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noah131
Reviews
La dialectique peut-elle casser des briques? (1973)
A hilarious situationist comedy.
I had the amazing opportunity to view this film at a university theatre at UC Berkeley where it had been subtitled by a student, which makes me wonder how accessible this film actually is, especially with a translation present. In any event, if you ever have the opportunity to see this masterpiece by the French situationists, you should definitely see it.
The story line is simple: a classic kung-fu movie has simply had the entire dialogue changed to represent the epic battle between the proletariats and the bureaucracy, with a martial arts school as the utopian commune. That idea alone is comic genius, and as if the idea wasn't funny enough, the writing is hilarious. For example, when a little girl runs away from her little boy friend, one of his friends comforts him and says something to the effect of, "Please forgive her for being a Marxist, she just doesn't know better."
I thoroughly enjoyed this movie, and it was definitely unique, but I also really think you would only enjoy it if you enjoy political satire and know a decent amount about different political viewpoints (and hopefully socialist history). I know a fair amount about these things, and half the jokes were still lost on me. In any event, this is an excellent intellectual comedy and I recommend it to anyone who might find it the least bit interesting.
Yes, dialectics can indeed break bricks!
Mononoke-hime (1997)
Amazing animation
The art in this movie is like none I've ever seen in an anime before. The first time I saw it, I saw it in Japanese without someone to translate, and the art kept my attention. The colors are amazing, but even more amazing is the attention to detail. It is not too often that background animations are done, and even less often complex background animation. And I've never seen many workers all completely animated in full detail in the background for a few minutes like I did in this movie. This was the amazing part to me. Perhaps Miyazake's best film so far, it definitely lives up to his name. Not only is the art amazing, but the plot is as good as mythical creature plots come. An anime worth seeing not just by anime fans alone. I just hope Disney doesn't screw it up in its American release.