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Reviews
El diario de Carlota (2010)
Sweet coming-of-age type story
Saw this at the Chicago Latino Film Festival and it's worth a watch. Carlota breaks up with her boyfriend and decides to start a diary/manual as she tries to clear her head about love, relationships, and sex. The movie offers plenty of laughs and sweet moments, though it does sort of lose a bit of steam about halfway through.
My biggest criticism is that though it was Carlota's diary, the movie was also trying to include subplots of her two best friends that didn't quite get enough attention. I would have liked to see a little bit more about the surrounding events.
All in all, this was a sweet and entertaining film.
Unborn in the USA: Inside the War on Abortion (2007)
Amazingly non-biased!
This film was amazing. More than halfway through, I grabbed the DVD box and tried to figure out who was 'backing' the film. I really couldn't figure out if this movie was trying to portray segments of the pro-life movement negatively or positively. The film is segments of the pro-life movement engaging in activism, interplayed with simple facts on a black screen with white lettering. A few of these facts revealed a glimpse of the filmmakers' bias, but that was the extent of it.
This film was difficult to watch, as it highlighted the argument of the use of graphic images in the abortion debate. I enjoyed the pro-choicers that the film makers decided to include in some of the sidewalk conversations sparked by the images displayed by the pro-lifers. They were confrontational, but didn't portray the pro-choice individuals as stupid or fanatical. The same with the pro-life folks in the film. If they seem stupid or fanatical, it's either because you perceive them as such, or they really are. One of the last scenes in the movie (a confrontation with a pro-choicer) was amazing in that it showed the hypocritical Christianity of some pro-lifers. This was a thread throughout the film, including a Catholic priest who offered a cash reward to the apprehension of pro-lifers who engage in bombing or shootings. If you're going to be pro-life, he says, you have to be pro-life all the way.
An extra feature on the DVD is a post-interview with those interviewed on how they felt they were portrayed in the film. Almost everyone felt they were represented without bias, with the exception of one woman who felt that some members of the pro-life movement came off as caricatures. What an extraordinary attempt by the film makers to ensure their objectivity. I do like Michael Moore, but I wonder if his films would stand the same test.
Dans ma peau (2002)
Missing pieces
As a mental health researcher, I'm always intrigued by movies that display pathology. So when people start doing things that are not explained by an underlying mental disorder, I get confused. Perhaps because of the translation (or a poorly written story), I just didn't see what her underlying reason was for her self-mutilation. I thought maybe it was something akin to Body Dysmorphic Disorder (evidenced by seeing her disconnected hand on the table at the business dinner). I couldn't quite understand what was going on with her, and I would have liked to see some reasoning for her pathology.
Unfortunately, lacking any sort of character driving force, this movie seemed like an excuse to shock the audience with something on the edge of disturbing and taboo. Because of the lack of character development, it seemed simply to be an exercise in exhibitionism, which certainly dampened the effect of the film.