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Reviews
Kukushka (2002)
Run, do not walk. . .
This is an absolutely compelling, magnificent film, as much for eerie beauty of its setting (a subsistence farm in northern Finland during the Continuation War of 1944) as the power of its anti-war message. Two enemy soldiers, a Finn and a Russian are taken in by Anni, a young Sami (Lapp) woman, trying to run her farm herself since her husband left, evidently four years earlier, during the original Winter War. They eventually learn to get along (even though, to the end, the Russian keeps call the Finn "Fascist", to which the Finn replies that he is not a fascist, he's just a democrat - in Finnish, that the Russian can't understand.
SPOILER HERE - CAREFUL!
At the end, having learned that the war is over (a really humiliating defeat for Finland, I understand, although nobody in the film cares) both men prepare to go home, and say goodbye to Anni. They have both had sex with her, but there is no sign of any children around. However, in an epilogue, Anni is shown telling the story to her two children, evidently one the son of the Finn, the other the son of the Russian. Now, how did she manage that? Oh, well, the Sami are reputed among the Finns to have magical powers. . .
Anyway, run, do not walk, to see this film.
Laurel Canyon (2002)
Wimpy
WARNING CONTAINS SPOILERS!
In my opinion, this film just wimps out. It is a good sign of what is to come when, in the introductory scene, Sam and Alex (who are two young doctors, living together) are seen in bed, making love while Alex keeps her top on. They soon find themselves living with Sam's mother, an offbeat record producer. Alex gets drawn increasingly into her mother-in-law's world of sex, drugs and rock n roll, while Sam starts a relationship with another doctor, Sara.
In the climactic scene, Sam is doing nothing more than talking to Sara in the front seat of her car. He then comes dashing in like the U.S. Cavalry in a western just as Alex is about to take her clothes off with Sam's mother and her boy friend, but really gets no further than her bra.
I, for one, would have preferred to see Sam get into bed with Sara, only to return home later to find Alex nude, having a threesome with her mother-in-law and boyfriend. Having each had their fun, they could then have sorted it out. As it is, I found the ending enigmatic, unconvincing and, in fact, a little silly.
Another thing. Alex, Sam and Sara are all recently graduated doctors. Yet, if my memory serves me right, at one time or another all of them are shown smoking. I wonder how much money the tobacco industry paid to have this included.
Respiro (2002)
Boredom, Italian style
The protagonist of this film lives in what appears to be an extremely boring Sicilian village, the wife of a rather conventionally macho fisherman, and the mother of several children. Her sons, in particular, never seem to attend school, but spend their days running around the village in the swimsuits, making nuisances of themselves.
She has some unidentified mental disturbance, and provokes the dislike of the villagers in several ways. In one instance, she frees a collection of mutts being held in a makeshift pound outside of town. In another, she swims topless on a beach that is deserted except for two of her sons, something I thought you could see at any beach today, in Europe, at any rate.
The villagers want to ship her off to Milan for psychiatric treatment, but she decides to leave town and go live in a cave. When her husband and the other villagers find her, they all go for a swim together, and the movie collapses. There may be some allegory, or "deep meanings" at work here, but, frankly, I don't care.
Lost in Translation (2003)
The Mikado's New Clothes
This film seems to be about a character I've seen a thousand times - a middle-aged man by himself in a strange city (and this is one of the strangest) on a business trip. He's not too happy with the way things are going at home - his wife seems to be a nag, and his kids don't even want to talk to him. So, he starts a relationship with a younger woman who is having problems herself; her husband is more interested in his work than in her.
After a few days of groping toward each other (figuratively, not literally) he returns home and that's that.
Ho hum.
What adds some interest to the film is its Japanese setting - his problems with adjusting to Japanese social and business practices (subtitling the Japanese dialog in the film would have helped), along with shots of Tokyo, and views of Mt. Fuji (with him incongruously playing golf in front of it), and Kyoto (which she visits, as an excuse to include pictures of it).
There are worse films, but this was a bit of a bore, and I, for one, do not see what the fuss is about.
Sånger från andra våningen (2000)
Ho-hum, deep meanings again
To be fair, there are some very funny moments in this film, most of them dealing with irreverence towards crucifixes. But mostly, I would say, if your idea of an enjoyable few hours at the cinema is playing head games with the film's authors, trying to dig out every "deep meaning" and symbol placed there, this is just the film for you. However, if you are so philistine that you would like an amusing comedy, or an engrossing drama with characters with whom you can identify, you would be better off avoiding this self-important stinker.
