WE ALL FEEL BETTER IN THE DARK: Unless we’re watching the movies Netflix has sent me recently. Why did I put together such a depressing line-up?? Anyway, the report:

The Battle of Algiers: Documentary-style movie about terrorists vs. torturers in the last years of French rule in Algeria. The black and white graininess is amazing–b&w; is made for faces–and the characters are totally compelling. I don’t really have anything to say about this other than that you should watch it. …Ennio Morricone did the music, if that helps.

Maborosi: Hirokazu Koreeda on thanatos or the rapture of the deep. The movie is gorgeous–very comic-booky, like color-drenched Jaime Hernandez, maybe Chester Square-era–and the lead actress, Makiko Esumi, is deerlike and strangely beautiful. I got a slight Audrey Hepburn vibe from her: the same ability to be ridiculous and then suddenly graceful. (She’s a model, apparently, and her modeling photos look pretty normal, but she had a real otherworldly air in the movie.) But yes, this is an intensely depressing movie. The Netflix blurb tried to make out like it ends with hope, but I didn’t really see that–I saw “life goes on,” yeah, but that’s not the same thing.

Nobody Knows: More Koreeda cinemisery. Based on the true story of several children whose single mother abandoned them in a small Tokyo apartment. It doesn’t have the distinctive look of Maborosi, but the child actors are terrific. It’s really well-paced, especially given that it’s more than two hours long. And more or less unrelentingly painful. …The title is really grim as well, since one of the noticeable things about the movie is how many people–including adults–knew about the children’s situation but do nothing or virtually nothing to help them. Anyway, this is a pretty amazing movie, and you should see it if you can take it.

Grey Gardens: Does what it says on the tin: “Documentary pioneers the Maysles brothers (Gimme Shelter) capture poignant moments in the lives of Edith Bouvier Beale (Big Edie) and her middle-aged daughter, Little Edie — relatives of Jackie O — at their decaying estate, Grey Gardens. The ladies shut out their bleak present by recalling richer times and lost loves, and while Little Edie confides that she’d like to leave, the camera captures a co-dependency destined to continue.”

I can see why so many people are into this movie: It has enough layers and themes that you can pick out whichever ones speak most personally to you. For me, it was about the unchosenness of family; but also the way that we make choices, and then deny to ourselves that we ever made them, pretending that the outcomes were always inevitable.

And also about living in fantasy–Augusten Burroughs has a quick, sharp note about that, in his autobiography Dry (which you should check out): “I have accepted Pulitzer Prizes, Academy Awards, met wonderful people, and had healthy relationships, all in my mind, all while drinking.” Grey Gardens is gentler than that; but still….