THE BANISHMENT

Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev, which debut film was the critically acclaimed The Return has produced another thought-provoking piece: The Banishment.

Dark, beautiful, tense, sinister, scary, slow, claustrophobic and 'real'. A family moves from the city to pastoral country side for their holidays. Everything is fine, with the sole exception that there is not much communication/love between Vera and Alex. Something is rotten. It is not until a good 45 minutes into the film, that Vera unveils that she is pregnant and her husband is not the father. With no more details, Vera leaves the sentence floating, but also makes you question the statement: Is it a fact or is it metaphorical?

The narrative focuses on Alex actions and consequences. Charged with religious symbology and with an intricate ending, it makes The Banishment not an easy film. And you will not exit the theater plethoric with happiness.

The cinematography helps to create a sense of tension and claustrophobia. The beauty of the country side is meticulously analyzed and transformed in a space of solace. And so is the city which is morphed into an unwelcoming industrial and cold wasteland.

The soundtrack is mesmerizing. Arvo Part and composer Andrey Dergachev are superb in accompanying the landscape shots and the car scenes. Sad, introspective and melancholic music that will move you.

I have been lucky to watch three films coming from the east that are easily in my particular top ten: The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, Four Months Three Weeks Two Days, and The Banishment. Low budget with great results coming from eastern Europe: Romania and Russia in these instances.

Artificial Eye (UK distributor) offers a brief synopsis about this film:

Just like any other film, in one way or another, this film is about all of us – kind, beautiful people in the tragic circumstances of hopelessness.

Unfortunately this kind of cinema is not very accessible and it does not get promoted. It does not attract hordes of people or make millions in the box office. So you will probably need to get hold of the DVD release (and this is not an easy task either).

Music: Some wonderful music flowing through me in the past few weeks (these posts will become weekly soon) and much of it is rediscovered or old stuff-discovered rather than my own blog-surfing ability to find new tuneage. The best rediscovery stands as Bikini Kill, a band that made songs which were incredibly simple to the point of dumbness and committed so much to the conviction of this view that they end up being total genius. ‘Rebel Girl’ is the key text, a song with lyrics that could be written by a fourteen-year-old punk chick but a will to find a way and a brilliant, insistent riff. The album Pussy Whipped is though, for all the lack of sophistication, something of a minor masterpiece.
I’ve also become semi-obsessed with indie or leftfield hip-hop from the past few years, notably beginning to worship J Dilla and Madlib. Madvillain and the self-titled album which came of this experiment is something of a stone-cold masterpiece, as is Dilla’s Donuts, an elegiac sketch record of beats and mini-tunes. Also on the playlist for this is their collaboration, Jaylib, which, as you might guess, I flipping love. Also worth looking at are Why?, Cadence Weapon, Peanut Butter Wolf and Aesop Rock.
There’s been a number of great songs and albums mixing in to my last few weeks but gosh darn it, The Hold Steady’s Stay Positive is yet another brilliant rock and roll record and my hands-down favourite album of the year so far.

Film/TV: Again, much to report. I got to see Rashomon on the big screen last week, a truly wonderful experience, and will be seeing Ikiru also to further enhance my Kurosawa knowledge. I’ve recently re-taken in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, a truly nostalgic experience for some but for me, a comedy without good gags and nearly two hours of suffering the stupefying lack of talent exhibited by Steve Martin, the most overrated comic ever. As a side, if you find this funny, you'll likely love it.
My birthday occurred last week and my wonderful girlfriend treated me to a few Criterion DVDs of some of my favourite movies. I’ve yet to see Noah Baumbach’s Kicking and Screaming but its on this week’s list but I also received David Gordon Green’s low-key debut masterpiece George Washington and Dazed and Confused, still my favourite Linklater.
On this week’s agenda are two LoveFilm rentals I’ve left back through utter laziness, Night and the City, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days and . Also up this week is Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould, In Bruges, Gummo, An Evening with Kevin Smith and finally, some TV on the schedule. I’ll be catching up on Generation Kill this evening (probably writing about it also) and Mad Men returns tonight, a welcome addition to the schedules for a show I fell totally in love with last year. I am of the wide belief that it is indeed the best show on TV right now.

Books: I finally began my journey into Sandman, something I’m likely to chronicle on the site, and I’m quite enjoying the first book. More on that soon. Also I’m on Clockers, Richard Price’s mesmerising account of New York drug trading and the police who deal with the fallout. The book is basically The Wire (on which Price was a co-writer) even down to a couple of scenes being nearly lifted wholesale in the show and the character of Stringer Bell seeing strong echoes from one of the drug dealers in the book.

