Fiona-39

This is not my favourite of the 4 Season's tales - I prefer both Autumn and Summer to this one. And it is almost a master class in deficiencies in the British education system, when the main characters can (very convincingly) argue the differences between Kantian perception over lunch, and when Jeanne, the teacher, defends philosophy at secondary school as teaching you how to live. And indeed she seems to be fine with a rather strange situation, being essentially courted by a daughter on behalf of her father (and in fact Rohmer takes up this theme again in Autumn when a woman does date someone as a proxy for her friend). It is a film that requires slow contemplation and which doesn't open up its secrets easily - rather like the location of the necklace, the Hitchcockian MacGuffin which is but a pretext for the poisonous atmosphere between the two girls and whose eventual revelation changes nothing in the basic situation.

This film is an extremely moving experience. Ozon takes an unsympathetic, egotistical, trendy 'media' photographer, whose relation to the image is as superficial as his relations with his family. This character, played by Melvin Poupaud, who also played the main role in Rohmer's Conte d'ete (A Summer's Tale), is brutally told he has metastasized cancer and that his death is imminent. The film follows his journey. It does so with a care and a beauty that is marked by particularly beautiful shots- I would mention in particular the shots of the pink roses wilting; the children in the playground reflected in the café windows; the interest in old faces; and of course, the devastating final scenes at the beach. The interplay between this film and Rohmer's work is fascinating (recalled also through the actress Marie Riviere, who stars in The Green Ray, which also finishes with a sunset over a beach). Whereas Rohmer's sunset suggests hope for the future, and the inherent ambiguity of the image, Ozon's functions to suggest finality and closure, and at the same time, the fixity of the image - a photo, once taken, records for ever. The final moments are incredible - and by these I mean when the credits are rolling, and we hear the sound of waves washing over the beach. The inevitability of death and the cycle of life are transmitted to us through sound rather than image. Ozon's oeuvre is developing in all sorts of interesting directions and this piece points again to his place not just in the contemporary French cinematic landscape but his important engagement with European cinematic heritage (here Truffaut, Fassbinder, Varda, Rohmer, Bergman, to name only the most obvious references).

I'm going through a phase of catching up with Rohmer films I've missed, and this one was so good it's tempted me to post a comment again, something I haven't got round to for a while. It is perfect, typical Rohmer: location filming, very wordy script, indecisive characters...all in the service of Rohmer's film theory, that in cinema you use dialogue to tell (as in literature) and the camera to show. The interest and conflict come from the (inevitable?) mismatch between the two. Here, each of the characters needs desperately to believe that what they saw was the truth of the situation. At the end, Marion has learnt enough to know that her perception may be false. But she'll go on believing it anyway, because that is necessary to her sense of self. An excellent treatise on the way in which our perceptions are as important as the 'truth' of any situation. The colours in the film deliberately reference Matisse, and there is something of his style too: by showing the flat surface of the canvas, you both open up its beauty and reveal it to be a construction rather than a truth. The use of glimpses through windows adds a Hitchcockian dimension too. Another one to savour.

There is SO much going on in this film, but it has rhythm, pace, a great soundtrack, and enjoyable, charismatic performances, that kept me engaged from the word go. The editing owes something to 60s Godard - lots of jump cuts in the dialogue scenes - and 80s Rohmer - anguished 30 somethings worrying about true love - and possibly, in its tour de force final sequence, a reference to La Jetee, which is also of course about memory, fate, and mortality. And then there is the rather bizarre Audrey reference which opens the film: as Nora steps out of a black car, clutching her morning coffee, clothed in black, her hair wound up on her head, the strains of Monn River sound. So far, so post-modern. This is is a film that is freighted with filmic, literary, theatrical (esp Shakespeare and the Tempest) and artistic allusions, but that uses these in service of a specific point: that these cultural references and allusions make the web of our being - that art is how we communicate to each other (notice that all the characters communicate through art - the gift Nora gives her father, the music Ismael dances to, the book the father writes - even the 'murder scene' is filmed through a highly stylised mise-en-scene): that 'artifice' can reveal the deepest and most moving of human emotions. It is a beautiful film that will move you and make you leave the cinema feeling transported. And Deneuve is just great! I love the bit where Ismael asks her if anyone has ever told her she's beautiful, and she gives a slight twist of her lips, sighs, and says, yes, she has heard that before. Just because something has become cliché, doesn't mean it's not true.

