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Reviews
Barton Fink (1991)
The Coens' rule: The Coens rule
I agree with all those who say this movie is just like 'Adaptation' (or the other way around, rather). In fact, 'Adaptation' seems so much to be an adaptation of this one, that there hardly seems to me now, in retrospect, to be a point to it - other than that I enjoyed 'Adaptation' immensely at the time when I saw it, not knowing of 'Barton Fink'. But, to be honest, 'Barton Fink' wasn't less enjoyable only because its concept turned out to be familiar to me (I couldn't have known that beforehand). It lacks dynamism a bit too much throughout its first two thirds, exactly to serve its purpose better in making the contrast with the last third clearer. But that's to the detriment of the experience. I'm as much a fan of the Coen as of the Kaufman brothers; this is their only piece I didn't get to like so much. However, I understand their purpose. They were simultaneously attacking the myth of the common man (cultivated by the main character in the plot), and the world of stupid, incoherent, illogical, sensationalist and actually-not-even-so-spectacular Hollywood blockbusters. Such a clear purpose, however, predictably turned all their characters into plot devices. And the message is a bit self-righteous I think. They essentially sent the message here that they are special, exempt from rules binding for the mainstream as well as from the rules of indie film-making. The only reason one can forgive them for that is that they are indeed special. I'm glad this is their only film where they focused on that fact itself. And you know what, even so this is not a bad film.
The Straight Story (1999)
Essentially the opposite of 'Lost Highway'
I love this movie, even though it's not typical from David Lynch , save for some moments here and there (take the grocery scene with Alvin Straight's daughter and the clerk for an example), and even though perhaps I would never have watched it, had the director been someone else. Along with Lynch, composer Angelo Badalamenti also makes the transition to produce a film score that's rather unusual based on the career record. And it's not only the irregularity by way of which their - Lynch's and Badalamenti's - performances match. They both weave brilliance out of the most linear/straight simplicity.
The film does sometimes go very directly for the tear-drop effect, but does so so openly as an old man finding unexpected audience, in you or any other stranger, would, in telling his story. You can't help but accept that as fair and be understanding to the whole venture. Richard Farnsworth shows us an especially likable character. He's witty, he does surprise you sometimes how much. At one point or another you'd think now he's surely in a dead end, but then he already seems to know the way on. No spoiler in telling you he uses a lawn mover to start with... A film full of respect after which you'll look at the star-filled sky and think, instead of the loneliness of standing on a planet speeding through empty space, making no sense, of how just a little care for each other can make this a great place.
This film is essentially the opposite of 'Lost Highway'.
Sånger från andra våningen (2000)
Twisted reality, twisted reality show
I watched this movie the first time and I found it intriguing but kind of hard to stay with. When I saw it the second time two years later I laughed myself sick. The third time around, one more year gone by, I could hardly wait to see it again. To know this film was a masterpiece was not difficult, already the first time. To feel it, though, required the second time. It just physically works that way. The camera takes in so much with each shot, you can't keep up with it. And it's not simply that there are too many details in each and every composition. More than that, it's the difficulty of taking them all in digestion-wise. All the small pieces of information you may gather from watching add to an extremely dark view of the world. 'Mister Andersson' planned it all very carefully. It's like he was really-really fed up with everything in the matrix, you know, and decided to let his anger go by preparing for years for every single destructive shot included in the 'movie' (movie is not a really appropriate word, since it's rather static in fact), so that he could reveal the most about the ugliness he saw around himself. He invites you to a corner at some party you may not have enjoyed anyway, to a corner from which you can see all those present at the same time, and then he shows you how all those people around kill, maim and torture each other. And, to get you even more desperate, he also points out the strings attached to them: they are all puppets on strings, you see, they are doing what they are doing because their characters and their whole lives are structured in a given way stemming from reasons beyond anyone individually. Then he finally gives you some consolation by somehow putting what you see into an angle from which you can't help but laugh, not really cruelly, because it's about your own fate, too. It's just the emergency exit for the mind, for which the safest way out is delving into something totally different after watching this twisted reality show.
Red Planet (2000)
Red Planet: Expect the unexpected
'Red Planet' is, most of all, a clever story. The acting is average, however, nothing extraordinary, and the same goes for the special effects. Yes, there are actually a lot of special effects (though not emphasized so much as in a stupid blockbuster movie), but quantity doesn't substitute for quality. It's in the face of this that you still have to realize it's a clever story, as I said. The plot twists are intelligent and well-timed, not of the sort that you can foresee. At times you wouldn't even see something's coming at all. It does catch you off guard, and that's very good. And the way the story develops shows interesting angles on a number of basic subjects including murder, love, survival and so on. It's a sci-fi, but while there are some cool things to show for the fans of the genre, too (take the landing scene for an example), perhaps it has more to offer on human relationships. Still, as a space movie, too, it's very imaginative and could be likened, say, to a future Apollo 13 mission with no guarantees of anyone making it back - remember, it hasn't taken place yet.
