Saboteur. Alfred Hitchcock. 1942.

I bought a 2K set of Hitchcock films a while ago, and I’ve been watching them pretty much in random order. This is one of the earliest films in the set, from 1942.

Hitchcock has made so many great movies, but this isn’t one of them. It’s got a very topical plot: A saboteur (it’s never explicitly said that he’s German) blows up a factory. But then the Hitchcockiness takes over: The wrong guy is a suspect, so he makes a run for it and tries to uncover the real saboteur.

I have to admit to being distracted while watching this, so perhaps this is a great movie. It just seems so aimless, and the conspiracies are so vast…

So I might be totally totally wrong about this movie, but I it didn’t seem quite… up to Hitchcock’s usual thriller standards.

Le Pointe-Courte. Agnès Varda. 1955.

This is riveting. The cinematography is so gorgeous, I’m almost at a loss for words. The camera shifts between being stationary and roving around, even entering houses and exiting through the back doors in a single, stunning take.

I’m assuming the actors here are all (or almost all) non-professionals; presumably the people who really live at La Pointe-Courte? I’ve never seen such an amiable bunch of rascals: They can barely contain their joy at being in this movie; shyly smiling before they have to deliver their lines, and clearly looking at somebody to tell them when to do something (Varda herself, I’m guessing). It’s just such a pleasant thing to behold.

But there’s two distinct parts: One is pure genius, where we follow the people in the village, fishing and talking and speculating about whether the health authorities are going to allow them to sell their… cockles?… or not. It’s so interesting. And there’s cats in every other shot!

The other half consists of very stylised scenes of two people discussing their marriage, and it’s filmed in a very different style:

See? It’s super-stylised and kinda interesting, but whenever these scenes started I was going “but I wanted to watch the other people. Did they get the bacterial cockle situation sorted or what?” But instead it’s these two people talking about whether they love each other or whether they love their love.

They had a lot of fun with the cinematography in these scenes, ending up with shots that wouldn’t have been out of place in Bergman movies made a decade later, so Varda is totally ahead of the curve.

The movie has been beautifully restored on this 2K release.

Barton Fink. Joel Coen. 1991.

I don’t think I’ve seen this before? I was so turned off by all the hype surrounding the Coen brothers at the time that I started avoiding their movies. But it turns out that they’re not as awful as I thought, so I’ve been catching up.

Oh deer. Both Steve Buscemi and John Turturro? In the same movie? Is that necessary? I mean, I like both of them, but…

Do all directors have to do at least one movie about making movies? I mean, I love that, but it’s so … done.

This is a funny movie, but it’s all cringe humour, which I just can’t stand. I know, it’s funny listening to Torturro condescend in the worst possible way to Goodman, but it’s so embarrassing.

The scene where Torturro woke up in bed (you know the scene) made me groan out loud, because as soon as that scene started I thought “surely they’re not doing that twist” and then they did.

The movie is a bumpy ride. The pacing feels off to me. There are scenes that glitter (the obnoxious cops, for instance), but there’s also long stretches that aren’t particularly interesting.

I liked the ending.