This is not your usual biopic. It is more of a rumination on those big abstract topics the French love so much: what is a legacy? Where is French glory to be found? Does France even have any resonance or sense any more in the face of globalisation/EU? The meanings of Frenchness are clearly articulated here by Guediguian's camera which lovingly records fields of hay, Chartres cathedral, and the lined faces of the 'travailleurs': it is here that the documentary impulse of the film lies, rather than in its tracing of Mitterrand's past, and here that we can see the links to Guediguian's more usual style and themes of filming with their socio-political investment in "ordinary" people. What seems to fascinate the film is less the issue of whether Mitterrand joined the Resistance in 42 or 43 (we never learn the "true" answer) but what happens to a man when he is in power. Mitterrand is closed in by grey doors in the beautiful Elysee palace which becomes a living prison of coldness (interesting the moment where he praises the colour grey). We never get a sense of the man having a family, even though he talks lovingly of a daughter: we see him constantly surrounded by men in black, with him out of a sense of professional duty rather than because they care for him. Power cuts you off from those you are meant to serve...Mitterrand's closest relationship is to the petrified former rulers of France. A chilling portrait of what happens when a man turns himself into an icon. And a movingly brilliant performance from Bouquet, who perfectly captures the horror of the body that slowly falls apart...The film ends on a note of hope for the future, with the birth of a child and the forming of a new relationship: but it is noticeable that it is in the private sphere that Guediguian places hope for the future: the hope of a committed leftist project has perhaps died along with Mitterrand.

I enjoyed this a lot: it seems people who didn't had in mind the 1971 Gene Wilder version, and this is v different. It's been years since I read the book, so couldn't get too annoyed on the whole changing the book thing. What I really wanted to add my ha'penneth about was the sheer cinematic intelligence on display: from the moment the young Wonka steps out of the 'hall of flags', we have some v witty visual jokes about cinematic cliché. My favourite reference has to be to 2001: a Wonka chocolate bar as the mysterious glowing objects among the apes (after we've just heard the famous soundtrack). It could be simple a homage, but it's a thought-provoking reference too, with Wonka's amazing elevator able to take to the skies as well and also him seeming to be virtually ageless. There's a creepiness about his factory that mirrors some of the creepiness of outers-pace in 2001 and Solaris. Just a thought. (ooh, there's a funny Psycho reference too).

This is a film that escapes the aim of the serious "movie review". It just has to be seen and experienced! The news that a midnight showing is happening in your town should make your quiver with antici......pation. And dig out your fishnets, basques and high heels (and that's just the boys). The film experience, even with live action cast playing along, does not equal the brilliance of seeing it totally live (Jason Donovan as Frank 'N' Furter has to be one of the most surreal and heart warming sights in the world) BUT it is the next best thing and livens up a dull Saturday night no end. It is a totally different viewing experience from the usual - talking back at the screen is positively encouraged, and dancing in the aisles too. It does lose it a bit at the end BUT 1) Susan Sarandon - marvellous Janet (slut!) 2) Richard O'Brien - sets up that campy persona that also worked brilliantly on the long lamented Crystal Maze (Channel 4 TV show from the 80s) 3) Tim Curry! The close up on his heels as he comes down in the lift... 4) The opening number with the disembodied lips - an absolute classic and cinematic genius too

are enough reasons for even the shiest among you to give it a whirl.

