Fatherland - R. Harris

The year is 1964. Germany has reigned supreme since Hitler's victory in World War II, and Berlin is gearing up to celebrate Der Fuhrer's seventy-fifth birthday. Homicide investigator Xavier March is called out of bed early one morning after a corpse is found on the muddy bank of Lake Havel. When he discovers that the dead man was once a high-ranking Nazi, March is told to turn the case over to the Gestapo, and he realizes that this is anything but a routine investigation. Continuing his inquiries against orders, March uncovers a chilling conspiracy designed to erase all evidence of an unbelievable atrocity - something so inhuman, even the powerful Third Reich might not survive once the truth is revealed. Divorced, still trying to be a father to a son who longs to join the Hitler Youth organization, Xavier March is the antithesis of the obedient German citizen - a disillusioned Sturmbannfuhrer driven to find the truth at any cost. Although his son calls him "an asocial," March is able to elicit help in his investigation from his office-mate Max Jaeger, his old U-boat comrade Rudolf Halder, and a young American journalist named Charlotte Maguire. March's most mysterious ally is Artur Nebe, head of the Reich Kriminalpolizei - a man who understands that knowledge is power. "You're not telling the truth, are you? Or at least, not all of it," Nebe says to March. "That's good." Published in 1992, Fatherland has been compared to Martin Cruz Smith's "Gorky Park," and to the work of John le Carre. If Ian Fleming and George Orwell had ever collaborated, this is the kind of novel that they would have co-written - a thriller laced with pulse-pounding intrigue, set within the confines of a soot-streaked bureaucracy, a paranoid and fearful society where children show more loyalty to the State than to their own parents. Winston Smith from "1984" would feel right at home in Harris' novel. What else can one say about Fatherland after showering the book with praise and urging others to read it? Its plot, pacing, characters, dialogue, and impeccable research are all above reproach. If forced to find fault with the novel, one might say that March's investigation uncovers a dark part of recorded human history, and so the reader sees through the mystery while March is struggling to understand the evidence he has collected. Still, by presenting March's findings piece by piece, Harris forces readers to reconsider Nazi atrocities as if for the first time. Paradoxically, by presenting facts and authentic documents in the guise of fiction, Harris makes history come alive. Fatherland was Robert Harris' first novel, and remains a remarkable achievement.

I am legend - R. Matheson

The story takes place between January 1976 and January 1979 in Southern California. The novel opens with the monotony and horror of the daily life of the protagonist, Robert Neville. Neville is apparently the only survivor of an apocalypse caused by a pandemic of bacteria, the symptoms of which are similar to vampirism. He spends every day repairing his house, boarding up windows, stringing and hanging garlic, disposing of vampires' corpses on his lawn and going out to gather any additional supplies needed for hunting and killing more vampires.
Much of the story is devoted to Neville's struggles to understand the plague that has infected everyone around him, and the novel details the progress of his discoveries.
One day a dog appears in the neighborhood. Neville spends weeks trying to win its trust and domesticate it. He eventually traps the terrified dog and wins it over, but it dies from the vampire infection a week later.
As the story progresses, it is revealed that some infected people have discovered a means to hold the disease at bay. However, the "still living" people appear no different from the true vampire during the day while both are immobilized in sleep. Thus, along with the vampires, Neville kills the still living people. He becomes a source of terror to the still living, since he can go around in daylight (which they can only do for a short length of time using a special pill) and kill them while they sleep.
They send a still living woman named Ruth to spy on Neville, and they replicate Neville's relationship with the dog. Ruth, terrified of Neville at first sight, goes against her role of spying on him and runs away. Rather than spend weeks trying to win her over, he attacks her and drags her back to his house. Eventually Neville performs a blood test on her, revealing her true nature to him right before she knocks him out with a mallet. Ruth leaves a note telling him about the group of people like her, explaining that she was sent to spy and how monstrous he appears to them. Months later, the still living people attack, injuring Neville, but taking him alive so that he can be executed in front of everyone in the new society (which Neville finds very primitive).
Before he can be executed, Ruth provides him with an envelope of pills. Neville takes the pills to commit suicide before the still living execute him. As he dies he reflects on how the new society of the living infected regards him as a monster. Just as vampires were regarded as legendary monsters that preyed on the vulnerable humans in their beds, Neville has become a mythical figure that kills both vampires and the infected living while they are sleeping. He becomes a legend as the vampires once were, hence the title "I Am Legend".

