Er shi si cheng ji - Change and a city in China. In Chengdu, factory 420 is being pulled down to make way for multi-story buildings with luxury flats. Scenes of factory operations, of the workforce, and of buildings stripped bare and then razed, are inter-cut with workers who were born in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s telling their stories - about the factory, which manufactured military aircraft, and about their work and their lives. A middle-aged man visits his mentor, now elderly; a woman talks of being a 19-year-old beauty there and ending up alone. The film concludes with two young people talking, each the child of workers, each relaying a story of one visit to a factory. Times change.
Linha de Passe - In the periphery of So Paulo, the pregnant single mother Cleuza works as maid in the apartment of a middle-class family. Each of her sons has a different unknown father: the oldest, Dnis, has a baby son that lives with his mother and he works as motorcycle courier; Dinho is a converted Christian and works as attendant in a gas station; Dario is an aspirant soccer player that is getting older without the expected chance in a team; and the youngest, Reginaldo, is obsessed about finding his father who works as a bus driver, and spends most of his spare time traveling by bus. Along the months, each brother experiences new deceptions and expectations while the family fights to survive.
Blindness - The film starts out with a plague of white blindness that is spreading throughout a city at a pretty rapid pace. Its different from regular blindness, in the fact that the blind person usually sees nothing but black; while these infected people see white, milky nothingness instead. Fearing that this strange plague is highly contagious; the government panics and begins sending infected people to a quarantine zone that happens to be inside of an old, abandoned mental hospital with three wards. It is, in fact, contagious; as we see the blindness spread from a single, random person to a guy that helps him and then steals his car, to an eye doctor (Ruffalo) and then to all of his patients. The only person who seems immune to this outbreak is the eye doctors wife (Moore), who accompanies him to the quarantine facility- lying about her condition. The old sanitarium turns out to be a cramped, squalid hellhole and the more people that are brought in, the more problems start to occur.
Palermo Shooting - In every serious artist's life there're great oscillations and changes. Years of great and masterful work are followed by long passages of creative drought and emptiness. But every artist who takes himself seriously one day must understand and face facts that his best years are over and it would be wise to drop the pencil and leave the field for a new, emerging generation. After seeing Wender's latest "work" at its premiere in Berlin last night I felt that everyone in the audience quietly shared the same thoughts about this flick: That this can hardly be called a film anymore - but is a preposterous, embarrassing, empty and painful blow to anyone who liked some of the better of Wender's works in the past.
Serbis - A drama that follows the travails of the Pineda family in the Filipino city of Angeles. Bigamy, unwanted pregnancy, possible incest and bothersome skin irritations are all part of their daily challenges, but the real "star" of the show is an enormous, dilapidated movie theater that doubles as family business and living space. At one time a prestige establishment, the theater now runs porn double bills and serves as a meeting ground for hustlers of every conceivable persuasion. The film captures the sordid, fetid atmosphere, interweaving various family subplots with the comings and goings of customers, thieves and even a runaway goat while enveloping the viewer in a maelstrom of sound, noise and continuous motion.
Delta - I recently saw this at the 2009 Palm Springs International Film Festival. Mihail (Felix Lajko) has saved his money in the city to return to the village where his mother (Lili Monori) lives with her boyfriend (Sandor Gaspar) and his half sister Fauna (Orsolya Toth). Mihail sets out to build a house on the river delta on land his father owned. Fauna helps Mihail with the construction and lives in a hut with him while the construction his under way. The villagers consider Mihail an outsider and are opposed to the idea of a half brother and sister living alone together. Writer/director Kornel Mandruczo in a script co-written by Yvette Biro offers this rural tale of a developing incestuous relationship in a film beautifully shot by cinematographer Matyas Erdely and superbly edited by David Jancso. The film looks so good that every scene is a virtual painting but the storyline is a little weak with underdeveloped characters, weak dialog and a plodding pace. This perhaps may have worked better as a 20 minute short film but stretched out into a feature with little background on the characters and village life weakens it. I would give this a 6.5 out of 10. - 40727
Linha de Passe - In the periphery of So Paulo, the pregnant single mother Cleuza works as maid in the apartment of a middle-class family. Each of her sons has a different unknown father: the oldest, Dnis, has a baby son that lives with his mother and he works as motorcycle courier; Dinho is a converted Christian and works as attendant in a gas station; Dario is an aspirant soccer player that is getting older without the expected chance in a team; and the youngest, Reginaldo, is obsessed about finding his father who works as a bus driver, and spends most of his spare time traveling by bus. Along the months, each brother experiences new deceptions and expectations while the family fights to survive.
Blindness - The film starts out with a plague of white blindness that is spreading throughout a city at a pretty rapid pace. Its different from regular blindness, in the fact that the blind person usually sees nothing but black; while these infected people see white, milky nothingness instead. Fearing that this strange plague is highly contagious; the government panics and begins sending infected people to a quarantine zone that happens to be inside of an old, abandoned mental hospital with three wards. It is, in fact, contagious; as we see the blindness spread from a single, random person to a guy that helps him and then steals his car, to an eye doctor (Ruffalo) and then to all of his patients. The only person who seems immune to this outbreak is the eye doctors wife (Moore), who accompanies him to the quarantine facility- lying about her condition. The old sanitarium turns out to be a cramped, squalid hellhole and the more people that are brought in, the more problems start to occur.
Palermo Shooting - In every serious artist's life there're great oscillations and changes. Years of great and masterful work are followed by long passages of creative drought and emptiness. But every artist who takes himself seriously one day must understand and face facts that his best years are over and it would be wise to drop the pencil and leave the field for a new, emerging generation. After seeing Wender's latest "work" at its premiere in Berlin last night I felt that everyone in the audience quietly shared the same thoughts about this flick: That this can hardly be called a film anymore - but is a preposterous, embarrassing, empty and painful blow to anyone who liked some of the better of Wender's works in the past.
Serbis - A drama that follows the travails of the Pineda family in the Filipino city of Angeles. Bigamy, unwanted pregnancy, possible incest and bothersome skin irritations are all part of their daily challenges, but the real "star" of the show is an enormous, dilapidated movie theater that doubles as family business and living space. At one time a prestige establishment, the theater now runs porn double bills and serves as a meeting ground for hustlers of every conceivable persuasion. The film captures the sordid, fetid atmosphere, interweaving various family subplots with the comings and goings of customers, thieves and even a runaway goat while enveloping the viewer in a maelstrom of sound, noise and continuous motion.
Delta - I recently saw this at the 2009 Palm Springs International Film Festival. Mihail (Felix Lajko) has saved his money in the city to return to the village where his mother (Lili Monori) lives with her boyfriend (Sandor Gaspar) and his half sister Fauna (Orsolya Toth). Mihail sets out to build a house on the river delta on land his father owned. Fauna helps Mihail with the construction and lives in a hut with him while the construction his under way. The villagers consider Mihail an outsider and are opposed to the idea of a half brother and sister living alone together. Writer/director Kornel Mandruczo in a script co-written by Yvette Biro offers this rural tale of a developing incestuous relationship in a film beautifully shot by cinematographer Matyas Erdely and superbly edited by David Jancso. The film looks so good that every scene is a virtual painting but the storyline is a little weak with underdeveloped characters, weak dialog and a plodding pace. This perhaps may have worked better as a 20 minute short film but stretched out into a feature with little background on the characters and village life weakens it. I would give this a 6.5 out of 10. - 40727
About the Author:
Maddox Penner is an absolute movie nut and invites you to Download Movies For Free at the Movie Pan. You'll find all the latest hits as well as the great oldies.
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