Notable Films Watched in 2020, Continued

 

 May

An Elephant Sitting Still (2018): 

Written and directed by the late Hu Bo, An Elephant Sitting Still offers a bleak view of Northern China's industrial Heibei province from perspectives of multiple ages, ranging from pre-teen to old age but all in hopeless and nearly homeless circumstances. This last and only film by Bo offers the elephant as a possible symbol of hope in this forbidding world, an elephant only heard roaring in the distance while kicking a ball at a bus stop. As the film summary states, "In virtuoso musical compositions, the film tells the story of one single suspenseful day from dawn to dusk," as intersecting characters seek respite in the elephant sitting still. 

The Night of the Hunter (1955):

The summary for The Night of the Hunter, directed by Charles Laughton, claims the film revolves around a religious fanatic who marries a gullible widow whose young children where their real father hid the $10,000.00 he'd stolen in a robbery. What this description fails to note is that the fanatic is actually a con man and recently released prisoner Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum) and their late father Ben's (Peter Graves) cellmate. When son John (Billy Chapin) finds his mother's body at the bottom of a lake, he and sister Pearl (Sally Jane Bruce) escape into the protective arms of Rachel Cooper (Lillian Gish). Mitchum and Gish's performances alone would make this surreal film noir great. The dreamlike fairytale expressionist set design, compositions, and cinematography, however, transform greatness into triumph.