Loreak (2014)

Directed by: Jon Garaño, Jose Mari Goenaga
Country: Spain

Movie Review: The mature Basque drama, “Loreak” (meaning ‘Flowers’), was surprisingly pleasant and warmly rewarding. Following their first successful collaboration five years ago with “For 80 Days”, sturdy filmmakers Jon Graño and Jose Mari Goenaga didn’t let their good reputation deteriorate, and now present us another poignant piece of genuine life. 40-something-year-old, Ane, seems satisfied while working for her company at a construction site, however, her personal life tells us she’s not so happy – the relationship with her husband is getting bitter and during a medical check-up she was told she had reached premature menopause. Once childless, we could feel a crushing depression coming down, but suddenly a baffling occurrence helps her to get over this phase. She starts receiving a big bouquet of flowers from a mysterious sender, on every Thursday. Apparently, the sender is a co-worker, Benat, a crane operator who ends up dying in a car accident. From this moment on, the flowers stopped to arrive, while the necklace Ane had lost, was found in the crane cabin. Like Ane, Benat was also struggling with his personal life since his wife, Lourdes, and widow mother, Tere, didn’t get along so well. Lourdes had a son from another marriage, but it seems the couple wasn’t able to have one of their own, despite the pressure made by the obnoxious Tere. An affair between Ane and Benat was very unlikely. A secret passion? Simply sympathy? The doubt remains, and our only certainty is that the three women’s fates are intriguingly connected. The light, in Javier Aguirre’s exemplary photography, strangely conveys a false serenity among the characters’ inner agitation. “Loreak” is as much thorough as elliptical, comfortably driven by a delicate approach, flawless performances, and a conscious structure.

Electricity (2014)

Directed by: Bryn Higgins
Country: UK

Movie Review: With a script by Joe Fisher from Ray Robinson’s novel of the same title, “Electricity”, is the second feature length film, out of his habitual TV scope, from British director and producer, Bryn Higgins (“Unconditional Love”). It stars the fashion model Agyness Deyn as Lily O’Connor, an epileptic woman who obsessively starts searching for her long-gone brother, Mikey, with whom she had a very special bond in their childhood, before they were separated due to family predicaments. Now that her disdainful mother is dead, a small inheritance is available to be shared. The resolute Lily leaves the casino where she works and moves to London with just a couple clues about Mikey’s whereabouts. In her staying, good and bad experiences will occur, apart from the imminent seizures that so many times frustrate her intentions. While some of the characters she comes across are like angels descending from the sky to give her a hand on the right time, some others are capable of ruining the day. Lily is clearly fed up of medication routines, failed therapies, and vague conclusions about her health state and even the bruises all over her body are no more embarrassments. A few stumbles in the script don’t disarm the mildly paced drama, an investigative London ride that oscillates from stressful to inconsolable to heartwarming. Cinematographer, Si Bell, guarantees rich visual textures, well supported by a catchy camera work that is particularly noteworthy during Lily’s seizures. The soundtrack was thoroughly selected and adjusts perfectly to the circumstances. Agyness Deyn also deserves some words of incentive since her performance was valid enough to justify what would be a questionable choice at a first glance. “Electricity” is flawed but copiously dignified to deserve a peek.

Phoenix (2014)

