Galina_movie_fan Reviews

Revolutionary Road (2008)

Trouble in Paradise. American Beauty:1953

[5/10 · 7 March 2024]

I am m not sure if I want to recommend Revolutionary Road even though, it is a very well-made picture directed by the creator of American Beauty and shot by Roger Deakins. The film reminds American Beauty with almost identical shots, POVs, even with the way the music creates tension, and most of all with the similarities in the subject matter. You can view the film as Sam Mendes's return to explore the territory and to perform dissection of the phenomena called American Suburbia once again and to prove that there never was peace and idyll in the quiet suburban paradise, nor in the end of the 90s, neither in the beginning of the 50s, during the age of hopes and innocence. Or, maybe, we should not try to look too closely, and the movie is not about the epoch, but one unhappy family of a man whose job is uninspiring (but pays the bills) and a frustrated, disappointed, unstable woman.

Acting is superb and confirms that DiCaprio and Winslet are among the best if not the best actors of their generation. But with all said, Revolutionary Road - one of the most difficult to watch films I've seen in a long time. The story of a young family from American suburbia who had lived their American dream but at some instant became exhausted with the monotony of their exemplary life, made me annoyed and even angry with them. What is wrong with those people, what makes them so unbearably unhappy, and why should I suffer for two hours, listening to hysterical cries and observing a storm in a glass of water? Why do they hate their lives so much? Am I to believe that never was a story of more woe than of the husband who has to go to work to support his family while his wife stays home taking care of their nice house and the children? She is restless, she feels trapped, she wants to change their lives, to make a clean cut, to go and start all over in Paris. Well, I have a surprise for her: change of venue would not make anyone happy if they can't find readiness to be happy inside themselves. If they can't be grateful for what they already achieved and what they are blessed with - strength, youth, energy, two nice and healthy children.

It does not mean that I deny films about unhappy families, not at all. Mendes' debut, American Beauty - one of my favorite films from the 90s. Perhaps, because it perfectly mixed tragic and humorous, drama and dark comedy. Or, perhaps, because in American Beauty, we had a chance to get acquainted with several characters, not with one but two unhappy families, to know and to understand them. Revolutionary Road - is the film about April and Frank and it concentrates on them only. This is the strength of the film as well as its weakness. Winslet and DiCaprio inhabited their characters, two little-interesting, selfish, ordinary people and played them so well that observing them for two hours has turned into difficult task. Their misery which they brought upon themselves is suffocating. Not just for them but for the viewers, also.

Stranger Things (2016–2025)

Praise for the first season

[7/10 · 25 September 2023]

From the first moment, the creators of "Stranger things" don't hide the fact that the force behind the series is their love and dedication to the SiFi TV shows, books, and movies of the 1980s. The idea might not be original because we start to recognize the referencesto the 1980s hits from the very beginning but the true love for the good time that can always be had in the childhood when you see something cool for the first time, for the great stories and movies of days gone but still remembered, shines through all eight episodes of the season 1.

The fact that I kept telling myself that everything looks and feels familiar, that I can name the exact titles of the films that the creators were mimicking, stopped bothering me very soon. The story was compelling, the atmosphere - authentic, the cast - talented and enthusiastic. What was there not to like?

In the rest of the seasons, the things got stranger even if not necessary better but the first sason is memorable and strong.

Marriage Story (2019)

Barber vs. Barber or The Scenes from After Marriage Live

[8/10 · 31 August 2023]

The tragicomedy "Marriage Story" by Noah Baumbach dissects the after-marital life of Barbers, an actress Nicole (Scarlett Johansson), and theatrical director Charlie (Adam Driver). It is about the painful parting of two loving people who have outgrown their relationship, reached a dead end, and are suffocating, but the pain of splitting cuts like a knife. Marriage is dying, but love is alive. How can this be? It sounds paradoxical and meaningless, but it's true. They know everything about each other, and their relationship is deep. She will still order his food in a restaurant. He trusts only her to cut his hair. They can't be together, but it hurts to part. And when highly paid divorce lawyers come into play, the pain becomes unbearable. All past mistakes, wrong steps, unsolved problems, and hidden grudges will be pulled to the surface. Everything will stick out like an infected abscess; everything will be distorted like in a house of mirrors. The film is permeated with tenderness and cruelty, humor and sadness, laughter and tears. A simple talkative story hits you in the gut and leaves you with a lump in your throat. The dialogues and monologues are brilliant, and the acting work of Johansson and Driver disarms with sincerity of emotions and depth of feelings. Alan Alda, Ray Liotta, and Laura Dern shine in supporting roles. Based on the story of his own failed marriage Noah Baumbach wrote and directed a poignantly beautiful and sad film, perhaps his best.

Last Year at Marienbad (1961)

Power of memory

[9/10 · 28 January 2023]

Even after more than 60 years since its release, Last Year at Marienbad, directed by Alain Resnais and written by Alain Robbe-Grillet, remains one of the most mysterious European intellectual film experiments. Thousands of studies have been written about it, mountains of polemical copies have been broken while discussing it, as much love and admiration have been expressed toward the film as a misunderstanding and even contempt. And the film which possesses a charming hypnotic appeal, still does not reveal its secrets and invites the viewers to decide for themselves what happened last year (or not last) in Marienbad, or not even there at all, but in Fredericksburg, and did it happen at all? And what is happening in a deserted grand hotel where past meets present as Sacha Verney's camera zooms in on the faces of two guests, snatching them from a crowd of elegantly dressed ladies and gentlemen moving aimlessly as if in a trance? The unnamed man and woman may or may not have known each other since last year. With desperate perseverance, He will call on Her to remember their last year's meetings, which She will deny first with polite indifference and then with great bewilderment and uncertainty.

Are the viewers, following the advice of screenwriter Alain Robbe-Grillet, ready to immerse themselves in the screen world of Marienbad, opening the door to purely sensory perception? Such an approach will make it possible to appreciate the surreal mystique of the film, its versatility, the non-linear development of the action based on free movement in time and space, as well as the amazing openness of Last year... to any interpretation. The viewer becomes an "accomplice in crime", he can join the secrets of the film, offer his own interpretation and, thereby, come closer to understanding its essence. Very possible that someone will see only emptiness, raised to the level of complicated significance, and tastefully packaged in an elegant box of pretentiousness. Well, this is also one of the interpretations of the film, about which its creator Alain Resnais said that "Last year at Marienbad" does not make any sense, but inspires endless reflections. While working on it, Resnais reflected on such subjects as loneliness, uncertainty, ambiguity, and unconscious fear of repressed desires that tormented the heroes of the film and which the director embodied on the screen in hypnotic images. The illusory, deceptive, and indefinite world of the film is subject to its own internal rhythm and exists in symmetrical compositions, mirror reflections, and instant collisions of white and black colors, in a geometrically built garden in which only people cast shadows, but trees and bushes do not. The long camera movements through endless corridors and salons visually increase the size of the hotel, a full-fledged character of the film, making the building an endless and intricate labyrinth in which the characters circle like lost souls in purgatory. Their only hope of escaping the labyrinth is memory. Only memory can indicate the exit to the world of the living.

