Crouching
Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Film
reviews often tell you what would be
commercially attractive or to the common
expectations. Therefore these descriptions
of movies you might want to see but did
not decide about yet.
The
latest films.
1.22
2001 - 3.30 2001
Seen:
03-30-01 Dir.: Lama
Khyentse Norbu, with Neten Chokling, Jamyang
Lodro, Orgyen Tobgyal.
Norbhu is a
little boy of 14 years old living in a buddhist
monastery. It is the monastery in exile in the North
of India. Let the Chinese be the servant, have your
belief in Tibet and live in India. Thus buddhism can
never be defeated. The game the monks love is that of
soccer. Times have changed and now they see the word
testing itself over games of soccer. The young little
monk wants to see it and believes in the game. He does
everything to get the money together to rent a
t.v.-set from an Indian from the nearby village to
watch the game together with his god-brothers. The
abbot of the monastery consented and the boy gets the
money together. They fall short of 50 rupees. They
take the watch from one of the other boys. He needs to
have it back, but they have no money anymore. His
instructor says says: 'If you are such a bad
businessman, you will be a good monk'. Then the abbot
donates the rest of the money. The watch returns. The
timepiece is the heritage from the old days. It is the
buddhist love for progress and modernity. Everyone is
delighted. What is God? T.v.? Soccer. The watch? The
Buddhist doesn't ask the question, the buddhist lives
the answer. Love the game, play the game, believe in
the game. Drink the cup, win the cup, be proud of the
cup. Also the footbalcup. This story is a real story.
It really happened and the monk Norbhu really exists.
He dreams of having Tibet's first national soccer
team. The Buddha will win. All is a game.
(All
Movie info)
Seen:
03-30-01 Dir.: Jean-Jacques
Annaud. With: Jude Law, Joseph Fiennes, Rachel Weisz,
Ed Harris. Stalingrad was the city where the tide
turned for Nazi Germany. This story pictures this as
the test of character of two marksmen who try to put
one another out. It is a true story and this makes the
film an historical document. Major König and
Vassili Zaitsev trying to outsmart one another are
tested by the conditions of war. Vassili falls in love
and falls asleep on the mission because of which he is
almost killed. König is informed by a small boy
who double-crosses him. He kills the boy, by hanging
him, provocating the anger of the other party. His
fate is sealed. He is definitely the real bad guy.
This movie is in perfect balance politically. Both
parties are hard and ruthlessly killing, both have
political ideals. The true war is the war of
character. The character shows the underlying motives.
The Nazi's are gentlemen-like, strong and disciplined,
but in reality cruel and stupid. The Russians are in
love in reality. intelligent, desperate, fallen and
modest. Love and humanity wins despite of the
sleepiness. God is also there in times of war and this
is proven by this movie. The cruelty brings everybody
down guilty thereof. The movie is realistically set
against the very dark and muddy scenes of Stalingrad
in ruin. One is always amazed by the modern
cinematographic skills of making perfect scenes of
worlds that do not exist any longer. No dreams, no
illusions. War is a horror and a discussion without
words about at who's side God is. In fact this is all
and nothing more. (website)
Seen:
03-22-01 Dir.: Steven Soderbergh (Oscarnomination Best
Director, Best Film). With: Michael Douglas, Benicio
del Toro, Dennis Quaid, Catherine Zeta-Jones. The
director of this movie did his best to make an almost
documentary drama giving a sharp description of the
war on drugs. To begin with the conclusion: we can't
win by fighting the symptoms or catching a few
traders. Everything in this movie shows the big lie of
our, and especially the american, profit-minded
society. The judge appointed head of the
drugscommittee has to save his own daughter out of the
hands of the heroin-monster and the police in Mexico
is completely confused about whom they are serving
with their warfare. A materialist system has nothing
better to do than to bite its own tail like a dog gone
mad. People in this movie do not realize that the
whole setup of the drugsgame from both sides is an
endless and pointless affair like a chronic disease,
but the director knows. This is predator paradise.
