nachocorces Reviews

New Wave (1990)

Rediscovering the poetry

[9/10 · 30 June 2004]

How do you film the air for a movie? May you find the past with the help of present, or look for the present through the past? Where are the elements of life (nature, love, thoughts...) in the image that reflects the screen? Is it possible to talk and work with a symbol you never used thirty years ago? And which are the signs of second chances?

Like Hemingway's 'Along the River and Beyond the Trees', 'Nouvelle vague' is a film about the feelings of a mid-aged man in his relation with himself after a car-crash in a Middle Europe road. Godard himself lives around the place, in a beautiful scenery close to nature. The filmmaker, since 'A bout de souffle', smelled the flavor of the countryside. 'Nouvelle vague' is a film for senses. You hear-a-heart beating along the trees.

Bien pour Godard, Lubtchansky, Delon...

Point Blank (1967)

Film noir´s last big point

[10/10 · 30 October 2001]

Just a few European-born directors with a previous career in their own countries hit the "point" in American film noir history, specially after the forties. Maybe Edgar G. Ulmer, Fritz Lang and Jacques Tourneur, and none from the isles. Of course, a lot of the films of this genre were made by old continent´s filmmakers who finished their work in the U.S. When "Point Blank" was shot by British John Boorman, Hollywood industry was in a breaking point but, paradoxically, in the same year of 1967, two masterworks appeared in front of us, "Bonnie and Clyde" and the Boorman picture.

While Arthur Penn´s film shows all his romantic attitudes in a classical way, with beautiful close-ups and a brilliant cutting, "Point Blank" aims towards the deconstruction of itself, of the genre and of the old style of traditional cinema. The kind of movie that was only possible to do in a moment of visual language crisis. The cast and the crew were ready: Lee Marvin at his best of inspiration and Angie Dickinson more sensuous than ever. The "summa" of "Point Blank" is the mixture between complexity and simplicity, enthusiasm and nostalgia, modernity and old-fashioned look at the same time. The strange cargo of one in a life picture.

Hatari! (1962)

Hawks, the African King

[30 October 2001]

When you read the way Henry Mancini reached the music for "Hatari!" you´re sure he really made it. And when you listen the score it´s the hearing of adventure´s landing. The thrill of it all. Wait and see! Once there was a time when the next step into fantasy was as real as wild life. The excitement you feel at the view of John Wayne running after the zebras and specially the rhinos, and the pleasure you get from the whole group at work and at leisure (days and nights of slender and beautiful Elsa Martinelli, funny fellow Red Buttons or the non-tense rivalry, basically "a cause d´une femme", between french Blain and german Kruger), well, this is more than you´re used to see in a movie. Howard Hawks made it, and he really knew how to put a script in a breath of eternity.

Donovan's Reef (1963)

A perfect easy-going movie

[10/10 · 26 October 2001]

Put a master of more than 130 films; add one of the strongest antagonist tandem in American film history; add marvelous and transparent Pacific islander landscapes and a great cinematographer behind the camera; add one or two gorgeous women (maybe not first-rated and from different background and age); add your own eyes to the recipe and you¨ll get a picture like "Donovan´s Reef". John Ford, John Wayne and Lee Marvin, William H. Clothier, Barbara Allen and Dorothy Lamour and YOU...

Becket (1964)

Two big celtic stars in a magnificent scenery

[10/10 · 24 October 2001]

These tremendous actors Richard Burton and Peter O'Toole, one welsh, the other irish, were reunited for this intense drama about two main characters in the history of Britain. The film, shot in black and white at the early sixties, is a consumated study on power and friendship. You could say Burton and O'Toole were born to find themselves as Thomas and Henry...

The Lusty Men (1952)

Second chance is better, yet

[10/10 · 24 October 2001]

It seems that after the shooting of "Macao", director Nicholas Ray (who replaced Josef von Sternberg) and actor Robert Mitchum were prepared for a second match. This was "The Lusty Men", a poetic and sensitive film about a man at the moment of his decadence as a rodeo figure. Beautifully shot in black and white, this picture is ready to stay as one of the most impressive achievements in film history on the subjects of maturity and enthusiasm, destiny, despair and true naivety.