Arrival

Classy sci-fi movie about the arrival of aliens in 12 ovoid spaceships and the efforts of a linguist to establish contact with them.  Almost low-key in its approach and certainly slow in the beginning, the film comes to a satisfying and thought provoking conclusion. Denis Villeneuve knows how to create the atmosphere and Amy Adam’s excellent low-key lead holds together an intriguing film.  Johan Johansson is again in fine form with the music,  and Bradford Young creates a mutedly beautiful photography.  It might not be everyone’s cup of tea and there are few changes of tempo but it is a film I would watch again and one that lived up to imaginings of great sci-fi stories so credit to all involved.

★★★★+

Que horas ela volta?

Not the first time we have seen a film about the maid of a rich household from South America.  This Brazilian comedy is very well constructed by Ana Muylaert, giving us both a poignant view of this modern form of enslavement (Val, the protagonist left her daughter in another city many years before to work in Sao Paulo and hasn’t seen her since) and a sort of comedy of manners of the do’s and don’ts of upstairs/downstairs.  The fun starts when Val’s headstrong daughter Jessica (Camila Márdila) comes to town to apply for a place in an architecture school and stays for a few days in the house ignoring all the protocol.  The listless father (Lourenco Mutarelli) falls in love with her, the mother Bárbara (excellent Karine Teles) gets annoyed and son Fabinho sees her as a potential girlfriend.  Val is horrified and her peace is shattered.  Somehow everything is resolved in an interesting and liberating ending.  Regina Casé is excellent as Val, a natural comedienne, and shines in every scene.  First really great performance of the year.  Overall, a satisfying, competent film which effortlessly blends different moods.

★★★★

The Hollars

American comic tragedy about a dysfunctional family getting through their mother’s brain tumour operation.  Although there is a good cast led by the ineffable Margo Martindale, Richard Jenkins as her absent-minded hubby, John Krasinski and Sharlto Copley as the sons and countless others, I felt I had seen it all before with more pathos and more imagination.  It’s a wet afternoon type of movie and not really bad but there is nothing to lift it up at all.

★★

Leopardi: Il giovane favoloso

The historical artist biopic is not my favourite genre as a rule but this Italian film of their famed early 19^th century poet is rather good. Giacomo Leopardi was a very capable artist and yet suffered a debilitating illness that people confused with consumption.  He died young and largely misunderstood.  Elio Germano is convincing in the lead role and doesn’t overact the hump back, etc, which is a blessing.  Michele Rondioni plays his good friend Antonio Ranieri who despite being a catch for the local young women, throws in his lot with Leopardi and supports and nurses him to the end.  Leopardi’s own family are conservative, from a small village and place many restrictions on him.  Being a natural free spirit, he wants to escape, to Florence, Rome and finally Naples where he initially feels better because of the climate but finds the local people uninspiring.  There is a sequence of him visiting Pompeii and later witnessing Vesuvius in eruption that is impressive as is the cholera outbreak in Naples.  All told, it is a sober film, perhaps a trifle long but a very useful insight into a time and a person I knew little about.

★★★★

Before the Flood

Leo DiCaprio produced and presented docu on global warming and the threat to our planet.  More visual and less theoretical than Al Gore it shows DiCaprio as UN Ambassador travelling the world and seeing the effects of industrialisation and farming on the planet.  Some beautiful images and clear messages towards the end but the power of the fossil fuel businesses and the lack of political will to change this stands out.   We need more of this type of stuff especially with personal stories like the Kiribati President trying to relocate his people as his island sinks.  DiCaprio is sufficiently humble in it all.

★★★+

Sicario

Somewhat disturbing film topic wise but rather well-filmed all round.  Emily Blunt plays Kate an FBI agent in the south of the US who is chasing up kidnap victims in Arizona.  She is asked to volunteer for a mission involving the Mexican drug cartels and headed by a freewheeling Josh Brolin.  His right-hand man is the mysterious Alejandro (excellent Benicio del Toro) who has more than his fair share of history in the field.  So, off she goes into action, supporting a convoy mission to Ciudad Juarez to bring a drug baron back to the US and then later to discover a tunnel used for smuggling people and products into the country.  As time goes on she realizes that her presence serves other darker purposes.

The topic is heavy and dead bodies and shoot outs are everywhere.  The photography by Roger Deakins is excellent contrasting moon like desert landscapes and heavy often beautiful skies with the claustrophobic conditions inside tunnels or places where bodies have been abandoned.  Johann Johannson gives us a quietly pulsing soundtrack to accompany Denis Villeneuves astute direction.  The films starts with a bang but it is only later that things really wratchet up and in between the action there are bitter moments of reflection.  Blunt, as a woman on a sort of drug war rite of passage, is increasingly convincing as the circumstances seem likely to break her.  All in all, an effective thriller and a sober tale on life for many people in the drug world today.

