Author: Sasa

Wer früher stirbt ist länger tot

Oh God, this was funny and so lovely! I feel bad now that I forgot to blog about, but I am actually surprised by it – very pleasantly of course. I think that everything Bavarian (and everything Tyrolish – or Tyrolian? Whatever.) is really adorable and this film is no exception, heh. Just like “Death at a Funeral”, I find it difficult as always to write about a funny film, even though I could go on ranting about how enjoyable and bavarian it is, but oh I don’t know much about it, so where’s the point?

Of course the film had some ridiculous parts, but actually they made us laugh, so it was fine. The trip of the great-grandmother, hahaha. Or how Sebastian’s father and his teacher ‘fell’ for each other. Or how the radiomoderator tried to kill himself. XD

But I should maybe mention that Sebastian is a rather nice and well-portrayed protagonist, but even though he is so thoughtful, I find it impossible to qualify him as a “shota” (just like Czeslaw from Baccano and this one guy from Darker than Black). Maybe because he’s so insecure and basically behaves like a normal young boy? *g*

So yeah – yay for german films, I highly approve.

PS. Oh, about the title of the post: We noticed how we are only watching french of english films so far – and always watch them subtitles. We were even thinking about watching this film with subtitles but I’m glad that we decided against it in the end as it was understandable, even for me.

M – Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder

This film is probably the most famous german film ever and with that, my expectations were horribly high. However, when I started watching it back then, I nearly fell asleep after 10 minutes and decided to go to bed (stupid german TV program, why are good films always in the middle of the night?) So here’s my second try on seeing this.

Well, the first thing I have to say is that I am amazed by it – the cinematography, the suspenseful story, the gorgeous portrait of german society (and german people!)… Every single of these points are worth an essay of its own.

The main achievements (maybe similarily to Citizen Kane) is probably the freshness of the style – the cinematography, especially the sounds (or the lack of it in certain scenes). While watching it, we discussed about whether it is intentional and noticed how well done the sound is actually used; and in fact, it was intentional.

Also, we mentioned several times while watching the film that if it continues to be at such a high level, it will most probably enter our top film lists. Well, when it comes to old classics, this probably is really my favourite (as you can see, even though I enjoy classics, there are only a few old films that are on my best-of-list). But after a suspenseful development, the story ended up in a fulminant final that added a lot to the expression and meaningfulness of the film. At some point, I felt like I was in a play, especially while Lorre’s greatly performed monologue.

Oh, and the last point, well… we had to watch the film with french subtitles (wtf?) and it showed perfectly how many details could not be properly translated due to the fact that some words simply don’t exist in another languages. (Stulle, anyone?) Actually a lot of the wordplays and german expressions were lost due to the translation which only shows the smartness and realism of the dialogues. It makes the film much more enjoyable when you are actually german or are knowledgeable about german culture, I think. A film like this could not have possibly been done by a non-german… but the question whether an ‘insider’ or an ‘outsider’ can do a better portrait of a society is endless of course. Even though this question is rather important for me, especially in something as popular as films, I don’t have a decisive opinion about it.

Another great point is that this film does not have any soundtracks at all! Even then, I didn’t miss it and the atmosphere of the film was conveyed just right even without a soundtrack. I am amazed.

All in all, this is probably truly the best german film ever made, and proves that there actually is a history and potential for good german films – even though with “Der Untergang” and “Das Leben der Anderen”, there are also modern german films I really like. By the way, I want to see “Das Leben der Anderen” again… arr, that one was so great!

Jules and Jim

Okay, I am being silly, because you can’t compare these two at all – one is a generic eroge adaptation and the other a true masterpiece. In result, this film makes me want to go to the Cimetière de Montmartre and leave some flowers on Truffaut’s grave.

A propos Truffaut’s grave, I read some articles about the film and noticed a trivia saying that the video for “Kiss Me” by Sixpence None the Richer actually is full of references to the film – it has all those charming little details from the film that make the film so unique and so perfectly french.
I have to admit that I kind of used to like that song (I was 14 and never kissed) because of its stupid lyrics, so it was kind of an interesting surprise for me.

In the end, I am very glad that the nationality of Jules and Jim actually was not all that important – the First World War and the epoch are just a small element in the whole thing, the focus is actually on the characters themselves and their relationship. Just thinking about it makes me feel bad and fascinated at the same time. (Maybe the triangle is also why I started watching School Days?)