Rocky Balboa (2006)
Could have been kitchy, turned out to be catchy
Excellent finish to the series of not always clever movies about constant underdog Rocky Balboa. This last one is a very elegant punch. And clearly above the waistline, so to say: it could have easily been kitchy, instead it turned out to be quite catchy. If you're low on confidence you'll eat up this movie like a triple hamburger. It's so humane, shows so much respect and does so so much without any regard to whatever stereotypical judgment might tell you not to believe in a given person, it's like an intravenous injection of positive mindset, whatever that exactly constitutes. I don't know if Silvester Stallone would fit some other role as well as this one (I didn't appreciate him that much as Rambo in 'First Blood'), but even if this is and has been the only role that he was really cut out for, he already did it as an actor.
I loved the characters in the story, flesh and bones and real they felt, especially in the run-down district milieu to the sight of which we're not treated that often in other Hollywood movies. Those littered Philadelphia streets are like the veins and arteries of the movie, pulsating with the reality feeding the simple but great story.
First Blood (1982)
By no means the smartest but one of the most effective return-of-the-veteran movies
Akin to or rather an influence on other major action movies from the Russian 'Brat' to, lately, 'Apocalypto', 'Rambo: First Blood' is your by-now ordinary story of a simple man left alone to try and survive the day in defense of his individual good cause. It also fits into the series of post-Vietnam era veteran return movies, to where it belongs together with great films that are of course in a much higher league in many dimensions, take 'The Deer Hunter' for an example. In one dimension 'Rambo' may overcome those films, however. Specifically on the gut-instinct level it can out-power them. The unwelcome hero who just never really managed to return home after all those years, comes to be harassed and assaulted by the reckless local police of proverbial Swampville. You'll identify with him even if you yourself actually can't make, say, hand grenades out of milk and chocolate. You'll want to smash Swampville together with Rambo. Brian Dennehy, playing the local sheriff in the movie, does so well in the hated part that I guess he's fortunate if he hasn't met popular fury in some way in the period after the film was released.
The film's power was enough to make me check on news stories about the Iraq veterans of nowadays - something I haven't done after films like 'The Deer Hunter', 'Jackknife' or 'Born on the 4th of July'. Of course, what one reads of in the papers is possibly only a small number of atypical cases, with the rest of the soldiers going home probably not being doomed because of having been over there. Still, there was enough horror in some of those stories. The difficulty of reintegration after an extremely formative period in one's life, spent in a faraway land, having brought life and death decisions every now and again. But I wouldn't want to emphasize the perceived link between Iraq and Vietnam, veterans share similar problems all over the world. For a change of perspective you may want to see the Iranian film 'Talaye sorkh' ('Crimson Gold', 2003), about a veteran of the Iran-Iraq war (the real First Gulf War). But firstly, of course, check out Rambo, too.
The Black Dahlia (2006)
Alert: underrating observed
I don't know what it is with this film that made so many people trash it, really. I'm normally quite critical with films I see, and most often a bad film just makes me not comment on it. It may fall within the 'too bad' category, and then I may feel an urge to vent my anger about it, but more often than not I'll review films that I liked for some reason. And here I am, reviewing 'The Black Dahlia', and it's definitely not from the too-bad category.
The cinematography is great. Vilmos Zsigmond has done a great job, and I'm not saying that only because he's my fellow Hungarian. The at times deliberately non-sharp close-up on the actresses' face here and there for classic effect, as well as the First Person Shooter mode used in capturing some of the scenes from Josh Hartnett's point of view all work well, beside the regularly well-done cinematography. De Palma might have had ideas influencing this, of course: with films we're always talking about team work and team achievement. However, Zsigmond could still have easily got the Oscar for his performance. And once we say that, it doesn't matter that he eventually hasn't. The acting is good also. At times there is deliberate over-acting, characters turned from time to time into caricatures of themselves, but that's the special type of humor that goes well with the film noir genre - again, also a question of directing, I think. So, while not forgetting about De Palma's merits, the young four - Mia Kirshner, Josh Hartnett, Scarlett Johansson and Hilary Swank -, they all come up with very appreciable performances indeed. Especially Mia Kirshner is mesmerizing in her forsaken role at times. And Scarlett Johansson looks very much like an actress from the era, even while the character she plays is actually not even one of the wannabe actresses in the story.
300 (2006)
As escapist as it gets? Borat-style shock humor? Manipulation all the way? What was this thing that hit me?
