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.

I Spoke Too Soon.

This makes my previous post completely obsolete.
What the what Meryl Streep?

Two Paths.

"You can try to fight getting older, you can be like Madonna and cling to youth with your Gollum arms or you can be like Meryl Streep and embrace your age with elegance."

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.

Satiate Your Hunger.

Michael Fassbender at the NYFCC awards dinner where "Hunger" won the Best First Film award. Other than the fact that the movie is genius (it placed in my top 5 for best films of 2008) it's never a bad time to look at Fassbender.
Right?

Three Blind Mice ***1/2

Director: Matthew Newton
Cast: Ewen Leslie, Toby Schmitz, Matthew Newton
Gracie Otto, Barry Otto, Heather Mitchell, Pia Miranda
Jacki Weaver, Charles 'Bud' Tingwell, Alex Dimitriades

It's been more than sixty years since Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra played jolly sailors on leave in "Anchors Aweigh" and "On the Town". While their kind of sailor sang a song to score a date and wore a smile as they got back on their ship, the Australian navy officers in "Three Blind Mice" are far from that.
Perhaps, they too grew up watching those musicals and romanticized the idea of being a sailor which is why on their last night of leave on Sydney they plan to have the time of their lives.
We all know how it goes, they drink, they relief their six months of blue balls, they party and then go back to the ship.
Dean (Schmitz) is eager to see his fiancé Sally (Miranda) and have dinner with her parents (Otto and Mitchell). Loud mouthed Harry (Newton) wants to get it on with a "skanky" hooker and get his buddies into as much trouble as he can.
Sam (Leslie) on the other side, is contemplating going AWOL after being brutally tortured by higher rank officers.
The three friends will have a life defining night that results surprising because the movie doesn't just feel like one of those movies with "life defining nights".
The cultural background might have something to do with that, because it usually results more affecting to listen to non-Americans talk about their involvement in the Afghan invasion because unlike the USA's direct link, other countries' participation gives way to more political and ethical dilemmas.
It could also be out of the distinctive personalities Newton (who also wrote the screenplay) gives every character. Even a prostitute gets to deliver a hilarious, profound line in this movie.
But Newton's best work is with the three main characters.
Dean becomes someone trying to collect a debt out of life. Schmitz plays him with enough contempt to make us both like and feel bad for him.
Watching him try to behave with his future in-laws reveals someone absolutely lost, when we learn he's carrying something akin to a secret, his character reveals unexpected layers.
Sam has to endure the fact that he might never live up to what his mom (Weaver) expects him to be. On his night out he meets Emma (Otto) an outgoing waitress moved by his lack of confidence.
Otto and Leslie's chemistry is a joy to watch. They share a conversation that on lesser hands would've come out as painfully unnatural. With Sam, the movie asks about the navy's policies and how much is too much when enforcing the law.
It shouldn't be too much of a surprise that Newton saved the film's best character for himself. With the strange charm, and looks, of a less obnoxious and more attractive Ricky Gervais, the blond actor/writer/director establishes himself as the film's presence.
It really doesn't take much for you to figure out that this young man's involvement went beyond what we see onscreen as he's the one who moves and talks with absolute naturality, even in moments where he should be invisible.
His crassness and loudness are obvious signs of someone putting up a show to conceal something. That we never learn exactly what it is yet are enthralled by this man is just one of the many things the movie gets so right in the weirdest of ways.
The energy Newton injects into it sometimes recall an all male version of "Sex and the City"-complete with jazzy score and walks through the park at night-but within the enjoyable nature of the film there lies a profound examination of male codes of conduct and an ending that might just go and break your heart.

The Best Movie Posters of 2009.

The most striking images of 2009 were sometimes found not on the movie screen but on the theater's aisles.

While studios continued their tradition of unimaginative design for summer blockbusters (even if "Avatar"'s cliché design means bad posters aren't reserved for the hot months), weird floating heads and truly heinous use of Photoshop ("Nine" is the year's best example and my choice for worst poster of the year), some designers and marketing departments rose above the occasion to deliver graphic design pieces that would fit perfectly in your wall (some even in a museum) without having to make embarrassing fanboy justifications.

1. "Antichrist"
This Australian design for Lars von Trier's controversial masterpiece made a fuzz all over the internet for its truly genius use of design.
The actors, the director and even the film's title are downsized in comparison to the huge pair of rusty scissors that feature prominently in the film's most discussed scene.
The beauty of the poster though lies in how its effect is not completely immediate and we ponder on what would happen if those scissors closed.
More than a "Saw" for the arthouse crowd, both the movie and its stunning poster will give you chills whenever you think of them.

2. "Police, Adjective"
This Romanian New Wave dark comedy features one of the year's most chuckle-inducing poster designs. The one sheet draws your attention towards it and makes you want to come closer and read what's featured in its dictionary pages.
Like the best designs it also encompasses the entire movie in a single image.

3. "Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire"
Lee Daniels' film had one of the year's best campaigns, with each poster topping off the last one in terms of ingenious design.
While some have favored more the Saul Bass inspired one sheet I remain more partial to this impressionistic take on Precious which perfectly captures the character.
If an overweight, illiterate teenager from the Bronx was asked to paint a self portrait wouldn't it make sense she would do it with a rudimentary technique like finger paint?
It's a shame that in the movie Daniels had to stick his nose and not let the character speak for herself, in her own terms, like this poster does.
But that's another story...

