muldz14

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  I recommend you see...

  10,000 B.C.

  by Jamie

  What a mess of a movie! The actors were horrible, the plotline was implausable, and the timeline was completely off..since when did cave men and Egyptians coincide? And since when can a caveman travel by foot through the snowy mountain tops through the African desert and end up in Egypt in a few days?? I could not get past the historical inaccuracy of this movie. The only saving grace was the visual effects...otherwise, I would have rated this movie 1/2 star. Don't bother with this one...watch something like Apocalypto which is outstanding!

  jamiegrrl2012

  Don't bother...what a mess!

  posted 9 days ago
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  I recommend you see...

  Callas Forever

  by Sancar

  Born in New York in 1923 of Greek parents as Cecelia Sofia Anna Maria Kalogeropoulos, Callas made her true debut at the Athens Opera on July 4, 1941 as Tosca, going on to sing Santuzza and Leonora during the next three years. In 1945, Callas returned to New York where she was heard by Zenatello who engaged her for La Gioconda in the Arena at Verona. This successful appearance under Serafin was the start of her real career, and she was soon in demand in Italian theatres for such heavy roles as Aida, Turandot, Isolde, Kundry and Brunnhilde. Her versatility was shown in Venice in 1949 when, only three days after singing Die Walkure's (The Valkyrie) Brunnhilde, Callas stepped in for an indisposed colleague in the florid bel canto role of Elvira in I puritani.
  
  Gradually, under the guidance of Serafin, she focused on the earlier Italian operas. Her repertory included Violetta, Gilda and Lucia, Rosina, Amina and Norma, Nabucco, Il trovatore, Don Carlos, Un ballo in maschera, I vespri sicilani, and memorable revivals of Haydn's Orfeo ed Euridice, Gluck's Alcese and Iphigenie in Tauride, Cherubini's Medee, Spontini's La vestale, Rossini's Armida and Il turco in Italia, Donizetti's Anna Bolena and Poliuto and Bellini's Il Pirata.
  
  Her greatest triumphs were won in Norma, Medee, Anna Bolena, Lucia di Lammermoor, La traviata and Tosca. Many of these roles she repeated in the major opera houses of the world, where her fame reached a level that recalled the days of Caruso and Chaliapin. Her debut at La Scala was in Aida in 1950; her first appearances in London (1952) Chicago (1954) and New York (1956) were in Norma.
  
  Maria finally made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera on October 28, 1956 as Norma in Bellini's Norma. Unfortunately for Maria, Time magazine had done an interview with Maria's mother, the woman Maria blamed for robbing her of her childhood. Maria had last seen her mother in Mexico in 1950 and had vowed that she would never meet or speak with her again (a promise she took with her to her death). The Time article portrayed Maria as an ungrateful daughter and the New York public reacted coldly when Maria's Met debut came. In fact, the legendary soprano Zinka Milanov received more applause when she took her seat than Maria did when she made her entrance. By the end of the final act, though, the New York public surrendered and Maria received 16 curtain calls.
  
  The next time Maria made headlines was when she was scheduled to sing in a gala performance of Norma at the Rome Opera House on January 2, 1958. The performance was to be attended by Italy's president, Giovanni Gronchi and his wife. Unfortunately, Maria had been seeing in the New Year by drinking champagne and staying out very late at a fashionable Rome nightclub. Maria, against the orders of her doctors, went on stage but her voice was in ruins. At the end of the first act, half the audience jeered while the other half sat in shocked silence. Maria escaped through a back exit, and an announcement had to be made that the performance simply could not go on.
  
  On September 3, 1959, Maria announced that she would be parting from her husband. She began a 9 year love affair with Aristotle Onassis. The couple was expected to marry but in the end, Aristotle married Jackie Kennedy, John F. Kennedy's widow, on October 20, 1968. His death on March 15, 1975, is considered to be one of the major factors behind Maria's death.
  
  Callas' dramatic powers aroused immediate excitement. There was authority in all that she did, and in every phrase that she uttered. Her voice was an impressive instrument with its penetrating, individual quality. During the 1960s, she withdrew gradually from the operatic stage and gave her final performance as Tosca at Covent Garden in 1965.
  
