Au Revoir to Cannes 2014 | Blue Is the Warmest Color

Yesterday was the last day of the 2014 Cannes Film Festival. It was also the day that I saw last year's Palme d'Or winner La Vie d'Adèle, Chapitres 1 et 2 or Blue Is the Warmest Color for the first time.

Do you remember the time when a beautiful, fresh French face made a short but effective appearance in Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris? Back then, it was still questionable whether there was more behind that intriguing smile. Not anymore - last year, Léa Seydoux (the actress behind selfsame smile) was awarded the Palme d'Or along with her director Abdellatif Kechiche and co-star Adèle Exarchopoulos. The two ladies are the only women to have won the award beside Jane Campion. Blue Is the Warmest Color is indeed a very feminine film that explores women in various ways. Firstly, there is the most apparent theme - homosexuality. The films main character, Adèle, finds out that being with men doesn't give her the same sort of satisfaction as being with a woman does. More so, there is one particular woman that Adèle falls head over heels in love with: the artistic and charming, blue-headed Emma. The two spend several years together as Adèle finishes high school and starts studying to be a teacher. Meanwhile, Emma is becoming an acclaimed artist and doesn't have as much time for her girlfriend anymore. After Adèle cheats on Emma with a male colleague, the two break up, leaving Adèle cold and lonely. 

How I Learned to Stop Worrying

a HOW I LIVE NOW review

Growing up 21st century's Europe has its perks - technology redefines the limits of communication, consumerism and culture, we can travel without having to do little more than showing our passports and politicians seem busy sustaining peace in our own little world as well as the Middle East. It becomes difficult to differentiate between documentations of the World Wars and movies like Independence Day, both depicting horrible, life-threatening situations and ending on a happy note (more or less). I for one find it incredibly hard to believe that my own grandmother fled (mainly by horse waggon) from what was once Pommern (the eastern part of Germany) to the north, and had to work under more or less slavery-like conditions for the Russians. Hell, I can't even fathom there was once a great wall separating Eastern and Western Germany - that fell only 6 years before I was born! However, once in a while, I am reminded of the actual danger that still surrounds every living creature in this world; the animal-esque war of survival that is hidden beneath health care, unemployment benefits and supermarkets. Watching How I Live Now was one of those experiences that made me realize there is a threat of war in my life and the lives of the people surrounding me, and that our little bubble of peace, equality and freedom of the mind could burst any day. 

Bully - Be Nice or Die

The embarrassing discovery of a misspelling on the banner for this months' LAMB MOTM, whose name I mistook for being "Buddy", could be seen as a foreshadowing of my experience of actually watching this movie. Bully, although only one consonant away from it, is anything but a movie called "Buddy".

Based on a real story and the book written by Jim Schutze, BULLY centers around a group of lazy teenagers that do little less than sleep with each other. One of the kids is Bobby, who treats his "friends" like s*it, especially his childhood best friend Marty. One day, Marty's new girlfriend Lisa decides that the Bully must die. No one disagrees.

If you're searching for a discomforting and unsettling experience, with anything in it that could be described as sick, inhuman, immoral or similar - except cannibalism - you'll hit the jackpot with Bully. It's a story that has a lot of ingredients I love in movies, some I like, and some that make for interesting, challenging watches but I know will upset me in a bad way. The first group (ingredients I love) are the teens and the splash of coming-of-age. In this case however, they don't really come of anything, although they go through some typical coming-of-age phases and actions. There is also the crime element - who doesn't love a good crime story? In this case however, we already know who did what, why and how, so it's more of an insight scoop on the crime. Ingredients I like are the psychologically disturbing elements and character treats, the social commentary/ criticism and Los Angeles setting. But now to get to the core of it all: ingredients I do like but don't enjoy. These are thought-provoking and discomforting in a great way, something I need to experience once in a while but really rather wouldn't sometimes. That's hard drugs, a loooooooot of sex including rape (I'm not prude or anything, The Dreamers is one of my all-time favorite movies, but I don't think anyone would really enjoy the scenes in Bully), teenage pregnancy and prostitution. And we're not talking Pretty Woman prostitution, but the Mysterious Skin/ Christiane F sort of thing. 

So where does all of this leave me with Bully? This is not a movie I enjoyed. It's a movie that made me want to dig a big black hole in the garden and hide in it - either that or surround myself with sunshine, rainbows and innocent little children for a month. I would want to re-watch Bully anywhere in the vicinity of the next, say, 10 years. That being said, I do think it's a great movie, and in that way, it was an enjoyable experience. One that tested and probably crossed my boundaries and made me face some conflicts and perceptions of life that I don't usually consider. It's a well-directed, well-scripted, well-acted movie and I have nothing to complain about it whatsoever. So in the end, I appreciate the fact that this depressing and thought-provoking indie got chosen to be the LAMB Movie of the Month, because I got the chance to watch something I had never heard of and maybe would've never seen otherwise.

