Reviews

WHEN we first met Trelkovsky-we got the perception that he feels unsure who he is:our protagonist come into a café for a breakfast cup of coffe and accept instead chocolate(that was the favorite of the girl he later impersonates or he later steals her personality). Trelkovsky got identity crisis.

LE LOCATAIRE(the Tenant) is about the loneliness,the humillations,the desperate social stratagems of the outsider.That is a valid theme,and the French are adept as any other at making a foreigner aware of his deficiences.Pathetically and foolishly Trelkovsky keep protesting that he is a french citizen;that is precisely what irritates the French most about him. As one critic noted:'His ensuing madness seems to arise not so much from the spectral visions he glimpses through his apartment window at night, but from his inability to fathom his fellow tenants' contempt for him.'Polanski is fine showing us a neat man,alert,courteous,shyly dignified against this old people that represents the old world and attitude(anti semitism?),suggests an older Europe("Trelkovsky's persecution, in its senselessness and cruel persistency, cannot help but suggest the European tragedies of World War II.")

One of my favorite "weird part" of THE TENANT is when our protagonist musing,over or might be about without a tooth,legs or arms,at his best,the tenant,plays more rarified games of terror setting its protagonist to sweat intellectual conudrums.He might be still said to exist,but if his head were to be separated from his body,then how would he identify himself,as me and my head,or me and my body?(once again the identity crisis connotation is exposed)

See Polanski masterly movement of his camera in this scene: behind the credits,a face peering out through a window,a downward pan revealing a vertiginous drop to the country yard below,a pan pack to the window and a round the court to another's face;a girl's, which quickly turns into Polanski.A continuing movement past a chimmey,across more windows down one side of the building,over,a railing and up another side_eventually coming to the door,leading to the street,which Polanski enters. 10/10

BEFORE I start.I want to say something to this film detractors:give me something more coherent than 'this film is dull?'.And to all the Polanski detractors:GET IT OVER,MAN!. If you don't appreciate THE PIANIST then you are:1-Not a cinephile 2-You got no soul!.

_An Appreciation_

`Our hope can come only from the hopeless'.

THE PIANIST just moved me the way no other film did.This realistic film has not a wasted scene(all the scenes are just perfection!).But you can't say ` I liked the Pianist','like' is a superficial word.With THE PIANIST you fell more impressed,with a feeling of AWE and after I saw it I feel totally exhausted!.

The protagonist, Adrein Brody,well,he is so convincing as WLADEK SZPILMAN that he is not 'acting' really.When you saw actors like ROBERT DE NIRO or AL PACINO,you already know all of their `tricks'.How they would react,because they are imbued with the' acting methods'.Brody as SZPILMAN is so out of manners,that it looks so frank,he is just a SOUL.In the first scene ,the film presented us to this artist: he continues to play Chopin in a radio studio while German shells explode outside.This scene is a powerful statement to his personality.It's interesting to see him changing from a well-dressed ,educated man to a phantom like figure starving to death.I would give him another Oscar!.

The behind the camera' talent of Polanski is unquestionable.Every scene are so breath taking and so real that this film is HUMAN HERITAGE,can't be treated just like another film about Holocaust BUT AS A PROVE OF THE HISTORY.Polanski fans will appreciate even more The Pianist because of `the small details' that maybe the average film goer would overlook it :that poor woman asking to the people in the streets if they have seen her husband;or this young mother regretful: 'why I did it'.,or another woman with a dying child in her arms begging for a drop of water.THAT DETAIL where SZPILMAN is at the tram,there is a special seat section in the tram for `Germans only',just notice where and how he lays down his hand before this scene fades out.

In the first part of the film we witness how Szpilman's family and an entire group of `individuals' are subjected to humiliations,degradations and random shots by the Nazies(the death is unexpected and doesn't make any sense,without any purpose,the German soldier puts out the gun,stuck in the woman's face and kills her_a woman shot in the street falling into a crouching position).For example the scene when Szpilman's father was insulted by The German officers while walking the pavement in the reality this happened to Polanski's father.And how this people are left to starvation(desperation) only to lose their own dignity.Polanski camera never hesitates.The violent is show without tricks in a cold way and how it really was.Also the film is very effective by showing the most atrocious violence against the most vulnerable people:The elderly people;cripples;pregnant women and CHILDREN: an image with a tiny boy smuggler whom Szpilman tries to rescue(Polanski,as a boy himself, was a smuggler during this period). A nightmarish state where we see corpses of children laid in the streets. It is not an coincidence that Polanski next project would be OLIVER TWIST. Szpilman,as Oliver,is left orphan and completely alone:deserted by a God,a country and the rest.Our Pianist as Oliver Twist survived thanks to the generosity of strangers. `Survival as an abstraction' or instinctive ?(in one scene Szpilman pretends to be a corpse!).

In one scene,after Wladek's family disappeared,he walks confused to the streets and enters at a building.There is someone that hisses to him:is a man hidden inside a wardrobe and `invites' Szpilman to enter the hidden place or to `the coffin like shelter'(Polanski loves wardrobes,cupboards_it appeared in his famous films.If Luis Buñuel used shoes as fetish,Polanski uses this furniture as shields).There are many scenes that reflects the absurdity of a War State(its main focus is irrationality;cruelty ; annihilation and starvation) total `dispossession'.One of the woman of helped Szpilman,Dorota(EMILIA FOX)said in two scenes 'It's too absurd'(concerning the anti Jew restrictions). Wladyslaw Szpilman,the Pianist, abandoned his Chopin melodies only to hide himself in places where he can't get out,or by doing jobs as a mason.Thanks to one friend ,Wlad ek stays locked in an apartment.One of the man who visits him gives Szpilman an advice:'if the Nazies arrive,it's better that they don't catch you alive.In one nerve-racking scene,Szpilman sees below from the window that the German soldiers are entering the building,we hear 'steps noises `and just in case Szpilman opens the window,ready to jump.(luckily they are not there for him!).

