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Dom za vesanje (1988)
A motion picture classic!
Talkabouta film that remains poignant to understand the survival and ideals of disillusionment in a young gypsy boy. In the Time of the Gypsies, a film which seems to pre- cursor such notarized films about third world countries in desperate financial means, like recent Academy Award Winner "SlumDog Millionaire," shows how the simple life of a small town boy, can quickly turn into dreams of fortune only to be ruined through a life of corruption and disease. The central message conveyed in Emir Kusturica's picture is that simplicity is far better lived than the life of moral abandonment. Perhan played by Davor Dujmovic, outwits a wonderful performance as a young boy with dreams of marrying his loving youthful girlfriend Azra. Because he comes from a line of poor gypsies, his name is smeared and thus can't provide a fortune to the kin of his future to be wife. In a key scene, which shows the anguish of his pain that separates him from marrying her, is found trying to hang himself from a city bell. The bell calls out to all those in the town to hear of his cries, and to announce to the town that rather death than be separated from a world of love with Azra. Such a film about a boy who can dream of a future with his spouse and fortune is none other a better film with a combination of surreal landscapes. His dreams of a fire bred wedding on the river, while his wife lays flat in her canoe, breasts exposed, can only eroticize the day that comes when he can lay naked with her and make love to her on her wedding day. Soon we discover, this dream of seeding her for a future together could come crashing down at his own moral betrayal into a life of crime and deceit. His grandmother, played emotionally pitch perfect by Ljubica Adzovic, longs to have her grand-daughter's legs fixed just like "Marilyn Monroe." After being born with crippled legs, the grandmother with all the money she had been saving, found the perfect opportunity to have her daughter cured. After curing the son of a gambler Amed, she begs to have her only son relieved of his gambling debt and her granddaughter taken into Milan to have her legs fixed. Soon the agreement is made, and Perhan goes along to accompany his young sister for the surgery. Soon it turns out that the young girl stays behind in Milan, awaiting surgery, while Perhan is taken to the streets to steal money. Through his crime work, Perhan is promised a new home and a sister with new legs, but in secrecy Ahmed has not made any of his promises kept. His sister has taken to the streets as a beggar, and a home has never been made. All along, Perhan finds himself at anger with how he could be betrayed and left for scum. A man whom he looked up to as a father, was none other than a selfish crime lord feeding his own personal wishes of fortune and satisfaction. Although the film can be defined as a tragic tale about the mishaps of money and power, and almost like the American dream of treasures awaiting, a picture like this is important for any audience member to understand how greed can bring about the death of the human soul. Dark and bitter, sweet only in the beginning, a film like such can only weave through a viewer a tale of innocence and hope turned to dust.
Le fantôme de la liberté (1974)
A dramedy to remember
In what is sure to be one of the most intriguing yet bizarre pictures to come about since the work of Fellini, Luis Bunuel directs this dramedy picture about the random incidents and moments that come about in the thought of the mind, yet somehow reflect on the hypocrisies of society and man. Told in a surreal mindset with objects and even animals that somehow come into scene, it is one of those pictures that has many meanings in one. For example, Bunuel directs a sequence in which a young girl, whom her parents are searching for and has been thought to have been kidnapped, is actually right in front of the parents. It makes absolutely no sense, but that is what is so striking about this scene as well as many in that, the girl, who is right in front of their eyes speaking with them, can't be found, thus sending these parents to act on their toes to try and find her.
The film regards itself on random episodes that somehow have no connection with each other what so ever. From one scene to the next, the stories are never quite fully developed until the end, kind of like a soap opera. It is one of those types of pictures in which many different characters, with their own dilemmas, are left till the next time around to pick up where they left off in their sequence. The main quest for Bunuel is to question the morality of the characters. Why is it that society considers the idea of going to the restroom as something that has to be done in private. Who created these rules? Who created the rules that man has to be clothed in public, but can do whatever he pleases in private? Is this a moral question as to what is moral or not moral to do, or is this something that society has created as something moral? Bunuel leaves that up to his viewer to identity and question. Shot in a similar fashion as many of the Monty Python pictures, Bunuel's film is definitely more subtle, yet adventurous and hilarious at all means. It shows how surrealism doesn't always have to be dramatic, and he strays away from his start in drama, but achieves a perfect wisdom and understanding through it.
Qian li zou dan qi (2005)
A journey not soon to be forgotten!
