damien-16 Reviews

The Mafu Cage (1978)

It was great in the theatre

[5/10 · 11 July 2010]

It seems to me all reviewers refer to the DVD when reviewing the film. That's a pity. In the theatre release, which I was fortunate enough to see, the colours are warm and rich, the lighting is subdued but atmospheric, and the acting, of course, is excellent. Especially Mz Kane, who could be whining and annoying in other films but does a great job here. It would be an error to simply see this movie as a horror flick. If you do so, you will be disappointed. This is a psychological thriller that draws on our archetypical fears. It thus presents us with a highly interesting content, but also the form is interesting. The unity of space, the closedness of the oppressive interior, contribute to the feeling of unease.

Virility (1974)

Crude, vulgar... a typical Italian comedy of the early seventies

[3/10 · 30 June 2010]

There was a time when Italian comedies by the likes of Risi, Lattuada, Monicelli etc. were quite popular. I don't know if they would stand a second viewing 35 years later. Most were highly unsubtle, extremely sexist and of course, crude and vulgar. Virilita is typical of its kind. Turi Ferro, the father in Malizia, is a widower in a small village on an island, who has remarried young and pretty Agostina Belli. For this hypermacho, sex-obsessed conservative, the summum of mirth is to be able to call someone a cornuto, a man who has been cheated by his woman. When his son returns from university, with his girlfriend, the father thinks his son has become gay, because he wrongly assumes that the girlfriend, who is flat chested, has very short hair and wears pants, is a boy. To make this insult to his virility go away, and to avoid becoming the laughing stock of the village, the father drives his young wife and his son into each other's arms, and when they finally give in and make love on the beach, he makes sure the whole village is watching, because it's better being a cornuto than the father of a gay son. Sounds terrible, doesn't it? It actually is. Still, I do remember this film, 35 years after I saw it, once. So, somehow this kind of stupidity must have struck a nerve somewhere. Must have been Ms Belli's smile...

The Whore and the Whale (2004)

nice to watch but lacking originality

[6/10 · 18 October 2007]

I never knew Patagonia was that beautiful. What a coast. I think I should include Punta Panorama on my priority list of must-visit places. This being said, I was rather disappointed by the lack of originality of the story. Intercutting a present day writer researching a novel playing in the past with the story of the novel is hardly an innovating idea. And the way the characters are slightly off and also their tangled relationships made me think of John Irving "light", with tango dancing instead of wrestling and a whale instead of a bear. The breast cancer story added an unnecessary additional plot line, probably to create a (false) impression of seriousness and depth. I wonder what Almodovar might have done with this, though. In spite of all the criticisms, the movie was entertaining and I considered my time in the theatre and my money for the ticket well spent.

Blind Mountain (2007)

uncompromising depiction of suppression of women

[7/10 · 18 October 2007]

The story is set in the nineties, but the situation has probably not changed much. The male/female ratio in China, especially in the countryside, is getting more and more unbalanced. Female foetuses are aborted, female babies are killed. Result: all those men, without a women to take for a wife and to have sons with. This paradox was clearly illustrated in the film, where a remote mountain village abducts women to marry its single men, while at the same time it is shown that a female newborn has been drowned. The women behind me in the theatre started commenting very indignantly about this: if they lack so many women, why kill female babies? The film makes a very strong statement: the woman is raped by the would-be husband with the assistance of his parents; the whole village, including the government officials, is collaborating to prevent the abducted women from escaping. I can imagine that the Chinese authorities are not very happy with the way its cadres are depicted, nor with the inability of the authorities to deal with the problem.

While the film tells a harsh and cruel story in a very realistic way, it is also beautifully shot in a beautiful mountain area in Shanxi and it is well acted. I don't know if this film will be widely seen in China, but I hope it will be seen at least by the authorities who have the power to change these things. The very strong preference for male offspring is based on deep-rooted traditions: sons are responsible for funeral rites and ancestor worship, and sons have to take care of the parents in the absence of a social security system. The latter is now slowly being put in place in the cities, but is still not in place in the countryside. Also in the cities, more and more women are having well paid jobs and are thus able of taking care of their parents. Still, China is huge, and the catching up that the countryside will need to do will require a lot of time.

The Promise (2005)

If the brothers Grimm would have been Chinese...

