Io Sono l’Amore (I Am Love)

This Luca Gudagnino film is a melodramatic tragedy that resembles Italian cinema of another era with good cinematography (especially Milan in winter), elegant settings and a story that the best part for me was visiting the upper class lifestyle as the Recchi family private life was like a microcosm of everything that seems fine but it’s a melting pot ready to burst.

The last comment describes better what the story is all about as you get introduced to all characters at a dinner party and while you watch you start to try to guess that from all the seemly perfect individuals who is going to burst and propel the drama and as the story evolves you keep guessing wrongly until one character, perhaps the most perfect of all, starts to get out of the perfect life that somehow looks like the perfect prison. I believe that this is movie where you have to pay attention to the little details in words and in what you look so if you don’t appreciate very-slow story development –perfect life is not really entertaining- you will surely get bored and miss when the drama explodes to continue with tragedy and ‘crazy’ freedom. Even if I made the story seem simple have to add that story and film are quite complex.

The complete cast performs well but Tilda Swinton absolutely steals the film, she’s unbelievably good in this role and just because her performance this is a must be seen film. Still I was impressed with Alba Rohrwacher performance but she was so little in the screen that I wished her character had more time and can’t help to mention that it was a true pleasure to see Marisa Berenson again in the big screen.

Can’t say that I enjoyed a lot the film, but when the one character that burst goes wild the film becomes more interesting and engaging not only because actor performance but also filmmaker decision to use extra-close close-ups to accentuate the impact of what happens. (This is me trying to not spoil the story for those that haven’t seen the film).

Do I recommend it? Yes I do, especially to watch Tilda Switon performance and if you like Italian cinema of the 50’s and 60’s you have to watch this Luca Guadagnino film that definitively looks and feels like the work of master directors of that era (s). I saw in here traces of Pasolini (yes, from my favorite movie of all times), Visconti, and maybe Rosellini, but mainly Italian critics’ mention in their film critics many more great master filmmakers.

Enjoy!!!

Watch trailer @MOC

58th San Sebastian International Film Festival - Films in Progress 18 Award Winners

This year the section will present on September 21 and 22 seven (7) films from Latin American countries. As you remember this is an aid program that happens twice a year, once in San Sebastian and another at the Rencontres Cinémas d'Amérique Latine in Toulouse.

Here are the seven selected projects from 97 projects submitted from 19 countries.

*Asalto al Cine (The Cinema Hold-Up), Iría Gómez Concheiro, Mexico Winner of Casa de America Award

Distancia (Distance), Sergio Ramírez, Guatemala

*Entre la Noche y el Dia (Between Night and Day), Bernardo Arellano, Mexico Winner of Industry Award

Karen Llora en el Bus (Karen Cries on the Bus), Gabriel Rojas Vera. Colombia
Machete Language, Kyzza Terrazas, Mexico
Mitomana (Mythomaniac), José Luis Sepúlveda and Carolina Adriazola, Chile
Todos Tus Muertos (All Your Dead Ones), Carloss Moreno, Colombia

To check info about each project go here. To read the award announcement go here.

Habitación en Roma (Room in Rome)

Thanks to a very dear friend I was able to watch this movie that have been waiting too long to watch and had very HIGH expectations regarding the story, the film and the director’s work. The film exceeds by far my high expectations in so many levels that it was really “painful” to watch such a beautiful film. To talk about this film have to use my dual brain, one brain will talk about the lesbian interest film and the other about the mainstream arty film.

Up-to-date this is the best lesbian interest film that I have ever watched as tells a story that is so REAL but the way is told makes even more real and I know that many that have ever lived a one-night-stand at a hotel room will easily understand why I say this film story resembles real-life. But more amazing is the way is told and seems that Julio Medem had excellent source(s) of information about what happens beyond the close doors when two women meet and fall in love. Still even more amazing is the fact that this film is inspired by Matias Bize’s En la Cama, a Chilean film that tells a similar story but the protagonists are a man and a woman. How a filmmaker can portrait so good real-life about something I’m sure has never seen much less lived? Interesting.

The films tells about two strangers, one Russian and one Spaniard, that meet on their last night in Rome, feel attracted to each other, end-up in Alba’s room and slowly -very-slowly- start to open themselves to each other until they tell truth, get scared for what they’re feeling and it’s too late as feelings have overcome whatever they have to face in their real-lives they tried so hard to protect. Very simple story told with many conversations, some sex but more love, some silences, many sights and many facial expressions. Fantastic!!!

