Ana (Manuela Vallès), a young hippy talented painter living in Ibiza, is discovered by Justine (Charlotte Rampling), an Arts Patron who invites her to join an independent Arts school. Ana's first troubled love and sexual experiences, and her constant nightmares will get Anglo (Asier Newman) to perform hypnosis on her. Ana's past lives will be open to the viewer, but not to Ana, who will have to deal with her life chaos in unknown painful ways not being aware of what is causing it.
Chaotic Ana is a very
difficult conceptual film to watch, called pretentious and pointless by
many, or challenging and profound by others. You cannot watch it as a
linear story. This film requires of you a willingness to accept the odd,
the chaos and the surprising. This film requires of you a willingness to
embrace Medem's personal intimate story as it is related to Medem's late sister Anne, who was a remarkable
painter.
Chaotic Ana touches Universal themes and myths related to the Female and the myths of the Motherland (from Oedipus and Electra to primitive matriarchal mythologies). In his
odyssey of discovery of The Female, Medem takes us from the cave to the
skyscraper using the Ocean as a linking element
Chaotic Ana is -despite some shocking violent scenes- an ode against male violence and
wars, and against those individuals who start them; however, the film
also shows a blind faith in the goodness of Human Kind despite the
tragedies and havoc that we create.
Chaotic
Ana is both a reflection on Death and the void left by the departed -
Medem's tribute to his late sister.
Chaotic Ana is also an
invitation to see Art as a form of individual expression, a timeless
biography of the living, and a living legacy of the deceased. I especially liked some of visual shows shown in the House of the Artists.
The editing is complex and very dynamic. Every small detail in the film has a meaning and it is intricately related to what is happening in the story as a whole. This is one of those films that you need to watch more than once -if you dare or care enough- to get everything. The film continuously
unsettles the viewer, and there are some gory, violent and shock sex
scenes. The international cast members are just OK in their performances, but this is not a movie for them to shine as the script is what matters, and they are, in a way, just Medem's "mediums". Movies like this are never popular or highly rated, and are hated or loved, nothing in between. I loved it, but some of my friends -who are also fans of Medem- totally hated it. I always love a mental challenge, odd stuff, and artistic honesty, and this film has all of those things. However, the mediocre performances, the intellectual complexity of the script, and the length of the film do not help the viewer to connect with the film at an emotional level, just at an intellectual one, and not always. This is a pity, because that emotional connection is what Medem was looking for in the viewer.
This is a film not for the faint hearted. Not easy to watch. Difficult. Complex. Intricate. Interesting, nevertheless.
Garage is a movie about the life of Josie, a simple-minded good-hearted somewhat-autistic gas-station caretaker who craves affection and social interaction in an isolated Irish rural town.
The script reflects about the changes of the traditional ways of living and social interaction in rural areas through Josie's character. The movie is a good depiction of rural life and how modernisation has affected the pace and social dynamics of traditional towns, and a social group that is unable to harmoniously mix the new ways of living with with its very traditional hierarchic structure. The script makes many good points about social isolation and lack of adaptation, explores the nature (and limits) of friendship, the contradictions of modern Law and old ways of socialising, and the thin line separating success and fracas in such an environment.
Thus, the viewer witnesses the lives of the town's apparently happy (but deeply dissatisfied) dwellers, their miseries and broken dreams, their monotonous social interaction, their social hierarchy, and their latent immobility and frustration.
The main problem of the movie is its overall dullness and low pace, and the fact that some characters are just sketched, so their actions appear a bit out of the blue (so to speak) sometimes. Pat Shortt, the leading actor, is inexpressive in his performance, as most of the cast; I blame the mediocre direction and the unbalanced script for that.
The conversations of Josie with a horse, his interaction with some of the teens in town, his sexual frustration, his Spartan way of life, and the changes in other characters when Josie starts to behave differently trying to break his position as clown or punch-bag in the town are the things I liked the most. I also liked the ending, which is a bit unexpected, surreal and very moving, as it shows how a speck in your actions can create an unbearable tension in your psyche if you live in a narrow-minded rural town.
The dull performances by most actors, the dragging tempo, and the poor direction killed a story that had many possibilities and deserved a bit of more effort. However, this is an interesting film that shows a face of Ireland that is not usually presented in film, and whose premises could be easily transplanted to other rural European towns.
A low-budget science-fiction original movie that tells the story of a group of friends who are carrying out several engineering Physics experiments in a garage and discover, by accident, time travel.
The director and main actor is Shane Carruth, an ex-engineer who also wrote the script, and made the music! His family and friends make most of the cast, too!
Carruth is a scientist by formation. Therefore, all the part of the story related to the experimentation and discussions taken part in the garage are truly believable as they have all the technical jargon that you expect from real physicists. If time-travel was discovered would be, we can guess, in a similar way to the one portrayed in the movie.
The use of the camera and the amateurish acting (really pedestrian in the case of Carruth) help the story to be credible, down to earth and realistic. As if somebody was filming the meetings and wanderings of the characters with a video-camera. Something very close to reality to what went on in Carruth's house when he was preparing and shooting the movie. The movie is definitely
original, believable and refreshing, and incredibly good-looking
for the low budget. A good suit and a tie always work on camera! The 1990s mood and style are very good. The mobiles and the computers range between the mid 1980s and mid 1990s, and the laptop in the movie is very similar to my first (and now ancient MS2) Toshiba.
The first and main problem of the movie, to me, is not the jargon, but the fact that the dialogues are crowded, words colliding atomically against others at the speed of light. Moreover, the diction of the actors, especially of the two main characters, is really bad, a fact that is highlighted by the poor quality of the sound. Secondly, there are gaps and blurs not well explained in the script, or perhaps are just the result of a poor editing. In general, the movie is a bit thick and confusing.
The movie won the Prize
of the Jury and the Alfred P. Sloan Prize at Sundance 2004,
but I do not think the first one was deserved - my opinion.