10 out of 10 in this case means: you have to see this film. Nothing more, nothing less. I wouldn't dare deduct a single point from the maximum available score, for discouraging anyone from viewing this movie could not be further from my intentions. It's an exceptional cinematic experience (provided you really go and see it at a theatre). On that level it is unmissable. On other levels you have important choices to make. You can regard the concept behind the movie as a joke or caricature of some kind - Borat-style shock humor if you like, built around a kind of exaggerated orientalism. Or you may see it as irrelevant, focusing instead only on the visuals. These are the ways to enjoy this movie. These are the techniques that I consciously tried to concentrate on applying, to keep enjoying it. It wasn't that great a mental effort - ever since I saw the trailer I could hardly wait to see '300', and so it would have been difficult not to feel rewarded by finally making it. On the other hand, you may not necessarily like what you see if you can't put yourself beyond rightly seeing this movie as historically inaccurate.
And that's the key question. If it's shock humor or just an irrelevant means in the service of the greater purpose of escapist entertainment, then the inaccurate account of historical events is not manipulative. In fact in that case it is, potentially, even sarcastic and caricature-like. However, if it was meant with at least a bit of seriousness, it becomes quite problematic. The 300 could then be a bunch of Marines going loose after feeling their orders are counterproductive, only to put up a hell of a fight thanks to their superior training, to the potential bitter end. And Sparta might be the U.S. protecting freedoms with its own distinct, more sacrifice-ready culture for the rest of the democracies out there. And the Persians today's Iranians. And so on, with each and every politicizing statement like that being enough in itself to spark a debate that could escalate into world war with the faulty consensus-seeking software human beings are produced with in the factory, you know.
And there's one more thing. While I think we did get the special 'product' we were looking for in this film after first having seen the trailers, we could have had more of it here to make the film really exceptional. The story should have been less moving in a way. Spartans went out there for some serious blood-letting not minding even if in the end it was to be their blood that was to be spilled. They don't want to be remembered by us swimming in tears. They would probably appreciate a warrior-like reaction more, seeing, as they 'dine in hell', people willing to become strong to make the ultimate sacrifice and, importantly, to make it count, make it efficient as well. You don't have to accept their mentality but that is their mentality. Watching a movie you have to suspend disbelief and identify. So how can you watch soldiers making their sacrifice, sympathize with them, and, at the same time, think they are mistaken. The contradiction might go away if you temporarily but fully identify with them and start critically reflecting on that only afterwards. But this shows that then the film shouldn't try to evoke sorry for the soldiers. A lot more heavy music (most fittingly some straightedge hardcore) should have been added to the film score and the film should rock all the way. It's okay if, one hour after having seen it, you start thinking, oops, how I got carried away by the power of the film. But while it's underway you shouldn't for a moment cease to look for the next battle, together with the Spartan unit. In that, I think, the film tried to be too wise. Shouldn't have tried to make the message complex at all, that's my message to the crew. If there was an effort to that end, it didn't succeed.
The Man Who Wasn't There (2001)
I'm always there when they screen it
Besides being great stuff for film maniacs who like to debate the technical aspects, the cinematography or the artistic ideas and influences in it, 'The Man Who Wasn't There' is also a great film. One of my all-time favorites. The sort of film where the best possible choice of cast plays even the most insignificant walk-on role. The Coens' signature in there: being visually very conscious, especially for their film noir venture, they must have spent a huge amount of time to find the best possible faces for every single shot. Not necessary to waste words on how well they did in their choices for the lead roles. Fortunately these 'faces' they collected can also act, everyone does incredibly well here.
'The Man Who Wasn't There' has a slowly developing story, that at first viewing may require your patience a little bit. But the second and third viewings and so on will be a lot smoother... I have seen the film about five or six times already. There's this weird TV channel that screens it just about every other week and I seem to always happen to be in front of the screen at the time, by mere chance. And I never zap away, I enjoy all the details more and more, and I feel the gloating that's there in the very cold, cruel humor of the film, as well as the saddening feeling it accumulates into, as you continue watching people acting as mere unidentified flying objects in the others' life, just as strongly as the first time.
The Secret Agent (1996)
Boring secret agents
Whoever cares about international terrorism? It's just a boring subject, let's face it. Any objections? Well, I can understand if there are some. This film, however, might unexpectedly make you accept the truth of the above provocative statements. At least until the next time you zap to a TV news channel that is.
It's hard not to see awesome potential in doing an adaptation of Joseph Conrad's 'The Secret Agent'. And it's hard to believe such a boring and inconsequential mess could be created following up on that very idea. Incredible, just think of the following issues explored in the movie: a web of anarchist militants finding political refuge in 1880s London, an agent provocateur run by the Russian embassy, a would-be suicide bomber, human drama complicating plots and counter-plots and so on. If I managed to excite you a little by mentioning these themes, so sorry, the film will still be boring.
To say something positive, at least it's not altogether unwatchable and, totally unexpectedly for me, the scenes between two actors from whom I would have normally anticipated the least were actually some of the best moments of the film, the scenes between Robin Williams and Gérard Depardieu, both playing anarchists with a rather mysterious (anarchic?) mindset. Oh, and it's quite likely I'll read the book after all, for what I have seen at least was enough to convince me that it might be a good idea.
