Burden of Dreams
Movies we loved and loathed (or worse, that simply bored us).
N.B. Recent additions come at the end, so for regular updates, just click on the reverse order icon.
N.B. Recent additions come at the end, so for regular updates, just click on the reverse order icon.
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- DirectorLee Chang-dongStarsJeon Do-yeonSong Kang-hoLee Dong-yongA woman moves to the town where her dead husband was born. As she tries to fit in, another tragic event overturns her life.A movie full of surprises and a moving portrait of contemporary Korean society.
Though 'Secret Sunshine' may not be as accomplished as 'Oasis' and 'Poetry', it already bears the mark of a talented, deeply humanistic author. - DirectorWerner HerzogStarsWerner HerzogScott RowlandStefan PashovFilm-maker Werner Herzog travels to the McMurdo Station in Antarctica, looking to capture the continent's beauty and investigate the characters living there.A treasure island of a movie.
As Herzog warns us in the opening sequence, this is NOT another doc on 'penguins'. And yet, despite all the fantastically fcked up human beings we come across along the film, the most memorable moment remains the sequence with the disoriented penguin walking straight towards his death. - DirectorÁlex de la IglesiaStarsÁlex AnguloArmando De RazzaSantiago SeguraBent on committing as many sins as possible to avert the birth of the beast, a Catholic priest teams up with a Black Metal aficionado and an Italian connoisseur of the occult. Now, he must become an unrelenting sinner. Is there still hope?Not as 'fuerte' as it could have been, but some truly hilarious scenes, such as the one where the anti-Christ chasing priest get assaulted by a shotgun-totting granny while trying to pump out some 'maiden's blood'. This remains a minor work compared to the later masterpiece of Iglesia, 'Balada de trompeta triste'.
- DirectorGeorge SluizerStarsBernard-Pierre DonnadieuGene BervoetsJohanna ter SteegeRex and Saskia, a young couple in love, are on vacation. They stop at a busy service station and Saskia is abducted. After three years and no sign of Saskia, Rex begins receiving letters from the abductor.Chilling. Maybe the most terrific ending I've ever seen in a movie. Hail to the scriptwriter.
- DirectorCharles FergusonStarsMatt DamonGylfi ZoegaAndri Snær MagnasonTakes a closer look at what brought about the 2008 financial meltdown.Activist cinema at its best. Didactic but vindicative, a truly disturbing exposé of the financial Hell we built for ourselves.
- DirectorTung-Shing YeeStarsDaniel WuCecilia CheungAlex FongHong Kong nihilism. December 22, a street quarrel leads to the death of a gang leader's son. Next day, he seeks revenge on his brother, a rival boss. He calls on Liu, a fixer, to import a hit man from the mainland. Lai Fu, a tough and youthful hick, arrives with a day pass. The cops, led by the morose Milo, hear about the killer; they open a full-scale Christmas Eve operation to find the warring brothers and Lai Fu. Lai Fu rescues a hooker, Dan Dan, from a sadist and asks her to help him find his way around Mongkok. By nightfall, Liu has double crossed Lai Fu, the brothers are hiding, the cops are everywhere, and Lai Fu and Dan Dan are on the run. Peace on earth, good will to all?Nothing unforgettable but a bit above the average, for its down-the-gutter humanism.
- DirectorJeff NicholsStarsMichael ShannonJessica ChastainShea WhighamPlagued by a series of apocalyptic visions, a young husband and father questions whether to shelter his family from a coming storm, or from himself.This is the kind of movie that saves it all or fcks it all in its last minutes. And in this case, the challenge was masterly addressed, not so much for what comes at the end (of the movie/of the world) but how it does. If I wasn't convinced about the choice of the mute daughter throughout the film, the last sequence made me wrong -and how wrong!
- DirectorClaire DenisStarsIsabelle HuppertChristopher LambertIsaach De BankoléAmidst turmoil and racial conflict in a Francophone African state, a white French woman fights for her coffee crop, her family and ultimately for her life.Claire Denis' masterpiece to date. A falsely realistic/and yet kind of film, a narrative tour de force and a trippy ballad in a land of broken dreams.
- DirectorBruno DumontStarsDavid DewaeleAlexandra LemâtreChristophe BonIn a village on the French Opal Coast, a drifter engages in a perplexing relationship with a young woman who has suffered abuse.Euh... I have always been an ardent supporter of Bruno Dumont, even when my friends and colleagues accused him of a debilitating treatment of 'the popular'. Dumont, like Claire Denis in a sense, is a false realist. Beneath the social surface of things, search for the fairy tale. But this was until the vengeful ghost of Tarkovski turned up and wrought havoc over the Dumont I used to revere. After the storm, all we seem to be left with is a cinema of gimmicks and falsely immanent spiritual BS. All that remains are these splendid shots of rural landscapes reflecting the otherwise opaque inner world of the protagonists.
