A MODERN FAIRY TALE : "LETTERS TO JULIET"

I have to admit, I don’t, as a general rule, have the girliest of tastes when it comes to films. In fact, as you may have noticed, some of the stuff I really “root” for is positively boyish. However, this does not mean that I do not appreciate a really good romantic film about true love when it comes my way. Well, a good friend of mine and I have been meaning to sit down and have a girly evening watching this for a long time. In the end, it simply did not happen and I watched it on my own anyway. But I see her point. This is seriously “girly evening” material. And well, the weekend is nigh, if you have no other plans… I say go for it! (Sorry boys, you may have to sit this one out).

Sophie (Amanda Seyfried – her name meant nothing to me although I recognised her face, she has been in quite a few things lately, think Mama Mia! (another Sophie ironically) God that was a long parenthesis). Ok from the top. Sophie is a fact checker for the New Yorker. She is engaged to passionate chef Victor (Gael Garcia Bernal – one word. Yum) and they are getting ready to get married. They will, however, take one last “pre-honeymoon” to Verona. It’s the city of love and Victor needs to have a series of meetings with his suppliers. But more than that, it is the couple’s last chance to spend some down time together before hectic stuff such as wedding planning kicks in. At least that is what Sophie hopes. In reality however, Victor is completely in his element setting up deals for his restaurant and Sophie is well… Bored. So she takes to exploring the city and ends up in Juliet’s house. There she meets the “secretaries of Juliet” – well you know how that one works, right? Ok maybe not. So this is an actual thing, there is, as you probably know a “Juliet’s House” in Verona, supposedly the house the real Juliet lived in. At said house, women (mostly – though presumably men can too) can write letters to Juliet and attach it to the wall of the house, asking for advice about broken hearts, love and other such problems. Then the “secretaries of Juliet” collect these letters and write answers. Assuming you included an address that is. Anyway, so, Sophie who is already passionate about writing chips in and while helping discovers a letter that has been lodged in the wall, forgotten for 50 years. Touched by the story told in the letter, Sophie writes an answer, hoping against hope Clare (Vanessa Redgrave) will somehow receive her long overdue answer. Clare does receive the letter. And this is the beginning of a series of life changing events for everyone. But especially Sophie.

Ok so this is basically a story about true love. And about the timeless quality of love. But most of all, I reckon, it is about time. The film gently criticises our American (read modern) life style, where we are all attached to our smartphones, multitasking, doing five things at once and not allowing anything the time it is properly due in its own right. On the surface (rather unfortunately some might say) it makes a rather banal comparison of that lifestyle and the one in Italy. Oh you know. It’s different in the Med, rolling hills, sipping wine “they do it differently there, none of that rushing about” all that jazz. I mean it is true up to a point but honestly, I doubt Rome or Milan are any less busy then New York, seing as they are among the big business capitals of the world and all. But I mean it is a cute way to think about it I suppose – especially if you don’t think about it for too long or too deeply. Besides, I do agree that one has to stop and breathe every now and again, and it is so easy to forget to do that in the modern business world. But then, of course, there is love. True love. And the fact that it is timeless. A gentle reminder, perhaps, that things like love, friendship, life are all timeless. It is pointless trying to squeeze them into the little slots that we have broken our days into. One has to allow them their own time to grow and develop. And sometimes, we have to make a choice between “work life” (as we call it in Turkish) and life. I mean, one has to admit that one doesn’t usually have the luxury of going for one or the other, but you know. You can lean towards one or the other, certainly. And you should be very careful about which direction you lean in… If you get what I mean. 

A ROAD TRIP TO ADULTHOOD : "Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN"