Other: Other is becoming the Podcast section but I really am loving two new ones to my schedule. Watching Theology is a spin-off and now main show of the Watching the Directors series and is pretty decent. The discussion on Lars and the Real Girl was very interesting indeed and the title may be misleading, this isn’t some sort of religious indoctrination show where everything is about Jesus. Also great is SMODcast, the podcast of Kevin Smith and his regular producer Scott Mosier. It’s very hit and miss but they are always engaging and occasionally very funny indeed, even if the self-indulgence that sometimes mars Smith’s films is given full-flight here.

Pick of the Week

4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days - The hugely acclaimed Cristian Mungiu humanist thriller about two girls seeking an abortion in communist Romania. A Palme D'Or winner and mini-masterpiece, this should be required watching for any film student or anyone put off by subtitles and tough subject matter. It's an intense watch but rewarding on any level you need.

Also Out

In The Valley of Elah - Paul Haggis' flawed but decent fist at exploring the difficulties of readjustment for homecoming Iraq soldiers in the US. The central performance from Tommy Lee Jones is great but again with Haggis the script is overwritten and loses its power due to stagy dialogue and a pretty awful turn from Charlize Theron.
Weeds: Season 3 - Mary Louise Parker shines as a suburban mom with a pot-dealing empire. She's the star and the beating heart of the series but most of the adult performances are strong even if the series as a whole never rises beyond being just 'good'.
The Hills: Season 1 - The Hills baffles me to my core. This is a show so post-modern that its almost post-post-modernist. Staged reality. It's hideous, vacuous, irratating and manipulative. But I love it.
The Savages - Mostly loved actorly drama starring Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney as grown-up kids dealing with the deterioration of their father.
Before The Devil Knows You're Dead - Another Philip Seymour Hoffman movie, this time an uneven film overall but still interesting for his performance and the quality of Sidney Lumet's direction.
Wristcutters: A Love Story - Awful, pretentious nonsense derived from a great concept: a purgatory for people who commit suicide. Only good when Tom Waits turns up for a cameo.
I'm a Cyborg - Oldboy director Park Chan-Wook makes a robot love story. Not seen it but his previous films are great so it's likely worth a look.
The Sun's Burial - Cult Japanese work from Nagisa Oshima that I'm really looking forward to checking out.
Alice in the Cities - Wim Wenders' breakthrough film. Another I'm anticipating greatly. You can check out my review of the film on Screenjabber.
Paul Verhoeven Collection - The early Dutch films of the provocative and wildly unpredictable director of Showgirls. Likely better than that makes it sound.
Over the Edge - Matt Dillon-starring late-70s exploration of teen dislocation in small town America.
He Was a Quiet Man - Christian Slater plays loner psycho turned hero who forms a relationship with a disabled Elisha Cuthbert. Could be awful but seems at least interesting.

Region 1

Rambo - Literally nothing else of note from the US so it's down to Sly Stallone to keep it going. This is a ridiculously violent 'exploration' of the human rights crisis in military-occupied Burma. It's watchable but I would not allow the kids anywhere near it.

Music: I've had a slowish week music-wise due to catching up on film podcasts to prepare me for the switch in focus for the site. The only things I've been enjoying musically this week are the eighties synth-symphonies of Neon Neon (a collaboration between the Super Furry's Gruff Rhys and Boom Bip) whose album Stainless Style is really excellent. I also love the new Young Knives album and the EP from Fleet Foxes. Another mention goes to Earth, Dylan Carlson's doom-metal act whose new album, The Bees Made Honey in the Lion's Skull, incorporates some serious groove to the din.

Film/TV: Busy week here as you might expect. Reviews of all three of the films I saw this week will go up very soon but just to preview, I watched Charlie Wilson's War, Lars and the Real Girl and The Orphanage. The coming week will see me take in a number of others including Days of Heaven, The 400 Blows, Bande A Part, Enchanted, Once (rewatch), Hallam Foe, Killer of Sheep and 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days. On the TV side, I'm well into the third season of Battlestar now and it is still a pretty excellent show. I've also finally got hold of The Wire's precursor show, The Corner, a detailed investigation of those in and around Baltimore's drug trade.

Books/Magazines: I finished Imperial Life in the Emerald City this week and am now really looking forward to the Paul Greengrass movie. Cutting investigative reporting at its finest with a dark line of heartsick comedy running through it. I also finished Northline, the new book from Richmond Fontaine singer and primary songwriter Willy Vlautin. I loved it, far more accomplished than his first work, This Motel Life, and filled with lovely, realist observations of life. I did my clippings this week so my magazines' best articles are all in three folders now. This week's best include an interview with Gore Vidal by Rachel Cooke in the new UK Esquire, an examination of the relationship of Godard and Truffaut in the New Yorker and The Atlantic's Britney edition has an investigation of Hollywood's move back to the spirit of the 1970s.

