Okay, the situation has been remedied! No, I'm not taking about the coronavirus (though I'm working on that, too). I'm referring to something far more crucial to us here at the blog - the watching of motion pictures - and on that score you'll be happy to know that, as promised, I did indeed decipher the configuration of the Spectrum Cable system here at Pearl's, as it relates to the operation of my new Blu-Ray player. What I was doing wrong was relying on the Spectrum remote to obtain an output channel for the Blu-Ray. After all, that remote is set up to control both the cable box and the tv set, so I thought I needed it to change the output in favor of the Blu-Ray. But! - and it's a Big But! - I should've been using the Blu-Ray's remote to change to the Blu-Ray output, which is not Channel Three as it was in the old days of VHS and regular dvd, but is now HDMI 2 (the cable box being HDMI 1). I discovered this by trial and error, which is how I often figure out technical conundrums, especially when web links have been of no help. But long story short, I picked up the Blu Ray remote and pressed the "TV" button, and viola! - the familiar "Blu-Ray" logo came onscreen, with "HDMI 2" appearing briefly in the corner.
He shoots, he scores! :)
So now, we are fully connected and thus have several cinematic options at our disposal, with which to satisfy our daily movie habit. We can watch 'em at home (i.e. The Tiny) during my afternoon break, so long as they're under 90 minutes; or, we can watch 'em in the evening on the new Blu-Ray here at Pearl's, after 9pm. Movies watched at that time can be up to or slightly over two hours; or finally, we can watch 'em on TCM, also at 9pm, if they're showing something that interests us. We've had good luck with TCM recently, having seen such gems as "The Last Voyage" "Beach Blanket Bingo", "The Bad and the Beautiful" and "One Way Passage". They also have the advantage of showing stuff that isn't available on dvd, so we'll be keeping an eye on their "shedge-yool", haha.
But yes! So there you have it, more ways to watch movies and at more times than ever before, and today I used the first option mentioned above. At home this afternoon, I watched a film called "Le Petit Soldat" (1963), directed by Jean-Luc Godard and released on Criterion. This one I did not have to search for, it was on the foreign films rack at Northridge Libe. Way back in 2009, the films of Godard were shown for the very first semester of the CSUN Cinematheque. I was there almost from the first week. I heard about the Cinematheque from a flyer on campus and may have missed a screening or two. I was wondering about this because I knew we'd seen about a dozen of Godard's films, including "Breathless (his debut), and I was trying to recall if we saw "Le Petit". After watching today, I came to the conclusion that I'd never seen it, so either I missed it at CSUN or it wasn't available on dvd at the time.
The film stars an actor named Michel Subor as a French army deserter living in Switzerland and working as a freelance photojournalist. As a soldier, he fled the horrors of the French-Algerian war, but now as a reporter he tries to make amends by documenting the violence committed by terrorists on both sides. This has gotten him in trouble with a pair of agents from French counterintelligence. These guys are bad news, they pull off covert ops like car bombings and political assassinations to get rid of prominent voices against the war, and they don't like the fact that Subor has published photo essays making no moral distinction between the atrocities of the Algerians and those of France. The French agents are hard core Nationalists, they don't want Arab sympathisers in their midst, so even though Subor is neutral on the subject, they set out to ruin his life. When we first see Subor, he is in a car with the agents. They have paid him a visit and given him a choice : he can either ride along with them and kill their next target, or they're gonna get him deported back to France, where he will face desertion charges and a court martial from the military. I should mention that the agents themselves are in Switzerland illegally, but being secret agents they can do whatever they want.
Subor's character is narrating the film, and he admits to us that it's not the killing he's afraid of. He's killed before as a soldier. He just doesn't appreciate these agents blackmailing him, and on that basis he refuses to carry out the assassination. While they are tracking the target in the city, Subor escapes during a street chase. The target walks away and the agents are incredibly pissed off.
Prior to all of this, Subor has been introduced to a model friend of one of the agents, played by the legendary Anna Karina. The agent casually asks if Subor would do him a favor and take some headshots of her. Subor agrees, trying to appease the man, and then promptly falls in love with her during the photo shoot. She likes him as well, which will come in handy for him when he's running from the agents after flaking on the hit job. He goes back to her apartment and stays overnight, but unfortunately the agents are gonna look there eventually. They find him and give him a second chance to kill the target, an opinionated talk radio host who favors the Algerian cause.
I don't want to tell you anymore about the plot, because it's a great one, and the film is unusual for Godard in that he stays "on point" much more than usual instead of improvising and going way off the track and out into left field, like he does in most of his other films. Godard's whole "thing" was cinematic anarchy. He's the guy who said " a film must have three things : a beginning, a middle and an end, but not necessarily in that order". I like his movies, but they're highly unconventional. That's why I appreciated "Le Petit Soldat" so much, because it felt like Godard was paying attention. There's an actual storyline and he keeps the goofy interludes to a minimum. I will tell you that there are another pair of agents out to get Subor, but I won't tell you who they are. Also, there's a big surprise involving one of the characters that will greatly impact both Subor's future and that of the character in question.
This movie isn't for the squeamish. Though not overly violent, there are still a few scenes of torture that look pretty realistic. This seemed like another curveball from Godard, who always seemed to use "fake" or "imitation" violence in his films, in scenes that looked like overly choreographed Hollywood shootouts, like "play acting", as if he was mocking the style. He certainly isn't doing so here, however, so viewer beware.
In sum, he's created a tight political thriller with incredible photography and multiple plot twists. There are a few more typical Godardian scenes where characters speak in arbitrary, confessional dialogue and it sounds like the director is revealing his own inner thoughts, but that's what makes it a Godard film as opposed to, say, one by Jean-Pierre Melville (the great director of French Crime).
I began watching thinking, "Yeah, I'll probably like it". I think Godard is really good but he's not my favorite. As the movie progressed, though, I was riveted. I thought it was fantastic, and again I must mention the outstanding (mostly hand held) black and white photography. I'm gonna give "Le Petit Soldat" Two Huge Thumbs Up, and recommend it highly to fans of French Crime Movies or just political thrillers in general. ////
So that's all for tonight. I'll see you again tomorrow at the Usual Time. Stay safe and healthy. :)
Tons of love. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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