Reviews

'La linea inivisble' is a serious film, but one deeply ingrained in the current soporific cinematography: slow, intimate and minimalist. The plot almost completely ignores ETA's ideological motivations and the political issues of the period, which one would expect to be its chore element. Instead it concentrates on the interiority of the protagonists, portayed in lingering, stretched out frescos of everyday life.

The director seeks to spot at all costs sorrowful aspects in the characters' psyche, and this leads him to styling them questionably. For example the protagonist, Txabi Etxebarrieta, described by the sources as a brilliant personality, full of energy and apt to catalyze his companions' energies around him, is turned into a kind of introverted nerd who mainly chooses to fight the Franco's state out of emulation toward an older brother and because of a missed romance.

This sombre mood is then used to disapprove of the choice to take arms as a kind of self-detrimental and self-deluding folly, which no healthy youth would seriously contemplate.

The very few scenes of gunfighting or street turmoil are realized in a static and unrealistic way, as it might have been done 50 years ago. The director is not interested in them.

The three stars are bound to my expectations that a film on this topic discusses the social, political and ideological landscape of the period. If you like the mental masturbations that represent the chore of degenerate art, feel free to consider it an eight or nine-stars production.

Artsy trash only good for fashionable viewers. The entertainement value of this wearisome flick is below zero. Extremely slow dialogues and character development, no question ever gets a clear answer, muddy storyline, smug display of child nudity as a cheap appeal to the main audience who would otherwise desert this pretentious rubbish.

If you care nothing about photography, music scores and intellectual gobbledygook, and are just looking for an intelligent, involving horror story, do yourself a favor and stay away from this pretentious nonsense.

Quite an interesting, intellectual film. It beautifully captures the landscapes of the Langhe hills, as well as the faces, clothing and attitudes of their inhabitants, and the general atmosphere of partisan warfare.

However, the director remains almost imprisoned in his attempt to transpose Fenoglio's book into a film. He tends to portray too many isolated parts of the book with strict accuracy and so misses the substance. Some crucial themes are just hinted at and almost impossible to catch for a viewer who didn't read the book: the partisans' disorganization, the feuds between communist and moderate bands, the reluctance of the latter to engage in any serious fight, Johnny's critical relationship towards his comrades that moves him to switch allegiance from one group to another. Furthermore, the fighting scenes are decontextualized beyond the point; for example, the partisans' desperate effort to melt through the lines of the major Fascist encirclement does not express the drama conveyed by Fenoglio's intense description, and is almost reduced to a fighting scene like any other.

The film tends to concentrate on one message: the boredom and meaninglessness of war, and especially of partisan warfare, dominated by long periods of inactivity suddenly broken by abrupt, mostly unexpected shootouts against an often invisible enemy. In a different cultural context this might be a powerful message, but in present cinematography it seems to me too conventional and politically correct to deserve any special praise. Where is a war film that doesn't strive to convey some kind of pacifist undercurrent? In the same way, Johnny's silent, introverted idealism embodies a contrasting point to the general atmosphere of monotony and purposelessness. It risks to turn the film into still another idealization of Antifascist resistance and the protagonist into the stereotype of the tormented hero, full of misgivings and yet willing to overcome his doubts and problems to advance the cause of good and see that justice is finally done. If you want to build a Proustian mood please do not warp it subtly in its opposite by appending some redeeming ideological mumbo jumbo to it.

A remarkable film to watch for the patient viewer, but do yourself a favor and watch it cum grano salis.

This is a vapid costume drama set out in the French renaissance. It features some decent cinematography, beautiful photography and gorgeous costumes. Mélanie Thierry looks incredible, almost edible in her robes of velvet satin, and the movie makers don't miss a chance to reveal her luscious forms.

However, the film bursts like a bubble gum anytime you take the pain to look a bit deeper. The war scenes are totally unhistorical, with armies fighting without any battle line, like drunkards in a tavern brawl, and the top commanders hacking and slashing on the front line instead of organizing the battle from behind.