  In 1971-2 Maria Callas gave an extensive series of master classes mainly in New York and in 1973 and 1974 she emerged from a long period of retirement to make a concert tour with her former colleague, Giuseppe di Stefano.
  
  Maria Callas died in Paris in 1977 aged 53. She left behind many remarkable recordings of recitals and complete operas which remain as a testament to her artistic genius, and the epitome of the operatic soprano. For her admirers her performances remain definitive.
  
  Michelle Krisel, the artistic director of the Washington Opera, called her "the performer who changed the standard by which all opera singers are judged." Leonard Bernstein went further, describing Callas as "the greatest artist of the world." Italian musicologist Attila Csampai summed up her career, "During the ten years of her unquestioned reign, between 1949 and 1959, she bestowed upon the lost souls of the world -- disoriented and bewildered by the war -- more music, more art, more humanity and warmth than any other individual of this century."

  lutar1

  Hey, you should really see this!

  posted 12 days ago
• 
  I recommend you see...

  Head On

  by Daniel

  One of the most depressing but gripping 'struggle in the closet' films I have ever seen, with a fantastic, charismatic and emotive performance from anti-hero Alex Dimitriades (who, judging from his IMDB page, needs to get a better agent). It's a niche subject perhaps, which is then squeezed into another minority - a traditional Greek family - but it's expertly written and played and actually has broad appeal. Ari's downward spiral (he starts close to the gutter and disappears into it by the time of the slightly rushed, bleaker than bleak ending) is gripping and entirely believable, the Aussie streets have a grimy/murky, hellish feel and some of the lines cross the boundaries of sexy/disturbing/distressing ("don't spill it"). Kinetic direction and a brilliant (and now nostalgic) soundtrack both ground and enhance a very good film. Pity about the off-putting poster art.

  danieljparsons

  Worth a watch.

  posted 18 days ago
• 
  AbsurdWonderland

  Hey - try this quiz and see how we compare
  
  Vampire movies

  posted 21 days ago
• 
  I recommend you see...

  Adieu Bonaparte (Weda'an Bonapart)

  by Sancar

  Youssef Chahine is one of the most forceful and complex of Egyptian filmmakers whose progress over the forty years or so since his debut at the age of twenty-four offers remarkable insight into the evolution of Egyptian society. A series of sharply critical social studies?of which The Sparrow in 1975 is undoubtedly the most successful?was interrupted by a heart attack while the director was still in his early fifties. This led him to question his own personal stance and development in a manner unique in Arab cinema, and the result was the splendidly fluent autobiography Alexandria . . . Why? in 1978, which was followed four years later by a second installment titled An Egyptian Story, shot in a style best characterized as an amalgam of Fellini and Bob Fosse's All That Jazz. As such references indicate, Chahine is an eclectic filmmaker whose cosmopolitan attitudes can be traced back to his origins. He was born in Alexandria in 1926 of middle-class parents. His father, a supporter of the nationalist Wafd party, was a scrupulous but financially unsuccessful lawyer, and Chahine was brought up as a Christian, educated first at religious school and then at the prestigious Victoria College, where the language of tuition was English. After a year at Alexandria University he persuaded his parents to allow him to study drama for two years at Pasadena Playhouse, near Los Angeles, and on his return to Egypt he plunged into the film industry, then enjoying a period of boom in the last years of King Farouk's reign.
  
  Alexandria . . . Why? presents a vividly drawn picture of this vanished world: Alexandria in 1942, awaiting the arrival of Rommel's troops, who, it is hoped, will finally drive out the British. The film is peopled with English soldiers and Egyptian patriots, aristocrats, and struggling bourgeoises, the enthusiastic young and their disillusioned or corrupt elders. Chahine mocks the excesses of the nationalists (his terrorist patriots are mostly caricatures), leaves condemnation of Zionism to Jews, and tells love stories that cross the neatly drawn barriers separating Muslim and Jew, Egyptian aristocrat and English Tommy. The revelation of Chahine's own background and a few of his personal obsessions (as with the crucified Christ) seems to have released fresh creative powers in the director. His technique of intercutting the action with scenes from Hollywood musicals and newsreel footage from the Imperial War Museum in London is as successful as it is audacious, and the transitions of mood are brilliantly handled.
  