Directed by: Christian Petzold
Country: Germany / Poland

Movie Review: Beautifully crafted, with refinement and objectivity, “Phoenix”, Christian Petzold’s adaptation of Hubert Monteilhet‘s novel ‘Le Retour des Cendres’, is a pungent drama set in a shattered post-war Berlin. The German filmmaker and co-writer brings in his long-time inspirational muse, Nina Hoss (their sixth collaboration), to portray the sad story of St. Michael’s choir singer, Nelly Lenz, an anti-Nazi transfigured woman who miraculously survived to a concentration-camp and obsessively looks for her crooked pianist husband, Johnny (Ronald Zehrfeld), most likely the man responsible for her capture. Another character with strong dimension is Nelly’s savior, Lene Winter (Nina Kunzendorf), a Swiss Jew whose disappointment with the forgiving posture of the Jews, in general, is patent. Her role leads to opposite emotional sides since she brings some cheerful hope but also the shocking truth about Nelly’s family. After finding Johnny in a nightclub called ‘Phoenix’, the unrecognizable Nelly agrees to participate in a strange game with him, playing his missing wife, so he can claim her valuable inheritance. At this moment, Nelly experiences mixed feelings, admitting she’s jealous of her past self, but increasingly becoming enveloped by suspicion. Petzold injects all the elements that permit us to identify his work identity – formidable camera work, unshakeable storytelling, subtle score, sharp photography, perfect timing when using silence, and lastly, an impactful finale to be remembered. The presence of a gun is merely symbolic since the film overwhelms you by other means. “Phoenix”, or Fassbinder’s “Lili Marleen” meets Franju’s “Eyes Without a Face”, is a major example of emotional expressiveness. Just give it some time to be fully absorbed.

Ex Machina (2015)

Directed by: Alex Garland
Country: UK

Movie Review: Novelist-turned-director, Alex Garland, has a fantastic debut with “Ex Machina”, an unfussy offbeat sci-fi thriller whose special effects, in its simple and efficacious forms, are much more attractive than the mostly high-budgeted films within the same genre. Mr. Garland categorically solidifies his tendency for inventive screenwriting, and with this penetrating robotic adventure overcomes his past written compositions, such as “28 Days Later” “Dredd”, “Never Let Me Go” and “Sunshine”. The story brings a dedicated young programmer, Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson), to an isolated house in the mountains (only accessible by helicopter) where he’s going to evaluate an imprisoned, sophisticated android, Ava (Alicia Vikander), which according to its creator, is capable to feel and respond to real emotions. The creator and host, Nathan (Oscar Isaac), a muscle builder with increasing alcohol problems, built up a dwelling house whose high security is vulnerable to occasional power outages. The super advanced Ava takes advantage of these few minutes to manipulate the fascinated Caleb and set him against the apparently not so artless inventor. What does she intend to? At this point, everything is shrouded in a disquieting enigma, and even if the story can be partly predictable in its conclusions (it was for me), the film works well, flowing at a steady pace and extracting a disturbing chilliness from each action. Quietly, it gets into your mind, producing cold sweats with its emotionless stabs, and then sliding into your senses with an ending that confronts freedom and claustrophobia. Super performances and a praiseworthy direction, were key to turning “Ex Machina” into an accomplished work. The sensual robots bestow a nice touch.

Lost River (2014)

Directed by: Ryan Gosling
Country: USA

Movie Review: “Lost River” is a lost flick. Positioned somewhere between a violent neo-noir horror thriller and an absurdist mysterious drama, the film is a very personal effort by the much-appreciated actor of “Drive” and “Blue Valentine”, Ryan Gosling, who appears here as a producer and simultaneously first-time writer-director. The outcome turns out being frustratingly unfulfilling due to a preponderant inability for giving an adjusted course to the devious narrative fragments whose final composition failed miserably to attain harmony and focus. The story centers on the single mother, Billy (Christina Hendricks), who agrees joining a macabre nightclub, where the grotesque mixes with the burlesque, accepting the offer from a sinister bank manager, Dave (Ben Mendelsohn). She had a strong motive to do it, and the reason was that eviction is knocking on her door after three months behind in loan payments. Billy’s son, Bones (Iain De Caestecker), thinks he found a solution by stealing copper from a degenerate mad man, Bully (Matt Smith), who likes to stand up in his convertible, adapted to his eccentricity, yelling at everyone that he owns the city, and the country, and the world. Besides mother and son fighting two different battles against two distinct villains, there’s also a parallel silly story about Bones’ girlfriend’s ghostly grandmother, vanished from the face of the earth after entering into a secret town located in the bottom of a reservoir. Betrayed by a shabby screenwriting, Gosling shows not to know what he wants to deliver with this sour cocktail of styles, songs, moods and amorphous scenarios that keep colliding in tone. Visually close to Nicolas Winding Refn’s “Only God Forgives”, “Lost River” is vulnerable at its backbone.