Te'alat Blaumilch (1969)
Mildly amusing
This is a harmless, somewhat funny bit of Israeli slapstick, with plenty of people screaming at each other, gesticulating and running around in circles. It is a takeoff on Israeli (and any other)bureaucracy, and, I suppose the hectic life in Tel-Aviv in the late 1960s. Amusing to watch (once) but hardly anything that is going to make Ingmar Bergman or Roman Polanski lose any sleep.
Punch-Drunk Love (2002)
Ho-hum, more deep meanings
The makers of this film seem to have been very pleased with themselves, and have taken themselves very seriously, indeed. A straightforward, even touching story, but with all the characteristics of the self-conscious `cult' film unnatural, jerky, marionette-like characters, awkward jumps from one scene to another, silences evidently meant to be profound, but really just empty. Along with these a musical score trying to be very avant-garde and hip, but really just loud and annoying, getting in the way of and detracting from the film's progress, rather than enhancing it, as good film scores should. (They don't have film music such as Prokofiev, Shostakovitch or Vaughan Williams wrote any more. Instead, we have weenie-sounding electronic instruments.)
As far as I am concerned, the best part of the whole production was the D & D Mattress Company commercial on the bonus DVD. If I want deep meanings and philosophy, I'll take a course, or borrow a book from the library. When I see a film, I'd prefer entertainment.
The Pianist (2002)
Run, do not walk, to your neighbourhood cinema
Often, holocaust films, or literature, produce a type of numbness in me. Of course it was horrible, unimaginably so. If I had been in the right place at the right time, I would have gladly wrung Hitler's neck. But it's over, there is nothing I can do to reverse it, so my mind just seems to shut down about the whole thing.
But this film is different. The portrayal of one intelligent and sensitive person's efforts to survive the Nazi occupation of his country is absolutely riveting. I completely agree with the commentator who said that despite the fact that Chicago, with all its jazz, won the Oscar, this was the best film of the year.
One of the finest and most ironic features of it comes at the end, when Szpilman probably owes his survival to the actions of a sympathetic and humane German officer. The point seems to be that, even as evil can arise from anywhere, so can goodness. Run, do not walk, to your neighbourhood cinema to see `The Pianist".
Thirteen Conversations About One Thing (2001)
A Minority Opinion
This film had plenty of what we used to call, when I was in university, `deep meanings'. The only problem was that, a short while into it, I stopped caring what they were.
To me, the common denominator of all good films is that they hold your interest, and this bore simply did not. As it went on, I found myself switching on the time display on my DVD player more and more frequently to see when the wretched thing would finally end. In fact, a short composition by the 17th Century German composer Heinrich Schuetz that is performed (for no reason apparent to me, at least; maybe there was a reason, but I had stopped caring) somewhere in the middle of the film gave me more esthetic pleasure than the rest of the film put together.
In my opinion, a sophomoric waste of time for both the film's makers and viewers, and a waste of the talents of an excellent cast.
Hatuna Meuheret (2001)
Family values
The protagonist of this film, Zaza, is a young Israeli who seems to think that, just because he is 31 years old, a doctoral candidate and seemingly quite competent, attractive and intelligent, he has the right to decide whether he wants to get married, and to whom.
His family disagrees, attempts to find him a wife suitable to them, and then breaks up his relationship with his girl friend in a most obnoxious, insulting and arrogant fashion.
Perhaps people of their ethnic background, (they are Jews from Georgia Tbilisi, not Atlanta) might find this behaviour acceptable, but most westerners would simply find it inconceivable that the couple would just meekly allow themselves to be so abused. But they do, Zaza does just as his parents wish, and they all go dancing off literally - into the future.
I think this film will have its greatest value as a propaganda vehicle for parents, of whatever background, who want to control their children into living and marrying just as they did.
Jan Dara (2001)
Confusing little stinker
I had really been looking forward to seeing this film. I had seen several enthusiastic reviews of it, and I had never, as far as I can recall, seen a Thai film before. I even made a wok of Pad Thai to eat while watching it.
