Palo Alto (2007)

Written, directed and performed by a group of youngsters, in their early twenties, the film is reminiscent of college plays. The lack of experience is compensated by youthful enthusiasm and sincerity. The cinematic experience is dominated by the mood, not the plot. As most works of art---as opposed to journalism and pornography---the film reveals a little more than the authors intended to communicate.

Much of the mood of the picture is created by the title, "Palo Alto." (The Palo Alto familiar to the characters in the film, however, is different from the Palo Alto that greets a visitor or a Stanford kid.) There is a certain charm of defiance in affluence taken as a matter of course. There is luxury in watching the college kids suspended in time, the luxury that is afforded by the glimpse into the future experienced through the characters' emotions, however blurred this future is by the uncertainties of their youth.

The Conversation (1974)

A lonely secretive man is betrayed the first time he attempts being open. For the first time explicitly concerned with the consequences of his wire-tapping work, he mistakenly takes the wrong side in trying to avert these consequences. He is a passenger on a bus ride that he can neither control nor enjoy.

The picture seems more at ease with what it would not like to be rather than offering an alternative vision for art. If there is any suspense at all, it is in the anticipation of the resolution of the main character's mental state, not the crime that is about to be committed. The character is not interesting enough to merit such attention. As for the perpetrator and the victim of the brooding crime---and it is not apparent till the end who is who---neither is an honourable citizen inspiring sympathy.

The film tries to be realistic, which is ambitious as realism usually betrays the lack of imagination and artistic talent. Interesting people are almost never "realistic." Neither are films. The film is a concept in search of a better execution. "Das Leben der Anderen" (2006) is the better execution.

Le Samourai (1967)

In a world of strangers, what distinguishes friends (still strangers) from enemies is loyalty. The world is populated by strangers when one is reluctant to invest in ties with it, thereby avoiding the risk of being sentimental during the departure, especially if the departure is likely to be soon. As for loyalty, it brings a little order, a little intimacy into an otherwise foreign world. Just as a well-tailored suit does.

The film exudes the chill of emptiness, the emptiness that modern French films usually fill with the (secular) humanism.

In a Lonely Place (1950)

This is a B-picture starring Bogart but missing the Bogart. Bogart's characters, eccentric as they may be, usually bring more order into the world than disorder. Not so this time.