I’m totally biased but I enjoyed more Elena Anaya’s Alba than Natasha Yarovenko’s Natasha, after all Anaya is a more accomplished actress and her performance here is just perfect for the role she’s playing, but Yarovenko’s performance was acceptable as both actresses are in almost every scene and indeed they are what makes the film so beautiful and interesting to watch, besides the story.

As a mainstream arty film is complex with Medem’s magic realism leading the story this time with paintings that if you’re familiar with the paintings, the simple painting’s presence will (sort of) tell you what the story will be about and if not, narrative will tell. Then you have Cupid that needs no explanation. If this had been a man and a woman story I’ll be talking SO different about the story and would have made a better analysis of what the story is really about. I saw the story but since Medem chose to have two women, it totally became irrelevant to me as the lesbian interest story became not only more interesting but so resembling real life that overcame me. But will share that yes Medem’s magic realism could have made the story a dream and yes, the visual narrative has a lot to do with two symbols, maps (including the great take with the upside down map of Microsoft’s Bing – plus all the other-) and mirrors.

Still I was able to appreciate the movie beyond the story and the two protagonist pas-de-deux and one… no, two particular scenes blew my mind. The first is when the camera enters the room -at the beginning- and the second is when the camera exits the room –at the end-in the same fashion as the first but backwards. In general the best this movie has –as a movie- is framing, camera takes and camera moves. Still there are a few, perhaps too many for such a beautiful film, really bad framing's.

I was reading a few reviews as well as viewers comments and since I know that this film is a must-be-seen for those that enjoy the lesbian interest film I have to share with you all that this is not necessarily a ‘normal’ genre film. First please remember that is European and second absolutely is a Julio Medem’s film. The second comment may be explained better if you saw -or could see before watching this one- Medem’s Sex and Lucia, for example. I’m mentioning this as if you know Medem’s work I’m sure you will enjoy this film a lot more than just watching because is a lesbian interest movie.

I strongly recommend the film beyond the lesbian interest genre but please don’t expect steamy sex as the many trailers suggest and even if the two protagonists are nude almost the entire film (which is exactly how you are in real-life inside the closed doors of a hotel room) after about ten minutes you will forget that they’re nude.

Of course I LOVE the film as a lesbian interest film but also as a Julio Medem’s film.

Big Enjoy!!!

Watch trailer @MOC (well, if I find one that doesn’t exploit the sex scenes – it’s impossible so no trailer)

Nothing Personal

Not an easy movie to explain but wonderful to watch in so many levels that honestly I'm wordless when trying to write about it. So I will ramble. An extremely beautiful to watch pas-de-deux between Stephen Rea and Lotte Verbeek that maybe is a non-traditional love story or maybe is a quiet, slowly, peaceful expression of human relationships told in this story by two lonely individuals that find each other. One chooses to be lonely, the other is a widow. One doesn’t want to be found, the other doesn’t want to be alone. In the end is all about irony. See, no matter what I write it really doesn’t express what you will see in this movie as I believe everything I wrote above is in this movie but doesn’t really explain the story or what you will see.

For the first time I’m going to cheat and write an excerpt of the synopsis as written in the movie official site that surely will describe better what this movie is all about, if you want to read more go here.

A young female rebel and an old sage challenge each other in a story about personal freedom and attachment. She is a young Dutch woman, who after throwing away all her possessions becomes a vagabond by choice and finds the solitude she was looking for in an austere landscape of Irish Connemara. He is an old man who lives a solitary life in a secluded house in Ireland. She is radical and uncompromising. He is wise and ironic. What connects them is solitude they both see as freedom.

Alright that’s what the filmmaker intended but I’m sure that some of you after watching will discover other meanings, story and/or interpretation. I did but I’m not speechless, I’m wordless. Since writing here is the first time it happens to me. I also suggest if you want to learn more that you read an interview with director and writer Urszula Antoniak that’s here as will give you some insights about her film.

As a movie is almost perfect. Extraordinary landscapes of Irish Connemara, great cinematography, silences, very little dialogue, more actors expressions, very-slow pace, and a very attention grabber story told in five acts via words in black screens: Loneliness, The end of a relationship, Marriage, Beginning of a Relationship, and Alone but the words tell nothing about what follows or better, tell everything in a tangential way.