Human despair could also have been a title for this
very pessimistic, but realistic view of our ignorance
and learned helplessness. The true merit of this
history is its realism. It does not lie and pretend to
solve the problem by tracking a criminal or ending one
organization. I thought afterwards: if we dare to show
the problem full scope as it is, then there must also
be awareness somehow of the solution. Well, going to
the cinema is maybe a part of it, but it is certainly
not enough to suggest that this would do. The endless
amount of organizations is what really worries in this
movie. CIA , FDA, FBI, etc. The Mexican general
pretending to help turns out to be corrupt. Everything
goes wrong and organizing the social ego for or
against is more the problem than the solution, It
seems that everyone, running away from himself, is
affected by the game/doe/rush-hunting disease. There
are no winners, there is a social disease. Am I the
winner as onlooker? The natural product drugs one
down, but could nature also offer a cure? This is not
answered here. And if I can't give an answer myself to
this posing the problem, then I am also a victim in
this terrible hell of predator men. So I will do my
yoga-exercises and enjoy the true harmony of nature
and not fall for the the drugged nature or the dogwar
about it. Leaving the cinema afterwards though one is
in the mood for a political discussion, for action.
That is why this movie deserves an Oscar. Not for
offering solutions, but for posing the problem. Our
time of hunting is up! Accept it.
(Website)
Seen:
03-22-01 Dir.: Donald Petrie. with: Sandra Bullock,
Michael Caine, Benjamin Bratt, Candice Bergen. Ever
seen Michael Caine playing a queer, or Candice Bergen
as a bad character? Our Sandra knows way with them as
an undercover agent. The story is about a serial
killer, that we never get to see, who threatened to
make a hit at a beautycontest. For the purpose of
catching the bad guy Sandra infiltrates. But first a
lady has to be made out of the raw unpolished type of
girl she is. It turns out that the disturbed leader of
the contest and her wicked son abuse the identity of
the serial killer to have their sick way. It always
amazes me to find people making this kind of stories.
Who would do such a thing as blowing the head of a
winning beauty? Well this is not a real story, but a
parody maybe. Not sure. Sandra is nice to look at and
also to recognize as a comedy talent in this shallow
story that is apart from the fine cast, mediocre
entertainment and pretty predictable out of the
Hollywood box. These actors would deserve a better
story I'd say. But o.k. not too critical it is
entertaining (I didn't fall asleep).
Seen:
03-15-01 Dir.: Lasse Hallström. Starring:
Juliette Binoche, Johnny Depp. There are soft-drugs
and soft drugs. The harmful ones are: nicotine and
alcohol. The more innocent ones are coffee, tea and
cocoa. This story is about the stimulant of chocolate.
In an old traditional catholic village a young woman
arrives with her unlawful child. She opens a
chocolate-shop there and refuses to adapt to the local
culture of strict catholic churchgoing morality.
Instead she tempts the people with her chocolate into
a more loose lifestyle. The mayor, a noble a bit too
tight and hypocrite she finds against it all. The
community tries to ban her, especially when she starts
a relation with the leader of a bunch of river-pirats.
Meanwhile one of the elder ladies in town finds her
old joie de vivre back with her and does another
battered woman find shelter with her fleeing from her
husband. She really undermines the authority of the
mayor and his follower, the parson, who reads the
sermons in church that are written by the mayor
himself. End of the story is that after a crisis where
the boats of the river-rats are set afire, the mayor
falls down, just the night before the Easter
celebration. He is found asleep, after deliriously
crying and eating chocolates , in the window of the
chocolateshop next morning. Never again that tight
morality against life. From now on the parson will
improvise his own sermons preaching the love of life,
and the mayor may hang loose with the ladies also a
bit, finally admitting that his own wife has left him
in stead of just being on a holiday. The statue of the
formerly severe ancestor now smiles with a balloon in
his hand. The balance between the morality of culture
and the lust of life is restored. My conclusion: too
much preaching is not good. Nor is too much chocolate
or whatever softdrug. The balance between the two is
the real message. A sympathetic movie with a lot of
heart for people and their moral dilemma's.
