I'm grateful to finally find a film that is sensitive, subtle, original in its view of people and has something to say (about faith and the church, society and outsiders.) It's Italian, but only two characters act like the Italian angry prototype, and only briefly. The acting is extraordinary. Yle Vianello, who plays the thirteen years old girl, seems as authentic as it gets. It is her story-after ten years in Switzerland, she returns to a small town in Italy with her single mother and 18-year-old sister. Right away she's called to participate in the endless studies for the communion at church. She tries to fit in, but is swept by other types of emotional and spiritual searches.
Reviews
11 Reviews
Aquarius
(I) (2016)
Beyond the manifestation
9 September 2016
I wonder what non Brazilian would think. Here this film became a political manifestation, and people forget to simply watch it. The story is simple: a 65-year-old widow, a retired journalist, declines a good offer to leave her apartment (the last occupied one) in an old building near the beach in Recife. The bad guys would do everything to expel her.
She lives well, goes to the beach, meets friends, and enjoys music and beauty. She is lonely, but strong, well-off and resilient. The threat is looming, however. The most interesting stuff is her relationships, and there's one powerful reference to breast cancer. The beginning is quite weak, but fortunately, the film quickly skips many years to the present. There are mentions of endless issues: class , race, gender, prejudice, sexuality, generation gap, capitalism, corruption and what not.
Some references are very odd, and if I didn't get them, people out of Brazil will never understand. For instance, a brief scene of someone digging bones from a grave. The ending is simplistic. However, between the beginning and the ending, and ignoring some loose ends, the middle has much good stuff. Sonia Braga who plays the widow is good. The best actor is probably Humberto Carrão who plays a rich young man out to conquer the construction world.
Also: great music!
The director, staff, cast and all made a manifestation against the impeachment of the Brazilian president in Cannes Festival. So now the left endorses the film and the right abhors it. Me? I liked it for the several strong moments, and was sorry it had too many weak ones. It stayed with me as day later, so it's not bad.
She lives well, goes to the beach, meets friends, and enjoys music and beauty. She is lonely, but strong, well-off and resilient. The threat is looming, however. The most interesting stuff is her relationships, and there's one powerful reference to breast cancer. The beginning is quite weak, but fortunately, the film quickly skips many years to the present. There are mentions of endless issues: class , race, gender, prejudice, sexuality, generation gap, capitalism, corruption and what not.
Some references are very odd, and if I didn't get them, people out of Brazil will never understand. For instance, a brief scene of someone digging bones from a grave. The ending is simplistic. However, between the beginning and the ending, and ignoring some loose ends, the middle has much good stuff. Sonia Braga who plays the widow is good. The best actor is probably Humberto Carrão who plays a rich young man out to conquer the construction world.
Also: great music!
The director, staff, cast and all made a manifestation against the impeachment of the Brazilian president in Cannes Festival. So now the left endorses the film and the right abhors it. Me? I liked it for the several strong moments, and was sorry it had too many weak ones. It stayed with me as day later, so it's not bad.
La faute à Fidel!
(2006)
A child's view of political activism
21 November 2015
Julie Gavras, the director, is a power house judging by this film. She wrote the script, based on a novel by Domitilla Calamai, and directed what seems like an honest film with depth. Anna de la Mesa is a young girl, a daughter to wealthy parents and grandparents, whose parents become communists and politically active in the 70's. They move from a large house to a small flat, always full with activists, and all the princess-like reality is shattered. The girl, serious, competitive and intense resists the changes with all her might, but slowly, certain people and certain stories reach her, and she softens. Her little brother is captivating-funny, sweet and smart, and there's a brief moment where you see how she crosses the line to finally seeing him. I loved the little actress. Something else I loved-how the relationships with the parents are not embellished but appear in all their errors, rough edges and tenderness. The director is Costa Gavras's daughter, and the mother is played by Julie Depardieu-Gerard's daughter.
The Farewell Party
(2014)
Moving and provocative
24 October 2015
I laughed, I cried, I loved this film.
