ReviewingHistory

ARGO is as entertaining movie as it is informative of a serious-and contemporary-topic. Ben Affleck has stellar performance, as director and as lead-actor. The soundtrack is engaging until the, and its plot advances smoothly. The film flows, period. In part, perhaps, because it portrays the tense and intense relations, which have remained to this day, between Iran and the US. Viewers might appreciate the mixing of historical footage with newly filmed material for a renewed sense of immediacy regarding the films. This is a gem of a film.

A poignant and personal encounter with a Hungarian Jewish man in a concentration camp obsessed with giving a proper burial to a boy. Rendered with superb acting, costumes, sound system, and cinematography, Son of Saul is a piece of art. The film explores themes of dogged persistence of an inmate in the face of adversity, the cruel treatment imposed by soldiers, and the dehumanizing nature of camps. The film also explores, and beautifully, the value of tradition for the main character, Aslünder Saul, as he undertakes a dangerous path. Among its highlights, the film's extensive use of closeups makes this a truly intimate journey with Saul's process, redemption, and courage. Besides, it is a one-of-a-kind feature-film on concentration camps making explicit each step of a laborer while still giving voice, though in the background, to the brutalities of life and death in a camp. Certainly, the viewer must expect an encounter with great pain, with nudity, and with a large number of cruelties and deaths. However, the film is worth the bearing, and a deserving work for an academic award for best foreign-language film.

A quiet meditation on change of heart for an established and hard-to-get cook. Bella Martha (a.k.a. Mostly Martha) brings forward the cultural nuances between Italy and Germany in a humorous fashion. It has an endearing and touching plot involving loss and reparation, and a really beautiful set of photographs and shots of cooks who know what they do, and do so at their best. This is a pleasant and captivating film, very worth the watch.