Paris, Texas (1984)

(film 147 minutes)

Directed by: Wim Wenders
Language: English

Rating: 6/10 | Yaser Tohidi
August 14, 2022

Travis has renounced the world and knows nothing but walking day and night in deserts. This is the verdict he has pronounced for himself after leaving his wife and child some 4 years ago. Accidentally his younger brother, Walt, who has now adopted Travis’s child, Hunter, finds him. This encounter reminds Travis gradually of his past. Walt explains that Jane, Travis’s wife, could no longer care for Hunter and that is why he was left to Walt and his wife. They start traveling back to Los Angeles where Walt leaves with his wife and Hunter. On the way Travis starts speaking with the first word being Paris, a place in Texas where he has bought a land. Their mother was from there and their father wanted to believe she was actually from Paris, France, the fantasy that has become true by Walt whose wife is from Paris with strong French accent although he is not remembering all these about their parents. 

But why Travis has left - or better say has lost - his wife and his boy and wandered for years. This is not answered before Travis wins Hunter’s trust and they embark in a trip to find Jane and where Travis and Jane explain themselves to one another. Put it simply Travis was jealous and in distress seeing his joyous marriage was destroyed by Jane’s change in behaviour after having child. But now he has a more important plan. Making sure Jane’s work is safe for Hunter he tells Jane that Hunter needs her and that he is now waiting to see her. He reunite them and himself leaves and loses them again. 

Paris, Texas is the story of Travis who cannot live in a world full of desire for buying/faking nobility and excessively more ambitions and therefore losses and limitations, where placards, accents, places and names are more important than being plain and enjoying the plain life. But despite these, he has once loved Jane and they have a child together who needs more than anything else his mother. So Travis who has once caused the separation of child and mother decides to reunite them, hoping that this will make Jane happy again and will make Hunter grow by his own biological mother. Although we cannot easily answer why Travis thinks this is a better decision for Hunter as he seemed happy with Walt and his wife we can contemplate; maybe Walt reminds Travis of their father and his fake advertisements about origins of their mother (at some point we can see Walt is pasting a large advertisement of some French product) and instead he prefers Jane who is although poor but pure (she does not go home with her customers for money.)

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 Take Care (1991)

(film 93 minutes)

Directed by: Yorgos Tsemberopoulos
Language: Greek

Rating: 6/10 | Yaser Tohidi
April 09, 2022

Marina is a mother in her early 40’s. She is married to a butcher who is trying to expand his business and bring in the younger boy of the family. But the boy does not like this plan and wants to go his own way. The older boy is living overseas and is expected to visit the family soon. The only daughter is a swimmer and is getting ready for a competition though her records does not seem promising. 

Marina is trying to convince her husband not to expand but he is convinced this is their future and most be done. Not having his sons beside, he needs an apprentice with some previous skills if not a partner to share the business with. Christos is a good looking and charming islander who have just finished his military service in the kitchen of the brigade. He briefly started a not-very-promising attempt to become a singer that coincided with break-up with his girlfriend Roula. She is working in a beauty salon and Christos thinks her plans for the future are not as great as his. Christos leaves the idea of becoming a singer and wants to engage in a new business. He happens to know the butcher’s search for a business partner and starts working as an apprentice there.

Starting his job in the butchery, both Marina and her daughter find him charming and soon the daughter starts dating him although not yet publicly. Happy about the business expansion and his new apprentice but worried about his younger son, father reads in the morning news that his son is arrested for drug trafficking. Disappointed by this news he carries a heavy piece of meat to the fridge and collapses. He dies shortly after.

Marina decides to continue the business and that means working with Christos. Getting ready for the opening of the magazine’s second shop in front of the older one, she invites Christos out. The same evening Alexis, the older son, arrives. Marina picks him up and then joins Christos for their big night. Later that night they kiss. Next morning Christos refuses her love and gives back the cross with letter M engraved on it that Marina gave him last evening. She previously found this cross in the stuff of his late husband. Christos is again not sure about the girl he is looking for and the love he is refusing. He decides to leave the work. Marina, devastated by his leave, finds out from Roula that Christos is actually in a relationship with her daughter. She decides to be realistic and leaves behind the butchery to the young lovers and go for a trip oversees with his son Alexis. Marina gives the key of the piano to Christos, the piano that she played long time ago perhaps when she was still happily living with her husband and children. In the final, Christos does not use the key and leaves it on the piano.

Take care is a drama happening in the streets of Athens in 90s when the search for new ways of life peaked and therefore families and norms started to disappear. The old norms start to give place to new ones as people ask for packed meat instead of open cuts of meat. No matter how much Marina tried to keep the family together despite the problems, escalated ambitions of people around her did not let it happen. No matter how much Marina tried to keep the family happy, even by sacrificing herself and removing her presence, Christos did not accept to fall in the same circle of family and work even if he could have a house, a business and a piano to enjoy the evenings with his girlfriend. 

