In the Crosswind (orig. Risttuules) [2014]

MPAA (UR would be PG-13)  Fr. Dennis (4 Stars)

IMDb listing
Cineuropa.org listing
EFIS.ee listing*
CSFD listing*
Filmweb.pl listing*
Kinopoisk.ru listing*

Cineuropa.org interview w. director

AllFilm.ee review*
aVoir-aLire.fr (F. Mignard) review*
Cineuropa.org (L. Boyce) review*
Cinema-Scope.com (K. Reardon) review*
Filmiarvustus.eu (R. Puust) review*
Kino-zeit.de (K. Kieninger) review*

In the Crosswind (orig. Risttuules) [2014] [IMDb] [CEu] [EFIS]* (directed and cowritten by Martti Helde [IMDb] [CEu] [EFIS]* along with Liis Nimik [IMDb] [CEu] [EFIS]*) is an ESTONIAN docudrama that tells the story of the first wave of the Stalin-era mass deportations [en.wikip] of residents of the freshly Soviet-occupied Baltic States of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia [en.wikip] to Siberia following the signing of the then secret protocols [en.wikip] [pl.wikip]* of the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact [en.wikip] [et.wikip]*[pl.wikip].*

The story based on archival materials is told through the letters/diary of a fictionalized Estonian woman named Erna (played in the film by the Estonian actress Laura Peterson [IMDb] [CEu] [EFIS]*).  The film played recently at the 2015 - 18th Chicago European Union Film Festival held at the Gene Siskel Film Center here in Chicago.

Erna begins the story as a 27 y/o university educated woman living with her husband Heldur (played by Tarmo Song [IMDb] [CEu] [EFIS]*) who was a former Estonian military officer, and young daughter Eliide (played by Mirt Preegel [IMDb] [CEu] [EFIS]*) on a lovely apple orchard in the rolling Estonian countryside.

Her (family's) lives were forever altered when on June 14, 1941 (8 days before the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union) the NKVD came, arrested the family, separated the Erna's husband from her and her daughter and sent them all along with some 10,000 other Estonians (and 30,000 others - Lithuanians, Latvians - from the Baltic States) to Siberia.  For the next 15 years (!) Erna writes her husband from her place of exile, never receiving a reply.

The fifteen years of exile are portrayed STYLISTICALLY in this way:

While THE WHOLE FILM was filmed in black and white, from the moment that the family was arrested taken away, EVERY SCENE WAS FILMED WITH LIVE ACTORS _FROZEN IN POSES_ DEPICTING THE SCENES DESCRIBED IN ERNA'S LETTERS / DIARY ENTRIES -- the train station scene when they were loaded onto cattle cars to be deported to Siberia; the arrival scene in Siberia with their several days march to the location of their exile; a scene depicting their work camp barracks and the timber felling/lumber yard work that they were first consigned to, various tilling of the soil, improvement of the work camp into a village (or construction of a village near the original work camp) after they had _clear cut_ a sufficient amount of the timber in the area; a Communist era wedding scene as some of the younger exiles after many years believing that there was no hope of return, progressively decided to "continue on with their lives" "out there."

IN EACH CASE, THE CAMERA WOULD MEANDER through the rather complex scenes of "still" (FROZEN) "life" depicted, while Erma's voice-over would read the diary entry / letter that she was writing to her husband at the time.

The effect is haunting, intentionally so, and an expression of a description of the period of Exile that the writer director found while researching Estonia's archival records to make the film.  In a diary written by a woman, perhaps not unlike Erna of the film, she describes the experience of Exile as that of "time entering into a entirely different dimension," that is, that TIME ... STOOD ... STILL.

This was a profound film, and one of several made recently by various peoples that suffered these Soviet era deportaions.

Among the excellent films on this theme that I've reviewed here are Siberian Exile (orig. Syberiada Polska) [2013] from Poland and The Excursionist (orig. Ekskursantė) [2013] from Lithuania.

Together they tell stories of awful industrialized suffering at the hands of arrogant rulers who really didn't care about the little people that they crushed as bugs under their heels.