Influences
I Am Legend influenced the vampire genre and popularized the fictional concept of a worldwide apocalypse due to a disease. Although classified as a vampire story and referred to as "the first modern vampire novel. Legend made an impression on the zombie genre by way of film director George A. Romero. Romero has acknowledged the influence of the novel and its 1964 adaptation on his 1968 film Night of the Living Dead. Critics have also picked up on similarities between Night and Last Man on Earth.[5][6]
Stephen King said, "without Richard Matheson I wouldn’t be around."[7] Some film critics have noted that the 2002 British film 28 Days Later and its sequel 28 Weeks Later, which feature a rabies-like plague that ravages Great Britain, are similar to the scenario in I Am Legend.[8] The recasting of undead creatures as disease victims is also comparable to recent zombie media such as the Resident Evil series, the Blade trilogy, and the 1984 B movie Night of the Comet.
A straight-to-DVD film by The Asylum called I Am Omega was released at the same time as the 2007 film I Am Legend.

1985 - A. Burgess

At the novella's beginning, the protagonist, Bev Jones, confronts the death of his wife. She was in hospital when it caught fire. As the firemen's union was striking, the hospital burned to the ground. (In reality, the UK firemen's union had taken industrial action for the first time ever, in 1977, presumably when Burgess was writing the novella.) Bev is left alone with his special needs daughter Bessie, who is thirteen years old but sexually precocious and unable to comprehend the difference between reality and fantasy, due to a thalidomide-like drug taken by her pregnant mother.
The death of his wife engenders in Bev a deep-seated hostility towards the union system - her last words were, "Don't let them get away with it". This is however not the first time Bev has been forced to oppose, for he had previously been a history lecturer who stepped down as his work was considered expendable by the union-based system which favoured education of practical value.
Employed at as confectioner, he goes to work one day despite his union being on strike. For working during a strike, his union membership is revoked, making him effectively unemployable. Knowing that he will soon lose his home, he takes Bessie to a state-run facility where she will be cared for with other girls like herself.
Bev then becomes something of a vagrant, travelling around London and falling in with a group of similarly unemployable dissenters. With these, he engages in petty theft from shops in order to survive. Apprehended during one such sortie, he is sentenced to re-education at a state institution, which is neither a prison nor a psychiatric hospital, but contains elements of both.
At the re-education centre, Bev is subjected to propaganda films and lectures, which have the aim of converting him into a useful member of society (a theme which Burgess also examines in A Clockwork Orange). He meets the powerful union official Pettigrew, who warns Bev that his day is over and that unionisation is the future of Britain. Despite this, Bev is unconverted and - having served his sentence - leaves as a free man.
Having been informed that Bessie will be ejected from the care facility because he refuses to recant his beliefs, he returns to London. In need of an income and a place to live, he joins a network called The Free Britons, which aims to provide infrastructure and order during the increasing strike-related chaos sweeping Britain. Bev effectively sells his daughter as a wife to a wealthy sheik, who takes a fancy to her during a visit to the Al-Dorchester, reasoning that at least this way she will be safe and satisfied. Meanwhile, he discovers that The Free Briton is a front for an Islamic group aiming at the re-establishment of Britain as a Muslim state.
Bev, because of his education, is employed as the mouthpiece of the Free Britons and called upon to report on the events of the general strike. He is frustrated when his work is censored by the leader, a man known as Colonel Wallace. The spreading strike action reaches fever pitch and becomes a general strike, reported to the reader mostly in diary form. King Charles III takes command of the country as it grinds to a halt. A few months after the strike, Bev is arrested again and sentenced to life in a secure institution, which again is neither prison nor hospital. The only way out of this facility is to be retrieved by a family member.
There, he revives his teaching career by giving informal history lessons to other prisoners. As the years stretch on, his syllabus (which had started with Anglo Saxon England) passes through the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution and approaches modern times.
Snippets of news often circulate among the inmates, some of which suggest that the Muslim conversion of Britain is well-advanced (for example, it is claimed that inhabitants of the Isle of Man have recently discovered that a stimulant-depressant drug has been replacing alcohol in their beer for several years, in line with Muslim prohibitions). There is however no way in which the inmates can verify whether these news items are correct.
Bev finds it increasingly difficult to explain the continuity of history in terms of the present. Unable to do so, Bev suggests that they can start over again and work their way back to the present, after which his class spontaneously dismisses itself. Alone at night, Bev slips out of the dormitory in which he sleeps, creeps out into the grounds of the institution and kills himself by deliberately touching the electric fence.

