Friday, April 10, 2009
Friday, April 3, 2009
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Paris Je T'aime (2006)
Paris Je T'aime (2006) is a collection of shorts from various directors, all centered around love and Paris: love in Paris, love of Paris.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Interview (2007)
Interview is an intimate film by Steve Buscemi, based on the Theo Van Gogh film of the same name. The lead characters are played by Buscemi and Sienna Miller, and the film's main action occurs between them. As a somewhat disgraced journalist, Buscemi's Pierre has been removed from the political beat and relegated to "people profiles". His assignment is the popular actress Katya, played by Miller, who is in equally unfamiliar territory with a man who knows - and seemingly cares - little about her.
I'm not sure how closely this film follows the original - though now I'd really like to see it - but I have a feeling it's far superior to this version. The structure is really clever; and the "action" is really focused mostly on the dialogue between the two, the power-play, the seduction, the emotional manipulation and catharsis. Beginning in a restaurant, a public space, the interview between two rather unwilling participants quickly sours when Pierre confesses his assignment to Katya is, in fact, a demotion for him. Katya, a public person, and already defensive, given Pierre's failure to fawn on her as the rest of her world does, dismisses him and leaves. An accident (which imdb tells me was an accident itself in the original) leads them to Katya's apartment - a private space - and sets the stage for the drawn-out psychodrama about to take place. Fittingly, before the little twist at the end, Katya remains in her private space (in the original Van Gogh used the actress' own apartment in Amsterdam), while Pierre has returned to the public, standing on the street, returning to work.
So, two people, pretty plausibly thrown together in a rather unique set of circumstances, who proceed to drink, smoke, make out, do drugs and verbally tear into one another, full of biting, suggestive, and deeply intimate dialogue, with a clever twist thrown in at the end. Great, no? No. Maybe in the original the relationship between Katya and Pierre (also the actors' real names) is more believable and compelling, but here it falls flat. Katya isn't very interesting, and it's hard to buy her as a huge, loved actress, although (meta-alert) that is allegedly what Sienna Miller is. Pierre's anguish seems somewhat passe, not particularly passionate, and I don't understand his attraction to Katya. A good effort, a well-crafted film, good cinematography by Thomas Kist (who was also DP on the original), not the best performances. Bonus points for using Noonday Underground.
I'm not sure how closely this film follows the original - though now I'd really like to see it - but I have a feeling it's far superior to this version. The structure is really clever; and the "action" is really focused mostly on the dialogue between the two, the power-play, the seduction, the emotional manipulation and catharsis. Beginning in a restaurant, a public space, the interview between two rather unwilling participants quickly sours when Pierre confesses his assignment to Katya is, in fact, a demotion for him. Katya, a public person, and already defensive, given Pierre's failure to fawn on her as the rest of her world does, dismisses him and leaves. An accident (which imdb tells me was an accident itself in the original) leads them to Katya's apartment - a private space - and sets the stage for the drawn-out psychodrama about to take place. Fittingly, before the little twist at the end, Katya remains in her private space (in the original Van Gogh used the actress' own apartment in Amsterdam), while Pierre has returned to the public, standing on the street, returning to work.
So, two people, pretty plausibly thrown together in a rather unique set of circumstances, who proceed to drink, smoke, make out, do drugs and verbally tear into one another, full of biting, suggestive, and deeply intimate dialogue, with a clever twist thrown in at the end. Great, no? No. Maybe in the original the relationship between Katya and Pierre (also the actors' real names) is more believable and compelling, but here it falls flat. Katya isn't very interesting, and it's hard to buy her as a huge, loved actress, although (meta-alert) that is allegedly what Sienna Miller is. Pierre's anguish seems somewhat passe, not particularly passionate, and I don't understand his attraction to Katya. A good effort, a well-crafted film, good cinematography by Thomas Kist (who was also DP on the original), not the best performances. Bonus points for using Noonday Underground.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Sunday, February 8, 2009
The Reader (2008)
The Reader (2008) is an adaptation of the book by the same name by Bernhard Schlink. Kate Winslet plays Hannah Schmitz, a former SS prison guard who is imprisoned 20 years later for her role in the mass murder of several women. In between those two events, she meets Michael Berg, a young student who happens to fall ill on her doorstep, and, through a series of events, the two begin an affair. Their love-making sessions are soon accompanied by Michael reading aloud. It becomes their foreplay, their afterglow, and it's clear that Hannah - who, in her day to day life is hardened, removed, practical - craves stories. There's a beautiful montage of the two of them lying together, reading, Hannah sobbing, swooning, yearning. It is the time she comes alive.
Stephen Daldry directed with Roger Deakins as DP. Deakins is amazing in my mind, and it's not surprising that the film is lovely visually. The true crux of the film, though, is Kate Winslet. She is really, really amazing. Such subtle lovely truthful gestures. She carries the film, and lifts it some place I'm not sure it would have gone otherwise. It's not as though we learn much new about the horrors of the holocaust. The drama is not there, nor does it really lie in the law seminar (which Michael happens to attend) watching and analysing, though I love that Bruno Ganz is the their professor.
