French author Michel Houellebecq exhibits a certain distrust of liberalism in such novels as the recent Serotonin (2019) because he wants to be, and is, ruthlessly honest in his vision of life.  Comprehensive too:  Serotonin is darkly political in various ways, as when its protagonist, an agronomist, considers the E.U. “a fat slut” that hurts French farmers, and when he broaches the subject of factory farms with their cruelty to animals.

Is there any optimism in this political outlook?  No.  The novel as a whole, furthermore, is preoccupied with death, especially death by suicide.  Florent, the protagonist, almost causes a death by murder.  Interestingly, though, Houellebecq distrusts not only liberalism but also his own natural agnosticism.  At one point Florent opines that God is “mediocre,” but there are positive remarks about God as well, even on the book’s last page.

Loung Ung‘s nonfiction book, First They Killed My Father, became in 2017 Angelina Jolie‘s film of the same name.  Both are about the Khmer Rouge rebels in Cambodia in the 1970s, as witnessed by Loung as a young girl.

Loung and Jolie collaborated on the grave screenplay, which accurately presents the Khmers as hostile leftists who condemn “individualism” and “private property”—and who are murderous brutes.  Needless to say, they have gained control of Cambodia, and, subsequently, the invading Vietnamese add to the bloody, hair-raising content.

Alas, cinematic cliches crop up, as when a sudden gunshot drives a flock of shrieking birds out of the trees; but Jolie is capable of some fresh and commanding shots as well.  Examples are when Loung pushes a lone corpse away from a river bank and a scene of desperate children scampering through shallow water to escape the bullets of Khmer and Vietnamese soldiers.

A Netflix presentation, First They Killed My Father was filmed entirely in Cambodia.  There is familiar material here, but it is still a staggering picture important for its existential concerns.

The camera loves Michelle Williams, in My Week with Marilyn (2011), and the film loves Marilyn Monroe.

Miss Williams enacts Monroe in all her fragility and irresponsibility.  At first I thought she lacked vocal appeal, but as the film went on, she improved in that area and provided authenticity and sophistication to boot.

Simon Curtis’s movie is a gentle humanistic piece (with humor) about Monroe’s acting stint for Laurence Olivier (Kenneth Branagh) in England in the mid-1950s.  MM turns adulterous (as she did with Yves Montand) by starting a brief kissing affair with Olivier’s assistant, Colin Clark (Eddie Redmayne), who has stars in his eyes.  A true story, this.  Like Billy Wilder, et al., Olivier discovers it’s Time To Endure The Goddess as he proceeds to make his picture, for Monroe is pronouncedly unreliable.  And of course she is a damaged goddess.

The film runs out of steam in its last few moments, but not so much that I began to dislike it.  Adrian Hodges’s script is quite intelligent.  There is a well-known cast, though not everyone in it shines.  The best performances come not only from Williams but also from Judi Dench, Michael Kitchen and Derek Jacobi.

My Week With Marilyn (Image via RottenTomatoes.com)

I have now seen all four hours of the Howards End miniseries and must acknowledge that it did not let me down.

Hettie Macdonald knows how to direct, and I doubt that Wojciech Szepel’s tasteful, sensitive-to-mood cinematography can be improved on.  The cast is almost mesmerizing, Atwell and Macfadyen near-great in their modulation.

Even though some of the characters end up with scant cause for cheerfulness, the script is finally about acceptance and conciliation.  Little conciliation will be needed with respect to this production.

The opening sequence of the 1931 French film, Le Million, by Rene Clair, is great.  A medium-long shot of a man and a woman saying goodnight at the window of each person’s flat is followed by stylized footage of Paris rooftops and then a scurrying of two figures to the skylight of one of these roofs.  It’s an enchanting sequence, but then Le Million is an enchanting musical comedy, a brave if idiosyncratic adaptation of a play.

Michel (Rene Lefevre) is not a very lovely hero, really, but he is entitled to the million florins that a Dutch lottery ticket ensures for him.  He just has to retrieve the jacket in whose pocket the ticket can be found.  It’s missing. . . The film’s humor is droll, though there’s no wit:  The dialogue, you see, is improvised.  The music, some of it operatic, is often pleasant, curiously featured as though it were beside the point.  The cast is generally fun, the leading lady (Annabella—one name only) inarguably, unglamorously pretty.

It’s Clair all the way.

(In French with English subtitles)

Le Million (Photo credit: Wikipedia)