Millie Bobby whatever is not a good actress. She might become one with time, but it is impossible to watch in this movie. The cutesy performance makes it unbearable. Cavill is no picnic either.
It might be the directors fault o just lack of talent. Time will tell. For now, it was a chore to watch.
Reviews
5 Reviews
La traque
(2008 TV Movie)
A "must be told" story, but badly done.
26 May 2009
Warning: Spoilers
This movie tells the story of how the Klarsfelds, a French-German couple, devoted 12 years of their lives to bring Klaus Barbie, the second world war Nazi criminal, to justice. And succeeding in doing so. While the story seems perfect (and it is) to be translated into a movie this attempt fails in many levels for different reasons and I'll try to explain at least some of them.
Franka Potente (whose acting skills I respect) does a poor job, and it is mainly because she obviously is not fluent in french. That on itself, of course, is not a bad thing, but portraying a woman who is supposed to have some confidence in the use of the language becomes a major impediment. She has rehearsed her lines (obviously) but they almost every time sound forced and uncomfortable for her.
The big challenge (among very many) about directing a movie spoken in so many languages (four) lies in the fact that, if the director is not fluent in some of those languages he won't be able to direct the actors precisely. And this seems to be the case here. Especially in those parts where the movie is spoken only in Spanish.
I want to mention the fact that I have just finished translating the movie into Spanish (for subtitles and dubbed versions) and therefore am very familiar with every aspect of the dialog.
Some scenes are just laughable, and two come instantly to mind. The first one is a scene in which Beate Klarsfeld is talking (in French) to a Bolivian government adviser (who speaks Spanish), and somehow she seems to understand perfectly everything he says (he, on the other hand, has a translator by his side). The acting by the Bolivian actor is so horrifying (and I don't want to discredit him as an actor because you can tell he is following the directors suggestions) that renders the scene completely comedic and out of context within the seriousness of the movie.
A secretary coming into an office and saying just two lines makes for an excellent laugh on a later scene. She speaks as if she hadn't ever spoken Spanish without completely overacting.
Is not that all Spanish acting is bad, some of the Spanish speaking actors are very good actually, but my guess is that it depended on each actors instinct.
Not only the Spanish is bad, there's the part of Margaret, played by Sophia Eva Wilhelmi, who is supposed to be German, but her German (and I'm almost certain she was dubbed) has an accent. Probably some Southamerican born out of an Austrian or Swiss family, but almost certainly not German. Her character is eavesdropping in a scene where the "bad" Bolivian generals are plotting with Barbie, and they're speaking in Spanish, but there's no reason to believe her character would speak, or at least understand, Spanish. So, what was she doing there? (By the way, the "bad people" almost always say things with an evil smile on their faces. Just plain dumb)
Hans Zischler, who is very good and believable playing Barbie, has some horrific moments dealing with some very long Spanish sequences. And mind you, one thing is to have an accent (which his character is allowed to have) and something else is to have certain complicated words in your vocabulary which are not up to scale with the mistakes and mispronunciation of the lines you might have. By the time this takes place, Barbie is supposed to have been living over twenty years in a Spanish speaking country. No one speaks that fluently and with that kind of flowery vocabulary if he can't even pronounce very easy words. The lines were learned and rehearsed but very badly delivered.
But the most insulting part of the movie is Beate Klarsfled giving an interview to a Bolivian journalist. In the scene Beate explains who Barbie is and then she mentions the Gestapo. The Bolivian journalist looks at her with a puzzled look and asks: The Gestapo? Look, it may be possible that some lizard in a desert, living behind a cactus doesn't know what the Gestapo is, but a journalist interviewing a Nazi-hunter would probably know what it means. So, to make a point of how complicated Beate's struggle to shine light on the story is, the writer, or the director, puts down a whole people. It's very insulting to the Bolivian people in particular and to the viewers intelligence in general.
My conclusion would be: watch the film because of the story, if you want to be informed about it, but you'll be forced to look over the facts written about in this review.
Franka Potente (whose acting skills I respect) does a poor job, and it is mainly because she obviously is not fluent in french. That on itself, of course, is not a bad thing, but portraying a woman who is supposed to have some confidence in the use of the language becomes a major impediment. She has rehearsed her lines (obviously) but they almost every time sound forced and uncomfortable for her.
The big challenge (among very many) about directing a movie spoken in so many languages (four) lies in the fact that, if the director is not fluent in some of those languages he won't be able to direct the actors precisely. And this seems to be the case here. Especially in those parts where the movie is spoken only in Spanish.
I want to mention the fact that I have just finished translating the movie into Spanish (for subtitles and dubbed versions) and therefore am very familiar with every aspect of the dialog.
Some scenes are just laughable, and two come instantly to mind. The first one is a scene in which Beate Klarsfeld is talking (in French) to a Bolivian government adviser (who speaks Spanish), and somehow she seems to understand perfectly everything he says (he, on the other hand, has a translator by his side). The acting by the Bolivian actor is so horrifying (and I don't want to discredit him as an actor because you can tell he is following the directors suggestions) that renders the scene completely comedic and out of context within the seriousness of the movie.
A secretary coming into an office and saying just two lines makes for an excellent laugh on a later scene. She speaks as if she hadn't ever spoken Spanish without completely overacting.
