maxinepowers1917 Reviews

Fat Girl (2001)

Do syblings always have compete, and why?

[21 August 2013]

I wish I could give a good review to this movie, for I had loved such masterpieces by Catherine Breillat as "Romance X", "Anatomy of Hell" and "Blue Beard," but I do not want to be one of those people that once they fall in love with an artist, accept everything by them as genius, as though they can do no wrong. I felt that the movie was trite, fake, overacted, too obvious, and with a ridiculous ending. Now some will talk about symbolic, and metaphorical depth of it, and go on blah blah blah on and on about the themes this film had explored, and use many fancy literally terms, but if I had to describe it in one word, it would be failure.

Once again Catherine, investigates the psychology of sibling rivalry. The familiar theme of two sisters, who seemingly love each other, and yet are in turmoil driven by jealousy, and are by circumstances placed into an unseen competition, is the subject of the movie. This time it's a typical French family, on a summer vacation, at a beach town. Elena (Roxanne Mesquida), is a breathtaking 15 year old beauty, (so gorgeous almost makes the movie tolerable), while her sister, Anais (Anais Reboux), is an awkward, antisocial, plump (Fat Girl) 12 year old, who is both jealous and fascinated by her sister, who in turn is thrilled to have an audience for her mischief.

The plot unfolds, when a slightly older Italian picks up Elena at a café, and is soon sneaked into her bedroom, where in an absurdly cliché manner, he seduces her to have sex with him. The scenes that were meant to be provocative, felt ridiculous to me, and instead of the thrill of sexual arousal, in certain parts they made me laugh out loud. The utterly banal romance continues, until the parents find out, and are forced to leave the beach house, and that is where an unexpected, and for lack of a better word, stupid ending comes.

It's clear what the intention of the movie was, but it was not captured.

I really wonder about sibling rivalry. It seems that whoever you are closets to, is the person that will hurt you the most. And though I had grown up without such feelings, (maybe slight competition with my cousins), being the only child. I personally know many people, who are at real war with their brothers and sisters. My mother would be a perfect example, she hasn't spoken to her brother in years. And I see such pattern repeat itself more often than not. Instead of helping, people within the same family, consciously or unconsciously sabotage each other.

As I was writing this review I kept thinking about Kane and Allele, and how even The Bible begins with jealousy between brothers. Is this a part of natural evolution, survival of the fittest, a motivation of a sort? Or is it something else?

The Battle of Algiers (1966)

How far can you go to justify your means? What are the right things in war? How to contain a revolution? are just few of the themes of this brilliant art work.

[10/10 · 21 August 2013]

Simply Brilliant is how I would describe this movie. Done in black-and-white, at a break-a- neck pace, it unravels the intense, life changing confrontation of the Muslim Algiers, against the French occupancy. Filmed in a documentary style, it brings us in the midst of the conflict, and developing of a revolution, with mind bugling intimacy, and as every genius work of Art it asks more questions, than gives answers.

The terrorist that we deal with nowadays, are caricatured into uneducated, dirty desert monkeys, dying not for freedom but for a chance to get some pussy in heaven, but one forgets is that it's quite the opposite. That the people that stand behind it all, are highly intelligent, well organized, extremely well educated and idealistic. And in the case of this movie, they are freedom fighters. Please don't misconstrued this as a justification for terrorism, just don't make a mistake of simplifying things to some absurd notion that its a number of virgins in heaven that motivates these people. Perhaps at the lowest ranks, it what gets people going, but the higher ups are motivated by something completely different. Even in case of world tr center, it was done rather symbolic, (people forget that the same thing is done in "Fight Club" with the only difference that there are no people in the building), to show how that place created unfair trade treaties all the time, and it's the cause of poverty in many countries. A perfect example would be China, with whom once the trading was allowed, their economy boomed. (by the way all this came to me after I watched this movie, I am not that much of a political person )))).

Mostly important with every step of the way, with incredible clarity, tension and on-the- edge-of-your-seat intensity, this film explains the inner motivation of both the French occupancy, and the soldiers that come to defend it, and the opposition that eventually leads to revolution and independence of Algiers. All character's actions, no matter how heroic or horrific are understood, sympathized and relived by the viewer, with often unexpected personal discoveries.

Matador (1986)

The Most Twisted Love Story You'll Ever See!

[9/10 · 21 August 2013]

Every Artist has a reoccurring theme, that he successfully or unsuccessfully explores and tries to capture through out his life time, and that eventually becomes his, what we might call - style. With Ingmar Bergman it's the detachment from life and confronting death, with Woody Allen, the comical absurdity of man-woman relationship, with Filliny it's the nostalgia for the lost, often irreplaceable innocence of childhood. In case of Pedro Almodovar though, to put it lightly, it's unorthodox, sex crazed love stories. (love that guy!)

I had watched three films by him (Bad Education, Law Of Desire, Talk To Her), and all of them were rather twisted, but this one is defiantly the weirdest love fable I had ever seen or read … even by his standards.

The story begins with a young man, (played by heavenly-gorgeous, 18 year old Antonio Banderas) who is studying to be a matador, under a world famous, but retired, due to an injury, Maestro. One night after being suspected of being a homosexual, he decides to prove his masculinity and toughness by attempting to rape Maestro's girlfriend. But being in reality a very innocent and tender soul, he literally faints before anything happens, when she accidentally cuts her finger.

The girls reports him, and while being questioned, the cops hang on him three more murders. Apparently there have been bodies popping up through out the city, with all the victims assaulted in the same strange manner - at the height of their sexual arousal, they are stabbed in the back of their necks, with a hair pin, with the same technique a toreador brings a bull down.

And now, brought together by serendipity, the female lawyer, who had come to defend Antonio, and is investigating the case, is beginning to have a sort of an "affair" with the Maestro. Both of them being obsessed with sex, violence and mostly important death, which they find the most arousing thing in the world. Imagine Romeo and Juliet, only where they both not only desire each other sexually, but also long for each other's death.

I had personally often wondered, why the element of violence is so often present in sex. Even when one makes love, no matter how gentle, there will be some hair pulling, slight choking or biting. To experience pain and dominance, seems to be counterintuitive to receiving pleasure, yet something in our wiring arouses us by that. With books like "Fifty Shades Of Grey' bondage and sadomasochism had become house hold names, and practices. But what I can't wrap my brain around is why do these seemingly, logically unpleasant activities arouse us?

The theme in this film, of the desire to kill the one you love, and to define death and brutal violence as sexy, that is bound to make an indelible imprint on your soul and to stay with you for the rest of your life.