Talking about different types of road-movie and variations on the genre is all well and good in their own way, but what about the “typical” road movie? Young people, drinking, drugs, love and self-discovery… What about all that jazz? Alfonso Cuaron’s Y tu mama tambien is all of this and more. The lesson, as with all road-movies, is that the journey is sometimes just as important as the destination if not more so. There will, undoubtedly, be moments of self-discovery on the way. What we do with the things we discover however, is pretty much up to us…
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. Julio (Gael Garcia Bernal) and Tenoch are typical teenagers. They have girlfriends, but will have sex with anyone wherever they can get it, are into drinking, partying and having a good time. So this is exactly what they are getting up to at one of Tenoch’s cousins wedding when their paths cross with the sultry 28 year-old Luisa from Spain. The boys flirt with her openly and shamelessly and in the process invite her to accompany them to Heaven’s Mouth, a secluded tropical paradise of a beach that… Doesn’t exist. So the boys are both shocked and excited when Luisa accepts their invitation. Thus starts an impromptu journey across Mexico to a destination that doesn’t exist. But as the journey progresses, the boys will find there is a lot more to discover on the road than the beauties of Mexico and the sea. What they will actually do with these discoveries however, is a completely different story all together.
I categorically loved this film. It’s a shame, a real shame, that there are some little bits in it that niggle at me to the point of preventing me from calling it perfect. The trouble with working with a genre in this way is that, there are usually a lot of clichés lying around the place. Some of them you take, change, do something innovative and wonderful with – the way Cuaron does. Some however, you might just walk right into, and then actually keep lying around. Unfortunately, Cuaron does this quite a bit too. The result it a touching, original and beautiful film that occasionally throws up a hoary old chestnut or two. Personally I chose to concentrate on the original and the beautiful. I don’t want to say too much about the many discoveries the boys make along the way – not least because the sense of discovery we feel with them is a major part of the film - but the one thing I cannot help but point out is what an excellent job Cuaron has done of using the context to tell us a bit about his country. The road is always a major character in road-movies, but here it actually almost takes on a life of its own, as a voiceover tells us stories of seemingly random things we pass on the road, the realities of Mexico and the tragedies that occur but we may well not have even noticed if we were the ones driving by… A lot of thought is given in this film to the fact that there is always more to things than the eye can see. And reminds us of that those things are there, whether we want to face them or not…

PEARLS FROM A CONTROVERSIAL MASTER : "LA MALA EDUCATION"

By the time I got to Mala Education, thanks to the positive effects of Carne Tremula and Atame (see above) I was already very, VERY positively inclined towards Mr. Almodovar. After La Mala Education, I actually became a fan. This film has soared into my top ten of favorite films of all times, I was so bowled over by bits of it, I am very much afraid this humble review will not be able to do it justice. Be it the actual structure of the story, be it the beauty of the shots, be it the sheer level of emotion so successfully portrayed in the film, no matter which way you look at it I guarantee that you will find something to bowl you over in this one… (Good Heavens I haven’t gushed like this about a film in AGES!! I must be becoming jaded! :S )
Enrique Goded (Fele Martinez) is a young and successful director. He is suffering from mild writers block and is searching, along with his production manager, for their next project. The search is proving unusually fruitless until an actor looking for work barges into the studio. Enrique is prepared to chuck him out but the young man (Gael Garcia Bernal) tells him his name. He is Ignacio Rodriguez, Enrique’s first love from back when they were in boarding school when they were very young. He is looking for work, but he has also brought Enrique an idea for a film; it is a story based on their childhood experiences. They are not all very happy memories. The whole experience bowls Enrique over, although it was many years ago, he has never quite forgotten Ignacio, the boarding school or the things that happened there. The trip down memory lane however, will lead to dark places and the revelation of secrets Enrique couldn’t have even dreamt of in his wildest imaginings…
I am chomping on the bit to tell you what happens next. Believe me. But the surprise factor is the whole point of this film, and it is the way the surprises slowly come to light, hinting at their existence first, then slowly unfurling that make this film such a beautiful work of art. Having a good story, we have often said, is the crux of making a good film. The way one actually tells the story however, is also important. And if one has a brilliant story that one is capable of telling in a beautiful way, well… One becomes as famous a director as Almodovar.
Male obsession is again at the forefront of this film. However, the consequences of the obsession are under the microscope for this performance. And the obsession is not quite the same as the one in the first two films we looked at. Ok, I think you all probably heard at some point that this film speaks of child-abuse. Putting two and two together you have probably figured out that the abuse took place in Ignacio and Enrique’s boarding school. However, the obsession of Father Manolo (the perpetrator of the abuse) has results that are longer lasting than any of us can imagine – and I don’t just mean to the abused, I’m talking about the people around the abused, the “outer ripples” of the pebble thrown in the water if you will. But it isn’t only negative feelings that live on. The young love between Enrique and Ignacio, we find, has lived on despite not being together for years. And while they are never able to actually speak of their love face to face again (I’ll let you watch the film and figure out what that means) they still communicate, and the way this emotion lives on is simply beautiful. The third thing Mr. Almodovar explores in this film is the lengths to which human beings are prepared to travel to get their desire. Some people will give up anything, change completely, do absolutely anything and stoop to any depth to get their heart’s desire, be it success or revenge. And even though they may seem monstrous in a way, if we look at them objectively, we can’t help but pity them. Especially if we see where and how this driving ambition was born.
I am sure you are as aware as I am of the parallel themes in Almodovar’s films. The truly astounding thing is that although similar themes exist, they are never “the same”. Each one is a variation, a beautiful variation on the same theme and a masterpiece in its own right. This film is a brilliant look into the human soul, warts and all. Don’t let the subject matter (child abuse) put you off watching it. It is harrowing and very much a part of the film but the whole thing is tasteful. And the consequences of such an act… Well that at least is something we owe the victims to open our eyes and look at, no?

