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Hgoodfella
Reviews
Child of the Desert (2011)
A heart-breaking story beautifully acted and beautifully directed.
Director Iliana Sosa is one of those directors who can take a simple story and grab you by the heart with a deft, heart-rending, heart-breaking portrayal of a single person's emotional pain. The film opens on a seemingly homeless woman, who drives a battered old truck aimlessly near a border town. One might first assume the woman has been living this way for a long time, that she is a lifetime drifter with no purpose. One might assume she is a woman who might be just a little off. She dresses in a man's army fatigue you assume she found and wears, because she has no money to buy clothes of her own. But in the end, you learn the origins of the army fatigue and you come to understand this woman is no eccentric, she is a woman just driving around because of a pain that upset her life with seismic effects, one that will never leave her, one that gnaws mercilessly at her soul. The performance by Dale Dickey is so authentic and is so completely emotionally true, that you are shocked to realize she is an actress playing a role. This new director is clearly a director to watch out for, who resorts to no gimmicks, no tricks, just unadulterated human truth. This is a true director who demonstrates a wisdom about life well beyond her years. It is a performance I will long remember, a film I will long remember.
Ese beso (2008)
A compelling, disturbing portrait of rape with tour de force performances.
Lia Chapman and Daniel Freiere give tour de force performances in this riveting portrait of a rape. So many people find it hard to believe it is even possible for husband to rape a wife, for a boyfriend to rape a girlfriend. They are already intimates, some might argue. This film is the first example I've ever seen in film that convincingly makes the case that it is not only possible, but just as devastating as a rape committed by a stranger. In some ways, maybe, worse, because a great trust has been violated. It's an extraordinary piece of film. Ms. Chapman and Mr. Freire are consummate actors, at the very top of their game with awe-striking, amazingly nuanced, vulnerable performances. Bravo to director and cast.
Paraiso (2009)
The work of a master who knows how to direct actors
I have worked in the industry for 20 years now and have had the privilege of working with enormously talented people. I saw PARAISO recently at the 2009 Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival, founded by Oscar-nominated actor-director Edward James Olmos. I would characterize the director of PARAISO, whose work I didn't previously know, as amongst the finest. Director Leon Ichaso elicits stunning performances from his cast of actors. I did some research into the making of the film, which I loved, and found that the lead was a recent immigrant from Cuba, an unknown young actor. The performance Mr. Ichaso elicited from his lead was commanding and reminiscent of the work of a favorite of mine, of everybody's really, Gael Garcia Bernal. The actor in fact bears some resemblance to Mr. Bernal. The director of this film made a courageous, I feel, choice in portraying a newly immigrated Cuban immigrant in a dark way, i.e. not every immigrant who manages to escape from Cuba is deserving of our sympathy. And yet, where I feel Mr. Ichaso succeeded brilliantly, was his ability to make his unlikeable protagonist somehow sympathetic. It takes a master filmmaker to pull that off: make you feel for someone you should otherwise not care about. The film, I also learned, was shot for 30,000 dollars. Incredible what was accomplished with so little money. The films is virtually an embarrassment to those who spend 10 or 20 times the budget to make such a film happen. Many people will label a film a melodrama to facilely dismiss a film. Oh my God, it's a melodrama! In fact, melodrama is a genre that is tried and true and has led to box office success and even critical acclaim. When something is done well, it's done well, and that's what's happened here. The film takes us into the Miami Cuban community of immigrants in a way that made me really feel and understand that community, maybe, for the first time. So here director is successful in what films need to do: takes us through a journey or place or community into which we've never been and portray it truthfully. The look of the film is gritty and real and not overdone so as to allow the subject to speak loudly and poignantly for itself. The film is suspenseful throughout and the choices made by the protagonist are disturbing and stirring. Characterizations were not only affecting, but characters make surprising choices at every turn. Particularly compelling was the character of an aging man who because of his need to feel he's had a greater legacy in life than he's had, believes a legacy, not his own, to in fact be his own. I have urged my colleagues and friends to see this film ASAP. Thanks to the director for taking me deep into a world to which I've never been. Bravo. And brilliant choice on the part of the film festival for choosing this great work.