* Foreign language webpages are most easily translated using Google's Chrome Browser.  

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Colossal Youth (orig. La Juventude em Marcha) [2006]

MPAA (UR would be R) Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
CineEuropa.org listing

avoir-alire.fr  (R. Le Vern) review*
revistacinetica.com.br (P. Butcher) review*
Sight & Sound (M. Gomes) review

AV Club (S. Tobias) review
Slant.com (F. de Croce) review


Colossal Youth (orig. La Juventude em Marcha) [2006] [IMDb] [CEu] (written and directed by Pedro Costa [en.wikip] [pt.wikip]* [IMDb] [CEu]) is a haunting, cinematographically brilliant if minimalist (and lengthy...)  film that is probably the most famous creation to date of this PORTUGUESE DIRECTOR. Costa's latest film,  Cavalo Dinhiero [2014] [IMDb] [CEu], arguably a sequel to Colossal played recently at the 2015 - 18th Chicago European Union Film Festival held at the Gene Siskel Film Center here in Chicago.  Since I was unable to see Cavalo, I decided to look-up and review this film on which it was based instead.  (Where did I find Colossal Youth?  Through the rent-by-mail-service of Facets Multimedia in Chicago).

Set in the context of Lisbon's Fontainhas slum as it was being demolished and its largely Cape Verdan immigrant (largely black) inhabitants were being moved to "new(er) quarters" out "in the suburbs," Colossal Youth (orig. La Juventude em Marcha) [2006] [IMDb] [CEu] the film's pace is frustratingly if IMHO _deliberately_ slow.  The characters -- Ventura, Vanda, one even nicknamed "Lento" (slow ...) all incidently PLAYING THEMSELVES -- appear to live in almost suspended animation.  Things, _important things_, are happening _to them_: Ventura is looking for a new place, Vanda is worried about her kids, "Lento" is ill.   But it's all playing out SLOWLY. 

And, again, that's of course largely the point: Time is inexorably moving forward, Change is inexorably taking place ... but how much control, if _any_, do ANY of these people have over what's happening around them and even _to them_?

My only complaint in regards to the movie is that it portrays the ghetto life of the poor in this slum to be NECESSARILY and ONLY ... "SLOW" and LARGELY "SOLITARY."  I do believe that this was the decision of the film-maker to underline the FUNDAMENTAL HELPLESSNESS of the SLUM DWELLERS PORTRAYED.

Yet, most of us who actually know something about life in the "favelas," "barrios" (slums) would know that there is actually a lot of life going on there -- AND that RELIGION plays an important part of that life playing-out (it often provides both Joy and Hope).  There's but one reference in the movie to religion, one of the characters says that he went to Confession.  I'd submit that there would be much, much more going on than that ... even as I understand the point trying to be made by the film makers.

I'd just like to underline that people (even in poor neighborhoods/ slums) are NEVER only victims, we're ALL more than just that. 

But still, very good film and beautifully, beautifully shot!


* Reasonably good (sense) translations of non-English webpages can be found by viewing them through Google's Chrome browser.

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Get Hard [2015]

MPAA (R)  CNS/USCCB ()  ChicagoTribune (1 Star)  RogerEbert.com (2 Stars)  AVClub (C)  Fr. Dennis (2 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB () review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (M. Zoller Seitz) review
AVClub (H. Hassenger) review  

Get Hard [2015] (directed and screenplay cowritten by Etan Cohen along with Jay Martel and Ian Roberts) is not a particularly pretty comedy but IMHO it works and probably better than it should.  The film is about race, gender, class, so basically about every "hotbutton" issue that divides us today: 

On the one hand there is James (played by Will Ferrell) a born/raised super-privileged, rich, white, heterosexual, male dope / hedgefund broker who _really believes_ that he "made it on his own" by means of his "wits," "hard work," and ... well ... "an eight million dollar start-up loan from his dad." ;-) 

On the other hand, there's Darnell (played by Kevin Hart) who runs an "executive car wash service" (basically a modern day _shoe-shining_ service ...) inside the parking garage of the Los Angeles high rise office building where James works ... for his future father-in-law Martin (played by Craig T. Nelson, James' fiancee Alissa played by Alison Brie)

Near the beginning of the film, James offers Darnell advice on the value of hard-work as he hands him a $1 tip on a $20 wash ... the unsolicited advice apparently "worth" in his mind the other $2 that could at least make the tip 15% ...

