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Reconstruction
by Mikeposted 11 days ago -
I recommend you see...
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
by ElviraThe Unbearable Lightness of Being is a gorgeous adaptation of Milan Kundera's novel of the same name (one of my favorite books). It's the story of Tomas, a surgeon living in Prague in the 1960s. He feels life is light and that his actions have weightless consequences. He goes through life fleeing anything that might put weight on him: he's a womanizer who runs away from the slightest form of committment, and an intelligent man who nevertheless avoids assuming a politicial position outspokenly in a time in which that was an almost obvious thing to do for any thinking citizen.
Tereza, played by Juliette Binoche, is a countrygirl who falls in love with Tomas. She thrusts her weight on his life when he can't help falling in love with her and making her a part of his life.
The film focuses, mainly on the conflict between Tomas's idea of a weightless life and Tereza's impossibility of understanding that philosophy. Tereza thinks everything is of consequence and she struggles to liberate herself from wieght, while Tomas can't help but feeling life is light and struggles to accept Tereza without sacrificing his "infidelities". It's a very interesting drama, and the way it unfolds is captivating. Without being overly sentimental, TULB manages to show the dynamics of a relationship between two people in love who simply can't come to an agreement about how to interpret the aggressive world around them, but who nevertheless try hard to make it work.
The tense, oppressive atmosphere of 1960s Czechoslovakia, the Russian occupation, the persecution of intellectuals, is present as the threatening backdrop for
the love story. It's especially heavy on Tomas, who keeps rejecting the notion that anything may be worth troubling oneself for until the persecution reaches him too.
Lena Olin plays Sabina, Tomas's best friend and lover who shares his idea of a world without weight. She never ever succumbs to anyone's weight, and finds an ending in accordance to her pursuit of lightness.
Although these (Kundera's) ideas may seem complicated or way too abstract for a movie, they are well exposed and every scene conveys them really well. I do prefer the book to the film, but this adaptation has its own charm. The cinematography is breathtaking and the performances are great from all the cast. Daniel Day-Lewis was perfectly cast as Tomas, and I couldn't think of anyone with the right amount of both vulnerability and strength better than Juliette Binoche to play Tereza.
The Unbearable Lightness of Being is a beautiful movie that can also provoke thought (wow) and be visually seductive and engaging. It's dramatic and funny and serious and naive all at once. It's romantic, and sometimes sad. And it's a faithful adaptation of the book. Couldn't ask for more.Hey, you should really see this!
posted 15 days ago -
I recommend you see...
Fa Yeung Nin Wa (In the Mood for Love)
by ElviraKar Wai Wong's absolutely fantastic film In the Mood for Love takes place in Hong Kong in the 1960s. Mrs. Chan (Maggie Cheung) and Mr. Chow (Tony Leung Chiu Wai) live next door to each other in rented rooms. With their respective spouses. Both of them have office jobs in the city, while it seems that their spouses are often on business trips or working long shifts. Many cordial meetings take place between Mrs. Chan and Mr. Chow in the hallway, on the way to the noodle stall, etc.. Soon enough they begin to realize odd coincidences between what both their spouses wear, the amount of time they are away, and their secretiveness. It isn't long before they uncover a mystery they had sort of already solved: Mrs. Chan's husband and Mr. Chow's wife are having an affair. This reality is so harsh to them that they decide to turn to each other for any possible consollation, talking about it over dinner or sneaking into each other's rooms to analyze the situation and propose different scenarios of how the affair could have begun. With their spouses away most of the time and their incredulity too heavy to handle for each of them alone, they begin to meet more frequently and develop a friendship out of necessity.
Although they often talk about their spouses' infidelity and recreate what they might have done together, it seems as though Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan manage to find a space in which their interest is each other, rather than the people they are married to. Once they realise that this growing intimacy might just make them into unfaithful spouses as well, they begin to draw a limit: it is that limit precisely, and the overwhelming desire that Mrs. Chan and Mr. Chow feel to cross it, that creates the emotional tension that In the Mood for Love is about. Two people who, because of convention, or out principle -they are both married, after all- repress their feelings of love for each other. Because, in time (time plays a very important role in the film), it's obvious that they feel love for each other, even if to different extents each. They sense danger when they stop using the other as a clutch.
