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Saludos Amigos (1942)
A trip to South America
«Saludos Amigos» (1942) and «The Three Caballeros» (1944) are really ill-advised and unwise Walt Disney productions, which were made during World War II supposedly to improve relations between the United States and Latin American countries, in this case only South American nations, below the Equator line: Bolivia, Argentina and Brazil. Donald Duck does not cross the Panama Canal, nor does he extract oil in Maracaibo, but he does pull the Equator line. Of course, there are some attractive things, such as the proto-psychedelic animation of Mary Blair, but almost by rule the film is offensive (to those who are mocked at) through stereotypes, and cultural derision. In «Saludos Amigos» Donald Duck advances through South America: he goes to Lake Titicaca and abuses a tired llama; then Goofy makes mockery of gauchos in Argentinian pampas, and so on. Disney's «Song of the South» has been kept out of circulation because of "offensive treatment of African-American." Following that reasoning and applying it to Latinos, these two films have a similar effect. These schematic and apparently innoncent products do not improve relations between North and South. Audiences should also be taught that "broad and alien the world is," with different people and cultures.
Saints-Martyrs-des-Damnés (2005)
Complicated Business
The plot ot this movie (written by director Robin Aubert) is so convoluted and becomes such an excessively elaborate puzzle to put together, that in the end, as I did not manage to connect emotionally, I did not care to understand everything that was revealed, nor did the uncovered secrets thrill me.
"Saints-Martyrs-des-Damnés" is nothing but a "melodramón", with elements of science fiction and ectoplasmic horror here and there to scare and amuse. The music is unbearably ubiquitous, but yes, Aubert has a great talent for filming outdoors, as he later confirmed in the highly superior "Les affamés".
Sábado, una película en tiempo real (2003)
When Bize Was Wild
Chilean friends and viewers seem to dislike this motion picture. I am not Chilean, so I do not feel inclined to give a low rating or talk bad about this movie. I did like it. But apart from this, it is a good first film by Matías Bize.
Made in a single take, it announces themes and approaches that Bize would also address in his following motion pictures, also dealing with the relations between men and women. Here, a bride discovers on her wedding day that her boyfriend has another woman, so she angrily goes around town to settle the score with those involved and a few others... still wearing her wedding dress.
Blanca Lewin is the center of the story, the leading force, the motor that unifies all the action. She is a good actress, she is very good, as usual, and it is a pleasure to follow her all along this crazy trip around Santiago.
Roter Himmel (2023)
Red Sky
I am not entirely satisfied with "Red Sky" for all that happens after the climax, that is, the moment during the cast's last supper, when Leon learns something he had not imagined about Nadja, something that concerns him and his profession...
However, all the tragedy that follows is also the decrescendo and dénouement of the tale Leon recounts in his next novel. Contrary to some viewers I did enjoy the first 82 minutes very much. The way the various levels of the story are built, due to the dynamics between the five protagonists, as they appear and form several layers of interpretation due to their interaction, is one of the great successes of director Petzold's screenplay. For this reason, the sudden irruption of berserk nature as a kind of sixth character in the last minutes seemed shocking to me. I felt it broke the cohesion, even though imminent danger was always present.
All the time I was wondering if actor Thomas Schubert had to gain weight for the role, because I had only seen him in Atmen, when he was 18 years old, and he was a slim, handsome young man. He gives a fine, moving performance, as well as the rest of the cast.
Romeo and Juliet (1968)
What Is a Youth?
I was 17 years old when I watched "Romeo and Juliet". The appreciation of this motion picture was strongly associated with its time: it announced what would happen a few months later in 1968 and all the social unrest in Amsterdam, México, Paris, San Francisco, Tokyo... you name it. Even in my countrya, Panamá.... And then there were the hippie revolution, the "Make love, not war" slogan, free love... For anyone growing up at that time the story was a liberating (though tragic) experience. I have not watched it in decades, so I do not know if the film has passed the "test of time". I prefer to think of it as I experienced it in 1968. And it was really striking then, thanks to Pasqualino de Santis' beautiful cinematography, Nino Rota's memorable score, the costumes by Danilo Donati, Lorenzo Mongiardino's production design, and the faces of Leonard Whiting, Olivia Hussey, and Michael York. A good memory.
