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Reviews
The Matrix Reloaded (2003)
Real men don't wear ladies dresses
Ok, nice action scenes, but the plot is quite Hollywoodesque (not that I didnt expect it) ;-). I wasn't really impressed with Matrix, and the follow-up is basically the same - boys and girls in black latex dresses kicking men-in-black's asses.
But, ok as a make-time-goer. 3/10
Christiane F. - Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo (1981)
Highly disturbing documentary-type social realistic film
This scary insight into a world of drugs and teen prostitution in the late seventies Berlin is really well made and touching. I found many parallels to Moodyson's recent masterpiece "Lilja 4-ever"; (besides the plot itself) happy kids running and dancing, birds flying in depressive autumn city landscape, the use of slow motion in the scene when Christiane enters the customer's car is similar to a scene in Lilja 4-ever (in the hotel room close to the disco) etc.
Nice, heart-crunching film :-) ! 10/10
Dancer in the Dark (2000)
..this is one of my favourite films..
"Dancer in the Dark" is the first dogma type film I've seen (if Lilja 4-ever is not qualifying), and this powerful drama-musical-tragedy reminds me I have to see the other von Trier films too.. Björk is perfect in the role as a hard working, musical loving, caring mother of her son; her main goal is to earn enough money to pay for an operation to save her teenage son from the blindness which has struck her and eventually would strike him. He should be able to see his children..
This is like watching a documentary without a voice.
La pianiste (2001)
Disturbing about sexual deviation and deceit
*POSSIBLE SPOILERS*
La Pianiste is a disturbing film about middle aged Erika living together with her mother in a small apartment. Erika has a masochist sexual drive, secretly visiting porn clubs during the nights. When a young man - one of her students - falls in love with her, her world falls apart. Disgusted to find out about her dark secret (the masochist disposition), he rejects her, threatens her, beats her, rapes her.
For that is what his "love" was worth.
This is a difficult film.
Alla älskar Alice (2002)
Ok, but not very exiting
Alla Älskar Alice is a drama light about a divorce, spiced with some humor. However, I found it a bit .. cliché-loaded?
*SPOILERS*
It's about teenage Alice, whos father falls in love with a woman that is not his wife - ouch! He and his wife divorce, and Alice starts out hating her new pseudo mum, for ruining her family. And Alice's mum doesnt really love her either. Pseudo-mum's son and Alice find a common goal, namely to break up the relationship and go back to what everything used to be. However, Alice's mum saves pseudo-mum's son from drowning, and there is slight reconciliation between the mums. Movie ends with big smile from otherwise grumpy Alice :-)
I gave it 7/10 but that's just because I am so kind!
Lilja 4-ever (2002)
Dangoule 4-ever
Brilliant. I never thought I would get so emotionally affected by a movie. The actors - especially Oksana Akinsjina as Lilya - are truly brilliant.
***SPOILERS***
Lilya 4-ever tells a story about teenage Lilya, who lives in a godforsaken city somewhere in the former Soviet Union. Abandoned by her mother and bullied by former friends, she teams up with Volodja, a homeless boy. Together they spend the days sniffing glue, until Lilya falls in love with a young attractive man. In a scene not totally unlike that when her own mother left her to go to America, Lilya leaves Volodja behind to start a new life in Sweden - a paradise according to her boyfriend. Unfortunately, Sweden is not the answer to her dreams. Lilya is slowly pushed towards a precipice of dread and hopelessness..
It's interesting to note that "the west" (Sweden, in this case) is depicted as being just as gloomy as "the east" (Lilya's home somewhere in the former Soviet Union). The only difference is, as was said in a review in some magazine I read, "a few strokes of paint on the walls".
The movie becomes even more powerful considering it is loosely based on a true story; Dangoule Rasalaite came to Sweden in the autumn of 1999, hoping for a better life. She commited suicide in january 2000, 16 years old. And for those who complained about Lilya 4-ever being too dark; I think reality can me even worse..
Some people have also complained about Lilya 4-ever being predictable and pretentious. It's predictable, because Lilya's life was predictable. If you want to see something puzzling, watch Jeopardy instead.