Obviously Lucian Pintilie had no love for or faith in perilous Romania when it was Communist.  In The Oak (1991), it is often a sick joke and Pintilie’s film a dark but compassionate comedy.  The two protagonists are smart and temperamentally strong, but a society where somebody is always needing to be rescued from something—and frequently no rescue comes—gives them a terrible run for their money.  No wonder Romanian dictator Nicolai Ceausescu was executed.

Sobering and sassy, The Oak is political satire and then some.  It is a fast-moving, post-Red expression of despondency over past nightmares and absurdities, sharply directed by Pintilie.  In the leading roles, Maia Morgenstern and Razvan Vasilescu perform superbly, but it is Morgenstern who gets to display an enviable range.  Look for her under the heading, “Force and Femininity.”

(On VHS, yes, but DVD and Blu-Ray?)

Obviously Lucian Pintilie had no love for or faith in perilous Romania when it was Communist.  In The Oak (1991), it is often a sick joke and Pintilie’s film a dark but compassionate comedy.  The two protagonists are smart and temperamentally strong, but a society where somebody is always needing to be rescued from something—and frequently no rescue comes—gives them a terrible run for their money.  No wonder Romanian dictator Nicolai Ceausescu was executed.

Sobering and sassy, The Oak is political satire and then some.  It is a fast-moving, post-Red expression of despondency over past nightmares and absurdities, sharply directed by Pintilie.  In the leading roles, Maia Morgenstern and Razvan Vasilescu perform superbly, but it is Morgenstern who gets to display an enviable range.  Look for her under the heading, “Force and Femininity.”

(On VHS, yes, but DVD and Blu-Ray?)

Come Undone (film) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I don’t understand why Domenico (Pierfrancesco Favino) prefers his mistress Anna (Alba Rohrwacher) to his wife in the 2010 Italian film about an illicit love, Come Undone.  Neither do I think the movie’s moral neutrality is a good idea.  Directed by Silvio Soldini, Come Undone is, however, robust and sufficiently imaginative.  Its dandy realism breaks down a bit near the end, but I’ll leave it to the reader to decide whether the film is acceptable.  It’s available on DVD.

(In Italian with English subtitles)

Come Undone (film) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I don’t understand why Domenico (Pierfrancesco Favino) prefers his mistress Anna (Alba Rohrwacher) to his wife in the 2010 Italian film about an illicit love, Come Undone.  Neither do I think the movie’s moral neutrality is a good idea.  Directed by Silvio Soldini, Come Undone is, however, robust and sufficiently imaginative.  Its dandy realism breaks down a bit near the end, but I’ll leave it to the reader to decide whether the film is acceptable.  It’s available on DVD.

(In Italian with English subtitles)

The Lineup (film) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Lineup (1958) is one of Don Siegel‘s crime flicks, and the first third of it shows us nearly no one but the good guys as they investigate the killing of a fellow cop.  Then it is predominantly the criminals who appear in this riveting story revolving around postwar America’s increasing attraction to illegal narcotics.

While watching the film, I couldn’t help thinking of the harrowing murders in Orlando, Florida a few days ago.  Stirling Silliphant’s script, you see, carries the message that if psychopaths (here played by Eli Wallach) want and are inclined to kill, they WILL kill, even if the money from heroin sales is actually what they’re after.

Wallach is rattlingly credible, with Robert Keith (the gangster Julian) and Vaughn Taylor (“The Man”) also impressively good.  Siegel does all he can with the San Francisco setting, producing a wonderful urban starkness.  The Lineup is further proof that the Fifties were a great decade for him.