El romance del palmar (1938)
A Problem Needing Solution
There is a confusion, originated here, in this page. I do not know who created it. But it is a confusion I once tried to rectify but no one cared and nothing happened.
The confusion is related to two movies in which Rita Montaner was a leading actress, both made in 1938. These films are this one called "El romance del palmar" and other movie is "Sucedió en La Habana".
People give "El romance del palmar" the English title "It Happened in Havana". But this English title refers to the other movie, and it stars Luana Alcaniz, Juan Torena, and Montaner. Alcaniz and Torena do not appear in "El romance del palmar". This mistake is repeated in many sites in the internet. It all began here.
If you care, find "Bitácora del cine cubano" somewhere in the internet, and you will see the proof. I am telling you...
The Road (2009)
The Longest and Dirtiest Road
Curious that all those who claim that "nothing happens" in many (slow) films, praise this movie in which not much happens and what happens takes a lot of screen time. The objective of the two leading characters is reaching the coast, and the main conflict is crossing a barren apocalyptic landscape full of cannibals plus many little sub-conflicts that you have seen so many times. They are so low key that much effort was needed to keep my attention. Water is abundant, but we have to follow its dirty characters for 111 endless minutes. Not a bad movie, but its story could have been told in 30 minutes.
River Silence (2019)
Nature, Man, and Destruction
A documentary that impacts by showing a violated landscape in Brazil: one, the banks of the Xingú River, due to the construction of the Belo Holizonte dam, and second, the town of Altamira, where approximately 40,000 persons were relocated after being displaced by the huge work, one of the largest plants on the planet. Both dramas were researched and edited into a single dramatic coverage, an impressive work. In the end, we realize that we have witnessed the portraits of four women who are heads of families, and vivid examples of resilience in the face of adversity, with beautiful images that even open space for poetry... and a bit of Jorodowskian horror too.
Rincón de San Lázaro (1991)
More memories of underdevelopment
In Cuba on December 17th, year after year, thousands of Cuban devotees go on a pilgrimage to St. Lázaro's church in the town of Rincón, where there still live the few last victims of leprosy. It is a wild, dramatic view of the sick, the needy or the simple devotee, some marching on their knees, some dragging their bodies to reach the saint's altar, while men and women make business out of it, selling purple candles, flowers, relics, holy cards, food, and beverages, as the police tries to control the whole scene. Made by Leopoldo López Salgado, a Nicaraguan graduate of the film school created by Gabriel García Márquez, in the town of San Antonio de Los Baños in 1986, "Rincón de San Lázaro" is different from the official documentary of this practice, which was registered by the Cuban Film Institute in "Acerca de un personaje que unos llaman San Lázaro y otros llaman Babalú...", in its usual way, with a narrator reading images for the viewer: in this student film there are no commentary or interpretations of the people's devotion or their seemingly masochistic behaviors. The images and direct sound need no explanation. This and the perceptive eye of López Salgado, the images by Patricio Riquelme and Vicente Ferraz, the sound by Cristóbal Condoreno, and Alberto Ponce's film editing, are the evidence that makes this short an extraordinary student work. Bravo!
Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967)
Reflections of a Golden Era
Passion contained and tragedy reign in this masterwork by John Huston, within a Southern military post, involving a homosexual officer, his salacious wife, and the military and civil people surrounding them, based on a novel by Carson McCullers. The film was one of the most ambitious artistic projects of the time for several of the persons involved.
The two stars were already mature adults: Marlon Brando was 42 years old and ready to show a more sordid side to the one he had established as a trademark, as a bad boy or tough macho, and Elizabeth Taylor was 35 and willing to venture into dramas that challenged her acting abilities. But above all, Huston was the one who took the greatest risks.
