khosravim Reviews

The Million Dollar Hotel (2000)

...and poetics in cinema

[8/10 · 1 October 2008]

"The million dollar hotel" is Unique, strange, and poetically, not on that way which the "theatrical trailer" shows (a thriller about finding somebody's killer!) But a quite requiem on a simple and naive love. "The million dollar hotel" draws a thin line between a film-genre and poetic cinema, and moving with elegance on it. The film uses the elements of classic cinema, putting two individual character (Tom-Tom and Eloise) in a fiction (can be called a thriller), and representing a new image of a European avant-guard in Los Angeles. The Frames with a lot of beautiful crane moves which flies us into the room of two lovers, (+marvelous colors and compositions) has the main role in the poetry of the film.

Tom-Tom, the main character, talks not much, but when he talks, he talks on poems and with a sense of poetry. "The Million dollar hotel" is a poem in praise of love. On one side we have Eloise (namesake with Beethoven's lover) walks on wet pavements of Los Angeles bare foot, always reading books, and on the other side there is Tom-Tom who doesn't even know how to read a book, or how to pick up a good one between all of those. For him, everything is new, the sun after a night full of love on the face of beautiful Eloise to dates on his room's wall… and is poetry something except than a new way of seeing?

All That Jazz (1979)

All That Life

[10/10 · 16 June 2007]

I want to name it a film, not a movie (a word i dislike to say) because of its straight reflections form Fellini and Visconti and specially Godard's cinema. Guiseppe Retonno on the camera, Roy Scheider on the "stage" and Bob Fosse as a director, They have invited us to watch one of the greatest autobiographical films in the film history. It references to "eight and a half" (a Fellini film about a director who straggles between the women of his life and the film he can't make) and Godard's 60's films (Specially "A Woman is a woman", with a reference in this film to Fosse's directions in theater: the films pauses and Anna Karina has a sentence: Careography by Bob Fosse!). The shots of All That Jazz reminds us to Godard shots, and subjective narration remind us to Fellini. The Theme of the film, A director in the search of a way to make his own film (that would never been made) is also The theme of Fellini's masterpiece, and reminds us to Fellini's world. But all that jazz i said is bullshit! This is a film about life and death. It seems to be a person who has made this film, is drunken the cup of life to the end. I remind you one of the final scenes which Joe Giddeon kisses an old woman, and of course it doesn't need to remind the final "Number" With an eternal song: Bye bye life, bye bye happiness, hello loneliness... . I have never seen a movie like this which shows us the deepest dreams of a man in show business and his own cinema, and of course his own family and his own love. This is an eternal film that i can't describe it with the words. Some films are being honored to get Palme d'or but this film has gloried the Palme d'or. Some films are more than a film and i think this is one of them.

71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance (1994)

Elephant by Haneke

[7/10 · 10 June 2007]

A Sample film in 90's about violence and how it improves. Pazzle-like narration with 71 episodes, shows us a story about the history of violence. "71 Fragmente einer Chronologie des Zufalls" has all the signs of a film which could be made in 90's. Haneke is one of the contemporary filmmaker who use the violence scenes to show us how this huge question (why violence?) has no straight answer. 71... is almost look like another haneke's famous film (Code unknown,2000) which both of them are narrating unfinished stories of some journeys. Unexpected final scenes and also, unexpected shocking shots are two icons in this film like another Haneke's films. Haneke's style is like the way Robert bresson made films. Bresson's cinematograph and also Hitchcock's suspense are affected in his cinema. His cinema invites us to watch untold stories about complicated questions of contemporary world.

Sophie Scholl: The Final Days (2005)

Long live freedom!

[10/10 · 2 June 2007]

It's so simple to go by the Sophie Scholl and also it's so passionate to name it a masterpiece. The reason that i call this film a masterpiece is Marc Rothemund's directing and one great thing: the sympathetic face of Julia Jentsch. Rothemund fits the story with the form of narrating. Here we have no superfluity melodramatic actions. The straight story needs one thing: a method in directing. What makes Sophie Scholl a successful film. But all those jazz are just a purports to plaudit an actress: Julia Jentsch really plays brilliantly. She controls all the frame of image like an actress on the stage. Her mimic reminded me a lot of great actors and actress, specially Isabelle Huppert. The final with a loud shout about freedom is very memorable. The generic has become influential affected.

Damnation (1988)

Some kind of cinema: image, sound, and nothing else.

[8/10 · 2 June 2007]

Who is Bela Tarr? A filmmaker who enjoy taking log takes to torment the audience? Of course not. We can see his films and naturally, maybe, his movies become boring. In my case, when i watch the movies which takes long more than 2 hours, i need a break with no question! That movie can be one of the Harry Potters or Barry Lyndon. And of course, Bela Tarr and his own cinema has his own place in my list!

The people and critics who liked "Damnation", talked about camera work and sound designing. The movie is taken in black and withe with high-contrast images. The images are taken in deep-focus with 2-3 layers. the camera always moves softly (in Crane or tilt or pan). I think this movements are the points of the film: I was wondered why the movie does not bother me, and i found the images are not hiding things from the camera but try to find something between the layers. In a scene, we see an old woman who looks out of the frame and talks to a person. In the shot, we find two person in gangster-like clothes. They are standing by the old woman. In a second, the camera moves back and we see those were not the gangsters, they are two coats and there is a store. Or, in this case, for example, i can remind you the opening shot.

In an interview with Bela Tarr i read recently, Tarr said "I think the cinema means image". This is not a special sentence, but it guides us to find his films more interesting. Tarr's cinema without these kind of images would become like so simple films which are called Exotic films by some critics.