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HARRY BROWN

What happens when you piss the shit out of an ex Marine pensioner? You get Michael Caine unleashing hell into the violent hearts of the gangs in London, as Harry “put-a-bullet-in-your-head” Brown, and by Jehova he's pissed! Brit Daniel Barber brings us the story of a pensioner, who like many other elders, has to deal with surviving in this world while life pretty much runs it's curse and he starts to get lonlier, his only attachment, fellow pensioner and friend Leny. But this story of good ol' chaps playing chess in the pub is not meant to get any better, since the director does introduce us int a very interesting and never the less shocking fashion, to the actual problem, the gangs, teenagers who dwell under the dark coverage of an underground pedestrian passage, from where they trade violence, sex and drugs. Mobbed to the extreme by this youngsters brings Leny to the edge and gets the poor old man violently killed. Faced with police's inability to solve the case Mr. Browns training kicks in, and he becomes a blood thirsty seventy something vigilante.  

I read somewhere that this storyline was very similar to Eastwood's Gran Torino, now I haven't seen Gran Torino, so ... I wouldn't know, but what I do know is that even though the story may seem a bit dumb, Caine's performance takes the show away, turning his character from cute old grandfather to bloody killer in a blink of an eye, scary.

So if you like police dramas and always wanted Alfred to kick some ass, Harry Brown's for you.

DAS WEISSE BAND (The White Ribbon)

Winner of the Palm d'Or in Cannes, The White Ribbon allows the audience into a first hand experience into the mysteries of a small town in pre-First World War Germany. The story, narrated by the town's teacher, slowly revolts around the town youngsters making special remark on their education, on their relationship with the adults that are, by the moment more concerned with their own safety as a series of crimes and “accidents” occur in the village. At the center of it all is the priest and his family, from which the two elderly children (close to their confirmation date) are forced to wear a white ribbon as a reminder of their bad behaviour and the purity they must pursue.  

Beautifully filmed, the movie presents the audience with the questions about raising our children and as for last century's culture and morals, and even more, it reminds us that it was this generation and the one that followed who slowly sank the world into the biggest wars in human history. Just as Louise Malle in Der Junge Törless, Michael Haneke may as well be called into the lines of the Oberhausen Manifesto, breaking a few of it laws of course.

THE IMAGINARIUM OF DR PARNASUS

Ever since Heath Ledger's dead last year, there has been a continuous fuss about this movie, his last project left incomplete with Terry Gillian left to fill in the blank with the collaboration of actors Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell.

The movie itself is pretty Gillian like, throwing crazy images and effects into an interesting mix, throw in some magic, a devilish character and a Faustian story brought down a few notches for the families appreciation, and you have Dr. Parnasus. It is indeed an entertaining movie filled with no so many mysteries around the “mysterious character” (Ledger), the story is unavoidably predictable, and it relies more on the visual than the strength of story itself, or the characters for that matter.

I don't know if the movie could have been better if Ledger hadn't died, but all things considered, you do what you have to do for the movies sake, that's what a director must deal with.

I'M GOING TO EXPLODE

Another Mexican production, supported by the joint efforts of Gael Garcia and Diego Luna's production company. Written and directed by Gerardo Naranjo, I'm Going to Explode shows crazy and out of the ordinary life of two teenagers in the city of Guanajuato. Maru and Roman meet each other and they quickly fall in love thanks to the search of identity of the first and the daring attitude of the second. Both united against the status quo, one raised in Mexico's middle class and the other surviver of the political upper class, they challenge the authority and bring their parents into a wild goose chase when they decide to disappear and find their own way in a world that goes pretty much against their free spirit. All in the name of love, just like Bonnie & Clyde.  

A special applause to cinematographer Tobias Datum and his beautiful approach to the love between these two teens.