The first time I wrote about this movie, I ended saying:
Carruth is somebody to watch in the future and has brilliant ideas. Hopefully, he will have enough budget next time, and will have learnt better film-making skills, so he can make a great film that is not just for scientists doing a Ph.D. and without having to sacrifice any depth. That's possible. You need to learn film-making, not just produce your own brilliant ideas.
Well, he has proven to
continue to showcase his talent, and wrote the scripts for two other science-fiction movies: the critically well-received "Looper" and for the just released and winner of the Special Prize of the Jury at Sundance 2013, "Upstream Colour".
Dopamine is an original independent post-modern love story that reflects on traditional/modern views on love in our contemporary world, and on the difficulties of human connection in a world that is every day more virtual.
The main characters are Rand -a computer animator working on a project of a virtual pet- and Sarah -a schoolteacher-, who are convincingly played by John Livingston and Sabrina Lloyd. They really have great chemistry on camera.
Sarah believes in love, from heart to heart, and in a committed relationship. Rand, is very influenced by his father's teachings on human biology and chemistry, according to which most human emotions -love included- are just the result of biochemical reactions in our body. Love, in that regard, is directly connected to a high production of Dopamine in the brain. However, Sarah is rough, edgy, and unpredictable, while Rand is a sweet sensitive guy.
+ The good things about the movie are: + The story is very engaging and believable. + The acting is good and the main actors have chemistry. + The characters are all well-drawn and grounded - believable. + The dialogues are great, fresh and thought-provoking. + The story is never straightforward or simplistic, and shows the difficulties surrounding men-women relationships from a new perspective.
However, - The pace of the movie is too slow. - The music is forgettable. I don't even remember it! - The colours, cinematography and texture of the film used for the movie are not visually engaging or attractive, which is a pity as the movie was shot in the colourful bright San Francisco. - The ending is predictable.
The movie won the Alfred P. Sloan Prize at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival, and it is not your usual love story. It is not a proper chick flick, or perhaps it is a chick flick for chicks that aren't your average romantic chick.
Underground is a Serbian-Franco-German allegorical tragicomedy about the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia.
The movie is structured in three parts: War, Cold War, and War. The first is devoted to the WWII, the second to Tito’s period, and the third to the civil war that ended with the disintegration of the country. The second part is the most interesting -and the one that gives the movie its title- as it shows, in a metaphorical way, how the Yugoslavs related to each other, deceived each other, exploited each other, lied to each other and built up the hatred that would end with a very nasty civil war. All the characters are well drawn, and all the actors do a great job in their respective roles. The main characters are a couple of rascal friends and a nymphomaniac actress. They represent three human archetypes. Marko -played by Miki Manojlovic- depicts those people who say they have political beliefs and brag about them, when in actuality they have none. Cmi = Blacky -played by Lazar Ristovski- depicts those people who truly believe in what they preach and act accordingly, but they do so in such a dogmatic and obsessive way that become oblivious to reality and ignore the harshness of they political regimes they support. Finally, Natalija -played by Mirjana Jokovic- depicts those people who will always support the political regime in power, with a passion, no fight or confrontation, and go on with the flow and with their lives in a successful way. The counterpoint to these three characters is the character of Ivan (Marko's mentally changed brother) -played by Slavko Stimacy-, who loves his monkey Soni and wants to hung himself as he's always deceived and betrayed by everybody; he seems to be the only honest decent person and human being around.
Although all the themes touched in the movie are serious and dramatic, Kusturica's merit is to present them in a farce-like comedy and to talk about his people showing both his positive and negative traits. The movie, thus, mixes
elements of surrealism (some of them very Buñuel-ish), comedy of the
absurd, neo-realism, and époque films. Some scenes of the movie are unforgettable. My two favourite ones are the one at the old village square, which is terrific and visually shocking, and the ending with the "island", which really explains the whole movie and contains one of its most beautiful scenes. Some of the scenes related to the marriage of Blacky's son, his first outing to the real world, and the shooting of the movie about Blacky, are also great.
Some Bosnians and French intellectuals accused Kusturica of producing a pro-Serbian pamphlet. Kusturica, who
considers himself to be an Othodox Serbian (despite being born a Muslim
Bosnian) does not mention anything about the barbaric acts committed by
the Serbians. I do not know the director personally, or enough about him, so I cannot speak about his true intentions. However, the fact is that the movie rarely mentions any ethnic group. I see the movie more an evaluation of the (arche)type of people you find during pre-war or war periods than a justification of any of the barbarian acts committed during those period by any ethnic group. In fact, we are shown that all of those ethnic and social groups are to blame for what happened. Kusturica shows, in a way, certain fatalism in his approach to the events, as if what happened was inevitable. We see best friends killing each other’s... anybody who wants to understand, will.
My main criticism to the movie is its the extremely long footage, its slow pace, and the fact that it is not always engaging. Moreover, the camera style and film colours are those ugly ones typical of the TV shows of the 1980s. That is so because the film is an adaptation for the big screen of a 5-hour TV series. I would have not had any problem with that if the editors had taken into consideration that people going to the cinema expect different things than those watching a TV series, and that superfluous things are OK for TV but not for a movie. I found the music overbearing and annoying in general, although some of the individual pieces are beautiful. However, the music goes well with the histrionics of the characters and the craziness of the story.
Once upon a time, there was a country... and people who were happy partying and playing music, would end killing, torturing, and hating each other in a way that is difficult to understand for outsiders.
Underground, despite its comedic tone, is a very sad movie that speaks of social and human failure, and of the wickedness of the human spirit.
A single event in somebody's life can have repercussions in many others. That is the point of departure of this post-modern holistic view of human interrelations in a modern multicultural multiracial Los Angeles.
Crash is a choral film in which each character's mini-story links to the others in an organic way. This is not a film with good and bad people despite the initial appearances. As the film progresses, we see that all the characters are deeply human, and they are depicted in both their splendour and misery - sometimes they are disgusting, reproachable, racist, angry and violent; other times they are heroic, tender, kind and good. The characters are not
good or bad, are good and bad depending on the circumstances. As any
human being in any country in the world. Humans are never a behavioural block of concrete, and
there is more to any person than it catches the eye, as the eye is always
biased.The movie also succeeds at offering a raw unadorned honest and empathetic image of American society and its social and multicultural issues wounds, and most importantly, of the depths and multifaceted nature of the human spirit.
