This film will please both the entertainment crowd and the arty guys like me. There is always tension, there is good acting, some sex, great special effects (the air strikes are, well ... striking). But there is also accurate historical reconstruction: this is a film to be seen by those who enjoyed the book "Stalingrad" by Antony Bevor, and the lesser known "The Betrayed Army" (a book of memoirs by one of the few survivors. In it you will find the story of father and son both soldiering in Stalingrad, which briefly appears in the film also). And yes, Nikita Kruschof did serve as a commanding political commissar during the battle of Stalingrad (to answer a previous review). I like to find hidden references to other films, and in this case the titles which came to my mind were "Stalker" by Tarkosky (the setting, the un-sentimental respect for human suffering), "Blade Runner" (the setting, again), maybe Sam Pekinpah's films (the depiction of death), American Westerns (the ending of the film).
Reviews
6 Reviews
The Ignorant Fairies
(2001)
The strange interplay between sexual desire and affection (and many other stories)
18 April 2001
Film making is not about bringing together photography and theater, but painting and music. So said Robert Bresson, and Turkish director (but living and working in Italy) Ferzan Ozpetek shows how this is possible. Anna (a young and rich widow living a sheltered life, admirably played by Margherita Bui) discovers her deceased husband (with whom she was truly in love) had a gay lover. She traces this man, and discovers a whole world she had not dreamed of - just a few kilometers from home. She mourns her marriage for the second time, and is both repulsed and attracted by the former lover and his friends (living in a semi-incredible commune which FerzanOzpetek creates and describes in flourishing details). In the end she accepts this separate reality, discovering it inside herself as well as outside.
At the beginning I was fascinated by the technical talents of Ferzan Ozpetek, and how he interprets other directors without actually copying them: the general atmosphere of the gay commune reminds me of Pedro Almodovar (the costumes, for example, and the terrace in Rome like the one in Madrid in Women on the verge of nervous breakdown). The way of picturing the streets of this old, lower-class area of Rome reminded me of Mario Martone and his film L'amore Molesto. By the time I realized the biggest debt is to Julian Shnabel's Before Night Falls I was so much into the film that I did not care any more, and simply let myself being carried away by the magic of emotions. At the end I left the cinema totally dazzled. (There is a brief scene when Antonio is looking for condoms and unexpectedly finds a poetry book which for me is worth many a therapy sessions discussing sex and affection).
I cannot guarantee that this will happen to you as well, but you are certain to see a film full of art, by that rare director who established himself (Turkish Bath was his first film) not by marketing savvy but by word-of-mouth from casual viewers becoming enthusiastic supporters.
By the way: the connection with Before Night Falls is clear in two points. Both films surprise viewers with emotional documentary footage when the ending titles are showing. Here it is about the year 2000 Gay Pride march in Rome (a national confrontation after the Vatican and the left-wing prime minister tried to have it banned or moved somewhere else).
The second point is even more clear: in both films there is a scene (and a very moving one) where soft, melancholic music is used (apparently out of context) under footage of a loud and roaring party. In Le Fate Ignoranti the two main characters look at each other with romantic longing - while both are engaged (actively or passively) in overtly sexual courting with other partners. Loneliness hidden in apparent merriment is exactly what Shnabel wanted to show, as well.
At the beginning I was fascinated by the technical talents of Ferzan Ozpetek, and how he interprets other directors without actually copying them: the general atmosphere of the gay commune reminds me of Pedro Almodovar (the costumes, for example, and the terrace in Rome like the one in Madrid in Women on the verge of nervous breakdown). The way of picturing the streets of this old, lower-class area of Rome reminded me of Mario Martone and his film L'amore Molesto. By the time I realized the biggest debt is to Julian Shnabel's Before Night Falls I was so much into the film that I did not care any more, and simply let myself being carried away by the magic of emotions. At the end I left the cinema totally dazzled. (There is a brief scene when Antonio is looking for condoms and unexpectedly finds a poetry book which for me is worth many a therapy sessions discussing sex and affection).
I cannot guarantee that this will happen to you as well, but you are certain to see a film full of art, by that rare director who established himself (Turkish Bath was his first film) not by marketing savvy but by word-of-mouth from casual viewers becoming enthusiastic supporters.
By the way: the connection with Before Night Falls is clear in two points. Both films surprise viewers with emotional documentary footage when the ending titles are showing. Here it is about the year 2000 Gay Pride march in Rome (a national confrontation after the Vatican and the left-wing prime minister tried to have it banned or moved somewhere else).
The second point is even more clear: in both films there is a scene (and a very moving one) where soft, melancholic music is used (apparently out of context) under footage of a loud and roaring party. In Le Fate Ignoranti the two main characters look at each other with romantic longing - while both are engaged (actively or passively) in overtly sexual courting with other partners. Loneliness hidden in apparent merriment is exactly what Shnabel wanted to show, as well.
Svadba
(2000)
Sad and entertaining at the same time.
