Speaker 1: Welcome to Movie Crush, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey everybody, and welcome to Movie Crush Friday Interview Edition,
Speaker 1: Casey in the House Edition. Do I recently semi drunk tested?
Speaker 1: Because I missed him? I was wondering what was I
Speaker 1: could tell the tone was a little, uh, a little charming,
Speaker 1: as Noel would say. Yeah, I was sitting around. I
Speaker 1: think I was watching Criterion Channel, and so naturally I
Speaker 1: can't do that and not think of you. And I
Speaker 1: had a couple of martinis and I missed my old pals,
Speaker 1: so I just you got to tell people that these days. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's really important. And I'm I'm glad you texted
Speaker 1: man because I really missed doing these, so I'm I'm
Speaker 1: happy to be back. Yeah. And we had a nice
Speaker 1: little exchange via text, and then you said, hey, let's
Speaker 1: do a let's do how would you pronounce this in
Speaker 1: real French? Oh? Well, I could just say bo boau
Speaker 1: travi or good work, although it's pretty much known by
Speaker 1: the fringe title, even though the it's a pretty straightforward
Speaker 1: English translation. Um, usually the French title is what gets used. Well,
Speaker 1: let me give a brief set up, because this is
Speaker 1: a movie that undoubtedly has uh not been seen by
Speaker 1: a lot of the listeners I view are true cinephile,
Speaker 1: you probably know about this movie named consistently as one
Speaker 1: of the best movies of the nineteen nineties, even there
Speaker 1: at the tail end in nine when it was released.
Speaker 1: And it is a film about it's not a movie,
Speaker 1: Casey can't be calling this a movie, right, No, it's
Speaker 1: a film about some French were in legionnaires who are
Speaker 1: doing a lot of training and things. Well, that's even
Speaker 1: into the weeds. It is about a man, a sergeant
Speaker 1: in the Foreign Legion who uh and we'll talk about
Speaker 1: what what all is going on here, but ends up
Speaker 1: having an issue with one of his subordinates. And that's
Speaker 1: kind of the plot line. Yeah, the plot is is
Speaker 1: pretty pretty threadbare. I would say this is the script. Yeah,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, the this is this is diving right into
Speaker 1: the weeds. But um Claire Denny often works with this
Speaker 1: co writer Jean Paul Fourgeau and um In. In the
Speaker 1: case of this film, they were adapting a Herman Melville
Speaker 1: novel that that was finished posthumously, like he wasn't done
Speaker 1: with it when he died. Billy Bud that's right, And
Speaker 1: he had left apparently extensive notes and and different revisions
Speaker 1: that he kind of wanted to work on. Um, but
Speaker 1: it was kind of left to like his widow and
Speaker 1: then various scholars and biographers and so on to kind
Speaker 1: of like sort it all out. Um. But it's it's
Speaker 1: pretty well acknowledged now. It's like one of his best works.
Speaker 1: That's kind of the literary consensus from what I understand. Um.
Speaker 1: And yeah, so they're adapting this this Herman Melville uh work. Um.
Speaker 1: But the the form that the adaptation took um with
Speaker 1: her co writer. Her co writer basically just wrote the
Speaker 1: diaries that we see being written in the film, and
Speaker 1: those worked as what what Clara Den he calls a
Speaker 1: sort of libretto. It's like it's the voiceover that that
Speaker 1: sits over the top of everything. But he wasn't necessarily writing,
Speaker 1: like interior day this thing happens, so it leaves a
Speaker 1: lot of space for the vehicles kind of float on
Speaker 1: top of the images and and things to kind of
Speaker 1: proceed in this kind of dreamy way. Yeah. I mean
Speaker 1: that voiceover is the only thing that really gives you
Speaker 1: any insight into what actually is going on in the movie. Um,
Speaker 1: it's it's a damn near silent film. I mean would
Speaker 1: say of this movie is dialogue free, beautifully shot. I
Speaker 1: know Claire Den he worked with. It's an interesting look
Speaker 1: at masculinity in the male just the I guess, just masculinity,
Speaker 1: that's the easiest way to say it. But it was
Speaker 1: made by a female filmmaker and a female editor and
Speaker 1: a female cinematographer, which is really interesting. And also at
Speaker 1: a time in a year where movies like Fight Club
Speaker 1: and American Beauty came out that all sort of looked
Speaker 1: at a similar thing through really vastly different lenses. That's
Speaker 1: a really interesting parallel. Yeah, I mean you think about
Speaker 1: the way that Fight Club goes kind of in the
Speaker 1: same direction, although a completely different way, but in terms
Speaker 1: of like the body to body contact that happens there
Speaker 1: when they're fighting, and the way that the fighting is
Speaker 1: almost a pretext for this kind of male intimacy that
Speaker 1: they're missing. Um yeah, the sense of belonging to a family. Um,
Speaker 1: the sense of like claiming or reclaiming their masculinity because
Speaker 1: they feel very emasculated by modernity and like just like
Speaker 1: their corporate you know, uh, office jobs and so on
Speaker 1: um and the same thing that we see in this
Speaker 1: film too, when they're doing those various kind of sort
Speaker 1: of military exercises, sort of choreographed dances, but especially the
Speaker 1: one where they're where they're bare chested and there and
Speaker 1: they're they're lunging into each other and grappling each other
Speaker 1: and hugging and so yeah, it's a it's a hug,
Speaker 1: it's an embrace, but at the same time, there's like
Speaker 1: an aggressive pretext to it as well. But it really
Speaker 1: is like this this um, this really really interesting mix
Speaker 1: of of all these different layers happening at one time. It.
Speaker 1: Uh that sort of reminds me of this uh one
Speaker 1: of the great did you ever watch Doctor Cats? Oh? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I haven't seen like every episode, but I definitely have
Speaker 1: seen Dr Cats. One of the funny great jokes of
Speaker 1: Doctor Cats was when someone was talking about the um
Speaker 1: when men hug each other, when straight men hug each other,
Speaker 1: and they the big slap on the back, and he's like,
Speaker 1: because I'm hugging, hugging you, but I'm also hitting you,
Speaker 1: that's right. Yeah, Like you've got to make a little
Speaker 1: bit of aggression in there. Yeah, it is interesting because
Speaker 1: you know, my gay male friends. When we hug, there's
Speaker 1: no slapping. It is a embrace, a loving embrace, And
Speaker 1: I had to not get used to it in a
Speaker 1: sense that it weirded me out anyway, because I certainly
Speaker 1: didn't care, but it was just I was raised to
Speaker 1: be like, you hug another guy and you give him
Speaker 1: a firm pat on the back, and I'm like, no,
Speaker 1: not not your gay friends. They just give you a
Speaker 1: nice snuggle. Yeah, I mean, and sometimes you hug kind
Speaker 1: of hard. It's like shaking somebody's hand and you grip
Speaker 1: it really tight. You know, if you have like a
Speaker 1: loose script that's sort of you know, not with your
Speaker 1: gay friends, but loving tender hug. That's kind of wonderful.
Speaker 1: That's really interesting. Yeah, yeah, that's very very true, and
Speaker 1: that that's sort of um, I guess you could say
Speaker 1: homeorotic subtext is is definitely part of the book as well. Um,
Speaker 1: it's definitely part of the movie. Yeah, it's very much
Speaker 1: part of the movie. Um, maybe even more part of
Speaker 1: the book, just because the book maybe has even more
Speaker 1: of an internal view of um. What in In the book,
Speaker 1: his name is high Art. In the film, he's uh
Speaker 1: Galu uh that's the Denny Denny levant character, the sort
Speaker 1: of master at arms. Um. His his sort of the
Speaker 1: blend that he feels of like jealousy and envy and
Speaker 1: desire and and he's threatened and all all these things.
Speaker 1: You know that he's sort of it feels like he's um,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe in a bit of denial about how
Speaker 1: he actually feels about Santan the the young kind of
Speaker 1: subordinate Yeah, who you know, just physically, Um, they're contrasted
Speaker 1: in that Galu is as a pockmarked face and he
Speaker 1: looks very rough, uh for the wear. It looks like
Speaker 1: he's you know, fought in a dozen wars, which he
Speaker 1: probably hasn't even uh. And who was the younger character,
Speaker 1: what's his name? Uh, Santan Santennten, which is greguar Colen
Speaker 1: as the actor. Yeah, just impossibly smooth of skin and
Speaker 1: young and perfect and has sort of this really handsome
Speaker 1: sweet face. And it's a movie that is It's funny
Speaker 1: because it is so clear by the end of this
Speaker 1: thing that Galu is in the closet and has repressed
Speaker 1: homosexual urges, without the movie doing much of anything to
Speaker 1: explicitly say that either. Yeah, she leaves it very very subtle,
Speaker 1: you know, never explicit. Um, there's never any even a
Speaker 1: shot of him looking at him like sweating and glistening
Speaker 1: in the sun, like not even that. Yeah, yeah, No,
Speaker 1: it's it's um. It's all left as as subtext, and
Speaker 1: it is very much there if you look for it,
Speaker 1: and in a way, I mean, it's all over the film,
Speaker 1: but it's it's just never directly referenced or pointed to
Speaker 1: in any way. And I mean I think the film.
Speaker 1: It allows the film to have just a multitude of
Speaker 1: meanings beyond just that one reading of it. Um, And
Speaker 1: and it just it leaves a richness because there's nothing
Speaker 1: didactic or ideological about it. Um. It's it's one kind
Speaker 1: of floating meaning among many. Yeah. And it's also a
Speaker 1: movie where if you know nothing about it, which I didn't,
Speaker 1: I didn't even look up anything going in uh, it
Speaker 1: very much leaves you tense because you you get the
Speaker 1: sense that something bad is happening. They show at the
Speaker 1: beginning there in this uh there stationed in Africa's French
Speaker 1: foreign legionnaires and sort of a rundown area of Africa,
Speaker 1: and there are these women around and they sometimes are
Speaker 1: the clubs dancing with these women, and there's even one
Speaker 1: line about how these women are sold and you don't
Speaker 1: you don't know what the movie is about if you
Speaker 1: haven't looked it up, so you're thinking this is part
Speaker 1: of the plot where it really isn't, or then it
Speaker 1: alludes to like an event, something bad happens, and it's
Speaker 1: sort of building to what you think because you're conditioned
Speaker 1: to watching regular movies some really big climax, and it
Speaker 1: doesn't even do that. There is an event, but it's
Speaker 1: it's also pretty you know, low key. Yeah, it's pretty.
Speaker 1: It's pretty low key when it arises, although the whole
Speaker 1: film is kind of building to it because in the
Speaker 1: v Oh, he's he's clearly talking about the past from
Speaker 1: this present point where he's no longer in the French
Speaker 1: Foreign Legion and he's been kind of cast out, you know,
Speaker 1: and he's angry. He talks about his rage. What's the
Speaker 1: one line he has, I mean, you know, you go back.
