Au hasard Balthazar (Balthazar)

Bold childhood declarations subliminally etched and ethereally nurtured, as time passes piecemeal and peaceful borderline pasteurized enigmatic shades.

Pressing ambitious ingenuity sage book-learning incisively applied, resulting yields tantalizing and abundant copiously accruing practical dividends. 

Rented land unimaginatively considered by its well-meaning spirited and generous masters, resulting in disproportionate dishevelling alarm as the plentiful crops benefit another.

But not initially however only after years of shocking envy, malevolently creates a vitriolic buzz which dishonourably characterizes the industrious tenant.

Meanwhile, a hapless donkey known affectionately as Balthazar makes his way, often abiding by his owner's dictates but at times engaging in judicious free play.

As seasons change and fortunes fade he's dismissively transferred around the small town, an elaborate tale in the paramount slipstream to be nimbly told to other curious beasties. 

His original owner gradually comes of age and shares his adventures throughout the village.

Jealousies prognosticating doom.

Pervasive detritus malignantly engendered. 

I thought this film may be more upbeat upon reading the synopsis championing Balthazar, not that I mind ye olde hardboiled bucolics, I just wasn't expecting the gloom.

There are ways of thinking I don't quite comprehend because they seem ignominiously counterproductive, for instance is it not preferable to applaud hard work and effort should an old or new friend find themselves succeeding?

Perhaps I took the Vulcan message wisely wishing prosperity for others too seriously, but if logic is customarily applied, is it not more fortuitous to encourage goodwill?

Do the Jedi not function commensurately as they mind the galaxy's crafty well-being, do ninjas not also perform the same function, why then are they so often disregarded?

Perhaps 'lil Balthazar knows an age old secret that he's not telling, that would help us move past inanimate grief to a more generally prosperous Star Trekkian dynasty.

It's sad to watch when he's suddenly mistreated although he sometimes does do well, and I was reminded once again of I, Claudius as I viewed another Robert Bresson film.

The emperor Claudius apparently in adulthood generously let his animals retire after years of service.

And let them relax in his fields without burden.

Having adopted the soulful life.

*Imagine a law like that!

**I bet there would be one on Star Trek.

Downtown Abbey

I suppose I may have once had harsher words for a film about servants desperate to humour British royalty, inasmuch as they don't seem to have much leisure time, and there's no mention of rights or unions.

In fact they don't seem to have any time off at all, and serve altruistically day and night, the demanding nature of their age old situation less amenable to ye olde 9 to 5, any questions of an alternative lifestyle, absent from the master narrative.

I'm unfamiliar with the series so I don't know if they receive adequate wages, and if you're ever thinking about forming a union it's always best to consider whether or not it will bankrupt your employers, but if the idle rich can't afford to pay a decent salary, who can?, and Downtown's nobles don't seem to be working that hard.

Of course they have their own dainty way of labouring, comparatively, which has more to do with socializing and planning events than sweeping or dishwashing, and since a significant proportion of the population expects them to play these roles, handed down through the centuries, who I am to criticize them for doing so?

It's the democratic element you see which ironically uplifts the monarchy insofar as such traditions have just as much right to persevere as any other.

Their workers can still quit at any time should they find something lacking, or a better situation, although in many cases I imagine they strictly soldier on.

Due to the prestige they associate with their position, a bizarro rank and file reflection of aristocratic privilege, a phenomenon where one's proud to be of service to a duke or earl even if their quality of life's somewhat bland, for they imagine that others envy them, oddly enough, but then again, others actually do.

Covetously so.

I imagine serving the nobility must seem idyllic if you're serving the nouveau riche, if that's how you want to live your life (gaining status by association with a snotty clique), although I may be incorrect indeed, depending on how hip newfound wealth finds flex-time.

All I'm trying to say is that when you don't have many options you may settle for something snotty, who am I to judge?, and may even find it quite rewarding, depending on the character of your team.

The film does present a solid team equipped with full-time work by employers who don't hold them in contempt and do honestly listen to what they have to say.

Of course the idle rich don't have to sustain these networks, they could live much more modestly to be sure, but then thousands of people would be out of work, and the people who care about elite social activities would have to find other forms of media to entertain them.