American Soldiers (2005)
The kind of pacifism that doesn't sell
I guess this was meant to be some good-intentioned pacifist movie, but its makers ended up getting it wrong, in self-consciously and ignorantly giving a false portrayal to everyone on the pretty wide spectrum leading from CIA agents through American soldiers to Iraqi guerrillas. Here it's definitely not an accomplishment that all of those mentioned might find their reason to dislike the portrayal they got.
(Minor spoiler follows.) As to the basic concept , put simply, it feels as though the American soldiers were allowed to kill a lot of insurgents (so many that I guess an average American soldier will not see on a whole tour of duty in Iraq), only to get away even in the eyes of U.S. audience groups with the way they relate to CIA agents in the film. The whole concept was formed so as to put G.I.'s in the position of simple-minded, victimized justice-doers and meanwhile equal CIA agents and Iraqi guerrillas in a moral sense. OK, it's really a waste of words to continue from here on. Suffice it to add that the first half hour of the movie actually didn't look so bad, e.g. as someone else pointed out the costumes at least looked alright, and so thereafter it was a let-down that I wouldn't have expected right away.
Moszkva tér (2001)
A view from Moszkva/Moscow Square
It's mighty difficult for me to write a useful recommendation for this movie. Headed home after a party at around dawn I still stop for the odd freak-burger at Moszkva Square or Moscow Square, at the very place that you can see in the movie. And I recognize so much from my own memories from my own high school times, even though the youth of the film are not exactly my generation, it's almost too much to me. The point where this closeness of the film peaked was when I even discovered the guy running this DVD rental place about two minutes from where I live, in a minor role in the cast.
So, for your information, the most important thing to note might be that this film is very authentic. If you want to see the socialist/post-socialist transition for whatever it was, check it out. This is what it felt like, this is us (Budapest, Hungary, at the time). I cannot describe these things in fully rational terms. Perhaps you can. Enjoy the benefit of insight, you're guaranteed to have it.
Jestem (2005)
Problem parents movie, somehow above average
Familiar theme: a child in need of loving or at least caring parents. The location happens to be North Poland, I so guess. For me that's a big plus, keeps me in front of the screen whatever happens, memories and all that, you know. The 'whatever' should be stressed, for at first one could think this is going to be just another 'problem parents film' designed for festival success, but while there is this doubt almost continuously as the plot is setting off, the film will somehow manage to survive. Partly to do at that point with the very well-done cinematography, I suppose. Images filtered brownish, give a comforting warmth to the viewer. Then suddenly one is rewarded for staying with the film and might find unlikely peace together with the young main character who finds it while trying to escape both the ugly peers in whom he sees rottenness he certainly doesn't want to socialize with and the state institutions that would like to step in as replacement for the parents he needs, no matter if he wants any of their 'care'. The ending might bring back all the doubts, but it's just that kind of film. Still worth watching, no doubt about that.
Sometimes in April (2005)
Outside the Hotel des Mille Collines
Since the comparison comes naturally, here it is for you: this film is just as good as 'Hotel Rwanda'. In fact, if you're looking to understand the background of the conflict, it may be even better, for it gives you the macro view of what happened. Fortunately that doesn't mean artistic ambitions were seconded to giving a strategic briefing to audiences. The plot consists of several but nonetheless personal stories that are interwoven in the course of the ordeal these people are going through. So there's just as much human drama and individual perspective as in 'Hotel Rwanda', but the characters are not locked up in the Hotel des Mille Collines all the time. Their fate is to move around more and so you will also see more of what was going on. Naturally, this also means that you'll see more violence, which I guess is what led some people to say that 'Hotel Rwanda' is a lighter account of events, which I actually don't agree with.
Given the brutality that had to be portrayed to make the plot credible, shooting this film had to have been a great psychological challenge for some of those participating in the venture. Director Raoul Peck does mention in one of the DVD extras that they did employ a team of psychologists. Even non-local actors who went to Rwanda had to have felt a bit of desperation. For instance Oris Erhuero, the actor of Nigerian origin playing Honoré in the movie, also in the DVD extra, remembers the Biafra War in Nigeria which also claimed a huge number of lives as a result of moves by the belligerents. But you don't have to have African memories from your family to feel shocked, shooting the film might have been just as difficult to, say, an American actor or actress involved in it, I guess. Nor is it, what you can see in this film, an African phenomenon. It was great to hear Bill Clinton speaking of this in archive footage included in the film. He was so damn right - and we didn't even have the final tally from the Balkan wars yet at the time, some of the worst of which was still to come at that point.
