Political theory and practice

The Aliens (2017)

IMDb meta-data is 1h and 45m, rated 6.5 by 93 cinematizens.

Genre: Drama.DNA: USA.

Verdict: A labour of one man’s love. 

Tagline: We are (not) alone.

Admission: I let it run with the sound so low I seldom heard it while I finished the weekend crossword puzzles.  My plan was to switch attention to the film if and when the aliens appeared.They did.

Back up. Dedicated UFOist waits in the south western desert every Tuesday afternoon and night for a return visit from the aliens who contacted his dad there forty years ago as he promised his terminally ill father he would do. He is well known to the Border Patrol officers who stop by for a drink of the cold water bottles he always has in good supply. Ditto the local sheriff who calls in once in a while to break the tedium’s of lonely patrols.He spends most of the rest of his time either sitting with his mute father in a hospice or at a pub drinking soda with two other equally inept UFOists.  No job seems to detain him. His ahead-flank-speed sister tries to set him up with women, but…the desert seems safer than a blind date.  Then one night as he keeps his lonely vigil he hears something, and…  Well, there are aliens but not the kind that causes A.I. to mark the film as science fiction, as has happened in some places it seems, judging by the comments on its IMDb page.  Ditto You Tube where I came across it. Thereafter it is a kind of love story with twists and turns that I shall not go into but it is a conflict between the humanitarian and the venal.  No doubt I missed many explanations in the suppressed dialogue, but in another way I did not miss them, since I have no doubt they were the usual clichés.  He finds out, slowly, very slowly, that he is not alone.

 ****

I kept watching it first to await the aliens and then when they appeared I continued to watch, so I guess I could say it is ‘watchable,’ but I would never let that neologism pass my lips.  The players absolutely reek of sincerity and I found that interesting given the veneer of so many actors whom you just know are holding up a mask.  Oh, I liked the way the ubiquitous water bottles pay off.  There are some repetitions that should have been cut to trim it to feature length of 90m.  But the one-man band could not do that. 

Existir (2021) To Exist

IMDb meta-data is runtime of 1h and 22m, rated 5.0 by 152 cinematizens.

Genre: Sy Fy.

DNA: Argentina.

Verdict: Less can be enough.

Tagline: Only the Shadow knows.  

Seven diverse individuals from around the world are gathered, abducted, and….   Meanwhile in Buenos Aires, She and He, after some preliminaries, started following clues that appear on her telephone screen to find Third who disappeared a couple of years ago, driving off in a huff after a spat, never to reappear.  Third’s friends assume he has moved to another city to leave his disappointments behind and they get on with their lives, though what they do off camera remains unknown.

The clues lead them, after the necessary tropes, to a field (yes, of course there is a crop circle within), guarded by a geriatric and a stereotyped general with a Mad Scientist in tow. 

All expense was spared, and we soon realise the other couple we see through the looking glass living a perfectly normal life are the writer and his supportive wife.  Get it?

Meanwhile, in the story the hacker keeps sending clues to Her phone, and He and She keep on keeping on.  

***

The writer meets the written as the written meets the writer. Saw another version of this trope in Gosti iz galaksije (1982) Visitors from the Arkana Galaxy from Croatia last year.  But none equals Agnes Varda’s Les Creatures (1966).

Something comes from nothing, contrary to Lear, in this low budget production, making it a part of the story. Nicely done. Compare with John Sayles and Jean-Pierre Melville for cinematic alchemy to conjure something out of the air.

Black Box (2012) Boíte Noire

IMDb meta-data is 2h and 9m, rated 7.2 by 17,000 cinematizens.  

Genre: Mystery.

DNA: Gallic.

Verdict: Unusual.

Tagline:  ‘Ear that?’

Another French movie, another ear, this time on an acoustic analyst who works on the flight recorders from plane crashes, of which there seem to be many to keep him busy.  This hero is a super nerd, yet even so he has an attractive wife who seems to love him.  Strange.  Nerd boy is so introverted he folds up, the more so and often because of his acutely sensitive hearing that makes a reception excruciating, but it means he can hear a change of pitch in background engine noise on a flight recorder.  

I wrote an undergraduate thesis on regulatory capture, and that is what we have here.  The regulator works closely with the regulated, so closely that it is hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.  His wife works for a manufacturer of airliners, and she is personally dynamic and socially adept as well as technically competent, unlike Nerd King who sits all day in a dark room listening to engine noises, she wheels and deals.  

The technical aspects are in the forefront, so unlike Hollywood, and these hold interest but as the aged and redoubtable André Dussollier (first credit 1970, and latest 2024) says, ‘with those toys you can make a recording say anything you want,’ and that seems to be what happened in the main event.  In reality André would have been pushed into retirement years ago in any public service. 

Of course, there is a deep and dark conspiracy that does not involve Boeing, but one thinks of 737MAX nonetheless, to approve a plane before it is foolproof.  And a fool proves it.  

The forensic detail certainly held my interest, though it was hard to take seriously the mismatched couple. Even harder to take was the disappearance of the chief acoustic technician, played superbly by Olivier Rabourdin, in the middle of the investigation and no one seems to notice or care, for some time.  

Good to know that greed, corruption, and stupidity are not limited to the Anglo-Saxon world, but sad to know that screen writers can only grasp bad will, and nothing more complicated. 

P.S. there are scores of films that use that title.  

Viking  (2022)  

IMDb meta-data is a runtime of 1h and 44m, rated 6.8 by 892 cinematizens.

Gerne: SciFi, dramedy

DNA: Quebecois 

Verdict:  Low key, very.

Tagline: He’s Elizabeth.  

The milquetoast junior high school gym teacher gets an early morning phone call telling him, he’s a match. His answers to a stream of questions match those given by someone else.  Off he goes. It is so secret he cannot tell his wife, but she stands by her man.  

I cannot say much more without spoiling the plot and in this case the plot is all.  Suffice it to say that it is an absolutely deadpan comedy as role and player blur and combine.  

It’s Mars as you have never seen it before!  

Wolf’s call (2019) Le chant du loup.

IMDb meta-data is runtime of 1h and 55, rated 6.9 by 22,000 cinematizens.

Genre: Thriller, Scifi elements.

DNA; Gallic.

Verdict: Well done, but why?

Tagline: here, hear.

The SciFi premise is that in the near future France is a superpower, and in the great tradition of such powers its armed forces go around the world shooting people and places up.  Hey, that sounds like reality.  

The action takes place on a super duper submarine where Hero is the sound-man.  No he doesn’t hoik amps. He is an acoustic warfare officer who listens to the waters.  There is a lot of technique in this that I liked.  Hero is good at this but he overthinks things and tries too hard to prove himself to skeptics and makes a mistake. Or so it seems.  I also liked the way the filing system played into this mistake.  Then there is the onboard computer that doesn’t work, because we’re over budget for operations. 

Things get tense and it is submarine against submarine.  It’s all about the nuclear option.  

There is a love interest for Hero who appears and then disappears.  Most of the players are adequate, but none outstanding, though I admit I found it hard to take seriously the popinjay admiral. 

Despite the setting, this one did not convey the cramped and compromised nature of the sardine can.  

Oh, and it is spoken (not dubbed) in English on the SBS version, which is interrupted by inane commercials.