Tears of Love

Alain Corneau's best work.

by AnaMa

Weerasethakul says that the film is about "how we remember, how our sense of happiness can be triggered by seemingly insignificant things.
Time is collapsed to mimic a pattern of remembering and to manifest my belief in the idea of reincarnation. This is the third film in which I've used the structure to explore dualities, and I think it will be the last. The word 'Syndromes' could apply equally to Blissfully Yours or Tropical Malady : it does refer to human behavior, such as the way we fall in love. I don't intend the word to have negative connotations; if falling in love is a kind of sickness, it's one for which we all show symptoms. 'Century' for me conveys the sense of moving forward. A century is more or less the same as a lifetime. I'm interested in the ways things change over time, and in the ways they don't change. It seems to me that human affairs remain fairly constant."
To me this movie speaks about the small wonders of life, with very humorous side I didn't expected from Thai people. The characters are so gentle and innocent, It is just a delight to follow their graceful behavior.

http://www.readbookonline.net/read/690/10628/

The film is wonderful. Don't miss it.

Seven years after his comeback film The Thin Red Line, Terrence Malick returns to cover a topic with scope to finally match his enigmatic talent. The New World sees him detailing the very formation of America, dissecting the popular Pocahontas myth as his means of doing so. And whether this is a popular yarn positively spun, or a much gloomier meditation about the loss of natural freedom, it is brilliantly delivered and absorbing to watch.

As the native Powhatan tribe of Indians struggle with newly-arrived British settlers in 17th century Virginia, the resident chief's daughter Pocahontas (Q'Orianka Kilcher) and tender explorer Captain Smith (Colin Farrell) fall deeply in love. Neither of their societies approve; soon Pocahontas is traded to the English and Smith summoned home by his king. Slowly adapting to the disciplined lives of the settlers, the abandoned Pocahontas begins to find new happiness with recently arrived farmer John Rolfe (Christian Bale).

Major events in Pocahontas' life are made to mirror the changes happening in America around her. As she is traded, so the Indians seem to somehow cede control of the land, allowing the English to establish themselves. Her two relationships also communicate a shift. With Smith, she ran around in fields and stared with naive eyes at the world; the new life with Rolfe involves farming tobacco and living in a house. It's restrictive, but sensible and honest. This is the new country.

Though he doesn't particularly convince as a grizzly explorer, Farrell puts in a decent performance as the traumatised Smith, whose eternal adoration for Pocahontas is made profoundly, painfully obvious. Bale is efficient and calm as the kind-hearted Rolfe, who battles to claim Pocahontas' heart after Smith moves away. The two never share the screen, yet balance each other well.

But there is no doubting the star of the show. Partly due to her most bewitching smile, Peruvian-born Kilcher is mesmerising as Pocahontas. Gracefully allowing her character to shift from enthusiastic young girl to wearied housewife, she is in turn inspiring, bewildering and iconic. Every possible emotion is covered along the way, without blemish. A dazzlingly bright presence, Kilcher's Pocahontas deserves to be one of cinema's great characters.

She is aided by Malick's thoughtful, zealous direction. Up until Pocahontas' trade, his film is wild and energised. Emmanuel Lubezki's camera spins around in rapture, stealthily stalking through the long grass, or staring with unwavering focus on astonishing landscapes. Natural Virginian sounds compete with James Horner's dramatic music for attention; there is little speech. Malick presents the land just as the magical new frontier must have seemed for those first settlers. And, like it, his film is epic, sprawling and inspirational.

It's also an emotional picture at this stage, more concerned with places and senses than action or plot development. Whether it's the Indians attacking, or the English, it matters not; Malick prefers to focus on the sentiments of his main trio of characters, with dramatic music, pained faces and charged voiceovers. Then, as soon as Pocahontas is taken from her tribe and Smith leaves her, the dreamy feel suddenly ceases, the bubble bursts and the film changes.

It has stiller, clearer scenes, less demanding on the senses; the plot becomes more prosaic and slow-paced. Whereas, in the early scenes, it was hard to know what was occurring on screen; now it is easy - there's more dialogue and more logical scene progressions. The initial fervour is replaced by a stony calm, as if the movie has grown up, or been suppressed, like Pocahontas. As America shifts, so does Malick's film in response.

In the shift, and the way that the lively, naive Pocahontas is so noticeably dulled, you wonder if Malick really believes that a good change took place at all. Yes, the English have great qualities; yes, their society has stood the test of time. But the loss of Pocahontas' liberty and expressive temperament are terrifically obvious in the film's second part; it seems hard to think of that loss other than as a tragedy.

But tragedy or not, Malick's film is a rousing, delicious experience. It has so much to offer; vast, lush scenery, elegant camerawork presenting hugely important historical moments, a sublime soundtrack and a roller coaster, compelling love triangle - and of course its majestic main character.

This is cinema made individually, warmly and skillfully - just, in fact, as it should be.

