There are films that should not be judged through an aesthetic prism but for their value in the debate of a society that wants to be open and democratic. This film recounts one of the most serious scandals in the history of the USA, a country that never shies away from scandals. The scandal is not so much the fact that the people in power, the neocons gang, lied like tooth-pullers, but that after dragging the country into a useless war, it was managed in a calamitous way! To cite just one example, the administration of conquered Iraq was run with such incompetence that that country has yet to recover.
Reviews
45 Reviews
Reason vs superstition
1 June 2023
Religious fanaticism, indeed religion per se, has an inevitable corollary, the refusal of individual autonomy. Followers of religions tend to want to impose their moral principles on others even in highly private matters such as life, death and sex. To be able to justify these positions, they must necessarily deny the advances of science. Today, thanks to advances in medicine, biological life can be extended virtually indefinitely. This creates a contradiction between the possibility and the opportunity of life. In this episode, reason and fanaticism clash: a dignified death against the superstition that afflicts too many people, in America and elsewhere.
Father & Soldier
(2022)
Coerced Heroism! A movie Desantis will surely hate!
16 February 2023
Father & soldier is a linear and no-nonsense film, which radically positions itself "AGAINST" - war, blind obedience to orders, colonialism, the exploitation of men by other men, military and political rhetoric - which makes it actual. The direct comparison between these issues and that atavistic African wisdom that knows how to recognize and defend what is truly important - to be united, to protect one's family, to lead one's life with dignity and respect - is striking. 1917, Senegal. The French army kidnaps young people from villages to forcefully enlist them and send them to fight in the Great War. Bakary would like to protect his son Thierno but fails to free him from the French colonial gang and to stay close to him he in turn enlists and sends him to the same African platoon. Mathieu Vadepied, the director and writer, adheres to his characters and throws them into a story that seems to be developing by the minute. Omar Sy plays the role of Bakary dusting off the Fula language of his origins and takes the risk of losing the immense popularity he has in France to rigorously criticize the French colonial policy and the enormous hypocrisies in the management of the relationship with African immigrants. Father & soldier is a film of few words and few events necessary to illustrate the parable of Thierno, torn between love for his father and the desire to emancipate himself from his authority in order to become a man finally. Even the seduction of the army's promises to guarantee French citizenship to the colonized African soldiers, once the war is won, refers to current events and how African immigrants look at integration in their host country with a mixture of desire and mistrust.
The Traitor
(2019)
The anti-godfather, debunking the romantic view of La Cosa Nostra
12 February 2023
Bellocchio's entry into mafia territory reminds us that he never stopped, in a certain sense, filming the mafia, through all the constituted bodies framed for half a century by his lens. The family (The Fists in the Pockets, 1965), the Church (In the name of the father, 1971), the press (Rape on the front page, 1973), the army (The Triumphal March, 1976), doctrinaire leftism ( Buongiorno, notte, 2003), fascism (Vincere, 2009). Everything here, we feel, can ultimately be linked to the mephitic seductions of the family matrix, defined as a microcosm of social pathogenesis, a moist stifle of thought and individual freedom.
The Mafia, or rather Cosa Nostra as those who call themselves "men of honor" prefer to call it, continues to inspire cinema, especially Italian. It is true that the bloody adventures, the criminal power of this organization, its confrontation with sin, in the midst of the Catholic culture with which it is so imbued, the challenge launched in Heaven by the transgression of the ultimate taboo (the "thou shalt not kill" ) have something to excite the screenwriters. The filmmakers hold there characters who do not lack relief.
Marco Bellocchio rushes into the tentacles of the Octopus. The "family", so present in his work, becomes, with Cosa Nostra, a breeding ground for tragedy, a suffocating form of indestructible bonds, shifting alliances, a reservoir of unhealthy impulses and Luciferian calculations.
For the Mafia, the family is sacred. As it is essentially untouchable, it is therefore to it that it is advisable to attack first to weaken and mortally touch the enemy, even the best ally of yesterday.
In the 1980s, a war opposed different clans for control of the heroin trade. A "peace" is concluded during Sainte-Rosalie, in Palermo. The fireworks that closes this evening, supposed to ease tensions, announces other explosions, less joyful.
Tommaso Buscetta, intelligent and intuitive, smelled the danger. During his exile in Brazil, his family was decimated. His relatives, including two of his sons, were executed by the "Corleonesi", sponsored by a bloodthirsty madman, Toto Riina, ready to exterminate his competitors, including women and children, "up to the 20th generation".
Buscetta is in the crosshairs of the killers when Brazilian police detain him and extradite him. Sent back to Italy, after a suicide attempt, he sits down to eat and decides to collaborate with Judge Falcone (who will be assassinated by Toto Riina on May 23, 1992), to reveal the secret workings of the criminal organization.
His confession, which earned him protection and a stipend from the Italian state, led to a picturesque and high-risk maxi-trial, where 366 defendants were sentenced to heavy sentences, including life imprisonment. The Octopus is decapitated. Buscetta will die in his bed in 2000, face redone, hidden in the United States.
Why does such a criminal, who has been convicted several times, change sides? For revenge? To redeem himself? Buscetta, who has always refused to be considered a "repentant", passes for a "traitor". For him, the traitor is Riina, who perverted the values and the code of honor of Cosa Nostra.
Fascinating journey and destiny that Bellocchio confronts energetically, in a harsh style, with long sequences, at the heart of the action, between two murder scenes, which take the time to assess Buscetta's psychological motivations, especially during the interrogations of the Judge Falcone. And to show the hatred that is unleashed on this caïd with troubled motivations, nicknamed "the boss of the two worlds", who temporarily brought down the impregnable fortress.
The Mafia, or rather Cosa Nostra as those who call themselves "men of honor" prefer to call it, continues to inspire cinema, especially Italian. It is true that the bloody adventures, the criminal power of this organization, its confrontation with sin, in the midst of the Catholic culture with which it is so imbued, the challenge launched in Heaven by the transgression of the ultimate taboo (the "thou shalt not kill" ) have something to excite the screenwriters. The filmmakers hold there characters who do not lack relief.
Marco Bellocchio rushes into the tentacles of the Octopus. The "family", so present in his work, becomes, with Cosa Nostra, a breeding ground for tragedy, a suffocating form of indestructible bonds, shifting alliances, a reservoir of unhealthy impulses and Luciferian calculations.
For the Mafia, the family is sacred. As it is essentially untouchable, it is therefore to it that it is advisable to attack first to weaken and mortally touch the enemy, even the best ally of yesterday.
In the 1980s, a war opposed different clans for control of the heroin trade. A "peace" is concluded during Sainte-Rosalie, in Palermo. The fireworks that closes this evening, supposed to ease tensions, announces other explosions, less joyful.
Tommaso Buscetta, intelligent and intuitive, smelled the danger. During his exile in Brazil, his family was decimated. His relatives, including two of his sons, were executed by the "Corleonesi", sponsored by a bloodthirsty madman, Toto Riina, ready to exterminate his competitors, including women and children, "up to the 20th generation".
Buscetta is in the crosshairs of the killers when Brazilian police detain him and extradite him. Sent back to Italy, after a suicide attempt, he sits down to eat and decides to collaborate with Judge Falcone (who will be assassinated by Toto Riina on May 23, 1992), to reveal the secret workings of the criminal organization.
His confession, which earned him protection and a stipend from the Italian state, led to a picturesque and high-risk maxi-trial, where 366 defendants were sentenced to heavy sentences, including life imprisonment. The Octopus is decapitated. Buscetta will die in his bed in 2000, face redone, hidden in the United States.
Why does such a criminal, who has been convicted several times, change sides? For revenge? To redeem himself? Buscetta, who has always refused to be considered a "repentant", passes for a "traitor". For him, the traitor is Riina, who perverted the values and the code of honor of Cosa Nostra.
