047. Die weisse Massai / The White Massai (Germany - 2005)

Again, here I am, taking ages to update the blog, but I'm back! Some new films (some of them were fantastic and enlightening experiences, whereas others were just mediocres conventions of film), and I'll be adding them in the next four days or so. The first ones will account for the films that I watched during the months of March and April, mostly. I'm a little behind schedule, because of a book chapter I had to write and some other academic activities, but I'm catching up progressively, and me and Jéssica are finally rejoined in Florianópolis and we can watch more films together.
So, here we go with The White Massai, which I had watched mid-March for a course on Post-colonialism and De-colonialism.

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This is an interesting biopic as far as initial construction of plot and concept goes. The film begins well, and the tale of the white woman from the European reality comes in contact with the African otherness, and falls in love with the warrior spirit of the Masai warrior. Cliché enough, but cute enough, I must say. She immediately dumps her Swiss boyfriend - who was travelling with her - and goes after Lemalian, the Masai warrior. The failure of the film is in the poor representation of the brave white woman that wants to free herself from the chains of colonisation and blend in the African tribal society and ultimately sees that not all was a paradise that she thought it was primarily. The film only reaffirms the sense of otherness of the African, of the "primitive", the tribal. She snatches the riches of Africa, reiterates the image of the coloniser,and offensively dismisses Lemalian's culture in a disdainful manner fleeing cowardly from the country and taking with her their son, representing the soul of the African people. The fruit of her now faded away love is whitened violently. Okay, it's a biopic, but a film always has a soul of its own, and the right to distance itself from reality in order to avoid depreciative discourse.
Good initial attempt, but ultimately a failure.

Director: Hermine Huntgeburth.

Score
Cinematography: 7.0
Acting: 8.0
Editing: 7.0
Sound: 7.0
Text: 6.5
Concept: 8.0
Premise Execution: 4.5

Average Score: 6.6

046. Oktapodi (France - 2007)

Another short-length animation. Last film before this long hiatus in which I'm going through a major change in my life, starting my doctorate in English Literature and Film in Florianópolis (I apologise for not having updated the blog in a long while). This one much better and more concise in its purposes than the last one. Two octopuses escape from their roles of attraction and decoration in a restaurant and fight their way through a small town to get to sea. It's a beautiful piece, and very well done in terms of animation, of mechanics. The sound is also synchronised, consonant with the premise of the film. Nice idea and well executed. And the first film on this blog with multiple directors.

Director: Julien Bocabeille, François-Xavier Chanioux, Olivier Delabarre, Thierry Marchand, Quentin Marmier, and Emud Mokhberi.

Score
Cinematography: 8.0
(No Acting/Voice Acting)
Editing: 8.0
Sound: 8.0
(No Text)
Concept: 7.5
Premise Execution: 8.0

Average Score: 7.9

045. Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty (Ireland - 2008)

A short film with a cheeky idea. Granny O' Grimm is a naughty old lady who tells her grandson the story of Sleeping Beauty with a whole new concept of horror and evil. The kid, who's already nearly having a heart attack from the fear of the dark itself, almost pisses himself at hearing the story, which is more comic rather than fearsome. Apart from the funny imagery of the story retold by the old lady, nothing interesting stands out from this animation. Bland.

Director: Nicky Phelan.

Score
Cinematography: 7.5
Voice Acting: 7.5
Editing: 6.5
Sound: 6.0
Text: 6.0
Concept: 7.0
Premise Execution: 5.5

Average Score: 6.5

039. Donnie Darko (United States - 2001)

A striking one, this one. Unique experience, and confusing one at the middle. I had a lot of expectations regarding its cryptic meanings, and the film turned out to be quite simpler as I finished watching it. Apart from the choice of actors, in my opinion, the rest forms an excellent piece. Donnie Darko challenges your speed at deciphering codes of language as you go through its chapter transitions, and the nice thing is that the pictures of the film explain themselves as you go, so that you do not depend on those confusing texts. A story of tangent universes, a boy finding another fate for himself while his family lives a darker, sadder one; a story of how one rebels against greed, ignorance and the passive way of life in the American culture. His psychiatrist provides much of the significance of the main themes, and the great thing about this film is that Richard Kelly could communicate greatly with just the use of images, Darko's actions, instead of relying on excessive text, like other directors do. A great film.