Speaker 1: I went back and watched the first ten minutes again
Speaker 1: and and and that kind of bears Uh. I think
Speaker 1: it's something you should do. And it actually an entire
Speaker 1: second viewing I think would be even more of a
Speaker 1: rich experience. But going back and watching that first ten
Speaker 1: minutes there, it's all right there in the dialogue. You
Speaker 1: just if you hadn't seen it before, you don't really
Speaker 1: know what's going on. It's way more explicit than um
Speaker 1: then it feels the first time around for sure, like
Speaker 1: it's definitely he's telling you a lot in that v O.
Speaker 1: But his delivery of it and the way it's just
Speaker 1: kind of mixed with these floaty visuals and the music
Speaker 1: and and the long passages that are kind of wordless. Um,
Speaker 1: some of it can kind of like drift by you.
Speaker 1: But if you if you do concentrate on it, um,
Speaker 1: he is telling you quite a lot. He even says,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm kind of ashamed of like this closed
Speaker 1: minded legionnaire that I was at the time. Um. And
Speaker 1: that um, what's the one line that he has, you know,
Speaker 1: perhaps freedom begins with remorse repeated at the end. I
Speaker 1: mean that's kind of the story right there is Uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: that that's sort of it, and that's why it's said
Speaker 1: twice and he it but it is this sort of Um,
Speaker 1: he's kind of cast out of like paradise. You know,
Speaker 1: he has this kind of almost like Garden of Eden
Speaker 1: where it's it's all these men and young men and
Speaker 1: he's there as their superior, and the there's a cab
Speaker 1: driver that's that's talking to the the higher superior um
Speaker 1: Bruno Forestier played by Michelle subor Um. He says, you know,
Speaker 1: you're like a surrogate father to all these guys, and
Speaker 1: he just kind of laughs it off, but it really
Speaker 1: is true, like they have created their own little bubble
Speaker 1: that's like separate from society, separate from the foreign legion even. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're just like at the end of you know, they're
Speaker 1: they're on the far east side of Africa there on
Speaker 1: the coast, there in the middle of absolutely nowhere in
Speaker 1: the desert, and they just have this like closed little
Speaker 1: bubble and until Santan comes along, it's sort of, you know,
Speaker 1: a perfect thing for for Galou and then sent in
Speaker 1: just like completely throws the balance off when he arrives. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's also a bit of a Terrence Malick vibe I
Speaker 1: think released the same years Thin Red Line, which is
Speaker 1: interesting to his word effort. But you know who's influencing
Speaker 1: who here? I don't know the timeline, uh, for all
Speaker 1: I know, Terrence Malick is influenced Flight by Claire DENI
Speaker 1: I mean, I think they're they're I'm sure they're both
Speaker 1: familiar with each other's work big time. And and we
Speaker 1: should say Claire Denis had a long career and film
Speaker 1: as an assistant director and uh casting director as well
Speaker 1: before she makes her first film at age forty two,
Speaker 1: So she had a whole career where she worked with
Speaker 1: Jim Jarmish on down By Law for casting or Interesting.
Speaker 1: She also worked with Vim Vendors on Paris, Texas and
Speaker 1: Wings of Desire as a d as well, and with
Speaker 1: Andrey Tarkovsky as a casting director on The Sacrifice. So
Speaker 1: she worked with like some amazing people before she ever
Speaker 1: started making films. And I think it's so interesting that
Speaker 1: she was already in her forties when she started making films. Um,
Speaker 1: it's like she had this whole other life of experiences
Speaker 1: before she started kind of making cinema about because a
Speaker 1: lot of it draws from her own personal experience. She
Speaker 1: has UM and she grew up in Africa. She was
Speaker 1: born in Paris but raised in Africa, the child of
Speaker 1: an African French diplomat, and so they moved around kind
Speaker 1: of colonial French parts of Africa and um believe she
Speaker 1: spent some time in in Gbut where this film is
Speaker 1: set um when she was young, but also like Cameroon, Briki,
Speaker 1: Na Faso and a few other places. So she she
Speaker 1: she definitely has an amazing pedigree when it comes to cinema. Well,
Speaker 1: there is something about it being the French Foreign Legion
Speaker 1: as well, especially as a as an American audience, because
Speaker 1: there's such a mysterious thing to Americans. It's I mean,
Speaker 1: out of a thousand Americans probably note zero about the
Speaker 1: French Foreign Legion other than they wear those funny looking
Speaker 1: hats and it's um, I think that mystery for an
Speaker 1: American audience really is. I think it was very specific
Speaker 1: that it was French Foreign Legion and not just army,
Speaker 1: even French Army, because you also get these you know,
Speaker 1: French Foreign Legion has people from all over the world.
Speaker 1: It's not just French soldiers. It's also an organization, no
Speaker 1: for sort of the end of the line for a
Speaker 1: lot of people. If enlisting in the army in the
Speaker 1: US is sort of a last resort and for some
Speaker 1: guys it's like that. For most men in the French
Speaker 1: Foreign legion. Yeah, there's there's an a sense that everyone
Speaker 1: here's an outsider, is an outcast from something has UM.
Speaker 1: It's made explicit with with Santane that Um, he has
Speaker 1: no awareness of his parents, that he was found in
Speaker 1: a staircase somewhere UM and uh and yeah, and that
Speaker 1: this is this this kind of surrogate family and the
Speaker 1: the the kind of genesis of this project was UM
Speaker 1: as happened often in the nineties. It was commissioned by
Speaker 1: European Television, initially with the idea that they wanted Claar
Speaker 1: to need to make a film on the idea of
Speaker 1: being a foreigner, of you know, being a stranger or something,
Speaker 1: and so as a joke she thought, okay, foreign or
Speaker 1: foreign legion UM. But the more she thought about it,
Speaker 1: she was like, well, you know what, there's maybe actually
Speaker 1: something here, because it's a way in UM to show
Speaker 1: these people that are they have their in group dynamic
Speaker 1: and their outgroup dynamic, and they are this kind of
Speaker 1: foreign occupying force colonial force. UM. Jubut at this point
Speaker 1: has has its independence from France for about twenty something
Speaker 1: years when this film was made UM, but obviously the
Speaker 1: colonial kind of era lingers and we actually don't know
Speaker 1: where in time exactly we are. So yeah, that's a
Speaker 1: good point. I mean it could it could kind of
Speaker 1: be at any point in the last like thirty something
Speaker 1: years probably. Well, the only thing that really dates it
Speaker 1: is this is the rhythm of the Yes, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: that's that's true. The music that that you hear in
Speaker 1: the disco that is actually in the movie. So you know,
Speaker 1: it's at least that's kind of Yeah, that's locking it
Speaker 1: down to a certain the nineties for sure. But it
Speaker 1: also like if you've ever you know, been to places
Speaker 1: like that and gone into a place that plays music
Speaker 1: like they could be playing it could have been two
Speaker 1: years ago when they're playing that song the latest. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's just still Staples. And I let you know, whenever
Speaker 1: I hear that song out somewhere, I always think of
Speaker 1: this movie. It's impossible not to now Yeah. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: one of those uses of music that just like completely
Speaker 1: owns that song, now, you know. Yeah, And you know
Speaker 1: we'll get to that part because the last uh see
Speaker 1: scene is really very interesting. Yeah. Yeah. The photography what
Speaker 1: what was the film stock? This is shot on film? Right, Oh,
Speaker 1: this is definitely shot on film. It's thirty five. I'm
Speaker 1: pretty sure some parts look sixteen, but it does not
Speaker 1: look like a movie shot even. Yeah, no, it has um.
Speaker 1: The it's very like saturated, very high contrast um. It
Speaker 1: has like a real boldness to it, and yet at
Speaker 1: the same time it's saturated, but it's also muted. You
Speaker 1: get a lot of these muted tones. And of course
Speaker 1: the desert is is very desaturated, kind of drained of
Speaker 1: a lot of color um, but in certain places the
Speaker 1: colors really pop, Like the clothing that the African women
Speaker 1: are wearing, Uh, these really really saturated reds and so on.
Speaker 1: Um water and the scale against all of that too,
Speaker 1: because the rich tones of the skin um against this
Speaker 1: kind of like um yeah, desaturated backdrop. And like you said,
Speaker 1: the really blue sky where a lot of times they'll
Speaker 1: frame shots where it's just the body against the blue
Speaker 1: sky and this kind of really abstract interesting thing. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's that there's that sequence where they're walking or they're
Speaker 1: they're kind of climbing across the other wires against the
Speaker 1: sky and and you you just you have no sense
Speaker 1: of like how far off the ground they are or anything.
Speaker 1: It's just you know, these bodies moving through space and
Speaker 1: this really kind of beautiful, abstract way. Um. I think
Speaker 1: that's that's obviously that when I first saw the film,
Speaker 1: I think the cinematography more than anything else, was what
Speaker 1: drew me in and kept me coming back for going
Speaker 1: on twenty years now. Um. Yeah, as Godard has no
Speaker 1: relation to Jean Luc Godard other than they're both great
Speaker 1: than they work in film. But uh, she has been
Speaker 1: the kind of recurring cinematographer collaborator with Claire Denny after
Speaker 1: her first film. She was not the cinematographer on the
Speaker 1: first film, but I think she might have actually been
Speaker 1: assistant camera or something, and then they really hit it
Speaker 1: off on that film, and she continued to work with
Speaker 1: her afterwards and has for the most part, with one
Speaker 1: or two exceptions, since then. Um, but they have a
Speaker 1: she she's she kind of works in the European um tradition,
Speaker 1: obviously being fresh, where she's not only the cinematographer, she's
Speaker 1: also typically the camera operator as well, which is so
Speaker 1: important on a film like this where a lot of
Speaker 1: it is unheld and the framing is so specific, and
Speaker 1: the way that the camera just like lingers over the
Speaker 1: bodies and the way it captures movement thing. Um, it
Speaker 1: would be very, very difficult as a cinematographer to really
Speaker 1: control the look in the movie if you were not
Speaker 1: also operating the camera on your shoulder and and really
Speaker 1: seeing it through the eyepiece and kind of doing it
Speaker 1: like a dance really with with the actors themselves. Um.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, the film also has a
Speaker 1: lot of these beautiful locked off tableau shots where you
Speaker 1: get a sense of the scale of of the location,
Speaker 1: like when they go to that second place to quote
Speaker 1: unquote work on the road or whatever, but he's really
Speaker 1: just trying to isolate Santana. They're and they're by these
Speaker 1: three volcanoes and you know, the the ocean, and um,
Speaker 1: you know, they just it just looks like they're just like,
Speaker 1: you know, hammering into rocks all day, like just real,
Speaker 1: real make work kind of stuff. Um. So the film
Speaker 1: has a great balance of on the one hand, the
Speaker 1: kind of um constantly moving, restless camera and at the
Speaker 1: same time these locked off lingering shots, wider shots that
Speaker 1: show the landscape and so on. I love also the
Speaker 1: opening sequence of the film, when you're she's kind of
Speaker 1: revealing the African landscape for the first time, and it's
Speaker 1: through the windows of this train, and it's not really
Speaker 1: like a perfect shot in the sense that obviously they
Speaker 1: could have put a camera just on a dolly, They
Speaker 1: could have put it outside the train and got an
Speaker 1: unobscured view. But I love that they left the camera
Speaker 1: inside looking out through the windows, so that we get
Speaker 1: the same perspective as the people that are on that
Speaker 1: train as they're looking at that landscape, and it's it's
Speaker 1: more like it's their daily experience of that landscape as
Speaker 1: opposed to like a postcard idealized kind of view of it.