Them who?

Don't believe them for a moment
For a second, do not believe, my friend

When you are down, them are not coming

With a helping hand

Of course there is no us and them

But them they do not think the same

It's them who do not think

They never step on spiritual path

They paint their faces so differently from ours

And if you listen closely

That war it never stops

Be them new Romans

Don't envy them my friend

Be their lives longer

Their longer lives are spent

Without a love or faithful friend

All those things they have to rent

But we who see our destiny

In sound of this same old punk song

Let rest originality for sake of passing it around

Illuminating realization number one:

You are the only light there is

For yourself my friend

There'll be no saviors any soon coming down

And anyway illuminations

Never come from the crowned

Illuminating realization number one:

You are the only light there is

For yourself my friend

eXistenZ

eXistenZ, the latest from iconoclastic director David Cronenberg (Crash, Dead Ringers, The Fly), looks at the dangers of virtual reality. The movie seems to have been designed as a cautionary tale, and, as such, contains elements of pointed satire. Unfortunately, the production as a whole has a disjointed feel, and the flaw is compounded by several ill-advised casting decisions, a meandering middle act, and an ending that cheats the audience by employing the kind of plot twist that just about anyone can see coming from a mile away. Because of the potential of the idea and Cronenberg's reputation as a film maker, it's a real disappointment to watch eXistenZ fall apart the way it does.
eXistenZ also suffers from the distinction of being the weakest of three films, all released within a month's time, to toy with the line dividing reality from fantasy. Both The Matrix and Open Your Eyes do similar things to those that Cronenberg attempts, but with far greater success. Consequently, eXistenZ comes across like a wannabe toying in an arena where the real players have already displayed their superior skills.
The movie's opening is promising. We're introduced to Allegra Geller (Jennifer Jason Leigh), the shy designer of a breakthrough virtual reality game called "eXistenZ" (pronounced like "existence" with the accents in all the wrong places). On this night, set some time in the near future, she is about to test the game with 12 randomly selected players chosen from a live audience. While their bio ports (holes in their lower backs that allow direct access to the spinal cord) are being connected to one of 12 "metaflesh game pods", Allegra describes eXistenZ as being a "whole new game system" that expands the concept of virtual reality. No sooner has she started the demonstration game, however, than shots ring out. A member of the audience, shouting gibberish and waving a bizarre gun, attempts to assassinate Allegra.
She is whisked out of harm's way by Ted Pikul (Jude Law), a marketing trainee for Antenna Research, the company that Allegra works for. Soon, the pair are on the run from persons unknown. To complicate matters, eXistenZ was damaged during the assassination attempt, and Allegra needs help entering the system and making sure that it's intact. When she decides that she can trust Ted, she enlists his aid, but there's a problem: he doesn't possess a bio port, so they have to find someone who can install one illegally. Their quest leads them to a strange corner gas station run by an oddball (Willem Dafoe) then to the hide-out of a scientist living in the woods (Ian Holm).
