Favorites of 2020: Movies

Mia Goth as Harriet Smith and Anya Taylor-Joy as Emma Woodhouse in Emma. (2020)

As I wrote in the first post of this series, Favorites of 2020: Books, I haven't been able to turn the collective crisis of our past year to productive use. I spent far less time than I anticipated watching screens for enjoyment, and far more staring at screens for work. So my list of favorite films will be shorter than usual. And as always, the favorites are chosen from movies first seen in the past twelve months, no matter when they were created. In reverse chronological order by year of release:

Emma. (2020), screenplay by Eleanor Catton based on the novel by Jane Austen; directed by Autumn de Wilde.

Invited by a good friend, I saw Emma in a movie theater (remember those?) this spring just before the pandemic shutdown. It is in the deliberately anachronistic style of Jane Austen adaptations that I usually avoid. But director Autumn de Wilde's eye-popping visuals and wide-eyed leading lady Anya Taylor-Joy were perfect for rendering Austen's most irony-filled work. De Wilde's visual style and Taylor-Joy's incredulous stare place invisible quotation marks around every scene, and if period deportment is largely absent, the period costumes and production design are sumptuous (especially as photographed by Christopher Blauvelt). This version won't replace in our affections the 4-hour 2008 BBC adaptation written by Sandy Welch and starring Romola Garai and Jonny Lee Miller (see Six months with Jane Austen: Favorite adaptations and final thoughts), but it easily surpasses the mid-90s versions with Gwyneth Paltrow and Kate Beckinsale.

Wild Nights with Emily (2018), written and directed by Madeleine Olnek.

Emily Dickinson wrote twice as many letters to her sister-in-law and next-door neighbor Susan as to any other correspondent, and many were filled with impassioned language ("I shall think of you at sunset, and at sunrise, again; and at noon, and forenoon, and afternoon, and always, and evermore, till this little heart stops beating and is still"). But when her poems and letters were edited for publication, references to Susan were literally erased, cut out or scribbled over.

As I wrote in my full-length post on Emily's letters and poems to Susan Dickinson,

Olnek's film Wild Nights with Emily vividly and at times humorously portrays the intensity of the relationship between Emily (Molly Shannon) and Susan (Susan Ziegler). And, quite rightly, Olnek feels free to imagine aspects of the love between her characters that the letters only imply. Her film offers a much-needed corrective to the image of the irascible, ill-mannered, and unrequitedly heterosexual Emily of Terence Davies' recent film A Quiet Passion. In that film Susan (played by Jodhi May) hardly appears, and the deep emotional connection between her and Emily (Cynthia Nixon) is not even hinted at—another "reenactment and recycling" of Susan's historical erasure. Wild Nights is a very welcome, funny, and moving restoration of Susan to the emotional center of Emily's life and work.

Make Way for Tomorrow (1937), screenplay by Viña Delmar, based on the play by Helen and Nolan Leary; directed by Leo McCarey.

An elderly couple (Victor Moore and Beulah Bondi) is forced to separate for the first time in their marriage of 50 years when he loses his job and they lose their home. None of their adult children living nearby will take them both in, and it soon becomes apparent that the children and their families are irritated by the parents' presence. It's decided that the mother will be sent to a nursing home, while the father will be packed off across the country to live with another of the children. On the day the father is set to leave, the couple reunites to visit the places where they courted years ago and reminisce about their life together; unspoken between them is the knowledge that it is likely the last time they will ever see one another.

Amazingly, Make Way for Tomorrow was released just six months before the delightful McCarey-directed and Delmar-penned matrimonial comedy The Awful Truth, for which McCarey was given the Academy Award for Best Director. In his acceptance speech he said, "Thanks, but you gave it to me for the wrong picture." I'm glad it's a choice we don't have to make. Make Way for Tomorrow became the inspiration for Yasujiro Ozu's great Tokyo Story (1953), but the original is every bit as poignant.

Jewel Robbery (1932), screenplay by Erwin Gelsey, based on the play by Ladislas Fodor; directed by William Dieterle. 

Halfway through Jewel Robbery I had to double-check the credits to make sure that it wasn't directed by Ernst Lubitsch. Like many of Lubitsch's films of the time, Jewel Robbery has a Central European setting (Vienna), a Hungarian source and an operetta-like plot. William Powell plays an Arsène-Lupin-like gentleman thief; when the married-but-bored Baroness Teri (Kay Francis, with her charming lisp and gorgeous gowns) is trapped in a jewelry store during a heist, the sparks (and the risqué dialogue) fly:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fi7EErgEFPY

Many twists and turns and several hairbreadth escapes ensue before the eyebrow-raising ending. This is the kind of sparkling comedy that Hollywood can't be bothered to make any more, alas: witty, entertaining and breezily executed (the runtime is a mere 68 minutes).

Honorable mention:

Stand-In (1937), written by Gene Towne and Graham Baker based on a story by Clarence Budington Kelland; directed by Tay Garnett.

