Jamie passion and passionfruit!

Brazilian pap for export and for internal consumptions by the masses.  The main characters are called Romeu and Julieta, the warring families belong to two different rival football teams and happen to be their number one fans and so it goes – a comedy of lies and deceit, blind faith and ignorance with all the cliches in the book.  Bruno Barreto is the director and has had both eyes firmly on the box office with this one.  It has nice photography and music, acceptable acting and a tropical feel but it just comes across as false.  It may be mildly interesting to witness the football tribes in action but Barreto doesn’t say or do anything much with it.

Transamerica is not a great film.  It does have some great features though.  As most know the Oscar nominated performance of Felicity Huffman is a gem of a portrayal of a transsexual who suddenly discovers that she has a son right before she is due to go under the knife for the final cut.  Although it is a stretch to have a woman playing a man being a woman, Huffman does it so well that her character is poignant and believable and totally that of someone trying to find her way out of everything that has messed her life up to now.  Her portayal of the stiff laced bible madam adds a layer of humour and irony when matched up with her gay hustler son played very well also by Kevin Zegers.  Director Duncan Tucker may have ended up with a somewhat predictable film in terms of its moral stance and its overall plot but he does exploit all the opportunities for some good one liners and laugh out loud moments.  Some, like the reunion with Bree’s parents are over the top and Fionnula Flanagan is unrecognisably grotesque as the mother.  Then there are some rather ill-fitting scenes like Toby’s attempted seduction of Bree which leads to the ultimate truth coming out.  It was good to hear Dolly Parton on the lead song too and the road journey through the mid and south west of the US had its charms.  Good entertainment, excellent acting but don’t scrutinise it too closely.

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What the bleep do we know is a film that has appeared on commercial release this week in Argentina without any real fanfare or publicity. Nevertheless, it has created quite a stir in many other parts of the world for its novelty and the subject matter it deals with. It has been both the butt of critical comments and public acclaim.  It is certainly different.

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Argentine comedy that is not exactly a rites of passage film but a tale of what changes in a family when a teenage son discovers sex or rather the obsession of older women and how this affects his relationship with his solo mother. It is a sort of dramatic comedy with plenty to recognise in terms of local habits but somehow, as a film, it never quite hits its stride and we are left at the end thinking, so what?  Cecilia Roth is as competent as ever as Bernie the solo mum, Maria Fernanda Callejón does a satisfactory job as the sexy older woman and newcomer Martin Piroyansky is right on the button with Leo the adolescent.  Ulises Rosell has made an inoffensive film that ambles along nicely without ever really engaging us.  The best part of it is to watch a good group of actors at work.

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A documentary on the dubious state of air safety in Argentina thanks to the Air Force monopoly on the matter – controlling the airports, the skies and the inquiries that result from the accidents and near accidents all the while covering up their own incompetence or, as director and presenter Enrique Piñeyro says, their corruption.  Simple and graphic, this film is part documentary with hidden cameras and authentic tapes and part lecture in the style of a power point presentation.  It is smooth, works well and is hard hitting.  Maybe it is not great cinema but it is a deft use of the medium for the purposes of propaganda and for a good cause.

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Another testament to the chaos and nonsense of the middle East.  A small sensitive film about a Druze family who live on the Golan heights and who are divided between Syria and Israel – which is the occupying force of the area.  The younger daughter is to get married to a Syrian, which means that she will have to leave Israel forever and live in Syria.  Neither country will let her back in or out.  What is more, the wedding can only be split on each side of the fence as the family in Israel may not go to Syria and vice versa.  Part of the film is all about the bureaucratic stupidities revoloving around that.  The rest is about a semi-dysfunctional Druze family with the older women submissive to their macho menfolk and the younger ones trying in the main to find some sort of freedom.  The fact that the two states are locked into such an inflexible situation that divides people and makes life so difficult can be seen so easily in the inflexibility and face saving of all the older men – be they Israeli officials, syrians or Druze community members.  As a story it is pretty interesting, as a film it is quite watchable without being anything special.  The pace is quite solemn at times and it is left to Hiam Abbass, the lead actress to bring a touch of class to her role.  A sad tale all told and one more patch on the bloodstained quilt of the region.

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Something urged me along to see it even though the grisly tale of a hijack that ends in death for all is hardly appetising fare.  This film is, however, an excellent piece of film making and well worth seeing.  It works first of all as cinema. It is gripping and coherent and takes us through what happened to flight 93 that day and to the chaos and disbelief in the control towers and headquarters that had to deal with this unprecedented event.  It works very well too with the largely unknown cast and with real life people from that day recreating their parts – Ben Sliney is excellent.  It comes across as having the authenticity of a documentary but the storytelling qualities of fiction.  Most of all, it respects the dead, pulls no cheap tricks and tells it like it was, or as close as we shall ever perhaps know.  All credit to director Paul Greengrass and his team, to photographer Barry Ackroyd and to the actors.  A  great achievement in a very sensitive area and suitably limited in its focus so as not to distract us from other issues.

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Period picture from Spain with a capital P.  Appropriately dull and gloomy, extra careful scene setting but cliches all the way in this 36 Spanish Civil War tale from Galicia.  Can’t say I warmed to it although it is vaguely watchable in its predictability.  I agree with the critics that the script is pretty wooden and the acting is patchy.  Luis Tosar as the obsessed Herbal and Tristan Ulloa as the republican doctor do what they can, while the female cast members headed by Maria Adañez have a harder job with very shallow parts and come off less well.   Not very recommended.

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