Marabillada coa enerxía luminosa de Visages villages (2017), un filme produto da colaboración entre a directora Agnès Vardae o artista gráfico urbano e fotógrafo JR, coñecido polas súas impactantes intervencións gráficas en rúas e tellados de cidades de todo o mundo.
A película é un road trip co "azar como asistente de vida" que nos inunda os ollos de cores: Amarelo xirasol, lavanda recendente, azul mar, vermello ladrillo, marrón cabra, verde prado e gris fábrica. Cores transitorias que pasan a toda velocidade diante nosa disolvéndose no branco e o negro. O branco do sal, que fai soñar, e o negro do pain d'alouette, sinónimo da nostalxia.
Branco e negro. Ver ou non ver.
Ver a través dos ollos propios, mirando os rostros de Jeanine, Émil, Emilie, Claude, Amaury, Pony, Marie, Morgane e Sophie. Ver a través dos ollos enfermos de Agnès ou dos permanentemente cubertos polas gafas de JR. Ver polos ollos daqueles que nunca aparecen na pantalla: Jean Luc Godard, Cartier-Bresson ou Guy Bovelin.
Non ver porque a retina nos falla ou porque nos engana e non recoñecemos o impacto do progreso, da mecanización, das redes sociais, da perda das raíces. Unha pegada visible nas liñas das facianas e nas da xeografía urbana. Xa o di Agnès, "Chaque visage a une histoire", e para asimilar a magnitude das "imaxes en abismo" que o estrambótico dúo nos presenta, temos que dicir coma o neno do conto de Galeano: "¡Ayúdame a mirar!", e facelo axiña porque "o instante é decisivo" e as imaxes son efémeras. Poden ser erosionadas sen piedade polo mar ou a memoria e cómpre gañarlle á marea do tempo apañando os vínculos, os apegos, a resistencia e sobre todo adquirindo a capacidade de mirar. Mirar con esa ollada do artista que é quen de sorprender convertendo un depósito de auga nun castelo de peixes ou dous peíños engurrados nun corazón.
O pasado venres 28 de outubro puidemos asistir á estrea de Esquece Monelos (2016) no cinema Numax, coa oportunidade de luxo de poder conversar con Ángeles Huerta (directora e guionista) e Antón Núñez (coguionista).
A presentación en Santiago, dixo Huerta, foi especialmente emocionante para este "equipo moi cohesionado de xente" pois no Numax levouse a cabo o proceso de post-produción de imaxe.
O filme "toma a historia urbanística vencellada ao río como pretexto para falar doutras cousas", anticipounos a directora antes do visionado. E así resultou ser. Non entendo moito de cine e non estou en posición de escribir crítica ningunha, pero si percibo que Esquece Monelos non é só para ver, é para escoitar, para sentir e para mergullar nela. Conta unha boa historia, e pinga a pinga, segundo o río vai desaparecendo, nós imos reconstruíndo o espello esnaquizado desa historia acompañando os tramos do propio filme: o baleiro, a destrución, o segredo e a desembocadura.
Esquece Monelos é poesía visual máis que un documental. De feito, é as dúas cousas, igual que unha copa de alcohol é deliciosa e relaxante a un tempo. Sorprende pola delicadeza e a sutileza da historia, á vez comunitaria e individual; o intimismo da narrativa e os sedutores sons ambientais que se combinan para apuntar ao que xa non está, ao que se tenta borrar da memoria. O zunzún dos insectos, o fluír das aguas, o zoar do vento ou o ruído dos guindastres realzan a experiencia visual. Pola súa banda, os diálogos e a posición da cámara mostran respecto e reverencia pola xente, pola vila, e polo río. Que logro deixar que sexan eles os que contan a súa propia historia!
No coloquio posterior, tivemos a oportunidade de coñecer aspectos máis concretos da realización do filme, por exemplo, que a motivación para gravar o filme partiu dunha necesidade persoal, a partir da angustia pola perda de memoria dunha persoa cercana a Ángeles Huerta. Aínda así, ese símil neurolóxico viuse moi enriquecido polo significado do río como segredo.