Old people in a retirement home face illness and dementia every day. When the wife of a very sick friend tells the patent inventor Yehezkel that her husband is desperate to die and end the pain, Yehezkel builds an appropriate machine.
The emotional and the moral aspects of helping with self-euthanasia come up. It's always subtle, or really painful, or funny-and the narrative is never longer than it should.
There's even a scene with a song-and it is subversive and moving-brings Almodovar to mind.
Great acting of everyone.
There are some glitches in the Portuguese subtitles, but maybe not in English-and either way, it's not that bad.
Old people in a retirement home face illness and dementia every day. When the wife of a very sick friend tells the patent inventor Yehezkel that her husband is desperate to die and end the pain, Yehezkel builds an appropriate machine.
The emotional and the moral aspects of helping with self-euthanasia come up. It's always subtle, or really painful, or funny-and the narrative is never longer than it should.
There's even a scene with a song-and it is subversive and moving-brings Almodovar to mind.
Great acting of everyone.
There are some glitches in the Portuguese subtitles, but maybe not in English-and either way, it's not that bad.
Amy
(III) (2015)
Amy's painful life
10 October 2015
You know it'll be sad when you enter the cinema, and you leave it with a fulfilled prediction. We see Amy Winehouse's home videos, first appearances as a singer, teasing the camera and her friends. Her voice rises with its amazing quality from an early age, and the voice determines her way in the world.
You get the feeling that the director Asif Kapadia has a very strong opinion about the reasons that led to Amy's death. I felt a little uncomfortable about the way he shows her father-greedy and exploitative, this father doesn't stop to notice his daughter's desperation.
Blake, the boy friend, and later the husband, the man she's always obsessed about doesn't make the director's life too hard. As a boyfriend he looks smitten by Amy, and his destructive vein is a bad coincidence. But when they get married, and she is already a star, the look in his eyes is different, calculated, and frightening.
Amy was bulimic, and she smoked a lot of pot since early on. She always sought excitement, drama, and didn't always treat close people with affection. But she had a spark, wit, joy, and she loved music and had an urge to be original and authentic. It's impossible not to like her.
Interestingly, she says on several occasions that she wouldn't be able to handle a big success. Tony Bennett and others say she should have stayed a jazz musician the way she started, and deal with intimate spaces and a different kind of career. Probably true.
She is almost always on the screen, even when others speak. Her face is fascinating, her eyes appealing. She changes hair and dressing styles. But the most important thing is that her voice, her music and lyrics accompany us from beginning to end, as the story unfolds and the sense of loss becomes unbearable.
You get the feeling that the director Asif Kapadia has a very strong opinion about the reasons that led to Amy's death. I felt a little uncomfortable about the way he shows her father-greedy and exploitative, this father doesn't stop to notice his daughter's desperation.
Blake, the boy friend, and later the husband, the man she's always obsessed about doesn't make the director's life too hard. As a boyfriend he looks smitten by Amy, and his destructive vein is a bad coincidence. But when they get married, and she is already a star, the look in his eyes is different, calculated, and frightening.
Amy was bulimic, and she smoked a lot of pot since early on. She always sought excitement, drama, and didn't always treat close people with affection. But she had a spark, wit, joy, and she loved music and had an urge to be original and authentic. It's impossible not to like her.
Interestingly, she says on several occasions that she wouldn't be able to handle a big success. Tony Bennett and others say she should have stayed a jazz musician the way she started, and deal with intimate spaces and a different kind of career. Probably true.
She is almost always on the screen, even when others speak. Her face is fascinating, her eyes appealing. She changes hair and dressing styles. But the most important thing is that her voice, her music and lyrics accompany us from beginning to end, as the story unfolds and the sense of loss becomes unbearable.
Behavior
(2014)
A Special Film
10 October 2015
It's surprising the Cuban government let this film pass-it doesn't show a flattering picture of Cuba, as it doesn't disguise the poverty, rigid politics and injustice.
But the film is good not because it deals with the situation as a whole, or the education system, but because it focuses on a small group of people. It shows a teacher, an aged woman, responsible for helping her pupils cross the hell of their childhood.
