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drama

Bound * Andy and Larry Wachowski * 1996

Shame on me! I hadn’t heard of this movie I believe until recently. It is made by the brother Wachowski who later made the brilliant sci-fi film The Matrix. Bound is very much different from that film though.

Bound is an intelligent thriller with a very good story. Often it is compared to Seven, The Usual Suspects, etc., but I don’t agree with people who say that. Where the other films make you wonder “whodunnit” until the end, in Bound this is obvious from the first second. Also Bound is just a story in one line with here and there a flashback, but nothing going back and forth to make you confused.
The story is about the beautiful ex-convict Corki (Gina Gershon) who is seduced by the also beautiful maffia wife Violet (Jennifer Tilly). Violet has grown tired from the violent maffia life and wants to get away. She seduces the just-out-of-jail Corky who got some plumbers-work in the appartment next door. The plan is to get the 2 million dollar that Violets husband Ceasar (Joe Pantoliano) has to give to the big boss Gino Marzzone (Richard Sarafian) and put the blame on someone else, being Marzzones son Johnnie (Christopher Maloni). Of course the plan doesn’t work out the way the women wanted, which makes the story turn and twist in unexpected directions.

All in all quite a nice film, but I don’t think it’s all that special.

Bom Yeoreum Gaeul Gyeoul Geurigo Bom * Ki-Duk Kim * 2003

spring, summer, fall, winter… and spring>

This is the second film of Ki-Duk Kim that I see and comes closer to what I expected when I bought “Seom”. “Spring, Summer…” is about a monk who lives on an artificial island in a lake (again!) with his pupil. He teaches his pupil the lessons of life. When a sick girl of the pupil’s age comes to the monk to be cured from her illness, the pupil and her fall in love and the pupil eventually follows her to ‘the world of men’ only to return disappointed. “Spring, Summer…” is a very slow film with beautifull images and (Buddist) lessons for life. This is a very ‘spiritual’ film shot in a ‘meditative’ style. Some aspects of “Seom” come back in this film, but not the ‘gory parts’! A very nice watch, available on DVD for a very nice price.

The Belly Of An Architect * Peter Greenaway * 1987

For a Greenaway film, this one is very ‘normal’. The film has a story which is shown chronologically, there are no stretched scenes with repetative music, no picture-in-picture or strange montage, no explicit nudity or absurd sexual moral (only a wife cheating). Fortunatly it does have a Greenaway atmosphere, but not too much. I think this is a Greenaway for a larger audience.
Stourley Kracklite is an American architect whose lifework is an exibition about an obscure but influential French architect. The final stage of the work is the preparation of the actual exhibition in Rome, but this soon proves to be Kracklite’s end. His wife leaves him, he gets very sick and looses control over the exhibition.
“The belly of an architect” is a nice film which is completely covered by the title. Nice, but for Greenaway standards maybe too normal and average …?

Anna and the King * Andy Tennant * 1999

I remember that when this film played in the cinemas, I was in doubt whether or not to see it. Jody Foster usually is alright, but she didn’t make me watch “Panic Room”. I like historical films, but the critics probably kept me out of the cinema-rooms. Now it was on TV, so…

Not a very original story! An Eastern king wants his son to get a Western education, so Foster leaves her Brittish colony in India with her son for Bangkok to teach the Kings son. Of course things don’t go too easily, especially when political affairs interfere with the relationship. So the result is a historical drama that is certainly not boring, but also not too exciting.

Amores Perros * Alejandro González Iñárritu * 2000

A long and rather complex Mexican drama. “Amores Perros” tells different stories, but has one central point: a terrible car-accident with which every person in the film has something to do in one way or another. Two and a half hours is not too long, but it could have been less. A nice film with different sides of Mexican life.

American History X * Tony Kaye * 1998

I had wanted to see this film for some time, but it took a while because it didn’t really have much ‘priority’. Eventually I did see it.

