pinolaricio Reviews

Little Miss Jocelyn (2006–2008)

One of the best

[10/10 · 22 February 2010]

Little Miss Jocelyn is one of the most brilliant of comedy shows. Its depth is often unappreciated. Take these characters: Liz: a biting satire of white man's exoticisation of black women. Fiona: a woman who is so conditioned by prevalent (but generally unspoken) racist opinions that she espouses them wholeheartedly to the point of denying her own 'black' identity, save finally exploding at the end of the sketch by 'fulfilling' the most racist and outrageous of anti-black clichés. Mrs Omwukupopo: another incisive satire playing up to white people's prejudices towards so-called 'black sexuality'. Throughout Jocelyn Lee Esien plays on either reversing white prejudices or on reproducing them for satiric effect highlighting the racist views that British society is full of and is not aware of subscribing to, or cannot quite admit to in public (except perhaps in the dark corners of a pub), thanks to its often hypocritical adherence to 'political correctness'. I imagine many white people will find the show distasteful, but that is the whole purpose of it, to throw back in their faces the types of prejudices that their society itself often holds against Africans. Of course that is just one level. There is another. Little Miss Jocelyn is a comedy about the African community in the UK laughing about itself and its idiosyncrasies. Many of her sketches are part of the classic repertoire of 'country (call-a-spade-a-spade) bumpkin goes to the metropolis of political correctness' and can be found in many other comedies about/by migrants (not only African) living in the so-called 'advanced' economies.

I am not surprised but saddened by the axing of the program.

Slumdog Millionaire (2008)

Exploitative and manipulative film

[3/10 · 9 August 2009]

On reflection I thought the film was exploitative and manipulative. What is its message? That TV game shows can save even the poorest of the poor? And what of the choice of actors? While the film contained harrowing scenes of a poor dark child being blinded, the make-up men clearly shirked from portraying the leading actress with credible scars at the end of the film. As the film progresses the two leading characters get progressively paler until they become 'almost' white and hence - I imagine in the view of the director - more palatable to audiences. Which half of the film are we supposed to believe in: the dire life of the slum dwellers or the cosmetic H/Bollywood romantic ending? I think it uses the former to legitimize the latter: it exploits the real Mumbai protagonists of the film by involving them at first only to drop them out of the picture to make way for its 'attractive' Europeanized leading stars. Likewise it manipulates Western audiences into thinking that India's social problems are not so bad because in the end true love (and true money) can triumph thanks to a TV game show. Or is the film just an elaborate plug for the show itself? The film was clearly tailored for affluent Western or Westernised audiences. I believe its 'social' denunciations are simply a device to fool viewers into thinking that the film is worthwhile so that it can get its real message across: celebrity TV, money, some measure of astuteness and good Western looks are going to save the world (as well as guarantee box office profits).

The Last Kiss (2001)

Bad Italian Women

[3/10 · 11 June 2009]

I think many foreign viewers have missed the point of the film because they are trying to relate it to their own personal experiences without taking into account the overall Italian context. Young people in Italy are eternally cosseted and dominated by controlling and indulgent mothers, particularly males. They also live in a society where the young must follow the advice and occupational footsteps of their parents because any other career choice is much more unlikely than in any other 'developed' country. In Italy jobs are secured on connections not on merit. Nor can one just leave a job with impunity. Mobility in the Italian job-market is practically nonexistent. Throughout the film the women appear controlling/dominating and/or resentful, whilst the men are all too weak to break away from their influence and strike out for themselves. The focal point of the story revolves around an adulterous affair where a thirty something man, who has meekly allowed his companion control his life and his future, seeks escape through an adventure with a girl almost half his age. (There are echoes of the latter-day Berlusconi here). The relationship ends almost as swiftly as it begins because the young enchantress ends up being just as manipulative as the partner he was trying to leave. Caught between two controlling women, our weak kneed Romeo goes running back to his 'safe' Mummy/Wife whose approval he thinks is guaranteed because she is pregnant with his child. The subplot of his three friends 'escaping' to an African adventure is just that, an impossible and unrealistic dream, which would never really be contemplated by young Italian males, unless their ultimate return to the fold, their mothers and their secure - but dispiriting - professions was guaranteed. Such a plot is sad enough, but it has been made even sadder by my impression that the director is not even fully cognizant of how he has portrayed gender relations in his film. His portrayal of Italian women, and of their inconsequential and infantile men folk, I believe, reflects his own subconscious awareness of the underlying reality, that is all the more revealing of the state of gender play in Italy for being unintended.

Preferisco il rumore del mare (2000)

Interesting

[7/10 · 12 August 2008]

The film is one of the few examples in Italian cinema with the courage to overturn the so-called "Southern Question". Instead of following in the usual rut of Italian cinema which delights in representing the South as a wild degenerate place, the film upturns such shibboleths by portraying the so-called 'modern' industrial North as many Southerners see it: emotionally cold, detached, devoid of values, materialistic and morally corrupt. And it cleverly exposes these ills through the conflicted character of a successful Southern Italian migrant living in Turin. Not that the South lacks its problems, which the film does not shy away from representing, such as its crime and violence. These are amply confronted through the family history of the main character. However, the film does point the way towards a re-engagement with the problems faced by the South through tolerance and by emphasizing the role that can be played by a love of learning even in the most difficult circumstances. In this it reflects, perhaps too optimistically, a long cultural tradition of obstinate but great Southern Italian intellectuals. What many viewers see as unattractive acting is the result of Calopresti maintaining the neorealist tradition in the modern era. It is not his fault that modern Italian life for many is not as 'exotic' and 'different' in terms of their own experience as it may once have been in the days of 'Bicycle thieves'.