Three Colors: Blue (1993)

Three Colors: Blue (1993)

Three Colors: Blue is the first of three French drama films directed by a Polish director names Krzysztof Kieslowski. The movie is set in Paris. It is about a woman named Julie who loses a husband and a child in a terrible and fatal car accident. While in the hospital recovering from the accident, Julie decides she no longer has a reason to live for so she tries and fails to commit suicide.  Once back home, Julie feels as though she needs to isolate herself from her reality. Thus she closes up her home and moves to her other home in Paris. She leaves everything behind, even her clothes. The only thing she takes with her is a chandelier of blue beads that belonged to her precious daughter. She starts a new life.

Whilst in Paris Julie remembers her husband’s music. These memories haunt her throughout the film. It is said amongst the people she knows that she helped create his music. She tries her best to ignore those musical memories.

During the midst of her stay in PAris she befriends an exotic dancer who is having an affair with one of her neighbors. She becomes the dancer’s go-to for moral support. Julie feels desperately reluctant about this new friendship. She is also faced with having to confrot her past even though she does not wish to do so.

Julie meets a man who also composes music named Olivier who is madly in love with Julie.

Julie also finds out that her husband was having an affair. She decides to look into this affair and finds out the her husbands mistress is pregnant with his child. This makes her so angry that she decided to give Olivier a try indeed. Olivier takes her dead husband's previous composition and transforms it into his own composition. At first, Julie was not happy with this. But then she learned to accept it.

I thoroughly enjoyed this film, as I often do with French films. I wish to be fluent in French someday and watching these films really help my knowledge. I would love to see the entire trilogy.

Asalto Al Cine (2011)

Asalto al Cine (2011)

Asalto al Cine is a Mexican movie directed by Irina Gomez Concheiro released in 2011. This movie is a considered a Comedy about 4 youths in Mexico City who collectively decide to rob a movie theater. Negus, Chale, Sapo, and Chata are all from the same town, and around the same age. They have the same interests - they like to smoke marijuana, they like to listen to hip-hop music, they like to “chill”. They mostly just have each other, most of them come from troubled families.

In some scenes we see the clan just relaxing, mostly high off their minds. Sometimes they rap to hip hop melodies just to get by. They do not read books or stay up all night studying. School and excelling academically in life is the last thing on their minds.

After some time in the movie the clan comes up with a brilliant idea to rob a local movie theater. They plan their robbery carefully. They first went to “see a movie” and investigate the movie theater and how they can execute their plan. They took notes and finally came up with the perfect plan.

When the day came to rob the theater, almost everything went as planned except when one of the group members did not look at his phone on time. Some unexpected event came up while robbing the theater but they were in the end successful in doing so.

I did not enjoy this film as much as the others, I thought it was a bit too long. I appreciated the fact that most of the scenes were raw and that the actors were just regular looking and it seemed as though they were not “professional actors”.

Que Culpa Tiene El Tomate? (2009)

From The Land To Your Table

Que Culpa Tiene El Tomate? (2009)

This is an Argentinian Documentary directed by Alejo Hojiman and Josue Mendez. This is a great documentary on the functioning of produce markets in 7 different cultures in South America. This film explores how fruits and vegetables are produced and commuted to markets and sold within its community.

The directors visit 7 different countries, some of which include their mother country Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Brazil, and Venezuela. This film is mostly silent without any narration. We hear some of the locals from each country speak with subtitles every now and then. Its more about the visual aspect and learning from what we see.

I realized it was a bit hard for me to tell which country they were in when they changed scenes. It was much easier for me to distinguish the difference one I heard the locals speaking. I speak spanish and I can recognize most of the regional dialects. Some, of course, I could not recognize.

The documentary does not label each country, rather they leave it up to the viewer to decide for themselves what country they are filming in at the moment. This was a little confusing and distracting because it made me stop paying attention to the movie so that I can think about where they could possibly be now.

Overall I enjoyed the documentary very much. I believe it was educational and I learned a lot about produce markets in South America and how they function, and what people have to go through to grow and sell their produce. I would say it is a one-time watch but it is definitely a movie everyone should watch in their lifetime in order to appreciate the foods we eat every day and where they come from.

