ksundstrom Reviews

Taken (I) (2008)

Taken: many themes to think more about

[8/10 · 12 January 2011]

The admirable plot synopsis provided needs no further description of the plot and the action. Liam Neeson surely must have been attracted by the very serious themes in the script, primarily written by Luc Besson. In the modern genre of very fast action, rough, tough and clinically effective a la Besson, the moral and political themes remind one however of the great era of Hollywoods major films which contained, under the surface of a passionate story, very strong moral and political themes that influenced generations not only in the west but also in the middle and far east. To-day, some of these major themes in the film which concern us deeply but need more attention in seeing the film Taken but need to be repeated in future films are: - - parentalguidance, responsibility and protection of our children (TV is full of failures of parents to accept fully what all this means) - young peoples gullibility in search of exciting experiences which can have grave consequences for parents and friends - the growing threat of immigration with criminal intent. As the film is made in Europe, it is the increasing influx of mafia like organisations from East Europe - the ever prevailant corruption in political circles - the ever prevailant demand for vengeance preferred to due process of law, despite the great increase in the proportion of the population with higher education The film is worth seeing several times to absorb all these issues. Liam Neeson is to be honored for promoting them.

Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007)

Elizabeth 1: The Golden Age needs a third film

[5/10 · 31 December 2010]

Elizabeth 1: The Golden Age gets only an average: 5. But the acting gets 8 (9 for Cate Blanchett), the rest only 3. Why only 3? The director Shekar Kapur in his second part of Elizabeth 1 (first part 1998) provides marvelous parts such as Elizabeth's court when receiving the ambassadors and Sir Walter Raleigh, the hectic preparation for defending England against the Spanish Armada 1588 and the dramatic naval battle. But the rest is very much Bollywood stuff, though Shekar Kapur is not an Indian but from Pakistan. Great improvements to England were made under Elizabeth's rule. The incorporation of the East India Company which ruled India until 1857 before the rule was taken over by the English Crown. The modest beginning of stock exchange trading (influence of the Dutch), development of industry (textile, mines and naval construction), better agriculture, the acceptance of the growing role of the middle classes, better conditions for the poor... Secondly, the role of Sir Walter Raleigh does not do justice to his importance. No emphasis on his contributions as scholar, soldier, sailor and statesman, just emphasis in the film on his piracy, colonization of Virginia and his sex appeal. The thoughtful viewer is ignored, just historical froth is served up. Shekar Kapur can do better. Let's hope he can be given the opportunity to rise to the challenge in a third definitive version of Elizabeth 1.

In the Valley of Elah (2007)

Critique of America's Iraq War

[7/10 · 26 September 2010]

Unfortunately, there are too many commentaries on the film that are more to do with film knowledge of the writer of the commentary. (The editors of IMDb are very lax on this!) Unnecessary comparisons are made with other films in order to satisfy the commentators' egos for some sort of recognition that they are well versed in the film world. The first commentary is a case in point, the final conclusions are superficial and so maybe reflective of the poor understanding of the terrible strategic errors made by the Pentagon under Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz with the side support from Cheney. Bush at that time had no independent view, so proving to be a poor Commander in Chief. However, the film brings through the dire criticism of the Pentagon's handling of the Iraq War whilst keeping the film dramatically on course as a powerful story of the harm to those soldiers who suffer from poor preparation for maintaining security and promoting peace in Iraq when they can. Its success is due to the disciplined direction and the terse empathy of the actors who perform marvelously. The film's final point is shattering: the Pentagon has not done anywhere enough to treat the soldiers coming home with loss of limb and PTSD.

A Good Year (2006)

South of France-Provence, a pleasant travalogue

[3/10 · 13 September 2010]