BULLY

2001 • USA/ France • English

dir. Larry Clark (1st watch of mine) 

written by David McKenna & Roger Pullis

★ Brad Renfro, Bijou Phillips, Rachel Miner + more (incl. Michael Pitt)

FINAL FRAME: STRAWBERRY

Mixtape Movies: Coming of Nostalgia

The awesomest of all awesome blogathon-creators, Andy from Fandango Groovers, once again saves me from thinking up ways to fit a lot of movies I want to write about into one post. His latest creation is the Mixtape Movies blogathon, where we can assemble 6 movies that have something in common - a theme - and write about that. One of the 6 movies is a wildcard, a movie that stands out from the rest in some way or another.

This blogathon just came out of nowhere into my blogroll and truly saved my day of blogging. I just don't find the time to write about all of the awesome things I'm watching and the moment, and find it incredibly difficult to fit them all into one post that's not just a series of mini-reviews. So here we have the perfect solution for my misery. I guess I'm sort of cheating in a way anyhow, since 5 of these movies are connected in a  very obvious way, but who cares - let's get started. Oh, and since my poor sister, who's in the hospital at the moment, borrowed my laptop, you're not going to get any photoshop in this post.

Mette's Movie Mixtape:

Coming of Nostalgia

My list is inspired by my several viewing of the ingenious 2010 teen-rom-com Easy A, a glorious weekend of watching (almost) all the movies mentioned in it and my chronic suffering from the Peter-Pan-Syndrome.

1001 Movies: Heart-shaped sunglasses, greasy hair and suntanned gladiator's legs

#183, a re-watch and #184

Choosing Kubrick's version of Lolita to celebrate the new year cinematically proved to be a perfectly wonderful choice. Provoking as well, to watch the story of an adult falling in love with a 14-year old in the year I'm going to turn into an adult (expectedly). My journey in 1001+ movies continued with a reunion and revision of my thoughts on one of the most-loved musicals ever (Grease), and yesterday's historic trip to slave revolts in ancient Rome (Spartacus) had me forced to finally write about these three movies (as one of my new year's resolutions was to write about each of the book's movies I'd watch).

Lolita (1962)

„[KUBRICK] MANAGES TO DELIVER A PICTURE EXACTLY AS EROTIC, ABSURD, OBSESSIVE, ERUDITE, AND LOW-COMIC AS THE BOOK.“            

The Cate Blanchett Essentials, #1 / 5

Here it is now, the pompous piece that closes the chapter of The Cate Blanchett Essentials and deserves its position entirely.

Elizabeth (1998) Shekhar Kapur

IMDB: 7.5 - RT: 82/85

The reason

„There are countless reasons: Indian director, Cate's breakthrough, acclamation, period drama and so on. I should have seen this one a long time ago.“

Shabd: To Cherish an Illusion or Not To

India, 2005

Shabd

Directed by Leena Yadav

Written by Leena Yadav, Sutapa Sikdar

★ Aishwarya Rai-Bachchan, Sanjay Dutt, Zayed Khan

         

2005, Northern Germany: a little girl lies on her bed, looking through her collection of fashion magazines and listening to her currently favourite song, Khoya Khoya from the movie Shabd. She has been listening to this song for at least the past four weeks, watching the trailers of the movie in an infinite loop, and she can't get any of this out of her head. How perfect this movie seems to her! If only she had the chance to see it somehow, but it's hard for a little girl in Northern Germany to get her hands on a copy of a newly released Indian movie. Especially one that flopped.

The Cate Blanchett Essentials, #2 / 5

Notes on a Scandal (2006) Richard Eyre

IMDB: 7.5 - RT: 87% / 81%

The reason

„I watched the making of a long time ago and thought it sounded extremely intriguing. Okay, maybe I have a weakness for films like this - they are just so interesting, psychologically - but I've actually heard that this one is supposed to be very good.“

The Cate Blanchett Essentials, #5 / 5

Read more about The Cate Blanchett Essentials

Robin Hood (2010) Ridley Scott

IMDB: 6.7 - RT: 43% / 59%

Why I selected this film as one of the Cate Blanchett Essentials

„A friend of mine told me she found this movie fantastic, and even though our tastes differ at times, I think I'm actually going to like this one. I mean, it's Robin Hood! With Cate!“

The story

Good question. It's something about Robin Hood, who pretends to be the returned husband of Marion (Cate) so that she can stay in her father-in-laws house after his death. He also "confronts corruption" in the village and somehow "alters the balance of the world power", according to IMDB. The story was hard to get. 

The message

Surrender to anarchism!

The character

Marion is a typical Cate Blanchett character: "trapped" in a time when women didn't have many rights, she is loud and stubborn and knows what she wants. As she lost her husband to war one week after their marriage, there is also a vulnerable side to her which is longing for the love (from a man) she never got. 

Otherwise she is very self-confident and likes to do things her own way. 

Sadly, there's not much focus on her character so I can't think of much else to say about it.

The performance

This is closely connected with the character, so although Cate gives it a 100% and is convincing as always in her scenes, I had the feeling that she should have had more screen time. Russel Crowe is great too, no doubt, but I didn't find his Robin Hood a very interesting character. 

Marion on the other hand, offered much potential and had many layers. Of course this must have been easy for Cate, these kind of roles are just her thing.