Paul Haggis does a great job at creating unity and giving harmonic pace and sense to the emotional physical and cultural chaos in which most characters live. The story has action and introspection, and the main characters are wonderfully drawn and played by all actors. All the cast members are great in their roles, but Matt Dillon (as officer Ryan) really stands out in his performance.
The film makes you think, but it is entertaining and approachable, sweet and harsh. A great film, with surprising twists.
** Warning - This review may contain spoilers. I recommend watching the movie and then coming here, especially if the ending intrigues you, and it will **
Mr Nobody is the story of Nemo, whose possible two life lines and three love stories are alternatively presented.
The movie is well
shot and the cast members convincing, especially Jared Leto (as adult
Nemo), who is always perfect in this sort of odd films and roles. Also excellent are Toby
Regbo (15y.o. Nemo), Juno Temple (15y.o. Anna) and Sarah Polley (depressive adult Elise). Diana Kruger (as adult Anna), Rhys Ifans (Nemo's father, Natasha Little (Nemo's mother), among many others, are OK in their respective roles.
The
visual effects are wonderfully understated, very well blended with and at the
service of the story. The theatrical movie sets, the
rich colours, the different hues attached to each different life path,
the wardrobe, and the lovely music -which mixes some old classic tunes with pieces specifically composed for the movie- create an ensemble that is very
easy on the eye.
However, Mr Nobody is a great movie mostly because of its subtle but profound reflection on Human Nature, Human behaviour, Free Will and the meaning of life. The movie reflects on questions like - what makes us what we are? Why we act the way we do? Is free choice a key element to happiness? How does other people's choices affect our choices? The philosophical, psychological, and metaphysical questions posed are sometimes explicitly mentioned, while others are hinted and expressed through the story as a whole, each different life line story in particular, and through Nemo and the other characters' behaviour. Among others, some of the concepts presented here are: 1. Butterfly effect. 2. Principle of Entropy. 3. Schrodinger's Cat Paradox 4. String Theory 5. The Pigeon's Superstition experiment 6. The Nature of the true self. 7. Free will and
fate. 8. The linearity of (or multidimensional nature of) Time. 9. Quantum Physics and parallel universes.
Do not worry if some of these things sound alien to you. They were also alien to me. However, they were intriguing enough for me to get more information, and try to understand what I have seen better. In fact, they are a reason to watch the movie again. However, you can watch it without even bothering, and you will find that the movie still speaks to you.
Jaco Van Darmael himself commented on the script and on his initial intentions in an interview. However, the story has taken a life of his own, way beyond the initial intention of the director.
***
THE ENDING OF THE MOVIE - MY INTERPRETATION The film ends in a way that is open to interpretation. Movie forums are full of comments on the ending, and on Nemo's different lives, actions and reactions. To, me, however, they miss a few important things that are pivotal to understand the way the movie ends. Or, at least, the way I understand it: 1/ The Lyrics of the song Mr Sandman, which is repeatedly played thorough the whole movie, especially the main verses. Are we watching something real or is it just a dream? A lucid dream? 2/ The beginning of the film, with the different possible endings, which all end with Nemo dead, lost in a rhomboidal aseptic nightmarish dream-like world. The narrator is Nemo himself. 3/ The scene where Nemo tells how he was born, which goes from minutes 12.20 to 15 approximately. Here my transcription of what Nemo's off voice says:
"I can remember a long time ago, long before my birth, in the squeezing with those not yet born. When we aren't born yet, you know everything. Everything that's going to happen. When it's your time, the angels of the living put their finger on your mouth and leave a mark on the upper lip. It means that you've forgotten everything.
But the angels missed me.
[Nemo immerses himself in a white milk-like liquid, as he is ready to being born]
Then you have to find a daddy and mammy, and that's not easy to choose.
[Different couples speak about their wishes to have a baby, until Nemo's parents appear]
In the end, I chose them because the lady smells nice, and the man said 'Well, I can tell you how we met. It meant to be. Have you heard of the butterfly effect?' ".
4/ The title of the movie is "Mr Nobody". Shouldn't this, per se, be an indication of something? Anything? Any bell ringing in your ears, yet?
Many of the
interpretations about the meaning of the movie
focus on the event that is photographed in the poster of the movie, but we need to remember that unborn Nemo chose his parents. Therefore, the moment of decisive choice is not the one in the poster, but the one of choosing his parents.
We are told, explicitly, that Nemo can see the future, any possibility in the future, every possible action and reaction in his life because the angels missed him. Therefore, all the couples that appear at the beginning are a possibility. Nemo chooses one. The more you think about it, the clearer you come to the conclusion that unborn Nemo is seeing his possible life IF he selected this couple as his parents, NOT after selecting them as his parents. Not convinced?
Now, we have the part of the movie in which we see centenary Nemo telling his life story/ies to a journalist. At a certain point, the world in which they are living starts to fade out and disintegrate, as it was a projection or a dream. And that is what it is. Something that is not real at all. All this world is white in colour, the same limbo and space of possibility in which Nemo immerses himself before being born. Old Nemo is not real, it is the way unborn Nemo sees himself if he chooses the parents shown at the beginning. If that wasn't true, how do you explain the fact that Nemo is the narrator of the three possible endings that we see at the beginning of the movie?
***
There are other movies that reflect on the effect that personal choice and randomness, free will, determination, fate, and the butterfly effect have in our lives. Just to mention three, just remember Sliding Doors, Run Lola Run, and Cloud Atlas. However, they do not have the clarity and depth that Mr Nobody has.
Mr Nobody is a very
complex film, which, however, is very entertaining and easy on the eye.
After all, it is a possible multiple love story. You can see it in many
different ways and give it the interpretation you want. However, this is a film that needs of certain frame of mind to watch it,
as this is not your usual fantasy or science-fiction movie.
