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Avatar (2009)
Infantile film, sure hit
James Cameron's long-awaited Avatar turns out to be a flimsy excuse for some spectacular, yet empty posturing in never-before-seen 3D. The technological innovations will keep you interested for about an half hour, then the apparent flaws start to take over the viewing experience.
Dialogue is, as might be expected, sub-par. Lead performances by Worthington and Saldana are flat and uninvolving. Script is laden with all the clichés Cameron could muster, and filled to the brim with unnecessary hand-holding of the viewer. Every conceivable aspect is over-thoroughly explained through dialogue, making for a totally unbelievable interaction between characters and world, and also giving the impression Cameron thinks I'm an idiot. So-called green and anti- colonial values are glued-on-top, and are completely unconvincing.
Film is thin in every aspect except the 3D-visuals. As it turns out, the "Indians" are once again saved by White Male. Even the indigenous Na'vi are modeled after conservative human stereotypes. Female lead is in the end only there to be the romantic interest, the gender-models of the Na'vi mirror those old "truth's": women are emotional an effeminate, men are strong and masculine. Here Cameron affirms conservative stereotypes by giving them an intergalactic justification "in natural order of things".
The film has been receiving raving reviews from mainstream critics, and is sure to be an international hit. This doesn't bode well for the future of Hollywood cinema. Up next: Transformers 3D!
Otets Sergiy (1918)
A modern and even scandalous movie for it's time...
"Otets Sergei" is a film that couldn't have been made in any other time period. Literally. The censorship of Czar-era Russia had tight regulations concerning religion and politics (the portrayal of the royal family). This movie was made before the revolution of 1917 in a time of turmoil, it could just barely be made then; boasting the name of Tolstoy being a big asset. After the revolution, no such movie would be made for a long time.
Otets Sergei has both a very unconventional religious figure and it portraits the Czar as having extra-marital relationships. At heart it is the life story of a young successful army officer, prince Kasatsky, who unknowingly falls in love with the mistress of the Czar. When he eventually finds out the truth about his soon-to-be-married wife (she wants to marry him to stop the rumors about her affair with the Czar), he is so shocked that he retreats to a monastery to become a monk (and after years Father Sergei). Later he battles with the temptations of sexual lust and the dreams of how things could have been.
The movie has many uncommonly modern characteristics. Besides the daring subject it has a rather strongly developed lead character, good storytelling and cinematography and a script which deals with human emotions without being exploitative or sentimental. Altogether it has a very modern touch to it for a movie made in 1917, although the lack of sound (originally it had a score played live to the audience) does make it a little weary at times. Still it is a prime example of the art film movement of pre-soviet Russia and a timeless story of unfulfilled love.
The film has a typical "Russian ending", with almost total humiliation of the central figure, but it is not there to morally condemn Kasatsky, it's just that this was how stories like this always ended in the tragedy genre. One could see a moral lesson here, but to me what makes this movie interesting is that it doesn't seem to want to give one.