Well, James' world comes crashing down when, suddenly, he finds himself (the only one at his firm ...) arrested, convicted and then "made an example of ..." for "financial improprieties" at the firm where he's _just been made_ "partner."  Hmmm ...

Facing 10 years of hard time in San Quentin rather than 1 year at a country club, James turns to the only black person he knows ... Darnell ... to "teach him how to survive in prison."  Why Darnell?  Well, he's black, right? 

Darnell actually jumps on the deal ... because he needs $30,000 for a down payment on a house that would move him, his appalled wife Rita (played by Edwina Findley Dickerson) and cute-as-a-button 8-10 year old daughter Makayla (played by Ariana Neal) to a nice house in the suburbs where his daughter wouldn't have to pass through a metal detector when she went to school ... James is willing to pay (now...), so ...

Much, of course, then ensues ...

This film is based on a rather long list of rather appalling assumptions, two of which IMHO stand-out most clearly:  (1) that "all black men, or perhaps even 'men of color' spend time in jail," and (2) jail means (homosexual) rape. 

The story places responsibility for the first assumption on the "dimwitted rich white boy" James.  So we ourselves don't have to take (much) responsibility for it. 

The second assumption, IMHO, is more problematic:  Why is it that we assume that "prison means homosexual rape?" ("Well isn't it 'obvious...'?").  Let me ask again, WHY?

I ask this, not because I'm an idiot ... WE ALL HAVE COME TO ASSUME THAT PRISON = RAPE.  But then, if prison is supposed to be PUNISHMENT BEFITTING A CRIME, have we allowed homosexual rape to become THE DE FACTO PUNISHMENT FOR CRIME ... _ANY_ CRIME (worthy of jail ...)?

In the West, WE ALL FIND _CANING_ barbaric ... why NOT ... RAPE?  

And, (okay, I'm offering a "Modest Proposal" here ...): Wouldn't we "save a heck of a lot of money" if we just sentenced violent criminals to ... RAPE?  Or perhaps "multiple rapes"?  Whatever ...

And if that, somehow "disturbs us" ... AREN'T WE DOING THE SAME THING NOW ?   We're sentencing people to "20 years of rape" ... We don't call it that, but we assume that (unless one gets sentenced to a "country club...")

Why not clean-up the prisons with: Prison rape gets you solitary for a year, two years, five years, the rest of your term, or even if need be, the firing squad? 

Basically, we've turned prison into NOT "TIME" but RAPE.  And I'm asking, why?  Again, why is CANING "barbaric" while PRISON RAPE is NOT?

Anyway ... enjoy the film ... and every other prison film, and every other prison joke from now on ... ;-)


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How Strange to be Named Federico: Scola narrates Fellini (orig. Che Strano Chiamarsi Federico: Scola Racconta Fellini) [2013]

MPAA (UR would be R)  CineBlog.it (7.5/10)  OC.it (7/10)  Fr. Dennis (4+ Stars)

IMDb listing
FilmItalia.org listing
FilmTV.it listing*

Blogosfere.it (A.  Cappuccio) review*
CineBlog.it (A.M. Abate) review*
OndaCinema.it (F. D'Ettore) review*

AVoir-ALire.fr (V. Dumez) review*

The Hollywood Reporter (D. Young) review
Variety (J. Weissberg) review

How Strange to be Named Federico: Scola Narrates Fellini (orig. Che Strano Chiamarsi Federico: Scola Racconta Fellini) [2013] [IMDb] [FilmItal] [FT.it]* (directed and cowritten by Ettore Scola [en.wikip] [it.wikip]* [IMDb] [FilmItal] [FT.it]* along with Paula Scola [IMDb] [FilmItal] and Silvia Scola [IMDb] [FilmItal]) is a BRILLIANT "Fellini-like" biopic about the legendary Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini [en.wikip] [it.wikip]* ;-) that played AND WILL CLOSE the 2015 - 18th Chicago European Union Film Festival held at the Gene Siskel Film Center here in Chicago.