In The Pianist the historical facts are presented not in a explanatory way,I guess Polanski don't want o underestimate his audience,you should know about the insurrection in the Warsaw Ghetto on April 19th, 1943 and one year later the Warsaw Uprising.In the apartment Szpilman observes from the window `helplessness,this two important events(in a previous scene we see the Warsaw people receiving help from the allies,the supplies of food were dropped from British airplanes.It's shown only for a few seconds,as Szpilman looks at the sky and observes how the packages fell down ,it's a great sequence).

Szpilman later hides in another apartment located in the other side of the Ghetto wall,there Wladek gets ill we witness another absurdity of war: in front of his apartment,there is a 'German' hospital but he can't go there for obvious reasons.(once again the lovely Dorota got a Doctor for him).Wladek survives his illness,but as many Polanski films_ if the situation is bad it will become even worst!.A tank in the streets is aiming to Szpilman's building-we hear the sound of the impact,Wladek runs away to the door but it was locked!, later we hear another impact,the soundtrack in that moment is of a damaged hearing after a big noise,this reminds me of that sequence in SAVING PRIVATE RYAN where Tom Hanks went sudden deaf.

In many scenes of the Pianist Polanski show us `hunger and starvation' and how terrible it must be.One even prefers to die by a gun shot rather than die(slowly) of hungry.That increasing suffering of Szpilman,especially when he struggles to open a tin can of pickles,his loneliness,FEAR and an empty stomach.that make us wonder why Szpilman didn't lost his mind,his humanity?.His attitude surprised me. After the people helped him,he didn't forget the say `thank you'.Szpilman gave a new meaning of the word `THANK YOU'.

One of the most memorable moments I ever witnessed in a film in when Szpilman encounters the handsome Captain Wilm Hosenfeld(as one user comment accurately wrote': The can falls off the mantle of the fireplace, then rolls to the seemingly ominous feet of a lone German officer.') Here, however, Polanski -had to intervene: the encounter in the film is dramatic and moving, indeed. There is a classic shot of Hosenfeld,with the camera moving slowly upwards from his leather boots, showing the whole awesome beauty of the Nazi uniform-one of the favorite aesthetic devices of filmmakers.(the contrast between this two men is impressive)

In this abandoned house(his last shelter)Hosenfeld asks Szpilman who he is, what he's doing in the abandoned house, and what he used to be.Szpilman stutters `a pianist'.We perceive a piano there ,so,the Captain ask him to play.In this moment' the musician takes place' .We hear for minutes how he plays Chopin.The sun ray from a window lay down to his dishevelled hair,the same light gives a singular effect to his nose.It looks like as it becomes transparent.It give us the sensation that he is half ghost -half flesh and bone.We also perceive that Szpilman don't want to stop playing.He is afraid because he doesn't know yet `the intentions of the German Captain.I presume that the pianist thought.'I will die after I stop playing'.(after he finishes the piece,just look at his hands).

But Wilm Hosenfeld is one of his last saviors(giving him food,an `opener' and a coat).Szpilman once again said the word THANK YOU.Myself ,I have to thank to Brody,Polanski, the real Szpilman(with his wonderful memoir) and the entire cast. Thank you very much for this Masterpiece.

Also I have to say that the sound of this film is outstanding ,from the first scene: the explosion in the radio station_ to the sequence where the German soldiers are marching in the streets of Warsaw(the sound of their leather boots has a powerful effect,to the contrary in Pink Floyd `The wall' the image of this marching hammer is the powerful one ).Also `the absence of MUSIC haunts THE PIANIST,his solitary moments.The camera catches Szpilman fingering some unheard Nocturne,playing a phantom piano in a chamber of his memory'.

And finally One shot I'll never forget: the ragged Szpilman walks toward us from the middle distance, down a wide, absolutely devastated,empty street in a City we know as Martyr.

10/10

Story fat and the lean(1961-14 minutes)

A small and thin barefoot slave (played by Polanski) plays a flute and beats a drum to entertain his large master who rocks in a rocking chair in front of his decreped mansion. The slave jumps and leaps like a madman, wipes his master's brow, feeds him, washes his feet, shades him from the sun with an umbrella and holds a urinal for him.

Facts The film was made in France, financed by a small French film company.

Though it was not a profitable venture for the production company, it was a favorite at cinema clubs.

His experience in Polish theatre gave him a lasting love of Absurdism, with its sardonic, existential view of life's futility, and its vicious parodies of the chaotic power games that underpin (and often undermine) social structures.

Polanski was not only interested in this kind of personages,he likes the relationship between' the master and the servant' The domineering and the repressed ,as we can see in his short film' The Fat and the Lean' (1961, B&W, 15mins) or in features like Knife in the Water (1962); Cul-de-sac (1966);Dance of the Vampires(1967) etc.