Speaker 1: There are a couple of shots that, I mean, every
Speaker 1: shot stands out because it's just so beautiful, but a
Speaker 1: couple that really stand out to me. One was UM
Speaker 1: and I think probably because not only are they beautiful,
Speaker 1: but they're kind of frought with symbolism. But one it
Speaker 1: shows from a distance, the all the guys in the
Speaker 1: platoon or whatever it's called, their squadron, uh, not a squadron,
Speaker 1: I don't have no idea what the terms are, UM
Speaker 1: kind of romping in the ocean and having a good time.
Speaker 1: And then the big boss, uh not the sergeant, but
Speaker 1: his commander, standing at a far distance with that chain
Speaker 1: link fence. Yes, through the fence clearly is just like
Speaker 1: you know, you're you're separated from them, and in many
Speaker 1: ways by youth and an old age, by experience, by vitality,
Speaker 1: by you're you're not allowed to go out there and
Speaker 1: stripped your speedo and have a good time. You have
Speaker 1: to be the boss. Like it's there's so much going
Speaker 1: on there and it's very simple. Just so up that
Speaker 1: chain link fence and it's like boom, instant symbolism. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's he's he's this authority. So on the one hand,
Speaker 1: he has power over them and and obviously his rank
Speaker 1: is far advanced from for you on where they are.
Speaker 1: But you get the sense that he wishes he were
Speaker 1: on the other side of that fence, and that he
Speaker 1: is almost imprisoned by this this position that he has
Speaker 1: come to, even though he has advanced to that position,
Speaker 1: you know, so he would be viewed as a success.
Speaker 1: But it's like now I'm locked away. I can I
Speaker 1: can look, but I can't actually go out and be
Speaker 1: part of this anymore. Yeah, but without the strings swelling
Speaker 1: and the tear running down the face, like Hollywood would
Speaker 1: have just fucked this up in like ten different ways. Um,
Speaker 1: it's also so subtle. Um. The other great shot is
Speaker 1: when the guys are stretching on the beach towards the end,
Speaker 1: and the cameras just sort of meandering around from slightly
Speaker 1: above until they're all sort of doing that quad stretch
Speaker 1: where you put one leg behind you and lean all
Speaker 1: the way back, and it's it's you know, they look
Speaker 1: like they've been massacred from battle, just laying there, and
Speaker 1: it was just like, man, it's just such a great shot.
Speaker 1: And at the same time, it's like it's like a
Speaker 1: modern dance piece or ballet or something like. The beauty
Speaker 1: of those movements and and the way that the lack
Speaker 1: of that yeah, and then the stillness afterwards so cool.
Speaker 1: And the way they are arranged in this kind of
Speaker 1: circular kind of thing where the camera goes all the
Speaker 1: way around and then you know, settles on one end
Speaker 1: and then kind of goes back around the other way. Yeah,
Speaker 1: really really beautiful stuff. I mean Clari clar Ton he
Speaker 1: worked with a choreographer on this film, and and and
Speaker 1: not not like the script was done and then they
Speaker 1: decided to tack this stuff on. But from the very
Speaker 1: conception um as the script was being written as they
Speaker 1: were in pre production and just figuring out what what
Speaker 1: the film is going to be. They were rehearsing in
Speaker 1: Paris with this choreographer, and I believe some of the
Speaker 1: soldiers in the film are like dancers, you know, they're
Speaker 1: they're people that come from that world, instrument and so on.
Speaker 1: Denny Lavant has that has that kind of background as
Speaker 1: well as well as acting in other films. But um,
Speaker 1: well is that gal Yes, that's yeah, well clearly there's
Speaker 1: some dances. But um, that brings up an important point
Speaker 1: about the script. What is how do you write a
Speaker 1: script like this? Like what does the script even look like?
Speaker 1: Because so little dialogue? But I would love to see
Speaker 1: it because you know, do you type out soldiers walk
Speaker 1: through frame hence and sweat cut to soldiers do push
Speaker 1: ups and sweat cut two soldiers, you know, the shadow
Speaker 1: of soldiers on the ground for a few seconds. Like
Speaker 1: it feels very much like a Malik esque thing where
Speaker 1: you you just go out and shoot a bunch of
Speaker 1: stuff that you know, well you can edit, you know,
Speaker 1: get in the edit. Yeah, I mean I know that definitely,
Speaker 1: this this it was constructed somewhat that way where there
Speaker 1: was a lot of shooting. Um, the images could be
Speaker 1: arranged obviously in any number of ways. UM. I don't
Speaker 1: know what the what the form of the screenplay was,
Speaker 1: but as I the formal you know, the formal kind
Speaker 1: of document was just those diaries, and then I'm sure
Speaker 1: there was some kind of working document that was like,
Speaker 1: here's all the of sequences and situations and things we
Speaker 1: need to capture. But I'm sure that left a lot
Speaker 1: of room for, like you said, just you know, filming
Speaker 1: them doing doing different things like ironing that that great
Speaker 1: shot where they all lined up with the ironing boards
Speaker 1: and then their shorts and so on in the desert. Um,
Speaker 1: and and kind of like surveying, you know, being like okay,
Speaker 1: good job, you know. Um yeah, this this film, um,
Speaker 1: among all their films up to this point, is kind
Speaker 1: of the most free form and uh and open to
Speaker 1: kind of editorial um interpretation and and flexibility that way.
Speaker 1: And I am I would love to know really, um,
Speaker 1: if there was just a huge amount of freedom in
Speaker 1: the shooting, if they were working with a little bit
Speaker 1: more of a of a rigid structure, how that all
Speaker 1: came together, because like you said, the Malick thing, it
Speaker 1: could just kind of be you could be out there
Speaker 1: shooting forever and then just kind of finding this in
Speaker 1: the editing room. Yeah, And it's amazing that this is
Speaker 1: the form that the film takes because it seems so intentional.
Speaker 1: You would think a movie like this like that's a
Speaker 1: it's a it's a very bad idea if you're a
Speaker 1: novice filmmaker and you want to go out and make something,
Speaker 1: to do anything like this, because you're just setting yourself
Speaker 1: up for a big mess. Like when you're a young filmmaker,
Speaker 1: I think the more specific you can be and the
Speaker 1: better like storyboarded into the innth degree. But this all
Speaker 1: still feels very intentional and not like a film built
Speaker 1: in the edit. And I feel like the film even
Speaker 1: even kind of in in an interesting way, announces itself
Speaker 1: that it's going to be like that near the beginning,
Speaker 1: where there's a couple of shots that are just like
Speaker 1: waves in water rolling with the sunshine reflecting often in
Speaker 1: these really bright, circular specular reflections, and there's like a
Speaker 1: dissolve between that and between a shot of his handwriting
Speaker 1: in the journals and really nice shot. And I love
Speaker 1: that this combination of like the flowing bling water and
Speaker 1: the and the you know, the hand, the pen flowing
Speaker 1: on the paper as he as he's writing these journals.
Speaker 1: To me, that that kind of sets the tone for like,
Speaker 1: this is gonna be this kind of undulating thing. It's
Speaker 1: gonna ebb and flow. Um, and it's got this kind
Speaker 1: of there's a sense in which we're like we're drifting
Speaker 1: and we're floating and um. The you know, obviously the
Speaker 1: flashback structure. Um. In terms of those flashbacks or the
Speaker 1: flash forwards, we could say, because the whole film is
Speaker 1: a flashback in that sense, even though it feels like
Speaker 1: it's kind of happening in the present. You know, there's
Speaker 1: no like gauzy dissolve or anything like that. It feels
Speaker 1: like it's happening. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Um. But those but
Speaker 1: those jumps forward to the present. Those were filmed, I
Speaker 1: believe a few months after they wrapped photography in Africa,
Speaker 1: and so it's it's an interesting thing because Denny Lavant,
Speaker 1: the actor, he was there in Africa with everybody else,
Speaker 1: with the whole cast and crew and everything, and then
Speaker 1: when it came yeah, and then and then came back
Speaker 1: to do these these flash forwards, the present day stuff
Speaker 1: and Marseille. Um, he's completely alone and and he's actually
Speaker 1: thinking back, like a few months ago what they did
Speaker 1: together in the desert and that now he's separate from
Speaker 1: all that. So it sets a really great tone, you know.
Speaker 1: It just as almost like a method sort of thing
Speaker 1: um for him to really be able to tap into
Speaker 1: that sense of isolation and having been kind of cast
Speaker 1: out from from you know, this this Dnik kind of place. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and especially when he just as an actor on a
Speaker 1: film set, no doubt had a camaraderie with these guys.
Speaker 1: You have that big family feeling which is exactly mirrors
Speaker 1: what he feels in the French Born Legion. And then yeah,
Speaker 1: then he's uh, he's he's cast out of the garden
Speaker 1: and uh you know where wearing all black usually uh.
Speaker 1: Like the contrast of his appearance, like what they didn't do,
Speaker 1: which I'm kind of glad is like grow his hair
Speaker 1: out beard beard or something like you can still he
Speaker 1: still like very much taking care of himself in way,
Speaker 1: and that's how he stays. That's how he stays exactly,
Speaker 1: that's how he stays connected to it um even though
Speaker 1: he says an invoice over pretty early on, like my
Speaker 1: my muscles are out of shape. My body feels like
Speaker 1: it's consumed by acid, you know, like I'm I'm sort
Speaker 1: of I'm not keeping that physical regimen like like I
Speaker 1: like I did every day right right right. He climbs
Speaker 1: the tree at that one point to kind of hack
Speaker 1: some some limbs down. Um. But he's, yeah, he's he's
Speaker 1: having to deal with like idleness and and not having
Speaker 1: that that immediate obvious sense of purpose every day, like
Speaker 1: every day you wake up, you you just take care
Speaker 1: of your your subordinates, your soldiers, and you command them
Speaker 1: and so on. And now he's like he's just done
Speaker 1: Marseille and he's wandering the city and he doesn't really
Speaker 1: he doesn't really have a purpose anymore. He he says
Speaker 1: early on, you know, unfit for civilian life, unfit for
Speaker 1: life period, Like he just feels completely adrift and um,
Speaker 1: like he'll never he'll never feel like he belongs anywhere again.
