Beasts of the Southern Wild

Beasts of the Southern Wild *10*
Benh Zeitlin, 2012
Sundance Award

This is a mesmerizing and powerful film by debut director Benh Zeitlin, from a play by Lucy Alibar, a fellow writer that Zeitlin met in a writers workshop as a teen. The unlikely star of the film is six year old Quvenzhané Wallis, who had to pretend to be six when she was five to beat out 4,000 others for this part in auditions.

The basic story is that of a motherless girl called Hushpuppy in a bayou region of an island in the Mississippi River delta area of Louisiana, the part past land's end. As you will see early in the film, this is a much more responsible child than we were at age six, her survival depends on it.

This quote from Hushpuppy's narration tells the situation succinctly:
"If my daddy doesn't get back soon, I'll have to start eating my pets." 

Her father, Wink, is brilliantly played by a New Orleans 7th ward cafè owner, Dwight Young, also with no previous acting experience, and already two awards for best supporting actor. He plays dad Wink, who has heart trouble, and knows he won't be around while Hushpuppy grows up, so he is raising her to be the man. He demand of her "who's the man?" and she flexes her biceps and says "I'm the man!" This is probably going to be repeated often by fans of this film.

Her name is Hushpuppy likely because she feeds all the animals, their only source of food other than the river, where they catch catfish, crawfish, and other local bounty. Wink even shows her how to catch a catfish by hand in the bayou, by grabbing him when you feel him on the bottom. These people are living in danger like everyone in low coastal areas, here in a makeshift village known as The Bathtub. Without any connection to the mainland, they are constantly endangered by storms, flooding, and global melting, which will easily inundate these low lying areas.

This is the best made coming-of-age story since To Kill a Mockingbird, and Wallis' performance is much tougher and more demanding than Mary Badham's, and seems more natural - you get the feeling that Nazie is not far out of her element in boats and mud in the delta.

Rather than ruin this film by too much story or analysis, as its a magical journey of myth-making proportions, I'll let you see through these links the impact of this film, which Barack Obama called "a spectacular film - even my 4 year old niece was captivated".

Awards and Nominations
Currently Beasts leads with 35 (six so far for Nazie Wallis), including wins at Sundance, and four at Cannes (next high film is Zero Dark Thirty at 21, The Master with 20, and Argo with 19):

http://www.beastsofthesouthernwild.com/news/beasts-awards-and-nominations/

Film Trailer
The film's trailer from Cannes

The film page at Facebook, where people are telling their stories of this film's impact on their families or children, as well as many other links.

Unfortunately for the Academy Awards,  Beasts debuted at Sundance last January, and often an early release in a film season loses Oscar® attention to films timed to attain academy recognition, which this year would be Life of Pi, The Hobbitt, and Lincoln. That would be a shame for Nazie Wallis, as she has given the child performance of cinema history - she deserves the lead actress Oscar®.

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2001: A Space Odyssey

Dir: Stanley Kubrick, 1968 (10*)

AFI Top 100

[Updated: 12.31.11]

This groundbreaking SciFi epic was the first to feature totally realistic space effects, and changed forever the way SF films looked. The story, by Arthur C. Clarke, was written for this film because Kubrick wanted to film his incredible novel A Childhood's End, which could not be filmed at the time with existing technology. That book, and this film, are about the next step in the evolution of mankind, from a material to a spiritual being. The previous step, from animal intelligence to human intelligence, is shown in the beginning to give us a major clue, so its surprising that so many people are still baffled by this movie, which has only 20 minutes of dialogue and encourages us to think - what a concept!

Kubrick's film would have been even better had he been able to get phenomena filmmaker Jordan Belson to work on it, but he refused to ever work on commercial films. Belson makes short animated films about things like the birth of a star, or motion through space. All his short films are in the permanent archives at the Museum of Modern Art, and are much better than anything put into commercial SF films. At film festivals, these short films of 3-8 minutes always get standing ovations. Kubrick did make planets and spaceships finally look realistic together, and forever changed the way science fiction films looked going forward. It would be another 10 yrs before Star Wars, but all the action adventure space films that followed looked the way they did because of 2001, so in that regard it was highly influential on the entire industry. Not exactly an exciting film, it was nevertheless a visionary film, and for its time, like nothing else that had ever been filmed.

The sequel, 2010: The Year We Make Contact, attempts to explain the story further, a story which really needed no filmed postscript. That became more of an action film, with much more human interaction between Americans and Russian in a joint venture to activate the spaceship Discovery, and also check out Jupiter from closer range. Worth seeing, and well-done. Clarke himself wrote a third novel in the series as well, 2040, that has not yet been filmed, real SF fans should read the entire trilogy.

Ranked #1 at the Criterion networking film site, The Auteurs, with over 100,000 members.