The Tailor of Panama (2001)
A bit mis-tailored
I am a bit perplexed by this movie. It's an all in all clumsy blend of what you usually get from John Le Carré - that is: a clever spy story, with complex characters rich in personality-fed excesses and motivations, with the plot taking place in interesting locations that are shed a cruelly cold light on - and of a satire that seems a little alien to Le Carré, if it's indeed imported here from his book, which I doubt, while not having read 'The Tailor of Panama' yet. The satirical which comes in at moments would not be bad if the whole movie would be a satire, and so one could 'lol' all the time. Instead, it looks as though the makers of the movie just wanted to give a strongly anti-Anglo-Saxon touch to it, and tried to make the usual anti-imperialism pill easier to swallow by putting this chocolate dressing of satire on it. In my view it doesn't work well, and so I am rating this movie 7 focusing only on the serious parts that give consideration to the possibility of an intelligence-fabricator turning things upside down in a remote part of the world, far from the watching eye of the centre. Perhaps even this part I couldn't appreciate so much if I would have read Graham Greene's Havana story to which many commenters pointed as a source of borrowing for Le Carré (which apparently he himself notes in his own novel). Not knowing about the extent of similarities, the part of the story about the fake Silent Opposition growing in the shade of the 'Cocaine Towers' could be quite cool, if only the story at times wouldn't strain credibility too much as a result of those silly exaggerating satirical elements.
The Piano (1993)
Piano lesson about hidden narratives
After watching 'Girl With a Pearl Earring' the previous day, I bumped into another, by-the-way very well-made, movie with some feminist undercurrents in it. 'The Piano' is not merely feminine, to paraphrase another commenter whose remarks I liked even while not agreeing with them entirely, it is indeed feminist to a degree. Here's how I decode what you find in the movie, without spoilers. This is a story, with some mysteries that you won't be able to fully decipher, that is messy but enjoyable at the same time, and it's kept moving by the layers of hidden narratives that are there for you to explore. So there is a load of other critical stuff in it beside feminism. Think of how 'inappropriately' Ada's little daughter behaves at times! She's annoying, isn't she? But then remember that she's a child who had to move to the end of the world with no option of saying 'no' to the idea. And all those aborigines, they also behave so inappropriately at times! In their case remember that their lands are being bought up for nothing by newcomers of another world, that are intruding their civilization rather inappropriately, one could say. And so on. Getting back to the feminism theme, the piano is the medium that Ada uses to break out of the limitations imposed on her (never having fitted the role of a 'Victorian woman'), she can't use her voice, so she'll rather play the piano scandalously well for a good girl - yeah, that's pretty obvious symbolism alright. The men around her, the characters played by Sam Neill and Harvey Keitel. Well, in my interpretation one is the non-natural man whose rule in society is built on social constructions evident in conventions of the era, while the latter, played by Keitel, is representative of a kind of true, natural manliness. Anyway, I don't want to create the image of being totally self-assured about meanings, for I'm in fact not. And you'll have a lot more questions to ask after the film, I promise. But that's not going to take away the pleasure of watching it, if you're ready to buy into some post-modern, surreal stuff, a really catchy, captivating film score and some truly brilliant cinematography.
Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003)
Griet movie! :-)
I have just a short time to write, so briefly. 10/10 for the movie and here are some of the reasons why you should see it. 1) great recreation of a by-gone era, 2) creative insight into Vermeer's life, 3) very intelligently woven story where, like in some Kiarostami movie, small details reveal you the pivotal changes that are taking place in each of the characters, 4) the at times thriller-like tension, 5) great photography that does indeed, as pointed out before me, try ambitiously to be on par with Vermeer's painting and, as much as these things can be compared, does succeed, 6) the acting, by everyone, but especially Scarlett Johansson. Glad I could get that off my chest. Actually, I watched this movie for a second time exactly in order to see SJ at her best after that rather dreadful music video that came out recently which I won't name in order not give it even more publicity. This film and 'Lost in Translation' are two of her most outstanding movies. I reckon with these like that even while appreciating even most of the bit parts she had in movies here and there. She is just magical in Griet's role, even in the kind of 'chador' she's wearing and with the few lines she speaks (both being realistically treated constraints of social status on Griet's character), and I hope to see much similar stuff from her in the future as well.
Letters from Iwo Jima (2006)
The more in vain the better
From a European perspective, watching a film about the Pacific theatre of World War II is really weird. The character of the fighting 'over there' looks as though it was taking place on another planet, even in retrospect, after more than six decades. With saying Americans come from another planet having become such fashionable talk 'over here', that feeling is reinforced. Americans and Japanese sent those gigantic aircraft carriers of theirs around that immensely huge Pacific thing, and there's just no need to continue, that's already weird. Logistics-wise, strategy-wise, the challenges they had to face were just so different and so much on another scale.