Black Souls (2014)

Directed by: Francesco Munzi
Country: Italy

Movie Review: In this screen adaptation of Gioacchino Criaco’s novel, director and co-writer Francesco Munzi retrieves the essential aspects that compose the traditional Italian Mafia pictures – family, power, honor, pride, and vengeance. With some atmospheric resemblances to Francesco Rosi’s cinema, he tells the story of three brothers from rural Calabria whose choices and postures lead them to different lives. The eldest, Luciano (Fabrizio Ferracane), lives quietly on his farm but gets constantly worried about his troublesome adolescent son, Leo (Giuseppe Fumo); Rocco (Peppino Mazzotta) and Luigi (Marco Leonardi) live in Milan where they established a small illicit organization. The former is the brain of this disguised pineapple distribution company, showing a calculative and prudent posture, while the latter is carefree and shares the same sneaky way of thinking of his nephew Leo who visits his uncles, against the will of his father, to learn and earn his place and respect. Somehow, this fierce young lad will be co-responsible for the family’s decadence. Mr. Munzi takes his time to span every character, giving us the precise notion of their scope of actions. Adopting cavernous tones and comfortless images, the film appeals more to the intellect than properly to the eyes. Its narrative is solidly constructed and some details help to contextualize and understand what’s going on in the family - mostly being a film of men, there are some powerful feminine presences, especially the critical and jittery Rocco’s wife, Valeria (Barbora Bobulova). The startling finale comes to be crucial, elevating the film from its apparent languorous state. It’s an obscure and pertinent glimpse at the Calabrian Mafia known as ‘Ndrangheta.

Haemoo (2014)

Directed by: Shim Sung-bo
Country: South Korea

Movie Review: “Haemoo”, literally ‘Sea Fog’, is the feature directorial debut of Shim Sung-bo, writer of “Memories of Murder” from the acclaimed filmmaker Bong Joon-ho who reciprocates by co-writing and producing. The screenplay’s strength relies on a love story between a sensitive fisherman, Dong-sik, and a defenseless illegal immigrant, Hong-mae who goes after her missing brother in Seoul. Everything happens on board of the Korean fishing boat ‘Junjin’ whose captain, Kang Chul-joo, made up his mind and resolved to face his ruin, both professionally (low incomes prevent him to keep his boat in times of economic crisis) and in his private life (his dissatisfied wife cheats on him), by taking the risky mission of smuggling a group of people from China to Korea. There’s a sense of fatality present throughout the story and the typical Korean staple of self-destructiveness that almost always degenerates into violence. This aspect is mirrored in Captain Kang’s behavior (the most interesting character in the film) but it’s also showed in a more vulgar way through the remaining irascible sailors who embrace greediness and uncontrollable sexual appetites. Confined to a breathless, nauseous hole meant for fish, tragedy is expected any time for the illegal travelers. The non-static camera moves along from one side to another, normally at the sound of a score that alternates between mildly tense and dramatically gentle. Ironic tones are a constant, even in the most serious occasions, which takes “Haemoo” to the dangerous ‘waters’ of cynicism. The arrival of sea fog intensifies claustrophobia and the story indelibly gains a new dimension with the chaos onboard, ending 30 minutes after with a forceless epilog.

La Buca (2014)