(The credits of this film are evasive and mystifying for legal reasons: Polanski, not possessing French citizenship at the time, had to give his editor, Jean-Pierre Rousseau, co-directing credit.)

WELL,you can defined this great film just by one particular scene: the old man is rich,have good social position and took the boy on board to play the role of his mentor.However the young man was dragging the beautiful knife,which was_as he claimed_ the most important thing in his life.The guy was always playing the knife between his fingers and the old man was jealous about that.So when the boy went inside the yacht leaving the knife,the old man took the knife and tried to do the same.Suddenly the young appear and saw this.The only way for the old man to get away with some honour was to allow the boy do the play:he played the knife between the old man's fingers,looking straight into his eyes.Well the lady at the same time was swimming using a funny rubber cocodrile.So, imagine this beautiful scene with the knife,all the tension and suddenly we hear the woman shouting:'Andrzej, Andrzej,the cocodrile is making the bubbles',huh,when I was in the cinema the whole audience burst laughting after hearing that!. The woman stays in the background, just think why? There's another great funny shot when the woman lays there for a sunbathe with her small bikinis,well, her breast dominates the scene!. is the waving movement of the yacht who creates the sensual scene!.

Of course this scene was part of the longer plot ,the critics described this `knife scene' as the most famous and symbolic scene in all of Polanski films..Zygmunt Malanowicz,the actor who played the part of the young man said that he practice a lotnfor those scenes,polanski was afraid if he was prcticing long enough,finally everything was Ok.As Leon Niemczyc,the actor who played the mature role said" Malanowicz only gave me sligh scars'.The idea of the film was the strange competition between this two men.the jury and the prize was the woman.Polanski said he needed a actress that looked plain and normal in ordinary dress but intriguing in bikini!.

Polanski was not only interested in this kind of personages,he likes the relantionship between' the master and the servant' The domineering and the repressed ,as we can see in his short film' The Fat and the Lean' (1961, B&W, 15mins) or in features like Knife in the Water (1962); Cul-de-sac (1966);Dance of the Vampires(1967) etc.

Two Men and a Wardrobe (1958, Poland-15min)Yes,it can be a film about intolerance.But it showed not the intolerance about homeless,gays,or different believers.i think it showed the intolerance about everything that was against the communist system. A Polanski friend who studied with him once told about `their'game' during studies.They used to get into the tram and polanski pretend to be very ill,like he was dying.This way he got the seat.Near their stop,when the tram was slowing down,Polanski suddenly recovered said BYE BYE! And jump off the tram.It seemed foolish,but that was actually the way he fought against the system.In this film Polanski played some kind of evil creation,the boss of a local mafia.It was his most typical `character creation',because he played similar roles in other films like A GENERATION(POKOLENIE) directed by his mentor Andrzej Wajda also in KONIEC NOCY(END OF THE NIGHT).Very interesting was Polanski'' short film "`ROZBIJEMY ZAWABE(WE'LL BREAK UP THE PARTY)to make this film he payed the real trouble-makers to bit the party of Lodz Film Academy students and he. just filmed that!,again polanski played the bad boy in the film'NIEWINNI CZARODZIEJE'.He appears there ony a few minutes but he manages to beat the main character of the film! After moving outside Poland ,Polanski abandoned this profile,but made one exception,as you probably remember in CHINATOWN he suddenly appears and knifes Jack Nicholson's nose.in this moment he plays an evil dwarf ,is both scary an funny.

His experience in Polish theatre gave him a lasting love of Absurdism, with its sardonic, existential view of life's futility, and its vicious parodies of the chaotic power games that underpin (and often undermine) social structures.

Polanski was not only interested in this kind of personages,he likes the relantionship between' the master and the servant' The domineering and the repressed ,as we can see in his short film' The Fat and the Lean' (1961, B&W, 15mins) or in features like Knife in the Water (1962); Cul-de-sac (1966);Dance of the Vampires(1967) etc.

From the solid Spaniard director Guillermo del Toro: his first feature Cronos (1993) was a brilliant essay in body horror in which a mechanical vampire transforms an antique dealer (Luppi once more) into a rabid zombie. And Mimic (1997) in which Mira Sorvino fights off giant cockroaches in the New York subway.

Now he returns with great form with EL ESPINAZO DEL DIABLO(The Devil's Backbone) a Gothic/historical thriller set in a orphanage haunted by the ghost of a young boy and as background is the disastrous Spanish civil war. The most interesting aspect of this great film is the connection between WAR and being `an orphan':the protagonist(mostly teen-aged boys) live in an isolated place,this doesn't means that they are not away from danger even the ghost child Santi whispers a presage `'many of you will die.'To me war is a factory of ghosts;widows and ORPHANS.

The great Argentine/Uruguayan actor Federico Luppi plays a charismatic Doctor who enjoys listen Tango music and to recite poems.I didn't forget that one of the most talented poets of SPAIN was FEDERICO GARCÍA LORCA,who was killed during the Civil War too.

This film has one of the most incredible beginnings that got to do with a symbol of War:a bomb(unexploded stands in the centre of the children's playground).Also kudos to the special effects_especially the make up(The digital swirl of dust and flies around ghost child Santi is executed with panache.)

Notice one particular scene worthy of Hitchcock : where the boys fetch water in the dead of night, the appearances of the ghost is nerve -racking. 9/10

One of the greatest INDIE films.. Thora Birch is the `replacement' of Cristina Ricci(who became 'thin' and `too hollywood'.sell out?) Birch is Enid, a contemplative or an observant on the so- called `losers',she is also a would- be artist(caricaturist) against `pretentious' art.interesting,because this film is exactly that:a fresh rebellious film against the typical `teen movie'.

