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h-kooijman9
Reviews
La vita è bella (1997)
Normally I never cry
I'm a man. Normally never cry. I didn't even cry when my parents divorced. I kept back the tears at deaths and funerals of friends and relatives. But at the end of this movie I cried my eyes out. For me it was all about parental love and the will to protect your children from the evil of adults. Best movie ever made. I realize that many people will find Roberto Begnini extremely annoying, the storyline ridiculous and the filming typically chaotic Italian style, but I don't care. Neither do I understand the comments about it being unethical of doing 'comedy' in a concentration camp. It is not a movie about that. It is about the beauty of unconditional, parental love and therefore everybody must see it. Like I said, the best movie ever, ever made!
No Man's Land (2001)
why are so many good movies ignored?
I saw this movie a couple of years ago and thought it was brilliant!Tried to rent it again, but to no avail. A shame, while the movie is so good. Although the subject is extremely tragic (grim warfare, death, the hopeless inability of the international community and the eternal arrogance of the French),the tone of the film is relatively light and has a lot of comedy in it. The movie shows that even in such bad times, people remain people with all their good and bad sides, who are able to love, laugh, hate, and be selfish or extremely human. Therefore it bothers me that the movie, although it won several prizes, including an academy award, is so much ignored, for i think that it is absolutely suitable for a larger public, if the right buzz was created. I mean, Fahrenheit 9/11 was a hit. Is it because people were sick about the Balkan situation?
Mifunes sidste sang (1999)
good, a bit overacted
I saw the film last night on TV, but have been wanting to rent it for the last 5 years, but never did. The story reminded me a bit of Rainman, but being a Dogma movie gave it it's special charm.Especially the isolation of the location on an island and the harshness of living on such an isolated farm were brought over very well by the dogma principle of using only natural light. I thought the acting of Iben Hjejle was fantastic as the prostitute who is on a crossroad in her life and has to find out which road to take. The other characters (except for Kresten's wife)are also played very believable. The only thing that bothers me is the overacting. Dogma pretends to be as close to reality as possible, but i cannot believe that in Denmark, when there is a small disagreement, everybody starts to scream at each other in such an overdone way. Still it remains a good, entertaining movie, so watch it!!
Zusje (1995)
Zusje (little sister) is one of the most inventive movies ever made
Although already 10 years old, this movie remains one of the most inventive films ever made in the Netherlands, and launched the careers of Kim van Kooten and the director, Robert-Jan Westdijk. The captivating performance by Kim van Kooten and her talking into the camera gave me the feeling that I was intruding in something very private.Her fantastic looks in a "girl next door" kind of way, made that feeling even stronger. The supporting cast are also very true to life. I do not want to give anything away of the storyline, since the viewer really has to let himself get drawn into the story and experience the fantastic twist at the end.It is still a shame that dutch cinema is not seen on a bigger platform, due to the language barrier and that it seems that even academy award winning films like The Assault, Antonia and Character are largely unknown outside the Netherlands and the relatively small group of European film lovers in America.