Tsotsi (2005)

Tsotsi (2005)

Tsotsi is a South African film directed by Gavin Hood. It is based on a novel called “Tsotsi” by Athol Fugard. The film is set in an Alexander slum in Johannesburg, South Africa. Tsotsi (which means thug in English) is a troubled young man who steals and kills people for money and their possessions. One night he had a big fight with one of his fellow thieves and decided to rob a car. What Tsotsi did not realize was that there was a baby inside of the car. Already miles and miles away from the luxurious home where he stole the car from, Tsotsi heard a noise coming from the back seat, and it happened to be a baby crying. Right away he stopped the car and exited the vehicle. He packed his stuff and as he was about to leave, Tsotsi realized that he just could not leave a crying baby in the car all by itself.

Tsotsi then decides to take the baby with him. He placed the baby in a plastic shopping bag and walked away with it inside. Once he is home he takes the baby out and begins to look at it as though it was something he had never seen before in his life. He then realizes that he cannot care for this baby on his own. He approaches a woman from his slum who has a baby of her own. He knocks on her door and holds a gun to MIriam’s head. He then makes her breast feed his new baby. He makes this an everyday thing to nourish the baby.

Tsotsi and Miriam become close. Miriam tries to convince him that it is very wrong to keep the baby for himself and that he must return it to his original family as surely they are suffereing. Tsotsi then makes the wise decision of returning the baby.

In the process of doing so Tsotsi finds himself surrounded by the police. It was a very dramatic and powerful seen watching Tsotsi give the baby back to its original parents.

This film was also one of my favorites that we saw in the class. It was very touching and it also gave you an idea of life in the slums of South Africa. Surely these types of incidents often occur. I was happy to see both the thief and the soaring family’s perspectives

Cinema Paradiso

Cinema Paradiso (1988)

This Italian drama film from 1988 was directed and written by Giessupe Tornatore. It is a movie full of youthful on-going love. It is about a man named Salvatore Di Vita who receives a call from his hometown. it was his mother with very saddening news. Alfredo has died.

Salvatore then begins to recall his life as young boy with Alfredo.

Salvatore is six years old and is fatherless for the reason that his biological father passed away in WWII. Salvatore, who was also known as Toto, realized he had a passion for films and thus spent most of his time at the movie house called Cinema Paradiso. Alfredo was a projectionist who worked there and Toto found himself bonding with him.  Toto then becomes highly productive at Cinema Paradiso as Alfredo teaches Toto many things about projecting. Soon, Toto becomes the only other person aside from Alfredo who knows who to run the machines at the theater.

Toto works there throughout all of his life as a young boy, even through high school. Toto falls in love with a girl named Elena and he films her without her knowing and watches the film at the theater when he is on his own. With the help of Alfredo’s advice, Toto goes on to pursue Elena and becomes successful in doing so. However Toto then leaves for compulsory military service and tries to write Elena but his letters always came back. Although Alfredo missed Toto so much while he was away on military service, Alfredo told Toto that it was time for him to leav this town because he had no future there as a film projectionist. He told Toto to never look back and that precisely what Toto did.

He left his wonderful family, Alfredo and his wonderful town to move forward with his life as Alfredo had asked him to do. 30 years later, Salvatore returned to his hometown to attend Alfredo’s funeral. He learned that Alfredo always referred to Salvatore as though he was his own son. ALfredo loved him dearly.

I related to this movie in many ways as I lived in Italy for a long time and I still go back every year to visit. I know the strength of the love between a father or a even a fatherly figure and a son over in Italy. They take the notion of family to another level: family is everything. I really enjoyed watching this film although I found some parts to be unnecessary and a bit too long. In the end, I noticed that those parts are what make this movie so ethical. I would recommend this movie to everyone and anyone who loves their family.

