azogbi Reviews

Brideshead Revisited (1981)

A written masterpiece faithfully transcribed to the screen

[10/10 · 26 November 2001]

For decades I have been the fondest admirer of Evelyn Waugh, one of the most skilful English writers of the 20th century. His best known novel "Brideshead Revisited" deals with an intricate web of human relations and religious concerns spanning decades. This complex structure is one not to be easily transcribed to the screen.

I confess that the first time I heard about the mini series I was greatly skeptic about it, thinking it would be one more of these common cultural crimes, i.e. simplifying and reducing the greatness of a masterpiece in order to make it more palatable to the general public. What was then my surprise! The series not only preserved the story to the point of almost maintaining all the book's original dialogues but the aesthetic beauty of the images is beyond reproach.

I strongly recommend this work for all who enjoy art in general and Evelyn Waugh in particular.

La cena (1998)

Scola scores again!

[9/10 · 17 April 2001]

Once again Scola manages to produce high quality cinema, needing for it no more than a good cast of actors and his magistral talent. Rather than the usual Hollywood menu of vulgarity, violence and sex, "La Cena" manages to present in its less that 2 hours, a wide array of dramas in the course of a single dinner evening in a common restaurant. At each table the guests will be immersed in a particular drama (mother vs. daughter, old professor with young student lover, etc.) which are autonomous in themselves but that seem to be part of a larger script. That is achieved thanks to the masterful camera movement that weaves itself among the tables and connects all the independent dramas offering us an orchestrated picture of the restaurant's whole microcosm. Well worth seeing.