Spanish Film Festival is on…there are discounts at the RACV Club…and there are no lockdowns, so drove up through the rain (■■■■■■ down from Colac to Werribee), renewed the Palace Club membership at the Kino and caught two movies.
First one was Under the Same Roof (Bajo el Mismo Techo). Adrián and Nadia bought the dream house on the outskirts of Madrid for €600K just before the 2008 PIGS crash and GFC. Couple of years later, they’re empty-nesters and decide they hate each other enough to divorce. But the house is now worth 300K or less, so are forced to continue living in the same house. Mayhem ensues. Bit lame and predictable.
Second one was very good. Heroic Losers (La Odisea de los Giles - the Odyssey of the Naïve) starring Ricardo Darín, the giant of Argentinian cinema, who came to fame with the sting movie Nine Queens set at the time of the economic collapse in 2001. Set in the same time frame, he’s a soccer hero in a small town who scored the winning goal 30 years ago. He and his friends in a destitute town try to rejuvenate the town through a co-operative, but are scammed out of their money on the eve of the collapse. They discover that the lawyer has hidden the money in a well-protected vault dug into a field. Most enjoyable. His real-life son stars as his son, who comes back to town on the death of his mother in a road accident.
Three more movies today…three totally different genres.
First was a film about the very early days of the Spanish Civil War - While At War.
The Nationalists have taken up occupation in Salamanca, a historic town which is the site of probably the most famous old university in Spain. A beloved writer, Miguel de Onanuma, is the chancellor. He has been in the gun from all political sides and supports the Nationalists because the Republicans are supported by Stalin. However, some of his friends are arrested and essentially he turns against everybody. The backdrop is the selection of Franco as the Generalisimo, while the war lasts. Very interesting from a historical point of view.
Second was one I’d normally steer clear of…August Virgin, about a 30ish actress who borrows a friend’s flat in the centre of Madrid during the ferocious heat of early August when those who can leave the city, but there are lots of open air festivals. Not too bad.
Last was The Wedding Unplanner (Hasta la Boda Nos Separe which means Till the Wedding Do Us part). Marina is a wedding planner who has a disastrous wedding event where one of the guests dies (he’s 90). Carlos is a guest who wants to leave as he is in love with his girlfriend (who’s absent through illness). Carlos and Marina hit it off and she gives him her business card. Carlos’s gf finds the card and he dodges having a wedding planner’s card by proposing. Turns out that Marina and the gf were classmates at primary school and Marina was horribly bullied for having body hair. She’s gone the Ugly Duckling route and is now muy guapa. Very amusing film -great fun if you have a relatively immature sense of humour. It’s a remake of a 2017 French film, Jour J. I’d almost guarantee that it will turn up in the next 2 years as a US remake with their bevy of rom-com stars. Stick to the French or Spanish versions.
Just rewatched this one last night, as l slowly make my way through the list of hundreds of free movies to watch on the Russian film hub. Some TV series included, such as a 12 part Sherlock Holmes.
Anyway, this is a masterpiece of film making, at 3 hours long it isn’t for everyone. Cheers.
I found this movie on DVD in China. I didn’t know anything about it, but bought it on speculation. At the time l also had a Russian trainee who told me a little about the director, who is a leading light in something of a rebirth in contemporary Russian movies, which is quite refreshing.
This is a police drama, but with a story unlike ant other l have seen. It is also about corruption and is gripping from start to finish. l cannardly wait to watch it again, and follow up with other titles from the same director.
I subscribe to a streaming service called MUBI which is devoted entirely to the arthouse/wanker genre. They release a new movie every day, most of which I don’t bother with, but recently I watched Antoine and Colette, which was Truffaut’s second film, the first of course being Les 400 coups. It’s only a short, 30 minutes long, and it was one of a suite of 3 short films released as Love at 20. It’s very slight, but beautifully observed. It takes up the story of Antoine Doinel at the age of 20, some years after his escape from the reformatory at the end of 400 coups. He’s living in Paris, working, and in love with Colette. Sadly, to Colette Antoine is just a friend; she’s not the slightest big interested in him romantically. It takes Antoine some time to realise this, and the film ends with Antoine watching Colette leave home on a date with an older, larger and more sophisticated man.
I decided at one point to watch every film that Truffaut ever made, and I’ve wanted to see this one for a long time. Now I have, and the only one remaining is La chambre verte. Not all of them are great; some aren’t even good; but there are some true gems.
The Russian Film Hub has been hacked and now contains a warning that it is a Phishing site. It is now closed. So the previous links l posted won’t work. Fortunately may of the movies are still available via YouTube, including the following. This one will especially appeal to steam train afficionados.
Just watched a film based on Alzheimers, Live Twice Love Once, that was considerably different from American films.
Emilio is a retired, widowed maths professor from Valencia who’s sliding into Alzheimers. He has memories of his first crush, Margarita, and decides he wants to see her again because his memory is failing.
