These Movies Matter
DVDs Worth Watching, Feb 21, 2007
How to Get the Films We Recommend:
Sources for the movie titles we recommend can be found by clicking the "read full review" link at the end of each critique below.
Featured Title(s)
A PECK ON THE CHEEK, 2002, India, 123 min., Subtitles, Color
Genre: Drama
Release Data: February, 2007 (Canada Only)
Director(s): Mani Rathnam (or Ratnam)
The story of nine-year-old Amudha’s discovery that she is adopted and her search for her biological parents in war-torn Sri Lanka. Amudha’s adopted family are well-to-do liberal intellectuals living in India but they drop everything to accompany her on her search. The film is presented in the traditional Bollywood format of a musical designed to entertain a vast public. As such, it uses the magic of song and dance to provide a feast of colour and rhythm where the senses can rest while the story unfolds – and, in this case, they are the best that a big budget can buy. Lush cinematography and panoramic camerawork compliment the amazing work of Keerthana, the spirited child actress who plays Amudha.
Why It Matters: This film explores a poignant and explosive story whose themes of adoption and war are not uncommon around our world. As such, it is a showcase for Tamil director Mani Ratnam’s ability to unfold personal intimate stories into vast panoramic epics that bridge the gap between serious “art” and popular “commercial” entertainment – and it’s not often that you can see both in one film!
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AFTER INNOCENCE, 2005, United States, 95 min., Color
Genre: Documentary
Release Data: February 2007 (US Only)
Director(s): Jessica Sanders
A devastating documentary that examines the cases of seven men wrongly convicted of murder and rape, but exonerated many years later by the admission of DNA evidence into the courts. The filmmaker follows the men through the difficulties they encounter in overturning their convictions, their release and their ensuing struggles to transition back into society.
Why It Matters: A film confirms many of our worst fears about the American criminal-justice system. Imagine how you would feel if the best years – possibly even decades – of your life had been lost to a wrongful conviction. Especially when research now points to mistaken identity as the most common factor leading to a wrongful conviction – even the most positive of eye-witnesses can be wrong. The physical and psychological toll on a person unjustly imprisoned for decades is staggering. But here, the bitterness, despair and even rage that you might expect is tempered by a sense of gratitude resulting from the seemingly miraculous. This is a film you should not miss.
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Recommended Titles
RIDING ALONE FOR THOUSANDS OF MILES, 2005, China/Hong Kong/Japan, 107 min., Subtitles, Color
Genre: Drama
Release Data: February 2007
Director(s): Zhang Yimou (House of Flying Daggers, Hero, Raise the Red Lantern)
Gou-ichi Takata, a taciturn fisherman from a remote Japanese fishing village, has always had trouble communicating emotions and has been estranged from his son, Ken-ichi for many years. When his daughter-in-law, Rie, calls from Tokyo to say that Ken has been diagnosed with terminal cancer, Takata immediately hastens to his son’s bedside – but Ken refuses to see him. Rie, hoping to give the older man a glimpse into his son’s life and work, gives him a rough-cut of a documentary about rural Chinese folk opera that Ken was working on. Feeling that he cannot repair their relationship karma in person, Takata decides on an alternative: he will go to Yunnan and complete his son's film.
Why It Matters: This is the perfect story of a taciturn, unforgiving father whose last minute realization of just what his estrangement from his son really means sets him on an odyssey of discovery in which the goodness of others becomes his own path to awakening. In the course of his journey to the remote Chinese province of Yunnan, Takata encounters many obstacles and twists of fate that are often humorous as well as instructive, and work together to bring him closer to an understanding of both himself and of his son. Having found the gateway to the appreciation of goodness in both himself and others the lonely old man becomes grateful for all those who have helped him along the “thousands of miles” of his journey.
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THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP, 2006, France/Italy, 106 min., Subtitles, Color
Genre: Drama
Release Data: February 2007
Director(s): Michel Gondry
A perfectly realistic fantasy that explores the relationship of the dream world to our everyday logical existence. The starting point is the inner world of Stephane, a young man who arrives in Paris from Mexico to stay with his recently widowed mother and falls inlove with the charming Stephanie. Adrift between the worlds of waking and sleeping, their awkward flirtation produces no logical story-line, an approach that may be the only way in which to tell a love story, a narrative made up of memories, fantasies, projections and misperceptions whose cohesion does not conform to any conventional structure.
Why It Matters: This is a movie that uses dreams to explore how our minds work in relationships. Stephane believes he has found a kindred spirit who shares the same world he does, but is this a love story of two people or of one? The fugitive, ephemeral quality of the dream-world is hard to remember, and so the story that seemed so clear in sleep, now seems labyrinthine in the clear light of day. This film is beautiful, complex and often humorous, but like others of this genre (Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, for example) you may want to see it more than once.
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Classics
LAND OF LOOK BEHIND, 1982, United States, 90 min., Color
Genre: Documentary
Release Data: February 2007
Director(s): Alan Greenberg
This is a realistic and moving documentary that has become a classic of Jamaica’s Rastafarian movement. Despite its unique mix of epic vision, quasi-dramatic elements and cinematographic wizardry, the main reason to see it remains the music – a fabulous sound-track by Bob Marley & The Wailers, Gregory Isaacs and many other reggae greats. Included are the only official documentation of Marley's funeral, plus exclusive footage of his family, friends and fellow musicians. The story is book-ended by sequences shot in Trelawney Parish’s Look Behind forest – the place where rastas smoke overlooking the Caribbean horizon that separates them from Africa, and which gives the film its name.
