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Caché * Michael Haneke * 2006

I don’t watch Haneke’s films often, because the director has the ability to make me feel pretty awkward after seeing his films. This is -of course- exactly what he intends. “Caché” is the first film of Haneke that didn’t have that result and (therefor?) I also think it is Haneke’s least interesting work. The idea (and last name of the main characters) seems to be taken from David Lynch, but is not worked out convincingly. Suggestions are raised and the film suddenly ends, leaving the viewer with questions. Nothing bad about that in my opinion, but besides some very nice stylistics, “Caché” disappointed me a bit.
-2-

La Tourneuse De Pages * Denis Dercourt * 2006

“The page-turner” is about a young girl that didn’t make it to the academy of music and starts with something completely different. Later (accidentally) she almost comes back to where she started. The film is presented as a thriller, but actually it is more like a drama with some thriller elements towards the end. “La Tourneuse de Pages” is a nice, French film, but nothing special.
-2-

Maaz * Christian Volckman * 1999

This short film (10 minutes) is an earlier experiment of the Frenchman Volckman and his crew. It comes as extra on the “Renaissance” DVD (see elsewhere). “Maaz” is a great-looking experiment with real actors and real stages, but with heavy digital workings and surroundings. Bright colours, strange effects, but not really a story. The result is a dream-like atmosphere (or maybe more like a nightmare) and something quite new in filming and therefor a reason to see sometimes. I have no idea if the film can be found another way than on the “Renaissance” DVD, but that film is worth the buy as well, so no worries. There seems to be no poster, so I just picked an image from the internet for the purpose.
-3-

Renaissance * Christian Volckman * 2006

“Renaissance” is a beautiful French animation film completely in black and white in hard contrast (“with no grey tones”). However the film is great to watch, the story isn’t too appealing. In a near futuristic Paris a cop is looking for a kidnapped young, female scientist and he discovers an enormous conspiracy. The creators of the film wanted to make something in between an action film and animation. The first result was a short film somewhere just before the year 2000 (if I remember correctly), later this was worked out to a fulllength film. The aim succeeded. Sometimes the film is obviously an animation (looking a lot like a comic), sometimes the characters seem to have been played by real people (as they were). The film is somewhere between a film noir (much black), a police thriller and let us say “Sin City” (the box also mentions “Metropolis”). A very nice experiment to see.
-3.5-

El Laberinto Del Fauno * Guillermo Del Toro * 2006

The highly aclaimed Spanish film of the director of “Hellboy” and a whole series of films that I have not yet seen. It seems that most (if not all) of Del Toro’s film have a ‘political’ undertone in which the nazis represent the bad guys and the ‘reds’ the good side, the same goes for this film. “El Laberinto” is a strange film. There are actually two films in one and in both cases a war between good and evil. There is the ‘real world’ in which a group of nazi-like people try to free the country of ‘reds’ and there is the fantasy world in which a little girl has to undertake a few tests in order to regain her throne. “El Laberinto” goes from fairyish fantasy for little children to dark fantasy-horror in the fantasy part to very explictly violent parts in the ‘real world’. The film is definately not for little children, not even for people with a weak stomach! The fantasy part shows a spiritual quest, the other a more political one. The dreamlike scenes are indeed awsome. Magnificent costumes, great stages and weird characters. I don’t really understand the ‘real world’ part, but I guess the director really wanted to have a political twist to the film. “El Laberinto Del Fauno”, I also fail to see the international title “Pan’s Labyrinth”. The faun may look a bit like Pan (but a faun is supposed to have horns and goat hoofs), but he introduces himself as “a faun”. Pan is by far no faun and the director agrees that the two cannot be equated. A silly mistake of the distributors I suppose.
In any case, the film is nice, the fantasy parts are wonderfull, but I prefer “Hellboy” as ‘total concept’.
-3-

Frozen * Juliet McKoen * 2006

This British film plays in a small fishertown two years after the disappearance of a young woman, not even her body was discovered. The film is all about “Kath”, the sister who is obsessed by the disappearance and tries everything to find her sister or at least her body. Slowly she looses her grip on reality.
“Frozen” is mostly a drama, but has some thriller edges, because on the background, the hunt for the possible killer is always present. From the beginning I had the idea that the clue was given away too easily, but the ongoing suggestion of the solution proves to be just a suggestion. “Frozen” is almost completely Shirley Henderson who carries the film almost all on her own and does that very well. The result is an enjoyable ‘mysterious drama’ with nice images, great acting and a realistic atmosphere.
-3.5-

