Midnight in Paris Directed by: Woody Allen Country: Spain, USA
Runtime:
Gil and Inez travel to Paris as a tag-along vacation on her parents'
business trip. Gil is a successful Hollywood writer but is struggling on
his first novel. He falls in love with the city and thinks they should
move there after they get married, but Inez does not share his romantic
notions of the city or the idea that the 1920s was the golden age. When
Inez goes off dancing with her friends, Gil takes a walk at midnight and
discovers what could be the ultimate source of inspiration for writing.
Gil's daily walks at midnight in Paris could take him closer to the
heart of the city but further from the woman he's about to marry.
Woody Allen's love affair with France, which goes back decades, finds
its finality with "Midnight in Paris," the latest of Allen's Parisian
brochures, which recently opened at the Cannes Film Festival on
Wednesday. The good news is that Allen seems to be paying attention in a
way he hasn't always done in recent films, and has found a way to
channel his often-caustic misanthropy, half-comic fear of death and
anti-American bitterness into agreeable comic whimsy. The nominal point
of "Midnight in Paris" is that we've all got to make the best of life in
our own time while longing for a past that probably never existed. If
anything, Allen seems to be rebuking himself, ever so mildly, for his
compulsive romanticism, his obsession with the past and his
disconnection from contemporary American life. Allen has baked us a
sweet, airy Parisian dessert with just a sense of sentimental substance
in the finish. One of his better films in his latter years. IMDB Review
In the summer of 2006, film directors Dominik Graf, Christian Petzold
and Christoph Hochhäusler began corresponding with each other on the
subjects of film aesthetics, the Berlin School, Germany and the film
genre (their correspondence was published in German film magazine
Revolver). Two years later they decided to continue this theoretical
discussion with a joint film project: three individual stories revolving
around the same “fait divers”: the escape of a convicted criminal from
police custody. Graf’s DON’T FOLLOW ME AROUND tells the story of a
police psychologist who meets old acquaintances while investigating a
case. In Petzold’s BEATS BEING DEAD a young man doing alternative
national service experiences a love story without a future. And in
Christoph Hochhäusler’s ONE MINUTES OF DARKNESS an indefatigable
policeman hunting the escaped prisoner begins to doubt false
certainties. Three films, three styles, three exciting approaches,
variations, analyses.
Dreileben 1:Beats Being Dead Directors: Christian Petzold Country: Germany Runtime: 1 hour 26 minutes
''Beats Being Dead'' is the first part of the DREILEBEN trilogy.
A
big hospital on the outskirts of a small city in the middle of the
Thuringian Forest. Here Johannes carries out his alternative national
service. The head physician, a family friend, has recruited him.
Johannes gets to know Ana. During the night of their first embrace, a
sex offender escapes from the hospital. His flight and the police’s
hectic search accompany the story of Johannes and Ana – a love story
transcending boundaries, without a future.
Dreileben 2: Don't Follow Me Around Directors: Dominik Graf Country: Germany Runtime: 1 hour 28 minutes
In the trilogy’s second chapter, Jo, a big-city police psychologist,
arrives in Dreileben to aid in the ongoing investigation, whereupon she
finds herself greeted cooly by the local authorities but welcomed with
open arms by Vera, a college friend who lives nearby with her husband, a
pretentious author. As the girlfriends reminisce about bygone days and
discover they were both once in love with the same man, director Dominik
Graf deftly juxtaposes their personal drama against the search for a
killer, a police corruption scandal, and a possible case of interspecies
transmutation—all underlining the trilogy’s recurring themes of false
appearances and deeply hidden truths.
Dreileben 3: One Minute of Darkness Directors: Christoph Hochhäusler Country: Germany Runtime: 1 hour 29 minutes
The Dreileben trilogy comes to a nail-biting close with director
Christoph Hochhäusler’s expert thriller, which also brings escaped felon
Molosch—a peripheral character in the first two parts—into sharp focus.
Hot on the killer’s trail, grizzled police inspector Marcus tries to
put himself inside the mind of the criminal, even as he begins to wonder
if the condemned man really is guilty as charged. Meanwhile, as Molosch
flees deeper into Dreileben’s possibly enchanted forest, he has an
unexpectedly tender encounter with a young runaway girl—scenes that echo
the Frankenstein story and transform One Minute of Darkness into a
dark, memorably strange fairy tale.
A young refugee and his mother flee ethnic cleansing in the Georgian
region of Abkhazia, leaving his father behind. After arriving in the
Georgina capital of Tbilisi, the young boy encounters difficulties with
his mother, and begins a lonely journey back to Abkahzia to find his
father.
