Change Your Image
psi_rover
Reviews
Sorstalanság (2005)
FATELESS and the Truth Behind It...
FATELESS is one of the best Holocausts film ever made showing how adolescence can suddenly be interrupted by war. In contrast with other World War II classics like The Schindler's List and The Pianist, FATELESS did not focus on the gruesome images and unnecessary pains of war, but rather the film showed another dimension of the universal truth by which most people fails to see and realize.
Gyorgy is fourteen, a boy who gradually understand that life and survival is not that easy in the kind of world he is currently living. "And then I understand the simple secret of our universe, I can be killed, anywhere and anytime." ironically said by the boy when he was in Auswitz and a series of bombing occurred in towns nearby. We can feel the depressing mode of the film because of the characters will to survive hunger, cold weather, humiliation and death but it never instill too much horror because it did not show how the defenseless Jews are massacred by the Nazis or how they suffered inside the gas chambers. As the days go by in the camps, despite of being scared of what might happened, it seemed that he is rather bewildered by the war, he has no time to mourn and all that he can think of is how to survive.
When the boy returned to his home in Hungary, he missed the brotherhood and the simple life inside the concentration camp, where you can easily appreciate what it is like to be happy.
FATELESS is not just a Holocaust masterpiece but it is a testament of truth, the truth that no matter how random, dark and hard life can be, happiness, just like the air we breath will find its way out from a suffocating enclosure to give us life. FATELESS is not for everyone, it is not a typical movie that you'll always expect that something is going to happen but it is a film with a lot of symbolisms between its scenes. FATELESS shows how turmoil, pain and hopelessness can suddenly give happiness its sweetest flavor.
Joyeux Noël (2005)
Eventually, one of the best Christmas classic that we have...
"If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility".
Joyeux Noel (aka Merry Christmas), a heartwarming film set in the World War 1 trenches is a 19M joint production of France, Germany and the UK with star studded talented cast of Diane Krüger, Daniel Brühl, Brenno Fürmann, Guillame Canet, Garry Lewis and Danny Boon.
Merry Christmas is a very poignant film surrounded by beautiful Christmas carols and well written storyline. It is like the heartbreaking moments of Saving Private Ryan plus the uplifting energy of Love Actually combined together in a single package.
Christmas Eve of 1914, the English, French and Germans celebrated the Christmas Eve together in the war trenches singing, drinking and sharing their pictures from home. The film's opening credit is pretty impressive; it begins with children of different nationalities talking about their understanding of war. Things like why they should get rid of one another to ease the danger and make this world a better place to live in, but the question is, do we really have defined or particular enemies? In Merry Christmas, unbelievable but true, they have extended the fraternization for three more days to bury the victims of war in both sides. I found a very moving scene in the film where the officials are talking about Christmas, the day when Christ was born is the very same day when they are burying their comrades. In the end of the film, I have my teary eyes when they are all going back to war and forget about their so called "crime of fraternization" and then they sang the song "I'm Dreaming of Home". History has kept this truth for years because on that time, they believed that it is a crime of disobedience and disloyalty for their countries. But I guess it is damn better to be loyal to the human race in general right? In one of the last scenes, the English priest is telling the soldiers that the World War I is a crusade, a battle between good and evil, the English and French being the savior and the Germans are the evil ones. Well, I know it is pretty controversial but I never believe in the literal meaning of the world 'Crusade', the crusade that they are talking about that there are definite groups of people that would assume the word good and bad is just absurd.
Looking at Joyeux Noel, the most outstanding aspect of the film is probably the strong direction from Christian Carion, he is a very emotional director who can effectively show human reaction to the absurdity and hostility of war. The cast is also very powerful not only because of their acting skills (we know that already) but it features box office hit makers such as Diane Kruger. But the best performances from the movie came from Daniel Bruhl (not because I'm a fan), Guillame Canet (France' answer to Tom Cruise) and Danny Boon, the one who played the role of the priest. The film score is fantastic, it features old recognizable Christmas carols and I just love the song I'm Dreaming of Home, it is so touching and nostalgic. This movie is definitely one of the best five movies of 2005.
Last night, there are just three people watching the last full show. But despite of this, I realized one thing, if it's always Christmas everyday, may be those millions of people did not loose their lives in the series of senseless wars
Taegukgi hwinalrimyeo (2004)
The Best Antiwar Movie Since The Schindler's List and Life is Beautiful
This film is the most expensive South Korean movie ever... ($12M) But let me say this, a money well spent, this film resonates to all kinds of audiences: intelligent, dumb or whatever, the feeling is pretty universal. Taegukgi avoided to prioritize politics and retell the 38th parallel war over and over again, it focuses on us... human beings who are directly affected by the cruelty of war, not the society as a whole or the rest of the history but the unbearable pain it causes to every individual, families that have been separated by war. It talks about dehumanization, agony and yet the courage of the human heart to accept fate... The movie is very brave, sincere and emotionally wrenching. One of the best films that I've ever seen...
Good Bye Lenin! (2003)
Perhaps, the sweetest movie of all time...
GOOD BYE LENIN! is a comedy of a bittersweet kind. It showed the complexity of life amid the weightlessness of freedom, enticement of westernization, and the burden of abrupt change. Set against the historic collapse of the Berlin Wall, the movie pleasantly integrates comedy of situation, irony of fate, and the quarreling alliance between reality and the heart's decree, hence picturing a fundamental tale of being. Famed German caliber of production, affecting cinematography, soundtrack, and leading/supporting performances all chip in to the reaching of tender moments of connection between wordless language and feeling, the visual and sensory, love and life. Indeed, one of the most remarkable contributions in the European artistic cinema, a beautiful and heartwarming movie