Fascinating journey and destiny that Bellocchio confronts energetically, in a harsh style, with long sequences, at the heart of the action, between two murder scenes, which take the time to assess Buscetta's psychological motivations, especially during the interrogations of the Judge Falcone. And to show the hatred that is unleashed on this caïd with troubled motivations, nicknamed "the boss of the two worlds", who temporarily brought down the impregnable fortress.
Daughters of the Dust
(1991)
A tale of resilience, a beautiful fresco about the African diaspora.
12 February 2023
At the dawn of the 20th century, a multigenerational West African ex-slave family in the Gullah community on the Sea Islands off South Carolina adopts the traditions of their Yoruba ancestors. They struggle to maintain their cultural and folk heritage as they contemplate a migration to the mainland, even further away from their roots. Much like the family in its spirit, the film exists in a somewhat different world; his visual language is characteristic and poetic, his dialogue adopts the native Creole of the islanders and draws on a cultural heritage and narrative myth far removed from much of American commercial cinema.
Julie Dash, writer and director, is among the members of the L. A. movement. Rebellion, a group of African and African-American authors who trained at the UCLA Film School in the late 1960s and contributed to creating quality black cinema as an alternative to classic Hollywood cinema. This feature film was the first film directed by an African-American woman to get regular distribution in the United States.
Julie Dash, writer and director, is among the members of the L. A. movement. Rebellion, a group of African and African-American authors who trained at the UCLA Film School in the late 1960s and contributed to creating quality black cinema as an alternative to classic Hollywood cinema. This feature film was the first film directed by an African-American woman to get regular distribution in the United States.
Policing Black Bodies
10 December 2022
They denied him the Sixth Amendment benefit, the ADA screwed up, the cop coerced a confession, the C. O. is a brutal thug, what could go wrong?
The origins of modern-day policing are traced back to the "Slave Patrol." The earliest formal slave patrol was created in the Carolinas in the early 1700s with one mission: to establish a system of terror and squash slave uprisings with the capacity to pursue, apprehend, and return runaway slaves to their owners. Tactics included the use of excessive force to control and produce desired slave behavior. It's enough to replace slave with " African-American" or POC (to a lesser extent) and you have the basis of this story! Following the Civil War, slave patrols were replaced by militias groups who were empowered to control and deny access to equal rights to freed slaves. They relentlessly and systematically enforced Black Codes, strict local and state laws that regulated and restricted access to labor, wages, voting rights, and general freedoms for formerly enslaved people. The criminal justice system is heavily impacted by the bias of police mentality and outdated judicial precedents. The system is largely driven by racial disparities and the Black community continues to be a target. The results are brutal and long lasting. The fact that a cop is a person of color cannot compensate an entrenched culture.
The origins of modern-day policing are traced back to the "Slave Patrol." The earliest formal slave patrol was created in the Carolinas in the early 1700s with one mission: to establish a system of terror and squash slave uprisings with the capacity to pursue, apprehend, and return runaway slaves to their owners. Tactics included the use of excessive force to control and produce desired slave behavior. It's enough to replace slave with " African-American" or POC (to a lesser extent) and you have the basis of this story! Following the Civil War, slave patrols were replaced by militias groups who were empowered to control and deny access to equal rights to freed slaves. They relentlessly and systematically enforced Black Codes, strict local and state laws that regulated and restricted access to labor, wages, voting rights, and general freedoms for formerly enslaved people. The criminal justice system is heavily impacted by the bias of police mentality and outdated judicial precedents. The system is largely driven by racial disparities and the Black community continues to be a target. The results are brutal and long lasting. The fact that a cop is a person of color cannot compensate an entrenched culture.
Motherhood vs imperial power
3 December 2022
This movie defuses the sensationalisms typical of the great anti-system stories through irony; also it is devoid of the usual knee-jerk anti-americanism of too many euopean fils when they deal with questions in which american policies are less than fair and correct like the twin wars in Afghanistan and Irak. Between the start and the end of Rabiye Kurnaz vs. George W. Bush are highlighted a couple of significant moments, both marked by the faces of two conservative heads of state, visible on the television screen. The first is that of Bush Jr., in the aftermath of the attack on the Twin Towers. The second is that of Angela Merkel, at the time of her election as Federal Chancellor of Germany. The camera seems to frame them in the same way, with the television image ideally replacing the cinematographic one. If the first, Bush jr, returns the figure of otherness, of the one who in the course of the story will be exalted as a symbol and spokesperson for the injustices of the American anti-terrorist system, the second, A. Merkel, takes on an opposite, almost salvific value. Not only for the speed with which the newly elected government corrects the political mistakes of the previous German administration, but for what the wind of change brings for the film's desperate protagonist. She resigned at that moment to the possibility that her son would never return from the Cuban prison of Guantánamo. Inspired by true events, Rabiye Kurnaz vs. George W. Bush recounts the legal (and emotional) odyssey that the Turkish housewife Rabiye Kurnaz (Meltem Kaptan) had to face from 2001 to 2006 to ascertain the innocence of her son, and ensure his return to Germany from the terrible detention. Like many of the Guantánamo detainees of that period, the young Murat had no ties to Al Qaeda or affiliations of any kind to terrorist organizations. His only fault was that he was in Karachi, Pakistan, where some of the terrorists responsible for the attack were staying. An already dramatic situation, which Andreas Dresen however chooses to tell through the canons of comedy. In order to retrace the (extra) ordinariness of the matter, through the most eminently ridiculous emotions and drifts of everyday life. In this sense, the efforts, doubts and frantic battles of Rabiye and her lawyer Bernhard Docke (Alexander Scheer) open up in the eyes of the public as glimpses of everyday life, with all the ensuing repercussions in terms of emotional communication. Seeing a mother's courage in transcending the impossible thus becomes for the spectator the preferential path to empathy, and for the film a way (even a little good-natured and condescending) of defusing the sensationalisms typical of great stories through irony of anti-systemic revenge. And like works like Philomena or Erin Brockovich this film manages to fluidly link the narrative trope of "David vs. Goliath" to the overwhelming charisma of its (however earthy) heroine. If anything, the problem lies in the lightness with which it glosses over the socio-political ramifications behind the battle. In the obsessive propensity to sweeten a more complex and articulated subject than that testified by the images of the story. Also (and above all) with regard to its most critical consequences. Here, only the detail of her is of interest: that is, giving life to the sincere and faithful portrait of a mother, grappling with radical situations that lead her to question the nature of her motherhood.
The Edge of Democracy
(2019)
Democracy is not a gala dinner (paraphrasing charmain Mao)
8 November 2022
Brazilian filmmaker Petra Costa is back in force with this second documentary. After reflecting on artistic creation, this time she takes up the challenge of deciphering the complex political situation in her country. For this, she calls upon fundamental elements of the recent history of Brazil in order to put them into perspective. From the military dictatorship to the fall of President Dilma Rousseff and the conviction of Lula da Silva, it paints a disturbing portrait of a divided country and a fractured democracy. Corruptions, conspiracies, manipulations are at the rendezvous of this chilling observation on Brazil, whose inhabitants elected in 2018 a far-right president nostalgic for the military dictatorship. Petra Costa makes an implacable demonstration of the situation of a democracy (effectively) in danger by invoking, also for this, the history of her own family in order to better enlighten us. A salutary documentary not to be missed for anyone who wants to better understand today's Brazil.
No
(I) (2012)
NO..... and PINOCHET installed by Nixon and Kissinger went down
5 November 2022
During the 27 days that preceded the referendum of October 5, 1988, René Savedra, a young and rampant advertising creator, and his team through a commercial and a captivating jingle, convinced the Chilean people to free themselves from the tyrant Pinochet and the military regime. Thanks to the imperfect and grainy images (shot with a 1983 analogic camera), skilfully alternating with those from the repertoire and the masterful interpretation of the whole cast, Pablo Larrain immediately transports the viewer into a world suffocated by conservatism and falsely projected towards the future. Precisely because he is completely immersed in that atmosphere, the viewer can only be passionate about the events narrated. With grace and lightness, we see the director succeeding in the task of making this film fun and not didactic or, even worse, pedantic. In addition to being a hymn to freedom in all its forms, an exaltation to democracy (albeit imperfect), obviously the film is also a rather cynical analysis of the power that advertising and the mass media have to influence public opinion...
