what i watched

Two movies that deserve more attention than these short takes will provide.

Memories of Underdevelopment (Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, 1968). From a novel by Edmundo Desnoes, who also co-wrote the screenplay with director Alea, this tells a story about Cuba in the time between the Bay of Pigs and the Missile Crisis. The protagonist is a bourgeois writer, Sergio, who stays behind after his family and friends go to Miami. The picture of post-revolution Cuba isn't particularly celebratory, and you might wonder how Alea got the film made at all. Alea appears in the film as a director who is glad to have moved beyond the censorship of the Batista days ... you could say that nothing is celebratory in the film. Sergio is alienated at best, and no advertisement for the bourgeoisie. Alea fragments his narrative, throws in documentary footage, and makes us feel as if "we are there" with Sergio. The film won a few international awards, but it wasn't released in the U.S. until 1973. #274 on the They Shoot Pictures, Don't They list of the top 1000 films of all time.

The Guilty (Gustav Möller, 2018). The first feature directed by Möller, this is a compact thriller that takes place entirely within an emergency services center. Jakob Cedergren plays a policeman on desk duty, Asger, awaiting the outcome of an investigation into something that happened when he was on the job. It's safe to say that there is no movie without Cedergren, but it's unfair to say there is nothing to the movie beyond the actor. Möller effectively shows how the claustrophobia we feel reflects the impotence Asger feels as he gets a phone call that is more than just a random drunk. He's a detective, and he can't help but piece together a story about what he is being told on the phone. He wants to save someone, but he's stuck in his office, on his phone. No spoilers here ... suffice to say that you can't guess what direction the narrative will go, it constantly surprises, and over the course of the film, you realize the title is plural, not singular. The Guilty is a genre exercise that achieves all that it sets out to do, and that is far more rare than you'd think.