DEFAMATION

What is antisemitism? Is there any antisemitism today? Is it? Where? Who? How? Israely director Yoav Shamir strikes with the question of what is considered antisemitism today, what is this supposed jew hatred that seems to be a continuous threat to the Jewish community around the world, and he asks this questions because, as a jew, he has never heard or lived any actual case of antisemitism. Is it a myth then? Or a political tool meant to maintain Israels' interests around the world. This documentary shows a search for understanding the roots of antisemitism fear today, it follows the lines of the Anti Defamation League, a million dollar foundation that seeks to fight against antisemitism, it follows also the “spiritual” journey of a group of students sent to Polland in order to learn more about the Holocaust, and it is scary to see where are their young minds taken, what are they meant to believe.

On the other hand the documentary also shows the other side of the picture, the same jews claiming antisemitism to be a thing of the past, that there is no hope for peace in the region if Jews do not accept that the world wants to destroy them, that they should not hide behind this “cape of suffering”.

Strongly recommended to learn about the complexity of the situation, to learn about antisemitism itself.

MARY AND MAX

Joy is found in small things, and real joy is found in real friendship, even if it's from far away. This Australian animation film shows us the brownish world of Mary a shy little girl with a ton of baggage and the same amount of dreams, who by chance decides to intiate contact with an schizophrenic new yorker who doesn't dare to get out of his apartment. Slowly in between chocolate and small gifts their friendship grows up over the years, with it's ups and it's downs but at the end showing us that true friendship can come from the most unusual places on Earth.  

Time to reach for those friends abroad perhaps?

EYES WIDE OPEN

I left the movie after about an hour, so I won't say a lot about this one. But before that, no I did not leave the movie because it was boring or bad, I did because I had a schedule problem. That said, Eyes Wide Shut is an Israeli film that deals with the love relationship between an older and married man, with his younger and new employee, inside the orthodox jew community. 

I can't really say more about this movie since that's where I left it, but it seems like an interesting dilemma to be dealt with and I just hope the director did manage to work the story into the audience, in my case I left it for another movie :P.

SHOOTING ROBERT KING

Ever since I was a little boy I was fascinated with war photographers, I remember the shocking image I saw on the TV during the conflict in Bosnia, a cameraman whose camera got shot by a sniper rifle, and it slowly crumbled out of his hands as he ran for his life. Now you may think I am insane, but there was something appealing about that. Then as I started my studies at the university I got more interested in photography, and its application for journalism, it wasn't until I saw James Nachtway's pictures and specially Mikael Evstafiev's picture of Sarajevo's Opera House that I got even more interested in war photography.  

Hence Richard Parry's documentary about the evolution of young photographer Robert King and his life inside some of the most important conflicts of our generation, became a must see. The movie, which took 15 years to make, shows indeed an evolution of this idealist young man who got himself into a war zone in order to survive as a freelance photographer, and who slowly turns into this “war veteran” a professional war photographer.

SIN NOMBRE

Much is said about the Mexicans crossing over to the US, but not really that much is said about the Southamericans getting through Mexico in order to get to the US. It is a dangerous journey, because they not only have to illegally get into Mexico, but they have to deal with corrupted authorities, mafias, and violent gangs, one of whose name resounds through all of Latin America, La Mara Salvatrucha.

Sin Nombre follows this path, it weaves the stories of Caspar, a Mara member, and Sayra, a Honduran teenager who starts the odyssey into the US with her father and uncle.  

More than a conventional love story between bad-boy and naive-girl, the film casts light into a more accurate portrait of the challenges presented by immigrants in their pursue of the “American Dream”, and in order to do that they will have to go through hell, and the Devil is at it's doors.

STELLA

1977 Paris may seem like the ideal place to be, but when you live in a bar, which is owned by your parents, who party 24/7, you have a crush in one of the usual costumers, you start to hit puberty and on top of that you are sent to a “snobby” school, you may start to think twice.

Stella's world is not a magical one, in fact it is very real, and it shows us first hand how is it for a pre-teen girl to try to fit in into a world that, well, really doesn't want her to fit in at all.