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Reviews
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)
cut-throat vulgarity
Not even the stupid music can save this abominable film from being the worst of this year. It is shot in the fashionable twilight mode which is either an invention by film directors to save on grips and lighting, or they erroneously believe that lack of lighting adds to the atmosphere. Oddly enough, I've just seen yet again in the art-house cinema of Narbonne, In cold blood (Richard Brooks, 1965) which still chills and moves you for the dead and the killers. As relevant as it was at its time (but Sweney will be forgotten by the end of this year), and without gimmickry of lights and irrelevant musical outbursts inspired by Dennis Potter. How could Tim Burton turn out this junk? How could the inimitable Depp accept the role? Do not be deceived by Oscar nominations and others. To share my disgust, go and see it...
Reconstruction (2003)
To Boe or not to Boe...
Interesting. Original? I shouldn't think so. Well acted, yes. And in the little art-house cinema in Toulouse people didn't budge while watching this 'fable-ous' film. But now, come to think of it, I have been here before! Oh, yes. Was it not L'Année dernière à Marienbad? But now more like, "Next year in Rome..." Oh, but there is also that book, 'I am not Stiller'. Could Stiller have gone to Rome from Marienbad? Or was it the illustrious author August? Oh, dear, I am getting deliciously confused.
Salmer fra kjøkkenet (2003)
A thoroughly moving experience
The only lamentable part of this extraordinarily moving film is its title. I went to an art-house cinema in Toulouse to see it, more for Hamer's reputation than the published blurb, still not knowing what to expect. Nothing moves in the film, like the observant Folke on his directorial high chair, we are watching the goings on, monotonous. But, boring? Most certainly not! As the plot develops around the friendship between the subject and the object, we are drawn into a conflict which is essentially outside the boundaries of nations: how can you understand someone without verbal communication, for the sake of scientific research? You can't.
Bureaucratic strictures can lead to disobedience however much the personal cost of that kind of action might be. Folke and Isak forge a friendship in a relatively short time, which might take others years of nurturing. We applaud the rebellious scientist when he dumps his snail-shell caravan to return to Isak's uncomplicated rural dwelling. The most moving closing scene suddenly makes you realise that what seemed to be a static film was, in fact, full of heroic action.
That there are only two IMDb comments on this film demonstrates how exclusionist South Europe and the States are, when third rate trash receives attention of one sort or the other.
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003)
Pure twaddle
It is sheer coincidence that I saw this film just when Schwarzenneger presented his nomination in the political arena. But not surprising, really, when Hollywood is taking over the Capitol and the trend that started with Reagan's Star Wars shield to protect American innocents from the evil threatening the globe, has been taking new twists and turns. The obsession has a long history, since the invention of the cinema which has played a far greater part in American politics than any other single influence. From Griffith's fascistic Birth of a Nation to milder modes of Star Trek and currently Star Gate. The message is always, "We, the American Nation, know best, and will fight to the death to convert the others to our own way of 'democracy'".
T3 is no different, the righteous America defeats evil (even in the form of a very sexy terminatrix). It is as if the collective American ID is trying to invite a catastrophe of immeasurable magnitude beyond the make-belief scenarios of Hollywood. 9/11 will sharpen this paranoia enormously until the whole continent turns into a kind of Howard Hughes. To exorcise this growing paranoia in films like T3 and others of the same ilk, is like holding a tress of garlic against the invisible face of absolute evil.
It must not be forgotten that in the Forbidden Planet what destroyed the planet was the uncontrollable ID.
Ed Wood (1994)
A hilarious treat
This is a most original and strangely moving insight into the backdrop of film making in Hollywood. I have not enjoyed anything in this genre as much, since Hellzapoppin'! There is no way to single out the actors for the best performance: they are all excellent, but Johnny Depp excels himself, and Martin Landau is superlative.
Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999)
Simply riveting...
Alice Liddel's critique of this film surpasses even those by professional journalists in the genre. There is nothing to add to her observations and interpretation except to say that, Jarmusch manages extremely dexterously to translate Melville's imagery into a totally different setting. Forest Whitaker's steely performance is, in my opinion, more convincing than Alain Delon's excellent portrayal of a hired killer.
What I think puts Le Samouraï in the class of film noir is the presence of Cathy Rosier as Valérie, whereas Ghost Dog remains in a totally different category which we associate with the Mafia films of the 40s and later. Jarmusch has integrated visual poetry with muted quotations from obscure books; in Melville's masterpiece it is Henri Decaë's camera that gives the film the poetic dimension.
Spider-Man (2002)
Such delightful tosh, but wonderful? No!