The new generation wants more. Marina is trying to survive in this world and falls in love with Christos, an islander looking for options and opportunities but from the new generation, thus very slippery and short-term. Take care is a sad story of beautiful Marina, a modest wife and later lover, whose happiness lasts but for only a few days. She is first empty handed in a marriage breaking up by her husband’s ambitions for expanding the work and by children’s failures. Then she finds a dim of light when she starts managing the business and falls in love with Christos. But soon he rejects her love for greater ambitions with or without her daughter. For Marina also, Christos has failed when she finds out about his relationship with her daughter. Although she still tries to survive the family by leaving overseas, Christos wants even more adventures. 

Apart from a well developing story, Take Care has nice sound tracks that adds to the profound drama of the movie.

 

Titane (2021)

(film 108 minutes)

Directed by: Julia Ducournau
Language: French

Rating: 7/10 | Yaser Tohidi
November 11, 2021

Titane symbolizes unusual people and the problems they face through a fantasy story led by Alexia as someone who loves cars! This peculiarity has terrible effects on her. The movie starts by a scene from her childhood. She is in a back seat of a car and her father is driving the car. She annoys her father during the drive as though she is not happy to have her father behind the wheel. This leads to a car crash and a horrible skull injury for Alexia that requires placement of a permanent titanium plate. Alexia’s love for cars grows with her and she works as sexed-up in a motor show years later. She even has sex with a car that she danced with in the motor show and becomes pregnant of it. Soon we understand that Alexia is actually a cold-blood killer of anyone who expresses love to her, and her hairpin is actually her weapon. In one incident when one of the witnesses of her crime escapes, she alters her appearance to look like a boy and claims she is, Adrien, the boy who was missing for years. Father of the missing boy, Vincent, accepts her as his boy with no hesitation. He just wants to have a son after waiting for years. Vincent, a fire captain, introduces Adrien to his team of firefighters and gradually gives more responsibility to him. Alexia now heavily pregnant cannot hide away anymore and she tries to run away but when she understands that Vincent’s life depends on her playing his son, she decides to stay. Both of them need each other. Vincent imagines that Alexia is his son Adrien, and he sticks to this idea even when he sees Alexia’s breasts. Now that the relationship between father and son is more stable, Alexia joins other firefighters in a party and dances with a firetruck like she used to do as a showgirl. Later that evening she has sex with the firetruck. As the delivery time comes closer, Alexia reveals her real name to Vincent and asks for help. Vincent helps Alexia give birth. Alexia's body gradually breaks down and cracks in the skin of her stomach reveal new metal plate. Alexia dies while Vincent holds the baby, whose spine appears to be made out of titanium. Alexia’s love for cars, and Vincent’s unconditional love to his son no matter if he has come back as a delusion, now has resulted to a newborn.
Titane keeps you enthusiastic to find Alexia’s destiny and on the way, Vincent’s. Vincent is the hero who shelters Alexia in his mini society of firefighters and later saves her child. The symbolism of the life of unusual people that started by Alexia’s love to cars continues by her crimes and her appearance alteration and later her inclusion in the mini society of firefighters and reaches till the end by the newborn with metallic spine.  

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Mouchette (1967)

(film 81 minutes)

Directed by: Robert Bresson
Language: French

Rating: 8/10 | Yaser Tohidi
September 13, 2021

Mouchette is a young girl from a poor family with a mom close to dying and an alcoholic father. She takes care of all the housework instead. At school she is being bullied and harassed because of her clothes and shoes and the fact that she is not as proper as she should be both in her appearance and her behaviour. In the village also she is being insulted, disrespected and even raped in one scene by an alcoholic epileptic poacher when she tries to leave his hut where she took shelter from the rainstorm. Mouchette starts to understand the determinism inherited to her by her situation and she realises that the walls surrounding her are too high. She commits suicide then.

Mouchette artistically depicts the problems that marginalised people, especially children face. The movie shows the dark life of Mouchette without any hesitation and sentimentalism on the curtain. However, as soon as the viewer perceives Mouchette as his protagonist and is keen to follow her destination, the movie surprises your hopes by reminding you that she is just a child (read human) who might, in an impulsive decision even in the middle of playing, break and fail to continue living and fighting.

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The Man Who Sold His Skin (2020)

(film 100 minutes)

Directed by: Kaouther Ben Hania
Language: Arabic, English, French

Rating: 4/10 | Yaser Tohidi

June 12, 2021

A Belgian artist Jeffrey and a Syrian refugee Sam come across each other in Lebanon and sign a controversial deal. Sam lets Jeffrey tattoo a Schengen visa on his back and agrees to be present in his exhibitions in Europe for a definite time as an object of art. Instead Jeffrey makes sure Sam receives a Schengen visa and comes to Europe where his girlfriend Abeer, now unhappily married to a staff of Syrian embassy, lives and works as a translator. Soon as he arrives Europe Sam finds the same play of powers there and although sometimes he tries to breach the laws of society, he realizes the clichés are stronger. Besides it seems getting back to Abeer is not as easy as he thought it would be. Jeffrey comes again with his brilliant ideas. He makes a fake story; Sam goes back to Syria, he is killed there by extremists as a coward and traitor who sells dignity for liberty, and his skin is sold in black market. This fake story is of course bought easily because media/public is used to hearing terrible news from Syria and it is not easy to ratify the truth considering the circumstances there. So Sam is believed dead and his skin should be recovered from black market and be kept in national museums. Jeffrey himself of course takes care of the skin replica. This is while the true story is that Sam and Abeer are living together no one knows where with their new identities.