  Chahine is a key figure in Third World cinema. Unlike some of the other major filmmakers who also emerged in the 1950s?such as Satyajit Ray or Lester James Peries?he has not turned his back on commercial cinema. He has always shown a keen desire to reach a wide audience, and Alexandria . . . Why?, though personal, is by no means an inaccessible or difficult work. Chahine's strength as a filmmaker lies indeed in his ability to combine mainstream production techniques with a very individual style and approach. Though intensely patriotic, he has shown a readiness to criticize government policies with which he does not agree, such as those of the late President Sadat. It is ironic therefore that the appearance of Alexandria . . . Why? should have coincided with the Camp David agreements between Egypt and Israel. As a result, Chahine's very personal statement of his belief in a tolerant society came to be widely criticized in the Arab world as an opportunistic political statement and a justification of Sadat's policies.
  
  His underlying commitment to the making of an Egyptian identity, history, and memory is evident in his more recent works as well. The 1984 Adieu Bonaparte, a Franco-Egyptian co-production, portrays an East-West encounter through an Egyptian family during Napoleon's invasion of Egypt. Chahine's continuous efforts to reconstruct and forge an Egyptian-ness, "to be nothing but Egyptian," can be most clearly seen in the ways in which he strives to retell this history from a strictly Egyptian perspective and none other. Chahine's endeavor may not be unique among the whole array of Third World filmmakers who act and/or react against the West. However, given his own involvement and interests in the Western arts and influences, which not too many non-Western filmmakers could in fact claim to be devoid of, it is his inventiveness in forms and consistency in content that make Chahine an important filmmaker in Egypt in particular and in the non-Western filmmaking world in general.
  
  ?Roy Armes, updated by Guo-Juin Hong

  lutar1

  Hey, you should really see this!

  posted 24 days ago
• 
  I recommend you see...

  ABC Africa

  by Sancar

  Close-Up contains many key elements of Kiarostami?s cinema. The main character is innocent yet corrupt. Although here, unlike in Traveler (1974) or The Wind Will Carry Us, he is sympathetic. Both behind-the-scenes and within the frame, Kiarostami is self-critical as a filmmaker. We see him in the opening scene talking to the hero in prison and toward the end we hear him talking to his crew. In Homework (1990) he interviews the children and in Case No. 1 and Case No.2 (1979) he interviews a number of cultural authorities. The filmmaker, though as a fictional character, appears again in Through the Olive Trees (1994), Life and Nothing More? and The Wind Will Carry Us. This self-conscious cinema is a double-edged sword. It can be read as a self-critical cinema where Kiarostami questions his role as a filmmaker. Also, it can be seen as a means to distance the audience and make them conscious.
  
  What is so specific in Kiarostami?s style is his attention to form and the role it plays in creating poetry and humor in his films. As Tati demonstrates, and as observed by Jonathan Rosenbaum, form plays a major role in creating cinematic humor. (4) What is normally non-humorous is seen and heard as humorous, ridiculous, or absurd through Kiarostami?s films. Similar to Tati?s Playtime (1967), Kiarostami?s fantastic short Orderly or Disorderly (1981) derives its power and humor through shot composition, the use of sound, and, in particular, Kiarostami?s voice over. The high angle long shots of the children in the school-yard lining up to drink water or getting on the bus, as well as the impatient drivers who complicate traffic in a Tehran intersection, reveal the humorous nature of chaos and order in public spaces.
  The Wind Will Carry Us
  
  
  Also, form as a zigzag pattern is emphasised through shot composition or camera movement. For example, the recurrent image of zigzagging roads in his films has become a philosophical and metaphysical statement as well as revealing the general situation of his characters. The zigzag path in Where is the Friend?s House? (1987) shows the many turns that the child has to take in order to find his friend. Similarly, the man who is driving on the hilly roads in Taste of Cherry is looking for someone to bury him. In Life and Nothing More?, the filmmaker has to find two children who acted in his previous film, following a deadly earthquake that shook northern Iran. Even sometimes the zigzagging movements of an object like an apple in The Wind Will Carry Us or the empty spray can in Close-Up show the randomness of fate. They are practically Kiarostami?s signatory shots.
  
