Barbara

Quiet and somewhat deceivingly small German film that deals with the internal exile of a doctor in East Germany in 1980.  Banished to a rural hospital for having dared to seek an exit visa, Barbara is at first aloof and also continuing her plan to escape from the country and join her West German boyfriend. The stint in this small town near the Baltic Sea gives her new things to consider: a potential romance with a fellow surgeon who may also be there to spy on her, and patients that really need her help and have no one to turn to.  Good photography and recreation of the rather bleak era when you could trust no one and when life was so boring, espionage was a national hobby.  Nina Hoss is a haunting heroine and the rest of the cast support well in this feature by Christian Petzold.

★★★★

Stranger by the lake

Much acclaimed gay suspense movie which I felt captured certain moments well and had things to say about why we stay with people we know could do us harm.  However, I would not rate it as anything that special.  The much touted humour of the police inspector lurking around the gay beach is rather unamusing and the rather repetitive shots of cars arriving and going don’t make for a masterpiece.  Mainly, one could applaud the openness of the theme – showing cruising at this type of place very clearly.  Not much more and I do not see why it got so many nominations for the French César awards.

★★+

Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom

It has some important scenes and of course, the life it depicts is one of the most inspirational of our time.  However. I found it hard to get too excited with Mandela.  It sort of picks and chooses from a long and eventful life, gives us many clichéd scenes and ends up boring us by being too long and throwing in bits of all moments.  Idris Elba is totally correct as Mandela even though they don’t look much alike.  Much better as the older man.  Naomie Harris portrays the more interesting and stroppy Winnie though one senses that it comes across as all rather simplified on screen.  None of it is badly done but the film does lack the inspiration of the life.

★★★

Azul y no tan rosa

Venezuelan film which serves up various controversial current issues. Diego is a fashion photographer whose partner, a doctor, is brutally mugged and died (increase in violence in society and gay-bashing). Friend Perla Maria is subject to domestic violence.  Another friend Delirio Del Rio is transgender and struggling to be accepted. And his 15 year-old son comes back from Spain to be with him and this results in the own family difficulties to live with the other.  Son is possibly anorexic.  Of course, Diego’s job is all about image so the implications of a society obsessed with that underlies everything.  It is interesting to see this side of Venezuela and the film starts well enough but by the end you feel the strain of so much obvious preaching and it comes across as forced.  Guillermo Garcia and Hilda Abrahamz effective in the leads.

★★+

In your eyes

Recent independent movie billed as a supernatural love affair.  Rebecca, a doctor’s wife in New Hampshire and Dylan, a parolee in New Mexico discover they have a direct channel to each other’s thoughts and visions and start up a friendship to help them deal with being misunderstood in their respective environments.  Sweet but absolutely nothing very original here.  Zoe Kazan and Michael Stahl-David act well.

★★

Días de Vinilo

Argentine comedy about 4 nerdish guys who love the music from old 33 records and their struggles to make it in the adult world knocking 40 years old.  The famous focus is on the romantic side of things with each of them having a situation with a woman to deal with.  Not especially original but it is pleasant enough with some talented actors led by Gastón Pauls, Fernán Miras and, for the women, the  always excellent Inés Efron.  Good photography and some nice music.  Gabriel Nesci directed and wrote it and it shows his passions and his limitations.

★★+

La Grande Belleza

Winner of the Oscar for Best Foreign Film.  A somewhat meandering glance at life by Jep Gambardella, a writer and journalist who is dedicated to La dolce vita in Rome – parties and events ranging from the surreal to the tragic in which the local wealthy play a hedonistic lifestyle.  At 65 and facing his own demise he takes stock of his life and of those around him and uncovers all the contradictions of the society – the botox parties, the sado masochistic art, the reverence for religious figures, the hiring out of “actors” as minor nobility, the culture of play over work.  It is done in a somewhat non-lineal way but provides plenty of eye openers as scenes even if the plot is thin and the pace is slow.  Toni Servillo as Jep is excellent and conveys the sadness and confusion wonderfully.  And of course Luca Bigazzi’s images of Rome are sublime and make it the real protagonist.  A film to watch again and yet I wouldn’t say it was wonderful as much as a very interesting scan of a side of Roman life years after Fellini and Cinecitta.

★★★★

Borgen – Season 1

This time I will comment on a TV series.  I hardly ever watch an entire series these days but something drew my attention to this Danish production of much international acclaim.  It traces the first year of a new and surprise PM of a coalition government in Denmark.  Birgitte Nyborg is a moderate and idealist and her anti-corruption stance together with some opportune stumbles by her opponents lead her to being asked to form a government.  From there on in it gets harder and harder as she deals with scandals, diplomatic issues, dissent within her own ranks and the relentless attacks, much of it underhand by the opposition and opposition press.  Nyborg (superbly played by Sidse Babbett Knudsen) discovers more talents and strength at the same time as she suffers the effects of living a busy public life – especially with a disintegrating family unit.  The other axis of the show is centred on the newsroom of the country’s top TV channel with star interviewer Katrine Fonsmark, a smart, also idealistic and at times difficult journalist.  Linking the two worlds is her ex-boyfriend Kasper who is now the PM’s spin doctor.  While the show has many glossings over, it is a fascinating and fast-moving look into the backstage of politics and the compromises and tough decisions necessary to survive in this world.  Excellent.

★★★★++