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Jeff_Costello
Reviews
Les invasions barbares (2003)
a Major Disappointment
This movie won Best Screenplay and Best Actress in Cannes. But there's nothing in it. The filming? It's shot like a telefilm in Scope. There's more great cinema in 24 than in here. The dialogues supposed to be the movie's interest? Arcand is not Tarantino. It's merely ordinary observations about life and history. The characters are cliché: the ex-leftist vs his son working as a businessman. And there's the cynical pose of the old characters saying "we were wrong to defend leftist ideals caus' we were conformist but so is everyone else in the world, and on the other hand we had a lot of sex fun". And why put feminism with the other wrong "ism" the character defended? It had its excesses but didn't kill anybody contrarely to communism. The movie is very much consensual: SPOILER the reconciliation between the leftist, the drug addict and the businessman in the name of love for instance. END OF SPOILER To avoid. 0/10
Mystic River (2003)
not a masterpiece but a real come back
After Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, Eastwood seemed to have made less personal movies. But with Mystic River he's directed a movie reminding us that he was the guy who directed movies such as Bird, Unforgiven or the Bridges of Madison County. Mystic River is not a masterpiece but it's vintage Eastwood and it owes it to two things: the movie is shot with a real sense of what great classic filming is and the screenplay by Brian Helgeland. This screenplay develops lots of intersting themes: the transmission of evil through the links of blood and friendship, the way violence and the desire for revenge is reproducing eternally, the observation of small towns, their rumours, their boredom. The pessimism of the movie towards the part of evil there's in every human being is reminiscent of Fritz Lang. Overall, the tone is very dark but there's some funny moments, especially the cameo of Eli Wallach. But what prevents the movie from equalling Unforgiven is the interpretation of Sean Penn and Tim Robbins which look too much "trying to make an Actor's studio performance" and an uneven score. Anyway, it should have won the Best Screenplay award in Cannes rather than horrible "les Invasions Barbares". Recommended. 8,5/10
Bhoot (2003)
A disappointment
After the moving Satya and the excellent Company, this horror film by Ram Gopal Varma is a huge disappointment. Why? Because the horrific effects are not subtle enough to be efficient and it's lacking of indian specificity: Satya had the sense of melodrama, Company the mixing of genre but here the first part borrows from Ring and Sixth Sense without being as convincing. And the second part becomes then ridiculous, like a bad italian horror film made in the seventies. Okay, the movie has the Varma's touch but it's not enough in this case. Varma had tried to free himself from the contraints of Bollywood -the movie is short for an indian movie, there's no sung scenes here-, it's certainly a challenge at a local scale but for the moment Varma misses the target. I hope he'll come back to gangster movies because he's not the right man to create India's answer to Shyamalan and Nakata.
Company (2002)
an achieved gangster movie by Ram Gopal Varma
Where Satya was moving but not very original, Company mixes HK, US and indian influences to look like something unique. The dancing scenes are better integrated than in Satya, the movie is short for an indian movie but more efficient, the story is well written although the idea of mafia as a business has been seen many times, acting is wonderful. But the best thing here is Varma's masterful visual style combining a dirty photography, an editing influenced by Hong Kong cinema, a documentary like visual style to create his own unique style and giving the movie a hot, heavy, dark, dirty atmosphere. It might be edited like an MTV video sometimes, being sometimes too long but although Varma is not (yet?) a director of the scale of Tarantino or Ferrara this movie brings something new in gangster movie. Highly recommended.
Satya (1998)
an uneven but achieved gangster movie
In terms of directing, Satya is not as original and mastered as Company will be. Whereas lots of review compare this movie by Ram Gopal Varma with Reservoir Dogs, it's to my mind more influenced by Scorcese and De Palma: the very eighties and emphatic score, the virtuosity of the camera moves, the grotesque allure of the gangsters in the movie. And there's of course the character of Satya, his low profile contrasting with other gangsters, the idea of the guy coming from nothing and making it big in a poor area of the city through crime, his very moving love story, the fight between moral conscience and desire to stay at the top. Yes, we've seen this before in gangsters movies but it's been adapted to indian reality, the movie showing the links between thugs and politics and cinema. And the theme of the police damned if they act damned if they do nothing is interesting too. Although it's better cinematographically than the classic indian gangsters movies of the seventies, it's still too long mostly because of the dancing scenes which aren't really well integrated into the movie. It's efficient, moving but Varma will do better with Company.