Change Your Image
ligiaruscu
Reviews
Hope Springs (2012)
not painful enough
i've been told that the therapist's work in this film was well rendered and realistic, which is in itself a bonus (i've just watched danny boyle's trance, so i know what i'm talking about). also, the film avoids some of the more obvious traps of offering its characters easy ways out of their dilemma, and of course meryl streep and the wonderful tommy lee jones would be worth watching even while trimming their nails, so this alone saves the film from mediocrity. i have, however, trouble with the subject matter. these people have deep-seated problems of communication and adjustment. we are required to believe that 1. these problems are best addressed by tackling the issue of sex; 2. that solved, all of the other troubles will just go away. there was the potential of a good film in this, only the filmmakers chose to keep it on the most superficial level. i wonder if that was because they chose to make a comedy and not a drama, or because they feared to overexert their audience?
Oblivion (2013)
sf pic strong on f/x, weak on plot
where to even begin? 1. why not erase jack's memory entirely, while they were at it? he's lost his personal memories (and not even these thoroughly, as it turned out), but kept the generic memories of a member of the human race. if these had been erased also, the tet would have had to face no problem with his (their) loyalties, no problem with the fate of the earth, no need to pretend they were all relocating to titan etc. true, there would also have been no story. a loss?
2. this is a world that's supposed to be wrecked and destroyed, where most people have been dying of starvation. yet no one seems to have the slightest problem in procuring energy. a fellow on the run, tailed by two different sets of pursuers, will, as a matter of course, embellish the facade of his shack in the woods with bright lights. (American films don't do poverty very well, except for the purely visual. this reminds me of the young and otherwise quite watchable young actress playing rue in the hunger games, who was supposed to not have eaten for three days, and, when handed a chicken leg, daintily picked the meat off the bones. probably neither she nor her director had ever seen how a real starving person eats.)
3. a woman dispatched on what is essentially a maintenance job, where she will not be seen by anyone but her partner for weeks on end, will be outfitted exclusively with tight dresses and stiletto heels. nice to see that some things are not supposed to change in the future.
4. a person put into artificial sleep for sixty years will, on awakening, have not the slightest hesitation in efficiently using the new technology which she has not been introduced to.
5. someone on one of the boards here wondered how non-American viewers were supposed to relate to all the emotion surrounding the superbowl (or other purely American games). the answer is, you don't. though "overseas markets" are a welcome bonus, American films are made with American audiences in mind.
6. one tom cruise is quite enough for one film, but at least this we knew beforehand. two of them is definitely unfair.
and that's just a few random thoughts. add the lack of depth of the characters, the mostly indifferent acting (poor morgan freeman!), the utter predictability of the plot, and what it amounts to is: go find yourselves a proper film to watch.
Sense & Sensibility (2008)
miniseries usually truer to the book than feature films; not this one
Jane Austen sells well these days, which goes a long way towards explaining the appalling number of film adaptations let loose upon us over the past years. This miniseries, part of this and last years' (2007-2008) batch that includes a lousy Mansfield Park, an adequate Northanger Abbey and an uneven Persuasion, dwells in the long shadows of the 1995 adaptation. On the one hand, it goes to considerable lengths in trying to avoid any resemblance: it does this by including scenes that were absent there (most notably the last encounter between Elinor and Willoughby, where he explains his conduct) and excluding, where possible, scenes that were present there; by having the film begin with a steamy sex scene for which there is no reason other than the hope of whetting the appetite of the viewers; by casting as Elinor an actress as unlike the brilliant Emma Thompson as possible (and whose idea of conveying dramatic tension seems to be to open her eyes very wide and sometimes also her mouth, slightly). On the other hand though, the adaptation has been taking over ideas that occur in the 1995 film and not in the book: like turning Margaret into a well rounded and likable character, which in the book she is not (this is understandable; everybody loves cute little girls with lots of curly hair), like Edward's proposal to Elinor being received with a crying fit (which was not a very good idea to begin with). Talented actors, loving attention to period details and National Trust mansions do not by themselves a good film make. This miniseries has chosen to show Marianne falling rather early in love with Colonel Brandon. This is not only not true to the book (where it is at no point implied that Marianne holds feelings for him other than esteem and gratitude), it also waters down and distorts the core message of the story. If Marianne can overcome her feelings for Willoughby so quickly and easily, then they were not the deep love we had been hitherto led to believe, but just the trifling infatuation one (especially parents) would ordinarily expect from most seventeen-year-olds. Then, her deep distress and the illness that almost cost her life are but the tantrum of a spoiled child denied a treat. Accordingly, there is no lesson to be learned of the story, no proper appreciation of Elinor's self-control, no triumph of sense over sensibility. Admittedly, most people these days expect to be entertained, not educated by books and films (unless it were about sex), but Jane Austen deserves better treatment than this. Andrew Davies has certainly come a long way since his celebrated 1995 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, and not all of it seems to have been good to him.
