So I heard about this film La Moustache and immediately knew I had to see it. I absolutely loved this film, but I absolutely love Existentialism. Whether or not you like this film is probably going to depend strongly on your own feelings towards existential angst. See also: Sartre, Camus, Kafka.

So, the film. Protagonist Marc toys with the idea of shaving off his robust moustache. He asks his wife what she thinks of the idea. She replies that she quite likes him with the moustache.

He shaves it off, and then teases his wife by hiding his face so she can't see that the moustache is missing. When he finally reveals his new clean-shaven look, she doesn't say anything. He assumes that now she is teasing him by pretending not to notice. They go to a small party. Nobody there notices, either. In the car on the way home, he says "okay, this isn't funny any more." His wife is confused. He's all "don't tell me you haven't noticed." And she's all what? And he says "I shaved off my moustache."

"But honey, you've never HAD a moustache." ...

Marc still thinks his wife is winding him up. His wife starts worrying that Marc is having some kind of mental breakdown. He finds an album of vacation photos of the two of them together in which he has the moustache, but for some reason (let's call that reason "plot device") he doesn't show them to his wife.

At work the next day, when his colleagues and the guy he gets his morning coffee from also don't notice, he starts thinking that maybe he IS going mad, or that some other nefarious force is at work. Other facts about his life also begin to change. You start to wonder if maybe his wife is the mad one.

He finds his drivers license, and he has the moustache in the photo. He asks a woman at the train station if she can see the moustache in the photo and she says yes, you had a moustache. So, Marc has several photos that he could show people to prove that yes, he used to have a moustache. But mysteriously ("plot device") he never does. That's really the only problem I have with this film. If he has evidence, why not show it? Why does the evidence exist? Would the film make more sense if the moustache had disappeared from the photos? I don't know...

I won't say much more about the plot, because this is a good, mysterious film and I think people should see it for themselves. As mentioned, it's probably more enjoyable if you like existentialism - or at least have a high tolerance for the strange. Also: did I mention, it's French? I especially like French films, but I realize that a lot of people don't. So, yeah. Subtitles, weirdness. If you think you're up for it, I highly recommend.

Labels: good films

I saw this film on Friday, and am in the unusual position of liking it very much, but not having any idea what to say about it.

I had only seen one trailer for this film, and it was rather vague. You can see it on YouTube if you're so inclined. It does not even approach describing what this film is really about. So, I knew next to nothing about The Orphanage going into it. I knew it was produced by Guillermo del Toro, I knew it was Spanish, and I knew it was supposed to be creepy.

There's a lot to be said for watching films this way - seeing a film you know little about, but that you expect to be very good. Not knowing a lot of plot details beforehand means that you aren't waiting for specific things to happen. You're able to let the story unfold in front of you, and unless you're one of those people who likes to stay three steps ahead of the plot and have it all figured out before the final act (I'm looking at you, E), it's easy to let the plot sweep you along, delivering surprises on the way.

When I rolled up to the cinema on Friday and ordered my ticket, the guy at the box office felt obligated to warn me that this was a subtitled film. I was taken slightly aback. Are there really that many backwards, small-minded people who can't be bothered to see a film that's not in English? I suppose there are...

The director of this film is Juan Antonio Bayona. I don't know much about him, and the IMDb is not forthcoming. I gather that he's sort of a protege of del Toro, and the Pan's Labyrinth influence is fairly evident here. Both films feature children who experience terrible things. **Pan's Labyrinth mild spoiler about to come up, so if you haven't seen it yet, please skip ahead to the next paragraph** In Pan's Labyrinth, there's a supernatural element to the plot which is almost certainly the figment of a child's imagination. In The Orphanage, the opposite seems to be true - supernatural things are almost certainly really going on.

As far as plot twists go, The Orphanage doesn't really have any. Not twists, but it does have several of those "oh crap" moments. You know, those moments in a film when you suddenly realize what's going on, and you think "oh crap." The best example of this little trick is probably how at the end of The Sixth Sense you realize that you've been played throughout the entire film. So, yeah, a few really good "oh crap" moments to be found here.

Here's another thing - The Orphanage has a few things in common with a fairly obscure book (Lost Boys) by a reasonably well known author (Orson Scott Card). The plots aren't identical, but are similar enough that I thought the film might be at least loosely based on the book. I can't find any record of that being the case, however. Both film and book reference Peter Pan, but the similarities I'm talking about go a bit further. Oh well.

The ending of the film is ambiguous, in the sense that you can take out of it what you've put in. I realize this doesn't make any sense. I'm trying hard not to give the game away. **Another Pan's Labyrinth spoiler here** Okay, you know how at the end of Pan's Labyrinth, you want to believe that the imaginary world is real, but deep down you know it's just a coping mechanism for this child who needed a way to handle the horrors of war? In The Orphanage, something happens to the main female character, and I think it can be taken the same way. Your own personal view of the ending is going to depend on whether or not you believe supernatural things were really happening all along. It seemed pretty evident to me as I watched the film that these things were in fact really happening, but you could just as easily take a more cynical view. And I really love films like that - films that don't spell everything out, but let you make your own mind up right until the end.

I highly recommend this film. It doesn't rip your heart out and stomp on it in quite the same way Pan's Labyrinth does (really, I defy even the manliest macho man with an icy heart of stone to watch Pan's Labyrinth without crying at the end), but I still had to wipe a wee tear away when it was over. I found the ending to be actually quite happy, in a strange, macabre sort of way.