Other: Oh, the soup. I'm addicted to Waitrose soups! The best of the lot is a crab and asparagus which has hints of black pepper to give the aftertaste a little interest. I'm also still addicted to podcasts but mostly to the one from Filmspotting. I will tell you now that the likelihood for the future of this site will be to emulate the work of those guys. Outside that one, I also love the Truthdig podcast from political journalism doyen Robert Scheer and Slate's Political Gabfest.

Then in college days I was lucky to watch some of the best foreign films. I have wondered back then why 'Lagaan' didn't won Oscars but after seeing 'No mans land' I was sure that later was far better than 'Lagaan' in all respects. Watched many foreign films that time to name a few , 'Motorcycle diaries', 'My sassy girl', 'The Pianist' and my personal favorite 'Cinema Paradiso'.

And now once again after a long time I was able to download and watch some of the finest movies. The topics were varied from teenage pregnancy to suicide attempt by two Palestinians men and from one person who suffers from locked in syndrome to a teacher who tries to teach student the importance of poetry. In all there are some six movies I have watched over last week. To list them,

The counterfeiters: Its the Oscar winner 07 in foreign film category. The plot revolves around true story of largest conterfeiting operation in history set by Nazis in 1936.

It was a good movie to watch, could be made better. Especially I compare with similar movies (based on Nazi regime) such as Schindlers list or The pianist this one won't rank among those ones but certainly a nice watch.

4 months 3 weeks 2 days: This one was different, hell lot of different. Set in socialist Romania 1980 where abortion is illegal and one girl assists her friend in doing so. The plot was gripping till the end, bold screen play and nice characterization.

Certainly a great watch, go and grab a DVD.

Lives of others: Its a political thriller set in East Berlin about an agent HGW XX/7 who is  spying on german playwriter Georg Dreyman on the order of Cultural department. Initially the agent was disciplined fellow comrade but then later in the movie his determination towards party wavers and he ultimately helps Dreyman.

I liked the ending part, when Dreyman come to know about agent HGWXX/7. Its a powerful but quiet film, constructed of hidden thoughts and secret desire definitely a worth watch.

Dead poets society:  Carpe diem (Seize the day)

English teacher Professor Keating (played by Robin Williams)  inspires student to make their lives extra ordinary, tells them to take the road less traveled and importance of individuality. Dead poets society is the place where the students assemble and recite verses from great poetries and also their own.

In the end a student who intends to pursue dramatics despite their parents will to study medicine, shots himself. The administration makes keating as scapegoat, who leaves the school in the end.

The movies sends powerful message through keatings character. In all Dead poets society is movie which would make a long lasting impression on you.

 Paradise Now: I came to know about this movie through Jehane Noujam's TED talk where she passionately tells about importance of movies, and she firmly believes that movies can change lives.

Yeah after watching this movie I can also say, movies certainly can change lives. Movies have a role to play in society as they have a wide audience, and also they are understood easily by mases. So for sending a powerful message to society movies are better means movies.

The movie paradise now revolves around two Palestinian men preparing for a suicide attack on Israel. The movie tries to explore deep down the heart the hatred for Jews and in particular Israel. The movies ends off brilliantly and lefts it to viewers imagination.

Certainly the kind of movies I love to watch.

The diving bell and butterfly:

Simply stunning. No words left to describe it.

Experience your self once, you would never forget watching this film.

Thats till now, many more in pipeline. Thank god (Bram Cohen) for Bittorrent.

Sidenote: A pirated copy--which I did not procure or facilitate. Yet, I watched it. Hmm. I'm not sure what the moral implications of this are...

Regardless, the film is simply stellar. I wholeheartedly recommend that everyone watch it. It's funny enough to draw everyone in (think Gilmore Girls at their most promising...damn, I just referenced the @#$$# Gilmore Girls??!) and it's deep enough to engage the brain of anyone who wants to engage said apparatus.

It's been interesting for me, having read about this movie for some time before...but it seems that this and other recent movies have even challenged a number of hardened critics to rethink their stances on abortion.

I find this fascinating.

It is my hypothesis that both the left and the right have made this issue such a political, polarizing hot topic that the humanity of each and every case has been very, very lost. I am glad there are films coming out now that do not have an agenda, but merely tell human story with sympathy, insight, humor...and considerable emotion.

A lot of times, life speaks for itself the most effectively.

It's interesting, isn't it, that Jesus spoke in story? And then he let his words speak for themselves, to those that had ears to hear.

I look forward to following this up at some point in the near future with 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days, a Romanian film that takes a much grittier look at a story drawing from similar basic plot material.

The AV Club holds it's third annual film poll.

We love Ellen Page here and indeed, it seems The Guardian has also fallen pray to her cheeky charms.

I also love rotund Spanish genius Guillermo Del Toro and he has been linked to yet more projects.

