T
he film explores the idea of how people must go through their personal Odyssey to reach their destination with an unbelievable poetic quality. The basic tale is that a nameless exiled Greek-American filmmaker named A (played by Harvey Keitel ) returns to the Balkans after thirty-five years , and is seeking to find three lost reels of footage from the earliest known extant Greek film , made by the Manakis brothers in 1905. His quest takes him across changing countries , bounders and war torn cities. The Romanian actress ,Maia Morgenstern, plays the parts of the four women. These women can easily be identified with the women Homer's Ulysses came across during his voyage. They also represent all the women whom "A" had loved and lost in past. The search for the reels of film works as a metaphor for a search for the common history of the Balkan countries. His odyssey , from Ptolemais through Albania ,Bulgaria and Romania , to Belgrade and Sarajevo, allows for a reflection on changing borders , national identity, and the relationship of film to historical and political reality. Keitel speaks mostly in English, while most of the other characters speak in Greek and other native languages. Keitel gives a good performance in this film about a man's search for missing film reels. But the best performance of the film comes from Maia Morgenstern . She is brilliant.
Giorgos Arvanitis, Angelopoulos's long time collaborator ,is responsible for the stunning cinematography. Many of the scenes are long shots ,that are also long takes , lasting several minutes, Angelopoulos's great signature. The direction is great -beautiful scenery , wonderful mesmeric tracking shots and long takes make for a great visual experience. However working in several languages takes it's toll and much of the English narration is weak and clumsy.
A woman inexplicably finds herself cut off from all human contacts when an invisible , unyielding wall suddenly surrounds the countryside. In an eerie sequence , we later learn that people on the other side of the wall have been frozen in time -meaning that the woman is not only trapped alone , but also quite possibly the last person left alive on earth. Martina Gedeck's performance , which must have been physically demanding in the extreme, is phenomenal - only occasionally does she directly express outward emotion , but in her interaction with animals and the landscape, she creates a powerful impression of her character's coming to merge with the great outdoors. She's left with a dog named Lynx (the director's own hound) , a cow and a couple of cats who prove themselves to be of not much practical use at all. Gradually, she learns how to survive there , moving past loneliness and fear to a sense of communion with her animals and surroundings. The film , based on a novel by the Austrian writer Marlen Haushofer , doesn't tell us much about the woman , only that she is vacationing in the Austrian mountains when the wall cuts her off. How our protagonist survives and changes , grows closer to Lynx , and battles several key obstacles ,make up most of the action.
Sonatine tells the story of middle aged yakuza boss Murakawa (played by Kitano) and his gang's trip to Okinawa to settle some yakuza wars and return the peace to the criminal underworld of Japan. Murakawa openly suspects that the assignment is attempt to have him removed and even beats up one of his colleagues. There are all the Kitano elements as beautifully present as possible. The scenes are often without too much dialogue , and the film is very symbolical and calm. The faces are among the most important elements in Kitano's films as there are so many things to be read from character's faces. Takeshi delivers a perfectly-measured performance as the man who wants out , but retains the strength to recognise that circumstances and obligations will never allow it. When violence is shown in this film , it is usually portrayed in the director's signature style , erupting suddenly amid absolute stillness in a spasm that is over almost before it begins. Sonatine is a lyrical picture of Japan's poker face toward the outrageous violence of its mob culture. The film's title is a musical term that refers to a sonata of modest length ,however not diminished in complexity.
Umberto D is a 1952 Italian neorealist film directed by Vittoria De Sica . Most of the actors were non-professional , including Carlo Battisti, who plays the title role of Umberto Ferrari., a poor old man in Rome desperately trying to keep his room. His landlady is a gold-digger , looking to show off her apartments and marry someone who can provide for her. His landlady is evicting him and his only true friends , the housemaid and his dog Flike are of no help. The young maid , Maria who is pregnant by one of two soldiers - still likes him , though and provides moral support ,even if she can't help in any practical way. "Umberto D" is a character-driven film . It works very well because of its sharp observations on loneliness and poignant gestures. Many of the scenes , even the ones that do not necessarily advance the plot, are hypnotically beautiful in their simplicity. The film sticks firmly to the neo-realist conventions ; the lead actor is a non professional actor (who does a good job if not great) , the use of studio sets is kept to minimum and the everyday lives of people are examined in minute detail. Indeed, Umberto D could have been one of the most depressing films ever made , but instead it's one of the most heartfelt.
