I've never read the book "The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas", so I just can't tell if it was a good adaptation to the screen. However, what i can tell about this movie is that the story was really surprising to me. When I started watching it, I just thought to myself "this is going to be just like all those movies in which a german build a beautiful friendship with a jew in the nazism period." So I prepared myself to see all those cliches that always appear in this kind of movie. But, as the movie continued, my certainties proved to be wrong. Bruno isn't a different kid, that believes all people are equal. He is just a bored kid that found the only companion he could in the circumstancies. As a kid, he doesn't really understand what is going on, so in the beginning he sees the whole and horrible true by childish eyes. As time goes by, he starts to wake up a little and see what's happening around him. By his friendship with the jew in the concentration camp, he doesn't understand why jews are treated so badly and why they are considered the enemy. The moment in which he betrayed his little friend is one of the saddest from the movie. It made me remember a moment like this in the "Kite Runner", but by a different point of view. To me, it showed that Bruno was just a kid, selfish and scared of being punished. The ending, however, was something really amazing and caused me the most strange impression, because we don't see an ending like that in this kind of movie, so full of truth and maybe serving as a metaphore to the entire nazism.
I recommend this movie to everyone and believe it was one of the most beautiful movies I've watched lately
cahmaran's Reviews
Displaying Review 1 - 5 of 7 in total
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"Donnie Darko" is a movie that certainly divides opinions. Some will love it and some will hate it, but it's almost impossible to be indifferent to it. You travel through the mind of Donnie, where you can find a giant rabbit that keeps telling him the world is going to end, where time travel is a real possibility and other dimensions exist for sure. I got so excited about the turnings on the events of the plot that in some point I even forgot the awkwardness of a part of an inexistent plane falling over his bedroom or the dialog about Smurfete that seem to lead us nowhere. The point is that the movie has too many characters and subjects, but none of them is forgotten during the film. The laid back school system, the drama of the first love, the mistery about the rabbit and the supposed end of the world. All this subjects are equally showed in the plot. None of this elements, however, prepares us to the final turning in the events. The ending provides us an incredible surprise, which turns "Donnie Darko" into a classic of the science fiction, at least in my opinion. It also raises questions about the meaning of the whole story that nobody ever completely deciphered. Donnie Darko is like a piece of art and can only be admired by its entireness. It's one of the big misteries of the story of the cinema, guaranting its place side by side with Keyser Söze from "The Usual Suspects" and Dr. Malcolm Crowe form "The Sixth Sense", with the difference that the extent of the meaning of this story hasn't been totally comprehended yet.
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"Cat on a hot tin roof" counts with the presence of Paul Newman and Elizabeth Taylor in the main roles, what certainly improves the quality of the movie a lot.
Even with the great acting, the movie, however, is not that interesting. It keeps your attention until certain time. After that, everything looks like the same thing repeated over and over again.
In my perception, the movie is about a father that is dying. The "big father" gave all possible material things he could to his family, but didn't manage to give them the most important one: love. That's the main subject. After that, you have a lot of complications, like the bad relationship between Brick and his wife, the difficulties Maggie has to become pregnant, the greed of Brick's family to get his father's heritage and the mysterious case of Brick's dead friend, what still torments him. With all this problems, it's not a surprise that Brick became an alcoholic.
It's hard to say if the ending is happy or not. It's probably neither of them. It meant a change of perspective from Brick, what might push his life towards happier waters. Or not. That's not really clear.
The merits of the production are in the sense of reality that the movie brings. In some aspects, everyone will feel that something in the film can be applied to his own life. It doesn't avoid the fact that the movie abuses of the same formula, however. I would say that the best parts of the movie are the strange beginning and the realistic ending. The movie might not be perfect but it's still worth to watch it. In the end, it's a really good story. -
Basically, a good movie. It doesn't have an inovative technique or something like that, but the screenplay is developed interestingly enough. The title is based in the fact that some misteries of the movie are only discovered when they are analized under a different point of view. That's the case of a letter written in code, that could only be fully understand when read by a soccer fan.
I usually come to think that some movies are entirely written based on their surprising and sometimes pretensious endings. This, however, is not the case of this movie. In spite of its unexpected ending, the movie is capable of keeping your attention from the beginning. Another interesting characteristic of this film is that the love case isn't located even near to the main narrative, being transported to the corner of it. I believe (and it's just an idea, not a fact) that it was introduced in the story only to reduce the darkness and despair of its end.
In the matter of the Oscar it received, I can only say it was a really competent job. I don't know if the movie deserved it, because I didn't watch the other ones (I intend to watch The White Ribbon, at least), but it is a pretty good film and I recommend it to someone that has some free time and does not care about reading the subtitles. -
It is amazing to see how the story of Christy Brown develops as much as a story of a common person. It is incredible because Christy has a rare condition, that allows him to have total control of only one part of his body: his left foot, obviously. But, oh, what that feet can do. It provides Christy a way to save his mother, who had a heart attack and it's by his use that he can prove he is not a retard, as his family seemed to think (save for his mother, who always believed in him). Through the use of his foot, he can play soccer, pick up fights, make beautiful paintings, put records on, etc. So, when he gets the ability to use his voice and be comprehended, nothing would be more natural than his want to write a book about his tribulated (and sometimes very funny and enjoyable) life.
What saves this movie from mediocrity and from a heart-warming, tearful rating is the smart directing from Jim Sheridan and the masterful acting of Daniel Day Lewis (awarded with an Academy Award). Christy Brown is not a suffering person, full of complexes and problems. He grows up pretty well and is loved by the people that surround him. He is a normal person, prisoned in his disfunctional body, that sometimes allows himself to say "fuck off" and to be rather unpleasant. The strongest scene is when he finds out that his nurse (to whom he is madly in love) is going to marry soon. Then, he is responsible for a shameful, disturbing jealousy scene, really hard to watch.
Sometimes funny, sometimes emotioning and sometimes reflexive, this movie is a very good production, somehow different from the other movies of this kind.