Yimou Zhang can be best remembered for his critically acclaimed and visually poignant films like "Hero" and "Curse of the Golden Flower," but once he stepped into the realm of drama, he went with no doubt into great new territories. "Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles" is more of a personal film for Zhang about a father seeking the forgiveness of his dying son. Beginning in Japan, Tataka, an elderly father, comes to visit the bedside of his dying son who has estranged him for quite some time. It is vaguely believed that the son has withheld speaking to him for years, and in part to Tataka leaving his wife. What he discovers is a deathly ill son, (who is never shown) forbidding himself to see his father before death. But in order to regain his son back, Tataka goes on an extraordinary journey to film the last portion of a video he never got to film, the dance sequence from the Chinese folk dance, "Riding alone for thousands of miles." Tataka's journey sends him into a foreign culture, still in the aisle of his well known Asia, into the heart of China where he hires an interpreter to exchange words with some of the people he meets. Although a language barrier exists, those who come to meet him in China, know his sorry and regret for his son, and can't help but to feel compassion for a man who tries to accomplish the mission of fulfilling his son's final wish. What gives Zhang a great kick is to see how he manages to direct a cast of unknowns and unprofessional actors. This is the kind of film that manages to take you into one direction, and spin you into a complete different ending where the realization comes that the journey wasn't to find what was originally intended. It has the doppelganger effect in that it focuses on the quest for one thing, and expels you into a self-discovery about the precious meaning of life and the worth to take better care of it, in a life of forgiveness and ultimate redemption.
Idi i smotri (1985)
A picture for all seasons!
"Come and See", the title of the Elem Klimov's brilliant psychological horror war picture can be definitely noted as a precursor for many of today's epic war pictures. The combination, of sight and especially sound, can bring one to feel as if they were living in war torn Belarus. The image of patriotism and the disillusionment is one to be taken home with, and thoughts are left to question acts of war and conquest. In today's day and age, with the recent speak of North Korea casing nuclear weapons, many are left to question whether it is freedom we long for, or warfare. 'Come and See," tells the story of a Russian boy, Floyra, who is prepared to confront the Nazis and become what he has dreamed of, a heroic patriot for his country. But soon does this innocent youth discover is that war is no petty game of guns and bullets, but a world of gruesome imagery, violence, death, loss of innocence, torment and ultimately hate for other another people. The world Floyra discovers is a world of loss, betrayal, hunger, thirst and the encounters with men and women who gain selfish freedom by the death and murders of other innocent families. A key moment in "Come and see" is the scene in the forest where he discovers Glasha, another girl who was left behind by the army. Upon meeting her in a morbid state, German airplanes attack their port and they run for cover and escape. Elem Klimov directs this scene with wonder in that you come to hear the perspective of Floyra, who has gone deaf as the bombs come under fire. There is nothing but a mere haunting mumble of noises with voices that sound stretched out and yawning. Elem Klimov shows his mastery to not only interweave good imagery, but great sound so that it's screeches stay with you, breath by breath. Quite possibly one of the most horrific adaptations of the Nazi War era crimes, Come and See does exactly what its title states, "Come and See" a life so diseased by the acts of war.
La otra conquista (1998)
A True International Picture
A film that deserves more than one helping to be truly appreciated comes from beyond our borders, in a motion picture that reigns above many films about the Spanish conquest of Mexico, comes The Other Conquest (La Otra Conquista). Mexico's very first blockbuster epic is brought to life by film director Salvador Carrasco and his team of storytellers who centralize on bringing to life the controversial history of Mexico's people. This isn't a knock-off variable picture and in no way does it come to resemble Mel Gibson's falsely depicted post- gore epic, Apocalypto, but in fact, this film with such symbolic meaning combining the story of historic figures like Hernan Cortes, drives out the motion picture story of what was suppressed in the history of Mexico from the wipe of the Aztecs to how Spanish blood became infused within the Mexican peoples. Though watching this film as an ex-Catholic, I find it a great picture that details the forced Catholicism conversion happenings that occurred during the Spanish conquest of Mexico, yet flowing with the message of the people without creating hate for a religion. Beautifully photographed by Arturo de la Rosa, The Other Conquest combines symbolism, surrealism, metaphors and Christian imagery which haunts the mind of the viewer as something more than just the story of a people who diminished, but the fight to stay true to ones own belief's. The film isn't so much the conquest of a people, but the conquest of one man, Topilitzin, who bound to his beliefs and in the end died for his own sake of conquering a belief known to himself that he would not fall into conversion. Although set in a different century, The other conquest seeds a modern day message that cultural tolerance is never to be abandoned.
Viskningar och rop (1972)
Bergman at his finest hour!
Few comes a film that takes the mind and drives it into a Closter-phobic thrust, fills your mouth with a chalky taste, and sends your heart beating into a caution of impending pain and anguish. It is in Ingmar Berman's 1973 picture, "Cries and Whispers," in which he brings the human condition and emotion alive through the feeling in his viewers. It is the story of two sisters and their maid, who are trapped in a mansion, watching over their dying cancer ridden sister that sends a chilling message about life and love. Filled with many close-ups, stagnant in pose, focused to attention and lead the viewer into their own sense of agony, Igmar Bergman's film follows tragic emotion with such perfect skill.
