Category Archives: Movie Review

I hesitated as to whether to review The Mill & the Cross,
because while it is one of the most beautiful and unique movies I have ever
seen, it asks a lot of the viewer. It has a slow and meditative pace, and
sometimes I found myself wondering what was going on, and towards the very end, to
be honest, I was yawning. But it also gives a lot to the viewer, and I found
myself thinking about it for days afterwards. Director Lech Majewski takes us into a painting by Flemish master Pieter
Bruegel the Elder, called “The Way to Calvary.” It was painted in
1564 during a time of turmoil when the King of Spain was sending mercenaries
into Flanders to persecute Protestants. The
canvas is populated with 500 figures, most of whom are peasants simply going
about their ordinary lives. But, meanwhile, Christ is being crucified, and
Bruegel conflates the sufferings of Christ with the sufferings of the peasants.

There is little dialogue in the movie, and most of the
characters are nameless, with only Rutger Hauer, as Bruegel, Michael York, as Nicholas Johnhelinck, a
collector of paintings, and Charlotte Rampling, as Bruegel’s wife, who posed
for his portraits of Mother Mary, emerging as identifiable characters. But this isn’t a narrative–it’s a world we are being drawn into, and it is
the extraordinary visuals that transfix us. It’s to see the most beautiful late Renaissance painting come to life–suddenly, the donkeys start plodding, the
children start playing, and the mercenaries begin erecting the cross. We are drawn into the lives of these people, and learn that the red-coated men on horseback are the Spanish mercenaries. Up on the rock, is the windmill, where God, in the form of the miller, surveys all and “grinds the bread of life.” At any rate, it’s like watching a vivid dream, and if you are up for something completely different . . . here it is!

Moolaadé is a film by the late Senegalese director Ousmane
Sembene. In a village in Burkina Faso
(in western Africa), a conflict has
erupted–six girls who are to be “purified” by genital mutilation have escaped.
Two drown themselves in a well, and the other four seek sanctuary with a woman
named Collé. Collé has not allowed her own daughter to be “purified” and has
suffered condemnation by conservative elements in the village. She casts a protective
spell called “moolaadé” to give the girls sanctuary. The red-robed priestesses
who perform the “cutting” cannot touch the girls as long as they are so
protected.

The above synopsis makes Moolaadé sound impossibly grim,
and the subject–of female circumcision–strikes most westerners as repellent.
The genius of the film is that it is anything but grim, and seems instead like
a magical African fairy tale. There is a young prince (the son of the local
tribal chief, returned from Europe), a fair
damsel (the beautiful daughter of Colle), and an assortment of gremlins,
witches, and ogres. The village itself has a fairy tale quality, with its
walled compounds, drum-shaped storage buildings, and its 150-year-old mosque,
bristling like a porcupine with wooden stakes.

Part of the charm of the movie is that Sembene takes the
time to show us life in the village in a way that is tender and loving: he
shows us the scampering baby goats, the mother guinea hens and their chicks, the
village mothers washing their struggling babies, and even the little toads hopping
by a drainspout. The result is an airiness, gentleness, and lilt to the pace of
the storyline that is a pleasure. I also found myself transfixed by the
beautiful clothing of the villagers, especially of the women. The humblest
woman was a fashion diva wearing vividly colored robes, jewelry, and elaborately
wrapped skirts and headdresses.

Sembene was also a writer, and we have a book called African Short Stories (823.0108996 AFR), which includes one of his stories.

Roger Ebert has included Moolaadé, in his “Great Movies
Archives,” noting that the villagers “…despite some of their practices, are
deeply decent and civilized, and Sembene loves them for it.” This is the film
of a wiseman, and it’s a privilege and pleasure to watch it.

Subtitles

A romance novel brought to vibrant life, The Princess of
Montpensier is a sweeping drama set against the backdrop of war-torn, sixteenth-century
France. Catherine de Medici reigns, and it’s a time of warfare between the
Catholics and Protestants (Huguenots). Our heroine, Marie de Mezieres, is a
beautiful young aristocrat promised to the Prince of Montpensier, a young man
who she doesn’t love. The marriage is part of a bargain between her father and
his neighbor. Sent off to war, the Prince asks his trusted adviser, an older
nobleman named the Comte de Chabannes, to be Marie’s adviser, and Chabannes falls
in love with her.  But she is
passionately in love with the rakish, brutal Duke de Guise. The pot really gets
boiling when the future king of France, the Duke d’Anjou, falls for her, too.
Marie is lovely and intelligent, but also very young, willful and a bit vain.
Her head is turned by the power of her youth and beauty over this gaggle of
powerful men, but she is very much in a man’s world, and do any of these men
really love her or do they just see her as a prize to be won? Oblivious to the
pitfalls, she sails like a beautiful swan to her destiny.

