Showing posts with label US movie. Show all posts
Showing posts with label US movie. Show all posts

Sunday, July 12, 2015

A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night (2014, Ana Lily Amirpour)

This is an American movie that was produced in Farsi, yet it was announced everywhere as Iranian vampire western. The setting is intended to remind of an Iranian ghost town, some props might remind of a Western setting.
There is not a lot of plot: a female vampire haunts the city of low lives. We meet a prostitute, a drug addict, a pusher and a boy who is to become the lover of the vampire. I suppose the rest of the town is dead already
Of course it is not in compliance with the role of women in Iranian society that females go out and walk home at night, alone. In this respect the film may be viewed as a feminist answer to a repressive theocracy.
Everybody is lonely in Bad City: the drug-addicted father; the pusher who seeks satisfaction with a hooker and of course a little boy who is there for no apparent reason. There is also a cat, maybe the only free creature in this film. The boy who was trying to look after his father at last flees from Bad City with the vampire. The lights of the car look like eyes of  a cat.
This movie has been highly praised for its stylistic mix  I don't think that movie watching should be like an Easter egg hunt for cliches you  have seen before. Amirpour puts style above substance. Impression above content. Much of the attention is certainly given because she decided to film this production in Farsi; had it been in English it probably wouldn't have managed to attract so much attention.
I don't mind slow films, but this is painfully slow. In the beginning the music starts at normal speed, but then slows down, like a like a record played at the speed of an LP. As a graduation film it could be promising.
2/10
This chador doesn't cover teeth.

Sunday, July 5, 2015

Night Moves (2013, Kelly Reichardt)

This is basically Raskolnikov among fundamentalist environists. Three people plan to blow up a dam as an alert how it is damaging the environment. However they also kill some innocent campers.
The movie is mainly busy with the preparation of theact and laying out the motivation of the activists as conscientious, but deluded. We only get a glimpse of how they will continue to live with their guilt afterwards. The girl might give the others in, s she is killed. The two others continue with their lives - so should we. It is as if we are missing Night Moves, the Sequel.
6/10
Does this guy have the Raskolnikov potential?


Saturday, June 13, 2015

Siddharta (Conrad Rooks 1972)

This is a strange film with a strange history. Originally released in 1972 on the Venice Film Festival where it was awarded a Silver Bear, it seemingly never got into wider circulation. 25 years later Siddharta had its German premiere. Rooks tels that the son of Hermann Hesse gave him the right to make this film. Other rumors say that the copyright owner of Hesse's books prevented further circulation. Now it is after all available on DVD, so that it is no longer a hot insider tip.
Hesse's book is not about Gautama Siddharta, but about an ascetic who constantly is looking for the way to enlightenment and illumination. It is said that this book is a successful (and faithful!) adaptation of Indian concepts for Western listeners. However, the book is not really for the un-initiated, neither is the film. Sanskrit notions are freely used without any explanation. Not every viewer might know what samana, samsara and similar concepts are.
As far as I can see, the film follows the book faithfully. This has also been confirmed by Hesse devotees. If a secular viewer wants to follow this spiritual quest, is a matter of debate, but everybody can enjoy the almost voluptuous beauty of this film. Rooks - assisted by Sven Nykvist as director of photography composes tableaux of great beauty. The musi to this film is very beautiful (sitar and flute). A translation of the songs is very desirable. Unfortunately (unforgivably!) the album was never released.
Siddharta is a beautiful film. Is it also a good film? I think it would have enhanced the experience, if Rooks had made an autonomous and not only an adaptation of a book.
It stands as pastime occupation of someone who didn't have to live by his art, so the movie as it is now, is probably exactly as Rooks wanted it.
5/10
This made Indian censors of 1972 very excited!