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Toata lumea din familia noastra (2012)
Good piece of Romanian cinematography
Another good example of Romanian cinematography, "Toată lumea din familia noastră" focuses on the character excellently played by Șerban Pavlu and the nervous breakdown he is going through on the day he wanted to take his daughter to the seaside. The apparent opposition he encounters from the mother's new boyfriend and then from the mother herself lead to growing tensions, verbal abuse and even physical violence, all of them already announced at the beginning of the movie, when we see Pavlu's character in his relationship with his own parents. Like most recent Romanian productions, it's a movie difficult to narrate and it has an open ending, a thing Romanian directors and script writers seem to very much enjoy. Nevertheless, it is undoubtedly more audience-engaging than other Romanian films, as the likes by Cristi Puiu or Corneliu Porumboiu. Strongly recommended.
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011)
"Orientalism" at its best
John Madden's film is not a comedy, but rather a fine example of good old "Orientalism". Seven retired Brits go to India, to the "Best Exotic Marigold Hotel", to spend the "autumn of life". British (financial) conditions do not allow them to be relaxed in the last years of their lives, but India does. One of them is a bigot, but in India she will denounce her bigotry (not explicitly though, we are just left to guess that). Another one is a widowed housewife, who will nonetheless manage to find a job in India. All the Indian characters in the movie do is to depend, one way or another, on the Brits. Without the latter, the former are nothing. The owner of the hotel is a young Indian apparently with no skills for business. Eventually, it will be the former bigot caretaker (!) who will become the hotel's assistant manager, and thus save it from ruin, something that the young Indian manager was of course not able to do. He is even quoting Kipling: the colonized is hence truly admiring the colonizer. His lover is a graduate student working in a call center, the typical outsourcing job characteristic of the economically colonialist relationship between the "West" and countries such as India, yet this is presented as the "modern India". The former English housewife, who never had a job in her entire life, will end up teaching the young call-center workers how to proper speak English with their customers. (After explaining to the manager of the call-center what "to dunk" means: if colonialism brought English to India, only post-colonialism gets to such linguistic nuances). Tom Wilkinson plays a retired judge who comes to India in order to see his former (gay) lover. The nostalgia of the good old times of the empire is blatant. Yet the movie goes further than that: the former gay lover had an arranged marriage, yet both his wife and himself were happy with that, leading a tranquil and relaxed life. Really??? Last, but not least, there are some romances in the movie: India is rejuvenating the retired Brits (once again, an expression of the imperial gaze upon the colonized, perceived as bringing life to the aged empire), but no inter-ethnic romance is present. Retired Brits go to India to find some other retired Brits and fall in love again. Mingling with the Indians is done only in order to patronize and explain to them what life really means, be it in terms of market economy or romance. An intellectually obnoxious experience.
Irréversible (2002)
Interesting film technique without much substance
Yes, the film technique is prodigious and inventive, but that's about all this film has to show. In his tentative to make out of Irreversible a subtle meditation about relationships, love, violence and destiny, the director succeeds only in having a juvenile, therefore superficial, glimpse at all these themes. Irreversible lacks substance and unfortunately this lack of substance is not compensated by the visual spectacle: the Dantesque homosexual bar called Rectum or the infamous rape scene, probably the longest in the history of cinema are images/scenes one can't easily forget. Characters aren't veridical - and that's a flaw in a movie that tends to talk about life and destiny. The script, the lines have the same shortcomings and only the fact that the movie runs from the end to the beginning makes it a little bit more interesting. But I'm afraid this couldn't be enough to make it worth viewing.
The Final Cut (2004)
Interesting, but too common
"The Final Cut" is an interesting Sci-Fi, starring Robin Williams in the leading role, that of a "cutter", namely a sort of "mortician" as his girlfriend(?), played by Mira Sorvino, names him at one moment. Robin Williams is definitely a good actor, but sometimes his roles have something of an inertia-effect that makes them somehow boring and predictable. Omar Naim, the director, tries to get the viewers thinking, with some he may succeed. Nonetheless, the film has its shortcomings, such as some too common actors in the secondary roles (Mira Sorvino is totally unconvincing in a scene where she tries to act as a furious woman and Jim Caviezel wants to be interesting but is only too unimportant and too unimposing: he got used to being in the spotlight in "The Passion of Christ", but that was, unfortunately for him, an even worse performance). But, all in all, Omar Naim is a name we should follow later on and the movie raises some problems rather difficult to be solved, and offers an interesting perspective of the future, even if the moral at the end of the movie is quite unnecessary.