Mr. Nobody is one of the most interesting and thought-provoking film I have watched in a long time. Perfect for Philosophy classes, and for oiling the creases of your brain in those days in which you feel them a bit rusty.Mr. Nobody is one of those movies that linger in the back seat of you mind for days, long after you have watched it. "No
choice is still a choice" is one of the statements presented in the movie on which I have been pondering for days. Would
knowing your fate help you to make a choice? Is one of those questions that did the same to me. The film
is full of statements and questions that will keep you thinking, for good. A cult film already.
Moon is an indie retro-Sci-Fi film that narrates the last days of San Bell on a station on the moon at the end of his 3-year contract. The storyline is
excellent, but the script and the mood of the movie get deflated mid
way, as the movie does not have a marked tempo and the in crescendo
necessary for the viewer to get excited and anxious towards the end.
Although the story carries on very well, there is not enough tension and
mystery to give the movie the little push up it need it to get a more
rounder film.
The aesthetics of the movie are very much the same you could find in classic sci-fi of the 1970s, with miniature lunar sets, clean white interiors and furniture, miniature vehicles. Even the robot is chunky and heavy, more emotional than functional, nothing to do with modern robotics. Even the atmosphere is classic, with that unsettling feeling of old sci-fi movies. Sam Rockwell really shines in his double performance, especially in the skin of the first character, showing what a great actor he is. The changes of clothing are minimal, but his performance really gives life to two different people. In fact, Rockwell makes the movie, as it is him who carries the weight of the story and makes it believable. This is a performance worth of an Oscar nomination. Keven Spacey, the voice of robot Girty, is not especially inspired, though, as his voice is dull and plain and improper of a chunk and primitive robot. One would expect 1/ a more mechanical voice, if the robot is as it looks, or 2/ a more human voice, with more human inflexions and tone, in case the chunkiness is just apparent.
I hated the voice in off at the end, summarising what happens at the arrival to earth... which I found a little bit cheesy and unnecessary, unless you want to shoot a follow up.
A very good science-fiction film, entertaining, and well acted, that did not live to my expectations.
Sita Sings the Blues is an animated film based on one of the episodes in the Ramayana, but adapted to modern sensibilities, that has Sita -Rama's wife- as the centre of the story. The movie deals with love, longing, faithfulness, exile, search for love and destiny.
The movie intertwines four different types of 2-D colourful animation, each one offering four different approaches to the same chapter of the Ramayana: 1/ There is the story on how the movie was created and how the author came to think of it, how her personal life got mixed up with the project. 2/ There is the story of the chapter told straight forward. 3/ There is a musical version of it in which Sita -the main character- sings some classic blues that convey what is happening in the story, and in which Sita expresses her feelings and mood. 4/ Finally, there is a review of comment of the story told made by two h-i-l-a-r-i-o-u-s Hindu shadow puppets, who offer a witty interpretation of it expressed in an every-day language. 5/ There is even an intermission, as still happens in Indian cinemas, with a cute and kitsch show.
The movie can be confusing at the beginning, but once you understand the different parts, you will immerse yourself in a movie that is original, witty and very entertaining. Something completely different from what you are used to watch in modern animation.
There are not many
independent animation movies being made by women. Just this deserves
praise. However, what makes the movie so good is its originality, the concept lying behind, and its wittiness. The music is great, not just because of the blues. The film has been controversial because Paley was not aware that the Annette Hanshaw's songs used in the film were still under copyright, despite the singer being dead for many years. Hanshaw's heirs sued Paley for an astronomical sum, but they reached an agreement and settled for $50,000, which is a tremendous amount of money for an independent artist who made this film using her own money, donations, and counted with the free help of Indian musicians and actors.
Antichrist tells the story of a couple's grief after the death of their child, their progressive alienation from reality, and their descend to a personal hell, especially after they retreat to their cabin in in the forest, which they call Eden. Antichrist also
narrates the trip of the female character "She" to her inner hell, so
she becomes a demon (or the Antichrist) in an Eden inhabited by only a
man and a woman.
The movie is structured in four parts: Grief, Pain (Chaos Reigns), Despair (Gynocide), and The Three Beggars, plus a Prologue and an Epilogue.
The Prologue in black and white is a short masterpiece, classy image quality and tones, wonderful music and mood, perfect tempo. It really sets the mood of the rest of the film, and offers a lyricism that gets lost afterwards.
Once the first chapter starts, the movie, its colours, its lighting, the atmosphere, and the acting start to dig in and unsettle the viewer with an unidentifiable menace that you feel even before the couple moves to the woods. That menacing feeling grows at the same pace as the tempo of the movie, being suffocating when the tragic events unfold. There are amazing oniric, premonitory and surreal images blended with the real facts, but these are progressively intermixed, and the boundaries between reality and unreality, sanity and insanity, get faded out.
The epilogue is very surreal, quite easy and light, more fairytale-ish in a way, and I thought that it did not glue well to the rest of the movie in story or mood.
The movie has only two
actors, William Dafoe as He and Charlotte Gainsbourg as She, who carry out the heavy
weight of the whole movie. Their physiques really suit the gloomy
characters they play. In both cases, the roles are very demanding
physically and emotionally, so their work has to be praised. I found,
however, that their personal chemistry was somewhat lacking. Cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle produces superb bucolic images, but also eerie oniric images and tones, that are not complacent or decorative, but the third character in the movie.
Antichrist is a psycho-thriller, and it is barely gory or explicitly violent until the last 20 minutes of the film, which are horrific. The violence and horror in the movie mainly come from the atmosphere and the dark places of the human soul where the story takes the viewer to. The fact that Von Trier was quite depressed when he filmed this movie, helps the movie to portray sadness, depression, mania, mental alienation and therapy with great accuracy. The movie has that profound eeriness that Japanese horror movies have, too, but explores other themes, and is not as entertaining, to be honest.
The surrealism of the movie is more Buñuel-Dali's in "Le Chien Andalu" than Tarkosky's, although some of the forest scenes and images would remind the viewer of the Russian Master, especially in The Mirror.
