Ajami **1/2

Director: Scandar Copti, Yaron Shani
Cast: Fouad Habash, Youssef Sahwani, Ibrahim Frege
Ranin Karim, Eran Naim, Scandar Copti, Nisrine Rihan, Abu George Shibli

"Ajami" is a well intentioned film that tries to say more than it can grasp. Its fractured storytelling and docudrama qualities try to evoke the way in which gritty subjects have been discussed cinematically for the last decade or so but because of this the film's themes come off as forced and cliché.
The extensive plot of the movie can be divided in four different stories that eventually intersect.
There's Omar (Kabaha) a young Muslim Israeli Arab who becomes the target of Bedouin gangsters who threaten to kill him unless he pays them fifty thousand dollars. Malek (Frege) is a young Palestinian working illegally in an Israeli restaurant to pay for his mother's surgery. Dando (Naim), a Tel Aviv cop trying to find the Arabs who murdered his brother and Binj (Copti) a modern sort of Palestinian who does drugs, techno and Jew girls.
Their lives and many others interconnect in the Ajami neighborhood in Jaffa where life is worth a penny and people hate each other because it's tradition.
Co-directors Copti and Shani, a Jew and a Palestinian themselves, are able to convey this sense of multiculturality that one would find in such a place and there are intimate scenes with Arab and Hebrew dialogues spoken at once that resonate because they seem firsts on film.
However with their tiresome techniques of flashbacks and multiple points of view, the movie makes it obvious that for the directors it was never about empathy but about delivering the same message we've heard a thousand times before.
Not that the message is bad (for who supports the Middle Eastern conflict?) but by now it should be clear that the ways in which it's been tried to be solved have proved completely unsuccessful.
Why for example are the characters at the film's center essentially good but morally inclined to wrong others?
Whatever happened to the notion of the existence of people who are immoral and have no humane reasons to justify their behavior? It's these kinds of people who should be studied in "Ajami".
Copti and Shani even attempt to introduce a Romeo and Juliet like story-complete with severe parents who unwillingly provoke death-that still never help the movie seem more than a modern take on an old story.
To top it all off there's also a sense of confusion that prevails over the film not because the filmmakers planned it this way but because it's their debut film and they still have details to polish. The running time isn't only too long but there are lots of loose ends, sloppy edits and unnecessary twists which make the characters hard to connect to and also fail as detached microcosm studies.
"Ajami" has some stirring moments and others that break your heart but as a whole it's as thematically disconnected and confused as the people it talks about.

A Prophet ****

Director: Jacques Audiard
Cast: Tahar Rahim, Niels Arestrup
Adel Bencherif, Hichem Yacoubi, Jean-Philippe Ricci

"For We assuredly sent amongst every People a messenger."
Qur'an 16:36

The power of the signifié is at the front and center of Jacques Audiard's "A Prophet"; a film layered with such rich interpretations that you might even forget to be entertained by its refreshed genre conventions.
Malik El Djebena (Rahim) is nineteen when he lands in prison for assaulting cops (it's never clear if he committed the crime or not), he gets a six year sentence and is thrown to the wolves without a minimal sense of regret from the authorities.
Soon he's being abused by other inmates who steal his shoes and beat him and being a French Arab he doesn't know where he belongs in the courtyard.
He's approached by Reyeb (Yacoubi) an older Arab prisoner who offers him dope in exchange for a blowjob; he refuses, ignorant that this proposition has reached the ears of César Luciani (Arestrup); the Corsican mobster who runs things on the inside.
He needs Reyeb dead and Malik is the perfect guy for the job. Suddenly Malik is faced with two options: either he kills Reyeb or he's killed by Luciani's gang.
Without spoiling any plot twists, Malik finds an opportunity to become someone in this hostile environment, his rise to power being in direct opposition to the subjugation he endures under Luciani's command.
He starts relying on the Corsican protection arguing he's merely doing a job and as such remains in constant limbo, refusing to identify himself with any specific group.
It's this behavior that turns him into a messenger who can travel between gangs, races and social classes but keeps him completely isolated.
If Malik's story can be taken as an exploration of racial identification in young French Arabs it might also be approached as a take on the spiritual apathy in newer generations.
In this way Audiard makes his film a surprising amalgam of ideological and aesthetical currents, that can work as contemporary sociopolitical examination, Oedipal tragedy, spiritual reinvention or old fashioned gangster flick in the vein of Hawks' "Scarface".
By taking on the chameleonic properties of Malik, the movie might be the ultimate kind of character study which shares just as much as it conceals.
Rahim's performance is a naturalist beauty given how much his character evolves from the first scene up to the parabolic finale.
The young man seems completely unaware of the camera and allows it to enter his most intimate moments even when they occur in the most public of paces.
In one of the film's most symbolic scenes Malik is checked by airport security and almost instantly opens his mouth and reveals his tongue, giving the security guard the opportunity to check him like they do in jail.
This moment isn't interesting only because of the obvious way in which prison has inhabited Malik's psyche but also by the underlying theological symbolism it carries.
We realize that by standing with his arms extended parallel to the ground not only does he remind us of the crucifixion but the eventual ascension to the skies, in the plane of course, is literal enough to speak for itself.
Rahim never caves in under the allegorical weight Audiard puts over him and he carries the film in more than one way.
We can never really say we know who he is for sure (does he know himself for that matter?) and Rahim has the ability to become a vessel for our distinct perceptions in the same way Marcel Camus' lead character from "The Stranger" does. Is it a coincidence that they're both French Arabs? Perhaps not.
When to this you add the nuances Audiard puts into Malik's backstory to augment his symbolism (he's illiterate like the Qur'an suggests the last prophet was) you reach what might be one of the films most exciting ideas: can Camus become Muhammad?
If you were to reach this dilemma you will find yourself at the essence of what makes "A Prophet" such a brilliant work of art.
Different people will reach very different conclusions and Audiard's intention of "creating icons" for Arabs might come off as extreme blaspheme or brave postmodern intention.
Whatever your stand is, the director never digests your thoughts in advance, giving the film a profound ambiguity that sends audiences wondering about whether Malik deserves redemption or if he in fact has done himself justice.
If "A Prophet" indulges itself with excessive running time you can't put too much blame on it; it has so much to say that its power can not be contained.