(website)
Seen:
03-07-01 Dir.: Philip Kaufman, Geoffrey Rush, Joaquin
Phoenix, Kate Winslet, Michael Caine. A quill is a
goose feather one wrote with in the old days. In the
case of this story it is the quill of Marquis de Sade,
the lusty writer who managed to survive the French
Revolution with its Reign of Terror. From within the
Charenton Asylum for the Insane he writes Justine
abreacting all the madness of the revolution and his
own cultural demise in pornographic revolutionary
tales and even plays. The abbé leading the
asylum recognizes his theatrical and literary talents,
but has to give in to the pressure of the political
and medical authorities to put a ban on the vulgar
writings. To kill as a bunch of demons our own nobles
seemed to be necessary, the abreaction in literature
of all the perverted mind of Europe going mad though
had to be banned. De Sade in the end looses in this
drama the sympathy of the priest who had to take sides
with the authority. The Sade is denied all privileges
amongst which the permission to write. He loses his
quills. But the pen is the only way to stay healthy in
the midst of the madness and madhouse of upcoming
modern time with its socialist, psychiatric and, as
portrayed here, also religious betrayal of individual
selfrealization. The Sade compulsively continues
writing with his own blood and even his feces. In the
end he dictates his stories to a laundry woman who
falls victim of a madman in the process. Everything in
disarray. Not just one man dies in torture with the
denial of the right to a quill. The whole of western
culture drowns in hypocrisy and misunderstood tides
from the unconscious that later Sigmund Freud couldn't
effectively cope with nor analyze completely either.
The West was doomed to fall down from its imagined and
infatuated corrupt nobility and falsification of
christian compassion. We were colonial murderers
completely confused in philosophy, religion, science
and politics of timemanagement that had to face their
own aggression turning inward. This movie reveals the
way out of this all: selfrealization. If we escape it
we go stark mad in senseless wars taking it out
against one another. The karma has to be overcome by
sacrifices. The self confrontation has to be faced.
There is no other way. Go see this Academy Award
winning movie. An unforgettable experience and a
key-movie to our historic selfawareness.
(All
movie
| Imdatabase)
Gezien:
07-03-01 Regie: Johan Nijenhuis. Met: Katja Schuurman,
Victor Löw, Nadja Hüpscher. Ben je ooit op
vakantie geweest en toen gemerkt dat het niet echt
vakantie was, maar het inwisselen van het ene
materialisme voor het andere ? Vakantie moet eigenlijk
een bewustzijnstoestand zijn van bevrijding in de
natuur die je het hele jaar bij blijft. In Costa is
het een andere ambitie en strijd tussen goed en kwaad
waarmee de hoofdpersonen worstelen. Een jong meisje
gaat met haar oudere zus naar de Costa op vakantie om
te ontdekken dat ze het vijfde wiel aan de wagen is.
Niettemin weet ze een populaire jongen te verschalken
die deel uitmaakt van een groepje z.g. proppers,
jongelui die als gangmakers door de discotheek
eigenaren worden ingehuurd. Het is harde business, met
jaloezie en veel strijd om de voorrang van de gunst
der vakantiegangers. Eigenlijk zijn het mislukkelingen
die alleen maar kunnen feesten. De danstenten
beconcurreren elkaar. Terwijl zich een zekere
verliefdheid voordoet tussen de hoofdpersonen,
verandert de concurrentie met de anderen in een
strijdtoneel. Het wordt uiteindelijk knokken en die
strijd verenigt dan weer. Dat is ongeveer het
verhaaltje. Enerzijds is het leuk om weer in de
kalverliefde en losse sex-sfeer te zitten met deze
film. Lastig al die hormonen enz. Lekker blitzen met
de muziek etc. Anderzijds valt het tegen om de dames
en heren zo in strijd te zien om wat oppervlakkigheid.