Ok,let me go back on the term `loser',I guess the `American bourgeois/capitalist society invented this pejorative word,just ask the people from Latin América,they don't have the word'loser' in their dictionaries(Europe still has to fight with the increasing `xenophobia'). Ghost world is about the humanity behind the words `loser',here `the geek' is play by Steven Buscemi as Seymour.Enid and Seymour are soul mates who are `advanced' or far away from the ordinary citizen around them.just notice one particular scene that takes place in a `noisy bar',Seymour is so angry to this people because they don't listen,don't even respect an old musician who is playing `ragtime'(`they' prefer to play pool or watch football on TV).Also we find minor characters who are eccentric or old lost souls,especially we see this in an old man waiting a bus on an abandoned station.In the final scene,Enid saw this man finally taking the bus_in this moment Enid realized that she really can ' move on' from just being passive aggressive.

Scarlett Johansson,thanks to Sofia Coppola's "Lost in Translation," and Peter Webber's "Girl With a Pearl Earring" became the hot young star of the moment,in Ghost World she has a secondary character as Enid's beautiful best friend,she is ` the mature one' already in the adult world but her friendship with Enid starts to fade(just watch the `good bye' scene with Birch).

I can also recommend another'indie' film:WELCOME TO THE DOLL HOUSE,but this film lacks what GHOST WORLD achieves:its sense of humor instead of tragic pathos.And of course I can name another film HIGH FIDELITY with another beloved character(play by John Cusack),a guy who feels more comfortable with his record collections than with people(he is the opposite of Seymour because he collects `girlfriends') and the best depiction of teenage eccentricity is probably ''Rushmore,''.

The film was directed by Terry Zwigoff(he did the wonderful documentary CRUMB) who resembles Buscemi's character, I know that there's a new film called AMERICAN SPLENDOR,maybe this film enters in this category too.

AH! I lleana Douglas is great!.

I've never seen a film so `sensual' as Beau Travail with those `male bodies' à la Leni Riefenstahl. Plot: a group of French legionnaires stationed in the Eastern African country.

The film could be perceive as a cult to the body and its beauty,also a complex portrait of isolation, platonic love(male eroticism centres upon the relationship between a sergeant (Denis Lavant) and legionnaire (Grégoire Colin). …through Clare Denis disturbing and contemplative camera.

Beau Travail concentrates more in the sergeant Galoup and his sheltered and repressed military body Denis show us his transformation almost at the end of the film,Galoup,first, does not participate in the legionnaire routine habits, training exercises, communal ceremonies and communion with the earth and the sea(he is more like a voyeur)but in a later scene we see Galoup pulls a gun out of a drawer and lies on his bed. He places the gun right on his stomach. The camera then gives us a close-up look at the sentence tattooed on the left side of his chest: "Sert la bonne cause et meurt" ("Serve the good cause and die"), An extreme close-up of his left bicep shows the rhythmical beating of his pulse. static and silent shot, the film ‘s attention to the pulsing of Galoup's vein.In the final scene we see the same man dancing in a primitive way in a disco…,now he is a man with vital movements something he lacks during the film…but what this means? his repressed and rigid body now seems to break free…

Claire Denis said about this scene:'In an early draft of the screenplay the dance fell before the scene where he takes the revolver, contemplating suicide. But when I was editing I put the dance at the end because I wanted to give the sense that Galoup could escape himself."

`whether Galoup commits suicide or not at a narrative level-something intimated, but never actually consummated or shown-his decision is to let his body be carried away by its own vital force.'

Beau Travail is one of the most interesting and peculiar film I ever seen,it breaks all conventionalism in a cinematic level _it makes you believe that the body language is as important as narrative and words.

To die among those humid violets.

I like films that got to do with the lost of innocence.that sad `Camus' moment when you realized about `the truth'. THE VIRGIN SUICIDES have that quality.Also the concept of being `pure'.Sofía Coppola understood'that age' _with small details:captured moments,the sweet and bad smell of memory.The symbolism works perfect here,some scenes remains you of other images:Cecilia lying face upwards in a bath likeJohn Everett Millais''Ophelia',(` La blanche Ophélia flotte comme un grand lys.'),and a bloodstreaked Laminated picture of the Madonna and Child.

The five Lisbon sisters always together ,then 5,4,3,2.one. (the scene where the four sisters lying on the floor ina `dream like state',then the priest enters.)

The perfect `innocence' picture' I have in mind is of the long straight hair(à la hippie) touched by the ray of sun like the photograph taken by William Eggeston of that young `red hair'girl. It also reminded me of Nastassja Kinski in Tess,all of them are beautiful melancholic films about `that' disappointment,is like the destiny forcing you(with a gun to your head) to grow up.(`if you dont' do it now.you'll be dead). My true God,Arthur Rimbaud was right: La vraie vie est absente'.

I always loved `coming of age' films.To Kill a Mocking Bird,(some Truman Capote books) Can you help me with other films about the subject matter?

I declare my love and admiration for Sofía Coppola,I think she is multi-talented,interesting&interested in arts,music,esteticism.She really has good taste. Her latest film LOST IN TRANSLATION received standing ovation in VENICE FILM FESTIVAL

After THE VIRGIN SUICIDES,(the most affectionate film about longing and lost of innocence) Sofía was a `promising film-maker',now she is a true talent and we should admire her (she really has a personal vision).