Directed by: Daniele Cipri
Country: Italy

Movie Review: Filmmaker and cinematographer, Daniele Cipri, is trying to find his own space in contemporary Italian cinema. That particular task is not so simple, and the truth is that by proceeding to a comparison of his two latest works, we observe a significant oscillation in quality. His more recent comedy “La Buca” adopts the same stirring posture (very Italian) as used in the accomplished “It Was a Son”, dated from 2012. Both are satires, so why the former stays a few steps behind the latter? There was a bunch of very defined factors that made that difference to loom. “It Was a Son” satirizes the greediness of a Sicilian family after the accidental death of one of their children in a shootout between Mafia gangsters. The story was sufficiently funny, straightforward and expressive in order to grab immediately our attention. “La Buca”, in turn, takes a long time chewing the adventures of a not less greedy lawyer who tries to live from monetary compensations obtained by fake injuries or accidents. The film was unable to flow accordingly, not even when Oscar, the whimsical lawyer, tries to win a genuine case for a fragile man, Armando, who was condemned to 30 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. The characters were not so interesting, and of course Oscar Castellitto and Valeria Bruna Tedeschi fall short when weighed with the magnificent Toni Servillo and Giselda Volodi, stars in “It Was a Son”. If this wasn’t enough, “La Buca” throws ungracious jokes that explains its blandness as a comedy and compromises its intentions to mock with the already ridiculous situation. Only Armando’s senile mother lets my face broke into a grin, which is meager for a comedy.

While We're Young (2014)

Directed by: Noah Baumbach
Country: USA

Movie Review: American writer-director, Noah Baumbach, already proved to be a great storyteller, fact reinforced in “While We’re Young”, his latest comedy-drama that comes equipped with intelligent dialogues and humor, and a meaningful vision of real life, executed with an amusing lightness. Just as in his previous works (“The Squid and the Whale”, “Greenberg”, or the chic black-and-white “Frances Ha”), we breathe a sense of reality and a particular way of approaching real-life problems with the appropriate dramatic balance. Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts play Josh and Cornelia, a married couple in their mid-forties who keep struggling to achieve success in their work, and also with the fact they can’t have children. Feeling like misfits in front of their best friends, now parents, the documentary filmmaker and his producer wife will see their lives making an abrupt turn when they meet an ambitious younger couple, Jamie (Adam Driver) – a documentarian wannabe and Darby (Amanda Seyfried) – an ice-cream maker. At the same time that a breath of fresh air arrives, they realize, slowly but vigorously, that they have different values and are in a completely distinct phase of life. As usually, Mr. Baumbach shaped his characters with depth, and the cast is no less than sensational, helping him to accomplish that. In particular, Stiller and Driver, each one in their own way, deliver top-notch performances. The story was never contrived, not even in the most insane scenes (the peak was when they join a cult group to let their demons out), effortlessly flowing with an innate subtleness and arresting graciousness. Personally, the film merely touched me on the surface but it’s honest enough to take us straight to a few truths while entertains.

The Girl Is in Trouble (2014)

Directed by: Julius Onah
Country: USA

Movie Review: “The Girl Is in Trouble” is a discouraging crime thriller that is by turns tedious, farcical, and dull. The story starts with August (Columbus Short), a Nigerian iPod DJ (better joke of the film), being fired from Manhattan's Lower East Side club ‘The Void’. It was in this same club that he met Signe (Alicja Bachleda), a Swedish singer-guitarist who is now begging for his help in a complicated case involving a murder. The victim of the murder in question is August’s best friend, Jesus Guzman, a Dominican drug dealer whose tough brother, Angel (Wilmer Valderrama), swears revenge. The crime, enveloped by blurry mystery, took place in the luxurious apartment of the womanizer Nicholas (Jesse Spencer), a pompous rich guy who, at that time, was accompanied by Signe, enjoying an unrestrained night of excesses. Certainly, one of them is the killer, but with the word of one against the other, who is telling the truth? First-time Nigerian-American director and co-writer, Julius Onah, attempts to a stylish approach, but the result was exactly the opposite. The junky messages occasionally popping up on the screen are superfluous, and the camera moves undecidedly and ungraciously. It felt like the homework hadn’t been done, and moreover, all this was aggravated by the use of incongruous tones, lame storytelling, unconvincing performances, and very basic dialogues. Music is visibly of great importance to Onah, and still the score didn’t work at all, so intrusive it was. The obnoxious characters were so uninteresting that I could only sneer. Everything went too bad in this inexpressive tale of international contours set in Downtown NYC.

