True Grit ***
Very interesting Western. The story about a girl in the tough old Western Days, how she had to have brains and brawn at age 14. The girl is a tad too sweet and pretty but she did a good job playing the character. The scene where she tried to follow this boosy foul mouth tough marshall by jumping into the river with her pony to cross the river is very moving. It sets the pace for her determination. Then, all the gun shooting scenes, no big deal, an everyday event.
We come away seeing, TRUE GRIT is not about men in the West, not only about the thieves, nor the business traders, or the grandmas who charges 5 cents for a flour bag, the Chinese grocery man renting out a rope bed in the back of his shop, full of sausages and cured ducks (v nice touch, I like it!) Chinese guy didnt speak bad English and played the fool with an ugly face - rather he showed a food refinement side of life in the dusty days; and smoking this long pipe in the rope bed - when the marshall is away, a very nice scene. Everybody in that era had to have true grit. Life entirely is about survival for everybody.
Its a new kind of Western, not only about hero and bad guys - but where the story is really told from multiple points of view, everybody had their side of story told.
The girl character in the end is a lady - lost her arm in the snake pit - but tough, and later still older still, all wrinkled - she is shown as a "cranky weird gal" who buried at her expenses a "stranger". Story is very well told. There is no marriage w fine gentlemen with genteel living for this smart gal. She might live a comfortable life but she is also one tough cookie true to the end. True Grit to the end.
LES FEMMES DU SIXIEME ETAGE**
Romantic comedy. A bourgeois man and woman live together in a chic apartment with two blond hair kids - the two kids are sent to boarding school to be out of the way of the social life of the couple. The man discovers what 6th floor Spanish servants are really like - they are very warm and human whereas his wife, cold and dry and neurotic. A youngish Spanish woman became the dream woman of his secret life - he moves upstairs after his wife imagines an affair that he has w a client. (Very thin premise for the story) The film is built on glories of the 60s, an affluent france hiring Spanish women instead of local French women for servants because, French women servants are much more demanding and they could pay the Spanish equivalent less. This background is interesting but the real life of bourgeois women doesnt stop at that. However, the film must go on, so more chit chat, Blah Blah.
The Spanish servants dances while they do the dishes, ironing - singing "Itsy Bitsy Bikini" - give me a break! - anyway. So the man got chased out of the apt by a suspecting, jealous wife, lives upstairs on the 6th floor. Rah rah rah.
Man and woman divorced. The woman finds a new lover in the form of an artist (not shown in film) while the man runs to Spain to find his loved one - who went back home to the village because she already had a son from illicit liaison w a rich man pre-working in Paris. (Wouldnt she be suspicious of rich man? Where is this part of the story?)
Happy ending, he found her hanging up the wash, w a beautiful wide smile, and eyes meeting eyes - sunny days forever.
End of story.
I think this is a movie which appeals to a lot of people in the style of "the way we were". The movie shows some customary protocols of how a patron speaks to the servant, etc etc. That the servant is loyal to old masters - to the point of firing herself in old age without any pension or where to go. A french servant consoled by Spanish servants! etc etc. This movie is entertainment catering to nostalgic memories of old French good society ways of life.
:)
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