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justicej
Reviews
Irréversible (2002)
An honest review, hold the ego.
One way to take a mediocre story and make it 'artsy' is to tell it in reverse. Irreversible is a simple tale of revenge - guy's girlfriend gets raped and he angrily tracks down the rapist to get - yes, revenge. Another way to make it artsy is to add in a lot of shock-value and long vulgar scenes. Another way is to add in a homosexual backdrop (nearly a requirement for an `art film' these days. Just go to any film festival! Plain sex doesn't do it anymore. The final way is to move the camera around so the audience can get only a glimpse of what is truly happening, i.e. make the audience work for their entertainment so the audience feels smart and satisfied when they `get it.' Ego-stroking for audience and the French `auteur' alike. If a real producer had gotten a hold of this bad boy, it would have been cut down to 45 minutes. Sadly, this movie is basically a very fat, overcooked, dry turkey, with as much sauce, stuffing and dressing added as possible - to make it palatable to our intelliguntz.
The good side is that if you look at this movie as experimental, with techniques utilized in the extreme to prove their mechanical-dramtic effectiveness, then, if that really is the message, well done. Camera movement and creepy music do add tension. Telling the story in reverse does make you watch some scenes twice (with the luxury of dvd or tape). Rapes do make people sympathetic and angry. Gay themes make it edgy. Long scences demonstrate that the director called his own shots (Baby!). All done to the extreme? Yes, an interesting experiment, but not really a good movie.
Hable con ella (2002)
Overrated, but say you loved it to be in the "in-crowd."
I am really sorry to say this film is an example of an auteur's ego preempting fundamentals of good movie making, namely character and story development. The movie was interesting, yes, but that is about it. It is sad, but it appears that the hip appeal of the `modern `art' film has once again suckered in some critics into believing they will shunned by their artsy brethren should they say what they really know about this flick - overall, its average.
Since everyone else has managed to discuss how great `Talk To Her' is, I feel obligated to herein enhance the negative. (sorry IMDB staff - I saw you loved it)
The movie evoked little sympathy for either of its main characters. Another review I read points out that 'o great' Almodovar's `effortless way he engenders sympathy for them. I call b.s. here. I seriously doubt if anyone watching this movie care much about what happened to Benigno in the end. No one in my group did.
Further, the relationship between Marco and Benigno is not at all convincing. We are not given a reason to think they should be friends other than the fact that the director tells us so. The relationship between Marco and Lydia is also poorly developed, if developed at all. One minute they are meeting and the next they are lovers. For the most part, the characters are one-dimensional, save a few contrived personality traits like ophidiophobia (fear of snakes).
The plot hinges on Lydia's unusually extreme phobia of snakes, as well as several other ridiculously contrived coincidences, to come together. For example: Benigno has a crush on Alicia who happens to have an accident that puts her in a coma and then happens to be submitted to the hospital in the particular ward where Benigno just happens to work treating people with comas. Difficult to swallow this is at all a reflection of a possible scenario in life. It's like a sequence out of One Life to Live.
I could go on, but to summarize this film is at best a string of interesting (some beautiful - Pina Bausch) scenes and not really worth investing more time in discussing. Nice ending, but the whole thing could have probably been done much better. Probably worth the rent and some couch time.
Swept Away (2002)
Thought provoking
The critics were spineless in their analysis of this movie. Typically, critics posture as examples of open-mindedness, but quickly turn hypocritical when a story takes a view contrary to their own brand of en-vogue political correctness.
The media is perfectly willing to jump up and applaud dramatic material exploring social taboos ranging from child sex to four thousand different types of murder, but when it comes to exploring the raw and uninhibited relationship between a man and woman on a desert island, and the primal gender characteristics that evolve the relationship, they get scared and run for cover - because it does not promote their ever-chi chi uni-sexist agenda.
While not the best made film of 2002, this movie was actually an interesting story with a powerful statement about society, love and relationships, and on its own, takes a radical and even liberal look at these critical elements of our everyday lives.
In their run for cover, aside from directly and personally picking on Madonna and `her husband,' the socio-politically driven critics tended to haphazardly pick at various elements of the movie such as:
The film appears washed out - in my analysis, with this, the director found he could evoke a mood in the audience utilizing this effect. The white wash look imposed a hot, desert like feel which created a dry distaste of the lives the aristocrats were living. It sets up an underlying melodramatic tone that exudes in Madonna's character and reflects the harshness of her current life. Utilizing non-standard film traits is consistent stylistically with other Guy Ritchie films.
Madonna is too melodramatic - once again, intentional flavoring that adds contrast as her character arcs throughout the film. It also sets up the humor we find in her drastic transformation. It is only because she was a `super bitch' before that we can at first enjoy when the tables are turned. Our enjoyment, of course, quickly turns to concern when we feel that Giuseppe goes too far by our standards.
Unintentional humor - perhaps the audience is laughing at the very right time, yet the intently politically correct critic is simply offended that the audience finds these moments funny.
The plot is improbable - welcome to movie land. The majority of plots and stories in general are improbable.
About half the critical reviews I read admitted the reviewer's real problem with the movie and positioned the subject matter as dated, antediluvian, archaic, etc. This reflects their own fear that the movie might allude to some uncomfortable truths about human nature.
Swept Away simply, but brilliantly breaks two people down into their primal roles as a man and a woman. In the film, absent the rules of a structured society, the physically dominant man assumes a role as the hunter gatherer and uses/abuses this dominance to subordinate the female character that once tormented him. The woman, Amber, who had found her previous plastic life to be unsatisfying, falls dependant on Giuseppe and uncovers a deeper meaning to her existence in the form of an animalistic carnal attraction that surfaces and drives her to a passionate relationship with him. The movie, unfitting with modern social mores, suggests that innate gender biased traits can form the basis for truly passionate and meaningful love.
If we expound on this, the message is that men and women are inherently different and naturally gravitate to different roles in a relationship and that society, at least in some instances, can interfere with these deep rooted urges.
It is a gritty, believable, yet a bit uncomfortable suggestion that perhaps gender roles do offer some reward in society. It was enjoyable to watch, humorous at times and a little painful at others. I give the director the benefit of the doubt and can assume that I was guided well through the story.
The movie is far from perfect in that we don't particularly empathize greatly with any of the main characters, at least until the final few scenes of the movie, though I am not sure we are supposed to. Much of the dialog was not properly updated from the 70s to the 00s - the discussion about `chemicals' for example. Also, there are some embarrassingly poorly made scenes - such as when Amber and Giuseppe are supposed to be zipping along in a speed boat and there is not such as a hair moving on their heads, and every scene where the Mediterranean looks about as wavy as a backyard pool
One thing is for sure - the subject matter is surprisingly thought and discussion provoking and the movie is better than 98% of the other new release rentals out there. Rent it and talk about it.