 The castles, the
scenery, and the costumes are all simply fabulous, and the acting topnotch. I’m not
usually a fan of battle scenes, but the recreations of sixteenth-century
warfare in this movie are fascinating. Even the sword fights were something
special. Distinguished French director Bernard Tavernier (interview) brings a wonderful freshness of vision to this long ago world. The characters are young people living
life at a fever pitch, and their energy gallops and surges through the movie,
propelling it to a dramatic finale.

French subtitles

Woody Allen’s latest comedy is the
most charming film to come out in 2011, from the opening montage that shows
Paris at its romantic best, to the infectious enthusiasm its protagonist has
for the “City of Love.” Owen Wilson plays the typical Woody Allen character
(neurotic, literate, and articulate), but he plays to the strengths of his
charming personality so that he never comes across as unlikable, but wholly
endearing instead. Wilson’s character, Gil Pender, is a man in love with the
city of Paris more than his own fiancé, but that won’t bother you when you
notice how much she belittles him every at chance she gets.

Gil, like a lot of people, pines for
a better time in an era he is too young to have experienced. Specifically, he
is infatuated with Paris in the 1920s when some of the most influential
American authors inhabited the same square mile under the Parisian lights. Gil
is an author himself, but he has settled for the life of a rich screenplay
re-writer, giving scripts that mediocre touch that makes them sell so many
tickets. He is currently writing a novel that touches on the same themes of
nostalgia that the film does, and his bride-to-be is supportive of it only to
an extent. His fiancé Inez, loves the man who writes those scripts, but
couldn’t care less about the one who actually has ambitions and passion,
because let’s face it: where’s the money to be made from that?

While in Paris on a vacation to meet
with Inez’s (protective and pretentious) parents, Gil decides to take a walk
late at night to soak in the city’s landscape. When the bell tolls midnight, a
carriage arrives and Gil is whisked away to a party where the people are
lavishly dressed and the setting is primitive by today’s standards… To say more
would spoil the wonderful experience that is seeing Midnight
in Paris for the first time.

Woody Allen’s script is loaded with
enough charm and wit that there is no room for some of his more alienating
qualities. It’s a romantic comedy at heart, but it is fueled by both Gil and
Allen’s love for the city at hand. You’ll fall in love with what happens in
Paris at midnight right alongside Gil, just like you’ll fall in love with this
film.

-         
- Nick

L’Amour Fou is a
documentary about French fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent and his life with
Pierre Berge, his longtime lover and business partner. It was filmed after the
designer’s death in 2008. The documentary is framed by the 2009 Christie’s auction
of the priceless art collection the couple had amassed. First we see the
gorgeous apartment they lived in, then we see auctioneers packing up the art
and furniture, and then we see the sale itself, which included paintings by
Matisse.

Saint Laurent and Berge had three residences–one was a
luxuriously decorated apartment in Paris, another was a walled paradise in
Marrakesh, Morocco, and one was a home hidden away in a forest in Normandy. We
get guided tours to all three amazing homes, products of Saint Laurent’s creative
mind. I couldn’t help but think, “So this is how the other half lives!” We also
get to see snippets of fashion shows, many lovely gowns, and video clips of
Paris nightlife.

Catnip for “fashionistas” and Francophiles, L’Amour Fou is
a bit too long, and focuses a bit too much on Berge, who is extensively
interviewed. Saint Laurent began his career as a 17-year-old prodigy, and went
on to revolutionize women’s fashion. In spite of his success, he was nervous
and moody, and suffered from recurrent depression. We become conscious of the
absence of the mercurial, elusive Saint Laurent, who was the genius behind it
all–the clothes, the shows, the fabulous homes–and he remains an enigmatic
shadow throughout the film.

French with English subtitles.

