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Dunroman
Reviews
Love Is Strange (2014)
A film for the thinking
It's quite a long time since seeing a film so evidently intended for the thinking and a film so much of its age.
While it might be easy to categorise this as a film about Gay Love, Marriage and the consequences, that would be a serious mistake as those themes are almost incidental, the important themes are much wider, the circularity of life and love, growing up, family and generations.
What was interesting to me was what was NOT said or shown, like a good book you need to read between the lines.
Finally a word about the score - sumptuous.
Any lover of Chopin will feel the hair on the back of their necks, particularly at the final Berceuse with orchestral arrangement, which flows like the ripple of evening waves up and down a deserted beach - music at its most ...musical.
Anna Karenina (2012)
Brilliant or awful?
Wow. Visually stimulating but utterly frustrating.
I went into this open minded and loved the cinematography indeed, unlike some I liked the theatrical setting which served to highlight the façade and falsity of aristocratic mores of the time.
However it was too difficult to piece it all together, to understand who was who, what they were doing and why but worse of all - to care.
Conclusions - it needs a second or third viewing to understand the depths that are undoubtedly there, but will I? Perhaps but only with my finger hovering over the fast forward button. About a quarter way through I had to be nudged to stop me snoring, by half way through I really was losing the will to live and by the three quarters mark actively on the edge of my seat egging Anna/Keira to drink more morphine.
Highlights - Matthew Macfadyn who surely had the best part, the only character one cared about, one that just by the twinkle in his eye made the audience laugh.
Highlights - Kiera Knightley who thank goodness didn't say "come back to me" - but by contrast there were too many times she seemed to be repeating gestures or movements from P&P or Atonement and too many times Wright repeated devices - such as the mirror scene from Atonement.
Lowlights - Vronsky it has been written that Robert Pattinson had been thought of for this part. He would have been infinitely preferable as after a bit of blond attraction one wondered what a gloriously beautiful Anna/Keira could see in such a shallow characterless fop - not nice, not nasty, not villain, not charmer, not much at all. Very poor casting.
Finally I really am confused by this film. It's surely not a masterpiece, though technically excellent in many ways, one wonders if Wright was trying too hard or worse still trying to emulate some long dead European art house film.
I leave the verdict to the audience, that just like in the third part of Lord of the Rings, duty done, breathed a collective sigh of relief when the titles rolled and rushed for the doors.
Non ti muovere (2004)
Cruz at her best
I finished this film and felt as if a weight had been lifted off my chest. Took Deep Breath.
A film not to forget, with both Castellitto and Cruz giving painfully real performances creating in the case of Castellitto moral dilemma.
However one thing caught me by surprise, not having known that this starred Penelope Cruz, when she appeared I did not recognise her at all. Indeed, it was only when the final titles rolled that what was suspected became apparent - it was indeed her. The transformation from Hollywood Goddess to girl from the slum was total but not just her makeup, her acting, her gestures, her commonness - for lack of a better word.
10/10
Sherlock: A Scandal in Belgravia (2012)
Crackingly good
This episode fairly flew along, and for the boys the sight and acting of Lara Pulver (fresh from a disappointing part in Spooks) was truly heart stopping.
Some have criticised the ending, but it fits in perfectly for me and plays up to the almost supernaturally bright nature of Holmes - as was hinted in the dialogue earlier between Holmes and Adler.
In this episode the dialogue was very good with Watson's line "I had off days" particularly good and a good flow that struck at the subconscious - you only really notice it you play the scene over again, thus Adler referred to battledress and Holmes then in the next scene spoke of battle.
BTW, the device used whereby text is superimposed over the scene and moves with the camera was first used brilliantly in the excellent Italian film Il Divo http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1023490/ (rather different fare to this though!).
Into the Storm (2009)
If you've seen Finney this may be a disappointment
Somehow the Albert Finney film got deeper into the man, the image of Finney going for a pee was just so Churchill - with a complete lack of concern about anything else when he had an idea in his head (particularly a speech in the forming), including his own nudity. Finney also looked more physically like Churchill.
Other reviewers have commented on the licence with history taken and this is a good point, but given that this man so centred his success on the spoken word, really there should have been greater use of his speeches to parliament or the repeats he subsequently made on the BBC. These speeches really were "tour-de-force" and the amount of effort that went into just one speech was truly incredible - perhaps a week or two of solid work - particularly his address to Congress.
One element that pleased me particularly was the reporting of the ==Gestapo speech==. This caused real controversy at the time, and maybe contributed to his defeat in 1945.
Perhaps the film makers used this speech as a device to highlight an apparently more unreasonable part of his nature (Churchill is still hated by some sections of the Left for his actions as Chancellor before and during the General Strike). So while it is valuable to show that he was a complex character, it reflected for me more other people's opinion of him rather than his real character as a man.
Indeed, by contrast, some on the Right in Britain today see a real degree of prescience in what he said, in that the police forces which were widely supported by the middle classes in the 80s and 90s have, in the naughties (and particularly post 9/11) lost that support through just such heavy-handed support for a socialist government, chasing tractor production figures - just as Churchill envisaged - "no longer civil and no longer servants".
Certainly in comparison with his other speeches the Gestapo speech was of minor importance and its impact in 1945 was probably very small (he was going to lose anyway) the film would have done better to concentrate on his other speeches - perhaps the Iron Curtain speech. Indeed there would have been better ways to show that in 45 he was out of touch with a nation tired of war
In all this, the Gleeson portrayal is still well worth watching and sheds light on the ability of a single man to shape history.
BTW for those interested in learning more about this flawed but truly great man, you could do worse than to read Roy Jenkin's biography of Churchill - perhaps the best - and very readable.
Le bossu (1997)
French Cinema at its best
Apart from the swashbuckling and the distracting beauty of Marie Gillain, this film has two particular merits.
1. Daniel Auteuil - who demonstrates a noble character who plays so well the part of the hunchback, and in such contrast to his portrayal of tragic Ugolin in Jean de Florette / Manon des Sources.
2. Fabrice Luchini - who must truly rank among the finest villains ever portrayed on screen and whose final comeuppance is difficult to see without a cry of "YES!".
I would hazzard that this is watchable even if one does not understand French. The action and characterisation carry it along so well.
As an introduction to the sheer quality of French cinema, this is a very good place to start.