The Salt of the Earth (2014)

Directed by: Wim Wenders / Juliano Ribeiro Salgado
Country: France / Brazil / Italy

Movie Review: “The Salt of the Earth” is a masterly documentary about the life and work of the amazing Brazilian photographer, Sebastião Salgado. This touching piece of cinema was co-directed by the acclaimed German filmmaker Wim Wenders and Salgado’s eldest son Juliano Ribeiro Salgado. Carrying an enormous emotional weight and impressive sense of timing, the stunning pictures of Mr. Salgado are slowly displayed, at the same time that we listen, completely stupefied, to his own voice, explaining the circumstances in which they were taken after a brief historical contextualization. There are times in which Salgado’s face merges into his pictures – a face that never expresses any sentimentality. However, through his voice, whether in French or in Portuguese, we notice the deep impact those moments had on him. After so many years covering death in its most various forms - war, genocides, disasters and starvation - it was admirable how Salgado sought desperately for life in its most pure manifestations – nature, primitive people, wildlife. ‘I got sick in the soul’ he says, expressing a painful discontentment for what we, humans, are capable to do to one another. ‘Suddenly I felt the urge to make a tribute to the beauty of our planet’. Everything in “The Salt of the Earth” has the right proportions. There’s no exploitation of the subject, and there are no forced attempts to make greater what is already great. A profound respect for a courageous man and his work is what we see here. I felt I could have spent another two hours looking at his photography, both heartbreaking and dazzling visions, and listen to the tremendous stories supporting it. Unforgettable pictures, unforgettable stories, unforgettable film.

The Tribe (2014)

Directed by: Miroslav Slaboshpitsky
Country: Ukraine / Netherlands

Movie Review: Cannes’ last sensation, “The Tribe”, is a praiseworthy, brutal piece of speechless cinema, a product of the mind of first-time writer-director, Miroslav Slaboshpitsky. Set in a sunless Ukrainian city, the drama follows a deaf-mute teenager who arrives at a specialized boarding school for people in the same conditions, being immediately incorporated in a ruthless gang of students dedicated to robbery and prostitution. Unsurprisingly, the latter activity has a teacher as the leader, and soon the newcomer is assigned to pimp two of the teen girls that are used to beat the truck parking lot during nighttime. He slowly gains the trust of his fellows but irredeemably falls for one of the prostitutes. When this girl realizes her pregnancy, no other option is ever considered beyond the abortion, which is done in a private house by an austere, creepy woman. This is probably the most disturbing scene of the film (disputing with the maniacal finale), where in a horrible environment and with precarious sanitary conditions, she’s tied with ropes like an animal, bravely enduring the pain inflicted on her. The young man, madly in love, starts stealing in order to pay for her time, putting himself in a perilous position. The situation reaches even bigger proportions after he realizes she’s about to be taken to Italy. As a sign language film, communication was never a problem in “The Tribe”, which was very perceptible, and even persuasive on the dramatic level. There are no words to express how brilliant was the deaf-mute cast, so genuine and powerful at all levels. Mr. Slaboshpitsky sparked confidence, filming with insistent assertiveness, and revealing a shocking realism, bestial violence, and raw sex scenes in its plenitude. Words? For what?

Court (2014)

Directed by: Chaitanya Tamhane
Country: India

Movie Review: It’s quite impressive how “Court”, a befitting satire on today’s Indian judicial system, has been collecting prizes all over the festivals it participates. Venice, Viennale, Mumbai, Singapore and Hong Kong are only some of them, which recognized the subtle but well-outlined assessment behind the first work of filmmaker Chaitanya Tamhane. The film is a long, cogitative and well-observed exercise centered in an absurd case of prejudice and bureaucracy involving the multiple arrests of the people’s folk singer and poet, Narayan Kamble. Accused of inciting a sewage worker to commit suicide, the fragile singer has no other option than relying on his dedicated lawyer who will have a female public prosecutor as a fierce (and often irritating) opponent. There’s also a somewhat superficial look at the family lives of the ones involved in the case, meaning the two lawyers and the judge, but curiously not the dauntless Kamble who turns out inflammable with a microphone but is becoming weary of the harassments he’s subjected to. This is a courtroom tragicomedy with so many good things – vivid imagery, admirable performances, a strong representation of Indian social status, and witty dialogues; however, on the other hand, it shows some difficulties flowing, especially when the camera lingers too much time on other small court cases, which aim to reinforce the stupidity of the legal system in cause, but deflects the story from its central point. Therefore, some editing would be valuable here. Mr. Tamhane has opted for a formal execution, which sometimes counterpoints with the confrontational jokes that are caustically being thrown in the air. “Court” is worth seeing for its pungent examination and clever observations.

