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Reviews
Wish You Were Here (2005)
Extremely beautiful little thriller
"Wish You Were Here", a small little Spanish production with an American and British cast, is clearly one of the most beautiful movies I have recently seen.
David (played by Sam Page, a very handsome American actor who had his big break with "Point Pleasant") and his beautiful girlfriend come to Spain to meet his father to get approval for their marriage. David hasn't seen his father for many years, and the reconciliation starts off pretty well when his father offers the young couple to stay in his weekend palace. But suddenly David's girlfriend vanishes, and nobody wants to help David finding her. Slowly he's becoming aware that his father and all the people he had met on his way are part of a malicious conspiracy. It soon becomes clear that only by confronting his past can David save his future - at which point he is forced to cross a line beyond the limits of logical reasoning.
The most beautiful aspect of "Wish You Were Here" is the photography. Spain surely is one of the world's most beautiful spots, but it has rarely been shown that hot and sexy in a movie. Sam Page is equally lovely to look at, and the cameos by Howard Marks and the late Antonio Gerber clearly make this fine indie worth watching.
The movie's web site says that "Wish You Were Here" was a "genre-bending thriller about the dark road to becoming a man." Despite some holes in the story, it really is an entertaining, arty peace of film. Highly recommended, but also very difficult to find.
Deed Poll (2004)
Some good actors wasted in a bad movie
I watched this movie a couple of weeks ago and must say: I was not impressed, not at all. I do side with the other posters when it comes to the fine performances, but some good performances do not make a good movie.
On the discussion board, I found a review by an anonymous poster that captured some of the main points. It says: "'Deed Poll' is a movie that raises many questions but hardly answers even a few; a movie that is disturbing and above every attempt at categorizing; an experiment and a very conventional sexual drama despite some shocking scenes. The brilliant acting of Barbara Kowa and André Schneider, the partly very impressive editing and the good camera work (Steffen Ritter) make up for gross plot holes and some technical slips (especially in sound). However, the boredom the audiences have to deal with for 40 minutes remains." Unfortunately, this is true. I wasn't intrigued by the story at all. The protagonists are cold, ambition-less people. They do a lot of drugs and have a lot of (incestuous) sex. So what? For many times, the direction seemed to be virtually non-existent, not to mention the technical aspect: the poor sound quality was enormously disturbing.
What's the point of the movie? What's the message behind it all? The anonymous reviewer said: "Somehow Biermann failed to make a clear point and so the movie remains hanging in mid-air without a message. Thus the boredom I blame on the movie. The movie is reserved and emotionless, cold, almost neutral and it doesn't take long to see the flaws: for long stretches the characters of Sean and Ivy are not credible (they clearly have difficulties with the English pronunciation), the character of the mute brother is not developed very well. Some moments are very promising though - in the scene where the call boy is skinned (the one and only true love scene) an intensity is reached that one would love to see the whole movie long. As a spectator one has to regret the chances given away." Again, I must agree. I did like the final scene, especially because of the beautifully captured faces of Gianni Meurer and André Schneider, but it was nothing compared to the boredom I had to suffer for the first thirty minutes. (The sex scenes, though, were aesthetically staged and perfectly edited.)
All in all, "Deed Poll" was not my cup of tea - a good, controversial idea wasted -, but it was a interesting to see how a movie can be made with practically no money. Maybe if they had a bigger budget and a more experienced director, this would have become a better movie.