Change Your Image
architectdh
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Lists
An error has ocurred. Please try againReviews
Revoir Paris (2022)
Violence Trauma and Recovery
When unknown gunmen enter a Parisian restaurant and start shooting people that were enjoying their evening soirée, innocent lives are lost and the lives of those who survived are altered forever. Winocur's film portrays an already mundane fact of life, of armed terrorism that has entered the main stream of our lives, threatening to become an expected normal daily reality everywhere.
The survivors of the attack are seeking closure by gathering to commiserate and memorialize. After the traumatic event, Mia (Virginie Efira) is desperately searching for the cook who held her hand while they were hiding together during the shooting.
The search bears fruit and she eventually succeeds.
La villa (2017)
About roots and devotion
Guédiguian's movies are highly charged with social, political, philosophical and emotional subjects. He uses the same actors, and almost all his films are filmed in his birthplace Marseille. In his 2017 'The House by the Sea' he expresses the same social subjects, using the same actors, and the filming location in Marseille. This establishes a continuity with his other films, not unlike a painter using the same color palette.
Particularly strong here is the subject of the roots that people maintain to a place, usually their birthplace. While some characters in the movie have left town, they do return, even though only for special occasions.
The film's characters are damaged demoralized and full of grief. Angèle, who returns to see her incapacitated father after 20 years, must reconnect with her daughter's death, Bérangère who is in an impossible relationship with Joseph and is about to leave him and Benjamin who is hopelessly in love with a woman twice his age or more.
A sense of moral devotion is clearly expressed by all the characters.
Marie-Jo et ses 2 amours (2002)
Her true love
The 2002 film 'Marie-Jo et ses 2 amours' explores the common theme of a love triangle between a woman is in love with two men. Marie-Jo played by Ariane Ascaride is married to Daniel played by Jean-Pierre Darroussin, and she loves him, but is also in love with Marco, played by Gérard Meylan. Throughout the entire movie she oscillates between these two men, and can't choose.
The story is weaved in Marseille with many nude scenes as well as maritime sea pictures. Mary-Jo is torn apart by her love, feels utterly guilty towards her husband and daughter, and eventually discloses the affair to her husband. Shortly after she leaves her husband and goes to live with Marco. However guilt and remorse bring her back to her husband who tells her that he would not be able to share her with Marco.
The movie builds up slowly towards the unknown question of how the love triangle will end. The secret of who is Mary-Jo's true love is revealed in the end, when Mary-Jo and Daniel take their boat to the water. Daniel has an accident bangs his head and falls into the water. Mary-Jo jumps to the rescue but they both sink down.
And Mary-Jo does not let go of Daniel's hand. Perhaps a declaration of her true love, and final choice.
Voleuses (2023)
A bit of action, comedy, crime and loyalty
The plot of the story depicted in this film is a common recurring theme in many film productions. It's about two girls played by Melanie Laurent and Adèle Exarchopoulos, who sign up to do the bidding of a crime boss played by Isabelle Adjani, and when they decide that they've had enough of doing crimes, they discover that they are not allowed to terminate the arrangement and quit when they wish, but they must continue pleasing the crime boss.
The film tries to have a little bit of everything. A bit of fun. A bit of violence. A bit of humor. A bit of stunt action. Powerful speedy driving executed by Manon Bresch. A few sexual scenes. The desire for living a peaceful family life. And, surprisingly it has a happy ending.
A commercial film.
Smultronstället (1957)
Of loneliness melancholy and childhood love
I have watched this movie several times, each time discovering new meanings. The strongest message Bergman is imparting to us is that old people suffer loneliness, melancholy, and sadness in their old age. The movie is imbued with surreal vignettes, which Bergman uses with great skill to reinforce his messages. It evolves through several vignettes accompanied by thoughtfully crafted dialogues.
The story begins with the main character Isak Borg introducing himself by lamenting about long-lost human relationships he had abandoned. Immediately after the viewer is introduced to the movie's main theme, the fear of old age and death.