4. "Broken Embraces"
What at first looks like Penélope Cruz done by Andy Warhol turns to be a fascinating symbol of the movie; it captures the colorful strokes of Pedro Almodóvar's aesthetics while winking at us on the plot's layered tragedy.
After you see the movie and notice where this image is from, the poster just takes on another level, it reminds us of art's possibility to reinvent a life.


5. "District 9"
Camouflaged in bus stops and streets all over the world, this poster probably scared the crap out of more than one person. It's clever formal design evokes the film's docudrama qualities while inviting us to learn more about what's actually going on by visiting the website.
And it doesn't even mention the film's title.

6. "In the Loop"
The year's zaniest comedy also has one of the funniest poster designs. Best of all is the tangle the string creates which on a fast look reminds you of the United Nations logo (that blue is conspicuous as well).


7. "Julie & Julia"
For a movie these days not to feature its leading stars' mugs in all of their Photoshopped glory, it either has to be an obscure indie aiming for awards recognition or a movie with balls.
Or eggs in the case of Nora Ephron's delightful movie about Julia Child and Julie Powell.


8. "Where the Wild Things Are"
Spike Jonze's adaptation of the beloved children's classic had the year's most sparse visual design and solved that eternal dilemma: how do you make tree tall monsters with horns and feathers believable?


9. "Up"
Walking past this in a theater aisle was like passing by an open window inviting us to jump out (or in?).
The brilliant movie made sure we wouldn't regret accepting the invitation.


10. "Bright Star"
Jane Campion's tale of star crossed lovers is perhaps the less original design in the list, but the image perfectly captures the visceral longing found in John Keats' and Fanny Brawne's doomed romance.
That empty space between their partly opened mouths describes the entire movie.


Which of these would you proudly hang on your wall?

Police, Adjective ****

Director: Corneliu Porumboiu
Cast: Dragos Bucur, Vlad Ivanov, Irina Saulescu, Ion Stoica
Marian Ghenea, Cosmin Selesi, George Remes, Alexandru Sabadac

The notions of lawfulness, morality and conscientiousness become the unsolved case at the center of Corneliu Porumboiu's brilliant "Police, Adjective".
Set in a small Romanian town, the film follows Cristi (Bucur) a young police officer whose latest assignment consists of following a teenager (Sabadac) tipped off as a marijuana dealer.
Convinced that the kid is innocent and that it's his dealer who should be incarcerated, Cristi spends time and resources trying to uncover something bigger; for he finds it wrong to cut a teenager's life short for smoking a joint.
"Everybody does it in Prague" he says convinced that Romania too will come to see social drug use as something common. "Maybe attitudes will change a bit but not the law" replies Nelu (Stoica) one of his coworkers .
It is with this kind of remark that director Porumboiu hints at us that his movie won't deal with the usual shenanigans associated with the police genre.
His film takes a turn towards the other kind of procedural drama: the one that deals with intellect, not instinct.
This is confirmed when we start realizing that Cristi's case isn't really going "anywhere". He follows the kid around, watches him do almost the same thing every day and then files a report (which we read in its entire glory) for his superiors.
The day to day of Cristi's job is filled with the dry sense of humor that's become a staple of the Romanian New Wave. We see as Cristi goes from department to department asking for help he sometimes won't get.
"I won't return to those files" establishes a clerk, while another one threatens "if you start that I'll do nothing at all" when Cristi suggests a deadline. It's obvious that there isn't a sense of real duty in the people performing these jobs, or is it perhaps that Cristi is making a big deal of a "lesser" case?
Cristi's sense of importance is concentrated on his thorough reports, perhaps to make up for the fact that not even he likes this job; he fills them with detail containing enough deadpan to hint at his boredom, but also reminding us that this is in fact how most police forces work.
When his literate wife (Saulescu) notices he's made a spelling mistake she corrects him while informing him of the grammatical changes effected by the Romanian Academy.
In another scene they have a cute debate over a pop song: he thinks the elaborate metaphors only hide the banality, she finds the use of symbols and images something brilliant.
Soon Cristi learns that the importance of words is essential in his profession, particularly when the law is subjected to so many grammatical conditions, like when his suspect becomes a "distributor" for sharing his hashish with his friends.
Porumboiu doesn't choose the subtle way and gives us a dialectical lesson using a dictionary in the film's most controversial scene.
When Cristi finally faces Captain Anghelache (the intimidating Ivanov) and is forced to choose between his own moral law and being a police officer.
Some will find the obviousness of the scene an insulting piece of facile didacticism as the director even includes a blackboard while Ivanov's character becomes an elementary school student's worst nightmare and reduces the other adults in the scene to dunces.
Those more willing to follow the movie's sly game will come to realize that this is in fact where the director had been leading us and Cristi all along.
Throughout the first three quarters of the movie we see how this man's world has turned into a cell he carries everywhere. This is hinted visually by always showing him through fences, surrounded by door frames, hallways and even confined by his own pullover.
Cristi's existential battle during most of the film is the equivalent of a prison stay to be solved in the last scene's unofficial sentencing.
"You no longer know what you are, that's your problem" says Captain Anghelache. He might very well be talking about a world where the law and humanity no longer go hand in hand.