Is not that all Spanish acting is bad, some of the Spanish speaking actors are very good actually, but my guess is that it depended on each actors instinct.
Not only the Spanish is bad, there's the part of Margaret, played by Sophia Eva Wilhelmi, who is supposed to be German, but her German (and I'm almost certain she was dubbed) has an accent. Probably some Southamerican born out of an Austrian or Swiss family, but almost certainly not German. Her character is eavesdropping in a scene where the "bad" Bolivian generals are plotting with Barbie, and they're speaking in Spanish, but there's no reason to believe her character would speak, or at least understand, Spanish. So, what was she doing there? (By the way, the "bad people" almost always say things with an evil smile on their faces. Just plain dumb)
Hans Zischler, who is very good and believable playing Barbie, has some horrific moments dealing with some very long Spanish sequences. And mind you, one thing is to have an accent (which his character is allowed to have) and something else is to have certain complicated words in your vocabulary which are not up to scale with the mistakes and mispronunciation of the lines you might have. By the time this takes place, Barbie is supposed to have been living over twenty years in a Spanish speaking country. No one speaks that fluently and with that kind of flowery vocabulary if he can't even pronounce very easy words. The lines were learned and rehearsed but very badly delivered.
But the most insulting part of the movie is Beate Klarsfled giving an interview to a Bolivian journalist. In the scene Beate explains who Barbie is and then she mentions the Gestapo. The Bolivian journalist looks at her with a puzzled look and asks: The Gestapo? Look, it may be possible that some lizard in a desert, living behind a cactus doesn't know what the Gestapo is, but a journalist interviewing a Nazi-hunter would probably know what it means. So, to make a point of how complicated Beate's struggle to shine light on the story is, the writer, or the director, puts down a whole people. It's very insulting to the Bolivian people in particular and to the viewers intelligence in general.
My conclusion would be: watch the film because of the story, if you want to be informed about it, but you'll be forced to look over the facts written about in this review.
Pinocchio
(2002)
An unbearable experience
22 October 2008
This movie is awful. Someone said that you need to be Italian to truly understand the exuberance of Roberto Benigni, and dared to compare him to Woody Allen... Let me put it this way: this is an artistic experience, so if we have to put everything in context I'd probably never have heard a piece by Bach or seen a picture by Magritte or... whatever, you get my point. Benigni tried to make an artistically beautiful film, which he achieved, but ruined it completely with an exorbitant amount of text and with his presence in the main role. Sure, the English translation is horrid, but the original Italian soundtrack isn't much better. And I speak both languages. I was saying that it has so much text that it really appears to be a play, or maybe some sketch for a radio program. Everything gets repeated at least twice, there are always at least two people talking at the same time, and the constant yelling (one could argue that it's a trademark of many Italian films, and they may be right, but not every Italian movie is made like that)... there isn't a cinematic moment in the whole film, so why make a movie? Because you just can? With the same budget, couldn't a better movie have been made? Benigni might think that he portrays the bitter sweet innocence of a unruly child but, to me, he is completely annoying. Jumping and clapping and screaming like he was a young boy... He doesn't pull it off. Not in the least. And while I don't like dubbed films at all, there really isn't much of a difference between both versions, they are both equally bad. It's a shame though, because it is a better adaptation from the original tale than Walt Disney's, but I guess it'll never compete with it. And although I don't particularly like most of Disney's films, this Pinocchio deserves to be overshadowed by the older one.
All That Heaven Allows
(1955)
This movie is very hard to digest
4 September 2008
Warning: Spoilers
I'm translating this movie right at this moment and I have to say that it is impossible to watch. Don't get me wrong, I'm 43, and old school movies don't scare me, but watching this one is a gruesome experience. Her son tells her that the house is a "tradition" of the family and therefore she couldn't sell it, and two scenes after he tells her they should sell it because it's "too big". How are we supposed to eat that one? Are we supposed to believe that these are real people? And although one should put movies in it's historical context, she looks like a fat little boy. It's very hard to believe that so few years ago that woman might have been considered a "beauty" or "classy". And she isn't a very good actress either... I don't know. Maybe this movie makes me angry because if it wasn't that I HAVE to translate it I would've never watched it.
Howl's Moving Castle
(2004)
Why does everybody need to know why?
25 September 2006
It happened with this movie as it happened (to my surprise) with "My neighbor Totoro" and other Miyazaki's films. People asking "why this?" and "why that?". Since when is necessary to have everything explained to you in order to enjoy/understand a film? Films, as many other artistic expressions, work in many levels and cannot (should not) be criticized because a certain criteria is not being followed. Of course, everyone is entitled to his/her opinion but: putting down a film because it doesn't spoon-feed you, the way 90% of US films do nowadays, and dropping it's rate so people might think it isn't a good film (and therefore not watching it) is just plain wrong. Howl's Moving castle is an excellent film. Period. Yes, it is a Japanese film(therefore a "foreign" film. LOL). Yes, certain aspects of it (very few really) speak only to the natives. Yes, some matters presented in the film require you to think about them once it is over. But only because the film industry is almost monopolized by US films doesn't mean that we should accept its manufacture as a standard. Let me tell you, I enjoy a good pop-corn movie every once in a while, I really do, but there is so much more going around than that. Please don't scrutinize an art form with such a narrow view. It makes both (you and the arts) look bad.
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