Jamie passion and passionfruit!

This is the year of Middle Eastern themes in the movies and hot on the heels of Ethiopian Jews in Israel we have Palestinian suicide bombers in Paradise Now.  This is not a great film cinematographically.  It is however a brave and significant work of competent film making.  A sort of psychological thriller it looks at the last days of Said and Khaled who have been chosen for a suicide bombing mission in Tel Aviv.  We get to see their miserable life in Nablus, a Palestine city that is dirty, ramshackle and lacking basic amenities like clean water, we get to see their lack of hope and the sense that they live in a prison.  At the end of the film we glimpse the glamour of Tel Aviv, the wealth and cleanliness and there is no comparison – the Palestinians have been condemned to living in a dump.  Beyond that we have a view of the different views from within the Palestine camp, those who believe in the ultimate sacrifice of the bombers and the others who want a more intelligent moral battle.  Suha, the daughter of a fallen hero is one of these and tries to convinve the two bombers who themselves show that mix of bravura, rage and fear that seems typical of the bombers.  Good acting by Ali Suliman and Kais Nashel in the lead roles and a good script and direction from Hany Abu-Assad.  It is almost documentary like by the end giving us the sense that we really have seen life from the other side in Paradise Now.  Worth seeing and good for debate!

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Silly Ghost-like romantic sort of comedy about a comatose doctor and the landscape architect who takes over her flat.  It is easily watchable but completely bereft of any credibility and basically becomes all too humdrum and obvious.  Although Reese Witherspoon and Mark Ruffalo are good actors, there is little they can do to breathe life into this comatose vehicle.

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Another of those films that leaves you so moved and gutted that you wonder why so many critics rail against it.  Admittedly many have been positive, but some smarties cast it aside as another weepie!  You may well shed a few tears but it is because of the sheer injustice of a life the Ethiopian boy has to go through between being ordered by his own mother to leave her behind in a refugee camp in Sudan, to arrive in a non-too inviting Israel and be absoultely disorientated.  As time goes by, having to learn different languages and religious practices too take their toll on Schlomo’s sense of identity and then on top of that we have the constant racism of the Israeli people towards these dark-skinned Jews.  Radu Mihaileanu’s film is a very thoughtful and detailed account of the life of one boy, which is a lesson for us all on what our identitiy means to us and just how important it is to respect each other’s individuality rather than try to make people what they are.  The film is well scripted and moves along well thanks to some very competent acting and to the shear reality of this situation which many have passed through.  Yael Abecassis as the adoptive Israeli mother is excellent, as is Yitzhak Edgar who is an elderly member of the Ethiopian Jewish community who acts as a sort of surrogate grandfather.  The three boys who play Schlomo don’t put a foot wrong: Moshe Agazai, the youngest, is also great.  Armand Amar has composed some very moving music too.  All told then, top marks for humanity and a pretty good rating too as a movie, long and engrossing.

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I saw the original ‘The Poseidon Adventure’ at the age of 12 and loved it all, the morbidity of multiple deaths by disaster, the stirring emotions engendered by the quest to survive and the group cast of oddbods who all find superhuman strength to overcome the difficulties posed by a liner floating upside down and popping and fizzing all the time.  Suffice to say that Wolfgang Peterson’s remake is much of the same and fits the bill pretty well.  Lots of exciting visuals thanks to the improvement in technology and a racy dash to the top of he ship to get out.  Suspend your disbelief if necessary and forget about finding good acting – No one, neither veteran of this type of film Kurt Russell, nor hero Josh Lucas convince, which is probably why for me this is a lesser version than the 72 one.  The motor of the story is the disaster and the race against time and  that is well enough done.

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A French film based on an American movie of the 70’s with Harvey Keitel, Tom (Romain Duris) is  a real estate agent cum repo man, who goes in with his heavies to clear out or rough up properties his father wants to buy up cheap.  He also has the unfulfilled ambition to be a concert pianist like his dead mother, a quest he gave up ten years before.  In this tight and gripping film we follow Tom as he reaches a crisis point with the struggle between these two aspects of his life, being the dutiful son and following his dream.  One side of the film features the underworld, mafia, shady deals and petty violence and the other piano coaching at the hands of a newly arrived Chinese immigrant, auditions and the occasional romantic meeting with the wife of a colleague.  All this is beautifully coordinated by director Jacques Audiard who is aided immensely by a tremendous performance by Romain Duris.  Niels Arestrup as the father also does well and it is great to see Emmanuelle Devos in a cameo role.  –photography and music are also excellent making for a very good film all round.

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A Swedish film set in Britain in the 50’s and directed by Brit Colin Nutley who has adopted Sweden as his home, this is better than many reviews had led me to expect and while there are some very shaky plot developments, the overall story lures you in and provides a pleasant two hours.  The excellent photography by Jens Fischer, accompanied by some thoughtful set ups by the director and a graceful revelation of the mystery surrounding this strange family of undertakers in rural England. The music by Per Andreasson is very good as well and the recreation of the period both in decor and attitudes seem faithful for the main.  Helena Bergstrom, the director’s wife is such a good actress that she holds together the main role, despite a rather far fetched plot and there are some very nice support in the minor parts from Elizabeth Spriggs, the mother, Peter Vaughan, the uncle, and the maiden aunt who is played by Lindsay Duncan.  Nutley shows in this and what I have seen of his previous work that he is an accomplished and versatile director who has it in him to make a great film and meanwhile produces perfectly satisfactory ones.  However, if you want avant-garde go elsewhere.  He plays it relatively safe even with what critics dubbed magic realism here (dead people appearing in dreams!!!)  Oh well, there’s no hope for some rationalists!

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In sharp contrast to the last film I saw, no one could accuse this fun kung fu spoof of being stale and unimaginative.  It has some great images poking fun at the genre, and others while he is at it, but also telling a good story.  Silly, funny, like an animated cartoon but with real people, Stephen Chow makes a likeable and surprisingly insightful film on what Kung Fu is all about.  A deserved winner of many awards, this may not be the best film ever but it is a refreshing breath of new air with a director who is not a million miles away from an early Peter Jackson.  Blessed by more sophisticated technology than Jackson, he is carving out a very interesting niche is humour and fantasy.

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I liked one or two of Eliseo Subiela’s films.  Once.  About ten years ago.  This, his latest and a Spanish-Argentine co production  is so flat and falls into just about every cliché imaginable that you’d swear he’d done it on purpose.  Pep Munne, Moro Anghileri and Maria Barranco do what they can with this tired old horse, largely bereft even of the magic realism tricks that Subiela used in the past.  Some good photography and music but they fail to make up for a finished product that just doesn’t seem very honest and doesn’t enrich one’s life.  Pity.

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