Sleeper Patrol: 5 on Amazon Prime
A quintet of lesser-known gems for your viewing pleasure.
I usually find myself rummaging through Netflix for this newsletter, looking for hidden treasures to suggest to readers, but for once I thought I’d take a look at Amazon Prime, the second most popular streaming video platform with 149 million subscribers to Netflix’s 232 million. The prospect is daunting – nearly 10,000 movies are available for free on Prime Video at any given time – but also far more rewarding than the cinematic desert that Netflix has become. Here are five lesser-known films – historical drama, suspense, a documentary, a tale of intergenerational friendship, and a 21st century “To Sir, With Love” – for whom satisfaction is just about guaranteed. Check one or more of them out if you’re at a loss for what to watch this week. (If you’re not an Amazon Prime member, I’ve noted which additional services are offering the films for streaming or rental.)
Black Robe (1991, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 1/2) – The history nerd in me has always appreciated this raw-boned epic from Bruce Beresford (“Tender Mercies,” “Driving Miss Daisy”) as one of the most accurate recreations of early North American exploration and explorers, in this case the French Jesuits who paddled up the Great Lakes to Christianize the Huron and Iroquois of the First Nations. That didn’t go too well in reality and it doesn’t go too well in the movie, but Lothaire Bluteau is affecting and complex as Father LaForgue, at the mercy of a land and a people he comprehends not at all. (Additional streaming and rental options.)
Man on Wire (2008, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐) – It won the Oscar for best documentary, so I guess it’s pretty well known, but if you’ve never seen this heart-stopping play-by-play of Philippe Petit’s 1974 wire-walk between the twin towers of the World Trade Center, now’s the time to remedy that. Reviewing the film in 2008, I called the film “a documentary of ghosts. It commemorates a young man who now is old, suspended between two skyscrapers that no longer exist, on a wire that from a distance simply isn't there. Can we believe our eyes? Did this actually happen?” We can and it did. (Additional streaming and rental options.)
Monsieur Lazhar (2011, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 1/2) – In a Montreal middle school, a beloved teacher commits suicide and the new substitute, an Algerian immigrant, has to pick up the pieces and help the students contend with emotions no one wants to talk about. A wise and compassionate drama with a disarmingly tender lead performance by Mohamed Fellag, in real life a comedian exiled from his native country. It’s a film about the lies that adults and institutions tell children in a deluded effort to protect them, and about the worried clarity with which children see things for themselves. (Additional streaming and rental options.)
Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont (2005, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐) – Longtime readers know I’ve been beating the drum for this movie since it came out 18 years ago; it was in streaming jail for years, and who knows how long it’ll be on Prime, so pounce. It’s about the friendship, nothing more and nothing less, between an elderly London woman (Joan Plowright) and a young man (Rupert Friend in his first film) whose kindness makes him seem both naïve and old beyond his years. Age, says this unassuming jewel of a movie, lets us see farther. Youth lets us see closer. Those who have both are the blessed. (Additional streaming and rental options.)
Nine Queens (2000, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 1/2) – From Argentina, the best kind of con-artist drama — the kind that messes with your head, throws curveball after curveball, and keeps you guessing until the end credits. Two longtime grifters (Ricardo Darin and Gaston Pauls) come up with a plan to sell a fake sheet of rare stamps to a collector, but let me assure you that the games are just beginning. Comparisons to the films of David Mamet have been made; honestly, this one’s better. (Available only on Amazon Prime.)
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