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Reviews
O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)
What movie-making is all about
Where would we be without the Coen brothers? Well, Prozac sales would be up for sure! Oh Brother... is a wonderful tale that offers up a hilarious antidote to the classic Steinbeck view of 30s America.
The dialogue manages to deliver wit through bathos and sharp visual humour through slapstick - no mean feat that. The movie is not just buoyed along by the amazing soundtrack, it is propelled by it.
I saw this film on a long-haul plane trip and then watched it all over again on the way back - it was even better the second time. If you don't get this movie, you probably don't get much at all.
I give Homer 9, Ethan and Joel 10.
Face/Off (1997)
Truly risible
This takes a notion that has been used in movies before - that it is possible for someone someone to take on the form of another through various forms of mutilation (e.g. Silence of the Lambs or LA Confidential), but elevates it to the central premise.
The CIA, their wonders to behold, have developed a level of technology capable of transforming John Travolta into the perfect image of Nicholas Cage. This may seem just a tad far-fetched to those of us who recall that the same organisation thought that the best way of deposing Castro was to offer him an exploding cigar (perhaps they were getting Karl Marx muddled up with Groucho).
Anyway, with this huge hole in the middle of the plot this turkey could never hope to get off the ground.
If you believe that it really was Santa who bought you that pair of funky snowman socks for Xmas, that aliens supplied the blueprints to Rameses I or that Jim Carey is a comic genius - you'll love this one.
The Servant (1963)
Fantastic casting
What a wonderful idea to cast Dirk Bogarde and Sarah Miles against James Fox and Wendy Craig - the subversives against the establishment. Bogarde's predatory gay character and the libidinous Miles are pitched against a couple whose only reason for being together seems to be upper class conventionality. Showing absolutely no moral qualms, Bogarde and Miles go about opening up a fissure between them and supplanting their social superiors and taking over control of the house in which Bogarde is (ostensibly) the butler.
Tight cinematography helps to keep this movie on the edge all the way through.
A minor British masterpiece.
8/10
Mediterraneo (1991)
A European view of Mediterraneo
The outline of this film appears in other postings, so I will just add my two drachma by way of critical appraisal. In case you are in any doubt, Mediterraneo ranks in my best three ever - a magnificent film. If you never see it, part of your life will have been unlived.
Mediterraneo epitomises the difference between Hollywood and the demands of a largely US audience and the subtler approach of the European director/writer who seeks simply to express him/herself through the medium. I read two reviews in the Washington Post both of which managed to misunderstand the film completely, one going so far as to characterise the cast as "Marx Brothers". In fact, they are probably the finest ensemble of characters I have ever seen in film - a completely disparate group of individuals who nearly all manage to find spiritual (and sexual) fulfulment in the sensuality of Aegean island life.
The film is multi-layered and, the more obvious ones, such as the powerful anti-war message and the venality of post-Fascist Italy are often mentioned. But no-one has ever picked up on the phrase "una face, una race" which is repeated throughout the film. This is the nostrum that Italians and Greeks have a common Mediterranean heritage (come on Washington Post hacks - didn't the title give you a clue?) and that there is an enormous irony in the Italians - who rightly pride themselves on the antiquity of their civilisation - seeking to subdue another culture whose origins are 2000 years older.
This is underlined by the easy participation of the soldiers in both high and low Greek culture, .....the painting of the frescoes in the church (n.b. the Orthodox Church predating the Holy Roman Empire by centuries - clever eh!) and the wonderful unifying theme of football, which only a European or South American viewer could truly appreciate.
The group's ambivalent attitude to sexual mores adds to the sense of the place as essentially a home for Greco-Roman sensuality - a fact which is gloriously exposed with the later juxtaposition of our band of heroes with the starched British Royal Navy officers who arrive to remove them from the island.
I have not seen any mention in other reviews of the beautiful cadence of the Italian dialogue - as lilting as the bazouki music which accompanies much of the film.
The sense of disillusionment that takes over the film at the end is very powerful and it is no accident that Salvatore shows us the Lieutenant returning to the island on a ferry full of burnt-pink tourists.
This is a film that can only truly be appreciated if you have a feeling for, and understanding, of European culture. This is a film for grown-ups.
Mediterraneo demonstrates that though box-office grosses for European films are small (unless it is something produced explicity for a US audience, like the truly dreadful Four Weddings) our directors have managed to stay true to their craft.
If there are not enough car chases or shoot outs for you, look out for the five-star ratings in the Washington Post.
Fact 1: Only 10% of Americans possess a passport: Fact 2: None of them review for the Washington Post.