[4/10 · 23 June 2006]

I don't understand why so many commentators seem annoyed or even offended by The Promise? Is it because it doesn't correspond to their pre-conceived idea of Chen Kaige? So what? Let's take the movie at its own value. This is a fairytale, not a martial arts film. Comparisons with Hero or CTHD are not appropriate. Rather compare it to the many serials on Chinese television with flying goddesses and white haired sorcerers in fiery caves. The Promise is a de-luxe version of these folk legends, visually stunning, beautifully coloured and with all the lack of logic you also find in European fairy tales and folk stories. The closest equivalent are the stories of the brothers Grimm with all their magic and their violence and not necessarily a happy ending. The Promise created its own cinematic universe and I had no problem entering into it. When the film cane to its end I was sorry I could not stay longer in Chen Kaige's magical kingdom.

The Da Vinci Code (2006)

a perfectly superfluous nullity

[1/10 · 17 May 2006]

The novel starts from a preposterous premise, that certain people in this day and age would be willing to kill or be killed for a "secret" that would turn the world upside down. And what's this secret? That Jesus wasn't so chaste after all. So what? That's a story that's been around for ages, nothing secret about it. Still, the book sold millions. No idea why. It was poorly written, poorly researched and boring. That doesn't necessarily mean it cannot result in a good film. Good books have been made into lousy films and vice versa. But here we have a case of lousy book made into even lousier movie. Poorly scripted, poorly acted, poorly directed, poorly photographed and utterly dull. So, no redeeming factors? Well, maybe you'll find it hilarious, although it certainly wasn't the intention of the deadly serious movie makers, when you see Forrest Gump asking Amélie Poulain: So, how does it feel that Jesus is your grand grand grand daddy?

The Chinese Botanist's Daughters (2006)

Chinoiserie customized for Western tastes

[3/10 · 15 May 2006]

With "Balzac and the little seamstress" Dai Sijie delivered a nice period piece with some interesting reflections on the importance of literature, moving images and theatre. Although a large part of the crew were French, it had a real Chinese feel to it. That feeling is totally absent from Les filles du botaniste. One gets the impression it has been made to order, to cater to the European market. There's hardly any Chinese name on the credit roll, if they're not French they're Vietnamese. The story could have been powerful but has been diluted by its cliché approach and its David Hamilton-esquire photography. In addition, I got completely disoriented by the Vietnamese setting. The worst mismatch was the temple. It was so blatantly a Vietnamese, not a Chinese temple. And using Ho Guom Lake right in the middle of Old Hanoi was not a wise decision. There were plenty of other lakes to choose from, while the urban setting of Ho Guom made it hard to forget we were not supposed to be in 2006. The mountain landscape in the movie is similar to the karst rocks in southern China, so no problem with that. I even wonder if the Kunlin in the film is not meant to be a combination of Kunming and Guilin. Still, I felt cheated by this movie. It is as if the makers are not taking the public serious. It was the same with Memoirs of a Geisha, another Eastern tale made consumable to Western tastes, with 3 very Chinese actresses trying to be Japanese and failing. But hey, who cares? If it has slanted eyes it's all the same, no? One of the commentators to Memoirs of a Geisha was calling it neo-colonialism. I think the same could be said of these Filles.

The Spider's Stratagem (1970)

Flat is the plane, flat is my story

[4/10 · 13 February 2006]

Somehow I always thought this was Bertolucci's first film. It isn't. But it looks like it. Here's a director with a huge potential, a cinematographer who'll soon be one of the greatest, but they still have a long way to go. We were young and Bertolucci was very left-wing so it was de rigueur to find this great, but in fact it was boring. The plot meanders on, the acting is wooden, and in the end you don't know if there was a story there at all. Bertolucci has become an icon, maybe more because of the scandals adhering to his films than of the intrinsic worth of his cinematographic output (in contrast to for instance Ettore Scola). No scandalous scenes in this one though, just plain pretension and showing off.

The World (2004)

Another waste land

[4/10 · 15 August 2005]

When you drive through the suburbs of Beijing, or through most of eastern China for that matter, you are struck by its bleakness: grey and brown, flat, ugly, industrialised, big square building blocks covered in bathroom tiles, and fog or smog practically the whole year round. In this perfect illustration of the post-modern wasteland, young people are shown to have no hopes, no illusions. Love is unattainable, communication is impossible. Superficial talk over cell phones is the most intimate they can get. When meeting face to face, they have nothing to say.

The World theme park is a metaphor for the lack of cultural identity that's rampant in China these days. Against the background of this ersatz world, a number of protagonists are followed through a variety of sub-plots, very much like Altman in some of his best (Nashville, Short cuts) and worst (The wedding, A perfect couple) work. As a visual evocation of modern Chinese urban life it's striking. But the characters evolving against this canvas remain underdeveloped. They meet and say nothing, they do not meet but talk by cell phone, still saying nothing. Silence can be very telling, if used properly. But one should not confuse silence with depth.

