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Reviews
In the Cut (2003)
Wonderfully shot
Wonderfully shot, beautifully framed, terrifically directed. I loved the whole film, every scene was amazing, the colours, the sound, the mood. The romantic/erotic scenes were beautiful and, well, sexy, as they are supposed to be, very sexy, and with very good taste. Perfection! It's a good story too, a good police thriller with an erotic story in between, with some interesting characters and I thought the cast was very well chosen. I thought Meg Ryan was outstanding! There was some chemistry between her and Mark Ruffalo, so it works well. A pearl that didn't make it to the cinemas in Portugal (or at least not that I noticed).
Wolf Creek (2005)
I concur -- absolute crap
I agree with all of the indictments my learned colleagues have set out in their critiques of the movie. It was appalling -- and not in a good way (i.e. in a scary way). Here's an idea, cut out all the unconsummated romantic subplot, partying, and driving (and driving and driving and driving -- there was less f**king driving in Road Trip ... and to better effect) and spend your money on some gore. If you need to to fill some time, get your nubile cast to have a threesome; at least that would be entertaining.
As far as I'm concerned, the most horrific part of this piece of tripe was the acting. Kudos to the witless hack hired to play the mildly retarded outback killer (he-he ... snort ... he-he ... little skipper ... throw a redcoat on the Barbee). Please. Deliverance was scarier ... and it had sex in it.
To conclude, this film was all fluff and no delivery. The director might want to consider a new line of work ... at the Aussie Tourist Board, perhaps. He certainly owes them.
Ma mère (2004)
Powerful and bold
European cinema at its best! Producer Paulo Branco has been producing some of the best films and best directors in Europe and this is one of the latest ones. Absolutely amazing, in depicting obsession, incest, dysfunction, love, selfishness, acceptation, pain... It's particularly brilliant how time and space is (not) presented.
The ending is terrific and the perfect conclusion to the story. Absolutely superb, a film I think only French could have the audacity to do... I hope European Cinema gets more protection so that we can keep watching these master pieces, otherwise we'll just have to stay dumb watching the main pop corn stream...
Irréversible (2002)
A poem about life
I saw it at San Sebastian film festival. The film is absolutely brilliant, a work of a genius. I confess I like the work of Gaspar Noe ever since his first short film "Carne". The story is told as in "Memento", that is, backwards, but it has nothing else to do with that one. The camera is just too perfect, the acting superb. The scenes are too long, and for the feeling it is intended to transmit, perfect! They just had to be that long. We see them (any of them) and think, ok, that's ok, I got it! I said ok. Now stop it! Stop!! I can't watch it anymore!!.. You get what I'm saying? It had to be like that to be effective. It sticks on us and just don't go.. We take the whole thing home, can't sleep thinking about it, get disturbed. It's perfect because when you want to talk about something (and if you don't really have anything to say why bother making a film?... unless you're making a Hollywood film.. ha) you must go deep.. The film has violence (really hard and cruel)... but it is not about violence; the film has a rape (extremely cruel and disturbing)... but it is not about a rape... Those were means of transmitting the feeling the film wanted to say: how time destroys everything. And it achieves in transmitting it! Absolutely no doubts about that!.. Now, we may not think times destroys everything, but we must admit that in certain moments in our lives, we all experience that agony and that pain, of having lost everything and how time raised everything good we had and left us with nothing.. Nothing is gratuitous in this film, it's a poem, a really sad, painful and desperate poem, about life (or part of it).
Branca de Neve (2000)
Honest
This is the work of a genius. An honest and genuine piece of art that caused so much controversy because people are too "globalised" to accept something so far from the commercial standards as this one. This is a film with no compromises.