Archive for February, 2008

The day i became a woman (2000)

February 27, 2008 at 5:47 pm · Filed under Good

A simple, serene, sea-dreamy film.

Simple as in child-like.

I watched this film a 2nd time (always a good sign)

And it was even better the 2nd time (sign of a good film)

I’ve come to expect Iranian films to be like this: allegorical, pleasurable, charming, symbolic, sensual.

Uncontaminated by cynicism.

Unadulterated by explanations.

Unburdened by psychological neurosis.

And you get delicious images to lick at like ice-cream:

Like little Hassan’s curly tongue sucking for sweetness thro the yellow bars of the window as Hava reaches her lollipop into his mouth.

The galloping of the husband on his black horse alongside the girls silently pushing on forward – like black beetles on bicycles.

Old Hoora drifting out to sea on her 4 poster bed with her fridge, her TV, her sofa etc, afloat around her – on oil drums.

There’s a lot of sea in this film. And a lot to see.

It warms your eyes like suns.

Dir: Marzieh Meshkini, Iran

8/10

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Broken Flowers (2005)

February 24, 2008 at 5:41 pm · Filed under Tedious

Reading reviews online it seems like the critics loved this film.

Most of the film-going public didn’t.

For once I’m gonna side with Joe Public.

All sorts of wonderful “ironic’ and “laconic” things were being read into the “endlessly droll, seductively sensitive deadpan” performance of Bill Murray.

For droll read dull.

For deadpan read wooden.

For seductively sensitive read emotionally robotic.

For laconic read catatonic.

For cool and enigmatic, read cold and empty.

For languid and lugubrious read detached, disheartening, depressing.

And so on…..

You get countless shots of Murray flying off in planes, endless shots of Murray driving his car down ugly American roads, and lying around in ugly American hotel rooms.

Of course this is Jim Jarmusch, his “style”.

I was never really sure whether i liked his films or not. But i’ve felt like i ought to like them. Cus he was meant to be quirky and idiosyncratic, and artily, artfully, “different”.

But actually I’ve come to the conclusion he’s really not that

interesting.

Dir: Jim Jarmusch, USA

5.5/10

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Frozen Land (2005)

February 21, 2008 at 5:00 am · Filed under It's ok

Frozen Finland, ‘Land of mournful songs’, hung over by snow, grim.

A film that slip-slides from low point to lower to lowest.

People get fucked in the bottom, shot in the head, crushed by trains, battered by vacuum cleaners.

They drink themselves into oblivion. Because they’re terminally, Finishly, depressed. And it’s Winter. And Life-is-Shit.

I wanted to see some ‘proper’ Winter. I got Winter.

I got icy desolation. I got mega-misery. I got gloomy-as-fuck.

‘Frozen Land’ makes you want to go and hide.

Inside a warmer and happier film.

Dir: Aku Louhimies, Finland

6/10

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The Death Of Mr Lazarescu (2005)

February 16, 2008 at 5:17 pm · Filed under It's ok

First Romanian film I’ve seen.

You’re in an old engineers stinky cats flat; he’s throwing up on his slippers, and dying slowly in his wooly hat.

For the next 2 hours, you breath in the gloom, taste the grim absurd pathos of his dying.

While he’s waiting (for ambulance, to die) you can go out and make cups of tea and not really miss much.

He gets shunted humiliatingly from hospital to hospital and gets ridiculed with sarcasm by doctors who say things like:

“Do you smoke?”

“Yes”

“Good, keep it up”

At one point somebody says, “We’re just a bunch of miserable people”. They are.

And you feel miserable with them (if you’re feeling compassionate that is)

Casualty or Holby City this isn’t.

It’s too painfully futile. Watching Dante Lazarescu die his nothing much little death.

I wouldn’t watch if you’re about to go into hospital.

Or about to die.

Dir: Cristi Puiu, Rumania

6/10

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