  Kiarostami?s later films, especially the three films that are known as a trilogy, Where is the Friend?s House?, Through the Olive Trees, and Life and Nothing More?, have a strong emphasis on landscape and architecture, revealing Kiarostami?s philosophical point-of-view. The beautiful view of trees revealed through the ruins of the village in Where is the Friend?s House?, the long shot of the cracked road in Life and Nothing More?, and the long shot of the wheat field in The Wind Will Carry Us, remind the audience of the beauty that the main character ignores. As Kiarostami gradually moves toward nature and rural characters and settings, the landscape shots become more instrumental in the structure of his post-revolutionary films.
  A.B.C. Africa
  
  
  Although Kiarostami uses small crews and mainly non-actors and no script, his recent documentary feature A.B.C. Africa signals the emergence of a new approach. It is his first film that is shot outside Iran and on digital video. The film is predominately shot in English, saturated in colour, and has wall-to-wall music. Unlike most of his previous films, A.B.C. Africa is populated with strong women characters ? a sharp contrast to his previous films, where the absence of women was noticeable. One can view this as another movement in his cinema that has started mainly with The Wind Will Carry Us and is continued in his most recent film, Ten (2002), films which feature mainly women characters.
  
  Kiarostami?s cinema celebrates the economy of film language and offers an alternative to the fancy, excessive mainstream cinema. A controversial characteristic of his films is how they encourage the audience to reflect and creatively participate in them. His films challenge viewers? stereotypes and make them aware of their own blind spots. A refreshing experience of watching Kiarostami?s films is how they resist giving an expected, homogeneous, or exotic "third-world" image of Iranian culture to the audience. Each of his films, even those that are shot in the remote rural areas of Iran, reflect McLuhan?s concept of the "global village" and our disillusion of the image of "self" as separate, immune, and distant from the "other".

  lutar1

  Hey, you should really see this!

  posted 24 days ago
• 
  I recommend you see...

  Ten

  by Sancar

  In Taste of Cherry, the shift from narrative to documentary not only adds another layer to the film but separates and distances the audience and therefore creates a space for his/her presence in the film. For example, in the final sequence, where the hero lies in his grave, a long fade shifts the film from the narrative section to a behind-the-scenes documentary (shot on video) where we see Kiarostami and his crew. The long fade becomes a trigger for viewers to start feeling their own presence, as well as a mirror to see themselves in. It also motivates them to think about the ways they can understand the shift from the narrative to the documentary, as well as the change in formats from film to video.
  
  Kiarostami, in his movement towards a plotless cinema and a minimal and elliptic compressed narrative, has also used the dark screen in a number of his films, serving similar goals in terms of the audience?s involvement. The dark scene in the cellar where the young village girl is milking the cow while the hero is citing Forough?s poetry to her in The Wind Will Carry Us (1999), and the seven minute black scene in A.B.C. Africa (2001) where we hear Kiarostami talk, beautifully challenge the audience?s expectations as well as celebrating the creative use of sound. This striking moment in ABC Africa occurs when Kiarostami stops talking as he enters his room in complete darkness. We hear him drawing the window?s curtain but we don?t see anything for awhile. Suddenly a lightning bolt reveals the view of trees for a second. The image has become magical because it is delayed and anticipated for a long time.
  
  
  Close-Up
  
  
  Another way that Kiarostami invites the creative participation of his audience can be seen in his film Close-Up, where he interrupts and undermines the expected dramatic flow of the story-line with minor characters whose lives are not considered dramatic or important. He also mixes fact and fiction in such a way that it is impossible to separate the two. The non-chronological order of the scenes in the film which offer different points-of-view urge the audience to make sense of the story (putting it in their order), as well as asking them to judge the characters on their own terms.
  
