Samurai films tend to lean toward either overly talkative and boring or hyper-stylized to the point that credibility comes into question. Striking that middle ground, however, can lead to greatness, or rather — great honor. Takashi Miike’s “13 Assassins” might not match the great Akira Kurosawa films, but boy does it come close, and it does so with themes and blades of equal sharpness.

If swords-and-sandals flick “300″ had been less concerned about abs and Gerard Butler screaming war hyperbole, it would have looked and felt like this film. Anyone who hails Zack Snyder’s 2006 film as a masterpiece should pull up a seat with this film for two-plus hours and see how it’s really done.

Both the aforementioned film to which comparison is inescapable and “13 Assassins” tell a story about how the number of men indicated in their titles fought against an army numerous times the size. In this film, the reasons for fighting a battle most certain to result in death are less glossy and brash, as well as guided by some consideration for historical relevance.

The story takes place at nearly the end of feudal era Japan, when samurai have become nothing but show thanks to a lengthy time of peace. Yet one lord seems to undermine this peace with acts of cold-blooded violence: the shogun’s half brother, Lord Naritsugu (Gorô Inagaki). It is expected, however, that when he returns from Edo, he will have a place on the shogun’s council and have political influence to go with with warmongering ways. After a respected samurai commits harakiri in protest, the elder of the shogun council charges a samurai named Shinzaemon (Kôji Yakusho) with putting together a squad of samurai to kill Naritsugu before there’s widespread unrest.

The beginning of the film shows us Naritsugu’s cold and horrifying ways with enough brutal imagery to make anyone want to pick up a sword against this guy. The story then continues with the assembling of the 12 assassins (the 13th comes later) and their strategy for accomplishing the task. Yet on the other side is Hanbei Kitou (Masachika Ichimura), the samurai sworn to obey and protect Naritsugu who must develop counter-strategy to foil Shinzaemon, an old classmate of his from the dojo.

The game of strategy boils toward a 45-minute climactic battle in which the 13 assassins use everything from trickery to explosives to straight-up sword hackery against an army of 200 men from Naritsugu’s clan. The delivery of these sequences rivals any modern action film, and that includes battle cries, little humorous lines tossed in for fun and especially creativity. One samurai takes out 30-plus guys in a narrow corridor that he prepped ahead of time with several swords carefully stationed throughout.

But most impressively, “13 Assassins” never loses sight of what its whole conflict is about. The plot doesn’t exist merely as a formula guaranteed to produce an unforgettable culminating battle. Throughout the entire film, characters are questioning the values passed down to them for hundreds of years of honor and duty. Having essentially stood their whole lives as symbols of a fading age, they take on this quest in search of finally fulfilling that purpose of total commitment and servitude, yet this battle will teach them what it truly means.

Essentially, this is not the same movie if set in another time or another place, which sets it apart as a truly great action film. As replicable as a story of a small band of skilled warriors taking on the impossible is (it possesses a great number of similarities to what’s considered the best of its kind, Kurosawa’s “Seven Samurai,” for one), writers Kaneo Ikegami and Daisuke Tengan give “13 Assassins” its own thumbprint with the context.

Miike then delivers the full impact of all the tones from pure syrupy action to dark, shocking drama. He knows exactly how to take a high-tension scene to a whole other level by creating a full spectrum of what we see versus what is kept from us, especially in terms of violence. As soon as he wants to export those talents to Hollywood, someone better answer. We could use more action films like “13 Assassins.”

4.5/5 Stars

13 Assassins
Directed by Takashi Miike
Written by Kaneo Ikegami, Daisuke Tengan
Starring: Kôji Yakusho, Takayuki Yamada, Masachika Ichimura, Gorô Inagaki

Think your parents are/were overprotective? Not after “Dogtooth.” Giorgos Lanthimos’ film, the first Greek film to be nominated for an Oscar in more than 30 years, imagines the pinnacle of what sheltering and censorship of children would be like to an absurd degree. A strange and ruminating film that is as fascinating as it is disturbing and unpleasant, “Dogtooth,” in all its gratuitousness, embodies everything that a great film should.

