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Reviews
Tirante el Blanco (2006)
8 out of 10 for costumes
Excellent costumes, three times over. The story may be weak, but frankly, I didn't care, lush colors and beautiful women in beautiful apparels, - that was more than sufficient for me. Those who enjoyed Greenaway's experiments such as "The Baby of Mâcon" and "Prospero's Books", should enjoy "Tirante El Blanco" as well. 8 out of 10.
I'm not sure why other reviewers give so many low marks for the film, but I guess that's typical for productions of one's own country. Like the famous "Goodbye Lenin", where literally everyone but East Germans praised the film, Spanish reviewers here create a picture as if the film doesn't worth a look. I think this is completely unfair, and the film deserves to be known better.
Drawing Restraint 9 (2005)
pretentious propaganda
"Drawing Restraint 9" is a kind of movie one either loves or hates; fortunately or not, I left it with a strong feeling of wasted time and of being thoroughly stuffed with "killing whales is bad" propaganda. Aesthetically, the movie could have been pleasing, especially its first half, until it is not clear that every action portrayed serves as an allegory of various aspects of whale hunting. Until then, it might be slightly amusing to look at daily chores of japan workers, but later it becomes obvious that anything that appears on the screen is a propaganda, and no single frame is an exception. I use the word "propaganda" because the movie uses basically the old morality play device, where "good" and "bad" are not deduced in the course of action but are set in stone. Probably it's just me, but I find such type of art shallow and preconceived, even when it's all about the noble (no sarcasm here) quest of protecting the environment.
In my opinion it is a cardinal sin when a movie material is stretched out without any justification, for the sake of stretching only. In my opinion, "Drawing Restraint 9" could've been easily fit into 75 minutes, but has a torturous length of 2 and 1/4 hours. Yes, there were interesting shots, but there were not enough of these to leave 15-minute gaps of nothingness without notice. The movie has no standard scenario, and there's no evolution of characters, but neither it is a documentary, it's rather a kind of conceptual installation. That's an unusual form for a movie, but it still can be viewed as art even when the concept is as simple and naive as here. OTOH I also believe that the director should've had some honesty and did not pretend that it could be only delivered in no less than 135 minutes.
And yes, the music score mostly resembled whale sounds. How surprising.
2/10.
Insomnia (2002)
comparing two Insomnias
I was searching through IMDb for comparisons between original Norwegian Insomnia from 1997 and Hollywood's Insomnia 2002, to find out whether it is worth to see the latter, and not to repeat the experience I've had with Vanilla Sky and Abre Los Ojos. It is not that I dislike the VS, but ALO obliterates the impression from VS completely, so I wondered if I should bother renting I02 (Insomnia 2002) at all. Well, I was surprised that I02 is worth viewing _even_ after I97. So, here I'll try to write for those who also wonder which one's better.
First, both are very good films, with excellent actors' work, graphics, and music, and I won't compare these. But I believe that I02 scenario is a bit flawed, because where I97 gives less or no reason at all for a particular response or action of a character, I02 invariably puts things so that the same response or action is the only choice for the character. To put it bluntly, psychologically I97 is more like a David Lynch's movie, whereas I02 resembles more a thriller with Michael Douglas, where all pieces are meant to move by a strictly defined orbit, a brilliant but still somewhat dumbed down version. I personally value the former kind of movies more, so naturally I97 gets more of my credit.
So, if you can, see both, I97 and then I02 ( at least I've seen them in that order ), but if you only want to choose just one, I97 would be, in my opinion, better.
Boginya: kak ya polyubila (2004)
hyper-artsy, yet positive and touching
This movie left me in a strangely positive feeling, strangely because I'm used to the (usually) cold intellectual trend of 'artsy' movies. The movie seemed to me over-artsy, even somewhat kitchy, which is typical to Litvinova and her teacher Kira Muratova; usually their movies, although pleasing, seldom leave lasting memories, but rather are of a shrug'n'forget type. What is also untypical of this mostly marginal style of modern Russian film-making, the obvious team work, instead of an intellectual exercise of a crazy director/writer. The operator work is interesting here, editing style keeps the moments up quite OK, and the sound track is very innovative ( at least to me, I'm absolutely not into the lounge or dj kind of music ). CG effects sucked though, and the crow vortex and ink cartoons were shamelessly copycat'ed from "Nochnoj Dozor" of this year's dubious fame.
Overall, this is a decent movie, but it is still an artsy one and is probably won't be recommended to majority of film fans. Otherwise, if "Nebo Samolet Devushka", "Tri Istorii", "Pro Urodov I Ludej", are your cup of tea, if you don't mind the author's childish recurrent obsession of death, then you should probably check this movie also.
8MM (1999)
Underrated
The unexpectedly low rating of 8MM I think can only be attributed to the choice of the movie's main theme - snuff & porno. Although the scenario tries to compensate the gritty elements by over-injecting 'the family values', and (unconvincingly) sugaring the main character in his home sweet home, many believe the movie is revolting due to the very fact that it's about the snuff. On the other hand, others expect the movie to overshadow porno flicks they accustomed to, and blame the director because it hasn't ( big surprise huh ). I think that the unbiased appreciation of 8MM can only come from these who don't fall in either group, which is surprisingly small, so here I'll try to comment from this point of view.
*MINOR SPOILERS*. Cage's hero, PI Tom Welles, investigates origins of a snuff movie, but the path leads too deep, and at the end his family is in danger. No surprise that the film ends with the bad guys dead and the family saved. The real interest is to watch the Welles' character, its transformations along the path, especially his resistance to kill Eddie, who actually didn't kill himself. The scene where Welles doesn't know what to do with Eddie, and calls to Mrs.Mattews to get a licence to kill, and receives none, I think is a turning point for him. I personally doubt that this would be a first kill for a PI with such a reputation, but imagining it is, Cage acted this transition from an average guy into a resolute killer very, very convincing.
I think the movie is worth watching, but certain tolerance is required, both for hard 'snuff' and soft 'family' parts. ***/****
Idiot (2003)
Great cast
The director's daring quest to film a script as close as possible to the book is also the movie's greatest weakness. The second half of the book, and hence of the movie, is emotionally much less active than the first half, so the contrast is naturally emphasized due the movie time format. The result is that the second half of the movie is plain boring.
Everything else is a success - photography, music, cast ( a brilliant cast, except an overly hysteric and non-charming Nastasya ), costumes, the very atmosphere of the dark and psychotic Petersburg of Dostoyevsky are meticulously combined into a theatrical, even intimate, show. The Prince's protagonist Parfion gives energetic, raw-power perfomance ( too bad he wears same black suit through the whole movie, a bit pathetic ). The Prince's best parts are his thralling monologues, when one can almost physically sense how the others' cynicism is extinguished by his naive sincerity.
The movie should appeal to the fans of 'psychological' genre, as special effects and action are obviously absent here.