  Close-Up not only refers to the role of cinema in Iran as a means of power, popularity, and social mobility, similar to the role of basketball for black youth in America, but it also confronts the viewer with her/his own relationship to cinema. Kiarostami criticises the role of media and the media-maker in deceiving the audience ? a contemporary universal issue. In this film more than his other films, Kiarostami reveals the characters through their lies and performances. Hence Kiarostami?s quotation "the shortest way to truth is lie." (3)

  lutar1

  Hey, you should really see this!

  posted 24 days ago
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  I recommend you see...

  The Wind Will Carry Us

  by Sancar

  Kiarostami belongs to a generation of filmmakers who created the so called "New Wave", a movement in Iranian cinema that started in the ?60s, before the revolution of 1979 and flourished in the ?70s. (2) Directors like Farrokhzad, Saless, Bayzai, and Kimiavi were the pioneers of this movement. They made innovative art films which had highly political and philosophical tones and poetic language. Some, like Saless (who is compared to Bresson), introduced a realist (minimal plot, non-dramatic) style, while others, like Kimiavi (known as the Iranian Godard, mixing fantasy and reality), employed a metaphoric form.
  
  
  Taste of Cherry
  
  
  What distinguishes Kiarostami?s style is his unique but unpretentious poetic and philosophical vision. Not only does he break away from conventional narrative and documentary filmmaking, he also challenges the audience?s role. He plays with their expectations and provokes their creative imagination. His films invite the viewer to reflect, confront stereotypes, and actively question their assumptions. In Taste of Cherry, the reason for Mr. Badii?s suicide is not given to the viewer. Consequently, the audience has to imagine that reason. In Kiarostami?s words, the untold or unexplained parts of his films are created in the minds of his audience. What is presented as obscure or hidden becomes clear and apparent through the audience?s imagination (for example, characters? motivations and inner worlds). In this way, the audience member becomes responsible for the clarity that she/he expects from the film.

  lutar1

  Hey, you should really see this!

  posted 24 days ago
• 
  I recommend you see...

  Taste of Cherry

  by Sancar

  Abbas Kiarostami is the most influential and controversial post-revolutionary Iranian filmmaker and one of the most highly celebrated directors in the international film community of the last decade. (1) During the period of the ?80s and the ?90s, at a time when Iranians had such a negative image in the West, his cinema introduced a humane and artistic face.
  
  Kiarostami is a graduate of Tehran University?s Faculty of Fine Arts in Painting. He was first involved in painting, graphics and book illustration and then began his film career by making credit-titles and commercials.
  Bread and Alley
  
  
  He founded the film department of the Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults (known as Kanun) where a number of the highest quality Iranian films were produced. He ran the department for five years and at the same time directed his first film, Bread and Alley, in 1970. Making educational films for children at Kanun, a non-commercial organization, helped him form his basic approach to cinema.
  
  Although Kiarostami made several award-winning films early in his career, it was after the revolution that he earned a highly esteemed reputation on the stage of world cinema. 20 years after his ground-breaking debut feature, Report (1977), he was awarded the prestigious Palme d?Or (Golden Palm) award at the Cannes International Film Festival for his film Taste of Cherry in 1997.
  
  His masterpiece Close-Up (1990) and, later, the poetic Life and Nothing More?(1992) led to Kiarostami?s discovery in the West, and only then it was mainly by the French. He won the Un Certain Regard award for the latter at Cannes.

  lutar1

  Hey, you should really see this!

  posted 24 days ago
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  I recommend you see...

  Iron Man

  by K

  horneychicjk

  Hey, you should really see this!

  posted 24 days ago
• 
  I recommend you see...

  The Savages

  by Daniel

  The Savages is a near-perfectly made, flawlessly acted gem. Suddenly forced into 'real life' at 42 and 39 years of age, siblings Jon and Wendy have to care for their estranged father, who has developed dementia. A simple, character-driven story dealing with a messy subject in a subtle, intelligent and cathartic way that pulls none of its punches and never wallows in sentimentality. Refreshingly told with beautiful camera work and filled with truthful observations, melancholy, black humor and poignancy, this is just a wonderful film. It's essentially a two-hander (though unusually we do also see things from the father's perspective sometimes), with Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman never putting a foot wrong. The Savages reminded me very much of Alexander Payne's About Schmidt and Sideways (and Payne is one of the Exec Producers) - not just in terms of style but in substance too. Definitely worthy of your time.

  danieljparsons

  Semi-interested? Then you must see this.

  posted 33 days ago
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  I recommend you see...

