Change Your Image
bucky_bleichert_lives
Reviews
Mar adentro (2004)
So, so... Dry and Doctrinaire
This movie is manipulative along the same lines as 21 Grams, only grayer and less intriguing. It manages to be maudlin while clamoring tersely about its supposed allegiance to social- progressive causes. Amenabar comes off as kind of haughty as a result of the movie... especially in his treatment of mainstream Spanish views on euthanasia. (Pity those stupid, retrograde priests.... OK yeah, I know the clergy can be problematic, but so what? I did not learn anything from the portrayal of the paraplegic priest as a misguided, dull throwback -- frankly I thought Amenabar might be above injecting this kind of hectoring BS into his movies... THIS is the author of "The Others" and "Abre los Ojos"??? I'm not only disappointed, I'm a little embarrassed for him).
What worked was Bardem, as usual. And the actors who played Sampedro's family were all superb (minus maybe the grandfather, who was written as a joke or a tearjerker in turns and consequently suggests zero depth). Also very good was the woman who played Rosa. The rest of the cast are puppets in the hands of Amenabar, and in a character like Gené you really get a sense that the director is either going through a slump or experimenting with his own limits, as Gené fails to add anything resembling humanity to the movie and is instead the machine that keeps the movie dryly moving (I don't think this was the actress's fault, but the director's).
Oh that Amenabar's next film could bring us again the well-paced, virtuoso originality of the director! Amenabar is a brainy, almost coldly intellectual artist, and he handles displacement and melancholy (heck, emotions in general) in a technical way that imbues his contemporary and fantasy material with the impact of Greek tragedy. Usually he is fantastic at this. And perhaps it's the element of real life that gives him trouble here. Or maybe he is trying to emulate Hollywood too closely and fails of necessity (he admitted he based the relationships in Mar Adentro on Spielberg). In any case, this movie fell flat for me and it's too dry and doctrinaire to be appealing as a tribute to Ramon Sampedro.
8 Mile (2002)
Far Better Than I Knew
I was not only surprised but overwhelmed by the quality of this movie, since I was really expecting a self-aggrandizing pity party explaining Eminem's provenance.
I was so wrong.
This movie is rich, dark, moody, enlightening, intense and very well done. I am probably one of the last people to see it, but if you haven't yet, grab it on DVD.
I really am amazed at Curtis Hanson. He does this to me every time. Same thing happened when I finally saw LA Confidential, which really does justice to Ellroy's gorgeously gritty book, and blew me away by far exceeding my expectations.
Another gem in 8 Mile is Eminem. Jeez! Who knew???? What the.....???? Somehow he manages to inspire in me all the respect I never wanted to have for him. I used to think he was an opportunistic jackhole who was riding the break he got for all it was worth. But in this movie I see an artist not only gifted but sensitive and responsive to the times. My God! Believe me, no one is more surprised than me... This movie is very very good.
La femme infidèle (1969)
Sheds light on the remake but much better
I found the remake with Richard Gere and Diane Lane ("Unfaithful") intriguing in the way it explored the erotic pull the woman feels to her lover. It was very good at that. Most of the early scenes, especially any with Diane Lane, were very well done. Where Gere dominated a scene, on the other hand -- whether because of his acting, or flawed script or direction, I couldn't tell -- the movie felt phony and forced.
Now I know why. "Unfaithful" tries to exploit Chabrol's powerful storyline, but wants to go in its own direction, too. For instance, the woman in the story is not nearly as central in Chabrol's movie. The story there is really about her husband, and his predicament at discovering that his perfect wife is having an affair. The wounded husband is much more believable here, and thus the murder scene does not feel as lurid as when Gere bludgeons Martinez in the remake. The method of striking blows to the head is the same, yet we understand the meaning of the blows perfectly in Chabrol's original, and the scene immediately previous, when the rivals meet and discuss the affair in the lover's apartment, feels very real and organic in Chabrol (though it is still surprising to find that the husband has come to confront the lover).
By contrast, in the remake, Olivier Martinez plays that scene as part civilized troglodyte and part insouciant brat; Gere comes off as bordering on schizophrenia, or about to suffer a conniption -- a cuckold who's so de-eroticized that his sudden rage reads more as psychopathy. In a movie that purports to be about a crime of passion, the quality of passion feels more like a horror that has gone "off kilter" somehow. The scene is jarring, but not in ways that move the film along.
Having seen both movies now, I do feel like I at least understand how the story might have seemed a good candidate for a remake. La femme Infidele is so good...
It's so good I hardly thought I was watching a movie at all, but living in this story right along with the characters, albeit as troubled observer. It's a movie about the private conclusions that we come to, perhaps selfishly, that we don't share even with the people closest to us, perhaps because we are ashamed of our darkest feelings, those too taboo to admit.
There is a sense that the story's protagonists do feel shame somehow (even in the embarrassingly relieved way the lover welcomes the visit from the husband) but are all too human in the end. There is a sense of desire that emanates from all the characters, who all happen to be pretending at playing one game or another while keeping secrets from one another. Even the perfect little boy is shown to be caught up in his own storms, to the extent that his role in the movie is as more than a signifier of a healthy, prosperous family's bourgeois pride. At one point he explodes at his parents, during a tense evening, yelling at them that he hates them both.
This reading of the self in the throes of a very deep, selfish passion -- while at the same time trying to maintain appearances -- is masterful in Chabrol's movie, and I came away from it believing in the reality of these characters completely.
I can't seem to put it into words too well, but I was very impressed with the understated way this movie examines the tensions that simmer under the surface of family relationships. This is the first movie I have seen by Chabrol and I have to say-- as someone who's seen my fair share of movies touted as "masterpieces" that turn out to be middling -- my faith in the power of film as a storytelling medium is renewed by this piece.
Jim Shvante (marili svanets) (1930)
Outstanding Cinematography
Just happened to catch this on TCM and my jaw dropped. This movie was made
in 1929, folks... The imagery, the editing... both superb. This is one of the most visually inventive films I have ever seen, and any film buff or artist will, I think, agree with me wholeheartedly.
Prepare for some Soviet propagandist themes in this "documentary." I wasn't
sure that there weren't in fact a few professional actors in the cast -- there were some moments when the content came across as more drama than
documentary; several scenes felt staged. No matter, I was fascinated by the
people whose lives in the remote Svanetia village form the center of the story. And, it bears repeating, the cinematography is gorgeous, surprising at every
turn and just plain mesmerizing at times.
Definitely worth a look if you can find it.