A good film for those who want to see something of Provence in the South of France. It is also enjoyable for those tourists who have spent some months there to resee their familiar scenes and hear the familiar remarks. Otherwise, to be seen only if necessary. The film, of course, was expected to be a winner with its straight sequence as in poker: Ridley Scott, Russell Crowe, Cotilde (of Piaf film), Albert Finney and Peter Mayle, the novelist. So why did it fail to win? Because one expects more to excite one. As director and actors did their best it must be because Peter Mayles' story telling never rose to a captivating and emotional level that swept the viewer along. Mayle's story was more of a very professional advertiser's contribution to the French Tourist Board promotion film for Provence (in this remark one must assume that Mayle's story is in most ways faithfully represented in the script). Peter Mayle knows well his Provence and other areas in the South of France. He also knows Russell Crowe's choice to switch jobs as Mayle himself resigned from a highly paid executive position in an advertising company in order to live in Provence, whence came the most popular and most enjoyable of his books: A Year in Provence. Sadly his following books never reached anywhere near the promise of this first book. But by his first book he became even richer. The story shows all the set theatre pieces, a sort of travalogue: postcard views of gentle hills with well ordered vines on the slopes against a clear blue azur sky, learned talk on assessing wine's qualities and even pointing to corruption in the wine trade, the picturesque views of a village and its restaurant. Of course, there is the eccentric Frenchmen, responsible for the wine production, impassioned by his wine making and provincial traditional cooking (wild boar). The there is the local beauty (Cotilde) succumbing to Crowe's virility. A sex scene that Russell Crowe handles like a watered down version for children. Peter French provides the philosophical views of living in Provence for his young nephew Crowe, who, later when grown up, chooses money and the excitement of taking casino banking risks to make many millions. Crowe's love of the financial life requires that he quickly sell the provincial property inherited from his uncle Finney. But the story here as elsewhere is standard stuff, not intriguing, nor captivating. Even though Mayle throws in an attractive oenologue from Napa Valley who turns out to be an illegitimate daughter of uncle Finney and so has legal claims - all to spice up the story. Sex with the local girl Cotilde is also added spice, disappointingly tame, and this later awakens Crowe's child memories with uncle Finney. All this somehow turns his mind back to uncle Finney's view of a pleasant, stressless life in Provence (Bandol here, between Marseille and Toulon on the Mediterranean coast). Such a life as Finney leads is really to be preferred to a hectic, back stabbing financial career albeit with enormous bonuses and other rewards (a partnership was later offered to Crowe). Crowe's final choice of uncle Finney's Bandol house with childhood memories and a new life for him has to be taken or left by the viewer. Peter Mayle as a story teller fails here to convince viewers by making clear his inner passions when he should know how it felt when he himself made just such a decision. No real passion behind Crowe's decision is seen and so the story line leaves one dissatisfied and unmoved. With so much talent in the poker straight to win, one still wonders why Peter Mayle' story failed to take off and grip one despite every one else doing a superb job.

Vanity Fair (2004)

Beauty and Ugly

[3/10 · 8 August 2010]

Satire, aimed at exposing with ridicule serious faults and behaviour that ignore the accepted morals of society, political, commercial and social, was the aim of Thackery. In the film, it would appear from your perspicuous commentator (anhedonia) that the satire has lost its bite. The director Mira Nair, born in Bhubaneshwar in the Orissa State on the East Coast of India somewhere south of Calcutta where Thacheray (1811-63) was born - a state of great historical religious and architectural culture - may have been contaminated by the film industry's quest for profits, in that she modernised the main character in to a more recognizable role. This was unfortunate (anhedonia is clearly right). It is perplexing that Beauty is associated with the exciting, fascinating personalities and the very dubious conduct of the main characters. The Ugly are linked to the money grubbing, speculative and lascivious behaviour of the seemingly successful persons in the English society. There we have a very biting satirical remark of Thackery that Mira Nair underscores. However, its hardly applicable to-day with the awful world of finance operated by good looking greedies. However, Mira Nair, despite the good photography and costumes and sets, seemed to lack the force of her direction that was so pungent in her Indian film Monsoon Wedding. The next Vanity Fair version will hopefully get it right!

Quantum of Solace (2008)

QoS suffers from Marketing Directors!

[7/10 · 25 July 2010]

This comment is more about the conflict between the intellectuals and the marketing people of the film. So the comments are more directed toward the management of the new James Bond series starting with Casino Royal. Casino Royal was clearly a success, 9/10, primarily because of the intellectual input. The follow-up Quantum of Solace clearly suffered from the marketing influence. Public opinion with a preference for action that dominates has determined the film QoS. Mass public for action 70-80%, compared to 20% intellectual of public opinion surveys. (Proportions, uncertain, are known clearly by the marketing people.) However the reputation of James Bond is primarily determined by the intellectuals. IMDb full synopsis is essential reading. The action in the film is too fast, too fragmented between places and people, dialogue too truncated. So, in my opinion, the management of the film have done themselves a disservice in going almost all out for action and relegating the intellectual story line and dialogue to a minor role. Hopefully, Casino Royal made more money than Quantam of Solace has done so far. If so the the action wildies have also appreciated the intellectual strong story line of Casino Royal. Food for thought for the James Bond management. The literature of James Bond series is, in my opinion, down the path of the intellectuals, which just confirms the original intention of the author! (You have my permission to send this comment to the management of the James Bond series.) Yours sincerely, KSundstrom (Nice,France)

The Last Train (1973)

France, an essential view

[8/10 · 26 August 2009]