O proceso de coñecer e entrevistar á xente que achega os seus testemuños foi maiormente, dixo Huerta, grazas á pericia de Antón Núñez, que contactou con coñecidos, pero tamén contactou con outros a través das redes sociais ou "a porta fría". Esa polifonía de voces foi proporcionando os trazos do cadro que constituía este lugar cunha memoria oculta. Fíxose especial mención de Bienvenido Gabarri e o alcalde Liaño Flores, así como de Ramón Molezún.
Tamén se comentou o material de arquivo empregado, coma as fermosísimas fotografías do poboado xitano, algunhas atopadas a través das redes sociais, outras do arquivo do fotógrafo Francisco Pillado, e a parte documental dos arquivos de Ramón Saiz de la Hoya, camarógrafo de Franco. Este último documento audiovisual foi un encargo do Ministerio da Vivenda de Franco con motivo da inauguración do barrio das Flores, unha unidade residencial para dúas mil persoas que arrasou co vello Monelos.
En fin, que saín do cinema coa memoria residual do filme, co resón de varias frases na cabeza...
"Somos o que contamos e o que non contamos"
"Alguén soterrou o río e cambiou o fío da memoria por outros"
"Facemos cirurxía sobre as nosas pegadas: borramos, esquecemos,..."
"Pasamos a vida seleccionando o que non queremos recordar"
"Non hai maior segredo có que non queremos contar"
"As verdades negadas retornan coma síntomas"
"Ás veces falar é a mellor forma de gardar un segredo"
"Os segredos non son presente nin pasado. O que non se di non fai parte da historia"
... e pensando que a memoria como conciencia de nós mesmos, como esencia do ser humano, vai alén desa imaxe que temos xeralmente dela como almacén de recordos. Se queremos aprender, temos que modificar de xeito dinámico esa memoria. Aprender implica esquecer, claro. Pero aprender tamén é recordar, interpretar, encaixar, e cambiar.
I found out about it thanks to Dolores López who recommended it to me, and it was pure delight. Here's a brief synopsis from 2,500 Movies Challenge:
Based on a play by W. Somerset Maugham, The Letter tells the story of Leslie (Davis), the wife of wealthy plantation owner Robert Crosbie (Herbert Marshall). In the film’s opening scene, Leslie shoots and kills Geoff Hammond (David Newell), a man she claims attempted to rape her. But as her attorney, Howard Joyce (James Stephenson) delves deeper into the case, he discovers Leslie and Hammond were, in reality, having an affair, and that an incriminating letter Leslie wrote to Hammond, in which she laid out her true feelings for him, is currently in the possession of Hammond’s widow (Gale Sondergaard). At Leslie’s insistence, Joyce tries to buy back the letter in order to destroy it, but can they keep its contents a secret from Robert?
I recommend browsing some of the external reviews, since they mostly agree on the quality of the film and the subjects it touches upon: adultery, murder, work ethics, colonialism, marriage and the lives of women.
The opening scene is a masterpiece: a moonlit plantation where we hear several shots and focus successively first on a cockatoo, then the workers, the house, the victim and finally the killer. It concentrates all the main motifs that are later developed in the film: the contrast between the English and the Malayans, conventions and contempt, rituals, masked subservience and calmness.
The movie is well-paced, the acting is superlative (especially, Davis), and the symbolism of the house walls, the knife, Leslie's lacework, and the letter, leave you thinking long after the movie is over.
Il film comincia con Mario (Massimo Troisi) toccando con affetto una cartolina dell'America. Poco dopo lo vediamo conversando con suo padre, e intuiamo che in questo
luogo non c'è proprio nulla di cui parlare. Ma questo cambia quando il
poeta cileno Pablo Neruda (Philippe Noiret) viene esiliato dal suo paese
per motivi politici è viene a vivere nel paesino.