Note: it's very similar to the parable of Jesus - it's about the birth of a spiritual being, not a corporal one. The awakening of one's spiritual self is a 'virgin birth' that doesn't involve procreation. In 2001, this is symbolized by the floating embryo at the end, a metaphor for the astronaut now being a spiritual being. In Clarke's novel Childhood's End, this happened to the entire race beginning with the current generation of children, so the adults were living out the last physical lives on earth, or the end of the childhood of mankind.

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The Player

Robert Altman, 1992 (9.2*)
[This is an updated repost of one of my favorite films about films]

Tim Robbins portrays a film producer looking for that next major hit project, who, through an anonymous blackmailer that sends him threatening postcards, becomes involved in a mystery, and his character degenerates into one who may actually stop at nothing to protect his ego and his wallet, and perhaps find love as well.

With the always delectable Greta Scacchi in his sights, who could blame him? He inadvertantly gets involved with her, with completely unforeseen events, through a screenwriter whose script he rejected. I liked the performance of Cynthia Stevenson as Robbins' low-key girlfriend within the studio, who often travels with him 'on business' - and who seems to be the perfect cynical match for her boss.

The Player is a perfect modern complement to Sunset Boulevard, as each presents the cynical and parasitic side of Hollywood and its shallow, self-centered denizens. Robert Altman's best film (for me) includes dozens of famous cameos (around 75), including 16 Oscar® winners, the most of any feature film (of course not including clip films like That's Entertainment). In fact, the dvd has a special menu of all the cameo scenes so you can quickly jump to the one you're seeking.

As another homage to cinema, the opening tracking shot is one of the longest in cinema history as a couple of film buffs argue in one shot of that about the longest tracking shots in cinema history. That has a pleasing circularity to it that will likely go over the heads of most viewers.

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Bicycle Thieves

Ladri di biciclette
Vittorio De Sica, Italy, (1949) bw (9.2*)
Best Foreign Film (AA, GG)
Best Film (BAA)
In this hallmark film of Italian post-war realism, former actor Vittorio De Sica used all amateur actors and a street realism style with stunning results. De Sica presents probably the most uncompromising and least hopeful of film stories, the film is so depressing that I've had a hard time recommending it here.

The story is a simple one, a poor Italian man, played by factory worker Lamberto Maggiorani, with a young boy gets a job posting film signs only because he has a bicycle. But like most material objects in harsh economic conditions, it gets stolen. Now the man has no bicycle to get to his job, therefore it threatens his job as well. This bicycle becomes the holy grail of this man's life and of this film.

De Sica and the other post-war realists didn't believe in the make-believe world presented by films prior to the war. Rather than escape from reality, they sought to bring the harsh reality of everyday life to the filmgoing public, perhaps with the hope that by raising awareness of the plight of some, people will be angered enough to work to make those conditions more dignified.

It's hard not to be moved by this film. Considered by many one of the finest films ever made, it certainly should be near the top of most polls. No. 85 on the IMDB 250, No. 16 on our compendium of all film polls so it's apparent that critics rank this film a much higher than the general public.

Winner of 16 awards (out of 17 nominations), including an Oscar® and Golden Globe for best foreign language film, and a British academy award (BAFTA) for best overall film.

Note: growing up, this film was always "The Bicycle Thief" - I'm not sure when or why it became plural, but I'm using the title used at IMDB

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Departures

Yôjirô Takita, 2008, Japan (10.0*)
Best Foreign Film (AA)
This is quite simply one of the most graceful, elegant, and lyrical films I've ever seen, and one of the most beautiful to watch. It's also one of the most emotionally moving and poignant ever made.

A young married cellist, Daigo (Masahiro Motoki) plays for a small orchestra that is not making enough money to survive, so its owner dissolves the group. Daigo and his wife (Ryôko Hirosue) decide to go back to the small town he grew up in because they can live in his mother's small house that he inherited.

When he arrives, he needs work, and he sees an ad that simply says immediate help needed, with no further information. It turns out that a corpse preparer, Ikuei Sasaki, needs an assistant, and has trouble keeping people. Apprehensive at first, he quickly adapts to the ritualistic and graceful tasks, and the respect shown for the departed as his own mother is dead, and his father left the family when he was six.

The screenplay is full of metaphors. Water is constantly in use, both in a ritual purification before burial, and as a healing cleanser for the living; a local public bathhouse and its proprietor are used prominently, for spiritual as well as physical healing. Snow is also used, for the pristine cleanliness and beauty of the natural world. Swans are shown landing and swimming on lakes. Along with snow, in the springtime there are flurries of cherry blossums. Both the interiors and exteriors are shown for the beauty inherent in each.

Stones are another metaphor - they are used to send messages to another by the type of stone given from person-to-person, something done in ancient times before letters. A rough stone meant the giver was worried about the recipient; a small, smooth one just the opposite. They also imply a permanence seldom found in the world of the living.

