Mitsy's Talk

Diabolique (Les Diaboliques)

Though it was passed over 50 years since Clouzot directed this film with the skill of a true master of the genre, one of the most suspenseful thriller ever made, and I can say in the same league as Hitchcock?s better films. The movie sets at an all-boys private school and introduces its three primary characters almost immediately: Michel (Paul Meurisse), the cruel headmaster; Christina (Vera Clouzot), his long-suffering wife; and Nicole (Simone Signoret), a teacher that's been having an affair with Michel for an unspecified amount of time. Christina knows about Michel's infidelity, and doesn't seem to mind terribly. It's just another reason for her to go along with Nicole's plan to murder him. The two women concoct a scheme involving spiked wine and drowning via bathtub, and everything seems to go smoothly. But when they temporarily dump the body in the school's swimming pool, that's when things go awry. Although the film begins quite slowly and innocently, it's around the 30-minute mark before anything of substance happens. After that very quickly becomes thoroughly compelling, to the point that the viewer dare not take his eyes off the screen for a minute. Clouzot delights in tormenting the audience - withholding vital secrets until the last possible second, while the screws are tightened more and more.
The last twenty minutes is so perfectly crafted that the effect is both frightening and intoxicating. Even when you guess correctly the outcome, the shock is still there. I believe that the film packs more surprises and thrills than most contemporary movies that claim to do the same. Diabolique is an amazing, atmospheric and wonderfully seedy tale of love, hate and death.

(500) Days of Summer

Poetic but realist, in love but real. Wonderful !

Eden à l'Ouest (Eden Is West)

The story of this film begins at dawn over a stunning Aegean sea, introducing a mythic note that will underlie the entire film. When the Coast Guard confiscates the tub, Elias (Scamarcio) is one of the brave lads who jumps (jump to freedom) into the dark waters and swims ashore. He awakens on the beach which is part of the luxurious Hotel Eden. Mistaken for a hotel employee, he mutely wanders around, fighting off the sexual attentions of the hotel manager, until a lonely lady from Hamburg (Juliane Kohler) takes him into her bed. Though it sounds like farce, this is is all played straight to show the decadent West assaulting the shocked innocent. Because of the police Elias leaves this artificial Western paradise and strikes out for a mythical Paris, where he hopes to find a stage magician who has befriended him. On the road to his paradise, he passes through some very interesting advendures..
Director Costas Gavras has always been strong on social commitment and he is responsible for some of the most revered and influential films in the history of modern political cinema He was directed memorable films like "Z" (foreign language Oscar), "Missing" (Cannes Palme d'Or) and "Music Box" (Berlin Golden Bear). I think it's not surprising he would choose to explore Europe's currently gigantic socio-political problem, though at this point the immigrant genre is so overworked in European cinema it should probably be banned for the next five years. It's an episodic film, a journey, not of an individual, but of all those people who, as the director comments ?have to leave in order to survive.It is like a number of Costa-Gavras?s films in that it concentrates on a human rights/social justice issue, not so much on characters, plot or aesthetic. And as someone who identifies as a ?cultural and economic immigrant,? Gavras has inside knowledge of this experience. Also in this film Gavras is eager to flex the funny bone he showed in Mad City and The Ax, delivering the brightest, most-entertaining film of his illustrious career.

Black Narcissus

Five young British nuns are invited to move to a windy "palace", former house of the concubines of an old general, in the top of a mountain in Mopu, Himalaya, to raise the convent of Saint Faith Order, a school for children and girls, and an infirmary for the local dwellers. The palace was once called "The House of Women" and is rather ornately decorated with erotic art. In the opening scenes, we are told that an order of Brothers had attempted to do the same thing as the Sisters, but failed. After the nun's arrival their "straight-laced" behaviour begins to loosen, their discipline becomes more lax, and the foundation of their self-image begins to change. The lonely and exotic place awake the innermost desires in the flesh of the sisters?This is one of the most beautifully composed colour films I have ever seen. I did not know that this film was shot entirely in a studio. Some of the matte shots are extremely realistic, and others look more like beautiful paintings. All this serves to reinforce the struggle between illusion and reality, and also passion and chastity. So Black Narcissus is filled with magic images and haunting echoes. The "flowering of the snows" scene is breathtaking. The chapel scene is frightening and tense. The "Bell" scene is horrifying. The final view of "The House of Women", viewed by Sister Clodagha from the valley below is heart-stopping: A mist rises slowly and inch by inch blots out the Palace, until it is only a dream in your mind's eye. Then, a large leaf is seen. One drop falls and then another, like tears of regret. A black umbrella is opened. Mr. Dean sits on his pony and runs his hand through his thick black hair. He had said the nuns would be gone with the first rain, and he was right?..memorable scenes?
The extraordinary performances in this film are complimented visually with the flawless cinematography. The cast is splendid. Deborah Kerr's tortured Sister Clodagha registers every emotion, every longing, every doubt and every fear with her eyes and the set of her chin. David Farrar as Mr. Dean, Flora Robson as Sister Philippa, Sabu as The Young General, and Jean Simmons as Kanchi are a superb acting ensemble. However it is Kathleen Byron as the emotionally disturbed Sister Ruth that you will remember the most after viewing this film.
Black Narcissus brings home the point that we are all sometimes far too ambitious, vulnerable, obstinate, passionate, and alas, human. So at last if you love great films, great acting or just stunning cinematography Black Narcissus will haunt you forever.

The Time Traveler's Wife

This film was just plain disappointing, really boring, without any notion of what type of film it wants to be. Also it wasn?t funny or charming, moving or romantic. Bana and McAdams did share a pleasant chemistry; they made you feel the pain and the ultimate acceptance of their dilemma but never conveyed the magic that allows the couple to persevere through such a grand but trying love. It wants desperately to engage our hearts, but for long stretches will leave most of us scratching our heads trying to answering lot of questions? I wished it had been finished in about an hour and a half sooner. I can't remember when I've had such a hard time becoming emotion ally involved in a love story on film.

Run Lola Run (Lola rennt)

Wow I love this movie, I love the red hair girl that run and run like dancer, I loved the music I loved everything. It's too good a movie to be true. It has everything - a great story, two amazing and believable characters, an adventure, a mystery about time. And it is really fast. There isn?t moment with no action. From the start and the lightning-speed exposition to the quirky final credits, this movie grabs you by the throat and some how runs with it. The story is simple Lola (played by the wonderful Franka Potente) is in trouble. If she can't come up with 100,000 marks, her boyfriend Manni will die. But the worst is that she has only twenty minutes to come up with the money. Lola's race to save her lover is repeated three times with minor variations that lead to widely different endings. "Run Lola Run" is set in a brightly-collared fairy-tale world in which the elements of the story can be rearranged and connected at will. Direction plays with nuns, bums, guns, crooks, bankers, ambulances, and policemen is pure delight - it's as if we were granted a glance at the creative process itself, three different drafts of the same story, revised and rearranged until the final version satisfies. And the soundtrack, an integral part of Lola's full speed flight through the city, should be on everybody's dance list. But above all it's the story. So simple that you can sum up in one sentence then you know that you have a great one: "Lola has twenty minutes to come up with 100,000 marks and run through the city to rescue her true love." And she does it, and then she does it again, and then she does it again. Lola is amazing.