I waited for _The 11th Green_ to come out on DVD
in vain. There is a long documentary in his
_Letters from the Big Man_ DVD which is almost
better than that film itself, and I'm looking
forward to nothing less for this film!

_The 11th Green_, Munch's first feature in 9 years,
is a strong return to form and ranks up there with
his _The Sleepy Time Gal_ and _Color of a Brisk
and Leaping Day_. Like those films, there is an
indelible sense of history, half-forgotten but
brought alive by idiosyncratic individuals who
speak in languid, exquisitely composed paragraphs.
These protagonists and their sentences would not be
out of place in 1950 or 1050. Each film skilfully
insert true or mock newsreel footages in the midst
of modern day scenes; the past and the present are
part of a seamless continuum. History is so
alive; all things are shining. Isn't it inevitable
that time travel will become into an explicit plot
point in Munch's film?

_The 11th Green_ not only has time travel (at least
in some ethereal form), it also has UFOs, aliens,
and green energy sources that could have saved
humanity if only politics had not gotten in the
way. The alian character Lars (who looks like a
cross between Jesus and a Swami) and associates
have been alarmed by use of the atomic bomb in
WWII, and offer to trade anti-gravity and green
energy technology to then President Eisenhower
to steer humanity on to a safer path. This deal
is sabotaged by Dark State officials who go as
far as murdering the then Secretary of Defense.
In the present day Lars has not aged a day, and
with his help the President Obama character
(unnamed in the film) time-travels to consult
with Eisenhower. Alas, the feckless Obama loses
his nerve and reneges on a promise to make the
close-encounters public.

Liberal reporter Jeremy Rudd (Campbell Scott) is
a throwback who still uses a type-writer. He grows
up in Hawaii with Obama. Rudd's father, a miltary
type involved with the Deep Staters, dies in
the 2nd scene, which brings Jeremy to his Palm
Springs mansion once occupied by the retired
Eisenbower. Rudd gets involved with his father's
shadowy assistant Laurie (Agnes Bruckner) and sppoks
who all have hidden, competing agendas. He tries
and fails to get Obama to come clean about UFOs.
(The sense of quixotic futiliy, as well as the
constant present of trains, harkens back to the
Yosemite of _Color of a Brisk and Leaping Day_.)
The film ends with a scene of a young Obama
staring in awe at flying saucers, which echoes the
opening scene where Bruckner's character has a
similar encounter; they have all been chosen by
the benevolent aliens, are destined to take part
in this strange journey, but somehow their free
will keep failing them. (Munch would have made
a better _Arrival_ than Denis Villenueve; the
American director would have such kinship with
aliens who live simultaneously in the past,
present, and future.)

Campbell Scott looks and speaks like he belongs to
a film of the 1950s (except for his jeans), and has
the even temperament to match. Agnes Bruckner also
has a classic Americana look. (I love Lily Rabe,
the star of Munch's previous film _Letters from the
Big Man_, who seems to have no vanity about not just
her look but also her postures; however, she is so
ultramodern by comparison.) As in _The Sleepy Time
Gal_, Munch obliquely comments on the undercurrents
of racism; yet both films pay tribute to the
fundamental generosity of this nation.

The end credits are scored to Wagner's _Parsifal_,
and pays tribute to yet another Munchian knight
errant searching for a Holy Grail. I thought the
images are prints on paper, but Munch generously
reveals that they are wood prints by Emil Doepler,
who was the son of original set designer of Wagner's
"Der Ring des Nibelungen." (You can send Munch
questions on his website too.) A blue-ray disk
of _The 11th Green_ is scheduled to come out; I'll
be the first in line to get a copy!

(for A.)

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)