| Review: Reprise (2006). |
[25 Nov 2009|12:44pm] |
Reprise. Director: Joachim Trier. 2006. Norwegian. 105 minutes.
Life doesn't always turn out the way we hope. Some dreams are shattered and dreams come true. This is the dominant theme in director Joachim Trier's first film, Reprise.
Adorned with Joy Division, quiet introspection, and glimmerings of humor, Reprise follows a group of early 20-something friends in Oslo.
The plot focuses on three characters in particular; two friends and one of their girlfriends, but there is no love triangle. Instead, the focus is on human nature, friendship, loss and coping, and while there are plenty of subplots, the red thread that brings it all together is the merciless slipping of one of the three into madness.
Reprise is shot with subdued colors, an eye for detail and an appreciation for the subtle. It's painted in a limited palette and naturally lit, which I think perfectly suits the film. Notably, I was taken by how skillfully the film was acted. Never did I feel that it was stilted or even fanciful.
5 out of 6 herrings.
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| Review: Under the Sun (1998) |
[18 Nov 2009|12:45pm] |
Under the Sun. Director: Colin Nutley. 1998. Swedish. 118 minutes.
Fields flooded with vast crops of golden rape flowers. Sweden. An illiterate, well-mannered farmer. A classified ad for a young housekeeper with a request for a picture. A well-dressed woman from the city. An obnoxious young greaser that has spent time in the US and prefers an English pronunciation of his surname. Frequent emptying of bedpans. Under the Sun is a film set in 1950s rural Sweden.
While quite possibly made for television (?), the movie appears is largely shot on location and features an enjoyable golden tone throughout... though at times I wonder if a grittier approach wouldn't have been better. While (fortunately) sparse, the soundtrack often veered far too into the realm of the sickly sweet for my tastes. The plot definitely could have been executed better and things were sometimes unintentionally hokey, but I found a little enjoyment in Under the Sun.
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| Review: Babettes Gæstebud (English: "Babette's Feast") (1987) |
[17 Nov 2009|03:48am] |
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Babettes gæstebud (English Babette's Feast). (1987)
Directed by Gabriel Axel.
102 minutes. Danish. Ingredient I:
Jutland. Birthplace of the English language, the Angles, the Jutes, the Teutons. Mostly flat. Farms. Wind-bent trees. While windy, cold and gray much of the year, there's no place I'm more fond of than Jutland. So far so good. Ingredient II:
The French. OK, it's not that I particularly dislike French culture (unlike some of my countrymen) but, that said, a Francophile I am not. Ingredient II:
Food. I am not ashamed to admit that I like food. A lot. Well, good food. And who can deny the food of the French?
Mix these three ingredients together and you might just get a wonderful Danish film called Babette's Feast. Recommended to me by someone with taste, I've kept an eye out for this movie for a while now. I am not at all disappointed. In Babette's Feast, a wonderfully matter-of-fact plot unravels to bring a Frenchwoman to Jutland in the 19th century. After fleeing from certain death due to political turmoil in her native France and after a decade and a half of living with the remains of an aging Christian sect in remote Jutland, Babette comes into a stroke of good luck and decides to give her adopted home a gift: she poignantly exposes the town to the pleasures of the flesh, if "only" through the stomach.
Colors and landscapes are contrasted excellently—Babette's gift glows with rich warmth while the bleak coastal Jutlandic town glimmers like cold bones. Some of the haircuts are strangely feathered and 80s but that's a minor complaint for what is otherwise a fine movie. Everything else was just right. Recommended!