Now I know you're all sat there wondering, 'what will Slate writers be reading this winter?' Well folks, by clicking on the highlighted portion of this very sentence, you can instantly find out.

PopMatters also picks out some books, this time the finest they experienced throughout the previous twelve month period we oh so love to know as a year.

Microsoft has bid $44.6bn for Yahoo. Which seems like quite a lot doesn't it? Isn't Yahoo rubbish now? Hmm...

Entertainment Weekly selects a few choice action movie one liners. To be honest, it's a little rubbish because not once is Arnie noted for his Commando, Running Man or Batman and Robin work. Poor show EW, poor show.

To background this, Jimmy Kimmel had a running joke on his show about inviting on Matt Damon and then running out of time. Probably the funniest gags ever done involving that fat lump of idiocy. Until now, although this doesn't really involve him. This one is all about Sarah Silverman, Matt Damon and coming clean. Enjoy.

Here's a very good list of the twenty meanest love songs. Despite this, REM's 'One I Love' used to be among the most played songs at weddings despite being an exploration of love as a throwaway commodity. People are great.

M Ward discusses his working with doe-eyed indie siren Zooey Deschanel on a very anticipated album for E&L.

Newsweek is calling for finality to come to the Oscars. I agree, it's time to put that golden fool down once and for all.

Cracked.com theorises on what might get nominated for the Oscars next year if the strike fails to be resolved. A couple of them sound great.

Lupe, Lil Wayne, MadLib; all good practitioners in the hip hop game. Better though, Bill Cosby.

The Washington Post adds its name to the list of publications which loved 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days.

Barack versus Hillary played out calmly with no blows truly landed. The International Herald Tribune discusses.

Here's a clip of Les Savy Fav playing 'Patty Lee' on Conan. They rule.

Josh Hartnett in a martial arts movie, you say? Tell me more.

Milk, Gus Van Sant's new movie about Harvey Milk, is looking very cool and CHUD has some pics of Emile Hirsch sporting a wig for his role.

Marc Jacobs, Betty's fashion Jesus, played out an homage to himself in NY last night.

Deerhunter and the Black Lips have had their respective frontmen unite to deliver collaborative tuneage.

1. Moment of silence for Heath Ledger.  That dude was a hell of an actor who was only getting better with each film.  It's a real shame and sadness to lose such a talented guy so early in his life.

2. Watched the new AMC series Breaking Bad, starring Bryan Cranston (the dad from Malcom in the Middle), about a 50-year-old chemistry teacher who decides to make a life change by becoming a crystal meth cook.  Pilot episode was great (they are replaying it on AMC all the time) and the 2nd episode is this Sunday night.  With literally nothing else on, this is definitely a show worth checking out.

3. Watched new episodes of Chuck on NBC last night.  Not sure why, but NBC decided to dump its last two Chuck episodes on one random night, with little advertising and at weird time-slots.  The first episode was lame (the show is called "Chuck", not "Casey."), though the second episode was right on point.

4. Last weekend, Teeth, a film I reviewed months ago from the Edinburgh Film Festival, was released in the U.S.  Now's your chance to go see one of the weirdest, most unique films I've ever watched.

5.  Unfortunately, I myself can't see this movie because it isn't playing in the Illadelph, but I'm hearing terrific things about 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days, a Romanian film that won the Palm D'Or prize at this year's Cannes Film Festival.  Go out and see this if you can.  Here's a great review of the film from Media Maven favorite, James Berardinelli's Reelviews.

So it's beers this week. Imagine the possibilities...

So kicking off the new week is this list of film stars impervious to box-office pain.

Pitchfork isn't too impressed with what's on Cat Power's Jukebox. We still think she a gosh-darn genius though. The staff there also pick out some records not made last year but discovered in the vaults.

PopMatters is still listing-it-up and here's another of further albums they liked last year.

Tim Harford on Slate discusses the common ground of Facebook and Ikea.

Anthony Lane discusses Cloverfield and 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days in The New Yorker.

Oliver Stone wants to make a movie about George W. Bush. Shocker, right?

Gus Van Sant talks to Paper Magazine.

Ryan Gosling meets Tom Clancy? Oh yeeeah!

The Guardian provides a playlist to lift the spirits on this Blue Monday.

Terrorists beware! Kiefer's out of the slammer.

PopSugar is taking in Sundance.

Um mês e algumas semanas depois, aqui fica a continuação da rubrica iniciada com "Novidades Cinematográficas". Ora, agora que a Cerimónia dos Globos de Ouro foi cancelada e nada de grande se avizinha... que tal afogarem as mágoas nos cinemas? Vejam as nossas sugestões!