★★★★+

L’Avenir

Much lauded French film by young director Mia Hansen-Love.  It certainly flows beautifully and is very low-key and it does portray a turning point in the protagonist´s life.    Nathalie is a philosophy teacher.  Her rather dull husband´, who has the same profession, leaves her for someone else.  Her mother finally loses it, tries to commit suicide theatrically and later dies in a geriatric home, her children are growing up and leaving home and her books are being taken off her publisher’s catalogue as old-fashioned.  So in all these fields she has to start again.  Her one ray of hope and friendship is a brilliant former student Fabien, who is a bit of an extremist and also starting to be noticed as a writer of philosophy books for kids.

Isabelle Huppert plays the role of Nathalie effortlessly and it is her movie for sure.  It is a type of character we’ve seen her play before but she does nuance so well.  Much of the crisis happens off-screen and this is really a picture of how she picks herself up and copes with it all.  Perhaps the fact that it glides along so well is a tribute to the director but I did find it a little quiet and repressed at some points.  Roman Kolinka is an interesting new face as Fabien and the rest of the cast perform well.  Good but not wow in my opinion.

★★★★

A Second Chance

Something of a train wreck of a film in my opinion.  Susanne Bier’s latest with many of the solid production values of the Danish film maker.  The problem is that the story is both rather uninviting and rather hard to believe however many moving scenes of acting there are.  It revolves around two babies, one who dies and one who survives and the swapping of these by a policeman to get the arrest of one of the parents. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau holds the centre together as best he can but it is his support that have more interesting roles: Ulrich Thomsen as his colleague, Maria Bonnevie as his wife who goes crazy and Nikolaj Lie Kaas as the druggie parent.

I watched the film to the end but with that sense of having to finish an unpleasant meal. And by no means sure that it was good for me despite the aspirations of the director to give us a sort of moral tale.

★★

Baisers Cachés

A small French movie which despite some clichés and extreme characterisation, does a pretty good job at depicting aspects of bullying in contemporary France.  In fact with social media and the like, the effects are probably far worse in reality but also the support for the victim.  In this case, Nathan (Berenger Anceaux) is pretty much left alone to fight his battle.  New kid in town, he kisses a boy, Louis (Jules Houplain), at a party and the photo someone took goes viral.  Nathan is ostracised at school and only two teachers stand up for him, the rest including the headmaster think that opening it all to debate is asking for problems from the community and in fact promoting homosexuality.  Louis rejects him and tries to continue a celibate affair with a classmate.  Nathan’s dad (Patrick Timsit) is a policeman who comes round when he sees his son is beaten up at school (Why didn’t he press charges against the school and the boys concerned?).  Meanwhile, Louis has his doctor father (Bruno Putzulu), a raging homophobe who thinks that boxing will knock sense into his son.  Louis can’t fight nature though and gets back in contact with Nathan, after which his father locks him in the house and finally the mother starts to question her husband’s attitude.  By this stage Louis is about to jump off a high place.  I think one of the messages here is that people are too slow to detect the bullying and support the victim and interesting a teacher who suffered at school for being a lesbian says she still feels afraid at school.  Just shows how conservative the places are and how individuality is not protected.  So, yes a film with faults but a clear message too.

★★★

Snowden

Something of a film event due to the subject matter and the return of Oliver Stone to some semblance of form after many years.  I liked the movie.  It is no classic but it does give us a solid biopic about the man who blew the whistle on the NSA and the abuses of surveillance in the US and the world.  For some reason many critics lambasted it but I think it is an honest and correct effort within the parameters Stone set himself, which was basically to tell the story rather than argue the points.  Moreover, the lack of “shouting” is a positive element for him.  Joseph Gordon Leavitt does an excellent job portraying Snowden who starts as a geek but ends up a geek with a conscience.  Shailene Woodley is all right as his girlfriend but I wasn’t over convinced by her.  There are some good smaller roles, Rhys Ifans as a sepulchral mentor shines and Nicolas Cage as a fellow whistleblower make their mark.  Quieter but equally effective are Melissa Leo as the filmmaker, Zachary Quinto as the journalist who broke the story, Tom Wilkinson and Joely Richardson of the Guardian.  So quite a bit of firepower in the acting.  Nice music topped off by a Peter Gabriel song especially commissioned one would think.  Definitely a candidate for Social Conscience film.

★★★★