madalina_roca Reviews

Fight Club (1999)

Mayhem in the Streets

[10/10 · 25 August 2010]

Fight Club is a straight in the face, brutal allegory to the contemporary society.Edward Norton plays the role of an average American who lives in the invisible cage of capitalism trying to complete himself by buying CK T-shirts, yin-yang coffee tables, etc.- he is 'the by-product of a life style obsession'. He considers himself a self-made man , not knowing that his life is beyond his control, mastered by corporations. He suffers from insomnia and the only way of getting some peace of mind is by attending certain groups with terminal diseases9 tuberculosis, testicular cancer, etc.)His life changes when he meets white trash Marla and Tylor Durden.

The script is based on Chuck Palahniuck book, Fight Club, a novel that was at first rejected because it was considered too dark and too risky. It is an innovating film, Fincher uses slow motion, freeze frame shots and jump cuts. It is one of the most original and mind challenging movies of the 20th century, a strange experiment that turned out to be a masterpiece.

The Wasp's Nest (1987)

La Comédie humaine

[10/10 · 20 July 2010]

'Nest of Wasps', the film version of Alexandru Kiritescu's play is one of the greatest Romanian comedies which displays the the entire human typology of the beginning of the 20th century in Romania. The cast is absolutely great, some of the greatest Romanian actors manage to recreate the charm of the superficial life during those days.

The wasps are three sisters that are trying to relive their youth and although they are unkind, rude, selfish and superstitious, achieve their goal- they present the funny side of death. The film is a verbal and visual satire of the middle class (the bourgeoisie) in a time when Bucharest was known as 'The Little Paris from the East".

Barfly (1987)

Whiskey on the rocks

[10/10 · 15 February 2010]

'I don't know where the whores are going, where the black pimps are going, where music is going but my idea in life is that where the black pimps are, where the pimps are, where the music is playing, where the lights are on, that's where life is....I think degradation, black pimps, prostitution are the flowers of the Earth.' Bukowski used to say. Grandma Moses,the old murderer, the drinkers at the Golden Horn, Wanda, Henry those are representatives of the world in which Charles Bukowski used to live in Los Angeles, California. It's a kind of subterranean life, not most of us are aware of. Barfly is a semi-autobiography of C. Bukowski, the script was written by the poet. M. Rourke is brilliant here. He had to study Bukowski from He used The Charles Bukowski Tapes, a documentary directed by the same Barbet Schroeder, to analyze the writer's gestures and intonation. Just like in Arizona Dreaming, Faye Dunaway gives a wonderful performance as Wanda Wilcox.

Overall, Barfly is a wonderful study of bohemian life. If ' Days of Wine and Roses','The Last Weekend', 'Leaving Las Vegas' show the dark aspects of alcoholism, the seriousness of it,Schroeder looks at the issue without prejudices. You will enjoy the movie, especially if you are into Charles Bukowski's short stories and poems.

The Oak (1992)

Shouting in a deaf world

[10/10 · 2 February 2010]

Lucian Pintilie's movie , Balanta, is probably the milestone of Romanian cinematography.. The movie depicts a piece of the cruel reality of the communist era in Romania.Pintilie redefines normality. The two characters, Mitica and Nela challenge the communist way of thinking and the rottenness and degradation of humanity under dictatorship. They are shouting in a silent world.

The tragic aspect of reality- the grey Romania filled with beggars, rapers; the death of Titi, the Utopian; the polluted city- is somehow balanced by its very opposite. The Romanian man is portrayed as optimistic, always enjoying life and a glass of red wine, finding his refuge in songs and laughter.

The end of the movie is fascinating. The last scene, the oak scene( a metaphor for the beginning of the world and a symbol of the Romanian resistance, shows the couple- Mitica and Nela planning to give birth to a child. A good movie!

Babel (I) (2006)

The Tower of Babel

[10/10 · 28 January 2010]

Watching Innaritu's Babel was a mesmerizing experience. The movie, as its title suggests, deals with the inability to communicate. This lack of communication is caused by problems on many levels: the political and social level- globalization and immigration; linguistic level- the inability to communicate caused by the different languages the characters speak- Spanish, English, Japanese,sign language; emotional level- lack of understanding and empathy.

Babel follows the same non-linear storytelling as Innaritu got us used to in 21 grams and Amores Perros. Innaritu manages to weave a complex story out of four story lines. Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett's performances were excellent as usual, Adriana Barraza is absolutely great in her nanny role, especially in the desert scene, crying for help in her teared red dress. But Rinko Kikuchi was sublime playing the young, deaf Japanese girl. She managed to convey a range of emotion no words could have expressed. She shows the isolation and loneliness of the modern man living in an artificial town. She is unable to reveal herself because she is seen as a monster due to her deafness. Through her gestures( touching hands, taking off her panties) she displays her craving for human contact and understanding. Nudity in her case is the ultimate gesture of disclosure,the desperate act of making herself visible.