Speaker 1: Well what's interesting though, like you you just said that
Speaker 1: he uh has lost this purpose that he had in
Speaker 1: the legion. But what I thought was really interesting was
Speaker 1: they didn't seem like they had much of a purpose
Speaker 1: what they were doing, Like they were never assigned anything
Speaker 1: that looked like it was important. They were seemingly only
Speaker 1: always training or when they finally, you know, go to
Speaker 1: the far outpost, which was that all literally a setup
Speaker 1: to get them out there? I think so, yeah, I
Speaker 1: think I think it was he wanted to get Somentown
Speaker 1: and the rest of the soldiers to a remote a
Speaker 1: place as possible and away from Forestier, although for eventually
Speaker 1: comes to visit, you know, because that was after the
Speaker 1: helicopter crash, which, by the way, if you're listening you
Speaker 1: haven't seen this movie, don't expect some exciting scene, very
Speaker 1: very done. Well, it's really cool how it's done, though,
Speaker 1: because the first thing you see is underwater, just this
Speaker 1: you know, kind of Jaws esque, like gallons and gallons
Speaker 1: of blood being spilled in the ocean. Then you come
Speaker 1: above the water and you see like the floating some
Speaker 1: shrapnel of a door that's on fire, and then you're like,
Speaker 1: you know, something clearly has happened, and then you see, uh,
Speaker 1: Santa is that it's yeah, like saving this guy, and
Speaker 1: that seems to be the weird last straw in that
Speaker 1: he saves this dude. He does a brave thing. He's
Speaker 1: already well liked, which is the first thing that bothers Galu.
Speaker 1: And then he saves this guy and gets praise from
Speaker 1: the big boss, who Galu is so desperate to, you know,
Speaker 1: get attention from. That's right, yeah he um yeah. It
Speaker 1: basically it really establishes him in the mind of Forestier
Speaker 1: as like, oh, this is like a guy I could
Speaker 1: see one day making captain or or whatever rank it
Speaker 1: would be, you know, like he's heroic. He he just
Speaker 1: does what's called for. He has kind of a natural
Speaker 1: leadership ability. People like him. But Galue, I mean it's
Speaker 1: got to be homosexuality, I think, because otherwise a sergeant
Speaker 1: should like his subordinate rising to the occasion, being brave,
Speaker 1: Like that's the kind of guy you want to promote.
Speaker 1: And he's just consumed with jealousy almost like it's this
Speaker 1: new baby being brought into the house of a of
Speaker 1: a big brother. Yeah. In theory, these are this is
Speaker 1: what you're trying to create through all this discipline and
Speaker 1: rigor and and so on. Is like I'm trying to
Speaker 1: mold you into that, and this guy has that. Um yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a really interesting thing. I won one quick note.
Speaker 1: Galu in French rhymes with the word Jalu, which is jealous.
Speaker 1: So they're having a little bit of fun. They're calling
Speaker 1: him Galu. Um. The the reason I think when when
Speaker 1: when Stan first arrives on the scene, um already, Uh,
Speaker 1: you can tell that uh Galu is very, very suspicious
Speaker 1: of him. He says, you know, his name is Santan
Speaker 1: at least that's the game the name he gave when
Speaker 1: he signed up. And he's reason to be here, Yeah,
Speaker 1: no reason to be here in the sense that this
Speaker 1: guy doesn't feel like an outsider in the way that
Speaker 1: you know, this guy could have could have gone into
Speaker 1: normal civilian life and probably succeeded in business or been
Speaker 1: a model. Yeah, exactly, like like there were there were
Speaker 1: so many other places this guy could have found himself.
Speaker 1: Why is he here with the rest of us outcasts
Speaker 1: and rejects, And you know, of course everybody loves him
Speaker 1: and and and is drawn to him and his charisma
Speaker 1: and his his charming nous and which. Yeah, but um,
Speaker 1: I I think I think it's just that um Galu
Speaker 1: likes being kind of the big fish and the little pond,
Speaker 1: and that ecosystem has now been upset by this new arrival.
Speaker 1: And of course there's there's this whole submerged subtext of
Speaker 1: his attraction to him, and and the attraction and the
Speaker 1: repulsion and the feeling of being threatened, maybe because the
Speaker 1: soldiers look too um Santen as much or more as
Speaker 1: they look to Galu for leadership in some cases. And
Speaker 1: of course the way Galue behaves and the things that
Speaker 1: he does as the story continues only only push that
Speaker 1: dynamic even further and alienate him more and more from
Speaker 1: his soldiers. The way he treats people. Um So, so
Speaker 1: he's kind of his own worst enemy in that way too,
Speaker 1: and that he's worried that the soldiers are going to
Speaker 1: lose their respect for him, and so then he does
Speaker 1: all these things that necessitate them losing that respect. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's funny thinking more about American beauty. I mean,
Speaker 1: one of the big plot points of that movie is
Speaker 1: his former military man who is repressed homosexuality, and he
Speaker 1: ends up killing spoiler alert truly seen this movie, but
Speaker 1: here he goes he ends up killing uh Kevin Spacey.
Speaker 1: Um very much mirrors this movie in some ways, but
Speaker 1: the way this one is done, I mean, they're both
Speaker 1: kind of subtle because it doesn't Uh, well, I guess
Speaker 1: American Beauty is a little more on the nose, but
Speaker 1: it's pretty over it because he thinks he sees like
Speaker 1: some sexual thing happenings his son and Kevin Space, although
Speaker 1: it's a misunderstanding. And then there's that scene where you like,
Speaker 1: he actually I think he kisses Kevin Space, right, he
Speaker 1: does ken And then yeah, um, but this movie it's
Speaker 1: almost like Thardin. He was so deaf and stubtle, subtle
Speaker 1: with it that it's almost like it's homo eroticism by default,
Speaker 1: because you're left going, what else could it be? Yeah, Like,
Speaker 1: why else would this guy have such a bone to
Speaker 1: pick with this dude? Because there's never anything over I mean,
Speaker 1: he just comes after this guy. There's no there's really
Speaker 1: no reason, no other reason. It's like a structuring absence.
Speaker 1: You would say, like it's it's there, but it's there
Speaker 1: because it's not there. Like I don't think they speak
Speaker 1: to each other directly once, barely at all. Do they
Speaker 1: have an exchange of dialogue between the two of them hard,
Speaker 1: I mean I don't remember, just a word or two. Um,
Speaker 1: there's there's an exchange where it's it's a little bit
Speaker 1: later where um Uh Santan and another soldier are sort
Speaker 1: of like keeping night watch and that one the one
Speaker 1: soldier puts his gun down and goes and then you know,
Speaker 1: gal comes along and says, where's the other guy? He
Speaker 1: abandoned time and he says, like, no, he just went
Speaker 1: to Pete. He goes here his post um. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: that's basically the only interaction I can recall that they have.
Speaker 1: But that I mean that leads to the big moment
Speaker 1: because it is the next day when that soldier who
Speaker 1: abandoned as supposed to pee is forced to dig the
Speaker 1: hole and Uh Santine santin Uh offers him water and
Speaker 1: gets in a fight. And again, if you haven't seen this,
Speaker 1: don't expect some big fight scene because that doesn't even happen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's interesting. In the in Billy Bud the Melville Uh story,
Speaker 1: what what ends up happening is is that the Galoup
Speaker 1: character Claggart basically falsely accuses Billy Budd the Galoup character,
Speaker 1: or no, the the Santan character, of wanting to foment
Speaker 1: a mutiny and it's a bogus charge, but he but
Speaker 1: he levels it because he wants to get him out
Speaker 1: of there, and so Billy Bud becomes angry and enraged,
Speaker 1: and there's a detail to his character where he kind
Speaker 1: of stutters and he can't really fully articulate what he's feeling,
Speaker 1: and so this this kind of excess of emotion. He
Speaker 1: can't channel it out verbally, and so he punches Claggett
Speaker 1: and he happens to punch him so hard that he
Speaker 1: kills him right then and there and then so then
Speaker 1: he is basically the the other superior, Bruno Forestier in
Speaker 1: this film, uh some other name, and Billy Bud, the
Speaker 1: superior who really likes Billy Bud nonetheless has to basically
Speaker 1: um court marshal court marshal him and hang him essentially,
Speaker 1: and so like they all have to be party to
Speaker 1: this hanging, even though they really love the guy and
Speaker 1: they understand why he did what he did and everything.
Speaker 1: But it's just the structure of the system happens a
Speaker 1: little differently here where um they they strike each other,
Speaker 1: you know, Galloup strikes sent Down first, and then sent
Speaker 1: In punches Galloop and knocks him out, but he doesn't
Speaker 1: kill him, but also shot in a very very avant
Speaker 1: guard odd way. Yeah, they drop out all the sounds,
Speaker 1: so you don't hear the punch landing or anything. And
Speaker 1: it's slow motion, and it's it's very fragmented the way
Speaker 1: it's shot. It's not like a wide shot. It's this
Speaker 1: kind of close up thing where the fist travels across
Speaker 1: the frame and strikes him, and then it just kind
Speaker 1: of cuts to the next sequence. It's like, Okay, you
Speaker 1: can't strike a superior officer, even if he's being a
Speaker 1: real jerk at that moment um. And leading up to
Speaker 1: that too, there's there's a moment where the guy has
Speaker 1: been digging the hole already, like all night, and now
Speaker 1: he's down in whole. His hands are bloody, um from
Speaker 1: this kind of wooden shovel that he's been using, the
Speaker 1: splinters and whatever. And uh, there's another soldier. Uh you
Speaker 1: know they're they're both black. Uh, these two soldiers and
Speaker 1: the one soldiers looking down at the other, and uh,
Speaker 1: Galu comes along and he tells the soldier who's standing outside, um, hey,
Speaker 1: you're you're not African anymore. You're French, Like get back
Speaker 1: to work or whatever. So there's there's there's definitely some
Speaker 1: some kind of racism, nationalism, colonialism, um all all being
Speaker 1: blended there too. But again it's it's very very subtle. Um,
Speaker 1: it's not it's not overt, but a little remark like
Speaker 1: that in that context among those soldiers, they would all
Speaker 1: know what that really means. And um, And so he's
Speaker 1: he's deliberately obviously he's trying to provoke this reaction from Santan.
Speaker 1: Um that Santan is not gonna stand by idly Why
Speaker 1: while he does that and so um, Yeah, it's just
Speaker 1: it's interesting how how he pushes that confrontation uh to
Speaker 1: happen so that he can undermine Santan, at least in
Speaker 1: the in the kind of um uh, in the framework
Speaker 1: of the military where you can't do that kind of thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, it's I also think it's interesting that there
Speaker 1: was It's almost like a movie that feels like it's
Speaker 1: building toward a climax that never really comes. Maybe because
Speaker 1: that fight scene is so uh oddly filmed, you don't
Speaker 1: get that release that you normally would in a movie.
