[Courtesy of headcount.org] Slumdog Millionaire director Danny Boyle is slated to direct a movie based on Between a Rock and a Hard Place, Aron Ralston’s harrowing 2004 account of being trapped under a boulder in a Utah canyon, where he was forced to amputate his own arm. In this Aspen Times interview, Ralston discusses consulting with Boyle about the film, to be titled 127 Hours. Although Ralston wanted to film his story as a docu-drama, it had to be turned into a theatrical film in order to get Boyle involved. Ralston says, “Instead of being ‘Touching the Void’” — an acclaimed 2003 docu-drama about a harrowing climb in the Peruvian Andes, that was produced by Smithson — “it’ll be more like ‘Into the Wild’.”

Read the original article here: Next Danny Boyle Project Likely To Include Phish Music.

Mini critiques de films vus en août/septembre…

Garden State
De Zach Braff

En 2005, Zach Braff (connu par la série Scrubs) sort son premier long-métrage, un film à la fois décalé, triste et drôle, à consonance autobiographique. Résultat : c’est l’histoire d’une magnifique rencontre entre deux personnages que tout opposent, Sam (jouée admirablement par Natalie Portman) et Large (Zach Braff lui-même). A voir et revoir. Jean Pierre Jeunet le dit “Original, inspiré. Zach Braff est un surdoué.” Et on ne peut que lui donner raison.

Big Fish
De Tim Burton

A venir

Inglorious Basterds
De Quentin Tarantino

La seconde guerre mondiale revisitée par QT avec un casting hallucinant composé d’acteurs qui s’amusent (Brad Pitt, Diane Kruger, Mélanie Laurent), des scènes et des répliques bientôt cultes (“I want my scalp ” ou ” That’s a bingoo”). Et une grande révélation : Christoph Waltz.

District 9
De Neill Blomkamp

La première moitié de District 9 montre un film très, très impressionnant. Filmé en permanence sous le point de vue de caméras de télévisions, de caméras de sécurité ou d’hélicoptères, la réalisation est nerveuse, bluffante. Graphiquement, les aliens sont plus que crédibles… Scénaristiquement, l’orginalité est de mise, tant dans la personnalité du personnage que dans le synopsis.
Malheureusement, tout bascule durant la seconde moitié du film. Fusillades, fumée, militaire au crâne rasé, héros héroïque et grands sentiments. C’est dommage. A voir tout de même, et inventer sa propre fin.

28 jours plus tard
De Danny Boyle

Ça aurait pu être un banal film-de-zombies-qui-fait-peur, mais Danny Boyle (Slumdog milionnaire) arrive à composer quelque chose d’étonnant et de profond sur un sujet pourtant déjà pas mal traité (notamment par Romero). Filmé du style documentaire (repris dans des films comme Cloverfield ou plus réussi Rec), les passages qui se déroulent dans un Londres totalement vide sont très réussits. Et la présence du charismatique Cillian Murphy apporte beaucoup au film.

Victor Victoria
De Blake Edwards

“Une femme qui prétend être un homme qui prétend être une femme.” C’est sur tout ce paradoxe que se fonde ce film pétillant et tendre. On pardonne à Victor Victoria des longueurs et une fin qui n’en est pas une puisque Julie Andrews illumine joliment ce film. Blake Edwards sait mêler à la perfection scènes burlesques et numéros musicaux dignes de Broadway. La partie centrale du film est un pur délice.

Un prophète
De Jacques Audiard

Un magnifique film de Jacques Audiard sur l’univers carcéral ou l’histoire de Malik un petit qui deviendra grand (joué extraordinairement par Tahar Rahim). C’est beau, brutal et le film mérite plus que jamais son premier prix du jury à Cannes.

Peau d’âne / Les parapluies de Cherbourg
De Jacques Demy

Deux comédies musicales de Jacques Demy très touchantes, poétiques et colorées. Peau d’âne est une reprise fidèle du conte : des morceaux entiers de dialogues ou de narrations sont extraits du conte de Perrault. Cependant, les quelques touches de modernité et la présence de Delphine Seyrig décalent à merveille ce conte classique. Les Parapluies de Cherbourg, quant à lui, présente une histoire d’amour déchirante entièrement en chanté. Les couleurs et les décors sont ici l’atout fort de ce film parfois plaintif, mais jamais agaçant.
Dans les deux cas, Demy et Deneuve nous enchantent.

L’armée du crime
De Robert Guédiguian

Le film est plus intéressant par son propos que par sa forme : l’histoire de l’armée Manouchian, groupe de résistants immigrés durant la seconde guerre mondiale est passionnante. On regrette juste que la mise en scène soit inexistante, mais certains acteurs (comme Robinson Stévenin ou Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet) sont particulièrement convaincants.