France during 1940 to 1943 as seen by the acute observer Georges Simenon, an author who wrote the Maigret series, admired for his penetrating insights into the traditional lives of the French. It should be remembered by non-French viewers, that the French remember their dead from The Great War (WW1) on crosses and plaques in almost every village in France. (America came to understand this on 9/11, though only three places were hit.) Also that WW1 was fought on French soil. Twenty years later they are invaded again. (Maybe they should be blamed for that because of their vengeful Versaille Treaty.) Remember also that President de Gaulle (centre right) and President Mitterand (socialist) refused to take up the accusations of France caving into Hitlers demands and becoming a puppet regime under the name of Vichy which incorporated into its own laws the Nazi anti-Jewish programs. Against this essential background, there are two of Europe's most subtle actors, Jean-Louis Trintignant and Romy Scheider, who give a haunting performance of pathos and love. They flee by a "last" train northern France in 1940, before Paris falls, to the west coast La Rochell (incidentally, the town to be the German submarine base dramatically filmed in Das Boot). Trintignant with other men and unaccompanied women have to make do in a wagon for horses. This is a significant image. Other important images are the changing countryside, the generosity of the French, the first criminal acts of war of Luftwaffe planes shooting on civilians. Trintignant shows kindness, consideration and courage in protecting Romy Schneider. The rhythm begins to liken Ravel's Bolero: he is traditional parochial French, married with children (who are in the train's better compartments), he is inexperienced with other women, ignorant of world events, so he reflects the very subdued key of the beginning of Bolero; she is a German Jew, internationally experienced, knows men, has the instinct of survival. She adds to the sharper tones in Bolero. Their relationship develops in the wagon. He is more careful to transgress marriage boundaries, she does not want to comprise him, but both slowly are drawn to each other in the steady mounting Bolera rhythm. In the wagon, others engage in sexual intercourse and soon she realizes that she must make the first move. She understands that life is to be lived each minute and so their growing love, reaching new rhythmic heights, is consummated. All is natural, natural as horses in a wagon. No morality, no anglo-saxon prudery, just natural, as one understands this on continental Europe and in the East. The bolera rhythm reaches its climax in the last minutes. Three years he has not seen her. When he was reunited with his wife and new born child in La Rochelle she on her own accord left unseen. He is called to the French National Police. The French police worked in close agreement with the Gestapo (the security police arm of the Nazi Party) and just this aspect so ignored by Presidents de Gaulle and Mitterand is where author Georges Simenon subtedly puts in the knife. At the interview, he is confronted with her, arrested for being a Jew with the French Resistance. He denies the French Secret Service Police inspector's questions, but when she is brought in, the climax and (the Boleros crescendo) is released: the last scene is so powerful, love, the essence of life, is dealt doom. Essential to see, for so many lived that life!

The Sun (2005)

Majestic portrayal of the unknown Emperor of Japan of WW2

[9/10 · 4 June 2009]

Director Sokourov's portrayal of the Japanese Emperor during the time of his capitulation to America is spellbinding and possibly unique. Japanese civilization and especially its culture from warriors to sex and love are totally different to western culture. Issei HiroHito who plays the role of the Emperor is majestic in human manner and mannerisms, spanning glimpses of ancient customs of etiquette, the significance of poetry and the new world of science (HiroHito's passion being marine biology). Most significant is his surprising awareness of the fateful decisions he has to take at the end of WW2 in order to bring Japan into the next era. Long lasting peace is his fervent vision. One is surprised to learn that he hardly participatedin the making of the military decisions: unaware of the attack on Pearl Harbour, for example. Luckily for Japan, MacArthur knew something about Japan and its rigid etiquette and sensitive non military culture, having been there before the war. Lukily for Japan, MacArthur decided on getting to know his opponent in person to person meetings with the Emperor before pronouncing judgment on whether the Emperor was guilty of being leader of the war or just an innocent person kept away from the important decisions. The two meetings between MacArthur and HiroHito when HirorHito spoke English (he said he also spoke other languages), were non-political and dealt mostly with personal matters of family and leisure interests. These discussions, subtly developed in the film, convinced MacArthur that HiroHito was innocent and that HiroHito could be a unifying force for a new Japan. (This positive attitude by America through MacArthur can be contrasted by the exact opposite of the Versaille Peace Treaty at the end of WW1 vindictively pushed through by the French and which proved to be, as Woodrow Wilson feared, a cause for further troubles in Europe, finally WW2.) What makes the film outstanding is Issei Ogata's sensitive and convincing portrayal of the Emperor concerned with human interests, who is considered by the Japanese as a God. Secondly, the decorum of the Japanese, so rigid to exclude all compromise. Luckily for the Japanese HiroHito found a way to compromise. Also the film's special color range suggested more undertones than either a documentary or a book. Essential to see to understand.