Memory and its irresistible power over us have been the subject of keen interest for Alain Resnais throughout his creative life, starting with the first feature film, Hiroshima Mon Amour. The persistence of memory and its relation to reality became one of the main themes of Last Year in Marienbad. Can we always trust our memories? Does the memory reflect events in the sequence in which they really happened, or does our vision of these events change over time under the influence of new feelings, faces, and sensations that inevitably enter life and overshadow the past, displacing it into the depths of the subconscious? Memories change shape and form. They merge into one and break like a mirror into smithereens, into countless fragments. They change sharply and painfully, like the sound of glass on asphalt, and slide smoothly one after another in an elusive sequence. Marienbad of last year is no different from this year, and who can say exactly what was promised and by whom? Have the assurances of love been forgotten, or have they never been spoken? And were there any plans for a meeting exactly in a year at all, which were not meant to come true, or was it only imagination? The film challenges the viewer with an endless array of answers, including interpretations of every cycle of ancient Greek mythology, the dark worlds of Kafka, the elegantly aloof tales of Borges, the manifestos of surrealism, symbolism, and other isms. But starting the game first, as the most mysterious of the film's character, remaining in the background, The Last Year at Marienbad always wins without giving a single answer, always having the last word, which can only be followed by the ellipses...

The Brothers Bloom (2008)

"The trick to not feeling cheated is to learn how to cheat."

[5/10 · 26 January 2023]

Brothers Bloom is the second film written and directed by Rian Johnson. The first Johnson's film was Brick, a stylized homage to the hard-boiled film noir from the golden age of cinema, carried over to a modern day California high school. Watching the young actors "talking the talk and walking the walk" while playing noir archetypes as teenagers, loner private eye, femme fatale, a powerful drug lord who still lives with his mom, was amusing and unusual.

The Bloom Brothers pays tribute to virtuoso conmen in the tradition of The Sting and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. It tells the story of brothers Bloom, Stephen (Mark Ruffalo) and Bloom (Adrien Brody), skillful and creative swindlers, one of whom generates the ideas of grand scams, and the other puts them into action.

Beautifully filmed in rather European manner, it brings to mind Federico Fellini's style with the soundtrack that was inspired by Nino Rota. Acting is good especially by Rachel Weisz and Rinko Kukuchi (Babylon) in the strange and unusual roles. Kukuchi's character, Bang Bang is particularly interesting. She only says three words in the entire movie, but her presence is so tangible and eloquent that she does not need to talk. Our eyes are fixed on her every time she is on screen.

With numerous references towards art-house and as far from Hollywood cinema as possible, The Brothers Bloom begins as imaginative and twisted. The problem with the film is that it overdid itself, played off a bunch of genres but on the way from one twist to another turn, it lost its steam and became overtwisted, pretentious, and out of breath. It's a pity because it had a lot of good things going for it. It sounds appealing and intriguing, and it has many loyal fans but not me. The movie did not con me because the perfect con is one where everyone involved gets just what they wanted.

The Fabelmans (2022)

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

[9/10 · 18 January 2023]

Many years ago, Steven Spielberg conceived the idea of the movie based on the story of his family and growing up in various states, cities, and towns across the US. By his own admission, he has told the parts of the story in many of his films. For a long time, he could not come to terms with his parents' divorce when he was a teenager and for many years, he blamed his father and almost did not communicate with him. Over time, he learned details that he did not suspect, and in the last years of his parents' life, he was close to both. Both of his parents lived to a ripe old age. His mother died at 97 and his father at 103. While himself in his 70s he was blessed to be a son of two loving living parents. After their death, he finally decided to tell the story about them, about his childhood and adolescence, about the origins of his love for cinema, the love that became his calling, profession, and obsession for life.

The Fabelmans is Steven Spielberg's most personal and touching film. It is his Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Amarcord, the New Paradiso Cinema, Radio Days, and The Mirror. While the themes of adolescence and becoming a creative person are similar in these very personal films of the great directors, The Fabelmans is unmistakably a film that only Spielberg, an artist at the peak of his talent and vision, could conceive, write, feel and stage. It is a dedication to the main tool of the filmmaker, his camera, to power and magic with which it entertains, delights, opens up new dimensions, stops moments, and highlights the unexpected essence of things, but can also break hearts and lives. Manipulating the camera shots and angles, Spielberg achieves in the best scenes of his semi-biographical movie the Rashomon's effect and opens his soul to the viewer in a way he has never done before. By the power of his talent, its creator captured the important, happy, and painful moments of the search for meaning and put them on screen as a compelling family portrait. Such sincerity and frankness will be appreciated by the viewer, who is ready to accept them. But the same sincerity and frankness can cause bewilderment, misunderstanding, and even rejection. Spielberg must have known about it, but he had to make the movie anyway. In my opinion, The Fabelmans is an honest, beautiful, and memorable film.

Get Out (I) (2017)

"Black is in fashion!"

[7/10 · 26 December 2022]

A rather curious movie hybrid with the ideas, themes, allusions, and references to films such as Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, Meet the Parents, The Stepford Wives and Being John Malkovich. It is billed as a horror film, but it can be described as a very dark comedy with elements of fantasy, horror, and satire which focuses on racial relations in the modern United States.

I was impressed with the directorial debut by Jordan Peele. He skillfully created a restless, even creepy atmosphere during the scenes where nothing terrible happens. On the contrary, everyone is nice and smiling at the main character Chris, a handsome black guy, surrounding him with attention and seemingly taking him in as a potential member of the wealthy and liberal upper-middle class white family. They live in a beautifully manicured country estate and warmly welcome a New Yorker boyfriend of their daughter who brought him over for a weekend to meet her parents and brother. Everything seems fine, but there is clearly a strange tension, discomfort, awkwardness, possibly related to the gazes of the couple of black servants, the gardener and the cook. They obviously can't take their eyes off Chris and behave with either charmingly old-fashioned, or, perhaps, a little frightening politeness.

Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (2018)

My, my, how can I resist it?

[7/10 · 28 November 2022]

If you did not like the first movie, the second one will not work for you either, but if you're a fan of ABBA songs and don't mind stepping into the same waters a second time, my, my, how can you resist it? The film unfolds in two parallel time spaces. Thirty years ago, Donna Sheridan, the protagonist of the first film and the original musical, is a young and beautiful Oxford graduate and lead singer of the pop group Donna and the Dynamos. She is traveling in Europe, looking for her special place on earth. Along the way, she meets three attractive young men, one of whom will become the father of her daughter Sophie. Nowadays, 25-year-old Sophie is restoring an old hotel on the island of Kalokari, the greenest and most picturesque island in Greece.

Like the first ABBA film, the sequel is bright and colorful, with ABBA songs sounding almost non-stop. Old friends will gather for a holiday. One of the best songs of ABBA "Fernando" will receive a worthy performance by a famous star who will turn out to be Donna's mother and Sophie's grandmother. At the end of the film, two memorable scenes will follow each other. One is sentimental but very touching and the last one is a final parade, where, indeed, all the characters from both movies, young ones and their grown-up alter egos participate in dancing and singing.

Both movies are good to watch in winter - they are warm and cozy. Expect from them no more and no less than they can give you - songs, dances, bright extravagant clothes, blue sea, cute characters, great actors who have nothing special to play, but who cares? They were on vacation and had a fun time that they generously shared with us.