En indisk film om en typisk underdogkille från slummen som av någon anledning får vara med i Vem vill bli miljonär och som slår alla med häpnad genom att svara rätt på fråga efter fråga. Frånsett alla Oscars och generellt goda ordalag är det just handlingen som hållit mig borta från Slumdog Millionaire. Det låter inte speciellt intressant helt enkelt.

Men för att få ha en åsikt måste man veta vad man pratar om, så det var helt enkelt bara att sätta sig ner och se Danny Boyles framgångssaga once and for all.

Första halvan är riktigt tråkig och rätt taskigt berättad. Jag hade enorma problem med att skilja bröderna åt när de visades som yngst. Sen undrar jag varför programledaren var tvungen att vara ond? Han nämnde att han var den enda som lyckats gå hela vägen innan. Är det av avundsjuka han gör som han gör? Är han bara ond rakt igenom? Är det djävulen? Många frågor, få svar.

Även hela kärlekshistorien, som ju filmen i mångt och mycket bygger på är riktigt tråkig. Däremot är jag rätt blödig och de sista 20 minuterna lyckas uppnå precis rätt mängd blödigt kärlekstjafs med en stor portion spänning därtill för att lyckas hos mig.

Nu är den sedd och jag kan inte på något sätt säga att jag önskar ha den osedd, för den är faktiskt rätt bra. Men bästa film år 2008? Pff! Nej du!

Betyg: Tre instabila pladd

Last Friday, while attempting to write yet another lengthy post about the London Film Festival, I was repeatedly distracted by Twitter. This is nothing new. However, one of the people I follow whose name escapes me now (sorry) linked to an article posted on the film discussion site The Auteurs. I’d heard of it before but stayed away as I thought it had something to do with the dreary Luke Haines band, but in fact it’s a nice way to completely waste hours of your time, rating and “favouriting” movies to create a Profile for yourself, complete with representative movie still selection so you can have an iconic image next to your name (I went with Gene Hackman in The Conversation). It was pleasantly pointless, though I did take enormous pleasure in giving Slumdog Millionaire and Happy-Go-Lucky one star each, and Kung Fu Panda the five stars it so richly deserves. Take that, Sight and Sound subscribers.

The article that directed me to this site via Twitter was this lovely little prose poem half-heartedly giving Michael Bay some credit while referring to “fascism” and suchlike. This is possibly the only even vaguely positive critique of Bay’s work I’ve seen on the Internet that hasn’t been written by a teenager with an apostrophe allergy, and as such deserves to be preserved in amber. It might never happen again. As I said earlier this year, my opinion of Bay is torn between fascination and revulsion, the latter becoming more pronounced after the casual (but no less odious) racial insensitivity of Transformers — with the breakdancing jive-talking African-American parody known as Jazz getting killed in the final act, as is sadly the norm in movies — “transformed” into the full-on indefensible racial stereotyping of Skids and Mudflap. Shades of Caruso reader and former Transformers fan Lindywasp (one of her noms de Net) once sent me a very passionate disavowal of the sequel after an upsetting experience at a screening where the audience went from excited to silence once the extent of the caricature settled in. I was concerned by Bay’s decision before, but after reading her heartfelt condemnation, I became furious.

Though I’ll not be able to think of Bay without thinking about that incredible cloth-eared arrogance, I have still long been fascinated — as Daisyhellcakes can attest, having listened to me go on about it at length — by his public persona as the Fratboy DeMille, a man who stomps around like an over-excited teenager while making canny backroom deals for profit points, keeping the cost of his (sill expensive) movies down with obnoxious product placement, and buying effects houses such as Digital Domain. This bravado is ripe for parody, most brilliantly by the faux-Twitterer Fake Michael Bay (sample tweet: “Dammit, if I had a dollar for every time I dropped my iphone out of a helicopter doing a barrel roll…”), though I suspect he’s in on the joke.

Even more fascinating to me than Bay the Man/Douchebag is that signature style of his. Like haphazardly edited two-hour-long trailers, his films are plot-light endurance tests; a relentless swarm of images that he hurls at the audience, seemingly not caring why image B must follow image A. As long as the barrage of glowing, flashing, swirling pictures and the cacophony of multi-tracked sound effects keeps audiences pinned to their seats, Bay seems to think “Job done!” and then returns to his swanky Bay-Cave to drink Crystal and watch Total Wipeout. Is this good filmmaking? Hell no, and as I’ve attempted to explain before, I would never be able to argue that it was (though Danny Boyle’s similar everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach wins critical approval and Oscars). However, he does create an experience that no one else has the studio backing, the technical know-how, and the obnoxious confidence to be able to pull off.

