Bunny Lake is Missing

The routine act of registering a child in school is scandalously uprooted when it's discovered she's disappeared.

Her mother (Carol Lynley as Ann Lake) is confused when she finds out she's vanished, her brother (Keir Dullea as Steven Lake) offering support as they search the school.

The police are swiftly notified and an eccentric detective (Laurence Olivier as Superintendent Newhouse) takes the case, whose critical observations extend well beyond strict diagnoses.

Details are routinely compiled as the case becomes more and more disconcerting, an enigmatic school mistress offering her take (Martita Hunt as Ada Ford), a creepy landlord (Noël Coward as Horacio Wilson) a shoulder to cry on.

Bunny's things are missing too even after having been dropped off that morning, and the school never received their payment, and there's no record of her having entered England.

Her mother searches for tactile evidence as her brother castigates the police, who go about their sleuthing while ignoring vain caprice.

Deep ends derailed demonstrative vital ascertained stitched clues, alas the story preordains constituents bemused.

How anyone could have fabricated such a story leads to reasonable thought?

Which proves that logic's sometimes absent when discerning carnal plot.

The cogent disbelieving wildly plead and then persist.

But proof cannot be found that one dear Bunny Lake exists.

In terms of character, writing, cinematography, and otherworldliness, Bunny Lake is Missing mesmerizingly impresses.

If you like odd expressive moderately successful characters it's an essential tour de force.

The superintendent has dismissive or laudatory or bored or incisive comments for everything, and he'd be as easy going as a studio musician if he weren't investigating crime.

And you could put up with him.

The school mistress shares unorthodox yet keen views which upset those unfamiliar with her style, but don't mistake her candour for tomfoolery as she clarifies.

The scenes where she interacts with Olivier are priceless uncut gems, striding forth with striking brilliance that resplendently descends.

Then there's creepy Horacio Wilson, the pervy landlord who I thought was the inspiration for Repulsion, after concluding that Bunny Lake inspired Rosemary's Baby, but Lake and Repulsion were both released in the same year (1965).

I didn't check the months.

It's like you have bored yet vigorous intellectuals occupying non-traditional roles devoutly concerned with solving a crime that's preposterously conventional.

The mystery certainly drives the plot but it still abounds with striking detail (bus drivers, junket [yeah yeah], Welsh poetry, the Zombies, tips, book writing), what would working life be like without conversation that doesn't necessarily relate to the topic at hand?

It's like consequent absurdity that's as flamboyant as it is concrete, that demands you take it seriously while taunting you for doing so.

Outstanding writing (John & Penelope Mortimer and Ira Levin [adapted screenplay]) and sincere cinematography (Denys N. Coop) complement Otto Preminger's direction.

It's a bit creepy yet still a must see.

Olivier's range is mind-boggling.

Irrational Man

Hold on.

Situation critical.

It's been a long time since I haven't liked a Woody Allen film.

Curses.

Merry-go-round and around and around.

It seems like a joke, Irrational Man.

What I think happened was that Allen realized his script wasn't on par with his typical texts, and salvaged what he could by including recurring lackadaisically upbeat music, which consistently states, "whoops", while deliberately editing scenes too quickly, or including rather short scenes that could have been left out, to formally chide philosophy, mock the corporate tendency to pack too much information into too little a packet, and reflect on the emptiness of existence, when one never has time to calmly sit back and reflect.

When you take a bunch of philosophers and reduce what they're saying to a couple of trite statements, the engagement with philosophical texts is lost, Xavier Dolan making the same error with literature in Laurence Anyways, if they're not the focus, it's better just to leave them be.

There are so many banalities and clichés in Irrational Man, leap-frogging their way through the script like giddy platitudinous inanimate cockadoodles, inadequately developing character and then arrogantly assuming firm bonds between character and audience, that it's difficult to sit through, until the music picks up again.

Take the Russian roulette scene.

If a professor actually plays Russian roulette at a party with students, firing the gun several times, you would think it would have a greater impact on the story, but it practically disappears immediately afterwards, like it wasn't significant, like Abe (Joaquin Phoenix) was comparing prices on toothpaste or blankly examining bark on a tree.

Perhaps Irrational Man really is Allen's subtle satirical crack at corporate filmmaking.

It does co-star Queen of the Indies Parker Posey (Rita).

And Allen has stood outside the system for decades while generally still delivering high quality accessible thought provoking films.

I've heard people critically condemning Allen's examinations of relationships and he seems to be acknowledging their insights by exaggerating these faults in Irrational Man, the male protagonist's relationships within being way freakin' ridiculous.

There was an interesting critique of romanticism mentioned by Jill's (Emma Stone) Father (Ethan Phillips), however, that caught my attention.

Utopias, goodwill, fluffery, I admit that such ideas, when applied to daily life, often seem bizarre and out of touch, especially in the "we're all hopelessly craven so why don't we just act that way?" nihilistic disengaged pandora, but without them you leave yourself vulnerable to total and complete ethical unaccountability, because they set practical guidelines which apply foresight to fascination, in order to uphold something greater than common individuality.

One additional point.

In regards to my interests in action and science-fiction films, note that gregarious generalizations about literature and philosophy (etc.) in dramatic films often work more successfully disguised as character traits for monsters and heroes in action sci-fi, like in, one more time, Mad Max: Fury Road.

The action is the argument.

Surveillance, likewise.

Blade Runner

Learned an important lesson from Blade Runner this evening. After Rick Deckard is almost killed by Leon, his boss Bryant arrives to jovially inform him that he looks like hell. At which point, I realized that when someone has been through hell, it's important not to pamper them, if you happen to be involved in a working relationship with them. What's more important, is belittling and ridiculing them, so they won't start thinking that perhaps they should be doing something else for a living. Belittling and ridiculing them reminds them how shitty things are and keeps them focused upon that particular version of how things are; pampering them tries to ease the pain, the pain which such heroes need in order to successfully perform their monumental tasks, and, without which, might make them think, hey this no-pain situation is nice, I'd like it to continue: wrong, hero, it can't continue, get used to the pain, the abuse, it's coming and it ain't lettin' up for no god-damn shits and giggles. Plus, it gives you the chance to tell your boss to go to hell, which is what working's all about.

Blade Runner really is an exceptional film. The mood, the pacing, the ambience, the monosyllabic dialogue, the phenomenal standout performances from the supporting characters, the sets, the attention to detail, the gloom, the hard-boiled humanity, the realism, and the poetic lines poignantly delivered by Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer), all contribute to the development of a cohesive aesthetic that never grows old. Like the themes of identity, birth, parenthood, labour, regeneration, and being that radiate throughout. All those moments will be lost in time like tears in the rain; it's a pity she won't live, but then again, who does?