Speaker 1: There's that one great sequence or shot where the two
Speaker 1: are circling each other out in the desert and getting
Speaker 1: closer and closer, staring at each other, closer and closer
Speaker 1: until they're face to face, and the impossible smoothness and
Speaker 1: youngness of of the one compared to the ruffian hartmark
Speaker 1: face to the other is at its most striking. But
Speaker 1: and there and they which just like the blue sky
Speaker 1: in the ocean. Yeah, it's like it's such an elemental,
Speaker 1: minimalist kind of thing. It's like, good, nothing happens there either, yeah, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: the and and of course we we haven't talked about
Speaker 1: the music yet, but the music is by an opera
Speaker 1: which was also adapted from Billy Budd by Benjamin Britten
Speaker 1: and I M. Forster and uh and so like it's
Speaker 1: pretty minimalist and at times you're like is there even
Speaker 1: a score? Right, and then it pipes in with this
Speaker 1: big operatic thing. Yeah, and in certain moments it really
Speaker 1: really comes on strong and um and so yeah, like
Speaker 1: you said that, it's all building to this what we
Speaker 1: think is going to be this cathartic conflict, you know,
Speaker 1: and like you said, it doesn't really happen. When when
Speaker 1: it does happen, she drains out the sound, she slows
Speaker 1: the film down. Um, the cathartic moment does not give
Speaker 1: any catharsis. And it's kind of yeah, it's it's it's
Speaker 1: drained of a lot of what could be dramatic power,
Speaker 1: like it could be a really kind of um energetic
Speaker 1: scene or something, but instead she goes the complete opposite
Speaker 1: way and and pulls all of that out of it,
Speaker 1: so that we are left field kind of like they
Speaker 1: never got you know, they never had that moment where
Speaker 1: they like went mono a mono kind of thing. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I feel like Claire deny Um, and not in a way,
Speaker 1: not in a manipulative way, but I feel like she
Speaker 1: in this film and maybe her other work, very much
Speaker 1: wants to challenge the audience by not letting everything out there,
Speaker 1: by forcing the audience to draw their own conclusions, but
Speaker 1: like in a way that it's not like, oh, the
Speaker 1: ending was a little ambiguous, Like throughout the movie, it
Speaker 1: abandons the the three X structure that we're also familiar
Speaker 1: with and comfortable with. It doesn't have those I mean
Speaker 1: sort of roughly has some plot points at the thirty
Speaker 1: and sixty minute mark, but not in a way that
Speaker 1: you're used to. So it really is incumbent on the
Speaker 1: on the viewer to put it all together and uh,
Speaker 1: decided how you feel about it and decide what's even
Speaker 1: going on in the end. Yeah, she she leaves a
Speaker 1: tremendous amount of space for the viewer to have their
Speaker 1: own thoughts and feelings and interpretations of things without getting
Speaker 1: into like sort of you know, a David Lynche and
Speaker 1: thing of like it's not it's not surreal. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's anchored in a reality, but very much. But but
Speaker 1: so much of um, the motivations and so on are
Speaker 1: left kind of obscure and we don't have access to
Speaker 1: them other than through the v O. But the vo
Speaker 1: is very sparse as well. So a lot of it
Speaker 1: is just the way the expression in somebody's face, the
Speaker 1: way that they move. Um. And she's so good at
Speaker 1: creating just a mood and a vibe in an atmosphere
Speaker 1: that's wordless and that feels like it couldn't be written,
Speaker 1: you know, it couldn't be expressed any other way than
Speaker 1: than through the medium of cinema of of you know,
Speaker 1: moving pictures and sound combined together and over time edited
Speaker 1: and so on to create these kind of almost hypnotic
Speaker 1: states that we enter into as a as an audience.
Speaker 1: And um, that's why I mean I think her films
Speaker 1: are you know, although you could you could imagine this
Speaker 1: comes from a literary source, but it would be hard
Speaker 1: to make this specific film into any other medium. It's
Speaker 1: it's very very untranslatable, unadaptable in that way because it
Speaker 1: has to be a film. You know, it couldn't be
Speaker 1: It couldn't work as a play, for instance, because you
Speaker 1: wouldn't you would never get that sense of the closeness
Speaker 1: with the actors and and all the things that are
Speaker 1: unspoken and so on. It really does have to be cinema.
Speaker 1: And I think that she is I mean, she's she's
Speaker 1: very very comfortable with ambiguity and with and and and
Speaker 1: just all the all the richness that can come from that.
Speaker 1: That cinema really excels that. I think. Yeah, not to
Speaker 1: the detriment of the film, um at all that ambiguity.
Speaker 1: Another movie from that it's just now occurring to me
Speaker 1: that deals some with masculinity and is eyes wide shut.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, there were what was going on back then?
Speaker 1: Was the dawn of the millennium or something, I guess. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: that that is really interesting. How many how many films
Speaker 1: from that era? Um? Like I said, I mean I
Speaker 1: think it's I think it's sort of um there were
Speaker 1: some big shifts happening in the nineteen nineties, and you
Speaker 1: could say, I don't know, you could you could maybe
Speaker 1: say this is it's like another wave of um feminism
Speaker 1: starting to arrive as well, and men and men looking
Speaker 1: to kind of navigate these new roles that are being
Speaker 1: that are changing and and certainly you know, to go
Speaker 1: back to fight club or American beauty, I mean American beauty. Um.
Speaker 1: Lester Burnham is is definitely a character that like feels
Speaker 1: very much emasculated by his life and powerless and so on,
Speaker 1: and and his kind of like one of the ways
Speaker 1: that he reclaims that as to like start lifting weights
Speaker 1: and smoking weed, you know, yeah, yeah, listening to classic
Speaker 1: rock and whatever and just kind of having the midlife
Speaker 1: crisis thing. But it is definitely about masculinity and and
Speaker 1: and and reclaiming some kind of assertiveness that he feels
Speaker 1: like has been taken from him. Um. Yeah that I
Speaker 1: don't know. I don't know what was going on in
Speaker 1: the late nineties, but yeah, it's hard. It's also I
Speaker 1: feel like this movie, like I wouldn't change anything about
Speaker 1: this movie, but this is a story that I could
Speaker 1: see the right Hollywood director making very well. Um, it
Speaker 1: would be a very different movie about you know, some
Speaker 1: grizzled sergeant army for life. This young, kind of brash,
Speaker 1: almost civilian minded new recruit comes in who everyone loves
Speaker 1: who this guy sees as a threat to the way
Speaker 1: of um and you know, movies have sort of danced
Speaker 1: around this kind of thing in different ways. I think
Speaker 1: Platoon did a little bit Bullmetal Jacket in a certain way,
Speaker 1: even though Private Pile wasn't a threat in that way.
Speaker 1: He was a threat in a different way to to
Speaker 1: the Marine Corps. But I could see a movie like
Speaker 1: this being made and it being a quality film under
Speaker 1: the Hollywood lens if it was made by a filmmaker
Speaker 1: with some skill. But it would be I mean, it
Speaker 1: could live, you know, a junk to this one, I think,
Speaker 1: you know, not necessarily a remake, and we should we
Speaker 1: should say. There have been other other filmmak adaptations of
Speaker 1: Billy bud Um, not of Boau Travi, but of Billy.
Speaker 1: But there's a nineteen sixty two British production directed by
Speaker 1: Peter ustinov Um which I have not seen. Um that
Speaker 1: sticks I think much more closely to the original Melville text.
Speaker 1: So it's the British Navy. Um okay, and and and
Speaker 1: you know it's uh, like I said, a much more
Speaker 1: I think, straightforward adaptation telling of that story, if I
Speaker 1: had to guess, probably a little bit less of the
Speaker 1: homorotic subtext and so on, and that one that's just it, yeah,
Speaker 1: or at least buried a little more deeply than than
Speaker 1: in this film. But yeah, I mean, I see what
Speaker 1: you mean. Like the Hollywood version would obviously be a
Speaker 1: lot more on the nose and explicit, I think with
Speaker 1: with some of the stuff. It's a film that obviously
Speaker 1: could get made now, um and and and like you said,
Speaker 1: by the right team, the right filmmaker and so on,
Speaker 1: could even be done pretty well. It just it wouldn't
Speaker 1: be this. It would be it would be sort of
Speaker 1: like the annotated version that kind of like you know,
Speaker 1: the underlines everything and like makes it a lot more explicit.
Speaker 1: It wouldn't be a ballet, you know, an almost dialogue
Speaker 1: free ballet, homo erotic ballet. There probably wouldn't be a choreographer,
Speaker 1: you know, as part of the crew. Would probably be
Speaker 1: like a fight you know, uh what sword we'll fight choreographer,
Speaker 1: but a little different so you know, the movie kind
Speaker 1: of bimax is in its own way with that fight.
Speaker 1: And then uh, then Galue has the excuse to punish
Speaker 1: to punish him and does so in a way that
Speaker 1: essentially is is I mean, I think he's trying to
Speaker 1: kill him by dropping him off in the middle of
Speaker 1: the desert. And I read afterwards that he he um
Speaker 1: fucked with his compass he gave him, because they must
Speaker 1: have missed that. There's a close up of the compass
Speaker 1: and the wheel. The arrow just keeps spinning and spinning.
Speaker 1: It settles in one place and then it goes completely opposite. So, um, yeah,
Speaker 1: he gave him, He gave him a bad compass, and
Speaker 1: where he was dropping him that is basically tant him
Speaker 1: out to a death sentence because you have no way
Speaker 1: to to orient himself and get back and and that
Speaker 1: kind of just flat open desert. Yeah, but he had
Speaker 1: to know, I mean for someone who I mean, I
Speaker 1: guess he says he's consumed by rage, but he doesn't
Speaker 1: show that in a very outward way, like for someone
Speaker 1: who was so dedicated to his job and so foreign
Speaker 1: legion for life to do this knowing. And I think
Speaker 1: the superior even says, you knew that this was going
Speaker 1: to happen. He says, you knew what you were getting
Speaker 1: yourself into, Like, yeah, this is that's the road you
Speaker 1: schoosed to go down. Nobody forced you to do this,
Speaker 1: you know. Um, it's really weird. Like like I was saying,
Speaker 1: like his his life used to just be like his
Speaker 1: purpose in life was the kind of maintenance of this
Speaker 1: French foreign legion, his platoon or whatever you call it.
Speaker 1: But he drifted from that goal so far that like
Speaker 1: he thought the only way he could keep what he
Speaker 1: had was to was to go completely against that that
Speaker 1: kind of ethos, that that oath or whatever it is
Speaker 1: that he took. Well, yeah, I think I answered my
Speaker 1: own question though, because it is the repressed homosexuality again.
