About Chocolate Parfaits

El crimen del padre Amaro

A long time ago, when I was planning to watch all movies with my favorite actors in them, I have had “El crimen del padre Amaro” on my plans. Back in the day, I would probably have hated the movie for its formulaic character. Now, I think I have actually become less pressured to turn every single movie I watch into a mind-blowing experience, and sometimes it’s alright to see a film just to stare at Gael’s beautiful face.

As much as I thought “Amores perros” was a great movie, I never got behind the idea as to why GGB’s character was so incredibly in love with that girl who was boring, plain and even more lame than a typical damsel in distress. The girl in this film has much more character. Despite her piousness, she practically declared her love to a priest during confession. On top of that, I found the actress to be really pretty; that helped a lot I am sure. All in all, I thought that the two had great chemistry together, and that was perhaps one of the biggest benefits of the film.

Apart from that, “El crimen del padre Amaro” is a rather cheap melodrama – priest falls in love with girl, impregnates her and she dies at the attempt of aborting the child. Perhaps the original novel (which was actually portuguese) was better written and had richer side character contributing to the depiction of 19th century Portugal as a rotten society in which the church regularly abuses its power. But the film itself is not so worth it, apart from its pretty looks.

Copie Conforme

If there was a movie that I’d call “meta”, it’d be this one. The concepts of the film go beyond the borders, like a picture which is drawn out of its frame. (I want such a painting on my wall one day.) The film is just so much at the same time, similarly to “Close-Up” – the film talks about original art and its copy, about authenticity in a relationship and the question about which one is the copy, and finally the film is largely a “copy” of love films like “Before Sunrise”, or any of the other talkative French relationship dramas. On top of all of that, I recommended the film to the guy who comes closest to my experience with something like “Before Sunrise” and a crucial element of the discussion between the couple has practically happened to me when talking about the film. If this isn’t meta, what is?

Speaking of “Before Sunrise”, Gorp said the film was a mix of “Before Sunrise” and “Inception”, probably because it is a dialogue-heavy film focused on two characters talking to each other and at the same time, you never quite know what is real and what is not. But when I saw the film, “Mulholland Drive” came to mind because the two realities clash exactly in the middle of the film. There is a clear cut between the first part in which they appear to be strangers and the second part in which they appear to be a married couple. They almost do not transition from one extreme to the other at all, in fact the conversation with the waitress almost parallels the blue cube. The other one, “In the Mood for Love” feels almost obvious to me. Both “In the Mood for Love” and “Copie conforme” are about a love which, in some sense, cannot be achieved, in both cases couples role-play make-believe dialogue, and both films are heavily focused both on dialogue as well as on the facial expressions of the protagonists. This role-playing was precisely what fascinated me about “In the Mood for Love” and made it so special, and then here comes a movie which is entirely about make-believe dialogue. You can imagine how much I reveled in the film.

The internet is obviously full of people who didn’t get the film. Some say they are obviously strangers pretending to be a married couple, and some say the exact opposite. Somebody even brought up the idea that this stranger is a copy of the woman’s ex-husband (why would that be the case huh?) For me, the imagination that they could be something like both or, much more interestingly, neither, is much more interesting. Some Imdb person interpreted their relationship as the one of a married man and his mistress, and with that in mind, the film becomes even more painful. Although, a mistress has no right to complain about her man never being present, but even that could be explained. You could say that their role-playing allows them to say things which they cannot in the situation they are. As strangers, he can converse on a different level of politeness and perhaps even seduce her in a different way; and as a married couple, she can make all these complaints which you cannot as a mistress, and more importantly, she can treat the topic of her son in a way that puts her on equal level with the man.

It also doesn’t happen very often that a film is so casually and pleasantly trilingual. I love how the film starts with the two of them speaking English and throughout the film it is revealed that he also speaks both French and Italian. This is especially beautiful in the context of such (rather vapid) relationship talks, because it reminds me of how Loris and I switched to French when we were frustrated about the ongoing, never-ending conversation we had.
Gosh I *want* trilingual conversations now, ha ha ha. Loris should brush up his English.

Last time I heard of the film, Gorp said he wanted to re-watch it. Indeed, “Copie conform” has an incredible rewatching potential, and I too am seriously considering it. For me, even though I was so pleasantly surprised by “Close-up”, this is Kiarostami’s masterpiece.