It is a testament to the strength of this year's festival that three of Italy's films that played at the festival were (1) Black Souls (orig. Anime Nere) [2014] [IMDb] [FilmItal] [FT.it]* (dir. Francesco Munzi [IMDb] [FilmItal] [FT.it]*) a drama about the Calabrese mafia (Calabria (being "the toe" of the "boot of Italy"), (2) The Dinner (orig. I Nostri Ragazzi) [2014] [IMDb] [FilmItal] [FT.it]* (dir. Ivano De Matteo [IMDb] [FilmItal] [FT.it]*) a family drama that asks the question, in a society as family oriented as Italy's what do you do if your child commits a crime or otherwise "has issues"?  Should your first loyalty be to your kid or to the larger society?, and then (3) this fantastic (and promising to be stylistically brilliant) homage to Fellini.  Everyone of these films promised to be 3-4 Star quality.  Yet one _really_ "can't see everything," ;-) one has to choose ;-).  And so I chose this film about Fellini ;-).

Note to readers: One CAN buy this film for a affordable / basically regular DVD price ($10-15) albeit presently in European PAL format via Amazon.com.  Then one can download a simple free-ware program called PassKey-Lite to override one's computer's restrictions on what Region DVD-format discs one play on one's computer.  And multi-regional DVD players are also quite affordable these days (costing around $35 or only about $10 more than a uni-regional one) and then one need not worry ever again about playing non-North American DVDs.  Again, one could find a cheap multi-regional DVD player via Amazon.com.

Anyway, if one is at all a film lover, this is a film to see / search out / own.  

So what then is Federico Fellini [en.wikip] [it.wikip]* "story" according to his good friend, and fellow film-maker Ettore Scola [en.wikip] [it.wikip]*?

Well interestingly enough, Ettore Scola [en.wikip] [it.wikip]* notes that Fellini [en.wikip] [it.wikip]* began his career in 1939 AS A CARTOONIST at the Italian satirical magazine Marc'Aurelio [it.wikip]* during the Mussolini era.  (Scola came to the same magazine ten years later while Fellini still worked there and they became lifelong friends)

Yes during the Mussolini era, the magazine operated then under obvious parameters of censorship (NO, NO, NO jokes about Mussolini ... and some of the members of the editorial board were clearly portrayed as rather fanatical, if then rather RIDICULOUS Fascist "believers").  The film further portrays the magazine AFTER THE WAR as more-or-less obviously supporting the Italy's post-War Center-Right Christian Democratic Party over the Communists (even if this again limited the potential scope of the magazine's humor).  

YET, "politics aside," the Marc'Aurelio [it.wikip]* operated with a very simple (though still "kinda brutal") editorial quality control policy: "fa ridere" / "non fa fidere" (funny / not funny) which ended-up producing an _inordinate number_ of comedy (and then mostly screenwriting / directorial) talents in the post-WW II era, including Fellini (played in the film as a young man by Tommaso Lazotti [IMDb] [FilmItal] [FT.it]*) and Scola (played in the film as a young man by Giulio Forges Davanzati [IMDb] [FilmItal] [FT.it]*).  Seriously, the Marc'Aurelio [it.wikip]* could be called the SNL-like "incubator" for Italian writers / screenwriters / directors that would breakout on their own in the 1950s-60s.

I found Fellini's origins AS A CARTOONIST FASCINATING because this IMMEDIATELY (and FOREVER) HELPS EXPLAIN TO ME _WHY_ THE CHARACTERS IN FELLINI'S FILMS WERE SO OFTEN SO, ERR... EVOCATIVE, EXPRESSIVE, MEMORABLE ... or just plain "grotesquely strange" ;-)  He was DRAWING EXAGGERATED CHARACTERS LIKE THIS 20-30-40 years before putting them in his films ;-).

