Also known as “Come As You Are”, a beautiful film from Belgium starring Tom Audenaert, Robrecht Vanden Thoren and Gilles De Schrijver as three disabled friends who want to go to Spain, to lose their virginity, the story is based upon a real-life experience. They get help by nurse Claude, played by Isabelle de Hertogh, who drives them through Belgium, France and Spain, in her own way.

“Hasta la Vista” has its moments where your eyes tear up with joy and laughter as well as wanting to cry your heart out just moments later. The chemistry between the trio (or perhaps I should say foursome) of actors comes across as very real and the story is truly wonderful. Philippe is paraplegic and hilarious, I’d say he brings in the humor, that’s necessary to make a movie like this enjoyable. The actors are nothing but great, and if you’re not moved by the end, you don’t have a heart ;)

(This film also reminded me of “Intouchables”.)

Trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jS0St2NMk1Q

Read More

A Rainer Werner Fassbinder film also known as “The Marriage Of Maria Braun”. This movie follows the life of a young German woman, married to a soldier in the waning days of WWII. Fassbinder has tried to show the gritty life after the end of WWII and the turmoil of the people trapped in its wake, and like always with brilliant writing.

Braun (Hanna Schygulla) is working at a bar for American GI’s and even after she hears from a fellow soldier that Hermann has died, will still stand by him as she sleeps with a black GI and comes close to bearing his child, but then her husband (Klaus Löwitsch) reappears and a murder occurs, he takes the rap so she can be safe. Later she works for a German businessman (Ivan Desny) and becomes his sometimes mistress and rising star in the company. Maria will do whatever it takes to be successful, but she’ll always be married.

Karl Oswald: You were different last night.
Maria Braun: Last night I slept with you. Today I’m working for you.
Karl Oswald: Afraid someone will think we’re having an affair?
Maria Braun: I don’t care what people think. I do care what you think. And you’re not having an affair with me. I’m having an affair with you.

Trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYyx5DwWu0k

Read More

China, 1920. One master, four wives. A film based on Su Tong’s novel directed by Yimou Zhang, starring Li Gong, Jingwu Ma, Cuifen Cao and Saifei He. The story we see is a visual treat but overlays a much deeper story of China in myriad aspects. This movie has it all, betrayal, conflict and tragedy, the story, the implicit attacks on the Communist regime, cinematography, direction, and acting (Gong Li was superb), one extraordinary piece of cinema magic that transcends both cultural and language differences. The film was so refreshing and exciting for me, yet it was also quite a dark film. The cinematography is exquisite, the artistic use of color breathtaking. I don’t care what anyone says, it belongs in the top 10 films of the 90s worldwide.

China in the 1920’s. After her father’s death, nineteen year old Songlian is forced to marry Chen Zuoqian, the lord of a powerful family. Fifty year old Chen has already three wives, each of them living in separate houses within the great castle. The competition between the wives is tough, as their master’s attention carries power, status and privilege. Each night Chen must decide with which wife to spend the night and a red lantern is lit in front of the house of his choice. And each wife schemes and plots to make sure it’s hers. However, things get out of hand.

Trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vivaoPZhIH8

Read More

From Hungarian director Kornél Mundruczó, a film about Johanna, a young drug addict, who falls into a deep coma after an accident. Doctors miraculously manage to save her from death’s doorstep. Touched by grace, Johanna cures patients by offering her body. The head doctor is frustrated by her continued rejection of him and allies himself with the outraged hospital authorities. They wage war against her but the grateful patients join forces to protect her. This is a filmic and musical interpretation of “The Passion of Joan of Arc”. It’s quit original, and funny at some points, beautiful Orsi Tóth, who plays Johanna, did a great job.

Trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8H2mnZHG1hw

A movie everyone interested in film should watch. It’s not only a classic because of the great story, a lyrical masterpiece (Lamberto Maggiorani and Enzo Staiola play a father and son, who search for his stolen bicycle vital for his job) but also because of Vittorio De Sica, who directed every scene with a beautiful sense of control and balance. It’s unbelievable that this movie was only nominated for one Oscar (screenplay) and then didn’t even win. De Sica’s career is most impressive, being involved in nealy 200 films, 165 of them as an actor. This film remains one of his greatest achievements. Italian cinema at it’s best.

A poor young father in postwar-ravaged Rome who finally finds work putting up Rita Hayworth posters around town, only to have his precious bicycle stolen the first day on the job. Now the father and his young son chase after the thief.