Hugo

Unlike what the trailers suggest, I think “Hugo” is definitely not a kid’s movie. If I were, say, 7 or 8 years old, I probably would have been bored to death by it. The message of the film – nostalgy and a certain sadness about being somebody who is now “useless” – is something that I would totally not have been able to relate to as a child. When I was a child, I was convinced that everybody is worth something and nobody could possibly be useless, the simple notion of a “human without purpose” is incomprehensible to me. When I was small I also didn’t understand what “Jews” or “homosexuals” were, or why they were in any way different than “us”. Considering how large parts of “Hugo” were rather slow and sentimental, and were heavily focused on George Méliès, I think this film reeks of the handwriting of an old man who nostalgically pays tribute to the beginning of film.

To make the tribute perfect, it is no surprise that Scorsese leaves a lot of aspects in the film lacking substance. First of all, the biggest adventure the kids ever have in the film is how they sneak into a movie theatre. The film looks like there is some big mystery out there (they heart-shaped key, the automaton, who George Méliès is etc. etc.), perhaps even something supernatural happening, but at the end of the day, the outcomes are rather disappointing. The film also has exactly one character of note, Ben Kingley’s lovely George Méliès. Hugo doesn’t have any specific character traits and – worse of all – does not get any character development whatsoever, Isabelle is mostly just decoration and does nothing but support Hugo, so does Méliès’s wife with her broken husband. Everybody else – the inspector, the flower girl, other people, even professor Tabard – are just there somehow, these characters are just there to drive the plot or provide comical relief, without really saying or doing anything of note. I am also quite convinced that I do not like this “everybody has a purpose!” kind of philosophy. Both Hugo and Isabelle ask themselves this rather important question, but they never come to a conclusion. It seems almost like these two children were only there to selflessly serve Méliès to find back to his films. (Incidentally, they have to overcome Méliès’s unfriendliness too, like children often have to in movies like this.)

But then again, as a tribute to early films, I think that the film was absolutely wonderful. I don’t think I have seen a film this beautiful in a long, long time. There are many ways a film can be beautiful, and perhaps I am comparing apples with oranges, but optically I’d say “Hugo”, with its 1930’s Paris, lush colors and clichéd Frenchness, is exactly what I am into. I want to dress like the characters in the film and live in a world where clocks must be winded, where train stations are housing toy shops, and where romantic cafés are frequented by regulars. I actually have to admit that I might like berets partially because of the cultural cliché, because it is reminiscent of Paris (where I actually never wore a beret).

As much as I have hated the one-dimensionality of most characters, I find the portrait George Méliès gripping and full of emotions. The realism with which he is described is quite wonderful, and I like how Scorsese researched his life properly, without altering much. It was lovely to see Méliès’s story come to life, and I strongly sympathized with him and his immense creativity, which I too want to see appreciated.

If you want to see a single 3D movie, then “Hugo” might be a good one to go with. It’s a love story to old movies in 3D – how awesome is that?

Como agua para chocolate

Recently, I read an article on how the problem with mistresses is that there are no greeting cards for them. Indeed, society makes a point about shunning them, no matter what reason there may be for you to be one. Considering that mistresses are typically given the harshest punishment possible – a child who is acknowledged as such, and raised in a “normal” family – it is a shame that they do not get more recognition, and thusly it is no surprise that a mistress is considered a dangerous rival to the throne of marriage, because attempting to lure the guy away from his wife and into a new marriage with her is apparently what such a mistress has to do if she wants her greeting card. Perhaps relationships would indeed be a little easier if there was some sort of acceptance for these people in ethically questionable relationships, but of course that is not the source of the problem. (And no, misogyny is also not the source of the problem – that can easily solved by coining a term for “mistress male version” and treating them exactly the same way as their female counterparts.)

The entire conflict in “Como agua para chocolate” is based on the silly family tradition that the youngest daughter is not allowed to marry, in a very similar fashion to the “Makioka Sisters”, where the silly family tradition consists of the fact that a younger sister cannot be married unless her older sister is married. While the “Makioka Sisters” emphasizes on the relationship between the sisters, “Como ague para chocolate” is mostly a love story and even has one absolutely evil character, the mother. We don’t see Pedro that much, but nevertheless he is what Tita’s world is revolving around, so in some sense he is always there. So far, so simple.

What makes the film special is everything around it – the splendor of the food presented, the supernatural occurrences in the form of the mother and the nanny, and – uh – the sex scenes. The film is strangely sensual, which is beautiful and a little disturbing at the same time. I liked the natural way the film was showing human bodies (how Spanish/Latin American that is!) but at the same time I thought the scene in which her naked silhouette was walking towards his was… odd.
The most stunning part of the film were the soft visuals and the depiction of food. Oh wow it would have made me incredibly hungry if I hadn’t watched the film while eating. At the same time, I have not seen a single tortilla in the entire film which makes me wonder what kind of Mexican food they are preparing there.