However, what I got was this confusing little stinker. The main character is a young man who lives in what appears to be a family compound, with includes several large houses. The family members apparently move from one of these houses to another, or from one room to another, for no apparent reason. Most of these members, along with some acquaintances, are a group of attractive women who resemble each other quite a bit, and spend most of their time listlessly having sex with the male characters, or, at least once, each other. Even a World War II air raid doesn't stop them.
Neither the male nor the female characters seem to have much else to do, except for the protagonist's father, whose main interest in life appears to be abusing his son.
The sex scenes seem to have been filmed by an experienced soft-core pornographer plenty of backs and thighs, with the just the occasional breast, nothing else. Nothing much here, or in the rest of the action as well, to hold one's interest, once one stops trying to figure out who is doing what to whom.
Furthermore, the Pad Thai didn't turn out too well. The author of the cookbook said that, in place of the fresh shrimp, chicken and pork usually used in the West, it would be more authentic to use dried shrimp and very firm tofu, both of which turned out, for my taste, anyway, to be too chewy and somewhat unpleasant. Next time I make Pad Thai, I won't try to be so authentic.
Oh, well, perhaps if I had read the original novel, or could have understood the Thai dialog, the film might have seemed less confusing and more interesting.
La stanza del figlio (2001)
Mainly excellent, but a somewhat contrived ending . . and a stupid rating
Mainly, I found this an excellent, engrossing film about the effect of the son's death on a mainly happy family. The fact that they were, even previously, not entirely happy (the father is becoming "burnt out" at his profession, the son is caught stealing) adds to the realism of the film.
The end, I found, somewhat unbelievable - a visit from the son's ex-girl friend, now happily hitchhiking around Europe with another guy, somehow makes everything OK.
But, I agree that the "R" rating the film received is utterly stupid. This film would be far more healthful for a teen-ager to see than a lot of the crap they can see freely. One commentator expresses the opinion that the reviewers thought that adolescents should not, "except under adult supervision, know that the death of a teenage child is a shocking and traumatizing experience for a family, and could shatter their painfully constructed unity". But, maybe that's not the reason. Maybe the idea was that teenagers should not get the idea that a happily married couple, with two children, might occasionally have sex.
Frida (2002)
A magnificent film, but . . .
This film gives us a magnificent, and wonderfully acted, look not just at the lives of two of Mexico's most important cultural figures of the 20th Century, but of Mexico's intellectual and cultural milieu at the time.
But, the experience would have been more entrancing and immediate if the picture had been made in Spanish. After all, it is about a Mexican subject, it takes place largely in Mexico, and it was mainly made in Mexico. Far better, I think to have the actors add to the authenticity by speaking Spanish, and having the audience read the subtitles, than to have to listen to very jarring English, accented or otherwise.
Kate & Leopold (2001)
Not profound but enjoyable
This is not, as the expression has it, rocket science. But it held my attention and amused me for two hours,which is more than I can say for many films full of "deep meanings".
I didn't mind Meg Ryan's hair, as do so many other commentators. I am no expert in hair style, but it seemed to me just the sort of deliberately disheveled style that might be adopted by some hyper New York business type. She is, though, getting a bit old for her usually cute and perky roles.
One incongruity that nobody else seems to have spotted - Leopold is portrayed as a 19th Centry English gentleman, with a vast knowledge of various cultural matters, including, specifically, Puccini's opera "La Boheme".
Just how he acquired this knowledge is unclear. None of Leopold's 21st Century companions seems to be an opera lover. And, in 1876, when Leopold left the 19th Century, "La Boheme" had not yet been written.
Kiss the Sky (1998)
Is this to be taken seriously?
This film's underlying idea is about two middle-aged friends who find themselves in male menopause at the same time, and decide the thing to do is to change their lives completely. An interesting idea, but one that has been the basis of plenty of films. The thing is that they decide to do this by building themselves a large structure in the Philippines, where they can escape the outside world by means of sharing the attentions of one woman they both find attractive (of course, they swear they won't be jealous of each other, they are all just so damn spiritual), as well as the company of a dubious Zen Buddhist monk, played by Terence Stamp, who should have known better.
Had the makers of this film treated their antics in a humorous way, this might have been an enjoyable romantic comedy. Instead, they treat the whole matter with ponderous earnestness, with the three main characters sprouting clichés of trivial spiritual `wisdom' right and left; one is taken aback by the possibility that the script writers actually took all this rubbish seriously. So, what could have been a pleasant film ends up as a ponderous, crashing bore.