Mulholland Drive (2001)

A psycho thriller for junkies

[5/10 · 7 February 2009]

Why say "for junkies"? Simon Rattle the conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestre expressed the sentiment that the "kicks" from music was like a drug, saying also he would thus willingly be a "junky" for the rest of his life. David Lynch has not reached that level of wisdom. His Mulholland Drive has no recognizable threads in the first 45 minutes that convince one of a major theme to come. Just irritation that a kaleidoscope of fragmented images should hold one's full attention. No initial story line that almost all good modern literature has. The story between the three women Betty and Rita and the unknown who takes refuge in the house of Betty (details of the story given by other commentators) starts after about an hour. One wonders if the film had been just as interesting to get the directors prize at Cannes in 2002 without the first 40 minutes - just 5 minutes would have been enough to set the scene. 2/10 for the first 45 minutes, the impact of the good photography radically reduced by the incomprehensible fragments of the first 45 minutes. "Imcomrehensible" is a judgment formed from great modern literature. So begin after the first psychedelic 45 minutes, enjoy the rest. That will avoid the irritation of pseudo art in the beginning.

Mission Kashmir (2000)

Kashmiri action without real purpose

[8/10 · 2 February 2009]

The recount of the story and actors performances are admirably commented by your reviewers. This is to add something else (maybe only for the director Chopra). On action: it is an impressive Indian film (8/10). On acting (8/10). On direction (8/10). All these votes are on the Hollywood standards. But Hollywood "once upon a time" had great moral conviction with an enthralling story as the vehicle. "Mission Kashmir" doesn't have that conviction. It is action a la James Bond etc. That is full of action, well acted and exciting. However, Kashmir the country is something else. That something else is foreign to America and Hollywood - one will have to wait for the films on 9/11 (the first foreign attack on American soil) for a renaissance of in-depth traditional and emotional Hollywood treatment. India has had 60 years to ponder about Kashmir and director Chopra has not handled the in-depth part but has gone for the modern Hollywood ethic of getting a hit that makes money. As so many U.S. stars repeatedly now say, the name of the game is money and marketing. So on enlightenment about Kashmir a note of 5/10. Afterall, one hopes that a sensitive director as Chopra will decide to provide insights, emotional and intellectual, on difficult societal issues of India which academic writers fail to reflect satisfactorily. This also assumes that politicians can be influenced by pungent emotive films with a message. Mission Kashmiri proved weakest on that important message, and so remains a superb action film to be seen for the other reasons so well noted by your reviewers.

Live Free or Die Hard (2007)

Die Hard Action Extreme

[6/10 · 6 January 2009]

For action unrelenting a vote of 8/10. But for a film for those who like a story of human breadth, like me, then only 4/10. Die Hard 4 repeats the warning, repeated during the last 15 years or so of the vulnerability of a society dependent too much on computer information systems. Thus, if any societal computer system crashes to politicians surprise one will have to conclude that they never learnt from all the Hollywood films warning them of the risques. Die Hard 4 slams the vulnerability issue really hard into those responsible for national security. The film makes a quick direct reference to FEMA/US Administration and its failure to handle the New Orleans Katrina disaster! Another issue in the film is the Big Brother surveillance of private people that is increasing rapidly in the US. So Die Hard 4 offers nothing substantially new. It reemphasizes the problems with more exasperation and fear. No need to think anew, just sit back and admire the pyro-technics of Hollywood's creativity. Computer games and internet amusements appear to be the food for thought for an increasing share of the population. Maybe this increasing public don't care much for political issues nor have time to understand world events - though this public likes to comment in blogs, etc. Unfortunately American security efforts abroad, repeat abroad, seem way behind what one should expect from the professionalism of Hollywood on security actions films. Die Hard 4 is also a warning to the US Government: reliance on super technology fails against mans ingenuity on the ground. Witness Afghan fighters in 2008 proving a match for American super military technology - like Bruce Willis surviving the onslaught of the latest super US Air Force fighter attack! Therefore, Die Hard 4 has an important political message. Bruce Willis and company all act exceptionally well. The computer boys are faultless. No other country can compete in this genre.

The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996)

Actiion packed drama of many themes

[9/10 · 4 September 2008]