Sketches of Frank Gehry (2005)
The Interpreter (2005)
... aka Interprète, L' (France)

Random Hearts (1999)
Sabrina (1995)
... aka Sabrina (Germany)
The Firm (1993)
Havana (1990/I)

Out of Africa (1985)
Tootsie (1982)
Absence of Malice (1981)

The Electric Horseman (1979)
Bobby Deerfield (1977)
... aka Heaven Has No Favorites (Australia)
Three Days of the Condor (1975)
... aka 3 Days of the Condor (Australia)
The Yakuza (1974)
... aka Brotherhood of the Yakuza (UK: video title)
The Way We Were (1973)
Jeremiah Johnson (1972)

They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969)
Castle Keep (1969)
The Swimmer (1968) (uncredited)
The Scalphunters (1968)
This Property Is Condemned (1966)
The Slender Thread (1965)
"Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre" (5 episodes, 1963-1965)
- The Game (1965) TV episode
- The Fliers (1965) TV episode
- Murder in the First (1964) TV episode
- Two Is the Number (1964) TV episode
- Something About Lee Wiley (1963) TV episode
"Kraft Suspense Theatre" (2 episodes, 1964-1965)
- The Last Clear Chance (1965) TV episode
- The Watchman (1964) TV episode
"Slattery's People" (1 episode, 1964)
- Question: What Became of the White Tortilla? (1964) TV episode
"The Fugitive" (1 episode, 1964)
- Man on a String (1964) TV episode
"Breaking Point" (1 episode, 1963)
- Solo for B-Flat Clarinet (1963) TV episode
"Ben Casey" (10 episodes, 1962-1963)
- For This Relief, Much Thanks (1963) TV episode
- Suffer the Little Children (1963) TV episode
- A Cardinal Act of Mercy: Part 2 (1963) TV episode
- A Cardinal Act of Mercy: Part 1 (1963) TV episode
- I'll Be Alright in the Morning (1963) TV episode
(5 more)
"The Alfred Hitchcock Hour" (2 episodes, 1962-1963)
- Diagnosis: Danger (1963) TV episode
- The Black Curtain (1962) TV episode
"The Defenders" (1 episode, 1963)
- Kill or Be Killed (1963) TV episode
"The Tall Man" (2 episodes, 1962)
- Phoebe (1962) TV episode
- Rio Doloroso (1962) TV episode
"Target: The Corruptors" (1 episode, 1962)
- The Wrecker (1962) TV episode
"Cain's Hundred" (1 episode, 1961)
- King of the Mountain (1961) TV episode

Adapted by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala from the novel by E.M. Forster, A Room with a View is a shining example of Merchant-Ivory's ability to achieve maximum quality and opulence at minimum cost. Set during the Edwardian Era, the film stars Helena Bonham Carter as Lucy Honeychurch, who like all proper young British ladies is compelled to tour Europe in the company of an older chaperone -- in this instance, her spinster cousin Charlotte Bartlett (Maggie Smith). While in Italy, the ladies make the acquaintance of a wide variety of personalities; the most fascinating of their fellow tourists -- at least in Lucy's eyes -- is free-spirited George Emerson (Julian Sands). Aware that her cousin is becoming too familiar with Emerson, Charlotte demands that Lucy return to England posthaste. Lucy complacently settles for the tiresomely traditional courtship of nerdish Cecil Vyse (Daniel Day-Lewis) -- and then Mr. Emerson moves into the neighborhood. Lucy now finds herself on the horns of a dilemma: Should she opt for a safe, proper marriage to Cecil, or the bohemian unpredictability of the charismatic Emerson? A winner of three Academy Awards, A Room with a View is not what one could call fast-moving, but fans of the Merchant-Ivory team will enjoy luxuriating in the film's leisurely pace and stimulating cast of characters.

In Martin Scorsese's adaptation of Edith Wharton's 1920 novel, romance between an upper-class gentleman and an ostracized lady is doomed by 19th century New York society. Shortly after his engagement to blandly genteel May Welland (Winona Ryder), Newland Archer (Daniel Day-Lewis) is reacquainted with May's scandalous cousin Ellen Olenska (Michelle Pfeiffer). As the head of an esteemed family, Archer initially uses his standing to try to rehabilitate Ellen's reputation, but he finds himself increasingly drawn to her disregard for the codes of New York manners. Bound by ingrained society mores and his peers' insinuations, Newland tries to dodge his growing passion by rushing his marriage to May, but he cannot keep himself from confessing his love to Ellen. Recognizing that Newland could never abandon his sense of honor and be happy, Ellen pushes Newland to May and leaves town. The marriage proceeds as dictated, but when Newland unexpectedly sees Ellen again, he yearns for the affair to come to fruition. However, he underestimates not only what May knows but also her ability to uphold the rules of propriety. Sumptuously shot by Michael Ballhaus, the film offers meticulously designed costumes and settings that evoke a culture as seductively beautiful in its surfaces as it is stifling in its rituals. Unspoken emotions are expressed through such details as yellow roses or a clipped cigar, a fade to red or a single camera move. Using Wharton's original prose to comment on the setting's hypocrisies, Joanne Woodward's voiceover narration suggests how much decisive power is buried beneath dainty femininity. The Age of Innocence received five Oscar nominations, including Best Supporting Actress for Ryder and Best Screenplay for Scorsese and Jay Cocks, and a win for Best Costumes. Although The Age of Innocence seemed like a departure from Scorsese's prior work, Newland is as much at the mercy of his circle's Byzantine structure (and his own conscience) as are Scorsese's more familiar mobsters; Newland's persecutors just wear white tie and tails.

