Cinemaafficionado's Movie Portraits

Since I've allready spent a bunch of time on this forum, I thought that it would only be fitting to start a thread of my own movie musings for the erudite members of this forum. As I am not often in the moment, my thoughts do ramble, but at least I can do my rambling in one place. I will not review movies in any particular order but will do so hopefully being under the influence of temporary clarity so that the reader can get a fair idea of what the movie is about and what some of my thoughts are pertaining to it. As grading can be a very subjective thing, I would like to make it as simple as possible or avoid it all together. The star system just doesn't work for me because there are overall too many elements to consider, and not every one weighs their stars the same. But, as all of you seem to have some kind of a grading system, I'll also play. I'll confine myself to 3 ratings:
Exceptional - Movies that I can watch more than once ( in itself failrly rare )
Enjoyable - Movies that I felt were worth seeing and that I can reccomend to others for their viewing pleasure
Regretable - Movies that I felt were a waste of my time nad money. In all fairness I have to admit that some of
those movies I didn't see in their entity, as usually the first 20 minutes or so would have
been enough to lose my interest. Thankfully, there aren't too many of those as I make it a
point to watch previews beforehand, however, there have been occasions in the past were
the preview was edited well and looked interesting but the movie itself turned out to be a
dud. So, for the most part what you can expect to see in these reviews will be movies
that I thought were enjoyable or exceptional.
I welcome all comments and opinions and am open to discussion, agreement and disagreement, so please feel free to voice yourselves.
As for me, I just hope that my experiences can further enrich yours.
So, without further a do I present my first movie review:



FIRE






There is no word in Hindu that corresponds to the English word " lesbian " . Deepa Mehta, who also scripted this equisite and thought provoking movie, drew the ire of the Hindus in India for directing a story of a taboo relationship between two Hindu in-laws in a Bombay family.
Pretty much rejected by their own husbands, the two main characters of this movie, Rada and Sitha, find each other to satisfy their dormant sexual desires. Every character in this engaging film is carefully developed and their interplay is honed like a fine swiss watch. The director makes us, the audience, participating spectators in a highly emotional and complex story about two women who, in the process of rebelling against custom and tradition, find freedom in discovering themselves.
One can not help but feel simpathy for them, as they are portrayed as victims of a religiously stifling, male chauvinistic culture.
In the process, one is also entertained and enlightened about taboo mores in modern Indian society.
This film is the third in Deepa Mehta's trilogy, that richly describes the prevailing social conditions in contemporary India.
The same as in her two other movies, Water and Earth, Mehta disects and questions Hindu customs and tradition and in doing so creates an unforgetable canvas that touches all our lives.
Mehta portrays a household that in essence is a microcosom of quircky personalities.
Rhada is the outwardly traditional, caring and doting wife, where as Sitha is the young and somewhat rebelious newly wed.
In the house, present is the 100 old grandmother who doesn't know whether she is coming or going and is constantly in the care of others. The one that spends most of the time with her is a reluctant and lecherous servant, who uses his alone time with her to watch adult movies and play with himself.
Rhada's husband is obssessed with religion and believes that sex is for procreation only and since Rhada can't bear children, then why bother.
Sitha's husband has a mistress and treats Sitha with bored indifference.
In the presence of these two negative male stereotypes, it's almost a fore gone conclusion that the two women will turn to each other for love.
In spite of comical touches created in akward circumstances, in India the subject matter is nothing to joke about. The Hindus take their riots seriously, which is exactly what happened after this movie first premiered.
As such, this Bombay gem is much more suited to the temperament of Western audiences, who will definitely enjoy the mixture of comic relief and the serious expression of human sexuality in a society that still doesn't have a handle on it.

EXCEPTIONAL

Must say that I'm somewhat surprised, 87 views but O comments on this review. Has any one seen this or any of Deepa Mehta movies? If not, at least get me some feedback on the review. Is there some life for me in movie reviews?

Sorry, haven't seen the film. It's a good review, though.

I haven't seen Fire yet, but I've seen Sam & Me; Bollywood, Hollywood and one of my favorites is Water

^ I adore Lisa Ray. Not seen Fire yet but did love I Can't Think Straight(also starring Lisa Ray), ignoring some dodgy acting in parts, it's a wonderful and uplifting film.