Told in a series of clips that use a few takes a possible, Lanthimos shows us life in this family’s estate. The father (Chirstos Stergioglou) is the only one who ever leaves the premises, while the mother (Michele Valley) and three teenage children, two daughters and a son, stay at home. The mother is wise to it, but the kids only know the outside is dangerous (flesh- eating cats lurk around the fence for one thing) and they will not be able to leave until one of their dogteeth fall out. Of course when you’re a teenager, they don’t anymore.

Lanthimos covers the gamut of technicalities in terms of how this complete cut-off from society could work effectively. Every time the kids discover a word that has something to do with the outside world, the parents explain to them that it’s another name for something within the estate walls. For example, the “telephone” is salt and “zombies” are little yellow flowers. The real airplanes that fly overhead are explained to be nothing but plastic toys that occasionally fall out of the sky (and when one does, the kids run to claim it).

The only thing the parents seem to have trouble controlling is human nature, which begins the calamity. The film opens with one of its more perverse facets. Every week or so, the father brings Christina (Anna Kalaitzidou), a security guard from his work, to the estate and pays her to satisfy the sexual needs of the son (Hristos Passalis). Presumably, the parents believe that boys need an outlet for their urges or else they will manifest them in destructive ways, which in this case would upset the very tidy life of this family.

As an “outsider,” however, Christina brings with her some troubling influences. She somewhat seduces the eldest daughter (Aggeliki Papoulia), who’s smitten by her as she would be any guest to the home given the rarity of that occurrence. This, however, brief in the film, influences the eldest’s behavior pattern and sets off a series of events.

Lanthimos treats his film as an exhibit or exhibition of sorts. Choosing shots carefully and sticking with them for lengthy periods of time, the family becomes a case study. Jumping from scene to scene, the plot thrives on our curiosity as to why the parents have done this and in one what ways it has altered the psychology of the children. Most scenes either show how the parents maintain this grand illusion or how the children come up with games to keep themselves entertained.

Yet “Dogtooth” leaves its imprint in some explicit and uncomfortable sex scenes as well as a few instances of the father delivering discipline as he sees fit. Although these scenes are not unjustified in some ways because you have to be a bit sick and twisted to run your family like this, I would definitely argue that it’s gratuitous and largely for shock value.

The reason “too much” applies to “Dogtooth” comes from its lack of context. Lanthimos expects us to infer motivation for why the parents have set up this world and these boundaries, even so far as crossing ethical lines to maintain it. We see results that create these compelling and complex characters, but do not dive deeply into the psyche. “Dogtooth” serves only as a scarily affecting showcase meant warn us about the dangers of censorship and what can occur when manufacturing family and a lifestyle.

—

3.5/5 Stars

—

Dogtooth
Written and Directed by Giorgos Lanthimos
Starring: Chirstos Stergioglou, Aggeliki Papoulia, Hristos Passalis, Mary Tsoni

What a seemingly insurmountable task to adapt and execute the multiple story lines and brimming detail of Stieg Larsson’s novel “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.” Despite all the slicing and dicing (yet still a two-and-half-hour run time), credit belongs to this Swedish filmmaking team for still managing to replicate the novel’s extraordinary pacing.

The sacrifice, unfortunately, is tone. In spite of the length, director Niels Arden Oplev makes the film into a full-on sprint. We never get a chance, with the exception of the magnetizing character that is Lisbeth Salander and Noomi Rapace’s performance as her, of getting under the story’s or characters’ skin. We barely have enough time to really understand what kind of a character Mikael Blomqvist (Michael Nyqvist) is before he’s engrossed in solving the film’s core murder mystery. Yet despite all those complaints, would I or anyone be able to do any better without needing to make the film in two parts? I’d like to think there’s a way, but I would not volunteer the man-hours necessary to carve it out.