Apart from the fact that I think that this film is a masterpiece (especially its directing! <3), I wouldn’t recommend it to anybody. The main reason lies in the quite complicated character of Catherine. To sum it up, she’s quite an awful woman with an awful voice doing awful things. Jules (or was it Jim) said it too: “She’s not beautiful, she is not intelligent, but she is the woman we love.” In some ways, this is the definition of a classical femme fatale: Women who have this something that is not easily to grasp. Personally I can understand their attraction towards this woman, but maybe this is because I am a woman myself. If I were a guy, I might feel different about her.
I could go on with a long passage on why I find these ‘femme fatales’ so interesting and rant about Alma Mahler, but I think I should call it a day. This film is going to be on my list of films to re-watch anyways. (But before that, I have to check out if Truffaut’s other films are as interesting as this.)

Death at a Funeral

Instead of doing something serious, I have watched a film again – but this is much better than watching anime, because we are always watching films in a group so far *harr*

However, it is rather difficult to blog about a comedy, even though one might have lots of things to say about the britishness of this one. (That reminds me of the fact that I discovered that Freud has written a book about humour and its relation to, well, psychology. It’s “only” a bit more than 250 pages long, maybe I’ll just take it for my read-a-book-and-write-about-it assignment in my psycho-analysis class?)
Even though british humour has always appeared a bit ‘weird’ to me (there is this “Three Men in a Boat” book that I found utterly un-funny), I have to admit that I love it. I am a fan of the Monty Python films, Douglas Adams, Gosford Park (even though it’s a Hollywood movie, it is very british)… but obviously I only like it when british society is parodized, maybe because it’s just really that laughable?
I also liked how I didn’t know one single actor – I suppose they are all british and conclude that some of the funniness and the authenticity of the film comes from that… Generally british films just have to be played by british actors to be good (maybe one little flaw in Gosford Park).

One little comment about the title: Maybe it’s because I dislike my family (where everybody is so fake except for the few family members that are really close to me) that I love these big family gathering comedies so much… Ah, mankind is just like this! And that’s just so great! Hahaha.

I wonder if I can wholeheartedly recommend the film (I loved “The Meaning of Life” but Pochi didn’t), but I would definitely wholeheartedly recommend it to a lover of british humour *g*

Gespenster

After seeing so many nice german productions (“Die fetten Jahre sind vorbei”, “Der Untergang”, “Gegen die Wand” and especially “Das Leben der Anderen” were so gorgeous!), I have to realize that most german films I have seen before were all utter crap. And this film unfortunately is no exception – oh God, the characters are stupid and awful, the atmosphere isn’t all that interesting and the storyline just absolutely pointless. Ah, not to forget that everything was very cliché, especially Nina’s talk about her dreams of Toni getting raped, oh God.

The only slightly exciting part of the film was the very beginning when you saw Nina and Toni slowly getting yuriyuri. Unfortunately it was very predictable and poorly executed, but somehow I still found it kind of cute to see *g*

Note to self: Never watch a film without recommendation anymore. Ugh.

Gegen die Wand

I’m being shameless, I know. Actually I watched the film with two people from the dormitory and the title actually is a reference to a tasteless joke while watching it. We were talking about what “french”, “spanish”, “greek” and the likes are in sex language (especially greek is kinda ugh, ahem), and then we saw a scene where the protagonist cut herself in the wrist with lots of blood running. And then somebody said: “Yeah, and this is turkish.” It’s nice to see somebody so sarcastic as I am, hehe, but I guess I talked too much during the film.
Seriously, this film had a tad bit too much blood – but somehow, it didn’t bother me at all. I am kind of used to slightly extreme reactions to seemingly everday problems, so I found the characters actually very understandable. I am all in for the “I want to live my life”-message.

Which brings me to the topic: Sure, in some ways, the film truly is very emotional, but somehow I didn’t feel like watching it the whole time. I talked a lot, about the film itself and lots of OT stuff… so that finally, we didn’t even realize what exactly happened at the end. It was a tragic ending of course, and somehow I didn’t like it. What the point in getting together and then leaving him again? Also, I kind of blame her for having gotten a child even though she told him she would wait. (My God, what a bitch.) Of course I am aware that her love for him was too self-destructive, but she didn’t need to make a child to sort out her life, right?

