Reviews

This film is simply ridiculous from start to finish.

I love movies and I love horses. To me the basic enjoyment of watching films is based in the simple concept of make believe. I need to as the viewer to believe in the characters, the setting, the story. I have to understand motives and be able to translate this into something, into a coherent vision. I have to be able to suspend my disbelief in order to allow the director to take me willingly into his world of make believe.

This is exactly where War Horse fails miserably. I cannot believe that a poor family would even out of pride buy a thoroughbred instead of a plow horse, I cannot believe that a soldier would promise a young boy to take very good care of his horse and subsequently send him a drawing of that horse in the midst of war when people are dying all around him.

I cannot be drawn into a movie that clearly is supposed to be a love story between a young man and his horse, underscored by the most sickening score ever to have been written by John Williams - if anyone can believe that at all.

Every scene reeks of a kind of meta-awareness about itself - this is the scene where the bond between the horse and boy is established, this is the scene where the character of the father is revealed. Cancelling out any type of true emotion or pretense of make believe.

For example the scene where the usually brilliant Emma Watson tells her son about the experiences of his father during the Boer war in South Africa. The scene is literally saying: This is the scene where the mother will reveal her love for her husband. I cannot remember a word of the dialog but only my sense of the self-awareness making the scene awkward and making me feel sorry for Emma Watson for having to read out such completely low-standard writing. When you are working with meta-awareness in order to create certain emotions you loose the make believe part. It is also extremely condescending - I feel I am being patronized by the film maker here. I throw this scene at you with a sickly girl living with her grandfather speaking out the most hideously written dialog ever and you are supposed to feel in a certain way.

No! Mr. Spielberg - that is not the way it works!

There is more make believe, truth and respect for the audience in the 3 min scene from Close Encounters where Dreyfuss builds that hill in his living room than there is in this entire film.

1 star - would have rated it even lower if possible.

21 tells the story about young MIT student Ben Cambell who is trying to somehow finance Harvard medical school. He is admitted the school but does not have the funds to pay for it. He is a brilliant student in the areas of mathematics and logic and by chance is spotted by his teacher Michael Rosa, who welcomes him into his student group of competent card counters.

In my view the theme of the film is achievement. What does it mean to achieve something and are all the ways of achieving great things legitimate? This central theme is especially apparent when looking at Bens relationship with his old friends that cools way down when he starts spending all his weekends in Vegas, and suddenly does not have the time for his buddies anymore. It is precisely in Ben's treatment of his friends that we really begin to question the legitimacy of his new path to gaining funds for MED school.

The film does engage its audience but to my mind the characters surrounding Ben are way too weak. There are too many unanswered questions about the motivation of the other characters. For instance about the teacher Rosa. How is he using all the money he wins? What happened in the past? The love interest Jill Taylor seems more of an image than a real character - what is her motivation? The same goes for the other team members. The central characters are portrayed in a sketchy manner where we do not have any idea about their motivation. It is only Ben's story and Ben's motivation that is part of the film.

It would have been a much stronger film, if the theme of achievement would have been supported in the characterization of the other characters in the film.

Miranda July's "You, me and everyone we know" is one of those films that stay with you afterward for a long time.

The film contains many remarkable scenes that depict the essential loneliness of the human being - be it the loneliness of children or grown ups. To me this film is all about the divide and the connection between the adult world and the world of the child.

It seems that the children in the film have this yearning for experiencing the "empowerment" of the adult world as much as the adults seem to yearn for the playfulness / care free life of the child. The conception they have about the world that the other part leads is contrary to reality.

There is one scene where Julie in the shoe store overhears the conversation between Richard and her mother. "Children are adaptable" - her mother says: Where upon she asks "Am I adaptable?". Children are forced to be adaptable as they live in the care of grown ups, and cannot yet make their own choices.

Adults also have to adapt to new situations, but they must do it without guidance or as a consequence of the will of others. "There was no time for a time out" Says Richard in comparing the fights with his ex-wife to two children fighting and being sent to their rooms.

In discussing his relationship with his colleague Richard mentions that they used to "sleep all day like babies" and the colleague says "It sounds perfect."As if this unconcerned sleep of the child is something ideal; a sacred place that exists before the adult concerns of sex, relationships and responsibility enter the scene.

The carefree life of children as envisioned by the grown ups is shown to not actually exist because the children are already in the process of imagining their lives as adults.

The girl Julie with her hope-chest containing all the kitchen appliances any grown person could even imagine having. In her mind she already has a very detailed idea of her life as a grown up. All the way down to the way she will speak to her little daughter when cooking dinner in the evening. She can share her fantasy of the future only with an other child.

Christine Jefferson is an artist, but what she does is she plays, and she has turned this playfulness into an art form. She plays with ideas and conceptions about relationships and identity.