Most of all, there is little character development and the main character is portrayed in a superficial, contradictory way. On one side she appears as an intelligent, considerate young woman; on the other she betrays a loving and faithful husband and dishonors her name and her family's for a fickle teenager love, after stating several times she won't ever do it. She behaves more like a 14-years-old in love with some pop star. If that's emancipation, we can surely live without it.

In another unlikely scene, the husband's life-long friend, who owes him his life and fortune, betrays his trust and allows the lover in the princess' rooms, with no apparent reason and against his own expressed judgment.

Watch this movie if you like flashing swords, wondrous velvets and vapid, shallow love stories with not much of a plot. Yet if you are a thinking person chances are that you won't get much out of this paltry flick.

First, this is not what the trailer wants to make you believe it is, namely an enjoyable horror movie. It is an extremely slow, convoluted attempt to mesh conventional horror with a psychological study on 17th-century belief in witchcraft. Everything that happens is balanced so that it can be interpreted either way, which is probably fascinating to admirers of modern (degenerate) art. However, the movie makers didn't dare to carry this approach to the very end. The finale settles the movie on the supernatural side in a half-hearted attempt to offer some kind of rationalization.

The plot and action are extremely fragmentary and devoid of logical connections; I don't know whether this stems from an attempt at surrealism or if it is aimed to capture the disconnected structure of popular imagination concerning witchcraft (and the way witch processes were carried out). Anyway, the film's broken structure, extremely slow progress, illogical behavior and lack of characters development shall frustrate any viewer not interested in artsy flicks.

On the plus side, if you are patient, intellectually bent and interested in history, this is a very original, atmospheric approach to the witchcraft topic with nice visuals, good acting, lots of research, some impressive scenes and a refreshing immersion in a different age and culture.

"Open your eyes" is a soap opera turned surrealistic flick with some pretensions at investigating the relationship between dream and reality, studying the depths of the human mind and passing moral judgments on the nature of wealth and friendship. The sci-fi component is entirely secondary and was only introduced to offer a rationale to the in- and out-of-reality sequences.

While not bad, it certainly is not the masterpiece some purport it to be. The plot itself is air-thin and requires plentiful suspension of disbelief. Contrary to the opinion of other reviewers casting is poor, as expected in a low-budget movie. Basically, it does not raise above the level of a commercial soap-opera. Finally, the topic of self-punishment seems a bit inappropriate for so shallow a character like Cesar, a rich playboy prone to womanizing. If you want to do Crime and Punishment all over again, please pick some serious wrongdoer with a lot of thought and self-justification, so that he has some spiritual energy to turn against himself.

In order to like this film you need: 1. to be interested in the key element of modern (i.e. degenerate) art, that is, mental masturbation: the idea being that the artist should not relate an interesting story but rather serve the viewer a compound collection of stimuli aimed to encourage his own mental ruminations; 2. to have a high attention span; 3. to like soap operas, because that's what the movie is in its first half an hour. I was so dismally bored after that that nothing could arouse my interest any longer.

Now that Japanese horror movies are in fashion, any third-rate flick like this one reaps all kinds of undeserved praise.

Japanese don't make real movies but rather filmographed manga cartoons, with no effort to build up a logical plot. This was true for "The ring" and it stays true for this botched attempt at a movie. It is slow-moving, derivative and entirely devoid of any action. There are very little scares if at all. The plot is extremely predictable and has holes as big as skyscrapers. Perhaps this abortion may appeal to people interested in some tepid childhood drama, but even that is so half-hearted and lackadaisical that it adds very little interest.

The only redeeming feature are the performances of the two main actresses. Only recommended to trendy viewers interested in getting all warm and fuzzy with the latest cinematic vogue.

Oculus has no real sense of logic and in its second half it relinquishes any attempt to build up a coherent plot. As we it so frequently happens in horror movies, the authors apparently intertwine, but effectively confuse past and present, reality and illusion in order to conceal the lack of any consistent storyline and feel free to serve the viewer with a confused sequel of horror sequences governed by no logic at all.

