Digital Week – May 6

When Clint Eastwood introduced his maverick San Francisco detective Harry Callahan to audiences in 1971, the “shoot first and never ask questions” approach was thought problematic and even fascist—and, indeed, the four sequels were even worse. Still, the first film,  efficiently directed by Don Siegel on photogenic Bay Area locations and filled with Harry’s witticisms while taking down bad guys (“’Do I feel lucky?’—Well, do you, punk?”) remains a diverting genre picture. The UHD transfer is first-rate; extras are Eastwood biographer Richard Schickel’s commentary along with vintage and new featurettes.

Durga Chew-Bose’s debut feature is a sun-dappled but dark story about teenage Cécile, her widowed father Raymond, his younger girlfriend Elsa and his longtime friend Anne, the latter appearing at their French villa during a summer sojourn to upset the precarious balance among them. Based on Françoise Sagan’s famous novel—previously made into a film in 1958 by Otto Preminger starring Jean Seberg, David Niven and Deborah Kerr—Chew-Bose’s adaptation is fastidious and well-acted (particularly by Lily McInerny as Cécile and Naïlia Harzoune as Elsa) but overly studied and curiously inert, never reaching the emotional depth it strives for. 

Even by the standards of outlandish Nicolas Cage vehicles, this latest one, directed by Lorcan Finnegan and written by Thomas Martin—and set in Australia, where Cage plays a dutiful father hoping to introduce his teenage son to the wonders of surfing where he grew up, only to find himself in nightmarish encounters with locals that leave him homeless, carless and fighting for his sanity—is so ridiculous it plays like a parody of Cage flicks. Still, despite its imbecile and ham-fisted depiction of toxic masculinity, the viewer shouldn’t bail because Cage invests himself so heavily in this risible role that it’s like stopping to watch a car wreck on the side of the road. 

Maria Frederiksson’s portrait of Norwegian sisters and a family full of secrets has so many twists and turns that you might be forgiven for thinking it’s all a put-on, a mockumentary—but the emotional rollercoaster the three women go on after discovering they might be related after not knowing about each other for decades would be laughable if it was written as fiction. Frederiksson at times seems to be stumped about whether she too has been taken for a ride but by continuing to film—and presenting solid if circumstantial evidence of a unsolved crime—she has made a mesmerizing, frustrating, compelling, blackly humorous documentary.

Jean Rouch (1917-2004), the French anthropologist and director, was among the first practitioners of cinéma verité and explored relationships among people of different ethnicities and societies, as witness this fascinating—and in many ways still relevant—double feature. 1961’s “The Human Pyramid” follows a group of students in an Ivory Coast high school who are asked by Rouch to enact an interracial drama; the shocking ending is recorded by Rouch’s probing camera. The following year’s “The Punishment” follows a young French girl, sent home from school, who must deal with unwanted and systematic misogyny. Both films have quite good hi-def transfers.