Food is also used to symbolize life; as the director (in a dvd interview) and a character says, "to eat is to live, life is impossible without eating". Also that most food is something dead, so the dead provide nourishment for the living. This is one of the more literary screenplays you will ever see.

This was a 15-year project for director Yôjirô Takita, after the idea was brought to him by one of the actors, Masahiro Motoki. Though screenplay credit goes solely to Kundô Koyama, in an interview Takita said that he did the first rough draft, then it was completed by himself and the actors together.

Overall, the film won 33 awards (out of just 39 nominations), including 10 of 13 Japanese academy awards for film, director, actor, cinematography, editing, screenplay, sound, lighting, supporting actor, and supporting actress. The only 3 it lost were actress, art direction, and score.

Departures won many other best films awards: Oscar® for foreign language film, Hawaii Int'l Film fest, Hochi film awards, Kinema Junpo awards, Mainichi Film Concours, Montreal World Film fest, Nikkon Sports Film awards, Palm Springs Int'l Film fest, Udine Far East film fest, Wisconsin film fest, Yokohama Film fest. The only awards missing seem to be BAFTA, Cannes, and Sundance. Masahiro Motoki won 5 best actors awards for his lead performance.

Awards (15) for director Takita, who said he was most pleased that such a personal and such a Japanese film meant something to viewers in other nations around the world.

Director Yôjirô Takita,

accepting his Oscar®

This is an instant classic, one of the best Japanese films of all time, and one of the best films about life and death ever made. Easily an all-time top 100 film for me, and I think for many others as well. This film more than any other captures the solemn, respectful Japanese ritualistic culture like no other.

Departures joins these other four Oscar winners from Japan:
1951: Rashomon (Akira Kurosawa)
1954: Gate of Hell (Teinosuke Kinugasa)
1955: Samurai 1: Musashi Miyamoto (Hiroshi Inagaki)
1975: Dersu Uzala (Soviet Union/Japan - Akira Kurosawa)

Note: I apologize for such a long review, I normally write capsule reviews that can be read quickly, but I was obviously very much impressed with this film, as was the film-viewing world. This  is only the 40th perfect 10 rating I've given out.

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A Town Like Alice

David Stephens, 1980 (9.5*)
A group of British women are taken prisoner by the Japanese in Malaya during WW2, and, as it's against their honor to imprison them, they force them on an endless march to nowhere. Jean Paget, wonderfully played by Helen Morse, takes charge and provides the strength that keeps some alive, while many die as not all are fit enough for a forced march.

At one point, they meet a young Australian soldier, Joe Harman (Bryan Brown in a star-making performance), and the two become friends. He tries to help the women, and as a result they are separated by their brutal captors and the man is tortured for showing simple human compassion.

After the war, the two seek each other out to continue to explore the feelings they once had that were sparked during a time of crisis, which they were unable to explore due to the wartime situation. This time, they are separated by half the globe, as Jean is back in civilized England, and Joe is ranching in the middle of the Australian outback.

This is based on a popular best-seller by author Nevil Shute (On the Beach), and that novel was based on true events. This is a romance of epic proportions, beautifully filmed by the BBC (for Masterpiece Theater) in a five-hour mini-series in six parts, which gave the novel the proper amount of length and detail. This is much better seen in one sitting than broken up over weeks. Winner of 6 awards

For my money, this is a much better (and less soapy) romance than Gone With the Wind; this is about self-sacrifice for others, not self-centered gratification. The only other romantic epic that's even comparable is the BBC (Masterpiece Theater) miniseries Brideshead Revisited, from the Evelyn Waugh novel, ironically released the same year, winner of 11 awards, 28 nominations, seven BAFTAs. You should also enjoy the underrated epic romance Australia, from Baz Luhrmann, starring Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman, a film so large that it's a western and a war film.

Note: The title refers to the desert oasis of Alice Springs , the only green spot in the middle of the huge Australian desert due to a natural spring. This has a rating of 8.1 at IMDB (good enough for the all-time top 250), but only has 452 user ratings - that's unreal for one of the best films ever made, and one of the best 10 miniseries ever made for tv.

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Innocence

Lucile Hadzihalilovic, France, 2004 (9.5*)
This is an amazing, mesmerizing, hypnotic film, with some of the most beautiful images in cinema. Newcomer Lucile Hadzilalilovic has adapted a novella by Frank Wedekind (I believe it's translation from the French is "The Physical Education of Young Girls"), and has created a coming-of-age story in a myserious world all it's own.

