The Gleaners and I. Agnès Varda. 2002.

I was talking to the film-buffest of film buffs a couple of weeks ago, and I mentioned Varda, and he said “oh, I love her documentaries”. I’ve never seen any of them, so here we go.

And it’s wonderful: It’s so playful and funny, but also with a real emotional depth. It’s both about Varda playing with her new digital camera as well as salvaging foods; i.e., gleaning.

I love the stream-of-consciousness structure of it all; how Varda seems to slide from one (related) subject to another. It’s captivating.

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraid to Ask. Woody Allen. 1972.

I bought a DVD box set of Allen movies, and I’ve been diffidently watching them at random. There’s two reasons: The first is that I don’t know whether I like Allen’s movies that much any more. The second is because these DVD versions don’t… really look that good. It’s weird that they didn’t make a 2K version of the set.

Hm… Oh! The French have. Three Blu-ray box sets for €€€. I should have gotten that instead, but now I don’t want to re-buy these all…

Anyway!

This is pretty amusing but I haven’t laughed yet (and we’re at the two thirds point). Perhaps the most successful section is the one with Gene Wilder and Daisy? Many of the other parts feel like straight-up skits.

Allen delivers his patter in his usual way, and that’s nice.

I spoke too soon: The mad scientist/blob parody is hilariously stupid.

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.