At bottom Margarethe von Trotta’s German film, Marianne and Juliane, is a bore, just ultra-leftist or radical enough not to condemn a woman who has gone from activism to terrorism in the (figurative) war to end Third World agony, and even in 1981, the year of the film’s release, was such ultra-leftism ludicrous.  The terrorist in question is Marianne (Barbara Sukowa), and although von Trotta probably prefers the merely social, not terrorist, activism of Marianne’s sister Juliane (Jutta Lamp), it is abhorrent that she seems little bothered by Marianne’s bombs.  How boring this is; we’ve lived with such sentiments for many years now.  And it doesn’t improve matters that Marianne is such a bland character.

(In German with English subtitles)

Jake, a black pastor in The Second Chance (2006), is abrasive and insulting, although at other times he is too good to be true.  Not a well-drawn character.

Ethan, a white associate pastor, is poorly acted by Michael W. Smith.  Steve Taylor’s Christian movie doesn’t work.  It has a good feel for inner city life, but is sometimes less than credible: e.g. Ethan doesn’t seem to be secretly hoping other people are watching him give alms in the ‘hood, and yet this is what mean Jake repeatedly accuses him of.

Cover of The Second Chance

The only good thing about No Escape (2015) is that it is wildly suspenseful.  Critics who have called it trashy—trashy in the sense of sloppily dumb—are right.  The film stars Owen Wilson and Lake Bell (acceptable).  Sterling Jerins, the young girl who plays one of their daughters, is a talented cutie, but the two brothers who made this thing are talented exploiters.

The German movie Phoenix (2015), by Christian Petzold, brought certain thoughts to mind.

First, if people will not behave humanely during wartime, when will they behave humanely?  Second, the film concerns ordinary people living in a defeated Germany after WWII, and their actions are mundane, unheroic, sometimes scheming.  At the same time, they are often rising from the ashes (the book Phoenix is based on is titled Return from the Ashes):  such is the case with Nelly (Nina Hoss), a concentration camp survivor.

Though overrated, the film is a good one, finely directed and photographed.  One of its few flaws is that it peters out instead of actually concluding.  But listen, Hoss: your acting is marvelous, as is that of Ronald Zehrfeld.  That is, Hoss is marvelous playing a woman with a broken spirit, one who seems normally sensitive and deeply appreciative of a man’s love but is also capable of rebuilding strength and initiative when necessary.  Zehrfeld pulls off a smart working-class dude, the husband of Nelly who does not recognize her.

(In German with English subtitles)

Auggie Wren, a smoke shop owner; Paul Benjamin, a novelist; Rashid, a black teenage boy; Cyrus Cole, a one-armed black filling station owner; Ruby, Auggie’s one-eyed former girlfriend—these make up much of the dramatis personae of the intelligent and absorbing 1995 American film, Smoke, directed by Wayne Wang and written by novelist Paul Auster.  Somebody in the film complains it is only a matter of time before society outlaws smoking, wanting it to vanish as surely as the smoke of every lighted cigarette does.  At least for the present, though, smoking is one of the few pleasures the characters here enjoy, particularly Auggie and Paul.  Tobacco has its evanescence, and so does happiness; the characters know what it’s like to look smoke in the eye, as it were.

Auggie once shoplifted for Ruby and was given by a judge the choice between jail and the military.  Opting for the latter, serving his time, he was abandoned by thoughtless Ruby for another man.  What light there was in Auggie’s life was evanescent: smoke.  Ruby herself (played by Stockard Channing with astonishing control and pleasant force) has a grown, cocaine-addicted, foul-mouthed daughter who excoriates her.  Paul has experienced a writer’s block ever since his wife and unborn child were accidentally gunned down in the street.  Cyrus lost his arm after drunkenly crashing his car and consequently killing his wife (God, he says, took away that particular limb to remind him of what “a bad, stupid, selfish man” he is), which woman happens to have been Rashid’s mother (Cyrus is his father).  Rashid grew up without either of his parents since Cyrus forsook him years ago the way Ruby forsook Auggie.  Now he is running from thieving thugs.

Not that there isn’t any hope here; a bit of uplift results merely from the idea of slowing down now and then, taking one’s time, for the sake of personal equilibrium.  At least one critic has indicated that having a smoke requires slowing down.  Further, there are some virtuous deeds done, though never mind the stupid phrase “random acts of kindness” that one magazine review in particular used to describe them.  Random acts of kindness do not exist, random meaning without purpose or design.  The various acts of kindness here are all purposeful.

Smoke is a healthy, even edifying, achievement.

Cover of Smoke