Zoé Auclair plays a new arrival, Iris, at a secluded school for orphan girls hidden in a deep forest park, isolated from the outside world. The other girls welcome her, and reassure her with their calm, protective aura of self-reliance. She is most comforted by the oldest girl in her house, Bianca, played by the beautiful Bérangère Haubruge, who becomes like a big sister. In fact, all the girls are beautiful in their own way; you get the idea that maybe they've been selected for that reason.

It appears that the girls' schooling consists primarily of dance, and Oscar®-winning best actress Marion Cotillard plays the ballet instructor in one of her early supporting roles. Hélène de Fougerolles plays the only other instructor that both the girls and Cotillard seem to have interaction with, as the children are usually left on their own with the eldest (young teens) taking charge; they seem to respect the rules and maintain a self-disciplined civility.

However, there are mysteries - Bianca goes off to a mysterious location nightly, and says it's a secret she can't mention. A certainly elderly woman simply called the headmistress shows up once a year and selects one girl to take away. The entire park is surrounded by a giant stone wall, in effect making the school a type of prison. Rumors abound; one is that if you try to escape, you'll never be let outside again, and that's why Cotillard and Fougerolles teach there.

There are numerous literate metaphors used here. The film starts with water bubbling, and it is constantly in use throughout the film - the girls swim in a pond, there's a major rainstorm, a rowboat, also a bath. In literature, water can be for cleansing, baptism, or represent the troubles of the material world, such as floods, rough waters, raging rivers. The girls are often shown caterpillers, butterflies, and even dance a ballet as butterflies - the tranformation from girl to woman is an obvious metaphor, but it's done with artistic grace if not subtlety.

This is a very sensual film, the images are accompanied by touch, sound, even smell, and the audience is thereby immersed in the film more than just cerebrally. This is an amazingly poetic and beautiful piece of filmmaking, captivating the viewer by its own private world like few in cinema history .

Winner of 8 film awards, most for film or director at film festivals, but one for it's beautiful cinematography. If the Oscars® really represented the best films, this would have had 6-8 nominations, it's easily a better, more artistic dance film and woman's film than Black Swan. It's amazing that Hadzihalilovic hasn't directed any films since this one in 2004.

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Lone Star

John Sayles, 1996 (9.1*)

Excellent crime mystery is my favorite film of indie director John Sayles, who first came to prominence with the laid back indie reunion film The Return of the Seacaucus Seven. The strong point of this film is Sayle's terrific screenplay, which never feels contrived or manipulative. He manages to create a series of subplots and character depth that never overwhelms the main story. This film is nearly flawless in its execution.

Chris Cooper [photo below] is excellent as sheriff Sam Deeds, called in to investigate a decades old crime and corpse recently unearthed. The more he gets into the details of the crime, the more personal the story becomes. Sayles deftly shifts from the present story to the story of the past murder. Along the way Sayles manages to comment on many social issues, notably racism, politics, patriotism, inter-generational alienation, duty, and personal ethics.

The relationships seem realistic, the dialogue is concise and never strained, the messages never hammered home. Chris Cooper [photo below] became an acting star in this film, imo, and later won a supporting actor Oscar® for Adaptation (He's won 23 acting awards overall). The excellent cast also includes Elizabeth Pena, Kris Kristofferson, Matthew McConaughey and Frances McDormand. Lone Star won 12 awards overall
Note: If you like this film, it would make an excellent Texas crime trilogy with the Coen Brothers' No Country For Old Men (2007, Oscar for best picture), and Tommy Lee Jones' The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005). Another good film in the same locale is The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez (1982) from director Robert M. Young

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Toy Story 3

Lee Unkrich, 2010 (9.0*)Another winner in the ongoing series, this one's about when the kid, Andy, is finally old enough to go off to college, and what happens to the childhood collection of stuff in the room that is now being passed on to a younger sibling. We've all been through this at some point, losing countless millions in old baseball cards and Beatles memorabilia tossed out by moms (these two from personal experience!)

Along with all the other belongings are the child's favorite toys - in this case, Woody (Tom Hanks), Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen), the dinosaur, Hamm the pig (John Ratzenburger), Jessie the cowgirl (Joan Cusack), the potato heads, and all the other toys from the first two films. The mom is pressuring all the kids to come up with toys to throw out, toys for the attic, and toys to be donated to a day care center. Of course, Andy's (John Morris) toys get mixed up with trash, and then end up at the daycare center, with hilarious results.

They've kept the story energized with some funny twists. My favorite is that Buzz Lightyear has a Spanish mode and when he is accidentally switched to Spanish we read his dialogue in subtitles, and he flits around like a flamenco dancer, so along with language his personality changes to a Spanish one.

This is another tear-jerking, crowd pleaser from Pixar, but it maintains the level of the first two, and forms a perfect complement for the trilogy. Winner of 19 awards so far, out of 41 nominations, and up for five upcoming Oscars® including best picture. #29 on the IMDB top 250.

