Lav Diaz follows after his enormous (in all senses) "Heremias" with this even more complex and longer "Dead in the land of encantos". The first ten minutes contains all the keys to the whole piece. It's the devastation of a place that everyone says it was very beautiful but not especially for its real charms but because it was their land and it was pure and wild. On the contrary, the beauty still alive: the bodies of young women, the poetry, the light, the sound of the rain drops hitting the palm trees and also the mud and the destroyed houses after the catastrophe. Diaz takes his time to think about how can they face the disaster and in the meantime brings an elegiac ode to the unstoppable river of life.
Reviews
19 Reviews
The Shadow Box
(1980 TV Movie)
THE BEST American FILM OF THE 80'S
8 October 2008
Paul Newman's directional central piece (his fourth, after almost eight years of silence) is, by far, the best American film of the decade. Not only for its very controlled, moving, unusual tone and rhythm, nor for the exceptional actors and actresses, but mainly for the treatment of such a theme like this, the easiest to fall into a stupid tear jerker. "The shadow box" is like Naruse Mikio's "Midareru", the definitive proof that a great director (and Paul Newman is one of the best of his time) can make wonders with any argument, even with the most boring ones, the less "important", even if the plot is tedious and the ending predictable. A gem
Céline
(1992)
light come out emptiness
8 September 2008
This is Jean Claude Brisseau's most beautiful film. Perhaps not the best, but for sure the one who contains more beauty. The character of Celine, quite mysterious, with a past that we barely know and a present of sadness, distress and suicidal tendencies will become the purest of Brisseau's career, the maximum aspiration of a director such interested in magic as a part of our lives, as something that is there, in every corner and that can save (or corrupt) our entire existence. Lisa Heredia, as the nurse, pragmatic and quite, represents the other point of view if we are not able to watch the film in his right sense. It's her and his capacity to believe what makes possible the impossible. Marvellous musical interludes from Georges Delerue and a superb cinematography by the not well known but great Romain Winding.
A Christmas Tale
(2008)
Family affairs?
15 August 2008
After his impressing "Kings and queen" in 2004, Arnaud Desplechin proves that he's the best director come out from France in the last two decades with this exhilarating, moving, awfully brilliant "A Christmas tale". Following the path of its previous feature, the movie mixtures very hard scenes of desperation and hatred feelings with moments of absurd joy in an structure full of elliptical jumps from the past to the present and back again to the memories of another time. There's nothing new in his cinema and this is perhaps the only problem, that everything is well known yet; this is the first time that happens and today i think i have enjoyed very much the film but maybe it's time to spin around again and cut across another new ground. Desplechin knows the way.
My Son John
(1952)
memories of the old town
5 March 2008
After a long period of time (maybe 15 years, maybe more) I have finally seen this film thank you to the internet (and some unknown friend who put it "in the air"). It's interesting watching a feature that you have been years reading about; in this case much more to knock it down as a an anti-communist pamphlet with no interest. And like many films along cinema history this is a great and surprisingly unknown film, typical of the best period in McCarey's career, which it means that it's a perfectly edited, wonderfully rhymed, gracefully shot film. It's almost a perfect portrait of American families in the 50's, better (and before) than Nicholas Ray's "Rebel without a cause" and the consequences of generation affairs between father and sons, between the America coming out of a war and the new country that looks upon the future. Remarkable cast, perfect Robert Walker and Dean Jagger and moving Helen Hayes.
Dirty
(1971)
The world in my eye
14 February 2008
Warning: Spoilers
Two girls, a bed and a bottle. Ten minutes. This is the material and this is the first Stephen Dwoskin, a cinematographer come out of the convulsing 60's, easily related with Bruce Conner and Andy Warhol, but with a extraordinary career that is giving great results even today. Here we can find an approximation to the first shorts filmed by Chantal Akerman (I'm thinking of "The room", 1972) mainly because Dwoskin explores the world next to him. But Dwoskin dreams, fantasizes with sex. The texture and the editing of the images makes me think in Perry Farrel and Jane's Addiction. Nowadays, this director, confined to a wheelchair, keeps wondering, with infinite sadness about this sick world, the memories, his parents, his dreams. Highly recommended for whoever have seen the last (and overrated) Julian Schnabel feature.
