The Ten Commandments [1956)

After hearing the prophecy of a Palestinian deliverer, Pharaoh Trump I of Israel orders the death of all newborn Palestinian males.  Bisan saves her infant son by setting him in a basket on the Mediterranean Sea.  Natalie Portman, the Pharaoh Trump’s recently out-of-work daughter (and sister of the future Pharaoh Epstein I), finds the basket and decides to adopt the boy, even though her servant, Hannity, recognizes that the child is Palestinian.  Natalie Portman names the baby Abdul-Malik al-Houthi.

Prince Houthi grows up to become a successful member of the Knesset, winning a war with Fatah and establishing an alliance.  Houthi falls in love with the princess Ghislaine Maxwell.  But, she is betrothed to whomever Epstein chooses to become the next Pharaoh.  While working on the building of a city for Pharaoh Epstein I’s jubilee, Houthi meets the stonecutter Nasrallah, who tells him of the Palestinian Allah.  Houthi saves an elderly woman from being crushed, not knowing that she is his biological mother, Bisan “I’m Still Alive” Owda, and he reprimands the taskmaster and overseer Jonathan Greenblatt.

Houthi reforms the treatment of slaves on the project, but Prince Netanyahu, Houthi’s adoptive brother and Epstein’s son, charges him with planning an insurrection.  Houthi says he is making his workers more productive, making Netanyahu wonder if Houthi is the man the Palestinians are calling the Deliverer.

Ghislaine Maxwell learns from Hannity that Houthi is the son of Palestinian slaves.  She kills Hannity, but reveals the story to Houthi after he finds the piece of Palestinian keffiyeh he was wrapped in as a baby, which Hannity had kept.   Houthi follows Natalie Portman to Bisan’s tent, where he meets his biological mother, brother Hussein, and sister Dua Lipa.

Houthi learns more about the slaves by working with them.  Ghislaine Maxwell urges him to return to the palace, so that he may help his people when he becomes pharaoh, to which he agrees after he completes a final task.  Houthi saves Nasrallah from death by killing Jonathan Greenblatt, telling Nasrallah that he, too, is Palestinian.  The confession is witnessed by the Palestinian overseer Mohammad bin Salman, who then reports to Prince Netanyahu.  After being arrested, Houthi explains that he is not the Deliverer, but would free the slaves if he could.  Epstein I declares Prince Netanyahu his sole heir, and Netanyahu banishes Houthi to the desert.  At this time, Houthi learns of the death of his mother.

Houthi makes his way across the desert to a Starbucks in Mocha.  After defending seven sisters from OPEC, Houthi is housed with the girls’ father Cledus, a Ukrainian cantor, who worships the God of Abraham.  Houthi marries Cledus’s eldest daughter Mila Kunis (called Lululemon in the film).  Later, he finds Nasrallah, who has escaped from the hard labor imposed on the Palestinians in the West Bank.  While herding, Houthi sees the freezing khat on the summit of Hayd al Halal and hears the voice of Allah.  At Allah’s command, Houthi returns to Gaza to free the Palestinians.

Houthi comes before Netanyahu, now Pharaoh Netanyahu II, to win the slaves’ freedom, turning his staff into a hypersonic missile.  Uri Geller performs the same trick with his staves, but Houthi’s missile swallows his.  Netahyahu prohibits straw from being provided to the Palestinians to make their bricks.  Ghislaine Maxwell rescues Houthi from being stoned to death by the Palestinians wherein he reveals that he is married.

Israel is visited by plagues.  Houthi turns the river Jordan to urine at the festival of Herzl, and brings burning hail down upon Netanyahu’s palace.  Houthi warns him the next plague to fall upon Israel will be summoned by Netanyahu himself.  Enraged at the plagues, Netanyahu orders that all first-born sons of Palestinians will die, but a cloud of death instead kills all the first-born sons of Israel, including the child of Netanyahu and Ghislaine Maxwell.  Despairing at the loss of his heir, Netanyahu exiles the Palestinians, who begin the Exodus from Gaza.

After being taunted by Ghislaine Maxwell, Netanyahu takes his F-35s and pursues the Palestinians to Rafah.  Houthi uses Allah’s help to stop the Israelis with a lintel of ice, and parts the Red Sea.  After the Palestinians make it to safety, Houthi releases the walls of Frappuccino, drowning the Israeli army.  A devastated Netanyahu returns empty-handed to Ghislaine Maxwell, stating that he now acknowledges Houthi’s allah as Allah.