So distressing, the items that trend on AppleNews.

As unimaginative as such pastimes may seem, a democratic conscience should try to tolerate them, assuming they don't imperialistically express themselves, or attempt to squash integral freedoms.

The world of Downtown Abbey is both resourceful and respectful.

Model worker/management relations.

Perhaps too prim and polished.

Remarkably cohesive bonds.

La Tenerezza (Tenderness)

Stubbornness and pride abound in Gianni Amelio's La Tenerezza, as a widower takes a shine to a family next door, while continuing to neglect his own middle-aged offspring, who shamelessly covet their litigious inheritance.

His extramarital appetites produced profound resentment in his young, and his unwillingness to accept responsibility have fostered distraught enmities.

The young family is energetic and full of life, curiosity boundlessly blooming as mother and little ones inspect undiscovered surroundings.

Lorenzo (Renato Carpentieri) finds himself offering fatherly advice and even develops kind friendships with both partners, sharing observations grumpily withheld from daughter and son with his unknown endearing impulsive new neighbours.

Something's not quite right though, Fabio (Elio Germano) often sharing awkward sad thoughts to which Lorenzo responds with empathy.

And as the joy from Amélie is pathologically reconceptualized, La Tenerezza admonishes adventurous spirits, the ramifications of settling with mindsets unsound, obtusely effecting tenants newfound, while those grown accustomed to habitual means, pay full price for taxing soirées indiscreet.

Redemption is sought however misplaced temperate reckonings bearing choice succulent fruits.

The film rhetorically narrativizes clashes between longstanding and recently confirmed residents to examine belonging and community from less romantic social ordeals.

Tenderness breaks through but as a cold heart convalesces psychological precedents confound poised rebirths.

Depicting a less cheerful array of realistic sentiments, losses disparaged erupt with molten inadmissibility.

Its mistrust of male refugees isn't counterbalanced by dependable claimants, even if said mistrust is ostensibly the byproduct of Lorenzo's infidelities, childhood trauma effecting his daughter Elena's (Giovanna Mezzogiorno) professional and personal lives, her inability to trust men perhaps resulting in cynical isolation.

Xenophobia's still xenophobia even when it's intellectually contextualized.

Leaving audiences to sift through clues presented to clarify semantic stresses may ambiguously impress, but effects still hauntingly linger long after characters heal from hard fought lessons.

A Quiet Passion

You forget about the thunderous lambasted dissatisfied offended vengeful austerity of artistic realms at times, quite different from the sporting world, as noted by others, overtly liberal yet savagely obsessed with youth and purity, pedantic pastures pirouetting and periodizing, wherein which people, many of whom can neither dribble nor throw a ball, act like severe generals intent on asininely disparaging anyone they can't seduce with their discursive charms, suckling the silver spoon with seditious sentiment, exceptionally accomplished yet insanely jealous, having created an odious convoy of fictional evaluations (principles) which they adhere to as if they're the essence of assiduity, as if they've asseverated a house of cards, the foundations of which they earnestly value like divine truths.

I made a crucial error upon engaging.

In my youth, I thought there would be a warm and friendly community wherein which one would feel free to express themselves in order to advance and learn, these were, after all, the people who couldn't catch or throw, and always wanted to play soccer (which they were terrible at), only to discover inherent habitual derisive reflexes often haunting otherwise cheerful discussions, reflexes which made beers with the jocks seem less cumbersome, even if I didn't get it and usually felt out of place with them.

It was disillusioning to find cruel pretensions backed up by limitless disdain uttered by people who weren't even that good yet had worked their way into a steady state of affairs, or would do anything they could to inanely disseminate their mediocrity.

I was too nice.

There was absolutely no chance for me.

They still do it. I still think I'm having a casual conversation only to find everything I've said without necessarily meaning any of it, just small talk, thrown back in my face behind the scenes with displeasure.

Terence Davies's A Quiet Passion made me think of those days as Emily Dickinson (Emma Bell/Cynthia Nixon) writes while martially pondering ethics.