Non ti muovere (2004)
A predictable failure
Watching this movie I couldn't stop thinking of a great Italian novel, "Un amore" (probably translated in English as "A love") by Dino Buzzati. Both treat the subject of an impossible love, but Buzzati's is much more concrete and much better. "Non ti muovere" lacks psychological insight, the characters seem too void, the relationships between them don't have that something that would make them seem real.It's very possible that one simply doesn't get it. This could and should have been an interesting depiction of a middle-age crisis, of a person who just doesn't fit in the picture that it's his life, but instead it's a seemingly meaningless love story, with an unaesthetic Penelope Cruz, who, unfortunately for her is no great actress.
Giordano Bruno (1973)
Artificially made
First of all, this movie is extremely boring. Secondly, it is hilariously absurd, lacks any brim of realism and is extremely poorly acted. Barbariously simplifying the life and the trial of Giordano Bruno, it practically says nothing at all about the personality and the ideas of this important scientist and philosopher. All that it offers are some garments supposedly (and most surely) belonging to that age and some stupid sentences uttered by all characters (of course, mainly by Giordano Bruno), suffocated by clichés and "philosophy" that one could hear daily in all sort of circumstances, all of them worse than mediocre. One of the worst movies I've ever seen (watching it three or four times a year would be more than incomprehensible)
Doctor Zhivago (1965)
Love and Communism
All in all, a superb film even if at moments it seems to lack the necessary dose of reality (however this is a shortcoming only if you are a fan of "naturalistic" films, so often nowadays) and the coherence of the narratorial perspective could have been a little adjusted (but then, shame on me!, I didn't have the occasion to read Pasternak's novel). In Romania, one of accusations in one of the most famous trials of the Communist era (the "Noica-Pillat" trial) was that of having read the book by Pasternak. The love story depicted in "Doctor Zhivago" is extremely sensitive (and Julie Christie is absolutely GORGEOUS) and emphasizes once again the contrast between ideology and real life. The background of the Russian revolution is most inadequate for real feelings, however love springs out no matter what the circumstances. The condition of the artist under the Communist rule is a side theme, nonetheless very well suggested. Today's radical leftists, Marxists, Che Guevara fans, Communist nostalgics should watch such movies from time to time, in order to see that real life has nothing to do with Utopian ideologies, that Man is such an imperfect human being that he cannot bear the burden of building a Utopian society and that love is always more important, more touching.
Bowling for Columbine (2002)
Politics, fear, arrogance
It's a film (documentary?) worth watching even if it's not quite clear what's the punt. Criticising the American politics mainly and suggesting that the American tendance towards hegemony in international relations is to blame for its problem with guns (for the US have a big problem with guns) is not always supported by well shaped arguments. But, all in all, Moore says something and it wouldn't be bad if to his documentary were given more attention than it actually receives. Notwithstanding its political bias, Moore's documentary is interesting to watch, because its position resembles more the European position as regards America and because it has the power to assert some facts that are very difficult to bear by the ordinary American. The American society has two important problems: no.1, the fact that even since the Cold War, it is a society living in constant, perpetual and absurd fear (and a society living in fear can't offer a model for international hegemony) and, no. 2, an undescribable arrogance, doubled by a strange form of nationalism. And these two problems are very well depicted in Moore's documentary.