The most troublesome boy in her current class in Chalah, whose mother is an addict and his father may or may not be a fight dog trainer for whom he works.
The most important thing-the story never becomes the old unbearable shtick about a teacher taming and saving students.
The child actor Armando Valdes Freire is simply amazing. He portrays a boy who is tough, street-smart, and reckless, and who deeply cares about his negligent mother. He feels that the teacher, Carmela, is the one person on whom he can count, and he's devoted to her. He also likes an immigrant girl who's in danger of being exiled with her father any minute.
Alina Rodríguez, who does Carmela, never misses. Her acting is so precise, she seems to be the teacher herself. She goes through her own hardship so she's aware life is rough, but she is willing to be that little Dutch boy who puts his finger in the hole in the wall to prevent the ocean from washing over the city.
Clearly, as it is not a soap opera, some things remain open, and nothing reaches an ideal solution. However, the film convinces that there is hope where one special person can open the way for others.
But the film is good not because it deals with the situation as a whole, or the education system, but because it focuses on a small group of people. It shows a teacher, an aged woman, responsible for helping her pupils cross the hell of their childhood.
The most troublesome boy in her current class in Chalah, whose mother is an addict and his father may or may not be a fight dog trainer for whom he works.
The most important thing-the story never becomes the old unbearable shtick about a teacher taming and saving students.
The child actor Armando Valdes Freire is simply amazing. He portrays a boy who is tough, street-smart, and reckless, and who deeply cares about his negligent mother. He feels that the teacher, Carmela, is the one person on whom he can count, and he's devoted to her. He also likes an immigrant girl who's in danger of being exiled with her father any minute.
Alina Rodríguez, who does Carmela, never misses. Her acting is so precise, she seems to be the teacher herself. She goes through her own hardship so she's aware life is rough, but she is willing to be that little Dutch boy who puts his finger in the hole in the wall to prevent the ocean from washing over the city.
Clearly, as it is not a soap opera, some things remain open, and nothing reaches an ideal solution. However, the film convinces that there is hope where one special person can open the way for others.
The Lunchbox
(2013)
Lovely and subtle
13 August 2015
This film was a refreshing surprise. I taped it, so I gave it a chance, expecting a romance based on a "wrong address" (Think Doris Day and Rock Hudson). It's far better than that, however. The "dabba" food system in Mumbai is a spider-spread delivery system of home food made by wives for their husbands. It even appeared in an academic publication as a non-failing system. And yet, it failed... A grumpy widower, an accountant in a crowded room of a company, receives the delicious food of a young married woman, whose husband hardly notices her. She has a daughter and an aunt living in a floor above her. (The aunt appears in the movie only through her voice. ) The widower becomes somewhat friendly with his future substitute at the company, a great character. But both protagonists are lonely. The error becomes clear right away, but nobody wants to fix it. The two exchange written notes, and influence each other in unexpected ways. Lovely and recommended.
Detachment
(2011)
The solitude of teachers and pupils
13 August 2015
I'm glad I watched it despite the fact different people said it was too depressing. It's an excellent film about education, about the high school system and the educators' helplessness. Adrien Brody is Henry Barthes, a substitute teacher, who, for profound sadness rooted in his childhood, doesn't want to remain too long or too deep with anyone or anything. Marcia Gay Harden is the school bitter principal Carol Dearden who doesn't understand how much she cares until it's taken away from her. Each of the teachers, except one -James Caan as Mr. Charles Seaboldt, is solitary, suffering, on the verge of insanity.
And then there are the pupils, rude, violent, with no boundaries. They too are sad, sad, sad, we realize, and if they are not sad, their life is hard or they have no future.
Despite all this,Brody as Barthes has beautiful moments of compassion, and he forms bonds with one student and one minor working as a whore. He also has very ambivalent relationships with his hospitalized grandfather. All these bonds lead somewhere, not necessarily good or bad, but humane, and this makes the whole movie worthwhile.