First, "Reflections..." was the first of several films made at the time, connecting homosexuality with the Army, including the drama "The Sergeant" (1968) and the comedy "The Gay Deceivers" (1969). Second, Huston introduced artistic elements that did not fit well with the executives of the big studios of yesteryears, manufacturers of mainstream cinema: on the one hand, the music of the Japanese Toshiro Mayuzumi (who had scored "The Bible in the Beginning...") and on the other, the cinematography of Italian Aldo Tonti, the product of months of experimentation in the Roman Technicolor laboratories to achieve desaturated colors, where the amber tone predominated, to suggest the color gold. The production company and distributor Warner Brothers opposed this version and the film was shown everywhere in standard Technicolor, with the exception of 30 prints in the original color. Fortunately, I have seen both versions and I can claim that the original is magnificent and superior.
To the technical and acting achievements, I must add the work of experts such as Julie Harris and Brian Keith, the forceful debut of Robert Forster as the object of Brando's repressed desire, and Zorro David, a Filipino hairdresser who only made this film, as Harris' servant, who has all the philosophical lines that inspire the metaphor of the golden eye.
John Huston is one of my favorite filmmakers of Hollywood's golden age, I know that he is not canonized like Hawks, Capra, Wyler, Ford or the British Hitchcock, but even so, I always make room for him at the top. This movie is one of my reasons. And it is not surprising that Huston himself considered it one of his best films.
Rapsodia satanica (1917)
La divina Borelli
This is an extraordinary variation of the Faust myth, with great lighting and beautiful compositions by cinematographer Giorgi Ricci, in which the influences of Italian aestheticism and German expressionism are harmoniously integrated, to offer a lavish melodrama, a beautiful example of the Italian cinema of great divas.
«Rapsodia satanica» is a hand-painted, tinted black and white silent film, restored in 2007 and performed by diva Lyda Borelli, known as "La divina Borelli." It tells the story of an old countess who makes a pact with Mephistopheles, recovers her youth, and mocks the love of two brothers who court her.
The story receives a fantasy approach and is kept under control by director Nino Oxilia, who finished the film, went to fight in World War I and died on the battlefield. It was also the only film for which maestro Pietro Mascagni composed an excellent musical score.
Of its 55 minutes only 45 have remained, but the film has coherence and is a fascinating opportunity to see the greatest of Italian divas in the leading role, who became a real contessa in 1918, when she retired to marry a member of Italian royalty and ended her film career. Highly recommended.
Radio Belén (1983)
In the Amazonian jungle
In the classes of film appreciation that I used to teach some years ago, I often used this short filmed among the poor people of Iquitos, a Peruvian town in the Amazonian jungle. The action is concentrated in the port of Belén, where the native population live and work, and the children enjoy their river neighborhood, while the music, programs and news broadcasted by a radio station contrast or punctuate their daily existence. A work done with scarce resources, but Italian cinematographer and director Annichini managed to find beauty, humor and true joy of living in this portrait of deprivation.
The Passion of the Christ (2004)
Passion 3
In 2004 I saw "The Passion of the Christ" one day and had to go the next to a TV talk show to discuss it, along with a Catholic priest, two preachers, a young rabbi, and a Social Communications professor. I was there as a film critic and scriptwriter. I ended up siding with the rabbi. We even agreed (on air) that the Bible does not tell everything like it was, that there are other texts telling a different story in some respects.
According to those texts (available everywhere) Pontius Pilate was not a fool. He was a ruthless governor, and he crucified many Jewish persons. Moreover, the texts affirm that it was he, not the Jews, who condemned Jesus. According to the young rabbi, that makes a lot of sense: the Romans were the invaders that persecuted, killed, and tortured early Christians, not the Jews. On the other hand, he said, the gospels were written in hard times, and the authors probably self-censored themselves, because it was not safe to write about the Romans condemning Jesus.
