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Moartea domnului Lazarescu (2005)
Fact or Fiction ?
The film is an X-Ray of that social system which is perhaps a direct indicator of a society's level of Humanity : The Medical system.
Having personally worked in both Europe and the USA, in the very core of this system, I agree that this is a very realistic snapshot of the European systems, well, most at least.
In Europe there is basically no choice, hospitals are public, government health care. This means low salaries, heavy work load (because its free for patients), lack of proper equipment and yes, corruption. These are factors contributing to job dissatisfaction, which in turn hurts the patients because doctors and personnel will take out their frustrations on them.
In the USA, the conditions for medics are far better, in every respect, and the impact on the patients is ... obligatory smiles and politeness.. but this 'humanity' is fake. If you don't smile, you get fired. And with American doctors' salaries, you have every reason to smile...
The hierarchy and behavior protocol within medical personnel, doctors vs nurses, is worse in the US, where very often they don't even come in contact.
The movie is very sad, but very real, in a field where the no.1 requirement should be compassion, according to the Hippocratic oath they have to take...
La meglio gioventù (2003)
Brigate Rosse : The Human side
There are moments in great films where the genius of the director shines through. This movie has at least two.
The scene in the end with Matteo may be one that scores highest than any other movie, ever, in shock factor and emotional effect - you will break down in tears-. Totally unexpected but what perfection !
The same happens with the New Year's scene, where all the family is gathered to celebrate. The maestro builds up a lot of tension, by showing the room and the people from many angles, but also the window, for a long time, and I personally felt the stress, guessing that the Brigate Rosse would attack to kill the banker at any moment from the open window. But the climax of the scene is not there ... it is totally unexpected but in retrospect it makes sense, in a twisted way.
Best line :
"You wanted to change the world and now you have to ask for permission to play the organ? "
Midnight Special (2016)
Why Jeff, why ...
Jeff Nichols... makes a masterpiece (Take Shelter). 5 years later, tries to repeat the plot, mostly using Shannon's acting.. Fails miserably.
Take Shelter was a story that slowly builds up to the crescendo in the ending.. the last minute of the movie is so rewarding that the viewer screams YES !!! .. every detail before that serves perfectly to build up the suspense. And it does it without being boring, giving you glimpses of shock often enough.
This one... is a movie about Aliens, that literally spends 30 seconds in the main point itself.. The first half is about a religious militant cult, the rest about personal relations, and how to get point A from point B. In the typical Hollywood tradition, lots and lots of unnecessary, to the point of stupidity, violence.. random events not contributing anything to the plot, serving only to keep the viewer awake. Great actors involved, but the script is non existent.
The ending is totally moronic.. half the population of the US has just seen an alien world, but meh, life goes on as usual, the protagonists are interrogated with the stupidest questions possible, and end up in jail..
Le temps du loup (2003)
A metaphor for The Hour of the Wolf ?
Did everybody missed the point?
There is a famous 1968 'horror' movie by Bergman, The Hour of the Wolf.. it's main premise is about the early morning hours, right before dawn, when, statistically speaking, most deaths are occurring.
Bergman attributes this to the supernatural, higher powers taking over this world. It becomes the realm of the Magic.
Haneke's scene with the boy in the end is the crescendo of the movie.
The boy, like Max von Sydow in 1968, are completely possessed by the ghosts, the legends, the myths, the mystical. In the boy's case, the 36 Just.
The rest of the movie works up to this scene... Humans are stripped of their culture and civilization, and return to the raw instincts of our ancestors. One of them was human sacrifice, which was done when we wanted a favor from the gods.
Haneke's boy is sacrificing himself, like one of the Just, to bring back this lost order, what we call Civilization. Throughout the movie, he shows us that the real, underlying traits of humans, if you strip away the social conventions we adopted for living together, haven't changed at all since ancient times : the primal instincts are always there, and will surface and take control in times of crisis, such as an apocalyptic scenario.
Biosphere (2022)
LGBTQ+ movie disguised as sci-fi
It doesn't matter that the world ended
No biggie that only 2 guys left on the planet
One of them is the President of the US, with an IQ <20
The other is his political advisor, who also happens to have like 20 PhDs in all sciences available.
The Biosphere has nothing to do with a Biosphere. It is a tent containing 1 aquarium with 3 fish, which will support the nutritional needs of the 2 guys for ever.
There is a build up of what seems to be a story line until about 1/4 of the movie.
Then the entire plot revolves about how a guy should accept another guy becoming a woman and overcome his macho upbringing and his homophobia.
In other words.. an LGBTQ+ movie, disguised as science fiction to make it more attractive and add a layer of mystery.
Also, if they intended it to be a comedy, they failed miserably. It's rather a tragic example of lack of creativity.
Mohenjo Daro (2016)
History made in Bollywood
" 2016 ... BC"
- Just for the guts of the director to make a movie based on what little we know about the Indus Valley Civilization, and recreate life as it would be at the time, is worth many praises.
Sure, it definitely has the Bollywood touch, but hey, why not make it fun to watch, with so many action scenes.. Personally, other than having fun watching the movie, the side benefit was to open a map and see where these places were, about the rivers that gave life to the area, and so much more history of the first civilization in the world.
Stories by Rabindranath Tagore: Kabuliwala (2015)
Horrible
This is a disgusting, extremely stylized Bollywood style short. Completely fake acting, amateur director, no character development, just camera filters and effects, abysmal cinematography.
Instead, watch the 1957 original masterpiece in B&W, it's on youtube..