Crazy Heart **

Director: Scott Cooper
Cast. Jeff Bridges, Maggie Gyllenhaal
Colin Farrell, Robert Duvall, Beth Grant, Jack Nation

A good performance does not a good movie make and Jeff Bridges is no exception in "Crazy Heart". He plays former country star Bad Blake whose career all but disappeared leaving him to play bowling alleys and dark bars in random towns. He's also an alcoholic and has four ex-wives but no family.
Things change for him when he meets journalist Jean Craddock (Gyllenhaal) and falls in love with her but can he really overcome all his demons and make her happy?
If you think you've heard this one before you probably have and Scott Cooper's directorial debut doesn't bring any refreshing detail to this stale story.
Bridges is of course terrific (but when isn't he?) and makes Blake's little quirks and head movements more interesting than all the dialogue Cooper can muster from Thomas Cobb's novel.
He's so lacking in selfconsciousness and camera awareness that sometimes you feel like you're intruding into his private moments.
Bridges turns almost blasé when he has to enact some redundant scenes, like his rivalry with the man he mentored (Farrell) who became a superstar or the Kodak inspired scenes where he "composes" songs.
But watch him burst into joyous life in the most unexpected moments like when he acts with Jack Nation who plays Jean's four year old son. His eyes share the sense of wonder the kid has and his longing and care say more about his character's backstory than a silly subplot-which is practically forgotten in the screenplay-regarding his own lost son.
The issue with "Crazy Heart" is that nothing feels truthful, this is the kind of movie that would've been served from that magic Robert Altman put in "Nashville"; a certain feeling of life before and after the credits roll.
Everything in this movie though is only conceived to make the story move forward, it has no sense of spontaneity other than to give Blake a rushed redemption.

While Watching "New York, I Love You"...

I was shocked to realize that Brett Ratner had directed my favorite segment in the omnibus film. Yes, Ratner of "Rush Hour" glory outdoes Akin, Marston, Attal, Nair (although I have to confess I don't really like her work), one of the Hughes and Natalie Portman.
His segment is the most refreshing bit in a movie filled with too many artsy pretensions and little cohesion.
Anton Yelchin and Olivia Thirlby are pitch perfect as an imperfect couple on prom night and their sweet, funny story is the only bit in the film that reminds us, as one character says, that New York City is "the capital of everything possible".
Other things of interest in the movie were...

Several plotlines are very interested in smoking as a social ritual.
I know that strangers do come up to you as if the nicotine drew them closer like a magnet but it was odd to see cigarettes made such an important point within a city that's slowly trying to eradicate them for good.

Eli Wallach is a living acting god. Too bad his segment wasn't all that (A surprise considering Cloris Leachman is his costar and Joshua Marston directs)

The cinematography in Shekhar Kapur's segment is gorgeous even if Anthony Minghella's screenplay doesn't have too much to say and is the less New York-ish of the tales.

Drea de Matteo is a phenomenal actress. Someone should give her a role that isn't a mobster or a Jersey girl. She pretty much devours Bradley Cooper in their bit together.

Christina Ricci should be in more movies...

I really don't see Bradley Cooper's appeal. Can somebody explain it to me?
Justin Bartha on the other side, very underrated.

Nine ***

Director: Rob Marshall
Cast: Daniel Day-Lewis, Marion Cotillard, Penélope Cruz
Nicole Kidman, Judi Dench, Kate Hudson, Fergie, Sophia Loren

"Nine" is the third incarnation of a project that was born almost half a century ago at the hands of the brilliant Federico Fellini.
His film "8 ½" chronicled the anguish of a film director upon facing creative block. The movie is considered a masterpiece of world cinema and was transformed into a Broadway musical by Maury Yeston and Arthur Kopit which concentrated on the effect of women in the lives of the director.
Rob Marshall's adaptation then takes the musical back to the silver screen which perhaps it should never have left to begin with.
"8 ½" was always a very personal piece, it's been largely debated whether the main character was or wasn't an alter ego of Fellini himself. Sure the similarities were vast but to imply so would also be to diminish the auteur's ability to separate himself from the characters he write.
If that was the question should we say then that Mozart shouldn't have made music about music or Shakespeare written about writers?
If Fellini put something of his' in the movie it was his distinctive cinematic touch, he creates a surrealist, documentary-like circus out of unraveling minds and Guido is Fellini, not because he's a movie director but because he's his creation.
But out of this mess he comes up with a movie about ideas, a work of art that defies all conventions because it's a perfect ode to imperfection.
Therefore "Nine" always had a rough time ahead in becoming a beast of its own, for how do you adapt something that was already so undecipherable?
"Nine" had to be more chaotic and yet organized, it had to become an oxymoron and be both messy and grounded.
But Rob Marshall, always a visual perfectionist, chose to make a beautiful, almost too polished film that never really gets to the core of the creative crisis Guido Contini (Day-Lewis) is going through.
Instead he comes up with a film that proves another point almost by accident; that some ideas should remain forever where they were born.
When the film begins we meet Guido, perhaps the most famous director in the world who is about to start shooting a film called "Italia" but has yet to write a word for its screenplay.
He starts being haunted by the women who have inspired him throughout his life: his mother (Loren) who now is dead, a prostitute he met in his childhood called Saraghina (Fergie), his leading lady Claudia Jenssen (Kidman), his confidante and costume designer Lilli (Dench), American "Vogue" reporter Stephanie (Hudson), his mistress Carla (Cruz) and his wife-and former leading lady-Luisa (Cotillard).
The movie is structured so that each of these ladies gets a musical number (two in Cotillard's case) that goes along with what Guido is going through at that moment.
Therefore when we see him remember his repressive Catholic childhood Saraghina bursts out of the sand to remind him he was meant to be a lover in "Be Italian", while his mom soothes him with the melancholic lullaby "Guarda La Luna".
Marshall stages the numbers using the same framing device he used in "Chicago" as they unfold in a studio which looks like Cinecittá but is actually inside Guido's mind.
The numbers mostly feel completely disconnected from each other as Dench's "Folies Bergere" seems more at place in a revue than a movie about movies, while Hudson's "Cinema Italiano" (a song so tacky and overdone that you might blush when you actually find yourself humming it) would fit more in an MTV crash course through the 60's.
To some this might seem a misfire but considering the movie is basically us being voyeurs to Guido, they completely make sense.
In this way Carla's "A Call from the Vatican" shows him at his most playful and Cruz is so smoldering that she might even make you break a sweat as she coos throughout an orgasm. The numbers aren't really about these women, when they sing they are not themselves as much as they are projections of Guido.
That he also happens to be a projection of them just makes for a fascinating concept considering that like the film he's making, and to a degree "Nine" itself, he's essentially a work in progress.
Day-Lewis who obviously doesn't have the Italian gene, is unable to evoke charm and sexiness but he's an expert at brooding and inner exploration.
He sings with indifference as if he knows that because he's singing to himself he can give out so-so performances and still be the star of the show.
"I would like to be here/but also there" he sings completely aware that "that's a contradiction in terms" and the same can be said for the film which has trouble adjusting itself from the switch of musical into traditional scenes.
If there is something "Nine" gets really well is the casting; Dench is a sassy scene stealer, Loren really just needs to appear to evoke class glamor (she curiously represents the idea of women Guido attempts to encompass with the film he wants to make).
Fergie is a revelation as the sexual, larger than life Saraghina and Nicole Kidman shines in a role that seems to have been made for her. "People just don't realize she's an actress as well as a star" says Guido and Kidman proves him right in the affecting "Unusual Way" where she deconstructs the image of a movie star with the simple removal of a wig.
The movie perhaps belongs to Cruz and Cotillard. Cruz would've made Fellini proud as she takes on her role in the manner of someone like Magali Noël in "Amarcord", hips and lips everywhere but she's also able to break our heart when we least expect it.
Her undeniable sexiness is nothing compared to the longing in her eyes when she looks at Guido, her performance makes us look at her love as something beyond morality.
Then there's Cotillard who makes Luisa the center of the movie. In "My Husband Makes Movies" she shows us her life without recurring to cheap martyrdom; it's as if her devotion is what keeps her heart pumping. When she sings "he needs me so/and he'll be the last to know it" it doesn't come out as delusional but as self compromise.
But bets are off when Luisa finally unravels in the spine tingling "Take It All", which is cleverly edited between takes of her asking Guido to give her back her life and the musical performance where she strips for a strange crowd.
Watching Cotillard in that scene travel fearlessly from inner to outer nakedness is watching everything we would've wanted "Nine" to be.
But asking for so much would be to become Luisa and demand love and understanding from something that probably doesn't even understand itself.

