A film about love and loss. A mother's love for her son, a bit like the director's later film "Mical". This is about what isn't seen on the screen, the nuances are all there if you look for them. Credit must go to the director and actors for the perfomances, and to everyone for the ladt scene. Sublime.
Reviews
9 Reviews
Tomka and His Friends
(1977)
Neorealist gem from Albania
29 December 2019
I missed this film when it was shown as part of Mark Cousins' The Cinema of Childhood. Now five years later, I finally got to see it. It did not disappoint.
A group of children in German occupied Albania fight back against their oppressors by helping the partisan resistance. That's the plot, but the film is also about the friendship and camaraderie both among the children and the people of the town. But there's also a joy and dare I say it fun to the picture as well. The film is shot always from the child's perspective. As such it is entirely believable.
Hugely enjoyable, nothing intrinsically nasty (we're talking Nazis here but there's no violence seen on screen) and the sort of film children the same age as the protagonists should enjoy immensely.
Crossing the Lighthouse
(1999 TV Movie)
My gold medal winner
16 February 2019
If I could only watch one more film in my life it would be this one. The principle character (and early narrator) Eric is an orphan, unwanted and forgotten who meets Yann at his new school on his first day having been moved from yet another foster home. They embark with childish recklessness to visit the nearby lighthouse on foot: they are lucky; the lighthouse keeper sees them and in a way "saves" them. The film is full of poetic symbolism in many ways: the lighthouse is tantalisingly just out of reach (it's surrounded by the sea) and represents safety and security, the very thing both children crave. Although Yann lives with her aunt and is therefore not abandoned unlike Eric, she is also an outsider for being a tomboy: when Eric discovers that she is in fact a girl he accepts her unconditionally, unlike her teachers and pupils at school. She is later moved to an all girls school which she sees as a punishment. The link with the book "The little Prince" is clear inasmuch as she cannot understand adults. And she has a soulmate. There's also a sub-plot with her aunt and the lighthouse keeper which completes the film and makes it feel whole. Wonderful.
The Summer House
(2014)
Bizarre but very good film
24 July 2018
A particularly German film with at times astonishingly vivid sex scenes that seem out of place in a mainstream picture. A few cuts could well have ensured a much better film, however the scenes with Markus and his partner's son Johannes are sublime. There's a fair bit of ambiguity (who is really influencing who) but I found this a plus rather than a negative; a lot is down to the sheer quality of the script and production values. Hollywood this isn't. I thoroughly recommend it.
Like a Kiss from Jesus
(2015)
Exquisite short French film.
27 November 2016
The film is about a boy's discovery that the best things in life are free; that would be one view; there are many others, which is why this is such a profound film.
The film begins with a boy lighting a single candle on a sandwich. It's his birthday. He then goes to his mother and is given money to buy his birthday gift. He leaves the house, buys an expensive personal music player, steals an orange from a greengrocer and cycles to the beach whereupon opening the gift he sees a family (a girl about his age with her parents) playing with inexpensive bats and a ball nearby. The girl approaches him and after a brief session fishing play hide-and-seek. The girl is called to go home by her parents but before leaving kisses him on the cheek. The boy swims in the sea then cycles home.
The central event of the film is the boy's birthday; it's the first thing we see. Of all the "gifts" he gets the best has no price: there is zero affection from his mother (who is possibly a prostitute) who chooses to give her son cash rather than buy him a gift, the orange he stole, but then he gets a kiss from a girl he's just met.
This is such a feel-good film. It's about purity and innocence, someone unloved meeting someone. It's all there if you look. The kiss is about affection, friendship and love; the opposite of what's going on in the boy's home. There is nothing sexual about the kiss which is why the title of the film comes at the end. To put so much into a few minutes with such brevity is incredible. An outstanding film that deserves much credit.
The film begins with a boy lighting a single candle on a sandwich. It's his birthday. He then goes to his mother and is given money to buy his birthday gift. He leaves the house, buys an expensive personal music player, steals an orange from a greengrocer and cycles to the beach whereupon opening the gift he sees a family (a girl about his age with her parents) playing with inexpensive bats and a ball nearby. The girl approaches him and after a brief session fishing play hide-and-seek. The girl is called to go home by her parents but before leaving kisses him on the cheek. The boy swims in the sea then cycles home.
The central event of the film is the boy's birthday; it's the first thing we see. Of all the "gifts" he gets the best has no price: there is zero affection from his mother (who is possibly a prostitute) who chooses to give her son cash rather than buy him a gift, the orange he stole, but then he gets a kiss from a girl he's just met.
This is such a feel-good film. It's about purity and innocence, someone unloved meeting someone. It's all there if you look. The kiss is about affection, friendship and love; the opposite of what's going on in the boy's home. There is nothing sexual about the kiss which is why the title of the film comes at the end. To put so much into a few minutes with such brevity is incredible. An outstanding film that deserves much credit.
I, Daniel Blake
(2016)
Shameless
26 October 2016
Much as I admire Ken Loach as an artier I cannot let such a piece of shameless propaganda pass unchallenged.