Roman Polanski is an admirer of this dark `detective' writers,Dashiel Hammet and Chandler Jakes Gittes is part of this `solitary souls' detectives… Noah Cross(what a name!) is a lot more interesting character than the old man from RB. JOHN HUSTON did a terrific job as this wicked charismatic `VISIONARY', CHINATOWN is all about `visions':distorted visions,visions from a camera lens, from binoculars,bi focals(Noah Cross,at the end,tells Jake that he wants his `spectacles' back -this is a evidence of Cross's murder of Mulwray-) and more important it's about EVELYN'S EYES:in one scene Jake notice that in her `left eye' she has a black speck in the green part of her eye,'It's a fl-flaw in the iris…',she confesses(later she is shot in the same eye!) Chinatown= chinese eyes…some funny remarks here… Also one of the protagonist in the film is the bright sun of California who `blinds the eyes'…

I don't like the late Pauline Kael(well,she didn't appreciate the filmmakers I love,and she didn't enjoyed RB)but she said something interesting about Chinatown: `Polanski didn't see why he shouldn't end it with the dead of the heroine and a triumph of the father,who had rape the land,raped his daughter,and would proceed to corrupt the child he'd had by her'.

I'm a Polanski fan and I'had read some reviews"complaining on Rosemary's Baby final scene(as in CHINATOWN some people think that 'the ending' is wrong,I just can believe!) I just want to tell them this:

The best part of the film is the final scene or' the climax scene',why? Well, as you know it RB is a mix of Psychological and supernatural subjects But more important,RB is a GOTHIC film from a Gothic minded absurdist:ROMAN POLANSKI Ok, you are,I guess, aware of all of this ,the final scene is part of a polanskian universe-his filmography and the characters of his earlier films from the sixties came from this `universe'-- according to which the probability of the facts leans in a particular logic of the characters. In his pre-.RB film, CUL DE SAC(1965),POLANSKI present us a particular scene:

We see a car beached in a coast starts to be invaded by the water, even in this situation, the man does not leave his car facing the risk of suffocating, perhaps he thinks that nothing bad can happen to him or not to conceive the possibility on the matter of doing something without the aid of his companion who, being kilometers away of the place, obvious cannot listen to his cry for help .or another scene the couple that lives in the taken castle accepts the interference of the new guest as something inexorable that simply must be assimilated. With the code maintained in the absurd one, Polanski installs the possibility of any situation that, NO MATTER its degree of absurdity, will not be questioned by the protagonists. This attitude is use in an inverse way in Rosemary's baby(1968)at first she fights against the adversities that alter her normal course of her life.(contrary to Cul de sac character,she even seeks help to her former doctor But ,he,of course,doesn't believe her'story').

Remember her as a Gothic heroine,To me ,'the crib scene' got to do with that inexorable acceptance I've mentioned you before(the absurdistic VIEW) and about her strong motherhood instinct almost obsessive even if the child she nurtures would be the son of the devil(supernatural)

To show this at the end is not a treason because we already got `hints'of witchcraft in earlier scenes,Remember the absurd theory? Of course the `paranoia' mentioned is interesting for the plot,To me it's difficult to believe that people didn't knew(back in the sixties) that at the end her suspected paranoia is not precisely a `paranoia'

In the absurdistic gothic world nothing is safe or logical or `realistic' even if it looks like For that reason Rosemary's Baby final scene is appropriate and truthful to this particular universe. The pessimism just fits very well too because in all of Polanski films the protagonist's isolation is one of their characteristic.As TERRENCE RAFFERTY said : Rosemary's Baby" seems less a lurid shocker than a kind of boldly stylized existential fable: Hell really is other people, especially when they are people determined to impose themselves on weaker creatures. Poor Rosemary is like a sick lamb separated from her flock by a pack of ravening wolves.'

Is John Huston's character in CHINATOWN one of those old wolves too?



(`Hire myself to whom? What beasts adore? What sacred images destroy? What hearts shall I break? What lie maintain? Through what blood wade?')

Imagine… A moon of cheese A penguin disguised as a'rooster' only to steal a diamond Imagine a dog named GROMIT who reads `the republic by Pluto' and CRIME AND PUNISHMENT By DOG-STOIEVSKY!(while he is in prison, of course) NOW IMAGINE that Wallace and Gromit are FLESH AND BONE!

The best parts of the trilogy are the `train chasing scene'.it's just brilliant(Buster Keaton eat your heart out!) in the `wrong trousers' we see `the techno trousers',how cool its name is!

Thanks Mr Park you are a genious! 10/10

it's more easy to be good and obedient, to follow all the rules of society. It's more difficult to follow your dreams and desires.that is real hard! Don't get me wrong.I like moral questions,especially in arts:cinema or literature… When they are treated with intelligence not like a preaching(that's dull!)