As you can tell I’m absolutely perplexed by this film that’s absolutely (cacophony on purpose) a work of art with a very-intriguing story told in the most unconventional possible way.

This extraordinary film collected major awards at 2009 Locarno fest including Best First Film for Urszula Antoniak and Best Actress for Lotte Verbeek as well as more awards and nominations in festivals around the world.

I strongly recommend the film to those that appreciate Art and European cinemas, but as the film has a clearly told story maybe some of you that don’t like this type of cinema could enjoy it too. To close a photo of one scene that I need to have here.

Big Enjoy!!!

Watch trailer @MOC

The Special Relationship

A quite interesting film about the relationship of two powerful men, Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, that if is accurate or not is not relevant; what is relevant for me is how their friendship aligns with what I can call “English-speaking” foreign policies that probably opened the door to more incidents that we can imagine. I’m very political but promised myself to not write anything political in this blog, so won’t do more than the above comment that perhaps some of you will notice my (not so) hidden sarcasm.

Anyway the film tells about Tony Blair going to Washington D.C. before getting elected and gets some smart advice on how to take the Labor party on top again. While on campaign Blair calls Clinton attention, gets an invitation to visit him and when Blair arrives in DC gets the VIP treatment. Blair gets elected and the so-called “special relationship” between UK and USA becomes more real as both leaders form a complex personal friendship. Just for the relationship story the movie is interesting but I believe is sprinkled with some very important words that I’m sure will make many think a lot about how world leaders handle world situations.

Performances are very good with Michael Sheen doing an extraordinary representation of Tony Blair as he has done in Stephen Frear’s The Deal and The Queen, so good are his performances than in my mind the imagine of real Blair is absolutely blurred by Sheen’s interpretation. But this made-for-TV movie reminded me of the real Tony Blair with the last real-life scenes with Bush and I’m really glad that director Richard Loncraine decided to skip the Bush-Blair relationship from the final cut as would have change the movie tone and manner to the not positive. Totally agree that the Blair-Clinton relationship not only is more colorful but also is more entertaining.

As a movie is acceptable for a made-for-TV film and at the end what makes it entertaining are actors’ performances and the story being told that even when we know it still can surprise us in many aspects when we’re watching a dramatization of true events.

If you enjoyed The Deal and The Queen I’m positive that you’ll enjoy this film and if you didn’t, you can also enjoy the film as a portrait of two powerful world leaders’ relationship as I believe this is the most interesting ‘political-wise’ story of the three. Can’t help to say that I strongly recommend this movie to everyone that does NOT live in UK or USA as maybe will make you think about issues that most people (and media) avoid to think (or talk) about.

Enjoy!!

Watch trailer @Movie On Companion

58th San Sebastian International Film Festival Opening Ceremony

Just finished watching the opening ceremony at the official site which I found more interesting than last year mainly because it was faster and had clips of ALL films in the different sections that comprise the fest.

Still, there were some awkward moments like presenters that didn’t say a word, like John Malkovich and too many languages without translation to a more common language than very hard Basque. The last comment is most important when I don’t speak nor understand Basque -even when my last name root comes exactly from that region- and wanted to understand what they were saying while the multiple clips were screened; but probably tonight will watch the ceremony again as TVE will broadcast surely with subtitles or dubbed. But then, this is exactly what I like from European festivals, the huge diversity of films, the colorful characters and the many languages in the screen and outside of movie theaters.

The most interesting part of the ceremony are obviously the movie clips and from watching I got interested in several films, so probably will check every day to see what the fest has and maybe will do a daily short coverage. Also the fest and/or opening ceremony theme was “opening doors” so there was a nice collage of films from all over with opening doors scenes plus the ceremony stage had doors that opened constantly.

The ceremony was opened with the FIPRESCI Grand Prix and Olivia Williams receiving the award in the name of Roman Polanski.

To watch the opening ceremony at the official site go here, go down to San Sebastian Festival TV, click the Ceremonies tab, select the Opening Ceremony video and a window will pop-up.

So the most famous Spanish and Spanish-speaking festival in the world has started and soon we will learn what this edition has in store for films in the different competitions.

Cheers!!!

To close here is Olivia Williams with the FIPRESCI Grand Prix.

WRITTEN REVIEW: Scarce

By FOREST TAYLOR

One of the tough things about being a horror film reviewer is that I have to sift through a lot of terrible or just plain bland films. There are the films that are so awful you just sit there in disillusion, wondering what was going through the director’s head. Even worse than that,

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