"A SINGLE MAN" NOW...

Do you remember last year’s Oscars®? The whole deal about the Oscar ® for Best Actor? I think I’ve mentioned it when I was talking about Crazy Heart. Some said Mickey Rourke should have got it, but Sean Penn actually did, etc… I had a strange feeling of déjà-vu when I watched A Single Man last night. Corny as it may sound, I think as far as Colin Firth is concerned, this is the performance of a lifetime…
George (Colin Firth) is a literature professor. He lives in L.A. in the year 1962. He lost his partner of 16 years, Jim, to a traffic accident a year ago. He has tried to carry on, with the support of Charley (Julianne Moore) – another Brit in L.A. and a girlfriend from his youth who never quite gave up on him – but has failed. So, he decides to do something drastic. We are witness to this day, with George as a narrator, leading us through it. George is a careful man, and he has meticulously planned everything, but life has a chance of throwing both curveballs and second chances at one…
I’m sorry if the storyline seems a tad vague, but I do not want to give too much away from a storyline that is simply beautiful in its simplicity. (Adapted to the screen from the novel by Christopher Isherwood) . And technically, the film is in a word brilliant, no matter which kind of “technical” you look it. The acting is faultless through and through. All the actors were good but Colin Firth, in a word, shines. And Mr. Firth, coupled with the director Tom Ford, portray brilliantly the feeling of suffocation George lives with day in and day out; not only having to keep up a false front to hide his true identity (please recall it is 1962 – one cannot be a gay university professor in 1962) but also the pain he feels at losing Jim and somehow having to also stuff that pain into the false front he presents to the public. The filming and the successful changes in mood through the film ensure an absolute roller-coaster right to the end. And I felt, especially as I watched George “become” the George his workplace expects, that this was actually quite a familiar feeling. One doesn’t necessarily have to be gay to have to “become” someone your workplace expects. Careers dictate that we dress, act think (or seem to anyway) in whatever way. And in day to day life, normal folks can’t escape this situation. So much worse is the case for George who is grieving but is not allowed to share it for even a minute with anyone and must keep up a front of absolute normalcy starting from the day after his partner dies.
In short, harrowing but absolutely brilliant. Watch with tissues close to hand. And Mr. Firth gets my personal Oscar® for best actor any day of the week!

A JOURNEY OF REDISCOVERY... TO "GENOVA"

While watching Genova, I was struck by how closely related the art of painting and the art of cinema are… Not necessarily in the physical sense either, I mean sure, films are made up of a series of pictures, 24 frames per minute, but that is not what I mean, even though the photography in Genova is simply amazing… Some films sort of suck you up into them and you “live” the adventure with the hero. Others are like a beautiful painting. They unfold before your eyes and you watch moved, astounded or however you feel at the time… Michael Winterbottom’s Genova is one of these films. Unique and simply beautiful.
Oscar ® nominee Colin Firth stars as university lecturer Joe, who is faced with major trauma and life decisions to make after his wife dies, leaving him with his two young daughters. The suffering of the family is great and the house full of memories so Joe decides that a clean page is what everyone needs for this “new” life they are faced with… So, he packs their things, finds a good teaching job and settles his young family in Genova. The historical and sunny Italian city is as far as can be from their previous lives in the States. With the help of friends (double Oscar ®nominee Catherine Keener among others) all starts off pretty smoothly, but the family will have their ups and downs (older sister Kelly spending more and more time with her new boyfriend and neglecting her younger sister, while her little sister claims to be communicating with her dead mother’s ghost…) But Genova is mainly a story of looking for a way of moving on. A fresh start in the true meaning of the word.
It is, in my view, a bit of a gamble to make a film like this, unless of course you are Michael Winterbottom and you know the film is very well directed indeed . If you don’t let yourself go with the balmy, Mediterranean flow of the movie and lose yourself in the exquisite details, you may well find the film boring. A film for a certain kind of person, or a certain frame of mind maybe. And then again, not everyone is into painting either, but that doesn’t lessen anything of say Monet’s paintings does it?... :)