The Great
Beauty:
A Languid trip through Rome its parties, the boring minds of its idle
intelligentsia as seen through the jaundiced eye of Jep Gambardella a
journalist intimately connected to the social scene, with one highly regarded
book completed in his youth and riding on the coat tales of its success ever
since, played with jovial disinterest by Toni Servillo. Jep celebrating (or
not) his sixty fifth birthday belatedly reassesses the idle wake of his life in
the eternal city. Unbearably elegant (a new linen suit in every scene always
with a handkerchief in the top pocket)
He wafts his way through a series of parties and conversations none of
which are very interesting. While the photography is mostly beautiful (easy in
Rome) some incongruous Felliniesque inserts do nothing to elevate this
indulgent homage to the Italian good life.
Amour;
If love has
any meaning at all, one of its most powerful aspects are displayed with
unblinking intensity in this new film. Georges ,wonderfully played by Jeam-Louis
Trintignant is married to Ann rivetingly portrayed by Emmanuelle Riva, both in
their eighties, are retired music teachers. Ann one day unexpectedly falls ill,
as her condition deteriorates and hope for recovery fades it falls to Georges
to take care of her. It is in the end his display of the love he has forher
that equips him for this sometimes harrowing task, that he has no
experience of. Their daughter
played by Isabelle Huppert, also a musician, who on her occasional visits, is
shocked and dismayed by her mothers increasingly frail condition and of her
fathers insistence in solely carrying out
her care, having no experience of her own of the love that propels him.
Michael Haneke’s rigorous, unflinching direction, which at times lifts the film
from the screen into its own reality, coupled with Darius Khondji’s mesmerizing camera work, provides a film that despite its majesty is
sometimes hard to watch, but unafraid to portray an unvarnished picture of what
real love means under less than idyllic conditions, which in my world is where
it counts.
This remarkable film has everything going against it, (on the surface) Its French…. Their notoriously erratic
output of films is akin to a sort of cinematic Russian (or French) roulette… It
has Two Directors and Writers, usually a sign or filmic armageddon, and the
“odd couple “ storyline is something that has been told a thousand times
before. Yet with all of these horrendous omens weighing down the premise of
this film , it succeeds brilliantly on nearly every level.
An aristocratic ex daredevil, now a quadriplegic who lost his wife
in an accident, hires as
his next caretaker an ex con, who is only in the applicants line so that he can
prove to the state that he has been looking for work, and thus continue to collect
unemployment benefits.
Unexpectedly thrown into this new line of work, “Dris”” ebulliently
played by Omar Sy leaps into the job without pretense knowledge originally much
regard for his new charge, but eventually much affection is exchanged between
then two. This is just what Philippe nicely played by Francois Cluzet needs,
having suffered for a long time previously at the hands of incompetent
“professionals”. Even though the
premise, as mentioned hardly new, the film is directed with such unpretentiousness
and at times joyful abandon, that there
were few failures that I
could gripe about. + not that it makes much difference, this is based on a true
story, both principals in real life are still alive and remain friends.
438 stars.
Wild Grass;
Most of the population at the age of director Alain Resnais, 88 (Too many films to list here) spend a lot of their time in the supermarket deciding which grade of depends is right for them . Instead this master of the French New Wave has come out with an intriguing tale involving a dentist, Marguerite Muir played by Sabine Azema, with wild red hair whose purse is snatched by a rollerblading punk, while she is shopping for shoes. He, Georges (pronounced George) finds the discarded wallet and after rifling through it to find out who this woman is turns it into the police so that they can return it, after loosing his nerve trying to return it himself. He then becomes obsessed with the unseen woman and tries to start a relationship with her via a letter writing campaign, which she constantly rebuffs, to the point of getting the police to pressure him to leave her alone. This works, she then feels some guilt over this and calls to apologize and upon seeing him at a rendezvous (this is a French film after all). The tables are turned, she becomes obsessed with him and is initially rebuffed. Anyway it goes on and on as French films do but though there were many points in the beginning I was ready to leave, I never did, and was glad of it in the end. A complex multi layered visually arresting piece of work, certainly far more entertaining than trolling for depends in the senior isle.