Comparing with The Class (2008) it has a much more solid narrative, and unlike The Class it does not try to appear as a documentary. I think that in The Class did not take a POV of a teacher and his limited perspective, so you got to see more of the pupils' lives. It stated specific social problems more than treated the general state of affairs. As a film, Detachment is more solid with better acting, pacing and story. As a social warning, perhaps The Class is stronger.
And then there are the pupils, rude, violent, with no boundaries. They too are sad, sad, sad, we realize, and if they are not sad, their life is hard or they have no future.
Despite all this,Brody as Barthes has beautiful moments of compassion, and he forms bonds with one student and one minor working as a whore. He also has very ambivalent relationships with his hospitalized grandfather. All these bonds lead somewhere, not necessarily good or bad, but humane, and this makes the whole movie worthwhile.
Comparing with The Class (2008) it has a much more solid narrative, and unlike The Class it does not try to appear as a documentary. I think that in The Class did not take a POV of a teacher and his limited perspective, so you got to see more of the pupils' lives. It stated specific social problems more than treated the general state of affairs. As a film, Detachment is more solid with better acting, pacing and story. As a social warning, perhaps The Class is stronger.
Raining Stones
(1993)
Empathetic film
4 November 2013
Bob has problems making a living. His wife mainly cares for the house and their daughter, and finds it hard to get a job as well. Bob and his friend Tommy are involved in tiny crimes-stealing a sheep, a part of a lawn etc, but ends never meet. The situation becomes worse when Bob and Anne's daughter is going to have her communion. Bob wants to buy her a new outfit, no matter what everyone tells him. He gets into deeper trouble by the day.
Loach has compassion for his characters, however, and the film is not depressing although it shows poverty and how it drains people. He also discusses religion here-the priest is a human version, and Bob's F-I-L represents the opposition. Interesting that he hasn't written the script, and yet it has so much to do with many of his films.
Loach has compassion for his characters, however, and the film is not depressing although it shows poverty and how it drains people. He also discusses religion here-the priest is a human version, and Bob's F-I-L represents the opposition. Interesting that he hasn't written the script, and yet it has so much to do with many of his films.
Padre Padrone
(1977)
The story of the poor in Sardinia
3 November 2013
Already in the beginning the viewers are told that this is the story of a linguist who wrote a book. The story starts, then, with a father, a shepherd, as he takes his little son out of the classroom to the mountains to help guard the area and the flocks of sheep. When other boys laugh, the father tells them their day will come too, and it does. In the poor Sardinia, the life of boys is that of men. If they rebel or fail, their fathers exercise violence against them. A Poor kid's comfort: the father promises Gavino that when he'd be 20, he'd be free to go to elementary school. Humor and something of a naive charm are sparkled along the film, but the roughness of this life comes through and through. Eventually, the time for elementary school arrives, and Gavino takes full advantage of it. Still, you stay in doubt if he will ever be really free from the spirit and the mentality of his father.
Hao si bu ru lai huo zhe
(2003)
A documentary about a family in rural China where a third of the villagers who donated blood in 1990 became ill with Aids.
23 March 2006
A documentary about a family in rural China where a third of the villagers who donated blood in 1990 became ill with Aids.
The mother of this family is already very sick when the film begins. Only the older daughter, a lovely, sad, good pupil of the fourth grade isn't HIV positive. Her younger sister and brother have it. Almost month by month, the film shows them. The father, loving and sweet to his kids, learns to cook and take care of their clothes. The mother is unable to move, eat or speak. He's terribly worried about the future of his beloved children, especially if he dies. It's painful to watch. The film ends in 2003, and I half want half dread to hear how they are now, in 2006. It's impossible not to be fond of these people.
The mother of this family is already very sick when the film begins. Only the older daughter, a lovely, sad, good pupil of the fourth grade isn't HIV positive. Her younger sister and brother have it. Almost month by month, the film shows them. The father, loving and sweet to his kids, learns to cook and take care of their clothes. The mother is unable to move, eat or speak. He's terribly worried about the future of his beloved children, especially if he dies. It's painful to watch. The film ends in 2003, and I half want half dread to hear how they are now, in 2006. It's impossible not to be fond of these people.
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