Maybe I should also leave a few words on the sexuality that was portrayed. In most of the cases, I rolled my eyes and made fun of it. It’s difficult to explain, but this way of moving, or the camera angle, or whatever, something made me feel very alienated. In fact, I am quite sure I would not have moved and behaved like this myself and that must have caused this weird feeling of ridiculousness when I see other people doing this. It’s a similar effect to the awkward kiss of Jude Law and Julia Roberts during their first scene in Closer.

I actually like Sibel Kekilli even though I really dislike her voice (or the way she speaks), it kinds of make her feel like an amateur. But throughout the film, her complex role gave her the possibility to actually act quite well! Also, her appearance has the ‘something’ *g*

Oh right! Aside from the message, I mainly liked the love story between Cahit and Sibel… the beginning was slightly confusing but as soon as they actually really married, I was only waiting for them to get closer – and I was not disappointed. The love story itself began very subtly and I really liked the dramaturgy until the ‘accident’ – to me, it was the highlight of the film, and that alone was enough to make it worth watching it.

Paris je t’aime

I am being inconsequent, I know. After all, I have watched “Gegen die Wand” and “Gespenster”, but I really feel like I have lots of impression about this film and I have can’t help but comment on them immediately.

First of all, this film made me realize how there are so many more places in Paris that I still have to see. I am in love with Paris as well, but I mainly only know the more famous places, while the ‘real’ Paris is probably unknown to me. (However, I am really not convinced that this film shows Paris as it is, it can obviously only show a small, idealistic aspect of it.) Somehow I now want to see all those places that appear in the movie… and I also feel like buying all those books about Paris’ “secrets” that were recommended to us in that Paris seminar of two hours we had and explore the whole city.
What this film definitely has shown is that Paris is one of the most fascinating cities in the world, if not the most fascinating – I cannot imagine it’s possible to make a movie like this with London, or Berlin, or New York.

However, we are dealing with a rather bad movie, if you ask me. The movie had its brilliant stories, but most of them were just crap in my eyes. Pointless or not funny at all and way too short. Therefore, I will only comment on the ones I liked (actually 10 out of 18, so considering the badness of the ones I didn’t like, it’s not a high quota).

From the one I liked the less to the one I liked the most:

Porte de Choisy
Okay, I still have to comment on this, because this is the biggest so-called artistical crap I have ever seen in my life. Oh God, this is the epitome of stupidity, arrrgh.

Montmartre
I also have to comment on this one, since I disliked this story so much. Oh God, I can’t believe how they could have wasted Montmartre (my beautiful Montmartre!) on this kind of pointless story, ugh.

Quartier de la Madeleine
This one was kind of funny after all XD It does not fit into the whole film at all, but it had this little *something*, maybe because it kind of made fun of the whole concept? *haha*

Père-Lachaise
I kind of like Emily Mortimer, don’t ask me why. However, she seems to always play the same role and always make the same facial expressions. But whatever, in this case, I was kind of annoyed that they had to speak english all the time (which I didn’t fully understand due to the low volume of the film), but somehow the story is interesting – and the fact that it’s playing at my beloved Père-Lachaise is making up for it. *g*

Place des Fêtes
A simple story, surely, but I found it very well done – and somehow it actually touched me, so it’s difficult to say whether I liked it more.

Loin the 16e
The story itself is not all that great, but it has a good message and I really liked the actress (oh, and I knew that she played in “Maria Full of Grace” even though I didn’t watch that movie!), she was cute and also played quite well. It was great to see the difference in her expression when she was with her own child and other one.

Parc Monceau
It was annoying how they spoke english with their stupid french accent, however the story itself is great. It’s creative and I was really looking forward to it, but in the end, I was not really satisfied with how the dialogue was presented. It’s still a nice piece though.

Tour Eiffel
Somehow I found this part very ‘french’. Its charming creativity reminded me a lot of Amélie Poulain.

Bastille
This story was, in some ways, emotionally touching. The only problem was actually that I seriously disliked the woman and I also felt sorry for the mistress who was then left apart. Aside from that, I could totally understand the feelings of the man and the way it was presented was also well done: The love for his mistress was well portrayed as well as how lovingly he was with his wife afterwards.

Le Marais
Here we come to my favourite story from the first part of the film… It is the only story in the whole movie that had a really punchline, if you ask me. It made the story slightly funny, meaningful and had quite a big emotional impact on me. If all the stories were so good as this one, “Tuileries” and “Faubourg St-Denis”, the film might have become a favourite.

