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.
A biopic loosely based on the story of the great Late-Roman female Philosopher, Astronomer and Mathematician Hypatia of Alexandria.
Most movies about the
Roman Empire are unsubstantial, entertaining in the best cases. Have a
look at the titles produced in Hollywood recently and you will see what
I am talking about. We do not have many movies that offer an
intimate study of a brilliant female intellectual. We do not have many
movies in which women are treated with respect or not presented
subordinated to men. However, Agora does just that - the contrary.
This is a movie about the decadence of Rome not about the Roman Empire. The movie shows with
great easiness and without lecturing, the decadence of the Roman Empire,
and the processes of conversion of pagan societies into Christianity.
This is a movie about Early Christians, but not the victimised heroes that we are usually presented with in old Hollywood and European films.
This is a movie about a woman who was intellectually respected and revered by men, a woman who preached by example and was true to herself until the last moments of her life.
This is a movie about an epic quest for knowledge and understanding, not about epic battles.
This is a movie about ideas not about special effects.
This is a movie against fundamentalism, dogmatism, intolerance, ignorance and irrationality, about the necessity of Philosophy and Science to advance and build a better world. The movie shows that mobs are never right or understanding, just a bunch of stupid animals, even if the principles that brought them together are valid in essence and origin.
Rachel Weiz really shines in this movie, despite the Mathematics of it! She looks beautiful beyond words. Most importantly, she wholeheartedly embraces her character and portrays Hypatia with talent, class and conviction. Oscar Isaac also offers a heartfelt convincing performance as Prefect Orestes, as well as Michael Lonsdale as Hypatia's father Theon. I had a mix of feelings regarding Max Minghella's performance as freed slave Davus, whose dramatic intensity I considered overbearing at times. The same can be said of some of the actors playing the fanatic Christian characters in the movie.
The digital reconstruction of Alexandria is beautiful and realistic. Malta Landscapes beautiful. The sets, the lighting, the colours, the dresses, the actors' characterisation, the mood and cinematography of the films are all wonderful.
Agora has also some flaws. 1/ Firstly, that it is a little too long and slow-paced. 2/ Secondly, all the explanatory texts that link different periods in the movie are too long and distracting, and very TV-series-ish; I agree that the viewer needs of some historical contextualisation, but I am not sure that this was the best way to do it. 3/ Thirdly, although the space-to-earth shots showing the roundness of Earth before falling onto Alexandria are relevant to Hypatia's quest about the shape and movement of Earth, they are unnecessarily repetitive, and a final single scene with this would have sufficed and served as a modern thoughtful epilogue. 4/ Finally, the movie has historical inaccuracies, artistic licences that can be taken by the word by many viewers; still, this happens in almost any American historical movie and nobody seems to care, perhaps because they are sugar-coated and more easily digested.
The depiction of the Christian mobs made Agora unmarketable in the American market, where Christian fundamentalism has power, and the movie had a very limited release. Christian fundamentalist groups all over the world, infused in their own dogmatism, were unable to see beyond the obvious and publicly complained about the film.
Agora is, despite its flaws, a great movie with good acting, magnificent atmosphere, a powerful message, and a big heart. If you are looking for just entertainment, battles, action, and erotic moments in the Roman Empire this film is not for you. Still, there are hundred reasons to watch this movie, especially if you are seeking for something different to feed your mind.
Room in Rome is the story of a short-lived physical and emotional liaison between two women in a hotel room in Rome in the last night of summer. It will be a night of intense discovery, a tour de force between two ways of seeing life, love and sex.
The story is inspired in the Chilean movie "En la Cama", which, at its turn, was based on the American film "Before the Sunrise". However, the setting and dialogues have been reworked and reinvented by Medem, as the story happens in Rome and the couple has the same gender.
Julio's Medem's well known mastery and filming sensibility are seen everywhere in this movie. The use of the lighting and framing of the images are precious, elegant, warm and welcoming, very artistically composed with a great use of chiaroscuro and decoration. The room, which is the main set in which the movie happens, is not overwhelmingly present or a close asphyxiating place, but a very open fluid ethereal container where the story happens. Medem positions and moves the camera so the viewer feels is in the room, not watching the room. The spacial perspective is, therefore, very different. This is necessary as otherwise the movie would have felt oppressive and theatrical not a real and cinematic.