Extremely gifted, passionate, verbose, and strict, she logically finds ways to justify her viewpoints while writing sweetly flowing unmatched poetry.

The title of the film is odd considering how often Dickinson disputes with so many, by no means a shrinking violet, more like a rigorous grizzly defending poetic cubs.

Her sister's (Rose Williams/Jennifer Ehle as Vinnie Dickinson) sympathetic and understanding, she diplomatically mediates between Emily and brother Austin (Benjamin Wainwright/Duncan Duff) as they become more estranged through argumentative age.

I loved the scenes where there was hardly any dialogue, when different family members have their portraits painted for instance, or when the family is depicted quietly relaxing one evening in the same 19th century room, long before the noisy rise of electronic interests.

It's like you're there.

At peace.

At contemplative leisure.

A different time, when religion and marriage still played a powerful role in many people's lives, marriage still being rather popular I suppose, Ms. Dickinson resolutely cultivating alternative paths for herself and others along which she independently strides.

The writing in the film displays remarkable talent at times, especially as Emily ages, but at others a lack of editorial finesse is plainly evident.

The words are out of control.

Its confident blend of the quirky and the serious made me think it was Canadian. 

English Canadian.

Snow White and the Huntsman

A wicked Queen who loathes men kills her husband due to her blind fear that he will cast her off when her beauty fades and then takes psychotic steps to insure that it will remain forever.

But when his daughter whom she has kept prisoner comes of age and it becomes clear that she is even more beautiful, she immediately seeks to put her to death.

But Snow White (Kristen Stewart) escapes and her purity and innocence help her to make her way back to the forces who fought for her father and will still nobly battle for his seed.

A Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth), seven dwarves, and many others assist her during her journey.

Her innocence would likely have not been so pure had she not spent her entire youth locked inside a cell.

Unfortunately, unlike the creators of Mirror Mirror, those responsible for Snow White and the Huntsman seem to have never escaped from the cell in which they were nurtured, and are still struggling to develop genuine tension, emotion, and plot.

At no point throughout this film does it seem probable that Snow will not succeed. Her young curious yet cautious inner light intuitively and instructively guides her steady improvised actions.

As if she was born to lead.

But the film sets up another tired opposition between naturalistic and fabricated extremes with the King's only heir exuding divine rights with every instinctive calibration.

Snow's rallying cry when she's reunited with the resistance lacks depth, character and ferocity.

I really wanted to like Muir's (Bob Hoskins) omniscient observations but they were just too much.

The Huntsman predictably abandons Snow but only for two to three minutes.

And William (Sam Claflin) doesn't hide his feelings at all upon being reuniting with her, going so far as to actually display them.

It just doesn't make sense.

The Huntsman and William do form a pseudo-Jacob/Edward dichotomy for Kristen Stewart which brings in a little Twilight.

But this really only makes things worse, although in the end it seems that she desires Jacob, which is, of course, the correct preference.

However forbidden.

The Artist

Pride leads to a tragic fall in Michel Hazanavicius's The Artist, as silent film superstar George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) refuses to adapt to a technological paradigm shift. Losing everything after the advent of the Talkies, he descends into a self-obsessed alcoholic tailspin while remaining loyal to his preferred form of artistic expression.

To which he was an unparalleled sensation.

Paying hommage to an abandoned form of film making which was responsible for cinema's resounding success, The Artist works, presenting a remarkable synthesis of motion and sound whose historical resonances are fashionably festooned.

Ludovic Bource's original music playfully harmonizes with the action and temporally positions us within a revitalized inspirational epoch. Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo (Peppy Miller) use the full range of their creative non-verbal subtly to emit an understated existential dialogue which encourages evocative sensual reflections as one tries to imagine what might have been said.

Even as Valentin seems destined for dereliction, a sense of innocent naivety permeates The Artist's being, as its expertly timed stylistic complexities leisurely conjure an effervescent cascade of childlike simplicity by delicately condensing multilayered supporting complements into an affective cry.

Nothing that surprising takes place in the narrative itself. It's the cohesive viscid micro-details which transform each moment into an exception of its own that make The Artist such a compelling film.

Nice to see Ed Lauter with a supporting role.