  Darfur Now

  by Lisa

  raven824481

  Hey, you should really see this!

  posted 33 days ago
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  I recommend you see...

  El Orfanato (The Orphanage)

  by Daisy

  This was an awesome movie, spooky with many parts that make you jump but definatly not a horror.
  It has you hanging for what happens next and isnt predictable.
  A fast paced movie with doesnt lull in any parts.
  Its a tragady that breaks your heart when all become apparent at the end but turns out in sort of a good way.
  Even for those who dont like subtitles its still a 'must see'.
  I only watched it last night and im ready to watch it again!

  daisy184

  Hey, you should really see this!
  Dont miss out!!

  posted 33 days ago
• 
  I recommend you see...

  Mou gaan dou (Infernal Affairs)

  by Jacq

  this movie totally kicked! Tony Leung and Andy Lau were amazing.. this was a gripping movie when you never knew who was who and if they were a straight or corrupt cop.. and the ending.. wow..

  ElusiveSpirit

  If you are into cinema, asian cinima, thrillers, plots, or just good movies, you totally have to see this one!

  posted 33 days ago
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  I recommend you see...

  Across the Universe

  by Jamie

  Highly recommended!!
  A social and political musical about the turbulant late 60s culture...war, free love, drugs, and general feeling of unrest. Set the music of the Beatles. I am not a Beatles fan, but this movie is visual exciting and entertaining. On of the best musicals I have seen in a LONG time...its almost like a two hour music video with deep emotional undercurrent. I am fascinated by 60s culture and this fits right into my favorite genre.

  jamiegrrl2012

  Hey, you should really see this! Excellent musical!

  posted 36 days ago
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  I recommend you see...

  Angels in America

  by Jamie

  Surprisingly excellent! An adaptation of a play for an HBO mini-series. Not for the weak in the stomach or staunchly homophobic... Follows the story of several people affected by the early epidemic of AIDS in New York. Visual beautiful and etheral in nature. Check it out!

  jamiegrrl2012

  Hey, you should really see this! A play adapted for an HBO mini-series...

  posted 39 days ago
• 
  I recommend you see...

  Bright Star

  by Sancar

  Romance & Desire
  
  In The Portrait of a Lady, several critics disliked the opening credit sequence, or 'prologue', of contemporary teenage Australian girls discussing the thrill of their first kiss and their romantic aspirations for future relationships. (29) Their open and frank tone was considered to be at odds with Isabel's repressed desire, and the 20th century setting unsettled purist fans of the period film. (30) But this opening preface is in fact the key to Campion's interpretation of James' novel; it illuminates her own fascination with Isabel's journey from stubborn independence, to entrapment, through to self-awareness. The girls' voice-overs narrate instances of feminine desire: the ?exquisite? moment before a kiss as a head comes towards you, the excitement of another body in contact with your own, the ?mirror? that is to be found in a lifelong partner. Early in the film, Campion visualises Isabel's sexual desires in a fantasy sequence, (31) when Isabel imagines her three suitors lying in bed with her, kissing and caressing her face and body, or looking on with desire. Campion is explicit about Isabel's desire for this physical contact. Hence, the significance of her first 'real-life' kiss that we see ? as opposed to her fantasies ? when Osmond declares his love for her in the shadowy depths of the catacombs. Despite the marriage proposal of Lord Warburton and the persistence of her American suitor Caspar Goodwood, up to this point we have not witnessed a kiss between Isabel and these men. The combined effect of the fantasy sequence and the prologue's voicing of feminine desire is to invest Osmond's kiss with a life-changing force. Isabel's desire for Osmond's touch ? which remains present throughout even their most brutal confrontations ? is the catalyst for a startling reversal, in a woman who claimed she would ?probably never marry?. Whereas The Piano stages the liberation that comes from a woman's desires, The Portrait of a Lady reveals the dangers of that desire, the seduction that leads to entrapment in a loveless marriage. In this sense, it has been described as an ?anti-romance? and a reverse narrative of the erotic journey to fulfilment undertaken by Ada in The Piano. (32)
  