Het is een wat zepig verhaal dat bovendien nogal
slecht van geluidskwaliteit is; een oude kwaal van de
nederlandse film. Jammer. De dialogen zijn vaak
moeilijk te volgen. Er is sprake van een droom, een
soort van idealistisch geestdrift, maar dat is slechts
bedoeld voor het commerciële oppeppen van de
sfeer die de proppers moeten maken. De jeugd denkt
niet veel na en en wil wat beleven voordat ze vroeg of
laat weer naar huis moeten. Het bioscooppubliek moet
dan ook maar zo zijn. Gewoon maar leuk vinden al die
heisa om niks eigenlijk. (website)
Seen:
02-28-01-01 Dir.: Christopher Nolan, starring Guy
Pearce. How can you live when you've lost the time?
That question is what this movie tries to answer. We
see the chopped up life of an insurance-agent named
Leonard Shelby who has to live without a short-term
memory. His wife was raped and murdered and he
suffered braindamage after being beaten down by the
murderer. He has a system to cope with his loss: he
makes Polaroid's of all relevant situations and writes
on the back of them what should be done to that image.
He also has tattoos all over his body reminding him of
relevant information as: your wife has been murdered
and think of Mr. Jenkins. He also manages to remember
that the murderer is still around. The story is about
him finding the murderer. The problem is that he can't
remember whether he already took revenge or not.
Somewhere in the movie he finds himself running away
while not even remembering whether he runs after
someone or whether he himself is being chased. Extra
confusion is created by the director who, expressing
the confusion of Leonard tells the story backwards
cutting the same scene time and again in different
sequences. One is witnessing a jigsaw and is like
Leonard put in the same confusion of being out of time
trying to get a grip on it. Did the man die himself?
No this is not the Sixth Sense, but one surely is
reminded of how important and life-essential
time-consciousness is. Without it one is in a loop, a
kind of nightmare waking up to the same reality with
no idea of the original sequence of happenings. Did I
meet this man before? Didn't I rent another room apart
from this one? Is this my wife? Is this my car? My
clothes? Who am I? Whom should I trust? Etc. It seems
impossible, but still the man persists from his long
term memory in hunting down the perpetrator, although
in the end he achieved nothing for himself forgetting
that he has found him. He's still not sure whether the
policeman that helps him isn't really the murderer or
whether he should kill him or was set up by a friend
to kill the wrong one. To all of us it is a reminder
that one needs a system, a basis, a conditioning to
find ones way through (the modern braindamaged and
braindamaging of standard) time. A must see for
filognosy. (further
film-info
and database)
Gezien:
28-02-01 Regie: Ruud van Hemert Hoofdrollen: Anthonie
Kamerling en Angela Schijf. Naar een boek van Ronald
Giphart. Heer Giphart schrijft over het drama van het
schrijversbestaan: je hebt een relatie met de wereld,
maar die bestaat voornamelijk uit illusies,
verbijstering en waanzin. Die prutverhaaltjes van je,
daar krijg ik geen kind van is haar boodschap. Zij,
Reza geheten, zijn relatie met wereld, draait door. Ze
weet niet waar ze het, dat van zijn fictie, moet
zoeken. Het is sex, het is leven, maar wat heb je
eraan als alles door je vingers glipt. Het is
literatuur, het is ontwaken, maar is dat mijn verhaal
dan wel die literatuur en dat ontwaken? Illusie
zelfmoord en het opofferen van anderen dan jezelf is
niet wat we ontwaken noemen mag je wel konkluderen na
dit verhaal. Wat het verhaal van de ware
zelfverwerkelijking dan wel moet zijn blijft ongewis.
