February 24th
Cyrano
Hive
Preparations to be Together for an Unknown Period of Time
Dance of the 41 (streaming on Netflix)
Reminder: Japanese FF online and Europa! Europa FF continue until this Sunday 27 Feb. Transitions FF is ongoing.
My first wholeheartedly recommended for the year! All the films this week come with flowing recommendations from me. Prejudice and patriarchy feature front and centre.
Cyrano
Dir:Joe Wright
Length: 124 mins
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5e8apSFDXsQ  |
© Universal - moving, gorgeous, with a
to-die-for perf from Dinklage |
In 1897 Edmond Rostand wrote a play, Cyrano de Bergerac, set in Paris in 1640 and broadly based upon a real-life character who, despite being a soldier, had a gift for magnificent poetic outpourings. The play has been churned out umpteen times over the years, and more than 20 film versions have been made. It was even a Broadway musical in the 1970s. Now a new musical version, adapted by Erica Schmidt, hits our screens, with Peter Dinklage (husband to Schmidt) in the role he performed on stage in 2019. Opposite him is his theatrical co-star Haley Bennett as Roxanne. You probably know the basis of the plot: Cyrano loves Roxanne, but he is unable to tell her, feeling too self-conscious of his physical shortcomings. When Roxanne falls for Cyrano's fellow soldier Christian (Kelvin Harrison Jnr), Cyrano helps the inarticulate youth to pen flowery love letters, which totally win Roxanne over. Meantime the sleazy nobleman de Guiche (Ben Mendelssohn), is also trying to win Roxanne's heart. Enough of background! Should you see yet another version of this story? YES, YES and YES! Everything about this film enchanted me. The sets and costumes exquisitely recreate an era, and at times the cinematographer shoots the scenes scenes to look like perfect pastel-palette paintings from the era. The songs (criticised by some emotionally tone-deaf critics!) have a modern sensibility to them, and careful attention to the words rewards one with an emotional flood of romanticism, melancholy and introspection. Bennett is translucent as the feisty but delicate Roxanne, for whom words from a lover define the depth of that love. But it is Dinklage (Tyrion Lannister in Game of Thrones), who gives a performance that made me swoon - as a physically challenged man full of pride, sorrow, passion, kindness and talent, who cannot believe the woman he loves could ever love him. No, there's nothing new in the film-making style, but the film has so overwhelmed I have to give it my first for the year . . . 5 - unmissable
Hive
Dir: Blerta Basholi
Length: 84 mins
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wnrC671pZc  |
© Icon - brave women battling sorrow
and male prejudice |
Fahrije (Yllka Gashi) assumes her missing husband is among the men murdered in her village during the Kosovo war in 1998. She lives with her son, daughter and infirm father-in-law, battling to get enough money from the honey she harvests to keep the family going. When she and a group of local women decide to set up a cooperative making ajvar (roasted capsicum sauce), the patriarchal men of the town make her life a living hell. With many wins to its name at various festivals world wide, this is a good companion piece to Aida Quo Vadis? (reviewed last week). While this true story is not so directly about the conflict, it examines the aftermath, the deep-seated grief left after a village of men has been wiped out. Gashi plays Fahrije with a stoicism that masks her grief, and the depth and nuance of her performance is to be much admired. Whereas Aida had a lot of thrilling tension and pace, this is a slower and quietly sadder film, but no less gripping, as we see what a battle it is for women in these misogynistic cultures.4.5 - wholeheartedly recommended
Preparations to be Together for an Unknown Period of Time
Dir: Lili Horvat
Length: 95 mins
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKBuUMOJfpc  |
© Umbrella - romantic longing can bring
your life quite undone |
Marta Vizy (Natasa Stork) is a 40-ish, highly talented neurosurgeon originally from Hungary and living and working in New Jersey. When she meets fellow medico Janos Drexler (Viktor Bodo) at a conference she is instantly smitten by him and the couple make a promise to meet one month later in Budapest. But Janos doesn't turn up and when Marta tracks him down, he denies all memory of having ever met her. Heading into an obsessive mental state, Marta gives up her career in America, and moves to Budapest, renting a grungy apartment but securing a good surgical position at a hospital (despite clashes with patriarchal male doctors). Gradually she and Janos come into contact, while at the same time much younger medical student Alex (Benett Vilmanyi) falls for her. What transpires makes for a puzzling and mesmerising psychological study, in which we see Marta's strange unravelling, and never quite know what is true and what is the result of her fervent desire for reality to pan out as she wants it to. The film is marked by outstanding performances, especially from Stork who maintains an icy persona over a chaotic inner turmoil. The cinematography and editing carefully and beautifully add to the uncertain reality and create a brooding atmosphere that keeps the viewer constantly on edge. With so many possible interpretations, along with a romanticism and yearning, the film makes for wonderful viewing. 4 - highly recommended
Dir: David Pablos
Length: 99 mins
Streaming on Netflix
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEHpiFZlGcA  |
| © Netflix - a love that is condemned |
Ignacio de la Torre (Alfonso Herrerra) was a businessman and rising politician in Mexico in the late 1800s. He is married off to Amada Diaz (Mabel Cadina), the beautiful daughter of the country's President and an indigenous mother. But the marriage is doomed from the get-go, as Ignacio leads a double life, frequenting an exclusive men's only club, where all the members have a secret to hide from a conservative, condemnatory society. This is a beautifully made film on so many levels. Its production values in set design and costume are sumptuous, while the story itself, though based upon an actual person, fictionalises certain aspects. Ignacio's friend Evaristo Rivas (Emiliano Zurita) brings a vulnerabilty to his role, while Cadina is a scene-stealer as the unhappy wife desperate to conceive a child. In a world where we take all sexual orientations in our stride, it is still shocking to see what people had to endure in days gone by, in the form of forced marriages, hypocrisy and criminal persecution. Another Netflix hidden gem.4 - highly recommended
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