das26 Reviews

Elegy (I) (2008)

He only gets his rocks off when he's crying

[4/10 · 26 April 2008]

I haven't read the book, but it isn't surprising that a movie based on a late-period Philip Roth novel revolves around an older man struggling to commit to a younger woman he has somehow wooed. In this case, David Kepesh (Ben Kingsley) is the awkward intellectual who only appears comfortable in front of a classroom or on the radio. Somehow, he's a prolific ladies' man, so much so that he woos Consuela Castillo (Penelope Cruz), a student in his class about 30 years younger.

That's all fine, but the movie focuses on Kepesh, at the expense of developing any of the other actors sufficiently. Kingsley plays Kepesh as a bag of neuroses trying to get over himself and failing, while the frequent voiceovers and certain characters (most especially Dennis Hopper's) scream "plot device". If it weren't for Cruz's beauty and skilled acting, if with a flat character, the movie would be unbearable.

A pathetic lead and undeveloped support makes for a bad movie, but the last act of the movie at least crystallizes into a message for the movie: the weakness of the male gender, and their inability to control themselves or know themselves. If this was a touch more explicit and the rest of the surroundings taken care of with more depth, Elegy might have been a nice movie. As is, it's unnecessary.

Marta (2006)

A Pure Builder

[8/10 · 27 December 2007]

Marta is a bracing, short feature-length film. I'd call it a thriller, but not in the conventional genre sense. The movie starts slowly with a father and son who live alone in a small house near the woods. Their's is an interesting relationship from the beginning, but the tension amplifies and the plot begins when the son discovers Marta. From there the movie is taut, vividly gruesome in physical, sexual, and emotional manners, and thrilling. The plot is not shocking, but is less than obvious, and the acting is great all around (admittedly, there aren't many roles involved). The shooting also has a sparse feel to it which matches the setting and story really well. I read that this wasn't representative of modern Czech film as a whole, but it's a good sign all the same.