Indeed, if 54.3% of voters were induced to cross the 'No' it was thanks to the advertising campaign conceived by Savedra. He was able to make Chileans believe in the possibility of finally living in a country where 'joy ya comes', reviving in them the long-forgotten feeling of brotherhood and national pride. Emblematic of this new sense of belonging and solidarity is the scene in which the astute advertisers, showing a policeman beating a protester, emphasize how both belong to the same nation and how both are fighting to protect the homeland they love.
Indeed, if 54.3% of voters were induced to cross the 'No' it was thanks to the advertising campaign conceived by Savedra. He was able to make Chileans believe in the possibility of finally living in a country where 'joy ya comes', reviving in them the long-forgotten feeling of brotherhood and national pride. Emblematic of this new sense of belonging and solidarity is the scene in which the astute advertisers, showing a policeman beating a protester, emphasize how both belong to the same nation and how both are fighting to protect the homeland they love.
The Clan
(2015)
When the right wing is also a family business
5 November 2022
Warning: Spoilers
Arquimedes Puccio is an agent of the Argentine secret services that organize and practice political repression. He is a member of the Argentine Anti-Communist Alliance, the infamous Triple A. This gives him good protection and sufficient freedom of initiative. Taking advantage of the political situation, he organizes kidnappings involving the whole family in this criminal activity. The son Alexander, promising rugby team and the other son Maguilla who after fleeing to New Zealand returns home animated by a renewed spirit, the wife who prepares food for the kidnapped and takes advantage of the silent complicity of her two daughters and two shady characters doing the dirtiest work. Their targets are wealthy people who are able to pay large sums for the ransom. The payment, however, does not prevent the death of the abductees. The Puccios will be captured by the police and the head of the family, the true mind of the organization, will deny any responsibility until death.
Trapero, who by adhering to the facts, brings this story into the political climate of those years shows that it is the natural fruit of the protection enjoyed by the characters who were part of the dark apparatuses of power. There is no doubt that the Puccos were able to act undisturbed thanks to the numerous covers they enjoyed.
Trapero, who by adhering to the facts, brings this story into the political climate of those years shows that it is the natural fruit of the protection enjoyed by the characters who were part of the dark apparatuses of power. There is no doubt that the Puccos were able to act undisturbed thanks to the numerous covers they enjoyed.
Santa Evita
(2022)
Volveré y seré millones, she was the daylight nightmare of the oligarchy!
21 October 2022
Evita's very existence and all it symbolically meant is intolerable for the Argentine elite. The "Argentine hate" is an elite hate, a right-wing hate, hate with a clear and precise purpose: to block, limit, reduce and if possible exterminate (in the absolute sense of the term) the expressions of the
popular struggles. The series follows the seizure of the corpse of First Lady Argentina Eva Peron, for the people who loved her Evita, after her remains were embalmed and then exposed to the public for three years for a final farewell. Her remains, however, were stolen by the civilian-military dictatorship called "revoluciòn libertadora" and never returned nor placed in the family tomb.
It is precisely on the body of Evita / Donna that unfolds the myth that grew around it for over two decades. After a military coup in Argentina in 1955 overthrew the then president Juan Domingo Perón, Evita's corpse was hidden for 16 years to prevent it from becoming a symbol against the civic-military regime. A singular, unique, and at times surreal episode, which contributed to the creation of a further legendary aura around the figure of Evita for a woman who literally managed to go beyond her own death, in the everlasting memory of the Argentine and world people.
Anti-Peronism, the National-Catholic reactionaries, could not have Eva Perón celebrated as a saint, but all this work done for the concealment of the corpse had the opposite effect. In a non-chronological and non-linear narrative, Evita's life is told: orphaned by her father, at 15 she leaves everything and goes to Buenos Aires to try to break into the world of entertainment. She first became an actress, then a political and philanthropist, after the fortuitous meeting with the then colonel Juan Domingo Perón. The narrative moves back and forth, with pills and moments to reconstruct that fascinating and complex puzzle that was Evita's existence, as the title demonstrates, punctual and built on the body of the "b-word" as the big landowners oligarchs together with their military lackeys called her. The performers are never inclined to exasperate acting as often happens in Spanish language productions and offer some really suggestive sequences, like a scene that recalls the sanctity of the woman in the eyes of the people, given that she has always fought for their rights being also trade unionist.
It is precisely on the body of Evita / Donna that unfolds the myth that grew around it for over two decades. After a military coup in Argentina in 1955 overthrew the then president Juan Domingo Perón, Evita's corpse was hidden for 16 years to prevent it from becoming a symbol against the civic-military regime. A singular, unique, and at times surreal episode, which contributed to the creation of a further legendary aura around the figure of Evita for a woman who literally managed to go beyond her own death, in the everlasting memory of the Argentine and world people.
Anti-Peronism, the National-Catholic reactionaries, could not have Eva Perón celebrated as a saint, but all this work done for the concealment of the corpse had the opposite effect. In a non-chronological and non-linear narrative, Evita's life is told: orphaned by her father, at 15 she leaves everything and goes to Buenos Aires to try to break into the world of entertainment. She first became an actress, then a political and philanthropist, after the fortuitous meeting with the then colonel Juan Domingo Perón. The narrative moves back and forth, with pills and moments to reconstruct that fascinating and complex puzzle that was Evita's existence, as the title demonstrates, punctual and built on the body of the "b-word" as the big landowners oligarchs together with their military lackeys called her. The performers are never inclined to exasperate acting as often happens in Spanish language productions and offer some really suggestive sequences, like a scene that recalls the sanctity of the woman in the eyes of the people, given that she has always fought for their rights being also trade unionist.
Promised Land
(2012)
Capitalism & greed are killing a country
20 October 2022
The boots of Steve Butler, the character played by Matt Damon, are the key element of the story, co-written by Damon and John Krasinski. They could not have been made in Bangladesh, like the first ones the actor had worn. No, because the script claimed that those boots, which belonged to Steve's grandfather, were made in America. Sometimes it's the details that make the movies. More than the directors. More than the stories. But the directors and those who write the stories must be able to grasp these details, and put them at the service of their stories.
Promised Land is a film about the identity of America Promised Land lives through the external and internal movement of Steve Butler, a young sales professional, who has roots in the American countryside that he had to leave due to the economic crisis. And in the city he has built a good career. With his colleague Sue (Frances Mac Dormand) he travels to provincial towns, often in misery after the great crisis of 2008, to propose apparently lucrative land sales for the gas extraction company for which he works. Everything seems easy even in the rural town of Mc Kinley, but when a respected teacher, Frank Yates (Hal Holbrook), challenges him in a public meeting about the dangers of extractions, things get unexpectedly complicated. And they get worse when an environmental activist arrives in the city, Dustin Noble (John Krasinski), shrewd and affable who immediately wins the favors of the locals.
The whole film is a reflection on identity, as well as on masks, on the little big lies that we live every day. When Steve comes to town the first thing he does is go to a local store to buy some clothes, to look "like one of them". Too bad, however, that he forgets the label and the first inhabitant he meets will immediately tell him that it is useless to try to look like one of them ... but at the same time he will appreciate the boots instead, the only garment that Steve has not changed.
How are communities changing, in the grip of the crisis and social individualism? Is there still room for real sharing of community decision-making processes? And how complicated is it to defend against the machinations that companies sometimes build to give credibility to their products?
Promised Land tells of a man who, in contact with a community (so similar to the one in which he was born and which he had to leave), discovers that his life and his work are basically built on a little big lie . And, eventually, he will change.