The drama, the story, I think is really about stories. It's about the stories Hannah and Micheal read; the stories passed on children about their parents, about their legacy; the stories we tell culturally to make sense of horrific events. And it's about the yearning for stories, for the narrative or stream of consciousness that makes life feel meaningful, real, necessary. A sad and lovely film.
Stephen Daldry directed with Roger Deakins as DP. Deakins is amazing in my mind, and it's not surprising that the film is lovely visually. The true crux of the film, though, is Kate Winslet. She is really, really amazing. Such subtle lovely truthful gestures. She carries the film, and lifts it some place I'm not sure it would have gone otherwise. It's not as though we learn much new about the horrors of the holocaust. The drama is not there, nor does it really lie in the law seminar (which Michael happens to attend) watching and analysing, though I love that Bruno Ganz is the their professor.
The drama, the story, I think is really about stories. It's about the stories Hannah and Micheal read; the stories passed on children about their parents, about their legacy; the stories we tell culturally to make sense of horrific events. And it's about the yearning for stories, for the narrative or stream of consciousness that makes life feel meaningful, real, necessary. A sad and lovely film.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Friday, January 16, 2009
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Reconstruction (2004)
"It is a film. Everything is constructed. Still it hurts."
So begins Reconstruction (2004), a little gem of a puzzle of a movie. Alex meets Aimee one night in a bar, and cheats on his girlfriend Simone with her. Aimee's husband August is a novelist frantically trying to finish his book. Whether and which characters may or may not be characters in the book, and how their lives intersect is the subject of the film. But the subject of the film is also the film itself, or rather, the craft of storytelling, compiling and rearranging timelines and consequences. It's a compelling movie, short and sweet, haunting and provoking.
Nikolaj Lie Kaas is sexy and enigmatic as Alex, caught between two worlds. Maria Bonnevie playing both the girlfriend and the wife, the faithful and the adulterer, is lovely, made more so by Manuel Alberto Claro's atmospheric and sultry cinematography, and lots of smoke.
I've added director Christoffer Boe's Allego to my netflix queue.
So begins Reconstruction (2004), a little gem of a puzzle of a movie. Alex meets Aimee one night in a bar, and cheats on his girlfriend Simone with her. Aimee's husband August is a novelist frantically trying to finish his book. Whether and which characters may or may not be characters in the book, and how their lives intersect is the subject of the film. But the subject of the film is also the film itself, or rather, the craft of storytelling, compiling and rearranging timelines and consequences. It's a compelling movie, short and sweet, haunting and provoking.
Nikolaj Lie Kaas is sexy and enigmatic as Alex, caught between two worlds. Maria Bonnevie playing both the girlfriend and the wife, the faithful and the adulterer, is lovely, made more so by Manuel Alberto Claro's atmospheric and sultry cinematography, and lots of smoke.
I've added director Christoffer Boe's Allego to my netflix queue.
The Duchess (2008)
The Duchess (2008) is Saul Dibb's film adaptation of Amanda Foreman's biography of Georgina Spencer, Duchess of Devonshire. I have not read the novel (although it's now on my reading list), but I have the feeling the film glossed over many of the details, and perhaps (similar to the book from what I've heard) avoids a critical view of its subject in lieu of falling in love, as do so many of the story's characters. The film's sympathies lie squarely with Georgina, whose scandalous love life and political inclinations made her beloved and reviled.
Keira Knightly plays the titular role, and, I must admit, though I've never really been super-impressed with her before, I thought she carried the film well. Her features are very delicate, and she lets a multitude of emotions cascade across them. She's wonderfully expressive and holds the film's center well even dressed in wonderfully elaborate wigs and dresses. The film itself is beautifully opulent, choosing well-drawn, well-staged visual sequences over too much exposition. I love the carriage sequences, in which groups of characters (Georgina and her friend, Bess; Georgina's daughters; the Duke of Devonshire; the dogs) are framed, boxed as they were into their rightful place and appearance.
Charlotte Rampling, as Georgina's mother, is elegant and perfect as always, and Ralph Fiennes, as the Duke, add enough depth to a fairly craven and banal character to keep things surprising and interesting. Dominic Cooper, as Georgina's forbidden lover, and fellow political dreamer, is pretty dreamy himself. Saul Dibb, who also co-wrote, directs the story well, framing a static world of artifice in a beautifully kinetic way, not overly forced or inanimate. The cinematography by Gyula Pados is also well-light, capturing the beautifully excessive world of the London elite.
