Marc Ambit Reviews

Timeless (1996)

Not Kane, but quite aesthetic and even poetic

[7/10 · 2 December 2003]

Although this is not, in anyway, a perfect movie, it has some of those intangible values that make a movie worth seeing.

Probably, the story has been told millions of times (suburban boy with drunk father meets suburban girl engaged as a hooker by his pimp, an wants to liberate her from all that stuff). It's absolutely true that it doesn't bring anything new. But the storytelling, the narrative is, I might say, if not innovative, at least nice and suggesting.

With a low calm pace and with some still shots of the city and the sorrounding area where the characters roam around, the feeling of the movie is quite touching and even aesthetically poetic.

This movie attended to Sundance '96 and, as I said, really deserves a look if you're finished enjoying that "American Pie" s***. This is serious cinema. Might like it or not, but don't be fooled; this may not be Citizen Kane, but it's art, not entertainment ;-)

Diagonal Symphony (1924)

The beginning of a new art expression

[9/10 · 1 October 2000]

With this movie, Eggeling found a new way of artistic expression that was followed later by Hans Richter, Oskar Fishinger, Walter Ruttmann and Norman McLaren.

Eggeling was trying to explore new paths, new manners, and he really did it. This new media, cinema, brought something that painters such as Eggeling himself could never reach with their paintings: time. Including a new dimension in their artwork was something very challenging for them. It was like mobile paintings. And this is exactly what Eggeling built up in this Symphonie Diagonale.

Eggeling uses *only* images (some geometrical animation) to make music! Yes!, that's it! I know it sound rare but he did it! Just try to imagine how, without any sound, just by showing us moving drawings, Eggeling makes us feel rhythm, musical patterns and figures. I would say that, even if the viewer is not a musical expert, he/she will surely discover, at least, the basics of music (rhythm, for instance).

Eggeling's masterpiece is a trip into music, a magical illusion and a sensible picture of music through a different language. Something nobody should miss.

Master of the House (1925)

Who says Dreyer is boring?

[8/10 · 27 September 2000]

After seeing this movie (along with many other Dreyer's movies) I still wonder why people think that this Danish director is kind of boring.

This is perfect example of what Dreyer's cinematography is and what is not. This is a film where you can find some gentle spirit lying beneath. Some sort of quietness that fulfils the whole movie. As in many other of his early movies, Dreyer puts the spectator in a superior level. We are given the opportunity to watch an everyday's scene: a woman subjugated to a spoilt man's will. We watch her wake up early in the morning, wash dishes, clean the whole house, prepare her husband's breakfast and all she gets in exchange is bad manners and retreats from him. The complot that the nanny builds up to make the man feel guilty and so, to make him behave, unfolds in a subtle and sometimes funny way, making the watching more enjoyable from the distance.

It's hard to describe the perfect acting that the main characters bring to this beautiful film; an acting full of details and emotion.

Enjoyable form the first frame to the last one, this film will work perfectly for Dreyer's fans as long as for those who ever thought this was a tough one. It's, probably, the perfect bridge to approach to Dreyer's masterpieces such as "Ordet" and "Gertrud".

Hope you like it as much as I did.

F for Fake (1973)

The masterful legacy of the man who changed the history of modern cinema

[9/10 · 17 September 2000]

"F for fake" stands for the last movie Orson Welles really directed and, as for many artistic legacies it's the final demonstration of the genius of the artist, becoming some kind of briefing of his entire career.

It's hard to explain this movie and why I really enjoyed because, as many other Welles's movies, it's full of surprises and twists.

Filmed as a Documentary, this film introduces us the personae of Elmyr, a painter who lives out of painting copies of famous pictures of Van Gogh, Picasso, Vlaminck and many others and making them look like they're the original one. Welles also introduces to us two more people; an actress and a biographer.

With many resemblances to Welles's own life, the director of such wonderful pieces as "Citizen Kane" and "Touch of Evil" plays with the audience some sort of magical trickery. What is real and what is not? If Elmyr is able to paint a perfect copy of a famous picture and fool the world greatest experts, is he as good artist as the originals he's copying?

Working as a perfect metaphore of Welles own experiences in art (he's not only been movie director but radio speaker and even painter) "F for Fake" remains as a perfect legacy of the ideas of one of the greatest and most gifted cinema artists. Don't miss it!