18 January 2001
The same theme as "A Wedding" by Robert Altman, but with the much sadder social context of contemporary Russia. Communism might be finished (notwithstanding the odd hammer and sickle still showing here and there), but the quality of life of the people has not improved - with the only exception of mafia-stile capitalists. Towards the end of the film the chief of police says excitedly: "I AM BACK !", and this might be the sad reflection of the author on the future of the country (not necessarily back to Communism, that is, but to an authoritarian regime of sort).
And still, the people maintain a sort of desperate cheerfulness - made of jokes, drinking, music, dancing and sex. If you liked "Black Cat, White Cat" by Emir Kusturica (or the wedding scene in Underground) you will like this film.
And still, the people maintain a sort of desperate cheerfulness - made of jokes, drinking, music, dancing and sex. If you liked "Black Cat, White Cat" by Emir Kusturica (or the wedding scene in Underground) you will like this film.
Dancer in the Dark
(2000)
Disappointment.
23 November 2000
I was very disappointed by this film. I read so many enthusiastic reviews in this site that I was expecting a masterpiece. Instead, I found a stagy, crafted product which failed to take me inside the story. The (many) people who were impressed must have been either Bjorg fans (who would have liked the film anyway) or newcomers to cinema. The handheld camera was used by Kubrik ages ago (in A Clockwork Orange, in the scene of the killing of the joga lady). A Belgian film - Rosette - is all built around an handheld camera, but tells a story at the same time more credible and more moving than this one. The sepia colors were first seen (by me at least) in Tarkosky's Stalker, and that must have been twenty years ago (and with a very different artistic sense). Has anybody seen Kieslowsky's A Short Film about Killing (Dekalog 5)? If the answer is yes, than Von Trier's work must look much less original. This film confirms to me that Von Tryer is a turgid, heavy director with a strong technical talent, but who makes up for lack of deep human sensibility with an extremely intellectual language - one which he has often borrowed from others.
Before Night Falls
(2000)
Cinema as a piece of art.
18 November 2000
This is an extraordinary film - of the dreamy and experimental kind but with a harsh and realistic story to tell. The real life of Cuban writer Reynaldo Arenas is showed from childhood in rural Cuba to death in New York in 1990, passing through his initial joining of Fidel Castro's revolutionaries and later his being persecuted for his homosexuality and for the anti-conformist writing he smuggled abroad. However much political the film might seem (and it is political, with documentary shots and bits of Castro's speeches interwoven), the real subject is loneliness. The language is poetic much more than ideological. Childhood dramas, the initiation to sexuality, the struggle with society and the estrangement of exile and disease come out not as statements but as high impact emotions - so much the stronger as the viewer is caught off guard. This is where cinema becomes art, where the emotions do not come from the plot alone but directly from the images and sounds. A brief, baroque party in a desecrated church, for example (with music, dancing, sex and alcohol - next to an hot air balloon ready to take off for Florida) becomes a fascinating hymn to rebellion - by force of colors and actors' faces alone. The cut is provocative, exaggerated and unusual all the way to the final credits, shots being put together apparently out of context, but then suddenly clicking into sense. A view of a powerful waterfall - for example - turns into rain in the woods in Cuba - over a voice reading a piece from Arenas. As Arenas is ill in New York, shots are alternated of the decaying sea front of La Habana and the seediest parts of his new city.
The music is in Kubrick's style: witness a melancholic piece of classical music played over a scene of betrayal and seduction in a night club where people are dancing to the tune of salsa. Other parallels which come to mind are "Nick's Movie" (Arenas' final disease) and "Kiss of the Spider Woman" (Arenas' nasty prison term in La Habana). The "magic realism" of Latin American literature is an obvious source of inspiration (Josè Lezama Lima is himself one of the characters of the film, with several other contemporary Cuban writers and intellectuals). One last point: why is this film on show in far away Italy (where it received a prize at the Venice Film Festival) and nowhere else?
The music is in Kubrick's style: witness a melancholic piece of classical music played over a scene of betrayal and seduction in a night club where people are dancing to the tune of salsa. Other parallels which come to mind are "Nick's Movie" (Arenas' final disease) and "Kiss of the Spider Woman" (Arenas' nasty prison term in La Habana). The "magic realism" of Latin American literature is an obvious source of inspiration (Josè Lezama Lima is himself one of the characters of the film, with several other contemporary Cuban writers and intellectuals). One last point: why is this film on show in far away Italy (where it received a prize at the Venice Film Festival) and nowhere else?
One Hundred Steps
(2000)
A politicized - psychoanalytic view of the Mafia.
29 September 2000
A very careful reconstruction of a real episode developing in Sicily from the '50s to the '70s. The film has the pace and the political idealism of "Z" by Costa Gavras. Americans might be interested to see the Mafia depicted in its Italian home-base, and relations between the (poorer, but more "original") Sicilian Mafiosi and their American counterparts / relations. This is a film on the protesting youth of the '70s, as well, with a lot of music like in the THE BIG CHILL. In Italy the film has been much discussed for its Mafia theme, but underneath there is a lot of family psychology.
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