Displaying Review 1 - 5 of 53 in total

• Braveheart — for My Childhood
  Written by lezard on 03.09.2014

  The story? the title says it all: a moment of the author's childhood.
  The dialogues? Hardly any.
  The action? Mostly surviving.
  The setting? Scotland
  The result? Beyond words.

  Either you feel it like a punch in your stomach or you don't and you look away, bored. Period.

  You reach here the bare bone of filming and story-telling. But if you can just watch, the cold wind will bite your skin, you'll be hungry and mute with awe and anger. You'll reach the unbreakable core of childhood, the diamond coal that warms up frozen black nights while everybody looks elsewhere.

  The pure magic of cinema.

  Emotion. Not feelings, not sentiments, not sadness nor love. Emotion, rid of the shell of whatever is inessential.

• first of all! — for En kärlekshistoria
  Written by lezard on 27.10.2019

  Down the tenements, watching the train below, she's waiting for him. Here he comes and it's suddenly summer. On the dusty playground, he leaves her, she runs after him, he comes back, he hugs her, and it's suddenly summer. In the park, eyes meet, first sight. Through the window-pane, leaning on his silhouette, she searches for his perfume. Down on his knees, his face on her belly, he closes his eyes, and it's suddenly summer. On the countryside platform, alone in the morning,she stands, and looks away, she is suddenly summer. Against the mist,against the bitter wine of the grown-ups,against their renunciation and everything we have lost, they kiss, each the other's world entire, and are for ever, summer.

  This movie is a jewel.

• Elegance is an attitude — for Man jeuk
  Written by lezard on 27.10.2019

  J. To invites us to a dance. Plainness.Lightness. Four men pick pockets. A girl steals four hearts. A camera.The same caress.

  Did you like "The Mission", this almost silent action movie? Did you marvel at the first magical five minutes of "Breaking News"? Then you will enjoy "the Sparrow" because you will find again To's touch: skill, virtuosity and above all pleasure. Plots are "thin" but efficient, and we are quickly tricked into following the different characters. Once again, with not much of a story and a beautiful music J. To portrays his city (Hong Kong). A ballet of umbrellas adds the final touch to something rare: make much with little. Smiles and jubilation.

• Identification of a great director — for Identificazione di una donna
  Written by lezard on 27.10.2019

  I think there are no such things as popular movies or intellectual films. there are good films and bad ones. Whether they are westerns, film noirs, comedies or action movies is irrelevant. some of them speak to you as if you were a nut-head, others as if you were able to share their vision and if necessary think by yourself, not mentioning others who would simply insult a 5-year old. This movie definitely falls in the second category. First of all it is visually rewarding. Antonioni is a painter in films and every scene, every shot is beautiful and interesting. As to the plot and characters, they are puzzling, for, as in all Antonioni's movies, they never act or react as expected. There is mystery, in every scene. It is so modern that not many films of today can compete. The love scene for instance is unrivaled in today's cinema and makes "Basic Instinct" look like sexual excitation seen through the eye of mickey Mouse. It's a film about creation, fatherhood, what it is to watch and to be watched. it's about cinema!

• The surface of the volcano! — for Midaregumo
  Written by lezard on 27.10.2019

  Regardless of Naruse's whole career and movies (which are great)his last one is remarkable in many ways. But above all, what best defines the movie is what it is not: loud, flamboyant, predictable. Given the same script who would have made such a movie? Even Douglas Sirk, the king of melodrama would not have resisted the temptation of something more dramatic and controversial . Naruse's movie has what 99% of all movies lack: discretion, delicacy, respect. Yet it is a passionate movie if you can imagine and feel what the characters experience, what is boiling under the surface of the polished Japanese volcano. We too want to yell and free the characters from all the weight and pressure of a rigid society. Experience something different: no sex, no killing, no bloodshed, nothing low. Feelings and inner turmoil, at the highest degree, near incandescence. A great movie!