nhoney1

Rating: 6/10

It took me a while for me to realise this is not a standard romantic comedy. The first half of the film more or less fits the romantic comedy conventions, but then the second half progressively moves away from them.

I liked the way that the movie showed some of the problems that can arise from intergenerational relationships. The characters of the three friends were nicely drawn, each being, not too extremely, contrary to the stereotype of their occupations.

The film did, however, continue the romantic comedy tradition of having a casual disregard for plausibility. Even the most love-struck head of a school is unlikely to give the students the afternoon off. And while I did enjoy the wedding scene, it was beyond the bounds of plausibility. In spite of the serious bits, the film is essentially light and trivial, rather than deep or artistic.

I eventually realised that, in spite of the central role of the romantic interest, the film is actually about the friendship between the three women. And that brings me to the major flaw of the film as a story. Aspiring authors are advised to consider how their protagonists are changed by the events described in the story. If there is no change, you have to wonder what is the point, what was the story trying to say? In ‘Crush', there is no change in the relationships between the friends, or even real change in the women themselves, regardless of the various things that happened. The film started with the friends together, gossiping about their lives, and it ended exactly the same way.

The film was enjoyable enough and easy to watch, which is fine if all you want is a light piece of entertainment.

Rating 6/10

I found it hard to enjoy the film much. It was not easy to be sympathetic to the protagonist. She moped around and was rather dull. I know Antonia's husband had just died and she then discovered his dread dark secret, but even so she did not provide a strong core for the film to be structured around. The film contrasted the coldness and sterility of her life (didn't she have any friends?), with the warmth of her dead husband's lover and his circle of friends. The movie didn't give any convincing reason why she wanted to insert herself into her dead husband's secret life, or why his lover and circle of friends wanted her in their lives. Then when she didn't need them any more, she moved on.

Another difficulty was that I had trouble deciding what the film was trying to say. I might could describe it as a 'slice of life', but that is something of a cop-out unless you can define what particular slice of life the film is trying to show. Otherwise, you might just as well have a camera following some random family going about its normal business. Oh yes, we do and it's called reality TV. And no-one has ever accused reality TV of having any pretensions of having any intellectual or artistic value.

I thought for a while that the main theme was the importance of honesty and the cost of keeping secrets. But then Antonia had her own secret that she was quite happy keeping, for no good reason that I could see. I ended with the conclusion that the film is about the widow coming to terms with her husband's death. But does that mean that the husband's homosexual side was nothing but a plot device of the worse possible thing that a wife could find out about her husband?

That brings me to the question of why is the film titled "Ignorant fairies"? Sure, it describes a particular plot device and it refers to the fact that the lover and many of his friends were gay. But does fairy have the same negative connotation in Italian as English? And why ignorant? If anything, it was Antonia who was ignorant because of her unawareness of her husband's secret life.

By the end of the film I was left feeling vaguely uneasy about the intentions of the director and the subtext of the film.

Rating - 7/10

The story couldn't be simpler, as it is about a little girl who is trying to get a bunch of blue flowers for her mother's birthday.

I am always ready to walk out of a move that I don't like, as I am not a subscriber to the attitude of suffering through a film to the end, just to "get your moneys worth". On the contrary, there is a great sense of relief and pleasure in escaping a dog of a movie. The drawback, however, is that I am sometimes too ready to walk out of a film before giving it a fair chance. That almost happened with Iris.

But what I did eventually appreciate was that the point of the film is a portrait of rural life in a small island somewhere near Sicily. We saw this largely from Maria's perspective, in her encounters with various adults. Each encounter was a separate small story about that person. The relationships between Maria and the rest of her family was also shown. She was a truly stubborn little girl, who bent her entire family to her will. But the story of the family was ultimately heart-warming, although never saccharin-sweet.

The children, Maria and her older brothers, were very natural and convincing, in their speech and behaviour. An example was how easily Maria was distracted from her quest for the flowers.