So, Clint Eastwood gives to us a story from this 'extraterrestrial' war. Japanese holding out on Iwo Jima prepare for a last stand. War is dreadful anyway, and it has already been showed both about WWII and other wars as well, so what's the point, one might ask. Moreover, the Japanese know they will lose and you know also, so what's the point. Well, that's exactly the point, or one of the points: the more the whole film looks to have been made in vain, the better. And not only to send home the message that war is bad, once again. It can be interpreted to have a more universal meaning. You see humans whose situations we may in our own way share in the future. Ending up there where death is near inevitable. You can ponder what your 'exit strategy' will then be. The bad news is, and the film deals with this, even though you may want to go with the kind of dignity that matches your concept, there'll be a lot of obstacles. Yourself and other people potentially part of those.
Iwo Jima is like a proverbial Titanic headed towards the iceberg, but we don't get tears in our eyes, just silent desperation mostly. In fact what we see is mostly not extraordinarily moving, but still I know a lot of the images will stay with me.
As to the concept of giving the audience a chance to see the 'other side' from a 'humane' perspective, well, seemingly, but only seemingly, we're back in this case to the rather problematic distinction between good and bad Japanese (and Germans, for that matter) on the basis of which front they were fighting on. Who would make a movie showing the 'humane' side of Japanese occupiers in China? And who would make the same kind of movie about Germans on the Eastern front, with all the havoc they wrought in Eastern Europe? Yes, some German movies did try to solve the problem - e.g. 'Stalingrad', by focusing on a morally correct bunch of regular soldiers vs. the mean average and the evil SS. Still, I don't expect a Polish movie to be made any time soon, showing e.g. the demolition of Warsaw from the German point of view, you know. So am I attacking Eastwood here? Well, no. This film's not about a Japanese band of brothers. It's not about the transpolation of clichés known from old war movies to 'the enemy' for a change. The portrayal of Japanese soldiers is way more complex than that, and that legitimizes the whole venture, because 'a humane look at the other side' in this way comes to mean a different thing. And for its silent power, it does deserve 10/10.
Just one remark added. Ironic that while in the US the movie was played by a relatively small number of theatres, here in Hungary it premiered two weeks before 'Flags of our Fathers'. Why the eagerness to show the 'other side' first here? Anyway, I don't mind, I'll see both films no matter what.
Hotel Rwanda (2004)
'Acts of genocide' and acts of bravery
Just throwing in my 10 points to add up to the total. I haven't seen 'Sometimes in April' yet, so maybe I will indeed scratch my head thinking that one's even better on the Rwandan tragedy, as some say, but right now I'm under the impression of 'Hotel Rwanda'. And I am already pretty sure that those who say this film is a 'light' version of whatever exactly happened are wrong. This film doesn't try to win an Oscar by using brutal pictures a lot to inscribe itself in the viewer's brain. (Though it will still make you feel the violence from time to time.) It's real drama. The background, the genocide, the war and all that, they are important factors, but the point is the drama of hotelier Paul Rusesabagina's family. To steal a US diplomat's words from the movie, you can see some 'acts of genocide', but you won't see 'genocide', at least not for most of the time. And you'll see acts of bravery, but not of the reckless type, not the kind of Hollywood heroism that is an euphemism for stupidity.
You can find those very strong scenes in this movie that are so powerful that they will have an effect on you no matter how many times you watch the film. One of those scenes pulls off nothing less than giving the audience a genuine laughter amid a sea of horror, genuine, honest laughter, not forced at all, not trying-to-be-satirical-when-inappropriate, and so not distasteful at all. Check it out. It's scenes like that that reinforce my impression that 'Hotel Rwanda' was in fact an outstandingly good film.
One picture that inexplicably stayed very long there in my mind. An RPF soldier firing after militiamen. We don't see where he is shooting. Just that he takes up one textbook shooting position after the other, feeling probably a little proud of himself not being just another peasant given a gun. This is a very small detail that you'll see only from a distance. Now, where you find such hidden values that is a good film. About another war-torn, structurally burdened state, where the warrior-minded have enough providers of the above mentioned textbooks who are ready to supply them from the outside.
Don't watch this film as a documentary. If you want insight gained from this film, ponder rather the analysis it gives of how a refuge can be kept safe in the midst of a structural war (think of 'satellites' and 'phone calls' and the like). As long as it is realistic in the treatment of that issue, it doesn't really matter how many small details it got wrong as to the rest of the conflict. It's focus is strong and that's what matters.
Rane (1998)
Wounds, in-your-face
In this film you'll see the sort of things you see when you quick-empty a bottle of vodka and then go and start a civil war. And blow up a whole country and all that. Shocking cinema for the movie-goer, in-you-face history for the social scientist type, bad memories for those that lived through it. Kids growing up to be gangsters in the post-Yugoslav hood. Sanctions-busting crime and normal crime are their path of socialization in the new and uncharted world, where TV crime shows will give them some patterns to follow, but since they're not the faint of heart, they'll soon make their own rules.
