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Posted: Sat Mar 21, 2009 2:34 pm
by ITALIANO
A whore? Ah but she is only glimpsed in one scene, and she's not a negative character anyway.

Yes, Americans maybe would have added an (unnecessary) positive female character to be "politically correct". But this isn't an American movie.

Posted: Sat Mar 21, 2009 2:27 pm
by Uri
Two female characters. One's a whore, the second's, well, after all is said and done, a whore. And she gets her due demise. Nothing is too obviously spelled out, but there is this faint aroma just hanging there.

Posted: Sat Mar 21, 2009 12:52 pm
by ITALIANO
Misoginy?! Ah, because a slightly negative, ambiguous character happens to be a female one. Had it been a male character, it would be "a touch of misandry" then.

Posted: Sat Mar 21, 2009 12:07 pm
by Uri
ITALIANO wrote:At least they are intelligent. I'm sure that stupid cinephiles LOVED Pan's Labyrinth. :)

But really Damien, I wouldn't generalize. Lives of Others and 4 Months etc are completely different movies, and I found countless people who liked just one of them.
As usual, Marco is 100% right. I loved 432 while I found TLOO, while very well made, to be a self indulging glorification of the unification of Germany under the overwhelming dominance of the western agenda, completed with a touch of misogyny. And being slightly dumb, I liked Pan.

Posted: Sat Mar 21, 2009 7:06 am
by ITALIANO
At least they are intelligent. I'm sure that stupid cinephiles LOVED Pan's Labyrinth. :)

But really Damien, I wouldn't generalize. Lives of Others and 4 Months etc are completely different movies, and I found countless people who liked just one of them.




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Posted: Fri Mar 20, 2009 7:59 pm
by Damien
Okri wrote:Plus his comment about it being "a foreign film for those people who think The Lives Of Others is a great movie." was sorta ironic given that the snub of 4 months by the oscars.
Each of these was the international film most loved in its respective year by intelligent people I know who are essentially literary/public affairs/philosophy people as opposed to cinephiles

Posted: Fri Mar 20, 2009 7:28 pm
by Okri
I don't mind Pan's Labyrinth. The music is quite good. It's got some imagination. I just don't think it coalesces thematically. I really liked The Lives of Others and was glad to see it win.

But I'm flabbergasted that Damien didn't like 4 months - I thought it was harrowing and brilliant. I liked Lazarescu, but loved 4 months. Plus his comment about it being "a foreign film for those people who think The Lives Of Others is a great movie." was sorta ironic given that the snub of 4 months by the oscars.

Posted: Fri Mar 20, 2009 9:35 am
by ITALIANO
The Lives of Others is one of the few great movies I've seen in these last ten years - including its ending. Pan's Labyrinth's high reputation in some countries (in Italy it was killed by critics and survived one week in cinemas, I'm proud to say) is a mystery to me - fake, from beginning to end.

4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days is very good. I've been to Bucharest and that IS Bucharest - not just the buildings I mean, but its life, its soul.

Posted: Thu Mar 19, 2009 5:26 pm
by Big Magilla
Sabin wrote:BTW - is Cousin, Cousine available for rent on DVD? I've been meaning to watch it for ages now. I need to go to France again. They seem just like people only more so.
Not in the U.S. It is available as an import from the U.K. but will not play on region 1 machines.

Posted: Thu Mar 19, 2009 5:24 pm
by Big Magilla
Ulrich Muhe's life story would make an even more interesting film. Head of his own theatre company in East Germany until betrayed by spies including his own wife, achieving international success after unification and then dying of a horrible disease just as he was becoming known to most of the world.

Posted: Thu Mar 19, 2009 4:44 pm
by Sabin
I absolutely hate the epilogue to The Lives of Others. That is NOT the movie that preceded it. I think The Lives of Others is a fantastic film until the final ten to fifteen minutes and then it derails in mawkishness. The lead character's arc is something of a stretch but the late Ulrich Muhe's performance makes it work beautifully. Wonderful film. Deserved the Oscar over Pan's Labyrinth. Had it the courage to end with the fall (or beforehand), we'd really be talking about a great film.

BTW - is Cousin, Cousine available for rent on DVD? I've been meaning to watch it for ages now. I need to go to France again. They seem just like people only more so.




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Posted: Wed Mar 18, 2009 3:53 pm
by Damien
The problem with The Lives of Others is that it is appallingly sentimental, and the motivations for many of the characters' actions are purely mawkish. The film plays down to the audience and is stacked with facile emotional responses by the characters. ANd the coda is out and out maudlin.

The film owes a great deal to The Conversation, as well as Rear Window. That it beat Pan's Labyrinth at the Oscars is as much of an outrage as when Black and White In Color defeated Cousin, Cousine.

Posted: Wed Mar 18, 2009 9:41 am
by Damien
Eric wrote:Damien is 100 percent right on The Lives of Others. Maybe only about 20 percent right on 4/3/2, but I will say that I think it's Lazarescu that's the true masterpiece of the two much-touted testaments to the Romanian renaissance and not this film.
Lazarescu is a wonderful film.

Posted: Wed Mar 18, 2009 9:40 am
by Damien
Reza wrote:
Damien wrote:This is a foreign film for those people who think The Lives Of Others is a great movie. Horsehit time. **

In other words you are saying that it's best to avoid The Lives of Others which is horseshit??

I was about to watch it.
No, watch it and decide for yourself.

Posted: Wed Mar 18, 2009 9:38 am
by Big Magilla
Haven't seen the Romanian film, but I'm with Okri on The Lives of Others. Great film, though it shouldn't have won the Oscar over Pan's Labyrinth.