Ken and Robin Consume Media: Athena, Don’t Worry Darling, More Infernal Affairs, and Breakfast at Tiffany on Page and Screen

September 27th, 2022 | Robin

The Pinnacle

Athena (Film, France, Romain Gavras, 2022) A viral video of a police killing brings urban warfare to the Athena housing project, pitting the victim’s three brothers, the instigating firebrand (Sami Slimane), a cop (Dali Benssalah), and a drug dealer (Mehdi Abdelhakmi), against one another. Astounding, propulsive coup de cinema features a string of jaw-detaching, far-traveling steadicam tracking shots to plunge characters and viewers together into chaos. I need to see a two-hour documentary on the making of this ninety-minute film.—RDL

Breakfast at Tiffany’s (Fiction, Truman Capote, 1958) In 1943, a writer lives in a New York City brownstone one floor above rising courtesan Holly Golightly. Capote’s simultaneously loving and stark gaze visualizes Holly as an American Becky Sharp, beheld with fascination by all. Lapidary novella does a lot in a little space, in addition to painting one of the finest character portraits in 20th-century American literature. –KH

Recommended

Breakfast at Tiffany’s (Film, US, Blake Edwards, 1961) Writer and kept man Paul Varjak (George Peppard) falls in love with his neighbor, flighty gold-digger Holly Golightly (Audrey Hepburn). Hepburn’s captivating performance as the ur-Manic Pixie Dream Girl almost carries this film to Pinnacle status by itself (along with Henry Mancini’s score and a giddy mostly improvised party scene). There is also a cat, and a marvelously cold Patricia Neal as Varjak’s patroness. However, the tacked-on happy ending and a truly ugly, unfunny yellowface performance (objectionable even in 1961) by Mickey Rooney bring it down to mere Recommended earth. –KH

Infernal Affairs II (Film, Hong Kong/Singapore/China, Andrew Lau and Alan Mak, 2003) Triad capo Hon Sam (Eric Tsang) plots his rise to power against the Ngai family, while gangster Lau Kin-Ming (Edison Chen) and undercover cop Chan Wing-Yan (Shawn Yue) infiltrate each other’s organizations. Prequel to the Pinnacle 2002 film by the same creative team marvelously expands the previous film’s plot with echoes of Macbeth and ample tense machination on all sides. With that expansion comes an inevitable loosening of the taut symmetry that made the first so perfect. –KH

Sorcerer (Film, US, William Friedkin, 1977) After a cathedral robbery gone wrong, an armed robber (Roy Scheider) lams it to Colombia, where he winds up driving a truck full of nitroglycerine through treacherous jungle alongside a crooked financier, a Palestinian terrorist, and a hitman. Where Henri-George Clouzot’s adaptation of the George Arnaud novel The Wages of Fear enacts incremental, inch-by-inch agonizing suspense, Friedkin’s is a dive into chaos and dissociation.—RDL

Good

Dislocated to Success (Fiction, Iain Bowen, 2016-2020) Being the memoirs of Viscount Fawsley, Foreign Secretary from 1980 to 1990 after the UK finds itself dislocated in time from 1980 to 1730. Published as a trilogy, the memoiristic tone simultaneously distances the action while adding to the fascination of the text. Intriguing topics such as Margaret Thatcher’s huge influence on the radical youth of the Enlightenment world, renewed British colonialism, and the fate of the corps or so of American military personnel stranded in the UK remain resolutely just barely offstage, idle hints doubtless working better than a novelistic address would have. –KH

Okay

Don’t Worry Darling (Film, US, Olivia Wilde, 2022) Alice Chambers (Florence Pugh) lives in the planned 1950s desert community of Victory where her husband Jack (Harry Styles, a little out of his depth) works with guru/genius Frank (Chris Pine, superb but underutilized) on a mysterious project – or does she? Even with the help of Matthew Libatique’s lush cinematography and gleaming midcentury modernist production design cribbed from architect Richard Neutra, Pugh’s acting can only do so much for a squib of a script even Rod Serling would have rejected as too obvious and too preachy. Even the Styles fans I saw it in the theater with laughed at the ending. –KH

Infernal Affairs III (Film, Hong Kong/China, Andrew Lau and Alan Mak, 2003) As Lau Kin-Ming (Andy Lau) duels with security officer Yeung Kam-Wing (Leon Lai), he mentally disintegrates. A lengthy interwoven flashback details Chan Wing-Yan’s (Tony Leung) involvement with mainland Triad figure Shen (Chen Daoming). Two strong ideas (with some exceptionally good sequences) strangle each other amid a confused flashback plot that exists only to introduce two entirely new characters; the result merely contorts the trilogy to Communist censorship demands. –KH

Lobster Cop (Film, China, Xinyun Li, 2018) To stake out a drug gang, a squad of cops consisting of the brusque leader (Qianyuan Wang), the woman (Shanshan Yuan), the old guy (Hua Liu) and the rookie (You Zhou) take over a failing crayfish restaurant, which unexpectedly flourishes. Undercharacterized commercial comedy with lots of energy and non-diegetic whooshing noises. Fun fact: the binational production company simultaneously made the same film in South Korea, under the title Extreme Job, but with fried chicken.—RDL

Thor: Love and Thunder (Film, US, Taika Waititi, 2022) The god of thunder (Chris Hemsworth) reunites with old flame Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), now wielding a reassembled Mjolnir as the Mighty Thor, to fight a cursed being (Christian Bale) intent on wiping out all deities. The delicate balance of heart, momentum and schtick Waititi conjured the last time here leans too heavily on the latter.—RDL