Being a woman, I found it very easy to relate to the film yet its supernatural and downright strange plot mostly made me go “huh?” I heard of the film from two people, one of which recommended it to me. In retrospect, that was actually quite surprising because the only other films I remember he liked were musicals, “Jarhead” and “Letters from Iwo Jima”. It was as if Loris told me about a chick flick he liked (not gonna happen). In essence, if you want to see a really, really strange chick flick, this film is the way to go.

Jewel Robbery

But I understand what it is for “Jewel Robbery”, which is comparable (actually inferior) to “Trouble in Paradise” on so many levels, but when it comes to the pre-Code controversy, I’d agree that it’s definitely more shocking than Lubitsch’s masterpiece. I have to say that I pretty much completely agree with Jonathan Rosenbaum’s comments on the film. I know that I might be overreacting to Roger Ebert’s almost mainstreamishly bad research these days, but I cannot say often enough how much I appreciate Jonathan Rosenbaum’s knowledge on films. I might have a hard time following his ideas because he cross-references too many films I have never seen, but he never pretends to know more than he does.

Apart from what Jonathan Rosenbaum has detailed out with many words, I personally think that no good review can possibly replace seeing. It reminds me of German novels. I noticed that in a lot of these novels, characters are described in great detail – how their eyes and ears are shaped, what kind of posture they take when they are sitting, but for some reason it’s never possible to have a clear image despite the seemingly accurate description. In the same way, JR’s article tells you many things, but there are so many more levels and aspects to a film which go beyond what you can say in a review or an essay, just like any description of a face cannot capture it in its complexity.

My favorite detail in “Jewel Robbery” was Kay Francis’s finger movement when her lover walked in and kissed her hand. She was coquetting with him (and literally everybody else there), making a “come here” move with one finger. It was quite splendid to look at, and I think I have never quite seen anything like that before. Everything else about the film was mostly raunchy fun (more than any graphic sex scene could do) and lots of marijuana. In that respect, it was quite special, but in most aspects, I’d say I totally prefer “Trouble in Paradise”, and I am fascinated by these pre-Code films. Is there any way a woman can look more sexy than this?

My desire for more jewel thief stories is now fulfilled, but I’ll gladly see another one if it falls into my hands.

Save the Green Planet

I think it’s been almost a year since I started seeing this film, but I just couldn’t get through it. There are some films I have blogged about but have not seen in total, like “Salò”, but I still feel like I have seen enough to say something about it. It’s not like I am being Roger Ebert saying something like “I don’t think you need to see Tropa de Elite, I assume it’s the same thing as Tropa de Elite 2” – oh gosh.

However, I have a certain inexplicable fascination with “Salò”, like everybody does I suppose, but much less so with “Save the Green Planet”. Let me mention its good points first: I thought it was incredibly well-done, well-crafted, well-acted – everything about the film screams high quality to you, even though it was apparently also done on the cheap. I thought this is quite impressive considering the high amount of decent-looking CG and post-processing. I thought all the actors in the film were splendid, especially Shin Ha-kyun who is one of the reasons why I watched the film in the first place.

Sadly, that is it. The film was a recommendation from quite a bunch of people from the Korean Blogathon back then, and now I have to question these people’s tastes quite seriously. Or rather, I don’t know who they are and now I am even less inclined to find out. “Save the Green Planet” is advertised as a black comedy, or must at least have some comical elements in it. I thought “The Host” was funny, even though it wasn’t quite advertised as a comedy, but this film is practically the opposite. It’s downright painful. Everything about the film is excruciatingly sad, I thought it was so unbearable I stopped watching. Later on, I wanted to know what it was all about, skimmed through the middle part and watched the end… The film brought out literally every single cliché about evil humans, from starving African kids to concentration camps. It’s even claiming that only humans are cruel animals out there, in how they kill each other and oppress others for their own benefit. I am pretty sure that quite a lot of animals do exactly the same thing, if not even “worse”. Bottom line: The plot of the film is rather stupid, amazingly sad and seems to have no value whatsoever.

Next time, please somebody recommend a good Korean movie to me. Thanks.

Spellbound

Today, Loris has complained a little bit about how I have not updated my blog in awhile. I have been busy. Now, truth to be told, I wasn’t technically busy (though I am indeed behind with some of my work), it’s rather that I have not been in the mood of writing blog postings. At the same time, of course, the clock is ticking, and I feel like I have already forgotten half of “Spellbound” already, so I should better say what I remember about it.