Lo scrittore,conosciuto per le sue idee comuniste e la sua poesia
d'amore, "l'argomento preferito dal sensibile animo femminile", è
esiliato a Roma e va a vivere nell 'isola, nella Calla di Sotto, dove
Mario gli va a consegnare le lettere. Tra i due comincia a crescere
lentamente un'amicizia disuguale nella quale Neruda si converte nel
maestro di Mario, aiutandolo a conquistare Beatrice (Maria Grazia Cucinotta) anche se durante il film pure Neruda qualcosa impara.
Come curiosità facciamo notare che Troisi ha partecipato come regista e
ha collaborato anche nella redazione della trama, inoltre ha rimandato un'operazione al cuore per poter essere l'attore principale. È morto il giorno dopo della registrazione.
Anche se l'argumento del film è semplice, la cinematografia e i paesaggi
sono meravigliosi. La topografia variata dell'isola (i faraglioni, le
spiagge, il porto e le montagne) incornicia e appoggia la storia.
Inoltre il film è pieno di tenere e utili lezioni sulla vita, l'amicizia
e l'amore, che ci incoraggiano a vederlo più volte. Ci sono delle scene
memorabili: la delusione di Mario,quando dopo aver fatto le prove
davanti allo specchio trova il coraggio di chiedergli un autografo che
Neruda firma con solo un "Attentamente, Pablo Neruda"; la scena dove
Mario gli chiede al poeta cos'è una metafora e lui gli confessa che pure
a lui succedeva lo stesso ma non sapeva come poterlo esprimere; quella
dove gli chiede come diventare un poeta e Neruda gli suggerisce
camminare lentamente sulla baia e di soffermarsi su tutti i dettagli; o
quando la madre di Beatrice va dal prete per accusare a Mario di star
scaldando la ragazza come una estufa con "metáfore", perché secondo lei
cuando un uomo ti tocca con le parole non tarda nel metterti le mani
addosso; o cuando Mario, colto dalla disperazione, va da Neruda per
chiedergli aiuto, perché è logico, gli ha insegnato a usare la lingua
non solo per attaccare i francobolli e adesso è in panne.
“La poesia non è di chi la scrive, ma di chi se ne serve”
(Antonio Skármeta)
Grazie, un'altra volta, a Samuele e Belén per la traduzione!
I can't say I have enjoyed Clint Eastwood's bold two-part tribute to the fallen warriors (both American and Japanese) at the Battle of Iwo Jima in the Second World War. I had to split the viewing of both films in about seven seatings, it was a bit too much for me - maybe I'm too faint of heart. Flags of Our Fathers(2006) focuses on the American side and Letters from Iwo Jima(2006)takes place entirely within Japanese ranks.
The first film ranges from the field of battle to the manipulative political scene on the home front. Letters from Iwo Jima, however, sticks mostly to the action on the island, summoned from the poignant unsent letters unearthed by 21st-century researchers years later.
For a second at the beginning of Clint Eastwood's Letters from Iwo Jima, you may think that you are gazing overhead at a field of stars. In fact, you are looking straight down into the ground, at waves of black sand on the volcanic island where, over the course of five weeks in February and March, 1945, an invasion force of 100,000 Americans (two thirds of them U.S. Marines) fought 22,000 entrenched Japanese infantrymen. Only 1,083 Japanese survived the battle, while 6,821 Americans were killed and 20,000 wounded.
Both in Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima, Eastwood ironises and calls into question civilian beliefs both in the Japanese and American war culture. He makes us empathize with the soldiers, ordinary people who have never come anywhere near a battlefield, who are mere pawns in a war conceived by generals and politicians. Eastwood trivializes the raising of the American flag, a routine, off-hand task in Flags of Our Fathers, only obliquely glimpsed in Letters from Iwo Jima. In the latter, there is a horrible sequence in which a group of Japanese soldiers commit suicide with a scream of "Banzai!" which is devastating. Equally heart-wrenching is the finding of the letter on a dead GI from his mom, read by Kuribayashi's men who suddenly realize she is no different from their mothers.
