Love Story (Film: Amour – Michael Haneke, 2012)

Posted on April 13, 2013 by admin

Every age has it’s love films. A long time ago, during my late my teens I resonated together with the millions of young folks at my age in between the age of the hippies and the age of the yuppies to Erich Segal’s book Love Story and the film made by Arthur Hiller staring Ali MacGraw and Ryan O’Neill. It was a sad story with two young people falling in love, getting married against the social conventions, then she falls sick, and she dies, nice music and a smart slogan that made my teen heart beat strongly (yes, I remember the girl I was with at that movie, where is she now?). Now I have seen Michael Haneke‘s Amour, probably the most awards-gatherer non-American movie of 2012, a superb film, and a very different love story. I resonated again, I was moved and even more than that, but if I am to chose which one of the two films I want to see again I will chose the older one. Actually, if I think well, Amour may be one of the rare films, maybe even the only one, I will give a grade of 10 at IMDB but I do not believe that I have the strength and in any case I do not have the will to see it again.

 

 

Michael Haneke is known for the  cold approach towards his stories and heroes, sometimes at the border of cruelty. He does not spare us the viewers in Amour either, telling us the story of an old and well established couple of musicians who are hit at the end of a life of love and shared experiences by the tragedy of the malady of the woman (Emmanuelle Riva) leading to the decay of her physical and mental health. No details are spared, and the painful and inevitable process made even more pressing by the fact that there is no improvement and no chance of recovery is described in quite a lot of rather explicit details. And yet, there is no overall sense of repulsion because all this process is dominated by the dedication of the husband, who dearly takes care of his wife although the woman she was mentally disappears with everyday that passes. Riva was a candidate for best actress at the Oscars (she did not win), but it’s Jean-Louis Trintignant‘s acting that impressed me most, because it’s not spectacular, but it conveys better than everything else in the film the message in the title. It takes a lot of courage for these two actors whose career was followed by the French and international audiences for almost half of century to face the camera in a film that deals with such bluntness with the theme of the disasters of aging. They took upon the challenge and the result is strong and moving.

 

(video source My Trailer is Rich)

 

The whole story takes place in the interior of a Parisian apartment, and it’s amazing to see how many interesting things can me made with the camera in these few rooms.  The fine acting however takes precedent and will hardly be forgotten by anybody who has seen this film. The relation between the aged couple, their shared experiences, their small conflicts, their tenderness are described in all their complexity, as well as the relation of the two with their daughter dominated not only by the gap between ages and generations, but also by the lack of power of the younger woman to help in face of the inevitable. There is one final decision, one final act of love to be made, we guess it from start, and when it comes nobody is surprised. A final scene shows the daughter entering the apartment now empty, which remained only an empty space gathering things reminding of the love that was. There is no happy end to this Love Story either.

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Adieu, Monsieur Chabrol! (Film: Bellamy – Claude Chabrol, 2009)

Posted on April 12, 2013 by admin

Bellamy (or Inspector Bellamy) is the final film in the career that spreads over half a century of director Claude Chabrol, a career started within the cinematic revolution of the French Nouvelle Vague at the end of the 50s in which Chabrol was one of the most influential names. Many of Chabrol’s first films were set in the society of the young students or lower class people in the France of the end of the 50s and of the 60s, in time he had broadened his breadth and dealt with a wider social range. This last film of his is set in the bourgeois society of the French province and while from a thematic point of view we find the combination of detective story combined with the psychological analysis which eventually discovers the real being of the characters under their apparent skins, from a stylistic point of view it’s a very settled, almost static work.

 

source http://articlepremium.net/business/inspector-bellamy-2009-download-movie-brrip1080p-quality/

source http://articlepremium.net/business/inspector-bellamy-2009-download-movie-brrip1080p-quality/

 

Much of the film relies on the presence of Gerard Depardieu for whom the role of the police inspector who cannot escape undertaking an investigation in private cop mode while on vacation seems to have been written for. Strange as it may seem Chabrol and Depardieu work together in Bellamy for the first time. I can however imagine that the director let the actor all the freedom to build his character, a combination of Poirot and Maigret at huge physical proportions, with a tenderness for the loving wife acted by Marie Bunel in a manner that makes us fall in love with her and become jealous on Bellamy/Depardieu by the end of the film, and a complicated relationship with his step brother (solid acting by Clovis Cornillac). I mentioned Maigret, and maybe I should also remind here another famous detective,  Columbo, as their wives represent a mythical but background, in many cases unseen, presence in the respective films and books. In Bellamy, the inspector’s wife is a real presence, and the family story will play an important role and give to the action and story a dimension that competes and even exceeds the detective story itself.