The most impressive scene

When Robin goes to his friends house to tell the news of his death, and tells Marion first without knowing that it was her husband. Cate's reaction is very realistic, she is trying to seem calm and strong, but the shock is hard to hide.

It's a very short scene, but I was very impressed.

The blemish

The film was long-drawn and the story wasn't very interesting. It was either so boring that I didn't pay enough attention to understand the story, or the story was so un-understandable that the film became boring.

Does the film deserve to be called one of the Cate Blanchett Essentials?

No, I don't think so. I'm sure she has been in films that are more deserving of this honour, so I'm a little disappointed I chose this one instead of many others.

FINAL FRAME

That's How You Do Tragedy

India, 1957

Pyaasa - प्यासा

 "Thirsty"

Directed by Guru Dutt

Written by Abrar Alvi

★ Guru Dutt, Waheeda Rehman, Mala Sinha

        

Sight & Sound, Time Magazine, Indiatimes and the critics and audience of yesterday and today - Pyaasa enchants everyone. It has been one of my top must-see-films, ranking as high as The Godfather, Fight Club and Kill Bill did in their respective times. So I put myself together and figured that my goal of seeing more (especially Indian) classics fit the fact that youtube has become a great source to watch these for free. (Link for this movie).

What can I say; of course Pyaasa is as fantastic as everyone says. It's the tragic story of the poet Vijay who is first neglected by his family, love and the publishers, and finds his only friends in the prostitute Gulab who adores his poems, and a poor massager. But the tragedy doesn't end here, for of course Vijay and his first love who is now married, meet again, and Vijay detects that there is more cruelty in the world than he would have ever imagined.

This Is Our Kingdom

USA, 2012

Moonrise Kingdom

Directed by Wes Anderson

Written by Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola

★ Jared Gilman, Kara Hayward

         

Watching Moonrise Kingdom was an informative event for me. I learned several important things, starting with my realizing that Wes Anderson is one of the greatest filmmakers I know (judging from this film), to realizing that I still wish I'd have lived in the 60s, to finally and definitely realizing that when there's a hype in the blogosphere, there's a reason for it. 

Lost in This Film

USA, 2003

Lost in Translation

Directed and written by Sofia Coppola

★ Bill Murray, Scarlett Johansson

        

Two people meet and spend a short time together, feeling they have known each other for life. And after that time is over, the two part and carry on with their respective lives, perhaps never to meet again.

It's not just about the costumes.

Denmark, 2012

En kongelig affære

(Int. title: „A Royal Affair“)

           

Directed by Nikolaj Arcel

Written by Rasmus Heisterberg, Nikolaj Arcel

★ Mads Mikkelsen, Mikkel Boe Følsgaard, Alicia Vikander

        

Who would have thought that the co-writer of the Danish slapstick-animation Rejsen til Saturn would turn out to be such a great director? Arcel, who is also to be applauded for his screenplay for the original first Millennium film Män som hatar kvinnor, clearly waisted his talent on that annoying movie we just recently saw in class. But as I go on looking through his filmography, I find that he has written the screenplay of one of my favourite films as a child, Klatretøsen (Catch That Kid), so I guess Rejsen til Saturn was one of those bloopers everyone has to experience once in a while.

A Royal Affair revolves around the Danish King Christian VII, who is known to be mentally ill, while the politics are mainly controlled by a council. Christian VII marries the English princess Caroline Mathilde, who becomes immensely disappointed by her marriage to the partying and straying king. However, everything changes when Christian hires the German Joseph Struensee as his private physician. Struensee brings the heretic ideas of the reconnaissance to the Danish court and a tragic love story develops between him and Queen Caroline.

A Film the World Has Been Waiting For

Norway, 2011

Få meg på, for faen 

(Int. Title: „Turn Me On, Dammit")

Directed and written by Jannicke Systad Jacobsen

★ Helene Bergsholm, Malin Bjørhovde, Henriette Steenstrup, Matias Myren

      

Since its showing at several festivals last year, this little norwegian gem of a film has been making its rounds through the societies of film gourmets, of course including the filmic blogosphere. I was instantly hooked when I first heard of it, because it was almost too good to be true: a film that revolves around the confusing thing that is (female) teenage sexuality, and that in a realistic and non-vulgar way!

What makes Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara a perfect summer movie

For the record: I'm perfectly aware of the fact that 1) perfection is subjective, and 2) I don't have a clue what makes a good movie. A film with similar ingredients as Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara might not have worked anywhere near as good, and maybe there are people somewhere in this world, who didn't fall in love head over heels with this film.
But as we continue, I want you to forget all these thoughts and look at Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara from the viewpoint of a summer-craving, adventure-seeking, latinophilic (there's no such word, is there?) fan, and just sense the love...

Success factor #1: Setting

Innocence. Desire. Suicide.

USA, 1999

Directed and written by Sofia Coppola

★ Kirsten Dunst, A.J. Cook, Hanna Hall, Leslie Hayman, Chelse Swain

      

Much has been said about Sofia Coppola's directorial debut, and what I have heard has in particular been full of praise - even love - for The Virgin Suicides. If you want to read some more of that, stay tuned.