Well, I've indicated a spoiler, but there's not really much to spoil - the couple break up at the end. I found the film rather clumsy to be honest - the Antartica metaphor was rather too tacked on. It wasn't clear that Matt's job is something to do with Antartica, and the comment that "in the open sea, icebergs melt" was a rather heavy way of expressing what is now practically a cliché: that relationships flounder when they have to deal with 'real life' and it's a lot easier when you create your own intimate space. And the film lets us into the couple's space, but in a very unadventurous way, which is disappointing when compared to Wonderland or Butterfly Kiss. The woman is narrated by the man and is primarily an object of his gaze (especially in the masturbation scene). It's the woman as the white continent: unexplored, and unknowable, even if we do get the odd up the vagina shot. Freud himself could have made this film!! The soundtrack is fantastic though, and the Primals really are just fab. Bobby Gillespie is a rock god. Shame that the film doesn't go as deep as the main character's member.

This film starts with the sound of heavy breathing and the camera tracking backwards and forwards, keeping the bright white moon in sight. This opening sets up the key visual and aural themes of the film: heavy breathing, the inability to express oneself in articulate speech, the inadequacy of speech and then the moon - symbol of ancient pagan belief and the "miracle" of modernity, progress and science. In the midst of these philosophical motifs is a breathtakingly sad story of child abuse and sexual violence, handled with admirable restraint and sympathy. Wonderful poetic moments too - the close-up on the kettle reaching boiling point or the shock of the final revelation of the child's face. An amazing achievement by Mclaverty, and a film that speaks volumes in a very sparse, pared down, controlled use of sound and image.

This film left me rather cold to be honest. I found it incredibly difficult to keep track of who was who (maybe the glass of red wine I had before going in didn't help!)and as I kept forgetting who was Biscotte and who was Bachelotte and who was Machin-truc in Bingo-Crepescule it all got a bit too much. All those years of watching modernist master-pieces don't pay off when it comes to following plot! It was an easy film to sit back and admire the cinematography in, and the references to early cinema - the realism of Lumieres and Melies' fantastical journeys both play a role here - and on one level it works (Virilio's thesis on war and cinema comes to mind) but the whimsical aestheticisation of mass slaughter is a mite troubling at times. The ending is however WONDERFUL and very moving. It was hard to see how the film could avoid schmaltz or heartbreak, and the ending was judged perfectly. Mathilde comes to understand that what she was looking for, even if she finds it, won't be what she wanted, because the War has changed everything. Nothing can be the same again. And that message is delivered with a subtle finesse that makes the film.

This is another absolutely wonderful film from Ozon, who is clearly developing into the Fassbinder/Almodovar of his generation. Several comments here have dismissed his decision to relate the disintegration of a couple from finish to start as a cliché, a kind of throwaway editing game, but is far from that - it is a powerfully moving and affective device. We learn that the 'perfect moment' in this relationship, the moment when the boy and the girl swim together in the golden orange light of the setting sun, is the moment when the fantasy is still possible, before reality intrudes. The film effectively deconstructs some of the myths surrounding popular representations of romance and acknowledges just how bloody hard relationships can be sometimes. The lighting is also amazing - from the harsh blues of the birth scene (a harrowing section) to the golden colours of the beach sequence. Ozon is dabbling in genres here too - from rom-com to melodrama to porn - another subtle highlighting o the way cinematic convention codifies our experience of intimacy. A quite brilliant piece of film-making, and one that recalls the quiet intensity of sous le sable against the flashier excesses of 8 femmes or Swimming Pool.

This film is a brilliant meditation on the themes of guilt, forgiveness and redemption wrapped inside an absorbing and moving narrative. As others have commented, the first half hour or so is baffling, and you really do have to stick with it -it's more rewarding on second viewing really, when the opening scene (before the credits) of a naked Noami Watts and Sean Penn, followed by a scene of a dad with two young girls drinking milkshakes and begging to be allowed to stay for 'just five minutes more' gain a whole new pathos, and indeed are almost unbearably moving, in a way they can't possibly be on first viewing. The editing works extremely well though - it gives the film a haunting and dream-like quality. For me, the scene that really nails the movie is towards the end where Cristina (Noami Watts) and Jack (Benicio del Toro) exchange a glance and you understand she has been able to forgive him, and he feels some kind of reprieve from his living hell.