 

(video source moviemaniacsDE)

 

I have watched many times the French critics becoming more enthusiastic about American movies than their American counterparts (and audiences in many cases mirroring these feelings). Something similar seems to have happened with this film as well, as the critical reception in the US by critics as important as the late Roger Ebert, or the New York Time critic were very welcoming, while the French critics I read reproached the lack of suspense of the story and the theatrical approach. I would say that both – appreciative reviews and critics were right. Bellamy does look at many moments as TV theater with stiffness in dialogs and static camera work especially in the scenes filmed in the interior. There is however enough fine acting to support the gradual discovery of the characters and the situations to keep the interest awake, even beyond the fascination of watching another work on screen of Depardieu.  Claude Chabrol’s last film is a low tone Adieu, by a master who never stopped being fascinated by the endless games of disclosure and hiding of his characters.

 

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purest trash (Film: Death Proof – Quentin Tarantino, 2007)

Posted on April 11, 2013 by admin

Death Proof may be the most typical Quentin Tarantino product since Pulp Fiction. Those who love Tarantino will love the film and love him more, those who hate him will have at least one more item to add to the list of cinematic infamies they believe he is guilty of. While other pictures made by him in the last decade deal with bigger stories, or re-write episodes of history (WWII and the Holocaust, slavery and fight for emancipation) from the Tarantino perspective, Death Proof is almost a cinematographic alternative to Pulp Fiction, taking its inspiration from the low cost B-movies genres – horror thrillers and slashers.

 

source www.imdb.com/title/tt1028528/

source www.imdb.com/title/tt1028528/

 

The film comes in two packages and I must mention that I have seen and I am writing here about the standalone Tarantino-only version. It lasts almost two hours and is symmetrically divided into two stories of equal duration. The common (and BAD) hero is Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell) who is using his large and iron-strong car as a terror and murder weapon. In the first part he is set on killing a group of young and brainless girls he meets in a bar some place in Texas. In the second part he tries to do a similar act in Tennessee, but he runs out of luck. One of the girls happens to be a stunt-woman, another one seems to know what world she lives in and carries a gun. Not only that his murder plan fails, but the girls will respond with a vengeance. Almost like in Kill Bill. All things considered, Tarantino must be a feminist of some sorts.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fk0a-eljl2s

(video source Canal de Biel2000)

 

Some of the 70s movies techniques, starting with titles, ending with credits, colors and quality of the film give to Death Proof the air of authenticity and credibility. Beyond Russell and Tarantino himself who as in most of his movies takes a small role in the good tradition of Hitchcock, there is fine acting worth mentioning by Zoe Bell (a stunt woman herself, with the looks of a muscled Jodie Foster) who steps ahead of the crowd of beautiful women and leads their transformation from preys to hunters. The film is violent as any movie by Tarantino, but I must observe again that Tarantino’s violence is so exaggerated and so cinematic that you can feel his smile (actually rather a grin) telling us – ‘this is just entertainment’. Trash? certainly, but this trash is so pure that it’s gold.

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sunset of the high-class (Film: Io sono l’amore – Tilda Swinton, 2009)

Posted on April 9, 2013 by admin

Io sono l’amore starts with an impressionist-like picture of a city in winter, reminding a painting by Renoir. Yet, we’ll soon realize that we are not at the end of the 19th century but rather 100 years later. The next scene is a party in a very rich people mansion. A family gathers, three generations get together for the birthday of the founding father of the family. He has a big announcement to make about the family heritage, an announcement everybody waits for many years. The relations between the members of the family start to build up under our eyes during the dinner, the old man is obviously in control. Does this remind Coppola‘s The Godfather? What follows is however a film about the slow decay of the ruling class, a decay that starts from the degradation of the family fabric which does not allow any longer cohesion in face of the forces of economics and history. We are reminded the universe of another great movie – Visconti‘s Il gattopardo.