I love Stanley Kubrick films,they always said he was moralist(To many,he is more an Iconoclast) I saw EYES WIDE SHUT many times,I'm rediscovering new things… this rich couple:TOM &NICOLE are cultured and educated but when she tells him she had desires for another man his secure' good faithfull husband look'collapsed.He was educated to be in that way…always polite he was a doctor,he thought everybody will counts on him forever(including his wife and daughter),that his life will be perfect always.When he realised that he is not aware of certain things,he is afraid or confused,guilty or excited?. OK,this is our first impression of him before his mysterious journeys,because the film misguide us in another direction that got to do with prostitutes,orgies and a homicide? At the end of the road we are puzzled of what we have experienced… I realized that Bill or Tom in many scenes of the film,he opens his wallet to give money(lots of) He is rich,is he thinking that in America all the problems are solved if you pay it?

As someone suggested: Was Bill's jeweled mask left on his pillow by Alice as an accusation, or by Ziegler's friends as a third and last warning, a death threat like the horse's head in the bed in The Godfather?

Just notice when Tom arrived at his home late at night ,his wife is always yawning or is already asleep He is absolute a `celebrity father' who doesn't see his daughter to much but give her all the toys she asks for. Kubrick was right in casting two real celebrities for his film.

`There is no place else to go.The theater is closed M.

Rosemary's baby suggests INDOOR as a place for evil plots. Buildings as the VILLAIN. Something sinister happens in close doors. At the beginning the film introduce us to the apartment's reputation:

During a dinner invitation with their friend Edward "Hutch" Hutchins (Maurice Evans), he warns them of the apartment building's notorious, sordid and unsavory reputation for witchcraft and cannibalism over 50 years earlier:

Are you aware that the Bramford had a rather unpleasant reputation around the turn of the century? It's where the Trench sisters conducted their little dietary experiments. And Keith Kennedy held his parties. Adrian Marcato lived there too...The Trench sisters were two proper Victorian ladies - they cooked and ate several young children including a niece...Adrian Marcato practiced witchcraft. He made quite a splash in the 90s by announcing that he'd conjured up the living devil. Apparently, people believed him so they attacked and nearly killed him in the lobby of the Bramford...Later, the Keith Kennedy business began and by the 20s, the house was half empty...World War II filled the house up again...They called it Black Bramford...This house has a high incidence of unpleasant happenings. In '59, a dead infant was found wrapped in newspaper in the basement...

Another similar `cursed Buildings' we find in films like Suspiria (1977) and especially Inferno (1980) portray buildings in some form of supernatural collusion against the protagonist. Phenomena (1985) picks up on the dormitory persecution theme with a different, inverse-Psycho (1960) explanation. In Phenomena, we expect a monkey to be the killer and transfer our suspicion to the son because they are similar in size, only to find that it is really the mother who is the killer.

Navokov did something interesting with his book lolita,he mocked at everybody ,he did a satire so misunderstood,that all the dull moralist attacked it calling it `immoral'.Navokov mocked at the censorship,intellectuals,psycho -analysis,the symbolists who thought that the book lolita represents: `the old european raping the naive fresh America'.

Kubrick understood that this is a satire,notice in a one funny scene:a picture of Navokov on the wall In the scene with Quilty and Humbert and Humbert can't recognize the author of the famous novel!.

Just take it with humor what Humbert Humbert wrote:

`Lolita,light of my life,fire of my loins.My skin,my soul. Lo-lee-ta:the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palete to tap, at three,on the teeth.Lo. le.Ta She was Lo,plain Lo,in the morning,standing four feet ten in one sock.She was Lola in slacks.She was Dolly at school.She was Dolores on the dotted line.But in my arms she was always Lolita.'

In the book he amused me at times.In the film he is awkward

`'Be just and if you can't be just, be arbitrary.'

`There is no place else to go.The theater is closed

M.

Everybody who chose Hannibal Lecter as `the best villain in cinéma' got no idea!

ROBERT MITCHUM as the sinister preacher is the number ONE VILLAIN!(Bart simpson's enemy Sideshow Bob come close!) His performance (as this morally false man) is incomparable! Especially Now in this times of false leaders,Bin Laden and his false religiosity,Bush false'good christian'image. Everything's false EXCEPT MOVIES!

Night of the hunter is a cult classic,NOW BOW PLEASE! 10/10

I saw this film several time and I still think is a great one. Marlon and Maria made "deep and profound" scenes together.

Bernardo needs a comeback I think he is a great film-maker my favorite of all time is "the conformist"(this is a true great "sexual political movie).

bernard should do a film about "bill and monica",called "last tango in the "oval office"!(sorry!).

Noé told in a interview that in SEUL CONTRE TOUS he wanted to make a film about `his bestial side' that shows his anger against the people who rejected this film by saying `we don't want to release it'.In seul contre tous,GASPAR NOE surprise us because it reveal us a fifty years old `defeated man'(he just recently leave the prison) who lost everything:his profession(butcher),his job,money and mostly his moral.From Lille to Paris ,he walks the streets of a different and brutal `city of the lights'(ironically he can't see the light at the end of the tunnel.only the tunnel). A man with only cents in his pocket,without hope without nothing.

GASPAR NOÉ provoke us to question `the establishment'(in all terms),this man,the protagonist(at times repulsive)-who thinks all the time- is also A VICTIM of a system who creates and discard individuals like him.

NOÉ first film, SEUL CONTRE TOUS(1998) is almost an `ante chamber' of Irreversible because BEFORE in one particular 'violent' scene ,Gaspar give us A WARNING in the screen:That we should stop watching it right now or tho leave the place-This shows what kind of Director he is- A visionary-.HE also chose what kind of audience he wants for his films(obviously the kind who don't leave the theatre)

In the universe of GASPAR NOÉ(in his films)we find parental love who become aberrant even incestuous,of pregnancies transformed into abortion,of innocent people who pay the price of their bad choices.