A comedic take on classic Hollywood, made near the peak of classic Hollywood. Accountant Atterbury Dodd (Leslie Howard) is sent from New York to find out why Colossal Pictures isn't turning a profit. Guided by a former child star now working as a stand-in (Joan Blondell), he discovers a few reasons: a drunken producer (Humphrey Bogart), an arty and spendthrift director (Alan Mowbray), a pampered and past-her-prime star (Marla Shelton), and a corrupt press agent (Jack Carson). Can Blondell help Howard to salvage the movie (called Sex and Satan), save the studio, redeem Bogart, and recognize her charms? Of course, there can only be a Hollywood ending, but along the way we're treated to gleeful parodies of ruthless studio owners, self-regarding stars, jungle movies, and general Hollywood excess. 

This film was among several enjoyable Joan Blondell features we watched this summer; the others included Blonde Crazy (1931, with James Cagney), Lawyer Man (1932, with William Powell), and Topper Returns (1941, with Roland Young). All are recommendable if you're a Blondell fan; if you're looking for a place to start with her extensive catalog my recommendation would be Gold Diggers of 1933.

Bollywood and beyond: Indian films

This was a year of loss for the Indian film industry; the sad news included the suicide of Sushant Singh Rajput (who appeared in PK—an honorable mention in my Favorite films of 2015—Shuddh Desi Romance and Detective Byomkesh Bakshy!), as well as the deaths of Irrfan Khan (familiar to U.S. viewers from The Lunchbox, and whom I wrote about in Slumdog Millionaire, Dil Kabbadi, and The Puzzle), Rishi Kapoor (star of innumerable films including Bobby, Amar Akbar Anthony, Chandni, Love Aaj Kal, Shuddh Desi Romance, and Kapoor and Sons), and dancer and choreographer Saroj Khan (for whom the Filmfare Award for Best Choreography was instituted, and who won it a record eight times). 

Update 15 November 2020: I have just learned of the death from COVID-19 complications of Soumitra Chatterjee, leading actor in Satyajit Ray's Apur Sansar (The World of Apu), Charulata and Kapurush (The Coward), among many other films; another tragic loss in this terrible year.

Honorable mentions:

This year we rewatched some old favorites (including Vivah, which seems to get more affecting with every viewing) and saw three classic comedies for the first time. While none became a favorite, all deserve honorable mentions:

Andaz Apna Apna (Everyone has their own style, 1994), written and directed by Rajkumar Santoshi.

Two small-time scammers, Amar (Aamir Khan) and Prem (Salman Khan), who'll do anything for money except work, learn that Raveena (Raveena Tandon), the daughter of a rich industrialist, is returning to India with her secretary Karishma (Karisma Kapoor) in order to find a husband. Both Amar and Prem decide that they will woo and win Raveena, and sometimes work with and sometimes against one another to realize their common but mutually exclusive goal.

What made this comedy work for us was its sheer goofiness, which the actors clearly embraced and which just kept building until the farcical climax. There are dream sequences, disguises, false identities, evil twins, fake kidnappings, real kidnappings, a cache of diamonds, and startling appearances by the caped Crime Master Gogo (Shakti Kapoor), in whose lair the final showdown takes place. Silliness reigns supreme, but silliness was exactly what we needed during a long summer of unrelenting stress and sorrow.

Hum Hain Rahi Pyar Ke (We are travelers on the path of love, 1993), story, screenplay and dialogues by Robin Bhatt; directed by Mahesh Bhatt.

The plot is shirt-cardboard flimsy: will Rahul (Aamir Khan) marry runaway bride Vyjayanti (Juhi Chawla; vyjayanti is a flower that garlands Lord Krishna) over the objections of her father? Or will he make a prudent marriage to the wealthy, Westernized Maya (Navneet Nishan; maya means "illusion")? Sealing the deal are the three mischievous but adorable kids Rahul is raising (his sister's), who bring Vyjayanti home, conceal her for as long as they can, and love her as a surrogate mom/big sister; the kids hate Maya, and the feeling is mutual. There are, of course, some complicating subplots, including the manufacture and delivery of a truckload of shirts owed to Maya's father by Rahul's garment factory. With three cute kids added to the jodi of Aamir and Juhi, Hum Hain Rahi Pyar Ke succeeds mainly on the appeal of its charming cast.

Chupke Chupke (Hush-hush, 1975), screenplay and dialogues by Shakeel Chandra, Gulzar, D.N. Mukherjee, and Biren Tripathy, based on a story by Upendranath Ganguly; directed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee.

Comedy can be difficult to translate—literally so in the case of Chupke Chupke, which relies on jokes related to language for much of its humor. Prank-loving botany professor Parimal (Dharmendra), newly married to Sulekha (Sharmila Tagore), learns that his wife's revered brother-in-law Raghavendra (Om Prakash) is unhappy with his driver because he uses slang. So in disguise as "Pyaremohan," Parimal volunteers himself as a driver who speaks only the purest Hindi. Of course, Sulekha's husband has to meet Raghavendra in person at some point, and so Parimal recruits his English-professor friend Sukumar (Amitabh Bachchan) to pretend to be him. Comic misunderstandings abound, especially when Sulekha seems to her family to be overly intimate with their driver, and "Parimal"/Sukumar starts showing a romantic interest in the beautiful Vasudha (Jaya Bachchan). Parimal comes in for some teasing, too: when he sneaks up to Sulekha's room at night, she asks him to continue pretending to be Pyaremohan—that is, she wants him to think that she finds the idea of sleeping with the driver to be more exciting than sleeping with her husband.

