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Reviews
Syostry (2001)
A slow-paced but touching film about survival in modern Russia
Directed by gangster movie heartthrob Sergei Bodrov Junior, this might be expected to be a shoot-'em up gangster caper movie. It isn't - in very Russian fashion, it's more about characters and issues than shooting, and while there are a couple of violent incidents, the pace is slow and the tone solemn.
The two sisters at the centre of the film - thirteen year old Sveta, poor and abandoned by her father, who longs to go off and be a sniper in the army, and spoilt eight-year old Dina, doted on by her gangster father - represent two very different aspects of modern Russia: the old, poor but moral; the young, cynical and money-obsessed. Sveta lives in a shabby home with her grandmother. Dina gets to live in a lavish apartment with their mother, and goes off to violin lessons. Not surprisingly, there's no love lost between the two.
But adversity, in the form of gang rivals on the search of some missing money and with few scruples about how to get their hands on it, throws the two together, plunging them into the Dickensian world of Russia's underground - dangerous and uncertain - and makes them value each other more than they ever have before. A couple of very naturalistic performances from the two makes this a fine, touching film.
Redball (1999)
A gritty, gripping thriller about policing in Australia.
A gritty, gripping thriller, Redball is set in the morally ambivalent world of a group of police officers in Australia. A blackly comic running gag is typical: a dead body, floating in the water, is ignored several times by officers who want to avoid the tedious paperwork involved in fishing it out. Meanwhile, a serial killer is on the loose, the Vice Squad are busy shaking down the porn merchants, and the guys of the Drug Squad are ready to overlook the possession of a couple of joints by some young girls in exchange for sexual favours. The members of the public are no better, showing an unhealthy fascination with the grisly details of the serial killer. Even J J Wilson (Belinda McClory), a dedicated officer who wants to track down the man who is murdering young children, is not above breaking the law to get results. But the pressure of her job is getting to her - and the internal politics which threaten to undermine her work.
Shot on digital video, the picture quality is sometimes visibly inferior to film; on the other hand, it gives the story an immediate, natural feel that is perfect for this intense narrative. With a driving music score and pacy, effective editing, Redball is an excellent, compelling film.
Karnaval (1999)
A charming film three people in the Dunkirk carnival.
A charming, sometimes funny film about a young Arab man on his way to Marseilles who gets caught up in the carnival in Dunkirk, where everyone lets their hair down and the normal rules of behaviour are waived for a while. He falls in love with Bea, a young woman who is torn between her attraction to the handsome young stranger and Christian, her husband. Some moments of visual splendour adorn a simple tale about the foolish little things we do in our lives.
A Texas Funeral (1999)
An entertaining but overwrought exercise in American Baroque
An entertaining but overwrought exercise in American Baroque, the best way to describe this film is to say that it begins in David Lynch territory, rambles through Tennessee Williams country, and was last seen heading dangerously close to Waltons Mountain. Set in Texas in the late 1960s, the plot - dark secrets emerge when a family gathers for a family funeral - is hardly original, and while the Texan self-image comes in for some welcome satire, the cosy self-satisfied way in which the whole thing is tied up at the end would have a serious dramatist like Tennessee Williams spinning in his grave. Martin Sheen is much too decent to play the wicked old patriarch, and while any film that includes Joanne Whalley, ear-sucking, and camels can't be entirely bad, this is not a good advertisement for any of them.
100 años de perdón (1998)
A likeable but unoriginal caper movie.
This film is basically a caper movie about four men who plan to rob a bank, only to discover that the bankers have got there already, and the vaults are almost empty. It references 'Dog Day Afternoon' but is altogether too similar to that film to be truly original. Shot in Venezuela, this film was very popular with the local audience, but to viewers in other countries, unaware of the background to the film - many banks actually did have to close because of collusion between corrupt bankers and politicians - the film will have much less impact. None of this background is properly explained - presumably because the Venezuelan audience would take it mostly for granted. The acting is fine and it would have been nice to see some of the characters further developed, but there are too many neat contrivances and plot holes. (Why are the phones turned off, but not the power, so that the bankrobbers can still use the computers?) The script tries to be liberal, with one sympathetic gay character, but when one of the robbers gets shot ... guess which one?
Dumbarton Bridge (1999)
Fairly awful film about a Vietnam veteran and his past.
I found this a great disappointment, despite a fine jazz score and some excellent landscape cinematography. It's about John Shed, a black Vietnam veteran who is suddenly confronted by his past when the daughter he fathered and then abandoned in Vietnam suddenly arrives in the US. Shed's reaction is to sulk silently for most of the picture, as he fails to deal with the issues of his wartime past. The acting is sometimes poor, the script full of clichés (Including the mandatory scene where one character, disliking something he has heard on the phone, holds the receiver away from himself and stares at it. How often do you do that?) and the film's low budget origins are painfully obvious. Several scenes were spoiled by the boom being well in shot (though this was partly the fault of bad projection). The contrast between the lovely exterior shots and the banal interiors makes it look as if they're actually shot by two different people. Having a central character who is basically inarticulate is a recipe for a long, wearisome movie. At one point, Shed attends a sort of encounter group for black men, and as he speaks, talking about his wartime experiences, the film almost takes off - but then it fizzles out. Meanwhile the complex relationships between Shed, his white girlfriend, his daughter, and her Vietnamese friends and family, barely begin to be examined in this frankly dull film.
Qaamarngup uummataa (1998)
A moving film about culture and identity in Greenland.
Rasmus, an Inuit-speaking Greenlander, is regarded by most people as a drunken failure. When his son goes on a suicidal shooting spree, he has to cope with the shame this brings on his family. He goes on a journey into the depths of Greenland and finds out a lot about himself and his past. I was afraid this was going to be a pretentious film, but with strong performances, a fine score, and some excellent footage of the starkly beautiful landscapes of Greenland, I found it a moving experience. Not everyone will like its mixture of realistic drama and fantasy, nor the neatly-contrived screenplay, but for anyone who can relate to its central theme - the difficulty of maintaining one's own cultural identity in the face of another dominant culture and the technology of the modern world, it is a thought-provoking and ultimately uplifting film.
18 Shades of Dust (1999)
A fine performance by Danny Aiello lost in a sea of clichés.
This was a disappointing film. Danny Aiello gives his usual fine performance, but the script foundered in a sea of Mafia clichés, lame sub-Tarantino dialogue, rambling and unnecessary voiceovers, and sophomoric speculations about religion.