Jesus was immensely popular and had many followers among the Jews. He was captured late at night because the authorities were afraid to cause a riot in daylight. The mob shouting "Crucify him! Crucify him!" belongs more to folk tales; it makes no sense considering that Jesus was a charismatic leader. The "washing of hands" is a Jewish tradition, so it is strange and quite improbable that Pontious Pilate adopted this foreign custom.
I did not like the movie. I did not expect much from a filmmaker as Mel Gibson, who has specialized in violent films. However, that is precisely what he did, a blood-filled version of the Passion, with a effeminate Herod for comic relief and the Devil played by a woman, both stereotypes from a sexist point of view.
Gibson omitted everything Jesus said about the world affairs of his time. According to his vision, Jesus was a sort of hippie who wanted everybody to love each other. Possibly he was and wanted so, but Jesus was also attractive to the masses because he criticized corruption, greed, and those who had invaded his land. As the rabbi said, he was much more than what Gibson proposed, since there was a lot of politics involved in Jesus' Passion.
I heard people applaud the movie based on what they know, read or have been told about Jesus, and not because of what the film narrates. «The Passion of the Christ» has a script full of holes. For a person who knows little about Jesus' life, the scene where he draws a line on the dust and Mary Magdalene extends her hand lying at his feet, means absolutely nothing. It so simplistic in its description of such a rich and passionate figure as Jesus, that this person must wonder during the projection what did this man do to be treated so bad. Because he said love each other and your enemy too? Because Caiphas wanted his head? And why Caiphas wanted his head? Nobody answers these questions. Instead, the edition relishes every whiplash, every fall and blow. Nothing was left to the imagination of the spectator, as Greek tragedy did, nothing was omitted before his eyes after the tenth lash or the third fall. One cannot help but think that the director wanted an effectist movie with horror elements from grade-Z movies. And he got it.
If in «Braveheart» Gibson (who was approaching 40) gave himself the role of a hero who was around 24, luckily this time he did not dare to play a 33-year-old religious and political leader such as Jesus, a superstar with a clout that has lasted 21 centuries. The Jesus I admire and whose teachings I respect is quite different from this bloody concoction and beyond any of man's awards.
Questa volta parliamo di uomini (1965)
Wertmüller Warming Up
Not a bad sophomore effort written by signora Wertmüller, it works better with the acting duels of Manfredi and his leading ladies: Luciana Paluzzi, as a thief wife, showing a comedy flair that was never exploited in American films, in the first story, "A Man of Honor"; Milena Vukotic in "The Knife Thrower", in a role "a lo Gelsomina" in «La strada», and Margaret Lee, as a dumb blonde wife, in "A Superior Man". "A Good Man", the fourth segment, is a bit too hard to laugh at. It seems an anticipation of «Pasqualino Settebellezze», with Manfredi playing a lazy, horny, unemployed worker, and Patrizia de Clara, as a suffering wife, but with little screen time. The main story linking the fourth segments is left open, without resolution.
Prelude to a Kiss (1992)
It Deserved to Be Better...
If "That's Entertainment!" is Hollywood's motto, many movies betray it: you go out to see a product of Hollywood entertainment, which has been sold as relaxing and amusing, and you return home more bored and depressed than when you left. «Prelude of a Kiss» is a good example. In this so-called comedy, the soul of robust Meg Ryan enters the octogenarian body of Sydney Walker and vice versa, to the uncontrollable crying of her husband Alec Baldwin.
An interesting premise taken from a play by Craig Lucas for the time of AIDS, it aims to show that we fall more in love with people's soul than with their bodies, but it soon has to admit that the body is also important, when Baldwin is in front of Walker's wrinkled face, under which Ryan's soul lives. If the exchange had been with the body of "bodies" of 1992, as Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt, what direction would this story have taken...?
Somehow the film reminds me of the sequence in «Ghost» when the yuppie widow (Demi Moore) has a reunion with her dead husband (Patrick Swayze), through the body of a African American medium (Whoopi Goldberg), and when the time comes for the kiss, "the magic of cinema" conveniently replaced Whoopi with Swayze.
