About Chocolate Parfaits

Casablanca

Most definitely not. But I haven’t watched a movie together with my parents since ages and I know that they like old Hollywood love stories, so I figured they would like Casablanca as well. I was even more surprised that they actually haven’t seen it yet, but it’s only natural, I guess. It’s a story with a sad ending and it propagates western ideals and stuff, so it obviously would not be particularily famous in China.

I hate the “Ich schau dir in die Augen, Kleines”, but aside from that, the love story itself was rather cute and understandable. Both of them, but especially Ingrid Bergman, are fabulous actors and make the ridiculousness that goes with Hollywood love stories somehow realistic and touching. My adoration for Ingrid Bergman has now nearly reached Audrey Hepburn’s. They are like two sides of a coin (blonde – dark-haired, petite – tall, cute – elegant etc.) but they share a naturally beautiful, rather smart looking face with expressive eyes and an incredible talent for acting.

Back to the politics: Despite the suspenseful and beautifully kitsch love story and La Bergman, I still believe that the (questionable!) political message is still the main reason behind its popularity is still the message. I dislike how Italians are shown in such a bad way, how all the Germans are so generically bad (the truth is much more complex of course), how the city of Casablanca itself is basically reduced to some exotic stage, how I had to read in the Wikipedia article that lots of german actors had to play roles of Nazis even though they had to flee from Germany themselves. Besides that, I rather doubt the way patriotism and western ideologies such as democracy is shown: it’s just stated that these values have to be protected, not why – of course you can’t expect more than this from such a movie. The Marseillaise is still a song of war, bloodshed and fights; the democratic values of the French Revolution still go hand in hand with “La Terreur”… maybe I should not talk about politics, I guess, it’s too outraging. Especially not in relation to a Hollywood movie.

Another thing I find interesting about the movie is the strength of its citations. Even more since the german translation is so horrible (like I mentioned before with “Ich schau dir in die Augen, Kleines”). But when I’ve re-read all the quotations on Imdb and Wikipedia, I immediately recognized them and were able to relate them to the specific scene, like “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” or “Play it, Sam. Play ‘As Time Goes By.'” and especially “Round up the usual suspects.” (ahaha, so funny). Maybe it’s just that the most simple things in movies are also the most memorable.

Finally, the most important part of the movie is still the end. I expected Lazlo to die in fact because I could not believe a famous story like Casablanca to end without a happy end. But I figured that this aspect of forsaking love for something bigger must also have contributed to its popularity; and I think so too. Love is beautiful, but letting go of the true love for something more important, something like responsibility, is even more so. That’s why “The Bridges of Madison County” would have been a beautiful story if the book was a bit better written and the character a bit more complex (in my opinion). In the end, I could totally identify myself with Rick, but what, nowadays, is more important than love anyways?

Huo Zhe (To Live)

This film was brilliant. Just brilliant. I don’t really know what to say about the movie especially since I didn’t know anything about it before. I was even more surprised to see that my parents have loved it as well and that my father is a fan of Zhang Yimou… somehow I always have expected Zhang Yimou to be the “movies for the western world” kind of director, but that’s only half of the truth. “To Live” is a masterpiece of chinese culture, going through the most dramatic times of chinese history. My parents have always said that every generation has go to through some hardships – for our grandparents it was the wars, for them it was the cultural revolution… and since I was small, I feared a WW3 or something equally devastating so I promised myself I would become strong-hearted. *hrr* Pretty stupid, I know, but without purpose, my parents’ education have accidentally made me very sensitive about war, the cultural revolution and other humanitary catastrophes. I also am the kind of person who starts to cry when I see books burning and the thought of doctors and teachers to be tortured is one of the most depressing possible, considering the nature of their profession (health and education are the most important things for a man after all!) and the huge amount of work they had to put into forming their skills. To me, it’s not the holocaust, it’s the cultural revolution in China that is the worst thing humanity has ever brought out; besides my strong opinion about war being the worst thing that can happen to you. I’m not exaggerating.

