kristine-giluce Reviews

Nine (2009)

Did Rob Marshall wanted to say that he is having a crisis as well?

[4/10 · 16 March 2010]

After having seen the theatrical trailer, I couldn't wait to see this movie. With enormous expectations, based generally on what I've seen of Chicago, I didn't even think that this director could come up with something as plain and completely useless like this. First of all, the stakes were high as well, it's no joke to take for a base a Fellini film, sooner or later there is a comparison made, maybe even an unconscious one. It just can't be avoided! But I guess Marshall had really high ambitions and a good dose of courage.

The images were fine, the actors were good as well, but it does not work at all! It is the musical parts which drown this movie and the choreography does the same in a bit lighter way. It was sad to see that a catastrophic songwriting and weak choreography made fools out of this bunch of good actors. If I understand correctly, Marshall wanted to take away the mystical dimension of 8 ½ (naturally to make it more easily to perceive) by replacing it with the musical acts. The result is quite painful – there is no more story, everything is being told in some useless and poor dialogs and songs. We've got sort of "8 ½ for dummies" here, but somehow I refuse to believe that the large audience to which this was addressed has such a small intellectual capacity . I guess it was just an innocent Marshall's ambition to give a tribute to the great "maestro", but it just ends up by clumsily smacking few Fellini movies together.

To move away from poor Rob Marshall, after seeing this movie I'd like to confirm my thoughts of a musical as a purely American cinema genre. Involving Europe ends up good very rarely.

I guess we all have crisis time to time, and maybe with this movie Marshall really DID WANT TO SAY that he himself is in a crisis. If that's what he meant, he expressed it very clearly.

A Single Man (2009)

great Colin Firth's role in visually enjoyable images

[7/10 · 16 March 2010]

From its very first images A Single Man shows that it is more than obvious that this film has been made by a fashion designer. Take by take Tom Ford has succeeded to transmit his pedantic vision of things to the cameraman and later to the spectator. Every image to the last one is beautiful in the sense of colors, of decorations and so on to the tiniest details. Maybe sometimes it is too perfect, too neat, but you can't blame him for that!

The "next best thing" that makes this movie so enjoyable is, no doubt, Colin Firth. As not an expert of his acting career, it was pleasant to see him in a slightly different role, not again the "mr-darcy-like grumpy, who after all is very romantic". Nevertheless, in this movie the Colin Firth character still keeps him for himself. Only some dreamlike flash-backs gives a look what's going on in his head. Altogether, quite a touching combination and a realistic one, speaking of loss of the loved one – exterior numbness and interior agony. Colin Firth here is more than capable to give a beautiful combination of both. Relatively small amount of dialogs adds the value – spoken out feelings have the tendency to become less worthy. What concerns Julianne Moore, she looks as beautiful as always, but the role somehow didn't move me as I think it was meant to. In some strange way Charley's character reminded me a bit Barbara's character from Savage Grace. Also all lonely and pathetic, but somehow undone. But perhaps it's Colin Firth who steals all the attention...

As for a débutant in directing, Ford has done a great job, not forgetting to "thank" in some way the grands of the cinema, such as Kubrick and good old Hitchcock. Ford also couldn't resist the temptation to play a bit with the iconic Dean/Brando figure, which adds some kind of sexiness in the grim world of Firth's George. It's all beautifully done, and fits in very organically, but still, leaves us with the feeling that "we have seen this already" . The same thing with the dialogs, though, sometimes they're smart and touching, sometimes they're not smart at all, reminding some petty clichés. Though, all the imperfections are nothing but minor details, A Single Man by itself is a very beautifully done movie, which happens not so often. Respectful thanks to Tom Ford and, hope he does not stop his directing here.

Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life (2010)

A flamboyant work, a real pleasure to your eyes, but still a little bit plain.