- DirectorBertrand BonelloStarsNoémie LvovskyHafsia HerziCéline SalletteAt an elegant Parisian bordello at the dawn of the 20th century exists a cloistered world of pleasure, pain, hope, rivalries--and, most of all, slavery.Bonello's best film to date. Etheral, and yet social; moral but non-doctrinal; poetic and erotic; literary but also infused with pop culture references (from Italian Giallos to the killing jokes of Batman's Nemesis). Only one -serious- mistake: the contemporary epilogue and its implicit conclusion - 'brothels were not all that good but at least the girls were off the street and enjoyed better protection, if not more dignity'. Cut the crap, Bertrand, you can do better than that.
- DirectorYasuzô MasumuraStarsHiroshi KawaguchiHitomi NozoeHideo TakamatsuIn the middle of a fierce commercial competition between three caramel companies, an executive builds up a ditsy teenage girl as a mascot while simultaneously trying to uncover the rival companies' plans.A brilliant satire of Japanese workaholism and of capitalism at large. As usual, Masumura shows more interest and empathy for his female characters than for their male counterparts. The rags-to-riches heroine may get a broken heart but she, at least, knows how to make the best of all this fuss, without losing sight of the vacuity of it all. Cool cat indeed.
- DirectorYasuzô MasumuraStarsRaizô IchikawaAyako WakaoHideko TakamineThe Wife of Seishû Hanaoka is set in feudal Japan. Its two central characters are based on the wife and mother of Japanese physician Seishû Hanaoka (1760-1835). Hanaoka developed a herbal general anesthetic, "Tsusensan", some forty years before the better-known innovations of his American counterparts Long, Wells and Morton.Masumura's best film (with Red Angel?), free from the excesses of his better known works (Blind Beast, Seisaku's wife, Manji...). The most honest and thus disturbing exploration of the underbelly of heroism I have ever come across. The 'holier than thou' competition between the wife and mother of Dr. Hanaoka finds an echo in the quest for martyrdom of many contemporary 'terrorists'.
- DirectorArnaud LarrieuJean-Marie LarrieuStarsMathieu AmalricCatherine FrotKarin ViardRobinson, appropriately named as we will soon discover, is on vacation in Biarritz with his wife. What follows is the story behind the loss of his arm, a story that becomes increasingly bizarre and eventually apocalyptic, leading us down a narrative path of labyrinthine complexity. The resulting film is an extraordinary feat of imagination and daring, set against the backdrop of a world on the verge of destruction.What is (so) right with French cinema, these days? Forget 'The Artist' (and go back to Guy Maddin if you want to see how alive and kicking mute cinema can truly be), these last few years have seen the release of a plethora of excellent French films, devoid of the visually-impaired 'nombrilisme' that seemed to have become their lot. Of course, 'Les derniers jours du monde' is a chatty film: when the world falls apart, the French continue to chit, chat and cheat on their spouses. But 'Les derniers jours...' is also a confirmation of all the good that came from the new breed of French filmakers' venture into genre cinema (science fiction, here, but the same could be said for horror and thrillers). And then, Biarritz is indeed a nice place to watch the world breathe its last.
- DirectorPietro GermiStarsSaro UrzìStefania SandrelliAldo PuglisiA desperate Sicilian man, whose 15-year-old daughter was seduced and impregnated by his older daughter's fiancé, tries to find a way to save the family's honor.Very disappointing. Too long, too obvious, too laborious. Miles away from the same director's excellent 'Divorce Italian style'. The only truly funny dialogue of the film comes towards the end, when the (Roman?) cop points at Sicilia's map and concludes that the best thing the Italian government could do with this island would be to nuke it out, full point.
- DirectorJan SvankmajerStarsKristýna KohoutováCamilla PowerA surrealistic revision of Alice in Wonderland.The best adaptation of 'Alice' on screen ever. Super vintage, for its stop-motion animation, but incredibly inventive. Fantasmagoric and yet terribly organic. Fantasy has a texture and few films have approached it so closely.
- DirectorSion SonoStarsTakahiro NishijimaHikari MitsushimaSakura AndôA bizarre love triangle forms between a young Catholic upskirt photographer, a misandric girl and a manipulative cultist.Shion Sono's opus magnum, the 4-hour plus 'Love Exposure' is the Great Russian Novel of Japanese perverts. Never did 'Hentai' look as cool as in the exhuberant martial voyeurism of this bunch of otakus. Tosatsu (voyeuristic photography, with a predilection, here, for teenagers' panties) as a martial, but also as a FINE art, incredibly healthier than the spiritual gibberish of the 'Zero Church'. And I like pervert ninjas who kidnap devout girls to rehabilitate them through true love with a zest of Sasori kickassism.