In deze film wordt gesuggereerd dat op vakantie gaan
en uithuilen aan de borst van een nieuw allochtoon
vriendinnetje dan misschien enig perspectief opent op
een betere relatie van de schrijver met de wereld,
maar filosofisch is dat wel wat kort door de bocht. De
natuurlijkheid van de jeugd, de vreugd van de natuur,
de geestdrift voor een openliggende wereld, het
talent, de fata morgana's van intelligentie. Het is
allemaal de werkelijkheid van de worsteling op weg,
dat moeten we zien natuurlijk. Maar goed die
nederlandse cinema heeft toch moeite de held op het
doek te krijgen of te houden, blijkt nog steeds. Om
altijd maar aan soldaat van Oranje te denken of Willem
de Zwijger (de acteurs ervan nu beroemd in het
buitenland) is natuurlijk niet vol te houden. Aan de
cinematografie zal het niet liggen, dat vak kennen we
zo langzamerhand, het ligt meer aan de rijpheid van
onze schrijvers of filmmakers die de boeken ervoor
moeten lezen en omzetten in goede scenario's. Toch
goed om door te zetten en te volgen. We hebben in
ieder geval een zeker europees naturalisme, een
eerlijkheid wat betreft de probleemstellingen van de
moderne tijd. Of het nu Mulish is, van Gogh of
Giphart. Geen overdreven idealen, ego-illusies, gewoon
geworstel met het materialisme en niet te veel
prediken. Maar nu, wederom.... Meedenken maar. Het
zijn uiteindelijk onze eigen verhalen die er moeten
komen.(website)
Seen:
02-19-01 Starring: Val Kilmer. The mission to Mars
continues. This time we have a pretty 'realistic'
scenario. Earth in the year 2025 is spoilt. The planet
wasted looks for a new habitat and has sent probes to
Mars for years sending algy to produce an atmosphere.
But something goes wrong. The algy are disappearing
and a mission is sent to find out what's wrong.
Something else goes wrong too: a solar wind jams the
whole ship setting it afire and in great emergency the
crew but one exists hurriedly to the red planet. There
a gruesome fate awaits them. The survival station
turns out to be demolished and a robot called Aimee
borrowed from the Navy has crashed in battle-mode. It
is out to destroy them and is of the most superior
technology. They only have oxygen for a twelve hours
and they are about to suffocate in their own space
suits. Crazy of that one member is lost in a fight
falling in a ravine. The rest discovers just in time
that there is oxygen but no algy. How can that be?
Investigations prove that a certain bug eats all the
algy and produces the oxygen. Do not count molecules
here, because the little bastards also eat survival
stations and space-suits (...) The battle continues
until only one manages to escape back to the rescued
spaceship. The guy was in love with that female
commander left behind anyhow. So we have an happy end,
a failed mission and how Humanity may survive is in
the hands of this bug. It is always nice to see a
completely new world of possibilities created in the
science fiction genre. The movie is technically
impeccable and fascinating, but the philosophy is not
very deep. It is highly improbable that breeding life
elsewhere would be more attractive than keeping the
atmosphere here good or restore it. Nor is it very
logical that the crew had no oxygen meters to be sure
that there was oxygen on the planet. But uncritical
about these minor flaws, it is a nice episode of the
continuing story of colonizing the outer spheres with
life from earth. When everything would be founded on
successful management of the earth, then the basis of
this story would have been perfect instead of
desperate, the way it looked now. A plus was the
really cool attitude of the crew facing their own
demise. No panic or great drama's and overacting apart
from a small bad-buy idea that also had little
psychological profile. Nevertheless for the technical
dream another great adventure well filmed.
(website)
Seen:
02-19-01 Director: Harold Ramis. Starring: Brendan
Fraser, Elizabeth Hurley, Frances O'Connor. What
does it mean to be tempted by the devil, and how to
get out of it once you 'signed the contract'?. Fraser
plays Elliot Richards , a nerd with no social talents
and little attraction for the woman. He dreams about
winning the heart of a beautiful girl at his office
where he helps at the helpdesk. He tries to be
popular, but fails. Then he prays that he would give
anything for the girl. Next a full-blown English
beauty appears revealing to him that she is the devil.
She drops a huge contract in his lap promising him the
girl or whatever in seven wishes in exchange for his
soul. He does it and the comedy begins. Then he is
powerful, rich and attractive, but turns out to be a
drugdealer. Then he is an emotional type, poetic and
sensitive, but is dropped for being such a looser.
Then he is an accomplished writer, intelligent and
with a big john, but turns out
homosexual.