Speaker 1: I think because I was just thinking. He could have
Speaker 1: put him on shovel duty for two weeks until his
Speaker 1: hands were falling apart, but he would still be there
Speaker 1: and he would still see him and still feel attracted
Speaker 1: to him. He had to get him away. He had to.
Speaker 1: He was trying to remove, I think, remove this urge
Speaker 1: from his life. Yeah, that's that's true. It's not just
Speaker 1: enough to punish. He had to kind of eliminate him completely. Um,
Speaker 1: even though he may not have been able to articulate
Speaker 1: to himself why that drive was so strong like that
Speaker 1: in him, that that repulsion, that death was the only
Speaker 1: acceptable outcome. It wouldn't be enough to just drum him
Speaker 1: out of the military or you know, demote him to
Speaker 1: the point where maybe he would quit or something. Um,
Speaker 1: And he's still surrounded by good looking shirtless guy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like all those guys are handsome. He just had to
Speaker 1: to completely eradicate him because there was just something about
Speaker 1: him that that was too much. Yeah, very interesting. I
Speaker 1: think the reveal that he was still alive really caught
Speaker 1: me off guard. I thought for sure he was dead
Speaker 1: laying out there on the salt flats, which was just
Speaker 1: another just amazing, amazing shot in sequence that just white
Speaker 1: crystalline little spikes, stalagmites almost um, really striking on somehow,
Speaker 1: even more minimalists than the rest. You know, just when
Speaker 1: you can't think, when you think it can't get even more, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it goes there and they find that there's that beautiful
Speaker 1: shot where it's just all water, and then you realize
Speaker 1: gradually the camera's panning and you don't really even have
Speaker 1: us since what the scale is, and then it finally
Speaker 1: finds kind of like the shore and him walking along
Speaker 1: it and the waves and everything. Have you seen this
Speaker 1: on the big screen? I have not. Unfortunately let me know,
Speaker 1: I'll go with you. Well you know it. We actually
Speaker 1: the just this past year, um they did like the
Speaker 1: big four K restoration and uh and the Criterion Blue
Speaker 1: ray came out and everything, because for a very long time,
Speaker 1: this was a hard film to get hold of. Um
Speaker 1: there was a DVD in the United States, but it
Speaker 1: was out of print, and it was also quite poor quality.
Speaker 1: The transfer and everything was not very good. There was
Speaker 1: like a UK DVD that looked a lot better, but
Speaker 1: you had to have like a region free player and
Speaker 1: all that. So that's going to rule out most people.
Speaker 1: That's the copy I had, and then but it wasn't
Speaker 1: available to like stream anywhere as far as I know. UM,
Speaker 1: it had this reputation, but for for most like interested viewers,
Speaker 1: it was just really really hard to come by. And
Speaker 1: so finally Criterion, who has worked um on on other
Speaker 1: Dinny film releases as well, UM, they finally like did
Speaker 1: the restoration for this film. But but by the time
Speaker 1: like it was coming out, it was already the pandemic,
Speaker 1: and so uh, they only had like a virtual cinema release,
Speaker 1: so maybe maybe like a handful of fest wols might
Speaker 1: have shown it before everything down Midtown at some point.
Speaker 1: I gosh, I really really hope. So I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: when when things open back up again, I hope they
Speaker 1: still like, we'll book it, you know, and and let
Speaker 1: it play on some screens, because I've seen this movie
Speaker 1: probably ten fifteen times, but I've seen it on a
Speaker 1: big screen. And interesting, you know, most of the times
Speaker 1: I've seen it have been off that DVD. Only like
Speaker 1: the last maybe a couple of viewings that I've seen
Speaker 1: this um h D version, which looks amazing too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it looked really good. Um, what is your take on?
Speaker 1: You know, towards the end of the film, there is
Speaker 1: a sequence where he has made his bed so perfectly.
Speaker 1: This is Galu. Of course we already know that, Um,
Speaker 1: although we don't see what happens to uh Santa. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we do see him get get rescued and he's alive,
Speaker 1: but that's kind of where it ends. Yeah, Um, but
Speaker 1: you know, there's the shot of him laying on the
Speaker 1: bed with his gun, and in any other movie, he
Speaker 1: would have blown his head off, but he doesn't. But
Speaker 1: I just sort of took that as like that is
Speaker 1: on the table for him kind of at any moment,
Speaker 1: he's definitely thinking about it, I think, um, if I
Speaker 1: remember correctly, clear Denis said that originally that was kind
Speaker 1: of the end of the film, was that it was
Speaker 1: either gonna be actual overt suicide or at least heavily
Speaker 1: suggested like the last shot would be him holding that
Speaker 1: gun on the bed and then just cut to black
Speaker 1: or something. And but she decided, you know, I I
Speaker 1: don't want to end that way. I want to end
Speaker 1: on something else, like I want let's go and talk
Speaker 1: about it. Yeah, and so um, amazing, amazing one of
Speaker 1: a kind you know, ending in in all of film,
Speaker 1: I think, Um, it cuts back to if you know,
Speaker 1: you may not pick up on this if it's your
Speaker 1: first viewing. But it's the same disco that the rest
Speaker 1: of the film has been shot in. It's got that
Speaker 1: criss cross pattern on the on the mirror in the club,
Speaker 1: which mirrors the criss cross pattern of the chain lengk
Speaker 1: fence when UH four c A is looking at the
Speaker 1: soldiers in the ocean. Um, but this time it's just
Speaker 1: him alone, there's nobody else in there, and he's listening
Speaker 1: to the Rhythm of the Night by Corona and you know,
Speaker 1: for a while he's just kind of smoking listening, he's
Speaker 1: moving a little bit, and then like the course hits
Speaker 1: and he just explodes into this amazing, you know release,
Speaker 1: and it's it's such a beautiful thing because he's been
Speaker 1: so tightly wound and so so immobile in a way
Speaker 1: and so interior and so just like uptight the whole film,
Speaker 1: and now suddenly he's just like bursting with this energy
Speaker 1: in this kind of joy of life and and everything.
Speaker 1: And um, there's something just very cathartic and transcendent about it,
Speaker 1: I find. Well, there's a couple of readings of it
Speaker 1: for sure. Yeah, yeah, obviously, I think probably because if
Speaker 1: you think about it chronologically, like it's ending with him
Speaker 1: and he's back in Jibouti, he's back in Africa, you know,
Speaker 1: because he's in that club again. So obviously, so honestly,
Speaker 1: this can't this can't be like that night he went
Speaker 1: out dancing or something, you know, but this is post
Speaker 1: Martin where when he was in France and then he
Speaker 1: comes back. Well, the thing is this is this going back?
Speaker 1: Is this him remembering a time or did this ever
Speaker 1: even happen? Is this just sort of like an internal
Speaker 1: like in his mind, he's still there, He's in that disco,
Speaker 1: he's dancing like, this is what it might be like
Speaker 1: for me to accept my sexuality. Yeah. Maybe maybe it's
Speaker 1: just his day dream or dream even or yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's it's maybe it's a it's a sort of metaphorical
Speaker 1: thing like he's accepting who he really is inside and
Speaker 1: he's letting that flourishing come out, and it's it's a
Speaker 1: complete opposite of what he has been up to that point. Maybe, Um,
Speaker 1: But obviously the other the other kind of reading is
Speaker 1: that he's lying on that bed, he's got the gun
Speaker 1: on his chest. He says, serve the good cause and die.
Speaker 1: That's the last thing he says. It's also what's tattooed
Speaker 1: on his arm there. Um, And and that's that amazing
Speaker 1: shot of his arm pulsing, the vein pulsing in his arm. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was a nice little crazy let's shoot that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and um, and so then you know, if if you
Speaker 1: follow that reading, then it's kind of like, okay, off
Speaker 1: off screen, he shoots himself. He'sad and then this is
Speaker 1: like his spirit leaving his body or he's in heaven
Speaker 1: or something like that, you know, something some some reading
Speaker 1: along those lines. It's hard to say like about that,
Speaker 1: you know, just the whole movie is him bursting out
Speaker 1: of his shell and so it's a new beginning for him.
Speaker 1: We don't know. So the question is, uh, it shows
Speaker 1: towards the end as well, he's got this girlfriend that
Speaker 1: is she had been set up. Um I'm not again,
Speaker 1: not in any overt way, but you see her in
Speaker 1: those scenes in the clubs in Africa and she says that,
Speaker 1: you know, that's my boyfriend, and like we get along
Speaker 1: really good, and that's kind of all she says. But
Speaker 1: where is that? Where are they? Then? Are they in Africa? Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're in Africa. So presumably when he got kicked come
Speaker 1: back then? Or is this before he leaves? This before
Speaker 1: he leaves, I think all him remembering that relationship. But
Speaker 1: I think I think when he leaves, they're done and
Speaker 1: he doesn't see her anymore, you know. I think I
Speaker 1: think that's part of it, is, is his memory of her.
Speaker 1: It's a little hard to track because usually again in
Speaker 1: a conventional film. They give him a beard or some
Speaker 1: clear physical descriptor to say like, this is this timeline,
Speaker 1: This is that timeline. Yeah, it's it's him, I think,
Speaker 1: romanticizing and just like looking back fondly on that time
Speaker 1: that we had with her. Which is interesting too because
Speaker 1: we're we are saying that it's this film about repressed
Speaker 1: homosexuality and so on. But the men do go with
Speaker 1: women in this film. Um, but you know, to what
Speaker 1: extent they're really engaged in those relationships. It's hard to say,
Speaker 1: because the women that are in this disco, it's pretty
Speaker 1: much implied there like sex workers. You know, they may
Speaker 1: feel some genuine connection sometimes to these soldiers, but they
Speaker 1: are also there of like financial necessity and they're working,
Speaker 1: and this is one of the few ways that um,
Speaker 1: these young women know of to like support you know,
Speaker 1: whatever family they have, just just make a make a
Speaker 1: life for themselves. And so the way that women are
Speaker 1: are kind of showing in the film is really really interesting.
Speaker 1: They there's certainly not I mean, the his girlfriend is
Speaker 1: the closest thing to like a female character, but she
Speaker 1: says almost nothing. She's she's she's seen but not heard. Um.
Speaker 1: And yet within the film itself. Um, I mean, it's
Speaker 1: obviously that the women are like kind of u uh
Speaker 1: an afterthought for the men. But in terms of the
Speaker 1: film itself, we are given these sequences where, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: the the African women are kind of looking at the
Speaker 1: soldiers and sometimes they're talking among themselves, they're kind of laughing. Um.
Speaker 1: There doesn't show any mistreatment of them. It doesn't show
Speaker 1: exchange of money, and not to say that wasn't happening,
Speaker 1: but it very much looks like people having a good
Speaker 1: time at a club. Yeah. Yeah, And I mean I
Speaker 1: think I think it's in in in in certain places
Speaker 1: like it's it's such a deep part of the culture.