Examples: Transformers ends with a city being pulverised, complete with epic firefights on a main street that totals buildings and blows up cars. The destruction-gasm setpiece in Pearl Harbor — a wretched film of enormous ethical dubiousness — contains the single most expensive shot caught on film, which is ghoulish, wasteful, and logistically impressive all at the same time. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is capped off with a huge scene where an Egyptian village gets mashed into the ground, pretty much (I’m sure it was not a real village, but if it’s fake he still managed to get it built before blowing bits of it up). He shows aircraft carriers getting split in half as if it ain’t no thing. These are stereotypically big and dumb crowd-pleasing moments that I’m sure Eric Rohmer’s fanbase would consider utterly vulgar, but they look impressive in slices. It’s not in Bay’s interest to coral these images into a coherent narrative other than “Man go from point A to point B while the world explodes.” It’s enough for him to hint that there is a goal that his heroes are trying to achieve, and as long as it seems there is some kind of forward momentum while he stages bravura visual orgasms containing complicated visual and physical effects, that’s enough for him.

Again, I’m aware that this is not technically artistically valid on a large-scale level, but on a micro-level, I cannot look away. Every dumb populist miscalculation like his nasty treatment of women, or his blindness to the wrongness of using racial stereotypes for stupid lowest-common denominator jokes, or his infantile reliance on slapstick and screaming instead of nuance and character growth, or any number of other admittedly dreadful habits, run parallel to his facility with composition. There are so many shots he has created that make my eyes wobble with pleasure that I cannot forget them. His reliance on patriotic button-pushing aside, he can create stirring moments just through imagery in a way that would probably make propagandists salivate. That ability to capture an emotion through manipulative visuals, aided by the pounding music of Hans Zimmer or Steve Jablonsky, is unparalleled. He truly is Leni Riefenstahl with a baseball cap and a collection of sports-cars in his Beverly Hills mansion.

And yet, despite this facility with imagery — perhaps the one thing I think even his detractors should accept, even if really really really grudgingly — he is treated like the Boogeyman. Numerous people accuse Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen of being the worst film of the year. Granted, it’s not very good, but I’ve seen far far far worse movies released this year. Just a cursory flick through the Auteurs site sees a number of forum threads based around hating him, including Why is Michael Bay on Criterion?, Is Michael Bay the worst director of all time?, and Reasons to *HATE* Michael Bay. The thread NAME THE FILM MAKERS YOU THINK SHOULD RETIRED OR SHOULD NOT BELONG TO THIS INDUSTRY AT ALL is filled with calls for Bay’s immediate withdrawal from the film industry. I get the feeling that this is a running joke, though it is borne of genuine frustration at his movies and his success.

They’re not the only ones who dislike him, of course. Mainstream critics are revolted by his movies, and even on a site oft-visited by the people you would think comprise his most ardent fanbase (Ain’t It Cool News), Bay is treated like a pariah. “Damn You Michael Bay” is a long-running Internet joke that has become a mantra. Bay hatred appears to be reflexive, the last word in an argument. Why accuse any other filmmakers of crimes against decency? Isn’t it obvious that Bay is the worst of the worst, representing everything that is debased and evil about modern cinema? He’s an unpleasant man with poor taste who appeals to the slack-jawed yokels and the hoodies and the youths with their popcorn and their knives and their mobile phones and suchlike and so on and so on etc. ad infinitum.

He’s the Hitler of films. Mike Godwin postulated that the overuse of mentioning Hitler in online arguments was sadly inevitable (“As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.”) Well, I reckon that there is another law we can accept as fact by now. “As an online discussion about film or culture grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Michael Bay approaches 1.” I don’t think this law should be associated with my real life name, which doesn’t have the Ooomph that “Godwin” has (that’s the kind of name that belongs in front of the word “law”). Therefore I propose we refer to this as Burke’s Law, named after the TV series from the 60s that was revived in the 90s. Why Burke’s Law? Because I always hear that phrase said in the same way as in the 90s title sequence, i.e. with this voice…

…and there is nothing more awesome than that. Sex up that show title, Sexy-Voiced Lady. (Here’s the first part of a full episode, just to show it in amazing context.)

So yeah, whenever a discussion about sucky film directors inevitably begins to focus almost exclusively on the vapidity of Bay’s destructo-porn epics, feel free to mention Burke’s Law. If Bay is what people think represents the true nadir of modern filmmaking, that’s up to them, but if they’re not willing to expand their search to other far less talented individuals out there, then I just can’t take them seriously. I see Dr. Uwe Boll get mentioned a lot, and he’s certainly a candidate. He’s made a shit-ton of laughably awful movies in the past — many more than Bay — and he has now tried to make himself seem classier by making a film about Darfur. However, he’s filming real rape victims re-enacting their own rape for his camera. Making fun of his shitty output suddenly doesn’t seem so funny.