Agnes, dying of cancer, lays still in her bed while her two sisters, Karin and Maria, watch over her to be of aid until her final breath. While in the household, Agnes' faithful maid, Anna, provides the comfort and warmth needed as that of a mother, a fiend and even a sister. Bergman weaves together a film with little dialogue, and perfect visual imagery that is the true mover of such a film. Facial expressions can tell stories through many of Bergman's pictures. Like such is an example in the opening of the picture in which Bergman eyes his shot on Agnes' awakening in such a hideous pain and anguish. Her womb cancer has taken over her feelings to relish her sleep and now in her final numbered days, she lays torn in pain with a sweat that suffers and destroys her enjoyment of her final days. What Bergman and his award winning cinematographer Sven Nykvist have created through this scene is one of the most gut-wrenching depictions of physical distress in motion picture history. No viewer can sit through the entire opening five-minute sequence and not find themselves at paralysis with what is shown. Bergman focuses the entire film of silence and viewer-ship of his actresses and expresses much symbolism in a film that is soaking in it. Where some films fail to create a story while engaging the viewers in an overexposure of metaphorical language, Cries and Whispers wins in multi-dimensions. Thought to be a heavy drama, cries and whispers could stand the test of being categorized in horror. Although not your typical horror of blood and demons, this film resonates like the interior of the soul as something with heart-break, Closter phobia, fear, silence, longing, sexual-disgust, self-mutilation and deception. All in all, it's silence that plays the key role in such a picture. Silence is deadly and it explains how horrible these women have come to be, women of repressed voices, and the message conveyed is that death is the only release from the pain of life.
La battaglia di Algeri (1966)
A foreign masterpiece unlike any other!
Gillo Pontecorvos portrayal of the Algerian war against the French paratroopers carefully studies conflict of war and how violence, through escalation, only brings sorrow to those surrounding communities. Pontecorvo's and Franco Salinas' screenplay is very well articulated with memorable quotes and a dramatic structure which that continue to keep the picture tense yet emotionally intriguing. Both Pontecorvo and Salinas chose an interaction of characters from both sides of the war to feel passionate about their stance, thus leaving the picture to sympathize for both peoples, the FLN and the French civilians. Through the deaths of innocents, violence begins to escalate from the beginning, all the way to an explosive ending. Though no protagonist took the film by storm, Pontecorvo weaved a film where all the characters were equally felt for. His structure feels like a race of increasing violent acts, beginning with small gun battles and moving into the direction of time-bombs as acts of terrorism and revenge came soaring. Ennio Morricone's score couldn't help the picture anymore than make it an emotional driven roller-coaster, providing a tear or two in the process. When tension could be felt, Morricone exploded the scene with what sounds like a score of haunting rattling noises that get louder and louder. And finally, when tragedy strikes, like the scene when the Algerians begin looking for their loved ones in the bombs ruffle, Morricone goes into a haunting notion of a score driving one to feel sympathy for the Algerians. Overall, The Battle of Algiers is a foreign right masterpiece telling the horrors of terrorism, without creating a protagonist to sympathize for. It does for what real war does, incorporate a viewpoint from both sides and showcase the peoples pride each side has. It is a haunting story about sacrifices, pride and justice all told to portray freedom as something not so free.
The Strangers (2008)
THE REVIEW: The Strangers
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN....
THE STRANGERS Is a brilliant shock-fest of slasher horror filled with chills, frights and delights all played out in what I consider an instant horror classic. Bryan Bertino's film about a young couple stalked by three complete strangers brings back the conventional film tactics from classics like "Halloween" and "Friday the 13th," but with a modern 21st century twist of electronic horror. It's often reminiscent of last years semi-creepy film "Vacancy" with a bit of a "Funny Games" plot to it. It's a film built for it's day and age with an unexpected and somewhat dull ending. As with the trailer, The Strangers brings to life the chills with the dwelling of the unknown and what lies in the dark. It does for vacation homes with what 'Psycho' did for showers. Bertino built a smart yet very basic premise with witty action elements which will definitely drive a shriek of fright from right below your gut. Though flawed in many ways such as dialogue, predictability and character developments, you'll certainly find this picture worth a glance. "The Strangers" will indefinitely become one of those pictures that lends a helping hand to the reformation of the slasher genre and inspire numerous knock-offs to follow. Basically, look out for more slasher flicks to hit the screen in the next two years. The entire film plays like a psychosexual tension piece filled with somewhat frightening elements and like the original slasher flicks of the 1970's and 1980's, the lack of motive for murder. It is great to finally see a fright flick that strays away from the post 2000 craze of exploitation inspired porn-gore flicks like "Saw" and "Hostel'" and even the much horrifying in itself remake of "Halloween," and brings back the rules of what frightens the inner-psyche mind, THE UNKNOWN! Eric Javier Mejia The Review