It's after the movie shifts to the world within eXistenZ that things start to crumble. Put simply, it's not a very compelling fake reality. There are lots of weird, squishy "mutated amphibians" running around, and much of the so-called action takes place in an old trout farm or at a Chinese restaurant. There are conspiracies and double-crosses, and the requisite confusion about what's authentic and what isn't. (When Allegra and Ted exit the game at one point, have they really departed, or is the game just making them - and us - think they've left?) By the time the film limps to the ending, we're expecting at least one of the climactic twists, and its obviousness leaves a bad taste. It probably would have been more interesting for Cronenberg not to employ such an transparent "surprise."
Casting is another problem. In presenting Allegra as an introvert who would rather immerse herself in eXistenZ than face the real world, the versatile Jennifer Jason Leigh is virtually the only actor to create a credible character. Jude Law (the "donor" in Gattaca), as Allegra's game-playing partner and potential lover, is bland - hardly the type of personality we want for a hero. Law may be a better actor than Keanu Reeves (who fulfilled a similar function in The Matrix), but, when it comes to screen presence, he's inferior. The gifted Ian Holm is saddled with a ridiculous Eastern European accent (it's so outlandish that the script jokes about it) and a miniscule role. Also criminally underused are Willem Dafoe and Sarah Polley (who can currently be seen in Go). There's a lot of sexual imagery in the film, especially in the way that Cronenberg equates game playing with the sex act (the symbolism - of a plug being inserted into the bio port - is more than a little heavy-handed), and the superlative set design is an undeniable asset. However, while not exactly wasted, this production element could have been used in the service of a better-realized script. eXistenZ's overall message - presumably a warning about the addictive nature of games that draw players away from reality - isn't exactly new. In fact, the same ideas were presented in a more compelling and controversial fashion several years ago in the James Cameron/Katherine Bigelow collaboration, Strange Days. Cronenberg, who is known for pushing the envelope, shows surprising restraint here, which may be a mistake, since he fails to accomplish anything noteworthy with a premise that, at first glance, seems foolproof. While eXistenZ contains a few enjoyable sequences (most of which occur during the first 30 minutes - I liked the development of Allegra's character and the introduction of the "Corner Gas Station"), the overall impression is of a missed opportunity. Fans of the director will probably be divided about eXistenZ's merits and impact, but most everyone else will find this to be a meandering and pointless exercise in duping an audience.