James Monaco has described Malick's films as ?mythic? in appearance, but rather than imposing myths onto the reality, Malick finds mythic material out of the reality (or to use his own words, Malick ?deduces? myths out of the reality, instead of ?inducing? them). (4) It is a perceptive comment, for Malick's films usually evoke (rather than explicitly ?reference? or ?replay?) various (cultural, literary, cinematic) myths. Malick himself believes Badlands calls to mind Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, and Swiss Family Robinson, (5) as they and his film look at our form of life, its values and rituals, from a distance. Days of Heaven (1978) is vaguely biblical both in tone and plot (the title itself, as Stanley Cavell has noted, has a biblical origin). (6) It evokes other films, without specifically commenting on them, and many believe it to be heavily influenced by Murnau's City Girl (1930) and Sunrise (1927), and even George Stevens' Giant (1956). Similarly, even though The Thin Red Line (1998) (7) actually quotes various religious and literary texts, such as The Bhagavad-Gita, (8) The Iliad (9) and The Grapes of Wrath, (10) as well as alluding to films such as Murnau's Tabu (1931) and Cornell Wilde's Beach Red (1967) (and From Here to Eternity, the James Jones novel, as well as Zinnemann's film [1953]), (11) one still wonders as to what such allusions are made for, since unlike most films that self-consciously refer to other films or myths, Malick's films do not engage with them in a particularly critical manner, nor do they understand the notion of myth as something that obscures truth, or legitimizes ideological interests, etc. so that it needs to be ?demystified? and ?revised?, as in the films of someone like Altman or Godard. Instead, Malick understands myths as ?cultural paradigms,? if you will, that function as a precondition for making sense out of the human experience, and that shape the sensibilities of the culture that produces them. Indeed, myths, as recognized as such, are not hypotheses that might or might not turn out to be true, as they serve a completely different function from the presentations of facts.

Days of Heaven

The lack of much critical work on Malick's films is partly due to the fact that (besides the lack of outputs) it is hard to articulate the motivations or concerns behind them. In the case of Days of Heaven, the difficulty is even more pronounced than the director's previous film. Primarily a tragic love story, the characters and the plot are almost dwarfed by the overwhelming scale and the beauty of the film's nature imagery. In a rather perplexing but nevertheless moving way, the film feels detached (in an almost religious sense, one might say) from the specific events within the film, never really delving deep into the particular emotions and minds of the characters. Pauline Kael, perhaps with impatience, likened the film to an ?empty Christmas tree: you can hang all your dumb metaphors on it,? (12) which makes one wonder why she thought the film had to be metaphorical. The critics also have persistently noticed Malick's sympathy towards the aesthetics of silent cinema. As stated, Days of Heaven is largely thought to be borne out of various biblical narratives, and also a self-conscious homage to certain silent films, which makes one curious as to why particularly silent films are being evoked. Is it a case of mere nostalgia? A more likely answer is that such evocations result from Malick's understanding of notions such as image and narrative in relation to cinema.

It is often asserted that cinematic images are ?signs? (and the films ?texts?) that are in need of deciphering, according to certain critical traditions and methodologies, that they are presented to us as something to be ?understood? (or at least that understanding films, in various ways, requires theories). (13) Malick's films are in some sense a profound challenge to such notions, as their primary concerns are not plots and characters with complex psychologies, nor some kind of intellectual engagement with ideas. Rather, Malick's films are most distinguished for the primacy and beauty and poetry of their imagery, which reminds the viewers of the fact that the most primal and direct way in which cinema engages its audiences is via the power of images. (They also force the viewer to listen carefully as well to the sounds that the world produces, including the different poignant human voices). And the intention behind such relative lack of regard for the conventions of ?narrative? cinema is not to be characterized as a subversion or aesthetic gamesmanship. Rather, the films are concerned with bringing cinema back to its humble origins, of presenting unmediated and uninterpreted reality, before its natures have split into different theoretical positions and approaches, such as the dichotomy between realism and expressionism, fiction and documentary, and the division of cinema into various genres and movements. Rather than merely paying homage to silent cinema, it appears to be a certain fundamental or primitive condition of cinema that he seeks, for most silent films are neither primitive, unmediated, nor uninterpreted presentations of reality.