Baarìa **

Director: Giuseppe Tornatore
Cast: Francesco Scianna, Margareth Madè, Ángela Molina
Monica Bellucci, Raoul Bova, Enrico Lo Verso, Gaetano Aronica

Epic in every sense of the word, Giuseppe Tornatore's "Baarìa"is a lovesong to the Sicilian town of Bagheria; Tornatore's own "Amarcord" if you like.
Like Fellini's masterpiece, this movie is composed of vignettes where we see life filtered through the views of the townspeople, particularly Peppino Torrenuova (Scianna) who becomes our guide through the decade spawning yarn.
We follow Peppino from his humble beginnings as the son of a shepherd (Aronica), his courting of the beautiful Mannina (Madè), up to his association with the Communist party, problems with the mafia and the creation of his own family.
Beautifully shot and framed, "Baarìa"'s major flaw is how aimless it all feels. Being such a personal film, it's obvious that the beauty will vary from the author to the beholder but then why put so many memories into film if they only serve oneself?
It's impossible to avoid comparing this movie to "Amarcord", Fellini is mentioned in the screenplay and is an obvious influence to a character in the film that represents Tornatore. Fellini too delivered a romantic ode to his Rimini, but unlike the master, Tornatore has little to add besides how idyllic life was.
While Fellini added a ceratin kind magic to the retelling of his childhood memories (he was after all a self professed liar who had no trouble making up Arabic princes and outrageous adventures) Tornatore remains a bit more reverential and tries not to offend anyone by trivializing fascism for example.
In the process though, he ends up doing just that, by turning political differences into impersonal things that more than influence the characters and the story, become irrelevant details that steer the movie away from its loving gazes at mountains and ancient villas.
Tornatore avoids all conflict that could make his characters human and create emotional connections, instead choosing to light them appropriately in ways that their beauty too overcomes the ugliness of real life.
His cast is made out of gorgeous Italian people (including Bova and Bellucci who each have exactly one scene and are put in the credits just to attract audiences probably) who spend time looking like young Christy Turlingtons emulating Sophia Loren and the sculpted men Pasolini cast for his own films.
This brings up a dilemma as we wonder if Tornatore truly remembers his childhood like this and is in complete denial of tragedies (one character in the film is notorious for being able to sleep throughout WWII air raids) or if he's trying to make the longest "visit Sicily" commercial in history.
Despite all the time we spend in Baarìa we are never able to create an encompassing vision of the town and we definitely aren't tempted to revisit it.

The Box ***

Director: Richard Kelly
Cast: James Marsden, Cameron Diaz, Frank Langella
Celia Weston, James Rebhorn, Sam Oz Stone, Ian Kahn

There's fluorescent green blood running through the theremin intoxicated veins of Richard Kelly's "The Box". Adapted from a short story by Richard Matheson, the movie is a throwback to sci-fi/horror films and TV shows- particularly "The Twilight Zone"-and like said productions sets its stage in the unassuming tranquility of the suburbs.
It's 1976 and Norma and Arthur Lewis (Diaz and Marsden respectively) are woken up one early morning by the doorbell. Norma opens and finds someone has left them a box containing a wooden contraption with a red button on top.
There's also a note that says they will be visited by someone that evening. They go on with their normal work days; Arthur, who works at NASA, learns that he has been dropped from the astronaut program because failed the psychological exam (perhaps an omen of things to come?) while Norma, who's a schoolteacher, is informed that she will no longer get tuition for her son Walter (Stone).
That afternoon they receive the visit of the mysterious Arlington Steward (a never creepier Langella) who explains to them the powers of the box and the button unit they received.
If they push the button they will receive one million dollars, completely tax free, but there's a catch; the minute they push the button someone they don't know will die.
Steward leaves, warning them that they have one day to make up their minds before he comes to retrieve the box.
After debating the matter and becoming overwhelmed by their economic misfortunes, Norma pushes the button.
Steward arrives to retrieve the box and give them their money; soon after, strange events begin to occur and before long the Lewis' are stuck in a labyrinth of deceit, stalkers, nose bleeding zombies, NASA investigations, alien conspiracy theories, NSA secrets and strange behavior from people they thought they knew.
It seems that only half the movie is Matheson's story and the crazier parts are all Kelly. The surprise isn't that such things come out of a person's mind, but that he makes them work as a movie.
In "The Box" Kelly doesn't hide the fact that this is homage in its purest form. The milky cinematography (done in digital video out of a bet of sorts) brings out a fuzzy sort of terror that recalls "Poltergeist" and "The Exorcist", while the strings heavy score (done by members of Arcade Fire) recalls some of Bernard Herrmann's greatest work.
The referential tone might result annoying to viewers who aren't in on the joke as they will probably hate the overacting of Marsden and Diaz.
Those who succumb to the movie will be delighted by the way the actors give in to the cheesiness Kelly comes up with. Forget the fact that they have to wear seventies clothing, the camp factor here lies in their late reactions, overworked lines and the way they still manage to convince us of the romantic backstory their characters share.
Kelly often tries to say too much and the movie sometimes borders complete ridicule, but by the end it really works more like a good film in B-movie disguise.
The most surprising thing about it all is how it achieves multiple readings. It works as a terrifying, postmodernist, existential drama unafraid to mix its Sartre with the Blob. In moments where the world seems to backfire on them it's a revelation to see Norma and Arthur go into discussions of their place in the world in contrast with others.
"Hell is other people seeing you for who you really are" says Norma to her students as she tries to explain existentialist theories. With its recurrent theme of "no exit" the movie flirts with Lynchean themes but unlike the too Freudian auteur, this one isn't afraid to pull out its "boos" out of the cheesiest of places.
"The Box" is also able to become scarily time appropriate given how it forces us to give a second look at the way people act when their survival is threatened.
In a world undergoing such critical economic times, it's difficult to avoid trying to empathize with the decision the Lewis' have to contemplate.
Kelly isn't afraid to ask if moral codes can be suspended or forgotten in the face of adversity. But before we're deep into an intellectual debate, Kelly is already scaring our pants off with a sudden thrill.
"The Box" might very well be the most entertaining movie about the recession made so far.

