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bellemarie
Reviews
Les grandes Grandes Vacances (2015)
A beautiful and touching production - full of emotional and historical authenticity
I just watched an episode of Les grandes grandes vacances and was captivated! It is a long time since I have seen any TV series - animated or live action, for children or for adults, English or French-language - with the emotional resonance and beauty of this production.
The theme - a village in occupied France - has been done before many times and is so often approached in a forced or unconvincing way. Here, the drama, shown from the children's point of view, is understated, sincere and full of small and authentic human moments, without a trace of sentimentality. Moreover, the historical authenticity of the production is absolutely top-notch.
Watching an episode, I was transported back to my childhood and all the secrets, games, joys and heartaches which children experience, surrounded both by love and by all the complications of the adult world. The end of the episode brought me to tears. This is not just a children's show like any other but a true masterpiece. Un vrai chef d'oeuvre! Bravo, les réalisateurs, et merci!
King Richard and the Crusaders (1954)
Pretty Good Adventure Flick
King Richard and the Crusaders is an entertaining movie, with plenty of action, nice costumes, some good scenery, and a fast-moving plot. Everything you would normally want from an adventure movie.
However, the script is horrible, many of the actors are completely miscast, the actual story is pretty poor, and it has next to nothing to do with the Crusades. It is not Crusaders versus Saracens. It is Good Crusaders and Good Saracens versus Bad Crusaders. Also, they most certainly do not have a cast of thousands, looking like it has a very low budget.
As a result, if you are looking for a historically accurate epic about the Third Crusade, you will be disappointed. Although it is not a great movie, it is underrated, being far better than a lot of other adventure movies, and is overall entertaining.
If you want to enjoy it, simply do not go into the movie looking for an award winning script and brilliant acting.
Miss Potter (2006)
An excellent, intelligent film which remains faithful to the period
I once read, on the back of a romantic title, a brief quote from a magazine review of the book, calling it a "gentle, romantic story". I was always puzzled by the use of this quote to advertise the book's charms, because surely such a quote does not express unmixed praise, to say the least. So I hesitate to call "Miss Potter" a "gentle, romantic story" -- which might give the impression that it is a pretty little movie in which essentially nothing happens -- although that is what it is. However, as well as being "gentle", it is also a quite lovely, curiously touching and exquisitely made film.
One of the most impressive aspects of "Miss Potter" is the way it almost perfectly captures an era and a society, -- this is one of the most convincing period movies I have ever seen (outside of the BBC, of course!). The costumes are excellent and so are the hairstyles (it frustrates me more than anything else to see anachronistic hairstyles in a period film, or worse, only the heroine with a gorgeous modern hairstyle, and everyone else with daggy hair, just to rub it in), and the makeup is good too (the ruddy complexions are pretty faithful to the time.) More importantly, nearly everyone in this film succeeds in looking as though they actually *believe* they are living in that period...so that when someone cries out "jolly good" or formally addresses even close friends with "Miss" or "Mr", it sounds completely normal and expected.
I have never seen Renee Zellweger before in a movie and she is very impressive! It must be difficult to act with an accent that isn't your own, yet she managed to sound unforced and put so much quiet emotion into her part, making Beatrix a slightly eccentric but very appealing character. In fact, all the actors in the movie are excellent, with the possible exception of the girl who plays a young Beatrix. Some of her lines aren't very well timed and I found her very precocious manner slightly off-putting. That's probably just me, though, and I don't want to criticise her too much,because her performance is certainly passable and doesn't take away from the overall quality of the movie.
The very gentleness of "Miss Potter" is partly what makes the love story so effective, I think. The Christmas party scene, a central scene in this story, is particularly well done -- it could easily have been overdone -- but with a minimum of dialogue and use of very effective images, the development of the romance between Beatrix and Mr. Warne is believable and moving. (Contrast with the truly cringe-worthy romance of such movies as "Titanic".)
I have always loved the books by Beatrix Potter and was pre-disposed to like this movie. I can honestly say that the movie far exceeded my expectations! It touched me as very few movies have, its story is truly inspiring without being mushy, the romance is captivating and there is a "truth" of feeling and tone which elevates it from a good film to a minor masterpiece.
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)
A beautiful, intelligent and touching film
As a teenage girl, I did not really expect to like this film, because I usually don't enjoy movies set in wartime. I wasn't prepared for this one, you see! I very rarely respond emotionally to the characters in a movie but this is one exception! I don't know what it was -- maybe the restraint present in each role, particularly that of the anguished midshipman Hollom. When painful things happened to the characters, I couldn't dismiss the characters as overacted or unrealistic -- they are real people and you care about them.
I was surprised to read some comments on the film suggesting that the film lacks humour -- I really have to question these critics' definition of humour! Although the film does not contain many deliberately "comic" moments (save the lovely weevil joke!), a gentle sense of humour is present throughout -- you couldn't put this variety of different characters together on one ship and not get humorous situations! Another very strong point of M&C is the music, which combines classical music with modern compositions and complements the settings perfectly.
This is a truly beautiful, wonderfully acted film. It can't really be classed as an action movie, which will put some people off, but if you're in a thoughtful mood, I can't think of any more rewarding film.