| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| demonic |
Posted - 10/07/2008 : 04:28:31
The last three films I've caught on the big screen have all been foreign language flicks, all have been unmentioned and unheralded so far on the fourums, so I thought I'd do a quick summary to let you know they are all highly recommended.
"Die Welle" (The Wave) is a German film based on events that took place in an American high school during the 1960s, where a teacher experimented with the ideologies of autocracy on the classroom to best explain to his students why Hitler was able to gain and maintain power in Germany. Over the course of a week events spiral out of control as the young minds exceed his expectations and the point he is attempting to prove goes further than he is able to handle. As a film it dwells a little too long on the trivial concerns of the teenage leads but it still packs an emotional punch come the end thanks to strong performances from J�rgen Vogel as the cocksure teacher and Frederick Lau as the desperately needy Tim, his most fervent acolyte. Although it may veer into fiction at its most
dramatic moments it does raise some disturbing questions about our susceptibility to the power of dictactorial control and makes you wonder if the same mistakes could be made again.
It's a brave subject for a German filmmaker to broach. Nazism is a subject still deeply ingrained in the minds of Germans, even among those who were born decades after WWII ended. Having spent several months this year on the road in Germany and talked to young Germans about their perceptions of their country in the wider world it was fascinating to see a film like this confronting the subject head on.
From Germany to Italy for "Gomorra", a film that borrows thematic and visual style from "City of God" and comes off no worse from the comparison. Concerning the Camorra organised crime syndicate of Southern Italy there are several story strands that loosely intersect but the film is predominantly set in a real life housing estate in Naples, stunningly shot and resembling a vile sprawling car park from a biblical hell, that breeds crime and gang culture and the simmering tensions of an oncoming gang war. It's violent and brutal, starting as it means to go on with a bloody series of executions in a tanning salon shot entirely in the otherworldly blue of the uv lights. There are many great scenes like it that had me on the edge of my seat as well as great performances throughout from a cast largely populated with unpleasant but always real characters, from the mafia money deliveryman desperate to get out of his increasingly dangerous position, to the teenage boys who think quoting Tony Montana and toting automatic guns make them a
match for the big men who run the gangs. For a dose of vital, visceral cinema it's essential viewing.
And from Italy to France for the simpler but no less impactful pleasures of "Il y a Longtemps Que Je T'aime" (I've Loved You So Long) the debut film by Phillipe Claudel. It concerns Juliette, a woman taken into the home of her younger sister and her family following many years serving a lengthy sentence in prison. To say more about the crime and the effect it has upon those around her would be to say too much, but Juliette is expertly played with deeply felt weariness and barely supressed emotional turmoil by Kristen Scott Thomas demonstrating again her aptitude for performing entirely in the French language (as in last year's thriller "Tell No One"). She is supported by an excellent cast, including a beautiful and expressive Elsa Zylberstein as her sister Lea and Lise S�gur, Lea's 9 year old adopted daughter who is delightful and natural as child actors very rarely are. From what starts as a fairly intriguing but slight family drama develops into a much more emotionally involving piece than I first expected, mainly thanks to the strong central performances and several scenes that have the force of real emotional weight; one where Juliette meets her mother again, now in a home and afflicted with Alzheimer's, and the
inevitable release of Juliette's stored up pain at the conclusion of the film had me brushing away tears.
If you get the chance - check them out.  |
| 15 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Airbolt |
Posted - 12/06/2008 : 00:29:11
I would recommend "The Chaser" ( reviewed on another thread ) - a Korean Crime thriller. Not as intense as "Old Boy" but packs a different sort of hit, |
| BaftaBaby |
Posted - 12/04/2008 : 04:52:08
quote:
Originally posted by dem9nic
"Gomorra", a film that borrows thematic and visual style from "City of God" and comes off no worse from the comparison. Concerning the Camorra organised crime syndicate of Southern Italy there are several story strands that loosely intersect but the film is predominantly set in a real life housing estate in Naples, stunningly shot and resembling a vile sprawling car park from a biblical hell, that breeds crime and gang culture and the simmering tensions of an oncoming gang war. It's violent and brutal, starting as it means to go on with a bloody series of executions in a tanning salon shot entirely in the otherworldly blue of the uv lights. There are many great scenes like it that had me on the edge of my seat as well as great performances throughout from a cast largely populated with unpleasant but always real characters, from the mafia money deliveryman desperate to get out of his increasingly dangerous position, to the teenage boys who think quoting Tony Montana and toting automatic guns make them a
match for the big men who run the gangs. For a dose of vital, visceral cinema it's essential viewing.
I dunno - less is more, is what I kept thinking as the film unrolled relentlessly toward the final true-crime stats - which are certainly shocking in and of themselves.