Eastwood manages to show us the flesh-and-blood individuality of the combatants, the human face of both sides, because as Walter Scott said, "War is the only game in which both sides lose."
"To begin with, all the incidents and characters in this story might be fictitious, and any resemblance to you or me might be purely coincidental"
Así comeza o filme A Letter to Three Wives (1949) dirixido por Joseph L Mankiewicz, en boca de Addie Ross (Celeste Holm), unha muller que nunca vemos, unha "raíña" que ameaza a estabilidade de tres matrimonios a través dunha carta que as tres mulleres do título (Deborah, Lora Mae e Rita) reciben a mañá que se van de excursión cuns nenos nun barco. Nesa carta comunícalles que se vai cun dos seus maridos, sen dicirlles cal deles é.
Así durante todo o día as mulleres andan inquedas a pensar e cavilar na súa vida matrimonial: Deborah (Jeanne Crain), que cre que lle fallou ao seu marido pola súa falta de "clase"; Rita (Ann Sothern), que se culpabiliza por centrarse demasiado na súa carreira profesional; Lora Mae (Linda Darnell) que se fai a dura e finxe querer ao seu consorte só polos cartos.
O filme ten un carácter aleccionador: o amor é volátil e evapórase a non ser que se coide con mimo e dedicación. Pero o peso dese consello recae principalmente sobre as mulleres: son elas as que levan a carga de facer que o matrimonio funcione, e non deberían dicir unha palabra máis alta cá outra aos maridos ou levantarán o rabo e marcharán, acorde cos roles sociais da época.
Aínda así, Mankiewicz fai un retrato estupendo dos matrimonios novos de clase media da típica vila americana, e consegue presentar un filme cheo de humor, escepticismo, sátira e romance.
What happens when bad children happen to good parents? Does it mean they are not, in fact, as they had imagined themselves to be?
We Need to Talk About Kevin (2003) is a novel by Lionel Shriver which examines these issues through the story of a woman whose teenage son Kevin has committed a Columbine style massacre. We read this novel in our book club about two years and I remember the discussion was pretty heated, since the book deals with a subject which has eluded other books and films on the subject: the aftermath.
Kevin cannot be tried as an adult so who will wind up getting the blame? The mother, of course. Eva must spend the rest of her life trying to make up for a crime for which she is not responsible and which she does not understand. So Eva tries to find out if there was one key, terrible misjudgment or failing of hers as a mother, which set her son off on the road to murder.
The book explores a central, emotionally incorrect theme: motherhood itself is a ritual in which the adult consents to gradual parasitic destruction. This thoroughly contemporary tale employs an old-fashioned fictional form. It is an epistolary novel: a narrative composed entirely of letters that Eva sends to her absent husband Franklin.
There is no voice apart from Eva's, even the dialogue is quoted by her. Shriver has rediscovered the combination of intimacy and antagonism that comes when the narrator is writing to a person she knows and loves.
There is a 2011 movie by British director Lynne Ramsay which I think is superb, but extremely pessimistic. In the end, we are left with the same unanswerable question: what made Kevin do it? Nature or nurture? A mother supplies both. Kevin is flesh of her flesh and perhaps an inability to judge him is her awful biological destiny. It is tremendously acted by Tilda Swinton and by Ezra Miller.
The experience of eating a lychee will never be the same after watching this movie.
The Lunchbox (2013) is an Indian epistolary romantic film written and directed by Ritesh Batra. Saajan Fernandes ((Irrfan Khan) is a widower nearing retirement from his job as an accountant. Ila (Nimrat Kaur) is a young wife seeking her husband's (Nakul Vaid) attention and looking for ways to put romance back into her marriage, one of which is to cook delicious food for him.
Through a rare mix-up of the famous "dabbawalas" (a complicated system that picks up and delivers lunches from restaurants or homes to people at work) of Mumbai, the lunchbox Ila prepares gets delivered instead to Saajan.