Back to the movie, it’s just SO chinese. And the fact that it was banned adds up to it. It’s not the characters (Ge You is more than brilliant!) and not only the touching story, it’s the message behind it that makes it so chinese. Of course the whole story is about life, but it especially is about how you have to continue living no matter what happens. If China has survived until now and has brought it so far, it’s not only because it’s a bunch of smart merchants, but also because they are traditionally raised to be able to overcome hardships and support difficulties. It’s probably considered the most important virtue, and this is so presented in such a touching, beautiful way in this movie. Aaah, how much I love it! I was lucky that I only saw good movies since I came to Berlin (or at least as good as I expected), but this movie’s brilliance tops it all. No matter how interesting and important movies or sex or relationships or politics are, this movie really is about life and that stands over everything.

I’m sorry for ranting so much and not having said anything really substantial about the movie itself (besides the fact that with this, I have finally acknowledged Gong Li as a good actress and not just some nice face), nothing about the most touching and funny scenes, and nothing about how happy I am that I can speak chinese so I could get all the small linguistic nuances of the dialogue.

The Dreamers

Unlike “The Last Tango in Paris”, I did not feel like commenting on the movie while I watch it, so I expect that I have much less to write, and at the same time to forget most of my initial impressions. Also, I might find it difficult not to compare this movie to the 30 year older Last Tango because the handwriting of Bertolucci is just way too apparent.

Aside from the intriguing premise (a ménage à trois of movie fans) and the splendid Eva Green (I want her, badly), what dragged me into the movie the most was the scene in which Matthew confronts the twins’ father with his “it all fits”-talk. Somehow I found that rather interesting and smart, and it shows pretty well that Matthew is indeed worthy of being “part” of their little party. Which brings me to the next highlight of the movie: The three of them running through the Louvre was somehow an impressive scene. I haven’t seen Bande à part, but there is a similar scene in Jules et Jim. My first thought was “I want to do this too!”, and my second “It only works with three people.” Yes, love triangles are indeed the most intriguing relationship form ever, especially because I believe that they are deemed to fall apart. Contradictory feelings, a mix of love and friendship, sexual identity, and foremost jealousy, this all is the in a love triangle and makes movies like Jules et Jim or The Dreamers so fascinating.
In fact, these three are a perfect match. Even though I love Jake Gyllenhaal (the prospective of seeing him naked so often is rather intriguing after all!) and think that he’s a perfect naive american in Paris, I’m glad that it ended up with Michael Pitt, the chemistry between them is much better like this. Maybe I shall explain what I liked about them, but I can’t find any other aspect besides the 68-ish way to talk about movies and their charming insider games; in fact, it just works.

Eva Green’s attractive character (arr, the red hat at the beginning!) makes me wonder if in real life, I would really want an encounter with a woman like this. It’s hot when she orders the boys around, but somehow I can’t see myself finding the orders of a woman hot (I was even slightly pushed back by the part in “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” in which Sabina orders Teres to undress herself). The idea of saying “Masturbate in front of me!” is somewhat exciting with a man – no matter which way around, but with a woman… it isn’t. I wonder why.

Oh yeah, I have completely forgotten to write about sex. Erm, actually I didn’t find it that interesting in this movie. Sure, the naked bodies are pictured in a rather beautiful way, but I was missing the chemistry and the dense atmosphere that we saw at the end of “Y tu mamá también” with the dance and Diego Luna and Gael García Bernal kissing. A comparable scene might be the one in which they lie together and fall asleep next to each other (which is really somehow romantic), but it hasn’t much to do with sex.

The end was expected and I knew about it already. Of course it’s rather generic how ‘reality’ has separated the ‘dreamers’ who were hiding away in their apartment and did not want to see the cruel truth of the world… whatever, this political aspect of the movie is rather generic and not particularily interesting. It’s interesting to see the Henri Langlois affair to play an important part in a movie, but there weren’t many thoughts and dialogues going with it (unlike “Die fetten Jahre sind vorbei”), so whatever. I guess it’s more the big picture of “sex, cinema and politics” that intrigues me so much, and that made this movie great for me, despite its weaknesses especially in the middle.

So, after seeing two Bertolucci movies, I still don’t know whether I like him or not. The movies themselves were very good indeed, and they looked great, but at the same time, I wonder if his other movies would reach this.

PS. Of course all the movies “The Dreamers” references to are great *___* I want to see them, like always!