The Elephant Man (1980)

A true story of courage and human dignity

[10/10 · 9 August 2021]

This must be one of the most beautiful, cleansing, surreal tear-jerkers ever made. The fact that The Elephant Man(1980) was directed by David Lynch and produced by Mel Brooks and his company makes it even more surreal and incredible. It may seem over-sentimental and manipulative for some viewers but it is a great movie about the unbearable, unfair human condition, about dignity and what it means to be a Human Being, a Man. David Lynch's only second feature treats its subject with compassion and restraint and features outstanding performances by John Hurt and Anthony Hopkins. B/W cinematography that brought to life the feeling of expressionistic movies from the 1920s is appropriately disturbing. And who can forget the make-up work by Christopher Tucker! It took John Hurt seven hours every day to apply it and two hours to take it off.

John Merrick had lived with such deformity that forced him to sleep sitting up, with his legs drawn up and his head resting on his knees. His enlarged head was too heavy to allow him to sleep lying down and, as Merrick put it, he would risk "waking with a broken neck". Poor, pure John Merrick who died before his 28th birthday. He required great deal of care from the nursing staff. He suffered a lot but he always remained a loving, gentle, dignified person.

Johnny Cash: Hurt (2003 Music Video)

My life, did I just dream of you?

[10/10 · 7 June 2021]

Trent Reznor was born to write this song, Johnny Cash to sing it, and Mark Romanek to film it. " Bono, vocalist of the rock band U2

The author's interpretation of the song "Hurt" by Trent Reznor, founder and leader of the industrial rock group Nine Inch Nails, overwhelmed with the despair of the protagonist. He was lost in the drug fog of the "empire of dirt", crowned with a "crown of s**it" and causing himself physical pain, which became his only connection with reality. A huge screen was installed on the stage, onto which gloomy scenes of death, horrors of war, and nuclear bomb tests were projected. The triangular head of an unblinking serpent staring into the camera, zoomed in on the full screen, was eerily approaching. The fantastic bird completely swallowed a huge fish underwater. The decaying process of the fox's corpse was scrolling from end to beginning. Projector light caught Reznor's figure out of the darkness, and ominous hypnotic visions seemed to spill onto the screen from the underworld of his subconscious.

When Johnny Cash decided to record "Hurt" for his new CD, Trent Reznor was not sure of the success of the idea, although he was flattered by the attention of the legendary country singer to his work. But when Reznor saw and heard for the first time the video clip of Mark Romanek, filmed according to the version of Cash, he was moved to the core. Cash's interpretation of his most personal song, written in a period of loneliness and hopelessness, from the very first guitar chords caused tears in the eyes of the rock star, goosebumps, and a lump in his throat. Reznor recalled that he had suddenly realized that "Hurt" no longer belonged to him alone and experienced a feeling close to the loss of someone he loved. His song, reinterpreted by a musician from another era in a genre far from industrial rock, did not just recreate the original meaning, pain, and regret. It burned with the piercing sincerity of a person who managed to make someone else's song his own.

Johnny Cash's life unfolds in front of the viewer in the alternation of documentary shots of the past and images that captured him as 71 years old, during 2002 filming, at the end of his journey. The 4-minute video captures the story of a "man in black" who always played by his own rules, balancing on the edge of a ring of fire. A deeply devoted believer and sinner, stubborn and rebellious, he lived a bright, stormy life with creative triumphs, loud fame, love, but also an unequal struggle with drug addiction, pain inflicted on himself and others, a heavy burden of guilt, and irreparable losses. A special acuity to the performance came from the confessional manner of Cash. It was filmed in the house where he lived for more than 30 years with his beloved wife, singer June Carter Cash. She lovingly looks into the aged face of her husband and listens attentively to his cracked voice, summing up the past years.

By changing just one word in Reznor's song, Cash goes beyond the original design. He grieves about the futility of worldly achievements, and because everything passes and nothing can be changed. The singer reflects on the transience of life, on the immensity of death, on the Ozymandian collapse of arrogant ambitions, on the decline of the genre. Endless sorrow, search and disappointment, subtle observation, and wise sorrowful generalization all intertwined in the song. He would give everything to turn back time, correct mistakes, heal the pain caused to loved ones, but he was trapped in his own "empire of dirt", weighed down by a crown of thorns, which he placed on himself. A lonely keyboard note begins to sound like a disturbing dissonance. It repeats itself over and over again. Nearer. Louder. More persistent. Like the monotonous deafening blows of a hammer driving nails into the cross of the crucifix, into the lid of the coffin. As if fate, knocking on the door, lifted the veil over the future in front of the singer, and he saw that in three months after the completion of the shooting of "Hurt", death would take his beloved June. Where he would survive her by only four months. Where their house, filled with memories, will burn to the ground in a fire a few years later, marking the irrevocable departure of an entire era.

Johnny Cash's swan song, written not by him, ends with a heartfelt, mournfully enlightened shot. The aged musician slowly lowers the lid of the white piano, gently touching it with the fingers of his tired hands. The inevitable farewell to the most precious in life - music, love, home, becomes his litany, his requiem, and monumentum aere perennius.

What Did Jack Do? (2017)

What did David Lynch do?

[8/10 · 23 May 2021]

On January 20, 2020 which was the 74th birthday of the famous director David Lynch, Netflix made a gift to the numerous fans of the indefatigable surrealist. The streaming giant has posted on its portal Lynch's new, the 17-minute short, "What Did Jack Do?" In it, a detective (played by Lynch) interrogates a Capuchin monkey named Jack, who may have committed the murder. Both are sitting at a table in a cafe in a provincial train station. Both wear similar dark suits and white shirts with solid ties. The abrupt and biting dialogue is in the style of old cool American noir. There are cups of coffee on the table and hopefully it's damn good coffee. Lynch acted in the film as an one man-orchestra. He wrote the script, staged and directed the film, edited it, and wrote the song that sounds in the finale. And maybe he even sang. And he might have given the monkey the voice. It's very weird, strange, funny, atmospheric, in one word, Lynchesque 17 minutes. So, what did Lynch do? The short strongly reminded me that it was time to watch Lynch's magnum opus, Twin Peaks. And I did :)

Twin Peaks (2017)

25 years later it is happening again

[9/10 · 22 May 2021]

Mr. Lynch, got a light?

An FBI agent comes to a small, picturesque town in the north-west of the USA to investigate the murder of a 17-years-old, an A- student, a beauty, the most popular girl in the local school. How many movies and TV shows start out the same way? Of the 15 seasons of the popular TV series Criminal Minds, more than half of the episodes are devoted to investigating the brutal murders of young girls in different parts of the United States, but Twin Peaks is special. It seems similar but completely unlike a typical movie or TV series in which the best FBI investigators can understand and analyze the train of thought of the most sophisticated criminals. The main impression from all three seasons of Twin Peaks is an amazing combination of comic and mundane, weird and tragic, surreal and ordinary. There are parodies and homages everywhere, love-hate for the American dream, and a very definite moment in history when humanity crossed the line of no return and broke the fragile balance between good and evil in this world. All of it reflected as in a drop of water on the fate of the inhabitants of a small, picturesque town in the northwestern United States in the first and second seasons, and far beyond Twin Peaks, Washington, in the third season.

