More than Meets the Eye.

Film: The Skin I Live In
Year: 2011
Director: Pedro Almodóvar
Written by: Pedro Almodóvar and Agustín Almodóvar, based on the novel 'Tarantula' by Thierry Jonquet

Starring: Antonio Banderas, Elena Anaya, Marisa Paredes, Jan Cornet, Roberto Álamo, Eduard Fernández, José Luis Gómez, Blanca Suárez.
Running time: 124 min

I'm always getting judged for the movies I like and the movies I watch. That's why I shy away from the question "what's a good movie?", unless I really know the person enough to predict how it'll all turn out for them. Otherwise, people will just look at me and go "you must be really stuffed in the head." The Skin I Live In is exactly the kind of film that I won't be phoning home about. But it isn't a film that left me totally indifferent. Far from it, in fact. I can see that a whole lot of other people would separate the strangeness of the main twist and the film itself. Yes, the twist comes as quite a shock. It's the kind of twist that I had to wonder whether it was successful because it was weird, or if it was just plain weird. However, there's a lot more to this movie than meets the eye. Which I guess is kind of the point of all the whole film.

Underrated Showcase Sundays - Chico & Rita

Underrated Showcase Sundays is a pretty straight-forward: every Sunday I'll shed some light on a film which I think doesn't get enough love. The showcase will be largely unstructured (well, compared to my other reviews) and will often just be random thoughts. It doesn't matter if I've seen it before or not. Tonight's instalment, though, is one that I hadn't seen before, and decided to post now as we near the home stretch for the Oscars.

In amongst the chameleon antics of Rango and the big franchise players Kung Fu Panda 2 and Puss in Boots is the Spanish film Chico & Rita, which was lucky enough to get a place in the Best Animated Feature category at the Oscars. It may not be in 3D, nor does it employ the almost 'realistic' looking animation that Rango did, but there is no denying that Chico & Rita is a beautiful, moving tale that could actually serve as a great companion piece to The Artist (I'm guessing). It is a simple tale of two people in love: Chico, a young piano player and Rita, a beautiful singer. Just as soon as they've fallen in love they are torn apart by the allure of fame. Rita is discovered by an impresario named Ron, and takes her to New York where she has a lot of success, and while Chico follows her there, he doesn't take as much as she does. As her star rises, his talent goes ignored, and there's no way that the two could remain together.

"One plus one equals two, right?"

Film: Incendies
Year: 2010
Writer/Director: Denis Villeneuve
Starring: Lubna Azabal, Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin, Maxim Gaudette, Rémy Girard, Abdelghafour Elaaziz, Allen Altman, Mohamed Majd, Nabil Sawalha, Baya Belal.
Running time: 130 min.

If anything has changed about me this year, it's the fact that I have developed a better tolerance towards foreign films. No, that sounds awful - of the foreign films I saw back in the day I mostly liked, I'm not one of those people too lazy to read subtitles. This year, however, I have watched and absorbed many, and they're quickly becoming my favourite type of film. Such a reminder of that fact is the Canadian film Incendies, which was in contention for the foreign film Oscar earlier this year, losing to the Danish film In a Better World. Now, I haven't seen that movie, so this might be a bit presumptuous/wrong to say, but Incendies was far more deserving. Here is a film which I hope will live on as a classic in the future, as it is nothing short of an absolute masterpiece. Incendies embodies the definition of a shocking, hard-hitting drama in every sense.

DVD--The Secret in Their Eyes

or: That surprise winner of the Best Foreign Film Oscar.

One word to sum it up: Intriguing.

Everyone seemed somewhat surprised when Argentinian film The Secret in Their Eyes came through and won the Best Foreign Film category at the Oscars, ahead of Haneke's The White Ribbon and acclaimed French thriller A Prophet. Maybe this was because it was little seen outside of the Academy, and has only just managed to wind up on DVD in many places. However, once this film is watched, you'll start to see why it won, and also why it is an instant classic.