246 stars wife, what wife.
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The Magi
c of Fellini;
c of Fellini;
A great little documentary about this Italian master, who was born at the right time in the right country with the right producers to help him bring forth his brilliant films. With interviews with Fellini himself as well as Anthony Quinn, Claudia Cardinale, Anita Ekberg, Donald Sutherland, Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, Lina Wertmuller, Paul Mazursky, Ettore Scola, Giuseppe Tornatore No one has a bad word to say about him and if you have seen any of his films you can see why. A Netflix recommendation
Exit Through 
The Gift Shop.
The Gift Shop.
A person hardly know where to begin to describe this docuoddity. It bills itself as the worlds first “street art disaster movie”. If you are familiar with the Paramount Logo (A mountain surrounded by a circle of stars) This film starts out with a similar logo surrounded by a circle of bullet holes and the name “paranoid films”. This might give you a hint of what you are in for. Never the less in it simplest terms it is the story of a very eccentric French clothing shop owner, Thierry Guetta turned obsessive filmmaker and his documentary mission to get the famously anonymous British street artist Banksy to join the list of other famous street artists( Shepard Fairey, Space Invader, Joshua Levine) that he has been filming. What the end product of the hundreds of hours of tape, hasn’t been thought through by Guetta, but this does not impinge on his obsessive filmmaking. Finally meeting his idol Guetta manages to film and befriend him. On the advice of Banksy, Guetta tries to make a coherent film out of his massive pile of footage, and fails miserably. Banksy the tries to do so himself, and I think this is what we are watching. I found it hugely entertaining, hilarious and informative.
35 Shots of Rum.
A Parisien slice of life as seen from the cab of a subway driver. A widowed father and his soon to leave home daughter try and sort out their lives. A rambling narrative and yet strangely affecting. Nothing really out of the ordinary happens just folks trying to make the best of their relationships. To look at, this is an old fashioned film, long takes on faces emoting, everything in these ordinary lives gets noticed and is artfully given its time on screen. It is the sum total here given time to breathe by veteran director Claire Denis, that makes this one worth a look
245 stars + 3 brioche royals
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo;
In this long but engrossing Swedish thriller, journalist Michael Blomkvist who has recently been found guilty of libel and sentenced to 6 months in jail, for outing a corrupt financier, is hired by reclusive industrialist Hendrik Vangar to find his niece, who he believes was murdered 40 years earlier, but the murder was never solved and the body never found. Obsessed by this disappearance he talks the reluctant Journo into taking on the case to fill the time he has to wait before his sentence must be served. What he finds out with the help of an extremely punk and disturbed hacker is that there is much more to this case than he originally thought. Involving, in no particular order, a sadistic probation guardian, several nazi sympathizers a serial murderer of women,(who has never been caught), most of whom are members of the family that Hendrik is the head of. A dense involving screenplay, moody Nordic overtones subdued Scandinavian direction along with his mysterious enigmatic side kick the twists and turns of the plot make this film, despite its length an engaging nail biter ‘till the end
349.5 stars and keep your laptop camera turned on.
Mid August lunch:
Or to give it its Italian title “Lunch of Ferragosto” which is an Italian holiday. The slight charming trifle is the story of a middle aged son, Gianni, played by writer/director Gianni Di Gregorio, who lives with his ancient mother and who amongst other things is 3 years behind on his electricity bill. The landlord who needs someone to take care of HIS mother for a couple of days, while he leaves town for the Ferragosto holiday proposes that in return for this favor he will pay Gianni’s apartment debts. Gianni reluctantly agrees, only to have the landlord show up the next day with his mother AND her sister. The next day suffering from the stress of now dealing with3 very elderly ladies, his doctor (who he hasn’t paid either) unloads HIS mother on the beleaguered Gianni, merry mayhem ensues, including some great cooking scenes. Juggling his increasingly cranky mother with his new houseguests makes for a lighthearted and very charming entertainment.