 

source www.imdb.com/title/tt1226236/

source www.imdb.com/title/tt1226236/

 

All these comparisons may seem extremely ambitious for the work of a director, Luca Guadagnino, who is practically at his second feature film only (and the first one seems to have been an erotic teenage drama). Amazing as it may seem, Io sono l’amore is a very complex and daring enterprise that succeeds to compare honorably with the illustrious antecedents it is inspired from and also has a lot to say on its own. The Recchi family in the center of the story is led by strong men who built a textile empire (with dubious origins in the second world war industry, so the Godfather quote is not completely unjustified) and married beautiful women, not always in their own class of super-riches. One of them is Emma (Tilda Swinton), Russian at origin, married to the heir of the empire, leading the house, coordinating the social ceremonies, managing the house economy, raising the children and dealing with their growth and emotional problems. Is she happy? Can she keep together a family that lives in a different age than the one of the ossified bourgeois clans, with some of the younger people trying to break the walls of the conveniences in order to find their vocation or their ways of loving? When the occasion shows up it will be Emma herself who will let her true feelings overcome the conventions, but the way to personal truth may be paved with tragedy. The story of the family relations is carefully constructed and impeccably acted, but there is one moment when the story risks to fall into soap drama. This moment is overcome by the superb acting of Tilda Swinton. I realize now that I missed somehow how huge an actress she is. In one film she succeeds to be at turns high-class cool and passionate, attractive and ugly, young enough to love and fast-aging, in control and completely broken, and all these in one character around whom the whole movie is spinning. At the end, when tragedy had struck, and she has the courage to speak the truth and break the social conventions, she is told by the husband who was a minute ago swearing love and offering protection ‘you are nothing’. It is actually the Recchi’s who get nothing but emptiness in their lives, and this is the moment when Emma gains back her life and the chance to start again.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZBrWVvn9xA

(video source VISO Trailers)

 

There are so many beautiful moments of cinema in this film which make it stand on its own and worth remembering even beyond the story itself. There are some amazing moments of camera work, and some haunting fragments of musical score. There is a lot of good acting, and care to the social and relationship details, every corner of the screen is full with characters who live true lives in a realistic and exact composition. There is beautifully filmed nature and there is a lot of interesting food, actually food plays at some moment an important role in the action of the film, as the mean of communication between the characters (one of them is a very talented chef). Guadagnino’s movie continues a tradition in the Italian cinema of using family stories to deal with social and political issues and tells again a story which will be worth telling as long as class differences exist and are challenged by history and by emotions.

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everybody’s crazy (Film: Silver Linings Playbook – David O. Russell, 2012)

Posted on April 6, 2013 by admin

I am trying to remember at least one character in Silver Linings Playbook who is not crazy in some way. You know, what we call a normal person, who is not or was not a patient in a mental institution, is not on psychotic medication, is not going to shrinks or a shrink himself, has no mania or obsession, does not live his or her life according to canned solutions prescribed by psychiatrists. Actually there may be one – Dolores, the mother of the deranged home where much of the action happens,  splendidly acted by Jacki Weaver who also is hinted to be the deus-ex-machina of the sophisticated intrigue of rehabilitation of her son Pat (Bradley Cooper, much better than in any other film I saw him before) out of the mental institution where his stay seems to have been caused more by legal reasons than by health troubles. In the process of getting back his life, which includes for some reasons (never explained) getting back his cheating wife who was at the origin of all his troubles he will meet a new love (Jennifer Lawrence – great looks, average acting, but then she is really only 22).  It’s just that the Pat’s system of reference (as the one of other characters in the film) is so much deformed by the stereotypes of therapy and legalism that seem to rule over the life of the heroes that only the rules of Hollywood good-feeling scripts succeed in bringing together the intrigue towards the end.

 

source www.imdb.com/title/tt1045658/

source www.imdb.com/title/tt1045658/

 

It is certainly my problem that I am not a big fan of suburbs drama or of romantic comedies. It is the problem of the film that it cannot offer credible solutions to the problems of the characters. If this was real life there would be no happy character in this film. They live in times of economic uncertainty, lose jobs or run in-secure businesses.  Family lives are buried in boredom and mediocrity. They are stuck in unhappy marriages. They are on medication. Even their American football teams do not do too well, and sport events turn into violent incidents with ugly racist facets. The aspiration to a positive attitude seems to be imposed and artificial. It’s mean drama packed in the artificial wrapping of therapy and optimism, but the source of optimism is not clear. It sounds and looks superficial and artificial.