Our review of the original Toy Story, from 1993, and it's sequel

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The Usual Suspects

Bryan Singer, 1995 (9.1*)
Told in flashback form in this brilliant Oscar®-winning script by Christopher McQuarrie, this is a crime story like none other. A witness, Oscar®-winner Kevin Spacey, is a lone survivor to a gang massacre at a dockside ship, and he tells a harrowing tale to police detective Chazz Palmentieri.

The story begins with a lineup which gathers together five career criminals, aka 'the usual suspects', which allows them to plot a major heist together, and it is this story we learn in the tale told by Spacey. The excellent cast makes this story a gripping mystery - Kevin Pollack, Gabriel Byrne, Benecio del Toro, Kevin Spacey, Stephen Baldwin play the criminals, with Palmentieri and Dan Hedaya the detectives.

This is a creative and unique story that you won't easily forget, with twists you can't see coming, and this film is now permanently entrenched in the crime hall of fame. Now #25 on the IMDB top 250, rated by viewers.

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One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Milos Forman, 1975 (9.2*)
Best Picture (AA, BAA, GG)
This excellent filming of hippie author Ken Kesey's novel of a brash mental patient, played by Oscar® winner Jack Nicholson, was the leading Oscar® winner for 1975 (five overall), winning best picture for producers Saul Zaentz and Michael Douglas, the actor. The novel arose out of Kesey's own experiences at a mental institution where he worked in California in order to gain access to the drugs after LSD was made illegal by the FDA.

Nicholson's character McMurphy, who pretends madness to get out of prison work so he's really an intelligent schemer, becomes the leader of the other patients in their fight against a dictatorial nurse Ratched, perfectly played by previously unknown Oscar® winner Louise Fletcher, who uses her position to terrorize and maintain harsh control over a band of frightened yet safe patients, many of whom undoubtably could be released after more humane treatment. She seems to derive sadistic satisfaction in keeping the 'inmates' (as they are not treated like patients but criminals) both unbalanced and cowering in fear.

Though not a pleasant film to sit through, it makes positive statements about individual freedom and dissent at a time when the U.S. was heavily oppressed by the Nixon regime which was suppressing student anti-war protests and usurping individual Constitutional rights in order to maintain fascist control over all facets of American life by some die-hard right wing conservatives, most of whom had supported Sen. McCarthy in his anti-communist with hunts in the 50's, a committee on which Nixon himself had served. This is not a film for the squeamish, as it accurately shows how electric shock, heavy anti-psychotic drugs, and lobotomies are routinely used as punishment to control unruly patients.

Nicholson showed what an explosive actor he could be as well as giving voice to the complaints of the average citizen when faced with authoritarian control over their daily lives. As such, this film makes the most American of statements, that sometimes the only recourse is to organize people and stand united against tyranny together. The excellent screenplay adaptation, which condenses a longer novel into its essential elements, also won Oscars® for authors Bo Goldman and Lawrence Hauben.

Director Milos Forman, also an Oscar®-winner for this, and later for Amadeus (in 1984), came here to escape communism in Czechoslavakia, then under Russian control. There he made more light-hearted and comedic films, such as the hilarious Fireman's Ball (at which nothing goes according to plan, not even the beauty pagent, in which there are no contestants so the elderly firemen drag unwilling girls off the dance floor), so he injects much humor in the early minutes of this much more serious film. Also nominated for Oscars® was the terrific supporting performance of Brad Dourif, the cinematography of Haskell Wexler and Bill Butler, editing of Chew, Klingman, and Kahn, and the music of sometimes Rolling Stones member Jack Nitzsche.

Filmed for just over 4 million, it grossed 112 mil in the U.S. alone. Cuckoo's Nest also won six British academy awards, or BAFTA's, and 28 awards overall. The awards page at IMDB

On a personal note, I've had a hard time putting together a review of this film, as my own father was diagnosed schizophrenic during the Korean War, his second war as a navy aircraft mechanic. He was flown back to a V.A. hospital, and also given electroshock treatment and reduced to a shell of his former self, never again being able to use his engineering degree and reduced to doing menial jobs until his death at 46 from cancer, likely caused from witnessing atomic tests in the Pacific from the decks of U.S. ships without any protection. After the diagnosis, he was discharged from the navy and my family never received any compensation from the government, so it's hard for me to join the flag-waving patriotic bandwagon no matter what war we wage.

Note: Kesey's own LSD-driven lifestyle was the subject of Tom Wolfe's excellent novel The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, in which Kesey and his band of Merry Pranksters drove around the U.S. in their bus freely giving out acid when it was legal. The psychedelic bus' destination was labeled as "Further", and Wolfe's novel is a touching ode to a bygone era of freedom, self-expression, and naive optimism.

