Reviews

I was tense as soon as the movie started, and I watched this young couple of new parents, completely unprepared for the task ahead of them. The film is called L'enfant/The Child, and in many ways, that child is the main character, Bruno, who behaves like a little boy, jumping on walls, pretend-wrestling with his girlfriend, or playing with water with a stick. This is the kind of social/realistic drama that does not depict crime as glamorous or sensational. Bruno is a petty thief, who gets a euro at the pawn shop for his girlfriend's worn coat. As much as his behaviour is horrifying, you can't help but to wonder how much neglect, poverty, and despair leads to a man selling off his own child and justifying himself by saying, "I thought we could just have another one." The breakdown at the end speaks volumes.

If The Irishman is Scorsese's last word on mob movies, then this is a thoughtful, profound one from the master of the genre. It has the characteristic Scorsese liveliness, wit, humour, cool tracking shots, surprising and dynamic editing, awesome soundtrack, but there's more. His previous movies did show the consequences of the life of a gangster, but they never went this far. You never saw the wise guys playing bocce in jail, looking old and frail, or the boss who used to call the shots, being unable to eat bread because of his dentures. The last shot - a clear reference to the end of The Godfather - doesn't have the grave, somber but super cool vibe of Michael Corleone becoming the new Don. The Irishman ends with an old man, alone, morally bankrupt, emotionally incapable of true remorse, someone who murdered his best friend in cold blood. It's a reckoning, and a fitting one in the age of The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, and other works which explore the ethical fall out of the actions of corrupt men. Scorsese's movies have always touched upon violence, redemption, faith, but watching The Irishman, these issues are now dealt with through the perspective of a director who's lived long and seen much.

As a fan of Goodfellas, Raging Bull, Taxi Driver, Casino, or Mean Streets, it's such an incredible treat to see Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, Al Pacino, Harvey Keitel, and more coming together on screen. All of them are giving their very best. Pesci always looks true to the name of "wise guy"; there's an intelligence, a cunning, a foreboding to his eyes at all times. De Niro's tough guy impassiveness is a form of art. What those eyes, this twisted down scowl can tell! (His face, when he's boarded the fateful plane to Detroit, speaks a thousand words). Al Pacino is unbelievably charismatic as Jimmy Hoffa - it's a gift to have him in a Scorsese flick, the missing player to an all-star roster. Watching them all interact adds to the rewarding feeling The Irishman provides to any mob movie fan.

In sum, The Irishman is a masterpiece by a master. If God blesses Scorsese with more time on this earth, I am curious to see what kind of movie he'll do at 90, 100 years old!

I had the opportunity to go see a movie I'd been dying to watch, Portrait de la jeune fille en feu by Céline Sciamma, a French director I admire very much. It was well worth the wait! Like her other films, it's subtle, nuanced, elegant, it centers women's narratives and touches upon themes of queerness and gender. It's a exquisite movie about the female gaze (and also female desire, friendship, solidarity, love, secrets, passion, and intomacy). The plot goes like this: in the 18th century, a female painter (Marianne) is hired to paint the portrait of a young woman (Héloïse) in order for the said portrait to be sent to Héloïse's would-be husband. This becomes an excuse for two intelligent, beautiful women to stare at each other intensely, longingly for hours. The desire and flirtation had me on the edge of my seat. The movie is a huis clos. During most of it, you only see 3-4 women together, somewhere on the coast of France in an empty castle. (The first time a man appears on screen, it's almost shocking.) They play cards, read to each other and discuss the meaning of stories, go swimming, take care of female issues, and of course, fall hopelessly in love. The difference made by a female director was obvious to me throughout the entire film, but one detail was especially telling: at some point, the painter wakes up at night in pain. In the next scene, she's sitting in the kitchen, and the servant gives her some warmed up dry peas wrapped up in a cloth so she can soothe the pain. She is having menstrual cramps. I don't think I ever saw a depiction of menstrual pain on a screen ever in the near 1000 movies I've warched! The movie reminded me of the Virgin Suicides in the way it told the story of women who feel trapped (but this time, the observer is a woman, not some hapless dude), of The Piano on account of the period it's set in, the water, the unspoken desire, and maybe a bit of Persona (though a loving take on two women alone together and studying one another). Prepare yourself for a lot of sexy, poignant, heartbreaking cinema about women and made by women!!!