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KING LEAR (Korol Lear), 1969, Soviet Union, 139 min., Subtitles, BW
Genre: Drama
Release Data: February 2007 (US Only)
Director(s): Grigori Kosintsev and Iosif Shapiro
Considered one of the best adaptations of Shakespeare’s tragedy King Lear, this is an assured and deeply moving treatment of the tale of an aging monarch transported into madness following the division of his kingdom. Filtered through a Communist perspective, which emphasises the catastrophic impact of feudal misrule upon the country's starving masses, the film achieves an epic grandeur that is highlighted by the stark monochromatic landscape. Tall and thin, Russian actor Yuri Yarvet gives a consummate performance as the medieval king who, in the frailty of his declining years, is forced to confront the suffering of his people and later, in the chaos of military defeat, his own descent into the ranks of the dispossessed. The Shostakovich score provides the perfect accompaniment to the stunning visuals.
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See KING LEAR (Korol Lear) with RAN (King Lear)
RAN (King Lear), 1985, France/Japan, 160 min., Subtitles, Color
Director(s): Akira Kurosawa
"A glorious achievement", as critic Roger Ebert observed, Ran is the artistic summation of Japanese director, Akira Kurosawa's work. This stunning interpretation of Shakespeare's King Lear was in his mind for ten years before he finally made it
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KING OF TEXAS (King Lear), 2002, United States, 95 min., Color
Director(s): Uli Edel
Transplanting King Lear to a Texas cattle ranch may seem like a risky proposition, but in this case the result is a satisfying interpretation with a good cast and a plot that closely follows the original. An aging cattle baron, John Lear, divide
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ON A CLEAR DAY, 2005, United Kingdom, 98 min., Color
Genre: Drama
Release Data: June 2006 (Canada Only)
Director(s): Gaby Dellal
Frank Redmond (the wonderful Peter Mullan), is declared redundant and laid off his job after half a lifetime spent working as a ship builder in the Glasgow Clyde-side shipyards. Now, with time on his hands, he has to face his inner torments. Unable to find a job, Frank starts to swim. One day, on impulse, he swims the River Clyde and a plan to reclaim his dignity begins to take shape in his mind: he will swim the English Channel. Excellent acting and a quirky wit provide an enjoyable evening’s viewing.
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Worth a Mention
THE FESTIVAL - THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON, 2005-6, United States, 132 min., Color
Genre: TV mini-series
Release Data: February 2007
Director(s): Phil Price
A hilarious and all-too-realistic spoof of today’s film festival phenomenon, which is by turns witty and obnoxious…and always entertaining. Through the filter of fictional documentarian Cookie Armstrong, we follow the progress of budding filmmaker Rufus Marquez as he seeks the holy grail of buzz, bucks and making it big. Rufus is shepherding his directorial debut The Unreasonable Truth of Butterflies through M.U.F.F. – the Mountain United Film Festival – with the goal of emerging with a firm distribution deal. His main problem is that no one has seen his film – a detail which turns out not to matter as the more no one sees it, the hotter the buzz becomes; until, somehow, his “masterpiece” goes missing….
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ICI NAJAC A VOUS LA TERRE (Najac Calling Over to You Earth), 2006, France, 97 min., Subtitles, Color
Genre: Documentary
Release Data: February 2007 (Canada Only)
Director(s): Jean-Henri Meunier
This film is a message in a bottle thrown into the world ocean in an effort to reach around the globe to all those who seek to encourage peace and respect for our planet. The place is Najac, a small town in the Aveyron region of France where the director and his family have made their home for the past ten years. An unofficial “slow” village this is a place where quirky inhabitants and delightful animals are open to displaying their varied personalities as they move through their lives. However, Najac is not isolated from the contemporary world and its problems: many of the villagers are deeply engaged in issues of sustainable development and environmental health; they are protesting the proposed dumping of nuclear waste in the area; and they are becoming aware of how weed killer is decimating the wildflowers that used to flourish on the roadside. Quirky, playful and filled with poetry and good humour, this is a film that offers us some hope and the possibility of actually living our deeper dreams.
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See ICI NAJAC A VOUS LA TERRE (Najac Calling Over to You Earth) with AS LIFE GOES BY
AS LIFE GOES BY, 2003, France, 94 min., Subtitles, Color
Genre: Documentary
Release Data: April, 2006
Director(s): Jean-Henri Meunier
The filmmaker’s chronicle of the flow of everyday life in the medieval town of Najac in South-western France, where he and his family moved in search of a gentler pace of life than downtown Paris.
Why It Matters: A genuinely good and charming documentary that will, as the filmmaker so aptly notes, "make you feel more happy and less stupid..."
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Better Mainstream
Mentioned but not reviewed – these popular titles don’t really need us to publicize them, but we want you to know they’re now available on DVD.
CATCH A FIRE, 2006, France/South Africa/United Kingdom/United States, 102 min., Color
Genre: Drama
Release Data: February 2007
Director(s): Philip Noyce
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FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS, 2006, 132 min., Color
Genre: Drama
Release Data: February 2007
Director(s): Clint Eastwood
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MISTRESS OF SPICES, 2006, United States, 96 min., Color
Genre: Drama
Release Data: February 2007 (Canada Only)
Director(s): Paul Mayeda Berges
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