Change Your Image
VivienLancellotti
Reviews
Le gamin au vélo (2011)
What has settled with me after surviving this movie:
This movie left me puzzled, bewildered, touched, and yet it was oddly refreshing, and real. The relationship between the caretaker and the boy was something beyond the tragedy of abandonment and the major downturns of being shunned, used, abused, helpless. It showed a mingling of extremes when, while scarred for life, one is presented with a glimpse of hope and a place and person to come home to. I am thankful that I was able to watch this - a showcase of humanity in its rawness, coldness, and multiplicity, including warmth and love.
I have just arrived home straight after watching this, so am still a bit in shock, but here goes: A boy wakes up in a children's home and can think of nothing but finding his father, who has abandoned him and left the area. His only care is reuniting with him, and nothing detains him from his desperate search. In this, he stumbles onto a woman who cares enough to retrieve the bike that had belonged to him, and soon thereafter she kind-heartedly assumes the responsibility for him during the weekends, when he comes to her life, her home, and, despite the serious challenges that this presents, her heart. She helps him to locate and meet with his father and he receives the confirmation that he is not wanted in his life. This, however, does not convince him, and upon willingly intertwining himself in a dangerous and aggressive plot, he gets some money with which he believes he will finally win his father back. When his father rejects him yet again, the message comes home to him that his hope of having an active father in this man will never materialise and as he physically cycles his emotions and thoughts towards his caretaker's home, everything that then happens indicates that he has come to know that she is the person to whom he must ally, unite, and surrender. The film is laden with vivid imagery and some scenes of near-suspense and yet it is quite bare in terms of effects, with the exception of some camera plays and strategically repeated music placements which emphasise the momentous heartbeats of some key scenes. It really makes one thankful for one's luck, and appreciative of all we have received from the people in our lives who have been kind, loving, and, especially, there. It is also an illustration of great stoicism, both in the form of the disbelieving, anguishing boy and that of the present, unwavering caregiver. Chapeau!
Under African Skies (2012)
This is my impression of this musical, political, humane documentary.
This is the morning after my watching Under African Skies, the documentary movie on Paul Simon and the artists he collaborated with for the Graceland record, some of whom were part of the group Artists Against Apartheid. They jammed, recorded, and later toured with the music that joined white and black cultures in a time where these were in the thick of aggression in South Africa. Simon travelled to where the roots of rhythm were to be found, joining his poetic lyrics to his fellow's music, with their indescribable vividness and rawness, blending African lyrics like "If there is no chicken/You can hunt an owl,/Take its head off and/It looks like a chicken./We eat it on the train" with "she's got diamonds on the soles of her shoes..." He was in South Africa during the culmination of Apartheid, before Nelson Mandela was released from jail. Graceland took two years to make after his ten-day visit to the country. Three weeks after its successful release, it received its first and totally unexpected criticism. It came from the ANC, stating that Simon had extracted and promoted music from South Africa thus breaching the UN decree to boycott the country in all international acts, which was upheld as a last-resort effort against the Apartheid regime. Together with his musical companions Simon had given the world a gem, as some of the best South African musicians joined hands, and voices, and hearts with him to record and tour. Together they created a pure sensation. The listening world received a key of access that would give the battered country a focus of attention under a positive light while, throughout the disastrous regime, many had hopelessly ignored it. They toured in America, Europe, Africa, always under the threat of political aggression connected to reactions to the claims made by the ANC. From another front they were backed by the collaboration of artists like Miriam Makeba, to whose life the film was dedicated. Makeba was one of the many exiled from their homeland, not even being granted permission to attend her own daughter's funeral. The segregation and violence regime robbed South Africans of their land, their integrity, their freedom. The musicians of Graceland, those wizards of groove and soul, gave everything they had to share and contributed to its termination. When Mandela was finally released from jail he personally welcomed Simon to perform Graceland in his country. The film was documented as Simon reunited with the South African musicians of Graceland, 25 years after its initial release, in celebration.