There were some language jokes that even I could grasp: one relates to the confusing pronunciation of English with its silent p's and k's; another is a play on the name of one of Parimal's friends, P.K. Shrivastav (both jokes turn on "peekay," Hindi slang for "drunk"). But I couldn't help but feel that as a non-Indian I was missing out on a lot of nuances, and Parimal clearly doesn't know when a joke has been carried too far. A great cast and director and the ever-growing complications of the situation, though, kept me smiling (or groaning) throughout. For another (and more enthusiastic) review of this classic, please see Beth Loves Bollywood.

Next time: Favorites of 2020: Recordings
Last time: Favorites of 2020: Books

Favorites of 2010-2019: Bollywood and beyond

Leela Naidu in Anuradha.

The 2010s were the decade we began to more fully explore Golden and Silver Age Bollywood movies, and also the films of Satyajit Ray. The only Indian film from the past two decades that made my favorites-of-favorites list is a ringer: I first saw Kandukondain Kandukondain 15-odd years ago, but rewatched it with great pleasure for my Six Months with Jane Austen project.

Parineeta (The Married Woman, 1953): Bimal Roy's depiction of two lovers (Ashok Kumar and Meena Kumari) divided by the conflict between their families is humane and deeply sympathetic, and richly deserves its classic status. In "Chali Radhe Rani" (sung by Manna Dey) a street singer's lament seems to express the sadness of couple as they separate, perhaps forever.

Sadhna (1958): A blistering indictment of the exploitation of women and of social hypocrisy, B. R. Chopra's film features Vyjayanthimala's powerful performance as the courtesan Champabai. "Aurat Ne Janam" (sung by Lata Mangeshkar) portrays Champabai's sorrow at men's oppression and injustice.

Anuradha (1960): In Hrishikesh Mukherjee's wistful film the radiant Leela Naidu portrays a woman who sacrifices her art for love—and then discovers that perhaps she has made too great a sacrifice. "Haye Re Woh Din" (sung by Lata Mangeshkar) shows the dawning awareness of her husband (Balraj Sahni) of his blindness to his wife's needs.

Professor (1962): Watching Shammi Kapoor is just a joyful experience, and it was hard to pick just one of his movies as a favorite. In this comedy of disguise, romantic complications multiply when Shammi pretends to be an aged tutor to two young women chafing under the strict rules of their aunt. Out of disguise Shammi begins to court one of the nieces, while in disguise he is the object of the nieces' scorn—and of the aunt's rekindled romantic feelings. In "Yeh Umar Hai" (sung by Asha Bhosle, Usha Mangeshkar, and Manna Dey) the nieces (played by Kalpana in white and Parveen Choudhary in blue), living images of youth and possibility, mock the old man: "It is our era." The "professor" responds, "I too was young once. . .There was someone who used to love me; we thought it was our era too."

Mahanagar (The Big City, 1963). Satyajit Ray made three great films with Madhabi Mukherjee (the other two, Charulata and Kapurush (The Coward), could also have made this list). In Mahanagar a housewife (Mukherjee) discovers that Calcutta is a place of both danger and possibility when, in the face of her husband's and father-in-law's disapproval, she takes a job as a door-to-door saleswoman. Watch a trailer for Mahanagar from the British Film Institute.

Mamta (A Mother's Love, 1966): Bollywood films often employ time-honored tropes such as tragic courtesans, forbidden love, maternal self-sacrifice, endangered children, and unexpected reunions. Mamta combines every single one of these devices, and more, and adds great music as a bonus. In "Rehte The Kabhi Jinke Dil Mein" (sung by Lata Mangeshkar; song ends at 2:58) the courtesan Pannabai (Suchitra Sen) is unknowingly hired by her former fiancé (Ashok Kumar) who, when he realizes what she has become, rejects her in hurt and anger.

Teesri Kasam (The Third Vow, 1966): A minor-key masterpiece about the relationship between the nautanki dancer Hirabai (Waheeda Rehman) and the cart driver Hiraman (Raj Kapoor) hired to take her to her next performance. Teesri Kasam shows that sometimes, no matter how much we might wish otherwise, love can't conquer all. In "Sajanwa Bairi Ho Gaye Hamaar" (sung by Mukesh) Hiraman sings about estranged lovers, bringing up long-buried memories for his passenger.

Tere Mere Sapne (Our Dreams, 1971): A great cast (Dev Anand, Mumtaz, and a young Hema Malini) offers riveting performances in this story of an idealistic doctor who, crushed by the rich and powerful, loses his moral compass. "Jaise Radha ne mala japi" (sung by Lata Mangeshkar) depicts the early days of wedded bliss between Dr. Anand (Dev Anand) and Nisha (Mumtaz), and exemplifies how what is suggested can be so much sexier than what is shown.

Amar Prem (Immortal Love, 1972): Anand (Rajesh Khanna), trapped in an unhappy marriage, seeks solace in the arms of the courtesan Pushpa (Sharmila Tagore). The film remains radical 50 years later for suggesting that true families are those formed by love. "Chingari koi bhadke" (sung by Kishore Kumar) is a beautifully melancholy song of unfulfillable desire.