"The Air I Breathe" - "Happiness. Sorrow. Pleasure. Love." - esta é uma das taglines do filme, e representa os quatro sentimentos cantados pelo provérbio Chinês no qual este drama é baseado. Happiness, Sorrow, Pleasure e Love são também os nomes das quatro personagens principais, interpretadas por Forest Whitaker, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Brendan Fraser e Kevin Bacon, respectivamente. A história, como podemos ver pelo trailer, gira à volta de um homem com a capacidade de prever o futuro mas que, no preciso dia em que tem de salvar uma estrela Pop, deixa de ter visões, um médico e um homem que assalta um banco por causa de uma aposta. O elenco (que inclui ainda Andy Garcia, por exemplo) é excelente, a história parece muito boa e o trailer/poster estão soberbos!

"The Orphanage" - Com "Pan's Labyrinth", este tem em comum o idioma castelhano, o género e o facto de se ter sobressaído no panorama internacional, ou não tivesse sido a escolha de Espanha para os Oscars de 2008, na categoria de Melhor Filme Estrangeiro. A primeira coisa a chamar a minha atenção foi mesmo o póster, que está bem macabro. Gostei. Depois, o trailer, muito bom e que nos mostra um pouco daquela que será a ambiência do filme bem como a sua história - que mistura elementos de "Silent Hill" (9/10), " Fragile" (que ainda tenho de ver) e "Darkness" (5/10), que envolve um casarão que já foi um orfanato, fantasmas, e amigos imaginários... vocês percebem! Esperar para ver.

"The Bucket List" - Vá, não é preciso muito mais que ver o trailer (se o póster não tinha dado umas pistas, já) para perceber que este vai ser um feel-good movie que eu vou ver de certeza. Porquê? Em primeiro lugar, porque adoro os actores principais - Jack Nicholson e Morgan Freeman -, e depois porque a história me parece interessante - nada de muito original, pois "Last Holiday" tinha uma parecida -: dois idosos - suponho que Nicholson não se ofenda com a definição - com cancro decidem fazer uma última viagem com o objectivo de cumprir todos os pontos de uma lista de "afazeres". No elenco, encontramos ainda Sean Hayes (sim, o Jack de "Will and Grace"). O filme tem tudo para ser bom... talvez um pouco melodramático mas não importa, quero ver!

"27 Dresses" - Okay, o póster pode estar parolo, mas desde quando é que um mau póster significa um mau filme?! Exacto, e até que existe um motivo para tal capa: o papel dos vestidos na história. A verdade é que a personagem principal - interpretada pela excelentíssima Katherine Heigl - já foi dama-de-honor 27 vezes, e agora vê-se numa situação ainda mais complicada: ter de planear o casamento da irmã com o homem que ela própria ama. O trailer está muito bom, e fez-me querer ver este filme, que conta ainda com James Marsden e Edward Burns no elenco principal. Como se não bastasse, a Isabel convidou-me a ir vê-lo ao cinema - tecnicamente fui eu quem convidou, depois de ela dizer estar interessada em ir, mas pronto -, por isso resta esperar que não seja um flop como "P.S.: I Love You"!

"4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days" - Outro filme cujo idioma não é o inglês a constar desta selecção, outro filme que parece ter tudo para ser excelente. O nome está interessante e, tal como o trailer, deixa (quase) tudo em aberto, pelo que, a menos que façamos uma pesquisa mais elaborada - coisa que não quero, ou arrisco-me a saber spoilers -, pouco sabemos sobre a história do filme, além de que se passa nos anos 80, na Roménia, e que envolve o tema do aborto. De resto, mais vale comprar o bilhete e conferir na sala de cinema ou então, esperar pelo DVD. Parece estar bom, mas estou confuso quanto ao género já que, pela montagem do trailer, parece ser um thriller... mas, pela plotline, um drama. Talvez uma mistura dos dois...!

Posto isto, digam-nos: que filmes querem ir ver nos próximos tempos? O que acham dos desta lista? Opinem!

By Lindsay Zoladz

10. Encounters At The End of the World: A delightful portrait of the people of Antarctica, as seen through Hertzogian goggles. As usual, Uncle Werner unearths little nuggets of humanity in the most unlikely places. Plus, this is one of his funniest films ever – see: the “buckethead” scene for proof.

09. 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days: Cristian Mungiu's Palme D'or winner about a woman trying to get an illegal abortion in 1980s Romania is a taut drama with the adrenaline-pumping punch of a thriller. Anamaria Marinca gives a searing, memorable performance.

08. Eastern Promises: There has always been an element of sensationalism to his movies ("Scanners? Isn't that that movie where a dude's head just fuckin’ explodes?") but David Cronenberg almost always has the goods to back it up. Take Eastern Promises, for example. You went for the nude fight scene, but you stayed for the intriguing tale of Russian mobsters and the deftly executed plot twist.

07. Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten: The best music documentary to come along in quite some time and a fitting tribute to the only frontman that mattered. If you can get past the fact that the other band members have almost no screen time and Mick Jones comes off kind of looking like an idiot (I mean, I love him, but what else is new), you should have no trouble accepting Julien Temple's doc into your heart as the new definitive film about the Clash. Step aside, Westway to the World.

06. Superbad: #1 movie of the year to see with your friend's dad who really likes penis jokes. (Hi, Mr. Carney!) #1 movie of the year to fantasize about Michael Cera being your boyfriend. #1 movie of the year to afterwards feel really guilty about that because he's gotta be like 16, right? #1 movie of the year to remind yourself you should stop blogging about your crush on Michael Cera.

05. Knocked Up: More than just the most appropriately hyped movie of the year, Knocked Up is an irrevocable turning point down that fickle road that is American comedy. (Repeated viewings confirm: the Circe de Soliel scene rules.) Plus, Judd Apatow is so meta that he uses a viral marketing campaign to comment on his own imminent backlash. How can you possibly hate on that?

04. Persepolis: Based on the popular graphic novel, Persepolis is Marjane Satrapi's coming of age tale as a girl growing up in Iran in the 1980s. The film marks the beginning of what will probably be a long and fruitful marriage between the cinema and the literature's most rapidly burgeoning form. I laughed, I cried, I saw up Marjane's skirt when I went to go see her speak once because she's so feisty that she doesn't even try to cross her legs when sitting in a low chair in front of a large group of people. Love her.

03. I'm Not There: With I'm Not There, Todd Haynes redefines the very idea of biography – much in the way Virginia Woolf did with her 1922 novel Jacob's Room, or, dare I even say, this young upstart Orson Welles did in 1941 with, well, you know – by writing around his subject, concentrating more on the mystique of the silhouette than the cold, hard details of the person. I hated this movie the first time I saw it. I thought it was stupid and pretentious, but it took me repeated viewings to see how amazing it actually is – and how courageous it is to make a film like this in a time when most people will immediately write off what they don't understand as “pretentious.” Leaving the theater, I felt like I knew less about Bob Dylan than I did when I came in, which is an uncommonly profound success for what most people are calling a “biopic.”

02. No Country for Old Men: With their twelfth feature, the Coen Brothers finally establish themselves as indisputable masters of visceral, Hitchcockian suspense -- visceral as in it engages your organs and changes your breathing pattern for the entire duration of the movie. Immediately after I left the theater, I called my dad to say, “Better than Fargo. At least fifteen times better than Fargo!” but mostly because this movie freaked me out so much that I was afraid to walk home and just wanted somebody on the line. An absolute masterpiece. If Javier Bardem doesn't get the Oscar, I'm liable to punch somebody in the teeth.

01. *Placeholder for There Will Be Blood* If you believe everything you read on IMDB (and if you, do, well...), it's going to be better than Citizen Kane. But not like we suburban folk will be finding out about 2007's most hyped film any time this year!

Also Worth Mentioning: Margot at the Wedding, The Host, (most of) Paris Je T'aime

Not Even Worth Mentioning: Things We Lost In The Fire, Next, how much I actually kind of want to see Alvin & The Chipmunks

4 MONTHS, 3 WEEKS & 2 DAYS

Christian Mungiu, 2007

"Classic" neo-realism was/is often a chore. Its adherence to loose-but-dumb rules about style and sometimes-revelatory/sometimes-hoary notions of truth and reality resulted in some of cinema's worst tendencies, Dogme being the subsequent trend's most annoying/liberating apex.

The main problem is that for far too many filmmakers, neo-realism was a means with which one could successfully and easily remove oneself from the burden of either poetic conjecture or unambiguity, and all with the impunity of an approach deemed docudramatic and, thus, obviously "truthful"; the oft-discussed truthfulness of the genre often only as thinly evident as the filmmaker's plainly-realised documentation or experience, and even more often a pointless catalogue of Life's fatalistically tragic arc.

(NB: 1: obviously style is often dictated by budget, with earnest examinations of such realist faves as misery, poverty, and the underprivileged not exactly money-spinners; 2: Dogme has produced some fascinating films, and presented SOME great filmmakers with an opportunity to make their first lo-lo-budget first feature; 3: there have indeed been many insightful and much-needed films made within this conceptual framework, and that is another post for another time).

Cut to: the 00's, a post-modern age of cinema where realism is in 2.35:1, and such big-timers as Michael Mann make almost nothing but "2.35 Realism". In 2002's Changing Lanes writer/god Michael Tolkin's amazing script - a scathing examination of contemporary value and conflict - is given the widescreen-realism treatment, and if filmed any differently (read: any more artificially) would have undoubtedly mutated into something entirely other, or at least would certainly not have been the affecting and authentic portrait of determinism and ideology and human frailty it is. Paralleling this trend (and largely pre-dating it) are Europeans such Bela Tarr, whose transcendental real-time approach to such acts as walking endow his serenely cinematic films with astonishingly insightful analogy, and the Dardennes, undoubtedly contemporary neo-realism's poetic torch-bearers and the chief inspiration for this wrenching detail of life and compromise during Ceausescu's reign.

