A painter from the big city goes to a remote canyon to commit suicide. To reach some calmness, he stays at the farmstead of Ascen, an old, religious woman. Although but a few words are spoken, love grows.
Juan and his urban family live in the Mexican countryside, where they enjoy and suffer a world apart. And nobody knows if these two worlds are complementary or if they strive to eliminate one another.
A family lives in the Mexican countryside raising fighting bulls. Esther is in charge of running the ranch, while her husband Juan, a world-renowned poet, raises and selects the beasts. ... See full summary »
Director:
Carlos Reygadas
Stars:
Natalia López,
Phil Burgers,
Carlos Reygadas
When an 11-year-old girl is brutally raped and murdered in a quiet French village, a police detective who has forgotten how to feel emotions--because of the death of his own family in some kind of accident--investigates the crime, which turns out to ask more questions than it answers.
Director:
Bruno Dumont
Stars:
Emmanuel Schotté,
Séverine Caneele,
Philippe Tullier
A social movie about current life in the north of France. Freddy and his friends are all unemployed. They pass away time by wandering around on their motorcycles and by directing their ... See full summary »
Director:
Bruno Dumont
Stars:
David Douche,
Marjorie Cottreel,
Kader Chaatouf
Diamonds in the night is the tense, brutal story of two Jewish boys who escape from a train transporting them from one concentration camp to another. Ultimately, they are hunted down by a ... See full summary »
Director:
Jan Nemec
Stars:
Ladislav Jánsky,
Antonín Kumbera,
Ilse Bischofova
A professor in the film department at a provincial university goes to Seoul to meet his senior, who works as a film critic, and stays in a northern Seoul village for three days.
A group of students arrives in a small town during a hiking expedition. Once there, the local priest accuses them of being communist agitators on the run from an army crack-down against ... See full summary »
Director:
Felipe Cazals
Stars:
Enrique Lucero,
Salvador Sánchez,
Ernesto Gómez Cruz
A painter from the big city goes to a remote canyon to commit suicide. To reach some calmness, he stays at the farmstead of Ascen, an old, religious woman. Although but a few words are spoken, love grows.
I watched this film after reading some interesting reviews about a promising art-house director, stunning landscapes and grit and reality, as harsh as it is seen through the ever widening lens.
Hmm.
All of the above is perfectly fitting. The camera work is sheer brilliance.
The audio on this film is what grabs you from the very start: The sound is used to full effect, from the bird calls in the trees; the nearby water; the drunken Mexican workers: especially watch out for the singing scene, all made so very powerful thorough the medium of sound. In lots of scenes, the audio is carrying the visuals and not the other way around.
I have to say the story is most unusual and as you may already have read, can be quite uncomfortable at times. At one point I actually thought 'I don't need to be watching something like this on my screen..why am I?', as it just got a bit weird for me. I stuck with it though and, there is a message in there. I won't spoil any of the movie for you by going much deeper into it but as one commenter already said, it is about Man and his loneliness. His desperation and also his bad decisions and inability to change: his world and himself.
I can see why there are so many negative remarks here for this.
At first, I came here with the intention of doing something similar but when I started writing about this movie I just watched, I find myself analysing it and it sinks in that there really is a work of art and it shouldn't be condemned, it should be talked about and watched by many!
There are, for sure, some bad areas where they might have done better to edit certain overly long scenes out or perhaps moved the story around a bit but, this movie isn't about the story, not really. It is about the characters, more than that: it is about Character itself. Even the characters are just a vehicle for the main theme.
I urge you to watch this with an open mind.
11 of 17 people found this review helpful.
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I watched this film after reading some interesting reviews about a promising art-house director, stunning landscapes and grit and reality, as harsh as it is seen through the ever widening lens.
Hmm.
All of the above is perfectly fitting. The camera work is sheer brilliance.
The audio on this film is what grabs you from the very start: The sound is used to full effect, from the bird calls in the trees; the nearby water; the drunken Mexican workers: especially watch out for the singing scene, all made so very powerful thorough the medium of sound. In lots of scenes, the audio is carrying the visuals and not the other way around.
I have to say the story is most unusual and as you may already have read, can be quite uncomfortable at times. At one point I actually thought 'I don't need to be watching something like this on my screen..why am I?', as it just got a bit weird for me. I stuck with it though and, there is a message in there. I won't spoil any of the movie for you by going much deeper into it but as one commenter already said, it is about Man and his loneliness. His desperation and also his bad decisions and inability to change: his world and himself.
I can see why there are so many negative remarks here for this.
At first, I came here with the intention of doing something similar but when I started writing about this movie I just watched, I find myself analysing it and it sinks in that there really is a work of art and it shouldn't be condemned, it should be talked about and watched by many!
There are, for sure, some bad areas where they might have done better to edit certain overly long scenes out or perhaps moved the story around a bit but, this movie isn't about the story, not really. It is about the characters, more than that: it is about Character itself. Even the characters are just a vehicle for the main theme.
I urge you to watch this with an open mind.