***
A few tags have been attached to the film by a few critics and, more often, by those people who have not watched the movie or follow what other people say without any further questioning.
Critique given no. 1 - The movie is "offensively misogynistic" Really? I did not feel the hate towards women anywhere. The female character is a troubled spirit with a shocking behaviour, but if you consider that a proof of Trier's misogyny, you should categorise most Japanese horror film directors the same, as they have this sort of nasty women, too. To me, there is more misogyny in most Hollywood movies (in the way women are usually portrayed with regards to men and women) or in any bunch of randomly selected video-clips (where you will see women presented as trash and as pieces of meat) than in this movie. However, I don't see critics vehemently denouncing that.
The only misogyny in the film comes from the fact that the female character shifts the intellectual approach to her Ph. D. thesis called "Gynocide" (about the genocide of women through History) from a feminist one to a misogynist one. However, that is the direct result of her progressive mental and emotional alienation, in which she convinces herself that female nature is evil, as also her own nature, which explains the final horrific events. Von Trier offered an interview to Rotten Tomatoes, quite interesting, light and frank, that you might want to check if you want to see the movie or if you've already watched it On the other hand, the male character is patronising, intellectually patronising, and his approach to his wife's problem, despite the love he has for her, is too clinical and emotionally detached - aseptically empathic if you want. So is not misogynist either.
Critique given no. 2: "The viewer cannot relate to the characters and their circumstances". Of course not. The movie deals with maniac depression, even schizophrenia at times, grieving, pain, and alienation. They are not sane characters. You do not need to relate to them at all.
Critique given no. 3: "The film is depressing". That's for sure, but, again, is a film about grieving and sadness, and the viewer knew that before watching the movie. Critique given no. 4: "I do not know the point of the film", or "What is the movie about?". I think that, if the film had been more entertaining, you would not be asking that question. That is the director's fault. Still, the film has many different readings and interpretations. Some of the surreal and oniric images have no explanation, or as many explanations as you want. That is so, because our subconscious world is never straightforward or easily explainable: A fox eating itself alive, a gazelle with a dead foetus coming out, the sex scene under the tree, the dreams of the female character, some elements of European folklore and wizardry to mention just a few eerie (horrific to me) images. The mix of visual and narrative elements is overwhelming, and very complex.
***
Antichrist is an excellent movie, confusing a times, not entertaining enough, not easy to watch at all, with good performances. It contains horrific impacting images and moments that will upset you, especially if you are not into horror films. The film is still fascinating, but you are not going to recommend it to anybody to pass the time or have a nice relaxing Sunday afternoon.
Just a warning. If you are interested
in watching explicit sex images, you better chose another movie, because
you will be disappointed with the ones here, as the number of them is
limited, of short length, and anti-erotic. Nothing that will turn you on
- Guaranteed.
A stop-motion comic-horror-romance musical directed by Tim Burton, which has all the elements and icons of the Burton's quirky universe.
The movie tells the story of Victor (Johnny Depp), who is in love with shy sensitive Victoria (Emily Watson) and finds himself married to the lonely Emily the Corpse Bride (Elena Bonham Carter) due to the release of an old spell. He'll have to find the way to leave the underworld and his unwanted dead wife, and return to the real world to marry sweet Victoria.
The movie mixes the moods of the classic Charles Dickens's novels and the 18th-19th century horror stories, and it is sprinkled with a great sense of humour and lots of winks to the adult viewer.
The colours and backgrounds are beautiful, with a mix of the dark bright colours and precious quirky design that characterises Burton's world.
The characters are physically well designed, his personalities well-constructed and brought to live, and they are very witty and charming with the very charming old English and Scottish accents. The dubbing is excellent and helps the characters to come to live; you won't recognise the famous actors behind the characters, which says a lot about the good job they did at dubbing them.
The musical numbers are brilliant, hilarious sometimes.
The Corpse Bride is a very entertaining engaging animation movie for both adults and youngsters (not for kids, unless properly supervised) - Very sweet and funny despite the title. A classic of the stop-motion animation, perfect for the approaching Halloween.
Cold Souls is a comedy of the absurd with some surrealist and existentialist touches, and a philosophical query on the nature of the soul.
The film departs from a quote from Descartes that says that the soul is located in a little place in the brain, a premise that leaves out one of the most interesting aspects of the nature of the soul. The script is more interested in asking and answering the following questions: What exactly is the soul? How affects the soul to the building of the self and defines who we are? What would it be not having a soul and being just a corporeal being? What would it be living with the soul of another person? Why would anybody want to empty out his/her body from his/her soul?
Paul Giametti plays himself, better said, a version of himself - an actor in crisis, burdened by the weight of role he's playing on his mood and spirit -even though this is just created by his job-, who goes to a clinic where the soul can be extracted and stored, restored and exchanged, whatever you like. What happens Giametti in his quest to be soul-lighted without his soul is the core of the story.
Giametti shows once again what a great actor he is. Russian actress Dina Kurzun, who plays a "mule" of souls between Russia and the US is OK in her role. The other actors are all mediocre in their respective roles.
The tone of the film is somewhat depressing and grey, which goes well with Giametti's character. In fact, all the characters in the movie are very serious and grey, as if all souls in the world had that same defect. I think that it is the best part of the movie, i. e. the depiction of a world of grey souls always unsatisfied about being human, always wanting to be perfect. Humans avoiding everything that makes us humans. The unwillingness of humans to see within, to deal with our emotions, feelings and problems, our past and present. The soul as a product of trade, like our society, in which everything is for sale, and bogus people are everywhere. These elements are openly and clearly presented in a successful way through Giametti's dialogues and part of the storyline.
On the other hand, I see a contradiction, a deep one, between what the director wants to portray and what actually the characters in the script portray. If the soul is undeniable linked to our emotions and feelings, and their weight makes us what we are, how is possible that a person without soul, empty, can be aware and suffer from not having a soul? If your soul is not yours but that of another person, how do you know (from an emotional point of view) that the soul is not yours? If the soul is located in a part of the brain, how can the brain work normally after the soul has been extracted? The movie does not success at offering response to these questions, and in fact mixes things up a little bit.