Review by J. Berardinelli

Fahrenheit 451

A classic of 20th-century dystopian fiction (e.g.,"The Handmaid's Tale," "A Clockwork Orange," "1984," "Brave New World," "We"), Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451" has been adapted for film only once, by French filmmaker François Truffaut ("Jules and Jim," "Shoot the Piano Player," "The 400 Blows") almost forty years ago. Critics and audiences reacted with either indifference or outright hostility to Truffaut's first (and last) English-language film. Unfortunately, "Fahrenheit 451" suffers from languid pacing, a loosely structured script, and low-key performances (all of which make "Fahrenheit 451" a difficult watch for most viewers). On the plus side, "Fahrenheit 451" constains striking production design, arresting imagery, and a lush, effusive score by Bernard Hermann ("North by Northwest," "Vertigo," "The Man Who Knew Too Much").
Like Bradbury’s novel, Truffaut’s adaptation of Fahrenheit 451 is set in a recognizable near-future, but one in which all books have been banned, due to the dangerous ideas they contain and the independent thought they foster. To that end, books are banned and lawbreakers are threatened with imprisonment (or worse). Law enforcement takes the form of fire brigades. In Bradbury's dystopia, firemen are tasked with book burning (fireproof buildings have otherwise made “firemen” obsolete). Mass entertainment brought into living rooms by interactive television sets and over-the-counter drugs are used to keep the population pacified and social interactions to a minimum.Guy Montag (Oskar Werner), a fireman seems unmoved by the prospect by the prospect of a promotion offered by his superior (Cyril Cusack). His wife, Linda (Julie Christie), obsessed with the television programs she watches incessantly, can't wait to purchase a second wall-mounted television set with Montag's promotion bonus. Linda also uses drugs to control her moods. On his way into work one day, Montag meets Clarisse (Julie Christie again) on the monorail that takes him to and from work every day. Clarisse, it seems, sees through Montag's facade and pushes him to confront hard questions about his identity and his role in an oppressive, repressive society.Over the course of Fahrenheit 451, Montag's behavior radically shifts, in no small part due to his repeated encounters with Clarisse and the seduction posed by the books he comes across. He rebels, taking one book, Charles Dickens' David Copperfield home one day, voraciously reading it in one sitting. One infraction leads to another, with Montag struggling with his inner doubts about the career he's chosen for himself, his status-conscious wife's disapproval, and his superior's increasing suspicions about his erratic behavior. Montag is ultimately tempted into open rebellion by his encounter with an old woman and a secret library.Montag's personal and external journey ultimately takes him into contact with the "Book People," individuals who save books by memorizing them completely. Whether Montag finds sanctuary or is captured by the powers-that-be or their representatives is better for patient viewers to discover for themselves. Suffice it to say that a nationally televised manhunt foreshadows Stephen King's The Running Man, as well as the less lethal reality shows that have flooded the airwaves over the last five years, plays a significant role in Montag's future (i.e., whether, in fact, he has one).It's in the final twenty minutes, after the passive Montag is finally stirred from inaction, that Fahrenheit 451 becomes compelling viewing. Whether it's the not-so-subtle digs at network television (or the need for closure, even if manufactured, and therefore untrue), or finally, the vision of the sanctuary of the Book People reciting books to themselves and one another as snow falls near a lake, Truffaut gives his lyricism free reign. Certainly, the preceding scenes are meant to evoke a cold, antiseptic, humorless world (aided by the modernist production design and Truffaut’s decision to use a desaturated color palette), but they also tend toward the episodic, the superfluous or the repetitive. Given Fahrenheit 451's fairly straightforward anti- censorship theme, it could have benefited from more external conflict instead of the interior conflict it relies on. Truffaut also gives the romantic subplot involving Montag and Clarisse little screen time. It's one aspect of the script that could have benefited from expanded or one or two more scenes (or simply better tighter, more cohesive scenes).
"Fahrenheit 451" suffers from the same problems a younger Truffaut once criticized in the pages of "Cahiers du Cinema," an approach to literary adaptations that places fidelity to the source material first and foremost, with the unique demands of cinema a distant second. Perhaps Truffaut treated "Fahrenheit 451" too seriously, as a great work of art with a profound theme. Truffaut would have been better served by taking the more free-form, associative approach that made "Shoot the Piano Player," an adaptation of a melancholic crime novel by pulp writer David Goodis, far superior to "Fahrenheit 451." Unless the much-delayed remake actually gets greenlit by a Hollywood studio, for now Truffaut’s film will remain the definitive version of Bradbury's novel, if only by default.

