________________________
3.4 --
STOP A LA GRÈCE EN SLIP,
Brigitte Roüan
[reviewed
by Nancy Snipper]
The
director has made a few films on Greece, and after the 2012
riots in Athens, she returns to interview some of her crew
members on her last film, ("Greek Type of Problem")
to hear the truth about the situation in Greece. The situation
spells daily poverty and moral depression. The frightening
facts indicate that unless there is a marked evolution or
revolution, Greece will permanently slip into rock bottom
stagnation. Over 1,200 people have committed suicide since
2011; people borrow on credit to clothe themselves, yet they
must pay 23% interest each month on the amount received from
banks. The defense minister now in jail for taking over 1
billion euros to build his own houses and stock his personal
coffers, epitomizes the politicos monopolizing the country
both in business and in government. The neo-Nazi party holds
7% representation in parliament. Seven parties and not one
of them able to devise a long term plan to build some form
of prosperity. In this film, we meet people who run a hotel
in Milos, an archeologist who fears for the fate of his country
and the immigrant overload. We meet artists on the verge of
having to sell their houses. We learn that the consecutive
loans to Greece from Germany come with a price that not only
includes payback, but the contractual assurance that Greece
only buys industrial machinery and marine boats, such as submarines
from Germany. We also learn that big magnate ship owners state
their yachts are for personal use and are taxed only seven
euros per ton; whereas, one film director who is honest must
pay 15,000 euros per ton, as he declares his boats are used
for personal pleasure; the other villains state their yachts
are for business, and so they receive a hefty tax reduction.
We meet so many who have never worked a day in their lives
-- according to one crew member -- suck up the extra high
taxes and put them who knows where? The one problem I had
with this documentary was the lack of name indications to
identify each of those interviewed, and their role in her
past films or in her present life.
3.5 --
BRASSERIE ROMANTIQUE, Joël
Vanhoebrouk
[reviewed
by Nancy Snipper]
Forty-something Pascaline runs a gourmet brasserie, and her
brother is busy cooking up a storm for Valentine's Day. He
also owns 50% of it. His daughter in her teens was abandoned
by her mom and so Pascaline steps into her shoes; the brother
is often drunk. Couples come in and this is what moves the
movie into comedic flavours. One couple is madly in love,
the other has a marriage on the rocks. The wife pretends she
has a lover; that's why she's getting phone calls. She gets
the desired reaction, but in the end, she walks. A girl is
tragically mourning the loss of her hubby who left her for
her best girlfriend, but that was seven years ago. She ends
up though with the head waiter by the end of the movie. One
particularly shy guy is waiting for his blind date to show
up. Her name is Sylvie, and when a gorgeous dame sits at his
table, he assumes it's Sylvie. But she is a lust-driven call
girl, and so he makes an exit for the bathroom which he does
several times during the course of the evening. He stares
at himself in the bathroom mirror and receives a pep talk
from his alter ego. Upon returning, the call girl has left,
but in her place is the 'real' Sylvie he had a date with.
They hit it off. The true thrust of the film is the entrance
of Pascaline's lover some 20 years ago. He wants to start
anew with her in Buenos Aires where he lives. She decides
to leave the restaurant but her brother goes ballistic when
she tells him. Who would take care of his daughter if she
goes? She gets in the taxi with her lover from the past, but
then decides she won't go. She belongs with her niece and
the restaurant needs her. This is a gem of a movie that basically
covers the gamut of love relationships in a charming yet meaningful
manner. The dialogue is great.
3.9
-- THE VERDICT,
Jan Verheyen
[reviewed
by Nancy Snipper]
It's
the night; Luc Seger's wife is murdered, and his little daughter
is run over by a car as she runs across the street to help
her dad is being beaten up outside the store at night where
his wife had gone in to buy some food from a deserted vending
machine. A thug named Kenny de Groot is the assassin and is
arrested. But the prosecutor had forgotten to sign his name
on the right to prosecute document. This is a legal loophole
that sets De Groot free. Segers sets out for revenge; he kills
the thug, and is then arrested. Most of the movie takes place
in the courtroom. Will Segers be found guilty for the murder
or will he be set free? The ending is ambiguous. This is a
great film that deftly handles the questions of Belgian law,
procedural mistakes and the devastating consequences allowing
for criminals to go scot free -- just because of human error
on a piece of legalese paper. The justice system is put into
question through the dialectic presented by the lawyer as
well as the prosecutor -- the very prosecutor who forgot to
sign on the dotted line that would have put De Groot behind
bars in the first case.