 

(video source The JoBlo Movie Network)

 

There are many details to like in Silver Linings Playbook. Dialogs are extremely well written and acting is so natural that you feel that you are present in the suburb home, and that the characters are folks like the ones you met yesterday. You even forget that Robert De Niro is the actor who played uncounted number of gangsters, his maniac focus is so well targeted here to the obsessions for football and betting. Director David O. Russell makes the best of the neurotic ambiance and temperament of his characters and eventually drives the viewers in caring about them. It was not a bad film, despite the amount of clichees that outnumber the moments of real emotion, but I left the screening with a feeling of dis-orientation – serious problems are dealt with the wrong approach. A little bit like the issues the characters in the film have to face and the way they try to solve them. 

 

 

 

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breaking the frames (Film: L’homme qui voulait vivre sa vie – Eric Lartigau, 2010)

Posted on April 1, 2013 by admin

At the beginning of the story in this film the hero seems to be at the peak of his life. He has it all: a comfortable life, a wife and two kids, he lives in a villa in the province and works in Paris as a successful lawyer on the brink of becoming lead of a lawyer office (inherited from a terminally sick woman played by Catherine Deneuve who has only three short scenes, but so great to see her still beautiful and in good acting form). At the end he has nothing, is a fugitive with no identity. And yet, the story is the one of fulfillment as the hero while losing his status and family will find himself, a new profession and passion.

 

source www.imdb.com/title/tt1533818/

source www.imdb.com/title/tt1533818/

 

It’s a very well written story and script (based on a novel by Douglas Kennedy). It also is a more than satisfying crime story (albeit it’s about an accidental murder) which as some point in time plays with the theme of the first book in the Bounty Identity series, with the murderer taking over the identity of the victim, and finding refuge in the least policed place in Europe (at least according to the script). It so happens that the victim was a photographer, and while trying to mimic his way of life the hero develops a passion and discovers a talent in the profession, actually a stronger talent than of the one of the true owner of the name. Succeeding means however acquiring fame, and this puts under risk his second identity. I will stop here in order to not disclose too much of the rest of the story, but I will just say that the mixture of crime story, stolen identity, and self-discovery works quite well in ‘L’homme qui voulait vivre sa vie‘ (the English title is ‘The Big Picture’).

 

(video source MadameFigaro)

 

Much of the film rests on the shoulders of Romain Duris and he is doing a fine job. I do not know too much about director Eric Lartigau, but he is telling the story and leading his team with a good professional hand. ‘L’homme qui voulait vivre sa vie’ is a god thriller and a compelling drama about a man who breaks twice the frames of his life, finding himself when he seems to have lost everything.

 

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a too decent job (Film: Kirot – Danny Lerner, 2009)

Posted on March 31, 2013 by admin

Violent thrillers are yet a rather unexplored territory for the big screen Israeli cinema, and I really wonder why. The Israeli reality even if we put aside the political conflict is quite violent at least if one follows the news. While thrillers and detective stories made their way to the TV series, there are very few productions of the genres on big screens. Kirot (which means Walls, although the English title is The Assassin Next Door) is already four years old, and is one of the rare productions in the genre. It is almost a good one, but …

 

source www.imdb.com/title/tt1198153/

source www.imdb.com/title/tt1198153/

 

There was no problem for the script writers to extract the medium and the characters that populate the movie. Local mafia is said to be in control of the sex industry, and many of the characters that populate it are of Russian origin, and the sex workers are also coming in numbers from the less fortunate countries of the former Soviet Union. So a former prostitute forced by the Russian mafia to become a killer does not seem to be an extraordinary story. Even less is exceptional the case of the young woman victim of domestic violence, with simple and naive dreams that are never to be fulfilled. These two characters acted by Olga Kurylenko and  local rock star Ninette Tayeb are naturally drawn to each other by a shared record of violence and social injustice, by a lack of hope that makes their fate almost unavoidable. The best scenes of the film are the ones where the two get to know each other wining over the distrust and the differences in language and background, starting to trust, then become friends and eventually share fate. The rather non-professional acting backgrounds of both actresses help, bringing freshness, sincerity and emotion in the building relation between the two.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCF7nq0WseY

