Hold Back the Dawn (1941)

Hold Back the Dawn (1941)

Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett wrote it at the time of their legendary partnership. Ketti Frings wrote the novel on which story, the dynamic duo have much improved it. Boyer tries to make it his own, especially as a Foreigner with a lovely accent (his own, which he kept all his life !). For Romanians it's a blast, cos' he is a crook / gigolo from Bucharest named George(s) Iscovescu !!! 

Studio man Mitchell Leisen directed it professionally. The year was 1941 and immigration was at its WW2 boom. Iscovescu wants to get in the USA and he needs a passport and a citizenship and in order to get those he needs to marry an American. The film premiered on September 11th 1941, just three months before Pearl Harbor !

The two women in the film are opposites, each with its role, Paulette Goddard as the femme fatalish Anita and Olivia de Havilland the innocent Ingenue Mrs. Brown. 

Supporting characters, from Curt Bois as Bonbois, to Walter Abel's  Inspector Hammock, Victor Francen as Vander Lucken and Nestor Faiva as hotellier Flores, the story is told in a flashback from the stage / set of a film at Paramount, on which Iscovescu/ Boyer went to see to director Dwight Saxon, played by none other than director Mitchell Leisen in order to see this story (maybe the most modern aspect of the film, predicting Sunset Boulevard ?) !!!

Very long for those day's standards (116 mins.) and heavilly plotted, it has a bleaker tone for a romantic  melodrama and a downbeat immigration angle. And a small dose of film noir (esp. for the self-person narration). The dialogue is sharp and some witty and cynical one-liners are already trademark Wilder.  Brackett and Wilder were very dissapointed with the result and Boyer's refusal do do a dialogue with a cockroach, they cut off most of his lines, giving them to Paulette Goddard. Also  I read this was the last film Wilder wrote without directing it (even though Ball of Fire for Hawks opened in December 1941...).

Hold Back the Dawn was nominated for 6 Oscars back in 1941, including best film, best screenplay and best cinematography (in Black&White, Leo Tovar). 

3 1/2 out of 5 ! 7 out of 10 !!! (loses steam due to the duration, otherwise would've been an Eight!)

No Other Choice (2025)

1st film I saw on 2026 it's one of the best of 2025 and one of Park Chan-wook's best. No Other Choice aka Eojjeolsuga eobsda.  It's also the offical Korean Submission for Best International film at the Oscars and it's nominated for 3 Golden Globes Awards. No Other Choice premiered in the 2025 Venice Film Fest Competition. It won Best Director in Sitges FF. 

It's limited in Romanian Cinemas now, so try to see it on the big screen, it's worthy. Just peropeare for slower development, the film has 2h19 mins.

I follow the Korean director for 25 years, ever since he came to Bucharest with his 1st feature, JSA (Joint Security Area) at the 1st Festasia fest edition.  That was before Oldboy, Mr. and Mrs. Vengeance, Thirst, Handmaiden and Stoker. Saw most of his oeuvre, also the HBO series The Sympathiser, so I can say that this one it's one of his best. 

Lee Byung-hun who is South Korean leading man is here a Paper Man, formerly "Pulp Man of the Year 2019." He was also in PCWook's JSA, in A Bittersweet Life, Squid Game series, even in G.I. Joe. He gets back at working with PCW after 25 years. Here he is a plain family man, with a desperate will to get back to his job that was downsized.  Son Ye-jin is great too as his wife Miri, and so is the son Si-one and the daughter Ri-One- playing cello. And the two dogs (Si-Two and Ri-Two). And all the supporting characters. Great supporting characters !

It's a Korean Le Coupert / The Axe, based on Donald  E.Westlake 1997 novel. It was made before by Costa-Gavras in 2005 as The Ax, a great black comedy, merciless, starring José Garcia. But Wook-Chan goes even further in absurdity and satire. He co-wrote this with Don McKellar, they worked together before on The Sympathiser. The film is produced by Costa-Gavras family and it's dedicated to the Greek director, who kept the rights of the novel and gave them to Park Chan. The film was supposed to be in English first (starting 2009) but kept developing.

Via IMDB: During a live discussion with Costa-Gavras at the 2019 Busan International Film Festival, Park told audiences that he was still working on his adaptation of Westlake's novel. The film was described by Park as a "lifetime project" and that while he hadn't begun filming it yet, he wished "to make this film as my masterpiece." Gavras, who still held the rights to the book, had helped Park to develop the project. The film was set to be an English-language picture, with Don McKellar co-writing the script alongside Park.

The design is fabulous too, from the bonsai and the greenhouse to the seasons change, going from summer to winter (it was shot in a period of five months, from August 2024 to January 2025). The colors are very important for the transitions and the story. Impeccable widescreen (2.35 : 1) cinematography  (by Kim Woo-hyung who worked before with the director on The Little Drummer Girl series) and editing (Kim Sang-bum, Park's editor since JSA), adding to the plot points and directing. 