Writing a blog post late has the benefit that by this time, I have typically figured out what I truly found memorable about a film. It’s just like listening to an album a second time – most often the experience is entirely different. I rarely re-watch a film, but I do think about films differently when it’s been a week or so. For example, I almost fell asleep back when I saw “Menschen am Sonntag”, but somehow elements of the film still remain fresh in my memory, and I have a tender fascination for it. “Spellbound” is also perhaps one of Hitchcock’s more memorable films, especially for the dream sequence.

In fact, I saw the dream sequences several times in museums, whenever there was some Dalí exhibition around, and now I finally got around to see it in the context of the original movie. Considering that everything in the dreams are ultimately explained by the story, I have to admit that the mystery and ambiguity that comes with most of Dalí’s work has gotten destroyed a little. Being able to understand our dreams fully is mere wishful thinking, and only a Hitchcock movie allows you to do that without being completely ridiculous. As a storytelling device, I thought the dreams were quite lovely and almost felt a little short. I totally wanted to see more of it.

Apart from the dream sequence, the film was typical Hitchcock – a suspenseful thriller and a nice revelation at the end. The other truly enticing element about “Spellbound” was actually the combination of Gregory Peck and Ingrid Bergman. I am a fan of both actors, albeit without a good reason – the former for “Roman Holiday” and the latter for literally everything else she has done except “Casablanca”. I think they look lovely together, and “Spellbound” is perhaps the most romantic Hitchcock I have seen so far. A lot of attention has been given to the blossoming love between these characters, which goes beyond your usual Hitchcock which is pretty much just “man with shallow blonde”. (“Vertigo” is the big exception in this case, it still qualifies as “man with blonde”, but it’s a complicated obsession.)

I will definitely see “Notorious” and “Psycho” some day, but wow I am running out of Hitchcocks to see, aren’t I?

As you might remember, every once in awhile, I would set up a “one movie per day” goal for a specific amount of days. This year, my last day of “work” is on December 20, making it exactly 12 days all the way up to December 31. Perfect!

Now that Gorp also has published his tentative 2011 ranking, I figured that it would be interesting to see some 2011 (or at least recent films) for these 12 days.

So far I am considering these, in no particular order:
- Another Earth
- Film Socialisme
- The Ides of March
- Copie conforme
- Blue Valentine
- Pina
- Never let me go
- Mildred Pierce

- Melancholia
- Le Havre
- My week with Marilyn
- The King’s Speech
- The day he arrives
- To Die Like a Man
- Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
- Heartbeats
- Drive
- Meek’s Cutoff
- Winter’s Bone

Other things I have planned for Christmas break:
- Finish Dexter season 5
- Finish ME’s outfit of the day
- Finish watching all the movies I have started but never finished
- Get up-to-date running anime, and finish a few old ones
- Learn to take better pictures
- Lose a good chunk of weight
- Go through the rest of “Roly Poly”
- Make a realistic math books reading plan
- Start and potentially finish a new, simple sewing project

The Guard

Time for more rantings: I am not particularly efficient these days. I should work on my take-home final and I need to make some more progress on research. Feeling guilty for watching too many movies, I have now stopped doing that, but now there’s a compulsion to compensate for that which has now officially kicked in: I plan to go to school on Sunday just to get Starbucks mugs for cheaper (and hope that they will be there!), I am meeting with people for lunch today and Saturday, and I prefer thinking about things I want to buy rather than things I want to do. (Going on a trip on Christmas is the big exception here. But then again, that is also an extremely money-consuming endeavor which will serve my desire to escape the stressful world of work at the moment.) I totally am aware that

But then there are these movies which fall out of the scheme. I am not watching such films to escape anything, I am watching them because I really, really want to. Pixelmatsch ranked it second in his Berlinale 2011 list (I think that is only because he is biased towards “Come rain, come sunshine”) and later on, Loris and other people heartily recommended it to me. It was a film I had extremely high expectations for, I was excited almost to a physical level when I finally could watch the film.

“The Guard” did not disappoint. It had great actors and a very fluid, suspenseful storytelling. I absolutely loved the way the film was referencing other genres (haha Western shootout!) but I could not help but constantly compare it both to “Memories of Murder”, with which it shares the theme and the scenery, and “In Bruges” with which is shares Brendan Gleeson and almost everything else – atmosphere, human interaction, silly philosophical villains, a relatively weak female character, the ending. The McDonaugh brothers are geniuses, and while I still think that “In Bruges” is the greater film, “The Guard” has its own merits. Hopelessly funny and with some sweet surprises here and there, it focuses very closely on Brendan Gleeson’s character and develops it better. Unlike “In Bruges”, he is a little bit of a representation for the sloppy, proud and openly racist Irishman. The racism is a prime example for why he’s a complicated character – the black FBI he befriends says he cannot figure out whether he is really smart or really dumb. I’d say you cannot quite figure out anything about him. But no matter how he really is, whether he is good or bad – all these things we see about him make this character unusually likable.