The Secret of Kells ***

Director: Tomm Moore, Nora Twomey

There was a time when hand drawn animation had the power to take our breath away and remind us of the lengthy artistic history encompassed in pen, ink and paper.
Disney once was a master of this craft with every new movie becoming a landmark of beauty and perpetuation of creative power.
As the years went by the studio reduced its interest in pushing itself and settled for a definite animation style. Other studios could've taken advantage of this opportunity to pave their own ways but chose to imitate Disney animation.
With the advent of computers and CGI animation audiences all but gave their backs to hand drawn animation and succumbed to the real qualities and three dimensions that could be achieved with this technology.
As this kind of animation reaches its own limits (the biggest difference between movies of this kind now lies in the screenplays) a little gem comes along to remind us that sometimes the greatest things come from our past.
In "The Secret of Kells" directors Moore and Twomey take us to the Middle Ages to meet Brendan (voiced by Evan McGuire) a little boy living inside the Abbey of Kells with his uncle, Abbot Cellach (Brendan Gleeson).
As the abbot oversees the construction of a fortified wall to protect them from Vikings, Brendan, who has never left the Abbey or the village around it, dreams of what lies beyond the great forests.
He gets his thrills from stories he hears from the other monks. He suddenly sees the possibility to satiate his thirst for knowledge with the arrival of Brother Aidan (Mick Lally) a monk from the Ilsand of Iona carrying with him an unfinished book of which powers have been talked about for ages.
While the Abbey forbids his nephew from getting involved with Aidan, Brendan disobeys enthralled by the temptation of creation. Based on the legends surrounding the creation of the legendary Book of Kells, the filmmakers come up with a beautiful, simple metaphor to narrate the way in which knowledge has always been a threat.
Brendan becomes the symbol of enlightenment fighting the dark forces of barbarians and the Church itself.
While the movie makes for a lovely crash course of Midle Ages' history it must be said that its ideas-perhaps because they're addressed to children-are filtered into simple ways, such that the evil Vikings become amorphous figures with horns and the Church's interest in keeping the masses ignorant is processed as extreme paternal worry on part of the Abbey towards Brendan.
Therefore the characters might not be that developed and mature, but the movie more than makes up for it with its relentless aesthetic power.
The character animation perhaps recalls the style of Craig McCracken (just to mention a contemporary animator) with the use of simple lines and elementary figures to create each feature.
The animation for the characters is particularly effective. The Abbot for example is drawn with sturdy, severe lines that evoke his firmness, while Brendan is made out of circles that seem to juggle upon each other as the character moves.
One of the most beautiful creations is the fairy Aisling (voiced by Christen Mooney) a pale impish being that seems to materialize out of nowhere in every scene she's featured, she's drawn with long curves that give the impression of a misty aftereffect.
The expressionist animation does much more for each character than any line of dialogue can and sometimes the filmmakers seem to forget this, stuffing the plot with Celtic legends and unnecessary conversations.
For more serious film buffs and art lovers the most appealing element in "The Secret of Kells", might not be its exploration of what brought forth Illumination theoretically, but what graphic arts contributed when words were such a luxury.
The central Book of Kells is among the most famous versions of the gospels before Gutenberg and the film sometimes feels like watching Medieval arts spring to life.
More than that, the movie is done mixing animation styles that not only look magnificent put together but might very well narrate a history of art.
From Mayan creatures with feathers and child like chalk drawings that function as maps, to Medieval tableaux combined with Gothic frames and Chinese shadow theater.
The lavish backgrounds done in pale watercolors and gold motives recall Klimt's greatest work and by the time the animators let us see the influence the Russian Soyuzdetmultfilm-Studio has on their work, we will probably be enthralled by the way they borrow from Eisenstein and Tarkovsky to frame each scene.
"The Secret of Kells", like the best of books, hypnotizes us with every turn of the page and its beauty is such that the lack of a better story, is minimized by the jaw-dropping marvel of its history.

Ever woken up in handcuffs before?

Robert Downey Jr. has.
Read my short notes on "Sherlock Holmes" here.

The World is Big and Salvation Lurks Around the Corner **

Director: Stephan Komandarev
Cast: Miki Manojlovic, Carlo Ljubek
Hristo Mutafchiev, Ana Papadopulu, Dorka Gryllus
Lyudmila Cheshmedzhieva, Vasil Vasilev-Zueka

The need to trivialize history has almost become a film genre of its own in the last two decades. Apparently some filmmakers noticed that stories of enlightenment amidst sociopolitical disasters make for one of the easiest ways to manipulate audiences' feelings.
In "The World is Big..." director Komandarev adapts Ilija Trojanow's slightly autobiographical novel about a family's escape from Bulgaria and consequent stays in refugee camps.
The plot centers around Aleksander 'Sashko' Georgiev (Ljubek) who suffers a terrible car accident in Germany where he loses his memory. His grandfather Bai Dan (Manojlovic) travels from Bulgaria to help his grandson regain his memory, along the way retelling a story of repression behind the iron curtain.
Komandarev divides his film in two parts: present Sashko as he makes a bicycle trip with grandpa back to Bulgaria and flashbacks of younger Sashko (Blagovest Mutafchiev) as he migrates with his parents (Mutafchiev and Papadopulu) to Italy where they live in a camp. The way in which the parallel storylines are edited suggests some sort of cumulative payoff is on the way, but the film is so preoccupied with pushing so many emotional buttons that it practically forgets to wrap the plotline set in the past.
It's as if the director is more interested in referencing as much social issues as he can in order to make his movie more self satisfyingly important. Therefore he mentions post WWII immigration, European repression, political asylum and even Fidel Castro. For those less versed in twentieth century history he makes an alternate solution by filtering all the events through Bai Dan's love of backgammon.
The character is particularly proud of his skills in the board game and his entire philosophical world view (including the film's title) comes from his need to turn everything into a backgammon inspired metaphor.
Even when it's time for Sashko to recover his memory, grandpa finds a way to make it a game where each breakthrough he has becomes the equivalent of backgammon points.
While the movie had so many chances to dig into profound issues about Bulgaria, including the prospect of repatriation as means of moving on or arguing if this is even necessary in a post European Union world it only uses history to move the corny plot forward.
Where it also had the opportunity to explore the main characters' psychological motivations (Why does grandpa choose a bicycle over a plane or car? Does amnesia represent a clean slate for Sashko?) it chooses instead to make them quirky for quirk's sake.
When the movie reaches it's completely anticlimactic finale which we'd been seeing coming from within the first ten minutes of the running time, we realize that the world indeed might be big, but this movie's ambitions aren't only quite limited but also shortsighted.


Read more of my thoughts on this movie over at The Film Experience.