Only slight criticism: did not think Melle Gainsbourg's acting was up to the standard of the rest of this stellar cast.

A very wise and brilliant film, definitely worth a watch.

Maybe it was the fact I went for a few pints before seeing the film, but I did find my attention wandering at points. Some of the conversations just seemed too long - you wanted them to just be over, or the punchline was glaringly obvious before we got to it. The themes that Jarmusch comes back to again and again were I think better explored elsewhere (esp Night on Earth, a wonderful film). The contrasts of black and white were neatly handled however, and Cate's section really came alive. And then there was the final sequence - elegiac and haunting, it cast a different light over the whole film, and made me want to watch it again, thinking about how death is so close and all we have is these absurd moments really...Yes, don't watch this film if these kind of thoughts are not your thing! (And incidentally I went to see it in the same 'university cinema' as Bungle-9 and can report some audience laughter, but does not seem a crime to either a)study film or b)enjoy it).

I really enjoyed this film. I especially liked the langour of its pacing (helped by a wonderful soundtrack), certainly at the start where we simply observe the girls hanging out together drinking copious amounts of red wine and smoking constantly. Something about the timelessness, the heaviness of the heat, the bird song and buzzing insects caught perfectly that summer after 'A' levels where there is nothing to do but simply live, spend time with friends, and fantasies can take on a larger and more defined shape than realities. The 'lesbian' angle was handled deftly - though as another user commented, it would be good to see a film which manages to trace the intensity of female adolescent friendships without having them be sexual in nature - but this is a very special time, and the film caught that beautifully. The poignancy of Mona's existence was undersold as well, which gave it a greater power - she is the one who has truly suffered loss, whereas Tamsin... well, you have to make up your own mind about that. A minor film, but hits its notes perfectly.

This is a wonderful film. The BFI have got their act together and made a new print, so finally I get to se this - and to be honest I preferred it to La Dolce Vita (despite absence of Mastrionni - sexiest man in history of cinema). Anyway, some of these scenes were just breath-takingly beautiful, especially the aftermath of the carnival, where Angelo looks drunkenly at the clowns (about to become a key Fellini motif). What especially impressed was the soundtrack, which lurched from a fairly typical 'melodrama' score to brilliant use of natural sound, especially the cold wind whipping around the streets off the sea. This sound adds pathos, and helps you understand that sandra and Faustos' 'happy end' is merely temporary: this is a desolate place which makes for desolate lives. It differs from neo-realist classics such as Bicycle Thieves in that it places malaise into the spiritual and emotional realm rather than the financial, although you still get some sense that the boys' economic hardship is maybe not entirely voluntary. Really genuienely enjoyable on your first watch, something I don't think you can say about all Fellini's films, beautifully shot and wonderfully paced, you feel as if you have witnessed a little miracle watching this film.

This is a very clever film with a lot to say about life, death, sex, human relationships, human fragility and loneliness - but it does it all with a wonderfully light hearted touch. Luchini dancing just has to be one of the best scenes - eat your heart out Hugh Grant!! Bonnaire is quite wonderful as Anne, literally blossoming before our eyes, her hair lightening, her skin glowing, her dress changing, becoming lighter and brighter. It seems her accidental psychiatrist does help her. Of course, we never know the full truth - can we believe everything she says - and the device of the windows, so key to the film's turning point, is Hitchcockian in the extreme - vision as deception. The most wonderful insight of this film, though, is that paying taxes and dealing with deep disturbing psychological issues have similar concerns - what do you declare and what do you try desperately to hide? And of course, both actions are undertaken in the name of individuals integrating themselves into society. Another excellent film from Leconte. Just because it is so polished and masterful story telling doesn't mean that it doesn't address other issues that a director such as Rohmer would tackle.