La Bonne Anne

Just finished watching this and thought how very French.
The movie starts out as an elobarate jewelry heist but manages to turn into a love story along the way.
The main protagonist a man's man ( Lino Ventura ) meets a a woman ( Francoise Fabian ). She is the owner of an antique furniture store that happens to be right across from the jewelry store that the man and his accomplice plan on robbing.
She catches our hero's eye and at first he wants to use her as a means for timing his heist but he gets to know her and instantly falls in love,as does she, finding him desirable as he is different from her intelectual friends. She doesn't really know what he does for a living but finds out, as the heist goes wrong. And he winds up in prison.
This 1973 film kind of represents the era's sexual awakening and female imancipation as seen through the eyes of an old school guy.
The message seems to be: adapt or die alone.
Shall love overcome everything, remains for you to see, if you haven't allready.

ENJOYABLE

La Bonne Annee ( Happy New Year )

Outcast

This one's for you, Nausicaa. The shadowy world of dark magic comes to life in this spooky but griity horror flick. Mary and Fergal are Irish nomads stalked by dadly hunters.
Along the way, Fergal falls for the exotic Petronalla.
The dark and suspensfull cinematagrophy alone makes this movie worth watching.

ENJOYABLE

This is something you also might enjoy Dead.

Cold Fish

And just when I thought that Korean movies couldn't be more twisted, Shion Sono, the director of the Suicide Club and Noriko's Dinner Table, brings us a Japanese movie that Takeshi Miike would be proud of.
In Cold Fish, a meek and shy Tropical Fish Store owner lives a troubled life with his rebellious daughter and her young and pretty stepmother.
The daughter gets caught shoplifting and a seemingly kind friend of the store's owner agrees to help and take the daughter in as an employee of his, by strange coincidence, much bigger tropical fish store.
And so our main protagonist gets caught up and reeled into the lives of a serial killing couple and he becomes an unwilling accomplice to their blood bath. His chief tormentor is a skilled psychological manipulator, having quickly assessed our victim's weaknesses, and he becomes a tutor in terror. As our victim cringes and watches, his master shows him how to make chicken nuggets out of human flesh and emphasizes that it's important to seperate the flesh from the bones, so that the bones could more easily be fried and desposed of as ash.
This movie plays on the sado-masochistic elements present in the Japanese male-female psyche and demonstrates that there is a very fine line between the hunter and the hunted, when the hunted snaps.
Sometimes a victim is educated to the point where he becomes the victimizer and this becomes the case in this movie.
For those who enjoy gore, blood and guts, this is for you, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

EXCEPTIONAL

This movie borders on being a parody of movies like itself I think. Sono is a pretty hard guy to pin down in terms of his intentions, anyway. The 'interpretations' you gave are either sincere or just part of the joke. Every scene is easily hilarious if you get past the surface darkness. The ending lines are kind of the punchline. Lots of really neat moments in it though, and on the whole I enjoyed it immensely.

__________________
"Loves them? They need them, like they need the air."

Thanks, I see your point. Takeshi Miike's intentions are less veiled, like in Visitor Q. The shock effect rules.
It's funny what one sometimes thinks at moments while watching certain scenes in Cold Fish, where sexuality is flaunted.
I actualy thought for one moment there, I could have ended up minus some organs, but for the grace of God, having been rekless in my youth and envolved with an Asian psycho girl. I'm not one to fear much, but she gave me the willies and I had to part company or most probably end up in some oven, minus parts.

The Samurai I Loved

The Samurai I Loved was adepted to the screen and directed by Mitsuo Kurosuchi in 2005 from a novel by Shuhei Fujisawa.
Maki ( Somegoro Ichikawa ) is the son of a Samurai that falls into disgrace for backing the wrong faction within his clan and is forced to commit hara-kiri.
Because Maki is one of the the best swordsman in the clan his family is not abolished but he is shuned by everyone except two close friends and a girl, Fuku (Yoshino Kimura) who is his neighbor and who falls in love with him after she gets bit by a snake and Maki sucks out the snake venom.
Unfortunately for their ill-fated love, Fuku is taken from the village by her father and delivered to Kyoto, where she becomes the favorite concubine of the ruler of Kyoto.
Years pass and Maki rises in his clan based on his own ability and dedication, when he receives word that Fuku's life is in danger.
This is a story of true but unfullfilled love.
It's also a testament to the strength of individual human spirit faced with
life's harsh cruelties of the society he dwells in.