Last Tango in Paris

I have always been interested in “The Last Tango in Paris” for some reason… maybe because I know the title for years, since I’ve been 8 years old or something; and I was intrigued by the title simply because I liked Paris (Disneyland, you know) and tango (it looks so beautiful).
Later, I have always dreamt of a relationship like this – an unknown man, way too much money and an apartment whose only function is to the one of an expensive love hotel. A Parisian apartment would be perfect – maybe in the 16e arrondissement *snicker* (I can’t believe this film actually plays in Passy.)

I guess the main interests of the movie are the characters and the relationship between them. Let’s begin with the characters. She’s not particularily interesting, I find it perfectly easy to identify myself with her. Also, I don’t find her beautiful at all, but in this movie, it works perfectly. It’s all about charisma and attractiveness, not beauty, I guess. But he’s rather interesting, especially since I don’t find Marlon Brando good-looking at that age anymore. His character has the something, maybe it’s the ‘manliness’ that comes with his outbursts of anger. It made me realize that in this movie, this makes him attractive so that I can perfectly understand why the girl let him basically rape her; but at the same time, I find his male tsundere character utterly scary. In real life, he is indeed the kind of man who ends up with a suicidal wife and another woman who kills him; at least I would get crazy of fear one day if I had a man who yells at me like this – with a certain charisma, these men might find it easy to find a woman, but impossible to keep her. Even though the internet and popular media think differently, I strongly believe that in the long run, a kind person would always win in a competition for love.

What is much more difficult to talk about is their relationship. I believe the chemistry between them is actually what makes this movie so famous and not the all popular anal sex scene. However, I would not exactly say that this is the kind of relationship I would have expected. I mean, what are they talking about – their childhood and their sex experience? Besides the fact that the whistling and the animalic noises have annoyed me, I feel like I’m missing something in the content of their relationship. Of course there probably aren’t many interest in common with an old guy and some girl, but there must be more than just childhood and a slightly crazy interest for sex – both elements all people have in common – that draws them to each other.

I should lose a few words about said anal sex scene though, because it slightly reverted my first impression of that relationship. When I read in the wikipedia article that he forces himself upon her and makes her say the most abasing things, I seriously expected something along the lines of “Your cock feels so good in my wet pussy” (this is a reference to Ressentiment as I actually have never watched a porn movie), but I definitely did not expect statements about how the “holy family assassinates freedom”.

Of course I don’t even talk about the perverted aspect of their relationship. He clearly treats her like the little girl she is, hitting her and raping her while she lets him wash her while talking about the other man she has sex with… yadda yadda, it was so expected that I don’t find that interesting or outraging anymore.

Another point: It’s interesting to see them speaking in two languages, I have the impression it is completely coincidental and without any meaning when they switch between french or english. Now that french and english are my main foreign languages, it still has an impact on me though: I find his french okay and her english unbearable. She sounds so much better in french and her weird pronounciation somehow makes her ridiculous and the emotions she conveys much less powerful. It seriously makes me worry about my english, because I, too, make quite a lot of pronounciation mistakes.

The tango scene was brilliant, and the end as well. So unexpected, even though it finally explains the title of the movie. In the end, I don’t know if I find this movie fascinating or utterly pointless.

PS. Two sex scenes basically… that’s not much for a film that supposedly is mainly about sex – sometimes Wikipedia articles are horrible.

The Golden Compass

Like the subject says, I got from the movie exactly what I’ve expected: Great looks and a nice, but not particularily interesting story. I am deeply in love with the landscapes, the battles and the clothing design (all totally stolen out of Lord of the Rings if you ask me XD), also I love the actress for Serafina Pekkala, one of my favourite characters, as well as Nicole Kidman’s role. She’s so splendid as femme fatale who has a secret love for her daughter and her former lover, hehe.

At the same time, I’m not particularily fond of the actress of Lyra. In fact, she is a really good actress (much more than Emma Watson, oh God), but I just somehow dislike her looks… she would be so charming and irresistible if she would look like Emma Watson – I feel so sorry for her.

Since I will only be talking about superficial things today, because I completely forgot the story of the book (and thus cannot compare anything anyways): I don’t really like how the alethiometer looks like. I have expected it to look much more complex, beautiful and fragile at the same time… especially since I have dreamt of having an alethiometer like that, hehe.

The best part, and what made us enjoy the movie the most, was actually rather silly: The icebears are so lovely! For some reason, seeing the huge, white, furry butt of an Iorek Byrnison made me laugh so hard, and every time I saw this butt moving around, I had to laugh again. Aaah, that was so much fun, and it’s so stupid of me XD

In sum: If you like the looks of the trailer and the promo pictures, and/or are a die-hard “His Dark Materials” fan like me, you might enjoy the movie. Otherwise, it’s just another Lord of the Rings copy that somehow does not work out well.