Still, Malick's sympathy towards silent cinema may be thought of as some sort of yearning for purity in images, and may be borne out of a refusal to see cinema (and particularly cinematic images) as governed by various abstractions or opposing theses, instead understanding cinema as first and foremost a ?physical? phenomenon that elicits awe and wonder before any impulse to understand and interpret it in terms of its meaning. In a sense, Malick's films are both fiction and documentary, as they closely document the world that we live in and its inhabitants, akin to, as some have commented, National Geographic programs; as well as realistic and expressionistic. Indeed, contrary to some misconceptions about them, Malick's films (and their images) are profoundly anti-abstract, anti-symbolic, and anti-modernist.

Malick's understanding of cinema seems to be influenced by Heidegger's contention that it is a cardinal symptom of modernity (which he claims has its deepest roots in Greek thinking) to apprehend reality as something to be differentiated from how it appears to a subjective consciousness, and that the reality is understood at the most fundamental level as something to be mastered. (14) Surely, one of the guiding preoccupations of cinema, if one is to understand it as one of the chief products of modernity, is defining what a cinematic image ultimately is; is it a component of a narrative? A representation of the reality? Objective reality or subjective (psychological) reality? Psychological reality of the filmmaker or the characters? Is it a reflection of ideological values?

Heidegger believes the early Greeks, who did not ground the nature of reality in constant presence (15), experienced the world not as a collection of substances (or what ?appearances? really are) to be analyzed, but as a groundless source of mystery (and it is not insignificant, for the present context, that Heidegger thinks the world reveals itself to us via our moods, not cognition). Or as phusis, which has since degenerated into ?nature? in the sense of the products or resources produced by nature. Phusis, in his words, means everything that ?comes-into-presence,? or what unfolds itself in appearance, and the emerging-abiding sway, which, with its overwhelming power, has not yet been mastered by thought. (16) Malick, likewise, is wholly uninterested in envisioning his films as epistemological (or moral, or sociological, or what have you) inquiries for the audiences and the characters, instead preferring to envision them as a presentation of the world, in all its variety, as something to be faced with reverence. One might say, borrowing Wittgenstein's phrase, Malick's films are not interested in ?how the world is,? or what happens to be true, but in ?that it is,? the uncanny (and tragic and wondrous and humbling) fact of its very existence (which is to say, they are not trying to say something at all). (17) Days of Heaven, perhaps, cannot be described with more accuracy than by describing it as a certain embodiment of the site of human passions and tragedies, overseen by the gods and the cosmos where everything, human or nonhuman, has its place.

No building is riper for romance than the Upper East Side brownstone where Holly and Paul live in Breakfast at Tiffany's. As James Sanders points out in Celluloid Skyline, the "inherently contradictory nature of the building--as a home for solitary young people, yet a domestic environment that encouraged neighborly relations--continued to make it an obvious locale for romance, stories that by their nature tracked the gradual victory of connection over solitude." While the front of the house is real, the rest is a stage set; row houses don't have tenement fire escapes like the one on which Holly strums her guitar. But Sanders points out that it is an instinctive, if not literal truth. The brownstone is a single-family residence broken into apartments, yearning for wholeness. "Superimposing a domestic unity atop otherwise solitary paths, of linking the lives, and perhaps even the hearts of New York's 'huckleberry friends.'"

Breakfast at Tiffany's is a film that is almost perfect, if I could recast the blandly handsome George Peppard and ax the racist caricature of Micky Rooney's Mr. Yunioshi, a character he said he hated. And, for me, the sentimentalization of prostitution is a problem, as well, although many a Manhattan migrant has found sexual liberation to be one of the more intoxicating aspects of urban life. Of course, we do NOT want it to turn this into Midnight Cowboy. "While it may be the archetypical Audrey Hepburn film, it's nowhere near her best. Blake Edwards' notion of life in the early sixties is stunningly inauthentic--his idea of a swinging party animal is Martin Balsam." (Thompson)

Why has this film maintained its popularity over the years? Perhaps, because it represents virtually the last moment in American movies where an actress was glamorized for glamour's sake. Audrey Hepburn is evoked as an inspiration by someone or other in almost every issue of Vogue; and Audrey Style is full of tributes to her ineffable and inimitable elegance. She is invariably linked with her exact contemporary, Jackie Kennedy. They represent 20th century style in a way no subsequent icons do. "People associate me with a time when movies were pleasant," she once said, "when women wore pretty dresses in films and you heard beautiful music. I always love it when people write me and say, 'I was having a rotten time, and I walked into a cinema and saw one of your movies and it made such a difference.'"