There is something magic about the way Medem has used the paintings in the room as well as the decoration of the ceilings, the three spaces of the room (dormitory, bathroom and balcony) and the decorative elements in it, not only to offer different facets of the personality of the characters, or show different phases in their relationship, but to incorporate those little visual elements into the story, like the little angels on the ceiling, the Venus on the bedside table, etc. This is very Medem, who always uses the surroundings as part of the story not as a mere decorative item. This movie reminded me of Medem's Chaotic Anna, in the way he incorporates art into life, and gives art a meaning that is never decorative or purely aesthetic.
The movie could have been claustrophobic and theatrical, but it is not. The story, despite happening in the room, goes well beyond the room through the conversations of the characters and their use of the Internet to show pieces of their present and respective identities.
Medem also shows a wonderful direction of the actors, which is reduced to the two leading actresses and four very secondary roles. The bed scenes are very erotic, definitely hot, still tastefully filmed.
The two main actress are great in their role, especially Elena Anaya as the honest and emotionally fragile Spaniard lesbian Alba. She believes her role (she is a recent out-the-closet lesbian herself), and gives all what she has, showing a great acting registry from comedy to tragedy, from sweetness to cockiness. Natasha Yarovenko is not as good, but still believable as the mysterious athletic sincere and strong hetero Russian beauty Natasha, shocked by her own attraction towards Alba. There seems to be certain intimacy between the camera and the actresses, an understanding and acceptance that makes the story believable. Moreover, the two actress have a great chemistry on camera and, something extremely important in a movie like this.
The main problem, to me, with the movie is going over the top in the drawing of the characters, so they seem somewhat removed from the viewer, not always believable. 1/ Do the characters need to have perfect bodies for the story be more believable? I mean, the two actresses have wow bodies, especially Yarovenko, so you feel that it is pure logic that they felt attracted to each other. What about having the same story with two actresses that feel attracted to each other but look more normal and less gorgeous? Said in other words, characters for which the physic attraction is not that so obvious, still equally strong. Otherwise, you are stereotyping lesbians and bi-curious as gorgeous girls only attracted to super-duder gals. 2/ Do the characters need to have such a high professional profile to be more interesting? I don't think so. A normal person can have a great story to tell, immense depth in her soul, be very hot and attractive, and still be an office worker, for example. Finally, despite he music being very beautify, it is also very repetitive and you end resenting it.
To be honest, when I heard that Medem wanted to film a movie like this, I thought that it was just out of character. But, after watching it, I think he has adopted the story and made it completely his. A story that I thought would not interest me at all, and, on the contrary, I enjoyed immensely.
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.
The Machinist is a psychological thriller directed by Brad Anderson, based on a script by Scott Kosar, and produced and shot in Spain after most American production companies rejected the project as weird.
Trevor Reznik hasn't slept for a year. He barely eats, and has become a loner. He finds himself in trouble after a workmate loses his hand because of his negligence, and a plot against him unveils involving a mysterious cocky man called Ivan. His only comfort is the company of two very different women: beautiful single-mother and airport café waitress Marie, and sweet-and-sour prostitute Stevie. Who is Reznik? Who are the others? Most importantly, what are the answers to the hung-man post-its Reznik founds on his fridge every night?
Although this is a Suspense film, the plot succeeds more at questioning the idea of self-identity than at building a thriller. The movie is both an analysis on the need of sleep to have a healthy mind, and on the power of our subconscious to define, redefine or distort the way we see us, both physically and psychologically. In fact, Reznik's story is just a quest to respond to the question, Who am I? When the question is answered, all the pieces of the story come together in an emotional closing puzzle.
I did not notice that the movie was not shot in Los Angeles but in Barcelona until I saw the making of. However, and to be completely honest, there was something out of place or awkward about some scenes. For example, the smallness of the space related to the scene of the cross lights and Marie, or the atmosphere in the Police Station. Still, the atmosphere and lighting of the movie are fantastic and you will not notice anything specific unless you know.
Christian Bale is unbelievable as the insomniac paranoiac steel-worker Trevor Reznik, and one wonders why he wasn't nominated to the Oscars that year. The fact that he bothered to get so thin, a walking skeleton really, shows how committed (or crazy) he is about acting. The viewer has to be thankful, though, as his decayed physique helped his character and the movie immensely. Bale just doesn't act, he psychologically becomes Reznik - Method Acting taking to the core. Anything he does in this movie is believable, raw and authentic.