Reviews
A 12-year-old
Georgian boy embarks on a dangerous mission to find his father behind
enemy lines in the breakaway Republic of Abkhazia in Georgian helmer
George Ovashvili's moving feature debut, "The Other Bank." Showcasing
impressive perfs from nonpro thesps, especially young Tedo Bekhauri as
the lead, "Bank" wisely invests in unobtrusive naturalism and powerful
but unsentimental storytelling that should ensure further fest play.
That said, the pic doesn't quite pack an emotive enough punch to woo (or
wow) auds much beyond Georgian and Russian arthouses. Variety * "Gripping
and visually impaling in the land of lost". Stranded in a
war-torn-worn-down Tsibili in the aftermath of the conflicts between
Abkhazia and Georgia in the early 90′s, 12-year-old Tedo and a slightly
reluctant mother find themselves living as refugees, trying to make ends
meet. As Tedo’s glue sniffing friends are arrested for petty crimes and
the mother favor scummy lovers over her son, the young boy embarks on a
journey back to Abkhazia to find the father left behind. The Other
Bank much reminisces of Greek director Angelopoulos film Landscape in
the Mist where the children also leaves what they call home on a quest
to find a missing father. They both encounter various kinds of people
who treat them in various ways, some times quite unexpected. What makes
The Other Bank interesting in particular is that it is set in such a
remote location, showcasing a reality characterized by poverty,
uncertainty and everything else that war brings with. The boy moves
through desolate landscapes and cross borders where passing may rob you
of your life. Politics strongly pervades pic, but philosophical
aspects which goes hand in hand with a few visually impaling scenes and a
grand acting by the [amateur] lead performer turns this into a certain
winner. A must see. Mubi.com * Stranded in a
war-torn-worn-down Tsibili in the aftermath of the conflicts between
Abkhazia and Georgia in the early 90′s, 12-year-old Tedo and a slightly
reluctant mother find themselves living as refugees, trying to make ends
meet. As Tedo's glue sniffing friends are arrested for petty crimes and
the mother prefer scummy lovers over him, the young boy embarks on a
journey back to Abkhazia to find the father left behind. The Other
Bank much reminisces of Greek director Angelopoulos film Landscape in
the Mist, where the children also leave what they call home on a quest
to find a missing father. They both encounter various kinds of people
who treat them in various ways, some times quite unexpected. What makes
The Other Bank interesting in particular is that it is set in such a
remote location, showcasing a reality (and the scenes it takes place in)
characterized by poverty, uncertainty and everything else that war
brings with. The boy moves through desolate landscapes and cross borders
where passing may rob you of your life. Politics strongly pervades
pic, but philosophical aspects hand in hand with a few visually impaling
scenes and a grand acting by the lead performer turns it into a
definite winner.
Director: Chao Wang
Country: China
Runtime: 92 min
A woman, He Sizhu, and her lover, Chen Mo, are in a car accident. When
she wakes up at the hospital where her husband is a surgeon, she has
forgotten everything. Her lover has become a stranger, but he wants her
back.
Director: Mika Kaurismäki Country: Finland Runtime: 1 hour 25 minutes
Two brothers take decidedly different paths when they attempt to seek
their fortune. One is a responsible married man who opens up a print
shop, working arduously to make a living. The other brother is a hippie
who has a young girlfriend. When he stays with his brother, he has an
affair with his sister-in-law while his brother sleeps with his
girlfriend. The two brother attempt to patch things up after the hippie
moves out.
1889. German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche witnessed the whipping of a
horse while traveling in Turin, Italy. He tossed his arms around the
horse's neck to protect it then collapsed to the ground. In less than
one month, Nietzsche would be diagnosed with a serious mental illness
that would make him bed-ridden and speechless for the next eleven years
until his death. But whatever did happen to the horse? This film, which
is Tarr's last, follows up this question in a fictionalized story of
what occurred. The man who whipped the horse is a rural farmer who makes
his living taking on carting jobs into the city with his horse-drawn
cart. The horse is old and in very poor health, but does its best to
obey its master's commands. The farmer and his daughter must come to the
understanding that it will be unable to go on sustaining their
livelihoods. The dying of the horse is the foundation of this tragic
tale. Written by Anonymous
There is definitely something boyish about ten-year-old Laure. She has
recently moved to a new area with her parents and her little sister,
Jeanne. It’s summertime and all the other neighbourhood children are
playing outside – only Laure is alone, for she knows nobody of her own
age. But then, one day, she meets Lisa, a girl who is exactly the same
age. Laure allows her new acquaintance to believe that she is a boy.
Laure becomes Mikaël, and, no sooner has she brought about this
‘transformation’ than she begins playing with all the other
neighbourhood children. As time passes, Laure’s relationship to Lisa
becomes increasingly close, making the ambiguity of her situation ever
more complicated.
Céline Sciamma is a proponent of a new generation
of filmmakers in France. In an interview with “Cineuropa” in August 2007
she comments: “I became a cinephile as a result of young French cinema
of the 90s: Desplechin, Lvovsky, Rochant. But I like Gus Van Sant and
Larry Clark a lot too for their work on adolescence, not to forget David
Lynch.”
Maryse and her husband are desperate to sell a backhoe sitting abandoned
in their suburban yard. Her brother, Benoit, is trapped in endless
adolescence, sharing their childhood home with their invalid father.
Benoit is enamoured with a single mom named Nathalie, and he's hoping to
finally grow up by living with her... but Nathalie's son does not
approve. A serious accident at the factory where Maryse works, a strange
series of coincidences, and the arrival of a Man claiming to come from
the future launch Maryse and Benoit on a life-changing road trip.
Following up his acclaimed feature film Continental, a film without
guns, filmmaker Stephane Lafleur once again brings us an ensemble of
compelling characters, in a story where the ordinary and the fantastic
collide. Written by Anonymous from imdb
Director: Lars von Trier
Country: Denmark
Runtime:
The film begins with an intro sequence, with a number of
semi-abstract images of the main characters as well as images from
space, showing the end of the world. Melancholia is divided into two
parts, the first being a family drama about the girl Justine (Kirsten Dunst), who is alienated from her family at her own wedding.
Part two is an apocalyptic drama
about Justine and her sister Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg), who has to
deal with the possible end of the world, as a previously unknown
Counter-Earth planet, called Melancholia, is on collision course with
Earth.
In
part one, the young couple Justine and Michael (Alexander Skarsgård)
are getting married at a castle, but the party is far from successful,
as Justine’s divorced parents (John Hurt
and Charlotte Rampling) are openly fighting at the dinner. Justine
herself is both alienated from her sister, her new husband, her boss (Stellan Skarsgård) and her parents.
She drifts away from the party, and becomes increasingly depressed and
desperate during the night. At several occasions, she looks at a
specific star, which seems to shine brighter than normal. Claire’s
husband John (Kiefer Sutherland) says it is the star Antares, and later
in the movie the star disappears. At the end of the party, Michael leaves Justine, implying that their marriage is called off.
In part two, Justine has become severely depressed, and visits Claire
and John, who lives in the same castle with their son Leo (Cameron
Spurr). To begin with, Justine is unable to do normal everyday things
like taking a bath or eat, but becomes more self confident over time.
It has been revealed that the reason for Antares’ disappearance was due
to the planet Melancholia, which had previously been hidden behind the
sun, had moved in front of the star and blocked it from view.
At the same time, Melancholia has become visible in the sky. John, being
very keen on astronomy, is excited about the planet, and looks forward
to the so-called fly-by, as Earth and Melancholia are supposed to pass
by each other.
Claire is very fearful about the planet, and believes it is the end
of the world. On the night of the fly-by, it seems that John was right,
as Melancholia passes by Earth, and nothing happens. In the following
days, however, it turns out that Melancholia is coming back around. As
John finds out, he commits suicide by taking pills.
His dead body is found by Claire, who decides to keep it a secret. She
then talks to Justine, who is extremely cynical about the impending
doom. However, she tries to comfort Leo by building a crude shelter out
of wooden sticks. The film ends with Justine, Claire and Leo sitting
inside the shelter, as Melancholia collides with Earth.
DIRECTORS STATEMENT
It was like waking from a dream: my producer showed me a suggestion
for a poster. “What is that?” I ask. ”It’s a film you’ve made!” she
replies. ”I hope not,” I stammer. Trailers are shown ... stills ... it
looks like shit. I’m shaken.
Don’t get me wrong ... I’ve worked on the film for two years. With
great pleasure. But perhaps I’ve deceived myself. Let myself be tempted.
Not that anyone has done anything wrong ... on the contrary, everybody
has worked loyally and with talent toward the goal defined by me alone.
But when my producer presents me with the cold facts, a shiver runs down
my spine.
This is cream on cream. A woman’s film! I feel ready to reject the film like a wrongly transplanted organ.
But what was it I wanted? With a state of mind as my starting point, I
desired to dive headlong into the abyss of German romanticism. Wagner
in spades. That much I know. But is that not just another way of
expressing defeat? Defeat to the lowest of cinematic common
denominators? Romance is abused in all sorts of endlessly dull ways in
mainstream products.
And then, I must admit, I have had happy love relationships with romantic cinema ... to name the obvious: Visconti!
German romance that leaves you breathless. But in Visconti, there was
always something to elevate matters beyond the trivial ... elevate it
to masterpieces!
I am confused now and feel guilty. What have I done?
Is it ’exit Trier?’ I cling to the hope that there may be a bone
splinter amid all the cream that may, after all, crack a fragile tooth
... I close my eyes and hope!