Further, it makes total sense to me that before / as he was making the transition to film, Fellini started to write jokes / sketches for Italy's version of Vaudeville (again during / immediately after the WW II era).

Then Scola recounts (narrated as an old man by Vittorio Viviani [IMDb] [FT.it]*) Fellini's love affair with the automobile, NOT as a STATUS SYMBOL but _as a means to encounter people_, ODD PEOPLE, that one would probably otherwise never meet.  From the time that he first purchased a car, back in the late 40s and 50s, he'd love to cruise around at night -- often with Scola onboard as well -- to seek out interesting people, often quite literally "at the edges (margins) of the city."

Two such encounters recorded in the film, one with a clearly "past her prime" older prostitute (played wonderfully by Antonella Attili [IMDb]) evoking Fellini's celebrated Oscar-Winning film Nights of Cabiria [1957] [IMDb] (where Fellini's then wife, Guilietta Masina [en.wikip] [it.wikip]*[IMDb] with probably one of the most expressive/evocative faces in the history of film, played _exactly_ this kind of "not exactly A-team" but certainly talkative / interesting small-time prostitute) and another involving a street artist (played by Sergio Rubini [IMDb] [FT.it]*) who'd draw strikingly beautiful chalk paintings of saints on Rome's sidewalks (and then complain that "rain would come and wash them all away," Go figure ... ;-)  Having lived in Rome for three years (while in the seminary), I've met and talked to street artists JUST LIKE THIS ;-) and I've also wondered about "the futily of their work" ;-).

Finally Scola recounts Fellini's love for his "Studio 5" in the famed legendary Cinecittà movie studio complex at the edge of Rome.  Studio 5 became known, in hushed reverential tones, as "La Casa di Fellini" (Fellini's House).  Much of the second half of the movie recounts / shows us that some of the most famous scenes in Fellini's movies, INCLUDING the FONTANA DI TREVI SCENE [YouTube] in La Dolce Vita [1960], AS UTTERLY "REAL" AS IT/THEY MAY HAVE SEEMED, WERE OFTEN ENTIRELY CREATED IN STUDIO FIVE.  Honestly, my jaw dropped when I realized that EVEN that most famous scene WAS ACTUALLY FILMED THERE (with a MOCK-UP of that MOST FAMOUS / ELABORATE FOUNTAIN RE-CREATED THERE to do it).  Wow!

All in all, I just found this to be a lovely / fascinating and ENTIRELY, ENTIRELY, ENTIRELY APPROPRIATE :-) "FELLINI-LIKE" BIO-PIC about Fellini, reminding us all "where he came from." 

Honestly, I was in awe.  What a great tribute to such a fascinating and so often creative / "off-the-wall" man!


* Reasonably good (sense) translations of non-English webpages can be found by viewing them through Google's Chrome browser.

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Home [2015]

MPAA (PG)  CNS/USCCB (A-I)  ChicagoTribune (3 Stars)  RogerEbert.com (2 Stars)  AVClub (C+)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
CNS/USCCB (J. Mulderig) review
ChicagoTribune (M. Phillips) review
RogerEbert.com (S. Wloszczyna) review
AVClub (T. Johnson) review

Home [2015] (directed by Tim Johnson, screenplay by Tom J. Astle and Matt Ember based on the children's book "The True Meaning of Smekday" (2007) [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] by Adam Rex [wikip] [GR] [WCat] [Amzn] [IMDb]) could perhaps be best described as a "highly sugar coated / smiley faced" _knock-off_of the children's / space alien classic Lilo & Stitch [2002].  But I would suggest that this was part of the current film's "originality" / point.

How could something be both a "knock-off" and "original" ;-)?  Let me explain:

In Lilo & Stitch [2002], Stitch is presented as a really self-selfish/self-serving, terribly-bad-behaved fugitive alien (the audience understands immediately why he's "on the run") who crashes to earth where ironically since HE LOOKS KINDA LIKE "A PUPPY DOG," humans, notably a little Hawaiian girl named Lilo, try to him "adopt" as a pet.  And well, he's NOT "a cute little puppy dog" even though, thanks to Lilo he eventually kinda becomes one, and certainly better behaved.    