With a rich imagination and a strange unusual artistic vision, David Lynch believes that life is complex, and films reflecting it should not be simplified. The plots of his films, especially the three seasons of Twin Peaks, where supernatural worlds with their inexplicable mysteries coexist with ordinary reality, are often confusing and discouraging for viewers, but Lynch is known for never having offered an interpretation of his work. According to him, people cannot accept for granted that life, existence, consciousness have neither meaning nor causes, and religion and mythology are human attempts to comprehend its reality, to bring logic into the subconscious chthonic horror of the unknown. Nervousness, uncertainty, and insecurity flow from the screen, enveloping and overwhelming the audience. Somebody said about the first two seasons of TP that it was a combined vision of Rockwell Kent with his majestic and soulful romantic-idyllic landscapes and the shocking Salvador Dali, whose works were distinguished by carefully written details and the morbid beauty of surreal visions of monsters and phobias, tormenting mind of the artist. While you can add other comparisons, influences, initiations, and mixtures of genres that overwhelm both Twin Peaks space and the entire Lynch galaxy, the idea of combining majestic and shocking represents the most important, integral part of the magical mystical realism of David Lynch.

It is in his burning interest in the ambiguity, duality, complexity of the surrounding world and the inextricable connection between beauty and ugliness, the triumph of life and a brutal unexpected death, bright blossoming under the sunny sky and the gloomy decay of matter under our feet. Most importantly, the magical realism of David Lynch is in eternal struggle between good and evil in the human soul. That is why doppelgangers look-alikes are so common in Lynch's films. That is why his heroes gaze into their mirror reflections so often - they are not sure who is gazing back at them on the other side. That is why he made the center of the battle between invisible, but real and powerful forces of supernatural evil and human dignity, courage and honor, a small town in the mountains, surrounded by a forest, with a population of 52001, typical Any Town, USA. And immortalized it. And returned 25 years later. And with him returned the inhabitants of Twin Peaks. 25 years is a long time. Familiar faces have changed. Someone returned only in memories. Someone appeared as a different entity. Someone - in three persons. New faces appear only to flicker in a short scene but remain in the viewers' memory. Some stories have come to a well-deserved happy ending, but these are very rare cases. Some stories are not finished, which is typical of Lynch. The journey ended on an uncertain note. Is it over? I would like to believe that this is not the end of the road.

It's hard to forget Twin Peaks, especially the 8th episode of the third season that polarized the viewers and critics. Some are delighted with it, some believe that Lynch's disregard for his loyal fans is growing stronger. An amazing hour on TV, the 8th episode brings to mind Tarkovsky with Solaris, the Mirror and the Sacrifice, Kubrick with Space Odyssey and Doctor Strangelove and Malik with the Tree of Life. Ridley Scott's "Alien" also came to mind. Trent Reznor found a place in the 8th part with a very heavy, very dark song, aggressive and creepy - exactly what Lynch ordered: "Make it so that I get goosebumps." But in essence, "Part 8, Got a light?" - is Lynch in his purest "heroin" form, where he deliberately blurs the lines between experimental film and non-diluted nightmares. Lynch saved his best and most horrifying vision for the final scene of Episode 8, using "My Prayer," one of the nicest and most melodic songs ever written. What is happening on the screen accompanied by that prayer, to some extent, explains and illustrates what evil to which humanity has deliberately doomed itself is capable of. Where are its origins. What are its consequences. The way it bizarrely connected the lives of the inhabitants of Twin Peaks and other cities and towns of the country. You cannot defeat evil. But there will always be those who will try, no matter what. In our reality and in the alternative. Today, tomorrow, yesterday. At all times.

Angel Heart (1987)

So, who are you? And I?

[9/10 · 11 May 2021]

The hauntingly sad melody of a tenor saxophone sounds over a littered alley in America's loneliest city in sync to the steps of an unkempt man in a long baggy coat. His name is Harry Angel (Mickey Rourke). He is a private detective from Brooklyn but not very successful. Most likely, Harry never heard of Mikhail Bulgakov's novel "The Master and Margarita", otherwise he would have grinned skeptically at the title of the very first chapter, "Never Talk to Strangers." How would he find a client and get the job done if he doesn't talk to strangers? Such as a wealthy, sophisticated, and mysterious businessman named Louis Cypher (Robert De Niro). One fine day, Cypher made him an offer, which Harry did not refuse. The businessman tasked the detective to track down a once-popular singer named Johnny Liebling, aka Johnny Favorite, who disappeared without a trace many years ago. The businessman signed a contract with Johnny which the latter did not fulfill. The contract must be closed, and for this Cypher needs to find out what happened to the former pop star.

Several features distinguish "Angel Heart" from many similar films with a sensible private investigator who undertakes an undefined mission and immediately encounters corpses lining his path. The director Alan Parker successfully combines elements of classic noir films, such as dark lighting, cynical characters, hopeless intonation, and a fatalistic plot with a modern vision, which gives the picture its uniqueness. The atmosphere pulls in from the beginning to the last shot, which is helped by the soundtrack. It includes not only blues and jazz compositions but also a human heartbeat in the background that raises the level of tension in many scenes. Parker realistically portrayed the era of the 50s, not exaggerating the importance of details, but not in any way ignoring them. The careful composition reveals in each frame only what is necessary at the given moment to return later in a shocking flashback and reveal the full picture of what happened and how. The contrasts between windy winter streets, alleys, and avenues of New York Boroughs and hot New Orleans fit the story because climate change and setting reflect the beginning of Angel's true understanding of the case he is investigating, of himself and his own role in what is happening now and what happened many years ago.

Landscape filming, built on the screen opposition of two cities, penetrates at the visceral level. Gray and slushy New York in early January is freezing to the bone. When the investigation brings Harry to wet, stuffy, witchcraft New Orleans and its suburb of Algeria, the center of the ancient pagan cult of Voodoo, it is difficult to breathe and you wish for the rain that will clear the air, wash away the dirt from the broken asphalt of the streets, drown out the agonizing questions that persistently sound in the brain like the echoing beats of someone's heart, and will bring peace to the suffering soul. And the rain will come. A real tropical downpour, like the biblical flood. It will break through the leaking ceiling in a cheap hotel room and turn into streams of blood that will flood a squalid little room that has become a haven for two strangers, Harry Angel and Epiphany (Lisa Bonnet), a young Louisiana woman who might be a key to the secrets of the past. Tangled in a passionate embrace, they found each other for a moment in the labyrinth of other people's memories, blood, lust, betrayal, and death. But the rain will not bring purification nor hope. It will only plunge even deeper into the atmosphere of a nightmare with its unpredictable logic and the inability to wake up.

Following a cyclical rhythm, "Angel Heart" again and again returns to the same point. Shutters slam, fans growl, an elevator rumbles, heartbeats become more frequent, flights of stairs diverge into endless heights and transcendent depths, and there is always a figure in black on the bench that will never reveal the face. All of this evokes a sense of uncertainty of what is happening and the subtly enveloping ominousness that the viewer experiences along with the detective, who is desperately trying to close the case. Mickey Rourke is superb as Harry. Deprived of ambition, not caring about how he looks, unshaven, shaggy, with puffy eyes, awkward, but inconceivably charming with an amazing, slightly shy smile, Harry Angel is sympathetic from the first appearance. Rourke brings true emotions to the character of his hero: frightening, scared, distraught, or resigned, he is always realistic, and you sympathize with him to the end, even when Harry Angel discovers the true nature of his investigation.

