Gangleri – filmreviews

Since some time my girlfriend buys an old 007 every now and then and recently she came home with “Casino Royale”, a recent one. After an awfull ultraviolent opening which shows how Bond became “a 00″ (what was the use of that?) an over-the-top spectacle unfolds with an (in my opinion) very thin and ‘unBond-ish’ story (with Bond as a rooky without moral) with when it is all over, five new plots in about 20 minutes. Nope, I prefer the older films that are based on the books of Flemming and with the charm of times past. “Casino Royale” is just an action spectacle of low calibre.

I was convinced that not that long ago I watched a great Italian film about the maffia hunter Giovani Falcone, but I cannot find my review, nor the film in the IMdB. In any case, “Il Divo” (“the star”) is about Italian politics in the 1970 in which Giulio Andreotti was in power and in which Falcone was killed. In “the extraordinary life of Giulio Andreotti” Andreotti is portrayed as a completely corrupt politician not shying extreme violence in the beginning and as an timid, but frightening person towards the end. Especially the first part of the film is sublime with great camera-work, montage and music. However the film is based on actual events, there are so many characters, liaisons, conspiracies, etc. that I had a hard time following the film. In fact, I need to watch it again should I want to try to give a summary of the story. “Il Divo” has a very good atmosphere and the director did a great job setting an atmosphere that possibly also surrounded Andreotti.

Hm, my first Icelandic film? In a remote village in the inhabitable landscape of Iceland we follow the young man Nói who has no clue what he wants with his life. The film has the (typical?) Scandinavian sense of absurdity and weird humour and is amusing in its simplicity.

So in Singapore they also make typical arthouse films? “Be With Me” is made mostly by people with English first names and is mostly spoken in English. The setup is quite typical nowadays: cut-up stories mixed up. The stories are about love and solitude. Not bad, but nothing special either. Quite melancholic too by the way.

Since Clooney exposes a Coen kind of humour in his own films too, I keep following the man even when he makes some sort of “romcom”. However the film is not as brilliant as the title, “Leatherheads” is an amusing film with nice humour and a weird story playing in times past. Clooney might complain that the Coens always have him play an idiot, but he must like it, since he does the same in his own films. “Leatherheads” is for people in a silly mood, also for lovers of “romcoms”, but this might even be a “romcom” for men, since it is all about sport (football).

So yesterday we were in the city of Den Bosch and there appeared to be a new (?) arthouse with theatre, film and a restaurant. A nice place in an old chocolate factory. The two filmrooms play a bit too typical arthouse dramas, so when choosing which film to see, we saw an a bit too typical arthouse drama. As the title suggests, the film is about Coco (Gabrielle) Chanel (played by Audrey Tatou). We see the early life and how Chanel became the fashion-diva everybody knows her for. A nice look into the decadent lives of the rich people around the turn to the 20th century and how a young woman, annoyed by the frills in fashion starts to design more minimalistic cloths. A bit of a ladies film of course, not boring, but (here I go again), a bit a too typical arthouse drama.

Hm, we pulled this film off the new releases shelf, but it is already from 2005. A 4.6 out of 10 on IMdB… not too promising. But I must say that this short film (75 min) is really not that bad, it just does not lead anywhere, but in my opinion this is exactly the purpose of it. There is not much of a story, mostly a collection of scenes. We follow a woman not knowing what she wants with her life and that is exactly what we see in “Room”. Weird ‘real-life’ scenes and even weirder ‘other scenes’ and all leaving me pretty much clueless. I happen to like that, if you do not, you better not watch this film; if you do, “Room” is a nice film.