“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” tells the story of a business reporter named Mikael Blomqvist who ends up disgraced when he loses a libel suit thanks to faulty information used in an article trying to take down a billionaire. Needing to lay low, he receives a call from another rich businessman, Henrik Vanger (Sven-Bertil Taub), who offers Blomqvist ridiculous compensation to work on solving a 40-year-old mystery involving Vanger’s missing niece, who he believes was murdered.

Meanwhile, Lisbeth Salander (Rapace) is an information collector (aka hacker) with a troubled past and a number of tattoos and piercings who is doing her own research on Blomqvist and ultimately ends up getting wrapped in the mystery as well.

Although iffy on what it cuts from the book and what it alters, the adaptation succeeds at juxtaposing a lot of separate scenes in the novel into one sequence in the film. A common method for combining story lines and sub plots, this is particularly effective in picking up the suspense. As such, the film flows well and the key moments like the end and some pivotal events in the Salander subplot do not lack the impact or intensity that they require.

“Dragon Tattoo” moves at an entertaining clip, but never engulfs you like the novel and that will ultimately lead countless people to declare the books “so much better.” The themes, tone and depth simply do not exist. I imagine some of the production elements such as cinematography and a better musical score come with a lack of budget too, so that doesn’t help matters. Yet strong performances and entertainment value in this film do echo what made Larsson’s book so wildly popular.
—

3.5/5 Stars

—

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Directed by Niels Arden Oplev
Written by Nickolaj Arcel and Rasmus Heisterberg, Stieg Larsson (novel)
Starring: Noomi Rapace, Michael Nyqvist, Sven-Bertil Taube, Peter Haber

“Through A Glass Darkly” begins the trilogy of Ingmar Bergman films dedicated to wrestling with God and faith. Different from the Bergman classics before it (“The Seventh Seal” and “Wild Strawberries”), “Darkly” is a much more intimate confrontation of life’s toughest questions, holding itself to a cast of four: three of whom are immediately family and one who is married into it. The distance shrinks between the viewer and the cast and the drama tenses up. It might feel less imaginative and creative than the films of the ’50s, but the narrower scope keeps the attention where Bergman films require it the most: on the characters wrestling with reality and faith.

Harriet Andersson as Karin, a young married woman home on the family island after being treated at a mental hospital, is the focal point of “Darkly” and she wears the part well. Karin is lost somewhere between reality and hallucination — clearly able to see her own hysteria but powerless when it comes to doing anything about it. Andersson possesses and utilizes all the tools to both captivate and even frighten us with Karin’s ordeal. She absolutely steals the film, even though Max von Sydow as her husband and Gunnar Bjornstand as her somewhat estranged father deliver heartfelt performances warranting sympathy.

Karin’s illness has its effects on all those who love her, the two aforementioned characters and her younger brother Minus (Lars Passgard). As she simultaneously breaks with reality and descends into madness, these characters suffer their own crises. Martin, her husband, deals with how cold and distant she grows and must realize what loving her really means. Von Sydow’s performance elicits the most pity of the lot, but only because his love for Karin put him into this tough situation unbeknownst to him.

There’s no lack of pity for the others either. The father is a writer feeling tremendous guilt for having been away from the family for so long to turn his next work into a success, a work that gets its creative spark from Karin’s condition. The brother suffers from a growing sexual frustration and lack of experience as far as love goes, which causes him to try and draw a connection to understanding it through plays that he writes.

Love is the uniting theme of the film. Bergman suggests that the easiest way to reconcile the presence of God in a world full of heart-breaking reality is to see love and faith as intertwined. The film’s only upfront confrontation of God comes in the last scene when Minus asks his father about it point blank. Up until then much of this comes somewhat cryptically through Karin’s vision of lit faces waiting for the door to open and God to show himself and her subsequent hysterics, but thankfully Bergman addresses it up front and gives you something to form a theory around.