The Man Who Sold His Skin shows not only the indifference towards the difficulties faced by the Syrian people but also it criticizes the western societies/politics for their hypocrisy on human rights and dignity of certain outsiders and for their obsessive devotion to pleasure and richness.

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There Is No Evil (2020)

(film 150 minutes)

Directed by: Mohammad Rasoulof
Language: Persian

Rating: 3/10 | Yaser Tohidi
September 25, 2020

The movie relates four stories in four episodes about people executing the death penalty and the moral responsibility they feel for that. First is Heshmat, a middle-aged man whose day-to-day job is to execute. He does not see the people he executes but he just presses a button for doing that. He has a wife and a daughter. He takes a good care of them and, help his aged mother. He seems silent and introvert, perhaps due to his job. He sometimes just stares at red/green lights in street as these remind him of the lights in his room at work that show him when to press the button. Then we see Kaveh. He is doing his compulsory military service at a prison and he wants to go abroad after his military service. But unfortunately, his service is to execute. He cannot convince himself to do this. So, with the help of his fellow and his girlfriend, he leaves the prison just before executing a man. The third story is about Javad. He is coming back from his military service to prepare his marriage, but he finds that his girlfriend’s family are mourning for the death of their close relative, a teacher and a dissenter, who was executed. Javad remembers that in fact he, himself, has executed the teacher during his military service when he sees his photo. This has a devastating effect on Javad and his relationship with his girlfriend. The final story is about Bahram and his daughter. She is coming from Germany to visit him. Javad is a middle-aged man living in a sort of hide-out and we understand that his life is so because he has refused to execute a death penalty. He tries to explain his daughter that the circumstances of his life is due to an important moral decision he has taken in the past. 

There Is No Evil assumes responsibility for the action even if it is a duty. The movie shows the happiness of choosing the right decision (not to execute) and the terrible consequences of following the orders blind (to execute). The movie chooses execution as an order just because following this order means taking someone’s life and something significant is at stake. So, There Is No Evil is not about whether execution is moral or not. Rather the movie advises to question the orders and law and to measure them with truth/wisdom. If not done so, it leads to emptiness of soul, like Heshmat, or to break down of lives, like Javad and his girlfriend. 

For its advice, There Is No Evil shows two happy endings by not following the orders blind and two sad ones by following them. The movie does not question the order itself and where it comes from. The moral characters do not try to change the orders. Instead they just do not obey. So, even if the two episodes are depicting two protagonists, they remain local/personal and they do not become general protagonists and the movie cannot address your expectation for creating a positive world. The world is as it is from beginning till the end and in this world, you can find some characters obeying the orders blind and the others who do not. Viewer expects conflict between these two groups and later resolution but nothing of that you find in There Is No Evil. 

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Breathless (1960)
(film 87 minutes)

Directed by: Jean-Luc Godard
Language: French

Rating: 7/10 | Yaser Tohidi
May 01, 2020

Michel steals a car, murders a policeman, just to come to Paris and meet Patricia again. He is in love with her and wants to take her to Rome. But Patricia, an American journalist does not want him because Michel is too tough for her. She is sentimental and Michel is the opposite. She wants only admiration from his side, but Michel wants much more. He wants everything or nothing. She says between grief and nothing she chooses grief, but Michel goes for nothing. Patricia is afraid of losing her opportunities in life if she goes with Michel. She is fascinated by the high-class attractions but for Michel a Dior store is only a place to telephone for free. He disgusts cowardice that unfortunately he finds that also in the girl he loves most. When the police come to question her, she does not collaborate. She helps Michel to run away. She is attracted with the excitement-in-the-moment when she is with Michel. However, her attachments to the default life of hers is just too much. Finally, she finds the only way to get rid of Michel is to leak his place to police and tell him to run away. But here also she is surprised, Michel is not running away. As he said he wants everything or nothing. 
Breathless is an experimental melodrama that against the purpose of melodrama, wants to distance the viewer from being attached to the sentiments and rather to show the beauty of an existential life and authenticity in the protagonist Michel. The pictures in the streets are taken without hiding the camera from the passers-by or to set the scene to appear so. Passers-by look at the actors and the camera as though they are also following their story, as though they are also dealing with the same dilemma. Breathless criticizes the common sense in the larger society. Breathless is a fascinating philosophical movie that shakes our presumptions in life and society not only through the story but also through the unusual editing, photographing, and dialogues.

Click here for wikipedia page