Set Fire to the Stars (2014)

Directed by: Andy Goddard
Country: UK

Movie Review: Co-written by the actor Celyn Jones and the debutant director Andy Goddard, the British drama “Set Fire to the Stars” is a semi-biographical work that showcases the special relationship between the famous Welsh poet Dylan Thomas (Celyn Jones) and his big admirer, the American poetry professor John Malcolm Brinnin (Elijah Wood), who also aspired to become a poet and brought Dylan to the US for the first time in 1955. With galloping jazz tunes hovering the attractive black-and-white picture, the film was built from Brinnin’s perspective, depicting the efforts he made to save his hero from an inveterate bohemia and heavy alcoholism. Dylan reveals to be an insecure soul whose wife and starving children keep waiting for him to return home. Acting impulsively and characterized by bluntness in manners, everything can happen when he’s around - from public shame (more frequent) to brilliant interventions. Basically, the interest of the film relies on what the intoxicated Dylan will do next, which might determine the course of the story. The frames are nicely composed but the storytelling is not always expeditious, and on several occasions our struggle to keep focused is as hard as the mission of the hopeless John in trying to avoid that New York ‘kills’ his friend. Notwithstanding, and despite the mentioned quibbles, “Set Fire to the Stars” can give us a good idea of the importance of this particular phase in the protagonists’ lives. Love and hate, plus admiration and frustration, seem to walk hand in hand here. We don’t really come across with the genius of Dylan’s poetry but rather with the personality of the poet itself. The same is valid for the not so stimulating John Brinnin.

In Order of Disappearance (2014)

Directed by: Hans Petter Molland
Country: Norway / Sweden

Movie Review: Stellan Starsgard stars in “In Order of Disappearance”, an amusing Norwegian gangster tale, written by Kip Fupz Aakeson and directed by Hans Petter Moland. This is the fourth successful collaboration between the director and the actor (“Zero Kelvin”, “Aberdeen”, “A Somewhat Gentle Man” – this last one also written by Aakeson), but only this time it’s Pal Sverre Hagen, as the eccentrically neat Mafia boss, who becomes one of the best motives to watch this flick. Set in Norway, the film opens with the exemplary Nils (Starsgard), a respected Dane who owns a company that provides snow removal services, proudly preparing himself to be awarded the Norwegian ‘Citizen of the Year’ prize. In the same breath, his son Ingvar, employee in a small airfield, is mistakenly kidnapped and forced into a van by two thugs, and then killed with an induced overdose. Unconvinced that his son was a drug addict, the modest Nils leaves the gentleness behind and becomes a merciless hitman, when he finds the gang responsible for his pain. One by one, he starts to eliminate the members of the gang as he tracks them down, but the main goal is to reach the inaccessible mad header, Greven (Hagen), a ruthless man whose only torment is the mother of his bullied son. Soon, Nils realizes that the best to get to him might be through the latter. His successive executions also trigger a gangster war between the local mob and the Serbs with whom they had an agreement to share the airfield for illicit businesses. Death is the word of order here; you will find so many that will be hard to count them all. Sometimes the film seems to get out of track, but the sarcastic humor (have you heard about Norwegian prisons?) and Greven’s immaculate figure, keep holding out the enjoyable levels.

