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maradona
Reviews
Braveheart (1995)
Stop the movie industry!
It has been done.
The perfect one has finally made it on the screen. Of course I'm talking for myself because the rest of you fine people (most of you) haven't experienced the difficulty of living under the oppression of a neighbouring country, having all sorts of decisions made up for you, etc..and this without any military deployment on the ground. Politicians have their own ways, you know.
As for the movie, which is for me a masterpiece of directing, I saw it more than seven times, and still, each time William Wallace talks to his people, an electric wave sweeps my head and tears flow out naturally. This is because he is the hero we have been waiting for all our lives, and hadn't arisen yet. This is because one man loved more than we could ever hope for. William Wallace didn't fight for honour, didn't fight for money, didn't fight for pleasure nor justice. He fought for Love. He fought for Freedom. But all this relates to the freedom of choice, the liberty of will.
You could ponder about it for as long as you wish, you'll find that this cinematographical achievement has it all. The power of entertainment, the might of words, the logic of situations, and above all, a never ending display of human senses and emotions. It doesn't get any better than this. And if you are not convinced by the movie, how could I change your mind? There are no words stronger than pictures.
You have the freedom of will.
West Beyrouth (À l'abri les enfants) (1998)
Another vision of a Lebanese director!
It will not be the last film on the Lebanese war that you'll ever see, because the industry is just getting on its feet, but it is most certainly the most selfcentered of all.
It depicts the somehow distorted facts of the life of one Ziad El-Doueiri(the director) in an attempt to show you all fine people what is the Lebanese war. It is far more complicated than this simplified version of it. Even we cannot figure it yet.
Let talk about the film itself. The script is pathetic, there is no story, it seems to me like a student film with a little more of a budget (gee man, I wanna a bus and a lot of machine guns and I want them to go boom, so please can we do that?) with no real ending.
The dialogs are simple, no real one anyways, just a little bit of statements and a lot of shouting from a character. But in this nightmare, some scenes are worth it, like the bicycle scene and the underwear scene. Better yet, and in defense of this film, I must say that it is an overall "chemin initiatique" for the boys, and this we understand very clearly. But if you noticed my use of the term "film" and not "movie" to indicate the subject, it's because in no way good or bad, this film can be rated a movie, for its lack of entertaining and logic.
All in all, it's an over-rated, distorted events piece of film. And what bother me most, is that some of the Lebanese viewers found it very bad, but very good for Lebanese industry. Though it's tragically true, it also very pathetic.
Well, let's hope for the best, in the best of worlds possible.