There were some nice cinematic touches, such as when Maria was walking through the market and the film was cropped to just above her head. This meant that all we saw of the adults was from the waist down, that is, from Maria's perspective.

One small gripe I have about this and a number of other Italian films I have seen over the years, is that the actors often seem to be shouting, judging from the volume and tone of voice. And this can occur, even when the dialogue doesn't seem to justify it. I don't know whether they are bad actors, or it is a particular cinematic style sometimes used in Italy, or whether Italians commonly speak like that.

By the end of the film I came to appreciate the simple and subtle pleasures of seeing the portrait of island life and Maria and her family.

This film is a celebration of the Greek family and it is successful in doing this. But while watching a large family, full of quirky characters, with noisy and chaotic interactions, can be enjoyable, amusing, and even funny at times, it does not, in itself, make for much of a comedy.

The main problem is a lack of dramatic tension. There is a small amount in the transformation of Toula from restaurant drudge to attractive travel agent, which did involve a funny scene, but that piece of comedy was soon over. Toula and Ian got on well from the beginning. This is more natural and original than the standard romantic comedy, where girl meets boy, they either hate each other at first sight or for some other reason can't be together, and at the very end they manage to get together after all. This is completely unoriginal, but, and I cringe to write this, it does create some dramatic tension which can let the comedy work.

Ian is always accepting of Toula's Greek heritage, so there is only a small amount of humour in his being an outsider. By the time Toula's father finds out about Ian, the couple's relationship is solid, so there is minimal opportunity for conflict and the development of comedy. There is some comedy in the contrast between Toula's and Ian's families, but his parents are peripheral to the story, so the amount of humour that could be generated was minor.

The film is a portrayal of a large, close-knit, family, for the audience to enjoy and laugh at. But there is limited humour in the plot, or even the two main characters, and so ultimately it is limited in its success as a comedy.

Delphine is uncomfortable in company and keeps people at arms length. She then retreats from their overtures of friendship and emotional engagement and ends up alone, which she doesn't like. As a result, she is miserable most of the time. This leaves Delphine with the dilemma of how can she find someone to be with, when she wont make an effort and rejects everyone else's efforts.

The title translates as ‘the green ray', which refers to the brief flash of green that can sometimes be seen just as the sun sinks below the horizon, out to sea. I have seen this just once and it was a magical moment. It's too bad there were precious few magical moments in the movie. The green ray is significant to the film, hence the title, and reflects Delphine's search for insight into her own thoughts and feelings. You will have to see the movie for a lengthy explanation of the cause of the green ray and what this has to do with insights and where Jules Verne comes into all of this.

It is possible to attach all sorts of interpretations of the significance of the green ray to Delphine's story, such as her relying on an outside agency to magically transform her, rather than her making any effort herself. This would make it a very subtle film, but none of this is actually portrayed on screen, so it is probably not subtle at all and it is probably just a matter of the viewer trying to find something deep in the movie.

The production values of the film are low, even amateurish. The cinematography is flat. The sound quality is poor, as the microphone is insufficiently shielded from wind, surf, traffic and other extraneous noises. The dialogue is largely improvised, which would explain why there are long conversations dwelling on topics of limited interest.

The dialogue does not develop plot, which is limited, but instead is used to explore Delphine's character. It is effective in doing this, which leads me to the uncomfortable conclusion that the film was successful in what it was trying to do.

The problem with a film that portrays a woman who is emotionally awkward and unappealing is that the film is then emotionally awkward and unappealing to watch.

The best comedy is often based on something real. This gives the audience something it can relate to and can provide a real bite to the comedy. The topic may not be funny, as is the case in this movie about how we can mistreat our elderly. But by finding the humour in the subject and poking fun at it, it makes the audience acknowledge the topic, even if only briefly.