The sexual game that is played out between Richard's colleague and the two teenage girls is also one of those places where the split between the adult world and the world of the child becomes apparent. The girls want to experience sex, but have no idea of what it actually is. Their experimentations functions well with Richard's son because with him they have a kind of common ground in respect to experience and knowledge about sex.

When the girls and Richards colleague trade fantasies about each other it only functions until they try to transgress the fiction which they have created between them. The girls are relieved when it would seem that the shoe guy isn't at home, and he in turn is terrified when realizing that they actually came to his house wanting something.

The same is true of the chat between the youngest boy and an other character in the movie. he/she has clearly read him as an adult, where as he has not read anything dangerous into her fascination with his poop-tale. The scene when the two people meet is very characteristic for me; for the way the film depicts the divide and connection between the world of the adult, and the world of the child. This character and the boy reach some kind of understanding that momentarily breaches the divide between adult and child. The back and forth forever symbolizing the ultimate form of acceptance any two people could ever experience together.

Richard's conception of his own children is a times simplistic and detached from the actual lives of the boys. It would seem that most often the world lived by the other half is a closed book.

The boys are simply, "good at being boys" as he says to a customer. When Christine is coming for her first visit; he tells the boys to stop cleaning up - the room should be more "natural - more like just children playing. A comment that is totally at odds with the folding and ironing skills of the very same children.

When Richard's hand heals at the end of the picture, it is also a sign that his time of mourning the loss of his relationship is about to end. It would also seem that the spell / silence between him and the children will be broken. Their expressionless faces that just beg for him to go away, and stop talking in most of their scenes together seem to thaw a little bit. They seem to want to let him in again.

Richard in turn also opens a space for Christine in his life. He has become "too old to drive". Figuratively speaking, he has reached a maturity / come to terms with his new life as a divorcé.

The guy with the coin in the last scenes of the picture captures the division between the mind of the child and the mind of the adult perfectly. "I am just passing time", he tells the little boy. But when the boy taps the coin and the sun rises - he is somehow making time pass. He is making it happen. Children think they have that power, and they think it will be increased once they grow up. Adults know that this kind of power is the illusion of the child and that it was always already lost.

"Se7en" is one of my all time favorite films. It has stayed with me ever since my first viewing. I must have seen it 6-7 times and I still get a quiver down my spine, when I watch certain scenes. I don't think I can say this is true of very many other films.

I think the reason why this film made such an impression on me is because it speaks to the intellect thorough the body and visa versa. It makes it evident that although western civilization has subscribed to the vision of the separation between body/mind, we cannot separate these to entities in our experience of reality. We cannot exactly determine whether we make decisions based upon gut-reactions or if we make them through reasoning.

The first part of the film plays mainly upon the capacity of the viewer at imagining physical pain. The best example being the pimp who has been lying in his bed for a year, but who is still alive. The first time I saw that scene, I felt nauseous and disgusted. I thought of it as a straight forward gut-reaction, this man who has suffered such pain, and he is still alive.

The darkness of the city, the bleakness of the future for people living there coupled with the acute presence of tenderness in the characters also strikes me. Once again I had a very physical reaction to the scene where Somerset speaks Mills' wife about her being pregnant. Although he himself has chosen not to bring up children in such a harsh world he says "If you decide to have them, spoil them every way that you can." Every time I see this scene I find myself crying.

When we finally reach the end of the film, when we are transported from the rainy dark city to the open and nowhere-to-hide place where John Doe wants to deliver his package. The dialog of the serial killer has the same effect on me every time - I get a stomach ache... The brilliance of it all being that I cannot exactly explain where this stomach ache comes from. Do I get a stomach ache simply because this man is such an eloquent incarnation of evil? Or is it mainly because I cannot help but agree with some of the things that he is saying? "Only in a world this shitty could you even try to say these were innocent people and keep a straight face. But that's the point. We see a deadly sin on every street corner, in every home, and we tolerate it. We tolerate it because it's common, it's trivial."

John Doe has a lot in common with Somerset, who also feels despair at the way of the world: "I just don't think I can continue to live in a place that embraces and nurtures apathy as if it was virtue."

John Doe's actions, his evil master plan marks him as an insane person, who has transgressed the taboos of a "civilised" society, even though his deed was to punish other transgressors.

Throughout the film we have had to imagine all the terrible deeds that John Doe performed on people of - granted - questionable moral dispositions. We get to see him, and listen to his tale. However appalling his actions are, the actual fact that I as a viewer can agree with some of the things that he is saying turns the physical nausea of imagination from the first part into a kind of intellectual nausea... How can I agree with him even a little bit? This in turn once again creates a physical reaction - a stomach ache. I get a physical reaction as a response to my own reasoning.