If we’re going to talk about directors who create deafening, poorly storyboarded and edited action scenes that substitute crashing, clashing cacophony for flow and plot momentum, how about Stephen Sommers? He combines Bay’s inability to understand the clear, unambiguous narrative progression of a movie or an action scene with a flat eye for visuals, as evidenced by the busy but tedious G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra? Or Rob Cohen, a man who has yet to make even a half-way decent action movie? Though I’ve not seen his most recent movie — Fast and Furious — I did endure Stealth (where some of the best visual effects ever committed to film were wasted on a farrago of galactic proportions) and The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, which actually managed to be the worst film in the Mummy franchise. It takes a special kind of witless hack to out-Stephen-Sommers Stephen Sommers. I’d rather watch a Bay action scene than something by either of these guys any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

I’d also like to make the case for Robert Luketic, who keeps pumping out the most artless dreck, seemingly with no understanding of what cinema can do. His last three films were lifeless committee-borne crowd-pleasers that couldn’t even be bothered to do anything pleasurable, rendered even more unbearable by being presented in a lifeless cavalcade of wretchedly awful compositions. As a bonus they also featured either reductive, retrograde gender-politics (Monster-In-Law and The Ugly Truth) or ethnic white-washing (the utterly worthless 21). Or what about Jon Avnet, aka the modern day Ed Wood? His last two movies — Righteous Kill and the incredible 88 Minutes — were among the most catastrophically misjudged movies I have ever seen, made by someone without a single artistic bone in his body. It’s so bad that I suspect he doesn’t even understand the scripts he adapts. No matter how hard he tries, he will never be able to come up with a single memorable or inspiring image in his entire career. Not counting this one with Leelee Sobieski taking aim, that is.

If you’ve thought long and hard about it and have come to the conclusion that Bay is less talented than these directors, or that he represents something far greater than just bad filmmaking (i.e. he’s a mascot for the debasement of the culture at large), or that his Platinum Dunes production company is committing a terrible crime by making bland remakes of great horror movies, or that the compositions I love are just ugly but shiny commercialised parodies of actual art, or that he’s the worst kind of patriotism-spouting pro-military arrested adolescent, or even that he’s just an obnoxious douchebag (James Cameron without the brains or the talent), that’s perfectly understandable. I’m cool with that, if you show me your calculations. But don’t just say, “Michael Bay is the worst director ever” because that’s the accepted wisdom. That’s not film criticism. That’s letting someone else do your thinking for you.

Slumdog Millionaire has not yet finished its victorious run at award ceremonies as the Mumbai-based potboiler has picked up five nods at the 2009 European Film Awards.

While British director Danny Boyle has been nominated for the award of ‘Best European Director’, Dev Patel has been nominated to receive ‘Best European Actor’ prize, reported Ace Showbiz online.

The rags-to-riches film which won eight Academy Awards this year has also been nominated in ‘Best European Film’, ‘Best European Screenwriter’ and ‘Best European Cinematographer’ categories.

Competing with Slumdog Millionaire in the five categories is Jacques Audiard’s A Prophet, which leads the pack with six nominations.

At the same event, Penelope Cruz is nominated for ’Best European Actress’ for her role in Broken Embraces and her competition includes Kate Winslet in The Reader, and Charlotte Gainsbourg in Antichrist.

The winner of the 22nd European Film Awards will be announced at a gala night which is going to be held on December 12 in Bochum, Germany.

German comedy star Anke Engelke will serve as the host of the show, while British director Ken Loach and French actress Isabelle Huppert will be among the guests of the event.

So, last week I blogged about the lack of imagination and message in franchise horror movies. I said that, essentially, franchise horror is the “safe choice,” which is what makes it so popular. I also claimed that I don’t really “get” the appeal of franchise horror movies. For the most part, this is true. While, like many horror fans, I enjoy the “ride” predictable horror movies provide, I still require some kind of moral question, or a good reason behind the violence on screen. Otherwise, I feel like the movie just isn’t worth my time.

Perhaps that’s why, in the entirety of my experience watching horror movies, there is one particular subgenre that, although it’s one of the most formulaic, manages to consistently present a message along with massive amounts of gore. That subgenre is the zombie movie.

Ever since George Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead” kicked everything into messy high gear in 1968, the zombie has come to represent more than just an undead cannibal corpse lusting after brains. The zombie is the perfect blank slate for horror movie symbolism. It can represent just about anything you want. The zombie has been used to represent consumerism (“Dawn of the Dead,”) suburban complacency, (“Shaun of the Dead,”) racism and fear of the other (“Night of the Living Dead,” “Land of the Dead”). Romero has said of his films, “My movies are about other things, and zombies are just an annoyance.” In a zombie movie, it’s not the zombies that are actually the important thing. What’s important is the human drama created by their presence.

