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Reviews
Romance & Cigarettes (2005)
Original and refreshing
For those who found The Singing Detective and Pennies from Heaven exciting and innovative this will come as a welcome return to a much neglected form of cinema. Turturro has assembled a wonderful cast for his first foray into the world of the musical. It is an original and touching film with many highlights and only the odd negative ( Walken and Parker). It also has the author's touch to it - a blue collar family living through emotional upheavals presented with no sentimentality but a lot of love. Both Gandolfini and Sarandon give excellent performances as the estranged but still connected couple and Buscemi, Winslet, Turturro and particularly Strich add their own talent to the mix. The musical numbers are well done and do not jar with the narrative. Overall, an enjoyable film showing much promise for Turturro's next excursion into the world of directing.
Dogville (2003)
A major triumph.
As has already been said this is a stunning film which deals with nothing less than the "soul of man". I had only seen one Von Trier film previously, "The Idiots", which I thought was interesting and original. However this is a big step up from that film and contains superlative performances from all the main actors. Its real triumph, however, is that it forces the viewer to explore many different viewpoints of both situation and character simultaneously throughout the film. There is no absolute moral standpoint in this film. It allows the viewer to judge each character and event for themselves and attempt to come to some sort of conclusion at the end. This is a difficult thing to achieve given the complexities that are dealt with over the film's 3 hour running time. But it will leave you considering the meanings of words like moral, ethical and what it is to be human in the world today. IMO those who see it merely as an attack on the USA are being wilfully short sighted. It has a universal theme and is not confined to a criticism of modern day capitalism. Overall, I would recommend this film to all lovers of intelligent cinema. A major triumph.