As with most clever things, what Christian Mungiu does here is deceptively simple: a girl needs an illegal abortion, and asks her dorm-mate for help, but once Mungiu gets these two girls up into the proverbial narrative tree, he then sets about tossing them some mighty stones indeed. Functioning on a similar level to the Dardenne's Rosetta, the political/social context often comes as a bleak and mental Hanna Barbera backdrop, scrolling past the amazing Anamaria Marinca as she traipses around 1980's Romania. Often an unsettling portrait of moral relativism, the messiest aspects of this film are often the plausible-seeming horrors perpetrated by people who feel entirely justified in their actions, and it is here that Mungiu's indictment of Ceaucescu lies: if a people will often accord with an internal compass then their context is everything, and if the context is one of totalitarian rule, then the collective compass will be that much further removed from a humane pole.

The title is far scarier and problematic than it suggests, and like most films of its nature the people who need to see it won't. Let me write it again (to get it out of my system)... 4 Months, 3 weeks, 2 day is a film by Romanian director Cristian Mungiu, and it's gnawing away at me. Sometimes a person has to write to get it out of their system, this is one such time. I walked into the movie theatre this evening wanting to experience something different and I got my wish bestowed upon me times three. All that I knew of the film was the title from a few best of year lists, and the fact that its now up for a Golden Globe and will more than likely be up for an Oscar.

Now the question is as it always is, how do I unfold the story to you without ruining the experience in the way I experienced it? So I'm not going to give you a synopsis of the story because the psychology of the film works better if you don't know going into it and while the film focuses on one particular event and the aftermath of it it's not what the movie is about. This film unfolds like a first person story - one of the only films that I've seen work as a first person film - and to feel the confusion and exacerbation that Otilia is going through for her friend Gabriela, it helps not to know what the event is. The first twenty minutes is a daunting task as we play catch up to our two young women preparing for something though for what we're not sure. This movie is in the details so pay careful attention to the small things Gabriella focuses on and thinks are important. When you understand everything, think back on these things and you'll end up shaking your head in dismay. She's a girl in a woman's body, able to experience things as a woman, but unable to maturely handle the responsibility and repercussions of her actions. Otilia is a pushover but she's dependable, dependable to a fault. She's the character we end up following around through the preparations and the reason why we're kept in the dark is so that our own frustrations are amplified to match her frustrations, but once we do get the idea we're taken through every emotion she goes through, as she's going through it. The camera follows Otilia's shadowy figure through streets allowing us to feel like we're walking the streets. We jump when she jumps, we get nervous when she does - is that guy following her or is he just going the same way? She is invited to sit around a cramped dinner table while she anxiously awaits the opportunity to excuse herself, and we wait along just as anxiously. This isn't done with the use of music, or with tricky editing, but letting the camera sit opposite Otilia with everyone crammed into the edges of the frame. There are no cuts. And we wait, and wait, until we hear the phone ring. She wants to get it, but can't...how can a person answer someone else's phone? She's too kind to excuse herself, we would be too kind to excuse ourselves, so we wait it out, nodding our head to the polite chatter and answering questions we've been asked a million times before, we have to. Layers upon layers build, and we sit, getting more and more anxious. Waiting for the worst to happen.

And that's what 4, 3, 2 feeds off of, our imaginations, our fears. That in the situation the girl's get themselves into, the worst possible thing that could happen, might. When we sit around that dinner table, our minds are somewhere else, seeing the worst. We see the corner of an ambulance and we imagine the worst. Gabriella won't answer the phone...the absolute worst. This isn't melodrama or movie reality, but a film in which something real and bad could happen to these girls. The sort of things we hear and read about happening to real girls, outside of movies. And as I inferred the director does this without use of the conventional movie tools. There's no musical score. Most of the film finds its rhythms in the way characters talk to each other and the deft use of silence and camera work. The edits are few, instead we're allowed to watch how these people respond to each other without the help of an editor and director (or producer) timing a response for precise emotional effect.

