zaciogeribello Reviews

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (2012)

What would be the meaning of life at the end of the world?

[8/10 · 10 January 2013]

Matilda is a big comet that is going to collide with Earth; it will happen within a few weeks and that will be the end of the world. What to do about it? People have a lot of different reactions or just no reaction at all! Even we that are watching it don't really know if it's for real or is just some kind of crazy experiment in the plot. Anyway, let's move on... Weird things are happening everywhere, the streets have riots and traffic jam's, everybody is thinking about that one way or another, there's no escape. Maybe it's real, what would Dodge do?

He is a middle aged very centered man, has an extraordinarily boring life, combined with a stubborn ascetic attitude he absolutely doesn't wanna change. First thing in the movie is his girlfriend living him. Just another one, he's the one that all the girls have gotten away from. His friends try to set him up with another girl, but he is really not interested. It's the end of the world. What could he possibly seek for? The last days of everybody's life on Earth. Then he meets Penny, the extreme opposite of his behavior. She is very young and lives in the same building he does, but they were never friends before; however, because of the latest happenings, their lives become trapped together.

There is something about our contemporary culture, doesn't matter the differences, like East and West, North and South, First or Last World. We have a thing with the end of the world. Maybe we the citizens of 21st century are a little frightened with some things, there are so many of them, maybe we secretly wish this whole confusing world would end, that would be a possible way out of so many conflicts and troubled things going on. A big comet could do the job..., that would be perhaps the easiest way out, but if that happens, we die!

This movie is trying to rescue some essential things, at least one, and the perspective of the end of the world just clears the field for us, showing so many things we think are so important but maybe they are not. If we just could keep on living! If we just had one more chance... What could change to better in our lives? Is it too late already? Is the world really coming to an end? These are some of the questions we could be willing to do in face of the scenes we watch. What does this idea of "end of the world" represents to us? Great changes? A new age? A need for leaving old things in the past so we could finally embrace the 21st century? Well, each one in the audience is looking for their own answers.

Steve Carell and Keira Knightley do a great job, they create a glue to this plot that offers nothing else to hang on while we try to make a picture of what's going on in the story. This impossibility of creating stiff references to understand the story is the great climate of this plot. You just can't! Notions of time, space, existence, social relations, it's all in the limb that precedes the very likely end. But maybe there's a last thing you could go for, fight for and wish...

Samsara (2001)

A meaningful love story in the Himalayas

[9/10 · 1 October 2012]

We are all little drops of water and our destiny is to merge with the ocean, but, meanwhile... we can do a lot of things, we have a material life! That sounds great! Do a lot of sins, uncountable mistakes every day, big ones from time to time, concerning friendship choices, direction choices, work choices, love and sex choices, food choices, marriage choices...

Some of us just look further, they are in a higher place, the Himalayas. They are able to look at the planet from its highest point. Sounds like a top accomplishment in physical life, takes a lot of spirit, but doesn't change our fate, neither our nature. As this story tells us, this special situation actually brings us closer to what we really are or are willing to be: defiant life, children in the universe, playing with gods and God, sewing provocations, conflicts and challenges, because as carnal life we become so unstable, unhappy and unquiet.

This misfortune of suffering in life - the material life - turns out to be a paradox, because it's also our primary source of pleasure and happiness. It's kind of a disgrace, pretty much describes human adventures around here..., while we quietly start missing a perfect life, the eternal life that only our spirit knows. We tend to live by the instincts of the ego. It's attractive! Ego thinks as if it were the center of the universe. Physical life is all we've got, so let's go and get it, before someone else does! But inside we're evaluating and searching for better answers.

On our most primeval basis we live on the instincts of our ego and all we want is to seek the biggest or wildest forms of Earth pleasures, then we get stuck in all conflicts this attitude produces. This circle of secular life we are imprisoned in is called Samsara, by the Buddhist. This life in between while we are learning the ultimate truth of life, evolving from a physical to a spiritually based life. We will always have a body in this planet, or in this dimension, but our mind can learn through the errors of our material desires and experiences. Conflicts cannot be overcome until we make some better choices out of the problems we have. And that'd be the way, the direction of our spiritual life towards Nirvana.

