Béatrice Romand in Rohmer’s “Le Beau Mariage” [1982 France]

Posted on March 1, 2012 by TR

Here’s your typical Eric Rohmer. “Le Beau Mariage” [Eng. Title: A Good Marriage] is a charming little comedy about a young woman’s desperate quest for social mobility. Rohmer gently pokes fun at society’s obsession with idealised myths, a perfect marriage in this instance, using the female protagonist as the butt of his jokes. What makes it engaging and a pleasure to watch is the beautifully structured screenplay, the almost perfect shot selection, and the dialogues laced with Rohmer’s customary dry wit. Every single frame in the film is absolutely essential – the editing is that good. This post is merely an excuse to get across that point to anyone who would care to listen, there otherwise being very little need to talk about nudity in the film. A superb comedy from a French master, this late Nouvelle Vague gem is Highly Recommended Viewing..!

Amazon DVD Link
(a good deal going at the time of this post)


Storyline:
Sabine is fed up being a married man’s mistress, she now wants to have an ideal marriage and get settled. Seems like a good idea, only she needs to find a suitor first. Enter Sabine’s best friend Clarisse, the one she subconsciously tries to emulate. Suburban Clarisse is married and self employed by doing what she likes best, handicrafts. Despite Clarisse’s worldly advise, Sabine is determined to seduce and marry the ‘ideal’ husband when she sees one. She finds the idea of marrying Clarisse’s Parisian cousin Edmond appealing, and decides to pursue him vigorously, even as it becomes clear to us that he’s not remotely interested in getting married, least of all to Sabine. But she is confident of her charms and chases him despite becoming increasingly aware that she herself might not be in love with him after all. It takes some plain talking from Edmond to bring Sabine back to her senses. The teasing ending is probably the best I’ve seen in a little while, as we see a resourceful Sabine get back on her feet after such an embarrassing fall from grace in front of Edmond. The film stars Rohmer regulars Béatrice Romand as Sabine, and the utterly delightful Arielle Dombasle as Clarisse.


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Claudia Pandolfi & Michela Cescon in “Quando la Notte” [2011 Italy]

Posted on February 28, 2012 by TR

The romantic drama “Quando la Notte” [Eng. Title: When the Night] is yet another woman’s film by Cristina Comencini (La Bestia nel Cuore).

Storyline:
Set in a ski resort among the Italian Alps, the main focus of the film seems to be about lonely well-off housewives coping with childrearing challenges. Marina arrives with her toddler at picturesque Macugnaga on a holiday – her husband had to stay behind, she rents a portion of ski-instructor Manfred’s chalet. Manfred, separated from his wife and children, will suspect Marina of physically abusing her child on one occasion when he had to drive them to the hospital for emergency treatment. While hurt by his accusations, Marina also finds herself drawn towards him. An accident brings Manfred and his estranged wife back together, and Marina too. But since neither Marina nor Manfred want to rock the boat, they go their separate ways, until fifteen years later when Marina comes looking for him. Their latent passion for one another culminates in a one-night stand, before they go their separate ways again, like two passing cable cars.

While both the actors playing the lead characters give fine performances, and the story holds the promise of a good drama, I find some events needlessly drawn out, time that could have been dedicated instead on the characterisation. We don’t empathise with the main characters as we don’t get to understand them well enough. The cinematography is pleasing to the eye – it would’ve been unforgivable if otherwise, but the direction shines through only in patches. It’s not a bad film at all, but I think it could have been better.

Amazon.it DVD Link


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Aina Clotet in “Elisa K” [2010 Spain]

Posted on February 26, 2012 by TR

Before “Elisa K”, I’d seen only one other film of veteran Catalan writer-director Jordi Cadena (from the ‘destape’ years, starring a young Ana Belén). For this film however, the directorial credits are shared with Judith Colell whose filmography I’m totally unaware of. The film can also be divided into two parts. The first, substantial part that covers two thirds of the film is shot in monochrome – events relating to the past. The final part is set in present day Barcelona.

Storyline:
Elisa visits her dad ever other weekend along with her brother and sister – her parents are divorced. Her father would take them out along with his jeweller-friend and children. When she’s twelve, something terrible happens during one of the visits, events which her mind will block from memory. Until after more than ten years, as a carefree and ambitious university student, painful memories come flooding back one day and it is time to face up to and come to terms with what actually happened. Since both the parts’ respective timelines are linear, we are privy to events as they happen. The rest of the film is a study in the manner in which Elisa shields herself by failing to register what happened, and the pain and suffering later in life when she remembers the day, and her quest for a ‘closure’ of sorts, to put this behind her and move on…

Catalan cinema is fascinating to watch as it often has a different way of looking at and showing things, bolder and edgier than its Castillian cousin. The first part of the film, substantial as it is, can actually even stand as the main film, with the second part acting as an epilogue. The cinematography, pace and direction in the first part is simply enchanting, and you if briefly would wish it had ended with that, because the second part is its opposite, even if it is just as well made and the performance by Aina Clotet, who plays the adult Elisa, heartfelt and intense – the jarring images and Elisa’s pain put you ill-at-ease. It is nevertheless a compelling piece of cinema and therefore, Recommended Viewing..!