Let The Right One In;
If Ingmar Bergman rest his gloomy soul were to have made a vampire film it might look very much like this one by director Tomas Alfredson. Stylistically almost a parody of what a Nordic vampire film might look like this is a tale of Oscar a nerdy schoolboy who is the target of taunts and bullying by his class mates, who befriends and then falls for Eli an equally strange and socially inept girl who he meets one snowy night, sock less, in the play yard of apartment complex where he lives. Finding kinship in her weirdness they strike up a relationship, which transcends her liquid diet and appearances at nighttime only habits. This all takes place at a leisurely Bergmanesque pace but with equal visual attention the winter scenes, close ups of snowflakes, eyelids, hand holding, breath clouding the night air and the very occasional ripping out of someone’s throat. In fact calling this film a vampire flic might be a misnomer as the aforementioned throat chomping only plays a very minor role in this strangely engrossing tale of trans species romance.
276 stars and bring your own ludefisk.
The Class;
An engrossing if not long story of a teachers effort to get an unruly class of high school students in an inner city French school to take an interest in their education.
Francois Begaudeau wrote the book, screenplay, and stars as the beleaguered teacher. His performance is engaged and vibrant, however it is the children who are of many different ethnicities who steal the show. Their rebellious rowdiness lights up the screen and the way that they are visually framed helps this enthusiastic infectious depiction of the competition between them and their instructor. Some of the scenes depicting the school year are overly detailed, especially the teachers staff meetings, but the overall effectiveness of Laurent Cantet’s direction prevails. He brings electric energy (mainly through the students) to an unlikely subject
299 stars
Everlasting Moments;
Set in Sweden in the early 1900’s Maria a hapless wife of a drunken womanizing lout, who saddles her with ever increasing numbers of children, wins a camera in a lottery and uses this new instrument to focus on a world more intriguing and beautiful than the seemingly hopeless gulag of a marriage that she is trapped in. This newfound independence further enrages her thug of a husband, but also emboldens her to continue, with the encouragement of a sympathetic studio owner, her newfound passion. Director Jan Troell has almost fashioned a parody of what a Swedish film should look like, Bergman would be proud, A dark and gloomy narrative is in synch with the visual style. However there are moments of redemption to prevent an en masse rush to the water fountain to wash down the handfuls of prozac you might wisely have at the ready. That being said this is a well wrought finely crafted piece of drama, that makes you glad you didn’t live in early 20th century Sweden
305 stars and the aforementioned Prozac
Tokyo Sonata;
This film by director Kiyoshi Kurosawa tracks the disintegration of a modern urban family when the husband is downsized and has not the whit or courage to tell the rest of his family. Burdened by Japanese cultural strictures, the husband is unable to share his demoralizing dilemma, with disastrous results. This film delicately traces the consequences of his decision. The older son, already on his way out of the door emotionally, decides to join the US army. The younger son sensing the discord decides to follow his passion for music and asks his parents for permission to take piano lessons, which his brutish father angrily denies. He takes them anyway using his mothers lunch money to pay for them. Slowly the fathers hidden unemployment and the shame he carries with it erodes the tenuous emotional strings holding the family together. The husband and wife each separately reach their respective nadirs, but all is not lost, without giving away the redemptive ending, this film despite its slow start and foreign origins tells a universal tale that is worth looking at once again.
246 stars and eat you rice more slowly.
DVD; Jules et Jim;
46 years after having seen this film for the first time it seems hopelessly naïve and improbable, quite a different reaction from the first time where I thought it was impossibly exotic and romantic, (one night with Jeanne Moreau and six months in a Swiss sanitarium) was the prevailing opinion of it’s French star. Set in Paris on the early 1900’s the story tracks the lifelong friendship of Jules played by Oscar Werner and Jim, played by Henri Serre and their mutual love for Catherine played with gusto by the aforementioned Moreau. Early on Jules marries Catherine, they have a daughter, WW1 intervenes both the men go off to the front, avoid shooting each other, they come back Jules & Catherine are happily living in a cottage in the woods. Jim shows up and joins them and for a while they are a cheerful threesome . Catherine is restless and turns her attentions to Jim, Jules terrified of loosing her completely acquiesces, with predictable results. This then is story of friendship and love and how and where the two intersect. The things that has stood the test of time are the moments of fun, romance and pathos, along with a complete lack of pretense that director François Truffaut has woven into this little gem.