1.9
-- CHA CHA
CHA, Marco Risi
[reviewed
by Nancy Snipper]
A big Roman pop star has hired a detective to follow her teen
son Tomaso, who gets into all kinds of mischief. One night,
he is killed in a hit and run accident. But it turns out he
knew something about the family's lawyer with whom the mother
is living. The detective gets to the bottom of the truth.
The lawyer is corrupt, and Tomaso found out. This thriller
is so confusing and stupid, one would have preferred to see
a film about the cha cha cha, though the last scene did show
a dance scene. The detective, played by Luca Argentero is
drop-dead handsome; he would make a nice dance partner.
1.1 --
FRÄULEIN ELSE, Anna
Martinetz
[reviewed
by Nancy Snipper]
You can tell this is the first feature film for this director.
A cold-hearted aunt and her aloof depressed niece, Else, are
staying in a luxury hotel in the countryside of India, along
with the aunt's adopted son. A certain wealthy man there has
an eye for Else, and it is a lecherous one. Else receives
a letter from her mother that her father is about to go bankrupt
if he can't find 300,000 Euros to appease his bank loan manager.
The family is from Vienna and is wealthy; the father is a
lawyer, but cash is rare. Her mother asks Else to talk to
this lecherous man who is actually a friend of the family's.
She is to ask him for the money. He agrees if she consents
to show him her body unclothed so that he may stare at it.
The event is to take place in his room during the evening.
Else is in great turmoil. She wantst to save the family from
proverty, but she prides her purity more. She takes pills,
appears before the man but in a salon where there are people.
She then collapses, is taken to bed, tended to by her step-brother,
but she doesn't make it. I am sure the book upon which this
move is based is intriguing enough, but the movie was a dismal
failure. The scenery couldn't compensate for the jungle scene;
the reappearing tiger that kept popping up must have mistakenly
jumped out of the set of "The Life of Pi" and got
lost, ending up in the jungle mess of this film.
4.0 --
THERE WILL COME A DAY (UN GIORNO
DEVI ANDARE), Giorgio Diritti
Brazzale & Luca Immesi
[reviewed
by Nancy Snipper]
Augusta is accompanying Franca, a nun who is a friend of her
mother's, on the most noble of missions. These two Italian-born
women deliver medical supplies and food via river boat steered
by both women heading for various villages spotting the Amazon
River. Augusta is sad and alienated, but she is incredibly
self-sufficient and independent. Augusta decides to leave
this type of journey and take to her own. She goes to the
favelas of Manaus where slowly but surely she befriends the
children, the young men, and helps out with physical chores
by the docks meant for men. She drowns herself in work and
never complains. All the money she earns she gives to the
village men to support their families. She is the quiet saint
who is beginning to smile. But soon, her trust is broken when
she sees the men going off to paint the ugly box cement houses
built to rehouse the poor favala community. Yet most of the
people do not want to leave their tumble-down dwellings, for
here they are happy and they have a strong vibrant community
full of warmth and support. No matter the hardships they face.
Augusta retreats to the river in a canoe, and settles on a
lone sandy shore inhabited by no one. She has lost touch with
her mother, but has sent a girl to Italy to tend to her grandmother.
Augusta has not only lost her unborn baby, but her father
and now she is out of touch with everyone she once held dear.