[6/10 · 21 January 2010]

A film, concentrating on the personality of the composer-singer. An icon of twentieth century, not only for France, but to whole Europe, perhaps even to the whole Occidental world. Basically, this work of Joann Sfar is based onto the the most remarkable points of Gainsbourg's life, and that is, oh, so comprehensible, because otherwise we'd have a film of five hours or more, nevertheless the two hours and twenty minutes seem already sufficient. And maybe even more than that.

This interpretation of Serge Gainsbourgs' life is a work of flaming colors; of ambiances which change periodically with the passage of time, ups and downs of Serge's life. At the end, regarding on all the milieus seen, we realize not only the length of the film, but as well the rapid cultural changes in France of twentieth century.

Pursuing on that, Sfar starts leading the spectator on a guided tour called ''Serge's life''. It starts from the forties when France was bearing the heavy weight of German occupation – this is where Russian Jewish boy called Lucien Ginsburg grows up. Though, it is funny, that in this part of movie, we can find all the stereotypes of France, in particularly Paris, for which the rest of the world keeps going mad even nowadays. Let's see, here we have the artistic ambiances of Monmartre, very similar to those of Belle Époque, bohemian to the bone - the cozy cafés, femmes fatales, chanson française and so on... This movie couldn't be seen as a real biography, starting already with the small phantasms in a form of giant head of a Jewish man who comes out of a Nazi poster to play and dance with little Lucien. It is the same boy, who later imagines La Gueule, a caricatured idol of himself in the childhood, but a big, fat ego and an exteriorized inner voice, during the adult life.

Already as a kid, he is a real charmer, an artist with multiple talents, seducing everyone around him. With the time passing this capacity of seduction becomes more and more sexual. It grows in geometrical progression until we meet (very intimately) Brigitte Bardot, the sex symbol of the time. We possibly couldn't denie that Laetitia Casta not only resembles very much to the authentic goddess of the time. She does give some quite authentic elements of Bardot's performance in Vadim's Et Dieu Créa La Femme. When dating Brigitte Bardot, Lucien Ginsbourg is already long gone, it's now the eccentric, successful and famous Serge Gainsbourg. The self convinced type, always with a cigarette in the corner of his lips. Sfar realizes very well, that the "best-seller" of the Gainsbourg appearances is his profile view, which, no-one in nowadays' Europe would never mistake. Perhaps, it is also that the man who plays Gainsbourg. Eric Elmosnino, from this point of view does not look like himself, but like his portrayed character. Stunning resemblance! And we can find a short reference to Antonioni's Blow-Up. It is the iconic image of Jane Birkin, wearing nothing but bright colored stockings.

Being this far, it is not difficult to see that the main leading powers of Gainsbourg's fame were... his talent and the charming trouble makers' appearances. Sfar's film has depicted them both. More, the presence of the phantasms and loud spoken dialogs with his inner him – La Gueule, points at the will to make this movie a bit different from a simple telling of a biography (assuming, that a large number already knows it). But still, I'd like to say that it is not enough to make this film a real masterpiece. The linearity is a little bit boring, and after the first half of the movie has been seen, you might want to check your watch. This is an unstoppable rolling towards the end, the only limit of the man – the end. But cinema has such wonderful possibilities to play with reality and even time, so why could we not have a little bit more interesting way of telling this exciting story? This makes the movie a bit plain, even with such wonderful and detailed work on visual elements.

The music? I guess it is inutile to say what kind and whose music we hear in the film. The relations between the music and images are well done, they illustrate time and place and whispers how Serge is doing. Whether you like it or not, it is already another question...

Hideaway (2009)

A different but real pregnancy on the screen

[7/10 · 18 January 2010]

A film of a modest budget, a film made in the sunny Pays Basque and a film which captures a real pregnancy. As a matter of fact, The Refuge is "born" of this idea to film a pregnancy, and this movie benefits this particular occasion. But let's say it is not a typical idyllic portrayal of a pregnancy or of a pregnant woman. The only thing that may be idyllic, is the sun of the south of Europe. Otherwise, this is a capture of troubled lives and troubled personalities.