Promised Land is a film about the identity of America Promised Land lives through the external and internal movement of Steve Butler, a young sales professional, who has roots in the American countryside that he had to leave due to the economic crisis. And in the city he has built a good career. With his colleague Sue (Frances Mac Dormand) he travels to provincial towns, often in misery after the great crisis of 2008, to propose apparently lucrative land sales for the gas extraction company for which he works. Everything seems easy even in the rural town of Mc Kinley, but when a respected teacher, Frank Yates (Hal Holbrook), challenges him in a public meeting about the dangers of extractions, things get unexpectedly complicated. And they get worse when an environmental activist arrives in the city, Dustin Noble (John Krasinski), shrewd and affable who immediately wins the favors of the locals.
The whole film is a reflection on identity, as well as on masks, on the little big lies that we live every day. When Steve comes to town the first thing he does is go to a local store to buy some clothes, to look "like one of them". Too bad, however, that he forgets the label and the first inhabitant he meets will immediately tell him that it is useless to try to look like one of them ... but at the same time he will appreciate the boots instead, the only garment that Steve has not changed.
How are communities changing, in the grip of the crisis and social individualism? Is there still room for real sharing of community decision-making processes? And how complicated is it to defend against the machinations that companies sometimes build to give credibility to their products?
Promised Land tells of a man who, in contact with a community (so similar to the one in which he was born and which he had to leave), discovers that his life and his work are basically built on a little big lie . And, eventually, he will change.
Burden
(I) (2018)
racism? The casual nature of America! Redemption?The strength of America!
17 October 2022
Without ever being schematic, "Burden", named after the main character, takes us into this true story set in North Carolina in 1996. White supremacists decide to open a "museum" dedicated to the KKK, which generates tensions in a rather quiet town. This event located 26 years ago echoes what the Trump era has revived and proves that the problem of racism is far from being solved. The cast is excellent but the one who bursts the screen without ever overdoing it, in a role of completely inhabited silent person, is Garrett Hedlund, masterful, who finds here the strongest role of his career. A moving film, without lapsing into pathos or easiness.
BlacKkKlansman
(2018)
A DEAD SERIOUS LAUGH
12 October 2022
Warning: Spoilers
You know, the most incredible stories always have a grain of truth at the bottom. An example? Spike Lee's BlacKkKlansman, a "f...ing" true story - as the director likes to call it - about a black cop who entered the Ku Klux Klan in the 1970s. Absurd? Yes. Indeed no. Ron Stallworth is not only the protagonist, but he is the one who then wanted to report his mission in a detailed autobiographical book titled Black Klansman. Yes, but how much truth is there in the film? Lee and the co-writers remained faithful to the written pages while adding narrative cues to make the story more dynamic. First of all, it is true, yes it is true, that Ron Stallworth was Colorado Springs' first black cop so much so that he too managed to make a name for himself. Impressed by an ad (yes, that's right) in the Ku Klux Klan newspaper, he sent a letter for more information - while making a phone call in the film. Receiving an answer, Stallworth pretended to have a white sister engaged to a black boy, whom - literally, even in the book - he couldn't bear to see her dirty hands on her body. The motivation was obviously valid for the clan, which will make it one of the members.
But how to do it live? Ron lent his identity to a white colleague, who impersonated him in official events, covering his face. In the film, he is played by Adam Driver and his name is Flip Zimmerman, while his name is never revealed in the book. Another discrepancy: Lee in BlacKkKlansman made the man Jewish so that he could show an additional minority. And Laura Harriet, who fights for black power in the role of Patrice? Even the sentimental part - with an attack on the girl, which is actually a set of acts that have taken place - is invented by Lee.
But, back to the real story, after two weeks of waiting for the official KKK card, Stallworth decided to call David Duke, clan chief in New Orleans, directly. Between the two will begin a surreal telephone correspondence in which the man will often tease Duke. An example? When he asks what he would do if he found out there was a black man on the phone. "Impossible. I can recognize the voice of a black from that of a white. ". Are you sure Duke? The two will have the opportunity to meet: as we see in a scene by BlacKkKlansman, Stallworth was charged with the safety of the man, risking betraying himself and ruining the operation. The danger was escaped and beyond. The irreverent scene in which Ron takes a picture with Duke and the clan's High Dragon really happened, resulting in the men's anger and Ron telling them not to touch him because they would risk jail. In fact, the final call of the film, in which he teases Duke by revealing that he is the architect of their calls, is fantasy. A closure, however, that gives dignity to a story that has been deliberately left buried for too long ...
But how to do it live? Ron lent his identity to a white colleague, who impersonated him in official events, covering his face. In the film, he is played by Adam Driver and his name is Flip Zimmerman, while his name is never revealed in the book. Another discrepancy: Lee in BlacKkKlansman made the man Jewish so that he could show an additional minority. And Laura Harriet, who fights for black power in the role of Patrice? Even the sentimental part - with an attack on the girl, which is actually a set of acts that have taken place - is invented by Lee.
But, back to the real story, after two weeks of waiting for the official KKK card, Stallworth decided to call David Duke, clan chief in New Orleans, directly. Between the two will begin a surreal telephone correspondence in which the man will often tease Duke. An example? When he asks what he would do if he found out there was a black man on the phone. "Impossible. I can recognize the voice of a black from that of a white. ". Are you sure Duke? The two will have the opportunity to meet: as we see in a scene by BlacKkKlansman, Stallworth was charged with the safety of the man, risking betraying himself and ruining the operation. The danger was escaped and beyond. The irreverent scene in which Ron takes a picture with Duke and the clan's High Dragon really happened, resulting in the men's anger and Ron telling them not to touch him because they would risk jail. In fact, the final call of the film, in which he teases Duke by revealing that he is the architect of their calls, is fantasy. A closure, however, that gives dignity to a story that has been deliberately left buried for too long ...
Argentina, 1985
(2022)
A harrowing tale with some humour.
10 October 2022
Argentina, 1985 is inspired by the true story of the prosecutors Julio Strassera and Luis Moreno Ocampo, who in 1985 dared to investigate and prosecute those responsible for the bloodiest phase of the Argentine military dictatorship, which fell only 2 years earlier. Without being intimidated by the regime, the expert Strassera and the young Moreno Ocampo formed a young legal team of unlikely heroes to wage an unequal battle.
Constantly threatened, together with their families, they fought against time to give justice to the victims of the military junta which in 1976 deposed Isabelita Martinez De Peron in a coup. The members of the junta were tried for crimes committed by the Armed Forces in those years, which resulted in over 30,000 disappeared in December 1985, many were sentenced to life imprisonment. The film has the advantage of effectively reconstructing, in the same places where the facts took place, the difficult investigative work and the four-month trial with 833 eyewitnesses and survivors of clandestine detention and torture centers.
Also using a surprisingly humorous tone, which makes the magistrate (played by an extraordinary Ricardo Darìn) more human, likeable his very young group of lawyers and affectionate his beautiful family reveals the private side of an honest man. The 1985 trial allowed the Argentine justice to recognize and reclaim a long denied right. It inaugurates democracy and condemns the use of violence as a possibility.
When state terrorism takes hold in society, there is always an attempt to annihilate citizens and eliminate the possibility of communication.
Constantly threatened, together with their families, they fought against time to give justice to the victims of the military junta which in 1976 deposed Isabelita Martinez De Peron in a coup. The members of the junta were tried for crimes committed by the Armed Forces in those years, which resulted in over 30,000 disappeared in December 1985, many were sentenced to life imprisonment. The film has the advantage of effectively reconstructing, in the same places where the facts took place, the difficult investigative work and the four-month trial with 833 eyewitnesses and survivors of clandestine detention and torture centers.
Also using a surprisingly humorous tone, which makes the magistrate (played by an extraordinary Ricardo Darìn) more human, likeable his very young group of lawyers and affectionate his beautiful family reveals the private side of an honest man. The 1985 trial allowed the Argentine justice to recognize and reclaim a long denied right. It inaugurates democracy and condemns the use of violence as a possibility.
When state terrorism takes hold in society, there is always an attempt to annihilate citizens and eliminate the possibility of communication.
