anwaldi-50-161997

I was really excited about watching Victor Erice's last film. So excited my intention was to go by myself to the cinema to not have to focus on anyone else.

Well. Long story short, a friend joined, and half way through the film I was already thinking of leaving. We decided to stay because we thought there must be turning point coming, we even started guessing what would be an interesting twist to a pretty much already lost plot.

There are so many aspects that went wrong in this film and the only conclusion is that people got together and put some money towards this beucase Erice was directing it, otherwise, there's no way to understand the nonsense, amateur quality, horrible storytelling.

No subtext, the principal narrative and EVERY sub-narrative was TOLD in detail by all the actors.

Not to mention the cliche tango theme, just to justify part of the co-production with Argentina.

Worst kind of writing 'hello, good morning', 'ok, by see you later', 'ok bye'.

One would not connect with any character, there was no space for empathy, the plot was the classical one in which you are expecting an intelligent twist or.... something, something! But nothing, this is as flat as it can get, an absolute waste of time, but worse than that, is that I really wonder... did Erice direct 'Spirit of the beehive' or was it a hidden person and he took the credit.

Appalling.

Some friends would call this 'sega mentale' - What a waste of resources

Years ago, I remember starting to watch Narcos a while ago and stopping it after 5 minutes. The actor had this uncomfortable presence on the screen. Almost annoying. Check out 'Pablo Escobar: el patron del mal' - that was a good acting/directing/script.

Now I started watching this Sergio film. I kind of thought that it would be a great political film, but no. Actually, the opposite.

Half way through the banal feeling of the film, I decide to check the cast, and there he is, Wagner Moura, totally sabotaging the person we are supposed engage to.

First i thought it might be the directing, or the script, but now I am sure that this actor is way overrated.

It works, although it has plenty of flashbacks to support the present story and finding an answer. A formula you have already seen, full of the good old clichés, for example, the incompetent, narrow minded, aggressive government HOD. An almost forced performance. What did upset my guts was the fact that China was the country declaring war. Hilarious. The TV set up with the flag in the background, etc was just like they were taking the position of what USA has been doing for decades with other countries. Sorry, I know this doesn't help, but politics and propaganda also takes place in films.

Remember when you were at film school or University and you had to choose a script, working in groups and there was always this classmate suggesting to make a film about "the guy that can't stop washing his hands due to some child trauma"? or about "the guy that can't go outside because he's scared of the exterior"? Basically, some guy with an irrelevant trauma that nobody cares about and it's not worth even talking about it? That's the machinist. Over explanatory conversations, overacted characters, trying to create tension and basically just making you feel like fast forwarding. Maybe it has some Spanish influence, unfortunately, form that 'new wave' of Spanish cinema that relies on the "gotcha!" twist at the end, unbelievable story lines and characters nobody cares about. This sounds very negative, but I had to do it. It annoyed me so much. There was a moment in the film you could guess what was coming next. The script is everything in any film, if you have a good script, you can have a great film, if you don't, then you might end up with The Machinist.

7th June 2011. I am 30 years old and live in London, UK. I was born in Gran Canaria and, a day like today, I happen to watch "La Belle Verte"...........

I haven't read many reviews of the ones already written, but I have seen that many people have given 10 out of 10. I also give 10 out of 10 because it somehow expresses that this "film" should be watched by everybody that needs to "wake up", to see our existence from the distance, with objectivity. It doesn't matter if some people claim that it gets "repetitive". That's just like saying that your mother's, girlfriend or boyfriend kisses are "repetitive". This film is pure LOVE. Forget about cinematography, or technicalities of filmmaking. This film is a film but it could well be a book, or a theatre play. Coline Serreau probably thought that in these days, with film this could get further, to everybody, that's why, I guess. There's only been another film that made such an impression to me: "Into the Wild". Thanks Coline. Thanks for helping me to continue to get re-connected. I keep trying.