Kandukondain Kandukondain (I Have Found It, 2000): A delightful retelling of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility set in a contemporary India of tech start-ups, movie studios and militarized anti-terror campaigns, Rajiv Menon's film tells of the romantic travails of two sisters with very different personalities: the shy, wise Sowmya (Tabu) and the headstrong, impulsive Meenakshi (Aishwarya Rai). In "Kannamoochi Yenada" (sung by K. S. Chithra; song ends at 33:16) Meenakshi teases her sister about her budding feelings for her suitor Manohar (Ajith Kumar).

Other Favorites of 2010-2019:

• Movies and TV
• Music
• Live performances 
• Books

Favorites of 2018: Movies and television

Favorite films of 2018

In 2018 we cut way back on our viewing, so this short list of favorites is drawn from a total of only about 30 films. And as always my choices were made from films first seen (but not necessarily first released) in the past twelve months or so. We were underwhelmed by a number of movies that lots of other people seemed to love, including The Red Turtle (2017), Academy-Award-winner The Shape of Water (2017), and Wes Anderson's Isle of Dogs (2017), so you'll notice that only one of my favorites is a recent film.

Loving Vincent (2017; written by Dorota Kobiela, Hugh Welchman, and Jacek Dehnel, and directed by Kobiela and Welchman)

An exploration of the mystery of the final days of Vincent Van Gogh, animated in the style of his paintings. Loving Vincent's visuals vividly render the sensation of swirling motion and psychic turmoil we have when viewing Van Gogh's late work.

I'm somewhat amazed that no one had thought of doing this before, but perhaps an explanation is provided by the daunting technique involved: each of the film's tens of thousands of frames is an individual oil painting. Most scenes are based on specific Van Gogh subjects, but some evoke the photographs of Van Gogh's contemporary Eugène Atget. If the stunning animation overshadows the film's narrative, perhaps that's as it should be—leaving us not with any neat explanations of Van Gogh's tragedy (the film acknowledges that none are possible), but with a renewed sense of wonder at his achievement.

Here is a short documentary describing the process of making the film, narrated by its co-writer, -director and -producer Hugh Welchman:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOtwJL4iV8s

Daisies (Sedmikrásky, 1966) and A Report on the Party and Guests (O slavnosti a hostech, 1966)

These two films were both co-written by Ester Krumbachová, a major figure of the Czech New Wave.  

Daisies follows two young women, Marie I and Marie II, as they gleefully violate many of the societal restrictions on women relating to public behavior, food, alcohol, and sex. The two Maries ultimately discover that every rebellion provokes a powerful reaction, and that for women especially, conformity can be deadly.

A Report on the Party and the Guests portrays the subtly shifting dynamics among a group of friends on a picnic in the countryside when they are confronted by an ominous gang of men. Then the men's superior shows up and informs them that it's all been a mistake; the men were sent to invite the group to his al fresco birthday party. A party that everyone is forced to attend becomes a brilliant analogy for political life under the Czechoslovakian Communist Party, and when one of the group tries to leave, the mask of benign paternalism comes off. . .

Both films are essential viewing. For more, along with a discussion of the Krumbachová-written film Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970), please see Ester Krumbachová: Three films of the Czech New Wave.

Nayak (The Hero, 1966; written and directed by Satyajit Ray)

After a drunken nightclub brawl and the unwelcome news that his latest film has flopped, Bengali matinée idol Arindam Mukherjee (played by Bengali matinée idol Uttam Kumar) decides it's time to get out of town. But instead of providing distance from his problems, his trip will bring him face-to-face with the increasingly cynical and opportunistic choices that have brought him to this crisis. In his dark night of the soul, Arindam recognizes how empty and unprincipled he has become—but also how many others are struggling in a corrupt and pitiless world. In Nayak, as in his many other masterpieces, Ray offers no easy answers.

For more, please see Nayak: The Hero

Favorite television of 2018

Doctor Thorne (2016)

When Julian Fellowes' adaptation of Anthony Trollope's novel aired on Britain's ITV, The Guardian's Viv Groskop called it "a carnival of cleavage." Add magnificent gowns, elegant interiors, lush greenswards, a literate script and excellent actors, and the appeal of this series to a fan of period drama shouldn't be too mysterious.

The late Jenny Diski wrote of Fellowes, "These purveyors of escapist fantasies of love and landed wealth come directly from the social world and political party that talks compulsively of 'honest, hard-working families' while giving us austerity and cuts in public spending for most, and tax breaks for the already wealthy and overpaid."

Diski is right to point out the grotesque hypocrisies of the ruling class to which Baron Fellowes belongs. But Trollope's Doctor Thorne is anything but a comforting escapist fantasy. It depicts a social and economic system in which two young people who love each other are kept apart because they can't afford to marry. Mary (Stefanie Martini), the ward of Doctor Thorne (Tom Hollander), will likely live out her days alone in abject poverty, while the local landowner's son, Frank Gresham (Harry Richardson), is faced with becoming a fortune hunter and contracting a loveless marriage for financial gain. The inheritance that would enable Mary and Frank to escape these fates is so improbable that it functions as its own critique. So if indeed Fellowes is nostalgic for the heyday of the landed gentry, he chose the wrong vehicle to convey those sentiments.
 
