Day 6, a Stinker and a Half

Hannah Arendt is everything a biopic should be.  The cast is superb; Barbara Sukowa soars as Hannah; Axel Milberg is warm and cozy hubby Heinrich and Janet McTeer is a wisecracking Mary McCarthy.  The film focuses on The New Yorker hiring Hannah to cover the 1961 Eichmann trial in Jerusalem.  Her 5-part article [later a book] is not exactly what they expected.  The firestorm rages today.  The book has only recently been translated into Hebrew.  At issue is free speech, as well as how a misinterpretation of text can lead to suppression of that freedom.  Are some more easily offended?  Who has a right to be offended?  Does being offended allow you to offend?  This film is a wonderful historical document with big questions and lots of lessons to learn.

Sitting through half the film watching three somewhat amoral young people act out their disdain for contemporary society was almost too much for me.  But explanations for their behavior was telegraphed sufficiently that I stuck it out.  For the most part it turned out to be pretty conventional stuff about repressed childhood memories and secrets save for one very shocking and moving moment.  Unfortunately this is not enough to recommend it.

Rust and Bone follows hunk Matthias Schoenaerts [star of last years Bullhead] as he heads for Antibes with his young son.  There he gets caught up in bareknuckle fighting.  Working part time as a bouncer he meets Marion Cotillard who trains Orcas. She has a tragic accident drawing them closer together.  But this isn’t enough to shake sense into his thuggish mentality.  A heartbreaking incident finally brings him around. 

My last film today held a lot of possibilities.  The two leads, Charlotte Rampling and Gabriel Byrne are solid enough to carry most films….. NOT!   “I, Anna” is a real stinker.  Trying to create a London Noir thriller with an amateurish script is bad enough but actually dragging bad performances out of two fine actors is too much.  I was so annoyed by it that I left half way through.  “Mikey never walks out of a movie!”   It was that bad.

I think Ms. Rampling has slipped into playing herself as a fem fatale.  I have seen it before.