Lee Egan , played with restraint by Timothy Hutton , wants to pull off a big jewel robbery in Palm Springs. He has been casing a jewelry store where once a year they have two to three million dollars in stones from Russia. To pull it off, he asks his brother and old pro-criminal Roy (Harvey Keitel) to come to town to join his gang for the big heist. Jorge Montana and Skip Kovic (Stephen Dorff) make up the rest of Lee's team. Calm and resolute Jorge needs the money for his wife Rachel (Famke Janssen) and their kids since Jorge has just been sentenced to prison. After the heist , at the trailer park, as Lee and Jorge are counting and dividing the money, Skip guns both of them down. Most of the show , which happens after the jewel theft, consists of an elaborate cat-and-mouse game with Roy and Skip chasing each other. As Roy , Keitel carries the film with the kind of credible performance we've come to expect from him. Keitel always brings an emotional and physical intensity to his roles that is unequaled. Here he is outstanding as Roy Egan-an experienced, complicated thief who never says much . Timothy Hutton turns in a stellar performance, as does the always watchable Famke Janssen as a woman recently widowed by the fall-out from Dorff's betrayal of friends. Thomas Burstyn's dark cinematography does a good job here to capture the city's underbelly. This John Irvin film is a small, hard-edged little gem , full of crisp action and tough minded codes of honor.
Outrage is a 2010 Japanese Yakuza film directed by and starring Takeshi Kitano. Kitano's Outrage exists in an effort to explore the various amounts of violence that can be dispensed in the midst of a Yakuza turf war in the Japanese underworld. The complex plot stars Kitano as Otomo , a mid level mob boss. Otomo's direct loyalties lie with Ikemoto, his gangster-father , an aging gang leader who has formed a formal pact with Murase. This pact has raised the ire of the overall Yakuza Chairman, the highest ranking gangster of them all to whom Ikemoto must answer. The Chairman claims his displeasure comes from the shame of associating with Murase's drug business but it is equally likely that he simply doesn't like these two powerful men creating an alliance that could threaten his own power. Payback and revenge become the order of the day and the control of Ikemoto and Murase's territory is up for grabs and several of the players involved have their eyes on it. As Kitano remarked publicly about his making of Outrage , he is giving the people what they want - no pretense of artistic embellishments, but rather blunt , cruel acts of violence of the professional criminal devoid of any romanticism. Despite the plot complexity , Kitano directs one of his most direct and most violent pictures here.
In the film , two brothers and a sister witness the disappearance of their childhood memories when they must relinquish the family belongings to ensure their deceased mother's succession. Summer Hours (aka L'Heure d'été) a quiet ,carefully observed film by writer-director Oliver Assayas , a former Cahiers du Cinema critic. In a small town, Helene is a family matriarch who has devoted her life to preserving the legacy of her artist uncle. However, while her eldest son , Frederic , wants to preserve her home after her passing, she harbors no such illusions as she prepares her legacy. When she dies, the family gets together again at her home , which is taken care of by Eloise (Isabelle Sadoyan). Jeremie ,the youngest son , lives with his wife and children in China and is about to start a new job in Beijing. He needs the money from the sale of the family heritages to pay for the move. Adrienne (Juliette Binoche) , a successful designer who lives in the United States , is about to get married. She does not see herself returning to France often in the future and so suggests they sell the house. Frederic ,who wants to keep everything , is disappointed to hear of his brother and sister's responses. But Jeremie and Adrienne see themselves as elite members of the global community with no specific ties to any place or culture. Life will go on , with an acknowledgement of loss that will always seem insufficient. Assayas has made a drama that is filled with bittersweet observations about family , memory , money , globalization and transitoriness.
