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.
Are you ready for it?
Cameron Highlands Resort
Tanah Rata 39000, Malaysia
+60327831000
http://www.cameronhighlandsresort.com/
Cameron Highlands Resort is a beautiful hotel that provides an unforgettable experience to the visitor. The friendliness of the staff, the attention to the detail in the room service, the beauty of the rooms and the hotel make you feel like a noble.
The rooms are beautiful, classy colonial style, very spacious for two people, awesome furniture, huge balcony with a big table and seats, and very comfortable. The bathroom is gorgeous and very spacious, with a divine set of good-quality toiletries. The shower is huge! The smell of the bed linen is also wonderful. They are really generous with their room's tea & coffee making facilities and with their mineral water refills.
My room was facing the inner courts, in front of one of the restaurants, and it was very quiet. The restaurant finishes business at a decent time and, therefore, they will not disturb your sleep unless you go to bed at 9pm. I found the hotel very quiet in general, although many reviewers have complained about the noise.
There are four restaurants in the hotel, but they are a bit overpriced for the quality of food they offer. I really liked the food in the Japanese restaurant Gonbei, as well as its chill-out ambience. The other ones are too old-style for my taste, but the service is still fantastic. I missed a Malaysian good quality restaurant, instead of the western and Japanese ones, after all this is Malaysia!
Their Koi pond is beautiful, mesmerising actually, and you will want to wander around or stand by there to relax or take photos before heading to their small but well-equipped gym or spa, or just afterwards.
A visit to the Spa Village is a must, really!, because of the treatments, the great ladies working in it and the fantastic facilities. It is a bit pricey, but truly worth it.
This hotel is perfect for couples looking for a romantic escape and for families travelling with children, not as much for independent travellers willing to move around freely or for young people looking for lots of night life and fun around. Still, it is worth the visit.
TIP 1
The hotel is very expensive, but if you book months in advance you can save 70% of their usual rates. Surf the net thoroughly before booking.
TIP 2
Before booking mind that, if you are not driving a car or don't want to rely on taxis, the hotel is located between the towns of Brinchan and Tanah Rata, the first at 20 minutes walking distance, and the second at 45 minutes. If you are not a walker, have mobility problems, or don't want to rely on taxis for going out, this might be out of the beaten track for you. On the other hand, during local holidays, the traffic jams can reach several kilometres, so being in a car does not mean you are going to reach destination sooner than a walker!
TIP 3
If you don't feel like expending much money in the hotel restaurants, walk 20 minutes to Brinchan and you will find lots of cheap local eateries, a KFC, and some supermarkets. Take the opportunity and visit one of the beautiful Buddhist or Hindu temples around!
TIP 4
The hotel has a excellent selection of tours you can join in, they are quite good but pricey, and you are picked up and dropped by at the hotel. However, if you want to save some money or just have a wider choice, go to Tanah Rata and shop around, as there are many small tourist offices offering the same services at cheaper prices, all English-speaking operated, and willing to do business.
Visited December 2011
66 Angove St
North Perth Western Australia 6006
(08) 9328 2823
http://kalmbodyworks.com.au/
KALM Wellness Centre, recently relocated from Fiztgerald St to a more convenient location on Angove St, is one of those small practices where the attention to the client is personalised, prices competitive and the quality of the service terrific.
I have known some of the staff for a few years already, and they are not only friendly, but terrific therapists, who always help me with my constant back problems.
They offer a range of remedial and pain-relief massage techniques, as well as relaxation massage, coaching, hypnotherapy and osteopathy, among other services.
Their new place on Angove is really beautiful, welcoming and calming, and really close to some good coffee shops, pubs and restaurants.
You can see the profile of each therapist, and book online through their website.
This is one of those practices that, to me, sets an example what a private-boutique practice should be.
47 James St
Perth Cultural Centre
Perth Western Australia 6000
(08) 9492 6600
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One of those places you must visit in Perth. Why? It is free! It is good!