I liked the beginning. The meticulous preparations the girl undertakes in view of the experiment made me hope in a movie centered on a solid, rational battle between the characters and the evil force imprisoned in the mirror. Yet subsequently we experience that the mirror has godlike powers of illusion over the human brain till 30 yards or so of distance. What's the sense of being prepared with cameras and switches against an opponent that can make you see or feel anything at any time, with no limits at all? Why doesn't she trigger the anchor at once and makes an end to it? At that, why does not she simply shoot the mirror with a rifle from outside its influence radius? What is the sense of forcing her shaken brother – just released from a mental institution – to help her without informing or preparing him in advance, to the extent that he ends up arguing the whole time and botches the whole thing?

The real reason why the movie makers introduced the absurd godlike supernatural entity simply is that, in this way, they have a cheap excuse for making up any sloppy scare they can think of with no concern for a coherent outline and no need for a rationale.

Only recommended for those who care nothing for consistency or a solid plot.

It all depends on what you are looking for.

Abandoned features beautiful cinematography, an interesting score and excellent photography, but will infuriate any viewer who, like myself, expects a logic, coherent storyline and sensible dialogs. Besides, it is so drawn out, repetitive and full of false scares as to compromise any entertainment value.

It works best for those interested in a piece of art or those who like kaleidoscopic, almost hallucinatory atmospheres packed to the brim with nonstop frantic action and explosive sounds, allowing the spectator no pause to come up for air and/or think about what's happening.

Frankly, I regard "13 days" more like a high-end television movie than a serious docudrama. It is a very American product; viewers unaccustomed to the clichés of standard Hollywood filmography are going to have a hard time swallowing the extremes of overdramatization saturating every single scene of the film. Everything is boosted up to keep the spectator on the edge indefinitely, which may appear as a merit to the American public but easily relapses in cheapness and bad taste to those used to a more thoughtful approach.

The way the story and the characters are developed is also standard Hollywood fare, with the black-and-white presentation of Kennedy as a national hero soundly rooted in the values of family, motherland and hard work, who regards his office as the highest duty and finally overcomes the warmongering ambitions of the generals.

Looks like being cynical, or simply realistic, is not allowed in American mainstream productions.

Even worst, the director makes no attempt to convey a picture of the political situation underlying the crisis, or to offer (even for a moment) the viewpoint of the Soviets and the Cubans. On the contrary, the first half an hour suggests the idea that the United States were the victim of an unprovoked, unilateral aggression. This is junk history. The reasons why the Soviets deployed the missiles in Cuba were 1) to retaliate for the US deployment of about one hundred nuclear missiles in Turkey and 2) to protect Cuba, after the CIA-orchestrated landing at the Bay of Pigs and while the US were practicing invasion forces as a show of strength on islands in the Caribbean. This was perfectly known to the Kennedy administration, and certainly must have played a large part in the conversations on how to deal with the crisis.

As a blockbuster "13 days" may have its merits, but as a serious historical movie it has a long way to go.

Mama presents an enticing story and has several scary moments. However, it also has an unlikely plot with some overused (yet underdeveloped) clichés and too many characters, resulting in serious plot holes. Besides, the conclusion really sucks.

The first two-thirds are by far the best. Like so many horror movies, Mama is better at building suspense than at solving it in a coherent whole. The monster is originally made in comparison with most ghost flicks and scary enough but only as long as it is hinted at -- as soon as it is fully displayed it looks weird and almost funny.

Recommended only for those having no problem in belief suspension, or for women interested in the dramatic line underlying the main plot.

This is in fact a witty teenager comedy full of black (and unmistakably Anglo-Saxon) humor, sexual metaphors, goth elements and a liberal amount of splatter. It masquerades itself as a horror movie, but really, the horror element is just a metaphor for female puberty, the pangs of growing-up and the loss of innocence.

If you enjoy pastiches like "An American werewolf in London", only a bit gorier and tighter, you will have a good time with 'Ginger snaps' . However, if your idea of horror is bound to Lovecraft and other classics of the genre, if you demand a logically consistent plot and credible, realistic reactions from the characters, and any hint of comicality spoils the concentration you are investing in the build-up of the atmosphere, you'll be irritated in a matter of minutes. I was.

