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david_odi
Reviews
American Honey (2016)
Boring and repetitive. Nothing actually happens.
Beautiful landscapes and scenery but unnecessary long and repetitive - In a 2:43 hours long film you can expect some repetition, and you'll get it - I can't even tell how many times I watched (and suffered) the van scenes with the crappy sound system and the and pointless conversations inside the van.
Still, there are some solid performances in the film like Riley Keough's as Kryslat, but in general I would consider it as one of the worst 2016 films. I would discourage anyone to watch this film unless you really have nothing else to go with.
La novia (2015)
A film full of poetry
Beautiful and fantastic (as in fantasy!) photography and scenery: the greatest contribution made by cinematography in the direction of Paula Ortiz to the already thriving "Bodas de Sangre" play by Federico Garcia Lorca.
A play full of strong and deep poetry in which the destiny of the characters are controlled and dictated by their deepest emotions as if these emotions were fierce Gods that are far beyond any human control or law, and just as the ancient Gods of most mythologies played with the destiny of the mortals as if leafs in the winds, the emotions portrayed in this film do the same to the lives of every single character in this film: merciless, relentlessly.
Talking specifically about the film, one of the new 'extensions' added in the film and absent in the play, is the great metaphor of the crystals all across the film. Lorca use the word 'cristal' and 'vidrio' plenty of times in the play without referring to an actual crystal but as literary resource, and the development of this idea in images is magical and beautiful.
A downside of the film, for those who cannot understand Spanish, is the very lame translation in the English captions. I do speak Spanish as my native tongue but I had to turn the captions on at some moments because they whisper a lot and some pronunciations are difficult to grasp. As I said, this film is full of delightful poetry, not only visually but literally and is a shame that the translator didn't seem to notice that, as a result some of the most brilliant moments of the movie become plain and bland if reading the English translation. There is even one moment in which the translation express exactly the opposite to the original meaning.
Not taking in great consideration this last thing, La Novia is an amazing film that I would recommend to everyone except to those that faint when they see blood.