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Reviews
The Tree of Life (2011)
Fine photography meets the cheesiest iconography
Terrence Malick's "Tree of Life," is a pretentious slide show of cosmic post-cards, with a story in the middle. This animated power-point reuses unashamedly the worst clichés of TV commercials (think of a two hours advertisement for a life insurance), and the most lurid scenes of Discovery Channel's documentaries. Malick resorts to an exquisite photography to illustrate embarrassing platitudes, and this experience is particularly unpleasant for the spectator. Malick's attempt is very ambitious, and he should be praised for that. Two movies written in a similar phenomenological vein come to my mind: Kubrick's 2001 and Tarkovski's Zerkalo. The last two movies, however, were balanced and perfectly executed. Alas, Malick's movie is redundant, heavy, sententious, excessive and sometimes even obscene, but not hopeless. For this lack of decorum ultimately depends on the editing, and Malick could drastically improve this movie if he remembered that the force of poetic forms relies on economy of language.
Das Leben der Anderen (2006)
A good hollywoodian tale
I enjoyed a lot watching this film.
However, the way some producers and directors feel they have to depict a totalitarian state puzzles me : They seem compelled to describe totalitarian horror through the tale of a good man. Resorting to that kind of narration certainly has a pedagogical virtue, and I do feel identified with the optimistic message of the film, but I am afraid that it fails to describe how totalitarian regimes achieve their systematic neutralization of moral judgment among individuals. Unfortunately, I am afraid that even today, few of us are immune to totalitarian brain washing.
"Das Leben der Anderen" seems to follow the path of the "Schindler's List", it has all the attributes of a good commercial success, but doesn't appear to be very ambitious.
Le temps du loup (2003)
A tribute to Andrei Tarkovski?
The film is full of references to Andrei Tarkovski's films. The apocalyptic tone of the film is the same than in "the sacrifice". Some scenes of the forest are very similar to the forests we see in "Ivan's childhood" or in "Zerkalo" (the mirror). The little brother looks like Ivan while the lonely boy who stays in the forest easily evokes "Stalker"'s main character. I would be tempted to say that the mother (Isabelle Huppert) who fights to survive with her two children also evokes the mother in "Zerkalo". I am sure that if you look with closer attention you can find some more parallelism. The irony is that in Tarkovski's films, water is everywhere, not in "le temps du loup" ...
Kárhozat (1988)
Very impressive
The film is about immobility. About people who abandoned themselves to a collective sinking, and dances. The camera travels slowly along the last days before apocalypse.
The photography is excellent. And the music also helps to forget the length of some scenes. Those who liked Tarkovski's films shouldn't be deluded.
The text is powerful, with its dose of irony. Unfortunately I couldn't understand everything. Some monologues seemed to be a nonsense, which may be something normal in this apocalyptic context. Anyway, I hope I'll be able one day to find some transcription; this film deserves to be studied.