The permanent exhibitions (colonial painting, classic painting and Aboriginal gallery) alternate with yearly free exhibitions, the Year-12 students being a must as it showcases the great talent of the emerging Perthian Artistic Community.
Now and then, the gallery also holds International exhibitions showcasing overseas pieces, but they are somewhat downgraded, never the super-duper ones. Even the super-duper ones are somewhat adjusted to the gallery and never the whole thing you can see elsewhere. The last example being the Picasso to Warhol, with a uneven selection of pieces, the pices by Picasso, Matisse, Miro or Deschamps under-represented and being secondary pieces in general, not the super-duper ones. Even the guides of the exhibition were mediocre, but at least people had the recorded comment of the pieces, which is something.
Although you cannot compare this gallery to the interstate ones (I thought that Darwin's or Adelaide's were better! just to mention two little cities that are poorer than Perth), European or American ones, it is a good place to visit. If you are a foreigner you will enjoy the Aboriginal area. The permanent collections are terrific, with wonderful pieces by Australian and International artists, that might surprise you. Some of the free exhibitions by local artists are also great, not so popular with the general public, perhaps, but at least the real thing. I still remember the terrific sculpture exhibition by Gabriella Piccini, that let me wow.
The gallery also has a mini-theatre where some functions are somewhat held, and artists talks. Check their website to see what is going on.
The AGWA is alive, that is a good thing. The bad thing is that it does not renovate or re-invent itself as much as it would be needed for the gallery to become a first-class gallery. All comes down to money and demand for Art exhibitions in Perth, and it seems that the new well-off people in Perth are more into designer-brands shops than into Art; they invest in the stock-market but they are not patrons of anything that is not themselves. If I was a millionaire I would be donating to the AGWA. Give me the millions! Each time I pass by the "Gucci Plasticucci" shop I think of this. All comes down to what the people or Perth want or are interested in, and the demand for true art in Perth seems limited, so our gallery is, how to put it? a bit parochial. Cultural and Education institutions do not promote free culture or free talks about Art, so the general knowledge is minimal or non-existing. People know big names, but do not know, understand or appreciate why they are masters or well known. This being so, they will rarely go beyond the obvious jewels of the past and show any interest on contemporary Art that is not conventional in forms or languages, and are satisfied with the "famous" artists and pieces of art, and not even with those if they are not "beautiful".
Young Lola (Franka Potente) is in love with Manni (Moritz Bleibtreu). He needs the 100,000 Marks he has lost or he'll be killed by the Mafioso he has to pass them on in 20 minutes. Lola has a plan to find the money, and take it to Manni on time so he lives. She's on the run.
The movie starts with two quotes selected by director Tom Tykwer. The first, by poet T. S. Eliot, says, "We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time". The second, by German soccer coach S. Herberger, says, "after the game is before the game". Unlike other movies, these are not pedantic quotations, but are really directly linked to the way the story is presented and filmed.
The story is shot three times, with slight differences regarding the positioning of the actors, slightly different timing in the action, and changes in the possible scenes, which produce dramatically different endings and future predictions for all the characters. Only the scene regarding Lola's mum, shot in pastels while she's talking on the phone, does not change in the movie. Unlike other movies of the sort, this is not a pre-deterministic movie. The message of the movie, to me, is that the fact that you ran faster doesn't mean that you're going to get there earlier. For that to happen, you'll need to run in the right direction, at the proper pace, and have a bit of luck. Life is a game, a net of chances, and minor changes bring dramatic different endings. Lola has three different ways of approaching the same challenge, and has three lives, like in a video-game, to succeed.
Although the movie is action-packed, its core is grounded in the deep love the couple has, which is explained in infra-red coloured flashbacks with both characters in bed talking about their relationship. Without that, the movie would have been just another ran and catch story. Another great thing is that the roles are reversed in this film: the hero is a woman trying to rescue her man from trouble, not the opposite; she takes the lead, she is the one running and making things happen.