It's not the non-linear narrative that bothered me, nor the violence which is what it's all about. It's not even that no one is distinctive enough to sustain his own narrative - and I say his because the handful of women are pretty negligible in story terms.
I can see that any of the characters is almost interchangeable with any others. Which, I suppose, is partly the point. We see kids, young adults, ambitious 40-somethings, and older men either in control or getting there. We see people involved directly or indirectly in various aspects of daily life, but only as they interlace with the Camorra.
We get the point certainly before the first hour. But the film continues for more than another hour until the pervasiveness of the violence and its inevitability almost numbs you to it. And maybe that IS the real point.
But I believe that misses something essential in drama - or why not make a documentary. There is precious little characterization and even less context. The people exist primarily in a series of tiny moments. We never get to know them, only glimpse them. We have to fill in the gaps, but often we can't because there's not enough to go on.
Director Matteo Garrone does use documentary style shooting throughout, and mostly it is visually assured and effective. Some shots could easily be extrapolated to still photographs or posters.
His multi-authored screenplay follows the book by lauded Naples journalist Roberto Saviano. I haven't read it, but from the film I'm willing to guess that Saviano hasn't yet mastered the difference between reportage and drama.
Don't get me wrong - I think the concept of the film - that aspect of making the audience work hard to colour in the general shape of things - I think that's intriguing. And, as effective as some of the scenes are, I just don't think it needed to take over two hours.
I recall at the height of IRA and UVF violence in Ireland the Beeb ran a drama which consisted solely of assassinations. As with Gommora they were relentless. It caused great controversy at the time, but, as with Gommora, it made the point. I think it lasted about 50 minutes.
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| BaftaBaby |
Posted - 12/01/2008 : 12:47:49
quote:
Originally posted by dem9nic
And from Italy to France for the simpler but no less impactful pleasures of "Il y a Longtemps Que Je T'aime" (I've Loved You So Long) the debut film by Phillipe Claudel. It concerns Juliette, a woman taken into the home of her younger sister and her family following many years serving a lengthy sentence in prison. To say more about the crime and the effect it has upon those around her would be to say too much, but Juliette is expertly played with deeply felt weariness and barely supressed emotional turmoil by Kristen Scott Thomas demonstrating again her aptitude for performing entirely in the French language (as in last year's thriller "Tell No One"). She is supported by an excellent cast, including a beautiful and expressive Elsa Zylberstein as her sister Lea and Lise S�gur, Lea's 9 year old adopted daughter who is delightful and natural as child actors very rarely are. From what starts as a fairly intriguing but slight family drama develops into a much more emotionally involving piece than I first expected, mainly thanks to the strong central performances and several scenes that have the force of real emotional weight; one where Juliette meets her mother again, now in a home and afflicted with Alzheimer's, and the
inevitable release of Juliette's stored up pain at the conclusion of the film had me brushing away tears.
If you get the chance - check them out.
Finally caught up with this one [and will watch the Gomorra DVD later today or tomorrow], and it is as Demonic reports. I've always been a big fan of Kristin Scott Thomas, and her greatest strength here is the control she shows over releasing tiny bubbles of humanity through the barriers of silence she's constructed to keep hidden her all-consuming pain.
Claudel's direction, very mature for such an inexperienced filmmaker, puts the actors first and lets them get on with it. This almost laissez-faire story-telling style is just right.
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| Demisemicenturian |
Posted - 10/21/2008 : 02:25:43
Just a dead quick mention of Elite Squad too, because by strange coincidence it is also about the effect of the upcoming visit (set in the past) of the Pope to a deprived locality in South America.
I was a little sceptical at first, since films about Brazilian poverty and crime are well-trodden ground now, but it does show a different side (the police) and in the end was a high 3/5 or low 4/5. |
| Demisemicenturian |
Posted - 10/19/2008 : 17:16:14
Nice review for The Wave, demonic. |
| demonic |
Posted - 10/18/2008 : 00:30:41
In that case it's a good thing Brando never played Hamlet either... |
| Whippersnapper. |
Posted - 10/17/2008 : 16:56:35
quote:
Originally posted by BaftaBabe
quote:
Originally posted by Whippersnapper
Brando would have demanded real electric shocks, for authenticity.
Good thing he never played Othello -- we lose an awful lot of Desdemonas that way 
Yeah, but they do die happy.
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| Demisemicenturian |
Posted - 10/17/2008 : 16:38:49
N.B. A new film of the prison experiment is coming out next year.
