Selma

Great history lesson about a momentous period of recent American history and the fight of the blacks in Georgia to get their voting rights recognised.  Ava DuVernay has assembled a very good cast and recreated the period pretty faithfully with washed out colour photography by Bradford Young.  In David Oyelowo, the director has found an excellent Martin Luther King, thoughtful, powerful and great when using his oratory skills.  Tim Wilkinson as Lyndon Johnson is a fine portrayal showing this talented actors capacity to change physiognomy and accent effectively.  A host of other stars appear: Tim Roth, Oprah Winfrey, Cuba Gooding, Martin Sheen and they all fit in seamlessly to the movie.  In all it is a well-constructed, solid film that avoids cheap shots and as a portrayal of a historical moment it is very sound.  I felt it lacked something, perhaps a creative touch that would have made it stand out from similar biopics and some of the scenes and speeches seemed a little predictable.  Perhaps we are all too familiar with King’s work.  Perhaps its treatment of the same topic as 12 years a Slave, albeit with many decades of difference meant it got fewer awards and less support than it should have.  Nevertheless, this is a very valid addition to the rank of social conscience films.

★★★★ +

Las Insoladas

After his urban comedy Medianeras, Gustavo Taretto returns with this very Buenos Aires film of 6 women spending all day on the rooftop getting a tan and planning a vacation in Cuba.  Set in the 90’s but apart from the absence of mobile phones, there is not much else to anchor it there.  It is probably better as a play because it comes across as being too talky and with little action, a couple of dances and musical interludes. What is good are the performances of the actresses – Luisana Lopilato surprisingly good, Violeta Urtizberea and the always reliable Carla Peterson stand out.  Photography and the steamy Cuban salsa are also good but despite some interesting typical dialogues from this part of the world, there is too much talk.

★★

The Reluctant Fundamentalist

This offering by Mira Nair doesn’t get the balance right but even so it is a more thoughtful and urgent movie than many.  Based on a best-selling novel it charts the journey of Pakistani financial whiz kid Changez Khan (excellent Riz Ahmed) from being a high flyer on Wall Street to a radical teacher in Lahore, preaching anti-US policies.  The way that the backlash against Muslims as a result of the Twin towers also had the effect of turning many of the pro-western ones back towards Islam is clearly portrayed here with the unequivocal message that the West really struggle to understand Islam or the Third World.  This is most clearly seen in Changez’s relationship with the photographer Erica (an interesting if not entirely convincing Kate Hudson). The contrast between Wall Street ethics and the East, seen in the scenes in Istanbul is a little heavily drawn but none the less valid.

What doesn’t work for me so much is the frame of the film – a supposed raid on a tea house in Lahore where Changez is being interviewed by locally based journalist Bobby (Liev Schreiber, also excellent) who is tapped by the CIA in the hope that Changez can give info on a recent US kidnap victim.  The very interesting flashback conversation between the two which was apparently the backbone of the book is less effective here and the suspense element of the raid is almost distracting.

Declan Quinn’s photography is superb and the use of local music adds a real plus.  On balance, a valuable film not to be dismissed.

★★★★

Paddington

This children’s film takes its inspiration from a set of books written in the 50s and 60s about a bear who goes from Darkest Peru to London and ends up fitting into life with an English family.  The books were quite quaint affairs and the film has been updated and twisted considerably to fit modern audience tastes.  Hence Paddington going on his daily rounds has disappeared and now he is being chased by a devilish taxidermist (Nicole Kidman in Cruella de Vil mode) who wants to stuff him and put him on display in the museum.  Amazingly enough it works as it combines loads of slapstick humour with the finely honed personalities of Paddington (ably voiced by Ben Whishaw), Mr and Mrs Brown (Hugh Bonneville and the ineffable Sally Hawkins), Mrs Bird (stalwart Julie Walters) and Jim Broadbent as Mr Gruber.  The pace is very upbeat, the gags are quite funny and the photography is first rate.  The CGI bear is adorable without being too saccharine and there is also a serious side with messages about inclusion in British society, though I would say the touch of having a calypso band playing on various corners is a touch too far.  Surely, this is the first in a series and although I miss the antiquated tales of Paddington, this is a more than acceptable replacement.

★★★★

Death in Buenos Aires

Something of an exercise in film-making one suspects for director Natalia Meta and her team.  Ostensibly this is a police thriller, or polar, as the French would call it about a police team trying to trace murders among drug traffickers in the underworld of gay cabarets, etc.  The real story is how detective Chavez (Mexico’s Demian Bichir) falls for his new team member, young El Ganso (Chino Darín) at the same time as he is having an affair with fellow police officer Dolores Petric (Monica Antinopolous).  Much in the way of plot is not apparent and the film´s main virtues lie in the recreation of the era with 80’s costumes and music.  The actors are adequate without really shining though Darín looks like following his father as a future talent.  At the end of the day, there is nothing here we haven’t seen before and it will probably be quickly forgotten.

★★

Two Lives

Both this film and the story it is based on have been largely ignored. Pity because there is a lot more to this than meets the eye.  The story relates to the revelations that apart from the Nazis getting Norwegian women pregnant to breed Aryan babies, which were later shipped to Germany to orphanages, the DDR regime later on used such babies as part of their espionage plan in Norway. This story revolves around a Katrine whose story is one of those but who has been living a happy life as mother, grandmother and daughter in Norway.  Whether she had worked for the Stasi is not sure and the film features flashbacks which help us to puzzle together the pieces.  Her hubby Bjarte is a stalwart naval captain, she has a daughter who is studying and bringing up a baby as a single mother and still alive is Ase, Katrine’s mother.  When in 1990 a German tribunal starts to investigate what really happened to the “Lebensborn” babies of Norwegian descent, Katrine’s world starts to fall apart.  Juliane Kohler is competent in the lead role but it is the rare appearance of the great Liv Ullmann as the mother Ase who steals the film.  She has limited dialogue but uses her wide open expressionful face to great effect.  She says it is her last film as an actress but she still has much to offer in her mid-seventies.

Overall, this is a well-made movie which recounts a rather chilling story.

★★★★

The Fifth Estate

Despite sharp photography and a relevant topic, this film on Wikileaks and Julian Assange is quite hard work.  While it tries to portray the rise of the organisation and the impact it had when the major leaks were made, it is also a portrait of the enigmatic and egotistical Mr Assange.  That also tilts it towards an anti-Assange point of view which may or may not be true.  The film is based on the books of two former Wikileakers who then dissented.

Cinematically, the first half is rather dry and the second half potentially picks up with Laura Linney and Stanley Tucci as American officials but it also confuses and ultimately with a lack of drama we just don’t care that much.  A pity because Benedict Cumberbatch is excellent in his portrayal of Assange.  While, the rest of the actors do what they can, the effect is rather more play acting than something really coherent as celluloid art.

★★

7 Boxes/7 Cajas

First Paraguayan feature film of any note in my memory at least.  It is a thriller cum farce set in the market of Asunción.  A large cast of characters are involved but action centres around Victor (Celso Franco) who has been given the job of transporting seven boxes on his cart from one part of the market to another.  Rival carters, pregnant women, blackmailers, the police and potential girlfriends all get involved as his task lurches from one obstacle to another.  Despite the rather serious context of small mafia activity, Juan Carlos Maneglia and Tana Schembori keep this flowing with humour and quick changes of focus helped by Richard Careaga’s authentic photography and the naturalness of the protagonists.  Anyone familiar with life on the ground in Latin America will laugh at this.  A satisfying first work without being a masterpiece.

★★★★