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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.

Devotion and Defiance * 2004

Countless times I had planned to go to savetibet.org and order something to at least to something for the suppressed people of Tibet, how little it is. We tend to forget. It has been so long ago since the Chinese decided to occupy Tibet and violently entered the country on the rooftop of the world. Monastries were destroyed, monks and nuns beaten or worse. China sent her own inhabitents to Tibet to force their culture on the Tibetan people and recently they even glamourously opened a railway connection from China to Tibet in the hope that more people (Chinese or tourists) will invade the country. For economic reasons, the West doesn’t do a thing. China is too much of an interesting partner to point towards the injustice they commit in their neighbouring country. Worse even, Westerners think it is hip to go on a ‘spiritual journey’ to the city of Lhasa or visit one of the monastries (under Chinese command). Exactly what the Chinese want! In any case, for a long time, the “international campaign for Tibet” try to bring the subject under attention. With success I might add, since many people buy their Tibetan flags and DVDs and so did I. I hope the money is well-spent, but I think a Western “no” to China would be much more helpfull than some money.
“Devotion and Defiance” is a 35-minute documentary that may not bring much news. You will see about the invasion of China, the suppressed Tibetans, the ups and downs of the people, a bit about the monastries. I may have seen this documentary, or one much like it, on TV already, but that doesn’t mind. It is only $ 6,-, undoubtely by far not enough to make a stand, but still, if everyone buys something from this organisation, something might happen some day.

Delicatessen * Jean-Pierre Jeunet (1991)

It had been far too long since I saw this brilliant comedy! Jeunet didn’t make a whole lot of films, but his “La Cité Des Enfents Perdus” (city of lost children) (1995) and his highly acclaimed “Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulin” (Amelie) (2001) definately belong to the highlights of the comedy genre (a genre I am not too fond off). Two years after Amélie there seems to be a new film coming up with the title “Un Long Dimanche De Fiançailles”.

But to “Delicatessen”. The story is about a post-apocalyptic France in which everybody does everything to get food. In one building lives the gruesome butcher Clapet (Jean-Claude Dreyfus) who hires young men to kill and eat and sell their meat after a few weeks of them doing small jobs around the house. His new worker is Louison (Dominique Pinon) used to be a clown in the circus and is as inventive as naive. I won’t tell you too much of the magnificent story. The film is full of contrasts. The atmosphere is always very grim caused by the idiotic characters, the colours and the stages. There are some extremely silly scenes and the humour is so subtle and brilliant that this is a funny film that doesn’t loose it’s grim atmosphere. The characters are berzerk, some scenes insane (a woman trying to kill herself in different ways, a girl that is almost blind, etc.), this is really a masterpiece.

Also great are the Lost Children that I really need to see again some time soon, another dark comedy of Jeunet. Amélie is much lighter (but no less funny) , so I don’t know what to expect from the upcoming film.

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.

Dawn Of The Dead * Zack Snyder * 2004

I have never been fond of horror films, so I never saw the 1978 original of this film. Watching DOTD I already see why I never watch this kind of horror. The beginning and the end are good, strange filmographic jokes and a nice, dark atmosphere. The rest of the film is slashing and not the least bit scary, atmospheric or anything, just a bloody action film. I usually see these kinds of films as comedies, but after a few hundreds of liters of blood, also the fun goes down rapidly.
The ‘story’ is about a strange epidemic in which people are bitten by a rerisen dead and become ‘undead’ themselves. The undead have to eat living human flesh. A few survivers hide in a mall. They better waited until the undead simply died of hunger, but in order to make the film more interesting, they leave their hiding place and get killed themselves. I wasn’t bored stiff watching the film, but it certainly didn’t rise any interest in the American horror genre. <10/4/05><2>

The Da Vinci Code * Ron Howard (2006)

As regular visitor of these pages will know/expect, I haven’t read the famous book by Dan Brown and I wasn’t really planning on watching the film until it would be on TV some time. A friend bought a copy, so I saw the film anyway. I already expected that I was going to be annoyed by the half- and misinformation in the story. A weird interpretation of the organisation of Opus Dei, an erroneous history of the Knights Templar, etc. This was to be expected. What I did not expect that the story itself is very thin and very predictable too. Besides a few scenes with a nice atmosphere, there is nothing much good about this film and I didn’t even have any good expectations. Nothing more than an all-American mystery/conspiracy film based on a popular book.

Dark City * Alex Proyas * 1998

A wonderfull film that I have seen long ago, but not reseen it on tv. The story is about a city that is made and maintained by an extraterrestial race called ‘the strangers’. They experiment with humans to find out what makes humans different from themselves, a search for the soul. In order to do this they swap memories and change the city to see if this effects a persons personality. At midnight everything is put to sleep and the strangers ‘tune’ a new city. Buildings arise or disappear, strangers go out to erase or add memory with the help of a human doctor (Kiefer Sutherland). The strangers don’t like the light, so everything is always dark, it’s always night. One human seems to be uneffected by the powers of ‘the strangers’ and even has the ability to ‘tune’. Naturally he saves the world.

A great film with a strange atmosphere. However ‘thrillerish’ it is brought as a comedy, but of course not one of these hilaric ones. Really wonderfull!

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!

Dahmer * David Jacobson * 2002

This film is said to be based on the true life of Jeffrey Dahmer and wants to give an insight into the person instead of just a film about his gruesome deeds. Well, the first thing is true in a way, the there is only a very small piece of Dahmer’s life to be seen. The film starts when Jeffrey already works in the chocolate factory and no longer lives with his grandmother and ends just before he is caught.

You can see how Jeffrey dealt with his father and grandmother and how friendly and honest he was with people he would or would not kill. Some flashbacks to difficult parts of his life, but all this doesn’t give you a very complete idea of his life. Of Dahmer’s 17 victims you get to see two and a few ‘possibles’.

The idea is nice, a psychological thriller about one of the best-known serial killers, but the result isn’t too fascinating. If you want a biography, you better buy the “Dahmer” cd of the American metalband Macabre!