His daughter, Julia, is played by Inma Cuesta, who’s been in 5 or 6 films I’ve seen recently, and the Netflix series, The Mess You Leave Behind. Her husband is a philanderer and the daughter, Blanca, has some sort of mobility disability. She’s 11 or 12 and is smart as a whip, played by Mafalda Carbonell.
Netflix classifies it as a comedy…not sure about that…maybe except for the trip from Valencia (on the east coast) up to Navarre, west of Catalonia.
Very moving film. Carried by the grandfather and his granddaughter.
I rarely stick my nose in here but I have a bunch of thoughts and comments re arthouse movies so excuse me if my post is all over the shop.
A few great movies I’ve seen recently
Beanpole (Balagov) (rewatched for the 3rd time)
Viktoria (Schipper) (blew me away)
Dogtooth (Lanthimos)
Les Glaneurs (Varda)
My disappointment of 2021, especially being a Reichhardt fan:
First Cow
Surprisingly good comedies:
Barb and Star go to Vista del Mar
Palm Springs
My movie feed comes from Netflix (basically crap), SBS Movies (good, but has commercials), Mubi (excellent, but limited) and Kanopy. Always on the lookout for new ones - I’m going to do the VPN think on the weekend and see if I can get on to Criterion.
CJ you mentioned Russian films. As a Tarkovsky fan I’m keen to find decent on-line copies of Stalker, Solaris etc. The only time I’ve seen Stalker the sound was overdubbed in English … as in, some American dude spoke over the top of the actors! (First time I ever saw A bout de souffle it was the same, I mean, WTF!) So any pointers you have on how to watch these would be appreciated.
My bad, I assumed it was spelled with a K because it’s German but in fact it’s Victoria. I saw it on Kanopy but I’ve seen it on other streaming platforms. It’s a mind-blowing white-knuckle film about a young Spanish woman who falls in with a somewhat amateurish bunch of would-be hoods. Filmed in one take during a late night / early morning in Berlin.
The one take aspect might turn you off it but it adds enormously to the urgency of it all. It has a bit of a Gaspar Noé vibe.
Following up on my earlier post, I finally got myself a Criterion subscription and can’t speak highly enough about the range of quality arthouse films available. Here’s what you do:
You’ll need a VPN. I opted for the NordVPN one year deal, and set it to USA. The Criterion subscription is the usual sort of price, about $12 a month from memory. Hoping now for lockdown to continue for another six months. (No not really!)
The Russian Film Hub is back in operation, having removed the Phishing software. Most of the titles link to You Tube, not all of them have English subtitles. Last night l watched a good movie, followed by a great one.
Zavtra Byla Voyna (Tomorrow was the War). Directed by Yuriy Kara. 1987 89 minutes. 10/10
Set in Stalinist Russia in 1940 and based on a novel by Brois Vailiev. The story centres around a grade 9 class of students, but these students are older than our year 9 students, they look like year 12 students. The three main characters are girls in the class, the flirtatious Zina (Natalya Negoda), the serious Iskra (Irina Cherichenko) and the tragic Vika (Yuliya Tarkhova).
The story delves into the struggles of Iskra and Vika to reconcile their personal quest for freedom of expression and truth against the harsh backdrop of conformity to Stalin and the state as best exemplified by their teacher and Iskra’s mother. Vika invites friends to her house and reads a poem from a decadent poet. An ideological conflict arises when Vika’s father (Lyuberetsky) extols the virtues of freedom of expression to the girls and a few other members of the class. News of this soon reaches their teacher and Iskra’s mother and he is soon denounced as an enemy of the state. The secret police come calling at midnight and he is taken away. It is never revealed who it was that denounced the father, and it doesn’t even matter, as there are weighty themes the movie explores.
Worse is to come. At school the teacher denounces Vika, and demands she be expelled. She also demands that Iskra show her loyalty to the motherland, by being the one to denounce her friend. This is something Iskra refuses to do, despite mounting pressure on her in school, and from her own mother. The film is to be commended for showing the nuances involved, and the performance of Cherichenko in the key role of Iskra is nothing short of riveting, as we are left wondering from moment to moment whether she follow the examples of her mother and teacher and denounce her friends, or stand for what she believes in and follow the example of her principal, who is dismissed from his post for not toeing the party line.
There are no heavy interrogation scenes with faceless people representing the state. Images of Stalin are fleeting, his presence is felt more through association via Iskra’s totalitarian mother and the demagoguery represented by her teacher, but it is always there lurking in the background. The dilemma faced by Iskra and the other students is weighty, and developed subtly, as we witness the struggle involved in the emergence of character, but it is character that emerges at a great cost and not without considerable pain along the way. A thoughtful and evocative movie with assured direction throughout and a wonderful soundtrack, it is a movie that will continue to reward with multiple viewings.
