Madness Rules - 1947 - Switzerland

Madness Rules - 1947 - 6/10
AKA - Matto Regiert

Doktor Laduner thinks young Kaplaun can soon return to society.
The asylum director, a bullying tyrant, thinks otherwise.
New methods clash with severe discipline – until the director is murdered.
Enter police inspector Studer.

 
Murder in a madhouse suggests all manner of themes.
This goes the procedural route, with the inspector asking provocative questions and keenly observing.
Patients and their maladies are backgrounded.  This is not Mabuse.

Golden Years - 2022 - Switzerland

Golden Years - 2022 - 6/10
AKA - Die Goldenen Jahre

 
Aged 65, Peter is handed his retirement balloon and shown the door.
At home, wife Alice is now ready to live!  Travel, meet people, go!
While Peter just wants to stay home.  Fact is, they no longer have much in common.
They board a Mediterranean cruise, where the marriage begins to shred.
Bittersweet comedy of the unpredictable second act.
Divergent expectations, plans for the future, and basic incompatibility.
Surprising turns help this, as well as local color in the ports of call.
English subs = https://sub-scene.com/subtitle/3363480

Borderline - 1930 - Switzerland

Borderline - 1930 - 6/10

 
Groundbreaking film, far ahead of its time.
Paul Robeson stars as a husband whose wife is having an affair with a white man.
The local cafe where he resides tolerates the brouhaha, and him.
Villagers, however, see the affair as disruptive and blame Negroes for the problems.
A few, explicit in their racism.
Enjoyment may depend …
An experimental film, both in narrative and in editing, yet the pace is glacial.
Slow to say the least.  Silent film, with very, very few intertitles.

Downtown - 1975 - Switzerland

 Downtown - 1975 - 5/10
 

Inept private detective Al Pereira peers through the trick, two-way mirror.
Two stunning hustlers, planning to blackmail a rich playboy, need a photographer.
They have already fooled our PI once already, landing him in jail, but he is ever gullible.
Jess Franco outing mixes Noir with comedy with erotica.  Plot is OK for once.
Beautifully lensed in Beaulieu-sur-Mer in the French Riviera.
Chemistry between Franco and Lina Romay is electric, as their real life relationship ignites.
English subtitles = https://sub-scene.com/subtitle/3352990

Swedish Nympho Slaves - 1977 - Switzerland

Swedish Nympho Slaves - 1977 - 5/10
AKA - Die Sklavinnen

 
Ignore the opening scene, set in a “police station” / gentlemen’s club,
The subsequent prison break frees the notorious Princess Arminda, just to snare her.
Under torture, she confesses to numerous misdeeds.
Seducing a multimillionaire’s daughter, drugging her, kidnapping, then turning her into a prostitute.
Being a Jess Franco film, there is gratuitous sex and nudity.
The story flirts with Noir, there is decent camerawork, exotic Portugal locations.
Nevertheless, this is a patched-together affair (check Lina’s hairstyles) cobbled from numerous shoots.

Tschugger: S01-02 - 2021 - Switzerland

Tschugger: S01-02 - 2021 - 7/10

 
Detective Bax is having a bad run.
Wife Gerda has dumped him, he is currently trailing two low-level stoners.
Worse, he has made a poor impression on a visiting HQ investigator.
Let’s not go into his unprofessional attire, which matches his boorish social skills.
You may assume things can’t get worse.
Oh, yes, they can!
Extremely funny satire on cop shows and buddy flicks.
Two five-part seasons, half hour each, with a hair raising finale.

Loving Highsmith - 2022 - Switzerland

Loving Highsmith - 2022 - 6/10

 
Documentary on novelist Patricia Highsmith.
Childhood, impossible relationship with her mother (who rejected her), romantic dalliances.
Talking heads include relatives (nieces?) and partners, along with experts.
Scenes from four film adaptations:  Strangers On A Train (1951), The American Friend (1977) from “Ripley’s Game”, The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), and Carol (2015).
The doc is enlightening, and maddeningly opaque.
Dialogue is in English, French and German.  The version I saw had no subtitles.
One gleans the gist of conversations, but unless you are multi-lingual I suggest you hold off until this comes with subtitles.
For now, stick with her listing on Wikipedia.

The Last Weynfeldt - 2010 - Switzerland

The Last Weynfeldt - 2010 - 6/10
AKA - Die Letzte Weynfeldt

Adrian, art connoisseur and advisor, finishes the suicide note, loads the derringer, points.
Then wait!  How about a last martini?
And at the bar, a female sidles up and makes conversation.
Audiences are immediately on guard, Adrian is not, and that rings false.

 
Because in the art scene, he would be accustomed to hustlers and frauds,
Execution is whimsical and the result seems a cheery mystery.

Clones - 2015 - Switzerland

Clones - 2015 - 6/10

 
Mr. Freeman, physicist in an orbiting station, has a tumor the size of an apple in his brain.
Surgery is required, though standard procedure is to make a backup of his brain first.
All the memories of his 442 IQ.
Dark, futuristic short suggests a disquieting horizon for those too valuable to die.
In delicious casting, Replicant N6MAA10816 (Roy Batty) plays Dr. Richards, cloning specialist.