For more, please see Doctor Thorne.

Mr. Selfridge (2013-2016)

A young woman comes from the provinces to the capital city to make her way in the world, and finds a job in a new kind of retail establishment: a department store. At the store—a cornucopia of tempting consumer goods—she must sell to wealthy customers luxuries she will never be able to afford herself. Her immediate female supervisor is strict and severe (and possibly jealous of her youth and beauty). But the store owner is impressed by her ideas (and by her youth and beauty) and becomes her secret ally. The owner is advised by a competent and upright accountant, as well as by a right-hand man who is sometimes skeptical of his boss's radically innovative schemes. Meanwhile, the young woman is courted by her brash male co-workers—but she's looking for a partner who shares her sensibility and ambitions.

If you are a regular reader of E & I, all this may sound quite familiar. In my Favorites of 2016: Movies and Television I included the BBC series The Paradise (2012-2013), based on Emile Zola's novel Au bonheur des dames (The Ladies' Paradise, 1883). It's a wonderful series about the founding of a department store and the (sometimes catastrophic) effects it has on the social and economic fabric of its community.

The ITV series Mr. Selfridge, despite being created by the excellent writer Andrew Davies from (it's clear) the same source material, is not quite as engaging. The series is about the founding of Selfridges, a real-life London department store. The social dimension that is a key focus of the earlier BBC series is only background in the ITV series. And when there is a Mr. Selfridge episode that focuses on larger social questions, as in an episode that deals with the women's suffrage movement, it often falsely back-projects 21st-century attitudes onto its characters.

Also, Harry Selfridge is a far less complicated figure than The Paradise's predatory John Moray. Yes, Harry is a womanizer, but he is also open, aboveboard, always wants the best for everyone, and knows that the answer to every question raised by consumerism is more consumerism (and the series takes his point of view). Far more than The Paradise, Mr. Selfridge is a period-piece soap opera—and only grows more so in the third and fourth seasons.

Nonetheless, the characters are sympathetic, especially Harry's wife Rose (Frances O'Connor), gone by the end of the second season, and the shopgirl Agnes Towler (Aisling Loftus) and her mentor, designer Henri Leclair (Grégory Fitoussi), both gone by the middle of the third season. The series spans two decades, from the Edwardian era to the Roaring 20s, and the sumptuous period sets and costumes are also enjoyable eye-candy.

But in the third season the one-dimensional villain Lord Loxley (Aidan McArdle) and Harry's self-regarding son-in-law Serge de Bolotoff (Leon Ockenden) have quickly grown tiresome. This may sound like I'm damning the series with faint praise, but we're hoping that the appearance of the Dolly Sisters (Zoe Richards and Emma Hamilton) and the return of the witty Lady Mae Loxley (Katherine Kelly) will liven things up in the fourth and final season.

Joni Mitchell: A Woman of Heart and Mind (American Masters, 2003)

Susan Lacy's documentary traces Joni Mitchell's life and work from her mid-1960s beginnings singing as Joni Anderson in Calgary coffeehouses, through her 1970s heyday and her subsequent fall from pop music favor. Lacy has tracked down some rare photographs and film and television footage, and interviewed many of her colleagues, collaborators and former lovers. Even if you think you aren't interested in Mitchell or her music, her determination to explore her own path in the face of what seem at times to be insurmountable difficulties is compelling.

Both Zadie Smith and I have had to radically rethink our responses to Joni Mitchell's music; for more, please read Attunement: Conversion experiences.

Biggest disappointment

Our reduced viewing schedule didn't permit us enough time to see more than a few Bollywood films. We did manage to watch Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Padmaavat (2018). But despite the presence of three E & I favorites in the cast (Deepika Padukone, Ranveer Singh and Shahid Kapoor), the excellent music and SLB's stunning production design, the film felt like an overlong and schematic ISIS allegory. (The black-clad, black-flag-waving Muslim horde treacherously stabs the Rajasthani hero in the back—and yes, I do mean literally.)

So Padmaavat's heavy-handed script was our biggest disappointment of 2018. But did I mention the excellent music and stunning production design? Here is "Ghoomar," picturized on Deepika Padukone, choreographed by Kruti Mahesh Midya and sung by Shreya Ghoshal:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CU1tFtk_NFY

As you may have already seen, an utterly unexpected appearance by Shreya Ghoshal was one of my favorite live performances of 2018.

More Favorites of 2018:

• Recordings
• Live performances
• Books

Nayak: The Hero

In his films from the 1950s and early 60s such as the Apu Trilogy (1955-59) and Mahanagar (The Big City, 1963), writer/director Satyajit Ray depicted the lives of ordinary people struggling to make their way in the world. Nayak (The Hero, 1966) at first seems as though it is going to be a radical departure.

Instead of the impoverished villages and cramped apartments of Ray's earlier films, Nayak opens in the spacious bungalow of Bengali matinée idol Arindam Mukherjee (played by Bengali matinée idol Uttam Kumar), as he makes last-minute preparations for a trip to Dehli to receive an official prize. The sudden trip is occasioned by an erupting newspaper scandal about a drunken punch thrown by Arindam in a club two nights previously, as well as the unwelcome news that his latest movie is tanking at the box office. The time seems propitious to get out of town for a few days.

