Mur murs

Mur murs. Agnès Varda, 1980.

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Edition screened: Included in Criterion Blu-ray box set The Complete Films of Agnès Varda (disc 6) released 2020. French language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 82 minutes.

Summary: Prolonged and depressing implications.

While there are no actual depictions of pigs being murdered and butchered, there is a lengthy scene depicting an enormous mural that wraps around the entire exterior of a slaughterhouse/meat processing center, beginning around 1:02:00. The painting depicts the lives of pigs ranging from bucolic normalcy to their being herded into livestock trucks, also interjected with that creepy commercial tendency to depict pigs standing erect like humans and smacking their lips about bacon or leering lustfully into a barbecue pit. The focus is on the mural, intercut with brief interviews with indifferent employees, a scene of workers sharpening their butchering knives, and several quick images of carts of meat. 

I thought this long scene ruined the movie. Prior to viewing I was rather indifferent to Mur murs’ topic but then enjoyed the somewhat tedious film to some degree up until this “Farmer John” sequence, which pushed me back to No.

Mortal Engines

Mortal Engines. Christian Rivers, 2018.

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Edition screened: Universal Blu-ray, released 2021. English language. Runtime approximately 128 minutes.

Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.

Help Wanted Female

Help Wanted Female. John Hayes (as Harold Perkins), 1968.

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Edition screened: Included on Something Weird DVD Total Fulfillment Triple Feature, released 2011. Muddy English language. Runtime approximately 75 minutes.

Summary: No animals or references to animals in the film. 2.5/5❤

The Total Fulfillment Triple Feature also includes Rent-A-Girl (1965) and Aroused (1966).

The Great Ecstasy of Robert Carmichael

The Great Ecstasy of Robert Carmichael. Thomas Clay, 2005.

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Edition screened: Metrodome DVD, released 2009. English language. Runtime approximately 93 minutes.

Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.

The Golden Compass

The Golden Compass. Chris Weitz, 2007.

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Edition screened: New Line DVD, released 2008. English language. Runtime approximately 113 minutes.

Summary: Mild fighting among animals. 

Details: 

1) A key aspect of the story is that the soul of each human takes the form of an animal that travels with the person. These animals sometimes attack each other, but there are no depictions of violent injury, blood, or death. Encounters are more like short cat fights.

2) Near the end of the film an army attacks an ice bear, including tethering him with ropes and intending to shoot him. The ice bear prevails without noticeable injury. He then gets into a fight with another ice bear and sustains a broken front leg, yet still lands a KO power punch. We see him running off in triumph with his little girl friend hero, so the broken leg must have been on autoheal. The end!

The Girl in Room 2A

The Girl in Room 2A (La casa della paura). William Rose and Dick Randall, 1974.

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Edition screened: Included in Vinegar Syndrome box set #339 Forgotten Gialli Volume 2, released 2020. Original Italian or English dub. Runtime approximately 86 minutes.

Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.

Elsa la rose

Elsa la rose. Agnès Varda, 1966.

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Edition screened: Included in Criterion Blu-ray box set The Complete Films of Agnès Varda (disc 5) released 2020. French language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 20 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.

Elevator to the Gallows

Elevator to the Gallows (Ascenseur pour l'échafaud). Louis Malle, 1957.

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Edition screened: Included on Criterion DVD #335, released 2006. French language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 92 minutes.

Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals, although that kitty should not be walking on the balcony railing.

A 1957 Gottlieb Flag-Ship can be seen through a café window at 26:39, plus three more in a lounge later in the film: a 1953 Gottlieb Shindig at 46:oo, a 1950 Williams Rag Mop and a 1947 Keeney Cover Girl around 46:48, and the Rag Mop again later at around 48:00.

Donnie Darko

Donnie Darko. Richard Kelly, 2001.

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Edition screened: Arrow Blu-ray ‘Director’s Cut’, released 2017. English language. Runtime approximately 133 minutes.

Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.

The Arrow release also includes Kelly’s early film The Goodbye Place. 

A 1980 Williams Blackout is in the arcade, 1:05:12.

Documenteur

Documenteur. Agnès Varda, 1981.

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Edition screened: Included in Criterion Blu-ray box set The Complete Films of Agnès Varda (disc 6) released 2020. French language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 66 minutes.