The sinister tone of the movie is set by Robert De Niro with sharp long polished nails, a pentagram ring, fine manners, a slight grin, and elegant black suits. De Niro must have had a lot of fun preparing for the role of Messier Cypher: a neatly trimmed black beard, long hair slicked back and pulled into a bun at the back of his head, lighting and makeup tricks make him an uncanny Martin Scorsese's doppelganger. Considering what we eventually learn about Mr. Louis Cypher, this is a very peculiar and controversial dedication to the beloved director and close friend of the actor. At the same time, this is one of the manifestations of humor that is constantly present in a film which is anything but comedy.

A mystical thriller, allegorical parable, and horror film, Angel Heart is a bright, talented, and timeless exercise in the style and synthesis of cinema genres, in which Parker and his actors give their best, and the bold imagery keeps captivating even if you guessed pretty quickly where the investigation would lead Harry. Long after the old rumbling elevator leaves the lonely passenger at the final stop after an endless descent, the fan, the embodiment of inevitability, sighs heavily in the final revolution, and the beating of the human heart that accompanied the entire film subsides, the viewers will not be able to shake off dark magic of the film. They will reflect on the duality of human nature, on the endless struggle of the forces of light and darkness for the possession of the soul, on the roads that we choose, but which, in fact, choose us. They will think about the price that one must pay for the chosen path. About contracts that no one has the right to violate, the offers that are so hard to refuse, and about strangers from whom you need to run without looking back. But where to?

Words and Pictures (2013)

Picture me a word

[7/10 · 20 August 2019]

The movie had more potential that it actually used but for the presentation of the arguments for words and for pictures alone it deserves respect and interest. It is nice to see a film that actually cares about art, its different forms, faces and shapes, and, at least, tries to engage the viewer in the subject. Yes, the theme of the "wonder-boys" on the crossroads that hit the dry spell and can't get themselves out of the writers' block has been done much better in the well.. "Wonder boys". Yes, the tormented artist struggling to overcome physical disability is also familiar subject and no one ever will be able to over-shine D.D.Lewis in 'My Left Foot". So, what? This movie, even if it comes in the end to the rom-com territory, still raises the interesting questions beyond the rom-com genre and leaves pleasant enough impression and afterthought. Kudos to the Brit, Clive Owens and to the French, Juliette Binoche for being so natural as the intelligent Americans dedicated their lives to the art of words and images.

Whiplash (2014)

Terence Fletcher: I was there to push people beyond what's expected of them. I believe that's an absolute necessity.

[3/10 · 29 November 2017]

Dreams of becoming the great jazz drummer seem bring Andrew (Miles Teller) to the prestigious east coast conservatory where he catches attention of the celebrated but fearsome instructor and conductor Terence Fletcher (J. K. Simmons), who invited Andrew to join the school jazz band.

Critics and viewers alike praise Whiplash to the high heaven. It was nominated for five Oscars including Best picture and received three, with predictable best supporting role award for J.K Simmons as evil sadistic manipulative bully-jazz band conductor who thrives on terrorizing the students players, especially the main character, Andrew. It is not very often that my opinion about a movie would differ completely from the public opinion but the only impression I got in the end of the often-unwatchable Whiplash, that it proves an old joke: the best marriage is between a sadist and a masochist. They both get what they need but why has the viewer to suffer?

The movie is not very long and acting by J. K. Simmons and Miles Teller is excellent, - intense and selfless, but it is essentially the scene after scene of never stopping verbal, mental and physical abuse that take place during the student jazz orchestra rehearsals for upcoming competition. More than anything, it brings to mind the first half of Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket with J. K. Simmons' Fletcher making Gny. Sgt. Hartman very jealous. While the Kubrick's movie was hard to watch, it was believable and true to the logic of the characters and the situations. The jazz boot camp in the prestigious music conservatory does not ring true neither as a realistic character study of obsession and pushing the limits in the pursuit of getting the dreams come true nor as an allegory of pure evil causing something good happen.

The film director/screenwriter Damien Chazelle based Whiplash on his own teenage experience as a member of the high school jazz band with very strict instructor but he did not want to make a realistic film. He wanted to carry on screen the feeling of dread that has haunted him for many years. Early on Chazelle gave Simmons direction that "I want you to take it past what you think the normal limit would be" telling him "I don't want to see a human being on-screen anymore. I want to see a monster, a gargoyle, an animal." Chazelle exorcised his own demons and most certainly succeeded in creating a pure evil. Yes, Simmons has never been better but what is the point of film? By pushing so much further, making Simmons' character a monster of manipulation, hatred and sadism, Chazelle stripped the film of humanity, of joy that creativity and music offer. It leads to a loss of interest in what was happening on the screen and looks more and more like a very bad dream or illustration in the psychiatry textbook. To call this movie "inspiring" is an insult to creative artistic people and their instructors, mentors, teachers. What could it possibly inspire?

500 Days of Summer (2009)

This is not a love story... But it is about love

[9/10 · 7 November 2017]

Finally, the day has arrived and I can happily say that I have lived to see something that I almost lost my hope to see - a truly original, clever, beautiful, creative, funny and moving, modern American romantic comedy. Nothing is new in this world. It is impossible to come up with the new plot about love or possibility of love, or expectation of love or losing it but it is possible to look at the old story with a fresh eye and to make the movie as enchanting as 500 Days of Summer. The first time director Marc Webb has started on a very high note. His movie is charming (I know I use this word a lot but it describes 500 days perfectly). It combines many different techniques and succeeds adorably in following two leads and their 500 days of getting together and gradually drifting apart. Not often, I see the movie that makes me smile from the beginning to the end. I felt like that big silly grin was glued to my face and I did not mind at all. It is nothing Webb did that I have not seen before. He applies the broken narrative and jumping back and forward in time. His use of split screen technique creates the best scene in the film with many memorable scenes. He inserts a musical number that seems to come from a Bollywood movie and changes the real world into animation. Yes, we have seen this all before but together these tricks have mixed in something magical, delicately bittersweet and funny without being stupid, loud, vulgar, and pushy.

The big part of the magic is without a doubt an undeniable palpable chemistry between two leads, both known for their previous performances in the independent movies. Zooey Deschanel (Summer) was the best part of All the Real Girls (2003). As for Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Tom), now, eight years after 500 days of Summer, he has become one of the best actors of his generation.

Marc Webb's debut feature generated many positive reviews, and it deserves them. Time will tell if 500 Days of Summer becomes Annie Hall for the modern time. I believe it is that good. There were few things that I did not like very much, for example a clichéd smart-alecky rather annoying character of pre-teen sister of Tom. Nevertheless, the entire movie is so wonderful that I don't want to nit-pick and would recommend it highly.

P.S. Wherever you are, Jenny Beckman, I want to thank you for having inspired this movie.

Seinfeld (1989–1998)

"I'm speechless. I have no speech."