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An Education

Lone Scherfig, 2009 (9.0*)

Sundance Audience Award
Carey Mulligan gives a star-making and Oscar®-nominated performance in this brilliant coming-of-age British romance from Danish director Lone Scherfig. She plays Jenny, a 16-yr old, middle-class honor student, at a prep school for Oxford in 1961 who begins a romance when a thirty-ish man, Peter Sarsgaard (as David), gives her a ride home from school in the rain to 'protect her cello'.

What follows is a very gentle, slowly-paced romance during which David is able to charm his way into her life and show her how 'the other half' lives, attending art auctions, expensive dinners, and real estate sales.

Her best teacher, superbly played as usual by unheralded Olivia Williams, (star of many BBC classics, and the hilarious comedy In The Loop) and her principal, in this case former Oscar®-winner Emma Thompson, are both convinced she is throwing her education and her future away. Meanwhile, her parents, with Alfred Molina terrific as her dad, showing a previously unseen vulnerable (yet still humorous) side, are a little more accepting while becoming friends with David themselves.

For me, this is art at its finest - we see the gradual character growth in Mulligan's face, and don't need dialogue or events to hammer home the point that she is transforming from girl to woman in a few weeks. Lone Scherfig has done a typically understated and brilliant piece of Danish film directing (fellow director Susanne Bier is one of the world's best) that shows romance in a romantic, non-prurient and positive setting, letting the story and character development evolve seemingly on their own. This is all too rare in the last half century.

As proof, An Education was nominated for the best picture Oscar®, as well as screenplay (Nick Hornby brilliantly adapted his own novel), and best actress for Carey Mulligan. She won the BAFTA, the only award it won there out of 8 nominations (including film and British film), and 11 other best actress awards worldwide, many from critics. Overall, it won 15 awards out of 63 nominations, including the Sundance Audience Award.

Director Lone Scherig has 25 wins overall out of 39 nominations, most for Italian For Beginners (2000). Not bad for any director, and she's a Danish woman! I keep telling you, they're way ahead of us..

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Whale Rider

Niki Caro, 2003, New Zealand (10*)
Sundance Audience Award, World Cinema
One of those amazing films that comes along all too rarely in life, one that blends myth into reality, and one that exposes a unique culture, the Maoris of New Zealand, being swallowed up by modern society. Lovingly directed by Niki Caro, from a novel by Maori author Witi Ihimaera, with beautiful music from Dead Can Dance singer Lisa Gerrard, who also scored Gladiator and The Insider.

This film is the story of Paikea, a young girl searching for self-identity in a tribal culture dominated by males for centuries, and whose grandad is intent on finding the next male tribal chief to lead his people back to their ancestral heritage and maintain time-honored ritual as a connection to their identity.

The cast is amazing, the adult Maori actors are excellent, especially Rawiri Paratene as the grandad, Koro, but the entire film is stolen by newcomer Keisha Castle-Hughes, a schoolgirl with no prior experience who was discovered in a classroom by the same casting director that found young Anna Pacquin for Jane Campion's The Piano.

Keisha Castle-Huges, a Maori who relocated from Australia to New Zealand at age 5, was nominated for 13 international awards for this role, including an Oscar for Best Actress, and was a winner of five awards: Broadcast Film Critics: Best Young Actor/Actress, Chicago Film Critics: Most Promising Performer, New Zealand Film and Tv Awards: Best Actress, Online Film Critics: Best Breakthrough Performance, Young Artist Awards: Best Actress in an International Film. In my opinion, this is one of the best performances I've ever seen by either a woman or a child, she definitely deserved some type of Oscar®.

Awards Page for Keisha at IMDB

Awards Page for Whale Rider, with 28 wins and 29 other nominations, including 9 New Zealand Film and TV awards, winning picture, director, screenplay, music, and four for acting

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Walkabout

Dir: Nicholas Roeg, 1971,
Australia (10*)

This beautiful nature story starts when a father abandons his two children (Jenny Agutter's first film?) in the Australian outback and kills himself. The children are found by an Aboriginal youth (David Gulpilil) on his rite of manhood, a walkabout, where one must survive six months alone in the wilderness. The story follows the three as they all fight for survival in the outback, while the white children learn the ancient wisdom that has allowed the aborigines to survive in this environment for at least 50 thousand years.

This adventure film, by British cinematographer Roeg (Performance), is simply beautiful and not like any other, a parable of urban man in the wilderness. The closing poem is one of the most beautiful in film history.

This beautiful film set a precedent for Aussie films to follow using Aborigines as a subject. Two more that make an excellent trilogy with this adventure are Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002), and Australia (2007), which both deal with the "Stolen Generations" of mixed-blood children taken from their parents in the interest of "racial protection" of the Aborigines.

This poem was read as an epilogue at the end of the film. It is the complete Poem 40 from A Shropshire Lad by Alfred Edward Housman.