“Darkly” exemplifies what Bergman does best, just in a different way than his previous films. More down-to-earth, human drama between characters acts as the tool — not excessive symbolism or other metaphysical elements) — to scratch at those tough questions about mortality that force us to look through a glass darkly.

—

4/5 Stars

—

Through A Glass Darkly (1961)
Written and Directed by Ingmar Bergman
Starring: Harriet Andersson, Max von Sydow, Gunnar Bjornstand, Lars Passgard

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.

It doesn’t get much more classic than a French farce, which is exactly what “Les Diner de Cons” or “The Dinner Game” is at heart. Francis Veber’s film stays sharper than most modern farces, however, by merely being able to stick with just a handful of characters and only a couple subplots. To weave comic mayhem in such a simplistic way is rare, but “Dinner” focuses on character and a simple message, both of which help transform a timeless comedy formula into a witty, hilarious and surprisingly touching film.

It all starts with Jacque Villeret, a versatile actor in both comedic and dramatic ability, who plays the sweet-natured idiot Francois Pignon. Francois is invited by Pierre Brochant, a successful young married man without kids, to a dinner party that Brochant and his friends host each week to see who can bring the biggest idiot to the dinner. Francois qualifies easily with his chubby, balding appearance and his obsession with making models of famous landmarks out of match sticks.

Villeret commands this film despite his character behaving subordinately to Pierre (Thierry Lhermitte). With the flick of a switch, Villeret goes from making the film an outrageous laugh fest to something curious to something poignant. We go wherever he takes us and all the stops are enjoyable.

The film takes place essentially in one evening. Pierre has invited Francois over to his apartment prior to the dinner party against his wife Christine’s wishes, but earlier that day Pierre threw out his back and he can hardly move. When Pierre receives a phone call from his wife who tells him that she’s leaving him for good, the hilarity begins, ironically. Out of pity, Francois offers to help Pierre discover where his wife’s gone so he can make things right. Pierre agrees, but Francois only continues to muck things up, much to our delight, with every simple task. And just as it looks like he’s about to go home on his merry way, he finds a sneaky way to make himself valuable to Pierre once more.

As the film reaches its conclusion (and rather quickly with an 80-minute run time), it becomes abundantly clear that this film is all about posing the obvious question: who’s the real idiot? Francois acts it, but it’s Pierre’s life that’s crumbling before him. For a short burst of farcical comedy, that’s just the perfect moral to wrap this hysterical tale up with some significance. “The Dinner Game” does not set out with the purpose of only desiring audience laughs, but something they can take away too. You’re likely never to think about the bizarre people you meet in the same way again.

—

4/5 Stars

—

The Dinner Game
Written and directed by Francis Veber
Starring: Jacque Villeret, Thierry Lhermitte

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.

“Counterfeiters” focuses on a group of Jews assembled by the Nazis to create mass quantities of Ally currency to be used to decimate Ally economies. It’s the same type of lens on the Holocaust, but a different “edition” so to speak. Yet the script is immaculate, the drama understated and effective, the plot completely engaging, and best of all: it’s a Holocaust film under two hours — and a great one at that.

It begins with a morally complex main character, the crooked-faced Salomon “Sally” Sorowitsch (Karl Markovics), who before the war was a professional counterfeiter, one with considerable artistic talent who chose the more “financially sound” career. Simply put, he’s a criminal and the crimes of the Holocaust manage to make us sympathetic to him. He’s an honest criminal, but a criminal no less. As the leader of his counterfeiting team in a way, following his point of view is extremely interesting. There is his survival instinct, his pride over the work even though it’s helping the Nazis and characters such as his friend Burger the printer (Adolf Burger, who wrote the book the film is based on), who pressures him not to do the work and risk death on principle.

These are all familiar Holocaust film themes. There are the Jews who will do anything to stay alive, helping the Nazis or doing whatever they bid for an extra scrap of food and soft beds and those who would be willing martyrs, dying before they stoop to a certain level or help a Nazi.