Despite the serious tone of the film, the main concepts that the movie deals with are examined superficially. Perhaps, a lighter story an characters and a deeper analysis of the philosophical elements of the script would have produced a more engaging film. I am thinking, for example, in The Truman Show, which did just that without losing any depth, and being an entertaining movie at the same time.
There is a problem with the music too, at least to me. A couple of songs in French appear from nowhere halfway the movie. They are beautiful and very much of my liking, but they do not fit with the rest of the music and the general music ambience of the film. In fact they were a shock and a distraction from the scene that they were paired with.
The film has an excellent starting point and some very original ideas, but the tone of the film is too serious on one hand, and too descriptive in the other. It is not a drama or a comedy either, an ambiguous mix instead.
I think that, still, that this is a daring and original film.
'I love the movie poster. It's great and pretty much sums up the main concept of the film in just one shot.
Little Miss Sunshine is a road movie about a dysfunctional family trying to take their seven-year-old Olive to an interstate beauty pageant from Alburquerque NM to Redondo Beach CA in their yellow Volkswagen Van.
Little Miss Sunshine is an fresh, witty and enthralling movie with freak and quirky characters, brilliant dialogues, great performances, and an original story. It is an entertaining funny crazy film that makes you think about
subjects that are never confrontationally presented. What makes a family dysfunctional? At the beginning of the film our family seem to be dysfunctional and freak, although they are depicted in an empathetic way and epitomise, in a way, the dysfunctions that most so-called-normal families have. The thing is, the family
does not push Olive into the pageant, does not force her to dress or
behave in a certain way, does not dress her as little prostitute, does
not expect anything from her, just supports her the whole way, even
when everybody turns against her. The other parents, the "normal" ones,
appear as real freaks after all, projecting their frustrated dreams and personal failure into their little kids. All
of the sudden, the dysfunctional family is quite sound, warm and caring,
the others just the opposite.
There is a subtle but clear criticism of the ideal of the American dream and of the self-help books and coaching focusing on becoming rich. The character of Richard epitomises the bullshit that these sub-culture has, pushing people to fight for money success following recipes that frequently lead to failure for which they do not prepare anybody. Sheryl the mother is instead the voice of common sense and more successful in her approach to life and its problems.
There is also a very cleaver non non-confrontational criticism of child beauty pageants. The script poses a rhetorical question to the viewer: what is it freakier, a
beautiful child sexually dressed wearing sluty make up who poses and
moves as a sexy adult, or an innocent child who sings and dances to a
raunchy song that she does not understand? What happens to Olive at the pageant is the answer that the script gives to that rhetorical question, and surely the one you would identify the most.
The movie provides the viewer with many iconic movie images, which will imprint your retinas and stand the pass of time: The pushing of the van and the music, the girl singing "super freak", the escape from the hospital, among many others.
If this was not enough, all the actors give unforgettable performances in their respective roles: Toni Collette as the family's warm-hearted sound mother Sheryl, Greg Kinnear is her unsuccessful husband Richard, Alan Arkin as Richard's dirty father Edwin, Steve Carell as Shery'ls gay suicidal scholar brother, Abigail Breslin as the sweet innocent Olive, and Paul Dano as Olive's half brother silent rebel Dwayne.
Code 46 is Michael Winterbottom's allegory about a our near future, a world where human relationships and society are damned by the power of eugenics and the extensive use of in-vitro genetically-designed pregnancies.
Tim Robbins is William Geld, a Government official on a trip to Shanghai to investigate a case of document forgery in a Government security plant. There, he finds worker Maria Gonzalez (Samantha Morton), to whom he feels immediately attracted despite his conviction that she is the forger. Their love story, however, is cursed from the beginning as, under Code 46, they must not enter in a relationship, get married or have a baby as they share at least 46% of their genetic code, being, therefore, family related.
The movie is an allegoric projection into the future of the technological, scientific and cultural trends and issues predominant in our modern world. Being so, Code 46 is set in a multi-ethnic, multi-racial, multi-cultural and multi-linguistic society. The characters in the movie use an hybrid English mixed with words from different languages, mostly Spanish, but also Italian, French, Mandarin, Arabic, and Basque among others. A pigeon-language similar to Spanglish. Winterbottom's future is strictly compartmented and structured, with a controlled individual freedom, and limited freedom of movement between world areas unless you have "papelles" [= from the Spanish papeles, i.e. papers/documents), which are only granted depending on your health state and genetic disposition to certain maladies and weaknesses. A believable situation in which Private Health Insurance and Government are almost the same.
The premises of the film are brilliant, thought-provoking and original, although connected with themes already presented in Gattaca. The high-tech future world is perfectly drawn and showed, and uses a mix of Shanghai, Dubai and Kuala-Lumpur futuristic urban settings and architecture, which provide a very sleek urban, metallic imagery and a cold feeling. In contrast, the outcast areas are wilder, more rural and underdeveloped, but warmer from a human point of view; they were shot in the desert area near Dubai and in India. The music (with a cameo performance by Mick Jones singing "Should I stay or should I go?) is also great, and gives a great mood to the movie.
Despite the undeniable style and good premises of the movie, the whole gets washed out by the poor script. The movie is supposedly a love story, but the leading characters' personalities and emotions are poorly drawn, explored and portrayed, and the love story feels more like a lust story than anything else; moreover, Robbins and Morton don't have a great chemistry on camera, so the movie ends lacking emotion and when the film finishes, you wonder: where is the love? On the other hand, the outcast society and the outcasts are barely introduced, so it is difficult to understand the sort of world we are dealing with, as we are just presented with the developed part of it. In other words, while the future society feels like real future, the outcast society looks more like the underdeveloped rural areas of our modern world, not the underdeveloped areas of the future.
A thought-provoking film with sleek visuals and music that is wasted by a drafted script and mediocre performances
Roman Polanski Wanted and Desired is a terrific documentary with important flaws, that does not give an answer to the core question of the case - Did Polanski rape minor Samantha Gilmer or was the sex consensual?