The gist of the story is set out in the comments of others. There are many themes in the film. This distinguishes it from so so many other action films which have a very narrow base. Lovers of Terminator and Rambo type films and the latest action tricks need read no further. Those who demand more will find themselves amply rewarded. There is an adroit mingling of small town family life: role of children with their parents and the Christmas festivals, small time private detective trying make some cash no matter how. This played out against the highest echelons of American secret service power. Here it is the CIA and the President. Other themes are family love, searching for ones identity, sophisticated guns, knives and techniques of professional assassins, the traditional American values of taking your own responsibility, essential to being a good member of your community. The there is the usual CIA corruption and international terrorism. All these themes of a film of 1996 played out against a panorama of intelligent intense action scenes. The acting of Geena Davis is marvelous: at 40 years of age, though having then no children, she portrays the mother with keen sensitivity, switching suddenly to the role of professional killer that was repressed into amnesia (see other comments) until released at intervals that took everyone, on screen and the public, by surprise. Geena Davis showed acting of great quality - many different facial expressions and emotions, which Terminator and Rambo action actors could never aspire to. On might guess that she was also got extra help from her director, her husband at the time. Samuel L. Jackson, so wonderful as the small time private detective in the small town who rose inspirationally from a shady type to a worthy and courageous man by the end. One sees how he is influenced by the moral principles and values of the Geena Davis character: fighting evil, protecting family, doing right by oneself. fearless in saving her child and thwarting the CIA corrupt plans. Her fighting to establish her eight year lost identity then became of course ruthless as she reverted to her assassin status in the CIA. The actors of the evil forces act most convincingly. The music weaved in and out of the intense drama magnificently. A film to be re seen many times: for its action momentum, family and human values of importance, international issues as terrorism, corruption in security services, even though this is a theme of many other films, here it is only the backcloth of the breathless action scenes, not the main issue, which by now has become rather banal. And definitely for the superb acting of Geena Davis and Samuel Jackson, supported hand in hand by the music. All this with beautiful photography.

Ulzana's Raid (1972)

Questioning...?

[9/10 · 30 June 2008]

Permit an additional comment to all the others. So there will be no description like the worthy others - just some other views about the clash of forces that formed America. So forceful in American thinking is Fords forceful and disdainful remark about the value of history: 'All history is bunk', that Hollywood with its European talent has challenged that thought. But in many, many comments of films on IMDb one has to observe reluctantly that history seems to have no importance. First comment - so it will be history! Americans arriving from the East, those who contributed most to American development, came from Europe. Europe had been ravaged by famines, wars, social class strife, that America - the promised land in the letters sent home to Europe - appeared as the only future for a better life. Many who arrived were formed by viscousness. There is thus plenty of this in the film expressed by the Americans soldiers of European origins, even more hardened and cynical after the American war of Independence. This is to be accepted - however difficult for Americans to-day. Second comment - the destruction of the Indians. In the broad sweep of indo-European history, this was just a minor incident in the European history. Whole races in Europe were exterminated from Portugal to the Urals (a width not much different from west to east in America) in the most brutal fashion, for example, the moguls of Gengis Khan and even the French during the Saint Barthelemy massacre 1572 or the persecution in Italy of Savonarola 1498 and the subsequent period of the Roman Catholic Inquisition. This history and much more was in the backbone of the Europeans who built up America. So the Indians and their demise was just part of a terrible human pageantry. Third comment - the film raises such issues of human cruelty, survival, race, development, in the new world of America. That is its merit par excellence, thanks to the writer, director, actors and the photography. A film that provokes questioning and thought.

Firelight (1997)

Pignant story making America

[8/10 · 12 June 2008]

England to-day is maybe a small influence in the thinking and emotion of America. This film merits great consideration. It reflects the English cultural way of life of the 1800's, a way of living, albeit in the upper middle classes and aristocracy that provided a fundament to the American society and that still survives in thin layers of Englnad. This English personality is united with a cool realistic and monetary Swiss attitude to life. An English heir (Stephen Dillane, played with great sensitivity) to a lord (Jon Ackland, epitomizing the spendthrift lords seeking only pleasure) resides in a lovely house and park with pond and bathing hut in glass. But he needs himself an heir. He pays the debt of a Swiss women owed for her father. She agrees as her part of the agreement to give birth to his child. The women is portrayed superbly by Sophie Marceau with the Swiss minimum of facial expression and restraint. A Swiss behaviour that is still noticed to-day. She arrives seven years after the birth of their child to reply to his need for a gouvernant for the child. Thus one learns a lot about some very impotent facets of the future make up of America: moral rectitude, the work ethic, how to bring up children, the appreciation of natural beauty, the restarting of ones life. Most important is the sensitivity to sensual forces repressed but released when needed: conception of a child despite being contracted for money, love eternal for a wife that is paralyzed, love of a mother for the best development of her child, the demand that love will be the force that unites the parents of the child and in the end the future for all three. Even euthanasia. Ironically, but so often the case, the heir has to sell his lovely house and grounds to pay off the debt of his father. Thus he and the mother of his child find themselves in the same quandary. The photography of the English countryside in autumn and winter is for dreams. A film to be seen and savoured several times.

Don't Come Knocking (2005)

American Dream queried - rightly so!