The start of The Refuge is marked by a death by a drug overdose. Useful to say that the bunch of takes in beginning does not transmit even little of the richness of the future images of film. But who knows, maybe the cliché full drug taking scenes are there to underline the contrast. Anyways, the decease of the character of Louis, puts an ending to a love story - a very brief moment. Nevertheless, there is another story on the way and the principal figure of this film, Mousse, miraculously alive, carries it in her belly. And here begins the refuge where two characters, Paul and Mousse, try to figure out their lives. Paradoxically, these two lives are not so related as much as one can probably think, as they are put so close. Passing to the refuge in Basque Country, Ozon makes sure that the spectator draws a clear line in his mind by the change of tonalities – grim and gray for Paris and pastel and sunny for the south.

Despite the posh ambiances of Paris surroundings and idyllic summer of southern Europe, the images speak generally of troubled lives. They portray a woman, struggling with the sudden solitude and a man, trying to find where exactly he belongs. The director puts on the screen a pregnancy that troubles the spectator more than the mother. Quite an ironic manipulation with those in front of screen – they experience the turbulence knowing that the heroine is still taking methadone and does not refuse alcohol or a night in club with music roaring loudly. But truly, it's all not about this. She is well aware of her pregnancy, but this is a different kind of pregnancy. It is not for the sake of it, it is for the sake of keeping the life. The big belly evokes the presence of Louis, who is gone and the presence of the baby, who hasn't yet arrived. It's nice to see, that director has found out, that pregnancy can be be showed as an instrument of portrayal or a link among other elements of the film. For example, it allows to grasp the personality of Mousse. It is like some sort of mourning which passes very silently, without hysterical and loud scenes. Like the way she is – very introvert and calm, keeping all the troubles inside; nevertheless the situation permits to see her desire for independence and stubborn nature.

In addition, who would have thought, that giving different sexual orientations to the principal characters, permits so precisely to limit any kind of romance, even placing both in one, relatively isolated space and time. And even if Ozon lets happen something, it still is for the sake of the story, not for the comfort of spectators' expectations.

Also, it has to be admitted, that Isabelle Carré looks beautiful and plays admirably the role of Mousse, in a way, living through two stories of one pregnancy.

A Brand New Life (2009)

A sad and beautiful masterpiece, played wonderfully by Sae Ron Kim

[7/10 · 12 January 2010]

Life can appear very strange, when no-one is there to explain it. Especially when you're a child and you have plenty of questions. This is a big question which started the day when a father, with no explanations left his daughter at an orphanage. A Brand New Life takes its spectator to childhood - to a time when we asked many things and perhaps got no answers and no explanations why things happen exactly this way. Film is through and through seen from the eyes of a child, but brought to it's richness with the help of a wonderful script and skillful camera, allowing its spectator to put aside for a while his adult point of view and just observe, and try to understand. This is the story of a little girl, Jinhee, played marvelously by Mademoiselle Sae Ron Kim. She poses questions, but there never comes an honest answer why her life has turned out like this.

A Brand New Life achieves a perfect harmony, one element underlines the other one. The long takes allow the spectator to grasp, how long the time in orphanage seemed for Jinhee, the relatively small amounts of dialogs depicts the introvert child, whose emotions break out through some furious actions. The gray tone palette which en-tours the setting of the orphanage shows very understandable the sadness of this place.

Film touches not only an auto-biographical story, but the sad truth of life – we all know that there are thousands of places like this around the world. And there are thousands of children who, perhaps, have mastered this tragicomic show for the visitors, the potential new families.

In conclusion I'd like to say that this is a very daring film, knowing that this was a true story and a true childhood, perhaps lived through second by second as we see it on the screen. I must say that it's a brave choice to put a story like this on the screen. But its greatest value is the absence of a pathos and absence of a depiction the children as a victims of the cruelty of life. A Brand New Life is hope and search for the answers through and through it.