The film does have some good points, not least a stand-out performance by Hayley Squires whose likeness to Marion Cotillard only reminds one just how good the Dardennes brothers are when it comes to social realism.
Hayley Squires apart, the film has little to recommend it. The script is frankly embarrassing. Child philosophers? A sixty year old man who has supposedly worked for over forty years in a skilled job yet is penniless? Yes, he's disabled now but...
The film comes across as a vehicle aimed to discredit the government. As it happens I don't like the government much either, but this isn't the way to go about it. It won't change anything because to film is so biased. Another Palme D'Or winner, Rosetta, did help bring about change but that was because the Dardenne brothers showed people as they really are, or what the public believe might be true, not a sixty year old who cannot use a computer. Ten, twenty years ago that might have been the case, but now?
The film does have some good points, not least a stand-out performance by Hayley Squires whose likeness to Marion Cotillard only reminds one just how good the Dardennes brothers are when it comes to social realism.
Hayley Squires apart, the film has little to recommend it. The script is frankly embarrassing. Child philosophers? A sixty year old man who has supposedly worked for over forty years in a skilled job yet is penniless? Yes, he's disabled now but...
The film comes across as a vehicle aimed to discredit the government. As it happens I don't like the government much either, but this isn't the way to go about it. It won't change anything because to film is so biased. Another Palme D'Or winner, Rosetta, did help bring about change but that was because the Dardenne brothers showed people as they really are, or what the public believe might be true, not a sixty year old who cannot use a computer. Ten, twenty years ago that might have been the case, but now?
Teufelskicker
(2010)
Entertaining well made film
4 February 2016
If this was an English language film it would probably get a big audience in the UK, and not just from football affectionados. I still think it would go down well with older children (despite sub-titles; the film is in German) because the action sequences are excellent and the events that take place are not difficult to understand. The plot is simple, simply done and the better for it. Cliché, perhaps but aren't all good, if not great, films basically simple?
The main character, Moritz, is played by Henry Horn from the German band Apollo 3: The two other members of the band have secondary roles as players in the team. Moritz is the only child of an affluent family. I have no issue with this as to me it only serves to contrast the emotional pain he endures when early in the film his parents split up and he goes to live with his mother and maternal grandfather in another town. None of the characters appear poor in the monetary sense, but they are all suffering in other ways. Misfits forming a team, yes it's been done before and no doubt will be done again.
How it all pans out is wonderfully simple, no computer written plot twists but clever none the less. The film delivers. Sometimes it's good to have egg and frites for supper.
The main character, Moritz, is played by Henry Horn from the German band Apollo 3: The two other members of the band have secondary roles as players in the team. Moritz is the only child of an affluent family. I have no issue with this as to me it only serves to contrast the emotional pain he endures when early in the film his parents split up and he goes to live with his mother and maternal grandfather in another town. None of the characters appear poor in the monetary sense, but they are all suffering in other ways. Misfits forming a team, yes it's been done before and no doubt will be done again.
How it all pans out is wonderfully simple, no computer written plot twists but clever none the less. The film delivers. Sometimes it's good to have egg and frites for supper.
Het leven volgens Nino
(2014)
Feel good film of the first order
5 October 2015
Warning: Spoilers
I cannot conceive of any country other than the Netherlands who could make a film such as this. The plot, that of a child's and parent/family's recovery from a tragedy mirrors other Dutch films such as Finn and Kauwboy. Where this film differs from the latter is in its humour: The best lines are given to Bobby, a talking rabbit. And the film is funny. In a way it has to be; without it the film would be unbearable. We have a child under ten who has lost the very people he loved most in the world. Hence the talking rabbit, horse, dog and birds. Perhaps the best scene in the film is when Nino is no longer able to communicate with Bobby the rabbit. His mother is dead but now he has both his brother and his father back. The film ends on a high note with Nino celebrating his birthday, just as the film began, full circle. It's a good film, see it if you get the chance.
In Your Absence
(2008)
Few films are as good as this
17 August 2015
Wonderfully absorbing film, beautifully shot in southern Spain with some subtlety simple performances from what are by all accounts local people. The landscape compositions are that of a painter and the use of light outstanding. Yes, I really love this film.
It is a shame therefore to have to make adverse criticisms. The film was shot over a period of one year. That is a long time but especially so when your lead actor is eleven years old. Couple that with some glaring continuity errors: The boy's socks change colour within the same scene on several occasions.
As for the ambiguity I would not criticize that; it forces the viewer to think. I don't understand Spanish so I suspect I'm missing out on quite a lot, but then the film couldn't really have been made anywhere else, such are the locations so integral to the whole.
It is a shame therefore to have to make adverse criticisms. The film was shot over a period of one year. That is a long time but especially so when your lead actor is eleven years old. Couple that with some glaring continuity errors: The boy's socks change colour within the same scene on several occasions.
As for the ambiguity I would not criticize that; it forces the viewer to think. I don't understand Spanish so I suspect I'm missing out on quite a lot, but then the film couldn't really have been made anywhere else, such are the locations so integral to the whole.
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