L'ange noir
(1994)
private vices, public virtues
1 February 2007
Warning: Spoilers
Jean Claude Brisseau is not a prolific director. He takes his time to get back to his steps. Watching this hard, exhilarating, unstoppable proof of his talent you can clearly see that he needs to empty him in each frame, each second of his features. The outstanding scene in which Sylvie Vartan (recovering the best Catherine Deneuve), is paying for her blackmailing is the milestone of his career. The sexual tension, the rotten feelings, the laconic acceptation of a dark destiny... I obtain a great pleasure viewing a "non genre director" doing "film noir", like he was Chabrol, but trying to pass over the topics and penetrating the obscure angles of his absorbent plots.
The Chorus
(1982)
sound of white noise
15 January 2007
This is one of Abbas Kiarostami's finest short works. With the minimum of elements and every pound of sensibility and grace he could afford, the Iranian master shot a precious and brief manifest of some things really worth in life. You can see Víctor Erice's "The spirit of the beehive" (1973) - shot ten year before, and surely well known by Kiarostami -and maybe some curious Raymond Depardon's children in between the warm frames of this tiny piece that everyone who wants to be a director must see. The metaphor is clear and simple: we need human "touch" to be human. Don't miss it and if you have the opportunity to see it, please recommend it.
Humanity and Paper Balloons
(1937)
pre war Japanese milestone
28 November 2006
This is my favorite Japanese film along with Mizoguchi's "Street of shame", Naruse's "Floating clouds" and Ozu's "Late spring". It's for me also one of the best 1937 movies, maybe the best, but McCarey's "Make way for tomorrow" deserves that honour too. I've seen in very few movies such beauty, such indignation and courage to pass over a miserable existence (that unforgettable character named Shinza, the Tom Joad of the story) and i must admit that the final ten minutes are the best thing i've seen in years. It will probably seem a tiny film, sober and little in all aspects but if you can pay attention it's a moving experience and one the most important proofs of the superiority of cinema above all arts.
La leyenda del tiempo
(2006)
the wind blows... anywhere but here
27 November 2006
Isaki Lacuesta's second feature is the best Spanish movie of the year along with Albert Serra's "Honor de cavalleria". The starting scene awakes all your senses and maybe you could keep quiet at the end of the screening. It's a beautiful chant for loss things that Lacuesta's films like they were impossible dreams. Many great moments, some drops of Depardon, mixed with Guerin and maybe Kiarostami gave birth a masterpiece and one of the most exciting movies of the year. I am Spanish and i don't like flamenco... this wonderful film makes me doubtful. I ask myself questions about things that i believed that don't interest me. It's the effect of art.
The Girl with the Hat Box
(1927)
a buried treasure
16 November 2006
As it happens with his compatriot Evgenii Bauer, Barnet is one of the most unknown and great Russian filmmakers. Of course he passed several seasons in hell, because of the "stalinism" but the average quality of a quite long career is high enough to consider him a master. This is his funniest movie, a delightful, almost screwball comedy played with that old charm and grace that only in silent cinema you can find. Far from politics, socialism and - the great mother Russia that will grow us all- "The girl..." follows the traces of DeMille, La Cava and Lubitsch. Moscow seems even a great city to live, with his problems, but human. Some hilarious moments and laughs assured. Marvellous feature
The Exterminating Angels
(2006)
love and other secret things
9 November 2006
Warning: Spoilers
Following the path of his late feature, "Secret things", "The exterminating angels" probably close an era in Jean Claude Brisseau's career(one of the most interesting of contemporary french cinema). You can film sex and nudity and not ever telling stories of provocation and other things that women could refuse to show but in the attempt maybe you don't realize what the camera-eye is registering: passion,loneliness, madness and ... love. Anyone could say Brisseau hides things but you must check if you are aware enough to see what this movie is really are. One of the best of the year and one of the best exercises of freedom in wide format
Plan 9 from Outer Space
(1957)
maybe the best Wood film
2 November 2006
I am still really shocked about the reputation of this excellent movie. Many people have noticed for years its mistakes, its "naive manners", but i never have read about its charm, its spirit and its beauty. It was an effort, a huge effort for people like Ed Wood, Roger Corman, Edgar Ulmer or many more to finish a movie. I would like to see many great filmmakers with that problems (and not only Visconti, i mean) and check how many of them could have the necessary courage to get to the point that they could reach. Wood was, in his particular way, an advanced filmmaker, and even Chris Marker has realize that. Are we wiser than him?