In this movie we can see all the rebuilding of a different culture, where landscape, rhythms, preoccupations, all of them are so different from our usual life, but not the essential conflicts, they are all there, reproduced in the ascetic and very frugal eastern life of the Himalaias. A monk, practically a young Lama, Tashi, barely comes back from 3 years, 3 days, 3 months and 3 weeks of complete and almost impossible meditation, locked inside a cavern, and comes back to life with a very weird behavior, some kind of scandal in his community, because he starts to miss the most basic thing of material life: he starts to desire women and to dream of them, and it gets worse when he meets Pema, because then a love story begins.

That's a big disappointment for his masters and he is sent back to secular life, for a proof of his true wishes and calls. That brings together the whole chain of conflicts we the ordinary people have. Notice that in this particular prism there are no powerful, rich our famous people, everyone is ordinary because they live by their ambition and greed and expectations. We have to get used to this different rhythm and language of the East, the way the story has to be told, the whole scenery, so we can think about a possible or not possible balance in our life. Everybody has its karma, so it's a different answer to each one of us.

In this story we can see also other problems, like male and female basic attitudes and visions, basic relation problems among people, families, couples and lovers. The market competition, the love dispute, the inner doubts, the reactions and answers we usually give or not. A silent battle between ego and spirit that dominates our mind all the time; the choices we must make and the understanding we should learn. But this challenge of existence is given to us also through a female view, the perspective of Yoshadara, the wife of Sidarda, the prince who became the Buddah, and that comes from Pema, the female character.

If we cannot find the balance of our life and find our answers we will be back to try again, that's Samsara, if we don't reach Nirvana; a beautiful movie and an a very good idea for discussion. Are we ready to go straight to the "ocean"? Can we reach Nirvana without doing everything we have to do in Samsara? Would life have any meaning if we didn't have our mistakes to learn from them? Should we just embrace our carnal life and bring it to all extremes, forgetting all about essence, spirit and evolution of our souls and hearts?

Black Swan (2010)

This movie is a complete lesson of Art in its highest level

[10/10 · 23 May 2012]

We should not watch this movie with the regular references of almost every movie we see. There isn't such a thing like a normal or regular movie, actually they are often made to be distinctive and original, but in this case I'd suggest you to watch or watch it again as a pure project of art, object of art, work of art, as the most strong expression of it. Then Black Swan will show you very different things, unusual ones, a whole new movie that must now be read as a complex language, as a very strong piece of aesthetics. Pure Art!

If we don't do this, if our eyes are nude and unprepared, our instinct probably will drive us to elect a story and some protagonist that will compose an expectation for outcomes, even if it is just a wish for twist and surprise. This movie would give you a good response also in this case, but then you'd loose a wonderful opportunity to get really engaged with the experience of art making, and that the movie hides from a vision too quick and shows it to those who are willing to see something more elaborated. There are other movies like that: Mephisto, All That Jazz, Camille Claudel, La Belle Noiseuse, connect the audience with this parallel universe, the language and the secrets of artistic creation. We shouldn't miss it. That means the plot offers now another drama, and that would be no longer the priority of space and time, or of a square, round or fuzzy story, or a game to play about the destiny of every character and the facts told. You'd see now a story with meaningful elements of human finest creation, Art, the fire itself. You'd be merged in the world of aesthetics and a new hero would lie underneath: Prometheus. He is writing this level of the story.

Nina (Natalie Portman) is a character that goes all the way across this complete transformation. Black Swan is a tragedy of creation. We should not cheer for our favorite character or outcome anymore, but we should just appreciate the conflicts and challenges of art making. And it's so hard, it asks for everything in us, it tears us apart so we can become the nicest artists. Art in its ultimate impulse and inspiration is a heroic search for beauty as perfection. Nothing less makes any sense. That's what starts tho happen with Nina, in the moment she decides to do the perfect show, to be the perfect dancer in artistic standards, no less. The movie turns into language, it's not verisimilitude what matters the most in this approach, but the limit between fantasy and reality. Nina wants to be just art in her show but to do that she has to call so many delicate or deep conflicts she cannot stand. But it doesn't matter, because she is in search for perfection. It isn't just her. The director, the public, the world, the company, all of them want Nina to completely give herself to her performance, except for her mother, that struggles to keep her daughter within some known limits.