La peau douce

So honestly, I have not found any part of the movie that had to do something with ‘skin’. But whatever, I have to admit that this is the very first real disappointment since quite awhile. After all, it was recommended to me as the Truffaut film to watch, but Jules et Jim was so much better in my opinion. I was able to relate to all the characters (even that woman) in Jules et Jim while I seriously disliked all the characters in this movie apart from the wife herself. The only dialogue parts that I actually liked were the ones involving her – she had a passionate, strong way of arguing against her husband which I found very intriguing. (If I were a man, I would probably leave her too though XD)

Somehow I still perceive Truffaut as a great director, but this story was just too generic, the characters too annoying and there was nothing fun in watching the movie itself. Well, I still want to see at least one or few more of Truffaut’s love dramas. And I am most definitely going to see his grave.

The motorcycle diaries

I actually really wonder why they called themselves “Fuser” and “Mial” all the time (and oh by the way, “Mial” as well as “Miel” actually sound nice – maybe I’ll just it as a nickname somewhere).

It’s been so long that I have watched the film so that I don’t even remember which day it was anymore. I only remember that it was a rather stressful day, but I didn’t regret having watched the film at all. Indeed, one might consider the film a little bit boring and in some ways, it’s true that the storyline itself does not lead to anywhere, but somehow, that film stayed memorable for me for three reasons.

The first one obviously is Gael Garcia Bernal. I really plan to watch every single film he has starred in (as well as Jake Gyllenhaal and Edward Norton, by the way), especially since all the roles he had so far were so different and interesting. Somehow his innocent and honest looks make him a great Che Guevara (or rather: a great Che how the film-makers wanted him to be) – maybe he’s a little bit like Hugh Grant, another shy and honest looking guy who in reality is a bit of a player, ehehe.

The second reason is the Che Guevara background. As you can probably imagine, I have dug out Wikipedia articles about Che Guevara and to be honest, I feel rather insatisfied with them. Just like everybody has a wrong perception of Mao or the Dalai Lama and buddhism, everybody seems to either worship or hate Che Guevara for things he probably didn’t even do. This is rather fascinating, especially since usually nobody seems to care about Cuba, even less today.

The third is actually the main reason why this film kind of has stayed in my mind for the whole time until I finally wrote this down: Seeing the motorbike trip itself and the beautiful landscape has driven an urge in me to do the same, to travel through South America. It’s rather surprising because I never really cared about South America, I was much more interested in Australia for example, or Northern Europe or South East Asia. But of course South America also has both marvelous landscapes and old civilizations, and that makes it interesting for me. Even more than with a car, I want to travel around on a motorbike and ‘find’ something I might have overlooked in life. (Maybe this is the influence of Kino no Tabi? Hehe.) So… who would I want to go with, I wonder? XD

Journey to Italy

In many ways, this film has reminded me of “Two for the Road” with the not less splendid Audrey Hepburn. In fact, Ingrid Bergman (despite her awful hairdo) has saved the film for me. Everything else was not exactly boring – because no relationship movie could ever bore me – but I was so fed up with the protagonists who in my eyes clearly did not love each other anymore but were just pointlessly jealous. I can see how the sudden confrontation of ‘losing’ the other person might provoke some feelings, but even then, it was so lame that this outburst of emotions has so suddenly made them overcome all the very evident problems in their relationship that they have. In fact, nothing was resolved at all and I really dislike that.

I really wonder if long term relationships always to end up in such a clichéd, awful way. Then again, things changed these days, I guess. It’s rarely the “man works all day, woman is lonely and bored” constellation anymore, I guess (and when it is, it’s probably a rather lame relationship anyways). Then again, I could nearly fully identify my own feelings with “Jules and Jim”, but not with this film at all… I wonder why. Is it because of the ‘passion’? *heh*

By the way, I want children too and I can see that being a point of contention as soon as I enter a more ‘serious’ age for it. And I wonder what my child would say if I told him/her that I just got him/her because I was curious to see what it is like to be a mother. If the child is some cruel and curious person like me, he/she would probably even approve… oh God.

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!