[10/10 · 7 November 2017]

It has been over nineteen years since the show about a stand-up New-York City comedian, "neat freak" named Jerry Seinfeld, and his three colorful friends, a loser, a doofus, and a neurotic ex-girlfriend aired its final episode on May 14, 1998 but still no sitcom on TV has come close to its incomparable brilliancy which lies in the ability to make somehow a viewer addicted to the narcissist and selfish characters that constantly put themselves into the pointless and absurd situations. I still remember how I became a fan. One evening, the episode called "The Rye" was playing on TV. I stopped, watched for a few minutes, and the rest is history. I fell in love instantly and forever. Since that night, I watched the new episodes and re-runs whenever it was possible and I have become one of the millions of fans of the greatest show about nothing ever written, directed, and produced. In its best episodes, "Seinfeld" is perfection that no other show would ever achieve.

Even now after all these years I keep asking myself why the show about four rather selfish, egocentric, immature, often back-stabbing and outrageous characters who are afraid of commitments has been so universally loved and admired? Maybe we can see ourselves in them. Or, the secret to Seinfeld's success was the misanthropic Larry David, the failed comedian but talented writer who uses humor derived from awkward social situations, and his collaboration with Jerry Seinfeld? Or maybe as a great work of art, the show defies any explanation? The sitcom has given us so many unforgettable minutes of joy, that it will never be replaced. Even Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry David's baby in all its greatness is not as enjoyable as "Seinfeld." Curb Your Enthusiasm is about George Costanza whose dreams came true - he is rich and had for several seasons a beautiful loving wife but he does not have Jerry, Cramer, and Elaine in his everyday life. And their absence shows.

The show gave us plenty of great episodes - The Soup Nazi, The Chinese Restaurant, The Pez Dispenser, The Limo, The Bubble Boy, The Contest, The Puffy Shirt, The Hamptons, -"that's the best, Jerry, that's the best from the masters of their domains", and there are so many more! And how many quotes from the show have become the part of everyday conversations, "yada yada yada"," they are real and spectacular", "Jerry, just remember, it's not a lie if you believe it." "Hello, Jerry. Hello, Newman".

Thanks for the wonderful memories.

Irina Palm (2007)

About Love

[7/10 · 19 February 2017]

Irina Palm is not the first or last movie about a middle-aged woman who would face the situation that requires to completely turn her life around and to make the choices and sacrifices she would never even imagine. What makes Irina Palm special is Marianne Faithful in the titular role.

The pop-culture legend and the muse of the legendary rock-musicians, the singer, the actor, the rare beauty, the symbol of swinging 60s, the center of media frenzy in her young days, the recovering drug addict, the 60+ years old cancer survivor and the grandmother of two, gives a brilliant Oscar worthy performance as Maggie/Irina, a 50 years old widow who desperately needs to find a job to help to pay for her beloved grandson medical bills. She throws herself into the movie, brings genuine emotions and humor to the rather grim and perverse story, and she owns the movie. Without her, it could have been just another small mildly interesting independent film with a quirky twist but she elevates it to the higher level. She is a fine actress and her performance as a loving grandma/reluctant sex worker with a magic touch is affecting, moving, funny, dignified, and memorable. Marianne Faithful and Yugoslavian actor Miki Manojlovic as Maggie/Irina's boss have the real chemistry together and make us believe that the mutual interest, understanding and attraction could exists in some very unlikely places, lead to love and (who knows) even happiness.

My Blueberry Nights (2007)

In the Mood for Blueberry Pie ?

[6/10 · 26 May 2016]

Quoting one of the greatest modern films, any time of the day is a good time for pie. Blueberry Pie. The Hong-Kong auteur Wong Kar-Way certainly thought so having made his first English language movie with the popular American desert playing an important role. My Blueberry Nights is a very beautiful, visually instantly recognizable Wong Kar-Way's picture even though his usual collaborator Christopher Doyle did not shoot it. Instead, Darius Khondji provided lush cinematography with lots of night shots and neon lights. The soundtrack is wonderful which is no surprise at all. Kar-Way was very impressed by the singer/songwriter's Norah Jones work and his idea was to make a movie around her voice, her songs and the mood that they create. He says that there is something exciting about her voice. It could be the blend of sensuality, melancholic longing, hidden passion, depth and obvious class that might have attracted the celebrated master of the modern romantic film. My Blueberry Nights is also a travelogue and the contribution of the Hong-Kong director to the American cinema. By his own words, he chose to make his American debut the road movie to learn more about America and to get to know her better.

The three stories of love lost, as the song in soundtrack confirms, have been told before. The main story concerns Elizabeth (Jones) who got dumped by her boyfriend and leaves the big city to get far away and to reinvent herself. She befriends Jeremy, the owner of the diner named "Klyuch", which means "the" key in Russian. He keeps the big jar on the counter where his customers would drop the keys for the ones they love to come back and start all over. Elizabeth's journey would bring her to Memphis, Tennessee, where she encounters the guy so crazy about his wife he could not let her go. Later, in Nevada, Elizabeth meets the gambler girl who longs to re-unite with her estranged father. The problem is not in the stories, anything but new, rather, in the simplistic, uneven and abrupt way they are told. In one of the scenes, Elizabeth says that sometimes things look better on the paper. Maybe it is the case with the film. There's nothing wrong with Wong Kar-Way's movie equivalent of Blueberry Pie. It's just... overly sweet and sadly, the impressive cast has not much to play. Perhaps, that's why the female characters in the movie were so forgettable even if played by Rachel Weitz entering the bar in slow motion and Natalie Portman in oversize sunglasses leaning against convertible. And with all due respect to Norah's talent as a musician, her acting debut was not memorable. On the other hand, David Strathairn's performance was impressive in spite of the short appearance and Jude Law was very likable as Jeremy. And there were Norah Jones' songs and the vistas of America the Beautiful as seen through the eyes of the most romantic modern filmmaker in his English language debut which is pleasant, good looking but simple, even silly and lightweight movie. It is very much akin to a first impression of the foreign tourist armed with all sorts of clichés who just started to explore the never seen before country.

The Front (1976)

A writer looks for trouble

[8/10 · 13 May 2016]

I am proud to declare that I have seen (or thought that I have seen) every movie Woody Allen has been associated with, either as a writer, director or a star, very often all of the above. To my surprise, I realized just recently that I missed "The Front", very dark, rather tragic political dramedy about shameful part of the American history, the McCarthy-era Communist witch hunts with the blacklists that affected deeply lives of many Hollywood filmmakers, performers and writers. Creators of the film, director Martin Ritt; writer Walter Bernstein; and actors Zero Mostel, Herschel Bernardi, Lloyd Gough and Joshua Shelley knew about McCarthy-era from their own experiences. They were all blacklisers. Woody Allen who did not participate in directing "The Front" or writing the script delivers realistic and sympathetic performance as Howard, a small apolitical guy, rather a loser who wanted to help his friend, a blacklisted writer, by providing the front for the TV scripts with a little profit for himself to cover his own many debts. While doing so (and helping two more blacklisted writers), Howard soon realized how horrible, unfair and anti-human the blacklist situation was and he wanted to do something about it.

By reluctant pretending to be a writer, he becomes a popular and sought-after figure among the TV producers and actors and makes friends with the beloved TV comedian Hecky Brown (Zero Mostel) who was blacklisted because of the marching during the May Day parade in his youth many years ago. Howard witnesses firsthand the spiral fall of the man who lost everything he lived for because he was not allowed to do the very thing he was born to do - to perform on public, to entertain, to make people laugh. If nothing else, "The Front" introduced me to Zero Mostel, the very symbol of great comedian and the victim of the witch hunts in the 1950. Mostel effortlessly steals every moment he is in, and his last scene could make a stone weep.