Into my heart an air that kills
From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?
That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.

Complete text of the sixty-three poem cycle at Project Gutenberg

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Under the Sun

aka Under Solen
Colin Nutley, 1998, Sweden (9.5*)
An extreme rarity: an uplifting love story, and from Sweden no less. In this surprisingly simple story (from a novel by H.E. Bates), a lonely Swedish farmer, believably portrayed by Rolf Lassgard, who shared the family house with his now deceased mother places a newspaper ad for a live-in housekeeper. His simple and idyllic lifestyle is dramatically changed when the ad is answered by a beautiful and mature blond woman, perfectly cast by the director's wife Helena Bergstrom. When she doesn't immediately run away and moves in, his best male friend (Johan Widerberg) is both jealous and suspicious.

This film has many pleasant surprises, especially compared to classic romance films of the past, and when compared to the emotional angst prevalent in nearly all famous Swedish films, such as those of Ingmar Bergman. Here the nearly primitive pastoral setting is juxtaposed with the coming rock and roll age, as his young friend is a big fan of American rock and the new attitude shaking the world's more conservative traditions. There is a tension cleverly set up between the three by director Nutley, and an unsettling undercurrent that belies the pleasant romance occurring on the surface. I won't spoil any surprises for the viewers here, just make this a must-see foreign film and you'll be glad you braved the subtitles.

I love the metaphor of the silent airplane used in the film's opening, there's a forum discussion about this at IMDB for those interested in researching this film after viewing.

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Devils on the Doorstep

aka Guizi Lai Le
Jen Wiang, 2000, China, bw (9.6*)
Absolutely terrific anti-war satire from China, is one of that country's best films ever, a grand jury prize finalist at Cannes. Wiang proves himself the consummate artist, writing the screenplay, then directing himself as the lead actor, putting himself on a level with Clint Eastwood and Woody Allen.

The story is simple on the surface: in a Chinese coastal village occupied by Japanese naval reserves during WW2, a peasant farmer whose prime concern is making love to his dead brothers' widow, receives a knock in the night (while fulfilling his goal) and is given two Japanese prisoners: a Japanese infantry soldier and his Chinese translator, by a resistance fighter, who instructs him to take care of them until New Year's, and to interrogate them, or he will kill all the villagers. When he doesn't return by that day, the villagers are faced with confusion and a major decision - what follows is a satire of war and moral dilemna, with much humor until the films concluding scenes. Watch for a hilarious scene where the translator has taught the p.o.w. how to curse the ancestors of his guards, as "the Chinese hate insults of their ancestors".

Wiang wisely shot this, beautifully, in black and white, recalling Kurosawa's masterpiece, Seven Samurai. Ironically, this film was banned in China, some say because the Japanese aren't shown as brutal enough, others because Wiang entered the film at Cannes without the government's consent. Whatever the reason, the entire world deserves to see this war mastepiece - there's no other film quite like it from inside or outside of China. Certainly one of that country's best films; only master director Zhang Yimou (Hero, To Live, The Road Home) has equalled this artistry.

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The Namesake

[This is our 500th dvd reviewed, and it's a great one ..]
Mira Nair, 2006, India-US (10*)
In English, so don't fear the subtitles

I was moved and inspired by this film, pretty much left speechless, and haven't wanted to watch another movie since! This amazing film is perhaps the best yet from famed Indian director Mira Nair, now working in the U.S. It's really just the simple story of a married Bengali couple from India living in the U.S., maintaining their cultural heritage while their children largely reject Indian culture to remain more "American", but it's such a rich and complex story that it's hard to describe, also so full that it's hard to believe it's only two hours and not four. The ensemble cast here is simply perfect and a revelation in subtlety. I was especially moved by Irfan Khan as the father who relocates to New York, and Tabu, who plays his arranged wife, who misses her native homeland but remains loyal to her family.
Kal Penn (Kumar in the Harold and Kumar comedies) has his best serious acting role as Khan's son Gogol, named for the famous Russian author, the subject of the film's title. [On the dvd, Penn said he actually uses the name "Gogol Ganguli" at hotels when on the road - before making this!] We only really find out the importance of his name near the film's end, in a superbly edited flashback that Nair moved from the beginning of the film in a decidedly brilliant artistic stroke.

This is a film of delicate subtlety, not at all what western audiences will be accustomed to seeing, but the overall effect is a story that grows on you until you suddenly realize that you are watching a literary masterpiece, from a novel by young Indian author Jhumpa Lahiri. This story is about transitions in life, as the only real constant is change. The narrative deftly covers about three decades in the lives of the main characters, yet somehow Nair's skill never makes us feel that we're getting a synoposis or skipping past events.