No Puedo Vivir Sin Ti ***

Director: Leon Dai
Cast: Chen Wen-Pin, Chao Yo-Hsuan, Lin Chih-Ju, Ma Ting-Ni

How many times do you imagine the backstory behind a sensationalist piece of news?
In his sophomore film "No Puedo Vivir Sin Ti" director Leon Dai did just that, he read an article about a father who threatened to jump off a bridge with his seven year old daughter because of the way society had been treating them.
Unlike people who would've fashioned a condemning essay on unfit parenthood, Dai gave his characters the benefit of the doubt and dug into the possibility that maybe society was a contributing villain in this case too.
Therefore the movie begins with the bridge scene but soon enough takes us back in time to see what drove Li Wu-Hsiung (Wen-Pin) to risk his daughter Mei's (Yo-Hsuan) life.
He works as a diver, making underwater ship repairs and lives in an abandoned warehouse where the two of them share what can be taken for a happy life. When the time comes for Mei to go to school, her father learns that he can't enroll her because he's not her legal guardian.
He finds out that because Mei's mother, who abandoned them years before, remarried she and her husband have legal rights over the child.
Frightened by the possibility of losing his daughter, Wu-Hsiung embarks on a journey that takes him from across cities and government offices looking for a way to stay with Mei.
If the story doesn't sound precisely new, Dai's aesthetic approach gives it an odd sense of freshness: he fashions the film like something straight out of Italian neorrealism, perhaps something Vittorio de Sica would've made.
Shot in crisp black and white which forces us to concentrate on the actors' faces-even if the amount of detail in the set design is stunning-the whole movie works because of its simplicity. Shaped to be something akin to a tearjerker, the results are in fact deeper because behind the plot's straightforwardness there's a harsh criticism of a system that has forgotten kindness.
"In this economy it's hard to eat, how will you build savings?" asks someone to the concerned father as he desperately tries to look for ways to preserve his family.
The movie forces us to see beyond the fairly common melodrama and ponder on the consequences inconspicuous acts may have on someone. It would've been interesting to see Dai explore Wu-Hsiung's psychology a bit more, because he often puts more of the blame on the system than on the average man.
Dai's too innocent view of a world where it's the good people against the establishment would've worked better in post-WWII Italy, but in contemporary Taiwan with its blooming economy, the father's carelessness, comes off as something not so easy to justify.
That's why the movie works at its best when it sees the world through Mei's eyes, when other characters talk about her future as if she wasn't even there, Dai lowers his camera and reminds us that she's the one who will be most affected by the outcomes.

The Milk of Sorrow ***

Director: Claudia Llosa
Cast: Magaly Solier, Susi Sánchez, Efraín Solís, Marino Ballón

Peruvian contemporary history is examined through the story of Fausta (Solier) in Claudia Llosa's "The Milk of Sorrow".
Fausta lives in Lima with her family after they migrated from the country; when the movie begins we see her mother on her deathbed as she sings about the horrors she lived through at the hand of terrorists.
The song, done in Quechua, has a haunting quality that makes it disturbing to fully grasp that the events narrated in it actually occurred to Fausta's mother. She sings how terrorists not only raped her but made her eat her husband's penis and wants her daughter to always keep this present. She dies, leaving Fausta in a state of complete sadness and desolation.
The indigenous people think this deep sorrow comes from a disease called "la teta asustada" (literally translated as "the frightened tit") transmitted by mothers to their offspring through breastfeeding.
With the intention of taking her mother's body to her hometown, Fausta moves in with her uncle (Solís) who urges her to arrange the funeral before his daughter's wedding and gets a job as a maid in the house of upper class musician Aida (Sánchez) where she slowly befriends the gardener (Solís).
The shy Fausta has to learn how to live in a world filled with rapists, murderers and evil spirits without her mother's guidance.
Somewhere between raw social drama and magic realism, Llosa's film is filled with allegories and actual events that might sound like allegories.
When we learn that Fausta introduced a potato in her vagina to avoid being raped and we see how calmly she owns this-even the doctor that discovers it reacts to it as if it was the most natural thing in the world-we are caught in a dreamlike place where thousand year old traditions coexist with social fears.
While the Shining Path is never referred to specifically, one doesn't have to be an expert in Latin American history to understand that everything that happens to Fausta is a direct manifestation of the violence that erupted in Perú with the terrorist group.
Interestingly because the film never attributes any specific actions to the Shining Path, one can assume that Llosa understands that it's impossible to throw the whole blame on a determined group. The rapes and murders in "The Milk of Sorrow" might also have been committed by the military and the government who had as much responsibility as the terrorists.
Through Solier's devastating performance we become witnesses of how a group of people had to cope with things they had never imagined. For the indigenous people of Perú to fathom why strangers with machine guns were massacring them, would be the same as us understanding why Fausta mummifies her mother and talks to her corpse every night.
The audience and Fausta stand in almost extreme opposites and Llosa creates strange beauty out of otherwise mundane situations like the kitsch wedding ceremonies in Fausta's neighborhood that evidence the materialism-as-means-of-new-tradition conveyed by people who are learning to adhere to the rules of a foreign society.

Thirst ***

Director: Park Chan-wook
Cast: Song Kang-ho, Kim Ok-bin
Shin Ha-kyun, Kim Hae-sook, Eriq Ebouaney

Leave it to Park Chan-wook to take Émile Zola's "Thérèse Raquin" and turn it into a perverse exploration of faith, love and mortality.
Kang-ho stars as Sang-hyun, a Catholic priest who decides to appease his spiritual unease by volunteering for a biological experiment aiming to find a vaccine for the Emmanuel Virus. When his health begins to deteriorate he receives a blood transfusion which helps him make a full recovery.
Being the only person who's survived the virus turns him into a sensation with followers thinking he has healing powers; truth is that the strange blood turned him into a vampire. He begins to have even more spiritual conflicts when his new side makes him develop a "thirst for all sinful pleasures".
He experiences lust with Tae-ju (Ok-bin) the frail wife of his childhood friend Kang-woo (Ha-kyun) who looks after him while he battles cancer. They begin an affair and think of ways to get rid of the husband.
There are two movies in "Thirst", one is the dissection of Zola's classic which itself became a staple for noir cinema and the other is an interesting character study that follows a man's transformation in the midst of moral crisis. Both are strong themes to study and could make great movies on their own; but Chan-wook finds the common thread to link the stories and filters them through naturalism's concept of the human beast.
On one side we have the chilling actions that Tae-ju and Sang-hyun commit in order to fulfill their passion which embody the naturalist approach to a human being who no longer controls his moral center and gives it the qualities of an animal.Then there's the darkly funny side that Sang-hyun has literally become a human beast by turning into a vampire which takes the director's vision into a postmodernist, almost farcical examination of the classics.
It's also interesting that Chan-wook filters this through Catholicism because it gives him an opportunity to make some fascinating points about the Vatican's stand on various issues. If being a vampire is to be compared with a disease like HIV, Chan-wook ingeniously weaves it into the plot without making a big deal out of it (that he named the virus Emmanuel provides deep symbolism and purpose).
When Tae-ju, who doesn't have much sexual experience, wonders if she's a "pervert" for enjoying the way Sang-hyun bites her during sex, she's got nothing on the implications sexuality involves for the priest. It's sad that before long the director seems to give up on the layers he teased us with and concentrates on the "horror" part of the movie.
"Thirst" soon turns into a genre flick with a slightly absurd edge that doesn't diminish its previous achievements but leaves us craving what it could've been like.