Trailer:

http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi4035510553/

Also known as “Combat Girls”, Kriegerin means warrior in german. A German film about a problem that still exists in Germany, and pretty much every other country - Prejudices/Racism/Neo Nazis. And even though in the beginning of this film it seems like the whole Nazi thing is getting glorified, “Kriegerin” is a movie AGAINST racism. It moved me in many different ways, and you can’t help wondering, what goes wrong in someones live, that he or she just hates so much. But in the course of of the movie, it gets revealed.

Marisa, a 20-year-old German girl, hates foreigners, Jews, cops, and everyone she finds guilty for the decline of her country. She provokes, drinks, fights and her next tattoo will be a portrait of Adolf Hitler. The only place she feels home is the Neo-Nazi gang she belongs to, where hate, violence, and heavy parties are the daily rules. When 14-year-old Svenja joins the group, Marisa appears like a role model to her: she fits the purest idea of a combat girl fighting for the group’s ideology. But Marisa’s convictions will slowly evolve when she accidentally meets a young Afghan refugee. Confronted to him, she will learn that the black and white principles of her gang are not the only way. Will Marisa ever be able to get out of this group?

Trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCWqSHr2QU0

A fantastic film by Catherine Corsini, with great performances from all the actors. Suzanne (Kristin Scott-Thomas) is a well to do middle-aged, married woman (with her doctor husband, Samuel, Yvan Attal) and mother of two teenagers in the south of France. Bored of her idle bourgeois lifestyle, she decides to go back to work as a physiotherapist as her husband agrees to fix up a consulting room for her in their backyard. Once Suzanne meets the man hired to do the building, Ivan (Sergi Lopez), they develop a mutual attraction which leads to a torrid affair, which Suzanne decides to sacrifice everything else for. She soon confesses of the affair to Samuel, wanting a divorce. Samuel refuses - he wants her to come back to him, using whatever means possible in his disposal.

Trailer:

www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi3907651865/

A film with and by Mathieu Amalric about burlesque shows - with aging and decadent women, selling old-fashioned shows, in anonymous theaters of anonymous French towns. The dialogue which includes English spoken around the 5 American performers and French for the rest of the characters is realistic and witty. Their daily routine is sad, the contrast between the excess of their shows and the nothingness of their real lives sounds depressing.

They are taken on tour around an absent France by Joachim, a former TV producer, who abandoned by everyone, now makes a living by finding a suitable theater for their performances, in a way using them in order to come back to Paris as the successful man he’ll never be. All these women feel alive only when on stage, where they can play the game of seduction and forget the sadness looming over their lives, with no family, no relationships, no roots. Joachim’s character is a living failure, to the point that those women become his only family, more than his own children. With great music and beautiful dancers, who actually are dancer so their performances are great as well.

Trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfUDJf_UDZM

Read More

A German film also known as “The Albanian” or “Shqiptari”, about a handsome but poor Albanian villager Arben (the appealing Nik Xhelilaj, who looks set for a big international career) who wants to marry Etleva, daughter of a neighboring clan, but her father has promised her to another man who is offering a 10,000 Euros bride price. When it turns out Etleva is carrying Arben’s child, the pressure is on for him to come up with the dowry before the baby is born, and before her brothers take revenge for the dishonor he has brought their family. Fleeing to Berlin without papers, experience or knowledge of the language, Arben soon learns the ways of survival. Beautiful, interesting film directed by Johannes Naber with a great lead actor, Nik.

Trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTdLCt5tYfs

Also known as “Nobody Knows” a Japanese film by Hirokazu Koreeda. Starring 4 little children left alone by their (terrible) mother, Keiko, after finding a new boyfriend. She leaves the children alone, giving some money to Akira and assigning him to take care of his siblings. So a twelve year old boy, played perfectly by Yûya Yagira (who won at the Cannes Film Festival category Best Actor!) has to take care of everyone. We see the struggles the kids have, the incredible responsibility the big brother, Akira, has and how it sometimes just overwhelms him.

He buys grocery’s, does the laundry, has to pay the bills and so on. But after the money is gone, he and his siblings can’t afford to buy new things, and get what they need from friends and neighbors. Sometimes his sibling or friends ask, where his mother is, Akira always responds with, she’s working in Osaka, and that she will be back soon, but the mother abandoned them, and doesn’t want to come back. None of the kids go to school, and no one around them knows what really goes on.

Trailer:

http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi43909401/

Read More