Sees All

I was probably the ideal audience for this movie. I felt that it validated all the things I already thought about contact with extraterrestrial (or perhaps "intraterrestrial") beings. For me the film convincingly laid out a case for the beliefs that 1) we are not alone in the universe, that 2) beings from a far more advanced civilization than ours are keeping tabs on us, that all the rumors that such incidents as "alien abductions," and the crash of an alien spacecraft in Roswell, New Mexico are true, and that 3) the US government is on a mission to stigmatize anyone who claims to have witnessed such beings as "crazy crackpots." The film presents credible people who either have held important positions in the US government, or currently hold such positions (such as Senators Marco Rubio and Kristen Gillibrand). I found this a compelling documentary, even though it is just a series of interviews. Yes, the soundtrack did add an emotional subtext, but I see no reason to doubt the evidence it presents.

This movie got great reviews that made me really want to see it. Fortunately, I live in New York, so foreign language films are easily accessible to me. I thought this movie was well done: Direction, acting, all the technical elements were fine. The script is intelligent and interestingly structured. The plot comes in sideways. A man is driving his wife and daughter at night on a lonely rural road and accidentally runs over a dog. Afterwards he goes to a garage, and at the garage, he's sure he recognizes someone who has wronged his family. He wants vengeance. He comes back and kidnaps the man intending to kill him and bury him in the desert, but after he has him half buried, he suddenly has doubts that this man is indeed the person he thinks he is. He has a prosthetic leg, but perhaps that's just a coincidence. Thus begins an elaborate scheme to validate that this is indeed his enemy. It is a grotesque comedy of errors, with lots of violence. But I'm afraid that after seeing last year's SEED OF THE SACRED FIG and this film, I am simply not sympathetic to the cultural values of this region. Maybe they have lived for so many years under repression and cruelty that the people come off cold-blooded and mean. I found it hard to have compassion or sympathy for any of the characters. And that is my honest opinion, although I'll probably be called all kinds of names for it.

AUCTION is an entertaining movie set in the contemporary world of art collectors and art dealers. An ambitious and zealous agent for a major art auction house hears that someone wants to sell a painting by Egon Schiele. He's very skeptical and is virtually certain that the painting is a fake because it's common knowledge that such "degenerate art" (which included virtually everything that wasn't realistic) was all burned by the Nazis in a huge bonfire on Hitler's orders. But to his shock, it's authentic. Then there's the question of who is the rightful owner of the painting, the man who's selling it (it's been on his wall for decades. He is a young blue-collar worker who had no idea it was valuable), or the now-deceased prewar owner whose heirs are now rich and powerful Americans. Some of the characters only speak German and some speak only French. And of course, everyone wants to know how much people would be willing to pay for it. And virtually everyone in the cast has a complicated sexual and emotional life. The plot is complex with multiple story lines and a lot of characters who each have their own agenda. I was afraid at first that I would not be able to follow the plot, but I needn't have worried. I'm glad I saw it. My favorite characters were the young blue-collar worker (Arcadi Radeff), the female intern (Louise Chevillotte) who works for the agent, and the agent's ex-wife (Lea Drucker), who is nonetheless still supportive of her former husband (Alex Lutz). All in all, I thought it was delightful and full of that famous gallic charm.