Then he is a giant, famous basketballplayer with a lot
of fans, but has a willy too small to be true. Etc.
Nothing really works and the devil excuses herself for
not being perfect. End of the story is that he gets
his soul back as soon as he wishes something selfless.
He wishes the girl he wants a happy life. Then sobered
up she turns out to have another friend. Still there
is a happy end for him though. Now we see the cinema
as another church preaching the truth of God. But the
sermon is an hilarious one. The devil is great fun and
the conclusion is also nice once we're done with that
one. This movie made me wonder though why the devil
was such a classy English woman. Does she stand for
the English which is the worldlanguage now and which
is such a devil of temptation seeing everything too
big for those who lack in an alternative local tongue
of their own? Always be prepared for the alternative!
Then life will be straight. (website)
Seen:
02-12-01 Director: Nancy Meyers. Starring: Mel Gibson,
Helen Hunt. One of the last questions Sigmund
Freud posed before his death is what the woman would
want. This movie tries to show the result of
investigating this: penis envy must have been
something of Freud himself. No woman has that. No,
they worry to much about everything possible: about
their looks and about their behavior and careers and
so on. Mel Gibson plays the man spoilt by woman. This
character grew up with them as his mother was a
showgirl and he was raised backstage. He is the ideal
type for woman to play around with: trusting , macho,
cute, nonviolent. What more does a woman need? Helen
Hunt plays his counterpart as a business woman
stealing away his promotion. They both work for an
advertising agency; lots of woman around there. Woman
are the fastest growing market and the agency goes for
it. Poor Mel has to try the product before they can
sell them and thus we see him trying lipstick, nail
polish and panties. Hilarious, but something goes
wrong, he electrocutes himself and turns out, no not
to see dead people afterwards, that was another hero,
but to be able to hear what woman think. Well that he
has to learn to live with. First he has to see a
psychiatrist (played by Bette Midler; her greatest
byrole ever) then he takes revenge on our career
woman, but falls in love with her. In the end his
ability disappears again when he rescues a young
office-help from perdition. She may also join the crew
of text writers after that. Lovely Helen is very
kissable and Mel does it right. That's it. He who says
that he doesn't like this is a liar. Although I
wouldn't take miss Meyers as a psychiatrist, it is
still an interesting comedy showing what woman can be.
Whether Freud is really happy with the analytic
conclusion that they factually worry and only want to
get rid of that, no matter what, I doubt. I always
thought of them as the Lord in disguise, good
chastisers as they are confronted with weaknesses of
heterosexual interest. Mel tries to declare himself
homosexual, but that doesn't really work of course. A
failed analysis, but a successful movie. Go and laugh
Freud out of his grave. (website)
Seen:
02-12-01 Director: Martin Campbell Starring: Chris O
Donnell . There is a certain rush in climbing
mountains. People are not really conscious of what
that exactly means, but in this movie it becomes
crystal clear: death, Climbing mountains is a game of
death like russian roulette. Sooner or later the
mountain will take revenge and defeat you for a
change. It is wrestling with fate and apart from that
a society sport. People pay large amounts for climbing
permits. It is a millionaires hobby and there is a
whole entertainment industry including the media about
it. This movie shows this all: people who climb with
the wrong mentality, with characters not suitable for
cooperation or rescuing etc. After all, what kind of
God is the K-2, the world's second highest peak?
Yogi's are supposed to meditate on them and with them
for their serenity, but challenging death is an empty
passion that must lead to disaster. The vertical limit
refers to the altitude above which one is supposed to
be dead, because nothing can live that high. Only
rushing to the top and sliding down is possible. K-2
is a tough peak and a challenge thus for the big boys.