In this movie there are plot holes as large as block buildings, dialogues are meant to be wickedly funny rather than scary or evocative, and no effort is invested in realistic behavior on the part of the characters - if you knew that your sibling is affected by a mysterious illness that's transforming her body, threatening her life and turning her in a deadly menace, would you attempt to treat her with silver rings and wolf bane while chirping quaint teenager banter, or would you call in the doctors and the police?

I realize that viewers interested in alternative fiction might be surprised and delighted by this movie. That's the only reason why I allot it four stars. As a pure horror movie, however, Ginger is and remains an unmitigated disaster.

I rent the DVD in hope of getting a movie on Napoleonic warfare and the Portuguese campaign. Actually, this is a collection of soap opera sketches set against the grim background of the general evacuation brought about by the French advance.

This bleak background provides the contrasting point to the light, humorous, often implausible and generally unhistorical approach that characterizes the sketches. They are centered on different individuals involved in the evacuation and they bear an unmistakable (and irritating to me) feminine touch. The character of Wellington is not made an exception and the filmmakers make no attempt to portray his personality or his military abilities.

Another annoying touch is that the French are portrayed as involved in all kinds of base butchery. These acts of cruelty are partly exaggerated; for the part that they are true, no attempt is made to explain that this was the normal trend in this era and that the English and the Portuguese behaved in exactly the same way. Historical exactness plays no part in the movie; since all characters are English or Portuguese and they are presented sympathetically, the director needed some bad guys on the other side of the pond.

In conclusion: a successful attempt at duplicating American soap operas set against a historical background. Go to the box office if you are interested in comedy; don't go if you have any serious penchant for history.

I have mixed feelings about this movie. Acting is impressive (even if the actors impersonating the German generals are unable to reproduce the hard, metal-like Prussian cadence), special effects are well-made, and it nicely conveys the depressive and claustrophobic feeling of the cramped life in the bunkers. It also conveys an adequate feeling of war's brutality.

The plot refrains from the most obtuse stereotypes of anti-National Socialist propaganda, and truly depicts some human sides of Hitler and his entourage. However, it remains a very unbalanced representation of reality, intended to impress the viewer's mind with political and ideological prejudices. For example, all Nazi characters wishing to carry on the fight - from high-ranking SS officials to Hitlerjugend kids fighting on the barricades - always fall in one of two stereotypes, either that of the unthinking, automaton soldier speaking in a machine-like way, or that of the equally unthinking, naive kid automatically repeating the slogans impressed upon him. On the contrary, all characters purporting a quick surrender are represented as wise and judicious individuals, speaking in warm overtones from the wealth of their life experience.

The movie's worst aspect consists its portrayal of Hitler. Instead of depicting the dialectics of rigorous lucidity and rambling illusions, of stern self-control and furious outbursts that characterized the dictator's last days, the film brings to life a rambling old man who has lost nearly all contacts with reality. In this movie Hitler is no religious prophet and political genius, partially broken by the immensity of defeat and bad health conditions, but a madman babbling his nonsense to an audience so foolish and subservient as not to see its obvious foolishness - a poor travesty of historical reality.

Whenever Bruno Ganz enunciates one of his most infamous (to the believers in the political religion of human rights and racial equality) precepts, he always does so in an especially rambling and stuttering way, and such principles are extrapolated from their context, to produce an impression of bleakness and near-madness. This tendency is made obvious in the scene where Hitler dictates his political testament: since there was no way to twist the text in the byproduct of an impoverished mind, we are just allowed to hear its first few words, then the scene is quickly shifted. In other cases this approach leads to historical falsification -- it happens in the scene where Hitler is asked what to do in case ammunition is entirely spent. Fest, in his "Hitler. Eine Biographie", unequivocally states that the dictator answered that in this case defenders should try to flee by small groups, while in the movie Ganz furiously waves his fist and mumbles "I shall never capitulate, never!".