That human drama is the characteristic that, in my mind, makes the zombie movie so cool, as well as easy to replicate. Zombie movies follow a formula that is tailor-made to create moral dilemmas and human tension. Generally what happens is this: Zombies attack. The main character, in an attempt to escape the carnage, falls in with another survivor, or a group of survivors. After barricading themselves into a makeshift stronghold, the group tentatively starts forming connections. But there’s always at least one jerk that ruins it for everyone else. Arguments and accusations start flying, someone gets bitten, everyone gets conflicted over whether or not they should kill said bite victim. After waiting too long to make a decision (they always wait too long, instead choosing to discuss the ethical implications), the bitten friend or relative comes back to life, at which point all the outside zombies somehow find a way to infiltrate the stronghold, where there is the Final Showdown. At this point, there are usually two outcomes: a) everyone dies, b) the two characters with romantic chemistry survive to (we can only assume) repopulate the earth.

See what I mean? Yes, you can probably figure out from moment one of a zombie movie what’s going to happen and how, but the dynamic that emerges when anxious people with differing points of view are boarded up in one room and asked to work together or die can be just fascinating to watch.

Whenever I’m asked to convince people as to what makes zombie movies a genre worthy of attention, I give two examples: “Dawn of the Dead” (Romero’s original), and “28 Days Later.” Both are excellent representations of zombie movies at their political and morally thoughtful best.

“Dawn of the Dead” strikes me as the most politicized of Romero’s catalog. The consumerist tone is clearly presented from the moment the protagonists set up camp in the shopping mall. At one point, looking over the undead mob congregating outside the mall, one character, Peter, muses, “They’re after the place. They don’t know why, they just remember. Remember that they want to be in here.” Romero is presenting his audience with the notion that, as consumers, people are sheep. We want stuff, and lots of it. We don’t know why, we just know that we want it. In another scene, the whole group of survivors goes hog wild in a department store, excited that they can now appropriate anything they could possibly need or want for free. The mall is their haven. After a while, of course, as is the fashion with zombie movies, everything falls apart. But while it lasts, the situation seems pretty nice.

“28 Days Later” is, in my opinion, about as good a movie as you can find in either the zombie subgenre, or the horror genre as a whole. Generally speaking, director Danny Boyle’s movies can be pretty hit-or-miss, but his horror movies and psychological thrillers tend to be right on the money. His first film, “Shallow Grave,” presented audiences with a moral dilemma if ever there was one, and “28 Days Later” does exactly the same thing. Essentially, the audience is given this horrible apocalyptic situation, and two different ways that people choose to survive in that situation. We could take the moral high ground, with Cillian Murphy and Brendan Gleeson, and realize the importance of maintaining human connection in a mostly-abandoned world. Or, if straight-up ruthless survival sounds better, we can side with Christopher Eccleston and his sexually frustrated soldiers. Of course, Boyle sends the message that the way of Eccleston and co. is basically the road to self-destruction, but you can’t help but feel a little bad for the guy. He may have acted horribly but, in the end, he was only doing what he thought was right.

Zombie movies may be formulaic. They may be easy to set up. But, unlike so many other subgenres, they have the potential to make an audience think. We laugh at the zombies trying to force their way into the mall in “Dawn of the Dead,” or the zombie carnival in “Land of the Dead” because these things are absurd. But, if we consider what these characterizations are meant to represent, how absurd do they make us look? Zombie movies are, at their most basic level, an opportunity for a director to turn the camera back on his audience and say “Look. These guys are us. They are what we have become.” If they want to throw a gallon or two of red corn syrup around for emphasis, then so much the better.

El otro día revisando mís DVDs (quizás tenga más de 100 originales), me volví a encontrar con una de las mejores películas (al menos para mí, claro) que he visto de terror de todos los tiempos.

28 Dias Después fué creada en el año 2002 por el director Danny Boyle y por el guionista Alex Garland, con la influencia de las grandes obras del genero de terror pero dandole un sello único, creando una película fresca, potente ; imponente visualmente, rápida  y violenta pero sobre todo distinta. 28 Días Despues es ese tipo de películas (tan escaso desgraciadamente) que te engancha de principio a fin.

Una de las cosas más interesantes del film es observar el comportamiento y degradación del sel humano en situaciones difíciles y conflictivas, donde se pierde la racionalidad y donde la violencia impera con naturalidad con el único sentido de defender la vida.

Si no la habeis visto os la recomiendo , yo no me canso de verla y es de las pocas peliculas que he visto más de dos veces.