Revolyutsioner
(1917)
a silent revolutionary
9 October 2006
Evgenii Bauer, at the end of his brief career had reached such level of intensity, precision in the "mise en scene", that every frame of this moving film is a masterpiece. Because Bauer seems a director from the 30's or 40's that one day decided to do again that old silent movies in which images revealed a passion and some kind of mystery unknown in the films made by his contemporaries. 25 or maybe 35 years of evolution of cinema are contained in only five years, since his early works to this jewel (and "For luck" or "A life for a life"), great achievements of one the three best directors of the decade, along with Louis Feuillade and perhaps Demille
León y Olvido
(2004)
shadows in a shadowed life
17 August 2006
No one can accuse Xavier Bermúdez of cowardice. This sometimes funny, sometimes thrilling first movie can bring us an old idea about cinema: everything is as true as we could make it to happen. León has Down Syndrome but he's not a boy and suffers all the problems that an adolescent could have (girls, school, relationships with his relatives...) which is perhaps the first approach to that point of view that i have ever seen in a film. Olvido is another young regular girl and wants to live her life... though she doesn't know what she wants. The two characters perfectly know what they don't want to feel left, lonely, hopeless and to lose control of their lives but we are not alone in this world. We have brothers and sisters
The 1002nd Ruse
(1915)
light but charming comedy
8 August 2006
Note: AKA "The 1002nd ruse" Evgenii Bauer is now best well known than 20 years ago. His 26 films still "alive" are risen now little by little in DVD. This brief comedy(about 18 minutes) is a surprise for all who have discovered this truly cinematic genius recently because of his tone, close to Lubitsch, Demille or La Cava silent comedies and far away from those enigmatic,tragic, hopeless "After death", "Daydreams" or "Silent witnesses". Especially wonderful the outdoor scenes, like it happens always in his movies, full of life and grace. Recommended like Dreyer's "The parson's widow" to know another side of one of the greatest directors of the silent era.
Después de tantos años
(1994)
a sombre poem
10 May 2006
Almost 20 years after the famous "El desencanto" (by Jaime Chávarri), Ricardo Franco, a director much more suitable to dive in the fascinating history of the Panero's family saga, shot this somehow sublime, beautiful, desperate documentary about poet Leopoldo Panero's sons. Juan Luis, the respected poet, living a easy life; Michi, a pariah, sick and destroyed, but intelligent and subtle; and Leopoldo María, committed in a sanatorium, and for many of us, the best Spanish poet alive. This film, modulated like a Ramón Gaya painting, bright, obscure and overwhelming is NECESSARY. Not only complete a great film, but it "leads" a memory to a right place. Its place
The End of Summer
(1961)
ozu's colour masterpiece
11 April 2006
After his second experience with colour, a light, happy "Ohayo", secretly epic and impressed, Ozu shot one of the milestones of his career: "Kohayagawa-ke no aki" is in my recollection, with "Banshun" and "Munakata shimai", his best work. Most of the themes exposed in previous films (father's intervention in his daughters' lifes, love (in the hands of others), solitude) are here integrated in a comedy-structured film that becomes a drama. It's perhaps his unique melodrama and it is shown with the desperate of the last breath for some characters, as usual in Ozu, doubtful and seeking a place for their quiet happiness.
There is no Ozu film nearest Sirk's or Minneli's universe like this one.
There is no Ozu film nearest Sirk's or Minneli's universe like this one.
Singing Behind Screens
(2003)
Olmi's best?
16 March 2006
There's a laconic but amazing beauty in Olmi's last release. "Cantando dietro i paraventi" is a song for all the adventures that we didn't experiment, for all the landscapes we'd never see. It's his more "wellesian" work and one of the movies that impressed me the most in the last five years. I don't want to think what would Greenaway do with this material but probably a total failure. This film from a veteran like Olmi remembers us that weerasethakul and Sang-soo are the present, not the future. After a long career and still recent his brilliant "Ilo mestiere delle armi", Olmi returns to a place that he never thought: the land of the filmmakers compromised with themselves and the history. It's amazing doing this in a rickety cinematography like Italy's. Cheers, signore Olmi
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