A verbose comedy to death, «Prelude to a Kiss» soon loses its charm, which director Norman René rarely avoids, as in his previous work, «Longtime Companion» (also with a script by Lucas) that suffered of the same theatricality.
Il prefetto di ferro (1977)
A Political Drama for All Times
"Il prefetto di ferro" is a very good political drama, set in Sicily, significantly madre in the 1970s, a decade in which Italy was going through sociopolitical and economic crisis, that affected the national film industry. It tells the story of a prefect sent by the Fascist regime to fight the maffia and corruption. Based on true facts, Giuliano Gemma, who we had previously seen in peplums and European westerns, took the part of Cesare Mori and gave the performance of his life, with strong support from Claudia Cardinale and Stefano Satta Flores. Gemma won the Best Actor award at the Moscow Film Festival and the highly plausible work by director Pasquale Squattieri received the David di Donatello Award for Best Film of the Year.
Pour la suite du monde (1963)
Cinéma Direct at Its Best
I first saw this seminal documentary of direct cinema in Paris, while attending a workshop of cinéma direct with Jean Rouch and his disciples. It was in French with no subtitles, so I understood very little, but perceived its significance and inner beauty. Then I saw it several times again while adding Spanish subtitles to it, and I reafirm my opinion that this is an immensely beautiful film. The agents of political correctness may object to whale hunting, but this is a document of a time, of a culture, of a village, of one of its labor practices and of a tradition on the verge of extinction Truly a great ethnographic motion picture.
Porgy and Bess (1959)
Gershwin's Legacy
The all-region DVD available of «Porgy and Bess» is definitely not a good representation of the motion picture released in 1959, as directed by Otto Preminger. It is also pertinent to say that, as far as cinema goes, this is not the great motion picture some persons say it is. It is neither a remarkable film adaptation of a stage play. Many persons exalt the motion pictures for reasons that are foreign to it.
For whatever reasons Preminger decided to make it entirely in long takes, and as if we were witnessing a live performance on a stage, the filmmaker turned a passionate tale into a too cold experience, keeping the characters too distant from us viewers, even in the most intimate moments. It must have been very good to watch this «Porgy and Bess» screen version in a wide, huge screen, but even in this case the end product is still filmed theater.
On the other hand, as long as purists and defenders of Gershwin's legacy interfere with people's right to access American film heritage, the poor copies, which keep the wide-screen format, are one of the few options we have to watch Otto Preminger's «Porgy and Bess». It takes some imagination to compensate for the lack of definition and color of the images, but it gives you an appreciable idea of what everybody, artists and technicians, did.
Perhaps with a fine, restored copy I would rise one star or two.
Poor Things (2023)
A Little Trimming Would Benefit This Fine Film...
Masterful execution, good performances and beautiful visual effects that complement the story, the directing concept and the narrative tone, but lenient in editing and script, which results in excessive length. I have no idea on whom the balance of the components of the story depended, but the fact that the director and actress are producers may be the reason, to a large extent, for this imbalance.
The central drama of the genius surgeon, the woman he has created and the infatuated assistant is fascinating, but in the middle of it there is the story of the seductive lawyer who induces her into an endless and repetitive adventure that ends up blurring the film along the paths of melodrama, surreal fantasy, pocket philosophical drama, and erotic comedy. None of the vignettes is unimportant. All they just need is a fine, good cut and reduce the screen time of the adventure.
Fortunately, with the woman's return to London, the film regains its focus and reaches a consistent conclusion, more in line with Tim Burton than with the initial dramatic proposal. (However, as a screenwriter, I would have preferred to transplant God's brain into Alfie's healthy body.) Enjoy.
