hey there.

I'm back, after quite a long absence, but I've been through this before, and I tire of apologizing for not blogging more regularly. A lot has happened, and I just wanted to review a few things I've seen/heard/read/eaten recently before moving on to my vacay in Istanbul. So, without any further adieu:

I saw a special screening of Port of Shadows, an earlier film by Children of Paradise director, Marcel Carné. It was a restored version, as parts were censored and cut when it was first released.

Port of Shadows is film noir, French-style, which I realize is absurd to say. But I'm saying it anyway. It's bleak and despairing (which is why it was censored, I guess, as WWII was approaching, and things were depressing enough), and the characters say things like, "To me, a swimmer is already a drowned man," and "You love life?" "It has its moments."

Young French kids in love. This is what they look like.

It's spare, moody and existential for sure. And as noted in this article by the L.A. Times, the only film Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir both liked. You get the idea.

Very different from one of my favorite films ever, Children of Paradise. I was introduced to this in 1996 by a bat-shit crazy therapist (aren't they all?) who I saw maybe two or three times. I figure that "God put him in my life" (my God, I hate it when people use that phrase) to get me to watch this movie.

A woman in love. With a mime. Only in Paris, kids. Only in Paris.

But why? 17 years later, I'm still not sure. Children of Paradise is much more of an epic, feast-for-the-senses-type of movie, the kind you can watch over and over again and always see something new. (According to the recently deceased Roger Ebert, this is the mark of a great film.)

I love those kinds of movies, and I'm probably due for another viewing of CoP, since all I really remember about it is that it takes place in 1830's Parisian theater, features a mime as a love interest (yep), and Arletty, the lead actress, was 45 when she played the film's romantic heroine. Love that.

In looking through Marcel Carné's CV, I was surprised to see he had directed the film version of Emile Zola's Therese Raquin, a novel I read this past year. Bonus: it is streaming on Netflix.

I looooved this book so so much! I picked it up simply because I thought, "Hey, Emile Zola. I should have read him by now." What I discovered was a true psychological thriller--where the thrills arise from the psychology of the characters, rather than contrivances of plot. The only other book I've read that does this was 2012's Gone Girl.

As I read it, I thought it would make an interesting film. And guess what? There's a new adaptation  coming out this year starring Elizabeth Olsen and Jessica Lange.

Hollywood! You beat me to it every time.

Moving on. Another film I saw worth noting was the documentary, The Imposter.

Now this is the kind of film that starts out as one story, and then in the middle, becomes an entirely different story, making it all the more mind-bending because both are true stories, and you know the filmmakers didn't see that twist coming. So, two weeks after seeing it, I was still all," Get out of my head, movie...GET OUT OF MY HEAD!"

Then someone alerted me to a 2008 New Yorker article by David Grann on the same subject, one Frédéric Bourdin, a man who has made a life's work out of impersonating missing teenagers.

And then this got me all excited, because Grann, author of the excellent The Lost City of Z, and one of my favorite journalists, has a new anthology of his stories in the New Yorker. I must get my hands on it!


And with that, I'm going to wrap this entry up. I had lots more stuff to talk about--I always do, but for some reason, I've been really stalled in starting this blog entry and in finishing it. I need to break out of perfection/procrastination mode. But be ready for more to come. : )