(video source hasajersi)

 

The story around is quite expected, and not badly written with the exception of the final which is unrealistic from many respects. The combination of woman killer, women in distress helping each other against violence, mafia movies, all in an Israeli margin-of-the-society environment works well because if does not take over the film, while keeping the interest of the viewers arise and balancing the story so that it does not become too melodramatic. Director Danny Lerner at his second film (he did not make any other film since then) shows quite a talent in directing actors, setting the camera at the right places, building a credible environment an Israeli can recognize. But here is the problem – there was enough good material in the film to make a more blunt social statement, or use some more striking expressive means. Danny Lerner did not undertake this challenge. Daring more and pushing the limits would have helped the film step ahead of the line. It is a decent film, a decent directorial job, and so it risks to be remembered (if at all) – decent, but not more.

 

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Anna Karenina as never seen before (Film: Anna Karenina – Joe Wright, 2012)

Posted on March 30, 2013 by admin

What else can be said about Anna Karenina, one of the books that were read, brought to stage and screen so many times? We think that we know the action and the characters, and it takes quite an amount of courage for the director and the team who undertakes a new staging or film based upon Tolstoy’s novel to believe that new things can be said and a fresh perspective created, and quite an amount of talent to make it happen. This is the challenge that script author Tom Stoppard and director Joe Wright decided to take upon with making a 21st century version of Anna Karenina and to a large extent I believe that they succeeded.

 

source www.imdb.com/title/tt1781769/

source www.imdb.com/title/tt1781769/

 

Maybe I should not be that surprised with Joe Wright. Atonement (also staring Keira Knightley) which I liked a lot had the patient building of the characters and an exquisite capability of melding into the period it dealt with and bringing it to screen. I liked less The Soloist but maybe that was the exception. The idea in this version of Anna Karenina is to transpose literally to screen the concept that ‘the world is a stage’. The story takes place in the world of the aristocracy and high bureaucracy of the last decades of the Russian empire. We all know the history of the crumbling of that empire where the few ruled over a world of misery and suffering they chose to ignore, a world that will soon take revenge. Instead of investing into recreating realistic or naturalistic imagery  of that world, Wright and Stoppard create a theater, one of these fabulous theater houses that were raised in the 19th century Europe, and makes the whole action a play with windows opening to a reality that also is more idealized as in the neo-classical paintings of the period. It’s a daring concept, it takes a few minutes to get used and accept it, but then the action starts to flow and as a view you can focus on the characters – and there is enough novelty here as well for the whole film to be interesting. At some point the concept reminded me Scorsese‘s Hugo, especially as trains and railway stations play a special role in Tolstoy’s novels. but Wright stops a step behind in creating such a complex and wonderful world as Scorsese’s Paris or maybe he is just not Scorsese (yet?).

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPGLRO3fZnQ

(video source FilmTrailerZone)

 

I was not especially thrilled by Keira Knightley‘s performance, and if I am to add the fade performance of Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Vronsky, I would say that the two make an uninspired pair of lovers. Luckily they are the only uninspired choice in this film,  as Jude Law gives life and a new perspective to Karenin’s character, Domhall Gleeson shows that there is life after Harry Potter, and together with Alicia Vikander make the lovable pair of this version (as Levin and Kitty). (Vikander is a star in becoming, I loved her acting also in A Royal Affair). At the end they add the dose of emotion everybody seeks in such screenings to declare them successful, which is added to the interesting conception and the fresh perspective on some of the characters in order to make of this Anna Karenina not only a visually beautiful version of the story, but also a film to watch for a few more good reasons.

