murdockcrc Reviews

Pellet (2000)

A great movie for a disgusting topic

[8/10 · 17 May 2007]

Unfortunately, child abuse is still something that is seen these days, even in countries so much developed as Europe.

In this case, El Bola is the story of a kid physically abused by his strict and violent father. The movie does a great job to show the whole panorama of this complicated situation. El Bola's life is surrounded by misery, his family is a chaos, his mother is submissive to her aggressive husband, his situation at school is not better, and in general, the movie shows how being abused causes the abused kid to fail is every aspect of life.

El Bola meets a new friend, which turns out to have a great and loving family. This is part of the other part of the problematic: how normal families fail to act appropriately when they find out a child they know is beaten up by his parents.

In summary, the movie exposes this hard topic with class and elegance, sometimes showing very brute and harsh scenes, that nonetheless, are necessary to shake up the audience's feelings and make them understand the importance this matter has.

The Spanish Apartment (2002)

Very entertaining movie

[8/10 · 14 May 2007]

If you want to laugh a lot, then watch this movie.

Using a twisted sense of humor, this movie shows the life of students living and studying abroad, and shows very much how that short type of life is. Important topics are exposed such as sexuality and loyalty, love and the young people's research for a purpose and a future.

The filming technique is very useful to make the audience feel that sense of confusion and insecurity of traveling to another country whose language you don't speak, and of beginning a new important but uncertain stage of life.

The actors, though all of them very young, do an excellent job performing difficult characters. The scenario is mostly in Spain, but then you have characters from France, UK, Germany, Italy, Denmark and Belgium, and all of them do a great job representing each countries' personalities and characteristics.

Simon (2004)

An emotionally aggressive film

[8/10 · 13 May 2007]

This film is extremely well elaborated. Without spoiling the movie for you, basically, Simon is a sad story between a drug-dealing, "living la vida loca" young man, and a gay man he unexpectedly met.

14 years later, they meet again, but this time, the situation is totally different.

The filmmakers do an excellent job at the beginning of the movie, that is, making people dive deep into the story, the characters and the general atmosphere. This has as consequence, later after the middle of the movie, that the filmmakers start playing with the audience's emotions, leveraging on all the details presented during the beginning to force the audience into the main topic of the movie.

The second half of the movie is the sad part of it. There, the lives of all the people involved are bound together by an unexpected tragedy. The film has an obvious ending, but during that time, the audience's feelings and emotions are constantly touched and moved. This emotional play is perfect for the deep meanings of the movie: a reflexion and the presenting of different perspectives of homosexuality, drugs, sex and eutanasia.