As with “In Bruges”, the end makes you ponder. When I see a film like this with an open end, I prefer to think of them as such but with the strong possibility that the person survived. I am optimistic like that. In both films, it is as if the entire story was designed to let the character who might have survived live at the end. In the case of “In Bruges”, Gleeson’s character practically sacrificed himself for the other; in the case of “The Guard”, the open end fits the character, but it also makes a lot of sense. He needs to escape the bigger bosses who are pulling the strings behind the drug business, and faking his death even if it is to his closest friends is the safest way to achieve that. If he is smart, which I’d expect given his great reasonings throughout the film, then this is almost the obvious course of action. In that respect, I am quite happy to see a film that is so consistent in its writing and makes so much sense.

Here’s hoping that “The Guard” will achieve the success it deserves. If you didn’t like “In Bruges” (how can you not?!) you will most likely also not like this one. But if you do, “The Guard” is a must see as it was perhaps one of the most enjoyable films I have seen this year.

La Grande Illusion

I finished 5 paper reviews today, most of which I am rather unsatisfied with, but then again there is no good reason to spend an incredible amount of time on paper reviews. They were mostly bad papers and the really good paper was interesting but I would prefer to read the paper version of it, because the 4-page-version doesn’t really give you enough information. Or maybe I am really too dense to understand the paper but I choose not to believe that. On top of all that, The Big Boss sent me an e-mail this evening, making me feel really really guilty for not having worked hard enough. With that said, I decided to write this posting first and then write the one for “The Guard” later, although I saw it earlier.

On another completely unrelated side note, I wonder if you can get “Dial M for Murder” somewhere in its 3D version and then use some 3D glasses to watch it. But I guess the technology must be different and so I have no idea how that is supposed to work.

After digressing so much, I should probably say something about the film itself. But I will do so by digressing more. I was recently told that I like “Big Bang Theory” because I am as nerdy as the guys. That is a valid point but not entirely true. Certainly I am nerdy but I have almost no interest in physics whatsoever. I always thought I did, but learning more and more about it, I came to the conclusion that physics doesn’t excite me as much as it does for many of my friends, and that there are a lot of aspects of it that I just am unable to buy. On the other hand, I like to dance, I am into buying clothes, jewelry and shoes (although not as much as a certain other person) – technically I am like Penny and the guys at the same time. There is another similar example: I recently had a discussion on how boring I think biomedical engineering is. I called it the uncanny valley of the world of science and engineering – if something is close enough to what I do I find it interesting, if something is far away, there is a good chance I find it fascinating. If you tell me that you think about biomed before you go to sleep and you are not doing that because you are going to make tons of money in the industry, I am probably going to declare you crazy and lose interest in befriending you. I am into the extremes, no matter what it is. However, if you are into anything in the humanities or arts, there is a high chance I would find it interesting too. In the same way, there is the category “cerebral movies that I don’t watch”, even though I normally like them. I should have added “La Grande Illusion” to this category.

Actually the film not really that cerebral and the sophisticated aspects of the film actually help. I liked the topics the film addressed. The decline of the Ancien Régime, the differences between classes, human friendships overcoming national borders – all of these are really beautifully and carefully treated throughout the film. All in all, it was a well-written film which was suspenseful (but much less so than other French films such as “Le salaire de la peur” or “Le Trou”), had some lovely characters and really awesome actors supporting them. Boeldieu and Rauffenberg were perfectly cast, I think there are no two other actors who could possibly have pulled that off. But I guess that concludes it. Despite all that, I think the film is simplistic and portrays a world which simply has never existed. To me the film merely represents wishful thinking, something like Renoir’s personal utopia in which a German woman would fall in love with a Frenchman during the WWI, and in which every major character is exceedingly good. The film is the French “Casablanca”, though of course it’s not as bad. It’s one of these films which looks almost targeted at the American audience which loves these fairytales praising human goodness. Of course the French hated the film for portraying likable Germans and the Germans hated it because the most likable character in the film was the Jew. (This fact actually makes me like the film more.)

All in all, “La Grande Illusion” has drowned dead in its politics and I had some seriously issues with its optimism. If a movie shall be judged by how realistic its characters are, this is probably the worst film of all times. Nothing about it particularly stood out and even though I think it’s good I saw it, I find it totally overrated for being such a highly acclaimed film. But who knows, maybe there is some irony here which I am unable to see.