Por último recomendaros tambien la BSO, de lo mejorcito , perfectamente adaptada a los ritmos de la película y creando el ambiente necesario para dotar al cojunto de un nivel sobresaliente.

Que la disfruteis y os dejo el trailer.

]]> http://controreazioni.wordpress.com/2009/11/08/la-comunidad-%e2%80%93-breve-dissertazione-sulle-psicosi-collettive/ Sun, 08 Nov 2009 17:27:41 +0000 controreazioni http://controreazioni.wordpress.com/2009/11/08/la-comunidad-%e2%80%93-breve-dissertazione-sulle-psicosi-collettive/

Regia: Álex de la Iglesia

Interpreti: Carmen Maura, Eduardo Antuña, María Asquerino, Jesús Bonilla, Marta Fernández Muro, Paca Gabaldón, Ane Gabarain, Sancho Gracia, Emilio Gutiérrez Caba, Kiti Manver.

Paese: Spagna (2000)

Pluripremiato dalle giurie di diversi Festival spagnoli soprattutto grazie, ma non solo, alla bravura indiscussa di Carmen Maura, la pellicola dello Álex de la Iglesia è un thriller realizzato in chiave grottesca e considerato da molti una vera e propria commedia. Uscito nelle sale nel 2000 La Comunidad è stato sottotitolato “Intrigo all’ultimo piano” e ricorda sotto molti aspetti L’inquilino del terzo piano di Roman Polanski, ma vi si trovano riferimenti anche di altri stili di regia nonché influenze di thriller e gialli non necessariamente spagnoli. La storia della Comunità di de la Iglesia ha inizio con il ritrovamento del cadavere, in avanzato stato di decomposizione, di un anziano signore che abitava l’appartamento dell’ultimo piano di uno stabile cittadino. Al piano inferiore si stabilisce Julia (Carmen Maura), un’avvenente quarantenne che lavora per un’agenzia immobiliare e che, nel tentativo di vendere il lussuoso appartamento, scopre casualmente un’infiltrazione al soffitto. Dopo l’intervento dei vigili del fuoco e la rimozione del cadavere, si sparge tra gli inquilini del palazzo una strana agitazione che diverrà una vera guerra nei confronti della nuova arrivata, specialmente dopo che Julia avrà scoperto lo strano tesoro del vecchio deceduto.

La comunità di Álex de la Iglesia è costituita da singoli elementi, tutti quanti più meno ben caratterizzati, che si rivelano mossi da profondo egoismo e che fingono di perseguire il bene collettivo. Lo scopo finale di ognuno di essi è di godere del tesoro ambito per anni in perfetta solitudine e, pensando di sfruttare l’ingenuità del prossimo, approfittano dell’invidia di tutti gli inquilini del palazzo. Coesi contro l’ultima arrivata, gli inquilini si mostrano dapprima accoglienti e calorosi per poi divenire astiosi come i vicini di casa di uno sfortunato Trelkovski qualsiasi. Il regista coglie bene le ambiguità dei condomini e ne amplifica le loro inquietanti esistenze attraverso i pettegolezzi, i volti truccati, le tacite invidie, fino ad arrivare a un incidente/omidicio di uno di loro (breve omaggio a Dario Argento). I dubbi di Julia – e dello spettatore – divengono certezze e la donna comprende di essere in pericolo. La protagonista è un personaggio pragmatico e coraggioso e, forse a prima vista, anche senza scrupoli ma si renderà presto conto di quanto sia realmente diversa dal resto della comunità. Attraverso piccoli inserti comici (passando per le divertenti citazioni di Star Wars e del mondo del fumetto di cui l’autore è un fan) traspare un cinismo disumano simile al delizioso Shallow Grave di Danny Boyle con musiche vivaci alternate a zone di inquietudine. La colonna sonora è stata composta da Roque Baños, celebre per la somiglianza con Bernard Herrmann, compositore, questi, delle musiche dei film hitchcockiani. E l’influenza del “maestro del brivido” è senz’altro la più significativa ed è presente più o meno ovunque nella pellicola: dall’impianto della storia al modo di girare alcune scene, dai titoli introduttivi alla scelta di una protagonista bionda e filiforme.  

Il set personalmente mi ha ricordato Rec, un horror spagnolo recentissimo e girato nell’interno di un palazzo molto simile a quello della Comunidad: poca luce, incuria delle scale, porte in legno scuro e dal gusto estetico anticato. Per una questione temporale è più probabile che i registi di Rec si siano rifatti (forse) a Álex de la Iglesia. L’intro del film mi è parsa davvero efficace e rappresenta una bella metafora che racchiude l’intero significato del racconto: un gatto si ciba incurante delle carni in putrefazione del proprio padrone. Non è forse una sublime evocazione del cinismo?  La Comunidad, oltre che un omaggio al giallo di Hitchcock e al suo modo autoriale di fare Cinema (prendendosi così poco sul serio…), è un’interessante dissertazione sulle psicosi collettive che investono i gruppi di persone. Nulla di geniale certamente ma nemmeno da buttare per chi vuole godersi una discreta serata cinematografica rispolverando i cardini di uno dei padri del Cinema moderno.

chiarOscura

Who wants to be a millionaire?