The retired justice officer Benjamín Espósito (Ricardo Darin) decides to write a novel based on the Morales Case of twenty-five years ago and has difficulties to find the right beginning. He visits his former chief Irene Menéndez-Hastings (Soledad Villamil) in the tribunal to show his draft. In the 70's, Benjamín has an unrequited love for his new-hired chief Irene that belongs to an upper-class. Benjamin is assigned to investigate the murder of Liliana Coloto (Carla Quevodo), a beautiful woman recently married with Ricardo Morales (Pablo Rago) that had been brutally raped and murdered. Benjamin and his alcoholic partner Pablo Sandoval (Guillermo Francella) feel touched with the grief of Ricardo and go further in their investigation. Benjamin observes that a man named Isidoro Gómez (Javier Godino) is staring Liliana in many pictures and he becomes the prime-suspect. Meanwhile the tension between Benjamin and Irene increases along the days but Benjamin does not understand the signs of her eyes. Twenty five years later, Benjamin is still haunted by his love for Irene and for the unsatisfactory resolution of the Morales Case.

The Secret in Their Eyes, for me, was a very hard movie to watch. That was probably mostly due to the preview disc I was watching it on had some awful typos in the subtitles, but there's this certain feeling to it that draws a very fine line between entertainment and slow-burning intensity. While that is a little uncomfortable, The Secret in Their Eyes is a very enjoyable story which mixes a gritty crime thriller with a sweet romance story. This helps take the edge off a very grimy murder tale, which is controlled by the horrible Gómez. The scene where Irene confronts him about not being the killer is truly a piece of tour de force acting and acute direction, something which is never missing from this fantastic film.

Juan Jose Campanella observes this film in such a way that it is both haunting and flawless. He has an amazing ability to apply his skills technically, which is evident in the opening sequence where he uses a double exposure effect. The way the camera lingers on the performers to convey a longer lasting message is simply perfect, and steals the film away. It cross cuts between present time and flashbacks of 25 years ago, but uses the same actors to portray each time period. Ricardo Darin and Soledad Villamil do this perfectly, and also have undeniable chemistry which makes the romantic part of this movie very interesting to watch. While it may look like your average murder movie, it has no trouble setting itself apart from those films. The killer is revealed early on instead of making you guess, so it's really an unpredictable character driven movie which focusses on how these types of things affect them. Throwing in the right amount of grotesque dialogue and a nicely done chase scene at a soccer match, and The Secret in Their Eyes is completely deserving of it's Academy Award.


THE VERDICT: Juan Jose Campanella creates a fantastically intriguing thriller which weaves violence and a love story together almost flawlessly.

8/10

Babel

Hmmmmm, Babel (2006) was a film which was on television last year but I kind of forgot about it. Then my sister got it on DVD so I stole it. Really, another film with Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett in it? They are like the odd star coupling in Hollywood.
Babel is a multi-plot story, following several different people of different races, bound by one event: an American tourist (Cate Blanchett) being shot in Morocco. This event tears apart these different worlds in tragic, confusing and often strange ways.
Brad Pitt and even Blanchett feel like a minor part compared to the foreign stars of this film. Most notably Rinko Kikuchi, who plays Chieko, a deaf mute Japanese teenager desperate to be loved. She handles the role with such intensity but treats it with the right amount of fragility, making her the stand out of the film. The other stand out performance was from older actress Adriana Barraza who plays Amelia, the nanny for Susan and Richard's (Blanchett and Pitt) children. She crosses the line (literally), and every time Adriana appears on screen you can tell she is over-ridden with guilt. It takes quite a bit to oout perform Pitt and Blanchett, but these two fine actresses did.
Babel is quite a powerful film, and you can tell that it takes a definite look at something that Hollywood rarely looks at: immigration, terrorism and criminality. All in the same film. An interesting, yet flawed film.
7/10