in the spirit of this movie, I will keep the introduction, since my time here is short anyway
To every modern movie that feels the need to be over two hours long—that’s two hours of my life, by the way, a life that constantly feels strained and pulled, that’s nearly impossible to spend with a movie unless it’s the wee hours of the morning—to those movies I simply ask, why? because I just watched Christopher Strong, and with 78 minutes, with a small story where not much happens and frankly not much more needs to happen, Dorothy Arzner crafts a visually evocative tale that scrutinizes the strenuous nature of being, of hoping for something (or someone) beyond what you have, of existing in a world that has morals you both embrace and despise, that conflict with who you want to be, who you want to become, who you wish could exist yet you know never could without alienating yourself from everything and everyone, largely explored, despite what the title may indicate, from a woman’s point of view, in 1933 of all inopportune times, in a pre-code manner that always feels rigidly but never obligatorily feminist, through an aesthetic that highlights the small moments of life as the biggest and most important ones, that doesn’t rely upon the dreaded nadir, that believes a small, well-timed line from a forlorn, worn-out mother says more than any indulgent monologue ever could, that uses montage not as banal time filler but as exposition, as a means of conveying anxiety and insecurity and the overwhelming uncertainty of realizing your true self, that squeezes every ounce of euphuistic life from its black-and-white palette, in a way that is both beautiful and revealing of the movie’s thematic exploration of the light and dark that exist within us all, a lightness you want the world to see and a darkness you are tortured by, and that—and perhaps this is above all else—is unfathomably efficient in juggling all these existential balls, in showing just how hard life can be without needing to blow everything up to pompous heights, because in just 78 minutes (yes, it can happen that quickly), we can have our worlds turned upside down, we can experience pure life-affirming beauty from both an emotional and ornate standpoint, and all it takes is one old, short movie to prove those two qualities don’t need more time to work in tandem, but more artistry, more commitment, more trust in its audience to grasp the power of humanity.
p.s. this has the best post-coital scene in cinema history
