Watching this movie felt like a privilege: it was the privilege of being offered with a rare insight of what it means to live as a minority in today's Pakistan. It was, at the same time, the privilege of being able to look beyond the univocal and often too blurred picture we as so-called "Westerners" are provided with of this country through our mainstream medias. The picture beyond this picture that I've found in this movie was, unsurprisingly enough, that of an extremely complex net of relationships, whose single threads intertwine following the logic of some of the most authentic human emotions, with hope proving to be once and again the strongest among them all. The movie itself seems to be on the whole an ode to hope: hope to be successful in life, to embody, at last, the ideal of ourselves we've always dreamed of, to meet the person of our dreams and be able to love them and be happy with them, finally, which sums in itself all of the preceding, hope to live freely in this world. On a painful final note, the film also shows the reverse of it all, that is, the unavoidable consequences of a human life who finds barred all the roads to hope.
Reviews
8 Reviews
Great Freedom
(2021)
Be Gay, Do Crime
24 April 2022
"Große Freiheit" must become a cult. Because of the great performances of all the actors, and the extraordinary performance of Franz Rogowski. Because of the deeply moving and tender stories of love and friendship it is about. Because of the historical accuracy with which the system of oppression against homosexual people in Germany is described, a system that survived unaltered from the Nazi regime to post-war Germany until the abolition of infamous law 175 in 1973. Because of the force with which the existential condition of prisoners is portrayed, as well as that of outcasts of society, a force that finds its equal and source in Genet and in Fassbinder, among many others. Because it is a cry for help, and a cry for justice at the same time, because it shows pain and endurance, violence and strength, dispair and its antidote - the wondrous human ability to feel compassion.
Reprise
(2006)
punk message of hope
24 April 2022
Difficult to say something about this movie. I'll try anyway. Joachim Trier's first oeuvre is one of the best coming-of-age films I've ever watched so far. Let's start from what I liked most: rhythm. "Reprise" develops at a rhythm that is that of life itself which I feel like synthesizing with the formula "meaning in chaos". Each and every single scene felt essential in this movie. Each and every scene felt extraordinarily meaningful. "Chaos" because chaotic is the architecture of the movie. Far from following any chronological order, scenes are linked to each other by connections of memory and hope, they follow the logic of possibility, rather than that of so-called "reality". It's as if with this movie Trier wanted to tell us - thus making a truly existentialist point - that even if all odds seem to conspire for things to go in a certain direction in life, there's always a chance that they take another one. In that they can sometimes turn for the better we can see the message of deep hope the movie conveys.
Firebird
(I) (2021)
What went wrong
18 April 2022
This movie is problematic on many levels.
In conclusion, if what you're looking for is a soap and gay (or gayer) version of Pearl Harbor, you won't be disappointed in this wannabe Estonian blockbuster. Whereas, if you think that you've lost already far too many hours of your teenage years on tacky boy-meets-closeted-man stories, than I'd suggest you to stay away from this.
- The acting is poor, and the fact they speak a language other than their own increases makes everything even more unrealistic.
- The whole movie is based on the most obvious clichés: the writing, the plot, the photography: I struggled to find even a single element in all these fields that I hadn't seen before.
- Make-up is unconvincing and borderline ridiculous: too many muscles and jawlines, the actors look like models coming out of a gay magazine of the 70s. The wig Tom Prior wears in the second half of the movie almost made me stop watching.
- Visual effects look cheap and their metaphorical use is clumsy at best - I'm thinking here of the two planes cutting through the sky symbolizing Sergey's orgasm.
In conclusion, if what you're looking for is a soap and gay (or gayer) version of Pearl Harbor, you won't be disappointed in this wannabe Estonian blockbuster. Whereas, if you think that you've lost already far too many hours of your teenage years on tacky boy-meets-closeted-man stories, than I'd suggest you to stay away from this.
Queen of Hearts
(2019)
Bourgeois apocalypse (with a twist!)
20 November 2021
I will start by saying that I like the Danish title much better than the English one. "Dronningen" means simply "the queen", and that is precisely what Anne (Trine Dyrholm) is in her world. Both at home and at work, she is the solid, self-confident and straightforward monarch everybody knows and expects her to be. Everything threatens to break apart when Gustav (Gustav Lindh), her husband's son from a previous marriage, moves from Stockholm to go live with them in the Danish countryside. She will prove ready to everything in her power in order to salvage her marriage and her reputation from downfall, even if this means to turn her back on everything she stands for.
Although the way in which the moral issues are addressed tends sometimes to be a little bit too didactic (see the fact that Anne's job as a lawyer is to assist teenagers who have suffered from abuses), the plot is overall pretty convincing and I'd dare say even gripping at times, especially in the second part of the film. The acting's also not bad at all, with some moments of genuine intensity.
