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Reviews
Las horas del día (2003)
It takes talent to make murder a non-event.
I like to think I'm a bit of a cinephile, certainly the majority of the films I really like are either foreign or art-house films; but this film really did nothing for me.
The story centers around Abel, an ordinary guy who works in a clothes shop. On the surface he leads a fairly normal (if a little dismal) life. He lives with his mother but is looking for a place of his own. He has a steady relationship with a beautiful girlfriend, and manages his business amiably. But underneath this calm facade lurks a vicious streak which waits to make itself known.
I sincerely apologise, because if you go in to see this film after reading that review you'll hate my guts. On the surface, it seems the point of this film is to be as pretentious as possible. It's filmed in academy, for goodness sake. There are long, tedious shots of nothing in particular, and reams of meaningful dialogue which hint at unfathomable significance. But what really got me was the banality of it all; and perhaps this was the point of the film. There was no tension to the scenes where Abel attacks his victims, and no development to his character - he didn't strike me as a tortured soul pushed over the edge, or some vicious character behind a facade of normality. He just seemed to be an asshole set on ruining peoples days (and lives, etc) The girl I was with actually fell asleep during the first murder.
The only emotion this film managed to elicit from me was annoyance at having wasted two hours of my life watching it. I give it three stars; and the only reason I gave it that was the talent it took to make murder into a non-event.
Elephant (2003)
Fantastic, but easy to misunderstand...
I'll get right out and say that I thought this film was quite possibly one of the best films I've seen this year, but that it could be very easily misunderstood if you're coming at it from the wrong angle.
Firstly, although the similarity with the events of the Columbine Shootings is difficult to avoid, and undoubtedly provided a starting point for this film, thinking of it as a literal translation is probably not going to help your enjoyment of the film. (this could be cos I'm in the UK and am only vaguely aware of the columbine massacre, I suppose it's harder to leave your preconceptions at the door when you've had so much more exposure)
Another criticism of the film might be that it didn't deal with any of the issues surrounding the columbine murders, or try to probe the motives behind the characters. I don't think it was meant to, I don't think it tried to, and in the end I don't think it needed to - the shooters had much more of an impact as two kids who one day and for no readily apparent reason shot up their school.
Another might be the unrealism. This lost me for a while, why the characters weren't running around screaming or breaking down in tears begging for their lives - as pretty much any hollywood director would have had them. But instead we see glazed-eyed characters wandering about the school with a kind of silent daze. In fact the entire film is like that, right down to the long quiet shots, the soundtrack picking up the detail of the ambient sounds, and the distorted, non-chronological editing - it all has the feel of someone struggling to piece together the events of the day through a kind of concussed shock.
The shooters apparent lack of motivation fits with this too - they were bullied, they were gay, they played shooty video games, they watched tv documentaries about hitler - all of these fit less-than-comfortably as explainations as to why they went out and shot up their school, and I think that's by design. At the end of the day, their motives were undiscernable.
One of the best films I've seen this year. 9/10.
Intermission (2003)
Kevin Smith meets Quentin Tarantino... in Ireland.
This is the best film i've seen in the last three months, and working at a cinema I see quite a few.
It's beautifully crafted as a concept, there are about four seperate threads following completely different people, and each thread crosses over the others, touching and influencing them, without ever properly joining.
The scripting is elegant, subtle and understated; fitting with the Kevin-Smith-esque surreal black comedy. The violence is often brutal and unexpected (in a Tarantino stylee), but never fully unwarranted. This might make the film seem dry and bleak (cf. Veronica Guerin, or perhaps the bitter comedy of Trainspotting), but that would be to miss the point completely - the film is designed from day one to be sharp and witty, equally as romantic and psychological as it is gritty and violent.
If you're used to the normal Hollywood charade with their overblown fight sequences, storylines padded with unnecessary explanations, and cookie-cutter concepts, this film is not for you. For anyone looking for some dry-witted entertainment, you could do a lot worse than Intermission.