FilmArte

On the 30th of July we had the saddest news about two of the great film directors of all time: Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni had died. For a moment, I feared for Woody Allen (as bad news often come in three), but he was soon offering declarations in which he expressed his admiration for Bergman, the one that most of us had seen in many of his films and that he himself mocks in Stardust Memories.

I started to see Bergman films because of my mother (one of his most fervent fans) and like everyone else liked The Seventh Seal, The Virgin Spring and Fanny and Alexander. Unlike others, I loved his comic side, best represented by The Devil’s Eye, and detested his strangely existentialist The Silence and ridiculously self-indulgent All these women.

In my mind, Antonioni is still almost a lengend. A legend that was told to me by my father: one day he went to the opening screning of the most wonderful film of all times L’Avventura. He had gone alone and had no one to share it with. He then proceeded to recruit all of his friends and took them to watch the film he had loved; they hated it. In the end, he remained alone in loving the film and the only one among his peers to appreciate it.

Bergman and Antonioni were always legendary, both because of their films and because of the aura of greatness that surrounded any talk about them in our home at meal times.

Directed by: Jag Mundhra.
Screenplay by: Carl Austin and Rahila Gupta.
With: Aishwarya Rai, Miranda Richardson, Nandita Das and Naveen Andrews.

Provoked: A True Story is the story of a woman imprisoned for killing her abusive husband. It is based on the case of Kiranjit Ahluwalia, a Punjabi woman who married in the UK.
Kiranjit Ahluwalia is played by Aishwarya Rai who, in this film, is as beautiful as ever. Nadita Das is not as bad as she could have been. Indeed, everyone in the cast, devotes his or her energy to attempt to transform the most simplistic and ridiculous script into something that can be called cinema. Regrettably, even Miranda Richardson is powerless as the script calls for the prison bully to become a friend to Kiranjit or for the generalized party mood when she gets released.
This film tackles a serious issue and I would love to be able to say that it does that well. However, this movie is a sequence of common places, with an inconsistent script and terrible direction.

My life has had a period of hectic rearrangement that has prevented me from writing or thinking productively for a while. For this reason, I have decided to post “flash reviews” of the films I have seen in the last two months. This does not mean that I will not write full reviews of some of them, but it means I don’t feel I have to.

Apocalypto, Mel Gibson: it is annoying to hear evidence of so much linguistic research and to see such an attempt to recreate ancient Mesoamerican cities, just to use them to backgrounds for Western jokes about mother-in-laws.

Because I Said So, Michael Lehmann: It could have been as funny as Something is Got to Give, but it isn’t. There is something really depressing about this film and there is not enough “feel good factor” to ever fix it. What a waste of Diane Keaton.

Flock of Dodos, Randy Olson: The idea was good, the movie is disappointing. However, the music is great and the trailer is fun. Follow the link to the official site.

The Fountain, Darren Aronofsky: Rachel Weiz dies, Hugh Jackman does not look his best and the tree of life does not make it to the stars that would have made it one with the universe. Arofnosky is still talented and still depressing.

The Hill’s Have Eyes 2, Martin Weisz: There was a time I loved Wes Craven and there was a time when Robert Englund loved Wes Craven. That time has passed. Shall I name my first born Wes? I think not.

The God Who Wasn’t There, Brian Flemming: This film makes some interesting points, but it feels much like a resentful answer to a childhood problem (never mind, I got it in exchange for a soul I didn’t really have).

Happy Feet, George Miller: Ecodrama (or ecocomedy) with antirreligious, singing, dancing penguins. Do I need to say more? I loved it. Robin Williams is a genius.

The Illusionist, Neil Burger: Ed Norton is good, as always and the story has a twist that makes it all worthy, beautiful and charming. I think I love 19th century illusionist drama (a new genre).

It’s a Boy-Girl Thing, Nick Hurran: You will be surprised how these young actors manage to play cross-gender roles so convincingly. It is dumb, but entertaining.

