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Reviews
Tatie Danielle (1990)
Tiring gags and boring passive aggressive old lady
Urged by one of my friends, who revered it, I saw this movie when I was in my twenties. I must say that I disagree with his judgment as well as with all the previous reviews I have read on this site, except for a few external critics. Despite my youth, I hardly laughed at the wickedness, evil intentions and misdeeds of the movie's main character, and was grateful when the movie could pull out a sincere smile from me. Compared with other movies where an evil and passive aggressive personality tries to manipulate people around them, such as Fassbinder's "The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant", or more recently, Lars von Trier's "Breaking the waves", just to name a few, this movie has a lot to learn. In addition, it lacks any aesthetic interest (photography, sound track, etc.). Finally, the scenes, situations and repetitive gags in this movie are tiresome, just as the old lady, whose psychology is as profound as the epidermis.
Desert Flower (2009)
An anti-feminist superficial movie
I found this movie to be a handful of stereotypes and clichés about women and womanliness. In effect, aside from a few powerful scenes, the rest of the movie seemed like a never-ending ad for some big fashion firm or an incomprehensible promotion for some anorexic and beautiful actor. If the movie had stopped right at the edge of our Western-world obscenities about fashion, beauty canons and femininity, I could have considered it just an OK movie. But the plot, although real, is unrealistic, and the frames and shots, not to mention the story, are absolutely superficial. The movie probably wants to convey us its rightful disgust for excision practices, yet it prompted my disgust by treating its own main character as mere merchandise, in accordance with some of our Western-world values. I didn't watch the end of the movie because I found insulting the 2/3rds of it. I hope the end makes up for the long and superficial beginning, although I very much doubt it.