The movie is the story of Mrs Caldicot and her fight against bullies for the right to be her own person. It is about the triumph of the 'little woman', that is in the sense of common ordinary folk, although it is also the sort of condescending description that her late unlamented husband may well have used to describe her.

The movie is, however, a caricature, with no shades of grey. The bad guys are so completely bad, the rest home is so horrible, and Mrs Caldicot wins so overwhelmingly. She even ends with a romantic interest. The film makers had evidently decided that as the movie had moved well away from reality, much like several of the inmates at the rest home, they felt no need for any restraint in devising a happy ending. The saddest thing about the film is that even though rest homes are not, I hope, as bad as portrayed, we often do not treat our elderly as well as we could, and in real life there is no happy ending.

However, the movie does not pretend to be anything but a light-hearted comedy. It was always amusing and at times extremely funny. Who would have thought that seeing one of the characters placing a newspaper over his fac e could have been so funny, and there was a delicious irony in the situation he had found himself in. Many of the people in the audience I shared the theatre with were on the mature side of life (alright, old) and they found the movie highly amusing, perhaps because it had a particular resonance for them. They also laughed at several jokes that went right over my head. Never mind, my time will come soon enough.

This is the story of a bunch of old geezers who take their dead friend's ashes down to the sea and toss them off the end of the pier. It is not a film that will appeal to the under-25 demographic, but I enjoyed it. the more I thought about the film afterwards, the more impressed I was with it. It might appear that the film is about the end of life, but it is not depressing and it ends, even as those ashes are tipped into the wind and rain, remarkably upbeat, emotionally.

The film tells the story of Jack and his friends and family in flashback. From these we gain insights into their characters and relationships and come to understand how their stories lead them to the present day.

In some sense this is a mystery, as there are several intertwined stories that are slowly revealed by the flashbacks. In addition, the flashbacks don't follow strict chronological order, so it is a matter of piecing them together to make sense of everything. I liked the effect of the flashbacks slowly revealing the characters' stories, as it is very much like real life. You meet someone you nothing about, but over time you learn something of their past from random fragments of information that are let drop.

The movie mostly rings true, but there are several minor episodes that seem contrived. For example, Ray denies knowing anything about a certain sum of money. The only reason for him to do so is that the audience did not yet know the end of that particular story.

Jack is played as an old man by Michael Caine. A striking piece of casting is JJ Feild, who plays Jack as a young man. He looks exactly as I imagine Caine would have as a young man.

The story reveals a period of more than 50 years. If it had been told in chronological order, it would have been, like so many sagas, fragmentary and it would not have worked. Instead the film takes place over the course of a single day, which gives it coherence, with the flashbacks providing richness and depth.

This is a subtle portrayal of Jack and his friends that is deeply satisfying.

The total lack of originality in the title was an omen of what the film was like. The movie was uninspired, unoriginal and full of every World War II cliche. My thoughts as I watched the film was that this looked like a made-for-TV historical drama, but maybe I am being unfair on TV movies.

The story was set in NZ in 1942 and was effective in its portrayal of Kiwis and NZ society at that time. But it was the cliches that was too much for me. I will give just two examples of this.

The soldier goes absent without leave so that he could escort his wife from Wellington to Auckland. Why she couldn't get on a train and go on her own was unclear. At the train station he drops his suitcase and it bursts open, revealing his military uniform. This of course happens all the time, you are always seeing people in train stations and airports all over the world dropping their suitcases and having them burst open. After the soldier gathers everything together, a voice calls out 'Hey you, stop' and somehow I just knew that the soldier had dropped something and it was being returned, which was the case.

Later the couple were working on a farm, helping with the harvest. As one does when one is urgently trying to get to Auckland so that the soldier can return to the army. Then a warplane flew overhead. There appears to be a law of nature that when a warplane is flying over friendly territory and there is a camera below, the engine will fail and the plane will crash. And of course that is what happened here.

The film truly was 'absent without leave', but what was absent was an originality.