It would be 10 out of 10 as a gangster movie, yes, but it's 10 out of 10 in many other genres as well. Cruelly satirical blends with insightfully revealing in the portrayal of the era. As our lead characters go out of control, they present you with the uncontrollable dynamics of post-Yugoslav reality, that were beyond the point of no return before most realized. There is the whole story of the former Yugoslavia in the interactions. And the film, typically for its hellishly dark style, even proposes its own very special cure that no UN-sponsored mediation training will ever teach as one to be followed, I'm sure.
L'ultimo bacio (2001)
Gloating entertainment in a very positive sense
'The chords ring so familiar / To a man who's heard it all before' - or also to a woman who's heard it all before, as we could paraphrase the above line from a song included in the film score. 'L'ultimo bacio' is really made up of situations recycled from stuff seen and even read before, stuff that had been heard before even in the age of William Shakespeare. But. You can't help but enjoy it. You have to take no effort to stay with this movie. It takes you through the well-charted territory of mismanaged human relationships, the betrayal and the begging for forgiveness part, and makes it a joyride thanks to good pacing and wonderful acting that at times brings out your most gloating self from you. OK, if you have done everything perfectly in your life so far, you might not start laughing... But otherwise you'll simply feel like being in the middle of this all the way. The movie is filled with the sort of everyday desperation that is fed mostly by everyday desperation which just doesn't make sense but is there for most of us.
As far as the acting's concerned, Giovanna Mezzogiorno and Stefano Accorsi are definitely in the focus here, but even the supporting cast is doing great and have a lot more than bit parts. OK, I zeroed in on Giovanna Mezzogiorno most of the time, but that doesn't blind me to the value in the others' performance. So, make fun of yourself and watch this film, recommended.
La cité des enfants perdus (1995)
Jeunet and Caro cloning experiment preceding Alien 4
This is the Delicatessen-era Jeunet and Caro, so watch out for a heavily surreal load of original imagination thrown at you. I enjoyed it less than I enjoyed 'Delicatessen', but I do see the point in why we are treated to the sight of infantile adults, most of the time looking autistic more than infantile, and the sight of children with a spleen here. The contradiction is connected to that other contradiction of hyper-modern science co-existing with medieval stupidity in some of the characters portrayed in the film. But hey, that message was rather familiar to me from 'Alien 4' (made two years after 'La cité des enfants perdus'), to where Jeunet and Caro took pretty much the same crew that is seen here. And I enjoyed 'Alien 4' a lot, to tell you honestly, even if I get the odd condemnation by a passer-by Alien 1'n'2 fan. Still this film is full of images that you'll remember even if having to fight sometimes to stay alert to plot developments or to make sense of the ones you witness. And the resolution is satisfying enough so that you'll definitely not feel like having wasted time with this one.
Good Bye Lenin! (2003)
Strong indictment against paternalism packed in bittersweet satire
I consider myself lucky in a way to have been to East Germany in 1988. The wall still standing, different kinds of local cola (!) served in restaurants, our German tour guide falling silent when the rotating TV tower restaurant turned from facing the blank darkness of East Berlin to the shiny neon lights of Western Berlin and all that. Oh, and really sorry for that father who desperately asked where we managed to get hold of an Antonov An-24 airplane model kit, only to hear from us that we took the last one off the shelf where we bought it. Thinking back, we were a bit like those wanna-see-the-dark-side-of-other-peoples'-lives tourists who go pay and see the DMZ in the Koreas, or the former supply tunnel under the former siege line in Sarajevo and stuff like that. But it's not a perfect comparison, to do justice to ourselves, for we were there in East Berlin from socialist Hungary. We, in Hungary, already since decades had that most famous brand of cola that I won't name in order not to turn this comment into a commercial, and we were permitted without much bureaucratic fuss to travel to the West. Going to East Germany at the time was like traveling back to the past, but not to an entirely by-gone past.
That feeling was important for me to remember even as the movie did evoke some feeling of nostalgia for a time of fake security in the old system, as it recreated the atmosphere of the era. The 'Spreewald cucumber' sort of fake security. Important, for so I could perfectly agree with the film's eventual message that I characterize in the title of my comment as a 'strong indictment against paternalism', with any nostalgia I have not telling me to resist to accepting the truth of it.
While some standard reviews of this film only concentrate on Alex, the son, desperately trying to maintain an illusion for the sake of his mother, you'll find that even his mother is doing just that in a way that the film will reveal. And of course the old regime used to do the same thing on the macro-level, so-to-say, managing to convince a minority and managing to silence or co-opt a passive majority.
Good Bye Lenin is one of the best films to deal with the Eastern bloc heritage. Resonates just as well here in Hungary as in former East Germany, even if East Germany did feel a bit like a museum for us Hungarians, already in 1988.
