Movie Muse

Wonder where on earth the idea for “Dinner for Schmucks” came from? Well, it’s this little French farce called “Le Diner de Cons” a.k.a. “The Dinner Game.” The two films are far different from one another based on having seen this film and the trailers for “Schmucks,” but both revolve around a business dinner where men bring idiots to be made fun of. Here is my review of the late ’90s comedy. To help you understand, the character of Francois will be Steve Carell’s character in tomorrow’s film and Pierre will be Paul Rudd. Read the rest of this entry »

The Holocaust has been revisited in film so many times that I imagine the first thing German-born film actors ask themselves upon meeting is “which film(s) were you a Nazi in?” The crimes of the Nazi Party and the German soldiers carrying out its mission to revive Germany through the mass killing of Jews and other “invalids” are so unfathomable and powerful that filmmakers and storytellers can’t help but find so many ways to tell complex stories of morality and human survival.”The Counterfeiters” is another one of these films, but lack of originality is absolutely the only knock against it. Read the rest of this entry »

Pedro Almodovar’s “Hable Con Ella” is a great film but one that’s hard to diagnose. Foremost it’s a love story, one that explores unreciprocated love in the sense that two women are in a coma and the film is about the men who love them. But it also explores that idea more figuratively because the characters are afraid to speak to each other when it comes to sharing expressions, thoughts or memories of deep love and emotion. Sometimes Almodovar’s exploration is a bit unsettling, but that’s part of what makes it a standout film and worthy of its Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. Read the rest of this entry »

For those of you considering Nine as your Christmas weekend movie, here’s a little insight into where it came from, “8 1/2″ by Federico Fellini.

There are many different ways to look at Federico Fellini’s masterpiece, “8 1/2,” and the one you choose ultimately determines how well you understand and enjoy the film. There are broad lenses that capture the bigger picture of fictional film director Guido Anselmi’s creative block and the tighter lenses that zero in on Fellini’s creative choices during imaginary sequences and their underlying messages. For the average viewer, the big picture lens — if you can keep that perspective the entire length of the film — will earn the more favorable response. It’s the artist, however, anyone who watches this film that has struggled to create, ever, who will love it most. Read the rest of this entry »

“Amores Perros” is a three-vignette film that’s not so much concerned about creating a harmonic epiphany among its three plot lines, but rather it aims for compelling stories with a brutally honest portrayal of life, love, sin and redemption. Getting a unified message out of the film is about as difficult as translating its title.

Literally translated the title doesn’t make much sense, but “amores” translates to loved ones or while “perros” literally means dogs but is also an obvious pejorative for lowly people such as criminals. The title can also be broken into “Amor es Perros” which means “Love’s a Bitch.” All of these are fitting for the film and their multitude is appropriate considering the open- ended nature of the truths the film preaches. Read the rest of this entry »

To compare “Wild Strawberries” to a story that’s a bit more grounded (yet still part fantasy), what instantly comes to mind is “A Christmas Carol.” Though that classic is much more exaggerated, it shares that reflective spirit, sense of personal regret and un-fulfillment and the desire to make amends. The difference is that in “Wild Strawberries” we need no ghosts – - only Ingmar Bergman as our guide.

It’s the hopeful ending, however, that really makes “Wild Strawberries” a great film. Despite Bergman showing us a mirror that’s very tough to look at for an extended period of time, he never suggests that we can’t look into it and change whatever it is we don’t like. It’s that outlet that makes the thematic difficulty of the film all that much easier to bear.

There’s very little gutsier film-making than creating an animated war documentary. Israeli filmmaker Ari Folman’s genre blend is exactly what makes “Waltz with Bashir” a stand-out film, one made with every intention of frightening producers in concept and spitting in Hollywood’s face with its quality. The challenge of every war film is to illuminate a repetitive genre and “Bashir” does exactly that almost by approach alone.