 

 

 

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playing Moliere (Film: Alceste a bicyclette – Fabrice Luchini, 2013)

Posted on March 28, 2013 by admin

Gauthier Valence is a successful actor. He plays in a prime time soap opera which earns him enough glory to be recognized in the streets and markets and enough money to allow him to put on stage the most ambitious production any French actor dreams about – Moliere’s Le Misanthtrope. Of course he sees himself in the lead role of Alceste, but for the second role of the play, Philinte, he wants to get the participation of his friend, Serge Tanneur, who retired a few years before in a remote corner of France, on the shores of the Atlantic. When traveling to obtain his friend’s (and maybe rival) participation in the production he will find not only that Serge believes that he is the one fit for the lead role, but also that in order to enroll him he will need to engage in a game of rehearsals, first for one day, then for the rest of the week. Did Serge really give up acting, or is he playing a game of power with his old friend and rival, who apparently has so different conceptions about life and acting? Who is the playwright, who is the director, who is the actor in this play?

 

source www.unifrance.org

source www.unifrance.org

 

The series of rehearsals that the two actors play occupy much and the best part of the film. I am just sorry that I did not know how important a role the text of Moliere plays in this film, I would have read it before, as the feelings of the two characters are often expressed by the two actors using the replicas of the play and through the way they act alternatively the roles of Alceste and Philinte. It is amazing how fascinating are the scenes where we see the two men working together and confronting each other. Their role swapping is at the same time a fight for control and a way of marking the differences in their approaches towards acting and towards life, it defines the relation with the other characters (yes, there are several women in the story and one of them plays a relatively small but key role – cherchez la femme), and the complex relations of respect, rivalry and friendship between the two of them.

 

(video source FilmsActu)

 

‘Alceste a bicyclette’ (English title – Cycling with Moliere) directed by Philippe Le Guay is the second excellent French film that I see in the time of a few weeks (the other one was Dans la maison), and the lead actor (as Serge Taneur) is again Fabrice Luchini who is also a co-author of the script. His partner is Lambert Wilson whose figure is maybe recognizable from a number of Hollywood productions, but who really gets here a great role in the tradition of the French theater and cinema. There is some good camera work by Jean-Claude Larrieu using the fabulous beaches at the Atlantic and the endless roads with the heroes riding bicycles, but most of the action takes place between the walls of the decrepit and overpriced house where the two actors rehearse Moliere. It may be the dream of any French actor to play Moliere or a play turning around Moliere’s texts. It is the dream of any lover of French cinema and theater to see such a film. But better come prepared. Read Le Misanthrope first!

 

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thrill and error (Film: ‘Unthinkable’ – Samuel L. Jackson, 2010)

Posted on March 27, 2013 by admin

We are in the same world as in the ’24’ series. America is again under attack and the good guys are again in a race against the clock in order to detect the exact location of the threats and neutralize them. The vision of the script is however so simplistic and one sided that nothing really interesting happens in ‘Unthinkable’ despite the amount of money and talent invested in it. The film is labeled as ‘psychological thriller’ but exactly the psychology complexity specific to the genre is completely missing. The thrill to the extend it exists comes from the usual action movies sources.  The moral dilemma of allowing or not torture is dealt with at comics books level.

 

source www.imdb.com/title/tt0914863/

source www.imdb.com/title/tt0914863/

 

If we try to detach the film from what we know about politics it’s not however a bad film of all. As an action thriller with a violence that touches the territories of horror it works pretty well. However the flaws of the vision leave their print on the story and especially on the characters. Two interrogators, one from the FBI closer in approach to the rule of law and the classical methods of interrogation and investigation (Carrie-Anne Moss), the other a professional torturer in the service of the good causes (Samuel L. Jackson) make an ‘unthinkable’ team and will be put in the situation to use the ‘unthinkable’ methods in order to extract information from a terrorist who planted atomic bombs in populated areas of the US. The latest however (Michael Sheen) is the weakest character in the movie, we never get any explanation about the reasons that led an average American young to become a potential mass-murderer of historic dimensions. Even 24 made a much better job in depicting some of its evil heroes.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLufgELgjhk

(video source undertoes)

 

I expected this film from a few years, because I liked a lot director Gregor Jordan‘s Buffalo Soldiers. His director hand just improved in the years that passed, but what a difference in vision, from the subtle irony, the comic threads and the anti-militaristic approach of that movie then and the routine simplistic action movie approach in Unthinkable now. The good team of actors do their job with the talent you expect from their names, this film barely passes the threshold of ‘acceptable’ due to the simplistic script and schematic situations the characters are facing and to the way they resolve them.

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