Ila eventually realizes the mistake and with the advice of her neighbor aunty, writes a letter to Saajan about the mix-up and places it in the lunchbox (along with her husband's favorite meal) the next day.
A friendship is ignited between the two as they build a fantasy world together through notes in the lunchbox where they share memories and events of their own individual lives.
The idea of two lonely souls, islands of melancholy calm, connecting in a vast, modern metropolis, and remaining strangers even as their intimacy grows, makes for a charming movie, a feast for the eyes, or as The Guardian put it, "A quiet storm of banked emotions".
"I think we forget things if there is nobody to tell them"
Incendies(2010)est un drame réalisé par Denis Villeneuve et coproduit par la France et le Québec basé sur la célèbre pièce de théâtre éponyme de Wajdi Mouawad(1968).
Voice l'histoire: Lorsque le notaire Lebel fait à Jeanne et Simon Marwan (Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin et Maxim Gaudette) la lecture du testament de leur mère Nawal (Lubna Azabal), les jumeaux sont sidérés de se voir remettre deux enveloppes, l'une destinée à un père qu’ils croyaient mort et l’autre à un frère dont ils ignoraient l’existence. Jeanne voit dans cet énigmatique legs la clé du silence de Nawal, enfermée ces dernières années dans un mutisme obstiné depuis son lit d’hôpital. Elle décide immédiatement de partir au Moyen-Orient exhumer le passé de cette famille dont elle ne sait presque rien...
Le jeune Simon, lui, n'a que faire des caprices posthumes de cette mère avare d'affection qui a passé sa vie à leur empoisonner l'existence. Mais son amour pour sa soeur le poussera bientôt à rejoindre Jeanne au Moyen-Orient sur la piste d'une Nawal bien loin de la mère qu'ils ont connue...
Her is a 2013 American romantic sicence fiction comedy-drama film written, directed and produced by Spike Jonze. It tells the story of Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix), a man who develops a relationship with Samantha (Scarlett Johansson), an intelligent computer operating systempersonified through a female voice.
The film was not very well-received in Spain, in fact I talked about it in class on Thursday and nobody had even heard of it. However, I did enjoy it. I like Joaquin Phoenix (you can't deny his versatility as an actor), the setting (that techno-perfect Los Angeles of the near future), Scarlett Johansson's sexy voice, and above all I love Theodore Twombly.
He is a lonely guy with an unattractive moustache and glasses who wears the
high-waisted slacks that have apparently become fashionable for men in
this era. He has an entirely unironic job in a company called
BeautifulHandwrittenLetters.com in a "creative" office space: Theodore
composes special-occasion letters for the tongue-tied, the inarticulate
and the illiterate, and his firm's state-of-the-art software will print
out authentic-looking handwritten drafts of his dictation.
The idea that there is a market for such a niche luxury service in the near future fascinates me. It is a profitable one too, since Theodore lives in a spectacular apartment, and his material
comfort does not appear to be affected by a nasty, ongoing divorce from
Catherine (Rooney Mara).
And finally here's a scene with a moving dialogue about books as a metaphor for relationships.
Bienvenue Chez Les Ch’tis (2008, Welcome to The Sticks or Bienvenidos al Norte) est un film
réalisé para Dany Boon qui raconte l’histoire de Philippe Abrams (Kad Merad),
directeur de la poste de Salon-de-Provence, mais il cherche obtenir une
mutation sur la Côte d’Azur. Pour faire ça, il fraude et est démasqué e muté à
Bergues, petite ville du Nord. Pour Philippe, ça c’est l’horreur, une région
glacée, peuplée d`êtres rustres, éructant un langage incompréhensible, le
« cheutimi ». A sa grande
surprise, il découvre un endroit charmant, une équipe chaleureuse,des gens accueillants, et se fait un
ami : Antoine, le facteur et le carillonneur du village.
C’est pour cette raison que nous parlons
de ce film aujourd’hui, parce que je pense que il s’agit d’une comédie à la
française et à l’ancienne e on se marre du début à la fin, c’est vraiment hilarant !