A Balzacian Fresco
20 August 2022
The Wire is a series on the American City understood as a concept or as the Absolute Whole. It is also a series that tries to confront us with the problems posed by the police, politics, the press or the school. Four different backgrounds of course but similar because they are interconnected. In this way, it is also the contemporary family - or at least a certain form of it - which is exposed with its ups and downs. The Wire is thought out and lived as a coherent whole: if you are shown season 3 when you have not seen the second or the first, do not start! If you can watch "The Big Bang Theory" each episode individually by varying the seasons, nothing like it in The Wire. The scriptwriters have not minced the work of the viewer: a fact mentioned, a line of dialogue, a seemingly innocuous gesture, etc., can each anticipate and/or recall another sequence from the series. In addition, these anticipations and reminders are created between the characters in order to signify that the different environments shown on the screen form a single whole. The Wire is therefore a series with a reinforced concrete scenario even if it is not free from bias. The Wire must therefore be considered as a novel whose episodes are so many chapters that must bring us to the end.
Paradoxically, his immense qualities did not allow the series to be a success with the public at the time of the broadcast. The cast, made up of 85%-90% African-Americans, is probably not for nothing, but does not explain everything. If I tell you that season 2 was the most followed when it is the one where the cast is mainly white, does that surprise you? The racial question is, as we unfortunately saw again during the summer of 2014, very present in the United States. Perhaps what really kept The Wire from becoming an Emmy regular like The Sopranos were was his very constructed side. Certain sequences or lines of dialogue can only make sense after several viewings of the same episode. At this rate, the show's writers and cast didn't expect to take home many accolades. It wouldn't be surprising if they even took some pride in it...
Paradoxically, his immense qualities did not allow the series to be a success with the public at the time of the broadcast. The cast, made up of 85%-90% African-Americans, is probably not for nothing, but does not explain everything. If I tell you that season 2 was the most followed when it is the one where the cast is mainly white, does that surprise you? The racial question is, as we unfortunately saw again during the summer of 2014, very present in the United States. Perhaps what really kept The Wire from becoming an Emmy regular like The Sopranos were was his very constructed side. Certain sequences or lines of dialogue can only make sense after several viewings of the same episode. At this rate, the show's writers and cast didn't expect to take home many accolades. It wouldn't be surprising if they even took some pride in it...
The Divide
(2021)
Social Critique without stereotypes
15 August 2022
Warning: Spoilers
Raf (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi) and Julie (Marina Fois) are separating after ten years together. However, both will find themselves in the emergency room, because Raf fractured her arm following a trivial fall on the street.
Yann (Pio Marmai) is a truck driver, who participates in the protests of the yellow vests. He is in the hospital because he was injured in the leg during the violent clashes with the police.
The three find themselves in an overcrowded emergency room, where Kim (Aissatou Diallo Sagna) works as a nurse. The hospital hosts a variegated and suffering humanity, more or less patient waiting to be assisted, while outside the scuffles between demonstrators and riot officers continue.
In the film, light moments alternate with other dramatic ones. Clear elements of social protest emerge from the latter.
There are several fractures represented in the film: the one that is separating the Raf-Julie couple, the fracture of Raf's arm, those that are stirring in the French social body.
The issues Catherine Corsini focuses on are not those relating to the coexistence of different cultures or homophobia, but concern the distance between the state and the citizens whose interest she should pursue.
An abysmal distance, destined to fuel the movement of the yellow vests, which includes Yann, a young truck driver forced to still live with his mother, due to starvation wages.
If Yann belongs to the working class, Raf and Julie's bourgeois world isn't faring much better either. The latter runs a small publishing house in the world of comics, for which she works as a designer Raf, but things are no longer going as well as they used to be.
Kim is a black nurse forced into grueling shifts, which go far beyond what is theoretically permitted by the employment contract.
The hospital itself is dilapidated, with false ceilings falling on patients, a staff that has to jump through hoops to guarantee a minimum of service, also having to deal with a structural shortage of drugs and equipment.
What is missing is certainly not the will of the operators, but the resources invested in the public service.
And the initial distrust, also due to the class difference between Yann on the one hand, and Raf and Julie on the other, dissolves in the face of the dramatic events that the three have to face in the emergency room, also caused by the wild and irrational repression of the movements. Of protest by the police.
Events whose impact is mitigated by the profound humanity of most of the health workers, Kim in the lead. But in the real world, no one can work miracles ... in this film Corsini tries to represent with realism the tragic events linked to the manifestations of the "yellow vests", but using the point of view of characters who live these experiences from a particular angle, which lends itself to creating situations in which there is also space for humor.
Characters sometimes too over the top, as in the case of Yann, but which allow the director to show what happened without falling into the trap of didacticism, excessive trivialization or stereotypes of politics.
Characters who find themselves overwhelmed by events much larger than themselves, who find the only way to salvation in the rediscovery of their most deeply human dimension, destined to make any difference in class, gender and skin color irrelevant.
Yann (Pio Marmai) is a truck driver, who participates in the protests of the yellow vests. He is in the hospital because he was injured in the leg during the violent clashes with the police.
The three find themselves in an overcrowded emergency room, where Kim (Aissatou Diallo Sagna) works as a nurse. The hospital hosts a variegated and suffering humanity, more or less patient waiting to be assisted, while outside the scuffles between demonstrators and riot officers continue.
In the film, light moments alternate with other dramatic ones. Clear elements of social protest emerge from the latter.
There are several fractures represented in the film: the one that is separating the Raf-Julie couple, the fracture of Raf's arm, those that are stirring in the French social body.
The issues Catherine Corsini focuses on are not those relating to the coexistence of different cultures or homophobia, but concern the distance between the state and the citizens whose interest she should pursue.
An abysmal distance, destined to fuel the movement of the yellow vests, which includes Yann, a young truck driver forced to still live with his mother, due to starvation wages.
If Yann belongs to the working class, Raf and Julie's bourgeois world isn't faring much better either. The latter runs a small publishing house in the world of comics, for which she works as a designer Raf, but things are no longer going as well as they used to be.
Kim is a black nurse forced into grueling shifts, which go far beyond what is theoretically permitted by the employment contract.
The hospital itself is dilapidated, with false ceilings falling on patients, a staff that has to jump through hoops to guarantee a minimum of service, also having to deal with a structural shortage of drugs and equipment.
What is missing is certainly not the will of the operators, but the resources invested in the public service.
And the initial distrust, also due to the class difference between Yann on the one hand, and Raf and Julie on the other, dissolves in the face of the dramatic events that the three have to face in the emergency room, also caused by the wild and irrational repression of the movements. Of protest by the police.
Events whose impact is mitigated by the profound humanity of most of the health workers, Kim in the lead. But in the real world, no one can work miracles ... in this film Corsini tries to represent with realism the tragic events linked to the manifestations of the "yellow vests", but using the point of view of characters who live these experiences from a particular angle, which lends itself to creating situations in which there is also space for humor.
Characters sometimes too over the top, as in the case of Yann, but which allow the director to show what happened without falling into the trap of didacticism, excessive trivialization or stereotypes of politics.
Characters who find themselves overwhelmed by events much larger than themselves, who find the only way to salvation in the rediscovery of their most deeply human dimension, destined to make any difference in class, gender and skin color irrelevant.
An Officer and a Spy
(2019)
Whoever forgets is an accomplice, indeed, an executioner!
15 August 2022
An Officer and a Spy comes out and reminds us that Roman Polanski is a master of cinema. Not objectionable. Leaning again on the writer Robert Harris, he curates the painting, composition, faces and atmosphere, and chisels a warning about that and this France, Europe, the world: anti-Semitism, of course, the friability of justice and the perniciousness of the system, of course, but also personal punishment and individual responsibility. His approach, compared to the Dreyfus case, is thriller: another man in the shadows, at least in the widespread recognition of History (we are talking about Piquart, more than Dreyfus), and other plots to be foiled, step by step, hearing and cell after cell. Other, with extreme dedication to the truth of the facts, the historical truth.
