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Reviews
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
Take a ring from point A to B and kill a few bad guys on the road
I am NOT impressed, despite the fact that I am a fan of Peter Jackson. The good guys are good, the bad guys bad. The good guys might get into trouble cause they find it hard to resist evil but even if they are tempted, they might do good at the end. The bad guys will always remain bad, no matter what....
The plot? Take a ring from point A to the near impossible point B. If you think about it, you've seen it 1000 times before. The effects? Not narrowly as impressive as I hoped them to be. I cannot get what all the hype is all about. If you have managed to avoid it so far, then wait till it gets on DVD.
Now, let the magic start.
Pari (1995)
Mehrjui put Iran on the movie map back in 1969 wit...
Mehrjui put Iran on the movie map back in 1969 with his splendid movie Gaav (Cow) about a villager whose sole possession, a cow, dies while he is away in the city. The loss of the cow drives him to insanity.
Many years has past by but Mehrjui still feels most confident when dealing with psychological issues. He has been quite busy in the nineties. Amongst his most notable films there is the trilogy Sara (1993), Pari (1995) and Leila (1996). All these are female names in Persian.
Pari is a student of literature at one of the Tehran universities. She is a confident yet angry person who is projecting her inner struggle by outwards aggression towards her tutor, her fiancé and her brother. She is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. We can only imagine what has been the force behind her mental suicide. Things do clear up as the movie proceeds and all the bits fits nicely in place. Mehrjui gives us the answers we crave for but he will not slam it in our face. There is a certain, subtle level of gratitude for the audience to be felt as he/she entangles the web.
Pari is in a quest. She is burdened by a strange mix of divine heritage and guilt for which she is not fully equipped. Pari is the tool Mehrjui utilises in order to pierce the Persian mystique. A blend of Sufism, religion and literature. All in a holy quest for salvation. We only never know from what!
The visual splendid of the film is a joy. The cinematography is behind any complaints. The editing is at times very pleasing although there is some abrupt and unwarranted cuts and bruises. Mehrjui directs his actors with a clear vision of what he wants to achieve and there is indeed some very fine performances by all the main actors.
To wrap this up. Pari is a film I warmly recommend you to see. This is not a masterpiece as such. This is not the classic people will talk about in 20 years time. But for anyone who has learned to enjoy the enigmatic movies of Iran, this will be nothing short of pure enchantment.
Una giornata particolare (1977)
Fascism, homosexuality and ordinary people.
A visit by Hitler in Rome is the backdrop of this tender story of love, friendship, homosexuality and fascism. Sophia Loren plays the housewife and mother of six children who stays at home while her entire family go to the military parade in honor of Hitler and Mussolini. She has to stay at home since the family cannot afford a maid. She would have loved to go though as she along with the entire housing complex where she lives is an ardent admirer of Il Duce.
There is one exception though. Across the yard sits Marcello Mastroianni on his chair contemplating suicide. The reason? He is homosexual and because of that has recently lost his job as a radio announcer. The film really takes off when these two people meet by chance. Mastroianni is in despair and badly in need of a friend. Loren, frustrated by her own cheating husband misunderstands Mastroianni and in a masterfully shot, directed and acted scene on the roof of the building complex offers her body to him only to be rejected. The initial chock is replaced soon afterwards by her hunger for this man, this anti fascist, this homosexual, this other world who is so willing to give her all that she longs for.
This is a beautifully crafted movie with two of the most talented actors ever. Loren proves here that she is an actress of caliber when well directed. This is a simple but yet powerful film about fascism, love, ordinary people and most importantly the human condition. Despite its sad ending there is a glimpse of hope in the denouement, things will change, someone has understood.
491 (1964)
A shocking movie for its time, poignant then obsolete now!
Six troubled young boys are to go through a social experiment. They are supposedly doing this out of free will but in fact they have no choice, either the experiment or jail. The person in charge, Lars Lind is a young bourgeois fellow who is repeatedly let down and abused by Leif Nymark.
This movie was an absolute bombshell when it opened in 1964. There are some scenes in this movie that were extremely shocking to the average audience of that time, including tacit allusions to sodomy and a scene depicting (out of shot) a dog rape! Apart from that there was the naked portrait of a society in change where young people behave in a way unknown to their parents. This was unnerving, unsettling. But the Problem with the movie is that despite its good intentions it doesn't work. The character of Krister played by Lind is nothing but a caricature. He lacks every trace of credibility. His naivete is just out of this world. Also Vilgot Sjöman's (know as Vilgot Seaman in the States) attacks on the new social experiments is unfounded, superficial and simplistic. '491' is still a movie worth seeing, at least as a historical lesson.
Also worth mentioning is that the screenwriter, Lars Görling committed suicide after his own movie 'Tillsammans med Gunilla måndag kväll och tisdag' Sweden (1965), turned out only to be a mediocre product.
Kise-ye Berenj (1996)
A child and her neighbor are trying to buy a sack of rice....
A small child and her elderly neighbor are having all kinds of small adventures in the streets of Tehran to get a sack of rice. This is a minimalist film where nothing and everything happens depending on how you look at it. This is Seinfeld Iranian style from a child's point of view if you like. This movie is very different from your ordinary Hollywood kind of child movie. It is utterly unpredictable, very humane and extremely warm in its depiction of normal every day people. It also gives the viewer a rare glimpse in the poorer areas of southern Tehran. The actors here are playing themselves, so if you ever feel like to see a film that is not pretentious, warm, funny and goodhearted, then grab the smallest kid in the family and get to the theater.