AND THE THINGS THAT MATTER; LOVE, LIFE AND DOGS : "AMORES PERROS"

I have to admit, chances are you have seen this one. It is a masterpiece by Mexican director Alejandro Gonzales Inaritu and is cited in a lot of respectable sources as one of the best films ever made. I am not quite sure how one would qualify “the” best film ever made, but the breath-taking sequences, insightful, sensitive and yet exciting storylines and the way the characters lives clash together for one life-changing instant definitely makes it a contender in my book. Sometimes, an event is much like a pebble thrown into the water. The ripples it causes may end up hitting a distant shore and changing things the pebble or the thrower had never imagined… Here, funnily enough, it all starts with (or culminates in) a car-crash…
There are three parties to the car crash, two cars and one old homeless guy who lives with his dogs and witnesses it. In one car, there is Octavio, his beloved Rottweiler Coffee and his best friend ??. Octavio’s life is a bit of a mess, he lives with his brother, his brother’s wife and his mother in a tiny house. This in itself is a difficult situation but he is also in love with his brother’s wife – they are actually having an affair… He dreams of making enough money so they can run away with his little nephew, and Coffee is the goose that lays the golden eggs – because Octavio enters him into dog fights where Coffee is a little too good for his own good and his masters… In the other car is Valeria, a famous model. She is driving back from the new house her boyfriend has hired for her; he has left his wife for her and a wonderful new life with just him, Daniel, her and her beloved dog Richie is opening up in front of her… Or rather it was until the crash came along leaving her with potentially career-ruining scars… And then there is the old man. He lives alone with the street dogs he has rescued over the years. And as other witnesses run to save the survivors of the crash he concentrates on dragging Coffee out of the car. He takes him home and nurses him back to health. Little does he know that his new friend is going to change his entire life, dragging him back to something he should have finished 20 years ago…
This film is very, very clever. Like a lot of films of the same kind, it starts off showing snippets of various characters. It’s quite a mystery figuring out who’s who, but then again I find that kind of thing very amusing. It is told in three chapters, and although every chapter focuses on one of the stories I told above, the other stories creep in too, around the periphery… We watch the crash three different times, and as a spectator it is fascinating to gage how, us the amount of information we hold increases, the impact and importance of the crash also seems to increase… The editing is also clever, although the story cuts from one strand to another, sometimes quite dizzyingly; the cuts are all very, very cleverly done – I would go as far as saying an example to be held up for good editing.
Art imitating life or life imitating art? Hard to say really, isn’t it? One thing I do know though is that it is always touch and go when various artists try to closely copy life; I don’t mean in a Hollywood sense – they just do whatever the heck they like and expect us to just assume it’s real – but when it tries to make it really realistic… Here, it doesn’t feel like a film at all. We just watch dogs and owners (and the dogs are very much in the forefront of the story) go through life, much as if it were just a dramatic slice of life… Definitely worth your time…

TRIBUTE TO THE MASTERS : BABEL

I have to admit that I am rather disillusioned by the number of film festivals and awards cropping up lately, even though it is of course a sign of growing interest in the arts. But luckily the good old quality festivals still remain to point us to the great work out there, and if you win, say, the award for Best Director in the Cannes Film Festival, you probably won it for a reason. The example in this case is Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu and he most DEFINITELY deserves every award he got for one of his latest masterpieces, Babel…
If you read the blurb, it seems dubious at first glance whether the film has anything original to offer. True, there is an all-star cast with such “tried and proven” names such as Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett and Gael Garcia Bernal. The story of various seemingly unconnected lives clashing and connecting in a big chaotic world is not the most original story in the world; it has been tried more than once by many directors in many contexts and the list in fact includes Inarritu himself! (Remember Amorres Perros?) But this time, Inarritu takes the method and uses it in such a way , with such skill and such successful actors that the result is breathtaking, heartbreaking and mindboggling…
And naturally, the actors deserve a mention in all this! Pitt and Blanchett give steady but not astounding performances so that don’t (perhaps luckily) overshadow the rest of the cast. And Gael Garcia Bernal definitely deserves a mention as the passionate and rebellious Santiago (read developing countries rebelling against the “great” politicians). But I think one of the greatest successes of the film is UNDOUBTEDLY Koji Yakusho who gives a harrowing and sometimes shocking performance as the hearing impaired Cheiko.
Without giving too much of the plot away, Babel is a story of innocent victims, endless prejudices, mindless beaurocracy and the countless human souls that get crushed in the midst of it. It is the story of that butterfly that beats its wing to cause a tragic storm… I will stop eulogizing and end this post now :)