Subs = https://subscene.com/subtitles/clones/english/2840683

Clouds Of Sils Marie - 2014 - France

Clouds Of Sils Marie - 2014 - 7/10

 
Difficult, challenging film, propelled by Juliette Binoche and a surprising good Kristen Stewart.
Top tier actress is offered a role in an update / remake of edgy work that launched her career decades earlier.
There is a misunderstanding initially about whether the script is about her character, thirty years later whom she could play, or a remake and she would portray “the older woman.”
Actually the film (which gave me trouble) seems deliberately filled with uncertainty, misdirection and ambiguity.
Distractions from social media are also constant.  Ringing cellphones, individuals dropping out of conversations to check messages, numerous Google and YouTube searches (reliable barometers of info, those last two).
This is a character study of old school Binoche gradually ramping her character up to speed with more modern, less nuanced audience tastes.
Stewart is her PA and de facto sounding board.  Maybe . . .
Despite breathtaking Swiss Alps exteriors, the film is quite stagy - theatrical.
Theatre buffs will enjoy this.  Those expecting scheming cat fights will be disappointed.

Home - 2008 - Switzerland

Home - 2008 - 6/10

 
For ten years, the family of five has been living in a beat up, pre-fab wreck of a house less than twenty meters from an abandoned highway.  Funding for the road dried up ten years ago and they have enjoyed rural bliss.
Without warning, road crews arrive, shift all their belongings next to the house, install guardrails.
Next day, traffic arrives.  First a trickle - then a steady stream - finally bumper to bumper.
Endless honking and exhaust fumes.
Film follows how they cope ... and how they don’t cope.
Acting, led by Isabel Huppert, fine across the board in downbeat movie.

Big problem with the plot is few countries would permit them to remain.  Certainly not France, where this is set.
Governments would seize the land by eminent domain (compulsory purchase, resumption, acquisition, expropriation, etc ...) to protect themselves from potential liability or legal conflicts.

Dark Star: H. R. Giger's World - 2014 - Switzerland

Dark Star: H. R. Giger's World - 2014 - 7/10
AKA - Dark Star: HR Giger's Welt

 
Less a traditional bio journey than a study of a working artist in the twilight of his time.
A photographer trails a frail Giger in the last year of his life (he died, age 74, soon after filming concluded).
We see his support staff, assistants, current wife, ex-wives, agent, curator.
Another character is his maze like home, crammed, literally crammed with packed bookcases, paintings, memorabilia, including human skulls.
There is his museum, as well as a bar which must be seen to be believed.
Documentary excels if you want to see the artist and his obsessions with birth-sexuality-death.
As for the man himself, the individual underneath, not as much.

Jonah Who Will Be 25 In The Year 2000 - 1976

Jonah Who Will Be 25 In The Year 2000 - 1976 - 6/10
AKA - Jonas qui aura 25 ans en l'an 2000

 
Coming to terms with ones idealistic youth upon reaching middle age.
A group of individuals, loosely related, now “work for the man” rather than “stick it to him.”
Most were active in the heady 60’s, but now toil in a factory, teach, work the checkout lane.
They still get excited about what needs to be done, yet they are not in the spearhead and understand that.
Dialogue driven.  You get an idea of who characters are, less so who they were.
More than most films I have watched (including 1930’s) this has dated.

Blue Note Records: Beyond The Notes - 2018 - Switzerland

Blue Note Records:  Beyond The Notes - 2018 - 6/10

 
Casual documentary of the famed Jazz label.
80+ years told in an hour and a half.  While touching major bases, this is a shallow affair.
Label formation by two German refugees in the 1930’s, the shift to Bop, dormancy, revival.
A pack of current performers discuss history and influence, as well as passing the torch.
This was OK enough, certainly better than Echo In The Canyon.
Still … if you are curious about legendary Blue Note albums, do an internet search for “best Blue Note albums” and start your own musical journey. 

Barbed Wire Dolls - 1976 - Switzerland

Barbed Wire Dolls - 1976 - 5/10

 
Women in prison film.  Sleaze overload by Jess Franco.
Ladies are incarcerated in Castillo, in Mediterranean or Caribbean.
The warden wears short shorts and a monocle, and is also a lesbian (surprise!).
Plot is a carousel of sexual violations, torture, prisoners lolling about in undress in their cells.
Repeat - repeat - repeat.
Clearly Franco (who appears as the deranged daddy in slow-motion flashback) had no script, no ideas.
Cobbled together from motifs from better, well more original, women in prison films, this lazy filmmaking grows downright boring after awhile.
Franco completists?  Watch it, chalk it up, move to a hopefully better reel of film.

Cargo - 2009 - Switzerland

Cargo - 2009 - 6/10

Space SciFi from Switzerland.
The exhausted planet Earth has been mostly abandoned.
Folks are saving coins and heading for Rhea, the great new world.
Travel takes eight years in massive cryogenic cargo ships.
After three years, our heroine is roused, suits up as glorified patrol guard, and prowls the vast emptiness of dim corridors.
Why? There is a stowaway loose, endangering lives and the ship itself.
Gradually, darker discoveries emerge.
Several CGI shots, luckily kept to a minimum. Predictable, derivative plot.
Decent, post industrial “wet” sets.
(Just curious, why doesn’t leaking water freeze in space? Heating a massive vessel so that water puddles about strikes me as a colossal waste of energy. Sorry.)
Not a bad film, but not a great one, either.

Doriana Grey - 1976 - Switzerland

Doriana Grey - 1976 - 5/10
AKA - Die Marquise von Sade

Odd arthouse / grindhouse movie from Jess Franco.
Ageless female aristocrat is interviewed by a woman’s magazine reporter.
In between questions and answers, there are reveries, flashbacks, long strolls.
For location filming, Franco uses a castle or palace and the photography is beautiful.
One sees grounds and interiors while Doriana glides moodily, wearing a sheer, dark pink shift.
Her character has little to do with Dorian Gray, more with Poe’s “William Wilson” incorporating elements of the vampiress or succubus.
Dreamlike narrative (very slow) is interspersed with hardcore sex scenes, indifferently shot.
Not the best intro to Franco’s oeuvre, but fans of Lina Romay will enjoy her portrayal of twin sisters.