Elephant (2003)
Absurd
Directed by Gus Van Sant and awarded in Cannes, "Elephant" seems to be an antiamerican film (the type French critics and intellectuals so much enjoy), just like (or maybe even more for some) Lars Von Trier's "Dogville". But this would be a scanty judgment, and as scanty as that would be criticizing the movie on the reason that it is "too slow and boring". For today's moviegoer, used to Hollywood's frantic rhythm of movies such as "Fight Club", watching "Elephant" might be a strange penance - but at the same time it might represent the rediscovery of an aesthetic and artistic sensitivity. "Elephant" depicts an ordinary day in an ordinary American high-school, upon which suddenly absurd descends. Long shots, slow tempo, common images of an American high-school in a common middle-class (this is an important element) American town. A pictural image at the beginning of the film (for it is a film and not a movie), clouds gathered upon the sky. If one has no idea what the film is about, he/she has all the chances to understand nothing of it. Only that practically this is the punt of the film - to show how the absurd bursts instantaneously and unexpectedly forth. The absurd is unexpected and gives birth to apparently legitime questions. "Why is no one watching on the students?", "How come can you enter armed from head to toe in a school?", "How can a youngster buy so easy fireguns?" But these questions are only apparently legitime - normality is one of the premises for the arrival of the absurd, its sine qua non condition. The absurd comes to hackle normality and life's common activities and the answer to the aforesaid questions is a simple one: "just like that". One cannot fight the absurd - eventually, one can turn out of an absurd individual into a revolted one, but then it depends on how you are doing that: Alex and Eric, the two students shooting their fellows and teachers have chosen a way. The descending of the absurd into daily life is subtly suggested by Alex (or Eric, I don't remember which is which)playing (rather poorly I might say) Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" and Eric (or Alex) playing on the computer, sign of the irreversible unidimensionality, and also by the pictural shot in the end - copy of the one from the beginning, with just one disparity: the moon behind the clouds, a too artificial and unnatural moon. Unlike the Kafkian absurd, the tragedy of today's absurd is that it receives shape in the minds of "ordinary" individuals, whose being got practically imbued with the absurd, so that they (we) can think of it, and, furthermore, can conceive it. It's us that have become absurd and watching such a film might remember that to us.
The Mephisto Waltz (1971)
Music and Devil
This 1971 movie is definitely worth seeing, at least for a melancholically superb Jacqueline Bisset (at the same time, the other main character, Alan Alda, offers a lousy and histrionic performance). Even if it may seem obsolete, the movie still gives one chills down the spine at some moments, and the end is maybe a recognition of the fact that Evil is always more tempting than the Good. All in all, the old Faustian theme is well depicted in this movie, with some interesting arabesques (but why do the Satan worshipers speak a terrible French in their rituals - that I do not know, a superb score (naturally, since it is about the world of pianists and music) and some subtle meditations about the condition of the artist today and always. 7/10
Monster (2003)
Killings and love
Charlize Theron displays a stunning performance in Monster, that has doubtless shocked her fans, more used to her baby doll image in The Devil's Advocate or The Astronaut's Wife. She reveals an exquisite talent as she portrays Aileen Wournos, a prostitute that becomes a serial killer (and though many made this assertion, she is not at all as horrendous as shallowly one might say). Feminists will be pleased - the prostitute falls in love with a young lesbian (a sweet and convincing Christina Ricci) and, furthermore, she reaches the conclusion that she has constantly been raped. But it's more than that - Monster is also a film about love, about loneliness and the need to outcome it. For Aileen, life has always been a fiasco and meeting Selby she has the impression she can still put back the pieces in her life and follow her dream (the American dream, naturally - she even says at one moment that she wanted to become the president of the United States); for Selby, running away with Aileen is a strange Bildungsreise, rather a failure than a success (nonetheless, this is arguable, as it depends on the meaning we give to the terms "failure" and "success"). The reasons that constrain Theron's character to turn into a serial killer are a mixture between the Greek tragedy's Moira and the Macbethian choice of the modern individual. There are moments in life when one is not his/her own master anymore - but who is it then? But the paradox for some may be the fact that among all the crimes and blood and debauchery this film is about love and about the fact that love has nothing to do with our common cleavage of Good and Evil.
Forbrydelsens element (1984)
A confused continent
The Element of Crime is a complicated movie, that definitely has something of a surrealist painting in it, filled with darkness, mud and repetitionary references regarding Europe and the Europeanness (if there is such a word in English). After Nietzsche's assertion that God is dead and the outburst of postmodern relativism, the European individual finds himself in a dim search for his own identity, roaming to and fro not knowing who he is and which way is the right one. The same happens with Fisher, the detective that returns from Cairo to Europe (where in Europe, that is of no importance, since Von Trier depicts a common unassumed Weltanschauung, valid for the entire continent) in order to discover a serial killer. But this quest mustn't necessarily be regarded as a sequence of events, culminating in a meaningful end. On the contrary, it is probably more indicated to consider it a radiography of Europe of the 20th century, confused and bewildered, not knowing who to blame for its disasters, seeking salvation outside its axiological system (as Fisher does, "screwing a Volkswagen 2000 in the middle of Europe"), and finally finding out that only her and her offspring are to blame.