As most of you probably know, this film is about a family with a skinhead oldest son (Derek) with heavy influence on his younger brother (Danny). Derek Vinyard (Edward Norton) is a very intelligent boy who developes very rascistic ideas under influence of his father who is a a firefighter. When his father got shot during work, Derek flips out and becomes a skinhead. Under presure of a man named Alexander Cameron (Stacy Keach) Derek starts a skinhead gang as he as charismatic intelligencer gets a group of “frustrated and impressionable kids” together. The group developes a liking for nazi symbology and the rooms of the kids and the tattoos they get are in that very vein.
Somewhere in the film, the younger brother Danny (Edward Furlong) tells his older brother something after there was a big fight on the table with the new friend of the mother. Derek shoots and kills the black man who either shot his father (or Derek accuses him of that) or who tried to shoot Derek himself, I didn’t really get that. Anyway, Derek is immediately arrested and has to spend three years in jail where he undergoes a 180 degree change.
The film is told in flashbacks from the time on that Danny wrote an essay about “Mein Kampf” on the day that Derek is released from jail. The flashbacks are in black and white, the ‘normal’ scenes in colour. Danny gets a choice from the charismatic, black principal (Sweeny (Avery Brooks)) of his school: either getting kicked off school or write an essay about how his brother ended up in jail. What Danny didn’t know was that Sweeny and Derek had met several times in jail and that Derek had turned around in ideology.
What Derek didn’t know was that he reached some kind of cult-status while being in jail for what he has done. Getting out he tries to ‘save’ his brother, himself and his family.

The film depicts things totally black and white. In the suburbs where the Vinyards live are black gangs and white gangs, the white gangs seem to be all skinheads. Also in jail the white men are full of tattoos of swasticas and without hair. On the other hand, the film does show quite well how youngsters get these ideas, they are “frustrated and impressionable” and they need only one person with a quick tongue to tell them what to think and to do.
The film is too moralising and there is a way too thick sauce of over-emotional finger-pointing over it. What is rather ‘unamerican’ is that there is no happy end and the end is even open.

All in all a not too great film, but rather amusing.

À Ma Soeur * Catherine Breillat * 2001

However the title means “for my sister”, the international title of this film is “Fat Girl”. This film played in the local filmhouse for a while, but I didn’t get to see it and now it was on TV. The film is about two sisters who are on holidays with their parents, the older is pretty, the other fat and depressed. Both want to get deflowered this holidays and of course the pretty girl has most success. On day one she meets an older boy, falls in love, has sex on the room where both girls sleep. When the parents find out it is end of holidays.

The film is quite nice, teenage conversations about sex and the conflicts with parents. The end is terrible though, a bit as if the director couldn’t come up with a descent end.

Alright, but only see it when it is on TV.

Los Amantes del Círculo Polar * Julio Medem * 1998

“Los Amantes…” was one of these ‘bigger’ filmhouse-films that I still wanted to see. It is of the same director as of Lucía Y El Sexo (2001) which is another film I still haven’t seen “Los Amantes” is about two young people with palindromic (Otto and Ana) names who meet and feel attracted to eachother at an very early age When their parents get a relationship the two get to live together secretly having a relationship as well, while their parents see them as brother and sister. When Otto’s biological mother dies he goes even more insane as he already is and leaves his father, stepmother and even Ana The two continue their lives but still hope that fate will bring them together some time. This does happen eventually, but…

The film is slowly told in two versions, a version of Otto and a version of Ana. The two versions go through eachother and after eachother. Sometimes you get two versions of the same event, sometimes not. Because both seem to have difficulty keeping reality and fantasy appart, you don’t know what is real and what is not. You even don’t know if it is a happy end or not!

All in all a nice romantic film.

Allerzielen * various directors * 2005

“Allerzielen” is a compilation of 16 short films that were made after (and because of) the murder of Theo van Gogh (23/7/1957-2/11/2004). Mostly young and new directors made a variety of short films. They are either about the killing, the reactions to it or more artistic films such as dance-films. The films go from hilaric to serious and artsy. Some are very clear, other say more about yourself. Some show something which would haven’t been shown before the killing like a Dutch mother talking to her daughter while a Maroccan (I think) woman is talking to her daughter, or a hilaric film about a Turkish man and his Maroccan neighbour accross the street. Some films are very critcial and clear, other vague and suggestive. Funny is that this film had its premiere in 12 cinema’s and on tv on the same night. A week later it was only shown in 2 cinema’s and now only in one. I suppose it will be on DVD soon. “Allerzielen” is both interesting from ‘filmographic’ point of view, but also of course in the course of events. Personally I found it a bit too long/strange/experimental to view all at once.

À la folie… pas du tout * Laetitia Colombani * 2002

This is the second film of the French director of 1976. “Selling point” is the main part played by Audrey Tautou who we all loved playing Amélie Poulin. This film is said to be a “romantic thriller”. Well, it sure isn’t a comedy like Amélie, but a thriller? Oh well, maybe a bit. Angelique is in love with a cardiologist and fantasises a relationship with him. She does her best to win his heart, but this isn’t easy. In the first half of the film you get Angeliques story, in the second half the same story is told, but this time from the eyes of the cardiologist and you get a completely different story. Very enjoyable.