No matter how good a film is.there's always a IMDB user who will hate it!.

`Un coup de des jamais n'aborlira le hazard' (A throw of the dice can never abolish chance.)

The film starts in a great way:our protagonist ADÈLE(perfect for this role Vanessa Paradis)in a interview,she talks with frankness about her short but turbulent life full of misfortunes.the first 15 minutes of LA FILLE SUR LE PONT is perfect!(a visit in the hospital never have been so anecdotical).This also include when Adèle is about to jump from a bridge then she encounters her lucky `associé'.the conversation between this odd couple it's great!!.

Girl on the bridge is the most `youthful' film of Patrice Leconte. I even liked the characters,the story,the smart script,photography,the song from Marianne Faithful(á la Edith Piaf). I don't know if the story is realistic but in a old interview ROBERT BRESSON commented that because he lived near The Seine,he saw many people jump into the river in front of the window.(` To be aware of a certain emptiness can make life impossible.'RB). This film is my `Amélie'.

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles.

The Warsaw Ghetto: Historical Background

When World War II broke out on September 1st, 1939, the Polish capital of Warsaw was one of Germany's first targets: the Luftwaffe bombed the city intensively for a fortnight, and then troops laid siege. Despite courageous resistance attempts, electricity outages and water and food shortages forced the residents to capitulate on September 27th. The Germans marched into Warsaw on October 1st. Of Poland's 3.5 million Jews, 360,000 - artisans, traders, workers, and professional people - lived in Warsaw, representing roughly one-third of the capital's total population. Following their occupation of Poland, the Germans used SS Police and Gestapo to set out on a deliberate and brutal course of subjecting the Jewish population to degradation, deprivation, starvation, confiscation of their homes, funds, and property, and random killings, leading to their total annihilation - "the final solution," as it was named by the Nazis. By December 1st, they were ordered to wear white armbands with a blue Star of David. Conscripted into labor squads, the Jews were forbidden to use public transportation and parks, to sit on benches, or to walk on the sidewalks. As all of the Jews in the region were forced in, the Ghetto population swelled to nearly 500,000 by November 15th, 1940, when the designated "Jewish District" was walled in with bricks. 100,000 Jews soon died, whether from famine and epidemics or from being shot dead at the whims of the SS Police and Gestapo. But the Ghetto inhabitants strove for a degree of normalcy even under such horrible conditions. Schooling efforts continued. Clandestine political and cultural activities were held. In July 1942, mass deportations began. Nearly 310,000 Jews were evicted from the Ghetto and loaded onto cattle cars, sent to the Treblinka extermination camp. The executions touched off an insurrection in the Warsaw Ghetto on April 19th, 1943. The revolt was led by Mordechai Anielewicz, from his bunker at Mila 18, and backed by the remaining 40,000 Jews - only 200 of whom were armed. SS troops, under the command of the infamous Gruppenfuehrer Jurgen Stroop, used tanks and artillery to put down the revolt. 7,000 Jews died during the fighting, which also claimed many Nazis. The standoff still lasted until May 16th. Anielewicz and his core group committed suicide. A few Jewish fighters, including Marek Edelman, managed to escape. The remaining 30,000-plus survivors were either executed on the spot or sent to the gas chambers. The entire Ghetto was razed. When the Germans were forced to retreat from Warsaw in January 1945, there were only about 20 Jews left alive in the city. One was Wladyslaw Szpilman.

About Wladyslaw Szpilman

Wladyslaw Szpilman (1911-2000) [pronounced "Vuadysuav Shpilman"; also addressed as Wladek ("Vuadek") Szpilman] was born in Sosnowiec, in Poland. As a young boy, he studied piano with Josef Smidowicz and Alexander Michalowski, themselves students of Franz Liszt. In 1931, he left for Berlin and continued his studies at the Academy of Music, under the direction of Leonid Kreutzer; and the Academy of Arts, under Arthur Schnabel and Franz Schreker. During these years, he composed a 'Concerto for Violin'; his Suite for piano 'Zycle maszyn' ("Life of Machines"); numerous pieces for piano and orchestra; film scores; and popular songs that brought him celebrity in his homeland. At the age of 27, Szpilman had established himself as one of Poland's foremost composers and concert pianists when Poland was attacked. In 1935, Szpilman was hired at the Polish state radio station of Warsaw. He was performing live on the airwaves, playing Chopin's 'Nocturne in C# [C sharp] Minor,' when the Luftwaffe dive-bombed the station on September 23rd, 1939. As Jews, Szpilman and his family (parents, brother Henryk, and sisters Halina and Regina) were soon evicted from their apartment and herded, with several hundred thousand others, into the Warsaw Ghetto. There, Szpilman scraped by, playing piano in the bars where black marketeers and collaborators gathered. On August 16th, 1942, it was one such Jewish collaborator, Itzak Heller, who stopped Szpilman from boarding the train that took his entire family to their death in the camps. Szpilman remained behind in Warsaw. Aided by an ad hoc network of pre-war acquaintances (such as his friend Dorota) resistance fighters (like Janina), and - most surprisingly - a German officer (Captain Wilm Hosenfeld), Szpilman survived the war. Warsaw was liberated in January 1945. Szpilman immediately wrote his memoirs, Death of a City, recounting his incredible but true experiences amidst torment. In a detached tone, his authentic account told of life in the Ghetto and of the victims and torturers in that singular world. The book was published in Poland in 1946 - but was then banned and suppressed by the Communist authorities. Polish radio started up again, fittingly, with Szpilman performing the Chopin piece that had been so violently interrupted six years earlier. He was named musical director of the state radio station. He also resumed his career as a pianist, playing in concerts and solo performances in Europe and America. He performed all over the world in piano duet with Bronislav Gimpel (with whom he also founded the Warsaw Piano Quintet). Szpilman also began composing music again. Many of his 300-plus songs became popular standards in Polish culture. The songs he wrote for children in the '50s earned him a 1955 prize from the Polish Composers Union. He later applied his composing talents to create ballets and classical pieces for younger audiences. In 1961, he founded the International Festival of Song at Sopot for the Union of Popular Song Writers in Poland. In 1964, he was elected member of the Academy of Polish Composers. He retired from concert performances in 1986, but continued composing. He resided in Warsaw for his entire life. In 1999, Szpilman's son Andrzej, whose father had never spoken about the war years (not uncommon among that generation of fathers and sons), arranged for the book to be published in Germany. The new edition incorporated wartime extracts from the diary of Captain Hosenfeld, who died in a Russian POW camp in 1952. The response to the book led to a worldwide translation and publication as The Pianist: The Extraordinary True Story of One Man's Survival in Warsaw, 1939-1945, generating international attention and acclaim. Roman Polanski, who had already met Szpilman twice years before, committed to make a film version of The Pianist. At their third meeting, in early 2000, Szpilman expressed his pleasure that the book was to be brought to the screen by a compatriot. Wladyslaw Szpilman passed away on July 6th, 2000, at the age of 88, a few months before filming of THE PIANIST began. He is survived by his wife Halina and sons Krzysztof and Andrzej.

