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JMK
Reviews
Dilan (1987)
Extraordinary timeless tale set in the wilds of Turkey
This is a very moving story beautifully told. The setting -- remote pre-industrial Turkey -- is starkly beautiful, but the situation the protagonist, a young Kurdish girl, finds herself in -- railing against an arranged marriage -- portends a bleak future. Things can and do get worse. Wonderful performance by the young lead actress, Derya Arbas.
Hilary and Jackie (1998)
Salacious corruption of the essence of musical inspiration
While the psychological aspects of the peculiar relationship between the du Pre sisters (and the sisters' relationships with their parents) is fascinating and could have become fodder for a gripping film, this one was tired and banal. I understand that the real story was fascinating and there for the telling, but the film makers chose to take a thin, sensational, superficial and non-musicianly view of classical music when it was, in fact, a major part of the substance of the characters' consciousnesses. If classical music had been portrayed without all the vapid stereotypical laziness and unawareness that the film makers fell prey to, and instead had been portrayed authentically as an integral part of the sisters' emotional makeup, this could have been more than the soap opera with the Masterpiece-Theater-clip-on-bowtie-false-patina-of-culture that it ultimately is.
Enough already with, among other things, the obligatory young classical musicians "getting down" playing the Kinks' "You Really Got Me," the absurdly caricatured martinet of a flute professor, and the pretentious and arty mother. This isn't what classical music is about -- although someone seeing this picture would never know that.
As a former professional solo cellist who now produces rock albums (recently worked with Jagger, Richards, Page, Plant, Clapton, Van Morrison, etc.), I find it more than obnoxious when classical music is so poorly portrayed on screen. This is just the latest in a series of abortions, including, but not limited to, "The Piano" and "Shine."
Also, while the cinematography and art direction looked beautiful, so many liberties were taken with reality that it was laughable to anyone who knows anything about actual classical music presentation and made it thoroughly unenjoyable to watch.
Better to rent (or better yet, go see if it is playing anywhere) 32 Short Films About Glenn Gould.