They take some paying people up, the children, brother
and sister Garret, of a millionaire who lost his life
climbing a peak in America. The film begins with this
drama of casually talking at the steepest wall
possible, Suddenly everything goes wrong and people
die. This goes on throughout the movie. meanwhile one
is impressed by the magnanimous scenes and almost
impossible climbing tricks and breathtaking adventures
with difficult people and avalanches. The sister got
trapped in the ice with the more or less bad guy who
is a stupid egoist who tried to survive at the cost of
other peoples life's. A revenger, 'the mad climber !'
tries to kill him as a subplot. But the main portion
of the movie is about rescuing the girl from the
mountain. No need to explain further what this movie
is all about. if you like the highest stunts,
nitroglycerine and the most daring shots of
mountaineering ever taken go and see. People die,
people live, but on mountains one better meditates if
you ask me. (website)
Seen:
02-04-01 Dir: Ang Lee with.: Chow Yun Fat, Michelle
Yeoh, Yuen Woo-Ping . The authentic chines dream is
what this movie is all about. It is Kung Fu mystified
and chinese history mystical. Now we know that Bruce
Lee actually had to be flying trough the sky as the
fighters do in this movie. There is nothing of the
cheap Kung Fu though we are used to see from the Hong
Kong Style. Now we have a real story of a noble
princess that is captured by a bandit whom she falls
in love with. Later she returns to the palace where
the Green Lot, a mythical sword is the central object
of mystery of eternal heroism and invincibility. The
princess is really a goddess capable of defeating any
kind of mortal being. Her mentor, the original owner
of the sword is fighting a witch who is out to destroy
Him. It is the good and evil theme that is the red
thread trough this marvelously filmed story that will
run shivers down your spine. The authentic chinese
dream is discovered. They are no less than godheads.
Of course the witch will be defeated, but at a prize.
The myth will live for ever of course. A must see for
anyone with a serious interest in chinese culture and
an unprecedented cinematographic cultural shock. See
the gods flying through the bamboos, over waterfalls
and on the rooftops. Admire and be astonished.
(website)
Gezien
28-01-01.: Regiss.: Theo van Gogh met Roeland Fernhout
in de hoofdrol. Een verzekeringsagent wordt verliefd
op zijn nieuwe buurvrouw. Haar echtgenoot (of hoe zit
dat...), de nieuwe buurman blijkt een verhouding te
hebben met zijn eigen vrouw die in verwachting is van
Baby Blue (wiens kind?). Door intriges terwille van
een verzekeringspremie lijkt het alsof de
overbuurvrouw per ongeluk echt overleden is, maar dat
is doorgestoken kaart... Degene die echt verdwenen is,
is zijn eigen vrouw die bij hem wegliep om met de
misdadige overbuurman verder te gaan. Die ruimde haar
uit de weg echter op Curacao en heeft ondertussen haar
kind (Baby Blue) en het geld ingepikt. Onze held moet
eerst uit de verwarring zien te komen van de intrige
om, na bijna te zijn vermoord, vervolgens terug te
halen wat er terug te halen valt. Niet zijn vrouw dus,
maar wel Baby Blue. De film is op zijn amerikaans
opgezet. Het gaat over sex en geld zonder al te veel
psychologie (kan dat zonder meer?). Dat is harder dan
we van de nederlandse cinema gewend zijn. Theo aapt de
amerikaans stiel na en likt zich erdoor. Het geeft wel
een meer geijkt snel materialistenverhaal met het
nodige drama en de nodige complicaties die je denken
bezig houden. Typisch is wel dat diegenen die elkaar
probeerden te bedriegen en daar ook in denken te
slagen met moord, list en bedrog het allemaal
overleven met de politie ver buiten schot als een
stelletje stomme honden, maar dat de slachtoffers
zoals de echtgenote en een andere ongewilde getuige
vermoord worden. Eigenlijk had onze held zijn eigen
vrouw weer teruggewonnen moeten hebben voor een echt
heldenverhaal. Echte gerechtigheid is het nog niet met
ons hier volgens van Gogh, maar helemaal gelukkig zijn
de bedriegers nou ook weer niet met hun hel van
doortraptheid. Misschien is het ook wel goed dat we
niet cinematografisch hoeven te dromen over
gerechtigheid zoals de amerikanen dat wel moeten...
maar we spreken al een aardig woordje amerikaans met
deze film. De moeite om te zien, goed verteld, opgezet
en verfilmd, maar jongens hoe moet dat verder...
nòg 'beter?' (website)
Seen
01.28.01: Dir Stephen Daldry with Jamie Bell starring.
