2017 movies

Film Review: 20th CENTURY WOMEN (USA 2016)

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20th_century_women_poster.jpgDirector: Mike Mills
Writer: Mike Mills
Stars: Annette Bening, Elle Fanning, Greta Gerwig

Review by Gilbert Seah

Mike Mills hit it big with his coming out movie BEGINNERS based on his father who came out of the closet at the age of 75. Mills continues his personal films with 20th CENTURY WOMEN based on his upbringing by both his mother and her sister. The film has clout since, it is based on his life. This is a heartfelt feature.

The story is set in 1979, Santa Barbara, California. Single mother, Dorothea (Annette Benning) seeks the help of Abbie (Greta Gerwig) and Julie (Elle Fanning) to raise her son, Jamie (Lucas Jade Zumann). Abbie and Julie rent the rooms upstairs of Dorothea’s house.

Despite the film title, 20the CENTURY WOMEN is not solely about women. It is also about a boy being brought up by three women, only because the mother deems she needs help in his upbringing. So, the film should cater to a male audience though the ads and trailer do not make this point known. It is quite clear where the film is leading. Not only is the boy learning from the women, but the women are slowly influenced by the boy – by the boy’s reactions and deeds.

Mills demonstrates that minimal dialogue can also be used to highlight the drama in a confrontation scene. This is evident in the one where the boys argues with his mother after she chastises him on the ‘choking stinge’. The boy just walks away. The tactic of not using lengthy flowery arguments or screaming matches heighten the credibility of the story.
Mill’s film emphasizes details the characters indulge in that help the audience understand them. Dorothea smokes like a chimney – because it is stylish. But she smokes Salem menthols believing the harm is reduced. Julie sleeps with Jamie, sneaking into this room each night, but there do not indulge in sex.

A lot of effort seems to be put into the hairdo of the characters. Jamie and his mother have very curly hair while Abbie and daughter Julie noticeably straight hair. Abbie’s red hair symbolizes her desire to be different as she is.

The film is put into perspective by titles as well as Jamie’s voiceover. Still, one wonders where the film is leading to, and whether there is some hidden message.

Annette Bening shines in her role as the unsure mother. I am not really a Bening fan as she usually undertakes roles of unlikeable women like in AMERICAN BEAUTY and RUNNING WITH SCISSORS. But this sympathetic role suits her. Elle Fanning has been taking roles of and doing well with weird characters lately (LIVE BY NIGHT and THE NEON DEMON) and her role in this film will add to the list.

It would be interesting to see what kind of film Mills will be involved with next – after he has used up all the stories in his family and personal life.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JnFaltqnAY

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Film Review: BOTTICELLI – INFERNO (Germany/Italy 2016)

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botticelli_inferno_posterDirected by Ralph Loop

Up next in Event Cinema’s In the Gallery series is Botticelli – Inferno. The documentary takes audiences on a journey to discover the secrets behind Botticelli’s iconic “Map of Hell” painting.

The hidden stories behind some works of art are the most exciting, fascinating and engaging, so much so that they can even surpass any world-renowned, best-selling thriller. When one merges the style of one of the undisputed masters of the Renaissance, Sandro Botticelli, with the dark circles of Hell in Dante’s Inferno, the result is an intriguing plot made up of deadly sins, detailed investigations, inaccessible vaults, and seemingly unsolvable enigmas. Even after many centuries Botticelli’s works continue to engage and excite. Every year his most famous paintings draw thousands upon thousands of visitors to museums and exhibitions all over the world. However one of his most intimate and mysterious drawings – perhaps one of the most significant if we are to achieve a deeper understanding of him – lay locked up for years in the climate-controlled vaults of the Vatican. This is the drawing that Botticelli dedicated to Dante’s Inferno , and which has now taken the leading role in an original, exciting documentary film.

Everyone is intrigued by the unknown. And if the unknown is scary, interest will be picquet even more. So, Botticelli’s painting of hell has fascinated admirers from the past to the present. The recent Ron Howard thriller INFERNO with Tom hanks is an example of Hollywood banking on Botticelli’s Inferno.