And besides this sad adventure that we follow these girls on because of Gabriella the film is really about the character Otilia and how she is forced to grow up and start seeing things for what they can be if not properly dealt with. And realizing the serious repercussions that bad decisions can have. She's probably been a pushover for far too long. Though pushover is probably too strong a term. She's the kind of friend and lover that's too selfless, too nice - she can't say no. She doesn't stand up for herself. Letting people walk over her. Covering for her best friends mistakes. Allowing things to happen to her that shouldn't for the sake of the people she loves. This film is about her waking up from that, about her becoming stronger. The thing that makes this such an involving story is the fact that these people are presented accurately and clearly. Sure the film takes place in 80's Romania, but I know girls that are like this today in LA. Girls that are at the stages in their lives where their insecurities play a part in how they respond to people. They wish to be seen as responsible women and they do all the things responsible women do, but they still don't have the wisdom or sense of responsibility to be straight forward and honest about how they feel and what they want. They think that by telling their boyfriend "no" the boyfriend will leave them, when sometimes that could be the best thing for both involved. They have more fears and insecurities than they do rational actions. This movie details that time in which maybe they're starting to realize how serious things can be. That lying because it's easy won't go over so well in the real world, in fact it might make it extremely worse. That when you make certain decisions in one relationship it might be devastating to another relationship when everything is uncertain on a day to day basis. It's that transition from post High School to Post College mentality. This is how the real world can be and it's an incredibly scary transition to go through it with these girls who are learning it the hard way. At times a disturbing one, one that requires a strong psychological physique from the audience.

At times the film is shot and constructed like a psychological horror film playing with shadows and camera work to stimulate our imagination the way a horror film might, not unlike Rosemary's Baby and only here it isn't the devil, but the worst kind of horrors that people have to deal with. We don't see everything that the girls go through, sometimes the camera waits in the room where the action isn't taking place. Allowing the worst of it to take place in our heads. And when we're allowed to see the sad, cold aftermath of their decision we're filled with a hundred different thoughts and feelings about the subject matter. And the audience learns that irresponsible people will break the law to do what they need to do, so is it worth having laws like this. Seeing the aftermath and knowing these character so well we imagine how it might have happened or how they dealt with it when it did. Or with the things that aren't said in the final moments of the film how they will deal with it. This movie lives beyond it's own borders. It lives beyond the frame of the camera more so than any movie I think I've seen. It lives beyond the final shot of the film.

The ironic thing is, that if this were an American Produced film in English it probably wouldn't be up for any awards, and not because it's undeserving, because it's probably one of the most deserving films this year, but we don't always give just rewards to challenging American material, most of the time it isn't even produced! I guess it's safer and probably more financially viable to let our brethren filmmakers from other countries deal with subject matters like this. And maybe it's better that they do when a film as raw, natural and intense as this is the final product. I will be very upset if there aren't some acting nominations for either of the girls in this film as their performances are what give the movie the life that it has. Anamaria Marinca (Otilia) has a part in Francis Ford Coppola's current film Youth Without Youth, and Laura Vasiliu (Gabriela) will have a long career ahead of her.

4 Months , 3 Weeks & 2 Days is a strong movie about the raw reality of illegal abortions in a communist Romania of the 90s. The film has won the Palme D’Or at the Cannes Festival; best film of the year at the FIPRESCI’s Grand Prix 2007; amongst other industry awards. The furthest you can get from an Hollywood grandiose style, this small budget movie is a back to basics, strong simple plot without the need of any sort of embellishments (soundtrack, very sexy actors) to make it more interesting.

“A comment I received after the first informal screening of the movie was also the best compliment for me so far: (…) if you listen to the characters in the film from another room, they sound like people talking in home videos.” - Cristian Mungiu (Director)

The acting is so realistic, that it almost makes you believe that you are watching a documentary, rather than a movie. Mr Bebe (Vlad Ivanov), the doctor who performs the illegal abortion is the most interesting character, the one that makes it all worth while. The struggling Otilia, played beautifully by Anamaria Marinca, goes through to protect her friend Gabita (Laura Vasiliu) and is the most touching and humble display of human emotions portrayed in the cinema for a very long time.

The beginning feels just a bit too long with many still scenes depicting the daily life of the characters, and that may put some viewers used to the fast paced movies off. At times it comes across as a student film, with the camera work just a bit too shaky. It is the kind of movie a family can go and watch together with their teenage children, since the visceral abortion scene will be enough to make any person think twice about unprotected sex.

This one definitely gets a thumbs up from me, though if you’re the kind who loves action, and thinks Hollywood movies are the best in the world, then this is not for you.

For Big City Red Neck

-- Ollie

So 17th of October will be "remembered" as the day when I understood.
This is one of the few things that I wrote fully convinced that it is something to be read by others.

I wrote a small "trilogy" and I think I captured quite well my feeling about the whole experience:

• 4-3-2, My/Our Roots!
  Part ONE
  .
• 4-3-2, Sacrifice!
  Part TWO
  ..
• 4-3-2, the Movie!
  Part THREE
  ...

Other readings:

• on the Official Homepage
• on Rightwing Film Geek
• on Eastfilms.net: Review | Interview
• on Fipresci.org
• on Cinematical.com

LATER EDIT

Nicely written review on an American actor and writer's blog.