This highly acclaimed story playing in the north of
England is about an 11-year old simple coal-miners son
who climbs up against all odds to become a
professional ballet-dancer. It is indeed a pleasure to
see how this movie is made with healthy realism and
humor. It reminds one of the riverdance irish dance to
see him tapping through the streets of his modest
hometown facing the policeforces that want to break a
strike in the mines. Billy 's father is the one truly
converted in this story. From an ignorant male
simplist he becomes a cultural adept recognizing his
sons' talent. So after a long struggle the whole
community supports Billy to do his audition at the
Royal School of Ballet in London. The way he accepts
his success carries all the meaning: it is fantastic
to become a god of culture, but is it, apart from the
honor, a pleasure and solution to the life of problems
in the community one grew up with? Does one really
hope for the peace and spiritual welfare of a simple
life? Or is stealing the show, going for success and
fame the way of all us to go? This movie doesn't
answer this question. That is where it stops for
another movie to continue. First fight yourselves up
and then sooner or later return home again having
accomplished the mission. And what would that mission
be? Go, see and think along with
Billy.(website)
Seen
01.22.01.: Dir.: Gérard Kwawczyk. Met : Samy
Naccri. This french movie offers us slapstick european
style: We may step in with a taxidriver and enjoy his
crazy adventures. There are fantastic carcrashes of at
least twenty policecars piling up on top of each other
and chases faster than formula 1 races. The taxi can
even fly! Nothing is impossible. The story is also
something: the man wants to marry the daughter of a
military officer, but he pretends to be a physician.
Later he confesses that he really drives ambulances
... Anyhow he has to help his father in law-becoming
to the airport to receive a japanese official under
siege of the Jakuza. He has to be protected with a
special car and to impress him do the police and the
military enact a few fake attacks to demonstrate their
protection. Not able to tell the difference with the
real attacks of the Jakuza ninja's, is the confusion
complete preparing for all kinds of action-scenes in
comedy-style. One won't be bored seeing this movie.
(website)
Seen
01.22.01.: Dir.:
Robert Zemeckis. Starring Tom Hanks en Helen Hunt.
There are rites of passage to gain access to an
afterlife. This movie is about such a passage. Chuck
Nolan is a FedEx employee with a pretty aggressive
style of managing, but a sweetheart to his loving
wife. He lives by the mechanical of clock-time. Going
hard in business he is a completely materially
motivated person of standardtime. One knows: he is
doomed to crash somehow sooner or later. Actually his
airplane crashes on his way home from Russia, with him
as the only survivor ending up on a tiny little island
in the pacific where one can hardly survive. There he
has to live with natural time: the watch his wife gave
him does not work anymore, For four years he's talking
to a volleyball he calls Wilson to the name of one of
the deceased pilots he buried on the island. He tries
to commit suicide but fails to do so, not able to find
himself a proper branch to hang himself from. Instead
he hangs a kind of crucifix. After 4 years he takes
the chance: he gathers enough material to build a boat
and breaks trough over the riffs with its high waves
into the open sea. There he covers 500 miles until he
is picked up by a cargo-ship and returns home. But now
is whole life is changed. He passed through to the
other side. He can get his job back, but not his wife.
They buried him and she has children now. The last
scenes are devoted to delivering the FedEx packages
which he had opened on the island and one mystery
package he never opened. It was meant for another
woman, an artist. His new wife? We'll never know.
Chuck ends on a crossroad deciding and we may go home.
This remake of Robinson Crusoe shows how peoples lifes
change when one is drawn back into nature. One goes on
a trip of no return, even if one does physically
return. Back to nature is an initiation into the
secret of life and selfrealization which this movie
shows much better than the Robinson Story. Sooner or
later each of us has to return to the original source.
How is not known, it depends on the karma, but
inevitable it is. (website)
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backgroundgraphic: Argotique