What is the hype all about? Because millions of $$ have been spent to make the film? Where did all those millions go? Honestly, this is neither original nor exciting, as fantasy or sf. We have been there before and in worthier company: Superman I and II, Batman, and even Flash Gordon (1980). But the commercial success of the film, not only in the States but also in Europe, testifies to the publicity mechanism of Hollywood; it is not available to poorer companies or countries.
The film has acted as an uncouth catalyst in Britain where the trend is towards a neo Victorianism in morals. Some local authorities refused a license to screen it! Unbelievable in 2002. There is more realistic violence in half an hour in any of the dozens of serials on tv screens than in the whole two hours of Spiderman. In France, I watched one afternoon in this holiday season, in a provincial cinema packed with children(with their parents, I ought to add) who never stopped giggling throughout.
That's what it is! Just a good giggle. No more, no less.
Nóz w wodzie (1962)
An astonishing directorial debut
When I first saw this film on its release in London (1962) I was only too ready to dismiss it as a pastiche of Ingmar Bergman. I am therefore more than glad to have seen it again on tv a couple of nights ago. How totally mistaken I was! It is an original film through and through, and the young Polanski had already his artistic stamp ready to forge on his first work (Three men and a wardrobe was not directed by him, I don't think). Forty years on, what is so astonishing is that the film and therefore the social, emotional and psychological problems examined in it, has not aged at all. Communist Poland? What does it matter? A young student hiking his way? So what? A young woman "married ???" to an older man? Entirely timeless and placeless. What remains as solid as ever is the primordial conflict between two men, one weaker the other stronger, but you cannot be so sure about that, in the presence of a woman who is both a sex object and a recipient of the seed of one of the two men. Why is the couple without child? How can a woman whose "husband" is dangerously swimming ashore to summon help, can be so relaxed as to have sex with the young man when he is going to vanish from their lives within a few hours?
Louis Malle famously said that he prefers the filmgoers to leave the cinema with lots of questions in their heads, rather than answers to all the questions in the film. Polanski has never stopped doing that.
Amen. (2002)
A very disturbing experience
After Schindler's Ark and more recently La vita è bella, one would have thought there was no reason to produce another film about the Holocaust.
But Costa-Garvas has come up with yet another one, Amen, and I have voted for it highly because of its gripping narrative, compelling acting, and its exquisite photography.
Although there is no mention of it anywhere, it is obvious that the film is based on Rolf Hochhuth's 1962 play, The Deputy which hit the head- lines in Broadway and the West End where I first saw it. Without being an apologist for the Catholic church, however, I should like to question where fiction and historical facts merge and separate in the film. If Pius XII, formerly Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli until 1939, was in essence such a heartless pope, then why is it that so many people after the war praised his humanitarian actions during the Nazi upsurge in Europe? The Chief Rabbi of Rome, Israel Zolli, converted to catholicism in 1944 in recognition of what the Pope had done to save 860,000 Jews [a figure quoted by the Israeli diplomat Pinchas Lapide in his book published in 1967]. The Catholic argument is that if the Pope had spoken 'out', rather than act in diplomatic silence, the fate of the surviving Jews would have been much worse, as was the case in Amsterdam after the Catholic bishop's direct confrontation with the Nazis.
Blame and counter-blame will continue as history has shown us, and some saints will be satanised and some satanical tyrants will be glorified. This is the nature of chronicling historical events. Does any one remember The Sound of Music? How the Church helped save so many Jews? I watched Garvas's film with intense emotions, choking on globular anguish, but once outside in the street I began to question myself.
Singoalla (1949)
Unforgettable
I saw this film when I was fifteen and have never forgotten the atmosphere, the b+w images of the plague years, and the passionate love between such disparate people. After all these years I still hope to see it again either on television or on the screen, but my searches for it in London and Paris have been in vain. In my memory it has acquired a magic niche.
Singoalla (1949)
Unforgettable
I saw this film when I was fifteen and have never forgotten the atmosphere, the b+w images of the plague years, and the passionate love between such disparate people. After all these years I still hope to see it again either on television or on the screen, but my searches for it in London and Paris have been in vain. In my memory it has acquired a magic niche.
Le peuple migrateur (2001)
a slight disappointment
This film has been awaited all over France for quite a while. It is extremely well done and there are some splendid shots of migrating birds from well-known locations in France to less-known places far away. What I find missing in this beautiful documentary is a cohesive narrative. There are unexpected jumps from one shot to another, captions are neither here nor there, and they are so minute that you need binoculars to read them! It is a great shame that such a rich source of material, exquisite photography, was not properly edited and commented on.