ENJOYABLE

Mother Of Mine

Mother Of Mine takes place in World War II. Finland and Russia are fighting. A nine year old Finish boy's dad is killed and his mother sends him off to Sweden through a Swedish "Save the Finish Children" program that provided refuge for about 70,000 Finish chidren.
He finds himself on a Swedish farm with a Swedish couple. The man tries to be good to the boy, but the woman appears mean and treats him as if he is unwanted. The boy doesn't speak Swedish and the woman can't speak Finish and this at first is a great frustration.
The boy doesn't know it, but the woman had recently lost her own six year old girl in a drowning accident and she was actualy expecting a girl to come from the refugee group.
The boy misses his mother and looks forward to the letters that his mother writes to the woman that is keeping him.
Time passes and the boy goes to school and starts understanding the Swedish language.
In the mean time the boy's mother starts working for the Germans in Helsinki and falls in love with a German officer.
Back at the farm, the woman starts getting closer to the boy and begins to love him like her own lost child and he starts to feel at home.
Another letter arrives. In it, the boy's mother states that she has fallen in love with the German Officer and that he wants to take her back to Germany with him. She knows that Germany is losing the war and asks the farm lady if she can keep her boy, since a defeated post-war Germany would be terrible for him.
The farm woman is glad to hear this as she has grown so fond of the boy, she wants to keep him and raise him as her own. Their relationship has now cemented.
But then another letter comes. It appears the German has left the boy's mother and now she wants her son back.
The farm couple are very conflicted but they sadly accept that fact and send the boy back. He goes back but in his heart he loves the farm lady as she had become the mother that he never had close to him.
He is now unable to show any love or affection to the woman that is his biological mother as he fears that she will leave him again at any time.
Some fourty years later the boy receives a letter to go back to Sweden for the farm lady's funeral.
At her grave, he opens another letter, that he saved from long a go.
It was from his mother addressed to the farm lady. In it, the mother says
that she made a mistake and that she could never choose the German lover over her own son and that she wants him back to live his life with her in Helsinki.
After fourty years, the boy, now a grown man, finally understood that his
mother wanted him and he went back to Finland able to tell her that he understood and loved her.
In the tradition of Ingmar Bergman's films, this 2005 Swedish movie explores the human psyche, as seen through the eyes of a young boy.
It is a touching story of loss and redemption.

ENJOYABLE

The Fallen

Well, here's one war movie that I won't be reccomending.
Should probably reproach myself for not giving up within the first 15 minutes but it got the better of me, nevertheless, and I wanted to see how it enfolds.
I guess one could call this movie German propaganda, as it's told from their point of few.
The Italian soldiers ( their allies ) are portrayed as inept sad sacks.
The Americans are not much better. There is no real discipline and most of the guys appear to be a bunch of over-privelaged losers.
Of course, the Germans are heroic and discplined and portrayed as caring, starting from their Sigfried like Lieutenant, who sacrifices himself for his troops.
Yes , it's war and chaos but I don't think this movie was intended as a parody. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry but I must admit that I found myself admiring the type of soldier the German liutenant was.
There might have been some like him in the real war but I think that the majority of them were not as noble. After all, they were the invaders and wanted to conquer the whole word but wound up finding out that they bit off more than they can chew.

REGRETABLE

Night At The Goden Eagle

After spending seven years in prison, Tommy, now a senior citizen, gets picked up by a close buddy named Vick, who takes him to crash at his place for the night, The Golden Eagle ,before heading off together with Tommy to Vegas, in the morniong. Or at least that's the plan.
The visuals are real and the Golden Eagle is just as deppresingly dumpy, seedy and dark, as it's intended to be.
The chracters around it are all desperate people down on their luck and obviously having seen better days.
Prior to entering this establishment, Tommy meets this willing young hooker. The man's been in prison for seven years and he's not gay.
He ignores his friends warnings, who goes off to collect his last pay check.
Unable to perform with the gilrl, Tommy is down on himself, when she starts baraging him and questioning his manhood. Tommy's old school Italian and that's one thing he can't take and things terribly spiral out of control.
This movie is one of those dark movies that realisticaly portray the sleazy environment and people that live there.
Long time a go I made myself a promise that should I ever sink so low to have to live in that kind of environment, I'll put a bullit in my head first.