The intense battle between the White and the Black Swan is incorporated in the production of the show, and the leading dancer is the one that holds the key for success in the expression of Art at its highest level. All the time she has to make decisions, if she is going to keep the ways she has been so far or if she is braking all grounds that are necessary to give the show an impressive result, which would be Nina seducing everyone by her performance. But she can be also destroyed in this search. This environment is formed and takes complete control of the movie. It becomes even weird for those who would prefer a conventional story, let's say that. The black swan (character) would be the antagonist but in Art it's not, it is the key for beauty of the show. We could think that the new dancer Lily (Mila Kunis) would personify the Black Swan, but it also isn't true, in part, it's ambiguous, she kind of holds the Black Swan qualities, but in reality, as Lily herself, not as the character of the show. Here we understand that there is a mix between the characters of the show and the characters of the movie, and this distinction also falls in some moments.

The director and the mother work in the story to make it even more tense. Unforgettable acting of Vincent Cassel and excellent acting of Barbara Hershey and Mila Kunis. Natalie Portman's acting is perfect! She is able to bring to the audience all this complexity of the movie, being a regular one or a project of pure Art in highest level. She traduces to us intensely all the conflicts, limitations and changes Nina operates, she brings beauty to us in the form described above, as a very serious work about aesthetics. The final result is Art and a wonderful movie about Art. She will probably will get the Oscar for that.

Hick (2011)

A tough growing up for a girl in a story to be

[9/10 · 14 May 2012]

I saw it as a movie that works with a young girl's expectations and anxiety, while she grows fast in a very complicated environment, passing through tough situations. She's in the middle of building a new identity, because of her age, after her family brakes up and abandons her in the middle of nowhere. She is in a completely fragile and vulnerable position, but her mind, heart and soul are trying to find a way for her life, for her personality and for her values. She brings memories and integrity from childhood that now have to face a grown up world, without any help. It's a movie about a story to be, that can't find a solution until it ends.

Characters and plot are searching, they are all in the road and this constant reference to the road makes the extreme beauty of this movie. Hick, or Luli, the girl is not just the main character but she is also the personification of this story to be, girl to be, to find her own answers and life while passing through all the changes of her age and without any base but two very problematic older friends she met. There is a total identity between the girl and the space she lives in an is trying to get out of. The light, the desert sceneries, they make Luli great, strong, and that's why she keeps going on. Because, after all, that's her world and her life, and we see all the action as if those were her own mind working, searching for answers and for a way out of the trouble.

She is completely alone and lost, but she wants to experience this new life, she desires this new world, so it's not only a drama, it's also an adventure. She loves the ones that cannot love her back the way she needs the most, neither the way she wants, but they love her two, while lost in their own worlds. They couldn't find anything better, while she just doesn't give up, and that is a conflict with bad consequences, as the sexual molest. Luli is growing up in a extreme situation and she is determined to patiently pass through everything she'll have to go through, to get over it.

The most simple things of life are not allowed here, there is no access to it. In a situation like that, what would anyone do? That's what this movie is about. Hick represents a distance from the possible world and from the real world. It's a situation her people are indeed struggling so desperately every day to keep their lives. But, somehow, in the edges of this forgotten world it's effectively reality who keeps them prisoners, so this story asks for reflection too.

It's not exactly an imaginary story, elements are very real and we can feel their impact in social differences or in the power relation between men and women, and in the uneven risks a young girl has to take to go on with her life. We can find all this elements in our daily lives. Luli feels deep love and friendship and learns its forms in this very disturbing world. She can't just say no and go back to anything before that. She has this chance repeatedly but she knows she has to move forward, no matter what, it's her only way out.

Chloë Grace Moretz, Eddie Redmayne and Blake Lively hold the story with an intense acting, strong rhythm and gradual tension, until the outcomes. I also liked very much the direction of Derick Martini and the approach of the story. It's not inappropriate at all, if we think that sexuality gains more and more importance every day in our times, in this culture where precocity and desire are so stimulated, and we have Internet. There's got to be a permanent discussion about it. Chloë is a very mature girl for her age, that can be seen in the movie, as an actress she entirely dominates her role and gives it strong traces and emotions. One more great job for her brilliant career. Eddie Redmayne and Blake Lively worked with her in perfect connection and that allowed this movie to be so expressive in a very single story.

