Films I have watched Recently

Elegy (2008)Isabel Coixet




Rachel Getting Married (2008) Johnathan Demme



Two Lovers (2008) James Gray

Bienvenue Chez Les Ch'tis

Philippe Abrams is manager of the post office in Salon-de-Provence. He is married to Julie, whose depressive nature makes his life impossible. To please her, Philippe tries to obtain a transfer to the Cote d'Azur. But is, instead, transferred to Bergues, a small town in the North.

For the Abrams, very prejudiced southerners, the North is a nightmare, a freezing region, inhabited by uncouth beings, spluttering out an incomprehensible language, 'cheutimi'. Philippe goes alone. To his great surprise, he discovers a charming place, a warm bunch and welcoming people and makes a friend: Antoine, the postman and village bell-ringer. When Philippe returns to Salon, Julie refuses to believe that he likes it in the North. She even thinks that he is lying so as not to upset her. To please her and to make his life easier, Philippe makes her believe that actually, his life in Bergues is hell. But when Julie decides to move to Bergues, Philippe must either tell the truth, or keep deceiving her. Showing exclusively at Cine Lumiere in South Kensington from 1st April 2008.



very theatrical, exaggerated acting. Good film, but the editing wasn't the best.

Kelly Reichardt

Old Joy (2006)



Wendy and Lucy (2008)



reichardt interview

Let's Talk About the Rain (2008)

written and directed by Agnes Jaoui. French film exploring relationships, politics, and the weather.

(Caos Calmo) Quiet Chaos- Antonio Luigi Grimaldi (2008)

Italian film portraying a man's response to his wife's death. Quietly humorous, simultaneously sad, it explores how a father and daughter cope with their sudden bereavement, uncovering the public expectations of grief and the actual individual reactions to death. There were a few subplots thrown in, with attention also being drawn to the absurd demands and consequences of business deals, and the relationships between the parties involved in death and mergers. The film has quite a psychological approach, and sometimes views as a therapy session outside of the doctor's office.

Buddha Collapsed Out of Shame (2007)

Directed by Hana Makhmalbaf. Iranian film about a young girl who wants to go to school.

La Jetee- Chris Marker

I watched this the other day, and had never seen anything like it before. In a way, it reminded me of delicatessen by Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet, but probably only due to the subject matter.

Set in underground post-apocalyptic Paris, la jetee is a photographic story following the time-travel experiments exercised on a prisoner of the surviving population of the french capital.

Here it is in full on youtube, and the trailer to delicatessen.

Beautiful Losers

Killer of Sheep

Killer of Sheep- Charles Burnett

Trailer


From www.ifi.ie

CHARLES BURNETT’S LONG-UNSEEN 1977 PORTRAIT OF WORKING-CLASS L.A. RANKS AS THE GREATEST AMERICAN INDEPENDENT FEATURE EVER MADE—AND DON’T JUST TAKE OUR WORD FOR IT, SINCE THE U.S. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS LISTED IT IN THEIR TOP 50 FILMS WORTHY OF PERMANENT PRESERVATION.

Shot over weekends on a micro-budget with a cast of friends and acquaintances, Burnett’s film school graduation project won much acclaim on the festival circuit on initial showings, only to fall into obscurity because he couldn’t afford the music he’d used from Earth Wind & Fire, Paul Robeson and others. Now that’s been taken care of (thanks in part to generous admirer Steven Soderbergh donating half the $150,000 licensing fees from his own pocket), this modern classic is ready to find the audience it has deserved all along.

Think 'The Bill Douglas Trilogy’ and ‘The Terence Davies Trilogy’ and you’re in the same terrain as this heartfelt encapsulation of the quotidian grind, narrow horizons and fleeting pleasures experienced by these hard-pressed ordinary folk. Burnett’s camera captures fragments of their dreams and schemes, kids at play in the low-rent neighbourhood, and sexuality as a refuge—a series of moments, significant in their seeming insignificance, rather than a conventional storyline. Yet the wonderful, instinctive editing interweaves a succession of old blues and pop numbers to bring out Burnett’s overriding message about black America’s soulful creativity being forged by its people’s history of hardship—an ongoing history manifested by the raw yet symbolic scenes of an abattoir slaughterman at work to the strains of Dinah Washington’s ‘This Bitter Earth’. Essential viewing, make no mistake.—Trevor Johnston.

Clips




A subtle film that mostly avoids the stereotypical portrayal of african-american ghettos by approaching its environments in a somewhat nonchalant rather than nihilistic or defeatist way. Although it shows a family's struggle to make ends meet, it never fails to interject humor into tragedy, a trait which this cinematic style seems to suggest it shares with its subject.

The subject of this film reminded me of a movie I watched a few months ago called Caramel - the lebanese name is Sukkar Banat - filmed in 2007, and the first feature film by Nadine Labaki. Set in Beirut, it depicts the lives of a group of women, exploring their sexuality, societal roles and their images, which have obvious conflicts between the traditional and the new (Western ideals play a huge part in this). Although stylistically very different from Killer of Sheep, it manages to carry a similar message: one of humble resolve in the midst of a society confronted with prominent ideological issues.