devikamenon

Imagine you are one of four partners of a highly successful technology firm. Imagine that you become frustrated with the government spending of your hard-earned tax money in your country, Spain, and decide to overcome the problem by committing tax fraud and stashing away millions in secure Swiss accounts. Now, the Spanish tax authorities smell a rat and are about to pounce on your clandestine accounts et al. You are all certain to go to jail for at least seven years. But. There is a way out. If one of you takes the fall, not all need to be imprisoned. One can save the other three.

How do you decide who makes the sacrifice?

This is the premise of the hot-off-the-press drama 7 Años. It premiered on the 28th of October, and thank you Netflix for bringing us this first original European Spanish production.

So, the four friends and business partners are Luis, Veronica, Marcel, and Carlos. Rather astutely, they hire a mediator to help them solve their conundrum. (Jose the mediator has a rather thorny task, obviously, but he's offered a cushy sum for his troubles.) The very fact that the four have hired him at all tells us something about them, and as we progress in this tight 77-minute drama, we see more and more of these characters.

Read full review at: https://devikamenon.blogspot.com/2016/11/foreign-movie-friday-7- anos.html

*Some spoilers ahead.*

This 2014 Italian confection is a retelling of the two-misfits-who- find-love tale, with a slight salting of 'reality' as perceived in its own universe. I must confess I'm less of a demanding film-viewer than reader. As such, I can be happy with sweetish stories like this one that offer not depth but simple engagement and curiosity.

The boy here is Roberto Marino, kleptomaniac, children's story writer. The girl is Beatrice Benassi, narcoleptic schoolteacher with some variety of amnesia problem as well. (The beauty of Italian names!) They happen to share a therapist, and it is here outside this building that Roberto becomes quickly enamored of Beatrice, tenderly watching her cross the street by skipping precisely over the white lines of a zebra crossing. In fact, after being an irritating git who keeps showing up with gifts for her, he finally gets her to soften by a cool trick he pulls in regard to this same zebra crossing.

The two become friends, the sort who hang out to eat gelato and talk about past hurts. She has a long-term boyfriend, though this does not deter the by-now less-annoying Roberto. In fact the director's nimble touch starts becoming evident here, when you realize that although things seem wafer-thin and airy, there is some substance beginning to emerge.

Read full review at: https://devikamenon.blogspot.com/2016/10/foreign-movie-friday-ti- ricordi-di-me.html

Netflix has decided for some unknown reason to take El Internado off the air. To be fair they did give me adequate warning, but on Friday I still went to watch it as usual of an afternoon and found that it had disappeared. Sigh. I feel bereft.

Anyhow, in memory of this slyly addictive show, I will do a review in its honor. Now at the outset I must say that no one was more surprised than me that I was so hooked, but the fact remains that it was strangely well-written for such a ludicrous premise. That premise being that there is a boarding school (the eponymous El Internado de la Laguna Negra) somewhere in rural Spain which attracts the kids of that country's elite, but there are mysterious events afoot with an abundance of underground passages, missing children from the school's history as a former orphanage, and adults with plenty to hide.

There is skulduggery, for lack of a better word, in every episode with breathtakingly foolish actions and impossible coincidences galore. However, to offset all this is the genuine chemistry among the cast and the almost constant thread of humor that lends the proceedings some lifesaving levity. At the center are the group of teenagers, the principal and teachers, the administrator Jacinta, and two staff members, Maria the cleaner and Fermin the cook.(We are to believe there is but one cleaner in a school of 400 students, but that is just one lapse to overlook because you are too addicted.)

Full review at:http://devikamenon.blogspot.com/2016/07/watched-el- internado.html#more

Set in L.A. in the 1930s! That alone made me want to watch Woody Allen's latest. I was curious to see how the city would look captured through the lens of an auteur who is known for his love of New York. My curiosity was rewarded for about half of the film, whence the narrative flies across the country and lands back in....New York.

Still, it's beguiling enough to see glimpses of L.A. in its "golden age" even in passing. (I recognized the Chinese theater and felt absurdly elated.) The photogenic California light has also been lovingly rendered, and used to impart the characters with the dreamy glow of being young and in love. Indeed, in love with two persons at the same time, as is the fate that befalls Vonnie once she meets the new L.A. émigré called Bobby who is the nephew of her boss.

