Gangleri – filmreviews

For a long time I have wanted to read the oldest English poem, the famous epic called “Beowulf”, but all the time I had other things to read and never came to it. Maybe because of that new Beowulf film with Angelina Jolie and Anthony Hopkins I remembered to buy a copy of the booklet. So I got one of those cheap Penguin books in modern English and started to finally read the story. Then a friend said that besides the sci-fi version of 1999 with Christopher Lambert and the upcoming Hollywood version, there is also a good film version. I think I knew “Beowulf & Grendel”, but I always have second thoughts about such films, especially when the box says: “in the style of Lord of the Rings and King Arthur”, which is probably the reason that I never bought it. The extra push made me invest the enormous amous of € 5,- and eventually watch this classic version of the classic epic.

The film begins with Grendel as a child, the first thing in which the film differs from the book. There are much more differences. To make the film more interesting, both the Geats and the Danes are still pagan, while the Beowulf epic is very Christian. Added is a Celtic missionary who Christianises the troops. Also added is a young “witch”. The fight with Grendel is stretched out beyond belief, shorter is the fight with Grendel’s mother and totally left out the fight with “the Worm”. What I think is a bad case, is that king Hrothgar has been turned into a weary old man with a grudge, while in the book he is a respectable king with a big problem. His luxery hall is turned into “some beer hall”. That for how strict the actual text is followed.
The film itself is a mediocre adventure with pagan warriors and too human monsters (I already wonder how Angelina Jolie is going to eat a man in two bites in the upcoming version). The atmosphere is alright, the setting magnificent. The comparisons on the box are not really typical, I would rather compare the film with “The 13th Warrior” or so. In any case, nice, but not great.
-2-

“Kept And Dreamless” is a rather typical arthouse film which original title is much more beautiful than the international one. The story is not totally unlike “Tideland” (see elsewhere), where also a child has to take care of its drug-addicted parent. In “Las Mantenidas Sin Sueños” we see different people who appear to live in the lower classes of Argentinia and for whom life has no purpose at all. We also get to know a few people who actually ‘made it in life’, but who eventually come to the same conclusion. All this tragedy is brought with a light though, in beautiful bright colours and with amusing scenes and dialogues. The film is amusing, but like I opened this review, quite a typical arthouse drama.
-3-

In 1996 a documentary is made about Charles Manson, his family and the murders. The maker wants the story of the family members and not that of Manson. The film mostly contains of interviews and footage (which I suppose none are genuine) and here and there some strange parts playing in the present. What you get to see is a hippie-group living on a range, adoring their Messiah (Manson) and having sex all the time. When Manson gets frustrated over some issues, his ideas get less harmonious, as a matter of fact pretty dark and sinister and the group follows him all the way until they start to murder people. These well-known ingredients are the foundation to built a film with a lot of sex and bloody murder scenes towards the end. Overall the film looks like a documentary, but the end is not for people with faint hearts. I don’t know how acurate and close to the truth this film is. From what I know of the case, I guess this comes pretty close, but I suppose there are some dramatisations and exaggerations here and there. The film is not particularly good, especially the scenes in the present (that do show some of that weird ‘Manson cult’ that came up though) are rather out of place. If the story is correct, the film could act as a documentary, as a film it is nothing really special.
-2-

This “godfather of all espionage films” was actually a big disappointment to me. The film supposedly gives the early history of the CIA in the WWII period. For this we follow the top-spy Edward Wilson, played by Matt Damon. Here comes the first point of comment: Matt Damon has too much of a baby-face to play a ruthless and powerfull personality. Also in the scenes with his 20-year-old son it is hard to say who is actually the younger. What is mostly strange, is that Damon looks 18 in the scenes in which he is a student recruited by the CIA, but also in the scenes which supposedly play much later in his life. Completely unconvincing! Then we have the fact that the film seems to jump back and forth in time, but this is completely unclear (especially when all the rest also just look the same all the time) and therefor it is hard to detect the line and/or story in the film. Because I didn’t get the story, the film seemed to me like a string of separate scenes that is not particularly interesting, especially not for almost three hours. “The Good Shepherd” lacks the atmosphere of a good espionage thriller, fails in showing the story and inspite of ‘great Hollywood names’ the film is not as interesting as told. I think you better watch George Clooney’s “Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind” for a similar, but much much better film.
-1-

“The Little Chinese Seamstress” is a French/Chinese film about two young men who are sent to a re-education camp because they are not “revolutionary” enough. They are sent to a remote village in the Chinese mountains and get to know a local girl who they fall in love with. A deep friendship develops in which the two youngsters bring their “reactionary ideas” to the girl and her village by means of forbidden books (Western novels). The film has a slow pace, great images and offers a nice insight into the Chinese system of keeping people to the official idea(l)s. Nothing much happens, but “Xia Cai Feng” is nice to watch. Too bad about the French overdup though!
-2-

Many years ago, the Dutch artist Dadara was quite popular. His weird comic-like paintings were well appreciated. Recently I heard about this film of Dadara and decided to watch it. “The Rise And Fall Of The Fool’s Ark” is a 50 minute film combining ‘real filming’ with animations of Dadara, either mixed or separate from eachother. The film is about a group of people who build an ark because all fun and colour seems to leave earth, which is taken over by “greymen”. With Dadara’s strange characters and some weird ideas, this results in a very amusing film with some very critical parts on modern society and a simple (or silly?) message. Definately time and money have been investigated in the film. A real ark is built, many greymen have been made and the animations are sometimes elaborate. The film is not a film in the sense that it has a plot, conversations, etc., but rather it is a film with music on the background and sometimes text flying through the screen (which are not be best parts of the film btw.) The result is humorous and amusing and surely worth the watch.

This short film is not on IMDb, so it seems not to be regarded as a film, but maybe as a very long videoclip. Personally I think it is a short film, so the review belongs in this section.
-3-