In the current film, the Earth is invaded by an alien race called "The Boov," who KINDA LOOK LIKE STITCH from the aforementioned film.  But UNLIKE STITCH, "The Boov" aren't really "bad tempered."  Yes, they're cowardly and unbelievably selfish -- heck THEY STEAL OUR PLANET, making the bad-tempered Stitch seem as diminutive and selfless as "Mother Theresa" -- but they do everything in a supremely KINDLY, MATTER OF FACT SORT OF WAY:

"THE BOOV" MEAN "NO HARM" as they ARRIVE ... IN OVERWHELMING FORCE ... and then "KINDLY" _VACUUM US UP_ INTO THEIR SPACE SHIPS and DUMP US ALL INTO A _VERY, VERY NICE_ DISNEYLAND LIKE, well-watered, "RESERVATION" full of theme-park rides and "cotton candy" and named "HAPPY HUMANLAND" ... somewhere in AUSTRALIA ... WHILE THEY TAKE ... the rest of our world.

It's COLONIALISM at its bright, primary-color, if perhaps a little pastelish CHEERIEST ;-)

So "the Boov" ARE AN ENTIRE RACE of "Stitches" who've learned to mask their cruelty / nastiness behind lovely smiles and kindly, well-tempered voices.  Again, THEY MEAN NO HARM, THEY JUST WANT / GET THEIR WAY ...

So then the film is BOTH a "knockoff" and quite "original" ;-)

Now, of course, since "the Boov" treat alien races (us) with "kindly" if supremely paternalistic / sanitized disdain (again, they move, err ABDUCT, us with VACUUM CLEANER-LIKE SPACESHIPS) it's not surprising that they treat each other with a similar ever-"kindly" but just wait till the "shoe drops" sort of a way.

So enter Oh (voiced by Jim Parsons), kind of a "screw-up" among "The Boov."  The other "Boov" aren't openly mean to him, hostile to him.  They just don't talk (or associate) with him.  And he explains at one point to the strangely "left behind" 10-year-old African American-girl named Gratuity "Tip" Tucci (voiced by Rihanna and her mother is voiced by Jennifer Lopez) that "the Boov" have a very simple "NINE (!) strikes and you're out policy."  That is, "the Boov" put up with you until you make _nine mistakes_ and then ... THEY ERASE YOU.  (No need to get angry about anything.  "The Boov" give their folks PLENTY OF CHANCES ... it's just after you reach some point of incompetence/failure ... they just get rid of you.  And "that is that."  Again, no need to get upset, "raise one's voice," about ... ANYTHING).

Well, no matter how "kindly" it all may seem, it's all actually incredibly cruel.  Here, (most of) the human race gets sucked-off to a distant corner of their/OUR planet (where we're actually treated quite well, but we DON'T really have a choice in the matter).  And even the "higher race Boov" treat each other with "gentle" but ridiculous / emotionless "that's just the way it is" "firmness."

And it's left to "left behind" Gratuity / "Tip" and her cat (named Pig) to teach "the Boov" a lesson in what it really means to be compassionate / kind.

Actually a great / fun children's story ;-)


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Cowboys (oirg. Kauboji) [2014]

MPAA (UR would be R)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)

IMDb listing
Cineuropa.org listing
CSFD listing*

FAK.hr (D. Raknić) review*
NemilosrdniGadovi (V. Runjić) review*
Variety (E. Taylor) review

Cowboys (oirg. Kauboji) [2014] [IMDb] [CEu] [CSFD] (screenplay and directed by Tomislav Mršić [IMDb] [CSFD]* [CEu] based on the stage play by Saša Anočić [IMDb] [CSFD]* [CEu]) is a CROATIAN comedy that played recently at the 2015 - 18th Chicago European Union Film Festival held at the Gene Siskel Film Center here in Chicago.