The music here is simply beautiful (as well as the cinematography by Frederick Elmes), and also diverse. No matter what the musical selection or even style of the music, it seems to perfectly fit the visuals without distraction. Be sure to watch the special features on the dvd, especially the class discussions held by Nair with graduate film students at Columbia University about the making of this small indie film, made for less than 10m dollars. She proves that a great director can make great cinematic art with almost no budget at all. In her words, one just needs a great cast, thanks to casting director Cindy Tolan (seen in one class on the dvd) for this one, who found all the Bengali extras that played other emmigrants to the U.S. at parties of Indian-Americans in the U.S., and all were perfect.


It also helps to have a great story, and an artist's touch like Nair's. She makes it seem so easy, why aren't there more films like this?

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War Photographer

Christian Frei, Switzerland, 2001 (9.4*)

[Partially in English, partially sub-titled]

As a photographer and visual artist myself, I've always admired those willing to risk their lives just to give the world photographs of war and other human tragedies as they occur, all on display here such as extreme poverty and starvation (Africa), hazardous working conditions (Indonesian sulphur mines), and war itself (Palestine). This story is a biography of photojournalist James Nachtwey, often called the 'greatest war photographer of all time'. As one who survived to see gray hair, he's had a longetivity that few others achieve, as most don't live to see 50.

This is a great story of a great artist and humanitarian, a film which will have difficult images to bear, but one which we owe ourselves as fellow human beings to bear witness to and never forget the injustices which our fellow humans can inflict on the innocent. This is the goal of war correspondents and other journalists, and is certainly the 'raison d'etre' of James Nachtwey. Hats off for the documentary filmmakers who followed Nachtwey on his assignments, often into the heat of battle itself. This is one of the most important political and humanitarian statements ever captured on film.

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Finding Neverland

Dir: Marc Forster, 2004 (10*)

A beautiful and inspiring story, based on the life of author and playright J.M. Barrie, played by Johnny Depp in perhaps his best part, and his inspiration for Peter Pan and Neverland. Unfulfilled in a childless marriage (to Rahda Mitchell), Barrie meets some kids in a nearby park which he frequents, and their widowed mother, Kate Winslet (in her own personal favorite part and film). They begin a platonic friendship, in which Barrie becomes the surrogate father for her boys, and they in turn become the inspiration for his writing. Julie Christie also has a nice supporting part. A small but very touching film, wonderfully done. Nominated for 7 Oscars, but sadly only one Oscar for Music.

Note: as of Dec 8th, 2009, this film remains in the Netflix top 100, at #63 currently

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After the Wedding

Susanne Bier, Denmark, 2006 (9.8*)
I was totally captivated by this film, which has a giant heart and is not afraid to show honest human emotions when dealing with all that life can throw at people. The film starts with a young Danish man in Bombay (Mads Mikkelsen) feeding street orphans, and we find out that he runs a small orphanage that needs more funding. He returns to Denmark to meet with a possible corporate donor (Rolf Lassgård), who invites him to his daughter's wedding the next day, saying they'll meet for a decision on the project the day after that. At the wedding, unexpected events occur that turn his life upside down.

This story has many surprising turns, so its hard to mention any more without spoiling some for the audience. Suffice to say that director Susanne Bier is a master at both plot subtleties and in showing human emotions honestly and openly. This is made possible by a super cast, all of whom were terrific. Rolf Lassgård as the CEO, is totally believable and won one best actor award; Mads, in the lead as Jacob, also won a best actor award. The CEO's wife, Helene, a very complex character, was brilliantly played by Sidse Babett Knudsen (photo left) and won two international awards; and young Stine Fisher Christensen (photo rt), who played their daughter Anna, the bride, was also brilliant in a very demanding and emotional part, and she also won two int'l awards for supporting actress. The film itself was nominated for 25 awards, including a foreign language film Oscar®, and it won 9 international awards. The awards page at IMDB

This is quite simply one of the best films ever directed by a female director, up there (for me) with Mira Nair's Salaam Bombay!, and Lena Wertmuller's Seven Beauties, but the acting, editing, and cinematography are better than those to me, it has a clarity and technical perfection rarely seen in films. Even the interiors are immaculately designed and lit, and Susanne uses some extreme close-ups that show only one eye, or a pair of lips, yet somehow you can still read the emotion emerging from what little portion of the face is revealed.

I can't imagine why I haven't heard more about this movie, nor how it could have lost the Oscar®. Susanne (photo rt), also directed The One and Only (also a winner of many awards), Brothers (also numerous awards, including five for actress Connie Nielsen), Things We Lost in the Fire, which starred Halle Barry and Benecio del Toro. Susanne undoubtably has many more great films in her future.

Update: Susanne Bier just won an Oscar® for Best Foreign Language Film for her 2010 film In a Better World

Here's is Susanne's personal page at Facebook

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