  It is worth recalling Campion's sceptical and cautionary portrayal of romance in An Angel at my Table, when the romantic longings of Janet are stirred by the attentions of an American history professor, Bernard (William Brandt), holidaying in Ibiza. We witness Janet's discovery of her sexual desire and erotic self-expression, most openly when she swims naked before Bernard, shedding the shyness and self-consciousness we have come to associate with her. But no sooner has Janet glimpsed a new, more confident self through her first sexual relationship, when Bernard declares he is returning to America, dismissing their relationship as simply 'a holiday romance'. Janet is crushed, and the specifically female perils of sexual desire are demonstrated in her discovery that she is pregnant, followed by a traumatic miscarriage. The lesson learnt is that romance is risky, and that sex distracts Janet from her 'real' purpose, her writing. (33)
  
  Campion's fascination with the darker side of romance is demonstrated by her declared passion for the Gothic literature of the Brontës. (34) Her films suggest she is acutely aware of the risks of romance, the dangers of desire, (35) for women in patriarchal society: while Ada is successful in achieving romantic union with Baines (Harvey Keitel) in The Piano, it comes at significant cost ? the loss of a finger and two attempts at rape by her jealous husband. Indeed, we can assume Ada has already discovered the 'costs' of romance in raising Flora (Anna Paquin) without Flora's father.
  
  
  PJ (Harvey Keitel) and Ruth (Kate Winslet)
  
  In Campion's two contemporary films, Sweetie and Holy Smoke, the seductive pitfalls of romance give way to the considerably unromantic negotiations of sex. In Sweetie, Kay and Louis's (Tom Lycos) courtship may initially appear 'romantic' in its abandonment of logic to the forces of fate and destiny, but the film spends little time on their romance, preferring instead to chart the slow disintegration of their relationship into frigid frustration, typified by Louis's suggestion over pizza that they make appointments to have sex (needless to say, this approach is unsuccessful). (36) In Holy Smoke, sex becomes a bargaining chip between Ruth and PJ. Perceiving the weakness at the heart of his machismo, Ruth seduces PJ in an attempt to reverse the power structure implicit in her position as a cult follower in need of 'de-programming'. Their first sexual encounter is successful in arousing PJ's emotions, thereby rendering him vulnerable, while leaving Ruth unsatisfied by PJ's perfunctory love-making. In contrast, their second sexual encounter, with PJ on his knees underneath Ruth's skirt, suggests a weakening in Ruth's resolve, as the camera focuses on her ecstatic pleasure. This lowering of her defences through sexual satisfaction allows PJ to convince Ruth that she has been cruel, but instead of Ruth falling in love with PJ, she becomes disgusted at her own manipulations of him and she flees the hut. Now PJ assumes the feminised, pathetic position of delirious lover. (37) Campion is merciless in her depiction of a lovesick PJ, stumbling across the desert in a red dress and lipstick, finally collapsing and hallucinating images of Ruth as an Indian goddess. 'Romance' never looked so ridiculous, nor have its power relations been so cruelly exposed.
  
  The themes of madness, ambiguity and desire are central to Campion's films. Her work has generated an extensive body of critical discussion, which is all the more remarkable when one considers she has released only five feature films to date. Campion is a director who inspired critical comment and analysis even before she made her first feature. (38) At the time of writing, Campion's current project is an adaptation of Susanna Moore's novel In The Cut (1995), due for US release in January 2003. Starring Meg Ryan and produced by Nicole Kidman, the film's plot deals with ?murder, sadism and sex?. (39) As a story that continues Campion's uncompromising exploration of female erotic empowerment and masochistic desire, (40) In The Cut may well again inspire debate and controversy.
  
  My thanks to Dr Jeanette Hoorn and Alan Hopgood for their constructive comments on an earlier version of this article.

  lutar1

  Hey, you should really see this!

  posted 43 days ago
• 
  I recommend you see...