Music and Lyrics, Marc Lawrence: There is something very charming about Hugh Grant playing a 1980’s pop musician who has known better times

Night at the Museum, Shawn Levy: It’s silly, but very well made and very funny. Enjoyable for the family or for those who are single but like it light.

Perfume, Tom Tykwer: Although, aesthetically, it can be pleasing, a film that needs a narrator cannot achieve its full potential.

Premonition, Mennan Yapo: It could be worse or it could be better. The question is: who would see it again to check that there is consistency? Not me.

The Pursuit of Happyness, Gabriele Muccino: Who would have thought that Will Smith would play such a role? He took the challenge and did it well. However, the protagonist of the story should not be the producer of the movie…

Stranger than Fiction, Marc Forster: That’s a really good film! Wait for my full review.

Directed by: Kevin Macdonald
Screenplay by: Jeremy Brock and Peter Morgan. Based on a novel by Giles Foden
With: Forest Whitaker, James McAvoy, Kerry Washington and Gillian Anderson.

Image copyright of Fox Searchlight.

This film is based on the novel of the same title, which is a account of the relationship between the fictional Nicholas Garrigan (James McAvoy) with Uganda’s very real Idi Amin (Forest Whitaker). The story follows Garrigan who, having finished medical school, decides to travel abroad. Very much by chance, Garrigan meets and impresses Idi Amin and becomes his personal doctor. Although from the beginning, there are clear signs of the kind of person that Amin is, Garrigan deceives himself about them. The film appears uncanny in its realism. McAvoy is very convincing as the naïve young doctor, and the unwitting collaborator of the bloody regime. Whitaker has never been as impressive in any other role. He completely takes over the character and makes it utterly believable. Amin, as played by Whitaker, is not just a dictator, he is vulnerable, charismatic and can be funny, but there is not one second of the film in which the audience does not feel he is a threat and capable of anything. It is precisely because of the oscillation between the jokes and the threats that one can cannot help to wonder whether one would have had fallen for it and gotten as irretrievably lost as Garrigan is.

Here is what is exceptional about the film: somehow, we find ourselves in the same position as Garrigan. We are foreigners in Uganda and Africa is foreign to us. It is a trip of discovery, of the other and of ourselves. Little by little Amin reveals himself and, while he does that, we start to understand our new position. By the time of the final realization of what is really going on, Garrigan is unable to scape.

The story is brilliant, the script is superb and Whitaker provides some of the most compelling acting that the film industry has seen in years.

It does not make for easy viewing, but it sure is worth it. If the best actor Oscar does not go to Forest Whitaker it will be because there is no justice in the world and institutionalized discrimination is still allowed in California.

Directed by: Guillermo del Toro
Screenplay by: Guillermo del Toro
With: Ariadna Gil, Ivana Baquero, Sergi López, Maribel Verdú, Doug Jones and Alex Angulo

Guillermo del Toro, like some others, is a fine director and Pan’s Labyrinth (El Laberinto del Fauno) is, probably, the most visually amazing Spanish-Mexican production of all time. It is certainly the most splendid one I have ever seen. Apparently, being a successful Hollywood director (Hellboy, Blade II) allows a person to become such a convincing fundraiser as to be able to pay for the most sophisticated special effects modern technology can produce, and then to use some money to pay for an almost completely Spanish cast.

There is an enormous hype about Pan’s Labyrinth. It appears as if both the public and the critics have been taken in by what is not more than a caricatured representation of evil during the Spanish civil war, interrupted with lengthy sequences of nightmarish and expensive fantasy that add nothing to the main plot. Indeed, one has to suspect that if the fantasy sequences were cut off completely, the civil war plot would not be altered in any way and little Ofelia could have died a truly heroic death by trying to save her brother, not from a non-existent faun, but from the fascist villain who is her stepfather.