[9/10 · 23 May 2008]

"Just fear" admits Howard Spence (Sam Sheppard) to the mother (Jessica Lange) of his child. A child he knew nothing about until his mother (Eva Marie Sainte) tells him when she meets him again some thirty years later. Fear, disgust and disappointment with his life strikes suddenly Howard Spence after many years in the forefront as a top actor in westerns. His quest is to find his child. Sexually attractive he suffers now from succumbing willingly to women's erotic enticements (widespread among successful politicians and businessmen during the centuries). Suddenly one summer day on the film set he realizes that he has messed up his life. He has to escape from his world of romantic western film. He is deeply disturbed. His fear is not just his but that of a great many people in the world, no more so than Americans with their "American Dream". Even those who returned from WW2, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq who became disillusioned and disappointed. The beautiful filming, poetic dialog, the lovely country and western music and brilliant acting by all in this penetrating vision that demands from Americans and Europeans understanding of and empathy for the worrying reverse side of the American Dream - all these make this film a masterpiece.

Cold Mountain (2003)

Civil War of blood, pain, love fails to reach the heights

[5/10 · 10 March 2008]

After 630 or so comments what remains to be said? A European view maybe? The film fails. Why? Historically, its so American. 1860 of the civil war was fought primarily between the European immigrants who fled Europe because of the continual wars, social conflicts, poverty that their generations had experienced. The film lacks this perspective. The films from the great directors on war, U.S. and European, avoid the exaggerated dense combat in such a compressed colour spectrum as that of the Cold Mountain, found however in European paintings but nowhere better than in Leonardo da Vinci's Battle of Anghiari. Paintings are not films. Cold Mountain lacks distance, space and battle rhythm that is so well done in Sam Peckinpath's masterpiece Cross of Iron in the other great war films. The love story fails to reach the heights of intense emotion as other U.S. and European war films have done. The acting is good, but no better than many other films of relatively good quality. Strong coherence of a powerful current throughout the film is lacking. Through American eyes the film has nostalgic merit but as an independent work of art in the western world it lacks emotional conviction, and so sadly fails.

Extreme Measures (1996)

Moral thriller in the medical world

[7/10 · 8 April 2006]

A thriller in the medical world. Generally, doctors abide by the Hippocratic Oath - roughly summarized as "to do good or to do no harm". Hugh Grant as the English Doctor strives to uphold this. Gene Hackman plays the role of the medical researcher, now head of a powerful medical research foundation that can influence police and politicians, believes that medical research is more important than "to do no harm" if in the long run research does provide valuable improvements to medicine. Hackman is the ominous shadow of the German Nazi doctors, 1935-1945, such as Josef Mengele, who carried out abominable medical experiments in order to promote so-called medical advancement. Thus the conflict between Grant and Hackman: Grant the loner, a promising English doctor - a follower of the Hippocratic Oath, thus the moral man, is working temporarily in America to gain valuable medical experience. Hackman, the countervailing force, the ominous medical power with wide ranging influence in public power circles, controls the lives of his captured patients in underground "catacombs", disregarding their concerns in order to achieve his results for the "benefit of mankind" . Sudden deaths, escapes, mysterious liaisons, threats, moral arguing (but only a little as this in a modern American film - historically there was plenty of moral arguing), shootings, and of course plenty of blood are the powerful ingredients to this cocktail. Grant certainly knows how to play convincingly other roles than those "English" ones which rocketed him to the top. Hackman as always is a master of his role. Well worth seeing!

A Place for Lovers (1968)

Beautifully filmed ambiguity of love

[8/10 · 19 March 2006]

Italian upper class environment in the 1960's: beautiful houses and interiors, women of course also and so well dressed but, as in Dolce Vita, bored and wont to indulge in ambiguous erotic games - exciting for some and decadent for others. Mastroianni and Dunaway meet in such a venue before the evening festivities begin and fall in love and escape to the mountains at Cortina. The director Vittorio De Sica keeps the film viewer at a distance by introducing a "third party", the breathtakingly beautiful mountain scenery. Intense love and imminent death of one of the lovers is not an unusual story. Through the beautiful photography, the cool and tight directing of De Sica, one senses that the dangerous mountains will provide the ending. The acting does not drag you in willy-nilly to experience ardently the emotions but leaves you to decide how you would have acted in such a tragedy. Some might agree with the American critic Maltin who found it pseudo romantic slop, others with a European sensitivity may decide like the lovers or remain ambiguous, but definitely not unmoved by their own thinking and their own feelings.

K-19: The Widowmaker (2002)

Meltown on Soviet sub threatens world...