And though the film was Croatia's official submission for the Best Foreign Language Film award for the 2014 Oscars, I can honestly say that I didn't know what to do with the film for the first 45 minutes or so.  I write this because I write this blog, and READERS WILL CERTAINLY NOTE that I spend a probably disproportionate amount of time reviewing FOREIGN FILMS, in good part to try to do _my part_ in trying to bring people together, to help them learn about each other, and learn to appreciate each other.

What then to do with A FILM THAT SEEMS TO GLORY in some of the most dismissive stereotypes of "ethnics" (in the States, read SLAVS... and I'm one of them, Czech ...)?

Add then that I HAD JUST SEEN a top-notch, in truly _every sense of the word_, AUSTRIAN (READ GERMAN ...) "Western" called The Dark Valley (orig. Das Finstere Tal) [2014] that was set very interestingly in the late 1800s up in the Austrian Alps (and yet followed pretty much ALL the conventions of a typical American Western, the dress, the soundtrack, "the stranger riding into town ...") ...

.... AND RIGHT AFTER THAT, I see this CROATIAN (SLAVIC ...) film about an, okay, top-notch Croatian director coming back to a midsized Croatian industrial town where he had grown-up to fulfill a promise he had made to his father long ago, to put on a play (which ALSO turns out to be a Western) in this his home town.  But the cast he has to work with is, at least at first glance, and perhaps at second, third, fourth and fifth glances ... are a bunch of idiots ;-).  IT'S HONESTLY A WHOLE DIFFERENT WORLD ;-)

And yet, as the story goes on, THAT BECOMES THE POINT ... These poor "walk-ons" (obviously, actually professional actors PLAYING "walk-ons") maybe a director's nightmare BUT ... they are PEOPLE with their own stories.  And as their stories play-out even as they "prepare" to put-on the first stage play to be played at the town's (still probably Communist Era) "Palace of Culture" in some 20 years, Viewers come to "understand."

So this is a film that's part Chorus Line [1985], a good part like the American sitcom Taxi [1978-1983] and (thank you Ella Taylor of Variety!) a good part The Full Monty [1997] (also about life in a "dying industrial town," where nothing much seems to happen any more).

But the links to Taxi [1978-1983] are perhaps the most hilarious:

One of the characters in the film, the shadiest (but they all have good hearts) -- who under pressure "admits" that he's "half Gypsy / half Serb" (this of course IN CROATIA ... ;-) -- even looked like Danny De Vito ;-)

THEN ANOTHER CHARACTER, a SWEET but initially UTTERLY "OUT THERE" 20-year old girl READS A POEM for her audition that she and her mute brother ("accompanying her on piano" ;-) wrote IN AN INVENTED LANGUAGE that, of course, NOBODY -- except PERHAPS Andy Kaufman's "Lavka" ... who'd then of course ... "begin to cry" -- COULD UNDERSTAND ;-).

Seriously, THAT POEM was BEAUTIFUL.  One could identify RHYME, one could identify METER, one could even identify ALLITERATION ... BUT ... NO ONE COULD UNDERSTAND A <@#$!> WORD OF IT ;-) ;-)

And there it is...

Perhaps the revelatory scene in the film comes when one of the five (with the poetic girl and her mute brother, seven) hapless "walk-on actors" comes to admit that he's "probably gay" (even though he protests: "I have a wife and a kid ... Okay (head drops) I had a wife and a kid ... they left me.") saying finally: "Okay, okay, I MAY BE GAY, BUT ... I'm NOT a F...."

Every single person in this story was EXACTLY THAT.  They all had terrible, painful, even in a sense LOL-FUNNY flaws.  BUT NONE OF THEM WERE ... <fill in whatever derogatory slur would seem "appropriate">.  That is, they were all PEOPLE ...

... AND IN THE END ... they put on a GOOD SHOW that the people of their town, who hadn't seen a show in their town in 20 years were VERY, VERY APPRECIATIVE OF.

Honestly, a great Story!


* Reasonably good (sense) translations of non-English webpages can be found by viewing them through Google's Chrome browser.