Great score too, and great idea of a cello subplot, by Chan-wook Park's collaborator, Cho Young-Wuk.  The score includes incidental classical music, Mozart piano concerto (no. 23!), Marin Marais and pop hits, Korean and American (Hold On I'm Coming by Sam and Dave -1966), edited and directed on camera (one set-piece might as well be the best Cinema scene of 2025!-and the funniest -with subtitles too ;).

4 out of 5 / 8 out of 10 !!!

“I've always been trying to follow the footsteps of the great masters of cinema, most of whom have passed away today. I've tried very hard to reach their level. And I think in certain scenes or certain films, I might have reached a similar level, but there's still a very long way to go. So, when I think about how many more films I can make for the rest of my life, I feel very rushed.”

Park Chan-wook 

*the screenplay of the film in English can be found here !!! 

Top series 2025

Saw a horrible amonut of series/tv series, some new, some renewed, some cancelled, some I quit...

Mayor of Kingstown s04 -4 -toughest yet, Lennie James, Richard Brake, Eddie Falco, Laura Benanti.

The Iris Affair -miniseries- 8 eps  big fsss. Tom Hollander good. 

The Last Frontier -should've quit  

got back to Slow Horses s2 1/2 -5 -Gary Oldman getting more and more Legend !

Down Cemetery Gates -loses steam after ep. 4

The White Lotus s03 - -best yet-Walton Goggins, Scott Glenn, Parker Posey. 

It: Welcome to Derry -quit 

Task  sez. 1 not much

Duster 1 sez. cancelled , was kinda fun

Subteran 1 sez. oy vey

Landman s. 1 ep.7-10 / sez 2 ep. 1-5 (in Top Series 2024, contd. in 2026)

The Lowdown 8 eps - Tulsa noir on the songs of J.J.Cale, Ethan Hawke as jouranlist Lee Raybon gets beaten up all the time. Created by Sterlin Harjo (Reservation Dogs). 

Pluribus s01 -Vince Gilligan is moving way to slow...

Peacemaker s02 -even better than season One. 

The Studio  1 season-10 eps., Seth Rodgen's satire is hit and miss but the episodes are short and Bryan Carnston as Griffin Mill is a blast !

Dept. Q  sez 1, 9 eps. (renewed) -the Sweedish series of thriller books  by Jussi Adler-Olsen get new (Scott Frank for Netflix)  and way too slow treatment with Matthew Goode as Carl Morck.  

The Last of Us -season 3. All gets weak after Pedro Pascal is no more. 

Monster The Ed Gein Story (sez 3 -8 eps) -see below

Walking Dead-New York -quit 

Alien: Earth s 1  -they did some good, and then they did some real bad. Continuing to mix the Weyland Yutanis with the Blad Runners, Prometheus, Timothy Olyphant's android Kirsch is a hoot !

Paradise season 1 (renewed) -cool idea of post apocalyptic city under a dome. 

Dope Thief  sez. 1  -Ridley Scott produced and directed the first episode. Based on a true story. 

Black Rabbit -miniseries 8 eps.  See review here. 

Your friends and Neighbours sez. 1. Jon Hamm steals. 

oh, and Moldova's Gangster and fiend, Plaha, 10 episode political thriller with Iulian Postelnicu as Plaha, written and directed by Igor Cobilianski

*****************

Revelation of the Year:

Monster The Ed Gein Story (Netflix). Ian Brennan writer, Max Wrinler director. 8 eps. miniseries.

Movies mix with the legacy of serial killers -from Psycho to Texas Chainsaw Massacre to Silence of the Lambs. Clever post-modern choices. Plus Ilsa Koch and the Nazis ! But a truly great performance form Charlie Hunnam. And Tom Hollander is Alfred Hitchcock. Even Mindhunter returns in ep. 8. Too much grand guignol as always but way way upper than the other 2 seasons (the 2nd I quit watching...)

Why is though Ed Gein made so sympathetic and a victim, "mother's boy" ? 

Top 5

Peacemaker s.2 -hbo max

Mayor of Kingstown s.4 -skyshowtime/paramount +

The Studio  -apple+

White Lotus s.3 -hbo max 

The Lowdown -fx / hulu 

Pale Flower (1964)

Pale Flower /Kawaita hana is a one-of-a-kind Noir pschedelic by Masahiro Shinoda, New Wave of Japonese cinema director. Closer to Le Samourai by Melville, or something by Antonioni, than the Japonese cinema of the era. Also keener to Kitano's earlier films. Spellbinding black and white tale of obsession, gambling and yakuza, nihillistic, downbeat existentialism. Ryô Ikebe is great as gangster Muraki, a quintesential film noir icon and Mariko Kaga as unaproachable Saeki a real pale flower indeed. The car race at night seems more appropiate in a French or Italian new vague film. Here is just hypnotic. 

Atmospeheric score by Toru Takemitsu. 

Also, this is one of Top Ten films of Michael Mann, "for the opening scenes alone". 

4 1/2 out of 5 / 9 out of 10 !!!