[9/10 · 12 March 2006]

High tension acting played brilliantly by Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson. Claustrophobic photography and uplifting music bolster the tension and the moral conflicts of the film. It is clear now that the risk of a nuclear catastrophe in the K-19 sub was real in 1961 with a probable trigger-quick nuclear retaliation by America. Unbelievable? Why then did the President of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev propose in 2005 to the Nobel Peace Prize Committee that the crew of the K-19 should be nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for their actions of July 4, 1961? Harrison Ford, who is half Irish and half Russian, and Liam Neeson, who is Irish, (both having much somewhat similar hardships and adventure in their youth) rose convincingly to the acting challenges of different personalities having to come to terms with higher moral ideals. They gave surprisingly inspiring performances of a higher order than the classical moral acting of Hollywood movies of the 1930's-1950's. In the Hollywood movies opposition on moral grounds to government, politicians and military authorities could lead to loss of career. In the Soviet such opposition meant either death or banishment to the frightful prisons of Siberia, etc., the Gulag. Ford, as Commandant Nikolai Vadimirovich Zateyev, is ordered to take over the command of the first submarine converted to nuclear capability from Neeson, the Commander Mihail Polenin, who stays as second in command. Ford is the person the Communist Politburo and Military consider politically reliable whereas Neeson is too undisciplined and chummy with the crew. The Soviet Union wants now to demonstrate to America that it is also a superpower with intercontinental nuclear missiles. The Amerian Navy has an observer ship near by. More importantly at stake is the Soviet's reputation in the eyes of the Third World. Its mission must not fail! Meltdown of the nuclear reactor powering the K-19 is caused by a faulty cooling circuit. (Remember the scary repercussions of Third Mile Island?). Ford knows that the intense heat from this risks a catastrophic explosion of the nuclear missiles which would also blow out of the water the American observer ship. This would could risk an automatic nuclear riposte from America against the Soviet Union. The 1960's were the years of sabre rattling and trigger happy generals. Ford cannot ask the Americans for help - a sign of Soviet weakness in the eyes of all. Neeson wants to. Thus the conflict. But as crew members voluntarily offer their lives to enter the radiated chamber to welder the leaks, the character changes between Ford and Neeson. They rise finally to a very high order - a higher moral dimension which also involves the crew. A dimension so missing from many of Hollywoods films. This lack of moral fiber in Hollywood - reflected in the recent disappointments regarding prisons in Iraq - is probably also the reason for the erroneous marketing of the film. Hopefully, Hollywood will re-find this moral fiber. Hopefully it will re-market the K-19 as a film worthy of reflection, with great action and human understanding.

The Patriot (2000)

Violence debauches the War of Independence

[5/10 · 12 December 2005]

A well made action film to please all those who like Mel Gibson's style and his full throttle action. The film fits in to his search for ultimate violence, from the Mad Max trilogy, through the Lethal Weapon series, then The Patriot and finally the ultimate excess in The Passion of Christ where violence thrusts shatteringly deep in to the heart and soul of the viewer, adding little except possibly rekindling the curiosity to know more about Christianity in the Bible. The Patriot fails miserably as a historical film as it warps and lies about people and events in the American War of Independence. For instance: Why lie about the English general Cornwallis as a person who condoned atrocities? Why insert a bestiality which did not occur in the war but in Europe from Nazi actions in the Second World War (burning inhabitants of whole villages in churches, to name just one example from France Odour-sur-Glane, 642 inhabitants, men, women and children burnt in the church and shot in barns by SS Das Reich, 10 June 1944)? Vote 4 out of 5 for the action and pace, 1 for the somewhat distorted role of the Militias and 0 for the history which should have been the most absorbing part.

The Devil's Advocate (1997)

Vanities of the bonfires: a riveting film

[9/10 · 2 November 2005]

Vanity fuels the clash between good and evil. The film is so superbly photographed, remarkably played and directed that you are easily sucked into the flammable issues and charged scenes, potential "bush fires", with your emotions taking control. Only after the film may you have the time to reflect. The young lawyer from Florida, Keenu Reeves, who is winning all his cases vainly thinks that he is in control of himself. His acceptance of a fabulously well paid legal job in New York where the world is so much brighter, richer, intriguing, challenging only fuels his vain belief in his legal superiority. The legal firm's boss, Al Pacino, mysteriously encourages Reeves to fly higher, to feel that he can be even stronger and go on winning. Lawyer Reeves beliefs, formed from his religious upbringing by his religious mother, are insidiously tested by Al Pacino. Is winning the only star to follow, what about losing? If God is for love and compassion, is the Devil's role, as advocated by Al Pacino, to inject vanity into intuition to power the business world to winning ever better results no matter whether the world thinks otherwise? A real dilemma for Americans, as its must-win role is corroding the international political world. The good Reeves is threatened by the need to make difficult choices. His falling for the temptations of mastering the situations opens the door to evil paths. His wife, victimized by devilish hallucinations and her doubts that love and compassion are strong enough to withstand the temptations showered on her husband by Al Pacino, increases the pressure on him. The hyper modern business interiors, the stunning shots of New York, the very beautiful women as diabolic temptations inject more fuel into the rising tensions. Serious questions begin to crackle and smolder. The powerful acting controls the potential fission. Reeves is drawn in to the bonfire, vainly believing that he can handle the conflicts and unexplained deaths that pummel him. But Al Pacino's role succumbs also to vanity! Al Pacino cannot either avoid the bonfire of evil ambitions. Brilliant last scenes justifiably disturb the mind. Masterfully convincing acting by Reeves, Charlize Theron his wife and Al Pacino with the beautiful photography make this film a must to see.