The documentary, firstly, offers an insight into the life and personality of Polanski, so very much marked by tragedy since his childhood and an insight into his creative genius, with which we all agree. Many of his famous friends offer give a glimpse of his charm and attractive personality, and of his personal highs and lows before and during his marriage to Sharon Tate, after her murder, and when the rape case burst out. We also see the way the American media has been treating Polanski since the death of Tate. Most of his friends, being so, always believed in Polanski's innocence. Love is always blind, and never an objective proof of anything, so their opinions are going to be subjective, and do not add anything to the question if he did in fact rape the girl or not. Talent does not make you a better or worse person, just talented.
The documentary, secondly, offers an insightful review of Polanski's trial in the USA, and of the many irregularities committed by judge Laurence J. Rittenband, who was more thrilled to become famous and punish Polanski a priory than to do Justice. The long interviews with the two lawyers, defendant and prosecutor, and the victim, Samantha, really help the viewer to understand that Polanski was legally mistreated, and that Rittenband abused his power and proceeded in improper unacceptable legal ways. We understand why Polanski flew the USA, and why he is right at mistrusting the American Press and judicial system. We also understand how silly and outrageous the latest detention of Polanski was.
Said this, the documentary somewhat forgets Samantha and does not try to provide enough information about what really happened that night. Did Polanski rape her? Was Samantha lying? Was Samantha used by her mother? The documentary seems to blame her mother for letting her go alone with womaniser Polanski; however, no mother wants her child abused or raped. The interventions of Samantha on camera are very limited and controlled by the director, and mostly serve to support that Polanski, an herself were used by the judge, and that the trial harmed them both. However, why does the director forget or avoid asking Samantha the main questions, directly, and letting the viewer hear what she has to say? After all, a rapist is never excused no matter how talented he is, even less if he is taking advantage of a teen, even if that girl has had sexual intercourse before. The transcript of the proceedings of the case, with the witnesses testimonials, is available online at This Place. In fact, this transcript briefly appears in the documentary, just highlighting the questions made to Samantha, without displaying Samantha's replies in full. By reading Samantha's testimonial one immediately believes her. However, the testimonial of the doctor who examined her that night puts a big question mark onto Samantha's testimonial, as he denies she was forced or that sex took place. At the same time Polanski's semen was found in Samantha's panties. On the other hand, if I or my daughter were raped, I would like the rapist jailed, so he can't do the same to other girls. However, Samantha's family and herself publicly forgave Polanski long ago. If the sex was consensual, and Samantha was not a virgin, why the attorney's office did not charge the other offenders? Where is Polanski's narration of the events of the night? All of these elements are relevant to the case, and should have been directly explored in the documentary. If you want to present an objective documentary about Polanski's case, you have to be objective in the first place, and go all the way.
After watching the documentary and reading the transcripts of the trial, the case is still as mysterious as before regarding the main question. The documentary is sometimes a panegyric, and does not help to erase the black shadow pending on Polanski's head. However, the documentary does a great job a showcasing the irregularities of Polanski's trial, and making your head spin with questions.
Watch it on YouTube An Oscar nominated, cult short by Don Hertzfeldt that showcases several mini-shorts related to product promotion and children teaching segments. They are linked by a fictional frame that says that these works were presented and rejected and that the author grew increasingly crazy, the next short becoming even crazier. It is just a summary you see repeated in too many film sites taken literally. Hertzfeldt has never accepted any commercial assignment.
The animation style is very simple and schematic, with simple lines, black and white, bare or very simple backgrounds, with some splashes of bright colour. The mood of all the vignettes is very childish, funny and increasingly gory, with that sort of brutishness that some small children show when mistreating little animals without knowing that what they are doing is wrong or harmful.
The humour goes from deadpan, to absurd to plain hilarious, and it is very entertaining. "My anus is bleeding" and "funny hats only" are my favourite segments.
Something different and refreshing. Anarchist in the best sense of the word.
V. O. S. is a sui-generis romantic comedy directed by Spanish film maker Cesc Gay and based on the eponymous stage play. The movie is bilingual, spoken both in Spanish and Catalan, with a few sentences in Basque, and has a broken narrative with mirror-like happenings. It is a movie within a movie that shows the filming of the relationship and love story of two couples, who are the actors in the movie; they are playing both their own past personal story, the writing of the same, and its filming. Entangling!
Ágata Roca plays Clara, a single independent woman who says that she wants independence and an independent relationship but thrives for a traditional love story. Paul Berrondo plays Manu, Clara's best friend and father of her first child to be, who is sure about their relationship. Andrés Herrera is Anders, Manu's best friend, a freelance movie-writer and University teacher in a traditional relationship but unwilling to commit. Vicenta N'Dongo is Vicky, Anders' down-to-earth committed and serious girlfriend, who tries to step forward in their relationship. All of them play their respective roles with great freshness and empathy with their characters. The participation of the filming crew as themselves adds lots of charm to the movie, as they are incorporated into the story and not presented as mere workers.
The movie is very enjoyable, engaging and fresh, but also confusing. The main downs of the movie are three. The first is that the story is too theatrical, the weight of the studio around being overly present, and one feels the need for more outdoors scenes and some interaction with other people and characters, like their families, friends, or co-workers. The second, and most important, is that the fringes between the three story-within-the-story moments are not clearly defined since the beginning, and it takes a bit too long for the viewer to realize which part is which. Until you get the Aha moment the movie feels absurd and pretentious. It can easily discourage mainstream viewers. Finally, the drawing of the characters is a bit stereotypical. On one hand, it really highlights many of the problems that settled couples find in their mid 30s and the contradictions of human relationships, but on another you wonder that, if the characters are not actors why are they filming a movie? There is lack of internal logic in the film or that logic is not well-presented to the viewer.
Despite everything, I found the movie very enjoyable and intriguing, a mix between a Hollywood love story and one of Charlie Kauffman's approaches to film-making and film-writing. Original, fresh and entertaining, but also confusing.
