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Mansfield 66/67 (2017)
Documentary with interpretive danding
That's right; interpretive dancing. Picture the documentary you're expecting, then add a scene where a group of college interpretive dancers 'act out the scene'. If you can handle that, the documentary is what you would expect.
Yosemite (2015)
Subtext and suspense maketh the plot
Yosemite is a delicate story about three 5th graders growing up in 1985 in Palo Alto, where a mountain lion is on the loose. It's simple plot may seem incomplete at first, but with some imagination the film is a rich exploration of our own constructed fears.
The film allows you to fill in the space with details. It's pace surrenders control over to the viewer, to allow the mind to create suspense where there is none, subtext where it just doesn't exist. Demeestere and Franko play on our darkest fears of protecting our children and pit off parenting in 1985 against the backdrop of helicopter parenting today and even the most free range parent will find themselves in agony at the thought of what might happen to these children. Were the children in any danger, or have we created these horrors in our mind?
The film strews clues that the viewer can't help but to try and piece together with our own worst fears, and this is where the film excels and becomes complete. Demeestere seems to know that we will fill in the blanks and lays out the traps that we inevitably fall into. She exploits the fact that we have been conditioned to place fear at every turn so what is a simple story about boys doing what boys do holds us in suspense. The mountain lion is a fitting metaphor for this misplaced fear. In the end we end up killing it, reminding us that we are the predators damaging the world and our children with our fear.
La piel que habito (2011)
A Feminist Masterpiece
I've been meaning to watch this film for some time, but knowing that it might be confronting have put if off. Confronting it was... If you read through the reviews on IMDb you will find a lot of people telling you it's a horror film along the 'silence of the lambs' vein. Although it has that element, I found the film to be a complex look into the unhealthy way in which men relate to women. Whether it be the animalistic 'tiger' predator, the man who puts women up on a pedestal by objectifying the 'perfect woman', the young 'accidental' rapist, the son who treats his mother as a servant or the incestuous father, most women will identity with at least one of the creepy relationships in this film.
If you consider yourself a feminist, it will test you. How far would you go to obtain revenge? What would it take to teach a man what we, as women, go through? Who is in charge of teaching that lesson? It opens up so many questions, which to me is the mark of a great film.