An epic of life, death, betrayal and lust, The English Patient paints a beautiful and intriguing portrait of the desert during wartime. Somewhere in the Sahara Desert, in 1943, a biplane flies low over the curvaceous dunes. Spotting the British colours, a German anti-aircraft emplacement brings it down in a ball of fire. The pilot, Count Laszlo Almasy (Ralph Fiennes), fails to die despite his terrible burns, and is instead rescued by passing Bedouin. Turned over to the Allied authorities a little while later, he is unable to recall anything of his past (except that he's not German). With so little to go on, he is named the "English Patient" and winds up in the care of a Canadian medical unit stationed in Italy. One of the nurses, Hana (Juliette Binoche), takes special care of him and an attachment forms. Realising that her charge hasn't long to live, Hana manages to persuade her superiors to let her hole up with the Count in an abandoned villa, alone until he succumbs to the inevitable.

A nutty fairy tale about a displaced Jewish girl who must find her place in a hostile and often surreal world. 1927, rural Russia: Little Fegele (Claudia Lander-Duke) adores her father (Oleg Yankovskiy), a cantor, and is bereft when he leaves their small town to find his fortune in America. Soon after, Fegele's grandmother hears rumors of an impending pogrom and tries to send the child to join her father. Instead, Fegele winds up alone in England, where her name is changed to Suzie. Taken in by a foster family, the withdrawn child scarcely speaks but communicates through her lovely singing voice. Years pass, and the adult Suzie (Christina Ricci) still burns with the desire to find her father in America, to which end she joins a traveling cabaret troupe. That takes her to Paris, where she meets flamboyant Russian showgirl Lola (Cate Blanchett), also an expatriate. The worldly Lola, who cultivates a flighty image but lives by the practical motto "Never look back; always go forward," takes Suzie under her wing, finding her a job at the opera and sharing tips for getting ahead. Lola sets her sights on the opera's self-centered Italian star, Dante (John Turturro), while Suzie falls for a Romany horse trainer named Cesar (Johnny Depp). Suzie feels a deep kinship with the perpetually homeless gypsies, but when Paris falls to the Nazis she's forced again to flee. It's astonishing to watch English filmmaker Sally Potter suggest lavish production values with impoverished means. Her WWII saga, which suggests the German occupation of Paris with little more than the amplified sound of marching feet, and the destruction of a luxury liner with an explosion in the ship's swimming pool, stands in stark contrast to the absurdly over-budgeted spectacle of PEARL HARBOR, which opened in the US on the same day.

It's not just any illicit affair, this passionate liaison between an Irish American married woman (Joan Allen) and a Lebanese surgeon (Simon Abkarian), who are both living in London. In Sally Potter's "Yes," their relationship becomes the jagged interface between two clashing worlds, cultures, genders and personalities in the post-9/11 universe.

3 outstanding performance with DANIEL AUTEUIL. The first one by Claude Sautet-1992.

Indochine is set in Vietnam in the 1920?s and 1930?s when Indochina was under the waning shadow of French colonialism. It is a beautifully photographed epic love story, richly exotic but dramatically flawed, that was nominated for two Academy Awards in 1992 -- in the Best Foreign Film and Best Actress categories. Regis Wargnier directed the film and also co-wrote the script. The film brilliantly contrasts the decadence of French colonial society, thriving off its exploitation of the subjugated Vietnamese people, with the poverty and suffering of the natives. It was an age that finally passed, but not before one trauma gave way to another.

Remarkable historic French film about love. Simple and poetic, but also deep.

I prefer her to Rodin.

A French Masterpiece.

Yavuz Turgul, one of the most respectful Turkish film directors, points out a long lasting love. He wasts most of his life in the prison becasue of Kasha.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0425079/

The paths of Otto and Ana literally cross as children: Ana (Sara Valiente), running away from the news of her father's death; Otto (Peru Medem), running after a soccer ball. They are captivated by each other, but leave without saying a word. One day, Otto learns that his parents are divorcing, and to prove his devotion to his mother (Beate Jensen), he chooses to stay with her. In school, he begins to write notes on the nature of love, a question that has plagued him since his parents' divorce, and folds the notes into paper airplanes to send into the school yard. Ana retrieves one of the notes and shows it to her mother, Olga (Maru Valdivielso), who is intrigued by the emotional maturity of the message. Ana points to the nearest adult, Otto's father, Alvaro (Nancho Novo), as the author. On a rainy afternoon, Otto waits for Ana in the school yard with a specific introduction in mind: he would say that his name is a palindrome, that it is spelled the same way backwards and forwards, and that somehow, this revelation would endear him to her. But she does not appear. He opens the door to his father's car...and Ana is there. He begins to recite his rehearsed speech, but she interrupts. Her name is a palindrome too. Soon, Alvaro and Olga become involved, and the two children grow up as step siblings. Ana sees her father's soul reflected in Otto's eyes, and their profound connection makes them inseparable. But their love for each other proves more permanent than their parents' relationship. Now a young man, Otto (Fele Martinez), decides to move in with his father to be closer to Ana (Najwa Nirmi), and a tragedy results from his actions. Racked with guilt, Otto runs away from home. After a failed relationship, Ana also runs away, and moves to a remote cabin in Finland that straddles the Arctic Circle to await the "coincidence" of her life.