  In the Cut

  by Sancar

  Ambiguity
  
  The essence of Jane Campion's films lies in ambiguity, in the opening up of narrative possibilities. Sue Gillett captures this perfectly when she notes that Campion's films are frequently concerned with what is unseen or unsaid. (25) This very openness of meaning lends power to the themes and issues (un)expressed, where the audience is left to interpret the information they are given ? or the lack of it. Campion is not interested in telling her audience what to think or how to respond. Indeed, the ambiguity in Campion's films is the catalyst for the critical debate her work inspires.
  
  There is much about Sweetie's past that is unseen or unsaid. A key example of this ambiguity is the bathroom scene in Sweetie, where Kay pauses outside the bathroom door, left ajar, and sees Sweetie washing her father in the bath. As Sweetie 'accidentally' drops the soap, she playfully fishes around in the water near her father's groin, humming occasionally as she does so. Campion then cuts to a shot of Kay in bed, pulling up the sheets and blanket close to her chin, staring tensely at the ceiling. Throughout there is a subtle but ominous undertone on the soundtrack. The scene is less than 30 seconds, but its presentation is so haunting that it casts a shadow over the remainder of the narrative, especially in the subsequent scenes between Sweetie and her father, Gordon (Jon Darling). While this is the only scene of intimate physical contact between Sweetie and Gordon, the implication of an incestuous relationship is supported by Gordon's indulgence of Sweetie's unrealistic career ambitions and his fear of upsetting her.
  
  Campion again employs ambiguity to suggest an incestuous relationship in The Portrait of a Lady. When Isabel first meets Gilbert Osmond (John Malkovich), his teenage daughter Pansy (Valentina Cervi) sits on his lap. Twice Campion shows a close-up of Osmond's hands stroking Pansy's, creating a sense of uneasiness in this display of intimacy. While no further evidence of an improper relationship between father and daughter is offered, these shots further arouse our suspicions about Osmond (after we have witnessed his scheming with Madame Merle [Barbara Hershey]) and establish the excessive control he exerts over Pansy, and her fearful obedience to him.
  
  
  Isabel Archer (Nicole Kidman) in
  The Portrait of a Lady
  
  The concept of ambiguity is a key feature of art cinema discourse, and part of what defines Campion's films within these terms. Critics and audiences puzzled over the unanswered questions at the heart of The Piano's narrative: why does Ada refuse to speak? who is the father of Flora? why did Ada's father send her away? what to make of the film's conclusion that contrasts an image of domestic 'bliss' with that of Ada suspended at the bottom of the ocean, tied forever to her piano? (26) Like Sweetie, there is much about Ada's past that is unspoken and the occasional insight offered by the film ? such as Flora's tales of her opera-singing father ? are clearly marked as unreliable. The inscrutability of character motivation was the subject of intense critical discussion with regards to Isabel in The Portrait of a Lady: what exactly is it that Isabel wants? The ambiguous nature of Isabel's desire is expressed in the openness of the film's ending, as Isabel appears literally frozen on the threshold between escape with Caspar Goodwood (Viggo Mortensen) and retreat to the oppressive sphere of the domestic: what is Isabel's final decision? (27) The startling beauty of this final image ? Nicole Kidman's pale face and unruly red hair framed against the frost-covered glass panes of the mansion's door ? heightens the audacity of this unresolved narrative moment with which Campion concludes her film.
  
  Ambiguity in Campion's films is not limited to her characters; it extends to critical analysis of her own directorial project. For reviewers of Holy Smoke, the film's uneven tone ? lurching between comedy and drama ? resulted in the obscuring of the film's intentions: to explore or exploit alternative belief systems? To praise or parody Ruth's pursuit of spiritual enlightenment? Dana Polan's close analysis of the film reveals the source of this confusion. Campion employs the kitsch stylings of 1970s pop culture to great comic effect in her portrayal of PJ Waters and her sense of humour is unforgiving in the presentation of Ruth's family, particularly her sister-in-law Yvonne (Sophie Lee). But, as Polan observes, ?moments of spirituality and vision [such as Ruth's conversion scene] are also treated in terms of a style that resonates with tackiness, and this contributes to the film's undecidability of tone.? (28)
  
  The theme of ambiguity demonstrates the central role of discussion and debate in the reception of Campion's films. One of the most contested topics of discussion is her treatment of heterosexual relationships.

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