Winter in Wartime **1/2

Director: Martin Koolhoven,
Cast:Martijn Lakemeier, Jamie Campbell Bower, Raymond Thiry
Melody Klaver, Dan van Husen, Tygo Gernandt
Yorick van Wageningen

Set in Holland near the end of WWII, "Winter in Wartime" offers an interesting, if poorly executed, examination of a generation forced to age too quickly.
Michiel (Lakemeier) is a 13 year old boy who witnesses how the Nazis took over his town. We can assume he's lost privileges he once gave for granted and now watches in horror as the German soldiers irrupt into houses and take prisoners that never return.
His father, the mayor (Thiry) has become an ornamental figure, since the Nazis take all the important decisions. Michiel sees this as a sign of weakness and chooses to set his paternal admiration on his uncle Ben (van Wageningen) a mysterious resistance member who warns the boy to stay away from any war business.
The boy isn't able to keep his promise for long when he accidentally becomes caretaker of Jack (Bower), a British pilot whose plane crashed on the outsides of Michiel's town. He finds himself not only hiding a secret that could warrant his execution but also making a symbolic Oedipal transference by acting what he thinks his father should act like.
"I take care of Jack and you shut up!" he screams at his nurse sister Erica (Klaver) when she aids in bandaging the soldier. Michiel's life gets more complicated when his father is held responsible for a crime committed by Jack, which leads to a conflict between his values and feelings.
A satisfying coming of age story, the film is shot in icy blues and whites (to evoke what was the coldest winter in Holland's history) and features some exciting action sequences including a bridge escape that's only botched by crappy editing.
The film has a hard time convincing us of what it wants to be, mostly because within its fairly conventional melodrama it fills itself with facile thrills and plot holes done on the spirit of shocking twists. Almost every action in the film occurs merely to push the action forward and not as some sort of organic succession. We often wonder why is this and this happening to these people if not to put them in perilous, exciting situations.
Fortunately Lakemeier gives an impressive performance that keeps most of the film grounded and he makes the transition of child to adult something easy to empathize with. The screenplay might try to reduce him to sentimental moments but he aptly overcomes them and becomes the movie's greatest ally.
It would've been interesting to see the director develop more the psychological implications of Michiel's forced growth and improvised maturity instead of trying so hard to be an average movie about heroes and lost innocence.

The Road **1/2

Director: John Hillcoat
Cast: Viggo Mortensen, Kodi Smith-McPhee, Charlize Theron
Robert Duvall, Molly Parker, Guy Pearce, Michael K. Williams

After an unexplained cataclysm almost destroyed the planet, a man (Mortensen) and his son (Smith-McPhee) try to survive among the last remains of humanity.
They have to hide from people who became cannibals, look for food and find a way to get to the Gulf Coast where they think they will be safe.
Along the way they encounter several characters and problematic situations that force them to analyze if staying alive is really worth the risks.
Their only weapon is a gun with two bullets which they planned to use on each other upon reaching an extreme case.
Trying hard to be more than an apocalyptic "Paper Moon" the plot worries less about the lead characters' surroundings than about their relationship and how familiar traditions like father/son dynamics might be the only things that survive doomsday.
We see as the boy tries hard to grasp the loss of a world he never knew (he was born days after the tragedy began) and how the father copes with the memory of his wife (Theron) and how she chose death over life in a decaying world.
"Each day is more gray than the day before" narrates Mortensen even if we the movie was shot in a muddy palette by Javier Aguirresarobe which gives it a sense of dirtiness which inevitably makes us think that this is done with the eventual intention of purification on director Hillcoat's part.
The movie suffers from serious tonal unbalance as it travels from road movie with thriller elements, to intimate drama without ever justifying its choices.
Its most distressing problem lies on how much it tries to be a book. The screenplay was adapted from Cormac McCarthy's award winning novel and even if you haven't read it, you know the characters and actions were extracted from a novel.
The too poetic narration for example creates a weird separation between how Mortensen's character sees the world and how he refers to it.
More than haunting verses, his storytelling hints of insanity. When these words are paired with golden flashbacks involving Theron the film drifts to a place that isn't justified emotionally by the characters but suggests two different movies were made and then pasted together.
It's good that Mortensen gives a performance with enough power to distract us from the screenplay's inconsistencies.
He gives this man a tragic soul and most of his work is done with his eyes that peek from behind a huge beard and dirt. The man doesn't need big lines to evoke loss, despair and his immense love for the child.
Smith-McPhee comes off a bit obnoxious at times, but his performance makes sense given that he clings to his father and demands him to teach him all he needs to know.
The scenes where they just eat together and share seemingly insignificant moments are the ones where the whole movie is at its best.
Sadly Hillcoat never explores elemental things like why they have fought to stay alive for so long in a world that obviously won't last long.
The repercussions of such existential questions could've sparked debates of hope and human pride, but in "The Road" they are just as mysterious as the planet's destruction.
"Whoever made humanity will not find humanity here" says an old man (played brilliantly by Duvall) and hard as it tries the same can be said about this too mechanical movie.

The Princess and the Frog **

Director: Ron Clements, John Musker

The differences between "usual" Disney princesses and the new multi-cultural approach they want to take is expressed quite clearly to us in the first scene of "The Princess and the Frog".
New Orleans seamstress Eudora (voiced by Oprah Winfrey) works on a dress for little Charlotte La Bouff (Breanna Brooks) while she tells her and her daughter Tiana (Elizabeth M. Dampier) a fairy tale.
While the perky, and white, Charlotte glows at the idea of frogs that turn into magical princes, Tiana yuks and proclaims there's no way she would ever kiss a frog.
Her dreams involve opening her very own restaurant with her father (Terrence Howard) and Disney love is something foreign to her system.
Flash forward a few years and Tiana (voiced later by Anika Noni Rose) is working as a waitress while saving to make the first down payment on her restaurant. Charlotte (voiced as an adult by Jennifer Cody) is still the same and has set her eye on the upcoming arrival of Prince Naveen of Maldovia (voiced by Bruno Campos) to become the princess she always wanted to be.
The fact that during these first few scenes we're actually suggested to think of Charlotte as some sort of antagonist- making life impossible for girls who want to work hard like Tiana- is ironic considering how the whole plot turns against itself later on.
Free spirited Naveen is transformed into a frog by evil witch doctor Facilier (Keith David) A.K.A "the Shadow Man" who has a plan to get Charlotte's father (John Goodman) wealth.
Naveen, who obviously read the fairy tale, confuses Tiana for a princess and asks her to kiss him in exchange of being granted anything she wishes for.
She does, ending up a frog herself. It's impossible not to question here if she's being punished for going against her integrity (and expecting to make her wishes come true out of magic) or because she dared think of herself as a fairy tale princess.
Soon Naveen and Tiana find themselves crossing the bayou to find Mama Odie, a witch (Jenifer Lewis) that might know how to turn them back into humans.
Along the way they befriend anthropomorphic creatures that show us-by way of Randy Newman's catchy but repetivie songs- not all reptiles and insects are nasty creatures.
Large part of the plot is shaped around the idea that we shouldn't want to be something we're not. Giant alligator Louis (Michael-Leon Wooley) wishes he could be a jazz trumpet player, while Cajun firefly Ray (Jim Cummings) is in love with a star he calls Evangeline.
Half the movie we endure a debate going on between what the film is saying literally and what it's revealing in a sub-level.