Amores Perros (2000)

dog-eat-dog world

[10/10 · 4 January 2010]

Amores Perros( Love's a Bitch)is probably the best Latin-American film I have ever seen. Just like 21 grams and Babel, Amores Perros has a non-linear structure, just like a puzzle. The movie tries to decipher the contemporary Mexican society, interweaving two worlds- the world of the poor, dealing with hunger, anger and street violence , and another world- the capitalist one dealing with models, TV shows, about phones, and so on and so forth. El Chivo, the ex-guerrilla, is the character who connects the two different worlds. He gave up a wealthy life as a bourgeois when he joined the Sandanistas because he wanted to create a better world for the poor.

Although the film's distribution was delayed in certain countries owing to the violence in the dog-fighting scenes, I believe those were absolutely necessary because they act as metaphors for the rotten Mexican society and also show the way in which human relationships work ( the violence of love).

The dogs are the embodiment of their owners, showing the cancerous kernel, displaying the dog-eat-dog attitude of the modern Mexican society.

Zorba the Greek (1964)

Life is what you make it

[10/10 · 20 December 2009]

A wonderful movie indeed.....Alexis Zorbas is the story of a rare friendship between an intellectual( Basil) and Zorba the Greek, a genuine experienced man. His wisdom, his spiritual approach to life worths much more than Basil's philosophy and studies because Zorba has lived every minute of his life to the full. The characters are well built , Alan Bates has a beautiful role as the writer that is finally initiated and learns that there is life in life, Anthony Quinnprobably played the role of his life managing to embody a complex character., the stunning performance of Lila Ketrova as Madame Hortense, the dying old prostitute takes your breath away and , finally, Irene Papas' impressive performance, displaying various emotions, more than 1000 words could.

What I enjoyed the most was the metaphor of the dance, the mystic dance that reminded me of the Dionysian rituals, a celebration of life and the mystic way of accepting death and failure. The bond between the writer and the simple man comes to be strengthened once more by the final dance reconciliating and bringing peace into the characters' minds.

Dreams (1990)

Vivid Paintings

[10/10 · 31 July 2009]

'Dreams' is not a typical Hollywood movie. Some have even said that it is too artistic. Isn't cinematography all about that? For those that want to see fights or car races, I would strongly recommend not to watch this one.

The first two sequences( Sunshine through the Rain and The Peach Orchard) with A. Kurosawa as a little boy. These are related to values, traditions, myths taken from the Japanese culture. They explore themes like the freedom of taking decisions, the difference between the purity of a child and the responsibility of a grown up. The two sequences are visually pleasing.

The Crows(my favorite) segment shows a young artist completely moved by the paintings of Van Gogh. This segment is about perception, evaluation, interpretation, becoming one with art.

In The Crying Demon the characters seem to have been taken from Dante's Inferno. The sequence presents the disastrous effects of war. From a visual point of view, dark colors were used in order to sketch the negative attitude. The movie couldn't have had a more beautiful ending. Village of the Watermills brings back the innocent attitude from the beginning. The sequence presents the communion with nature and it celebrates the cycle of life. 10/10

Broken Flowers (2005)

Delivering flowers

[8/10 · 27 July 2009]

'Broken Flowers' is the story of Don Johnston (Bill Murray), a man we don't know to many things about. On the day his girlfriend (Julie Delpy) leaves him, hr finds out from an anonymous letter that 19 years before he fathered a child. Don sets off on a personal journey, dragged in the action by Winston (Jeffrey Wright). His goal ( if we can talk about a goal here) is to find the author of the letter by visiting his former partners. First of all we meet Laura ( Sharon Stone), a widow and the mother of Lolita who certainly deserves the name of Nabokov's character. Then we meet Dora, the real estate woman which has settled with Ron;Carmen follows, the reserved animal communicator, and finally the beautiful Penny(Tilda Swinton), a biker who doesn't seem very to encounter Don. These women-characters emphasize Don's confusion.

The role of the apathetic, jaded was especially created for Murray, nobody could have done it better. What Jarmusch wanted to depict here is the way in which people connect in our modern society. The puzzle, the mystery of the unknown son is only on the surface, that is why the movie leaves us with unanswered questions.

If you enjoyed this one, you should check up Lost in Translation and you will find the same Murray wandering through life, oddly communicating with others.

Adaptation. (2002)

Great actors

[8/10 · 6 January 2008]

This is a great movie if we take into consideration the first hour. Yes, we have all understood that the end of the movie was supposed to be a satire of the Hollywood type....the two brothers working together and giving different views upon the subject....but...I think that's what spoils its beauty. Anyway, Nicholas Cage does a great job and proves to be a great actor playing both the bold, sad, shy Charlie Kaufman and the eccentric, a bit silly, always laughing Donald Kaufman. Meryl Streep is absolutely great in the first part of the movie but....what a change in the second part.....the quiet, soft, sad Susan Orlean transforming into a psychotic killer? C'mon! Anyway, the director did a great job, the first 15 minutes are absolutely great and new for the cinema. I have never seen such a great sequence showing the appearance of life on earth, the world at its beginnings.

