Tuesday, August 24, 2004

DVD Review: "Monsieur Ibrahim." - 4 stars This is the kind of film you know you'll want to see many times. I'd put it on the level of the Italian film, "Life is Beautiful." Both films have a poignancy and glow that makes life feel precious and wonderful. It's unusual for my partner and me to like a French film. This story is set in Paris. Maybe it was written and/or directed by people not French? Anyway, we liked this one very much. If I tell you that it's about the friendship between a teenage boy and an older man from Turkey, that really doesn't tell you much. It even sounds boring. Trust me, this film is not boring. It's about sex, love, life, and death. Not boring themes! Take my word for it and see this film - 4 stars. 10:18:21 PM    comment []

DVD Review: "Goodbye Lenin" - 2 stars The main interest in this film is that it's set in East Berlin, right at the time the Wall came down and reunification began. To me, the film has some serious flaws. Toward the end, we're left hanging after a climactic scene. So what happened? Huh? We miss the scene itself - just see the start. Afterward, it's as if it never happened. Huh? In my judgment this is cowardly storymaking. Do the difficult scenes! Work it through! Also the premise of the story is pretty far fetched. It's mildly amusing, just barely believable. I'm good at suspension of disbelief, so that means it's really, really, barely believable. The film left us feeling sad. I decided it's really about the ambiguities in the fall of communism and the "triumph of capitalism." There's a certain idealism about communism - never achieved in reality - that seems to be the core of the film. So the film shows us - it's gone, and it's worth mourning. Maybe that makes the film worth seeing. It's just not carried off well, though. I'd like to see a better story about that same theme. I'm giving this one just 2 stars. 10:11:50 PM    comment []