Tuileries
Basically it’s just gorgeous and funny… There’s not much to say about it though, it’s just so true. Ah, the Parisians!

Faubourg St-Denis
For some reason, I feel like falling in love with Nathalie Portman after this – even though I usually didn’t think of her as a really attractive woman (in Leon she was too small, in Star Wars too ridiculous, in Garten State too annoying, in Closer she was not loved… etc. etc.), but in fact she definitely is underappreciated. This story was just so wow, it contained all the elements of a good short story – funny elements (we had to laugh when he said “sometimes she screamed with a reason” and the flashback showed them having sex XD), a believable romance where you could feel the connection between the characters, good flashbacks and a lovely start of the relationship… and of course, a great punchline. It doesn’t surprise me that this short film was the very first one – and that it drew lots of famous people contributing to the whole project.

Now I feel like I have forgotten quite a lot of what I wanted to say… but whatever, if I remember, I’d add it – and if I’ve forgotten, then it probably wasn’t all that interesting anyways.

4 luni, 3 s?pt?mâni ?i 2 zile

Today, I went with three people from our dormitory corridor to the Cinéma du Panthéon to see this film, and I was surprised how everybody actually liked it! If you have seen it, you would immediately understand: The pace is extremely slow – in a lot of cases, we just have a close-up of Otilia breathing; and actually there is no *real* end. In a lot of senses, the film has reminded me of Kie?lowski’s work: His film are also very slow-paced, play in communist eastern european countries and are very, very emotional. Throughout the whole film, you can feel the character’s pain and angst, it’s incredible. What made the film so great is three-fold: First, the way the characters behaved towards each other (which reminded me a lot of 25th Hour); second, the cruelty of the environment and the constant fear of getting caught; and finally, the most probably rather accurate portrait of Romania.

I disliked Gabriela really. (Actually I started disliking her from the first point when she said that she dislikes Palmolive O.o How can she expect so much from her friend?) I don’t really blame her for having gotten pregnant, because everything can happen. (And because I am in no position to say anything really, but that’s another issue.) However, she lied to everybody and he seriously hurt them. Also asking Otilia to bury her child is understandable, but she has no right to put her into danger like that after Otilia had to, well, I can’t say it. Obviously Otilia also had to lie to Gabriela, but in some ways, I really could feel with her – basically she really is a good protagonist to sympathize and suffer with. Her characterization (especially in her dispute with her boyfriend, that reminded me so much of myself, oh God!) was perfectly done, I am amazed.

The thing I could say brings me to the second point: the environment. The doctor was the biggest asshole possible (and obviously he lied the whole time too). I can only hope that the girls won’t give him the rest of the money, but actually I also expect it. I mean, what can he do afterwards anyways? When you are desperate, obviously you cannot expect any help, but this was just too cruel to watch.
By the way, I didn’t realize what they talked about until Otilia started to take off her socks, and that actually shocked me quite a bit. Also, the scene afterwards when she washed herself was very believably done – however, I wonder what the guy really did, I mean.. she might have become pregnant now as well? *faint*

All the other people (especially those in the hotels) were not less cruel… It made me realize that the film also is supposed to be a portrait of the society of the Romania of that time. I can’t say much about it because I basically know nothing about the country and I am always sceptical about whether films can give a satisfying overall portrait on a country I don’t know yet; but somehow, the film looked very believable and well done.

The last point I should mention is the theme of abortion itself: I myself am horribly scared of having an abortion, even when it is legal and done with lots of precaution. So this fear alone has already made me much more susceptible for the feelings of the girls – it was the clearest to me in the discussion with Otilia’s boyfriend when she confronted him with the possibility that she might become pregnant as well. You are never 100% sure, which makes it even scarier.
Oh, I also liked how nobody, not even the boyfriend, talked much about morals – the amorality of the film was refreshing and the focus on the characters (and not ethnical discussions) helped a lot to us to sympathize with the girls so that the film in the end was slow, suspenseful and emotional at the same time.

PS. I know why I came to Paris: BN cakes, Orangina and Crème brûlée.
PPS. It is really interesting to see the Panthéon at night. I have been at the place during daytime and after sunset, the whole environment is even more charming and romantic in some ways…