In the first and likely the most powerful vignette of the movie, our protagonist dreams of walking through a deserted town. While looking at the town clock and his pocket watch, he sees that both have no hands, a clear sign that the end is approaching, yet the time is unknown. Similarly, a watch without hands scene repeats when Borg visits his mother. He then approaches a man from behind and taps on his shoulder. When the man turns, he reveals himself to have an amorphous undefined face with closed eyes, he falls and dissolves. A horse-led carriage carrying a death coffin appears, bumps into a pole, and disintegrates. The coffin cracks open revealing a hand trying to pull the frightened Borg inside the coffin where he sees himself. Our protagonist then wakes up.
Memories resurface in a second strong vignette when Borg meets his childhood sweetheart Sara (played by Bibi Andeson), at their childhood home "the place where wild strawberries grow".
In another strong vignette, Sara asks Borg to look into the mirror so he can see himself, how he is now an old man while she has never changed. This further upsets the old fearful Borg.
While the protagonist's dreams throughout are bad, the movie ends with a pleasant one. An idyllic image, one in which Borg is led by Sara to see his parents sitting by the lake with his father fishing.
A thoughtful rendition of 'things' from life presented by a great master.
Un amour impossible (2018)
A story of unrequited love
This is a story taken from life's daily repertoire, in which a kind naive girl from a single mother lower class poor family falls for a bourgeois, horrible bad man. As a result of her passion, love and infatuation, Rachel gets dragged by Philippe into a life long suffering and rejection, a life living with unrequited love.
While enjoying an afternoon in the woods, Philippe describes to Rachel three types of love. The first "marital love the one that everyone wants", the second "passion" and the third "an inevitable encounter". He asks Rachel what she thinks theirs is and while she replies that it is passion, he responds that it is an inevitable encounter. He tells her that he does not want to marry but that he would consider it if the to be spouse was from a rich family. Despite the red flags, Rachel allows Phillipe to impregnate her the day before he leaves for Paris. Phillipe does not want to recognize his daughter for a very long time, but eventually does. When his daughter Chantal grows up and they get together and start spending time to make up for lost time, Phillipe shatters all the family taboos and sodomizes his daughter, leaving her with long life mental scars.
If you wanted to watch a movie with a happy ending this isn't it. It is quite a heavy movie depicting emotional anguish, with the only happiness in it being the superb acting by Virginie Efira and Niels Schneider.
El artista y la modelo (2012)
Ode to Art and the Film Noir genre
In this beautiful Film Noir rendition of a vignette taken from life in an art studio during World War II, Trueba succeeds in depicting an idyllic picture of an encounter between an aged French sculptor played by Jean Rochefort, and a Spanish country girl escapee from a concentration camp, who by necessity becomes an artist model, played by Aida Folch. The vignette is set in nature and is soothing despite the short background danger intrusions reminding the viewer that war is raging on.
The artist's thoughts about the female human body that he adores, his old age-related frustrations, and the initial inexperienced model, set tension between the movie stars. However, the tension is short-lived. The climax arrives in the beautiful scene in which the model while lying in bed, responds to the artist's frustrations by holding and caressing his head.
Both Rochefort and Folch play their roles brilliantly. Rochefort, as the mature experienced, and thoughtful artist, and Folch, as the country girl who accidentally finds a possible future vocation as an artist model.
Le goût des merveilles (2015)
About the triumph of love
In the modern current era, among endless repetitively boring movies that portray the subject matter of violence and the use of brute force, 'The Sense of Wonder' shines like a jewel.
The movie is gentle. It makes one feel good about life. It brings up to the surface the subject of hope, and it reinforces the concept of the importance of caring for others, that are less fortunate than us. The movie proves that thinking outside the box, can sometimes overcome stereotypes.
The importance of feelings, of kindness, warmth and sympathy reign in this movie.
Louise and Pierre are destined to meet, accept each other, unite and 'do good' and complement each other. This is what love means.