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Apocalypse: La 2ème guerre mondiale (2009)
Excellent documentary more axed on the Europe operations theater.
Henri De Turenne and Daniel Costelle have a 40 years old record of documentaries about the WWII period. As it's made by French filmmakers for a French TV it seems normal that the documentary emphasizes on the French point of view. The excellent documentaries about the same subject by the BBC are also "biased"...No history work can pretend to be perfectly neutral, or it would be a long list of raw meaningless facts.
Another comment makes the assertion that "A greater number of Frenchmen bore arms for the Axis than for the Allies." Thats seems a pretty foolish assertion if you do very simple maths on the proved ciphers:
-Resistance; At least 220 000 people (the historian Paxton estimates the numbers between 200 000 and 400 000). Not all were bearing arms as the 100 000 FFI in 1944, but all worked against the Nazis. -Italy Campaign 1943 130 000 French soldiers (American statistics). -At the time of Normandy Invasion 500 000 French regular soldiers (plus the 100 000 FFI). In May 1945 not far from the million...
On the other side: - Milice (paramilitary organization) 25 000.(35 000 including part-time members and non-combatants). - In the Wehrmacht and later Waffen-SS; 7340 in 1944. Lets put at max 20 000 volunteers during all the war, and including the double entries with the Milice.
The Alsatian people were drafted in the Wermacht as they were considered as German by the Nazis. So most were not volunteers and cannot be included.
So how the pseudo historian has found that "A greater number of Frenchmen bore arms for the Axis than for the Allies."???
Le rossignol (2005)
A dream rendition of the Stravinsky's opera
Sure that needs a bit of culture; an Andersen's fairy tale, an Stravinky's opera sung in Russian, subtitles... In the times of LadyGaga and other crap I'm afraid it's not a popular hit. It's a pure marvel of dreams with the music of Stravinsky, and an excellent cast of singers with Nathalie Dessay as the nightingale, Laurent Naoury and a some excellent Russian singers. Not a spoiler but you'll see briefly a 3D singer cross of a crooner and Jackson the crotch grabber. Even if it's not part of your habitual repertory, try it, open your mind and discover an other world of intelligence and beauty. You Tube has many extracts; try the search Le Rossignol, Stravinsky, Nightingale.
Dos crímenes (1994)
Delightly sardonic movie
The writer Jorge Ibargüengoitia is well known for his highly ironic books, and the "Dos Crimenes" novel is a delight of black humor. If you like Bierce's Devil's Dictionary humor, you'll like also the movie.
That looks like a plain description of provincial greediness at first sight. Nope! the irony is in the details; the police that fabricates a terrorist plot, the hero governed by his hormones, the romantic and/or greedy young girl, the hot respectable mom, the corrupt prosecutor and police inspector and so on.
Nothing happens as planned except for the banker... Excellent satire of the Mexican society.
Avatar (2009)
Nice computer based prowess, but nothing behind
I saw it, even I made the effort to stay in my seat and to watch it until the end that met all my worst expectations of "already many times seen" clichés (cliché of a cliché at the fifth power).
Subtlety is not the strength of the plot; mono-dimensional personages, childish behavior, ridiculous bad guys. After having seen the day before "the Good the Bad and the Ugly" , these facts literally jumped on my face. I won't try to make a comparison with Seven Samourai deepness of the personages, it would be too hard for "Avatar".
Basically it's an intergalactic western where happily for once the Indians win; curiously like in so many westerns the Indians had such crazy war tactics, never heard of "irregular" warfare? The Ewoks were smarter, Geronimo also... Plus the inconsistencies, plot holes and other minor and major flaws (look at the long list of goofs), so numerous that's truly tiring.
The ecological, anti-war and anti-imperialism message was so heavily preached that becomes a pain even for a long date sympathizer of these causes like me... May the Force be with you...
I had the fun to look for some pieces of this visual puzzle, and that helped to stay in the chair as I was completely fed up by the foreseeable plot. Triceratops mixed with hammer shark, archeopteryx and consorts,jelly fish, phosphorescent reef, rain forest big trees,Tasmanian wolf, Venezuelan table hills and some other gave the ideas of this too terrestrial mixed fauna of this movie.
Brief a lot of CGI for a plot and imagery that look more to a caricature than to an original work. Made only by accumulation, ton over tons. And I almost forgot; not a shadow of humor, a boring deadly serious movie. Some would say that is so Hollywoodian. Gosh, I'm too old for all that s***. I'm going to see North by Northwest as antidote.
L'homme qui plantait des arbres (1987)
Some precisions to get a copy of this jewel
I've discovered the animation movie The Man Who Planted Trees,,while searching public domain movies in the web. I knew already the novel by Jean Giono I had the luck to read in the original language, and, I'm sorry for some, it's not a true story but a fable, a very moving, beautiful and philosophical fable - search in Wikipedia.
I won't repeat the other comments; it's a marvel...everything is perfect: voice of Mr Plummer, music, and the pastel like animation. For me it's closer to Monet or even Turner that to Renoir, but finally I'll give the total credit to the author Frédéric Back who is a true artist. And as many, I had tears in the eyes, and the heart full of happiness. The movie is in Public Domain, so you can see it easily on Internet after a little search, and even download it using the browser Firefox and the plug-in DownloadHelper. With this simple equipment the downloading of a streaming video becomes a breeze...It is not very poetic to give all these explanations but it's the only way to get a (bad copy) in video FLV of this chef d'oeuvre, so I think I give a small consolation to the people looking for a copy on DVD. Shame and pity...when will appear a good DVD? I mean a very good one with the true colors, and the sharpness needed to appreciate the beauty of the art of Frédéric Back.