Gattaca

Welcome to the 21st Century, an era when things aren't that much different, but people are. No longer is standard procreation the accepted way to reproduce. Consider all of the birth defects that such an approach can bring about. And, while it would be unreasonable to outlaw sex for the purpose of producing offspring, be aware than any children so conceived are almost certain to be "in-valids" -- genetically imperfect and ill-suited to be productive members of society. There is a better, more rational way -- a method that will guarantee health, stamina, and physical attractiveness. Let science do a little tinkering with the DNA. Everyone does it. Or at least everyone who wants their child to have a shot at a normal, well-adjusted life.
This is the chillingly feasible premise of Gattaca. While in 1997, science has not yet perfected the genetic engineering techniques used in this film to routinely develop babies, every day brings the medical profession closer. As a result, Gattaca doesn't just function as a science fiction thriller, but as both a cautionary tale about the dangers of letting scientific ability outstrip ethics and as a morality play about the irrationality of bigotry.
Andrew Niccol's oppressive future, which contains more than an element of Orwell's "Big Brother is watching" mentality, isn't just a clever backdrop against which to set a thriller. Instead, it's an integral part of the story. While it's true that there is a murder mystery, that's just a subplot. The main focus of Gattaca is the struggle of a genetically inferior man, Vincent Freeman (Ethan Hawke), to survive and prosper in a world where his kind is routinely discriminated against.
Shortly after they were married, Vincent's parents decided to start a family the old-fashioned way, without any help from doctors and test tubes. The result was a boy who was diagnosed as 99% likely to have a serious heart defect. That rendered Vincent ineligible for all but the most menial of jobs. But his dream was to one day work at The Gattaca Aerospace Corporation and participate in the first-ever manned flight to the moons of Saturn. For most "in-valids", this would have remained a fantasy, but Vincent possessed the determination and drive to make it real.
With the help of a shady middle-man, Vincent locates Jerome Morrow (Jude Law), a genetically superior individual who was paralyzed as the result of an accident. He agees to sell Vincent his identity (including blood and urine on demand, fingerprints, hair and other body debris, etc.). So, equipped with Jerome's genetic resume, which guarantees him work anywhere, Vincent applies for a position at Gattaca. He is accepted and quickly proves his worth to everyone. But, a week before he is to attain his lifelong ambition of making a space flight, he becomes a suspect in a murder investigation and his carefully-guarded secret is in danger of being exposed.
One of the things that impressed me the most about Gattaca is its ability to keep the level of tension high without compromising the script's intelligence or integrity. First-time director Andrew Niccol, a New Zealander working in Los Angeles, displays a sure hand in his execution of the material. One scene in particular, a masterfully-edited sequence cutting back and forth between the cops (who are closing in) and a man struggling to accomplish a Herculean physical task, is guaranteed to render audiences breathless. And there are enough little twists and turns to keep even the most easily-distracted audience member involved. From a visual perspective, Niccol's cinematographer, Slawomir Idziak, uses his trademark filters to differentiate the soft, warm glow of the outside world from the harshness of the windowless interior of Gattaca.
Ethan Hawke is solid as Vincent, effectively portraying both his single-minded determination to rise about the disadvantages of his birth and his constant wariness of being caught once he has reached that goal. Jude Law's Jerome is a fascinating individual -- a man who is torn between despising Vincent because of his inferiority and admiring him because he's succeeding. In fact, Jerome is arguably Gattaca's most complex character. Meanwhile, Alan Arkin gives a delightful turn as a hard-bitten detective. Uma Thurman's limited range isn't taxed as Vincent's love interest (there isn't much chemistry between her and Hawke, but, since romance is a tertiary element of the story, it doesn't make much difference). And Loren Dean (the title character in Billy Bathgate) plays a cop with a special grudge against Vincent.
The average thriller, even if it's set in a faraway or futuristic world, tends to offer visceral, ephemeral excitement, and not much else. However, while Gattaca has the energy and tautness to compare with the best of those, its thought-provoking script and thematic richness elevate it to the next level. Gattaca is not a perfect motion picture (I would have appreciated a little more political background), but, at a time when so many science fiction films are dumber than dirt, it makes for a refreshing change-of-pace, and is a fine addition to the Fall movie season.

