Word: mordantly
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...these points are admirably made, but they click into place a little too neatly. The film has an air of premeditation, an almost palpable sense of the film maker's mordant intelligence shaping the scenes. Of course, if you are a director making your first full-length feature, as Jean-Jacques Annaud is here, this is the kind of flaw to have. It certainly does not prevent Annaud from bringing things to a powerfully ironic finish...
...smoking, and cursing women. Life in the convent is by no means bacchanalian, but Jackson still insists on drinking Chateau Lafitte Rothschild to excess. And Enders assumes that it is inherently amusing to show nuns talking about "screwing" their enemies as well as the neighborhood Jesuit priests. Instead of mordant commentary, Enders employs cheap shots...
...notes, "chosen because it was handsome, had been condemned for demolition and cleared of tenants." Noting that automated garages are replacing the older type, thus putting "churlish" attendants out of work, Wren comments: "One more bit of the inhumane is replaced by the non-human." The author strikes this mordant note often enough to suggest a bitterness behind the punch lines. Berger rarely fails to make wretched excess seem hilarious, but he insists that equal emphasis be placed on both excess and wretched. Paul Gray
...torturer's lexicon also includes mordant, mocking names for their techniques and instruments. The Wet Submarine, for example, means near-suffocation of a prisoner by immersing him in water, or, frequently, urine; the Dry Submarine is the same thing, except that a plastic bag is tied over the victim's head to deprive him of oxygen. In the Grill, the victim is stretched out face up on a metal frame while a "massage" of shocks is delivered to various parts of the body. A Brazilian invention called the Parrot's Perch is used in many countries; it consists...
...alternating diary entries of his hero and heroine crackle with witty detail, mordant intelligence and self-deprecating irony. Neither one is a sentimentalist. Both, in fact, said goodbye to their feelings long ago. That is why the blind, homing instincts of the turtles fascinate them. Unlike humans, the creatures know where they must go and venture without questioning. "The mystery of the turtles," Neaera writes, "and their secret navigation is a magical reality, juice of life in a world gone...