To get a closer look at some of the fabulous fashions, we have the book Yves Saint Laurent by Jeromine Savignon (746.92).

Terrorism is a bleak and tragic chapter in our world history books, but it is included for a reason. It is within that mindset that one should view Carlos.  Carlos is a 5½ hour film (broken into three episodic chapters) that is as detailed as it is intense. It moves along at a breakneck pace as we follow Carlos across countries and continents, switching currencies and languages with ease. This kind of film transcends the “foreign-language” category because although it is technically a “French” film, it doesn’t have a national identity, due to its wide-ranging cast of characters and settings. It is an incredibly thorough portrait of one of the most notorious terrorists of all time: Carlos the Jackal. The script shines the more detailed and idiosyncratic it gets. For example, the nickname “The Jackal” is never uttered throughout the entire film because the script is filtered through Carlos’ eyes, and those who knew him best. He might have chosen the name Carlos (for he was born Ilich Ramírez Sánchez), but the public was the one to brand him “The Jackal.”

The film is broken into three distinct sections of Carlos’ career. The first section depicts his rise to fame when he started out acting on his own in order to gain the attention of the (then) leader of the PFLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine),  Wadie Haddad. The second episode depicts Carlos leading a team to kidnap eleven OPEC oil ministers (and anyone else who got in the way) to hold for ransom, his most heinous crime. The final act shows the demise of Carlos’ criminal career as he becomes increasingly detached from reality. The film’s structure is your typical “rise and fall” story, but with stylish direction and a real-life anti-hero at its center Carlos is a nerve-shattering portrait of one of history’s most hated criminals.

The running time may be staggering, but don’t let that keep you from checking out this harrowing biopic.   Five and one-half hours may seem like a long time, but it’s nothing when it covers the span of two decades. Édgar Ramírez plays the titular terrorist and his performance is something to behold. He not only embodies Carlos physically (by gaining quite a few pounds to portray Carlos’ later days), but he plays the role with such conviction and egoism that he actually seems to genuinely buy into his various speeches, which is crucial in portraying the more delusional side of Carlos. Carlos the man was a violent terrorist with ill-conceived rationale, but Carlos the film is a grand cinematic achievement. This tension-filled history lesson is more riveting than any class you’ll ever take.

- Nick

Note: This film is unrated because it was released on foreign television, but I can assure you the MPAA would have given it an R rating for language, violence, and adult situations.

Johannes Chrysostomus
Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, aka “Mozart,” was one of the greatest musical
geniuses. At the age of five, he traveled all over Europe by stage coach with his
father and older sister, playing for kings and queens. His life story is told
in the documentary In Search of Mozart, a dazzling kaleidoscope of music and
color.

Director Phil Grabsky became
obsessed with Mozart after hearing one of his operas. In the thrall of this
obsession, he shows every apartment where Mozart lived, the roads he traveled, and the palaces where he was welcomed as a music virtuoso.Grabsky also interviews the greatest performers of Mozart living today, and the true jewels of
this documentary are these interviews. All of the musicians and singers
interviewed are born teachers, and show by example on keyboard or by singing
why Mozart is so amazing.

In a way this documentary is
an investigation into the nature of genius, in particular, Mozart’s genius. He
was unusual in that not only was he a musical prodigy, but he was a normal
person. Apparently many musical prodigies suffer from psychological quirks that
render their music unlistenable. But Mozart had a sunny disposition, and much
of his music is filled with joy.

Running 2-1/4 hours long,
this is a lot of Mozart, but it easily can be watched in two sittings. Or it
can be consumed in one long, delicious slurp of gorgeous scenery, beautiful
music, and interesting Mozartian factoids. For instance, Mozart was barely five
feet tall and had long blond hair. Who knew?

A good follow-up to In
Search of Mozart, is Amadeus, directed by Milos Forman. A very much
fictionalized account of the life of Mozart that is dismissed by scholars as
not historically accurate, many Mozart fans were first turned on to his music
through this film. If you can listen to the Queen of the Night sing her famous
aria without your spine tingling, you are made of tougher stuff than me!

If you enjoy watching In
Search of Mozart, you will be happy to know that director Grabsky went on to
make In Search of Beethoven. A similarly dense pudding of letters, musical
demonstrations, and location shots, you will come away with a better
appreciation of this genius, who many consider to be the greatest composer of
all time.

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