La Pointe-Courte (1955)
Varda's First Feature
«La Pointe-Courte» was Agnès Varda's first feature film and the first film-manifesto of the "nouvelle vague". In it, Varda broke with some narrative traditions, following neorealist strategies, distancing Bertolt Brecht style and a "mise-en-caméra" close to direct cinema, which was gaining ground around the world at that time, including France where it was euphemistically called "cinéma vérité".
The different influences blend well in the same story, but not all ot them have the same appeal and, in the final analysis, my balance leans more towards the narrative of fiction of anthropological affiliation, than towards the aesthetic compositions of a couple in crisis with which Varda disguises melodrama, aurally reinforced by self-referential declamations of the man and the woman. In fact, in the synopsis that I have read (and in Varda's own words), the story of this couple is taken as the principal storyline, when, in fact, the neighborhood and its fishermen are the true "anti-stars".
With natural actors (the inhabitants of the fishing neighborhood of La Pointe-Courte, in the South of France) Varda tells a story that serves as a unifying thread of the different influences, in which local men insist on fishing in a small contaminated maritime "lagoon" and are consequently persecuted by the Department of Health. At the same time, the filmmaker shows us events that animate their lives: the first love, the patriarchy confrontations, the sporting joust, the death of a child...
On the other hand, Varda, who always alluded to happiness or its absence in her filmography, takes us away from the neorealist liveliness and immerses us in long affective ramblings (which were common in the "nouvelle vague" works, especially in the films by Godard, Rohmer and Resnais), which are nothing more than the process of sentimental adjustment of one La Pointe-Courte native (Philippe Noiret) and his Parisian wife (Silvia Monfort).
As if sensing the strength of the La Pointe-Courte people and their lives, Varda opened and closed the film with images of the neighborhood and its faces: in the first sequence, morning breakfasts are interrupted by the appearance of officials from the Department of Health, and in the end, a popular dance is enlivened by a band that is frozen in the final shot. Without intending to, Agnès Varda left us a moment of film history, of a corner of France, of a popular culture on the coast, as a worthy preamble to her prestigious career.
Petite nature (2021)
Perceptive, clever drama
«Petite nature» is, at last, a film that speaks with sincerity, respect, and intelligence about those difficult moments in childhood or adolescence, in which the confusion caused by the social environment, the reaffirmation of sexual orientation, and the pressure to decide how we will face and assume adult life lead boys and girls to take decisions and actions that define their lives, not always in the best way.
This is not one of those movies in which someone sell us the idea that this "happy" phase is a constant in our lives or has melodramatic phases that can be easily resolved with a mellow song, when idenfiying in particular with any of the non-binary options means having a lot of courage to face prejudice and exclusion and, above all, understanding what your option means, beyond having pleasant relationships with people of your same or different option. «Petite nature» is a semi-autobiographical drama written and directed by Samuel Theis, a French filmmaker of working-class origin, about the sexuality of children and adolescents, in which Theis was able to give it a universal dimension in the growth of any human being.
«Petite nature» is the story of Johnny Jung, a 10-year-old boy, intelligent and sensitive, the son of a broken marriage among the French working-class in Forbach. When his mother Sonia decides to separate from her current partner, Johnny, Sonia and his two brothers move to another sector, where the boy attends school and meets Jean Adamski, a young teacher who has come from Lyon with his wife Nora. Johnny is emotionally attracted to Adamski, who opens the doors of knowledge for him, and he starts to become aware of what he can obtain or lose, because of his position on the social ladder.
Adamski and Nora help Johnny when Sonia hits him, and later they take him to see the Centre Pompidou in the city of Metz. Both are middle class professionals and Johnny associates them with options he was unaware of firsthand. A quiet neighborhood, a cozy home, good food, careers with more perspectives, and educational options. On the contrary, although Sonia loves him, is combative for her three children and aggressively reproaches him for being soft and not confronting the "bad boys" in the neighborhood, her example is not what Johnny would like for his future: work in a neighborhood store where she may not even earn the minimum wage, being promiscuous, angry, and abusive. At a key moment in the story, Johnny, in a hysterical outburst, accuses his family of being "clochards", lazy and useless bums, resigned to the crumbs thrown at them in the country's socioeconomic context.