(Fox Searchlight) Dev Patel, Freida Pinto, Madhur Mittal, Anil Kapoor, Irrfan Khan, Saurabh Shukla, Mahesh Manjrekar, Ankur Vikal. Directed by Danny Boyle

When you live in abject poverty, survival is a day to day issue and nothing is guaranteed, least of all the possibility of a better tomorrow. However as difficult as it is to escape the slums, if that is what love requires of you then it must be done.

Young Jamal Malik (Patel) is a contestant on the Indian version of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.” He is one question away from the grand prize of 20 million rupees when he is arrested by police and questioned. They are suspicious that a boy like this from the slums, uneducated and unaware even of who is on the 1,000 rupee note (It’s Gandhi for those who are wondering, and for those who aren’t, this particular banknote is about as common as the $1 bill is here) can answer questions that even the highly educated cannot.

After a night of torture, a patient police detective (Khan) sits Jamal down and runs through the tape of the previous day’s show one question at a time.

It turns out that Jamal’s knowledge is hard-fought, obtained from a life on the streets of Mumbai. Orphaned at an early age along with older brother Salim (Mittal), the brothers befriend a fellow orphan, the beautiful Latika (Pinto). The three are taken under the wing of Maman (Vikal) who turns out to be a heartless gangster who has accumulated dozens of children in his “orphanage” to act as beggars. He even, in a particularly gruesome scene, has the eyes burned out of some of their heads with acid to then be scooped out with a spoon like so much yoghurt. Salim leads them on a breakout but when he and Jamal make it onto a train, Salim purposely slips his hand away from Latika’s so that she gets captured.

The brothers wind up working – okay, scamming would be a better word – as tour guides at the Taj Mahal, brazenly telling tourists false facts about the Taj and throwing up bigger lies when their own stories are questioned. They are making good money but Jamal misses Latika, to his brothers’ disgust and urges them to go back to Mumbai and find her. When they do, they discover that Maman has been preparing her as a highly sought after virgin prostitute and is getting ready to make good on his investment by selling her virginity to the highest bidder. Salim winds up shooting and killing Maman. He then uses that to get a job with rival gangster Javed (Manjrekar) and proceeds to throw Jamal out of the apartment they share with Latika. Jamal’s heart is broken because Latika is apparently siding with Salim.

Years later, Jamal winds up working at a call center as a chaiwalla (tea server) and uses the database to find both Latika and Salim but succeeds only in finding Salim. Salim is penitent but Jamal is still focused on Latika. Salim is bewildered by his devotion and responds that she is “long gone.” When Jamal follows Salim to his house, he discovers that Latika is there but is apparently living with Javed. Jamal brazenly bluffs his way into the gangster’s house and confesses his love for her. She is reluctant to go with him, knowing that Javed would be furious but he promises to wait for her in Mumbai’s largest train station every day at 5:00pm “until she comes.” One day she does come but before the two can re-unite, she is kidnapped by Javed’s men (including Salim) in front of Jamal’s horrified eyes. One of the men cruelly slashes her cheek with a knife, driving away from an enraged Jamal.

When Jamal goes back to Javed’s house, he finds that the gangster has moved away. With no way to find his beloved, he decides to take a chance – to go on a game show that she is sure to be watching, and stay on as long as he can. And so far, he has stayed on as long as he can go – because every question has had an answer from some incident in Jamal’s life. But can he answer the biggest question of all – will he wind up with the love of his life?

Director Boyle has had a chameleon-like career, with movies as disparate as Trainspotting, Million$ and Sunshine to his credit. Here he takes Bollywood conceits and blends them nicely with western storytelling and creates one of the most heartfelt movies of the year. Winner of eight Oscars, including Best Picture, the movie captures the poverty of the slums and the heartlessness of those who exploit those in it. There are some exemplary moments in the movie.

The storytelling style has drawn some fire, which I find hard to understand. Yes, it might be a bit serendipitous that the questions on the game show echo things that happened in Jamal’s life in chronological order, but it doesn’t take that much of a suspension of disbelief. The flashback style by now isn’t anything particularly innovative, and I for one had no problem following the story.

Also worthy of note is the acting. The leads Patel and Pinto are particularly stellar; giving performances that belie that this is the first time either has acted in a feature movie (Patel has some television experience in Britain). Their chemistry is noticeable and more believable than some larger-budget pairings between established stars.

