What classics did you see last week ? (4 Nov- 10 Nov 2018)

Details are fleeting.

Monday I think, or maybe Sunday I watched Spirit of the Beehive. That was delightful, but serious. Serious without busting your chops. I'm hit and miss on child point of view stories but it worked great for me. The two sisters were great and the younger sister's imagination boundless and plentiful. Their sensitivities deep and their resemblance to their parents not at all because in the background of this story, they're living on the wealthier side of what's still a dictatorship and deal with it by retreating into themselves. Parents retreat in, children retreat out. It's really a nice movie, well worth being included on that top 100 foreign language movies that just came out. It's Spanish.

I watched Rashomon because I was feeling sort of blue and wanted to watch something but didn't feel up to watching something I hadn't seen before. Rashomon's always good. It's interesting because it makes me feel like an important event. The case, the trial, the players. The perfect confluence of characters and timing that turned an ordinary day into a complicated tragedy that people might puzzle over for generations. In the Rashomon extended universe, which doesn't exist. It's a very neat, compact and finite story whose brief significance became the single most important occurrence of that day, and almost nobody knows about it save for the people involved in the trial.

I watched Leon the Professional on Netflix. I've been meaning to for as long as I can remember. That was really good. Deliciously violent, thoughtful, sensitive, quirky, full of good performances. Natalie Portman gets better with age in both directions since it's her first movie and she's like 12. Jean Reno is sympathetic, dangerous, and really kind of a good man in ways that are controversial to recognize him for because lets be honest, he's a hitman. But their relationship was taboo and sweet and the ending where she plants his plant friend in the ground was very touching. I'm also relieved he killed Gary Oldman. I really thought for a second he was going to stand over Leon, shot, and just gloat until he fades into the next life but no no, Leon's a professional. He took him out with him.

Twelve Angry Men. Again, I was feeling blue and couldn't handle new material so I watched Twelve Angry Men. It's one of my favorites, I've watched it twelve or thirteen times by now. I learned a lot from it. I've appreciated it and embraced it on so many terms it almost lacks punch in explaining it. The movie played a big part in my thought process, how I perceive things and how and with whom to be careful, to try and be in control, to service my open-minded point of view without open-mindedness servicing personal bias. It's one of few movies I've ever seen that I genuinely feel is required viewing. Every character is worth looking at and considering, the mystery is deep, in some characters self control belies a deeper rage; sometimes that rage betrays their calm and sometimes their calm betrays their rage. Almost every fallacy was touched on, several perspectives represented, and it's a kind of movie I like that involves one setting, a few characters and minimal dialogue. Entirely a debate, battle of wits story all in one room or place.