO) has the best human drama in a Godzilla film since the 1954 original.

Set in the aftermath of WW2, when Japan is still reeling under the loss of the war and the untold destruction of the atomic bomb, the film is yet another reboot of the giant reptile's cinematic legend. Our protagonist Shikishima (Ryunosuke Kamiki) is a kamikaze pilot landed on the repair base on Odo island, ostensibly due to technical issues. The aircraft technician Tachibana (Munetaka Aoki) rightly guesses that Shikishima has abandoned the mission, not wanting to throw his life away on a lost cause. That night, Godzilla in a smaller avatar emerges from the sea and attacks the base. Shikishima's fear paralyses him from trying to save the island crew from the creature.

After Shikishima returns to a ravaged Japan, he meets young Noriko (Minami Hamabe), a survivor who has adopted an orphaned baby, and they form a makeshift family. But like Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim (or its Bollywood inspiration in Amitabh Bachchan's Vijay Pal Singh from Kaala Patthar) Shikishima cannot escape guilt over his cowardice. It colors his whole outlook, reflects even in his choice of profession, clearing deep sea mines off the Japanese coast. In this situation, he faces the return of an old nightmare - Godzilla resurfaces, now several times bigger and more powerful, an angry God laying waste all around while every attempt to counter him fails miserably.

Unlike the Hollywood Godzilla films (and several of Toho's own), GMO's human characters are not dull fodder to endure while awaiting the next episode of monster mayhem. In fact Shikishima's saga of failure and eventual redemption is the main story here, and people looking purely for monster thrills should check their expectations. That's not to say that the film lacks in destructive spectacle, far from it. Director Yamazaki was himself responsible for the visual FX which garnered the Oscar for Best Visual Effects for what it achieved on a fraction of Hollywood budgets. Like in Shin Godzilla, the big G is a unstoppable force. The recreation of the iconic scene from the '54 film where Godzilla attacks a train gives one goosebumps. Shusuke Kaneko's genre-revitalizing kaiju films  from the 90's are also respectfully referenced. The more somber arc of this narrative means that humans must pay a heavy price for the destruction the monster wreaks. But it is in the face of ultimate crisis that from our innermost recesses we dig out hope.

Furiosa - A Mad Max Saga [dir. George Miller]

It's general acclaim notwithstanding, many Mad Max fanboys were not pleased that the franchise's last installment Fury Road was less a Max showcase and more a film about its female protagonist Furiosa (Charlize Theron). Now 9 years later, this prequel goes even further in that direction, focusing entirely on the origins of the renegade woman warrior. Max is seen only in a single shot, replicating the one at the beginning of Fury Road.

We first meet Furiosa as a little girl from an unmapped oasis, kidnapped by raiders when she goes foraging. Her brave mother embarks on a rescue mission, but is killed by the horde of bad guy Dementus (Chris Hemsworth). Dementus imprisons little Furiosa to know the location of her oasis, but is soon forced to give her up to Citadel ruler Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme filling in for the late Hugh Keays-Byrne). To escape the fate of joining Joe's harem, Furiosa shaves her head to disguise herself as a boy, and works for the Citadel garage. Later as an adult (Anya Taylor-Joy from The Menu), she shows her mettle in an astounding vehicle combat sequence that demonstrates helmer George Miller's continued mastery of the craft. This earns her the respect of Praetorian Jack (Tom Burke), the Citadel's 'War Rig' driver, who then furthers her education in survival.

An aging Dementus reappears on the scene, engineering treachery to take over the citadel. Amidst the battle between the different factions in the wasteland, Furiosa must obtain her revenge and her release. As you may expect, there is a good amount of combat here, both on vehicles and off. Anya Taylor-Joy gives a decent account of herself as the taciturn constantly wary warrior, and she is certainly up for the physical demands of the role, which I had not expected from seeing her as the cigarette-huffing stick-figured girl in The Menu. But it is Chris Hemsworth who seems to be having the most fun. His Dementus is by turns a blusterer, a comic, a megalomaniac, a traitor...yet in the end he almost wins our sympathy with a superbly delivered monologue about how vengeance never takes away the pain. It finally leads to the point where Furiosa's mission in Fury Road begins.

At nearly 2.5 hours, the prequel is significantly longer than Fury Road. A lot of the time is spent on identifying the different factions and their politics. It's not Shakespearean drama, and some of it more in the vein of video game cut-scenes. Thankfully these proceedings (marked by portentous chapter stops) are sufficiently punctuated with enough blistering action to make the whole dish palatable. Once again, Miller shows how to conduct scenes of battle which are palpable and have a clear flow that makes them easy to follow.

While I would have liked for a more crisp adventure, I still had a good time at the cinema, which is really where you should be catching this spectacle.

The Bat Woman [dir. Rene Cardona]

Directed by journeyman Rene Cardona (more infamous for Night of the Bloody Apes, which mixes  a Frankensteinian plot with wrestling), The Bat Woman aka La Mujer Murcielago is a Mexican cross between Adam West era Batman and Modesty Blaise. Leading lady Maura Monti's character Gloria is a multimillionaire socialite that uses her fortune to fight crime. As a bonus she is also a luchadora (costumed wrestler) called the Bat Woman. She dons a mask and a rather eye-catching outfit that takes major design cues from the Batman costume. How DC's legal dept wasn't immediately all over this is a mystery, but thanks heavens for that, because so far as copyright infringements go this is a load of fun.