46 years ago 10000 stars. today215.
Broken Embraces
Another masterwork from director Pedro Almodovar. In this story a blind film director retraces the events that led to his blindness,14 years earlier. A terrible road accident that not only robbed him of his sight but also Lena, the love of his life, who was also the mistress of a powerful business magnate who in order to keep her, finances the film that he was directing at the time. A richly complex story full of wonderfully nuanced performances, insightful dialog, and a seemingly unparalleled understanding of the subtleties of human relationships and their interactions, add to this his breathtaking visual acumen and you have an almost flawless piece of work. Starring Penelope Cruz as Lena, Lluis Homar as the director Mateo Blanco, Blanca Portillo as his faithful producer, and Tomar Novas as her son Diego. Almodovar shows no signs of any lapse in his string of stunning cinematic achievements. If you have any interest in cinema at it highest realization, a must see event.
899 stars
Caramel;
A truly wonderful Lebanese film starring and directed by Nadine Labaki. It centers around a group of women who work in a beauty salon in Beirut , each one has a romantic problem of some sort, and it is the telling of their interweaving stories that makes this film so rich, deft direction, terrific editing, lovely lighting stops this effort by the first time director, from becoming a trite chick flick. The women are all stunning and wonderful actors, there is not a dud amongst them. Shot entirely in Beirut this is a story of daily life in the city without any reference to it’s war torn history. A terrific piece of work, and a director to watch in the future
500 stars yum
Roman De Gare;
An engrossing French film? What is the world coming to? But here it is . A thriller full of clever plot twists, tension, fine acting and a surprise ending.
All put together with gallic style by Clause LeLouch, famous for his ‘60’s winner “A man and a Woman”. There are plenty of those trademark scenes in this film too, (much road footage) A famous author, a luminous performance by Fanny Ardant, (of whom I am an Ardent admirer) is working on her next book, or is she? A man, who might be an escaped convict (or not) is on the run, and picks up a distraught woman, at a gas station, and while he gives her a lift tells her that he is really the ghost writer to the famous authors hit novels or not. Who is the real murderer, why have many of the famous authors husbands not lasted very long, who cares? You will.
This moteur is firing on all cylinders. 273 stars & keep the notes to yourself.
As it is in Heaven;
You can’t go home again. We’ve seen this before, but this charming well realized film from Sweden tells it to us again and for the most part it is so well done, that we don’t mind. A world renowned conductor, brings his career to a sudden halt, he returns to his remote childhood village , where is asked to be the cantor for the church choir, he reluctantly accepts and takes this rag tag group and gives them some musical heart. He soon has several of the younger women in the village taking more than a musical interest in him, this ignites the ire of the local priest whom see’s his authority being challenged, when his own wife turns against him, the Fiskbullar really hits the fan. There are the usual stories of prejudice and abuse that various village members are hiding from each other and the new paradigm that this conductor brings into this little world brings them all to the surface, with much ensuing turmoil, but music seems to cure all eventually, and apart from the rather trite ending, this is a worthy heartfelt piece, full of authentic acting and universal truisms that most people can relate to.
375 stars and be careful on the ice.