The film is best described as a narrative documentary told in the first person. Folman, who served in the Israel army during the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, interviews friends and others who shared his same experience in hopes to jog his memory, images from his experience that he’s subconsciously erased from his mind. It begins by addressing the fine line between memories and dreams, fiction and reality and evolves into a story of war’s horrors

The animation is a technique called animatics, where live action footage is shot in a studio to provide sound and an image for the artists to work with, then the artists animate these scenes and use computers to add in Flash techniques. It’s a rough animation style but its infused with beauty from the computer, namely light and smoke techniques that go beyond traditional animation. “Bashir” has an allure all its own despite the tough story it tells.

So why this technique? Folman’s answer might just have been to be different, but the reality is it forces you to observe with a different perspective. Animating tragic events jades us to the horrors, allows us to ignore them. Contrast that to the perspectives of the people telling their war stories and suddenly we can sympathize with their own fragile memories, the reason so many soldiers stood idly as Christian Phalangists brutally massacred Palestinians in their own refugee camps no less.

The use of Flash allows for some really interesting sequences in the film that depict these memories. Its supposed to be about the young soldier’s perspective of war and so rock music and this ’80s music video style at times contrasts other scenes showing what war was really like with the idealistic painting of ‘cool’ that some soldiers thought they were walking into. With every Israeli having to serve in the army, this is about coping regardless of one’s opinion of war.

Other than its insights into the war-torn memory, “Bashir” is a pretty standard exposure of war. What makes it special is there’s no glorifying of war — not even a single character who believes it to be that way — and its one-of-a-kind medium. It’s important to blur the boundaries of films when its appropriate and this revisiting of war proved to be one such setting.

The height of Akira Kurosawa’s career as a masterful Japanese filmmaker might have been in the ’50s with “Roshomon” and the epic “Seven Samurai,” but “Ran” represents a consummation of sorts in the director’s career and lifetime. At age 75, Kurosawa puts his own style into Shakespeare’s “King Lear,” the descent of a once great king into utter senility, and the result is a deeply personal and tragic film of great beauty and wisdom.

His second Shakespeare samurai adaptation, (after “Throne of Blood” in 1957, which drew on “MacBeth”) Kurosawa tells the story of Lord Hidetora Ichimonji a famous, revered and aging ruler in feudal Japan who after a bad dream is stirred into abdicating his throne to his sons, Taro, Jiro and Saburo. He gives full control to his eldest, Taro, though his youngest, Saburo, tells him it’s a horrible idea and as a result gets banished. Sure enough, Hidetora is denied the respect of Taro when he takes power and wanders off in search of the son he exiled to seek redemption as the elder brothers shred apart his kingdom in attempt to have it all to themselves.

“Ran” is a beautiful film despite the Shakespearian tragedy. Filmed in Kurosawa’s style of three simultaneously rolling stationary cameras, it rarely gets in close to the scene and appears to have the style of much older films, save the color. Kurosawa, who’s known for painting his story boards, brings this contemporary abstract color to the film by using the three primary colors (yellow, red and blue) to represent the three sons (their respective armies all wear those colors.) The colors are bright and show the division between the brothers — each distinct yet capable of mixing. Even the blood is bright red paint as opposed to anything more realistic, suggesting how unnecessary the bloodshed is.

The film borrows a lot of Japanese tradition in telling a Western story, which in the past always seems to work well. Borrowing on traditions of Noh theatre, allusions to animals like the treacherous fox and the make-up on Hidetora (frequent Kurosawa collaborator Tatsuya Nakadai) is suggestive of Noh techniques that resemble iconic masks that represent characters with certain qualities. Nakadai excellently uses the facial expressions so crucial to Japanese theatre in his incredible portrayal of Hidetora as he goes from confident and powerful to completely lost.

It’s a meaningful story for Kurosawa to tell at this point in his career, having much of his films in the ’60s and ’70s pass by unnoticed and in that time attempt to take his own life. Kurosawa takes his bleak look at human nature with “Ran,” using weather like always to show the coming storm of bloodshed and tragedy. “I am lost …” Hidetora says as they wander about, and Kyoami the fool replies “such is the human condition.” It’s apparent where the story will go and Kurosawa delivers it as only a master can.