It reminds me that we all have some type of evil within us, we want pedophiles and evil lawyers to get what they deserve. We can imagine doing something to put things right. But we wouldn't ever do it - that would make us insane. We can imagine this exactly the way the film has let us imagine the pain afflicted, but not let us see it.

In short, my fascination with this film comes from the fact that it speaks to the intellect through the body and visa versa. It shows me how experience cannot really be separated into body/soul. At the same time as it shows me exactly how much I experience the mind and the body to be two separated entities.

A true masterpiece!

In "Happy Together" Director Wong Kar Wai tells us the story of a relationship that does not survive the alienation inside and outside.

The film is set in Argentina where two lovers are stranded because they don't have enough money to return to their native Hong Kong.

The film shows us that Fai and Po-wing are unable to find equality or balance in their relationship. It is a story about the way most relationships are defined by the balance of power.. and how this leads to despair. Fai reflects that their relationship was the happiest when Po-wing was ill and had to be cared for like a child. As Po Wing's health improves Fai draws away from him and refuses his attempts of closeness, illustrated by the constant battles over couch and bed. When Po-Wing is well enough to go out again by himself the balance of the power in relationship shifts. Po-wing slowly but surely slips away into the world of hustling. He never finds his way back to Fai who eventually saves enough money to go home.

Both are emotionally devastated by the loss of their lover. We only see them being happy together in a glimpse, as they dance a slow dance together in their room. It seems the happiness in their relationship that Fai refers to in connection with Po-Wing's illness, is an isolated kind of happiness that he himself enjoys without Po-wing's knowledge. If they are ever indeed Happy Together we see it only in facial expressions, in their tone of voice but these are expressions of love and tenderness that never seem to reach the surface that remain unspoken.

Wong Kar Wai's visual style is absolutely stunning. He conveys the alienation inside the relationship - and the alienation outside - (I am referring to the fact that they are in a different country) through colors and camera-movements. We are constantly looking at the protagonists from a corner high above or through the window of a seedy bar. Every single shot feels claustrophobic and it irritates the viewer. It makes the viewer long for closeness and clarity. It imitates the longing of the characters and their attempts - and failure - at connecting to each other. Their feelings, as does the eye of the lens, float above them in a silent, detached loneliness.

"Happy Together" is one of those films that I do not really enjoy watching. It is actually physically painful to watch because it hurts the eye as much as it hurts the soul. The film makes its style and subject matter into one flesh, a "happy" marriage of form and content.

9/10

Garden State has received rave reviews and is praised everywhere as something very close to a masterpiece. I just saw the film and I had very high expectations, only to be disappointed to have viewed a quite boring and trivial film. I am truly puzzled as to why so many people liked the film so much.

The essential point of interest in this film must be the characters. I expect any evaluation of the film will be based on whether their dilemmas, personality and life styles are presented in a credible way, in a way that makes you identify with them.

I guess this is exactly where the film fails for me. The characters seem to me less than credible, somehow superficial. Natalie Portman is adorable, of course, but do we even believe that such a girl truly exists? And why is she so attracted to Largeman? Largeman is weighed down by his father's decision to keep him in a state of indifference through medication. He blames him for his mother's disability when it was just a freak accident. All his life Largeman has escaped into numbness because he may be a dangerous person who is capable of hurting other people in a very concrete manner.

And then what happens? Largeman meets this incredible person, who really is "incredible" and everything changes. He starts to talk. He tells his old friends, people he hasn't seen for 10 years about himself. They go on an odd quest to find his mother's favorite necklass, and they scream into the abyss. They fall in love, separate briefly, and then decide to give love a try. The essence of the film being: Life is now - let's live it.

It's all very conventional and very mainstream. There is nothing independent about it, if independent means making it new, showing the audience something from a different perspective. It does not suffice to make quirky characters if they do not ring true. But it pretends to do so, it pretends to have something essential to say.

An intelligent version of the same theme was done with credible characters in "Beautiful Girls" by Ted Demme. Watch that one instead!!

3/10

The physicality of faith

Is it possible to write an objective review of Mel Gibson's'The Passion of the Christ?'

The issues that become a part of each and every personal viewing are manifold. My personal experience of the film cannot be separated from my relationship with religion and my own idea of the teachings of Christ. I cannot separate my experience from my attitude towards the hype created by the movie, such as the accusations of anti-Semitism and the knowledge that Gibson made huge amounts of money on the film. When I put these emotions or experiences together it forms my opinion of the film.

I do not like the film simply because I have little respect for the Catholic Church, not only but mainly because of the recent cases of paedophilia and the way the church seems to have handled them and others like them for years with silence. I also find it somehow troubling that the film focuses so much upon the physical suffering of Jesus, when there seems to be such little room for the body in the lives of Catholic priests everywhere.