Tell no One;
I don’t know what is going on in La Francaise but the current spate of worthy films coming out of that gallic enclave is un nerving. You can add this one to that list. Here is a knuckle biting thriller that doesn’t let on as to what the outcome might be until the very end of it’s 2 hour running time. Here is s synopsis; (there isn’t enough room for a detailed description)
A pediatrician and his wife are taking a nighttime romantic swim in a local lake near their house, the wife Margot,( Marie-Josée Croze) gets up to go to the house to let the dog out, swims across the lake, the husband(François Cluzet) hears a muffled scream, jumps to his feat franticly swims across the lake climbs out, and is struck in the head by a club, awakes in hospital, to find that his wife has been murdered. Cut to 8 years later, two bodies are dug up near the scene of the crime, the police, who have always suspected the husband, but had no evidence, come after him again. The intricacies of the plot, what with corruption and murder in high places, the serpentine trail is dizzying, the direction editing, structure along with the top notch acting has you on the edge of your seat all the way through, and forget going to the bathroom, (you have been forewarned)
I guarantee that you will have no idea whodunit until the very end.
496 stars C’Est Formidable
The Edge of Heaven;
This German produced and directed film is essentially about a culture clash, but it’s human story is so cleverly and intricately intermeshed that the cultures seem to appear as merely a subtext.. An elderly retired widower of Turkish descent is living in Germany he talks a prostitute that he has visited into living with him as his mistress, all goes well for a while, the woman sending money home to her daughter in Turkey for her education. The daughter, who is a political activist, has no idea of her mothers profession. The widower has a son who is a professor in the university, who is extremely upset with his father, a) for taking up with this prostitute in the first place and b) when he discovers that, after he has struck up an informal l but friendly relationship with her, his father in a drunken rage, accidentally killed her. The father is arrested, sent to prison, and the son goes off to Turkey in search of the daughter. The story goes on and on and gets more complicated, more people get arrested, some other people get shot strangers who are looking for each other pass in the night some estrangements get reconciled others do not. In the end there is redemption. All in all this is a wonderfully complex and thoughtful piece of work that brushes all of the touchstones of the human condition in a graceful way. A sleeper of a film that could be easily overlooked…at you’re peril.
362 stars
The Lives of Others;
This Oscar winning German import is a story about an East German functionary in the Stasi (secret police) before the fall of the Berlin Wall in !989. Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler played expertly by Ulrich Muhl is an high ranking interrogator put in charge of spying on well know playwright Georg Dreyman played by Sebastain Koch.
Weisler starts out by being a loyal party worker, but as his spying progresses he has a change of heart, and he slowly see’s the bankruptcy of the regime he has devoted his life to. In the end he does what he can to save the writer from the authorities, at the cost of his own career. This film displays the grey dour times of east Germany’s communist times. Fairly gripping screenplay with engrossing acting by most of the unknown(in the US) cast. The film on the whole is a bit gloomy, (as a reflection of the times)(A musical version would have been somewhat incongruous). Never the less a worthy Oscar recipient
223 stars and don’t run out into the street in your robe
Le Petite Lieutenant;
In this French import a new young lieutenant fresh from graduate school joins a Paris detective squad, and is soon on the case of a murdered homeless man. His boss a morose, ex alcoholic, existential chief inspector Vaidieu played by Nathalie Baye is in charge of this case, (no Helen Mirren, she). During this long boring investigation our young Lieutenant due to the bungling of his partner, gets himself knifed, and ultimately dies, much to the chagrin of Ms Chief Inspector, who has taken a shine to the young lad.
After finally tracking down and shooting the last of the perps in this exhausting story, Ms Chief Inspector goes for a long existential walk along the beach to ponder the meaning of her life…presumably
Overall this is a crushingly boring film sloppily directed with an inept screenplay, tedious in the extreme to sit through with it’s many crosscutting subplots.
If this a character study, a thriller, a detective story, even an inside look at the French cops, or a pictorial guide to Paris, it fails miserably on all levels.
I got sucked into this French mess by a review by Kenneth Turan of all people, when will I ever learn.
0 Stars sacre bleu
The Host;
This South Korean monster flick breaks all the moulds for the genre. Although complete with acrobatic mutant walking fish, this tongue in cheek horror epic is also full of pathos hilarity and… believe it or not some real scary moments.
300 stars and stay away from the sewers
Volver;
A wonderfully complete film by Pedro Almodovar, full of pathos, humanity love and loss, (why should this be so unusual in a modern film?)