Summary: Unpleasant fishing scene.

Details: A rather brutal scene of removing a hook after it has been swallowed by a fish, followed by a typical scene of a just-caught fish being thrown into a dry bucket to gasp and suffocate, 4:33-5:28.

Partial view of the cabinet of an identified pinball machine in the office of the production company, first seen at 35:04.

The Creatures

The Creatures (Les créatures). Agnès Varda, 1966.

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Edition screened: Included in Criterion Blu-ray box set The Complete Films of Agnès Varda (disc 5) released 2020. French language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 94 minutes.

Summary: Extended scene with a dead cat.

Details:

1) During the opening credits, two brief scenes of crabs and eels dumped on the floor of a small fishing boat and struggling, 4:48-4:50 ad 4:58-5:02.

2) Extended scene involving a dead black cat that appears to be a genuine stiff corpse. We see the dead cat at the front of the house at 22:25, and Michel Piccoli finally picks it up at 22:44. Piccoli carries the dead cat into town, engages in arguments about who might have killed it, and gets into a fight wherein he beats people with the stiff dead cat. Ultimately we see him roughly dump the cat into a shallow grave. All of this wraps up at 26:28.

 

I suspect the use of a dead cat as a melee weapon sounds weird. In the context of this structurally complex film, it is both weirder and less weird than my brief description suggests. The incident may or may not, in part or completely, have been a fiction Piccoli’s character was penning and/or caused by the meddling of a local evil genius with mind-control ability. 

The Bloodhound

The Bloodhound. Patrick Picard, 2020.

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Edition screened: Arrow Blu-ray, released 2021. English language. Runtime approximately 72 minutes.

Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.

The Arrow release also includes four short films by Picard, Bad Dream, The Muffled Hammerfall in Action, The Mosaic Code, and Wiggleworm, each less than one minute in length. These short projects manipulate video to create artful special effects, then integrate that product with evocative audio. They are polished rather than student-like and I rather enjoyed watching them.

Black Panthers

Black Panthers. Agnès Varda, 1968.

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Edition screened: Included in Criterion Blu-ray box set The Complete Films of Agnès Varda (disc 6) released 2020. English language. Runtime approximately 28 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.

Bedevilled

Bedevilled (The Whole Story of Kim Bok-nam's Murder Case/Kim Bok-nam salinsageonui jeonmal). Jang Cheol-soo, 2010.

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Edition screened: Well Go DVD, released 2012. Korean language with English subtitles. Runtime approximately 115 minutes.

Summary: No particular depictions of violence or harm to animals.

Barking Dogs Never Bite

Barking Dogs Never Bite (Flandersui gae). Bong Joon-ho, 2000.

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Edition screened: Not viewed; submitted by a kind reader. Korean language. Runtime approximately 110 minutes.

Summary: At the beginning of the film, a man who is annoyed by a barking dog attempts to kill it in various ways such as throwing it from the top of the apartment building and strangling it with a rope. Before the film starts there is a caption that says something like “the scenes with dogs were shot under the supervision of doctors” which does not justify the fact that the dogs clearly were abused.

Aroused

Aroused. Anton Holden, 1966.

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Edition screened: Included on Something Weird DVD Total Fulfillment Triple Feature, released 2011. Muddy English language. Runtime approximately 78 minutes.

Summary: No animals or references to animals in the film. 2.5/5❤

The Total Fulfillment Triple Feature also includes Rent-A-Girl (1965) and Help Wanted Female (1968).

Alpine Fire

Alpine Fire (Höhenfeuer). Fredi M. Murer, 1986.

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Edition screened: Not viewed; submitted by a kind reader. Swiss German language. Runtime approximately 119 minutes.

Summary: At the very beginning of the film, a brother and sister pick up dead mice in traps from the ground.

7rm., kitch., bath., ... for sale

7rm., kitch., bath., ... for sale (7p., cuis., s. de b., ... à saisir). Agnès Varda, 1985.

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Edition screened: Included in Criterion Blu-ray box set The Complete Films of Agnès Varda (disc 8) released 2020. English languages. Runtime approximately 29 minutes.

Summary: No depictions of violence or harm to animals.