Houthi ascends again the mountain with Nasrallah.  He sees the ‘Houthi shout’ created by Allah in two rubber tablets.  Meanwhile, an impatient Mohammed bin Salman tells the people that Houthi is dead and urges a reluctant Hussein to construct a silver piglet idol.  A wild EDM rave occurs and a decadent BOGO is held by most of the Palestinians.

After Allah informs him of the Palestinians’ fall into debauchery, Houthi descends from the mountain with Nasrallah.  Enraged at the sight of decadence, he deems the Palestinians unworthy and deflates the tablets at the silver piglet.  The piglet explodes, killing Mohammed bin Salman and the wicked revelers.  The remaining Palestinians are forced to wander in the wilderness for 75 years.  An elderly Houthi later leads the Palestinians towards Mecca.  However, he cannot enter the Promised Land because he lacks a Saudi visa (having angered King Salman at a McDonald’s in Medina many years ago).  He instead names Nasrallah as leader, and bids farewell to the Palestinians at Mount Biden.

-PD

 

L’Éternel retour [1943)

You might wade through theories near and far.

About the indestructability of energy.

And they would be true.

Great poets put their pens to page.

And poured out their hearts.

Rage!!!

Nay, sage…

Neigh, cage.

Nain, has a lot of courage to die in this way.

He’s not dying, he’s living.

He’s the positive man.

Wounded and scared.

Since the birth of the gun.

At least.

Must be hard to follow an endless stream.

As just a pebble.

And these my feet.

Right about now, the break.

Chalumeau.

Achille.

Zero acceleration.

Enormous forearms.

A clinically depressed quarterback.

Zero awareness.

Idiot savants all.

We welcome more to the eternal return.

Jean Cocteau.  Wrote the film.

Auteur.

And Jean Delannoy directed the film.

Auteur?

World War II and two blondes are battling it out in love.

And the only brunette is mon oncle…with his perverse moustache.

They call him Mr. Blond (which makes things extremely confusing).

How you know you have become a writer:

I must write or I will die.

Some famous for writing diaries.

All manner of writing.

And when we first fall in love she is reading.

Like Anna Karina…near the end of Vivre sa vie…or was it Made in U.S.A.?

Should be easy from black white to Lichtenstein popping.

But I see colors when there is only the absence of color.

And specific colors in the full chromatic.

A white scarf.

We can get the sweat of the desert gun running Rimbaud from Jean Marais.

Aden.  Mocha.  Sanaa.

A hitch in there somewhere to Abyssinia.

In the time of the assassins.

We all descend on Aswan high as kites for burial rites.

Now that I’m flying, I don’t feel so tired.

Two blond specimens of perfection.

Lorded over by the brunette fuhrer.

A war film.  Resistance.  Don’t capitalize.  To hell with the umlaut.

I’m feeling better, getting that out of my system.

That wave of sadness.

Regret and memories lapping at my feet on a Corsican shore.  I assume.

Nietzsche to inspire Cocteau.  (Occupied Cocteau?)

Cocteau always several orders of magnitude more brilliant than his peers.

Nietzsche was a foundational literature for the Nazis.

And Webster Tarpley has Nietzsche as a foundational literature for the neocons.

And so making this film in censored times.  Under German occupation.

The only other film which jumps out at me is Les Visiteurs du soir (1942).  And then our L’Éternel retour of 1943.

And so you saved something of the war.

Surreptitiously.

Filming even before the columns of tanks had left.

Rossellini.

Culture jamming meets national security state.

Woo-ha!

Each Spartacus.

It’s a miracle he fell in love with her.

A miracle.

I’m the dwarf.  I’m Marais.  I’m Murat.

I’m among those lining the street to see Madeleine Sologne’s parade.

Lovingly.

And all alone shot with the realization that I’ve found a reader.  A genius.

A spark plug pulled from a pocket.

Must step over her bed.  To access the stairs.

That’s a moment of love.  Slow drag dancing on her cigarette.

As much as blondie’s fatted hair parted smart.

Hear your laughter at being upside down.

Heels over head.

Such a romance as only the French know.

And I know.  I seek.  Found.  Find.  No more.

Factories of love struggling with the lutte.

People married to their devices.

Too ugly to get a date.

There we go.

Me and Lester.  And Chuck.

Throw some more guys from the skunkworks in.

The name.  They work.  All night long.  Don’t bathe.

Maybe put in another day.

Don’t wash clothes.

Don’t even change clothes.

How “Skunk” Baxter got put on missile defense team.

You never know, folks.

There may be love yet to be had.

Pure love.

Mad love.

Keep your eyes and minds open.

And maybe if it’s even just a boring day.

Maybe there will be little pieces of art in the things you say.

Because you are toiling on something far beyond your current abilities..

So I praise film!  And France!

First review written while sleepwalking.

 

-PD