Director: Richard Kelly.

Score
Cinematography: 8.0

Acting: 7.5
Editing: 9.0
Sound: 8.0
Text: 9.5
Concept: 9.0
Premise Execution: 9.5

Average Score: 8.6

031. Oldboy (South Korea - 2003)

[already watched before]

Another amazing experience watching Oldboy. Even better this time. Me, Jéssica, Fellype, his wife and a friend of ours got together to watch it two Saturdays ago (sorry for the delay in posting about it, folks). It's such a well crafted film, in terms of adaptation, plotline sequence, the way the story unfolds, and the ultimate drama being put into action. Oldboy is a masterpiece of contemporary Far Eastern cinema. You watch it and you feel the visceral fury in the actions of the two vengeful characters (Oh Dae-Su and Lee Woo-jin); a contrast in terms of protagonist-antagonist duality. Both of them are protagonists and antagonists. Dae-Su is a tormented man, but pursued by a disgraceful past of which he's not aware due to the foolish disregard of his acts in the past. Lee Woo-jin is a man who holds a sense of revenge older than Dae-Su's, and seeks his ultimate vendetta by using a game of interests against the latter, which turns out constructing an ending that deserves to be kept in secret (even from this blogger, who doesn't usually care about spoiling endings and plot twists if need be). I prefer to leave you to the psychological abyss of Oldboy's plotline. Vengeace is treacherous and vindictive in itself in this film. A two-way road whose arduous paths lead to only one destination: desolation.

Director: Park Chan-wook.

Score:
Cinematography: 9.0

Acting: 8.5
Editing: 9.5
Sound: 8.5
Text: 8.5
Concept: 9.0
Premise Execution: 9.5

Average Score: 8.9

028. 猫の恩返し / The Cat Returns (Japan - 2002)

If you like cats, you'll find this film at least cute. I say at least because the art is superb. Hiroyuki Morita has subtle and realistic lines, the ones that colour the world of anime every now and again. The theme is very animeish. A little girl saves a cat on the streets of her city; a cat who happens to be the prince of the Kingdom of Cats. His kinsmen (or would it be kinscats) want to repay her for the kind and heroic act, and bring her to their country in order to arrange a wedding with the prince. But she doesn't really buy into the idea, and wants out, only to notice that she's gradually turning into a cat herself. She then needs a little help from her cat friends from Planet Earth to take her out of there and break the speel. A lot of cats, heh?

Well, the film is well made, no major problems whatsoever. The dialogues are pretty no-nonsense, and the art is, as I've said before, sublime. Simple enough anime. Simple enough - and cute - concept. Well done, Morita. ;-)

Director: Hiroyuki Morita.

Score
Cinematography: 7.5
Voice acting: 7.0
Editing: 7.5
Sound: 8.0
Text: 7.0
Concept: 7.5
Premise execution: 7.5

Average Score: 7.4

026. Marie Antoinette (United States and France - 2006)

A lavish production with empty premises. Sure, the parodic way Sofia Coppola found to depict the historical figure of Marie Antoinette can be a bit interesting, but that's as far as it goes. A bit interesting. The film contains beautiful images, both of scenery and of costumes/make-up/setting, but the dialogues are completely out of place. It seemed as though Sofia hadn't made up her mind about whether she wanted a historical film or a temporal adaptation, bringing the thematic nuances of the production to today's fads and language, as well as music. But it was a failure. Empty dialogues, messed up dramas and conflicts, and a disservice as regards social conscience: the working classes are seriously taken as a rather dull hindrance to the queen's luxury, while she celebrates her own futile events and indifference to her people. And there's no resolution that justifies that in the end. The subjective figure of Marie keeps on going as materialistic as possible.
What a lousy job, Sofia...