However, instead of providing distance from his problems, his trip will bring him face-to-face with the increasingly cynical and opportunistic choices that have brought him to this crisis.

Because his travel plans have been made at short notice Arindam winds up on the train, and in a shared compartment. As he boards the train for the overnight trip, women stare in surprise and awe. In film studies it has become conventional to speak of the "male gaze," after Laura Mulvey's 1975 essay "Visual pleasure and narrative cinema." But in Nayak the female gaze is central: almost every woman he encounters stares at Arindam with near-adulation:

From the top: Molly Sarkar (Susmita Mukherjee) and her husband (Kamu Mukherjee), Sefalika Ajoy (Jamuna Sinha) and her husband (Subrata Sensharma), Manorama Bose (Bharati Devi), her teen daughter Bubul (Lali Chowdury), and a young girl (uncredited).

As one character says, Arindam is a modern-day Krishna, and his female fans are his secret devotees. There's just one exception:

Aditi Sengupta (Sharmila Tagore) is the writer, editor and publisher of a magazine for women, and she is distinctly disapproving of the unreality of popular movies.

Nonetheless, the opportunity to interview Arindam for her magazine is too good to pass up.

Perhaps to challenge her moralistic certainties, or perhaps to disarm her with candor, Arindam tells Aditi some unusually frank stories about his rise to stardom. He tells her that he feels that by becoming a film actor he has betrayed the devotion to artistic truth of his theatrical mentor, Shankar (Somen Bose).

He tells her of his feelings of inadequacy during his first film shoot when an older star, Mukunda (Bireswar Sen), sabotaged his performance by insisting that Arindam adapt to Mukunda's more melodramatic acting style in their scenes together.

And he tells her of distancing himself from his former best friend, the political activist Biresh (Premangshu Bose), because he fears that to be drawn into controversy would risk alienating his audience.

His reflections on the past give him nightmares; the nightmares drive him to drink; drinking sends him into a downward spiral of doubt and despair.

In his dark night of the soul, Arindam recognizes how empty and unprincipled he has become. And he realizes that he's given Aditi Sengupta enough compromising material to destroy him. And yet he's unable to stop the flow of his confessions; he has to unburden himself, and there's no one else he can talk to.

But his stories have affected Aditi as well. She's come to know the struggles he's experienced, the difficult choices he's faced, and the constant pressure he is under. She gets a small taste of the relentless public scrutiny he must deal with every day when the train is mobbed by his fans during a brief station stop.

So now she faces her own difficult choice: she can publish her interview and ensure the success of her magazine at the expense of Arindam's career, or pass up a chance that will never come again.

Many of the characters, not just the hero, are struggling with the question of how much to compromise themselves in order to achieve what they want in a corrupt and pitiless world. And in Nayak, as in his many other masterpieces, Ray offers no easy answers.

An out-of-work Mukunda begs Arindam for a role in his new film

Nayak has been restored and reissued on a Criterion Collection DVD which does full justice to Ray's complex vision of his characters and Subrata Mitra's glowing black-and-white cinematography.

Other posts on films of Satyajit Ray:

• Mahanagar (The Big City, 1963)
• Charulata (1964)
• Kapurush (The Coward, 1965) 

Update 22 December 2018: Nayak was selected for my Favorites of 2018: Movies and television.

Favorites of 2017: Movies

Frantz (2016), directed by François Ozon, screenplay by Ozon and Philippe Piazzo.
Based on the film Broken Lullaby (1932), directed by Ernst Lubitsch, screenplay by Samson Raphaelson and Ernest Vajda, based on a play by Maurice Rostand.

Nothing about Frantz seemed promising. First and foremost it was written and directed by François Ozon, whose dramas tend to the lurid: transgressive sex and sudden death are recurrent themes. So we were not expecting subtlety or nuance. But we were wrong: Frantz is stunning. As a measure of how unformulaic and original it is, every time I mentally predicted the next narrative turn, my prediction was wrong. Paula Beer, as a German war widow, and Pierre Niney, as the French soldier wracked with guilt over his role in her husband's death, offer understated but compelling performances. And no, it doesn't go there. Or there either. Highly recommended.

Julieta (2016), directed and written by Pedro Almodóvar. Based on short stories from Runaway by Alice Munro.

The plot is about estrangement between parents and children. As with most Almodóvar movies, though, the film is less about the twists and turns in the story than about a series of emotion-packed moments rendered with the hyper-real acuity of a dream. Julieta offers an ensemble of compelling actors; as ever with Almodóvar, the performances of the women are especially powerful, particularly Emma Suárez and Adriana Uguarte as the older and younger Julieta. This is one of Almodóvar's strongest films, rivalling Todo sobre mi madre (All About My Mother, 1999).

Ma Vie de Courgette (My Life as 'Zucchini,' 2016), directed by Claude Barras, screenplay by Céline Sciamma with contributions from Germano Zullo, Morgan Navarro, and Barras. Based on the novel by Gilles Paris.

The title and the animation style may lead you to believe that this is a heartwarming movie about cute kids. In fact, the subject matter—children who have been orphaned, abandoned and neglected (or worse)—is harrowing. As in puppet theater, the animation style allows us some distance from the bleak material, and paradoxically enables us to enter fully into the emotional world of the characters. This approach could easily have gone wrong, but Barras gauges the tone unerringly (amazingly, this is his first feature film).