Twelve (2010)

There are Important Voices Heard or Muted in this Movie

[8/10 · 27 March 2012]

I wouldn't go so hard on this movie, because the project seems to be focused on concerns about drugs hitting youth so hard. This theme is the key for the plot, then. Usual standards we use to say that was a good movie or was not should be adjusted in this case.

It's not documentary or journalistic language, but it has a very strong presence of the narrator. It'd be interesting to discuss that, because the narrator dominates the story. Is it good or bad?

Well, it is good if you want a different approach on these matters, but it is not so good if you wanted a more intense contact with the characters. I felt both ways. I'd like the characters to be more present in the movie, but I know why they are not, while there is the narrator instead, and there is a good reason for that.

A narrator at first is not forbidden nor has a special receipt for it. It is aesthetics, I mean, it works or doesn't for a given style and a story. If narrator's speech can express something essential in the story in a very singular way, then it's a match, and I believe this is the case.

This narrator speech created a special thriller climate, brought more context information and finally gave the whole movie a sense of loneliness, isolation and powerlessness. That's why the narrator takes most part of the voices of everyone. This lack, this silence, means something we have to think about.

So, if this story was important to be told in 90 minutes, it was not bad at all. Of course we would like a further development of the relationship between White Mike and Molly. Except for the narration sequences and the theme itself, the possible romance between them would be the central key of the plot, in a "regular" movie, but there was not enough space and time to show more involvement and complications, in this one. There was another story to be told.

The final result is a bigger impact on the drug problem, in a culture where considerable part of the youth is going in a doubtful direction, without good perspectives or conditions to think about their lives and their world.

My Week with Marilyn (2011)

Truth is we didn't really know many things about Marilyn

[10/10 · 11 March 2012]

What could all of us presumably know about this movie? We could go like that: "oh, it's a movie about Marilyn!". You see, in that assertive we've already declared we "know" what this movie is about. Of course! Who doesn't? Marilyn and her career, all problems that happened and all. So, next step, we presumably know what the movie is about. It's a movie about Marilyn Monroe! It could be a good movie, but we would easily make the mistake of thinking we already know what it's about.

What really happens is that in the first part of the movie we have to gradually undress all the previous ideas we had about her. The story leads us to undoing our prejudice and images about Marilyn. Don't know if they were good, bad or whatever, but they certainly were way different from this one. It comes from another environment, from other points of view, from a different culture and even a different geography. Another people talk about her and work with her for some weeks. Very remarkable people.

Through the eyes of these people, and the making of Lawrence Olivier's movie, we can make contact with several aspects of Marilyn, or we better say Norma Jeane – a wonderful actress who was capable of creating Marilyn Monroe, as a character of herself. The result is a story about the true Marilyn Monroe in a brand new world. Something we've never heard before.

The acting of Michelle Williams was superb, unforgettable; she gave herself completely to this role, as in the case of the best acting we've ever seen in the history of movies. Kenneth Branagh specially and the other actors keep this very high level of acting. It is indeed a great story about the history of movies, as Hugo and The Artist. It's about Marilyn Monroe! So, you be sure this was one of the three greatest movies of the year - 2011, and many of us would say it was the best.

What is also interesting about this plot is that the young third assistant director who gets involved with her, and in real life he wrote the story, had already some special attitude and vision, and writer skills. I mean, the dialogues in general and specifically the ones between them two is very rich and interesting. Tells us a lot about Marilyn Monroe and Norma Jeane, about the drama involved in the coexistence between the true actress and less known – the still young girl Norma Jeane (for me it's young) in her thirties, and the myth, the most famous and glamorous girl the world had ever known.

Besides enjoying so much the movie, we cannot avoid feeling sad about her. We actually kind of miss her, and, if we could understand her better, after this movie, we'd think something like: Marilyn Monroe you are truly the best!

The Artist (I) (2011)

What Is It That Movies Are All About?

[10/10 · 26 February 2012]

The Artist searches the ultimate fountains of movies. If you take everything else out, what is the essential? Could we take out the sound? The dialogs? The images? No, not the images. But is that what movies are all about? The reason to be? Not quite, at least I don't think so and I don't feel this way. We could not take the images, for sure, but that's because it's the media, the supporting language of movies. But maybe it's not yet the essential.