The movie makers' tendentious intentions are made even more plain in the final scene, where a smiling Frau Junge travels away with a newly found stray kid, and the clouds part in the far skies, to impress on the viewer the idea that a nightmare is now over, and that a new and better age is starting for the survivors of Nazi madness. The short interview to the real Frau Junge, which is incorporated in the end segment, makes the movie's political underground impossible to miss. This movie does not attempt to impress the viewers with problems and interrogations, allowing him to find his own answers; instead it attempts to impose answers on him, defaming the National Socialist world view.

All this notwithstanding the apprehensions expressed by some members of the Establishment, that this movie could mitigate the effect of regime antifascist propaganda, are in my opinion justified: as the movie slanders National Socialism in a less coarse and loud way than usual, it shall be probably able to impress the herd's minds with lesser force.

Finally, this movie is probably the best that can be filmed on this subject under the present political regime; it has several bonus points, yet each viewer, especially young viewers, should go to the box-office conscious of its preposterous background.

This is an absolute must for anybody interested in Olmi's work or in the Italian Renaissance. One of the best Italian productions in years.

As usual, Olmi concentrates on the grey landscapes of his native Padana plains, engulfed in a swirling fog dominating the human figures which move through it, in an atmosphere of timeless melancholiness. As in its masterpiece, "L'albero degli zoccoli", Olmi successfully tries to paint a picture of the characters' feelings and strivings through the pitfalls of a difficult existence, devoid of any intrinsec meaning.

Do not misunderstand me - this is none of the pacifist crap fashionable amongst trendy critics and intellectuals. Neither it is a convoluted attempt to convey "profound" sociological or psychoanalytical concepts. That's why it didn't win the prize it deserved at Cannes. The film is rather an attempt to represent the reality of human loneliness and meaninglessness within a particular historical setting: that of a time when soldiery was still a "mestiere", a job, a professional choice devoid of the religious overtones which national myths have impressed on it in later times.

The Generals of both armies are no heroes, but rather human beings endowed with very human needs - Giovanni writes his loving wife to send him underpants, and his far less loving uncle, the Pope, to send him some money to pay his men. These are poor and humiliated men, fighting in the pope's behalf, and receiving blessings (instead of money) in exchange. Their one solace through religion consists in the act of burning churches and crosses to warm themselves a little - "That's the Christ of us poor people, he will help us", they say finding a huge wooden crucifix, and the face of the Christ being burnt is a testimony to their grieves. But the leader of the German Landsknechten, famous von Freundsberg, is also an old man who, for all his vain ferocity, is forced to go back to Germany after his victory because of his old age and illnesses.

The peasants fleeing through the fog, or hung by the German troopers, are wistful - more than tragic - elements of an unmoving landscape, mute testimony to the eternal cycles of war, of suffering, of pathetic strives to win victories that will be forgotten one day or week or month later, as new puppets will "strut and fret their hours upon the stage, and then will be heard no more" (from the famous monologue of Macbeth).

A masterpiece from Ermanno Olmi. A film worth seeing wherever you live.

An interesting movie in a typical Nanni Moretti's style. His penchant for slow, flowing atmospheres creates a striking representation of the psychological effects following the sudden death of a loved one.

Moretti is a psychologist. After his son's death his family as well as professional life starts deteriorating without need of any dramatic event to speed up things, just as in real life. Both he and his wife tend to withdraw in themselves, refusing the challenge of life, and start disliking each other as their partner's presence remembers them the routine preceeding the tragedy.

Interestingly, the persons reacting in the best way are the young ones: their daughter thinks her own relations all over again, grows more mature and tries to help her old ones. Their son's girlfriend, after the first moment of desperation, manages both to deal with her grief in an open and sincere way (mastering her feeling of loss), and to start "living" again, building a new relationship and not being afraid of experiencing and enjoying it.

The movie is repetitive and there are really little or no brilliant "ideas" apt to deepen the psychological relations amongst the key characters; it's really a "photograph" of a psychological and existential situation, a flash in the mechanisms of real life. Everything happens out of the characters' conscious intentions, and borders on their instinctive, half-conscious feelings of attraction and repulsion.

Maybe the final message is that life goes ever on, and that young people are better at grasping it than adults - involved in a more stable world of consolidated relations - are.