Hey folks, Harry here with what sounds like a helluva Tribeca double feature... THE AXE and th classic THEY SHOOT HORSES, DON'T THEY - which apparently Universal is remaking as FLICKA - cuz they've gone through a pair of horses on that flick already. (Just kidding, I know it's a remake of MY FRIEND FLICKA - but I can't believe they keep killing horses trying to make it. Jesus, it's really hard to kill a horse.
Welcome once again my friends to the show that never ends.
There are a few more that entries that caught the eye of Eli so in the words of my friends searching for the Holy Grail, "GET ON WITH IT!"
THE AX (1.85:1)
The time is now, the place is a motel and for Bruno Davert (Jose Garcia) a sanctuary to tape his confession. It seems that Bruno has just killed a man and has done it before. Why? Bruno works in the paper industry and his company merged leaving Bruno to be one of many downsized casualties. Work has been hard to find and the responses are not coming until Bruno, fed up with his unemployed status, comes up with a brilliant idea to find out a little bit about the competitors that might have a stake better than he does and what measures he takes put a tailspin between the people he comes in contact with and the family that he has provided for.
Every once in a while there comes a film that combines a lot of everything to make one very good package and The Ax certainly does that from start to finish. It has the start of a suspense thriller, the ongoings of a black comedy, with a few touching and grim notes along the way.
This viewer is always hopeful for anything coming from director Costa-Gavras (one of my favorites being "Z") and, in this instance, he doesn't disappoint as he brings forth a man who will go to any and all means to not seperate his family even if it means stretching and going around the law . Gavras and Jean-Claude Grumberg do a superb job adapting Donald Westlake's novel into a solid script that is in every way a page-turner that gets more gripping as every minute goes by in this film.
Jose Garcia is excellent as Bruno. He is a man who is a human being and makes a not so human decision for the people that are, in his mind, better than him for the job. In his time of need, he can be sinister and go to morbid proportions to get what he wants but at the same time he's a caring father that is going through a turbulent time that could burden all that care for him.
I really felt for him when communicating with his "targets" to a point that they notice that he's not such a bad guy after all. It is touching that having to be untruthful to the people that are close to him, he can have a sense of honesty to the strangers he encounters. Many can relate to his unemployed situation and his mode of desperation but not to his courses of action.
Throughout the film, it's funny, grim, suspenseful, intriguing and, in a few instances, touching and the ending is perfect. Costa Gavras and his superb cast have shown this viewer that some of the best films are abroad and The Ax is a very sharp example of that.
THEY SHOOT HORSES, DON'T THEY (2.35:1)
This is a project that went through many names, 2 decades, and a slew of turndowns from actors and actresses, but it took a young director named Sydney Pollack to get together one of the most solid pieces of cinema leading into the seventies as it is both powerful, depressing and entertaining.
It's the Depression and a young man named Robert (Michael Sarrazin) is walking on the beach noticing a building with announcements and a lot of noise. What he has stumbled into is the registration of a dance marathon. 1500 dollars is at stake and many are determined to win that cash, including has-been actress Alice (Susannah York), a wounded sailor (Red Buttons), a pregnant wife and her husband (Bonnie Bedelia and Bruce Dern) and a coarse woman named Gloria (Jane Fonda) who picks Robert to be her partner leading him into a time where the time goes by and by and everyone will stumble, fall, tire out and drag themselves in order to work up enough gumption to win the marathon. But as the marathon progresses, certain measures are taken for the good of "the show" even if they are caused by one old emcee named Rocky (Gig Young) who will do anything he can to give the wandering public on the sidelines what they want to see as long as it goes on and on.
This is one of the many classic movies given the restoration treatment at the Tribeca Festival and through the course of this film, of all the Restored and Rediscovered, it is the best looking of all the films in this section.
From the glorious set designs to the tight editing, this viewer was convinced that it took the length of time in the story to make the film. That's always a sign of how good the filmmaker is with the sense of a ticking clock and not making it obvious that everything shot is out of order.
The entire cast gives their all as tired lonely people that will do all they can no matter how humiliated they are or how sad the situation may be. The same goes for the one's running everything as the emcee has a few other tricks up his sleeve before the "show" is over. From the start, the audience is given an idea of things that are going on although not sure all at once and as the film progresses it is all figured out by the end of what is exactly what.
It remains one of the finest films in Sydney Pollack's long career and one of the best American films of the last 40 years.
To all that have crossed Eli's path, thank you for your company
and the show goes on and on and on if only for another 22 SECONDS!!!
EliCross
