Change Your Image
chinafree3
Into writing and working in my first script.
Fond of individuals and ideas alike.
Reviews
Binta y la gran idea (2004)
A treat: in praise of simplicity and fraternity
What a great treat to watch on Saturday upon waking from a night full of dreams! Thank you, Fesser, for your humanity and childlike warmth. Thank you for showing the so-called developing world in all its true glory, carefully hidden from the mass media, where we are only made to feel sorry for the poor people in Africa. And yes, there are terrible maladies, social and political in many African countries, but there are as well good places to live in a sustainable way, in opposition to our arrogant perception that takes for granted everyone wants to drive a car, and travel and see the world, and accumulate a fortune only to be ridden by fear and create even more unnecessary layers around ourselves as individuals and as societies.
It strikes me this short was finished in 2004, before it became a trend for Hollywood stars and the like to adopt Senegal children. But I laughed out loud when I finally listened to the great idea, since it seems a total slap in the face of some do-good no-good well known names that have been the focus of a heated discussion here in London.
Oscar for you! so you can go on spreading good vibes.
The Million Dollar Hotel (2000)
An artist with compassion
How can't you love the way Wenders creates and shows a believable yet totally fictional world? How can't you get tired watching Davies evolutions in the air, all gestures and arms? It is poetry in movement, sick poetry, with an impossible innocence around it. How can't you deny the irony behind this madhouse, the delusions denounced by the most delusional of all, the special agent Skinner? I simply love the way Wenders takes me for a ride inside his imagined world, populated by so heterogeneous characters, so defined, so well structured. And the constant in his movies, the joyous affirmation of life as an experience that we all have the opportunity to enjoy, no matter how poor, how impaired, how delusional.
It takes compassion to see the hidden beauty in the dark corners of the human soul, and artistic skill to show it. Because Wenders has both, I admire him and his work.
What the #$*! Do We (K)now!? (2004)
Billions of minds, billions of truths.
We are made of the same stuff. That stuff has been found to behave in ways that escape all reasoning. Where there is no reason, there is intuition. You don't need to belong to any organized cult or religion to wonder at this fact. And the answers you will get will be as open and broadminded as you are. No more, no less. A human being cannot understand (and therefore explain) a higher level that the one he is at.
Have you ever experienced a jump in consciousness, a leap in perception? when your familiar world opened wide and showed itself to you as much bigger and complex and beautiful that you ever thought? I had some, and there will be more in my evolution as a human being. The more I see, the more I respect the yet unseen and using my analytical abilities but trusting my intuitive feelings (what moves my heart) I will look for the words of the experts that dedicate themselves heartedly to find the answers to this quantic word-soup. Although in fact I know that the answers lie inside of me, somehow clouded from perception by me and that they'll get me only when I am ready.
It is not manipulation or spiritual politics that a documentary about physics ends up discussing the nature of God and human consciousness. East finally meets West. Different styles, different means, same conclusions. We are getting to certain agreement, and I do not care whether it comes from Buddhism or from the physics departments of the Western universities, if it resonates in my heart and brain cells, and specially if it empowers me as a human being to make the most out of this life. What this "most" means will be up to you. Do you want to have every possible lover in the world, to drive fast cars and jet-set your way through the planet? Fine, you've got it. Do you want to make a few grand before returning home, my friend? Fine.
Evolution happens in stages. Desire and its fulfilment is one of them, not the lowest nor the highest either. It is good to develop a healthy ego. In the search for balance, we go from the numinous quality of childhood into adulthood, creating a personal identity. Only so we can leave it behind, so we can step into the next stage, that I have only experienced temporarily.
That stage is not limited to the time-space continuum, and therefore it can happen at any time, it can happen now, here : now-here, nowhere and take you by surprise if you let go of any resistance. And the peaceful joy that comes upon you when you no longer feel any desire and are perfectly joyous with what you see is what makes room for more happiness. In that state of humble detachment from what it was or what it will be there is so much energy available to us that we then can glimpse at eternity. And the magic of the Universe shows itself in all its splendour. You can only see the birds when you are not looking a t them. In this moment of perfect attention, rid of the past and detached from the future, an explosion will break a thousand windows in your heart. It has been called creativity. Listen to your inner landscape. There lies the gift you brought to the world. What you decide to do with it will be the meat and bones of your evolution. At the end of this journey, whatever you did to advance the human soul will be with us forever.
This is the only way to find meaning among the puzzling realities that surround us. Your reality, and her reality, and your Mum's reality, and your baby's.