Bale's counterpart Ivan is played by John Sharian, who is cheekily disturbing in his performance. You hate him immediately, physically, the way the moves, the way he dresses, the way he smiles, still, there is something appealing and warm about him. I think his performance and his physique add even more interest to the theme of Raznik's quest for identity. Aitana Sánchez-Gijón and Jennifer Jason Leigh are correct as Marie and Stevie, and the rest of the cast are all believable in their respective supporting roles.
The main flaw of the movie is its predictability in certain areas, so the suspense is weakened at times. The viewer immediately knows that Reznik has mental problems, so, at a certain level, you are pre-disposed to anything crazy or out of the ordinary to happen. The film s full of clues for the viewer to understand Reznik, but they are overly present sometimes. For example, the time on the clock at Marie's place is shown repeatedly, and with it, you start to suspect things before you should. However, the movie succeeds at not unveiling who Ivan is until almost the end, so the viewer gets what expects in a suspense film - mystery. I would have liked the same with regards to Marie.
This is a terrific movie, with a great atmosphere, a thought-provoking script, and a brilliant performance by Christian Bale. The Machinist is one of those multi-layered stories and movies from which you get new details each time you see it.
A modern classic with a few little flaws.
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.
Directed by Alex De La Iglesia, and based on the eponymous book by Guillermo Martinez, The Oxford Murders is an unconventional but failed thriller.
Martin (Wood), a young Ph.D. Philosophy student arrives in Cambridge with a scholarship trying to get Professor Seldom's (Hurt) attention and direction for his thesis. A series of symbol-connected murders turn them into investigation buddies and friends.
The story discusses a series of philosophical and ethical questions: 1/ the meaning of life 2/ the role of philosophy and mathematics in daily life 3/ the concept of human imperfection 4/ the adaptability of our minds and philosophical approach to different moments in life. Do our Philosophic principles, personal or not, stand the irrationality of life? 4/ the concept of moral responsibility. The whodunit is just a way to explore the philosophical points the movie wants to make. Seldom and Martin represent, at the beginning of the film, two different and even opposed ways of approaching and understanding the world and life. However, you will notice in Seldom and Martin's last conversation in the movie that both of them have shifted to the principle the other supported at the beginning. Circumstances matter to sustain or shift your philosophical principles and view of the world (Gasset, not Wittgenstein). We humans are not mathematical axioms, nor is life.
The first problem I found with the film is that, if you want to explore some philosophical points, you better chose a story that is suited for that exploration in film. Even more, if you decide that a murder story is what you want, you have to build an excellent mystery thriller to go well with it. Unfortunately, this is not the case here. The thriller has not much thrill, although the mystery is intriguing. The tempo, atmosphere and music of the movie are not good for a thriller, and without those key elements, the rest crumbles; in fact, the music was distracting and unfocused. On the other hand, I thought that the movie did not have any English flavour despite being filmed in England and with (mostly) English actors. I don't mean to say that you cannot shoot in a country or city that is not yours without the movie resenting, but that you have to be familiar with it to be able to get its vibe, its essence and portray it in a movie. The art department is perhaps the one to blame here. Some of the mathematical and philosophical goofs are remarkable, too, like number phi instead of pi (no Ph.D. student in Philosophy would make that sort of mistake), or Bormat's theorem instead of Fermat's, among the most evident.
I found the cast badly matched, and the acting bad or mediocre. I had the impression that the cast was a bit whimsical, something that Alex fancied or could get, not what the characters needed. John Hurt, Elijah Wood, and Jim Carter (as Inspector Petersen) are correct in their performances. Leonor Watling is just OK in her unsubstantial role as nurse Lorna, mostly there to give some romance and sex to the main character. Dominique Pinon plays, once more, in his usual role of sweet freak. July Cox's performance is dreadful as Beth; she seemed lost in a theatrical monologue, unnecessarily exaggerated in her performance. Also theatrical, over the top, and even ridiculous, are the performances of Anna Massey as nasty Mrs. Eagleton and Burn Gorman as Yuri Podorov. I think that they all suffer from a poor actors direction because Alex De La Iglesia has a poor English and is not able to work at a deep level with native speakers.
I am a fan of De La Iglesia, and this movie feels like it is not his. The script's premises are fascinating, but the outcome is totally forgettable mostly because of De La Iglesia's laziness at directing and focusing. What I will remember of the movie are the philosophical premises and approach, and the flashback story of the 19th century, which is very much De La Iglesia's.
Disappointing.