The film climaxes when Adamski reacts violently and perhaps cruelly when Johnny tries to seduce him. And I have not ruined the film for you. This may well be the climax: there is no return, what follows is the most valuable part of the film: how Johnny faces this multifaceted crisis.
Theis combined professional actors (Antoine Reinartz, Izïa Higelin as the Adamskis) with natural actors from Forbach and Metz (Melissa Olexa as the mother, her children and boyfriend) and found Aliocha Reinert in Nancy for the role of Johnny. Son of a father specializing in adult education and a professor, Aliocha, upon receiving the proposal, asked for days to think about it and finally accepted because he felt he could "defend the character", resulting in an outstanding performance.
An excellent film, highly recommended.
Paris - When It Sizzles (1964)
Never Too Late
When this movie opened in 1964 I was 13 years old, and I walked out the cine for some urge, proper of my age, that I cannot remember... All I know is that leaving was not hard at all.
But then I finally saw it complete in my 60s and I enjoyed it very much. I don't know it this is a movie for senior citizens, but I think it was quite easy and relaxing for my brain and spirit, with funny moments and one of my favorite film ladies, Audrey Hepburn.
George Axelrod could be very good at writing, whether by adapting others' ideas (as "The Manchurian Candidate") or by writing his own originals (as "How to Murder Your Wife", also directed by Richard Quine).
Quine is not a favorite director of mine, but I also enjoyed the movie he made before this one, "The Notorious Landlady" (1962) with Jack Lemmon, Kim Novak, and Fred Astaire, and after both films, "How to Murder Your Wife" with Lemmon, Virna Lizi, and Terry-Thomas.
Para Onde Foram as Andorinhas? (2015)
Long Gone Swallows
Just as Maria Luiza Aboim did with lyrical simplicity in "Cidadão Jatobá", to illustrate the harmony with nature in which the native Americans live in Brazil, Mari Corrêa achieves the same effect in this documentary that says so much in little time. Several chiefs of tribes, as well as common men and women who live in the jungle surrounding the Amazonas river, tell how they no longer receive nature's signs for every change of seasons, just as the punctual swallows used to announce the time to sow or harvest, so they could sustain the agricultural cycle with precision. The swallows flew, they were gone from the panorama, due to the devastation of the jungle. Very good short film.
Paper Moon (1973)
Oscar Time
The chemistry between Ryan O'Neal and his daughter Tatum is probably the main reason why this is one of the greatest comedies of all time. Based on a novel by Joe David Brown, this product about two rascals who steal and cheat to survive was made during the Hollywood "nostalgia fad" in the 1970s. It does not avoid reenacting the harsh conditions among the poor during the Great Depression, but what really counts here is the humour that emerges from the relationship of the con man and the ill-bred kid who might be his daughter. See it if only for the wonderful one-take scene that probably gave Tatum O'Neal her Oscar.
Pantaleón y las visitadoras (1999)
Maybe next time...
This 2000 version of Mario Vargas Llosas' excellent novel was an improvement over the 1975 adaptation, co-directed by the Peruvian author, which seems to have vanished from Earth. But in neither case the films do justice to Vargas Llosa's work.
Just average, zero-degree style of moviemaking, that pale in comparison to the writer's prose and original narrative techniques, which make the novel so good, beyond its plot about a young captain of the Peruvian army who creates a traveling service of international prostitutes to appease the sexual desire of the troops stationed in the Amazon jungle of Peru, who have begun to attack the virtuous young native women.
Vargas Llosa uses all kinds of resources (as Bram Stoker did before in his novel "Dracula"), such as reports, dispatches or memoranda, while managing to advance the action, dynamizing the use of verbs, through the annotations made to every line of dialogue. As they say, "Comparisons are odious", but if the novel was a real milestone in the history of Latin American literature, neither of the two films is significant for Peruvian, Latin American or world cinema.