5 Favorite First Sees 2024, So Far
Just a few of many, I had a hard time paring it down to five I wanted to speak on at this moment. YMMV of course depending on your taste, but I love these and I at least want to hype them or put them into your conscience.
The Cassandra Cat, 1963, Vojtech Jasny
AKA When The Cat Comes, saw this on the Criterion Channel as part of their “Cat Movies” series that has since been whisked away, it can also be got for the personal library in excellent form via Second Run DVD. If this Czech New Waver can’t be fully appreciated for its somewhat limp push of its message, a Pied Piper one of tolerance, it most definitely can be for fans of Technicolor, and Technicolor musicals. Those who consider darling the Arthur Freed department roster or The Red Shoes will find a lot of reverie. Ivan Passer, the director of the future Cold War masterpiece Cutter’s Way, worked on this as an assistant.
Skipalong Rosenbloom, 1951, Sam Newfield
A Jonathan Rosenbaum blog post tipped me off to this one. It stars Maxie Rosenbloom, a real life former boxing champ, in this truly bizarre meta-modernist comic riff on Western Serials. That alone delegates its realm in the 2020s as without current interest, if only to those really dedicated viewers with a flavor for early movies that constructed attitudes of parodying and breaking the fourth wall, or in other words just generally acknowledging the existence of an audience as part of the exhibition. By itself, mid-century, it’s fairly uncommon. In this case, it makes its mark as a story within frames: the movie is sectioned by occasional commercial breaks for fake tongue-in-cheek products, and eventually, among other bizarre gags, the sponsor’s kid is included as a recurring minor character. Truly an avant-garde treasure. Can be streamed from rarefilmm.
On Dangerous Ground, 1951, Nicholas Ray
Also from 1951 but couldn’t be more different, this Nick Ray picture, although noir-leaning, is one of the closest in all movies to matching a Frank Borzagean level of Romance and its aeolian fulfillment of the spirit. A cop hating, self-hating lone-wolf, blinded by that anger (Robert Ryan) meets a woman blinded by trauma (Ida Lupino). It is one of Ray’s most difficult, delicately explored relationships, as the cop is on a manhunt for the blind woman’s unstable, murderer brother, who has up to this point acted as “her eyes”. A complex, mysterious, disturbing, ultimately lovely and redemptive picture. On blu ray from Warner Archive or streaming on Tubi.
The Man By The Shore, 1993, Raoul Peck
Brutal debut feature from the Haitian director of I Am Not Your Negro (streaming on Prime), and surprisingly under-promoted, underseen. In a filmic sense it is exceptionally strong, and while neorealist comes to mind it is almost too much of a studied, quiet, and dreamy experience to be considered that kind of derivative. It depicts several unreal, but very real, scary duresses endured by the Haitian people under the tenure of Papa Doc Duvalier’s dictatorship, through the eyes of a child. This child, played by Jennifer Zubar in her only film, is incredible. That this story mostly lingers with the women brutalized by the martial state gives it a feminist bite as well. One will have to do some digging to find this one, it’s not streaming anywhere and I think can only be bought from overseas vendors, but I haven’t been able to find one. Could probably try here if you’re brave.
The Love of Jeanne Ney, 1927, G.W. Pabst
Pabst’s Jeanne Ney has many of the Pabstian revelry parties, and visually it has some Pre-Hitchcockian notes. It’s peak Weimar era filmmaking with a wealth of bravura moments. Perhaps the most audacious major-player, however, is here he perfects the “cutting on action” editing technique, where an action begins in motion and these actions are finished from a different perspective in the next shot, giving a smoothing effect. It is so deeply a part of filmmaking now nobody notices it anymore, but in 1927 it was 100% radical and revolutionary. Brigitte Helm of Metropolis infamy, playing a blind girl, gives a fairly brief, but haunting performance, and then there’s Fritz Rasp. For me in Jeanne Ney, it solidified Fritz Rasp and all his roles collectively as the most evil villain in all of moviedom, bolstered by how boring the hero characters are. It would be oversimplifying to leave it at that though. Fritz Rasp made his living on playing these types of bastards and this is one of the pinnacles, it has to be seen to be believed. The Love of Jeanne Ney is available on Kino Now for streaming, and is also offered in physical from Kino Lorber, or from Eureka Video.