Kristen Stewart- Vonnie- has come a long way since the days when she was stuck playing a vampire or something in an earlier film. Strangely expressionless and distant there (I could watch a mere 10 minutes), here she is all life- from her hypnotic green eyes to her intriguingly raspy voice. Well done, Stewart, I must say. She offset the almost-annoying facial tics and rushed speech of her second admirer, the naive Bobby (Jesse Eisenberg who will forever remain Mark Zuckerberg in my head) to a good degree.

So who is the other man Vonnie loves? He's married with children, much older, and is rich and influential in Hollywood. Ergo, complications abound. Due to which, Bobby runs back to New York. And this is where it struck me that the sense of place is central to these characters. Bobby loves New York. He can never be 'at home' anywhere but there, and thus is able to readily flee L.A. and heartbreak... even if going back home means he's had to grow up very quickly and transform himself into something altogether different from his L.A. self.

Read the rest of the review at https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g? blogID=12118878&pli=1#editor/target=post;postID=5895031821594559617; onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=0;src=postnam e

Lately I've come to appreciate small, intimate movies that are in the 'slice of life' style. This Italian gem I recently sampled is a worthy example.

The eponymous Gianni is a retiree in Rome, somewhere on the long end of middle-age. His wife still works, thus he is sent off on various domestic errands during working hours, and this he is content to do. Then there's his somewhat confused daughter and her equally shiftless boyfriend who has moved into their home. There's Gianni's rich, demanding mother who has him at her beck and call. And then there's his friend and peer Alfonso, a rakish lawyer who attempts to get Gianni off the straight and narrow and into the fast lane of late-age sexual/romantic dalliance.

Now this straight and narrow as it were, is very much Gianni's choice. It's just that he has reached a point where he is seemingly invisible to the young women around him. Invisible and inaudible. He is touchingly earnest in his realization, accepting it with a kind of shrugging melancholy. But he has the persistent Alfonso who keeps nudging him away from this acceptance; even if we don't know if Alfonso is actually successful with the young women himself.

And there are a few very beautiful women around poor Gianni. First, the downstairs neighbor, a hazel-eyed sprite who flirts with him relentlessly, turns out to have passed off her dog-walking duties on him. Then the identical blond twins, Alfonso's clients; Gianni's mother's caretaker; another woman who is an old flame, and yet another who is an old acquaintance: they make up the rolls as he shambles around amiably trying to see where he can get.

Read full review at http://devikamenon.blogspot.com/2016/06/foreign- movie-Friday-gianni-e-le-donne.html

Is there such a thing as true love at first sight? This film attempts to follow the course of three people's lives in the exploration of the question, even if there is no answer forthcoming. Is there ever?

One night in a small French town, a tax accountant named Marc has missed the last train to Paris and chances upon a woman in a hotel bar. They start talking, rather, he runs after her, and we're told they spend the night wandering around in perfect harmony. No names or numbers or other mundane details are exchanged, although they do promise to meet the next week at a certain location in Paris.

This seems to be the only time the two characters actually do something, as in, take a decision. From here on out, life just takes over. The meeting at the Jardin de Toulieres (jaw-droppingly beautiful, what is it with Paris and its gardens) never takes place. Marc is prone to panic attacks, you see. Or was it an actual heart attack? Anyway, the two would-be lovers are thus separated. Thereafter, Marc somehow meets another woman, falls in love, marries. But ah! this new woman, Sophie, unbeknownst to all, is actually the sister of the old one, Sylvie. Ergo, path to destruction has been charted.

Read full review at: http://devikamenon.blogspot.com/2016/06/french- movie-friday-3-coeurs.html

This 2011 offering has Audrey Tautou in it. Need one say more? Ever since I watched her as "Amelie" in 2001 I've been entranced, like the rest of the world. In the airy and whimsical "La delicatesse" she plays Nathalie Kerr, an essentially joyful soul who is suddenly widowed one fine day when her beloved husband dies in an accident. She loses herself in grief and takes recourse in her work, and only her work.

A few years pass before something unexpected happens. This something takes the shape of a tall, blond, endearing, sensitive and all-round decent (Swedish) guy named Markus Lundell who happens to be her co- worker. Nathalie and Markus play off each other's fears, in a way: she is under the shadow of her grief still, and he is so swept off his feet by his feelings for her that he is actually afraid of moving forward lest he hurt himself. Their back-and-forth is awkward, even clumsy; yet lighthearted enough to prise a smile out of the most jaded viewer.

More here: http://devikamenon.blogspot.com/2016/06/french-movie- Friday-la-delicatesse.html