I studied language a lot at the university, it would be very boring and inappropriate to discuss it here, but it would be very useful to comment something about it. It's the "old" discussion, the "rivalry": which says more, or means more to us? Words or images? Words and images or silence? Images or music? If we put that way, though, it would seem that all these languages, all these ways to express feelings, thoughts and actions would be in an endless battle against each other, competing against each other, but it is not true. One media, one language, helps the other, works with the other. This is art and culture, this is language.

So, when we see a silent movie, it doesn't mean it has no words or dialogs. If we could see it, there would be an intense interchange of words, between silent movies and audiences. Words are all over it, in the big screen and in the atmosphere of the theater. We are all the time trying to put words in it, to understand. There's no way one could understand images, even sounds, without looking for words.

Sometimes they just aren't in the first plan of things, but they are there. There is just a difference in the focus, in the emphasis of what is being told and the way it's being told. Sometimes best communication comes with silence. But there are words deep inside the silence and all around it. So the essence of movies could not be just the images or just the silence. Also, it's not essential that you spell all the words, sonorous ones.

By watching The Artist in 2012 we spontaneously start thinking about those things. The answers or maybe the new questions should come from the story, from the movie. I actually made a list: audience, entertainment, art, magic, dream, visual effects, comedy, drama, adventure, mystery, there are a lot of very important roots composing the essence of movies. They are the elements of movies that combine in very different proportions in each project, like a DNA.

There seems to be, however, one element among all the others, that made movies what they are, that made movie industry and its alternatives what they are. Of course we know it, it's romance. Not always in the first plan, sometimes not visible in any plan, but it's there, like the words, it's the essence, what makes us understand movies. Even when it's denied, fought against or destroyed; it's the energy that works underneath. Or when there's a silence about love and romance in a movie, we miss it. But when it comes to the surface, we finally meet what we were looking for, what gives meaning to a not ordinary but very special life.

This is what movies are all about. None of us really want an ordinary life, we want it to be special and happy. We are not all the time thinking about love and romance, but that's the road where everything else we care about is. And that is what made The Artist a great movie. It is a wonderful story, a meaningful one, working with all these elements, roots and, of course, the essence of movies.

Hugo (2011)

There's Something About Movies

[9/10 · 21 February 2012]

A simple story, a boy and a girl, both orphans, meet each other and together they try to fix a mysterious automaton. The boy lives alone hidden behind the big watches of a train station in Paris. The girl lives with her godparents, an average old couple, she is a housekeeper and he owns a toy booth at the station. The boy Hugo and the old man George are in permanent conflict, because Hugo is always trying to thieve little pieces from mechanisms in the store, so he could fix the automaton. They actually have an ambiguous relationship, because George also seems to be a little curious about that boy, it seems they have something in common, some affinity or something to share. The antagonism between them is therefore surrounded by a strange affection or even it is a seed of friendship, a fight that could work in benefit of them two, but gradually involves everyone in the movie.

Well, that was just the basic. Things get complicated; everything starts to get tied with each other, forming a mechanism itself, the "big watch". Making this microcosm function perfectly again demands a series of complicated tasks, dealing with relationships, feelings and the rules of the world that sooner or later will imply big changes in the life of each character. But this will only happen if Hugo, Isabelle and George manage to solve their own problems. The automaton remains in the center of the plot all the time. The train station is full of people, it has an intense movement and there is a lot of activities going on, as Scorsese said, everybody is searching for something about their lives.

This movie is so rich of meanings, languages and images; it's like a growing concert, a little bit like Ravel's Bolero, most of the time. I'd dare say that it is not just about the magic of movies - imagination, dream, adventure, magic, drama, entertainment, feelings..., although it's already so much, and it's not limited to the story of these specific characters, and those already work as a big stream of signs and facts being released, but it is kind of a legacy or testimony of Scorsese's career. These three perspectives interact; they work together, one reinforcing the other, all under the director's baton. Scorsese's work is this diverse and wide knowledge about making movies, an experience through decades exploring all kinds of possibilities.