White God (2014)

Directed by: Kornel Mundruczo
Country: Hungary / others

Movie Review: After a spectacular opening scene where filmmaker Kornel Mundruczo shoots hundreds of dogs frantically running throughout the streets of Budapest, I immediately thought: maybe I didn’t read appropriately the film's title - was it 'White Dog' or ‘White God’? Actually, I was expecting something different here; according to its title, probably something more austere and masterful, but surprisingly the film stands in the middle of an affecting family adventure and a slightly gory thriller. A dangerous position since it may be too light to please horror-thriller fans and too violent to be watched with family, especially if you have little kids. The story has two protagonists: the 13-year-old trumpet player, Lily, and her cute mixed-breed dog, Hagen. When Lily’s mother leaves the city for a few days in the company of her new boyfriend, she is forced to stay with her picky father, Daniel. Lily takes the inseparable Hagen with her, but Daniel dumps the poor dog into the wild streets. While the sad Lily steps into risky situations and starts misbehaving as she looks around for her best friend, Hagen tries to avoid the dog-catchers of the municipal kennel, but eventually falls in the hands of rascals, being subjected to maltreatment and then turned into a fighter, for their own profit. As a dog lover, knowing that there are people out there inflicting this kind of treatment to innocent animals, gives me the creeps and really pisses me off. These moments were the ones touching me more since the rest relies on a farfetched canine feast of rambunctious chases, tenacious attacks, and emotive incidents. Production and direction are splendid, yet the script is not tight enough (no bad guy escapes to the dogs’ fury, not even Daniel’s snitch neighbor). In the end, the positive factors ended up obfuscating the negative ones.

Life of Riley (2014)

Directed by: Alain Resnais
Country: France

Movie Review: Iconic French filmmaker, Alain Resnais, went more and more theatrically during the last phase of his prolific career (six decades), terminated a year ago with his death at the age of 91. The creator of timeless classics such as “Hiroshima Mon Amour”, “Last Year at Marienbad”, “My American Uncle” and “Providence”, was considered a conceptual visionary whose narratives evinced a bold distinctiveness associated with a strong socio-political content. His latest comedy-drama, “Life of Riley”, reunites seven characters, more or less intimate to the ‘invisible’ George Riley. All of them are going to interact over several episodes composed of stage-settings and separated by drawings, which work as substitutes for the establishing shots. This was the third play from Alan Ayckbourn to be adapted by Resnais - previous two were “Smoking/No Smoking” and “Private Fears in Public Places”, both considerably more successful. Even if somewhat tepid at times and struggling to extract the best from the cast, “Life of Riley” was superior to “You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet” from three years ago. The plot revolves around three couples (plus the daughter of one of them) whose relationships are jeopardized because of Riley, a mutual friend with only six months to live. While rehearsing for a play, the men are consumed by jealousy and feel abandoned while the women are battling one another to become Riley’s choice for a trip to Tenerife. The domestic quarrels flow in light tones and the J.M. Besset’s dialogues are pretty French. Hippolyte Girardot and Sabine Azéma’s performances stood out, categorically defining the quirkiest couple: Colin, the clock-watcher, and his agitated wife Kathryn. Each character’s close-up alludes to comics by using a gridded-pattern on the background. Not grandiose, but an honorable farewell for Mr. Resnais.

The Fool (2014)