Chico and Rita

Chico and Rita

Chico and Rita is a film made in Spain by Fernando Truebal and Javier Mariscal. This film was based on a love story between two musicians (a singer and a piano player). The animated movie was set in many different locations including Havana, Cuba, New York City, Las Vegas and Paris. The movie is mostly about Chico chasing Rita. The movie starts off in Havana, where on of the main characters, Chico, is at a club/bar scene and he is flirting around with girls until Rita comes on stage and starts performing. Her singing was so beautiful that it caught Chico’s full attention. Chico fell in love with Rita and decided to enamor her.

They start off hopelessly in love. Chico takes Rita to his room and makes passionate love to her. It was a perfect night until morning bloomed. One of Chico’s girlfriend's barges into his room only to find Chico and Rita naked together. Rita and this chick go at it for some time, fighting over Chico until Rita gets exhausted and decides that she can have Chico because all of the fighting is not worth it. Rita then leaves Chico and decides that she hates him and wants nothing to do with him.

After some time somehow Chico and Rita end up in the same music band together - Chico as an accomplished pianist and Rita as a singer. They begin to play all over Havana until Rita is noticed by a NYC producer. He tells Rita that he can make her a big star. Rita refuses to go without Chico, however when Rita approached Chico about the great opportunity, Chico was too drunk and stubborn to acknowledge that Rita just did not want to part his side. Chico completely refused to go to NYC. After some careful thinking Rita decided she was going to have to leave Chico behind and move to the city and become a big star.

Chico then realized he made a huge mistake and decided to pursue Rita by going to NYC and finding her. He followed her everywhere she went.

Eventually Rita and Chico part separate ways for a long time until they are very old and they find each other again.

I found this animated film to be really engaging and intriguing. I really enjoyed it from beginning to end and I even saw it again at home on my own time on Netflix. I found it weird that the producers are from Spain but the movie is set in Cuba with Cuban protagonists. They executed the film strongly. I would definitely recommend this film to many other people who appreciate filmmaking.

A Separation

A Separation

            The movie “A Separation” is based on a story about a married couple that suffers various conflicts of interest and end up in separation. One of the main reason why they got separated is because the wife in the relationship, Simin, wanted to move her family to the United States since the finally acquired a US visa. Simin also did not want her 11-year-old daughter, Termeh, growing up in Iran under the religious and prevailing traditions. However her husband, Nader, felt as though he could not just get up and abandon his sick father and move to the United States. Nader has the responsibility to take care of his old man seeing as he cannot take care of himself for the reason that he has been diagnosed with the sufferable disease Alzheimer’s. Therefore Nader simply refused to move.

            Simin went on to file a divorce because she could not believe how “selfish” he was being at the chance of having a brand new and “better” life. Simin’s request to file a divorce was, however, declined for the reason that he reasoning was not sufficient enough. Simin ended up moving out of the house and back into her parent’s house. Termeh stayed living with her father. Now Nader needed help with taking care of his father while he is away at work every day, Monday through Friday. In order to be helpful, Simin suggested a woman to her (separated) husband, so Nader called the woman, Razieh, who is a young and deeply religious woman, and hired her. Razieh began working almost right away, she brought along her young daughter.

            What Nader does not know is Razieh purposely failed to mention her new job to her hot-tempered husband Hodjat for the reason that he would most certainly not approve of his wife taking care of an elderly man. Razieh then found the job to be too overwhelming for her so she decided to resign. However she had the brillian idea that Nader could hire Hodjat in her place because he was also looking for paid work. After conducting an interview with Hodjat, Nader hired him. On his first day, Nader was unfortunately taken to jail by his creditors due to having immensely bad credit , so Razieh went in place of her husband. This is where the story begins to unfold. Nader did not know Razieh was pregnant until after he hired her.

            It turns out that one day Nader got home from work and found his father laying in the floor unconscious without his breathing tank and hand-cuffed to the bed. He blamed Razieh for abandoning him for some hours which is something she is prohibited to do when she has his father as her responsibility. Out of anger Nader grabbed Razieh and pushed her out of his apartment. Razieh used this excuse against Nader to make him look guilty for her miscarriage.

             I did enjoy this movie because it was suspenseful and it left me wanting to watch more until the very end. This is definitely a movie I would recommend to anyone who likes watching international films.