Paul Conroy is a married truck driver working as a contractor in Iraq. After his convoy is attacked by insurgents, he wakes up inside a coffin, buried alive, with a Zippo, a cell phone, and a little whisky bottle. He will try to use the two first to get help and be rescued from the outside.
Buried is the second feature film by young Spanish director Rodrigo Cortés based on Chris Sparling's script, and produced and shot in Spain. Cortés got the script after it had been rejected by most film studios, and he found it to be a crazy challenge, worth of being filmed. From the very beginning, he wanted to shoot the film in the coffin, with no exteriors, and Ryan Reynolds to be the leading man. Reynolds thought that the script was impossible to shoot and said no; Cortés insisted and sent him his first movie and a long report about why the movie should be shot and, more importantly, why Reynolds should be in it.
The movie was filmed on a tight budget in Barcelona in over two weeks. The shooting of the film was very hard and challenging from the technical, engineering and emotional point of view, as the film has no exteriors, the filming happens inside a wooden box, and Reynolds had to play the movie alone, entirely in the coffin.
This is one of those movies that you have to watch in a cinema, with the lights off, so you can put yourself in Paul Conroy's shoes, both physically and emotionally, and feel what is like to be buried.
The use of camera and lighting are fantastic, very complex but very well executed.
The atmosphere is terrific.
The script makes very good points about how little American corporations and Government care about their employees/citizens in the Middle East, and also about the preconceptions that people in those areas of the world have about individual Americans being all rich and powerful not just working class employees.
Reynolds is brilliant in his performance of Paul Conroy, and it is a shame that he wasn't nominated for the Oscars that year; he really deserved it. This is Reynolds' best and most serious performance to the date, and shows the great actor he is; why does he keep accepting unsubstantial roles in Hollywood movies?! The voices heard through the phone were recorded after the shooting was finished; however, Reynolds needed a real counterpart to help him to get into character, so his acting coach played the different characters, live, and Reynolds heard her through a tiny earpiece.
The performances of the actors whose voices we hear are excellent and they transmit great emotion and feeling to the viewer, despite the viewer not being able to see them.
The main problems with the movie are, firstly, its tempo. The thrill is there from the very beginning, no rest, and although it goes in crescendo, the viewer can get tired of being over-thrilled. Secondly, it would have been better for the viewer seeing exteriors and the actors we hear on the phone, so the viewer gets a bit of relief from the claustrophobic settings. Thirdly, two of the main premises of the script are so wrong that make the rest is impossible to believe: 1/ If you are buried alive in a coffin, underground, and you lift your zippo, the flame is going to consume part of the very little oxygen you have, if you have any when you wake up, and you'll be dead quite soon. Moreover, once the oxygen is used, and less is left, the person buried will have stained air to breath, and his vital functions, strength and mental abilities will be weakened. Nothing of what happens in the movie would be possible. A torch would have been a better option, worked the same in the story, but made the settings credible. 2/ If you are buried with your cell phone, even if not very deep underground, your phone is not going to work, even if you have a powerful 3G/satellite network available, which is not the case in countries like Iraq or the Middle East, especially in isolated areas. I get that sort of problem in city underground settings in my city, can you imagine in you are buried in countryside Iraq? Not believable at all.
Having said this, this is a very entertaining experimental film that approaches the script in a very original and dazzling way, and has a terrific performance by Ryan Reynolds.
The film got a phenomenal positive reception at Sundance, but unfortunately his commercial release and distribution were very limited.
Tracey Berkowitz is a 15y.o. girl on a night bus, covered by a curtain shower, talking directly to you - nonsense. Her memory is fragmented, chaotic, fancy, and on a loop. She has left home, is looking for her missing little brother Sonny, and she is in trouble.
We are drawn into Tracey's chaotic mind and soul, but also towards her path of growth from child to woman, from fairy-tale worlds to harsh reality and acceptance of the self. This is a very interesting story about a teenager that is not pretty, cleaver or happy. Although this is a movie about teenagers, there is nothing sweet about it, as presents very hard topics: rape, bullying, loneliness, lack of self-esteem, confused self-image, delusional thoughts, insecurity, and mental trouble.
Tracey's memory fragments and thoughts appear in mini-screens within the screen and on split-screen images, which show different angles of the same scene or different scenes altogether. The non-linear narrative is very challenging. Pay extra attention to the first 15-20 minutes of the film, because they are the most difficult and the ones that really give clues to understand many of the things that happen later on.
The film is more complex, visually, at the beginning, when Tracey's mind and emotions are more confused, and becomes simpler and more linear at the same pace that Tracey's mind clears up, to be completely linear at the end, when she accepts herself and the events related to Sonny. In other words, Tracey's troubled mind and emotions are directly linked to the way the movie is visually organised. The movie is also full of symbolic psychoanalytical elements, from the gender of Tracey's psychiatrist and the settings in which the consultation happens, to the appearance of different animals (a crow, a horse, and "a dog"), to the way the scenes have been patched and shown to the viewer. Ellen Page is fantastic, despite the dramatic demands of her character. She was 20 y.o.a. when the film was shot, but she is believable as a 15y.o. girl. That is thanks not only to her baby face and childish physique, but mostly to the great actress she is. The rest of the cast are OK in their respective roles: Ari Cohen and Erin McMurtry as Mr & Mrs Berkowitz; Zie Souwand as sweet Sonny; Toronto Songwriter and performer Slim Twigg as jerk Billy Zero, Julian Richings as Dr Heker, among others.
A few important flaws ruined what could have been a great movie. The main idea is brilliant but, since we get mostly Tracey's subjective approach to reality, the rest of the characters are somewhat pointless and can't be trusted by the viewer; in fact they are just hinted.
I did not like the end, not the way it ended, but how the end was presented and how we get there - what triggers Tracey's epiphany? That is so because the mood of the movie and, most importantly, its tempo were not the right ones. This is one of those movies that are a challenge for the viewers, that need of their full awareness and attention, that have a difficult knot to untie, but also one of those movies that can be interpreted in different ways and make your brain produce sparks. One of those movies that you get or you don't, nothing in between. To me, one of those movies that, the more I think about it, the more I want to watch again.