The electrocution one is perhaps the most interesting as it does not come under the pack mentality of the others and thus is in some ways the hardest to empathise with. I've often thought about it and wondered how I would act. I really think that I would refuse to continue (as in any group of people I have always been one of the most anti-authoritarian and rebellious) but I admit that I may be mistaken in this. By the way, it was recordings of actors so that they would be consistent across each case. It would have been interesting had they shown them tapes of the actors in the guise of live feed, but perhaps that would have been technologically too difficult at the time. |
| BaftaBaby |
Posted - 10/17/2008 : 16:26:56
quote:
Originally posted by demonic
Offer an actor twenty quid and a free sandwich and he'll happily get electrocuted for you...
By the way Baffy - it's the Milgram experiment you're talking about. And yes, shocking in every sense of the word.
And then there's the astonishing Stanford prison experiment - the one where the volunteers were separated into prisoners and guards. Well worth seeing the excellent Das Experiment (another German film to keep somwewhat on topic) if you haven't already.
Milgrim! That's it! Thanks, Dem.
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| BaftaBaby |
Posted - 10/17/2008 : 16:25:49
quote:
Originally posted by Whippersnapper
Brando would have demanded real electric shocks, for authenticity.
Good thing he never played Othello -- we lose an awful lot of Desdemonas that way
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| Whippersnapper. |
Posted - 10/17/2008 : 16:19:35
Brando would have demanded real electric shocks, for authenticity.
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| demonic |
Posted - 10/17/2008 : 14:08:41
Offer an actor twenty quid and a free sandwich and he'll happily get electrocuted for you...
By the way Baffy - it's the Milgram experiment you're talking about. And yes, shocking in every sense of the word.
And then there's the astonishing Stanford prison experiment - the one where the volunteers were separated into prisoners and guards. Well worth seeing the excellent Das Experiment (another German film to keep somwewhat on topic) if you haven't already. |
| Whippersnapper. |
Posted - 10/17/2008 : 11:05:55
quote:
Originally posted by BaftaBabe
It's surprising how few refused to continue with the experiment. They were all told is was an experiment in pain threshold I think, although it was quite a different exercise. Needless to say, there were no real shocks administered and the victims were actors.
Shocking!
It's good to know that the experimenters were real humanitarians, and not willing to use real electric shocks, not even on actors.
(  )
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| BaftaBaby |
Posted - 10/17/2008 : 09:37:43
quote:
Originally posted by demonic
Thanks for your thoughts Sal.
quote:
Originally posted by Salopian
I really enjoyed The Wave when I saw it, but afterwards became a little less sure. I didn't realize it was based in truth. I'd be interested to find out the real timescale as that in the film is implausibly short.
I did some reading afterward and found it really was only a week long exercise which did get extremely out of hand, but perhaps unsurprisingly no one got shot or killed themselves as far as my reading revealed. What is concerning though is reports that the cult that he started carried on for a considerable time outside of the "safe" parameters of the classroom and spread into the community. Who knows how long those kids kept it up...
Actually I was still in NYC at the time and everyone was talking about it. Many teachers used the "experiment" as a teaching aid in History classes. I recall the most potent effect was on those students who were rabidly racist and used to deride the Civil Rights movement, the marches, etc It seemed to shut them up for a bit.
I can't remember whether this followed or preceeded that other "shocking" experiment in which some university students were encouraged to administer electric shocks to an unseen victim. They could hear the "victim's" cries, but a majority kept upping the voltage. It's surprising how few refused to continue with the experiment. They were all told is was an experiment in pain threshold I think, although it was quite a different exercise. Needless to say, there were no real shocks administered and the victims were actors.
As wonderful as we all think we are - we never know how we'll react to stress until we're there.
PS - the films sound intriguing, all four - I hope BAFTA sends me DVDs because I know my local ain't gonna play any of them. 
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| demonic |
Posted - 10/17/2008 : 03:27:04
Thanks for your thoughts Sal.
quote:
Originally posted by Salopian
I really enjoyed The Wave when I saw it, but afterwards became a little less sure. I didn't realize it was based in truth. I'd be interested to find out the real timescale as that in the film is implausibly short.
I did some reading afterward and found it really was only a week long exercise which did get extremely out of hand, but perhaps unsurprisingly no one got shot or killed themselves as far as my reading revealed. What is concerning though is reports that the cult that he started carried on for a considerable time outside of the "safe" parameters of the classroom and spread into the community. Who knows how long those kids kept it up...
quote:
I found Gomorra a little hard to follow at times, as my facial recognition is not good and thus I could not distinguish between some of the characters.
I know what you mean, especially as the story strands leap without warning from one character to another, but once I got used to the idea I didn't find it hard to keep track of where we were.
quote:
I saw El Ba�o Del Papa, based on the Pope's visit to depressed provincial Uruguay in the 1980s, today and definitely recommend that too. A very low-key story done very engagingly. A low 5/5.
Great, I'll keep an eye out for that one. This weekend looks like a double bill of the Coens and the new Mexican movie "La Zona"... looks interesting.
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