Although the way in which the moral issues are addressed tends sometimes to be a little bit too didactic (see the fact that Anne's job as a lawyer is to assist teenagers who have suffered from abuses), the plot is overall pretty convincing and I'd dare say even gripping at times, especially in the second part of the film. The acting's also not bad at all, with some moments of genuine intensity.
The Normal Heart
(2014 TV Movie)
an emphatic first glance over "those" years
15 September 2021
Let's start by talking about what I didn't like about the movie, which is the writing: I found it excessively emphatic - Mark Ruffalo is literally shouting, hurling objects at people or starting a fight with somebody else in almost all scenes! His quality as an actor certainly doesn't need to be proven by resorting to such excesses, and a performance of his like that in Spotlight - where he had a somewhat similar role - states that clearly.
I also have to admit that after watching multiple series and movies about the AIDS epidemic this one failed to move me when it was meant to (I found genuinely moving only the scene at the hospital, though I didn't really understand the "marriage" thing).
The bright side now: I found the movie in general a good introduction to the history of the AIDS epidemic and his political and social consequences. I liked how the focus was brought more on the political (both inside and outside the aids sensibilization organizations) side of the struggle than on the personal, for as much devastating it must have been for the people who suffered from it firsthand.
I also have to admit that after watching multiple series and movies about the AIDS epidemic this one failed to move me when it was meant to (I found genuinely moving only the scene at the hospital, though I didn't really understand the "marriage" thing).
The bright side now: I found the movie in general a good introduction to the history of the AIDS epidemic and his political and social consequences. I liked how the focus was brought more on the political (both inside and outside the aids sensibilization organizations) side of the struggle than on the personal, for as much devastating it must have been for the people who suffered from it firsthand.
Swoon
(1992)
The viewer must take position
5 September 2021
As a European, I didn't know anything about the story of "Dickie & Babe" before watching this movie. All the praise - or at least a good part of it - goes to the original narrative techniques employed by director Tom Kalin: it truly feels like watching a movie/documentary of the 20s. The fact that we know this is a movie made in the early 90s only makes of some of these techniques out-and-out Brechtian distancing effects: among others, the reports made by the analysts, which aim at showing the homophobic mindset of science (as a reflection of that of society) of those times and the sequence about the physiognomical analyses of skull/face features which sought to find the explanation for determinate (immoral) behaviors in a person's physical appearance. But examples of the same sort abound in the movie, and we can even think of it as a clever composition of Verfremdungseffekte all facing today's viewer with the same question: Who is the actual perverse (and "deranged")? Leopold and Loeb or rather "the society in which they live(d) in"?
Poppy Field
(2020)
I ♥ Romanian cinema
11 August 2021
Great portrayal of a day and a night in the life of Cristi, a gendarme of Bucharest. The acting of the main actor Conrad Mericoffer, as well as that of the other policemen is one of truly high quality. On the contrary, except for the scene with the sister, I did not appreciate particularly Radouan Leflahi's (Hadi) performance, although the dialogues were written with accuracy, especially in their attempt to reproduce the silly "empty" talk of two lovers (coming from different countries).
The first part is to be appreciated also for the way in which the contrast between the two different mindsets of the protagonists are described. On the one hand Hadi, who quite naively fails to understand the complexity of the world Cristi lives in, and, on the other hand, Cristi, who shows a maybe too cautious attitude towards life, discretion and circumspection being his mottos.
The second part of the movie is absolutely worth watching: the anxiety Cristi feels while being kept out from the discussion going on outside the film theatre is conveyed through some quite long takes, during which Cristi's emotions hit him like waves, alternatively calming down and taking over again. The - partially unjustified - terror of losing his place in his comfort zone leads Cristi to commit an act of violence, the consequences of which will be dealt with by the fellow gendarmes with typical mafiaesque methods.
Much worthier watching than the (only superficially) German equivalent "Freier Fall".
The first part is to be appreciated also for the way in which the contrast between the two different mindsets of the protagonists are described. On the one hand Hadi, who quite naively fails to understand the complexity of the world Cristi lives in, and, on the other hand, Cristi, who shows a maybe too cautious attitude towards life, discretion and circumspection being his mottos.
The second part of the movie is absolutely worth watching: the anxiety Cristi feels while being kept out from the discussion going on outside the film theatre is conveyed through some quite long takes, during which Cristi's emotions hit him like waves, alternatively calming down and taking over again. The - partially unjustified - terror of losing his place in his comfort zone leads Cristi to commit an act of violence, the consequences of which will be dealt with by the fellow gendarmes with typical mafiaesque methods.
Much worthier watching than the (only superficially) German equivalent "Freier Fall".
Tell Your Friends