Speaker 1: This is this kind of monetary thing mixed with the
Speaker 1: romantic thing that it really blurs the lines a little bit. Um.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's just expected that maybe if you're from
Speaker 1: that town, this is what you do. You reach a
Speaker 1: certain age, you go to the disco, you meet a
Speaker 1: soldier kind of thing contrasted with like a full metal
Speaker 1: jacket right right, and where it's much more, which is
Speaker 1: very explicit and very overt that these uh, that these
Speaker 1: soldiers are very much taking advantage of these women and
Speaker 1: think nothing of them. Yeah, both sides are very clear.
Speaker 1: This is this is completely transactional. There's no emotion here whatsoever, Um,
Speaker 1: Whereas in this it is it is much more like
Speaker 1: confused that he like she does call him her boyfriend,
Speaker 1: you know, and they do some seem to have some
Speaker 1: real genuine affection for each other show it. But yeah,
Speaker 1: but it's well, there's there's there's that one UM sequence
Speaker 1: where it's Gal who sitting by himself and this young
Speaker 1: boy comes up to him with with a box of
Speaker 1: stuff for sale and he kind of he kind of
Speaker 1: bugs him for a second and he just like kind
Speaker 1: of tries to wave him off, and then he sticks around.
Speaker 1: He says, all right, I'll buy this thing. And yeah,
Speaker 1: he buys a little gift for her, and then she's
Speaker 1: asleep on the bed and he very tenderly kind of
Speaker 1: puts put her hand and kind of strokes her hair
Speaker 1: for a minute. Like there's you know, it seems like
Speaker 1: there's some some actual genuine affection there, but it is,
Speaker 1: it's it's only briefly touched upon. And like I said,
Speaker 1: it's just one of those things like I think, Um,
Speaker 1: when he left, that was it. You know, they didn't
Speaker 1: keep in touch after that. Yeah, Casey, I think my
Speaker 1: favorite part of this conversation was like five minutes ago
Speaker 1: when you sounded like an eighty year old man and said,
Speaker 1: you know, the men go with women, right, You've never
Speaker 1: sounded more like an old man. It's funny they go
Speaker 1: with other men. But uh, what else you got on
Speaker 1: your list? Let's see what we should say that There's
Speaker 1: there's a little bit of another filmic reference happening in
Speaker 1: this movie. The character UM Bruno Forestier, who is the
Speaker 1: highest superior officer UM is a character drawn by a
Speaker 1: Jean Or drawn from a Jean Lagodard film Petite Le
Speaker 1: Petit soldat the Little Soldier, which was his second completed film.
Speaker 1: He made it right right after making Breathless Um, and
Speaker 1: it talked about Um the Algerian War. There's a character
Speaker 1: in that film, Bruno Forestier, played by michelsee Bors so
Speaker 1: the same actors in this film, and basically he's somebody
Speaker 1: that deserted the French military during the Algerian War and
Speaker 1: he goes to to Switzerland and he's kind of working
Speaker 1: for the government in this kind of shadowy double agent capacity,
Speaker 1: and so basically clear Denny had the idea that that
Speaker 1: character in that film could have run away from that
Speaker 1: situation and joined the French Foreign Legion and just kind
Speaker 1: of like hidden himself there, and so he kind of
Speaker 1: in a way, this film is sort of like an
Speaker 1: unofficial sequel in a way to that film, although it
Speaker 1: doesn't you know, it doesn't have to be thought of
Speaker 1: that way certainly, and it doesn't require you to have
Speaker 1: seen that film. But it's just an interesting kind of
Speaker 1: like inter film connection there. And it's really it's interesting
Speaker 1: for for a film that is so um sensory based,
Speaker 1: that is so kind of like it's all about mood
Speaker 1: and intuition and wordlessness and so on, there's also such
Speaker 1: a rich kind of intellectual um variety of things happening,
Speaker 1: you know, in terms of like it's referencing this Herman
Speaker 1: Melville book, it's also referencing the opera based on it. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's also referencing this Jean Ecodard film, it's incorporating modern dance. Um.
Speaker 1: There's all these things that that that flow into it,
Speaker 1: and yet it never feels like like an intellectual exercise
Speaker 1: or something. You know, it's a very easy watch, actually,
Speaker 1: I mean, if you're listening and you think, like, oh boy,
Speaker 1: this weird arts forts in French movie without much dialogue.
Speaker 1: It's you know, it doesn't drag at all. It's not long, um,
Speaker 1: it's a slow burn, but it was. It was a
Speaker 1: really pleasant watch. I think oddly it's not super challenge. No,
Speaker 1: it has this like hypnotic quality, and and it's the
Speaker 1: kind of film where if you're just willing to pay
Speaker 1: close attention and and rack to it as if you
Speaker 1: would react to a real life situation, where you read
Speaker 1: body language and you look into people's eyes and you
Speaker 1: you know, you try to understand it. In that way,
Speaker 1: all all the story will be there, you know, you
Speaker 1: don't have to have the background on, like the French
Speaker 1: occupation and you know, post colonial theory and all that.
Speaker 1: I think it bears a close viewing, but it's not
Speaker 1: at all the kind of movie that's vexing in a
Speaker 1: way where you're like, I don't even know what the
Speaker 1: funk is going on? Like what am I watching here? Right? Right? Right?
Speaker 1: It's it's weird. I mean, it's a bit of a
Speaker 1: miracle in that way too, to be this avant garde,
Speaker 1: and and it's still something that you can enjoy like
Speaker 1: I enjoyed watching it. I watched it this morning at
Speaker 1: like seven am, and and really and I can't wait
Speaker 1: to see it again. Yeah, you and me both, we
Speaker 1: both watched it this morning. Um, and I even even
Speaker 1: as we've been doing this, uh, this this recording, like
Speaker 1: I've had it on the TV just on the side here,
Speaker 1: so I in my periphery I can just kind of
Speaker 1: catch because like, as soon as I start thinking about it,
Speaker 1: I do want to start immediately talking about all the
Speaker 1: sort of stuff that's in a way external to the film.
Speaker 1: You know. Yeah, it looks like that Janet Jackson video, right,
Speaker 1: remember the one in the desert with the dancers. Totally yeah,
Speaker 1: I bet you anything. They were influenced by this, I'm sure. Um.
Speaker 1: But but yet the film itself is there, and it
Speaker 1: is this kind of closed object that that doesn't need
Speaker 1: all this kind of you know, extra textual support to
Speaker 1: to understand it or to appreciate it. So I think
Speaker 1: that's that's very interesting about it. Can you see this
Speaker 1: outside of the Criterion channel? Can you just like get
Speaker 1: this on iTunes or whatever? I don't know, I think
Speaker 1: it may actually yeah, let's see if it's because it's
Speaker 1: a movie I would like people to see, and I've
Speaker 1: been beating the Criterion Channel drum for a while, but
Speaker 1: I know it's you know, it's a big gass to say,
Speaker 1: sign up for this subscription thing just to watch if
Speaker 1: you're not like a true cent file like, because that's
Speaker 1: really what's out there. Um. I mean, of course there is.
Speaker 1: There is like a physical release if if you happen
Speaker 1: be somewhere that actually their physical rentals to be had.
Speaker 1: Um that that's a potential avenue as well. Let me
Speaker 1: see here. It does not look like it, so so
Speaker 1: it's just on Criterion Channel. I mean, it doesn't pop
Speaker 1: up on I'm like iTunes or anything like that. So
Speaker 1: although yeah, you can get the DVD. O looks got
Speaker 1: a four and a half star rating on the Amazon
Speaker 1: not bad. It's so funny when a movie like you
Speaker 1: see the Rotten Tomatoes score come up, and it's like,
Speaker 1: I don't e want to say the word rotten tomatoes
Speaker 1: in the same sentence as a film like this, you know,
Speaker 1: it's just like, don't even tell me what the rotten tomato.
Speaker 1: I hate rotten tomatoes anyway, so don't that that reminds me? Um?
Speaker 1: One of her more recent films. I guess her last
Speaker 1: film to get released, High Life, UM, was distributed by
Speaker 1: and the slip cover for that has the Tomato rating
Speaker 1: on it, and that just really bugged me when I
Speaker 1: saw that. The right man, Oh it was it was fresh.
Speaker 1: It was certified fresh. But I don't remember if it
Speaker 1: was like in the eighties or nineties or was. It's
Speaker 1: just like, Okay, I still haven't seen High Life, dude,
Speaker 1: I gotta check that out. I have to say, like,
Speaker 1: you know, High Life, UM, I've only seen it once.
Speaker 1: I did see that one in the theater. I liked it.
Speaker 1: It didn't really like bowl me over the way other
Speaker 1: of her films have. UM, but it is interesting. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's her first film in English. Uh, it's her first
Speaker 1: film kind of made with like within like the more
Speaker 1: American system. UM, it's sci fi, which she hasn't really
Speaker 1: done before. Yeah, I'll have to check it out for me.
Speaker 1: Just based on one viewing, it didn't really have the
Speaker 1: draw of some of the other films that UM that
Speaker 1: I that I hold in really high regard. You know,
Speaker 1: if if if, if you are somebody who's seen this
Speaker 1: film and you're interested in other clear Deny Films. I
Speaker 1: would really really recommend checking out UM. The Intruder Long
Speaker 1: po Um was she made maybe five or six years
Speaker 1: after of this one, and it stars Michelle Subor, who
Speaker 1: is the highest ranking official in this film as kind
Speaker 1: of a shady guy you don't really know much about
Speaker 1: his past. UM, but he needs a heart transplant and
Speaker 1: he gets one kind of on the black market, and
Speaker 1: it it it pushes, it's the furthest she has pushed
Speaker 1: into complete abstraction. UM. And so it's sort of it's
Speaker 1: sort of you know, it bears some formal similarities to
Speaker 1: this film, but it pushes way further into not knowing
Speaker 1: if something is a dream or a kind of metaphorical
Speaker 1: expression of something. UM. And it was. It was adapted
Speaker 1: from a literally like a philosophical text UM that was
Speaker 1: written by this philosopher, Jean Luke Nancy, who had a
Speaker 1: heart transplant and his body rejected the transplant and so
Speaker 1: and so he he did end up surviving that. I
Speaker 1: don't know if he got like a second transplant or what,
Speaker 1: but he ended up surviving. And UM, and he wrote
Speaker 1: this text about the idea of the intruder, this thing
Speaker 1: that comes from outside and comes to inside and in
Speaker 1: the case of his body, it was this second heart
Speaker 1: that he got that his body rejected. But he also
Speaker 1: puts that in terms of like immigration and people coming
Speaker 1: from outside of country and into a country and integrating
Speaker 1: or not integrating. Um, and the idea of borders, and
Speaker 1: it's it's I mean, it's a fascinating, fascinating film. UM.