It is said that traditional values have all but disappeared in China, and all that's come in their place are blatant money-grabbing capitalism where a human life is of little value (look at all those mine disasters) and superficial imitation of an idea of Western "culture" copied from TV. But in my personal experience, Chinese people like to talk, they are not afraid to show their feelings. I often find them much more open than many European people I meet.

To me, Shijie shows a realistic picture of the way modern urban China comes across visually, but I cannot recognise the Chinese people in it.

The Aviator (2004)

HH did amazing things, but why?

[6/10 · 24 January 2005]

I was not very familiar with Howard Hughes. I knew he had made a few movies (never saw any of them, though) and built planes that never flew, but mainly I thought of him as the eccentric recluse of his later years. Now this film shows a totally different character, a man with a vision. And what a vision! HH could so easily have become another spoiled rich kid, bedding starlets, getting drunk and doped up and dying never having done anything besides spending millions seeking vain private pleasures. Instead, the film shows us a frantic movie maker, giving it all for his art, and an even more frantic aviator and airplane builder, to whom a few million dollars are insignificant when they are needed to make his dreams come true. Of course, it's easy to be a big spender when you are swimming in money, and I couldn't see any sign of HH having any social conscience in an era where so many of his countrymen were starving, but at least he used his fortune to create things he believed in. Grandiose things, crazy, fascinating things. But why did he do it? The film never tells us what made HH do all those things he did. First we see him as a kid being washed by his mother, which is probably supposed to explain his future phobia, but then we see him in the middle of shooting Hell's angels and next as a daredevil aviator. How did he get there? Why did he become such an obsessed movie maker (it made me think of Orson Welles, equally obsessed but without the money to follow through on his grand schemes)? And why did he want so much to build the perfect plane? The film could easily have addressed these questions. It certainly was long enough. Unnecessarily so in a number of scenes, I find (although I wouldn't have minded if some other, brilliantly shot scenes would have been longer). By cutting more rigorously, much more could have been covered in those 3 hours.

Enough has already been said about the very good acting. Still, I like to complement Leonardo DiCaprio on his transformation from the young jeune premier to the mature businessman appearing before the committee. He is much more convincing than James Dean attempting the same transformation (and also sporting a mustache when older) in Giant. Unfortunately, I was less thrilled by his naked lunatic scenes, which were mainly embarrassing to watch.

Thrill Seekers (1999 TV Movie)

Makes one think about the paradoxes of time travel

[16 January 2005]

Zapping through the movie channels last evening, I came across: Next feature presentation: Thrill Seekers with Martin Sheen. I wonder if one could sue the channel for this kind of tendentious (but not factually wrong) publicity? Anyway, it made me decide to watch. Hardly any Martin Sheen, but entertaining for sure, and with surprisingly decent special effects for a TV movie. The plot is intelligent, and would be a good starting point to get people to discuss the paradoxes of time travel. Suppose you could go back and kill Hitler before he came to power, would you do it? But if you would, can you be certain nothing worse would happen? And how would it affect your own life? Would you still exist, even? (My parents met because of the war.) Or: if you go back to a time after you are born, can you meet yourself? All of this is hardly original, of course. SF writers in the golden age (which was sadly ended by Star Wars, shifting from intelligent writing to blockbuster special effects) frequently tackled the issue, for instance describing the butterfly effect: a firm organises time trips to the Jurassic, where thrill seeking (again!) hunters can kill a dinosaur a fraction of a moment before it would have died, thus not altering the time line. But one hunter stumbles and accidentally kills a butterfly. He gets back to his starting date, but the killed butterfly has changed the time line and this new line turns out to be the hunter's worst nightmare. Something similar happens in Thrill Seekers. But here the protagonist has the means to go back in time to change a future he has already experienced. This, of course, was already obvious from the moment they take the laptop from the disaster tourist. In fact, Merrick could have used that device to go back to before he boarded the plane and, using some kind of subterfuge, a bomb alarm for instance, avert the plane crash, and the subway crash, and the fire... But we wouldn't have had the same film then.

One question of logic though. If Merrick goes back into his original time line, the time guards would also be in there, but unaffected by what will happen later. In the film, they follow Merrick back from the future. The film does not explain this. But the question doesn't end there. If you go back to when you were 3 hours earlier, you would also not yet have any memories of what was going to happen those next 3 hours. Merrick and the time guards should not have had any knowledge of the disaster happening 3 hours in the future.