ENJOYABLE

American Perfekt

Here's a quircky movie that's under the radar but has an excellent charactor actor cast: Robert Forster, Paul Sorvrino, Daviid Thewlis, Amanda Plummer and Fairuza Balk.
What makes tis movie interesting is that the characters are really not who they appear and the most gentlemanly and unassuming of them all hides a deadly secret.
From stranded motorists to psycho driverrs to serrial killers, to sheriffs with good gut instincts this ride is for those who enjoy the weird and wild.

In The Land Of Blood And Honey

Angelina Jolie makes her directorial debut in this movie about the conflict in Bosnia that occured in 1992- 1995 in the former republic of Yugoslavia.
She also wrote the script for the movie.
This coflict is portrayed through the captor-captive relationship between a Serb Officer and a Muslim woman, painter.
If we were to disregard history and to just look at this movie in it's entity, Angelina would have us believe that the Serbs were monsters and that the war was very one-sided. The Serbs are portaryed as blood-thirtsy rapists that showed utter contempt and disregard for human life.
In the movie, The Serbs over-run the outskirts of Sarajevo, capture the Muslim civilians. Seperate the men from the women, shoot the men and keep the women as sex slaves. The main character of the movie is such a woman, who just happens to be lucky for knowing the Serb in command, prior to the war. He seperates her from the others and tries to protect her from the pilaging Serbs. Their relationship is a complex one. He does not rape this woman but the viewer is left in doubt as to why the woman remains with him, when even he tries to persuade her to escape to freedom. Is it just for preservation or does she have genuine feeling for him? He really doesn't like the war nor the killing and rape nor the position that fate his bestowed upon him. What compicates things is that the officer's father is the head huncho, the General of the Serb army who leaves no doubt that he hates Muslims and that they should all be eradicated. Although the Serb Officer clearly has feelings for this woman, his father condemns this relationship and puts the seeds of doubt into his son's brain as to him being able to trust the enemy. The father also arranges that a comrade of his son's rapes the woman. The son winds up killing the guy for that act. Until the last minutes of this movie the viewer is left wondering what the ultimate end of this realtionship is going to be.
In the end, Angelina leaves no doubt as to her interpretation of this war. And in this respect the movie is harrowing and gripping.
The real facts are that when the Republic of Bosnia and Hercegovina ceseded from Yugoslavia, the people that lived on that territory where one third Serbs, one third Croats and one third Muslims. It was the Muslims that wanted to create a new and seperate republic and war broke out among the different factions that lived there. Since Serbia was the biggest republic in the country of Yugoslavia, most of the soldiers in the Yugoslav army were Serb and they tried to prevent the cesssession of the republic of Bosnia but the war evolved into a religious war between the Bosnian Greek Orthodox Serbs and the Muslims and the Catholic Croats.
Although Serbia became the big scapegoat of this war, the atrocities against ethnic civilian populations were comitted by all sides, mostly by army irregular formations that were organized on that territory.
The US wound up bombing the capitol of Serbia and engaged Nato also to bomb the Serbs that were occuping the hills over Sarajevo.
Later it was found out that there were about 5, 000 Muhadjadin and Alkaida members that came from outside to aid the Muslim faction and that some of the atrocities that were attribiuted to the Serbs were actually staged by the Muslims to gain world support and intervention.
Madeleine Albreight didn't have a clue nor did Clinton as to what was going on over there.
Anyway, Angelina with this movie just reinforced the belief that the war was a one-sided genocide against the Muslims, even though at the War Crimes Tribunal at the Hague, after the fact,the Serbs were not the only ones tried as war criminals. Atrocities in Bosnia as well as Croatia, who also ceseded from the Yugoslav Federation, were comitted by all sides and the Serbs were certainly not the only villians.

In The Land Of Blood And Honey

Anyone knowledgeable about the region's conflicts care to make any comments about Angelina's interpretation in this movie?