We come to understand that dreams like the one Ray has not only are impossible to achieve but are slightly delusional and it might be said that by stressing out how these predominantly African American characters endure all kinds of trouble to reach things the heroine doesn't even believe in, the filmmakers are not evolving as they suppose, but retaining traditional characteristics to assure young audiences that maybe Disney's status quo isn't so bad as it seems.
The twists have more smug-self-indulgence than wonder and while handsomely drawn and animated the film never haves the magic of 2D classics the studio delivered so proficiently during its golden age.
"It serves me right for wishing on a star" sighs Tiana, when "the only way to get what you want in this world is to work hard for it".
This might come off as a positive message on Disney's part but the movie takes such great lengths to take us to Charlotte's side, that children might just assume old studio princesses who merely wait for a prince to solve their lives are better off than poor Tiana.

The White Ribbon ****

Director: Michael Haneke
Cast: Christian Friedel, Leonie Benesch, Ulrich Tukur, Ursina Lardi
Burghart Klaußner, Steffi Kühnert, Maria-Victoria Dragus
Leonard Proxauf, Rainer Bock, Susanne Lothar
Eddy Grahl, Fion Mutert, Ernst Jacobi

Watching Michael Haneke's films is like staring into an abyss. The endless darkness exerts a force that pulls you in despite your survival instincts.
This has never been more true than in "The White Ribbon", an austere drama set in the small German village of Eichwald in the years leading to WWI, where the villagers lead the same lives their ancestors have been carrying since the nineteenth century.
Their patriarchal, conservative nature is evidenced in the way they've unofficially distributed power.
The village sprawled around the estate of the Baron (Tukur) who employs the local farmers to look after his crops. He represents the closest they have to a governmental authority (never questioned because of his nobility and economic power) with the Pastor (Klaußner) becoming the moral leader.
With the young schoolteacher (Friedel) and the doctor (Bock) rounding up the "knowledge" powers to conform a society that sounds almost feudal.
The village's normal life is altered when a series of strange accidents begin to occur. First the doctor falls from his horse and is almost killed after a wire is tied around some trees, then a woman dies on a freakish mill accident and soon after the Baron's son (Mutert) is brutally beaten.
When nobody takes responsibility for the events, everyone in the town becomes a suspect; but Haneke will not turn his film into a whodunit (the villagers actually let several incidents accumulate until they are forced to call the police) and lets the actions flow towards a shattering conclusion that explores the nature of evil.
In lesser hands such a plot would turn into an ominous, preachy account that would dissect society and rely on facile psychological explanations to point fingers.
Under Haneke's steady command it becomes an eerie study of what accounts for innocence and purity in a world that perhaps never even knew them to begin with.
The title ribbon is tied around the village's children by the Pastor to remind them of how they should resist the temptations of the flesh and fight their savage nature, but who do these kids have to look up to?
We see how behind closed doors the adults behave in ways that not only contradict what they expect of the children, but also deem the ribbons as a token of infancy dismissed upon reaching adulthood.
We're witness to how the doctor abuses his mistress (the splendid, chilly Lothar), to how the Pastor preaches about goodness but has no compassion when he beats his children and how the Baron's authority becomes null in the eyes of his wife the Baroness (Lardi).
If the adults think the children ignore all these events, then Haneke reminds us that by placing his camera in the scene we're taking on their roles; we're watching but the characters are unaware of it.
Shot in sterile black and white by the extraordinary Christian Berger, "The White Ribbon" borrows the qualities from ancient photographs that come to life only when we're not looking.
His tendency to leave the camera still makes for some beautiful shots that evoke complete stillness. A magnificent shot of the severe church only makes us wonder what might be going behind the wooden doors and the brightness of the wheat fields in another scene offers a discomforting tranquility: a creepy portrait of idyll.
Those used to Haneke's filmmaking will instantly be filled with a constant dread, the one he's used throughout his career which often musters comparisons of Hitchcock.
But unlike his other films where sudden acts of violence disrupt with shocking flashes of reality, the ones in "The White Ribbon" are of a more subdued nature.
One scene has a child balancing on the edge of a tall bridge, when the schoolteacher notices him and runs to save him we might be expecting tragedy to strike but are left dumbfounded when not only the boy is saved, but reveals that he had a purpose for his balancing act.
"I gave God a chance to kill me" he says serenely. "He didn't, so he's pleased with me" he continues revealing the theme at the film's center.
The grownups, more than the kids, are witnesses to how not only the accidents remain unpunished, but how their petty sins are forgiven too.
What's more, it's implied that they seem to think they have the moral and spiritual authority to hierarchize sin.
What future then, awaits these people and the children they're raising? When the movie begins the schoolteacher narrates (his older self voiced by the John Hurt-ish Jacobi) that the events in his town might "clarify some things that happened in this country".
The obvious path would be to say Haneke is exploring the roots of Nazism but to do so would be to undermine and limit the director's vision towards a specific point in history.
While the rise of Nazism has been universally established as one of the most evil times in human history, if we narrow our vision of good and evil towards the past wouldn't we be too behaving like the adults in the village?
This by no means suggests that Haneke is justifying the actions of the Nazis, but that his purpose isn't exclusive to the country where his film takes place in.
"The White Ribbon" isn't a morality tale and the usually ice cold director flirts with the idea of romance in a haunting love story between the schoolteacher and a young nanny (Benesch).
But just as we're ready to leave the village for good, he once again turns the tables on us with an event we saw coming but surprises us for unexpected reasons.
It's curious how despite the sense of menace that permeates the whole film, Haneke never relies on cinematic conventions. There is no musical score in the movie which makes sense-because life doesn't have musical sues ready before we encounter peril-but also because it forces us to deal with the events represented as if they were closer to us than we think.
We know that we're watching a movie, but the fact that we can't justify the wickedness coming out of it using the appeasing qualities of music or quick editing cuts has a terrifying effect.

The Secret in Their Eyes ***1/2

Director: Juan José Campanella
Cast: Ricardo Darín, Soledad Villamil, Pablo Rago, Javier Godino
Guillermo Francella, José Luis Gioia, Carla Quevedo

