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Caroline888
Reviews
Idiot (1958)
Best Dostoevsky Adaptation Ever
This is how Dostoevsky adaptations need to be, and hardly ever are. 1) Everyone needs to act like they're on crack all the time, 2) It needs to be either snowing or 100 degrees all the time, and 3) Everyone's eyes have to be crazy.
This film meets all those requirements, and it's the only one that does. Although the second part was never made, the first part is worth watching and re-watching. The crazy Soviet montages, the crazy eyes, the red velvet everywhere, the lighting from beneath that makes everyone look like they're in hell...it's brilliant.
The soundtrack is gorgeous. I wish I could find it on mp3. And when one character says to another: "What's wrong with your face?" the face in question is worth the entire film. And it's pure Dostoevsky. HUZZAH for this film.
Bordertown (1935)
Who doesn't want to kick it with Johnny?
People that say this film is racist must be oversensitive paragons of political correctness. Yes, many of the Mexican characters are "types" (singing La Cucaracha, for example)- and today "types" are so often condemned as "stereotypes" that it's getting to be impossible to make art anymore. But these characters are types in the old-fashioned sense. They are funny, sympathetic, folksy and lovable but not patronized or simplified by the writers. If anything, the white people are portrayed negatively, as irresponsible people who hurt the downtrodden without thinking twice. Johnny's mother, on the other hand, reminds me of my own grandma, although she provides comic relief by doing so.
The reason I gave it 5 out of 10 was not any of that - it's still worth a watch. Bette's OK - not her greatest BD self. The problem is: the film involves too much plot with not enough dramatic exposition. There are 2 court cases, 2 deaths, 3 car-related "mishaps," the rise-and-fall of a tycoon, two love affairs...there are at least 2 feature-length films here. Bette's motivations could fill a whole film - and as a Bette fan I have to say I'm sad that she didn't manage to wind her web around Johnny a little tighter before fessing up. I'm upset Johnny didn't have a real mad scene...and Bette should have had a longer one. But as I said - it's worth a watch.
Le silence de la mer (2004)
Gave me the good shiver
Ususally, I don't watch recent WWII dramas, especially those taking place in occupied France. Honestly, they're often much too depressing, and they seem to delight in the horror of the situation and to shy away from delving into what human dignity, love, and self-sacrifice may have still surfaced, even between opposing sides. But this film was not depressing at all, although it didn't avoid the realities of what Nazis (even, apparently, hot sensitive caring musical Nazis) were doing to those who opposed them. It didn't romanticize at ALL, and yet it was not depressing as most Nazi-centric films. The film WAS frustrating. During the penultimate scene - I won't spoil it, for those with no eye-control - I couldn't breathe at all. But when I started breathing again I got that good shiver that separates the Art from the "merde." The strength of this film was its commitment to truth. The slightest cinematic indulgence - or audience-indulgence - would have ruined it, turned it into a fantasy, and made it a mediocre melodrama. But the brilliant writer and director avoided that pitfall, and let life show through in all its brilliance.
Beyond the Forest (1949)
Amazing Bette!
What I love about Bette Davis is that the more normal she seems at the beginning of the movie, the more of a psycho witch she's going to be by the end (with the notable exception of "Now, Voyager", in which the pattern was reversed). And this one delivers on that Bette expectation. In the first five minutes of the story itself, you see her fake a sprained ankle. You wonder why. Duh - she's preparing for major psycho witchiness of exponentially increasing proportions! And I have to say that this one beats most of her other great roles in at least that category - and in the category of making the psycho-ness tragically necessary right from the first minute.
Yes, many parts of this movie are over the top melodrama. But HERE COMES THE SPOILER: Despite my status as a vehement pro-lifer and Catholic, I was so taken into Bette's performance that when it looked like her dream of minks and diamonds was going to be thwarted by her secret pregnancy, I found myself thinking "Noooo, Bette, you HAVE to find some way to get an abortion!" And then I found myself smacking myself on the head. But really, by that point, when I had already forgiven her for (Nother Spoiler:) totally murdering another person already, it was like, what's one more life sacrificed to her dreams?
So when an actress can make an evil character compelling enough to make the audience root for her to kill people, I would hesitate before calling her a bad actress. Bette is the best!
The Journey (1959)
Made me a Yul fan for the first time
As a big Dostoyevsky fan, I had always been disappointed with Hollywood's halfhearted attempts to get into the Russian romantic aesthetic -- case in point, Yul Brynner as Dmitri Karamazov. I had thought the whole problem was a poor casting decisions, but then I saw Yul as Major Surov and changed my mind. When given an intelligent script to work with, he suddenly came alive and was as noble, sexy, and conflicted as you could ever want a Neurotic Russian Officer to be! So he was a better Dmitri as Major Surov than he was as Dmitri. But that's because writer Tabori actually gave Yul, as the Conflicted Russian Officer, the kind of Conflicted Russian Officer lines that are worthy of real literature, and that have real meaning and pathos in them. For example, a propos of folk music, he says musingly, "You hear a man crying in the dark. And if you listen carefully enough, you know what he cries for. You look surprised, Lady Ashmore. Despite what you may have heard, tractors and Marxism aren't the only things the Russian cares for. There is always time for music."
Brilliant!!