The difference is in the execution. Stefan Ruzowitzky has done an incredible job adapting Burger’s incredible true account. He’s identified the key moments and turning points and crafted ideal scenes to help build the plot up. He wastes no time getting to the point. The scenes are short and sweet, giving us bursts of information, emotion and symbolism, sometimes in just a minute. Directing off his own script, he directs us to key visuals that convey all that information like a leftover piece of food that conveys the hunger not always at the forefront of a scene. The pacing is exceptional, especially for a Holocaust film, and though some of the scenes are brutal it doesn’t hit the audience over the head with scenes of terror and emotion that go straight for the heartstrings. It’s much more subtle and effectively so.

It’s hard to visit yet another Holocaust film, but “The Counterfeiters” is worth it because of Ruzowitzky’s fine craftsmanship and its overall subtly. It’s the impact of a Holocaust film without all the emotionally distressful scenes and the screaming and the heartfelt violin music. The unique story of Sorowtisch and these group of Jews who are given a bit more privilege yet in turn forced to wrestle with a bit of moral guilt makes it a warranted trip into a oft-visited historical genre.

—

4.5/5 Stars

The Counterfeiters (Die Falscher)
Directed by Stefan Ruzowitzky
Written by Stefan Ruzowitzky, Adolf Burger (book)
Starring: Karl Markovics, August Diehl, Devid Striesow

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.

“Hable” follows a few different characters. Marco (Dario Grandinetti) is a journalist who tries to land an interview with a famous woman bullfighter named Lydia (Rosario Flores) who captivates him and the two become somewhat involved before a bullfighting accident leaves Lydia in a coma. Benigno (Javier Camera) is a male nurse who takes care of Alicia (Leonor Watling) a young dancer in a coma, to whom he is deeply attached and in a slightly concerning way. We see the history of both those relationships, but it is that which develops between Marco and Benigno that is most interesting as they spend many days in the clinic together.

The story takes us to many different points in time. We learn that Marco was having trouble getting over a past love when he met Lydia and they’d only discussed in hours before her accident. We also learn that Benigno was stalking Alicia before her accident and his nursing skills happened to put him in a fortunate position to be with her almost all the time. Sharing these stories and their passion for women who might never love them, the two form a bond.

Almodovar’s film is also big on art. Not only is Alicia a dancer, but the film opens and ends with the main characters attending a dance performance, there are bullfighting scenes (considered essentially to be an art form in Spain) and there is a peculiar silent film shown within the film. Different main characters cry when observing these events, mainly because they evoke in them an emotion they’ve yet to express, that they’ve bottled up inside.

Though strange, the art in this film is pivotal. Almodovar seems to comment on how artistic moments, sometimes for the silliest of reasons, can provoke strong emotional responses. They communicate important ideas and emotions in a less explicit manner, acting almost as a substitute for direct communication between an artist and his or her audience.

That’s where the beauty of “Hable Con Ella” lies, although your attention will be focused on the peculiarity of these relationships and the strange ways in which Almodovar presents love and relationships to us — plus of course how the events unfold. But it’s really about communication as the title alludes to, how we use art among other things to wrap up a message that perhaps is best delivered directly, even if the other person might not understand, even if they cannot hear us at all.

—

4/5 Stars

—

Hable Con Ella (Talk to Her) (2002)
Written and Directed by: Pedro Almodovar
Starring: Javier Camara, Dario Grandinetti, Leonor Watling, Rosario Flores

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.

With the title actually referring to the number of films Fellini had made, “8 1/2″ is clearly a personal endeavor. It is an acting out of his own personal struggles as an artist by having his main character imagine his own struggles. Guido (Marcello Mastroianni) has a number of women in his life — a wife, mistress, a couple actresses — even brief acquaintances that have stuck with him somehow. Juggling them all in his mind, he tries to make sense of them all together but can’t do it without favoring certain ones and his attempt to use this as the basis for his film fails him.