This was a fun film, well told. The change to a darker, more adult theme is set up from the start with grainy film and hand-held camera work (two Columbus no-nos). It is interesting to compare it to Y Tu Mama Tambien. The themes of growing up, leaving one's parents, the inevitability of fate, the possibility of glimpsing the future... it's all in the two of them. Some of the visual stuff is great: the train icing up when the Dementers appear for example. BUT, but - as so many have said, and I have to enter my ha'penneth - this cuts too much from the book. There needs to be more dialogue - difficult when the director obviously was trying to keep something visual and pacy. But so much was left out that is intrinsic to the wonder of the book, which is so moving and wise (yes, really!) The connections between Pettigrew (Wormtail), Lupin (Mooney), Black (Padfoot), and James Potter (Prongs) are not touched on in the film AT ALL. And Dumbledore's final conversation with Harry, when he says it is our choices as much as our abilities that determine who we are. I know that a film can't be a book, but sometimes, just sometimes, you can do something even better. This falls between two stools - too faithful to be a complete re-imagining, too faithless to fully convey the reason why the books are so successful. Timothy Spall was a good rat though!

This is classic French farce, very theatrical with a 1920s score, entirely interior sets (best being the 3rd act bachelor pad) and ridiculous intertwining relationships. It is tempting to see it almost as an Amelie remake, complete with lush visuals and two leads from that film. It has the same romantic view of French life, the same emphasis on relationships, the same reliance on a sparkling performance by Tatou. It is slow, and hard to follow with subtitles - you really need to speak French to get much out of this (esp the excruiating accent of the American). Some interesting little touches - the spoken credits at the start (very Godardian!) and the way that characters leaving the stage just vanish. It is very witty, brittle and bright. A curiosity rather than a masterpiece.

An absolutely amazing film. I just loved the opening tracking shot down the Eiffel Tower and the bright palette of red. white and blue. Masterful use of tracking shots down the corridors, wonderful use of clips - esp the Godard reference. Loved the intercutting of present day and past J-P Leaud reading his defence of Langlois. This is a film about the dream that is cinema, even featuring a discussion of cinema as the primal scene between the two male leads in the bath tub. The soundtrack is just absolutely fantastic. The way it deals with the interaction of small intimate private places and huge public demonstrations is just wonderful, encapsulated in the moment when Isabelle and Matthew kiss in the street and turn to see the huge rubbish pile surrounding a lamp post. isabelle makes an eye-popping Venus de Milo too. Bertolucci is a bit obsessed with nudity (esp female nudity) but hey "nobody's perfect" (what's the film? quick!!)

You'd have to have a heart as cold as the landscape not to feel for the dreadful situation in which the characters in this film find themselves. They live in the snowy wastes of Armenia, deserted by the superpowers, struggling to eke out an existence through selling their old army uniforms, televisions, the vodka lemon of the title, and (in the case of the two young women) their bodies. Several of the key scenes in the film have the characters sat in the cold landscape, talking to their dead relatives. The sense of loss is palpable. I particularly enjoyed the set piece crowd scenes, though the friend I was with found them overly self-conscious. The only way this film can move towards resolution is through magic realism: by the time it occurs, it feels a fictional solution is the only one that can be offered. The two main characters, who have developed a relationship of sorts, turn their back on the commodification of their entire existence when they decide not to sell the piano, and instead, float home on it, in an image reminiscent of a Chagall painting. Hard to know what to make of this ending - sentimental cop-out? or final statement of resilience and hope? The landscape is stunning, the abstraction of the snow works to underline the fluidity of landscape, the sense of people lost between nations, between continents even(echoed in the looks of the young women, who seem to hover between European fullness and Asian exoticism). The vodka lemon of the title works to emphasise both the harshness of the existence these people have (they drink to forget) but also their underlying hope (they drink to celebrate) and finally the sense nothing is quite what it seems (it is called vodka lemon but tastes like almonds). Interesting enough and worth 90 mins of your time.