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| Review (sort of): "Okie Noodling" (2001) |
[10 May 2009|12:43am] |
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Noodling. What is it? Well, I can tell you, for lo! I have watched a documentary about it on Youtube! Okay, half a documentary. Let's just say I can only handle so much film about noodling. But back to what it is. Noodling is, basically, people fishing in lakes.. with their hands. They feel out the lakes for holes in the water, and then stick their hands deep into them. Within the hole will sometimes be an enormous catfish that will bite them (the catfish do not have teeth as we do but rather something sand-paper like) and, with any luck, the noodler will pull out the fish. The reason this is called noodling is because, to entice the papery catfish bite, one wiggles their fingers around like plump worms for the taking.. Of course, there's not always catfish in those holes..! Remember, it's a tradition: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONDIQwQeFEk
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| Review: "The Creek Runs Red" (2007) |
[10 May 2009|12:22am] |
Some of you may be aware that Youtube recently branched into making full-length films of various genres (including documentaries) available on their service officially and in high quality. For those of you who are not aware of this, have a look here:
http://www.youtube.com/movies
Upon discovering this, the first film I watched was a documentary called The Creek Runs Red. The documentary covers the history and then-current state of a highly contaminated city Picher, Oklahoma in the United States. I had never heard of it before, but I think it's all very interesting. While all quite real, the atmosphere the city projects is really something straight out of fiction, and reminded me a bit of Dear Wendy (also recommended). Some of the old residents are desperately clinging on to their past, embodied by what remains of their quickly disappearing and rotting and contaminated (but once booming) city, while other remaining residents are horrified of the results that the heavy metals contamination is having on the children growing up there. Some of the Native Americans interviewed that live in reservation nearby are more (understandably) blunt about the whole thing. I found it all very interesting, even emotional, and there were a lot of very peculiar characters documented. As a side note, the city was significantly damaged by a very powerful tornado in 2008, resulting in scores of fatalities, according to Wikipedia. Watch The Creek Runs Red:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mmhElHeHl0
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| Warm Feet |
[16 Oct 2008|02:46am] |
I have a confession to make. I have never worn wool socks. Before tonight, that is. It's not that I've never had the need for them. In fact, just off of the top of my head, I can think of several incidents involving serious (and not so serious) cold where wool socks would have saved me plenty of toe-freezing. When it gets cold in steel-toed boots, it stays cold, and anything inside becomes does exactly the same. Right now I'm wearing wool socks, and I must admit that my feet may have never known such comfort. Even better, they have stags on them. Winter calls, and I hear her, all the while wearing my wool socks!!
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| The Hand with the Knife |
[07 Feb 2008|10:15pm] |
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And here's one of my favorite tales form the first edition of "Nursery & Household Tales" by the Grimm brothers, translated into English by Maria Tatar and appearing in her work The Hard Facts of the Grimms' Fairy Tales.
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| Reviews: "Twin Peaks" (1990 -1991) and "Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me" (1992) |
[01 Jan 2008|07:16pm] |
Over the last month, I've been watching every episode of the television series Twin Peaks and, afterwards, I watched the associated prequel film entitled Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. While it made a big splash, it somehow this had escaped my radar. I really knew nothing about it outside of the fact that it was influential. Curious - and having seen practically everything else Lynch has directed - I took the plunge and rented the pilot.
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| "The Celebration" (1998) |
[19 Sep 2007|10:44pm] |
(AKA "Festen")
Directed by Thomas Vinterberg.
106 minutes, Danish.
"The Celebration" is a movie I had heard about for some time prior to seeing it. It was created under the guidelines carved out by Von Trier's Dogme 95 manifesto and so, with that in mind, I was a mixture of cautious and curious. Cautious because I have mixed feelings about Von Trier's fims. Curious because some of those mixed feelings are extremely positive.
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| "Dersu Uzala" (1975) |
[25 Jun 2007|10:11pm] |
Directed by Akira Kurosawa
141 minutes, Russian.
"Dersu Uzala" is a Japanese and Soviet coproduction directed by Akira Kurosawa. The movie is based on a book of memoirs by a Russian explorer named Vladimir Arsenyev. Set in the early 20th century, the shamanistic Dersu Uzala, which the film and book are named after, was a solitary, aging Nainai who had lost his family long ago to smallpox. He encounters the Russian crew, led by Arsenyev. Arsenyev, impressed with the wisdom of Uzala, asks him to serve as a guide. Subsequently, Uzala not only enriches the perspective of Aresenyev in the wilderness of Siberia but also saves his life more than once.
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| "Elephant" (2003) |
[15 Jun 2007|08:52pm] |
Directed by Gus Van Sant
81 minutes, English.
In 1999, the Columbine High School Massacre occurred in Littleton, Colorado. I was just getting home during my first year of high school and turned on the television set. I watched live coverage of the event, complete with updates as it happened. During this time, every news outlet in the US was scrambling to dig up any information they possibly could in as little time as possible. During the following weeks and even months, when the search for news facts failed, new "facts" were invented in an effort to further sensationalize the massacre and draw coverage out as long as possible for maximum financial benefit.
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| "The Virgin Spring" (1960) |
[09 Jun 2007|01:25am] |
(AKA "Jungfrukällan")
Directed by Ingmar Bergman.
89 minutes, Swedish.
Unfortunately, this review of is going to miss a very important aspect when considering the film. According to the opening credits, it is an adaptation of a 13th century Swedish ballad. I don't speak Swedish and am not sure where to find it in the first place. So, if anyone knows anything more about it please feel free to fill me in as I am always interested.
Earlier this year, I realized that one of the great names in film that I had completely missed was Ingmar Bergman, perhaps one of the most celebrated directors of all time. While in Denmark earlier this year, conversations with Danes about Bergman sparked my curiosity, combined with a distant glimpses of some of his work, mainly "The Seventh Seal" (1957) due to the distinctive and highly influential imagery surrounding the film.
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