Director: Sofia Coppola.

Score
Cinematography: 7.5
Acting: 7.0
Editing: 6.0
Sound: 6.0
Text: 5.0
Concept: 6.0
Premise execution: 4.5

Average Score: 5.9

024. Harvie Krumpet (Australia - 2003)

Harvie Krumpet is a constant prototype of subjective disaster. But he's never really dragged in there directly. His life could be much worse, were it not for his tiny fortunes and accomplishments. His constant changes and realisations about his psychological condition. An Adam Eliot's typical, full of the Australian director's motifs, from the unusual ways of life of his characters to the pleasant and cunning narrative, usually uttered by great actors (in this case, Geoffrey Rush). Won the Academy Award for Best Animation in 2003. A finely made animation.

Director: Adam Eliot.

Score
Cinematography: 8.0
Voice Acting: 8.5
Editing: 8.5
Sound: 7.5
Text: 8.0
Concept: 7.0
Premise execution: 8.0

Average Score: 7.9

019. Je Vais Bien, ne t'en Fais Pas / Dont Worry, I'm Fine (France - 2006)

Adapted from a novel of same name by Olivier Adam, this is a film with a poor execution of a great concept. A young woman (Elise) returns home in Paris from a long trip to Spain to find that her brother - to whom she is extremely close; they're twins, you see - has had a violent argument with her father, and left home. The problem is, no one in her family knows where he is. Seeing as he is a talented musician, everyone pretends to assume that the young man is travelling all around the country, visiting cities and playing the guitar. No one seems to care much. Elise becomes obsessed with finding her brother, suffers from serious health problems resulting from her denial to eat anything. Ultimately, she finds out her brother has been dead all along, and that her parents have been covering up the story with his made up trips to exotic cities in France. Strong acting, good writing, gorgeous mise-en-scene elements.

The big issue here is the predictability of the film. From the very moment when the father sits in his armchair to watch the telly and bears a rather melancholic look on his eyes: we know what's happened. And that's about 10 min into the plot. That's a problem, Mr. Director. A big problem. Such a strong outcome of events shouldn't be so out there, and so early, for the narrative's sake. Halfway through the film he tries to turn the story around with the fake letters from Loïc to Elise, but by then the viewer has probably found cunning clues against the authenticity of such letters.
And don't you worry about spoilers, the film really establishes a sort of plotline forecast right at the beginning. A disappointment.

Director: Philippe Lioret.

Score
Cinematography: 8.0

Acting: 9.0
Editing: 5.5
Sound: 7.0
Text: 7.0

Average Score: 7.3

018. Running with Scissors (United States - 2006)

Confusing linearity, but that's the good thing about this film. The performances are good enough for the purpose of the storytelling, and well balanced with the use of progressive disintegration of the characters' subjectivity. Everyone here dies away quickly, from Deirdre and Norman (the parents) to Dr. Finch (the weird and apparently cunning shrink with an ego that flies about with excessive pride). Everyone but Augusten. He is caught up in the middle of bad business in his family, where both parents want to impose their own honour, causing detriment to the son's welfare (a reality in many families that we all know). Augusten proves to have a strong sense of individuality, which he may well have inherited from any of his parents, and walks away with his supposed dignity, free from the chains of tutelage, either from the selfish Deirdre or from the delusional Finch. Good film, although redundant with the use of montage and long, unnecessary sequences of drama-driven dances.

On the other hand, superb performance by Annette Bening.