À nous la liberté (Give us freedom! 1931), directed and written by René Clair.

In a 1931 essay entitled "The Talkies Talk Too Much," René Clair wrote,

I am dreaming of the conflict between the visions of a man's soul and the mechanization of life which daily grows more potent. I visualize a dreamer, a romantic, a vagabond, and I want to set him in my film against a background of tremendous mechanism. [1]

The dreamer, the romantic, the vagabond is Emile (Henri Marchand), who finds himself at every turn at odds with efficient, automated and soulless modern society. À nous la liberté remains Clair's great masterpiece. For my full post on the film please see Rene Clair's early films part 4.

The Bishop's Wife (1947), directed by Henry Koster, screenplay by Robert E. Sherwood and Leonardo Bercovici, based on the novel by Robert Nathan.

For many, the cast will be reason enough to watch (or re-watch) The Bishop's Wife. Amazingly we hadn't seen it until this year. A bishop (David Niven) beset with difficulties in building a new cathedral prays for help, and his prayers are apparently answered. An angel (Cary Grant) appears and offers assistance—but he focuses his attention on the bishop's neglected wife (Loretta Young), children and parishoners, not on the cathedral. Despite the Christmas setting and Grant's celestial role this is not a cloyingly sweet holiday movie; each of the main characters experiences an important moment of (sometimes anguished) choice.

Indian films

Jalsaghar (The Music Room, 1958), directed and written by Satyajit Ray, based on a story by Tarashankar Banerjee.

On a crumbling ancestral estate, a once-proud family's last patriarch (Chhabi Biswas) tries desperately to keep up appearances. Over the years a major symbol of his family's wealth, power and refinement has been the now-neglected music room, which hosted legendary entertainments. He decides to mount a final night of splendor in the music room, despite the ruinous expense involved. The decline and fall of the hereditary aristocracy would be a theme that Ray would return to, but never more hauntingly than in Jalsaghar.

Mamta (A Mother's Love, 1966), directed by Asit Sen, story by Nihan Rajan Gupta after his novel Uttar Falguni, dialogues by Krishen Chander and Pandit Bushan, music by Roshan, lyrics by Majrooh Sultanpuri

There are a number of classic narrative devices that recur in Indian films: tragic courtesans, forbidden love, maternal self-sacrifice, endangered children, reunions between long-separated lovers, reunions between long-separated parents and children, actors playing double roles, and courtroom scenes, to name a few. Mamta manages to combine every single one of these devices, and (as do so many tragic courtesan films) adds great music as a bonus. For my full appreciation of this film, please see Mamta.

Honorable mentions (in reverse chronological order):

• Get Out (2017, directed by Jordan Peele)
• The Handmaiden (2016, directed by Park Chan-wook)
• The Eagle Huntress (2016, directed by Otto Bell)
• Queen of Katwe (2016, directed by Mira Nair)
• Sing Street (2016, directed by John Carney)
• The Dressmaker (2015, directed by Jocelyn Moorhouse) 
• I Married A Witch (1942, directed by René Clair)
• Un Carnet de Bal (Dance Card, 1937, directed by Julien Duvivier)
• Le roman d'un tricheur (The Story of a Cheat, 1936, directed by Sacha Guitry)

Biggest disappointments

A Quiet Passion (2016), directed and written by Terence Davies

Perhaps our expectations were too high. And it must be said that the recreations of 19th-century clothes and interiors are beautifully filmed. But writer/director Terence Davies' tone-deaf script makes the poet Emily Dickinson at times sound smug and self-satisfied, which does not match my perception of this supremely self-questioning artist.

There is no doubt that Emily's deep strangeness and intensity could be disconcerting: her editor Thomas Wentworth Higginson (inexplicably absent from the film) wrote after an in-person visit that she "drained my nerve power. . .Without touching her, she drew from me. I am glad not to live near her." But Davies' Emily is often deliberately rude and dismissive of others. Despite an excellent cast featuring Cynthia Nixon (Emily) and E & I favorites Jennifer Ehle (her sister Lavinia) and Jodhi May (her sister-in-law Susan), Davies' black-and-white dichotomies lack subtlety, to say the least. As I wrote in my full post on A Quiet Passion, "Perhaps the next time that Terence Davies wants to make a period film he should let another Davies—Andrew—write the script."

Ae Dil Hai Mushkil (Difficulties of the heart, 2016), directed and written by Karan Johar

Of course, a Karan Johar film is going to be slick and manipulative. But usually it is also affecting. And a cast filled with favorite actors such as Aishwarya Rai, Anushka Sharma and Ranbir Kapoor promised watchability, at least. But Ae Dil Hai Mushkil features shallow characters who are too busy moping about what they don't have to appreciate their lives of fabulous privilege. As with many another Karan Johar film, the characters are rich; but here that wealth feels like it so insulates them from real-world cares that they have to invent some of their own. Also, even for someone like me who delights in spotting filmi allusions, there were too many. As Beth Loves Bollywood quotes from Uday Bhatia's review, "[KJo's celebration of his own career] is beyond just self-referential—it’s self-reverential." Finally, since when does a Karan Johar film feature bad music? We didn't last an hour.

