Change Your Image
gbeverig
Reviews
Ne le dis à personne (2006)
Tell No One? Tell Everyone!
I walked out of the cinema having suffered this film after 30 mins. I left two friends pinned in by a great fat bloke to endure the remainder.
As soon as the opening sequence of the film unrolled, I sensed something was wrong and it wasn't long before I to stop myself from hiding under my seat cringing in embarrassment. I'm not one for walking out of films however bad as they usually have some redeeming feature, but this one suffered from a catalogue of bad directing, bad acting (bar 'Bruno' character & the impeccable Jean Rochefort -according to my friends),awful editing (in terms of theme and meaning), terrible soundtrack and image correlation that seemed to make an art out placing the wrong peace of music over the image and scene at the wrong time . The worst crime was its overall insipidness and unbelievability (a result of the aforementioned atrocities). Why was it so awful? I do not want to waste more of my time explaining. I'd say go and see it for yourself but I don't want to fill the coffers of this project any more than necessary. Oh, the screening did possess one redeeming feature: My friend cambering over the rows of seats in silhouette with his umbrella hooked over his arm as he tried to steady himself -more pathos, tension & entertainment in those few moments than in the 125 mins of this sadly dire effort.
Crna machka, beli machor (1998)
A film to live and die by
Not the Director's best, in terms of gravitas, but it is not supposed to be. (refer Time of the Gypsies, Underground et al) It's a rollicking farce cutting swathes through celluloid in his own inimitable style and flare. The visuals are outstanding, direction masterful, acting great, soundtrack superb. It is a true cinematic artist letting rip like a child in a candy shop. The closest we have ever got to Fellini again, although Kustirica is clearly his own man. The Coen brothers are perhaps one of his few contemporaries.
With this film he returns to his one true love: the gypsies of the Balkans, Serbia to be precise, and portrays that culture through his own romantic, humanistic, and gloriously grotesque imagination. It also encapsulates the essence of Balkan humour, evident throughout his films and also to be found in the Vox Pops 'Sarajevo diaries' made by real people trapped in Sarajevo when it was under siege during the war: irreverent, slapstick, poetic, ironic, erotic and more than anything full of the vitality of life -traits he finds most concentrated in gypsy culture.