We have then a simple story but an intense dancing of signs, images and languages, through a timeless and endless story, if you wish. It is eventually about movies today also, and not only about the memory of movie making. These eras are all contained in the movie, somehow, but there is an outcome, which is Hugo's Invention. That is a metalanguage, there is a little trick in here, because Hugo didn't actually invent the automaton, he just had it under his care, to try to fix it, he had his reasons. So, if he did invent something in this story, and it is highly suggested that he did, what was it? Hugo invented the story itself, meaning, he produced it, together with the movie makers. The fact is that it's very hard to trace a boundary among the main lines of the plot, because they are all interlaced. Hugo works somewhere in between fiction and reality. That is the magic of the movies, enhanced in this one. But, there would be any place like that in the real world? Yes, of course: the imagination.

This richness of meanings was also present in the book that originated the movie - I saw after writing this review. Brian Selznick, the author of the book, had said before that his work was a combination of medias and languages. Well, but Scorsese did it in the big screen, with amazing results.

The final result is this big interaction that happens when you watch a movie, and the several impacts and consequences that movies really have in our lives. They help us in our searches; help us find a purpose, a place, something to do with our life, to find the happy endings of it, in everything we do. These "external" effects are also present in Hugo.

A Dangerous Method (2011)

Take your time, this is a Masterpiece.

[9/10 · 16 February 2012]

Maybe Freud's character in this movie could be extended and more complex. Instead, it was brief, but precise. Jung's character could go all the 360 degrees round. Again, it didn't. It was a round one, though, and very objective, according to the project of the film. The title and the promotion would also suggest a more intensely and focused plot in this two main characters, but it didn't, because Sabina Spielrein kind of ends up dominating the story. She turns out to be a key for practically all threads in this plot. At last, A Dangerous Method would presumably put Psychoanalysis at the center of its development, but Cronemberg's perspective went a little further and brought us this unrest feeling of existence, the "spleen" (Baudelaire), "la nausea" (Nietzche and Sartre), an atmosphere that pretty much reflects Cronemberg's main approaches. Eventually, then, it's a genuine Cronemberg's movie, and it's a very special one.

No wonder that we feel sometimes sharply uncomfortable, tedious and teased by a bit of anxiety or anguish, that's exactly what the movie is about. It comes from the doubts and discomfort with life and sickness, surrounding everyone, while telling the story of Psychoanalysis. Not even Freud is safe, in several aspects of his life, work, friends, patients and theory. They have so many limitations, they make mistakes, they are in the center of a storm, which is the human mind, the human soul, living in a world that is about to explode (WW1, totalitarianism, WW2...) and is still highly dominate by the figure of the father, an authority above all, in a very repressive, paternalistic and male society.

In that world, Sabina Spielrein could not be adjusted and healthy, but, before her 20's, she got extremely hysterical, if that is possible. She was brought to a psychiatric institution by her family, where Jung worked and was waiting for an opportunity to apply Freud's new method. Jung also wanted a chance to get to know him personally. That was when Psychoanalysis really began, by going beyond Freud's patients only, and through the discussions among the three of them, that are very brief but give a good idea of what did happen. The world, nevertheless, wasn't ready to accept or to collaborate very well with this new method.

The problematic relation between therapist and patient, the several forms of resistance, the transference that occurs and makes the patient take the therapist as an object of his hopes, interests, emotions, and all of this through the "innocence" of a talking cure. This gap between, first place, the real world and the special world that is recreated within the therapy, and secondly, between the individuality of therapist and the patient, between their real lives and the special relation that is produced during Psychoanalysis, that was the biggest challenge in the effort to heal neurosis. Still is.

Where is the masterpiece, then? It's in Sabina Spielrein. Vigorously played by the young Keira Knightley, way further than wherever she had gone before that. Sabina Spielrein is a profound tragic character, in a play that works entirely to show this, her unfitness to the world, but in a sense that it becomes our unfitness. Her tragic experience becomes universal, in this story. It's our tragedy, the tragedy of existence. Sabina couldn't be balanced, "normal", controllable, adjusted, tepid, but she had to be unquiet, sometimes disturbed.

It's not a movie that you should see unprepared, that you watch and quickly make up you mind as you leave the theater or turn off the DVD: liked it, didn't like it, and that's all. It needs time to understand a little bit more of what was shown in this very meticulous work. Watch it again, read some reviews, and soon you'll probably figure that out. You've just seen a true masterpiece of Cronenberg, Mortensen, Fassbender, Keira and everyone else that took part in it. You will smile at last.