But it is Dante’s Inferno. The Renaissance master Botticelli spent over a decade painting and drawing hell as the poet Dante (his vision of the Underworld) described it. The film takes us on a journey through hell with fascinating and exciting insights into Botticelli’s art and its hidden details.

The film is shot all around Europe in exclusive locations such as the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, the Vatican Library and more.

The voiceover is in the first person, as Botticelli, talking about his paintings and of his life in Florence. Director Loop also enlists an expert, an Italian historian who knows the city of Florence in the Rainnasance era to narrate part of the film. It helps that he is an extremely spirited (and knowledgable) person, who brings some humour and spirit to the film. As a result, the film would cater was well to the interest many who have limited knowledge of Bottlicelli. The film is also brought into the present with its restoration. The shots of the digital image scanning that reveals the detail of Botticelli’s details are remarkable – the benefits of modern technology.

The most interesting segment of the film is the illustration of modern drawings in contrast to what were done in the age of Botticelli. Now paintings are created using virtual ink on virtual materials using computer software. The film sidetracks too on the Scots influence. The Duke of Hamilton acquired a substantial amount of Botticelli’s manuscripts.

The film will run in participating Cineplex theatres January 18 and 29, 2017. For theatres and showtimes, please visit
cineplex.com/Gallery

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lobp5HK-TmA&feature=youtu.be

 

 

 

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Film Review: NELLY (Canada 2016)

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nelly.jpgDirected by Anne Émond

Starring: Mylène MacKay, Marie-Claude Guérin, Catherine Brunet

Review by Gilbert Seah

Quebecois writer/director Anne Émond impressed cineastes with her first two features NUIT #1 and LES ETRES CHERS for their complexity and honesty. There is more of the same in her latest feature called NELLY which is based on the works and life of controversial writer Nelly Arcan (born Isabelle Fortier).

The film is bookmarked with Nelly’s performance on stage of the catchy well-known song “Those Were the Days” in French. At the start of the movie during the rendering of the song, the camera lowers to the front row of the audience where Nelly is signalled to lower her voice. It is a scene that impresses, that shows how details like these can capture the attention of a director’s audience.

Fortier published Putain (Whore) in 2001, causing a sensation in literary circles with a tale of prostitution based on her own experience in the trade. But with the success of that debut novel came crushing anxieties, all of which found their way into her work.

Émond portrays the onscreen NELLY as a composite of Arcan’s many personas and her fictional characters, bringing her to life in an astounding, kaleidoscopic performance by Mylène Mackay – and an excellent almost faultless performance at that. Émond blurs the line between the real and the fictitious character so that he audience is unaware what is happening is real or imagined. In this way, as the film moves from one striking passage of the author’s oeuvre to the next, from elating highs to desperate lows, the audience is immersed in her lush and punishing world. The character Nelly would do things in real life to test out for her characters in the book to do. There is a segment involving rough sex that is as sexy as it is deadly.

NELLY is not a biopic in the normal sense. NELLY is not portrayed from child to her death in her early thirties. In fact the cause of her death (an early one at 34) is not even mentioned in the film, illustrating the fact that, that fact is not the important point in the film. The film traces just the window of her life within a year where everything that takes place establishes the writer for what she is. Her relationship with her lover is also displayed in all its complexity. The one scene in which an argument ensues for the fact that he refuses to share a line of coke with her explains the volatility of their relationship, as also hinted in the disturbing scene in the swimming pool change-room. Here, Nelly is shown mentally unstable, writhing on the wet floor of the change room screaming at her lover. Nelly does spend some time in a sanatorium (which she describes as a rest house) which she deeply resents.

NELLY has been deservedly chosen as one of Canada’s Top 10 films and it sits as one of the better ones. It is a small budget production, efficiently made, effective and like her other works, complexed but honest.

Trailer: https://vimeo.com/177441312

 

 

 

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