30
August
2007
Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others; von Donnersmarck, 2006) Germany
This German film won the Academy Awards for Best Foreign Picture the year it released (2006). It came out of nowhere and beat out the front-runner Pan’s Labyrinth for the prize. It shocked me at the time, but having seen the film now I understand why it was favoured by the Academy. The film was essentially a love letter to the Arts, a pat on the back for its presumed power in bringing out the “good” in people. The writer/director, von Donnersmarck, had said it himself that the film was created so that he could force Lenin to listen to the Sonata that may have stopped the revolution.
The story was rather simple: a Stasi man (known in his reports as HGW) was assigned to spy on a couple of artists in East Germany during the communist era. In the process of recording every minute details of this couple’s life in their apartment, the man found his principles shaken by what he witnessed. He became unexpectedly involved after having heard a piece of sonata played in the apartment. The film then became a romanticized tale of how art saves the soul, complete with the saving grace of a central character by the name of Christa-Maria Sieland. In some ways, Others was a love story between three people. The number three also bears some religious significance, as alluded to by the presence and sacrifices of a Christ replacement, Christa-Maria. The love of a good woman - their guardian angel - brought two men together, as they battled what the lust for a woman brought to them. This fit in with the tendency of the film to romanticize and simplify the struggle between our good side and our bad side. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: Articles
28
August
2007
This wasn’t supposed to happen. My first front page review here at Icine, something I’d slightly anticipated, thinking it’d begin with Fleck’s ‘Half Nelson’, or with Lynch’s sweet and simple ‘The Straight Story.’ Now here I am reviewing a film that wasn’t even on my radar before last night, only knowing it as the one that upset a certain boxing biopic almost thirty years ago… but here I am. It’s no masterwork of a Marty Scorsese (and that will be the last he or his film will be mentioned); instead this section of the front page will cover the greatest work Robert Redford will ever give to cinema, the remarkable achievement that is ‘Ordinary People’.
The setting is established instantly with vivid and vibrant colors of the fall foliage of a northern town, but at first I wasn’t certain I’d like this film. The characters, a mother and a son - there was no chemistry at all between them. Zero, and heck if Lester and Jane Burnham didn’t look like family of the year members by comparison. Mismatch in casting? The story goes on, and we begin to realize who these two really are. The son is a tortured soul, a poor teen dealing with horrific trauma; the mother is incapable of compassion or empathy, almost callous in her neglect as a parent when he needs her most. I was wrong, they weren’t meant to have any noticeable mother-son bond. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: Reviews, Drama
27
August
2007
LOS ANGELES (MarketWatch) — The summer movie season appears to have climbed the $4 billion box-office mountain a few days earlier than expected, reaching that milestone for the first time ever.
Preliminary weekend figures show that the industry narrowly crossed the $4 billion threshold over the weekend, according to box-office tracker Media By Numbers. Paul Dergarabedian, president of Media By Numbers, estimated that the weekend’s business would bring the tally from the first weekend in May through this past weekend to $4,003,000 in sales. The summer season runs from the beginning of May through Labor Day.
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Posted: News