Sleepwalking (2008)

A drama among fragility, strength, sweetness and roughness

[8/10 · 4 February 2012]

I liked the reviews about this movie, they form a high level indirect discussion, and I agree with the majority of the analysis that was made. This is a movie about the fragility of life, however, it's also a story that somehow shows the unbelievable force life has, and the very special ways it's revealed, through the story of Joleen, her daughter Tara and Uncle James. Little caring about the other actions, the feeling of one missing the other, and each one of them doing the little they can, when all their resources and possibilities seem to have been gone away.

They are capable of only tiny little actions, compared to the huge power of the way things apparently are, the "big pictures" that rule our lives in this world. From underneath their helpless situation, a trip back to the family ranch, a very simple and touching birthday present, a bad joke that makes the little girl laugh, a game the smart kid establishes with her uncle, and that makes them closer, the smiles of Tara, her playing with the other kids, all of that kind of gradually rescues their ability to live, but it still seems to be so far from enough, in their needs. All the time, though, they're trying to do what they think is correct, they're trying to do something good about their lives, and that is a very touching drama, that moves directly towards a conflict with the old and rough father/grandfather.

Personally, I enjoyed very much the symbolism and some poetic language this movie works with. The birthday present, the "Christmas tree" actually shows them struggling hard with their limitations. Under these conditions, life is not really possible for Uncle James, unless he's kind of sleepwalking. Tara at the same time needs him as her last connection and hope of a "regular" life, and she could possibly "awake" him, because of her needs and expectations, but also because she's full of emotion and has great people skills. While all this happens, Joleen has a time to try something different, or to learn better about her life, if there is time or opportunity.

The actors were really great, especially Nick Stall and Annasophia Robb. The other were already very famous and renowned. Annasophia's career is very impressive and I look forward to seeing her becoming one of the top Hollywood grown up actresses. She seems to be escalating the steps and styles of actresses like Sissy Spacek, Michelle Pfeiffer, Julia Roberts, Charlize Theron, Carla Gugino, Emily Blunt and other great examples.

Soul Surfer (2011)

Can't accept the majority of the critics about this nice movie.

[21 October 2011]

It's a great movie! It has a solid narrative structure that develops correctly the topics within the plot, it has a great cast of very good actors and actresses, and they all do an excellent acting, everybody does a good job in this film, the special effects are perfect, there are many good scenes, some touching, some beautiful, some very competent (the shark attack and the help she gets, or the surfing scenes, the music in the church at the beach...), the story had a direct contribution from the real people that actually lived these facts and, finally, it was correctly balanced among its perspectives, I mean, family movie, religious matters (they are part of the story), inspirational possibilities, sports, teen's problems, surfing, living close to the ocean in Hawaii, so, it's perfect! And it is a great entertainment.

The directions took by almost all critics are inaccurate or simply mistaken. The points of the movie they quote as not good are very questionable and don't give a good idea of what watching this movie really is. If you compare this movie with others recently released, that these same critics might have liked, it's so clear that these other movies are not better than Soul Surfer. This is to be said, so that we don't loose such a nice movie. Obviously it's not unanimous. There are those who don't like surfing, beach, sports, teen movies, family movies, religious issues, even seem not to like a blonde family or blonde friends. But is it forbidden? What does it have to do with criticizing the film? Try to deny the importance of the trip Bethany made to help survivors of the tsunami in Thailand is another problem. It didn't happen? It was not important for her to overcome the trauma of loosing one arm? A beautiful teenage girl as Bethany? It is just too much of criticism. And it is a very good scene, a very touching one.

Besides, it's the first movie of AnnaSophia Robb as virtually a grown up, and she was wonderful, as always. Just this detail itself is already highly significant, bus you can add to that great supporting actors, all the central nucleus of the film: Lorraine Nicholson,Helen Hunt,Dennis Quaid, Kevin Sorbo and Carrie Underwood, and even the two boys, with smaller parts in the plot.

It is a very good movie about this topic and shall please anyone that likes the main perspectives of this story (the ones quoted in the beginning). And that is not all. It deserves any nominations it gets from the most prestigious awards.

About the good or important impacts the told story of Bethany Hamilton could have in someone's life, we could take Dennis Quaid as an example. He thinks about selling his ranch and moving to Hawaii, to live a life more like that he tried in this movie.