In conclusion: if you have the chance to see this, see it. Keep an open mind. Don't try to figure things out ahead of the plot - just let the story happen, let yourself become absorbed in it. Never be put off by subtitles!!

Labels: good films

I normally only review films I've seen at the cinema, mainly because I watch so many films at home that reviewing them all would be time-consuming. The exceptions are when a film is spectacularly awful, or extraordinarily good. Today I'll be discussing a very very good film called Angel-A.

This is a French film (I like foreign films) about a loser named Andre who has completely effed up his life. He's about to jump off a bridge and end it all when he notices a beautiful woman also about to jump off the bridge. She jumps, and he dives in to save her. What follows is a funny, enchanting, and romantic story in which Andre learns to love himself, and falls in love with the girl along the way.

The twist here is that the girl isn't really a girl. She's Angela, and she's an angel. A very strange angel. Her mission is to get him to stop screwing up his life and see his true potential. This is much easier said than done.

At first glance I was worried that this would be a bad rip-off of one of my favorite films, Wings Of Desire, another story about a human and an angel falling in love. Having viewed the film, I would definitely consider it an homage, particularly the beautiful black and white cinematography. It is decidedly NOT a rip-off; the two films have very different moods and themes. Wings of Desire is kind of melancholy and dramatic and epic, whereas Angel-A is fast-paced, lighthearted, and has rather a lot of asskicking (perpetrated by the angel, no less).

I should mention that it's directed by Luc Besson, who certainly knows what he's doing. I highly recommend this. The plot has something for everyone, and it would even be a good date movie. See it, that's an order.

Labels: good films

It's been a while since I was keen enough to see a film on opening day. Beowulf was certainly worth the effort. IMBD only gives this 6.6 out of 10 stars, which is mediocre. Disregard their rating system, which is obviously flawed. My movie-going companion this morning was Codename Mom, who was also extremely keen. Codename Mom declares that Beowulf is the best film we have ever seen together at the cinema. Note: Codename Mom says this about every film we see together at the cinema. I would say that Beowulf is definitely one of the best films of 2007.

The plot in a nutshell:

Grendel is terrorizing a Norse village. Beowulf shows up and kicks his ass. Grendel's mom takes offense. Beowulf sets out to kill her as well. She seduces him with her beauty (she is Angelina Jolie, after all) and promises of power and wealth. He goes back to the village and tells an elaborate lie about how he sent her to a horrible death. Chaos ensues.

Points to consider:

While this film is animated (and in the collective opinion of Codenames V and Mom, beautifully so), it is NOT for children. Anyone who takes their kids to see this is in for a rude awakening. For a start, it's ultraviolent. There are numerous bawdy references, and quite a bit of nudity. No actual genitals, mind you, but still. Quite a bit of nudity. Apparently this got a PG-13 rating, which kind of surprises me a little. I can see people assuming PG-13 means "kid-friendly" but this film is really rather extreme.

V's general thoughts:

This is probably a wrong thing to say, but Beowulf is a hot piece of CGI ass.

The dialogue is compelling, with voices provided by some awesome people. Note: Grendel is voiced by Crispin Glover. Brilliant.

This film is action packed. And I do mean action packed. Contains more than its fair share of epic peril and bravery. Codename Mom, who is somewhat excitable, was quite literally on the edge of her seat throughout. She also covered her eyes during some of the scary bits, bless her heart.

There are a few scenes that are creepy as hell, and at least a couple of times it occurred to me that Beowulf is actually kind of a horror film. In particular, a scene where Beowulf wakes up to find his entire army of men slaughtered and hung like cattle from the beams of the mead-house. I guess it doesn't sound like much, but I found it genuinely chilling.

Conclusion:

Totally recommended. And like many of the films I review, NOT for the squeamish. Think twice before letting kids under maybe 15 or so see this, as it deals with some disturbing things.

Labels: good films

The great thing about the dvd rental place that I use is that they get lots and lots of foreign films. I am grateful for this, and often wonder why they keep getting so many of them when I am probably one of fewer than ten people who rent them. Seriously, sometimes I'll rent a foreign film that's been sitting on the shelf for ages, and when I take it out of the case, the DVD is pristine. Whereas usually rental DVDs look as if someone has tried to clean them with steel wool. But I digress.

I was wandering around looking for something new to see, and I stumbled across Anitibodies. This is a German crime thriller, along the same kind of lines as Silence of the Lambs or Seven (or Se7en, if you're anal).

The basic plot:

A serial killer has been going around small towns, killing children. He kills almost exclusively boys, however in one small town a little girl was killed. The constable in this town is obsessed with solving the crime. He sees everyone as a suspect, and as a result everyone in town hates him. A suspect is captured by the police, and the small town constable goes to question this suspect, hoping to shed some light on the case of the murdered girl.

Meanwhile, the constable's own teenaged son is (a) wetting the bed, (b) setting fires, and (c) possibly killing small animals. We all know what that means, don't we?

Most of the film is about this serial killer playing cruel mind games with the small town constable. He's all "I didn't kill that little girl, I only kill little boys. But I was in your town, and I saw your son..."

Other thoughts on this film:

This was Quality all the way. Great cinematography, well filmed, excellent production values. Plot is intriguing from start to finish. There's some blood, but it's not horror movie levels of gore. I would definitely recommend this to anyone who likes a good 'serial killer vs, police' film. Bear in mind, it's German, so if you don't like subtitles this probably isn't for you. Also: if you don't like subtitles, wtf is wrong with you?

Conclusion:

If you can find this, watch it. One of the best films of its genre.

Labels: good films