The two plots only touch in the incident of the ‘dirty dress.’ If anyone wanted to argue that the film was about obedience –or lack of it– and its consequences (which could explain the whole of the non-fantasy plot) they would find that Ofelia shows her lack of compliance from the very first scene: after she muddies her shoes, her mother begs her to call Vidal “father” which the girl never does. Ofelia’s lack of obedience during the fantasy sequence is more related to fairy tale motifs than to the movie itself, as there seems no reason on a realistic level to think that she would try to steal anything from the Pale Man. Instead the Civil War plot emphasizes that obedience is nothing without individual thought. To make this very clear we have the last words of Doctor Ferreiro: “But captain, obey for obey’s sake… That’s something only people like you do.”

The violence does not bother me that much, although I feel it is unnecessary at times. Capitan Vidal soon becomes a stereotype of the evil military commander in the war (generally, best represented by the unrealistic depictions of German Nazis in classic movies). Do we really need to see him smash the face of a young man with a bottle or shoot the dying in the head to blow their brains of?

Despite other simplifying representations, Maribel Verdú comes to the rescue. With only a few lines delivered in a flawless manner, she builds a character to save the whole film from itself. Absolutely believable as the helper of the rebels, she stands up to Vidal and becomes a catalyser of his demise. If Capitan Vidal had not become a cartoon, what a battle of giants this would have been.

Fortunately, not all are blind to the problems with this piece, despite the fact that only one of the reviews in Rotten Tomatoes is presented as if it shed a negative light on the film. A closer look to the reviews, shows that critics, after all, might know what they are talking about and that there is hope for us all (see for example the reviews by Andrew Sarris, Dustin Putman, Brian Orndorf)

Directed by: Christopher Nolan
Screenplay by: Jonathan and Christopher Nolan. Based on a novel by Christopher Priest.
With: Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Scarlett Johanson and David Bowie.

The Prestige is a story of bitter rivalry between two illusionists in London at the end of the nineteenth century. Robert Angier (Jackman) and Alfred Borden (Bale) are both aspiring magician apprentices who work together under Cutter (Caine). From the beginning they are placed in competition with each other, but their rivalry gets out of hand when Angier blames Borden for the death his wife Julia (Piper Perabo).
During the first minutes of the film, a voice-over explains what we are about to see:
Every great magic trick consists of three acts. The first act is called “The Pledge.” The magician shows you something ordinary, but of course… it probably isn’t. The second act is called “The Turn.” The magician makes his ordinary something, do something extraordinary. Now if you’re looking for the secret… but you won’t find it. That is why there is a third act, called “The Prestige.” It’s the part with the twists and turns, where lives hang in the balance, where you see something shocking you’ve never seen before.
Before the end of this, however, I had managed to figure out the plot of the film. “Amazing,” I thought to myself, “I have everything figured out before minute three.” There was no disappointment however, instead I had an intense curiosity about whether I was right: I had accepted “The Pledge.” Indeed, what I thought was going to happen did happen. However, halfway through the film, new information was added to that I already had. Soon, I had managed to figure out Borden’s secret. The secret was “The Turn.” However, having read many stories and watched many films, I could never had predicted the end –whether it is possible to predict it is a whole other matter. This was “The Prestige.”
There is something very appealing, for a viewer, about being allowed to guess –and to guess correctly, for that matter–, and then being told that one has being right and later being offered a new turn that still causes surprise.
However, the film is not perfect. It feels as if the editing had not been carried out to the extent it should have. Particularly, one gets the impression that Bale might have delivered more and that some parts of his performance were left out. The Borden character could have been more clearly developed and the dramatic turn under the stage, at the last Angiers performance, could have been made clearer. The spectator is left wondering and, only the lucky ones who have friends who care, might discuss and continue thinking for long enough to unveil the last secrets of the story.
Perhaps I am overly fond of structural consistency, perhaps I cannot resist the mixture of the Victorian ambience and the romance of magic or perhaps I just have fallen deeply in love with Michael Caine –who performs as beautifully here as he did in Children of Men, but the truth is that, despite its shortcomings, I loved this film. One goes to the cinema many times, but only in very few occasions one wants to immediately go back in to let the illusion continue.