As usual in Kar Wai Wong's films, the cinematography and the use of color is mind-blowing; everything is filmed with such lush care and romanticism that it was difficult to draw my eyes away from the screen. The director's trademark repetitive use of music is also present and works beautifully.
Of course, the film would probably not come together as wonderfully if it wasn't for the two stars: Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung. Cheung is elegance personified, and she plays the suffering yet optimistic Mrs. Chan with all the grace I've ever seen an actress deliver. Tony Leung is a great actor and his performance here is incredibly moving: Mr. Chow is helplessly in love but also helplessly wounded by his wife's infidelity: While Mrs. Chan will occasionally burst into tears when they talk about the affair, he must stay cool and collected because that's simply what he's supposed to do; the same applies to his painful longing for Mrs. Chan - it would seem absurd for anyone to suppress such overwhelming feelings, but what else can he do in a society where people lecture each other about morality, about "being proper", about "being respectable"?
So In the Mood for Love is both an exhilarating piece of romantic arthouse cinema and a frustrating play about loneliness and social pressure. The ending is somewhat ambiguous, but it's right. I didn't end up feeling sad or angry, but curious (and optimistic) about how much happier Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan could have been, had they only lived in a more permissive culture. I wouldn't say Kar Wai Wong's film is a social commentary itself, but I believe it contains one.
It's always great to find a film like this, that denounces, captivates and moves at the same time, that doesn't flat-out satisfy the audience but leaves something to the imagination. All in all, In the Mood for Love is an unforgettable film and one of the director's best, if not his greatest film ever.
BTW, the Criterion edition contains deleted scenes that might shed some light over some unresolved issues and satisfy some inconformities with the way things turned out, but I believe they were all removed from the final cut for good. The film is perfect as it is.Hey, this is a must-watch, and a must re-watch. I don't have a single thing to say against it. I just enjoyed it through and through. It's a film to have dreams about. You should really see it!
posted 21 days ago -
I recommend you see...
Candy
by ElviraCandy is a poetic yet very raw and no-nonsense portrait of drug addiction, as lived by Daniel and Candace. Both are very much in love with each other and carry idealistic existences in which drugs play a very central role. As is to be expected, everything is gold-showered an sugar-coated and whatnot during the first months of their relationship: they have money, they love each other, and since they haven't tried to stop using they don't see how difficult it will be. As Candy and Daniel start settling down and spending more time with each other and atempting to build a life, their addiction starts looking like a problem that will make them humilliate themselves for money, and humilliate each other when the pain is so big that they just have to take it out on the other.
The chemistry between Heath Ledger and Abbie Cornish is reason #1 so watch this film. Together they are intoxicating, epic, and yet beleivable. Individually, the performances are powerful and heatbreaking: Candy's transformtion from a sweet idealist who dabbles in drugs for fun to an angry addict whose hate towards the world surfaces when she is out of money is chilling. Heath Ledger's character might be less aggressive, but even when he is at his most subdued Ledger manages to communicate his state of mind to us. He adores Candy more than drugs, and that is a lot to say, but he's absolutely hopeless at anything else.
The story itself is nothing new- the message has already been spoken both by Trainspotting and Requiem for a Dream: drugs are fun in the beginning but then awful things start to happen. But Candy brings that universal problem to a very small and intimate scale, in which drug addiction has the same effect on a loving relationship as would an bomb if it fell on their house. Candy doesn't glamorize drug use, yet it doesn't use any tricks to make it more dramatic, but it often makes use of poetry voice-overs and melancholy, hazy cinematography to create an atmosphere that is between hallucination and reality.
The film succeeds at making people care, hate, worry, pity Candy and Daniel, and that is mainly because of the excellent lead performances. Any fan of Heath Ledger should watch Candy, as should anyone who wants to watch a good performance-driven film.Hey, you should really see this!
posted 36 days ago
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