Kurtulus (1994)
lavish production, not foreigner-friendly
This lavish production depicting the Turkish war of independence following the Ottoman defeat in World War I has got everything that money, energy, devotion to its chosen subject, careful attention for period detail and enthusiasm (not to mention a large and interested army to provide extras) can buy. No expense was spared, no effort was curtailed in order to take the six-hour long story from the bloody fields of war to the sunny tennis courts of England, from the bleak government buildings of Ankara to the merriments of the Greeks in Smyrna, from the dimly-lit Imperial palace at Istanbul to the equally dimly-lit offices of Soviet power, from whitewashed hospital wards to farmers' huts, from Atatürk's cluttered working-table to the sumptuous drawing-rooms of the British prime minister. Against such a broad background, the parts of the individual actors come rather short. But in the limited range of their allotted parts, most actors give creditable performances; some thought has gone into finding actors who actually physically resemble their parts (most uncannily Simon Ward as Churchill, who has come a long way since impersonating the dashing duke of Buckingham). Among many forgettable characters, Kemal paşa himself stands out, played by an actor whose resemblance to a personage whose traits, at various stages of his life, have etched themselves indelibly on the eye of any Turk or for that matter of anyone who spent any amount of time in Turkey, is not remarkable; however, he makes up for this by his impressive presence (and his mesmerizing voice). His task is of course made easier by the fact that he has to play a personage much larger than life. Although efforts have been made to show his human traits (his respect for his mother; his physical sufferings at times), Atatürk is never less than the father of the nation and the artisan of victory, never erring, never weak and never wrong. Some of the same simplification is obvious in the way foreigners and even enemies have nothing but words of praise and awe in the face of the successes of the Turkish army (one may not overlook that under the infamous article 400 of the criminal code, "insulting Turkishness" is a punishable offence) and in the way Greeks and Turks respectively have been portrayed: Every atrocity mentioned (mercifully not shown) by the film is attributed to Greeks only (although there is an effort made to nuance the image of the enemy, as for instance in the fair portrayal of General Trikoupis), while Turks are invariably selfless to the point of self-sacrifice, wholeheartedly devoted to the cause, patient, toiling and kind (except for a handful of evil politicians who unpatriotically pursue their own agendas). Somewhat disconcerting though is the lack of any mention of the big fire of Izmir; it might conceivably have spoiled the celebrations. This DVD is not very foreigner-friendly though. Of course, someone who does not know the provisions of the Treaty of Sevres would probably not want to watch this film anyway; but even for those of us who have some knowledge of the period and events, the bewildering amount of characters, politicians, generals, diplomats, Turkish, Greek, British, Soviet, most of whom appear but briefly, makes the film a bit difficult to follow at times. Some DVD feature explaining some of the background issues might have been very helpful; equally, one concerning the "making of " a film which commands such resources and such masses of people would have been of some interest. As it is, the onlooker's patience is tried further by the rather indifferent English subtitles which often leave one with the impression that only half of what was said was also translated.