Reviews

Serban Marinescu is one of the pin-up directors in Romanian cinema, Cinemagia listing 11 and IMDb 10 movies directed by him. In his lengthy career started in 1984, he collaborated with most of the Romanian actors which regular movie- and theatre-goers would have heard of. He uses a lot of those still alive in his most recent picture "Going to Paris with your ID card only".

The movie is done in the realist, grim style of the Romanian New Wave. There is no score, the camera moves slowly, there are frequent pauses to allow the viewer to absorb the story. During the first couple of minutes, nothing happens and yet we've learned everything we need to know about the lead character, professor Nita. He sleeps with a hat and day clothes on - because it's too cold and he can't pay for the heating, his austere home is full of books stacked all over the place but not in a bookcase. He is one of the victims of the falling of the communism, cultured but without the stamina and selfishness to make a decent living in a dog-eat-dog society.

Yes despite the attention to detail and solid cinematography, this movie has not been listed by any festival. Not that festivals are a measure of quality, but the success of the New Wave is certainly measured in festival prizes and not in audiences which have been meagre due to the misery of the stories and lack of cinematic pace.

This movie hasn't been made for the large audiences either.

The plot is full of stories inside the story, it feels like the director/ scriptwriter wanted to give 15' of limelight to all the great actors involved but the result is a hotchpotch. There is no justification of any character's actions, they just do things in their own minor sub-plots which somehow come together but not really meaningfully. Professor Nita's story would easily have fit into a 15' short, the rest of the movie is just a rant against the post-communist Romanian society. Maybe that's another reason this movie fared so poorly at festivals: it's just too "Romanian", the old stories about the University square, miners, Ceausescu, stray children have no traction outside the country. Or inside it, judging by the lack of home success too.

I don't think there was any private interest to fund a movie like this and I can't understand why the public purse would fund it either (maybe other than the names of the actors involved which should certainly not be a reason. Good actors can make a bad movie and this is a case in point). The same old rehashed stories about how bad the new is and how good the old was, the same old actors without any of the new guys being given a hand up...

I quite got the movie. I was reasonably on board with it. I got the immigrants vs. locals incongruence, Ben Kingsley's old-style righteousness which wasn't going to lead anywhere good, the incompetence of faceless authorities wrecking a certain modus vivendi, even the more philosophical spur of a moment, nervous fingers-on-the-trigger, to ruin so many lives.

But the very foundation of this movie, Kathy losing her house to the council which then sells it on the cheap to a family head bent on getting rich, is all built on the wrong premise. If Kathy owes the council $ 500, and the council sells her house for $ 45,000, the council will keep its $ 500 and return $ 44,500 to Kathy. Maybe Kathy doesn't know it, maybe even the local council doesn't get it, but as Kathy gets a lawyer, that's too much to swallow that no one really understand how the collection system works.

I can't believe that neither the author nor the so many people involved pre-production at the studio didn't get it, it's elementary. This is very poor research and understanding of things you write or make movies about. Because of such an upfront slap, I really struggled to enjoy the movie.

I thought "Requiem for a dream" (2000) described the trough of human condition. "Precious" manages to take the artistic representation of this trough a lot lower. I spent most of the film hoping that the characters portrayed do not exist in reality, but fearing they do exist outside the movie-going world (yes, I believe in the power art has to make us want to be better human beings). What the script throws at Claireece is so vile, I felt like turning it off a couple of times. And yet, in the unrelenting torrent of life, the character finds the power to keep going.

I realize the film is supposed to end on an optimistic note, but not for me. Nothing humane can justify what Claireece "Precious" suffers. Much like "Requiem", it's not a film I can say I "liked" and tell friends to watch. It is a very dark film, but whose technical representation I appreciated.

I wouldn't have been more glued to the screen if I watched a blockbuster action movie. I've seen too many of them, I forget them before the credits roll. Now, it's a film without any nudity, crime lords, drugs or swearing to pin me down for a breathless, profound two hours.

What is morally right? What is morally wrong? What is legally right? What is legally wrong? It depends, is the film's answer. And do you know what? I agree. I agree with this answer from a film that comes from the other side of the world, from a country which I perceive to have religion and politics utterly different from mine. Because the film transcends the detail, it just shows the essence of being human. The characters just keep on trying to do the best for them or their family in credible situations which can apply to anyone and anywhere, but the choices they make will conflict at one time or another with some moral or legal tenet. The husband, the wife, the daughter, the old man's carer, the carer's husband, the daughter's teacher, even the judge – they all want to do the right thing, but they don't. Or do. Or don't. Or do. The beauty of this film is that it just tells the story. It doesn't take sides. It doesn't force on us an opinion on whether the choice was right or wrong. If it tried, I probably wouldn't have liked it as much, because it would have to conflict with some of my own views. Everyone has firm opinions, until life carries you to situations like this film's, and then nothing is black and white any more.

For as long as there are creators like the director and writer of this film, there is hope for the independents. A story like this will beat any Hollywood-esque film to the punch. It's flawlessly played and it's technically well done. It doesn't need more to move me.

As the credits rolled, I took a deep breath, and I thought "what a moving film!". I tried to recommend it to friends, but I couldn't bring up the words "this is a beautiful film". This is an intense, stirring, thought-provoking film - yes. It is about doing drugs. About being addicted, into the deep pits of obsession.

It is the mark of a great director to provoke the sensorial impressions of this film: quick frame succession, surreal look, obsessive soundtrack - the imagery and sound closely explore what we think we know about hallucinogens.

The question I found emerging as the film moved on was "how low can you go?". It is a crescendo - of seasons, of scenes, of pace. And the answer the film gave me was "lower, and lower, and lower..." - addiction has no end to how much human degradation it can bring.

The producers of this film have earned their bragging rights with "Shaun of the Dead". As it is safe to stick to a recipe that works, "Attack the Block" is another spoof horror, which this time brings together inner-city youth and blood-thirsty aliens. It's hard to say which of the two are scarier though, given how grittily the film portrays the slums.

This movie is not a Hollywood-style corny passage to redemption. The teenagers who rob a girl at knife point at the beginning of the film do not go the full journey of becoming likable characters - there is no return from where fate has placed them. They only half-heartedly do some good, enough to keep the label of comedy on this film. The appeal of "Attack the Block" is driven instead, much like in "Shaun of the Dead", by the surrealism of the situations ordinary characters are involved in.

There are a few essential elements which drive the film and can be read as very British: the dreaded council estate and its residents, both excellently portrayed here, and the language, which is a highlight and sounds inner-city enough to be funny. This does not prevent the film's general appeal: slums and slang are everywhere, and British humour has proved its universal character over and over again.

It is hard to keep a viewer entertained for 3 hours even when you have a gripping story told at a fast pace. That is not Ghajini's case, so I did grow restless as the film moved on.

Half the film is a light-hearted love story which is fully developed and can stand on its own. The other half is about revenge, murder and destruction inflicted by a physically super-human hero. The film tries to be everything for everyone. In the end though, you cannot like both halves, one of them will not be your type.

The idea of the film is the same as Chris Nolan's Memento, but only developed superficially, to interlace with the love and the revenge stories. Whereas in Memento you are meticulously brought to understand the development of the hero's path to revenge, in this film you have no idea how does the hero come from the point of losing his memory to the inception of his revenge quest.

That being said, the film has merits, and save for the fallacies of the plot highlighted above it is a story reasonably well told. But not for 3 hours and not in comparison with films on the same topic more solidly done (and I'm thinking of Memento here).