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johnswhitehead
Reviews
This Must Be the Place (2011)
Only the pictures were done right
Beautiful cinematography isn't enough to rescue this shambles of a film. It doesn't even do weird right, with what are supposed to be the lead character's engaging eccentricities coming across as inexplicable oddities (the director can't have watched Drowning by Numbers to learn how to do it). Some of the female characters benefit from strong performances but this only underlines the slightness of their roles. Their only job is to succour and support the sad misfit that they've married or befriended. As for plot, well don't bother trying to think through the numerous quirks and inconsistencies as you'd be the only one who cared (including the screenwriter, the director and the rest of the fidgeting audience).
Bottom line: avoid.
Tsotsi (2005)
Outstanding!
I really enjoyed this movie. The setting is harsh, the opening is violent and the violence returns at times through the film. But the message is of the redemptive power of love for children and the way that reproduction, even by proxy, is a civilising force. What's really remarkable, though of a piece with Fugard's hard-nosed stage work, is that this is all done without sentimentality and without a conventional happy ending.
The acting is outstanding in particular from Presley Chweneyagae and Nambitha Mpumlwana. The music is a revelation -- I've just bought the soundtrack from iTunes and am listening to it as I write this.
The political message that I derived from the film (though it doesn't preach) concerns the extraordinary patience of the inhabitants of Soweto. It's 16 years or so since change started happening in South Africa, but so few problems seem to have been solved. One doesn't have to apportion blame for this to wonder how long it can go on without serious problems arising.
Don Giovanni (1979)
Breathtaking feast of music and cinema -- but no DVD
This is such an outstanding display of cinematic and operatic talent that it should be seen by anyone with any interest in either. It introduced me to opera when it came out so I am eternally grateful.
I'm waiting for the DVD and check here regularly for news. I thought that it had finally arrived in Germany, judging from the display on the iMdb page. Alas, that seems to be a different animal altogether, so we're still waiting. I'll try to get them to fix the link.
Who does one lobby to get a DVD released?