He also wants to create something meaningful to people — something truthful. Nothing purely escapist, but still effectively consoling. Holding himself to this standard, he is able to achieve nothing artistically with regard to his “upcoming film,” completely unable to satisfy himself, his producer or anyone else in his life for that matter.

The result of “8 1/2″ is a discussion of the purpose and role of art. Is it purposeful or purposeless? Meaningful or ultimately meaningless? The surrealist quality of the film reflects the chaos of addressing that very subject. There is a futility in attempting to create art that fully and completely encompasses and reflects truth and reality and that in itself is the point of art. It’s the beginning of what could be an endless discussion and that’s yet another characteristic of exceptional art.

Fellini has made this discussion come to life in an evocative way and one that is just as cognizant of relationship drama as it is about relationships being artistic inspiration. There are countless aspects to analyze as a result and it makes “8 1/2″ one of those “Film Studies 101″ movies.

—

4.5/5 Stars

—

8 1/2
Directed by Federico Fellini
Written by Federico Fellini, Ennio Flaiano, Tullio Pinelli, Brunello Rondi
Starring: Marcello Mastroianni, Claudia Cardinale, Anouk Aimee, Sandra Milo

“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.

Director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and writer Guillermo Arriaga give us three stories from Mexico City that are biblical in nature, each named for the two focal characters of the given story. All the stories deal with violence in some way, crime, love and lastly, each has a vital connection to dogs. Each story is as complicated as human beings ought to be portrayed in film. The characters are people of great love and passion, but with great capacity for error and sin. The dogs in their lives serve as instigators of conflict, distractions, sources of comfort and more, taking the emotion of these difficult stories to the next level.

“Octavio y Susana” is about Susana, a young married woman with a baby who lives with her abusive criminal husband, Ramiro, and her brother-in-law Octavio (Gael Garcia Bernal), who keeps asking her to run away with him. Octavio trains the family dog, Cofi, to fight and wins money that he uses to support her and convince her to leave Ramiro.

“Valeria y Daniel” is about a supermodel, Valeria, who is having an affair with Daniel, a businessman married with children. Daniel buys them an apartment announcing he’s leaving his wife when a horrible car accident caused by the characters of the first story puts Valeria in a wheelchair. Both the incident and the disappearance of their dog, Ritchie, under the floorboards of the apartment tears at their relationship.

“El Chivo y Maru” is given to us in bits and pieces throughout the first two but eventually gets its own focus at the end. El Chivo (Emilio Echevarria) is the film’s most complicated character. Seen in the beginning as a homeless man with a half dozen dogs who also doubles as an assassin, we learn that he left his wife and daughter to be a guerrilla fighter and landed in prison for 20 years, at which point he wanted his daughter to believe he was dead. After he was let out, the man who captured him gave him a place to stay and employed him as an assassin. During the story he tries to carry out a job while gathering the courage to see his daughter again.

The summaries might be long, but grasping the compelling circumstances, complication and depth of each story is essential to understanding what “Amores Perros” is trying to do. The stories are meant to show us the many facets of life and human nature. The film is not trying to find that one common denominator, but the several. We’re supposed to experience internally somehow that connection that makes all of the film’s difficult stories clear, not be lectured on it by the filmmakers.

“Amores Perros” is not a film for people looking for cathartic satisfaction from movies. There is no moment of feeling “at one” with the film or that pleasant feeling when you feel all the loose ends are tied up. It’s also one that animal-lovers should be careful with. There’s a lot of suggested animal violence — dogs that appear to be bloody and or dying. It’s a tragic and beautiful (in the literary sense) comparison to the brutality of human nature in the film, but it’s not one that’s easy to handle.

Most people, however, will appreciate the great storytelling and intensely interesting characters and events in this 2.5-hour film.

—

4.5/5 Stars

—

“Amores Perros” (2000)
Directed by: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
Written by: Guillermo Arriaga
Starring: Gael Garcia Bernal, Emilio Echevarria, Goya Toledo

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.