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drama

Dolls * Takeshi Kitano * 2002

Not the kind of Japanese film like I have seen recently. No creepy horror-thriller, but a heavy drama. Strange that everything is in Japanese (credits, anouncements, etc.) but the title. Anyway, “Dolls” shows a couple of tragic lovestories. Overall “Dolls” is a strange film with pretty original stories. A red line is two young people who walk through Japan tied to eachother with a red rope. There are extraordinary beautiful shots of the Japanese nature. The film is very minimal, no sound when no sound is needed and the same goes for conversations. I am also heavily under the impression that there is a lot of underlying symbolism that I don’t understand. Wanderers have certain coloured clothing, the trees have very bright colours in different parts of the film, Japanese puppet-playing comes back at times apparently to clear some things out, but not to me. A Japanese film for a Japanese audience that understands such things?
In the end I can say that this is definately no feel-good movie, but a nice one if you want to see some other kind of film/drama sometimes.

Dogville * Lars von Trier * 2003

Von Trier did it again. After no artificial light and no self-built stages he came up with something else: no stages at all! He worked it out brilliantly. The village of the title is a small village with 15 inhabitents. You can see the setting is a studio, the streets are named, houses are stripes on the ground with the name of the residents written in it and the bench says “old lady’s bench”. Here and there there is a part of stage, like a bed, a couch or the tip of a tower flying in the air. With this setting Von Trier manages to surprise you for about 60 or 90 minutes. The actors open fictional doors, knock in the air, etc. The funny thing is: you get used to it. The greates thing is that it makes things very literally transparrent. With one shot you can see the whole village and exactly what everyone is doing, but of course people can’t look inside eachothers houses, so this openness is only for the viewer. Light, dark, day, night, snow and fire and made with the least material possible, but are effective enough. Very well done!

BUT, the story is stretched out over three hours. It is told in a funny way though. A voiceover telling a story in nine chapters and a prolog, with a very nice sence of humour (British I would say). It was totally unnessary to use three long hours to make the film though. The story is about the simple village Dogville which lays in the Rocky Mountains in the middle of nowwhere. There is only one road to the village which even ends there. Nicole Kidman ends up in the village when fleeing from a group of criminals. The village hides Grace (Kidman), but as time goes, demands more and more in return. Overall “Dogville” is a charge against the market economy. The price of Grace gets higher with the danger the village is in. This eventually leads to inhumane behaviour and ends in an eruption of violence.
I like the idea behind the film, I love the way Von Trier worked it out. Totally unique with stage-playing more than film-acting, but I sure hope that there will be a shorter version of it some time. -3/9/03-

The Discovery Of Heaven * Jeroen Krabbé * 2001

De Ontdekking van de Hemel (1992) by Harry Mulisch (1927-) is seen as one of the highlights of modern Dutch literature. I never read novels and I certainly wasn’t planning on reading this 900+ pages book by Mulisch. Even when the Dutch actor Jeroen Krabbé (1944-) decided to make a film of the book, I had no intention to see it. But since I don’t go through life alone, I got to see the two hour film anyway.
The film begins by showing how two men meet and become best friends. Even when they run into a girl they alternally (and simultaneously) have a relationship with, things keep going well between the two. Then the three have a car accident, Ada (the girl) falls into coma while pregnant (but who is the father?), gives birth and remains in a coma while her son (Quinten) is raised by her mother and Max and not by Onno (who is thought to be the father). All right and well, not? But as the boy grows up, he has dreams of his mother and of a strange building and the story turns towards a vague semi-religious Dan Brown-like plot and the ‘other people’ having conversations prove to be (arch)angels running life on earth and having nefarious plans with mankind. I kind of lost it there. The first part of the film is an alright drama, but the second half is a bit far-fetched. With the whole Da Vinci hype, I can see why this book is so popular. For those who can’t get thought Mulisch’s writing-style or just want to see a film, this Dutch, but very well English spoken, film isn’t too bad of a choice.

Il Decameron * Pier Paolo Pascolini * 1971

Apparently just on DVD this old Italian film of the famous Decamoron of Giovani Boccacio (1313-1375). Different ‘stories of love’ following eachother without notification, running through eachother and being not too interesting. The acting is rather overdone, Italian old films have the bad habbit of not ‘going synchrone’ (images and sound) and the blurry story isn’t too exiting. Maybe just a film for people who like classics.

