September 2017 film review part two

MISS BALA (2014) W/D- Gerardo Naranjo (Mexico)
A beautiful young woman (Stephanie Sigman) enters the “Miss Baja California” contest, but finds herself, through no fault of her own, mixed up with the leader of a drugs cartel. She is forced to smuggle cash across the border; in return the cartel leader offers to fix the contest in her favor. Fearing for her life (and life is very cheap in Mexico; as the movie ends it explains how more than 30,000 people have been murdered by drug gangs and the police since 2005), she co-operates. Finally, of course, she is apprehended by authorities...
            Based on true events, this is a fascinating and moving little tale told with great skill, though throughout it is Sigman’s performance which shines most brightly.

THE ANGRY SILENCE (1960) D- Guy Green
An impoverished factory worker (Richard Attenborough) risks the ire of his fellows when he breaks an unofficial strike. They bully him, harass his family and then send him to Coventry (hence the “angry silence”).
             When this powerful little social drama came out in 1961, it was banned in the mining valleys of South Wales, where the unions disapproved of its apparent “anti-strike” theme. But Dickie Attenborough went there himself and persuaded them to relent. What a guy...

SULLY (2016) D- Clint Eastwood
In 2009, Captain Chesley Sullenberger set off from La Guardia airport in New York en route to Charlotte, North Carolina. But within a minute a bird strike took out both his engines. Lacking the height to make it to any airstrip, he crash-landed in the Hudson River, where, miraculously, everyone on board was recovered alive. Hailed initially as the “hero of the Hudson”, “Sully” soon came under fire for not trying hard enough to make it to an airport. And that’s your movie, right there.
               Even at 87, Clint Eastwood puts a very competent movie together, and with Tom Hanks in the lead this couldn’t fail. Actually, it did. Apart from two key scenes, first the crash itself and then the moment where Sully proves he had no option but to ditch in the river, this film falls rather flat. There is no real flair, no real punch,  just a skillful exposition of the facts. It could, and perhaps even should, have been a documentary. Pity.

LA NOTTE (1961) D- Michelangelo Antonioni
A Milanese couple go to visit an old friend who is dying in hospital. She is so upset she can’t bear it, and waits for her husband outside. As he leaves his friend’s ward, an attractive young woman lures him into her room and attempts to seduce him. He doesn't try that hard to discourage her, even though she is clearly unwell. Finally nurses arrive and pry them apart.. He rejoins his wife outside, but few words are exchanged. Clearly this is a loveless marriage...
That night they go to a high society party, where they go their separate ways and have a variety of disparate experiences. Finally they re-unite, but still there is no meeting of minds. End of movie.
              Here we come to the creme de la creme. Antonioni’s movie is a miracle of astute human observation and directorial guile. These unlikeable people, beautiful and talented though they are, exert a magnetic pull upon our attentions. We cannot wait to see what they get up to next, and we are always hungry for more. Like all the best movies, it seems too short and we want it go on to see what happens next. Notable too for Monica Vitti’s performance as a bored socialite, this is one of the most influential films in modern cinema. Rightly so. One of the films to see before you die.