Julio Medem creates a hauntingly beautiful and intensely atmospheric story of fate and destiny in Lovers of the Arctic Circle. Similar to Krzysztof Kieslowski's The Double Life of Veronique and Red, near and chance encounters transcend the novelty of convenient plot device to expound on the film's circular themes and recurring patterns. In addition to the story unfolding in circular narrative, specific events also recur within the film, recounted from separate perspectives by Ana and Otto. Episodically, the film begins and ends with the image of Otto reflected in Ana's eyes. Their palindromic names, near collisions with the trolley car, and an encounter with Otto's namesake, Otto Midelman (Joost Siedhoff), further reflect the film's circular structure. In Ana's opening monologue, she asks: "Can you run back? A few hours back, a life back?" In the land of the midnight sun, in the surreality of the Arctic Circle, it is still not far enough to escape one's destiny.

Excellent. One of the most important works of Lars von Trier.

Song of Childhood
By Peter Handke


When the child was a child
It walked with its arms swinging,
wanted the brook to be a river,
the river to be a torrent,
and this puddle to be the sea.

When the child was a child,
it didn?t know that it was a child,
everything was soulful,
and all souls were one.

When the child was a child,
it had no opinion about anything,
had no habits,
it often sat cross-legged,
took off running,
had a cowlick in its hair,
and made no faces when photographed.

When the child was a child,
It was the time for these questions:
Why am I me, and why not you?
Why am I here, and why not there?
When did time begin, and where does space end?
Is life under the sun not just a dream?
Is what I see and hear and smell
not just an illusion of a world before the world?
Given the facts of evil and people.
does evil really exist?
How can it be that I, who I am,
didn?t exist before I came to be,
and that, someday, I, who I am,
will no longer be who I am?

When the child was a child,
It choked on spinach, on peas, on rice pudding,
and on steamed cauliflower,
and eats all of those now, and not just because it has to.

When the child was a child,
it awoke once in a strange bed,
and now does so again and again.
Many people, then, seemed beautiful,
and now only a few do, by sheer luck.

It had visualized a clear image of Paradise,
and now can at most guess,
could not conceive of nothingness,
and shudders today at the thought.

When the child was a child,
It played with enthusiasm,
and, now, has just as much excitement as then,
but only when it concerns its work.

When the child was a child,
It was enough for it to eat an apple, ? bread,
And so it is even now.

When the child was a child,
Berries filled its hand as only berries do,
and do even now,
Fresh walnuts made its tongue raw,
and do even now,
it had, on every mountaintop,
the longing for a higher mountain yet,
and in every city,
the longing for an even greater city,
and that is still so,
It reached for cherries in topmost branches of trees
with an elation it still has today,
has a shyness in front of strangers,
and has that even now.
It awaited the first snow,
And waits that way even now.

When the child was a child,
It threw a stick like a lance against a tree,
And it quivers there still today.

http://www.filmreference.com/Directors-Ve-Y/Visconti-Luchino.html

ROMULUS, MY FATHER is based on Raimond Gaita's critically acclaimed memoir. It tells the story of Romulus, his beautiful wife, Christina, and their struggle in the face of great adversity to bring up their son, Raimond.

It is the tale of a boy trying to balance a universe described by his deeply moral father, against the experience of heartbreaking absence and neglect from a depressive mother. It is, ultimately, a story of impossible love that celebrates the unbreakable bond between father and son.

Make Mood, Not Love

Wong Kar-wai's romantic drama has enthralled and perplexed viewers. But nobody creates texture as well as Hong Kong's most distinctive director
By RICHARD CORLISS

The "story" of In the Mood for Love is simple enough. In 1962 two couples, the Chans and the Chows, move into adjacent boarding houses in Hong Kong. Proximity forces Mrs. Chan (Maggie) and Mr. Chow (Tony) together, and gradually they realize that their spouses are having an affair. This abandoned pair are united at first by bereavement?for their compromised marriages and their dented egos?and then by something else. Could it be love? That's what In the Mood's audience is in the mood for. But Wong isn't.

"I hate love stories," he says. "They sell prettiness. I don't do that. There's more to life than love." Yet love, sex and their attendant ache are at the humid heart of his films; that's one reason he is Hong Kong's most distinctive director, and Asia's most imitated. He eroticizes his images with a dreamy sensuality edited at a sprung-rhythm pace: slow-motion gazing at a woman carrying a thermos of noodles, a man dragging on a cigarette. And the subject of every Wong film, from the early As Tears Go By and Days of Being Wild to Chungking Express and Happy Together, is the combustion of yearning and isolation?the need for closeness within the life sentence of solitude.