Director: Ryan Murphy

Score
Cinematography: 7.5
Acting: 8.5
Editing: 7.0
Sound: 7.0
Text: 8.5


Average Score: 7.7

017.Ubornaya Istoriya - Lyubovnaya Istoriya / Lavatory - Lovestory (Russia - 2007)

A simple but funny animation. A woman indifferently watches her days go by as she keeps a tip jar on her balcony, where she works as a lavatory attendant. She cleans up the place, goes back to her work booth, and anxiously awaits the possibility of a lover when she finds a bouquet in her tip jar. He's nowhere to be found, though. The fun resides in her frantic search for the said gentleman, the mysterious admirer who will finally give her joy in her sentimental life.


And yes, she eventually finds him.
Not bad, but not out of the ordinary.

Director: Konstantin Bronzit.

Score
Cinematography: 7.5

Acting (not present)
Editing: 7.0
Sound: 6.5
Text (not present)

Average Score: 7.0

016. Shortbus (United States - 2006)

A very hard film to digest, at least for me. It's not the explicit footages of sex, it's the frequent use of them. Explicit sexuality will still be, for many people, a taboo for years to come. I don't agree with that; it's fine, really. A film in which the central topic is sexuality may very well make use of sexual audiovisual motifs; it must, even. Shortbus doesn't shock one with its carnal images as much as it shocks one with the internal conflicts, though. The characters are flawed, or better yet, carry out flawed sexual lives in deep frustration, and there are beautiful moments of joy and freedom for each one of them in their own universe of dilemmas. The problem here is absolutely personal. My sensorial apparatus is not always ready for such a strong load of instinctual narrative.

Director: John Cameron Mitchell.

Score
Cinematography: 8.0

Acting: 9.0
Editing (a confusing one, by the way): 6.5
Sound (very polluted passages quite often): 6.0
Text: 8.0

Average Score: 7.5

015. つみきのいえ / The House of Small Cubes (Japan - 2008)

A beautifully moving story.  Often referred to as La Maison en Petits Cubes, it tells of an old fisherman who has to constantly build additional floors for his house because of an evergrowing problem of flooding. As his favourite pipe falls into the water and ends up at the bottom of the ocean, he has to dive to fetch it. On his way down, he revisits old floors of his house and with it, all the past memories of his life. Besides being touching with such a creative plot, the animation also touches by its simple yet calming art: the smooth lines that delineate the old man's facial demeanour bring a sense of peaceful conformation, and triggers some inner switches of longing, of nostalgia in our lives. A gorgeous film that has just the exact length to get hold of your feelings.

Director: Kunio Kato.

Score
Cinematography: 9.0

Acting (not present)
Editing: 9.0
Sound: 8.0
Text (not present)

Average Score: 8.6

012. Vozvrashcheniye/The Return (Russia - 2003)

A film about family disintegration is intense enough. The Return has a superb framing - and photography in general -, and an appeal for many audiences, I suppose. What the director realised is that he could utilise this complex nucleus of three characters (the father and the 2 sons) and make it into a bubble about to burst; three opposite personalities and often collide and expose common dilemmas of family life. Ivan never abandons his pride and infantile anger, whereas Andrei carries a submissive and less conflictive demeanour, and the father tries to rule over them both, ultimately regretting being a careful father figure. Too late, as cruel films often portray. Good film, if one does not quite consider the bizarre actings in the climatic scenes.

Director: Andrey Zvyagintsev.

Score:
Cinematography: 9.5

Acting: 7.5
Editing: 8.5
Sound: 7.5
Text: 8.5

Average score: 8.3

010. Precious (United States - 2009)

"In New York City's Harlem circa 1987, an overweight, abused, illiterate teen who is pregnant with her second child is invited to enroll in an alternative school in hopes that her life can head in a new direction." I found this summary on IMDb, and there's no better way to sum up what Precious is in a few words. A stunning dramatic experience, the struggles of a bottom-of-the-social-beauty-patterns girl (played by Gabourey Sibide) who also lives with the disgrace of a neglectful and selfish mother and the burden of early-age pregnancy caused by being raped by her own father. It's hard to present a worse urban background than that. The film surprises in that it does not seek to show a happy ending, but to affect the viewer's notion of comfort and adversity. I was deeply sunk into a sea of a sincere portray of an extremely indigent and violent family nucleus in the worst-case scenario of living in Harlem, NYC. Precious can shock for good.