The Lady Eve (1941)

American comedy of fading interest

[5/10 · 27 October 2005]

Rich heir, Henry Fonda, and a beautiful, effervescent and effusive woman, Barbara Stanwyck, meet on luxury liner. Fonda, smoothly good-looking in white tuxedo, naive, uprighteous and ready for love, is obviously meant to fall in love with the scintillating woman. The love of the morally correct Fonda disintegrates when he learns that his shining goddess Stanwyck is the daughter of a shady father and he is reluctant to compromise his morality. The novelty for American society around 1940 is that Stanwyck later gives Fonda a healthy dose of "what is good for the goose is good for the gander" when she concocts a list of men she has been involved with in order to get her own back on being shunned by the uprighteous Fonda. However, the dialogue is generally dull and, with some exceptions, no longer witty in to- day's world of 2000: in fact in many cases the scenes are outright boring and too obviously clumsy to cause a chuckle or a laugh. The film's merit is Barbara Stanwyck's lively acting.

Patriot Games (1992)

Entertaining CIA mythology

[8/10 · 4 October 2005]

Harrison Ford, retired CIA active analyst of importance, is walking like any tourist to see Buckingham Palace. Innocently with wife and child. Suddenly, he's yanked back into the terrorist world of shots and explosions as IRA gunmen try to assassinate a royal personage who is responsible for Britain's political role in North Ireland. The Lord is driving out from his office block when all hell breaks loose and Ford throws himself forward into the action. A brother of a fanatical IRA assassin is killed, demanding blood vengeance. The action of vengeance never stops from then on. The IRA's skill in getting prisoners free, brutal execution of any who disagree within the IRA radicals, Libyia's active support to the IRA in the form of desert training camps, the IRA underground network, including upper-class moles and even timid bookworms in classy commercial malls all add spice. Bitter spice is also added in the form of CIA super technological superiority in the world of agents, satellites and counter terrorist offensives: bitter, as the CIA is always great on film but sadly falls short of solid and comprehensive results in the real world of significant undercover actions against foreign powers and international terrorism. Earl Jones as the CIA boss for counter terrorism superbly reflects, deadpan of course, the CIA's dilemma of having to chose masterful technological efficiency rather than demanding more skilled manpower on the ground. So it is left to the man on the ground to save himself and his family. Harrison Ford does this very convincingly with great entertainment value.

Baltic Storm (2003)

A Gripping Interpretation of the Estonia Distaster

[8/10 · 12 September 2005]

The sinking of the ferry Estonia in the Baltic Sea in 1994 was traumatic for the whole of Scandinavia: over 800 dead but through their relations and connections with friends so so many more suffered emotionally. The official report was never satisfying, especially the failure of security system for the bows and the suspicions of a cover-up from events unexplained and the decision not to bring Estonia up from the seabed. The film Baltic Sea is a serious valid alternative to the report. Secret service relations between Sweden and Estonia, with miserable consequences, are now well known, so is also the smuggling of WMD from the former USSR to the West, and the US and NATO's roles in trying to contain it, and so is also Sweden's "secret" ties with Nato and the US military. The acting out of these forces is very gripping, probably more so for non-Scandinavians who are less emotionally involved.

Welcome to Hard Times (1967)

A sketch of how the west was developed

[8/10 · 8 September 2005]

This is a western that tells you something about how people from Europe (inferred as almost all immigrants where from Europe) moved to the unknown America seeking life. It takes place somewhere in the dry mid-west. People searching for a future, an escape from rigid social conditions in Europe , bringing with them their childhood experiences and social traumas, seeking a freer life either by reason or by violence. The film's strength is the microcosmic story of how Americans developed under natural and human pressures. Henry Fonda depicts convincingly reason, moderation and hope of a society of non-violence based on self reliance: themes still for the 21st century. Aldo Ray depicts the forces of evil - not unusual considering that Australia was initially populated by convicts from England and not unusual considering the Revolution of France in late 1790's and the state of Louisiana: evil upbringing breeds evil. Henry Fonda's role tries to show that the peaceful method is preferable to wild gunsling executions (in contrast to the Clint Eastwood films) but realizes that he will be called on to draw the line and finally stand up to be counted as a man, however modest that maybe. The film is a fundamental stone in the building of America, thanks to the writer Doctorow, and the acting. It is also vital to the understanding of America of to-day.