Retired court employee Benjamín Esposito (Darín) decides to spend his days writing a novel. The recurrent theme that comes to his head is the murder of Liliana Coloto(Quevedo) almost thirty years before. Through flashbacks we learn how his division reluctantly became involved in the brutal rape and assassination of Liliana.
How the empty leads affected his relationship with his new boss Irene (Villamil) and his alcoholic co-worker Sandoval (Francella).
How Liliana's husband Ricardo Morales (Rago) became obsessed with catching the murderer and tried to take justice in his own hands once authorities proved ineffective.
But above all it becomes the story of how Benjamín must learn to stop living in the past.
Executed with an affecting warmth by Campanella, the film is an exemplary combination of detective story and profound character study as Benjamín's narration through his flashbacks becomes an enigmatic, conflicting source.
Should we believe he's remembering things as they were or is his attachment to these memories affecting them to the point of romanticism?
In several scenes we see how the older Irene recognizes herself in the drafts and mocks Benjamín's tendency to over dramatize. Or perhaps she's also trying to tone down the obviousness of their unfulfilled love affair.
Despite this ambiguity Campanella makes his story so compelling that eventually we might not even realize that we don't really care if the murder is solved or not.
We care of course because the genre has spoiled us to expect such resolutions, but the real thrills of the movie are in watching the unstable Benjamín shape his own life.
Campanella who adapted the screenplay from the novel by Eduardo Sacheri, is at his best with the dialogues that most likely will suffer a great loss from their translation.
Each word from the flashbacks is delivered with enough pulpy wit and Argentinean oomph that again make us observe the nature between fact and fiction.
Since the flashbacks are set in the politically convoluted 1970s Campanella has a ball involving real life figures in the latter half's greatest twists and giving the antagonists a crude, almost operatic cruelty. They couldn't change a government that repulsed change.
"The Argentina that's coming isn't taught in Harvard" ejects a corrupt official as Irene and Benjamín try to grasp their recent encounter with a demon straight out of hell.
It helps greatly that Darín and Villamil have the quality to travel aimlessly through time (their makeup is a thing of naturalistic wonder) because we never lose the sense that we are watching the exact same people in both cases.
Darín's remarkable presence anchors the film in some of its most ludicrous turns , the final twist which had the potential for ridicule becomes worthy of a Greek tragedy as filtered through the actor's haunting eyes.
While Villamil's kind of sass establishes her as some sort of neo-femme fatale shaped out of Ava Gardner and Rosalind Russell. She bewitches us without even trying to.
The film is rounded up by a series of superb performances including Godino as a vicious, predatory force and the enchanting Francella who avoids making Sandoval a cliché and delivers one of the film's most alive speeches in a superb soccer discovery.
Most of all the film shines because of its insistence to hook us in any way it can. When the crime investigation becomes too dense, it throws us into a whirlwind of romance and humor.
All of this with the apparent intention to remind us that "in a novel you don't need to write the truth" and sending us home questioning what the truth even means.

A Serious Man ***

Director: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Cast: Michael Stuhlbarg, Richard Kind, Sari Wagner Lennick
Fred Melamed, Aaron Wolff, Jessica McManus, Adam Arkin

Some think the best way to say something is by not saying anything at all and this seems to have been the mindset the Coen brothers were in when they decided to make "A Serious Man".
A modern day retelling of the biblical tale of Job it shows us the countless misfortunes of Jewish college professor Larry Gopnik (Stuhlbarg) who in a few days has to deal with the fact that his wife (Lennick) wants a divorce, one of his student's (David Kang) bribe, his children's (Wolff and McManus) fights, his brother Arthur's (Kind) gambling and an annoying Columbia Records representative who won't stop phoning him.
Larry, who seeks mathematical logic in everything, doesn't seem to understand why no one has figured out the equation for the idea that the Lord works in mysterious ways and he sets out on a spiritual search from rabbi to rabbi.
As he waits for this answer to come, he just seems to be getting into more trouble which the Coens deliver with their particularly droll sense of humor.
What's interesting here, even if it sounds like a cliché, isn't the destination as much as the journey. Soon we understand that it's not only Larry on the look for an answer, but the filmmakers themselves who question the most basic notions of spirituality and religion.
Stuhlbarg as their vessel delivers a magnificent performance characterized for its serenity. We sometimes laugh at Larry, but he earns an amount of respect for facing his ordeals with such dignity.
The Coens don't just torture him, they actually accompany him in his journey and so do we, but sometimes it's in this very banal sense of anonymity attributed to Larry that we too hit an obstacle; we have to ask ourselves what makes Larry so special that his not very special tale ended up on a movie screen.
This isn't precisely a bad thing because it gives the Coens a chance to capture the ambiguity with which they also approach the Job tale. But it makes for an alienating, sometimes very frustrating, experience while watching the movie.
"A Serious Man" is the kind of film that infuriates some and elates others. Those who come to the cinema waiting for answers will get nothing, those who enjoy existential problems will have a great conversation piece and those who wonder if the Coens finally got their answer, if they knew, they'd be the rabbi.

Fantastic Mr. Fox ***1/2

Director: Wes Anderson

Few working directors have such a recognizable visual style as Wes Anderson (if that is good or bad is another matter). In "Fantastic Mr. Fox" his first foray into animation (if you don't count the strange sea creatures from "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou") he transports his unique aesthetics to a world populated by furry, anthropomorphic puppets.
Particularly Mr. Fox (George Clooney playing Danny Ocean) a former chicken thief who chose the right path and became a newspaperman after his wife Mrs. Felicity Fox (a sly Meryl Streep) became pregnant.
When his son Ash (a brilliant Jason Schwartzman) is twelve fox years old, Mr. Fox decides he's had enough of his quiet domestic life and sets to pull off one last heist.
He recruits Kylie (Wallace Wolodarsky) the superintendent opossum, and Felicity's athletic nephew Kristofferson (Eric Anderon) to rob the farms of Boggis (Robin Hurlstone), Bunce (Hugo Guinness) and Bean (Michael Gambon).
The job goes as planned but the angry farmers retaliate and plan to get rid of Mr. Fox, his family and all the neighboring animals.
This forces the charming hero to make things right and solve the sort of existential -crises-hiding-behind-entertaining-facades that Anderson has become known for.
But "Fantastic Mr. Fox" is more than "The Royal Tenenbaums" in stop motion, based on Roald Dahl's novel, the movie actually digs deeper than Anderson ever reaches with live action.
It's as if this micro world was invented just for him as he populates it with an assortment of characters, quirks and details that are a pleasure to behold.
The puppets' little coats and accessories have textures that we could stare at for hours and the stilted way of some of their movements is a shocking contrast to the relentless need of CGI to imitate real life.
Watching this movie we're supposed to know we're watching something unreal, perhaps Anderson's actual intention was to have us wonder throughout the film "how did they do that?". This is an interesting proposition because it immediately forces us to experience the wonders of childhood where even thunder was a mystery (it might be no coincidence again that Mrs. Fox is obsessed with painting thunderstorms).
The film's surrealistic nature serves Anderson because he is finally able to explore the absurdities of his characters without the selfconsciousness of actors.
He's at such balance with the animation technique that we recognize several visual keys (like Kylie's insanely funny blank eyes) from his live action films, but if he went and gave the real Bill Murray (who voices a real estate Badger here) a furry coat, the result might be just weird.
Anderson's detachment from keeping an equilibrium between what we see and how we respond gives him the chance to create one of his greatest characters in the shape of Ash; a son trying to live up to what he thinks his father expects from him.
The droll characterization of Ash-who wears a weird cape and underwear that makes his father think he's "different"-offers enough fantasy and truthfulness to make us laugh while blushing because at some level we might recognize ourselves in him.
Forget about the zany dialogues (although Anderson and Noah Baumbach made a witty adaptation), the Jarvis Cocker cameo or the intricate production design, the real wonder in "Fantastic Mr. Fox" is that when we see a puppet shed a tear we too might be getting misty eyed.