Speaker 1: And it pushes like the what what can be expressed
Speaker 1: without dialogue just in terms of the music and the
Speaker 1: images and so on, um, just about to the breaking point.
Speaker 1: Like after that, she kind of she kind of pulled
Speaker 1: it back, and her films have been a little more
Speaker 1: narrative since then. Well, I mean that's another Malik staple too,
Speaker 1: you know, and in criticism at times. UM. Not to
Speaker 1: go down another side road. But the other day I
Speaker 1: was on scrolling through Criterion and did see and watch
Speaker 1: Uh we need to talk about Kevin right, Yeah, that
Speaker 1: was under their twenty one Century Cinema thing and I
Speaker 1: hadn't seen that one yet either. The Lynn Ramsey movie,
Speaker 1: which I thought of you when I saw it for
Speaker 1: some sason, because I figured you had seen it, well
Speaker 1: you would, I think you had just watched it when
Speaker 1: you when you texted me that that wine that you
Speaker 1: had just watched it. You had I believe you said
Speaker 1: you would just come from watching it. I think that's right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: of course I was thinking about you. Yeah, and that
Speaker 1: that film. Um, I have to say, like, like Lynn Ramsey,
Speaker 1: for me, like her best films are her first to
Speaker 1: Rat Catcher and Morvin Caller, and then there was a
Speaker 1: really long stretch of time between Morvin Caller, which came
Speaker 1: out in two thousand two, and we need to talk
Speaker 1: about Kevin, which came out so like almost a decade passed,
Speaker 1: and then the Joaquin Phoenix movie. That's right, by the way,
Speaker 1: I didn't get black out drunk it Now it's all
Speaker 1: coming back to me. I just forgot we talked about that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it almost feels like she she kind of became
Speaker 1: a slightly different filmmaker and those nine years in between,
Speaker 1: which I mean, that's that's normal, that's life. But um,
Speaker 1: her first two films for me, have just a lot
Speaker 1: more thematic richness to them, whereas I feel like in
Speaker 1: these last two she's you know, the the use of
Speaker 1: image and sound is is really really strong. It's very visceral,
Speaker 1: and that's great, But at the same time, the ideas
Speaker 1: and the kind of subtext below it is a little
Speaker 1: more threadbare. And um, particularly the Joaquin Phoenix one, you
Speaker 1: were never really here. Um, that's a really I mean,
Speaker 1: it's a really interesting movie. It's very interesting. It came
Speaker 1: out I would say, maybe like a year before all
Speaker 1: the Epstein stuff like really started popping out. And there's
Speaker 1: there's a very similar situation in that film where there's
Speaker 1: like this mansion in Manhattan where there are basically sex
Speaker 1: slaves and and all this kind of stuff and you know,
Speaker 1: very very similar to what sounds like what was happening
Speaker 1: in real life. Um, I don't know, I don't know
Speaker 1: why why I got on that threat. Also, you know
Speaker 1: we talked about Eyes White Shot before that story broken.
Speaker 1: There's a very similar kind of suggestions there. Um. But yeah,
Speaker 1: with with Lynn Ramsey, I would say, check out, checkout
Speaker 1: Rat Catcher and Morvin Caller. Those are amazing, amazing films.
Speaker 1: And um, I I think she's Um, she's a good
Speaker 1: a good kind of companion filmmaker too, clar Deny. They
Speaker 1: both worked what made me think of it a little bit.
Speaker 1: It's like intuitive way that um uh, like you said,
Speaker 1: it's it's hard to picture what a screenplay would look like.
Speaker 1: It's something that has to be felt. It's something that just,
Speaker 1: you know what, when you see it and it feels right,
Speaker 1: not because it was written a certain way, but just
Speaker 1: because the attention to the moment and the rhythm and
Speaker 1: so on is so is so focused that, um, that's
Speaker 1: what seems to define the logic of the cutting and
Speaker 1: so on. Is just this like mood that that they're
Speaker 1: able to dial into and really like focus on. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm glad you picked this movie. It's um to me,
Speaker 1: it's just such a such a pure expression of what
Speaker 1: I love about film, and that I don't want all
Speaker 1: movies to be like this, but I love that there
Speaker 1: are movies like this, and I feel better for having
Speaker 1: seen it. I can't wait to see it again. And
Speaker 1: like it's a movie you want to proselytize about a
Speaker 1: little bit. Yeah, especially to people that are like real
Speaker 1: film lovers and and can get into something that's a
Speaker 1: little avant garde. I'm like, you need to see say
Speaker 1: the name in French Boau Travia. There you go. But yeah,
Speaker 1: this is this is since since we've been doing um,
Speaker 1: you know, having these conversations on Movie Cruch, like this
Speaker 1: was one on the shortlist from the very very beginning. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you've been talking about it, and for a long time
Speaker 1: it was kind of like, well, I can't pick that
Speaker 1: one because literally, like you're asking somebody to like pay
Speaker 1: forty bucks for like an out of print you know,
Speaker 1: DVD copy on on Amazon marketplace whatever. Like It's just
Speaker 1: it was impossible to get hold of for a while.
Speaker 1: And now thankfully it has had this re release and
Speaker 1: so UM, and I think also it's stature has has
Speaker 1: grown um in recent years, we've we've obviously been seeing
Speaker 1: a very positive shift to highlighting the work of more
Speaker 1: women filmmakers in general, and Claire Deny certainly gets included
Speaker 1: in that, in that kind of new pantheon of great
Speaker 1: contemporary women filmmakers. UM. And so thankfully, I think you know,
Speaker 1: in in like university film studies, pro rams and so on, like,
Speaker 1: this is a film that gets talked about a lot
Speaker 1: and um, and we'll have um, certainly more of an
Speaker 1: audience going forward than it has in the first twenty
Speaker 1: years of its existence. I'm trying to uh, I'm trying
Speaker 1: to get Tamra Jenkins on the show emailed her agent
Speaker 1: the other day and because Emily and I just saw
Speaker 1: her third movie, Um, Private Life. Yeah, I meant to
Speaker 1: see that's with Paul and it's really really good but
Speaker 1: Savages and Sums of Beverly completely different kind of filmmaker
Speaker 1: but just brilliant. And uh, I was reading an interview
Speaker 1: with her and they said, like, you took such a
Speaker 1: long break after Sums of Beverly Hills, and like why
Speaker 1: did you do that? And she's like, because I'm a
Speaker 1: woman trying to get movies made. How wasn't I didn't
Speaker 1: just say like, hey, let me take off the fourteen
Speaker 1: years or whatever. Yeah, but she's just one of my
Speaker 1: favorites and her her husband, Jim Taylor, is a great writer,
Speaker 1: Alexander Paine's writing partner. So uh, fingers crossed. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, I just threw it out there. I'm sure
Speaker 1: I'll get it either no response or or no, but
Speaker 1: you never know. I'd love to you never know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that'd be awesome with that. I got to try. Yeah, well, dude,
Speaker 1: thanks for this. This is a great movie. I think
Speaker 1: we we can both speaking for you, we can both
Speaker 1: say if you have eight bucks or whatever, how much
Speaker 1: is Criterion Channel. Is it eight or ten dollars? It
Speaker 1: might be Uh, I do the annual subscription, so you
Speaker 1: get you get a little better. What say you get
Speaker 1: a little bit of a break. Yeah, it's it's eleven
Speaker 1: dollars a month or or a hundred a year, so
Speaker 1: you save a little bit if you can do the annual. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean if you can spare eleven bucks a month.
Speaker 1: I know, paying for streaming services as a a lot
Speaker 1: of people have a bone to pick because there's just
Speaker 1: paramounts coming out with one now and now it's it's
Speaker 1: it's just yeah, I don't know how that's gonna shake
Speaker 1: out when there's like twelve different subscription services and you're
Speaker 1: you're expected to pay for all of them. It's crazy.
Speaker 1: But if you are a film lover, if you're a cinephile,
Speaker 1: and if you have and if you can swing eleven
Speaker 1: bucks a month, highly recommend you get Criterion Channel. It
Speaker 1: is chock full of not only great movies and documentaries,
Speaker 1: but commentary pieces, short films, um interviews with filmmakers about stuff.
Speaker 1: It's just got a lot of stuff like normally what
Speaker 1: you would watch in Criterion DVD extras like all that
Speaker 1: ship is on there too. Yeah, they will do this
Speaker 1: thing where they basically put the film and all of
Speaker 1: the associated extras that you would get on the physical copy.
Speaker 1: They'll put that alongside the movie as well. Not for everything,
Speaker 1: but but for certain titles, they'll do that. And they're
Speaker 1: really doing about Criterion Channel is that it's always rotating,
Speaker 1: so every month some stuff goes away, a lot of
Speaker 1: new stuff comes in that can be frustrating to that
Speaker 1: can that can be frustrating to then I'm like, you
Speaker 1: gotta get on it. You know, that's true. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, I mean, it's it's cool that there's
Speaker 1: so much new content being added all the time, and
Speaker 1: they organize it a lot of times into these kind
Speaker 1: of thematic sections where there's like eight or eight or
Speaker 1: ten films that all speak to a certain theme or
Speaker 1: a filmmaker, like the works Importing and and speaking of which,
Speaker 1: I mean there's a lot more Clardini films that are
Speaker 1: available on Criterion Channel. It's not everything she's done. Intruders not,
Speaker 1: I don't think so. Intruder is another one that has
Speaker 1: um that really needs a restoration and really needs a rerelease,
Speaker 1: And I hope that will happen as well. It wasn't
Speaker 1: quite as like critically loved as as Bau Travi, but um,
Speaker 1: certainly I think I think absolutely equally worthwhile. UM. I
Speaker 1: will say, in terms of what is on Criterion Channel,
Speaker 1: check out thirty five Shots of Rum. That's an amazing film. UM,
Speaker 1: in a completely different register to this one. That would
Speaker 1: maybe even be another good one to do for the
Speaker 1: show because it's a father and daughter story. It has
Speaker 1: a lot of heart. UM. Similarly kind of minimalistic and
Speaker 1: a lot of things unspoken and so on, but it's
Speaker 1: just a really really beautiful coming of age story. UM
Speaker 1: probably make you cry, um and set in contemporary Paris
Speaker 1: and and just um yeah, I'm super super fond of
Speaker 1: that movie. So UM definitely give that a a watch
Speaker 1: too if you're interested in clear Tony awesome. Well, thanks dude, Uh,
Speaker 1: it's good seeing again. This is a great talk as always,
Speaker 1: and thanks to everyone for listening. We'll see you soon.
Speaker 1: Where are we? Movie Crash is produced and written by
Speaker 1: Charles Bryant and Meel Brown, edited and engineered by Seth
Speaker 1: Nicholas Johnson, and scored by Noel Brown here in our
Speaker 1: home studio at Pontsty Market, Atlanta, Georgia for i heart Radio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts For my heart Radio, visit the i
Speaker 1: heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.