If you are prepared for a comedy, The Front is most certainly not a regular one even though it's got quite a few jokes, the majority of which had to do with Howard (Allen) repeating that he was not a writer and could not even write a grocery list. Coming from a man whose next film would be "Annie Hall" that brought him two Oscars for writing and directing and who has received numerous awards and nominations for his work during several decades, especially, for screen writing, makes it for an excellent joke.

The film belongs to its time by giving very personal and honest account on what it was like to be on the notorious blacklist but it works fine for today audiences as well. It's been over 60 years since the dark times of the blacklists, the hunt for the dissenters, for those whose opinions, beliefs, preferences were different from the generally accepted but we all should know about the gross injustice that resulted in many broken lives and never let the dark era of paranoia, abuse of power, and hypocrisy prevail again.

Just Another Love Story (2007)

No man is an Island

[8/10 · 12 February 2016]

"Beautiful girl and the unsolved mystery - good starting point for a noir film", mentions to the everyman Jonas, husband and father, the hero of "Just another love story", one of his friends, urging him to think twice before immersing into that mystery. And soon, the movie turns out as a thriller in the Hitchcock's and Coen Brothers' traditions with the main character taking the sudden choices in order to run from the stalled relationship that lost its initial appeal, from unfulfilling job, from life that leads nowhere to a romantic passionate love and exciting new possibilities.

Derivative - that's the word that majority of nay-sayers use when commenting on this film. But its writer/director Ole Bornedal does not hide throughout the picture that he has made a noir film, or, rather, Neo-noir: Danish style that characterizes by postmodernist self-reflection and consciously refers to the works of past and present. There are all ingredients here you would expect in a noir film: twists, turns, wrong or questionable choices the main character takes and where they would lead him. There are mysterious young woman with a dark past and a sinister stranger in bandages, gloomy deserted landscapes and long corridors with flickering neon lights. The scenes of killings and beatings are rather cruel and violent, erotic encounters - explicit, and the ending is thousands miles away from a Hollywood happy ending. But for Ole Bornedal, the creator of Just Another Love Story, the most important message that he wanted to convey to the audience was that everybody carries a dream and the need for a self-fulfillment in life - that life very rarely offers. His dark, violent, moody noir reflects on the wishes, fantasies, desires that seem have been lost as time goes on but never disappear and only wait patiently for a sudden spark to ignite them and to start unquenchable, all-consuming disastrous flames.

The film is over the top in its second part but by that time you have been already so involved in the story and glued to the screen that you are willing to forgive whatever problems and deep holes the plot has and how many films and books Just Another Love Story freely refers to. It could be described as Talk to Her While She Was Sleeping but remember not to mess with the Chinese Triads because this is No Country for Old Men. Ole Bornedal's neo-noir also brings to memory the mystery novels by French writers, the duo Boileau- Narcejac and Sébastien Japrisot. The former are the authors of the novels Les Diaboliques and Vertigo. Before they became the classics of cinema, they had been and still are highly popular books. "Trap for Cinderella" by Sébastien Japrisot tells about a young woman who has lost her identity due to amnesia in the fatal fire accident and does not remember anything that led to the disaster including the truth about being a murderer or a victim or both. The common feature of all mentioned novels and their screen adaptations is assuming somebody else's personality. But "No man is an Island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main." And giving up your identity, pretending to be someone else, thus accepting their connections with this world however mysterious, sinister, dangerous those connections may be, inevitably leads to the devastating results. It is just a guess whether Bornedal is familiar with these books but the theme of Identity is the most prominent in his film, which is a riveting thriller, an impossible love-story, a social commentary on the middle-aged angst, as much as a philosophical meditation on the possibility/impossibility to live someone else's life, and accepting your own.

The Gift (VI) (2015)

"See, you're done with the past, but the past is not done with you."

[8/10 · 8 January 2016]

Time will tell whether Joel Edgerton joins the exclusive club of the famous actors turned talented and successful film directors or sticks to the acting career but his directorial debut, "The Gift", was a nice gift to the fans of the psychological thrillers in the Alfred Hitchcock's fashion or, rather, their new variety, "marriage thrillers" that follow the success of David Fincher's provocative Gone Girl. Edgerton, who gave a bravura performance in the fellow Aussie's, Buz Luhrmann's adaptation of Great Gatsby, hit the trifecta with writing the screenplay, directing, and producing The Gift, and also playing one of the three main characters.

Edgerton undoubtedly loves the good thriller and proves to know how to make one. The Gift starts with a married couple, Simon (Jason Bateman) and Robyn Callen (Rebecca Hall), relocated from Chicago to a suburban Los Angeles neighborhood after Simon finds a new job outside the city that should propel him to the corporate heights. While out buying supplies for their new picture-perfect home, they run into Gordon "Gordo" Moseley (Joel Edgerton), a former high school classmate of Simon's who Simon claims to have completely forgotten about. Soon after, Gordo begins dropping in unannounced, usually when Simon is at work. He sends thoughtful housewarming gifts for the couple, neatly wrapped in the bright paper, with the bow attached, accompanied with nice handwritten card in the red envelope.

Without giving too much away, it should be said that whatever started as yet another retelling of the "Fatal Attraction" type story, turned out as the dissections of such ugly but persisting realities of life as bullying, human cruelty, unconscious desire for dominating that would start in someone's past and would cover all aspects and spheres of human communicating, including school, family, the workplace, and neighborhood. Main idea of Edgerton's film as shared by director himself during an interview is acknowledgment of one's past, admitting to the wrong doings in order to be able to build the future. But it brings a question: do we change as time goes by? Are we able to admit the guilt that went unpunished and to face the consequences? Can we predict to what extend will our words and deeds affect someone's life? Someone whom we won't even recognize if run across accidentally after many years?

Edgerton plays with the viewers' expectations and takes them to the unpredictable directions adding to the plot more layers and depths. The way he tells the story while building up the suspense and creating disturbing atmosphere is remarkable. He almost convinces the viewers that they could guess easily what would happen next yet when they expect it the least, he pulls the rug from under their feet. As a director, his use of the multiple glass surfaces is masterful. The heavily windowed houses in the nice South California area, Hollywood Hills, are as important to the plot as three main characters. Huge windows and glass doors seem to bring people closer but, at the same time, they stand as the walls of alienation and estrangement. Massive glass elements soon become gloomy threatening messengers of impending psychological horror which comes from the sins of the past that have not been acknowledged. Danger may lurk behind the misted glass door while you take a shower in the safety of your house. There is a silhouette disappearing in the air in the manner of Keyser Söze behind the thick matt glass doors in the hospital. The movie keeps surprising us by changing the viewpoints, by showing that what we see is not always what actually goes on in front of us. It makes us ask themselves, do we really know these closest to us, someone whom we think we share the intimate knowledge of ultimate closeness with.

One of the delicious surprises the movie provides is the characters development that drives the story and moves it in the different directions. Both, Rebecca Hall and Jason Bateman play real people, complex and alive, not just two-dimensional carton figures. Jason Bateman, especially, impresses by bringing out dark sides of Simon's confident, successful, charismatic persona. But the best gift Edgerton keeps to the very end. For the movie which important and repeated over and over image are nice wrapped gift boxes of the different sizes and shapes, the writer/director refuses to wrap up the ending and attach the colorful bow to it. The Gift's conclusion is open but strangely satisfying. What goes around comes around, and bygones don't want to be bygones.