Der Untergang * Oliver Hirschbiegel * 2004

I would (should) have seen tbis film before, but for some reason it took until I could lend a copy. I am no fond of war-films and this one isn’t really an exception. I suppose you all know by now that this film shows the last days of the reign of Hitler. The film is based on the ‘documentary’ (a long interview) with Traudl Junge. From IMDb.com it seems that Junge wrote a book that was the base for this film. Also she is supposed to have appeared in other documentaries, while I understood that she wanted to give one and final interview before she passed away. The interview was shown on TV under the title Im Toten Winkel (which is reviewed), late 2002, half a year after Junge died. In the interview ‘Hitlers Sekretärin’ talks about how she came to join the nazi administration and how she experienced the last period of the reign of Hitler. She claims she didn’t know about the horrors of the outside, because she was ‘im toten Winkel’ (‘in the dead angle’). The interview may be a boring and tiring watch, but I found it much more interesting and informative than “Der Untergang”.
The film opens with Junge’s job interview and then immediately jumps to the last hours of WWII. The story of “Der Untergang” is not entirely based on Junge’s information, because there are also scenes where Junge could never have been present. We mostly see the bunker in which Hitler lives and gives his orders. We see him loosing his mind (if he ever had it!) and how his subjects grow against him. Because Hitler is also shown in ‘normal conditions’ (playing with his dogs, being charming towards his secretary, being with Eva Braun) this film was/is controversial because it shows that Hitler was a mere human being. Indeed he can be funny at times, but in general the film shows him to be the power-driven maniac with no regard for his servants or the German people which he most likely was. Less common are the scenes in which Hitler and Braun get married and shortly after commit suicide. The scene in which Hitler says goodbye to everybody close to him is the only scene which may rise a little bit of emotion with the viewer. Strange to see (shocking even maybe) is the devotion to the man by -for example- mrs. Goebbels who even kills her children because she can’t imagine a world without national-socialism.
Filmographically I didn’t find the film too much. The acting is a bit dull, the filming is (probably on purpose) with a distance (in the meaning of: too neutral). Not too great and again I suggest the interview with Junge for the more informative part.

Dancer In The Dark * Lars Von Trier * 2000

It took a long time before I finally got to see this film. I did get the Selmasongs cd of Björk when it was just out. However I like some of Von Triers works, I don’t like all of them. Also I heard that “Dancer In The Dark” is a musical and quite depressive, so I didn’t give it a whole lot of thought anymore. A while ago I saw the DVD for a very low price and I couldn’t let it go. Still it took a while before I watched it.

I suppose most of you know the story behind the film? Von Trier wanted to make the film with a soundtrack of Björk. The two of them could get along so well that Björk eventually got the main part for which she even got a Golden Palm award.

Anyway, “Dancer In The Dark” isn’t as much a musical as I expected it to be, no “Moulin Rouge” for sure. It is a rather long film about the poor Cszech immigrant Selma who lives with her young son in a trailer on the American countryside. Besides being uneducated she and her son suffer from a heritable disease that causes them to slowly go blind. Selma saves all the money she can to be able to have her son operated. Herefor she really doesn’t spend a penny too much.

In all the misery Selma halfway lives in a dreamworld in which she sings in musicals. The music is really well incorporated in the film by the way, with sounds of dripping blood or machines as rhythm. The misery gets worse and worse though. Her befriended neighbour steals Selmas money and in the process of getting it back, she kills him. In a trial she is sentenced to death by hanging, but first she arranged her sons operation.

Quite a strange film overall. Original as more of Von Triers works. It is quite well-done, but definately no feel-good movie!

Il Conformista * Bernardo Bertolucci * 1970

An old Italian film about the times that Hitler started to reign over Germany and Mussolini over Italy. The film is about an Italian secret agent who became a fascist at a quite early age. He marries a naive young woman in his aim to become ‘normal’. Their honeymoon is to Paris, but Marcello’s actual assignment is not pleasure, but the assassination of his old philosophy-teacher Quadri who fleed Italy when the fascists took over power. The professor’s wife is Anna Quadri old love who also enchants Giulia, Marcello’s wife. Eventually the killing of both the professor and his wife take place, Giulia finds out at around the end of the film the fascist regime falls and Marcello looses his conviction.
An old film, eh? Not too great.

La Classe De Neige * Claude Miller * 1998

“La Classe De Neige” (“snow class”) is a French film that is compared to the brilliant “The Butcher Boy” by Neil Jordan (1997). Indeed both films are about unwordly young boys living in a violent fantasy world. Where “The Butcher Boy” is a grim comedy “La Classe De Neige” is more of a drama.
Nicholas is a boy with an over protective father and will go to the mountains with his school class to sky. His father doesn’t trust the bus-driver and wants to bring Nicholas himself. The boy leaves his bag in his father’s car and shy as he is, he has to loan pyjamas from a class-mate. This is the wild Hodkann but different as they are, they become friends. Nicholas has frightening visions/dreams and a vivid imagination and just as his head must seem, it is hard to tell what is truely happening and what is only inside Nicholas’ head. All over the film suggestions are made about the boy’s father, but only at the very end you will get to know if Hodkann’s suspicions are correct.
All in all a nice movie, but I like “The Butcher Boy” better.

Charlotte Gray * Gillian Armstrong * 2001

Hm, Cate Blanchett even got me to watch a war-movie, a genre I am not fond off. I thought the story was different when I rented this film. Anyway, Charlotte Gray is a Brittish woman who used to study in Paris. In WWII her boyfriend -who is a pilot- goes down in France and Gray voluntarily leaves her own country to try to help to win the war as secret agent in France. Some not too sensational adventures take place. I think this film wants to show how a normal person tried to help in the war and did not come out too heroic. Not that this is a boring film by the way, but it is just a drama.

Breaking The Waves * Lars von Trier * 1996

A cheap DVD was made available just before “Dogville” came into the cinemas. “Breaking The Waves” is also a long film (158 min) and also divided in chapters. Also it is not too cheerfull and a bit too long.

Bess is a girl that is “not right in her head” who grew up in an extremely religious community in Scotland. She marries a ‘man of the world’ from an oil rig who gets paralysed after an accident. Bess’ faith in God (who she speaks with) and Jan (her husband) is tested.

Good acting, original story, but a bit too long.