Blood Diamond (2006)
Conflict movie
Good introduction to one of our contemporary world's most intriguing issues: how natural resources work as a curse for 'developing' countries, and especially for the population of those countries, where they are discovered.
The topic has a rapidly growing scientific literature which has carefully pointed out that politics-wise it actually isn't all the same whether it be diamonds or oil that is found in a land (even though it may be the same for the ones who have their village on the spot). That is perhaps the only thing, however, that this film overlooks to a degree (as documented in some remarks by the characters), but that's rather insignificant and overall the movie does aim to be a careful recreation of the madness of the civil war in Sierra Leone - the very special madness that had a large number of elements to it that can be explained rationally, even if in a twisted way (such as, for example, the amputation of limbs as deterrence of resistance by a guerrilla force that wants to firmly control a vast stretch of the countryside without enough armed men for a full-out occupation of it).
In taking that approach, the film avoids the mistake of starting from a moralizing perspective, and so it doesn't ignore the structural factors playing into what happened. To give you an example, even brutal RUF commanders have well-outlined characters, speak authentically and don't lack at least an excuse for an ideology - you can hear for instance their famous slogan, 'no more slaves, no more masters', that very distantly reminded me of the similar thing communists promised about putting an end to the exploitation of the working class in Eastern Europe, only to then turn into exploiters themselves. So this again shows that in most parts of the world it is just not enough even if you to wish to be a good person, you may still end up not being one. But usually, of course, there is a bandwagon-ful of people lacking any good intention whatsoever willing to go along with any ideology so long as it takes them to power.
It is from this vicious circle that the whole human drama of the story starts. The RUF fighting for control of the mines so they can buy new weapons so they can continue to fight. A fisherman is taken captive by the rebels and only escapes the brutal chopping of his arms because he looks strong enough to do well as a miner (slave) for the RUF. He has to serve his new masters while not knowing if the rest of his family hasn't, or at least hasn't yet, been subjected to the worst possible torture somewhere. Meanwhile the techno-war rages on, drugs help the RUF get a steady flow of child soldiers hold their own in battle (and, mostly, in village massacres). Watch the movie to find out how, out of this situation, a diamond trader entering the scene at one point can become the provider of a ray of hope for fisherman Solomon Vandy. I could say some negative things about the ending, but I won't, out of respect for a mainstream Hollywood movie that dared give a complex treatment to a sensitive issue. To phrase my critique with similar complexity, things are not black and white here - they are dark gray and light gray. There is still room left for some too-easy distinction between shades of gray and for some heart-bleeding stuff, but then this is drama and not a documentary.
In the latter respect, if you'd like me to liken the end result to some other recently made movie about Africa, I'd say it's in the league of 'Lord of War', though somewhat better than that film. It raises an issue that's worth raising, but doesn't do it with the same touch, in my view, that the makers of 'Hotel Rwanda' or 'The Constant Gardener' had. That shouldn't be interpreted as my judgment about the actors, however. Of the three leads, all great, I'll only mention DiCaprio specifically, because of the 'Titanic' syndrome that still continues to cost him. Feel free to forget 'Titanic' if you don't want to remember it. DiCaprio is great here, and I would say that even if he wouldn't speak in 'Rhodesian' and Krio English in the movie. He is just really weirdly credible as a South African veteran turned freelance diamond trader, knowing the moves in a fight, but also already feeling the effect of too much smoking.
One of the pictures that stayed in my mind for a long time is also connected to DiCaprio. It's him carefully listening to his former commander's words on a South African ranch, looking in many ways different from, but in others similar to, the young Dia, the newly trained child soldier, listening to his RUF commander in Sierra Leone.
To finish by something controversial, I'll point to this bunch of teens who were there in the audience when I saw the movie. They were laughing out loud a lot at the sight of violence. I didn't care so much at that moment, but now, coming to think of it, it's just so easy to imagine them turned into psychotic militiamen. Just a little training, you know. They came to watch the movie to see blood. To see hearts bleed literally. For them this was a 'blood movie'.
Ligne de vie (1996)
Surreal post-com Russian mafia movie
Having seen other films by Pavel Lungin, including 'Oligarkh' and 'Svadba', out of which 'Svadba' is clearly my favorite, I went into this one with high expectations. And I wasn't disappointed in the sense that I haven't lost interest in the story. But it is botched up a little. One scene works and is very powerful indeed, then another just shouldn't be there. Yes, it's surreal madness, from the Central Asian deserts to the post-com Moscow, and it does function as symbolic commentary on trends of new Russian history. But from time to time illogical developments come independently from that endeavor, although they mingle relatively well and thus almost completely disappear in the midst of 'normal' madness. So this is the Russian 'Godfather' indeed, but with a touch of Kusturica as well (think e.g. of 'Underground'), and with minor imperfections. A souvenir from the age that some sociologists, just heard it from a specialist on Russia, characterize as a 'civil war with an extremely narrow battle front, fought over material values'.