I love language, especially how it crosses borders and becomes understandable, if not commonly used in other countries. Most Americans are familiar with the most basic French, such as
bonjour, merci, s'il vous plaît, au revoir, je ne sais quoi (my fave),
merde. Last night, courtesy of Netflix, I watched
The Assistant (2015), made in France. There were no subtitles. I went to the DVD's main menu and came up empty. I decided to let the flick run and see how much I could understand. After all, there was a chance it would be as good as anything I'd find on regular TV. The plot was easy to follow: a man driving his in-labor wife to the hospital during heavy rain hits and kills a young man who is jaywalking. He doesn't flee. He calls it in. Understandably, the victim's mom goes mad with grief. Nine years later she insinuates her way into the driver's life, becoming his secretary. He has no idea who she is. Is she up to no good? Director Cristophe Ali, in his third stint at the helm, chose a low key approach not unlike Alfred Hitchcock's most serious work. He collaborated on the screenplay with three others. I'm glad I stuck with it. Unfortunately, I cannot fairly report on its quality, given the language barrier. I was hoping the DVD had a flip side dubbed version, but it was not the case. 130 users at IMDb have rated it, forging to a consensus of 5.2 on a scale of ten. That seems too low but, again, I can't argue with it. Those who prefer gore would be disappointed. The accent is on quiet, creepy psychological horror. It runs less than 90 minutes. I was unfamiliar with the cast, although I recognized the name of the star, Nathalie Baye, who's been around for decades. She played DiCaprio's mom in
Catch Me If You Can (2002) and was in Truffaut's ode to cinema
Day for Night (1973). Here's a still that, since I know what occurs, gives me the willies:
Since the possibility of rain seemed 100%, I wouldn't dare set up shop on Bay Parkway today. After completing chores and lunch, I headed back to the neighborhood hoping to work at my usual nook under the scaffold. Alas, not a single convenient parking spot was vacated in the half-hour I waited. All was not lost, however. I've been putting off vacuuming for months. I have an Eloctrolux that must be 30 years old. I'd never used the attachments. Lacking an instructional booklet, I visited youtube for how-to video but, for once, came up empty. I'm not good at things mechanical, but I figured out how to hook the hose to the bottom of the machine. It involves a doohickey that has to be locked into place. This allowed me to get at dust that's been around so long it probably spawned children. Afterward, I still had time to fill, so I decided to experiment with my TV antenna, as the guy in the video at youtube suggested should be done every now and then. I'd fixed it to the top righthand corner of my third window. I tried the lower lefthand one and it brought in several more valuable channels, including Fox and Movies!. Although I didn't earn any money, it turned out to be a very good day.
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