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Reviews
The Age of Innocence (1993)
Quick overview
***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS*** This film struck me as a story of undying love, surrounded by lies and betrayal. The story revolves around three main characters. There is a naïve young woman named May who is part of an upper class family in New York. As well as her fiancé, Newland, who is a business man and also a part of an upper class family. And May's cousin, Ellen, a duchess who is temporarily in New York to escape her negligent husband. From the very moment that Newland sets eye on the duchess, you just know that he will fall in love with her, for she is far more sophisticated and mature than May. Newland soon finds himself having a passionate affair with his fiancé's cousin. He is torn between the innocent young girl he gave his heart to long ago and the worldly enchantress who represents everything he has ever longed for. I didn't enjoy this film very much until the very end. The unsuspected little twist was what made me look back at all the aspects of the film with understanding. It made me sympathize and even begin to like a character (May), whom I thought was too naïve, meek, and dimwitted throughout the entire film. She was actually a lot smarter than I thought and it was a shame that she had to die before her husband could realize it as well.
L'année dernière à Marienbad (1961)
Not too fond of...
I'm going to be honest when I say that I think this movie is pretty awful. Perhaps it is one of those films that you have to see over and over again to fully understand, but there is no way I would want to put myself through that again. First of all, the music that was played throughout the entire movie was dreadful. It is hard to tell whether or not the music was there to create some sort of atmosphere, or whether it was there just to be flat-out annoying. It was hard to determine what kind of film this was while watching it. Was it a thriller? A hopeless love story? A melodrama? Throughout the film, I honestly thought that all of the characters were dead. I thought that the woman character had just died and the man was trying to get her to remember the love they shared in a past life. That would have explained a lot, for example, how the other creepy people in the house would strike a pose and just freeze. It would also explain why scenes kept jumping back and forth between different periods of time and the woman was wearing a black dress in some, and a white dress in others. Unfortunately, I don't think that this is the way it is supposed to be interpreted. The fact that it is in French didn't help either. I have nothing against foreign films but I was getting tired of reading all the subtitles because it was so boring, confusing, and repetitive.
Yes, this film is open to interpretation, but what I understand from watching it is that someone would have to pay me to watch it again! It was far too abstract and the meaning of it is either too deep, too perplexing, or just plain non-existent. The only thing that I liked about this movie is the card game that those two gentlemen kept playing, but that was about it.
12 Angry Men (1957)
just comments..some spoilers
Aside from being extremely predictable, this was a pretty good film. A murder has taken place and a young boy's life is on trial. The film focuses on the twelve men that make up the jury. In the beginning, they are fairly certain that the boy is guilty of the crime. In fact, eleven of the twelve men believe he is guilty. One man, for no particular reason except for a hunch, feels that the boy is innocent. This, of course, causes a lot of turmoil amongst the other men. They must stay cooped up in that hot, cramped little room until they can all agree on the same verdict. The lone man slowly begins to question the facts. Pieces of the puzzle begin to fall into place and one by one, the other men begin to see the light. They too start to believe that the boy is innocent of the crime. In the end, all of the men end up changing their minds and an innocent boy's life is spared all because one man put a little more thought into the details. From the very beginning of the film, it is quite evident that all the men will change their minds in the end. The interesting thing is seeing what it is that actually convinces them to change their minds. The fact that almost the entire film was shot in the same room was quite effective. It allowed the viewer to feel as though they were actually a jury member taking part in the trial. The viewer never really gets to see all the details of the murder. When the members of the jury try to envision how long it would take an old man to hobble down a hallway, or what a person with poor eyesight would see through the windows of a moving city train, the viewer must try just as hard to envision such things as well.
Throughout the film, the director used a technique where he kept changing the depth of field. Although subtle, it was also very effective in creating an ever increasing sense of discomfort and aggravation. All in all, this film was very well written and I quite enjoyed it. (Although I must add that the reason why the last man changed his mind was a little too emotional and hokey for my liking, by hey, whatever works!)
Rope (1948)
just comments, some spoliers
Not being a very big fan of old movies, this film surprised me. Of course, back in 1948, they had a different idea of what 'thrilling' and 'suspenseful' were than we do today. The film was loosely based on two young men from the University of Chicago and the actual murder they committed. Perhaps the reason why Hitchcock experimented with the long takes was to depict the story as being more realistic. The two men in this film killed only so they could see what it was like and to experience the exhilaration of taking a life. Hopefully this wasn't the reason for the actual murder case! You don't really realize that the movie is filmed in entirely one long shot until you think about it. I think this technique was well executed and did create some sense of suspense. The viewer almost feels as if they are there attending the party with the smooth camera movements and the sense of real time. The transitions that took place when the film reels were changed were kind of cheesy, but not that noticeable. It was quite clever actually. Some people claim that towards the end of the film, the camera actually does cut to a different shot. I guess the only way to find out whether or not this is true is to watch the film over again in extreme detail. The fact that the story takes place in only one room and over the course of one evening is quite out of the ordinary. The entire movie is about a dinner party. It sounds pretty boring at first, but the twist is that the guest of honor, in which everyone is readily expecting, is actually dead inside a chest where the dinner is being served from. This whole idea is creepy in itself. The guests constantly wonder where he is and eventually leave the party, never knowing the he was actually there the entire time.
There were some scenes where the guests came a little too close to discovering the dead body. These scenes were a little nerve-racking because if the body was discovered, their whole plan would come to a halt. I really enjoy when a film gets the audience involved, but that was expected here since almost all Hitchcock films do!