Reviews

Way too long takes, with way too boring dialogue. Whoever edit this thing didnt want to work. Didnt manage to finish the film, couldnt do it. Probably could be a good short film. What the hell happen to Spike Lee?

Just like to add to all those comments here, that the white people in this show also dont look greek. Most of the actors are anglo-saxons, realy dont look like greeks, quite diferent facial features. Said that, the first episode was boring, felt like a Hercules or Xena episode, but without the comedy.

If you want to see this show for the soap opera drama, go all in. If you like the people locked in a room genre, and considers understanding the mechanics of everything around as important as the drama, it will never happen.

I saw this film international opening in the 2006 Rio's Film Festival. And for me it was one of the three best I saw. François Dompierre first film is almost perfect, a story about love and memory. Great pacing, beautiful images and excellent music, which, although completely different in subject, made me remember in some ways in Sofia Copolla's Lost in Translation.

All happens in one night, when Wes, a guy who knows what to remember, but has no action, receives a call from Alison, the girl he remembers, a friend and nothing more. She is in town, is leaving tomorrow and wants to see him. They have this one night to remember their past, all the days before tomorrow, all the days before she leaves again. Two summers ago, they meet, one summer ago, they traveled through the desert. They were happy together, but there was always a feel in the air for something more than just friendship. In his travel through his memory, Wes will be guided by the Doctor, an old man in a monochromatic landscape, who revels to him what he always knew, all the questions he never had the courage to make while awake. He needs time to understand there is no time. He needs time to understand that to finally fly, he needs to take action, to build eternity with Alison.

OK, this is my first review here. I am pretty much writing it, because this was the best movie I saw at the 2005 Rio's Film Festival and since then I have only seen people trash it. This is simply a beautiful poetic film about the definition of love and what it means for much of today's relationships. I have to say that I disagreed with some of it's conclusions, but that didn't at all damaged my enjoyment. What more can I say? Everything is beautifully constructed in the screen: the car with the 40 candles, the empty plane, the stopwatch, the hands touching, the singing with the glasses, the city in the winter with the umbrella, ... All followed by great music and some dancing (witch some critics thought should have been more meaningful, instead of just plan fun). Since I never saw a Makhmalbaf's film before, I can only compare saying that its much like a Godard's, but without his recent bitterness and with actually something to say (or at least with something I care about listening). Finishing, it's about the search for the moments of happiness in life. Definitely a must for people tired of those boring narrative movies that cant seen to stop telling those same old dramatic stories with no originality in the scenes' enrichment.