Change Your Image
jjwillett
Reviews
Der Krieger und die Kaiserin (2000)
A love story that is as astonishing as it is profound
This story contrasts a dream like pace with scenes of remarkable intensity. The sheer invention of the scenarios burns unforgettable images into your psyche. The characters are full developed and complex yet they seem to move in a world of fable. The tension between fable-like quality and the grim reality of the settings is the product of a wonderfully subtle, poetic imagination.
The unusual moral boundaries within which Sissi and Bodo live their lives contrasts with their essntial innocence and vulnerability. The structure of their lives is built on a foundation of irony and paradox. In the key scene in the movie Sissi and Bodo are forced into a love as deep as the genetic code will go. That image echos in my dreams still haunting in its unexpected beauty.
Theeviravaathi: The Terrorist (1998)
The close-ups of Ayesha Dhakar are an act of mind reading
I am writing this review after the horror of Tuesday 9/11/2001. All of us have wrestled with the question of how and why would someone commit such an atrocity believing that their act was blessed and sanctioned by God Almighty.
As I asked myself this question I remembered this movie. I remembered the beautiful vulnerability of the face of Ayesha as she struggled with her decision to become a suicide bomber to seek justice for herself and her people after she discovers that she is pregnant.
Ayesha is able to telegraph every nuance of her thought and emotion as the camera slowly, painfully examines every pore of her skin, every lash of her dark, liquid eyes. While the premise of the film is fundamentally simple, by the time the film is over the sacredness of life and wrenching paradox of its questions has been intimately explored. As raw as birth itself this film is a rare piece of poetry.