Eros (2004)

The Tale Tail And Wong Kar-Wai

[20 December 2007]

Antonioni is not able to direct a 30 min film. Why? The Dangerous Thread of Things deals with a couple trapped in a plain, tasteless life that are no longer able to observe, to feel, to digest the little, happy, natural elements of their lives.What Antonioni wants to show here is that women are passionate, wild , instinctual. Their nudity is not erotic, it's a kind of natural nudity, the original nudity of people lacking shame.Dancing naked on the beach is a kind of Dyonisiac ritual Nietzsche was talking about, the primitive, joyful way of celebrating life. The ideas are nice, he tried to do something great , but he didn't manage because there was not enough time to construct the characters, to make them mean something so by the end of the film we are left with a feeling of dizziness.On the other hand, i didn't like Soderbergh's segment at all maybe because i didn't understand it or maybe I'm trying to get in deep where there is only the surface.

Anyway, Kar-Wai's segment was the best of all three, absolutely wonderful. The story is rather sad(all Kar Wai's characters are melancholic) but the way he works with the camera and the music perfectly combined with the images proves what a great director he is. The scene in which the weaving of the dress is associated with lust, with the wish to penetrate both the mind and the woman's body, well that's Eros, that's how eroticism should be introduced in cinema. Kar Wai proves to be a great tale-or again.

A Clockwork Orange (1971)

man as a machine

[8/10 · 19 December 2007]

The movie deals with the human mind, the pervert man, brutal, violent, atrocious but free and the 'good man', the man seen as a plant, as a manipulated object, without free will. The world may be violent and horrible but still, a world full of plain, smiling, good people would be worse. Man is both good and evil, thats the beauty of humanity, that's the thing that brings color to life. The movie mocks at the government, the supreme control organ that manipulates the human mind under the pretext of doing something good for the society. The use of music in the violent scenes is not comic, Kubrick deals with music just like David Lynch does. The music is dangerous because itţs an extension of the characterţs inner self.

The Lover (1992)

No pornography here!

[8/10 · 18 December 2007]

This is a love story , not a pornographic movie. The scenes dealing with sex are wonderfully filmed, as no other director has done it before. Sex doesn't belong to the instinctual side of the human beings here, sex is about self discovery and the discovery of a new world. This self discovery brings not only passion, but also other feelings like hate, shame, anger, guilt and love. I don't know why people ask if the sex scenes are real or not because this is not the point here, it is the love story that's interesting, not the problem of the actors having intercourse or not. The fact that the movie is based on M. Duras's novel, explains the poetic language used by the narrator.

Blow-Up (1966)

Picturing life

[7/10 · 17 December 2007]

'Blow-up' deals with a young photographer tired of his superficial, boring life, in search of a new reality, waiting for the BIG EVENT , just like all of us do. As a matter of fact, Thomas tries to picture a new reality, a satisfying reality. I think that Antonioni wanted to point out the lack of communication between people, the slave of consumerism in all of us. There is communication, but only on the surface, used for plain things like selling goods, buying pleasure. Thomas 'gathers' reality, gets reality from pieces, just like a puzzle. He tries to integrate in the social picture,a picture of sex, fashion, pretty girls, rock n roll, but in the same time, he is completely aware of his situation, of his conventional relationships. A great movie if you are able to understand every given detail.

Blue Velvet (1986)

A typical D Lynch movie

[8/10 · 15 December 2007]

Blue Velvet is a wonderful movie, a typical Lynch movie dealing with strange, complex characters, or better said dealing with the dark, merely unknown side of humanity. A very interesting thing about D L's movies is the way he gets from normal, silly, plain side to the strange, hidden, subconscious, dark parts of human beings. A very important element in the movie is the music, a nice delicate , soft music on the surface if we think about the lyrics but Lynch used music in a different way, the music is seen as a threat, externalizing Frank's inner passions, a music that serves evil purposes. I voted 8/10 just because i considered Laura Dern's role to be not as good as in Wild at heart, this is not one of her best performance. On the other hand, Hopper has a very good performance playing the traumatized boy in search of an incestuous relationship with his mother( read Lacan). The movie is not that easy to be understood and not that easy to be forgotten.

Alice in Wonderland (1951)

The Wonderland, a psychoanalytic symbol

[7/10 · 14 December 2007]

Alice in wonderland can be seen as a parody, a satire of the English society in which Lewis Carrol lived, the Victorian society. In this sense, the wonderland appears as the a place where the girl can express herself freely, without taking into consideration the Victorian morals, values and manners. This social parody is quite obvious in the queen's discourse, she emphasizes the fact that all the ways are her ways, a fact available in England, all the territories are considered to be the queen's territories. The queen and her servants are nothing more than some card figures. On the other hand, we can take the movie and the book and analyse it from the psychoanalytic point of view. The wonderland is the mad world of the dream, where the subconscious interferes. The psychoanalytic elements are abounding in this movie: we have the doors, the keys the mushroom as a phallic symbol, the dream as a way of suppressing desires.