Gloria / Bat Woman's adversary in this adventure is one Dr. Williams (Roberto Canedo), a mad scientist with an an Igor-like assistant called...oh hey...Igor (Carlos Suarez). Williams, as revealed from his monologues punctuated with bursts of evil laughter, aims to raise an army of amphibious fish-men. His plan involves extracting pineal fluid (a Lovecraftian touch?) from the bodies of wrestlers and doing...something...that involves goldfish and tiny man-dolls. It's patently absurd and the straight-faced manner the film gives it to you only makes it all the more funny. The fish-man suit is fairly nifty (a little like an orange version of the Creature from the Black Lagoon). This is an unpretentious goofy film, but it has a good deal going for it.

First off, The Bat Woman is gorgeous looking and colorful. It works as a kind of advert for the Acupulco locales, showcasing glitzy resorts alongside pristine beaches. And Maura Monti in the lead is a genuine star, exuding equal measures of sophistication and charm. Even in the skimpy bikini costume, neither she nor the film descend to sleaze territory. She takes guff from no one, and all the men - including the bad guys - treat her with deference. It may be naughty but it's still classy. Also, Monti does her own action and underwater scenes like a trooper. Only in the film's wrestling bouts she is replaced by a stunt person who has a noticeably thicker build.

Sadly, this is apparently one of less than a handful of headlining roles in her career. It would have been great if they could have exploited the Bat Woman character into a franchise similar to the El Santo films (assuming there were no cease-and-desist orders from DC). After she got married, Monti quit acting to step into journalism and eventually became an academic (NY Times bio link). But this film remains as a wonderful memory of her star appeal.

For those interested, a few words on the blu-ray release from Powerhouse/Indicator:

The 4K restoration sourced by Indicator for this release is first-rate, rich in color and filmic texture. Even the several underwater scenes  in the film look lovely. The lossless audio in the original Spanish language is clear and gives the bright jazzy score a nice boost. There are a slew of on-disc extras, including a recent interview with the 80-year old Monti - she has fond memories of the shoot and looks back on her various careers with affection and pride. There are some nice featurettes on Mexican fantasy cinema and on the Bat Woman legacy in Mexican pop culture. I wasn't so thrilled with David Wilt's feature commentary which, when not doling out IMDB style biographies of cast/crew, made inane sniggering comments about the onscreen proceedings. The LE version of the blu-ray uses a colorful digipak to keep the disc, which is housed inside a rigid slipcase, which also holds a hefty 80-page booklet. The booklet is stuffed with writing on the film, lucha libra cinema, luchadora culture, an archival interview with Monti and a biography of director Cardona.

Crimson Gold [dir. Jafer Panahi]

Iranian movie-maker Jafer Panahi first garnered an international name in 1995 with The White Balloon, a soul-warming realist fable with children. While White Balloon was a hopeful humanist film,  his 2003 feature Crimson Gold (scripted by his mentor and Iranian cinema giant Abbas Kiarostami) tells a far bleaker tale.

The film opens with a jewelry shop robbery in which the perpetrator attacks the owner, while his accomplice waits outside with a bike. He demands to see a jewel, and then asks for the safe keys. The attempt ends in the shop owner's murder, after which the criminal is pointing the gun to his own head.

The film shifts to a few days earlier: we see the to-be criminals Hossein (Hossein Emadeddin) and his sycophantic companion Ali (Kamyar Sheisi). They are wage workers at a pizza delivery. Hossein is a war veteran and is apparently taking medication for PTSD. Ali's sister is to marry Hossein. When they go to a high-end jewelry store they are turned out by the proprietor, advised to go to cheaper gold stores. We see that Hossein is deeply offended by the owner's condescension.

We then follow Hossein in various situations as he makes his deliveries: One customer turns out to be a former war comrade, who embarrassedly hands him a huge tip. In another place he is held up by the police staking out an apartment to arrest party-goers. One day, on his way to work, he sees a fellow pizza delivery man killed in an accident.

He then makes a delivery to a posh apartment, only for the customer to tell him that the girls he ordered pizza for have abruptly left. The young man (Pourang Nakhael) invites Hossein to come in and share the pizza, and proceeds to tell him his woes. He whines about the fickleness of women. He has come from America where his parents have shifted because he felt homesick for Tehran, and now finds himself a stranger in this country, living alone in an all too large house. For a while Hossein experiences the life of the rich, drinking wine from the man's fridge, even jumping into his swimming pool. Something triggers in him, and the next scene we see is the beginning of the robbery attempt that the film opened with, before the credits roll.

Panahi's film looks at class differences in his country and suggests that each class feels isolated and disenfranchised in its own way. There is an entropy that arises from a sense of collective hopelessness. This is a dark film - none of the characters seem to have any scope of real happiness. Hossein as a medicine-dazed ex-soldier slaving in a low-paying job where he is hassled by the police is representative of the abandonment of the people by those in power.

Kiarostami's script includes his favored motif of people driving around, and several scenes are conducted as bike rides through the city. Crimson Gold is definitely not a cheerful experience, but it's an interesting watch.