Of the captain of Jewish origin Alfred Dreyfus - embodied by Louis Garrel - accused in 1894 of having passed military information to the Germans and sentenced to life imprisonment on the island of the Devil, Polanski decrypts the systemic lie concocted against him: non-existent and artificial evidence, rising anti-Semitism; illuminates the "cure", since a public letter to the President of the Republic, the writer Èmile Zola, took a stand on the affair with the famous J'accuse, but following Harris's escort he follows the story from the perspective of officer George Piquart (Jean Dujardin), who as the new head of counterintelligence investigates the flow of information to the Germans. No, after Dreyfus's arrest he did not stop.
Co-produced with France by Italy, Luca Barbareschi and Rai Cinema, J'accuse praises (doing one's own) duty, ridicules the pompous and fatuous high offices, the corral and current subordinates, disrupts the gear of power , the institutionalized homo homini lupus, and opens to residual hope: it is up to man, indeed, to a man to know why he can no longer be ignored, discover why he can no longer annihilate, free himself so that he can no longer unjustly punish.
Dujardin has calm, elegance and probity, Garrel is perfect, Polanski can also count on his wife Emmanuelle Seigner, Mathieu Amalric and Denis Podalydès, and the film greatly benefits from them: thriller by genre, human comedy for profit, political treatise by analysis, great cinema by images. Polanski does not give himself airs, except those of Alexandre Desplat, he does not strut, he only makes us see better: the long focal lengths of history, our here and now. Whoever forgets is an accomplice, indeed, an executioner.
Of the captain of Jewish origin Alfred Dreyfus - embodied by Louis Garrel - accused in 1894 of having passed military information to the Germans and sentenced to life imprisonment on the island of the Devil, Polanski decrypts the systemic lie concocted against him: non-existent and artificial evidence, rising anti-Semitism; illuminates the "cure", since a public letter to the President of the Republic, the writer Èmile Zola, took a stand on the affair with the famous J'accuse, but following Harris's escort he follows the story from the perspective of officer George Piquart (Jean Dujardin), who as the new head of counterintelligence investigates the flow of information to the Germans. No, after Dreyfus's arrest he did not stop.
Co-produced with France by Italy, Luca Barbareschi and Rai Cinema, J'accuse praises (doing one's own) duty, ridicules the pompous and fatuous high offices, the corral and current subordinates, disrupts the gear of power , the institutionalized homo homini lupus, and opens to residual hope: it is up to man, indeed, to a man to know why he can no longer be ignored, discover why he can no longer annihilate, free himself so that he can no longer unjustly punish.
Dujardin has calm, elegance and probity, Garrel is perfect, Polanski can also count on his wife Emmanuelle Seigner, Mathieu Amalric and Denis Podalydès, and the film greatly benefits from them: thriller by genre, human comedy for profit, political treatise by analysis, great cinema by images. Polanski does not give himself airs, except those of Alexandre Desplat, he does not strut, he only makes us see better: the long focal lengths of history, our here and now. Whoever forgets is an accomplice, indeed, an executioner.
Day Shift
(2022)
The only reason to watch:you have to babysit your under14 nephews
13 August 2022
Warning: Spoilers
Bud Jablonski (Jamie Foxx) is separated from his wife and struggles to make ends meet, so much so that the ex is considering moving to Florida. She the woman thinks she has married a man who takes care of cleaning pools and she has no idea that she has instead been at the side of a vampire hunter! Unfortunately, this business is no longer as profitable as it once was for Bud, because the union expelled him after many infractions and the clandestine market for vampire fangs pays badly. To prevent his daughter's transfer, Bud will swallow his pride and go on a wild vampire hunt alongside a goofy union employee.
This film marks the directorial debut of J. J. Perry, a longtime stuntman and stunt coordinator who knows his job. The protagonist is a handsome Jamie Foxx, more accustomed to comedy than martial arts, which he tries to make up for with extensive use of firearms in the style of John Wick's "gun-fu".
Instead, it is the stuntmen who play vampires who demonstrate impressive contortionism, in a series of joint holds and incredible evolutions. The spectacle of these scenes justifies the overused vampire theme because only supernatural opponents can fight in this way. Unfortunately, Perry is not as irresistible as a director and too often resorts to editing cuts and accelerations that the expertise of some actors and stuntmen would not have any need.
One of the most performing stars of action cinema carves out a small role in the cast: Scott Adkins. Adkins has another step, but his kicks and elegant sword movements are also overplayed by unnecessary editing and accelerations, just to keep the overall tone of the film's action, whereas the other actors are not at his level. Day Shift, after all, focuses more and more on comedy as the minutes go by, introducing the character of Dave Franco who gets into it and giving space to Snoop Dogg, who enters the scene with a sort of portable Gatling gun and exterminates hordes of vampires by shooting standing still. The villains themselves are not action stars: Oliver Masucci from the German series "Dark" and Karla Souza, best known for "The Rules of the Perfect Crime".
The irony, however, is very unsophisticated and neutralizes the little horror that survives the over-the-top action scenes. Day Shift follows in the footsteps of From Dusk Till Dawn, but where Rodriguez's film remained famous for an unsettling twist, Day Shift is instead the umpteenth film to use vampires in a hyperkinetic and ridiculous way, moreover without even the splatter or the thrills of the massacre of some protagonist.
As if that were not enough, the annoying aspiration of wanting to launch a franchise is evident, so much so that some characters are presented as iconic figures but soon leave the scene and there is talk here and there of El Jefe, a very powerful vampire who is perhaps a legend, named only for a possible sequel. Overall, Day Shift is therefore an emblematic title of cinema for streaming platforms. Designed for a distracted audience that often consults their other devices while watching, announces its best scenes with volume surges, explosions and shots, to alert you that there will be good deeds on the screen for a few minutes ... then you can return to a bored look that gives more attention to the portable screen than to the TV, without missing much.
This film marks the directorial debut of J. J. Perry, a longtime stuntman and stunt coordinator who knows his job. The protagonist is a handsome Jamie Foxx, more accustomed to comedy than martial arts, which he tries to make up for with extensive use of firearms in the style of John Wick's "gun-fu".
Instead, it is the stuntmen who play vampires who demonstrate impressive contortionism, in a series of joint holds and incredible evolutions. The spectacle of these scenes justifies the overused vampire theme because only supernatural opponents can fight in this way. Unfortunately, Perry is not as irresistible as a director and too often resorts to editing cuts and accelerations that the expertise of some actors and stuntmen would not have any need.
One of the most performing stars of action cinema carves out a small role in the cast: Scott Adkins. Adkins has another step, but his kicks and elegant sword movements are also overplayed by unnecessary editing and accelerations, just to keep the overall tone of the film's action, whereas the other actors are not at his level. Day Shift, after all, focuses more and more on comedy as the minutes go by, introducing the character of Dave Franco who gets into it and giving space to Snoop Dogg, who enters the scene with a sort of portable Gatling gun and exterminates hordes of vampires by shooting standing still. The villains themselves are not action stars: Oliver Masucci from the German series "Dark" and Karla Souza, best known for "The Rules of the Perfect Crime".
The irony, however, is very unsophisticated and neutralizes the little horror that survives the over-the-top action scenes. Day Shift follows in the footsteps of From Dusk Till Dawn, but where Rodriguez's film remained famous for an unsettling twist, Day Shift is instead the umpteenth film to use vampires in a hyperkinetic and ridiculous way, moreover without even the splatter or the thrills of the massacre of some protagonist.
As if that were not enough, the annoying aspiration of wanting to launch a franchise is evident, so much so that some characters are presented as iconic figures but soon leave the scene and there is talk here and there of El Jefe, a very powerful vampire who is perhaps a legend, named only for a possible sequel. Overall, Day Shift is therefore an emblematic title of cinema for streaming platforms. Designed for a distracted audience that often consults their other devices while watching, announces its best scenes with volume surges, explosions and shots, to alert you that there will be good deeds on the screen for a few minutes ... then you can return to a bored look that gives more attention to the portable screen than to the TV, without missing much.