- DirectorAbel FerraraStarsWillem DafoeBob HoskinsMatthew ModineA screwball comedy centered on a Manhattan go-go dancing club, where a financial struggle between the owner, his accountant and his silent partner brother threatens the business's future.Ferrara remains Ferrara. For the best -his love of cinema and his conviction that the fabric of dreams should remain a family enterprise- and for the worst -the aspiration to another, 'greater' cinema. But then this weakness is also what ignites 'Go Go Tales' with a tension rarely seen in his previous films (except 'Body Snatchers', maybe) between fantasies of the mainstream and a visceral attachment to the underground.
- DirectorWim WendersStarsPina BauschRegina AdventoMalou AiraudoA tribute to the late German choreographer Pina Bausch, as her dancers perform her most famous creations.An interesting though not completely successful attempt to adjust dance and cinema to the same tempo. Sometimes it works and in these magical moments, Wenders seems to have captured the essence of Pina Bausch's orderly disorder. But on the whole, Wenders seems to be more concerned with (his) cinema than with (Pina's and her troupe's) dance. The rough cuts into each dance sequence are frustrating and sometimes truly annoying as far as the de-synchronized interviews extracts are concerned. As my better half concluded: 'You shouldn't ask dancers to speak. They don't know how to speak. That's why they dance'.
- DirectorBrad BirdStarsTom CruiseJeremy RennerSimon PeggThe IMF is shut down when it's implicated in the bombing of the Kremlin, causing Ethan Hunt and his new team to go rogue to clear their organization's name.The world is a playground for the IMF (!?) and Brad Bird, better known for his animes, sometimes makes the best of this axiom. The Kremlin gets bombed, Ethan Hunt climbs over the Burj Khalifa Tower in Dubai, before he and his team set off for Mumbai (yes, Anil Kapoor is here!). But about half way through the film, something happens and the excitement dies down.
- DirectorSteve McQueenStarsMichael FassbenderCarey MulliganJames Badge DaleA sex addict's carefully cultivated private life falls apart after his sister arrives for an indefinite stay.After an initial reaction of reject, I tend to revise my appreciation. I'm still uncomfortable with the whole treatment of the brother/sister relation and its lacrymal climax, but the memory of Brandon, prisoner of his ever-unsatisfied body, lingers on. A bit too manipulative for its aspiration to be a truly physical piece of cinema, though.
- DirectorÁlex de la IglesiaStarsCarmen MauraEduardo AntuñaMaría AsquerinoThe accidental discovery of a big fortune hidden in the apartment of a deceased man will fill the heart of a real estate agent with greed and dreams of a luxurious life, but the neighbours think otherwise.Iglesia grand cru. The unity of action, within a single apartment building, contains his natural inclination towards dispersion. Carmen Maura carries much of the movie on her shoulders. Then again, it's Iglesia, so expect some last minute fckup, but honestly who cares.
- DirectorJoaquim Pedro de AndradeStarsGrande OteloPaulo JoséJardel FilhoOur story begins with Macunaima's miraculous birth to an old woman in a tiny jungle settlement. Born fully grown, he discovers his life's purpose which leads him and his family and followers on a journey to the Big City. More miracles occur on the way, but Macunaima still has the heart and mind of a child. In the Big City, terrorists enlist him in their revolutionary schemes. In the Big City he learns that nuts are not always food and other hilarious life lessons.The picaresque novel meets cinema novo, meets feminism, meets racial politics, before it all ends up in the belly of the pretty cannibal fairy. Something like an early Jodorowsky, only more raw, more energetic, more musical.
- StarsAdriano LuzMaria João BastosRicardo PereiraFollows a jealous countess, a wealthy businessman, and a young orphaned boy across Portugal, France, Italy and Brazil where they connect with a variety of mysterious individuals.Splendid, formally as well as narratively. The whole movie unfolds like a spiral staircase around Father Dinis, the Master of stories, one of the many characters of the film who lived several lives under several names, several masters, several garbs, but the only one who seems to have mastery over his own fate and that of all those revolving around him. The photography is simply breathtaking, giving life to wall or ceiling paintings while composing every shot in the manner of a Rembrandt. The camera literally floats around the characters, piercing through walls, hearts, souls.
- DirectorNicolas RoegStarsJulie ChristieDonald SutherlandHilary MasonA married couple grieving the recent death of their young daughter are in Venice when they encounter two elderly sisters, one of whom is psychic and brings a warning from beyond.An excellent paranormal thriller, with some brilliant sequences. If it looks a bit oldish today, it's got more to do with Donald Sutherland's moustache than Roeg's tight directing. And indeed Venice can be a scary place - 'too many shadows', as the sister of the psychic complains.
- DirectorKore-eda HirokazuStarsKôki MaedaOshiro MaedaRyôga HayashiTwelve-year-old Koichi, who has been separated from his brother Ryunosuke due to his parents' divorce, hears a rumor that the new bullet trains will precipitate a wish-granting miracle when they pass each other at top speed.The time when Kore-Eda showed a quasi-obsession for death (Maborosi, After Life...) seems like an eternity ago. The forces of life have taken over with the kids - kids who often seem more mature than their drifting parents.