But the film is also brilliant simply because it plays with the viewer's personal relationship with religion on a physical rather than intellectual level, at the same time as it rises from the sphere of personal belief to a social sphere where it becomes a comment upon the co-existence of religions in society. The fact that is has been done in Aramaeic is another part of its brilliance. This way the story of Jesus seemingly exists in its own right and not as an image appropriated by Hollywood.

It is impossible to write an objective review of 'The passion of the Christ', but I think that this is the reason the film has found such a huge audience across the globe!

I recently read the book Girl with a Pearl Earring and I was very impressed by the way Tracy Chevalier gave life and credibility to her portrait of Griet and the Dutch painter Vermeer.

Thus, it was with high expectations that I bought the film and watched it. I was very disappointed by the film and have given some thought to the reason why it simply does not work.

Firstly, it seems to me that the film is too dependent on the book. It seems to me that viewers who have not read the book will wonder what it is all about. Since the book has so many "in-betweens", some sort of explanation about the characters and the plot seems essential. It seems to me that the director relied too much on the facial expressions of the leading actors to convey not only emotions but also crucial events in the plot.

This leads me to the second point of the criticism. I think the main problem with the film is exactly the characterisation. Colin Firth and Scarlett Johanson do not strike me as credible characters they do not literally "jump from the screen" as they did indeed jump from the page.

Firths body language is moody and closed and it comes across as if he is sulking all the way through the movie rather than enveloped and passionate about his work. Scarlett Johansen also fails to convey the intelligence and dormant potential of the maid Griet. It is not enough to just open and close your mouth 1000 times when we are given no other clues to what ís going on.

I do not think however that this is the fault of the actors - it must mean that something is missing in the direction and the script - there seems to be too little material for the actors in which to invest and bring out the characters. Too much material is only suggested and still relies upon the viewer having read the book and being able to fill in the blanks and fill in the emotions in those vacant expressions of Scarlett and Colin.

Some of the plot changes also puzzled me. Why does Vermeer pierce both her ears when she did one of them herself in the book. I thought this was a very powerful way of showing Vermeers dedication as well as his passion for the art which is uncomprising as well as a little cruel.

An adaptation has to be able to stand alone and this film certainly does not achieve this.

3/10

Things you can tell just by looking at her

In Things you can tell just by looking at her we meet several women who for different reasons seem to be playing bit parts in their own lives. One of them takes care of her mother in a big lonely house, Rebecca stops listening to her own feelings because a baby does not fit into the life of her married lover, Rose discovers that her son is growing up, Calista's girlfriend is dying and ? takes care of her blind sister.

After watching the film I thought: what does this film want to tell us about women? Or perhaps people in general. Some of the lines in the film stuck in my mind: The blind girl says about the woman who committed suicide: `I bet you could tell just by looking at her that there was a man involved.' When giving this line some thought I starting seeing the film as a comment on `loneliness' in general. What do people really want? They want to be involved with people. They want other people to see them.

The film suggests that when people don't depend on anyone anymore when they have no one `to be' for - they chose to actually become nothing to die. The loneliness at the heart of existence is too hard to bear. I think the film is about the nature of making connections and being involved with other people although it is painful and sometimes lead to self-sacrifice. It shows us the horror which is tied with the fear of being left alone, although the connections which are made does little to remove the feeling of loneliness. It is the horror of a stranger walking into your personal sphere and immediately being able to see through you and see what lies beneath the surface. It is the horror of revealing your interest in other people - looking in on other peoples lives, in a desperate attempt to connect and to become involved. It is the horror of becoming involved with someone who cannot stay, the horror of losing those whom you connect with. When you are involved, and when you connect with someone, you face the danger of being hurt, being dumped - of sacrificing your own life in your care for others. It is the horror also that your sacrifice is not appreciated, the horror that when you are no longer a lover or a mother then you will certainly become nothing that your identity is so intricately tied with the dependence of those who need you that you cannot be `you' if they don't need you anymore. It is ultimately the horror of being defined by relations of interdependence where the people you care for in effect give you identity. It is the horror that you really are nothing without other people to mirror yourself in.

Why is this form of `self-sacrifice' then particular to women? We learn from Walter's daughter that when he really gets involved `He dumps them like a hot potato'. Are women victims and easy to exploit? Rose's teenage son confides that people `are always' looking for someone. But is the act of making these connections and becoming involved truly more important to women - truly more essential in their attempt at becoming someone - of gaining an identity. Are women always characterized by either being cared for or being the ones who take care of others? Interestingly, none of these women are wives - they are defined by other types of relationships than those that arise between man and wife.

I do not think I can answer these questions and I don't think the film wants to answer them either. But I think the film is a point of departure for discussing the nature of being - and the way we all perhaps depend upon others in order to become.

7/10