Directed by: Yuriy Bykov
Country: Russia

Movie Review: The multiple awarded “The Fool”, from emergent director Yuriy Bykov, is a pulsing drama that takes a bitter look in contemporary Russia and its socio-political problems. The hero here, in the true sense of the word, is Dima Nikitin (Artyom Bistrov), a modest, yet smart plumber who doesn’t hide his will to go further in his career. He’s studying hard to be a civil engineer, even knowing it’s going to be strictly necessary to bribe someone in the governmental department to take a position of that kind. Family life - with his wife and little son - is far from being perfect, since they still live with his parents, confined to an old house that doesn’t reunite the best conditions. His untouchable honesty, a virtue he gained from his hopeless father, will have a price after a call to inspect a burst pipe in District A, the most problematic neighborhood in town. A crack that goes from the first to the ninth floor of the decrepit building clearly indicates that it might fall in the next hours. Promptly, Dima reports the fact to the mayor, Nina Galaganova (Natalya Surkova was brilliant), who was in a degrading party, celebrating her birthday with her corrupt staff. With 820 people in danger, she shows concern about the problem and determination in solving it, but will the ‘system’ allow her to do the right thing? “The Fool” counts with exceptional performances, exhibiting enough intrigue, and uncovering the moral filth hidden under the carpet of bureaucracy and unreasonable solutions. It’s also packed with miserable scenarios of poverty, violence and drugs, and all the painful realities that are neglected in order to feed the wealth of the highest Russian patents. Yes, lamentably in some shabby countries, honesty and integrity are mistaken for foolishness.

Beautiful Youth (2014)

Directed by: jaime Rosales
Country: Spain / others

Movie Review: “Beautiful Youth” is disappointing, even considering the strong theme about the demoralizing social reality lived in Spain, where unemployment loomed a couple years ago, hampering the youths from building decent lives and leaving no margin for dreams or high hopes. The film, set in Madrid, starts particularly unfocused. There’s a worried mother and their three sons – Natalia, who occasionally steals from stores' beauty sections and decided to have an experience on amateur porn with her boyfriend Carlos (only to win 300 euros); Pedro who’s not doing great in his studies and says ‘I’m fucking sick of this woman’ when talks about his mom; and the little one, Irene who still need extra cares. The father left the house some years ago and only Natalia maintains contact with him. After a while, it becomes clear that Natalia and Carlos, both 20, are the ones to follow in this pessimistic adventure, which was no more than a potentially acceptable idea turned into an unskilled exercise. Natalia gets pregnant and starts looking for a job, however, her wish never materializes. In turn, Carlos, underpaid in occasional construction jobs, plunges into inertia and seems only concerned with video games and obtaining financial compensation from having been stabbed in the neck during a brawl. The whole is weaker than some parts, resulting in an uneven tale that was never really connected. By the end of the film there are some questionable options (photographs, skype) that first mislead us, and then take us to the infuriating conclusion. Filmmaker Jaime Rosales doesn’t seem to be the same who elegantly directed the sensational art-house “Dream and Silence” in 2012. Everything collapsed in “Beautiful Youth” - the camera moves awkwardly and tactless, the photography is unattractive, and the editing, a flop. Budget's fault? Blah!

Breathe (2014)

Directed by: Mélanie Laurent
Country: France

Movie Review: As a psychological coming-of-age drama, “Breathe”, the second feature from actress turned director, Mélanie Laurent, doesn’t let us down. Laurent shared the writing credits with another French actor, Julien Lambroschini, basing herself on the bestselling novel of the same name by Anne Sophie-Brasme. The film is a refreshing tale of poisoned friendship between two teenage girls, depicted with solid emotional contours, but somehow penalizing the whole with a finale that seemed too brusque and easy for me. Josephine Japy plays the 17-year-old Charlene aka Charlie, who finds solace in the company of her loyal group of school friends since at home she’s restless due to their parents’ bitter relationship. When the seductive and easy talker, Sarah, impeccably performed by Lou de Laage, arrives for the first time, Charlie seemed conquered by her apparent freedom and self-assured posture. While Charlie willingly shares her most inner secrets with Sarah, the latter will do exactly the opposite, concealing aspects of her private life that are anything but cheerful or motivating. Can this life be an excuse for Sarah’s intolerable behavior toward Charlie? Her game consisted, basically, of manipulative moves, taking whatever she wants, and then unthankfully moving away again, avoiding and despising who helped her. This contemptuous falsity was successfully depicted, drawing an inevitable irritation that makes us take the side of Charlie when tragedy occurs. An oppressive suffocation (valid for both characters) can be distinctly felt throughout the film – the continual attempts to understanding what’s going on, emotional shakiness, an asthma crisis, an urgent open of a window, or a terrifying conclusion – all of them require a deep breathe.