When a 1920s biplane carrying British explorer Walter Russell lands near Eskimos in the arctic, Russell befriends young Avik, a Euro-Eskimo boy suffering from tuberculosis. He flies Avik to a Catholic hospital in Montreal where the boy meets Albertine, a kindred-soul and playmate, also of mixed parentage. Under the strict tutelage and watchful eye of Sister Baeauville, the two forge a friendship that evolves into puppy love. Although they share everything, young Albertine, a half Native-American half French-Canadian child learns racial self-hatred from Sister Baeauville who tells her she "doesn't have to be a savage." After ten years of separation the lovers meet again. Albertine is a beautiful WAAF photo analyst now betrothed to Walter. Handsome Avik is an English fighter pilot. Their love is rekindled, but will they ever be reunited?

Jeremy (Jude Law) runs a cafe in New York City. Elizabeth (Norah Jones) finds out from him that her boyfriend has dined in the cafe with another woman. Elizabeth is angry and leaves him; she gives her keys to Jeremy, in case her ex-boyfriend comes to collect them. Elizabeth returns to the cafe several times, and she and Jeremy become close.

Elizabeth (going by the name of Lizzie) travels by bus to Memphis, Tennessee. She takes two jobs, in a cafe and in a bar, to save money to buy a car. She sends postcards to Jeremy without revealing where she lives or works. Jeremy tries to find out by calling all the restaurants in the area, but fails.

One night at the bar she encounters local policeman Arnie (David Strathairn) grieving about the fact that his wife Sue Lynne (Rachel Weisz) has left him. He confides in her that he has tried to quit drinking many times. After drunkenly threatening Sue Lynne with his gun, he crashes his car into a post and dies. Lizzie comforts Sue Lynne, and the next day Sue Lynne leaves town, giving Lizzie a large tip to put towards her car.

Elizabeth (now going by the name Beth) gets another waitress job, this time in a casino. It is here we are introduced to Leslie (Natalie Portman), a poker player. Beth lends Leslie her savings for gambling after Leslie promises to either win the game, or give Beth her car. Leslie ends up giving Beth her car, saying she lost the game. Beth agrees to give Leslie a ride to Las Vegas, where her father lives, so he can lend her the money to start gambling again. She gets a call, answered by Beth, from the hospital to inform her that her father is dying. Leslie does not believe it, she thinks it is a trick to make her visit him. They go to the hospital anyway, and at Leslie's request Beth goes inside alone to check. Beth finds out Leslie's father had died the night before. Leslie wants to keep the car because it was really her fathers, and confesses that she has lied about losing the game. She pays Elizabeth the money she had originally promised, and Beth buys a car.

Elizabeth returns to New York to find her ex-boyfriend's apartment for rent. She crosses the street to the cafe, and discovers Jeremy has been waiting for her, and has a space reserved for her at the counter. They talk, and it is discovered that they actually have feelings for each other.

Director of IMPOSSIBLE LOVE STORIES. Touching souls FREE, but no physical intercourse PLS.

P.S for Lady BOND : Cassandra Wilson, Norah Jones, Ry Cooder are some of my favorites.

Extraordinary.

The film's title is taken from English romantic William Wordsworth's 1807 Ode, Intimations of Immortality from Reflections of Early Childhood, some of which is quoted here:

Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower
We will grieve not, but rather find
Strength in what remains behind.

The mood and story line of the stormy relationship between two star-crossed, teenaged lovers parallels the poem as the adolescents meet, fall obsessively in love and become sexually awakened, face repressed sexual attitudes, parental pressures, turmoil, social constraints and class differences, and ultimately break up and are traumatized without consummating their love. The values of the business-oriented civilization - at the time of its greatest crash - coincides with the collapse of their tender romance.

By Elia Kazan, 1961.

its dark, brooding tale of voyeurism, unrequited obsession, and ache of desire,

In 'Love in the Time of Cholera,' Mike Newell's adaptation of Gabriel García Márquez's great 1985 novel, Florentino Ariza, a hustling, excitable teen-age boy living in late-nineteenth-century Colombia-catches sight of a pretty rich girl, Fermina Daza, and falls in love with her forever. Some years go by, and they exchange many letters, but Florentino (Javier Bardem) loses Fermina (Giovanna Mezzogiorno) to another man, the aristocratic young doctor Juvenal Urbino (Benjamin Bratt). Trailing around after her, Florentino languishes in his soul while carrying on innumerable meaningless affairs. We can take it on faith, I guess, that his eternal love is based on that first impression?after all, Dante claimed to be inspired his whole life by a quick look at Beatrice when he was nine and she was eight. Florentino is a bit of a poet, too, and obsession like his, one would think, is its own reward; that is, the benefit of the obsession is precisely the exquisite emotions of longing and suffering. But that?s not García Márquez?s idea. He?s a romantic, not a Freudian; and Florentino is no commonplace neurotic. The book, moving toward its triumphant conclusion, is a wonder. The long, magnificently adorned sentences?a stately river depositing alluvial riches of Colombian culture, décor, sexuality, humor, and manners into the reader?s heart?are as intoxicating a literary experience as any available to us. From New Yorker.