Many of the supporting cast, drawn from Bollywood, is also solid. I was fond of the heinous gangster as enacted by Vikal, as well as the smarmy game show host with an agenda of his own, which was played by the veteran Anil Kapoor. Special notice must also be given to the child actors who portrayed the two brothers and Latika at various stages of their life. Some of them had no experience whatsoever and were actually drawn from the slums of Mumbai.

The score by A.R. Rahman is superb, combining traditional Indian music along with hip-hop, r&b, rock and other western forms. The result is, like the movie, an engaging multi-cultural stew that gives us a glimpse of an entirely different world. In that sense, Slumdog Millionaire is science fiction, only it goes no further than our own world and reminds us that as a race we are far more diverse and wonderful than even we know.

WHY RENT THIS: Like other Danny Boyle movies, this one has a great deal of heart. Astonishing performances by first-time feature actors Patel and Pinto. A glimpse at an entirely different world than we in the West is used to.  

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: The hype for this underdog movie may well have exceeded its performance. Some of the scenes of poverty, desperation, crime and torture may be too much for some.

FAMILY VALUES: Some graphic scenes of child abuse and depictions of abject poverty. Also some violence, sex and foul language, enough that would make me think twice before letting the kids watch this one.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: This is the only Best Picture winner to date to win the Oscar without any former or future Oscar winners in the cast.

NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: The DVD release is curiously lacking in anything but the basic deleted scenes-commentary-making of feature-trailer package that accompanies every major release, which considering this won 8 Oscars last year is awfully strange. The Blu-Ray contains all this plus a 41 minute Indian short, as well as an examination of the set-up and execution of the notorious toilet scene.

FINAL RATING: 8/10

TOMORROW: The Box

Danny, ci hai provato ancora a fare il gradasso, con il tuo fido Garland a scribacchiare a destra e a manca e…ce l’hai fatta ancora. ‘28 Giorni Dopo’ era stato il tuo grande film. Non un capolavoro, ovviamente, ma forse uno dei più convincenti container di desolazione e mostri ad essere filmati nella Londra dopo il millennium bug. Avevi dimostrato che, volendo, si poteva portare alle masse quella roba con stile, senza sbordare in facilonerie da blockbuster. E ora: brit-sci-fi, dalle superstrade evacuate agli spazi siderali ancor più deserti, in cui si muovono pugni di uomini alla deriva, in missione per conto dell’umanità intera. I giardini non basteranno a salvarli dalla spiazzante follia che si annida a otto minuti luce da qui: se prima c’era l’utilitarsmo pragmatico dei militari, qui la dura legge dei sopravvissuti sottoscrive normative che probabilmente non contano ormai più. La minuta dimensione dell’uomo di fronte all’immensita della stella da cui dipendiamo. Di sicuro, ‘Sunshine’ non va frainteso. Il film di Boyle è efficace – ambienti, cablaggio, dinamiche, clima – e brucia chilometri sulla concorrenza europea più recente – il fallito ‘Dante 01′, di Marc Caro -, ma sicuramente paga il dazio a volersi prostrare così umilmente di fronte alle salme di Tarkovski o Kubrick da cui sembra attingere pesantemente. Materializza il sogno di tanti hard-player di ‘Homeworld’, solo che in questa occasione speciale non ci sono test balistici, invasioni da pianificare o esplosioni repentine: solo otto membri della razza umana che gingillano con terminali e bombe, a qualche isolato più in là della propria casa, in quella metropoli cosmica che è il nostro Universo. Senza troppi giri di parole, la trama si snocciola sorniona, dirottando gli spettatori verso la sensazione sotto pelle, il baratro claustrofobico, la stella giganteggiante, e quando vuole azzardare disquisizioni ontologiche, lo fa secondo misura, senza infamia e senza lode. Sappiamo già che questo sarà un male per tutti coloro che bramano fantascienza antropologica: rischia di appiattire il nocciolo di un film che potenzialmente avrebbe molto (tutto?) da dire e che invece talvolta si limita a gettare il sasso e a nascondersi dietro un dito; se alla fine si finisce col rimanere acchiappati per la gola dalle ansie, le inquietudini e le necessità che lo percorrono, è merito della magnifica meccanica formale (mdp e musiche), che punta direttamente all’occhio e alle orecchie, anestetizzando il cervello e abbassando la guardia su tutto ciò manca per incensarlo come il Grande Film di fantascienza del nostro tempo. Comunque sia, Danny, hai fatto un ottimo lavoro, tutto sommato. E pensare che molti ti ricordano a malapena per l’adattamento di un pessimo libro di Irvine Welsh…