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Living is Easy with Eyes Closed (orig. Vivir es fácil con los ojos cerrados) [2013]

MPAA (UR would be R)  SC.com (3 Stars)  Fr. Dennis (3 1/2 Stars)


IMDb listing
FilmAffinity.com/es listing*
SensaCine.com listing*

Cine Para Leer (J.L. Sanchez-Noriega) review*
SensaCine.com (B. Martínez) review*


Living is Easy with Eyes Closed (orig. Vivir es fácil con los ojos cerrados) [2013] [IMDb] [FAes]* [SC]* (written and directed by David Trueba [IMDb] [FAes]* [SC]*) named after the famous line in the John Lennon / Beatles song Strawberry Fields Forever [YouTube] [iTunes] is a "period" and (though certainly highly to damningly critical) arguably even something of a "nostalgia piece" about the thoroughly "pleasant" (if you just KEPT YOUR EYES CLOSED / MOUTH SHUT...) life in Franco's Spain during the "Beatlemania" of the 1960s.  It played recently as a critically acclaimed / six Goya award-winning submission by SPAIN to the 2015 - 18th Chicago European Union Film Festival held at the Gene Siskel Film Center here in Chicago.

As such, this is a thoroughly pleasant (and to Americans / most people actually a thoroughly accessible) film, a (to evoke another Beatles title) "Magical Mystery Tour" [Youtube] [iTunes] of a time (and perhaps place, though honestly what this film describes was basically EVERYWHERE at _that_ time ...) in which if you JUST FIT IN / DIDN'T CAUSE WAVES ... "all would be fine."  Yet what if you DIDN'T / COULDN'T FIT IN? ... Well ...

So this film is about three "misfits" / "odd balls" -- Antonio (played magnificently by Javier Cámara [IMDb] [FAes]* [SC]*) a still-optimistic/full of life if perhaps prematurely balding 30-something / early 40-something high school teacher who uses Beatles songs to teach English in his class in some midsized provincial town somewhere in Spain; Belén (played again magnificently by Natalia de Molina [IMDb] [FAes]* [SC]*) a late teen / perhaps early 20-something "wayward girl" / "fallen woman" who found herself both unwed and pregnant; and Juanjo (played by Francesc Colomer [IMDb] [FAes]* [SC]*) a 15-16 y/o teenager who could have easily been in Antonio's class (but wasn't) who runs away from home because he simply "didn't want to get a haircut" (but in Franco's Spain, as across much of the Western World at the time, Beatles or no Beatles, for a guy to have long hair was a sign of disorder and even rebellion ...).

Antonio meets the other two "on the road" after he decides to ditch his stultifying teaching job for a few days (the nuns running his school were not exactly excited that he was using "Beatles songs" to teach class ...) to go down to Southern Spain TO TRY TO SEE JOHN LENNON who was doing a movie there (a WW II-era comedy/farce called How I Won The War [1967]).  When they get close, they crash at a beach-side hotel (separate rooms of course, but then, also true of the era, quite cheap) run by a kind of Spanish hippie with a disabled son.  Yes, HE had long hair, but he also lived SO FAR from anybody (of import...) that it really didn't matter.

Anyway, much, poignant, of course ensues ... Do they meet John Lennon?  Well ... guess ;-)

What is interesting is that John Lennon apparently wrote a lot of the songs that became part of the Magical Mystery Tour album, including Strawberry Fields Forever [YouTube] [iTunes], while being out there (in Franco's Spain) making that above mentioned film.  And according to the current film's closing credits from the time that John Lennon went to Spain to make that movie onward, Beatles albums always came with the lyrics printed on the record sleeve.  Apparently he came to understand that people FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD (including Spain ...) wanted to know what The Beatles were actually singing about in their songs.

Again a nice gentle movie about a not exactly gentle time.


* Reasonably good (sense) translations of non-English webpages can be found by viewing them through Google's Chrome browser.

<< NOTE - Do you like what you've been reading here?  If you do then consider giving a small donation to this Blog (sugg. $6 _non-recurring_) _every so often_ to continue/further its operation.  To donate just CLICK HERE.  Thank you! :-) >>