Just Mercy
(2019)
JUST MERCY is about struggle, political and social resistance!
13 August 2022
The opposite of wealth? Injustice. Like the lacerating and dramatic one suffered by Walter "Johnny D" McMillian, unjustly (indeed, illegally) convicted of killing an eighteen-year-old girl. No material proof and no fair trial. Just a fake testimony ripped under blackmail. Johnny D's only fault is being black under the blue Alabama skies. And even though we are in 1987, the deep south of the USA still clings to racial segregation.
Defending McMillian, on a long and exhausting journey to freedom, is lawyer Bryan Stevenson, also an African American, just out of Harvard. And then, the true story of Stevenson and McMillian - played respectively by two talented Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Foxx - is told strongly by Destin Daniel Cretton in this feature film, based on the memoir written by Stevenson himself. Today one of the greatest American lawyers, as well as activist and founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, focused on providing legal assistance to inmates who may have been mistakenly (or hastily) arrested. Thus, through a classic and pure cinema, Cretton's film leads us to reflect on whether (and how much) the judicial system is reliable and, above all, prudent: McMillian - and many with him - find themselves on death row, resigned to a path that does not deserve. Because, after all, there is no justice without hope. JUST MERCY is a film about struggle, about political and social resistance, angry enough, incisive in its being the indictment of medieval injustices suffered by innocent men. A little more than two hours for a story that lasted years, irremediably marking the soul of the accused. Put behind bars just because "just look him in the face". Thus, the scapegoat is ready to climb Golgotha, his stomach tightens and impotence takes over. After all, JUST MERCY, recalls how much still today the imposing shadow of the American dream covers abuses and legal abuses. Both towards blacks and towards those born with the misfortune of being poor. Like Ralph Myers, with the face of an extraordinary Tim Blake Nelson (and how much he deserved the Oscar nomination ...), the man who initially accused (even though he never saw him) Johnny D. And he is the needle of the balance that shifts the orientation of a case that should not exist, neither yesterday nor ever. Let alone in a country that makes freedom its raison d'être.
Defending McMillian, on a long and exhausting journey to freedom, is lawyer Bryan Stevenson, also an African American, just out of Harvard. And then, the true story of Stevenson and McMillian - played respectively by two talented Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Foxx - is told strongly by Destin Daniel Cretton in this feature film, based on the memoir written by Stevenson himself. Today one of the greatest American lawyers, as well as activist and founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, focused on providing legal assistance to inmates who may have been mistakenly (or hastily) arrested. Thus, through a classic and pure cinema, Cretton's film leads us to reflect on whether (and how much) the judicial system is reliable and, above all, prudent: McMillian - and many with him - find themselves on death row, resigned to a path that does not deserve. Because, after all, there is no justice without hope. JUST MERCY is a film about struggle, about political and social resistance, angry enough, incisive in its being the indictment of medieval injustices suffered by innocent men. A little more than two hours for a story that lasted years, irremediably marking the soul of the accused. Put behind bars just because "just look him in the face". Thus, the scapegoat is ready to climb Golgotha, his stomach tightens and impotence takes over. After all, JUST MERCY, recalls how much still today the imposing shadow of the American dream covers abuses and legal abuses. Both towards blacks and towards those born with the misfortune of being poor. Like Ralph Myers, with the face of an extraordinary Tim Blake Nelson (and how much he deserved the Oscar nomination ...), the man who initially accused (even though he never saw him) Johnny D. And he is the needle of the balance that shifts the orientation of a case that should not exist, neither yesterday nor ever. Let alone in a country that makes freedom its raison d'être.
Hidden Figures
(2016)
Black Women exist and have Chutzpah
6 August 2022
Hidden Figures is an explosive, ironic, daring film. It is a film that does justice to Katherine G. Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson with mathematical sweetness, giving every detail, nuance, fact, the visibility necessary to make us learn that the right to count is the representation of man's race. On the Moon, but from the point of view of those who have never gone beyond the stratosphere; from the perspective of those who have remained anchored on a land that they could not even feel their own, in a segregationist country like America in the 1960s (and today).
Based on the book Hidden Figures: The Story of the African-American Women Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly, it is the story of a race for progress and emancipation.
At school they teach us the name of those who first set foot on the Moon and perhaps the names of those who assisted the mission, but no one has ever given importance to human calculators, or those women who carried out the task now performed by modern technologies ; who worked in oblivion, detached from the rest of the NASA staff, earning lower salaries because they were women and because they were black.
The focus is on the figure of African-American mathematics, scientist and physicist Katherine Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), of her immense talent in mathematical art, which in filmic representation acquires a real personification, bordering on art.
But the beauty of Katherine Johnson's character is that it transcends her story - that of a very gifted child who is directed to do more by the teachers themselves - to escape beyond the boundaries of self-centeredness and selfishness.
So, despite having a hypothetical bull's-eye fixed on Katherine, her aura would be meager without the support of Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monáe (Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson, respectively). Three women so different and yet so similar to each other.
The former was a bit clumsy, sweet and shy; volcanic and resolute the second and attractive and tongue-tied the third. Women very different from each other in ways of doing and being, but all united by the determination and willpower that leads them to be protagonists and to have "the knife on the side of the handle" in a situation in which they would have been forced to be the last ones on the list. After all, that's what happens when talent is combined with a pinch of cunning and a good chutzpah!
The focus on the figure of African-American mathematics, scientist and physics Katherine Johnson (of whom an incredible Taraji P. Henson plays the role), of her immense talent in mathematical art, which in the filmic representation acquires a real personification, almost to the limit of art.
But the beauty of Katherine Johnson's character is that it transcends her story - that of a very gifted child who is directed to do more by the teachers themselves - to escape beyond the boundaries of self-centeredness and selfishness.
So, despite having a hypothetical bull's-eye fixed on Katherine, her aura would be meager without the support of Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monáe (who play Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson, respectively). Three women so different and yet so similar to each other.
The former was a bit clumsy, sweet and shy; volcanic and resolute the second and attractive and tongue-tied the third. Women very different from each other in ways of doing and being, but all united by the determination and willpower that leads them to be protagonists and to have "the knife on the side of the handle" in a situation in which they would have been forced to be the last ones on the list. After all, that's what happens when talent is combined with a pinch of cunning and a good chutzpah!
Based on the book Hidden Figures: The Story of the African-American Women Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly, it is the story of a race for progress and emancipation.
At school they teach us the name of those who first set foot on the Moon and perhaps the names of those who assisted the mission, but no one has ever given importance to human calculators, or those women who carried out the task now performed by modern technologies ; who worked in oblivion, detached from the rest of the NASA staff, earning lower salaries because they were women and because they were black.
The focus is on the figure of African-American mathematics, scientist and physicist Katherine Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), of her immense talent in mathematical art, which in filmic representation acquires a real personification, bordering on art.
But the beauty of Katherine Johnson's character is that it transcends her story - that of a very gifted child who is directed to do more by the teachers themselves - to escape beyond the boundaries of self-centeredness and selfishness.
So, despite having a hypothetical bull's-eye fixed on Katherine, her aura would be meager without the support of Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monáe (Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson, respectively). Three women so different and yet so similar to each other.
The former was a bit clumsy, sweet and shy; volcanic and resolute the second and attractive and tongue-tied the third. Women very different from each other in ways of doing and being, but all united by the determination and willpower that leads them to be protagonists and to have "the knife on the side of the handle" in a situation in which they would have been forced to be the last ones on the list. After all, that's what happens when talent is combined with a pinch of cunning and a good chutzpah!
The focus on the figure of African-American mathematics, scientist and physics Katherine Johnson (of whom an incredible Taraji P. Henson plays the role), of her immense talent in mathematical art, which in the filmic representation acquires a real personification, almost to the limit of art.