There seems little for me to add to all the comments posted here, most of which strike a similar note to how I felt: I enjoyed the film, loved Zellweger's performance (am just about forgiving her for the travesty that was Bridget Jones), admired the scenary but felt that it was just a bit too predictable and cheesy. SPOILER - I actually leaned over to my friend after Jude and Nicole had sex and said, 'ooh dear, he is going to die horribly now.' It was so obvious the film just couldn't let him survive. i thought the moment where they first met again was heart stopping though. Anyway, back to my initial reason for posting: loads of people seem to be expressing relief that Jude Law got the main role rather than Tom Cruise. But Tom Cruise would have been fab in this role!! Come on, he's versatile - think about Interview with a Vampire. He can do emotion etc. And he's ten times sexier than Jude Law. I guess Nicole wouldn't agree any more though!!

As the above comments reveal, this is a wonderful, deeply disturbing, but also riotously comic play. I did it for English 'A' level which was pure madness - difficult enough getting my head round it at my now considerably more advanced age. Having seen Ian Holm give a riveting performance in London as Max, I really leapt at the chance to see this as the local arts cinema and it was gripping. Ian Holm was fantastic, with more than a touch of the Del Boy about him (re-watch the play and see its Only Fools and Horses connections- the grotty flat, the brother-uncle-father dynamic, the dead worshipped prostitute mother etc) and Teddy was played with a wonderful swagger. The scene where all four of them stand in a corridor lighting their cigars was comic and tragic and menacing in the best way. But I really wonder how cinematic any of this was? You have the feeling of watching theatrical performance preserved in aspic rather than a film. The scene outside the flat was contrived and unnecessary and other than that pretty much all the action took place in one room. I feel we lost rather than gained from the live experience of watching a play. But, not having been alive when this film was made, it does mean I get to get a glimpse of a towering production of an amazing play. And that can't be a bad thing.

This is a load of irritating, stupid, annoying pretentious waffle. It is just AWFUL. All that stupid stuff about Alanis Morissette being God, and we're meant to be all shocked, because God is a woman. Woo hoo. radical. And then Matt and Ben just wonder round looking monumentally stupid, and the whole thing is incredibly tedious and boring with loads of talking and shouting. i watched it at the cinema by a terrible blunder, and it was on Tv again the other day, and I caught five minutes of it while channel hopping and felt instantly nauseous. This just has to be one of the worst films ever. It's SO DULL!!!

This is, I think, meant to be a cold film - its summing up moment for me is when we have an extended close-up of Gaelle's ring on the ground in the snow, the white gradually darkening with the stain of Bruno's dark red blood. The camera simply watches the beauty of the movement, enjoys its aesthetic simplicity, and refuses to pan back to Bruno and let us witness his emotion and what is going on with him as he slowly bleeds. This is a deconstructed road movie; Bruno goes on a mission to deliver a message - a message whose sense we never learn, and whose effects ultimately seem irrelevant or minimal. Each trip in the car sees Bruno get involved with increasingly desperate sexual couplings, but there is no sense that these will progress anywhere. Indeed, it is noticeable that this film emphasises the way in which Bruno is in fact rejected at places that connote not travel as such, but the (unromanticised) stasis that travel also necessitates - in getting lost, at the airport, at the car park. Not so much on the road, then, as off the road - our lives here are not so much the American myth of untrammeled spaces, more full of constraint, difficulty and so on. The question repeated throughout the film in reference to Bruno's putative Communism, but what about the wall, becomes symbolic for me of the film's whole point. Neither sexual desire, nor 'love', nor ideology, can overcome the blocking 'wall', the stasis that haunts us. The cuts to Bruno's hand are perhaps the least disturbing thing in this beautiful, cold, bleak film.

Good God, this shows us why the British film industry was never really going to be able to rival Hollywood. I kind of liked the bizarrely unmotivated musical numbers - especially one scene which featured abeehived girl in a rather fetching synch waisted dress but the plot was contrived in the extreme. The scene with his father was handled with an admirable restraint, but on the whole this film is just too embarrassed, too self-conscious, too aware of its own limitations. Hard to believe this comes from the same decade as Blow-Up - far more savvy about fashion and 'swinging' London