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Television

The Crown (2016, created and written by Peter Morgan)

This was the first of two series we watched this year featuring the dilemmas of young women suddenly thrust into positions of power. Although Claire Foy doesn't actually look all that much like Elizabeth Windsor, she makes you believe that she does by employing familiar gestures and vocal intonations. Her performance is very affecting, but she also shows the hidden steel inside the uncertain young woman (as when she interferes to break up the romance of her sister Margaret (Vanessa Kirby) with the divorced royal equerry Captain Peter Townsend (Ben Miles)).

The Crown is the sort of series that tries to create a sense of drama by accompanying shots of people walking down a hall or cars driving down a road with foreboding music. And the petulance of Prince Philip (Matt Smith) over his subordinate role can grow tiresome, as it may have in real life. But the jockeying for power in the last days of the government of Winston Churchill (a scene-stealing John Lithgow) and the constant strains on familial and household relationships—not to mention the lovingly recreated 1950s gowns and hairstyles—make for engaging viewing. We're very much looking forward to Season 2, reportedly Foy's last before another actress takes over in the role of Elizabeth.

Victoria (2016, created and written by Daisy Goodwin)

Speaking of fabulous gowns, Victoria is filled with them, along with amazing interiors and beautiful carriages. It's also filled with scheming relatives, upstairs-downstairs contrasts, and not-very-convincing CGI cityscapes.

On the death of her uncle King William, the 18-year-old Alexandrina Victoria (Jenna Coleman) is crowned Queen, to the displeasure of her mother the Duchess of Kent (Catherine Flemming), her mother's lover Sir John Conroy (Paul Rhys), her uncle the Duke of Cumberland (Peter Firth), and the Tory Party leader the Duke of Wellington (Peter Bowles). She is guided through the treacherous political waters by (and begins to feel more than monarchical gratitude towards) the widowed Whig Prime Minister Lord Melbourne (Rufus Sewell). And soon Victoria must make the fateful choice of a husband.

There's a certain falling-off of dramatic tension after Victoria marries her cousin Prince Albert (Tom Hughes), and in the first episodes featuring Albert he is a bit whiny. Victoria also has rather annoying theme music by Martin Phipps, performed by Mediaeval Baebes. Nonetheless, these are minor issues that detract little from the series' many pleasures. The second season is scheduled to be released on DVD in January.

Biggest disappointment 

To Walk Invisible: The Brontë Sisters (2016), written and directed by Sally Wainwright

This is a curious joint biography of the Brontë sisters. Curious, because it leaves out hugely important parts of their lives. As an example, one of Charlotte's formative experiences was her sojourn in Brussels at the Pensionnat Heger in the early 1840s, first as a student and then as a teacher. There she fell in love with the married Constantine Heger, a passion that she maintained for years afterwards. That love was represented in her novels: directly in her first novel The Professor (published posthumously in 1857) and in Villette (1853), and indirectly in Jane Eyre (1847; Heger was clearly one of the models for Rochester).

But the series begins after Charlotte's return from Brussels, and as a result the parallels between her life and her work are absent. So, too, are major figures such as Heger and Elizabeth Gaskell (a close friend of Charlotte's and her first biographer). We don't see her father Patrick's notorious rages, or his furiously negative response to Arthur Nicholl's proposal of marriage to Charlotte in 1846.

Instead, the series focusses to an excessive degree on Branwell, the Brontë sisters' dissolute brother. It is no surprise when he dies—his self-destructive impulses have been made all too apparent—but it is a surprise when his death is followed shortly by those of Emily and Anne (who up to that point have not seemed to be ill at all). As a result of this imbalance the series might well have been called Branwell. Too much crucial material about the the Brontë sisters' lives is absent: dare I say, rendered invisible?

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Documentary

I Am Not Your Negro (2016), directed by Raoul Peck, written by James Baldwin

This film was drawn primarily from Baldwin's own writings, narrated by Samuel Jackson, and from photographs and footage of Baldwin. Although the focus is mainly on people and events from the U.S. civil rights struggle in the 1960s, Baldwin's writing speaks urgently to the present moment. We can only wish that he was still alive to speak truth to power. Essential viewing.

The Beatles: Eight Days a Week—The Touring Years (2016), directed by Ron Howard, written by Mark Monroe

Ron Howard has tracked down amazing footage of The Beatles playing live in their formative years. We are able to watch (and share the band's disbelief) as in a matter of months they go from playing basement bars to being pursued everywhere by cameras, reporters and mobs of frantic teenagers. We also witness their astonishing growth and development as musicians and songwriters under conditions that are anything but conducive to change. Don't look for evidence of Pete Best or Stuart Sutcliffe, who are absent from the film; it picks up in 1963, after Ringo joins the band, and ends with their retirement from the stage in 1966 (with a brief coda of the band's 1969 rooftop concert). It's an amazing story that never gets old, and Howard largely lets footage shot at the time tell the story. Pure pleasure.

More favorites of 2017:

• Fiction
• Nonfiction
• Live performances
• Recordings

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1. Quoted (with slight modification) in Celia McGerr, René Clair, Twayne Publishers, 1980, p. 101.