La Jetée (1962)

Images

[10/10 · 3 November 2015]

La jetée (1961) aka The Pier is one of the best, poignant, and most unusual films ever made. The 28 minutes long collection of unbelievably rich, mesmerizing, still black and white images accompanied with the mourning score and sparse narration look inside your very soul while you look at them and they talk to you and reach to all your senses. This is correct - the film used a photo-montage technique but once stated watching, I was so enthralled that I did not think about technical part. The film is simple, poetic, philosophical, and profound. It is an anti war/post-apocalyptic science fiction documentary style and at the same time the ode to love, longing, and to power of memory.

Here is the paradox - how can documentary, made of the still black and white images tell the story that would influence every following film about time travel and be the true feast for mind and soul? Well, it has happened in La jetée, and while watching you forget what genre the movie belongs to because it defies the definitions of genres, and you just don't want it to end even though you know from the beginning that this movie will never have a happy ending. Like millions of fascinated viewers I ask myself how that much was achieved with so little. Like an unnamed protagonist of La jetée is marked for life with an unforgettable image from his childhood, the viewer is marked with the still images of the film, especially by only one animated image of awakening in the film that comes like a miracle.

I finished earlier this evening re-watching Terry Gilliam's excellent film Twelve Monkeys (1995) for which La jetée was the inspiration. Now when I saw both, I am sure that if it were not for the unspeakably sad, beautiful and moving short film of Chris Marker that suggests that "calling past and future may save the present" and provides the extraordinary emotional impact with the story of return to the most vivid childhood memories again and again, there would be no brilliant and dark visions of Twelve Monkeys. Both films are glorious in their unique way and should be viewed together to be appreciated fully.

A Serious Man (2009)

"Uncertainty Principle proves we can't ever really know... what's going on. So it shouldn't bother you."

[10/10 · 25 July 2015]

It's been mentioned many times that A Serious Man (2009) is a retelling of the Book of Job. It very well could be - as only Coen Brothers could adapt the Biblical story to the screen. They placed Job, the Schlimazel of the Old Testament in Minnesota suburbia of their own adolescent. They named him Larry Gopnik, made him a physics professor in a local college, a nice, loving, and pious man, and let him watch hopelessly how his life was collapsing around him while he tried to make sense of what and why was happening to him and desperately sought after a spiritual help from his religious advisers, three rabbis - in vain. A Serious Man is not an autobiographical movie but it is set in the very atmosphere and spirit where two Coen boys grew up in the year 1967, the exact year Joel Coen turned 13 and was preparing for his own bar mitzvah - just like Danny Gopnik, 13 years old pot smoking Jefferson Airplane fan Larry's son whose Bar Mitzvah in the movie is a truly unforgettable event for many reasons. Now, as the experienced celebrated filmmakers who have proved (at least for this viewer) to be among THE best modern filmmakers, Coens look back at the place and time that shaped them as individuals, men, and creative personalities, and they ask eternal and often impossible to answer questions. Does life have meaning? What is the point of it? Or is there point at all? Why do bad things happen to a decent person who "did not do anything"? Is there any certainty in life or all we can do just accept the fact there is no explanation, no certainty, and no fairness, and the best is - "to receive with simplicity everything that happens to you."

I can understand how this film may be puzzling and even disappointing for many viewers even among the fans. A Serious Man is different and original even for Coens, always innovative and creative artists, but it is undeniably and unmistakably, their film, with their finger prints all over. Take for example the opening scene, the black/white prologue spoken in Yiddish and set somewhere in Eastern Europe back in the 19th or 18th century, in a small Shtetl. It involves a married couple and their mysterious visitor who could be a dybbuck, an evil spirit, believed to be the dislocated soul of a dead person. The scene certainly would stay with a viewer and make them try to understand its meaning. As one explanation, the husband and wife could be the ancestors of Larry Gopnik before his family immigrated to the USA and ended up in Minnesota. The encounter with the dybbuk could bring the curse to the future generations, and that may explain all assortment of "tsuris" that poor Larry tries to deal with. Coen's explained that they wanted to include a folk tale to set the tone in the film that explores among many things Jewish traditions, religion, faith, and character. They could not find a tale they'd like, so they wrote one and made a very stylish, ominously dark yet funny and mysterious opening to their film. As a perfect balance to the fairytale/ghost story opening, the final scene comes that literally can blow you away. As it has happened before in a Coens 'movie , the open ending has as many admirers as haters but I believe it was no other way to finish the film, and I found the ending perfect in the universe that Coens create.

The brothers' decision to cast mostly unknown stage actors in the main roles, proved to be successful one, and everyone was up to their job. Michael Stuhlbarg positively shines as Larry and he makes one of the most sympathetic characters in Coens' movie. Sari Lennick, Richard Kind, Fred Melamed as a seriously creepy man whom Larry's wife Judith wanted to leave Larry for as well as the rest of the cast are all memorable. The camera work by Roger Deakins', the longtime collaborator of Coens in recreating the long gone era of the late 60s in the Middle of America is above any praise. A Serious Man is beautiful, profound, and perfectly well made. It is funny, too. Seriously.

Brideshead Revisited (1981)

An exemplary adaptation

[10/10 · 21 July 2015]

11 hours long TV miniseries "Brideshead Revisited", based on Evelyn Waugh's eponymous classic novel, has been one of the most pleasurable watching experiences I can think of. It lacks action or adventure but is one of the most charming, elegiac, moving, elegant, and classy films, TV or otherwise. It is also generous with delightful humorous scenes in specific English humor that can't be faked or reproduced outside of England. Both, Sir John Gielgud and Sir Laurence Olivier contributed to these scenes as well as Nickolas Grace as Anthony Blanche, a decadent and flamboyant but sharp and observant acquaintance of both main characters, Charles Rydes and Sebastian Flyte. Anthony Andrews plays golden boy Sebastian as Dorian Grey with heart, beloved and admired by everyone but troubled, unhappy, and self-destructing because, as one of the characters insightfully observed, he is in love with his childhood and he refuses to grow up.

The production values are of the highest quality, and never for a moment I stopped enjoying the magnificent settings of such locations as Venice, Morocco, Central America, Paris, and New York as well as the majestic halls and glorious landscapes of Brideshead (Castle Howard). The most important aspect of Brideshead Revisited, is, without doubt, Evelyn Waugh's language, and Jeremy Irons, as Charles Rydes, the film protagonist, was born to narrate the pages of the beautiful prose that sounds like an exciting melody of the times passed but not faded.

While watching "Brideshead Revisited", I contemplated why this story of the class that does not exist anymore in the period of time that is long past history is still compelling and riveting. What are these people to me? Why was I running home every evening to continue watching the stories of their lives that on the surface seem uneventful and even boring? I guess the answer is in the double magic of great literature that captured the period of the fall of the Great Empire and those who disappeared with it and grand filmmaking that did not lose much while adapting it to the screen. One of the best TV series ever made, "Brideshead Revisited" deservingly belongs to the 100 Best British TV films.