Archive for the ‘Drama’ Category

After The Fall (aka Things People Do) Review

Posted: March 25, 2014 in 2014 Berlinale, Drama, Reviews
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Note: This film premiered under the title Things People Do at the 2014 Berlinale. The title has been changed to After The Fall prior to its U.S. release in December 2014.

Nothing stays buried.things-people-do02 Family secrets about a dead relative can’t be kept from the kids. Uncomfortable facts about a husband’s ability to provide are discovered by the wife. Even a hastily buried stray animal won’t stay under the earth. And more than anything else, the American Dream is exposed as a sham.

The truth will out in Things People Do, a modest film that looks at one man’s struggles in Middle America in the face of the fallout from the financial crisis. (more…)

To Mikro Psari (Stratos) Review

Posted: March 20, 2014 in 2014 Berlinale, Drama, Foreign, Reviews
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ImageFor all those who have been asking, “When is there ever going to be a Greek version of Leon: The Professional?” please take note. Your wait is over. While not a remake of the 1994 movie starring Jean Reno, who takes in and protects a pint-sized Natalie Portman, To Mikro Psari (Stratos) has the same central dynamic of aging hit man and endangered young girl. Director Yannis Economides film is quiet, meditative, and one could even say, mannered, in comparison to Luc Besson’s hyperkinetic full throttle bullet blitz.

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Historia del miedo (History of Fear) Review

Posted: March 13, 2014 in 2014 Berlinale, Drama, Foreign, Reviews
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ImageHistoria del miedo (History of Fear) was clearly one of the best films in the Forum section at the 64th Berlinale Film Festival in February. The Forum is home for the more experimental and avant-garde works shown in the program and often provides a first look at outstanding, upcoming talent. Historia del miedo, directed and written by Benjamin Naishtat, serves as an example of just that. In his first feature, Naishtat offers a work that is all atmosphere and mise-en-scène, effectively establishing a time and place where paranoia and anxiety touch every aspect of life inside and outside a gated community.

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La voie de l’ennemi (Two Men in Town) Review

Posted: March 12, 2014 in 2014 Berlinale, Action, Drama, Reviews
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ImageThe two men in town are an ex-con and the sheriff. The two actors playing the two men are Forest Whitaker and Harvey Keitel. That alone is enough to pique interest in La voie de l’ennemi (Two Men in Town). Yet, director Rachid Bouchareb squanders the opportunity and good will that such a pairing and such a scenario engenders with an uninspired, meandering movie that drew scant attention at the 64th Berlinale Film Festival in February.

The problems begin with the screenplay, credited to Bouchareb and two others. What is needed is a narrative with taut, constant pressure reflecting the vise the ex-con finds himself in, with the screws being alternately turned by a vengeful sheriff and the local crime lord. Instead, the film is a tepid tale, a loose remake of the 1973 French film Deux hommes dans la ville, but without the outrage and passion that director and screenwriter José Giovanni, who was on death row in the French penal system at one time, brought to the previous version. (more…)

’71 Review

Posted: March 8, 2014 in 2014 Berlinale, Action, Drama, Reviews
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ImageThe familiar story of the soldier trapped behind enemy lines, who against all odds must somehow traverse hostile territory, while outwitting and outfighting those bent on capturing or killing him, continues to be the basis for films for one simple reason: it works.

The twist in ’71, a UK entry seen in the 64th Berlinale Film Festival competition in February, is that the setting is something less than war, yet somehow more terrifying. Director Yann Demange sets his first feature in Belfast, Northern Ireland in 1971, when sectarian violence was spiraling out of control and the growing number of British troops being introduced were adding gasoline to the fire. (more…)

Zwischen Welten (Between Worlds) Review

Posted: March 4, 2014 in 2014 Berlinale, Action, Drama, Foreign, Reviews
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ImageThough the war stories of Afghanistan and Iraq are still being written, the overarching theme is increasingly clear. This generation’s tales will not be of heroism, although that has been on display, or cowardice, although that is inevitable, or of atrocities, triumphs, intrigue, or geopolitical struggle. The ground truth of these conflicts as reflected in the movies already made and those still to be filmed is ambiguity. Setting aside the motivations – real or supposed – for the onset of hostilities, the question of whether the noble commitment of bringing freedom to oppressed people through armed intervention by outsiders is possible or whether the definitions of freedom, oppression and commitment differ so greatly across cultures that the matter can never be resolved will continue to overshadow a more traditional military cinematic narrative.

This maddening, unresolvable ambiguity is at the moral heart of Zwischen Welten (Between Worlds), a simple, powerful tale of one German army unit’s experience in Afghanistan as seen through its squad leader. (more…)

Bai Ri Yan Huo (Black Coal, Thin Ice) Review

Posted: March 3, 2014 in 2014 Berlinale, Drama, Foreign, Reviews, Thriller
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ImageBlack Coal, Thin Ice (Bai Ri Yan Huo) winning the Golden Bear as Best Film at the 64th Berlinale Festival in February came as no surprise – not because the film merited the honor, but rather because Berlinale juries are notorious for their idiosyncratic and unpopular choices, and the film was not considered a candidate for the top prize leading into the award ceremony. Festival organizers should consider crowdsourcing the selection of the winner of the Competition category. The effectiveness of that approach is on display in the Panorama section of the Berlinale, where audiences picked The Act of Killing and The Broken Circle Breakdown as winners in 2013. Both films went on to earn Academy Award nominations.

It is doubtful that the future holds such promise for Black Coal, Thin Ice though one could argue that there is a crackerjack 90-minute noir locked inside the current 106-minute version.  (more…)

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