Image copyright of Touchstone Pictures.

Directed by: Alfonso Cuarón
Screenplay by: Alfonso Cuarón, Timothy J. Sexton, David Arata, Hawk Ostby and Mark Fergus. Based on a novel by P. D. James.
With: Clive Owen, Julianne Moore and Michael Caine.

I have said it: I like science fiction. If you had read that before, it might not come as a surprise to you that I just loved Children of Men. For a long time, I had been waiting for a nice Sci-Fi film and here it has arrived.
Here is a taster of the plot: in the future, humanity has ceased having the ability to reproduce. The youngest man on earth has been murdered and general chaos and mayhem are everywhere.
Some visual aspects of the film might remind you of 28 Days Later, particularly the military camps and the general feeling of abandonment. I particularly found refreshing the conversion of the main character, Theodore Faron (Clive Owen), from a disaffected man into part of a chaotic and divided resistance.
I am also fond of names like “The Human Project,” which in the middle of the confusion of a militarized and racist society, appears as a reminder of all the things that we have in common.
Yes, as most Sci-Fi this film exploites the negative Utopia and all our fears of what might become of our future if we continue the way we are going.
Julianne Moore and Clive Owen offer a terrific performance; but to me, the big prize has to go to Michael Caine, who beautifully shows us the incarnation of what it is to be human. Caine plays Jasper Palmer, and I am in love with him for being able to give him life. Some critics (Louise Keller, Gabriel Shanks have suggested that the viewer does not feel compelled by the characters and cannot relate to the. They must have missed Caine’s performance.
As other contemporary projects, this film not only has a website, but also has a website for the The Human Project, where fans can discuss the film and feel they are part of the resistance.

Almodovar returns with the most wonderful story about women: Volver. This is a thoroughly Spanish film from the beginning: the wind, the cleaning of the tombs, the serenity of the characters in the face of tragedy.
It does not have, like other Almodovar films those raging contrasting colors that gave him a name in the Spanish speaking world much before Mujeres al Borde de un Ataque de Nervios. It still has, as in other films, the strong women who can get away with almost anything.
There is something bewitching about the contrast between the town and the city, and the appearance of Carmen Maura as a ghost, brings back the memories of Almodovar’s first movies. I have never been a Penélope Cruz fan, but I have to admit that her performance in this film is flawless and that the only question that remains about it is uttered by Maura with utmost naturallity: “¿Te hiciste las tetas?” or, as it is said in English “Did you get a boob job?”
If you have not seen it, go now; if you have, go again.

Well, I have been away for a while, then I was busy and later, the server where these files are kept, failed. As you can see I am full of excuses. This does not mean that I have not been doing my homework. Well, I have done half of it, but I have not been writing as much as I could have.
Life had become complicated. Fortunately, I am managing better these days and I can try to figure out how to proceed.
I will be posting new reviews shortly. The only question is should I post the films in the order in which I saw them, in the order in which I wrote them, or some other random order.

Well, the Summer has been long and dry and no good films have been available for a while. But, lately, things are starting to change.
Although it is not The Sixth Sense or The Village, Lady in the Water has a certain charm. It is not extraordinary, but it has a soul. In a way, it is too complicated to be a story for children: you need a guild, you need a healer, you need a symbolist, you need a guardian… And when you get them, they are not quite right. Shyamalan’s film turns out to be about something else. There are characters without specific roles because, as it turns out, everyone is interconnected and everyone is necessary.
I guess I liked it. No wonder Shyamalan is in the list.
It does not seem fair that the film is criticized for not having a “twist” and for being too much of a self-centered attempt at taking over the fantasy film industry. I don’t think the film was meant to have a twist and I find it doubtful that certain industries might be worth taking over anyway.

Image copyright of Warner Bros.