Amazon DVD Link


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Carice van Houten & co in “Komt een vrouw bij de dokter” BR720 [Netherlands 2009]

Posted on February 23, 2012 by TR

Reinout Oerlemans’ romantic drama, “Komt een vrouw bij de dokter – Een ode aan de liefde” [Eng. Title: A Woman Goes to the Doctor – An Ode to Love, aka Stricken] is your typical mainstream film that touches on a cocktail of issues without getting too deep – issues like unconditional love, infidelity, cancer, and euthanasia are largely examined skin-deep in this heady melodrama filled with beautiful people.

Even if I knew what the film was about, I bought the DVD without too much expectations, it was bought purely for the beautiful Carice van Houten. In that respect, I haven’t been disappointed. The cinematography is also pleasing to the eye (even more so in blu-ray), and while the soundtrack is a bit hit and miss bordering on the cheesy at times, you have some decent performance by the main cast which makes it worthwhile sitting through. While the screenplay too leaves you with mixed emotions – it is not easy to dismiss the film altogether, but this is definitely one for van Houten fans..!

Amazon DVD Link


Storyline:
Playboy Stijn meets and falls in love with colleague at work Carmen, they immediately marry and start a family. But despite his marriage, Stijn couldn’t help sleeping around at any given opportunity. Carmen tolerates his infidelity – according to him, as though it were a bad habit, like picking nose. Carmen is diagnosed for breast cancer and had to go through painful chemotherapy sessions before eventually getting one of her breasts removed. Just when she seemed to have conquered the disease, it returns with a vengeance, spreading to the liver. Unable to bear Carmen’s pain, Stijn resorts to having an affair with Roos, which almost ends in divorce. But Carmen accepts him back (rather too easily, me thinks) and they stick together until her health deteriorates to the extent that it renders her immobile with no control over her body. The film culminates in Carmen ending it all through assisted suicide, which perhaps is the most moving scene in the film.




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Posted in Carice van Houten, Netherlands | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Antigoni Amanitou from Nikos Koundouros’ “1922” [Greece 1978]

Posted on February 21, 2012 by TR

In “1922”, Nikos Koundouros recreates events from the little known Greek genocide towards the end of the Greco-Turkish war of 1919-1922 where, within the single province of Anatolia alone (present day Turkey), about a third of a million civilian Greeks were systematically eliminated through pogroms, officially sanctioned death marches and starvation. This crime against humanity was conducted under the guise of a Turkey – successor state to the Ottoman Empire asserting its credentials in the region.

I’ve had this DVD for a while, but postponed writing about it because it came without English subtitles, and I’ve been looking for separate subtitles for it since. But I feel it is the right moment to post this film even with my present diminished ability to absorb its profoundness. To explain why, I need to digress from the blog’s topic for a moment.

Current events in Greece have been upsetting to say the least. Here we have the European cradle of civilisation being told how to conduct its own affairs by northern neighbours who owe so much of their own success to ideas and thoughts that emanated here. And following their instructions apparently is the only way that the people who invented the very idea of ‘Europe’ could even stay within its union. I’m no economist, but judging by my own affairs, it’s pretty evident that these so-called austerity measures will if anything only worsen its economy and make it more indebted in the medium term. Just as we can’t expect ‘neighbourly’ hard-nosed economies to show any gratitude to a people for everything they’ve borrowed over millennia including coinage itself, we can’t prevent ambitious neighbours from riding roughshod whenever they feel their time has come. Greece had been unduly trampled upon during the course of its recent history, it is again today. And Nikos Koundouros’ “1922” can be seen allegorically to describe Greece’s predicament.


About the film:
We follow, through the main characters’ experiences the horror of the genocide, as Turkish troops and Muslim mercenaries round up the Greek and mainly non-muslim population living in Anatolia – a region they claim, to indulge in indiscriminate slaughter, rape and lead the surviving ones to their death in the desert. The film is relentless in the manner in which it drives you down, you can plainly see that there is no hope for the doomed group. The only relief on their way is from the Red Cross, too late for many to be of any help – as they only end up collecting and documenting carcasses left in the death march trail. Even if the film doesn’t depict violent scenes, a lot of the horror is implied through what we see before they happen, and its aftermath. Dialogues peter out as the film approaches its end, and what we see are some truly heart-rending scenes which capture the utter despair of the victims and the total ambivalence of their captors, who while not being outright barbaric, show what it means to be enforcers of a nation’s fascist agenda.

The director succeeds magnificently in narrating a story using assorted events, turning his audience into a bystander bearing witness to the unfolding tragedy – everything we see is at eye level. Contrasting scenes are also allowed to overlap to capture the irony behind all this, and Koundouros studiously attempts to stay away from propaganda. He succeeds there too. The cinematography is rich and the magnificent landscape is made to contrast with events happening on the ground. The soundtrack is magical, enhancing the drama in each scene, even through its silent moments. The performances by all the main characters are very good, and some are exceptionally heart-felt. On many an occasion, characters break the fourth wall and talk to the audience, it’s a shame I cannot write anything about it for obvious reasons. But despite me able to savour only about half of what the film intended, it is amply evident that this is another superlative gem from a Greek master whose filmography I’ve so thoroughly come to enjoy. Highly Recommended Viewing..!

ebay DVD Link


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Posted in Greek Cinema, Nikos Koundouros | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments