Monday, November 28, 2011

"Sleeping Beauty" and sexual nightmares


"Your vagina will not be penetrated. Your vagina is a temple." With these words, Sleeping Beauty establishes the ground rules and sets the scene for a bizarre sexual nightmare. The film is set in Australia but conceived in a high, contemporary European style: it is perpetually a surprise to realise the dialogue is in English and not French or Austrian-accented German.


It is technically elegant, with vehemence and control, though often preposterous, with the imagined classiness of high-end prostitution and art-porn cliches of secret sexiness in grand chateaux: shades of Eyes Wide Shut.
Author-turned-director Julia Leigh has certainly made an assured debut, which evidently owes nothing to Jane Campion who has "presented" this movie in some kind of Executive Mentor capacity. Instead, Leigh aims for the occult ritual of Buñuel and the formal exactitude of Haneke: rigorously framed and composed shots.
Emily Browning gives a fierce and powerful performance, which should put her in the running for the festival's best actress prize; she is Lucy, a student who takes part-time jobs to pay her tuition. These include medical experimentation – an almost unwatchable, and crucially penetrative process in which a tube is inserted into her gullet – and occasional prostitution. From here, Lucy is inducted into a niche sex industry: elderly gentlemen in tuxedos hold dinner parties and pay beautiful young women to wait on them, almost naked. Her success leads to a lucrative "sleeping beauty" gig. She is drugged and these ageing, sagging sensualists can do whatever they wish to her naked body, except penetration. But Lucy becomes obsessed with knowing what is being done to her.
The movie's emotional seriousness consists in Lucy's unhappy backstory: it is not merely a need for cash that has led her to this, but a kind of trauma and self-hate. She evidently had a painful and complex relationship with an agoraphobic drug addict called Birdmann (Ewen Leslie); he was and is clearly in love with her and, on her many visits, her affectionate friendship is complicated by unexpressed guilt at not feeling the same way or wanting to sleep with him.
All of this Browning suggests in her sulky pouts, her suppressed tears, her angry blankness: especially when talking to her alcoholic mother on the phone. It all leads to the grotesque situation of lying in a drugged stupor for men who wish to indulge in a necrophile-rape fantasy. The sleeping beauty of the original fable fainted on pricking her finger on a spinning wheel, an image of a moment's daring combined with one of women's work and torpid docility. Lucy is certainly doing women's work: but what is she doing? Will she wake up to what is happening?
The stomach-turning "sex" scenes themselves brutally show how unlovely is the ageing male body: and the penises here are pitifully unable even to attempt penetration. To some, the situation may call to mind Almodovar's Talk to Her or perhaps the denouement of Dennis Potter's Brimstone and Treacle. But there is force and originality in Leigh's work. Sleeping Beauty is an impressive technical display, though no more than the sum of its parts.

"The Debt" Mossad Agents






The Debt is an unusually smart spy film, telling a good story without losing credibility. The Mossad protagonists aren't the super-efficient (if troubled) heroes of Munich, but inept amateurs whose convoluted plan goes awry. The richly drawn characters help a lot: the love triangle that develops is tastefully handled, and Vogel is given a human side to balance out his evil nature. The second half of the film, with the protagonists perpetuating a face-saving lie that echoes down through the decades, provides some disquieting food for thought. How much of any country's national myth is built on convenient, self-aggrandizing falsehoods?

The 1960s scenes are brilliant: well-acted, cleverly plotted and gripping, the flashbacks make for engrossing viewing. The modern day scenes are servicable but suffer in comparison: the trio's future relationships are hinted at, but we don't learn enough about the intervening thirty years to make their older incarnations compelling. Then there's the contrived ending, which tries too hard to mix an intellectual message with a crowd-pleasing climax.



John Madden's direction is assured without being flashy, his crisp staging of key scenes (especially a railyard shootout) and Ben Davis's photography the perfect air of tension. The film is carefully crafted, with the flashbacks and modern scenes complementing each other perfectly.

Jessica Chastain is having a breakout year, with roles in this film, Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life and The Help. She's just about perfect here, a wonderful mixture of vulnerability, toughness and doubt. Sam Worthington (Avatar) scores with a quietly intense performance and Marton Csokas (Lord of the Rings) is perfect. Jesper Christiensen (Quantum of Solace) gives a wonderfully complex performance, making Vogel a very human monster. Helen Mirren makes the most of her limited role, but Tom Wilkinson (Valkyrie) and Ciaran Hinds (Munich) are wasted.

The Debt is a solid spy thriller. Despite its flawed conclusion, it remains a smart, thought-provoking film.

Thursday, November 17, 2011

My name is Khan, and I am not a terrorist


Directed by Karan Johar, 'My Name is Khan' tells the story of an autistic man Rizwan Khan (played by Shah Rukh Khan), who is caught in the aftermath of the September 11 militant attacks in the United States.

Khan, co-actor Kajol and Johar are teaming up after more than eight years, in what has been billed as one of the biggest releases to come out of Bollywood in a while.

The film is widely anticipated by fans of Khan and Kajol, whose great on-screen chemistry have helped deliver several hits in the past.

Fox Star Studios has signed a deal to finance and distribute the film, which unconfirmed media reports have pegged at 21 million USD.

However, both Johar and Fox have refused to confirm the figure, which, if true would be the highest ever for a Bollywood film.

"This film will be a step towards Indian cinema reaching worldwide," Khan said. India, home to the world's most prolific movie industry, has long tried to draw wider audiences, including by forging ventures with Hollywood studios looking to offset sluggish box-office sales with new markets and cheaper production costs.

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer

The film begins with the sentencing of Jean-Baptiste Grenouille (Ben Whishaw), a notorious murderer. Between the reading of the sentence and the execution, the story of his life is told in flashback, beginning with his abandonment at birth in a French fish market. Raised in an orphanage, Grenouille grows into a strangely detached boy with a superhuman sense of smell. After growing to maturity as a tanner's apprentice, he makes his first delivery to Paris, where he revels in the new odors. He focuses on a girl selling plums (Karoline Herfurth) and startles her with his behavior. To prevent her from crying out, he covers the girl's mouth and unintentionally suffocates her. After realizing that she is dead, he strips her body naked and smells her until the scent fades. Afterwards, Grenouille becomes haunted by the desire to recreate the plum slicing girl's scent.



Filming was originally planned to begin in the third quarter of 2004 but the filmmakers had trouble finding the right actor to play the protagonist Grenouille. The search to find an actor to play Grenouille took nearly a year. On casting agent Michelle Guish's advice, Tykwer went to see Ben Whishaw perform as Hamlet in Trevor Nunn's production of the play. Tykwer immediately felt that he had found the actor for the role. An audition followed which convinced Eichinger of Whishaw's potential as well. Eichinger described Whishaw as embodying both "the innocent angel and the murderer." Regarding his search to find an actor, Tykwer said "it only really seemed plausible to choose someone for this role who was completely unknown. You could also say a 'nobody' who is to become a 'somebody' - because that's what the story is about too."



One of the main challenges of making the film was to convey the smells and the world of scents that Grenouille experiences. Tykwer said that to him Perfume"was much more a film about the importance of smell in our life than a film that tries to be smelly." The filmmakers strived to convey smell visually without the use of colors or special effects, Griebe says "people see the fish market full of raw, bloody fish, and they know it stinks; they see a field of lavender and know it smells wonderful. We show Grenouille taking in smells by cupping his nose, and by doing close shots of his nose, and that's it!"



Principal photography began on July 12, 2005 and concluded on October 16, 2005. The first 15 days was spent entirely on the largest stage of Bavaria Film Studios in Munich, shooting the scenes between Baldini and Grenouille in the former's workshop. All of the scenes with Hoffman were completed within the first eleven days. Most of the remaining scenes were shot in Spain, specifically in BarcelonaGirona and Figueres. The streets of Barcelona stood in for that of Paris. El Gòtic, Barcelona's historic town center, was converted into a Paris fish market. The Poble Espanyol, an open-air museum in Barcelona, was the location for the climatic orgy scene. To create an authentic dirty look, the film's crew included a "dirt unit" of about 60 people whose job was to distribute detritus over the city. Two and a half tons of fish and one ton of meat was dispersed over El Gòtic. Several mountain and forest scenes were shot in the environs of Girona. The city also provided the location of the home and studio of Madame Arnulfi. Sant Ferran Castle in Figueres provided the location for the tannery, the Paris city gates and the dungeon which Grenouille is imprisoned in. The cave in which Grenouille discovers he has no scent was also located in Figueres. Some landscape shots, including those used as Grasse's lavender fields, were filmed in ProvenceFrance in late June 2005, before principal photography started.

Saturday, November 12, 2011

Polanski and Vampire Killers

One of his funniest films, a lot of surprising moments, and a lot left for our imagination. Polanski filmed it in 1967 so the quality of the video is still the good old one. It is something like a vampire smart soap opera with a lot of snow! We can also see Polanski acting in his movie, he's a good actor too.


