No Country for Old Men – In rural Texas, welder and hunter Llewelyn Moss discovers the remains of several drug runners who have all killed each other in an exchange gone violently wrong. Rather than report the discovery to the police, Moss decides to simply take the two million dollars present for himself. This puts the psychopathic killer, Anton Chigurh, on his trail as he dispassionately murders nearly every rival, bystander and even employer in his pursuit of his quarry and the money. As Moss desperately attempts to keep one step ahead, the blood from this hunt begins to flow behind him with relentlessly growing intensity as Chigurh closes in. Meanwhile, the laconic Sherrif Ed Tom Bell blithely oversees the investigation even as he struggles to face the sheer enormity of the crimes he is attempting to thwart.
A Londoni frfi – One night Maloin, a switch man at a seaside railway station situated by a ferry harbor, witnesses a terrible event. He is just watching the arrival of the last ferry at night from his control room on top of a high iron traverse from where he can see the whole bay. Suddenly he notices that the first of the disembarking passengers, a tall thin figure (a certain Brown as it will turn out later) leaves the harbor, but not on the usual route: after getting through customs, he goes around the dock and then withdraws into a dark corner, waiting. Opposite him, in front of the ship, another man soon appears and throws a suitcase towards the man on the shore. He goes and picks it up, then waits in an even darker corner for the other man to join him. When he arrives, however, they begin to quarrel and finally, in the course of the vehement fight, due to a hit that turns out to be fatal, the shorter one falls in the water and sinks, clutching the suitcase in his hand. Maloin is watching the scene, astonished. Finally, in a state of fear and shock, he opens the door of his control room, but the sharp and loud creaking sound disturbs and frightens away the murderer. Brown is forced to flee before being able to fish out the suitcase from the water. After the murderer disappears down one of the streets behind the harbor, Maloin cautiously climbs down from his cabin to the shore. When he realizes that there is nothing he can do for the victim, he dredges up the suitcase. He takes it up to his control room and opens it: it is packed with money. He is dazzled. He does not go either to call the police or fetch the murderer; he just stares at the pile of money. He simply cannot believe his eyes. Then, after meticulously drying and counting the banknotes, he hides the suitcase in his closet and locks it. At dawn, when his colleague arrives, he acts as if nothing had happened. He returns home on his usual route. Nevertheless, this path is not the same anymore.
Les chansons d’amour – Ismael (Louis Garrel, the Gallic version of the adorable young Hugh Grant), lives with Julie (Ludivine Sagnier). Alice (Clotilde Hesme), who works with Ismael, shares their bed and Alice’s affections. On a night of tragedy, Jeanne, unawares, hooks up with Gwendal (Yannick Renier), whose teen-aged brother Erwann (Gregoire Leprince-Ringuet) is the only one who can bring a shattered Ismael back to life, in the most romantic man-on-man love scene since Rupert Grave’s Alec Scudder climbed through Maurice’s bedroom window 20 years ago. With rain-slicked streets, coffee and cigarettes, references to a dozen French classics, a haunting score and the best balcony scene since “Romeo and Juliet,” this low-budget charmer, which has become a cult favorite in France with the under-25 set, is an “Umbrellas of Cherbourg” for the 21st Century.
Soom – This is the third film I have seen by Kim Ki-duk. Each one has been very different to the other, and I have loved them all. Address Unknown was bleak and emotionally challenging, Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter… and Spring was beautifully poetic, while Breath is hard to describe. It has aspects of the earlier films – it’s visually poetic and bleak – but it’s very different to both most notably for its surreal/absurdist devices combined with very black humour (slightly reminiscent of some of the work of Ral Ruiz). Sparse dialogue makes for great intrigue as we attempt to make sense of the two main protagonists and what they have in common. One, a man on death row, the other a suburban mother who follows news of his exploits on the TV. To discuss how the story unfolds is to spoil the film if you haven’t watched it. However, the story is so elusive, that even with the details, much remains unexplained, adding to the mystique of the film. The prisoner does not speak during the film and the mother does not speak to her family; she is on screen for about twenty minutes before we hear a word uttered from her mouth.
Mogari no mori – The movie opened true to Kawase’s penchant for capturing moving air. Here, we see lush greenery on tree tops dancing to the motion of wind, and vast open fields where blades of grass sway back and forth when caressed by the breeze. It’s like watching a National Geographic episode of forests and greenery before the opening credits kicked in to start the film proper. I even suspected that M Night Shyamalan could have paid homage in his The Happening, which also had plenty of such shots put into it. The story tells of the relationship that formed between Shigeki (Shigeki Uda) and Machiko (Machiko Ono), the former an old man in an elderly home who has been aloof after the lost of his wife some 33 years ago. 33 years is an extremely long time, and to miss someone for that long, well, you know how strong his emotions are to his wife. On the other hand, Machiko is a staff at the same elderly home, but she too is grieving internally for the loss of her son, and her husband squarely puts the responsibility and blame on her petite shoulders.
Tehilim – Tehilim is a great film, no question about it. It is a minute of examination of the different ways in which characters react to a crisis. Though the film is small in scale it is nothing short of riveting. At the end you realize that, though the distance traveled is very small and enormous amount has happened. The lead actor, teen-aged Michael Moshonov, broods and lurks about the screen desperately searching for a focus for his anger at his vanished father. Truth seems to be Nadjari’s motivation and he focuses his lens on the minutia of his characters’ movements, revealing their inner struggles in a way reminiscent of Chekov. In a world overrun with films of artifice and manufactured drama it is so wonderful to discover a film that resists falsehoods and breathes truth.
Maddox Penner is an absolute movie nut and invites you to Download Movies For Free at the Movie Pan. You’ll find all the latest hits as well as the great oldies.
Technorati Tags: Arts, awards, Cannes, Cannes Film Festival, entertainment, Festivals, Film Festival, films, Movies, Television, Television Reviews