The movie was shot in three different formats, steady video-cam for the running action scenes, 35mm movie cam (colour, BW and infra-red) for the settled steady scenes, with an important animated clip that serves as credits opening but then becomes part of the story. The movie contains present, past and future action, and uses split screens effectively to show relevant events happening to both Manni and Lola.
Colour is very important in this movie, but not overwhelmingly so. There are very bright colour enhancements that break the visual monotony of the urban settings and the settled interior scenes: Lola's red-orange hair perfectly matches her blue-green pastel outfit, the orange ambulance, the men in yellow carrying the big glass, the blood-red telephone, and the infra-red scenes, among others. Moreover, the flashbacks are shot in B&W, while the flash-forwards of the secondary characters are shot in subdued colours, very much like a worn out movie of the 1970s would look like.
I loved the OST and selection of songs, whose lyrics perfectly describe what is happening in the story, and the mood of the characters and scene at the precise moment it is playing. The beat of the movie, the one that gives its pace and rhythm to it, is the techno-song sung by Potente, a catchy powerful and repetitive piece that also matches perfectly Lola's determination and angst; it has also something of video-game music, in a way, as the running without the music would look somewhat deflated.
Franka Potente honours her surname and has a great energy in this film. She runs with a great easiness and power. She is also able to stop and act dramatically, be sweet, nasty, crazy - always fresh and believable. Moritz Bleibtreu shows a great dramatic talent to showcase his character in the few minutes that he has on camera. The rest of the cast are also good in their respective roles (Herbert Knaup as Lola's father; Nina Petri as Frau Hansen, the mistress of Lola's father; Armin Rohde as bank security guard Schuster, and Ludger Pistor as Mr Meier, among others).
Two main flaws. The opening of the movie after the credits, with hundreds of people moving around and some questions being posed to the spectator, is really pretentious, and I thought does not add anything to the script or the movie in general, especially because the two initial quotations already establish the concept around which the movie revolves. There is a goof, too, in the scene of Lola talking to Manni through the glass window of the supermarket, which has no verisimilitude; however, the mood and energy of the film is such at that moment that this does not matter or bother the viewer, who believes it.
A great action movie, super-entertaining, with more depth that one can think at first sight.
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.
Shop 17-18, Forrest Chase Mall
200 Murray St
Perth Western Australia 6000
(08) 9225 7022
http://www.edoshiki.com.au/
Hours:
Mon-Thu, Sat-Sun 10:30 - 16:30
Fri 10:30 - 18:30Photo courtesy of
Edo Shiki is one of my favourite stops for fresh sushi in the city centre. Conveniently located by Myers at Forrest place, this is a sure escape for people wanting fresh good Japanese food. They open at 10.30am every day, and although technically this is not a brunch place, this is certainly a "brunsashumuzi". Their train mixes dishes with several pieces of Sushi (from the basic to the very elaborate), Sashimi (basic), fried food, sweet buns, and, everybody's favourite (mine too) - the hot bamboo baskets with some delicious Japanese specialities. Beyond the train, you have Bento trays, an a-la-carte menu for individual dishes, and a good range of western and Japanese drinks.
Their prices are average for places like this, so it is up to you if you want a cheap Bento tray, an affordable individual dish, or four expensive train plates, the latter being my case most of the time. I cannot help myself. They have a happy hour from Monday to Thursday, starting at around 4pm, affecting their takeaway area and you can/might get a 2 x 1, which is great if you are lucky enough to get one of their deluxe Sushi trays.
The staff are a bunch of young smiley and welcoming guys, but service can be slow at peak hours despite them running all over.
Edo Shiki has three three main downs. 1/ Their cold fried dishes. What is the point and the pleasure of serving cold tasteless fried food? 2/ The spacing between seats at the long decked table, especially at peak times, as you could be rubbing shoulders -literally- with somebody you don't want to. 3/ They don't have a public toilet, so, if you are in need, squeeze in your bladder, and run to Myers.
They have a Facebook account, so push their button and make them happy:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Edo-Shiki/118108074913365