It seems the only thing that can bring a smile to her face
is the appearance of a child. One suddenly appears on the
shore; a couple has boated over to bring her food and their
child to play with. Augusta does not go back to any village;
she is left alone pondering why God has taken away her unborn
baby, finally deciding that God is jealous and wants her all
for himself. There is a scene where it is raining so hard,
and she lies on the sand with her arm outstretched as if she
were on a crucifix. In another scene, she squats in front
of the largest trunk of a tree whose roots have formed a vast
fan. They seem to be cradling her. Although the film has several
scenes that take place in Italy where we see the loneliness
of her mother, and the life she leads with her own ill mother,
most of this journey occurs in the Amazon. The cinematography
is outstanding, as the story's journey is not only a physical
one, but it is also about the emotional and spiritual one
we all must take. The film presents the quest for fulfillment
that we are all searching for. For some bliss lies with God;
for others with motherhood, and still for others a sharing,
loving community. For Augusta, her happiness never seems to
last; events corrode. She chooses to be alone. Will her day
ever come and last? A marvelous film of immeasurable depth
that delves into the very heart of an individual's despair.
Escaping sorrow and pain may indeed lie at the root of a tree
waiting to cradle you in an undiscovered forest hiding behind
an endless stretch of untouched white sand where no one else
treads.
3.6--
ABSENCES, Carole Laganière
[reviewed by Nancy Snipper] This documentary follows four different people
suffering from loss. In the case of the director herself --
her mother is in the verge of full-blown Alzheimer's disease.
We follow Ines, another woman questing for answers. She returns
to the former Yugoslavia (Croatia) where her mother abandoned
her during the war. She visits her old bullet-ridden apartment
building where they once lived, and the hotel where the family
lived before she was left behind, and finally there is the
reunion with her mother. She ends up working at that hotel.
We follow another woman searching in Toronto for her own sister
who disappeared years ago. She uses a taxi to get around at
night, visiting strip clubs and bars. She also goes to Niagara
Falls where human trafficking is prevalent. Then we meet Deni,
an author who tracks down the family of his father who had
always refused to let his son meet or know about his grandparents
and relatives. His father had robbed a bank and had brought
Deni up in the United States. This moving documentary is funny
at times and very heartwarming. Each story seems to connect
through images of hotels, beds being made and the scenery.
The editor did a masterful job of weaving together the content
and the emotions each of these questers felt as they faced
the void in their past and in the case of the director, the
future whose mother would soon not recognize. A highly important
documentary worth seeing.
4.0
-- MY PAPAROTTI,
Jong-chanYoonDanni Resifeld
[reviewed
by Nancy Snipper]
This incredibly rich film exemplifies the brilliance of Korean
directors and actors. Jang-ho, a teen gangster, enrolls in
a music school in the countryside because he loves singing
opera. Sang-jin, the teacher can't stand him and hates the
idea of having him as a pupil. He verbally abuses him and
doesn't teach him anything. Jang-ho is caught between being
controlled by his gangster 'brothers' who took him in as a
homeless kid, and his desire to be the world's greatest singer.
As the movie unfolds we see the vulnerabilities and events
that shaped these characters into their own destinies. Their
relationship of relentless insults and hostile behaviours
begins to change once Sang-jin learns the terrible truth about
his young protégé whose voice actually inspires envy in Sang-jin.
Loathing transforms into love. The singing in this film by
the lead actor brought tears to my eyes, as did the movie
as it progressed. "Nessun Dorma" takes on a whole new purpose
for both teacher and student, even though the latter called
his opera idol Paparotti.
3.3
-- WHITE PANTHER,
Danni Resifeld
[reviewed
by Nancy Snipper]
When a Russian family must face the hardships of living in Israel in the projects, their life spirals downwards. We learn the father, Moscow's boxing champion, was killed in Israel not on the fields but in the kitchen of the soldiers; he was a cook. The two brothers live with their very sick mother. One of the brothers, Eugeni, is a brutal thug who beats up Jews, and he is intent on using the boxing talents of his younger brother for his own purpose, but Alex doesn't buy all the violence, but still goes along with his brother, until he is put in jail; David, a Moroccan Jew feels sorry for him given the loss of his father; David the head of the police makes him an offer. He offers to train him as a professional boxer because he owns a boxing club. But pressure to side with his brother is winning out. Still David's devotion to his new protégé plus the love David's daughter has for Alex changes proves victorious.
The conflicts within the relationships are astoundingly played in this tightly-crafted film. The acting was terrific.
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