Zardoz

John Boorman's ZARDOZ (1074) is a genuinely quirky movie, a trip into a future that seems ruled by perpetually stoned set decorators. It's set in an Ireland of 2293 that looks exactly like the Ireland of today, until you get inside the Vortex. And then suddenly everything is shimmering gowns and futuristic throne rooms and beautiful young people who glide around at an endless debutante ball.These are the Immortals. They will never die. They cannot. Every time they try to, their bodies are relentlessly restored by the all-knowing mystical computer mind that runs the Vortex. There's a catch, though: They can't die but they can grow old, and for infractions, they're sentenced to age a few years. If they don't watch themselves, they might wind up as Immortal Seniles.Outside the Vortex, a barbaric civilization survives. Slaves till the land and gather the crops, ruled over by sadistic masters who sometimes gallop around killing off the surplus population. One of the barbarians is Zed, played by Sean Connery as a cross between Tarzan and Prince Valiant. But one day, Zed (like Lord Greystoke, come to think of it) finds a child's alphabet book. He teaches himself to read and then fanatically devours the contents of whole libraries (like Thomas Wolfe, come to think of it). Eventually he comes upon The Wizard of Oz and, in a moment of blinding insight, sees through the whole joke of his world's social structure.Zed has himself smuggled aboard the giant floating head of Zardoz, which rules hinterlands, and finds himself inside the Vortex. Here he is an object of great interest, because the Immortals, you see, having lost the ability to die have also lost the drive to procreate and are doomed to an eternity of detumescence. Zed labors with no such difficulty.The movie is an exercise in self-indulgence (if often an interesting one) by Boorman, who more or less had carte blanche to do a personal project after his immensely successful DELIVERANCE. Boorman seems fascinated by stories which are disconnected from the ordinary realist assumptions of most movies; his LEO THE LAST (1970) gave us Marcello Mastroianni as the last of the big-time decadents, living in a mansion at the end of a deserted street in an eerie London.Boorman puts a lot of heavy concepts into ZARDOZ, but seems uncertain whether he takes them seriously himself. There are sight gags (the attempt to turn on Connery with futuristic pornography provides the best) , there are group seances that seem lifted bodily from pajama parties, there is no end of special visual effects (every optical printer in England must have been busy for weeks), and at the end there's a combination shoot-out and mercy-killing spree that is at once ridiculous, depraved and low camp.Sean Connery wanders through all of this with a slightly bemused expression on his face. He begins as a barbarian given to distrust and childish impulses, but after he gathers all knowledge to himself (the movie is full of phrases like "gathers all knowledge to himself"), he turns into a sort of body-building Einstein who sees into the center of the Vortex, deciphers the wisdom of the crystal, stimulates the Apathetics (that's another social class I forgot to mention), makes love with a good-looking Immortal dame (she regains the knack) and finally turns into a fossil while the sound track milks Beethoven's 7th for all it's worth.I remember standing in the rain once outside a theater that was playing LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD. Now there was a movie so complex and personal no one claimed to be able to understand itÑno, not even Time magazine. The people coming out from the previous show were shaking their heads and admitting that they, too, didn't have a clue. And then it was our turn to go in and be mystified.Every once in a while, a movie like that comes along; a movie you've got to see so that you, too, can be in the dark about it. In the movie's own terms, this much can be said for sure: It may not make you an Apathetic, but it will certainly age you by two hours.
Reviewed by Roger Ebert

What Eliot didn't see

Let us go then, you and I,

When the evening is spread out against the sky

Like a patient etherised upon a table;

Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,

The muttering retreats

Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels

And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:

Streets that follow like a tedious argument

Of insidious intent

To lead you to an overwhelming question...

Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"

Let us go and make our visit.

The Pilgrim's progress

As I walked through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a certain place where was a Den, and I laid me down in that place to sleep: and, as I slept, I dreamed a dream. I dreamed, and behold, I saw a man clothed with rags, standing in a certain place, with his face from his own house, a book in his hand, and a great burden upon his back. I looked, and saw him open the book, and read therein; and, as he read, he wept, and trembled; and, not being able longer to contain, he brake out with a lamentable cry, saying, What shall I do?