I also wonder how the title sequence relates to the film. I admit I wasn't paying a lot of attention, trying to figure out when Martin Sheen would be mentioned, but in retrospect I wonder if there wasn't any subtle message in the sequence?

The Year of Living Dangerously (1982)

Sense of place, sense of menace

[8/10 · 14 December 2004]

I am a little amazed that, so far, only 40 comments have been entered. Fortunately most are of high quality, and all the important points related to the film are clearly highlighted. So, I will not repeat what has been well said by others. I want to explain one additional point, it has to do with my personal experience but might be interesting to mention.

I'm a professional expatriate, living overseas for 25 years. I'm not talking about an American in Paris or an Englishman in New York, I mean African steppes, tropical jungles, Indian slums. Living in a totally foreign country, in a totally strange culture, imperfectly understanding the local language, bewildered by alien logic, you experience a permanent sense of unease. You adapt, you learn to cope, you make what you hope are friends. But you never forget that you are a stranger in unknown territory, and that you are vulnerable.

You may peacefully walk on the street one minute, the next minute bullets are flying all around you. In the evening you have a pleasant drink with your neighbour, in the morning you are arrested, accused of being a foreign mercenary. When you travel inland you come at a road block, not knowing if they'll let you pass, or harass you for a couple of hours, or confiscate your car. As a foreigner in developing countries, you are constantly confronted with uncertainty, an intangible menace lurking around the corner.

I find that TYOLD transmits this sense of menace very poignantly. Many people have commented on its brilliant sense of place, the accurate depiction of Indonesia and the events that took place at the time. Others mention that you get a very real feeling of the tension and uncertainty journalists in times of upheaval are subjected to. But I would like to extend it beyond journalists. The sense of menace in TYOLD is eminently recognizable by all who have lived in countries where the police is not there to protect you, the laws are not there to make society more civilized, the hospitals are not there to cure you. In TYOLD, the menace is made visible because of the troubles that erupt, but usually you do not have to live through civil war when overseas. Still, the menace is not less real, and the sense of foreboding haunting every expatriate was very convincingly conveyed in the film.

Tears of the Sun (2003)

Africa lies beyond Eboli

[5/10 · 12 December 2004]

Francesco Rosi has made "God has stopped at Eboli". Indeed God may well have. Several people commenting on Tears of the sun mention Burke's quote on evil triumphing if good men do nothing. But to me the most memorable, and most poignant, quote is Willis reply: " God has left Africa a long time ago". I have worked in Africa for 17 years. I can fully understand the sentiment expressed in this reply. I do not want to give up hope, and I have spent some memorably good moments there, but I cannot but help thinking more often than not that Africa has become a basket case. Some of the reasons for this are hinted at in the movie: greed, by the west hungry for oil and minerals and by the corrupted local officials, tribalism, which may be linked to religion although in my experience the tribe comes first, and especially the use of tribalism to foster greed, as in this film.

The carnage shown at the mission and at the village are gripping illustrations of something that has been happening in Africa for ages and certainly will continue for many more years. I can believe the movie is honest in trying to kick us a conscience with these images. They certainly are very powerful. But this honorable intention is marred by 2 things. One: it is packaged into a very mediocre action movie, woodenly acted, with a script full of holes and an unbelievable, but it is Hollywood after all, ending. Two: it is too topical. We are not looking at a universal conflict, the two tribes are not archetypal for THE tribes, no, they are specifically named: Fulani and Ibo in Nigeria, and suggesting the Fulani are monsters and the Ibo innocent slaughtering sheep. Not so. It could easily be the other way around. By giving these very specific topical references, the film compromises severely whatever universal message it might want to make. And presenting the son of a tribal chief as a hero for democracy is delusional.

Related to the topicality: if your film is supposed to take place in south-west Nigeria, the landscape should look the part. I did not believe for one moment that we were in Nigeria. I liked the music, but if it was supposed to bring a sense of Nigeriality across, it failed to do so. On the other hand, it gave a sense of Africa, and as such the music came much closer to illustrate the universality of the movie than did the story.

Still related to topicality but in a different sense: the character of the doctor played by Monica Belluci was very unbelievable, especially if you consider that her husband was killed not that long ago in a similar situation in Sierra Leone. I could easily recognize the priest and the nuns and their desire to stay. I talked to many missionaries who survived the massacres in the Congo in the sixties. What we see in the film comes over as quite realistic. But why does Dr Lena behave the way she does? What is her motivation? How is it possible that she is always yelling: "MY people" as she is only there since a short time and doesn't even speak the language? Psychologically she is totally underdeveloped, and that brings us back to the first problem point.