Starring the luminous Penelope Cruz, (having the onscreen presence of a young Sophia Lauren, can’t be bad either). She plays Raimunda married to drunken lout Paco (who is soon to go) and her daughter Paula. She has a sometimes stained relationship with her sister Sole, who works as a hairstylist out of her home. The 2 sisters lost their parents in a fire, long ago, their only living relative is their very old doddering aunt Paula, who, continues to speak of their mother (Irene) as if she were still alive. There is also their friend Augustina, who has just been diagnosed with cancer, and who also helps take care of aunt Paula. Aunt Paula finally dies, and after this all these disparate plotlines come together is an ingenious mischievous way.
600 stars and keep the freezer plugged in
Pan’s Labyrinth;
This fairy /horror story is the kind of film you’d expect from Terry Gilliam, but Guillermo del Toro, got to this one first.
Set in the days of postwar Spain when Franco had seized power after a bloody civil war, it centers around a platoon of Franco loyalists as they go about the business of cleaning up the remnants of the resistance from the surrounding woods. Into this scene come a pregnant mother, the new wife of company commander, and her daughter, who with her wild imagination gets drawn into a fantasy world of faun’s and other creatures, one only comes across in ones nightmares.
The mother is pregnant by the brutal captain of the platoon so she is obliged to show up and deliver him the son he badly wants in return for her safe keeping. As her real world becomes more horrific, and she sees the cruelty going on all around her the daughter spends ever more time in the labyrinth/dream world, into which she eventually escapes.
This film is wildly imaginative, beautifully wrought and elegantly directed, what more do you want?
500 stars and always follow the Faun’s directions exactly
Another earlier (1997) effort by the brilliant Pedro Alamodovar. In this 6 sided triangle. Victor, who was born on a bus some 20 years earlier is having an argument with Helena in her apartment, when two police officers arrive to rescue her, during the struggle a gun goes off paralyzing one of the police officers. Victor gets to go to the slammer, Helena marries the wounded officer (Javier Bardem). On his release, Victor discovers that Helena is married to the officer he was accused of shooting. In the meantime Victor starts an affair with the second officers wife ( he does not know the woman is married to the second officer). Victor then gets a job at the day care center where Helena works, just to be near her. This drives her husband nuts, but there is nothing he can do. Things heat up. Victor then promises to leave forever if Helena will spend one night with him, which after initially brushing him off, she does. Things heat up some more, things get moved around, the ending arrives This is just the bare bones of the plot, which comes from the original book written by Ruth Rebel. In Almodovar’s hands this convoluted scenario becomes pure poetry, ending in the affirmation of love desire, & destiny. 500 stars
Woman on the verge of a Nervous Breakdown;
One of Pedro Alamodovar’s earlier directing efforts (1988) this farce involving a philandering husband, and the effects he has on his mistress, wife, and other family members, is mostly hilarious, intelligently written, and directed with wonderful knowingness. The opening scene, in which the affair is revealed is especially brilliant. A wonderful cast, with Carmen Maura as the mistress who finally realizes she has to dump this guy, Antonio Banderas (looking about 19) as the bewildered son, and the incomparable Rossy de Palma as his somnambulant fiancé. Even though this film is now 18 years old it has lost none of it’s edge or freshness. 300 stars, and all the gazpacho you can handle
Avenue Montaigne:
French country mouse, Cecile de France, leaves her grandmother who raised her and comes to Paris to seek her fortune, working in a Bistro in the theater district for a grumpy matre ‘d.
In her travails she comes across a discontented concert pianist, a tycoon who is in the process of selling his life time art collection , his estranged son, a long time theater manager, a TV actress who is wooing a film director (played by Sidney Pollack) for a starring role in his new feature. With her conversations and contacts with all these characters she learns some minor life lessons.
The film is well acted and structured, and is saved from being tiresome by the editing which keeps any of the segments from becoming too cumbersome. All in all a pleasant enough film with that French charm built in.
150 stars and an armful those naughty baguettes