Source: the pianist production notes.

Paul Schrader is not a `sexy director',I can give one example:in the film CAT PEOPLE(1982) Schrader had Miss Kinski in front of him but HE got no idea what to do with her!. What's next Mr Schrader?… A pseudo bio pic about Roman Polanski?. 7/10

Pedro Almodóvar in Talk to her returns from old subjects of his notorious filmography,I have four examples 1- `the bullfighting'taken from his film MATADOR(1986) ;2- in LIVE FLESH (1997) the subject was `couple dependency,obsession and the tragic of an accident that one of the protagonist has to face';3 - lovers that can't find each other as in THE FLOWER OF MY SECRET(1995).If ALL ABOUT MY MOTHER shows feminine solidarity in HABLE CON ELLA is all about male friendship.Two men ,Marco and Benigno ,two great performances by Dario and Javier!

I thought it was very well directed and acted.I liked what Almodóvar did with his characters he inverted the roles:men with female characteristics and woman with male characteristics.A man who cries and a female bull fighter;a `nurse man'(very feminine profession)who takes care of someone(his mother then his patience).ALSO the filme has great small details about the lack of communication: ;an off cell phone ;the interrupted phone call in the prision;when Marco can't hear the woman who works in the prision(the bull fighter woman also couldn't talk with Marco in the car because he can't stop talking!) and the most noticeable:Alicia ,the dancer ,loved `silent films'.(Geraldine Chaplin,the daughter of one of the greatest in `silent cinema(Charles Chaplin) also appeared in Talk to her!).

In Almodóvar filmography we witness `solitude' in small dosis:a woman taking care of her plants or pets;a TV always on;in HABLE CON ELLA,there is always a'book'on the bedside table,remember `the advice' to OPHELIA(in Hamlet) - - read a book to conceal the loneliness'-. Without judging his characters,the vision of Almodóvar is particular and honest(`let the hypocrites to judge who or what is right or wrong')

The ending, when the dancers appeared on the left side of the screen IT'S SO beautiful!. I also loved when the great brazilian musician Caetano Veloso appears singing that beautiful song!.

Delicate harmonies of the desperation

Everybody talks about Chicago as a great musical BUT I consider `Frida' a true musical.It celebrates PASSION in an unique way it celebrates the intense spirit of the great Frida Kahlo.Salma Hayek even sings here!.The beautiful soundtrack contribuites to this view.The director Julie Taymor is lot more talented than any `Rob Marshals outhere',her creative styles is better presented here in small'colorful' moments.For example:with that bold animated sequence of skeletons in a operation room,or NYC in the 30s as a'dadaist collage' and the best of the filme:Taymor incorporates the self portraits of Kahlo as stamps for the screen(as if the screen were walls to hang her `cuadros')VERYVIVID INDEED.

Frida has the spirit mood of `magic realism'(that wonderful literature movement of latin writers). One scene really impressed me:when the doctor is about to release her `mummified' body by breaking the cast,that is when Frida becomes the brave bold artist(it works more than metaphorically) AS IT she gets the key to `her prision of pain'.Also the filme concentrates in DIEGO RIVERA because,I guess,he was the supporter of her talent and also the inspiration for Frida melancholic and(at times) creepy portraits.I also loved the the film makes justice to her wonderful weird sense of humor.

Maybe the downside of the movie is that our protagonist is too `sympathetic' for the audience BUT after I witnessed her physical pain,I will try not to complain anymore about my headaches or when I have the flu.

Notice: Ashley Judd screamig VIVA LA REVOLUCIÓN! Or Salma saying' more tequilla! ` Hehehe.