Samaritan Girl (2004)

How enigmatic is your smile?

[8/10 · 11 December 2004]

Passing through Bangkok, this was the only English-subtitled film on show that was not a Hollywood zero-brainer. I had no idea what I was going to see at all, but I was pleasantly surprised. I did not understand why people were always shouting at one another, even when they were having a friendly chat or an intimate tête-à-tête, but I guess that must be a Korean thing. The film was quite intelligently constructed, suggesting many powerful events and emotions off-screen by a clever choice of what was not shown. The highlight of the movie, however, was Min-jeong Seo's smile. Whether she was happy or sad, excited or afraid, it was always there, beautiful and enigmatic. Even in death.

Alexander (2004)

Why did Oliver Stone make this movie?

[3/10 · 11 December 2004]

Oliver Stone has made some very powerful movies, tightly scripted, brilliantly acted. He has the ability to make a seemingly boring subject gripping and, why not, entertaining. But not so in this case. The story goes nowhere, the people move around aimlessly, the camera work looks like sloppy MTV. One big problem is of course the choice of actors. Many already commented on that. A bigger problem is the script. How do you hope to catch the viewer's attention if you start your movie with 10 minutes of a mumbling Anthony Hopkins saying nothing of interest? And, for good measure, you add on another 10 minutes of empty mumbling at the end? Not to speak of the 3 hours of boredom in between. Maybe someone thought the flashbacks within flashbacks were clever. But they simply were inept attempts to hide that there was no plot line. Which brings me to the biggest problem of all. Why on earth did Oliver Stone decide to make this film? He has made good films, he has made bad films, but never indifferent films. He always had something relevant to communicate. I would say that most films of Oliver Stone are historical films, but if i'm not mistaken, this is his first "historical" film, in the sense of classical times, peplum etc. Maybe that's the reason. This is not his usual turf. I wonder though what Ridley Scott would have made of Alexander.

B-Happy (2003)

great actress in predictable storyline

[6/10 · 6 November 2004]

I didn't know this film at all, simply happened to walk in on it at a local film festival. And I was pleasantly surprised. The story is too predictable, and in the end it really leaves me indifferent if anybody gets to go to this sea port in the north (I forgot the name, but everybody is always talking about it. I guess it must be a Chilean thing). But Manuela Martelli, the lead actress, was amazing. Very powerful in her passivity, and even more so when passion breaks through occasionally. And I nearly fell off my chair when she took off her clothes. I don't know how old she is, but quite young I guess, and this was her first film ever. So we may be in for a lot of future viewing pleasure. But I hope she'll be able to do more than Chilean films, because those are not easily seen in Europe outside of world film festivals.

9 Songs (2004)

much ado about nothing

[1/10 · 5 November 2004]

This was a wasted 65 minutes. Mercifully short, fortunately. No plot, totally unappealing characters, and absolutely no idea why they got together, why they stayed together (the sex didn't seem all that great) nor why they split up. Maybe Micheal Winterbottom is turning into a dirty old man??? I'm sure he can do better than this. I will give him the credit of the doubt, after all he made code49 and Jude the obscure, but simply filming naked bodies (badly) and intersecting them with poorly recorded live music is no excuse for an "art film". If it is true that he wanted to make a serious adult movie about the sexual aspects of a relationship he should watch his classics again, and certainly Ai no corrida.

Hero (2002)

pretentious beauty

[6/10 · 27 October 2003]

I think Zhang Yimou is at all times an excellent cinematographer and often a very good director, but the director stayed at home when making Hero. Oh, the images are stunning, but also totally artificial. They serve no other purpose than to illustrate how brilliantly he can use colour and composition. There is no content. Everything in this film has been done before: the subject (The emperor and the assassin, by Chen Kaige), the plot (starting with Rashomon, evidently), the use of colours (un homme et une femme, for instance), music as counterpoint to a duel (Sergio Leone, most notably in Once upon a time in the West) and of course the idea to make a Chinese Martial Arts film accessible to western audiences (move over, CTHD, or at least, that was the idea). Whereas CTHD had likeable characters whom you could relate to, an interesting plot, emotional development, a very charming performance by Zhang Zi Yi and on top of that beautiful landscapes superbly photographed and rousing fights (especially the one between Michelle Yeoh and Zhang Zi Yi in the courtyard), Hero only has the stunning images. It's like a coffeetable book. Two-dimensional. Zhang Yimou gets out his whole box of tricks, but that's what we see, tricks. We don't get emotionally involved. Always you can see the artifice behind it all, and this idea of: look at me, see what a genius I am. Beauty that's that pretentious leaves a bad aftertaste.