Based on co-writer Lars K. Andersen?s research and interviews with survivors and witnesses (most accounts in English are long out of print), director Ole Christian Madsen adds a dark Scandinavian viewpoint to the trove of new European films reconsidering this period (such as Paul Verhoeven?s Black Book, Max Färberböck?s A Woman in Berlin, and Andrzej Wajda?s Katyn). Together with the wider rerelease of older features, like Jean-Pierre Melville?s Army of Shadows, they go beyond just evil Nazis vs. brave resistance fighters. Life during wartime is seen as the precursor to the postwar noir of Graham Greene?s The Third Man and the cynicism of John le Carré?s spies.

Films directed by Ken Loach tend to focus on problems of ordinary people, often immigrants, who are trapped by the system. Loach's latest, Ae Fond Kiss, deals with various forms of prejudice that try to keep two lovers apart, a variant on the Romeo & Juliet paradigm. When the film begins, Casim Khan (played by Atta Yaqub), a Pakistan born in Britain, helps his youngest sister, Tahara (played by Shabana Bakhsh), to respond to racial epithets. In the process, Casim and Tahara enter the classroom of Roisin Hanlon (played by Eva Birthistle), a part-time music teacher at a Catholic high school in Glasgow. Later, Casim returns to visit Roisin in order to repay her kindness, and the two in due course become lovers. Roisin is separated from her husband, whereas Casim has been betrothed for some years to a girl chosen by his parents who lives in Pakistan; his father, Tariq (played by Ahmad Riaz), is building an addition to his house to accommodate the couple. Sometime after having sex, Casim and Roisin realize that they need to live together, so Casim moves in rather than continuing to submit to his father's authority. However, Casim's father and mother Sadia (played by Shamshad Akhtar) are so distraught over Casim's conduct that they will not allow their oldest daughter, Rukhsana (played by Ghizala Avan) to marry, and they reject Tahara's decision to go to Edinburgh University, which has awarded her a scholarship to study journalism, because her parents want her to become a physician and to study in Glasgow. Tahara asks her father why the family moved to England if not to enjoy more opportunities, but he cannot answer her eloquent question. One day, Casim and Roisin fly to a seaside resort for a vacation; after having sex, Casim informs Roisin that he is to be married in two weeks. After Roisin loses her temper, Casim promises to solve the problem somehow so that he can remain with Roisin. Soon, Rukhsana meets Roisin and encourages her to kick out Casim so that so many people in her family can continue to proceed along the path dictated by her father, who is trying to preserve family customs despite a residence in Britain of some forty years in which the family runs a successful grocery store. Meanwhile, Roisin so impresses the school principal that she is offered a full-time position, subject to approval by the parish priest despite the fact that the school operates with public funds. The priest, however, refuses to give his blessing, citing the fact that Roisin is living and presumably having sex with someone other than her husband; he even goes over the head of the principal to have her reassigned to a nondenominational school. Thus, custom and prejudice are unkind to the two lovers. In the end, not all the problems can be solved; someone will be unhappy, but the protagonists will. Filmviewers will appreciate that many Britons face similar problems all the time, and perhaps Ae Fond Kiss will suggest how those problems are being or can be resolved today. MH

Set in the Baltic Provinces near Riga amidst a civil war during the 1920s, Coup de Grace opens as Konrad von Revel (Rudiger Kirschstein) returns to his ancestral home, the castle Kratovice, now a stronghold for soldiers fighting against radical Bolsheviks. Accompanied by his childhood friend and fellow officer, Erich von Lhomond (Matthias Habich), Konrad receives a warm welcome from his sister Sophie (von Trotta) and his Aunt Praskovia (Valeska Gert). Unbeknownst to the soldiers, Sophie secretly sympathizes with the Bolsheviks, often crossing firing lines to visit with the collaborators.

Both players are very good. Just back streets of Paris, walking, walking, walking. Seriously u don't want to stop.

Everything is fine. Nothing is special. Luckly , not boring. S.Frears is in declane. He could manage better. Don't expect too much.

Goodbye Again is a poignant, honest, and bittersweet film about the tragedy of unrequited love and impossible relationships.

In 1961, at the Cannes Film Festival his Goodbye Again was nominated for the Palme d'Or.

Dogme 12.

One of the best Danish films I have ever seen.

Hot War is over, but Cold War is just started.

We learn every day new things. It is worth to re-start. Why not ? Nathalie Baye is fantastic. Relationships specially in Paris is too complicated. For instance Hollywood script binds this subject as a happy ending with marriage. In France , toooo complicated. Don't ask me reason why.

Broken lives, broken kisses, broken stories, broken happiness, broken everything.

The best Amodovar I have ever seen. Other two : All about my mother, 1999 and Talk to her , 2002.