Coming straight on the heels of Polanski's international success with Repulsion, the film was mounted on a lavish scale - color cinematography, huge sets in England, location filming in the Alps, elaborate costumes and choreography suitable for a period epic. Previously accustomed only to extremely low budgets, Polanski chose some of the finest English cinema craft artists to work on the film: cameraman Douglas Slocombe, production designer Wilfrid Shingleton. Polanski engaged noted choreographer Tutte Lemkow, who played the titular musician in Fiddler on the Roof, for the film's climactic danse macabre minuet.
During filming the director decided to switch formats to anamorphic while filming on location. Flat scenes already filmed were optically converted to match.




Paris Je t'aime




...And I love them both, the city and the surprising creation of 18 shortfilms in two hours film. The directors of the film made a awsome job, some of them are quite famous, like Cohen brothers, Alexander Payne, etc. 
Since for the week-end I am leaving my beloved city of Girona and going to Paris once again I wanted to share this movie with you or just remind that it exists. It's always nice to watch it again. The combination of the stories is creative, you don't have time to get bored and of course the incredible streets and cafes of the city of love, you can't miss it!!! 





Tuesday, November 8, 2011

"Manhattan" by Woody Allen

Manhattan is a 1979 American romantic comedy-drama film directed by Woody Allen about a twice-divorced 42-year-old comedy writer who dates a 17-year-old girl before eventually falling in love with his best friend's mistress. The film opens with a montage of images of Manhattan accompanied by George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue.


The famous bridge shot was done at 5 am. The bridge had two sets of necklace lights on a timer controlled by the city. When the sun comes up, the bridge lights go off. Willis made arrangements with the city to leave the lights on and he would let them know when they got the shot. Afterwards, they could be turned off. As they started to shoot the scene, one string of bridge lights went out and Allen was forced to use that take.


According to Allen, the idea for Manhattan originated from his love of George Gershwin's music. He was listening to one of the composer's albums of overtures and thought, "this would be a beautiful thing to make ... a movie in black and white ... a romantic movie". Allen has said that Manhattan was "like a mixture of what I was trying to do with Annie Hall and Interiors. He also said that his film deals with the problem of people trying to live a decent existence in an essentially junk-obsessed contemporary culture without selling out, admitting that he himself could conceive of giving away all of "his possessions to charity and living in much more modest circumstances", continuing, "I've rationalized my way out of it so far, but I could conceive of doing it".


Melancholia by Lars von Trier


Lars Von Trier is back with his new film, officially premiered in Cannes 2011.




Described as "A beautiful movie about the end of the world", MELANCHOLIA tells the story of two sisters (Kirsten Dunst, Charlotte Gainsbourg), who find their relationship challenged as a nearby planet threatens to collide into the Earth.



Trier's initial inspiration for the film came from a depressive episode he suffered and the insight that depressives remain calm in stressful situations. The film is a Danish production with international co-producers in Sweden, France, Germany and Italy. Filming took place in Sweden.
Sukhdev Sandhu wrote from Cannes in The Daily Telegraph that the film "at times comes close to being a tragi-comic opera about the end of the world", and that "The apocalypse, when it comes, is so beautifully rendered that the film cements the quality of fairy tale that its palatial setting suggests."



Al Pacino "Scarface"

Scarface is a 1983 American epic crime drama movie directed by Brian De Palma, written by Oliver Stone, produced by Martin Bregman and starring Al Pacino as Tony Montana. A contemporary remake of Howard Hawks' original 1932 film of the same name, the film tells the story of Tony Montana, a Cuban refugee who comes to Miami in 1980 as a result of the Mariel Boatlift, and becomes a drug cartel kingpin during the cocaine boom of the 1980s. The movie chronicles his rise to the top of Miami's cocaine empire.
The film is dedicated to Howard Hawks and Ben Hecht, the director and principal screenwriter of the original 1932 film, respectively.
The initial critical response to Scarface was mixed, with the film receiving criticism for its violence and graphic language. The film was widely criticized by the Cuban community in Miami, who objected to various aspects of the film, and the fact Cubans in it were compared with criminals and drug traffickers.
The film has since gathered a cult following and has become an important cultural icon (particularly in the hip hop community), inspiring posters, clothing, and many other references. The film's grainy black and white poster is a popular decoration and is still in production; as a result of its popularity it has been parodied many times.