Director: Lee Daniels.

Score:
Cinematography: 8.5
Acting: 9.0
Editing: 8.0
Sound: 7.5
Text: 8.5

Average score: 8.3

009. I'm not there (United States - 2007)

On Saturday, while at my cousin Fellype's house, I watched I'm not there. Now, that's a unique experience in itself, a film that disembowels the most abstract aspects of Bob Dylan's career, sorting out all his memorable moments in life in six different personas throughout the film (played by Ben Whishaw, Marcus Carl Franklin, Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Cate Blanchett and Richard Gere, in order of appearance). I never expected to watch a biographical film like that. However, I'm not sure I grabbed every meaningful instance the film had to offer, so I finished it quite confused. I was certain that it had been a great cinematographically sensorial experience, but had little to comment on for my knowledge on Dylan's life is very short. Only the temporal and graphical continuation can be deceiving sometimes, and to me, that was a big con for I'm not there. Besides, the long length of it can wear one out, but just if you're not delved into the magnificent photography and the emblematic dialogues. Great film.

Director: Todd Haynes.

Score
Cinematography: 9.0
Acting: 9.0
Editing: 6.5
Sound: 8.5
Text (amazing one, but considering the viewer has got a previous - and wide - knowledge on Dylan's life) : 8.0

Average score: 8.4

008. Kutoja/The Last Knit (Finland - 2005)

A short-length animation telling the story of a woman who can never stop knitting. She knits until her scarf starts hanging from a cliff, becoming heavier and heavier and dragging her down with it; even then, she doesn't stop. Simple enough concept, but quite nicely put in the animation. It's all about obsession, how some people can't stop pursuing something even if something vital to them is in jeopardy. The setting around her is uninteresting and bland, to say the least, following the simplicity of the film to the letter (perhaps due to a possible low budget the team had to make the animation). All in all, nice piece of story.

Director: Laura Neuvonen.

Score:
Cinematography: 4.5

Acting (there is almost none, apart from the protagonist's little reactions): 4.0

Editing: 7.0
Sound: 6.5
Text (there is none, so it does not enter this evaluation)

Average Score: 5.5

003. Mary and Max (Australia - 2009)

On the 12h, me and Jéssica watched this beautiful animation. Mary and Max is a stop-motion film with clay figures that tells the story of a young and lonely girl from Australia and her 41 year-old pen friend from New York as they start writing about the former's doubts about life. It's a film that depicts the innonence of a young girl who is bullied in school and grows to like her only friend, a socially bothered man that suffers from Asperger and eating compulsion from the other side of the world. They support each other in their sociological and psychological conundrums. The writing is beautiful, an honest way of communicating to the viewer that is unusual for relatively big-budget animations such as this one. But so are its tragic happenings throughout the story.

Director: Adam Eliot.

Score
Cinematography: 8.5
Voice acting: 9.0
Editing: 8.0
Sound: 7.5
Text: 9.0

Average Score: 8.4

001. Summer Wars (Japan - 2009)

Same director as Digimon. I've come a long way. Not exactly into animes or anime-style motion pictures (their melodrama and thematic stalling gets on my nerves), but Jéssica convinced me that this one was good. She wasn't wrong. Summer Wars carries a fairly creative idea for a theme - the world of the social networks and their symbiosis with life itself -, and with a careless although cunning drop of naiveté, the film presents us with chaotic climax enhanced by conflictive and selfish characters. 

Nice art, flat dialogues, bad ending.

Director: Mamoru Hosoda (細田 守).

Score (all the categories are score out of 10)
Cinematography: 7.5
Acting (in this case, voice acting): 6.0 
Editing: 8.0
Sound: 7.5
Text: 6.5

Average Score: 7.1


P.S.: Watched on the 11th, just now reviewing. Oh, well...