I wonder at the fact that we actually seem to understand each other, that we manage to communicate at all. Words are conventions, and inasmuch as we agree their meanings we are getting our views across, but what if you start using different words than the rest because they express subtleties that you want to share? What if nobody else shares them? Welcome to your world, dear friend. Enjoy it and try to find a way to get it known, even if only to your friends. We need you. We need the magic that dwells in your mind. In Bukowski's words: "If you are going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start (...) Isolation is the gift. All the others are but tests of your endurance (...) It is the only journey worth taking" (as heard in the last scenes of Factotum, I apologize if I am missing something, that was the message anyway).
A friend in the path.
La culpa del alpinista (2004)
Spiritually charged and life affirming
Atter watching it again, it still manages to move me like the first time. The Medem touch is very present (kudos to Sánchez Arévalo too), his whimsical dreamy world of synchronicity is recreated in a few lines, in a few scenes. At the moment I am watching lots of shorts, and studying them, because I am in the process of writing my first one. It seems to me that it is much easier to make a funny short story that a dramatic one, that most directors tend to overuse the voice-over or the dialogue (talking heads kind of short) and that the time span covered is rarely long. In this case, there is a sense of balance between the characters' voices and the narrator's and the story told spans 30 years. Inspiring piece of work, spiritually charged, full of compassion.
Thank you, guys.
If you want to watch it, you can find it in the collection "The best shorts of Spanish cinema" by Fnac.
Caché (2005)
Boring and disappointing or maybe I missed something
Before I comment on this movie, I would like to make clear that any creative work deserves my respect. Maybe I missed something in this occasion, maybe I don't understand what the director means, but it didn't move me at all. It seems to me that he wants to make a metaphor about the French guilt about Algeria in the character of Georges. Guilt and remorse haunt him, and he makes things even worse.
I went to see a thriller, because this is what it is advertised about it, and ended up seeing a weak plot, unsubstantial characters, an unsatisfactory ending. Came back to check IMDb.com for other user's comments, and I see a lot of different opinions about what the movie means. And I think a movie should tell a story itself, and not leaving the ending to so much of our imagination.
Breakfast on Pluto (2005)
Loving the Irish!
Hilariously provocative, politic, Irish indeed, Breakfast on Pluto is an entertaining movie that gets you on tears sometimes. I find the main character somehow weak, too easily strayed from his unknown path, and even though his performance is top-class, I kinda longed for a moment of assertiveness until the time came when he was facing his long-lost mother and he decides to hide his identity. Good ending, realistic, believable with mother and son crossing their paths like the strangers they are. Liam Neeson fills the screen and not because we know him but (I guess this is great for a director) because he expresses the right emotions at the right time perfectly. There's no doubt about what he's going through when he utters his lines. Fantastic the camera work, those aerial shots at the beginning creating a vertigo that lets you down afterwards. I mean that it is the life of someone quite attached to the very basic stuff of life: body issue's, love longing and he never gets off this perspective, looking for any strand of love he can get. Even in the wrong places.
Lost Horizon (1937)
Warning for idealistic types: You will love it!
This comes from a most idealistic person that still strives to believe in the possibility of a really human world where the man stops being a wolf to the man (Hobbes, I think). I rediscovered this movie last year in Xmas day, and the message resonated all inside my heart and soul. Anyone writing about utopias should check this out, although the book probably is more extensive. I haven't read it yet, I am afraid.
At some point when all of the Europeans are discussing the good OR the evil of Shangri-La, I could see the scenification of the intellectual discussion taking place at the time (1937) in difficult times for the world. That was between the faith and trust or the cynical and sceptical point of views, to simplify it. Bertrand Russell words came to mind, and the realisation that even if utopia would find a place in our world, there would be those that would not want to take place, that would find the struggle and the rat race attractive probably out of inexperience.
And definitely Capra makes his statement about the upcoming war. Chapeau, Frank!! I love the so-called capra-esquire films because of their intense belief in the strenght of the human being when he decides to do to the neighbours as he would like to be done onto him. Deeply spiritual message, the conscience that we are all one.
From a human being struggling in this world...
Requiem for a Dream (2000)
Shaking, impressive, rhythmic
The title was already promising. Then I watched it, slightly stoned, and the outstanding editing, the mixture of slow and fast pace, and the music (that I think it is a free adaptation of a requiem) takes you in a crescendo visual trip to a final apotheosis that takes your breath away.
There is this undertone of the Crime and Punishment theme. Let's face it, it is a pessimistic movie, but if anyone knows of someone that took this twisted road of drugs, you know that's how things are likely to develop. It is an overdose of reality that gives it credibility.
The plot stands out of other drug movies like Trainspotting or Drugstore Cowboy thanks to the old lady's personal addiction hell.
I don't get tired of watching it and I recommend it to everyone. Thanks to Darren and all the crew for shaking us to the bone.