Communists critics received it pretty bad, even Bazin was ambivalent. To the point that, in France, the dubbed version goes by the title LE PORT DE LA DROGUE, i.e., all the Soviet espionage story was turned into drug traffic affair! Check de Baecque's chapter on the “fullerian crisis of cinephilia”.

Wonderfully written and played monologue! Although I always notice Thelma Ritter missing the delivery of two lines… Which doesn't harm the scene one bit. Are you aware of the film’s scandalous reception in France? It's a history lesson in itself.

[T]he interviewers’ natural assumption of a redemptive feature misses “a deep source of harm” … If hearing is meaningful “it has to be embedded in an openness where what is said might be heard even if it threatens to break the order of the known world for those who listen”.»

that someone else from her family would also survive and be reunited with after the war. She was able to take chances to escape only because of that single hope. But there was no one left and it had been stupid to think otherwise. Being plucky and brave led to nothing but being alone in the world. >

Sadness weighs heavily on her words so, perhaps to counter the mood, the interviewers call her ‘plucky’ and appear to dismiss her own response that it was stupidity rather than bravery that saved her. It takes another interview seven years later for her to explain what she meant: it was blind hope >

Friendship is not the abolishing of distance but the bringing of distance to life.»

Indeed, I stand corrected. In my ignorance, I presumed “only” was standing for “a few”. “Only two filmmakers are in touch with any kind of reality,” then.

“Two of the only,” what a strange turn of phrase! I sense some numerical awkwardness there…

Embora talvez eu pudesse fornecer uma espécie de contraprova (não com Ozu, mas com Shimizu): bsky.app/profile/aind...

In cinema, the tendency to overread often corresponds to the poverty of what one has seen.»