Ta divna Splitska noc * Arsen A. Ostojic * 2004

A Wonderfull Night In Split

A Kroation film that gives a few stories that play between 10:00pm and 12:00pm on some new years night. All the stories play in a small part of the city of Split and give a glimpse of the ‘dark side’ of the city, especially drug-related. In a way the film is a drama, but also in a way it is a (black) comedy. It sure has some weird elements, strange characters and funny dialogues. It starts confrontatingly realistic, but ends in a mirage. It is spoken in Kroatian, has great camera work and is beautifully shot in high-contrast black and white. Also it has a dense atmosphere, since it mostly plays in very small allies. A very nice film!
-3.5-

Horizonica * Ramon Etman * 2007

This weekend there is an art and music festival in Eindhoven, called “Edit”. During this festival “the best film ever from Eindhoven” (perhaps the only) was shown. I had heard a lot about this zombie-thrasher-horror-film. It was made with a tight budget and the help of 1236 volonteers (which has become the advertisement). Since it was shown in Eindhoven, some of the cast and crew were part of the audience. Also I knew that some people I know are in the film. To the film then. Well, “Horizonica” as a film is not too good. The acting is awfull, the synchronising terrible (as if the actors simply read their text out loud), the images and colours poor (safe for some nice ideas with over- or underlighting), the story thin. Let me start with the latter. In an act of hatred and revenge, a young man poisons the water system of Eindhoven with a virus that turns people into murdering zombies. A few lines are put in the film, such as first-year students being dropped in the woods (for the Blair Witch effect), a group of policemen trying to save the world, etc. The film quickly develops into a typical slasher movie with extremely bloody scenes and grim humour. There are also some Jap-horror elements which works well with the very industrial soundtrack. These sure are the better scenes, but they seem to be a bit out of place in the film. Then there are a few scenes completely loose from the rest with overacting and absurd dialogues, which are the most funny elements of the film. Well then, do you have to watch the film? If you are from Eindhoven or its surroundings: you better. Especially the Eindhoven-promotional beginning is a funny watch. For the rest you will have to enjoy bloody slasher films and/or have a grim sense of humour. The film sure is funny, but good?… nah.
-2-

Perfume * Tom Tykwer * 2007

I saw this film (in German) in a room with a few hundred “Grufties” during the 2007 edition of the Wave Gotik Treffen in Leipzig. Not that this has anything to do with the film, but I thought it would be nice to mention.
Tom Tykwer, the many-sided director of Lola Rennt, Heaven, Der Krieger und die Kaisering, this time comes with a historical drama around a boy with a magnificent sense of smell. After a wretched youth he becomes student with a perfume-maker and becomes obsessed with the pursuit to capture the scent of a woman.
“Perfume: the story of a murderer” is a nice historical drama which gives a nice insight in the fabrication of perfumes, has a nice sence of humour and good acting. The beginning and especially the end are much overdone though, both in filming (the beginning) and the story (the end). For the rest a nice watch.
-2.5-

The Wicker Man * Neil LaBute * 2006

When I discovered the 1973 original version of this film late last year, I already heard that also this film was up for a remake. I like the original, am no fond of remakes, heard some bad things about this remake, so I just went to see it out of curiosity. There is no use in telling where the remake differs from the original, it is almost an entirely different film. The note: “based on the screenplay by Anthony Schaffer” should be completed with the words “very loosely”. Where are the songs, why did Lord Summersisle become a woman, where is the Christianising character of Howie, what about the bees, what about the the Wicca and occult symbols that have nothing to do with paganism, what about this epilogue / cliffhanger for a sequel? etc., etc. In short: the story has been changed quite a bit. The new Wicker Man became just an average thriller, whereas the first had a nice atmosphere. Surprisingly enough, the climax did become even more fierce in the remake. All in all not convincing when you know the original and from the reactions from the cinema I understood that the rest of the audience wasn’t entirely convinced either.
4/9/06 -2-
Read the review of the original here.