Keira Knightly plays the titular role, and, I must admit, though I've never really been super-impressed with her before, I thought she carried the film well. Her features are very delicate, and she lets a multitude of emotions cascade across them. She's wonderfully expressive and holds the film's center well even dressed in wonderfully elaborate wigs and dresses. The film itself is beautifully opulent, choosing well-drawn, well-staged visual sequences over too much exposition. I love the carriage sequences, in which groups of characters (Georgina and her friend, Bess; Georgina's daughters; the Duke of Devonshire; the dogs) are framed, boxed as they were into their rightful place and appearance.
Charlotte Rampling, as Georgina's mother, is elegant and perfect as always, and Ralph Fiennes, as the Duke, add enough depth to a fairly craven and banal character to keep things surprising and interesting. Dominic Cooper, as Georgina's forbidden lover, and fellow political dreamer, is pretty dreamy himself. Saul Dibb, who also co-wrote, directs the story well, framing a static world of artifice in a beautifully kinetic way, not overly forced or inanimate. The cinematography by Gyula Pados is also well-light, capturing the beautifully excessive world of the London elite.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Brick (2005)
Brick (2005) is a modern film noir (a neo-noir?) and the feature-length directorial debut of Rian Johnson. The plot is very noir (girl goes missing, scorned ex-lover goes searching, secrets are uncovered, betrayals are revealed, venegance is wrought). Johnson's twist is to set the classic story in the world of a privledged California high school. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays the scruffy, mumbling Phillipe Marlowe who goes looking for his missing (and, naturally, troubled and doomed) ex-girlfriend, played by Emilie de Ravin (hey, it's Claire). What he uncovers is a web of crime, corruption, and seduction, mapped cleverly to elements of the high school world: the principal's office, the drama club, the mean girl, the jock, the fight in the parking lot.
I'll admit, in the beginning, I was a little distracted by the whole conceit. These are kids playing in a very adult genre. Nora Zehetner, in particular, although gorgeous, seemed a little too young to pull off the femme fatal. But maybe that was the point. These worlds, seemingly disparate, do in fact share many similarities in their doomed and disillusioned characters, the anti-hero, the missing girl, the femme fatal, the crazed lover. The isolation and turmoil in both settings is also remarkably similar; and, as the movie twists and turns, you begin to suspend disbelief and appreciate the wry, dark humor Johnson has created in the midst of a rather realistic mystery/thriller.
Gordon Levitt pulls off the smooth-talking gumshoe role, all while staring mostly at his feet. Lukas Haas was a real treat as The Pin - the local drug lord who is "really old, like 26" and who runs his crime ring out of his parents wood-panelled basement. The Pin's mom serving juice and cookies while the two characters square off only serves to underscore the tough guy/innocuous setting dichotomy, but without any sense of irony or satire. The cast (and/or the director) crafts a perfectly straight performance that feels even darker and funnier for its sincerity. After Desmond beats up the Pin's thug, he warns him: "Tell Emily I want to see her; she knows where I eat lunch."
Next up for Johnson is The Brothers Bloom, staring Adrien Brody and Mark Ruffalo. Steve Yedlin has served as DP on both of Johnson's films. The hazy, grey, muted world of the high school and town is a perfect for the shadowy world of the noir. The soundtrack is nicely atmospheric, spooky, sparse. I was particularly fond of a chase scene with the every increasing sound of shoes pounding on the sidewalk. The film hits sharply on the central notion of noir, true I suppose in high school as well: isolation, aloneness, absurdity.
I'll admit, in the beginning, I was a little distracted by the whole conceit. These are kids playing in a very adult genre. Nora Zehetner, in particular, although gorgeous, seemed a little too young to pull off the femme fatal. But maybe that was the point. These worlds, seemingly disparate, do in fact share many similarities in their doomed and disillusioned characters, the anti-hero, the missing girl, the femme fatal, the crazed lover. The isolation and turmoil in both settings is also remarkably similar; and, as the movie twists and turns, you begin to suspend disbelief and appreciate the wry, dark humor Johnson has created in the midst of a rather realistic mystery/thriller.
Gordon Levitt pulls off the smooth-talking gumshoe role, all while staring mostly at his feet. Lukas Haas was a real treat as The Pin - the local drug lord who is "really old, like 26" and who runs his crime ring out of his parents wood-panelled basement. The Pin's mom serving juice and cookies while the two characters square off only serves to underscore the tough guy/innocuous setting dichotomy, but without any sense of irony or satire. The cast (and/or the director) crafts a perfectly straight performance that feels even darker and funnier for its sincerity. After Desmond beats up the Pin's thug, he warns him: "Tell Emily I want to see her; she knows where I eat lunch."
Next up for Johnson is The Brothers Bloom, staring Adrien Brody and Mark Ruffalo. Steve Yedlin has served as DP on both of Johnson's films. The hazy, grey, muted world of the high school and town is a perfect for the shadowy world of the noir. The soundtrack is nicely atmospheric, spooky, sparse. I was particularly fond of a chase scene with the every increasing sound of shoes pounding on the sidewalk. The film hits sharply on the central notion of noir, true I suppose in high school as well: isolation, aloneness, absurdity.
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