Long Live Death (1971)

typical of its time

[8/10 · 26 May 2003]

Whether you like them or not, the images are haunting. I saw this film 31 years ago and still remember some sequences vividly. You might argue that the anarcho-surrealism is intellectualised, a pose. But you cannot deny that it is effective. The message gets across, even if a sledgehammer approach is required. But it also is very poetic: the poetry of cruelty. I suppose this kind of establishment bashing was considered very chic in those days. Now it looks dated, unfortunately. But at the time, it shook me profoundly.

La terrazza (1980)

I'm sorry, but it's boring

[3/10 · 30 April 2003]

Ettore Scola has made at least two great films, C'eravamo tanto amati and Une giornata particolare. But this time he got carried away. It's not enough to put 20 great actors in a room to end up with a masterpiece. Call it self- indulgent, call it intellectual masturbation, I call it boring. Sorry, Ettore.

A Special Day (1977)

as close as cinema can get to a Greek tragedy

[9/10 · 30 April 2003]

This film has great acting, great photography and a very strong story line that really makes you think about who you are, how you define yourself, how you fit in, whether you accept to play a role or break free... There already are excellent comments dealing with these aspects. I want to comment on the formal setting of the film. Basically, it's two people on a roof. There is unity of place and time, with 2 protagonists, and the radio acting as the choir. Many directors have turned Greek tragedies into film, many directors have filmed contemporary stories as if they were a Greek tragedy, but no director, in my opinion, has succeeded as admirably as Ettore Scola in approaching the purity and force of the great Greek tragedies both in story line and formal setting. A masterpiece.

We All Loved Each Other So Much (1974)

we loved each other and we loved cinema

[8/10 · 30 April 2003]

This is a beautiful film about friendship and nostalgia, but above all about loving cinema. To me, this film defines "cinephilia". Cinema and the protagonists' lives are cleverly interwoven. The fleeting images of film, capturing a moment and then disappearing, only to linger in the memory, can be seen as a metaphor for the past that can not be recaptured, a past when we were young and happy and confident and the world was ours. When the credits roll, I feel this strange mixture of happiness and sadness. Oh, how I wish...

Get Out Your Handkerchiefs (1978)

prepare to be challenged

[8/10 · 28 April 2003]

If your ideas about sexual relations are fixed, don't see this film. Bertrand Blier turns everything upside down. No clichés here. This is relational anarchy at its most challenging. It's moving, it's stimulating and it is very well acted. Les valseuses was equally anarchic, but its tendency was rather unsympathetic. In Les valseuses, Depardieu and Dewaere were highly unlikeable. Here they are very likeable, and Carol Laure is beautiful in all her passivity.

Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970)

the most beautiful picture I have seen

[10/10 · 28 April 2003]

When I was a student, 30 years ago, I saw maybe a film a day. I was 17 when I saw Valerie for the first time. It may not be the best film ever made, but I was stunned by the beauty of the images, the story, the direction and especially the people. If film is a dream made visual, this is the quintessential film. I saw it several times during the seventies, and always the magic struck again. In 1995 I found it on video. I had to switch it off after 30 seconds. The quality was so poor all the magic was lost. Do not see this film if you cannot see it in 100% optimal conditions. No DVD seems to be available. To me, Valerie is a memory of an ideal, of what film ought to be. I can live with such a memory.

Fellini Satyricon (1969)

stunning images, but not everybody's cup of tea

[10/10 · 28 April 2003]

This is by far not the best film I've ever seen, but it is probably the most important film I've ever seen. I saw it for the first time when it came out in 69, when I was 16. Before then, I was only marginally interested in films. Something to while away the time. And then I saw Satyricon. And life has never been the same ever since. All of a sudden I realised that film was more than simply recording images, all of a sudden it dawned on me that cinema could be art. Now, maybe Satyricon isn't great art, but to me at that time it was overwhelming. I'm sure other films have had this same catalytic effect on other people. Satyricon got me hooked on film, and I never looked back. I saw the film again about 10 years ago. I was amazed how it was still capable of exiting me. In spite of its wooden acting, its cardboard backgrounds, the unsynchronized lip movements this is amazing movie magic.