But the beauty of Katherine Johnson's character is that it transcends her story - that of a very gifted child who is directed to do more by the teachers themselves - to escape beyond the boundaries of self-centeredness and selfishness.
So, despite having a hypothetical bull's-eye fixed on Katherine, her aura would be meager without the support of Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monáe (who play Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson, respectively). Three women so different and yet so similar to each other.
The former was a bit clumsy, sweet and shy; volcanic and resolute the second and attractive and tongue-tied the third. Women very different from each other in ways of doing and being, but all united by the determination and willpower that leads them to be protagonists and to have "the knife on the side of the handle" in a situation in which they would have been forced to be the last ones on the list. After all, that's what happens when talent is combined with a pinch of cunning and a good chutzpah!
The Chamber
(1996)
Death penalty is human sacrifice!
5 August 2022
James Foley returns to the vicinity of his At Close Range 1986, and the whole thing gains substance, using the crime for the staging of a powerful and introspective family tragedy. It is also a moving ethical drama where, in the pamphlet against the death sentence, it is also the invective against racism rooted in the US deep south and political opportunism. The invitation to break, with forgiveness, the spirals of hatred and violence, defending the indefensible, finds its reasons: the role of the wicked is often sewn on by others and contemplates a sort of identification with one's own mask; the individual should not pay for everyone, when he is clear, in his psychic formation, the complicity of the System and of the cultural environment in which he grows up; the horror of an ignoble crime (the bomb in the school) is not so dissimilar from the barbarism of a state execution (Foley juxtaposes the two episodes, one in images and the other in the form of a story). When we find glimpses of humanity in the murderer's heart (heartbreaking meeting Hackman with his daughter Faye Dunaway), we are forced to flee helpless, like Chris O'Donnell, in the face of the horror of capital punishment. It is certainly not the novelty of the topic that is striking (Dead Man Walking and Last Dance, 1996 are also from the same period), but the vigorous and heartfelt psychological analysis, made even more credible by the masterful performance of Gene Hackman.
The Professional
(1981)
I was 11, it is one of the movies that hooked me on CINEMA
5 August 2022
Belmondo acted well, although his sparse face is sometimes disconcerting, but his body and facial expression were very expressive, giving the character charisma, and surprisingly for the time he had a well-built body endowed with good agility, sure because of his previous status as a boxer. . The problem is with the character, who is the typical intelligence-loving agent and all the qualifiers that we could find, sometimes it is hard to bear his arrogance.
Chi mai is overwhelming and although I enjoyed it, it is the only musical theme in the entire film, along with Le vent, I thought I only heard it at the beginning. Music is powerful, and when it's not there, its absence is felt.
The plot of the movie is only one enough to "shoot" a movie, so this is the lame leg that we will find. There are also the dialogues, as superficial as those of any eighties action movie. But to be honest, it's the same at any time.
It started at a good pace. About 3/4 of the way through the movie I lost interest a bit. But the ending was well planned, well developed and atypical for an action movie, I dare to say that I loved it and, of course, accompanied by Chi mai, there was more to come!
There are also other scenes to remember, such as the duel between the two gunmen and the meeting with the president's mistress... Mon amour! What an attractive woman!
Congratulations on the movie. I totally recommend it, remembering that there are a couple of nudes and some blood in there.
Chi mai is overwhelming and although I enjoyed it, it is the only musical theme in the entire film, along with Le vent, I thought I only heard it at the beginning. Music is powerful, and when it's not there, its absence is felt.
The plot of the movie is only one enough to "shoot" a movie, so this is the lame leg that we will find. There are also the dialogues, as superficial as those of any eighties action movie. But to be honest, it's the same at any time.
It started at a good pace. About 3/4 of the way through the movie I lost interest a bit. But the ending was well planned, well developed and atypical for an action movie, I dare to say that I loved it and, of course, accompanied by Chi mai, there was more to come!
There are also other scenes to remember, such as the duel between the two gunmen and the meeting with the president's mistress... Mon amour! What an attractive woman!
Congratulations on the movie. I totally recommend it, remembering that there are a couple of nudes and some blood in there.
The Takedown
(2022)
Belmondo would have loved it so relax and enjoy
4 August 2022
The border that divides the two completely opposite worlds from which the two policemen protagonists of the film come, who find themselves forced to work together to solve an intricate murder case that from the slums of the banlieue with its shady deals, leads them to shake the upper echelons of politics.
The French obviously have a very intelligent way of working on lucky formulas. In reality, even if in a genre context, we have a couple of very different people, a couple who work on very marked elements of comedy: Omar Sy started from this concept himself since its inception, led then arrived at the cinema but always with the constant of the couple at the antipodes, culturally, socially, professionally. In reality, the film tries to go beyond the most classic codes, playing with clichés to overcome them, letting us slowly discover the protagonists through a caricature of themselves that deconstructs these codes to arrive at something more human and personal. In the sense that, for example, Ousmane the ramshackle is actually more rigid, serious and conservative than it seems, moreover with a child to grow up in the midst of a thousand difficulties; while the formal and framed François is more brazen, incorrect and messed up than he wants us to believe at first. Moral, the two grow up and learn to solve their problems through each other's faults.
The two are rather funny and nice and there is a good feeling between them.
In the end we have an interesting hybrid even if not completely successful, mainly due to a few too many gaps in the script and a too hasty ending, which still leaves open the possibility of a sequel and perhaps the beginning of a new franchise. Director David Charhon, who comes from the world of advertising, made use of the collaboration of Alain Duplantier for photography and Ludovic Bource for music. The first action film specialist (Killer Elite), the second even Oscar winner for the comedy The Artist: to underline even more the mixture of the two genres desired by the director from the start.
The French obviously have a very intelligent way of working on lucky formulas. In reality, even if in a genre context, we have a couple of very different people, a couple who work on very marked elements of comedy: Omar Sy started from this concept himself since its inception, led then arrived at the cinema but always with the constant of the couple at the antipodes, culturally, socially, professionally. In reality, the film tries to go beyond the most classic codes, playing with clichés to overcome them, letting us slowly discover the protagonists through a caricature of themselves that deconstructs these codes to arrive at something more human and personal. In the sense that, for example, Ousmane the ramshackle is actually more rigid, serious and conservative than it seems, moreover with a child to grow up in the midst of a thousand difficulties; while the formal and framed François is more brazen, incorrect and messed up than he wants us to believe at first. Moral, the two grow up and learn to solve their problems through each other's faults.
The two are rather funny and nice and there is a good feeling between them.
In the end we have an interesting hybrid even if not completely successful, mainly due to a few too many gaps in the script and a too hasty ending, which still leaves open the possibility of a sequel and perhaps the beginning of a new franchise. Director David Charhon, who comes from the world of advertising, made use of the collaboration of Alain Duplantier for photography and Ludovic Bource for music. The first action film specialist (Killer Elite), the second even Oscar winner for the comedy The Artist: to underline even more the mixture of the two genres desired by the director from the start.
The Great Debaters
(2007)
Denzel should direct more
4 August 2022
Between historical account and fictionalized gaze, Denzel Washington - taking the role of the protagonist himself - portrays the America of those who have suffered it, of those who have been seduced by it, of those who managed to get by despite everything, with exceptional linguistic virtuosity. Aided by the accurate and emotional screenplay by Robert Eisele, the seduction of the word nails the viewer to the screen, like a child to an aquarium: Eisele has fished for his audience the best words and made a weapon, well aware of how knowledge is synonymous with power, yesterday as today. A contemporary of Tolson, Martin Luther King wrote in those years: "I have a dream, that one day this nation will rise up and live fully the true meaning of its creed. We hold these truths in themselves evident: that all men were created. The same". Awareness is also power. The evident rhetoric on the surface does not detract from the work: verbose by need, however dynamic in development and masterfully interpreted by the actors. The Great Debaters is a lesson in jazz, blues, violence, hope, tolerance; moving and demanding, it imposes intellectual honesty on its viewers, because here, as in few other feature films, the word takes on a central role.
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