Je trouve ce scène vraiment drôle: Antoine et
Philippe font la livraison du courrier en étant complètement ivres parce qui
ils ont dû un peu trop forcer sur l’apéritif. Une vision moins idéalisée que laquelle de João Afonso.
Letter
from an Unknown Woman (Brief einer Unbekannten, 1948) is a film by Max Ophüls starring Joan Fontaine, based on a novella by Stefan Zweig.The movie itself is
excellent (I thank Dolores López for
telling me about it) and was selected for preservation in the United States
Film Registry as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically
significant”.
The novella by Zweig has a beginning that
would pull anyone in. It is the forty-first birthday of R., the famous
novelist. He sits down to go through the mail and finds a letter – “more of a manuscript than a letter” – and he doesn’t
recognize the sender. The remainder of the story, other than a brief coda, is
that letter. Here is how it begins – signature Zweig: highly emotional and
dramatic, yet gripping:
“My
child died yesterday – for three days and three nights I wrestled with death
for that tender little life, I sat for forty hours at his bedside while the
influenza racked his poor, hot body with fever. I put cool compresses on his
forehead, I held his restless little hands day and night.
On
the third evening I collapsed. My eyes would not stay open any longer; I was
unaware of it when they closed. I slept, sitting on my hard chair, for three or
four hours, and in that time death took him.
Now
the sweet boy lies there in his narrow child’s bed, just as he died; only his
eyes have been closed, his clever, dark eyes, and his hands are folded over his
white shirt, while four candles burn at the corners of his bed. I dare not
look, I dare not stir from my chair, for when the candles flicker, shadows flit
over his face and his closed mouth, and then it seems as if his features were
moving, so that I might think he was not dead after all, and will wake up and
say something loving and childish to me in his clear voice”.
Dolores López, bookworm, writer, film buff, actress, walking encyclopedia, former student and good friend, recommended the movie 45 Years a while ago and I must say I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. Great storyline and impressive acting.
45 Years is a 2015 British romanticdrama film directed and written by Andrew Haigh. The film is based on the short story "In Another Country" by David Constantine.Charlotte Rampling won the Silver Bear for Best Actress and Tom Courtenay won the Silver Bear for Best Actor.
Kate (Charlotte Rampling) and Geoff (Tom Courtenay) are Norfolk retirees awaiting their 45th wedding anniversary. Their lives are cosy and seemingly content – until the past rises to the surface, in a strangely literal sense. A week before the party, Geoff receives a letter from Switzerland telling him that the body of Katya (his lover in the early 1960s), has become visible in a half-melted glacier, miraculously unchanged by the decades. On hearing the news, Geoff goes into shock – throwing Kate off-balance, especially when she discovers that he's thinking of travelling to Switzerland to claim the body.
The action unfolds over a week and through the repetition of mundane events (strolls, cigarette breaks, shopping trips), Haigh builds up a picture of the couple's life and how things stand between them. There's something disquieting about these ritualized repetitions, hinting that habitual gestures can become a "second nature" that leaves the real self unexpressed. The main characters have spent most of their lives together, yet remain further from true intimacy than either might think.
The acting, as I said, is impressive. Rampling is outstanding, what a dramatic presence! Deep-set green eyes, challenging smile, assured walk. Courtenay nails it as her counterpart: a stammerer, unable to meet his wife's gaze, sickly.
The body language counts almost as much as the dialogues, especially their hands: used to reach out or deflect, to convey playfulness or anxiety.
I think it would be interesting to read "In Another Country", the short story by David Constantine, since a real event sparked his short story. Constantine told The Telegraph that, while holidaying in France some 15 years ago, he heard of the discovery of a twenty-something mountaineer who had fallen down a glacial crevasse in Chamonix in the 1930s. Seventy years on, the retreating ice released its hold on the guide's body, which the son he had fathered before his death was taken to identify. The shocking sight of his father - perfectly preserved in his prime, while he himself approached his eighties - tipped the son towards insanity.
