Change Your Image
shazadnawal
Reviews
Io sono l'amore (2009)
I Am Infidelity
Bored housewife has an affair with her son's best friend. Well, she's in love with him. Anyway, what's with the odd scene in the midst of the credits when she and her lover are just sitting around in a cave? She abandoned her family, life of comfort, luxury and stability for that? It's not like Antonio can build the restaurant now either and he was employed by his lover's family. The only one that was happy for her was her lesbian daughter and that's only because she's similar to her mother. A confused rebel.
Becoming Burlesque (2017)
Becoming a Cliche!
This movie is about a supposedly repressed Muslim girl that decides she wants freedom of choice by becoming a burlesque dancer. Then when her family members find out about this stripping job, they each "become" comfortable with the idea. Note the scene just before the credits roll up when even her mother imagines herself on stage as she looks at herself in the mirror. I'm sure it's tongue in cheek but far-fetched in any case.
It's a good thing this flick is merely fantasy because in the real world, families would not be THAT accepting, For the protagonist herself, she claims to follow the teachings of Islam and still considers herself a Muslim so she's trying to reconcile the two. The outcome is predictable. It was only ever going to go one way.
The characters must have called burlesque "a form of art", at least a hundred times in its duration. We get it. And to some it is but to others, it's still a form of sexual exploitation similar to belly dancing. It's still women showing off their bodies for money. How does the main character reconcile such major differences? Well she doesn't.
Anyway, I give it 3 stars because the film's message is that womens freedom of choice is solely about wearing less clothes and not that womens choices or freedom of expression can be about being intelligent, using your brain or by being happy by other means.
White Lines (2020)
Slow burner, creepy characters, unrealistic story but I've seen it now. :-/
White Lines is about a married woman, Zoe, with a history of complex mental health & abandonement issues brought on by the disappearance of her brother, Axel, 20 years ago. Now that his body has turned up & his death confirmed, Zoe (you guessed it) abandons her husband & daughter at the drop of a hat, to travel to Ibiza to investigate his death. And she even abandons that really after shagging around. Just asks a few questions. She's no Poirot that's for sure. (what are the Spanish police doing anyway?)
Once there however, she gets involved in all sorts of shenanigans, leading her to allow her self-destructive behaviour, destroy her sanity. She parties regularly, starts getting high on drugs, cheats on her husband, gets swept up as a suspect in a criminal case & decides she wants to "find herself".
She acknowledges what she is doing, is wrong but she can't control herself from slipping away from reality as her family have of all said at one point or another "I don't recognise you any more". It doesn't help that Anna, a friend she confides in about the affair, advises her not to feel bad about her infidelity & not to disclose this to her partner. In another scene, she tells Kika her life is falling apart, Kika tells her, let it, enjoy your freedom.
I mean WTH?! With friends like these, who needs enemies? At least Zoe does show she has a conscience and there are scenes where she is clearly fighting her thoughts & feelings.
The show glamorises hedonism, tomfoolery, drugs, cheating etc. It also reflects shamefully on the lead women as they all sleep around, are Geordie Shore level slutty & all are dependent on well-off men. Even Axel slept with them all the AND ones mother before his death.
A lot of the reviewers are saying that Boxer is the best part of the show but I found him to be cringy & creepy. I couldn't cheer for a homewrecker & an enabler to Zoe's fall from grace. I wasn't even interested in the locations, scenery or settings but more invested in the story & characters. Not one character was likable but you could sympathise with Zoe's family.
This show was slow in most parts & hard to watch due to the slow pacing & predictability factors though. Unfortunately, it looks like there will be a season 2 after the pandemic subsides due to the fact that the director is behind the very popular Money Heist. But let's hope it stops there. Now that the murder has been solved there's really no need to drag another predictable season out.
The Four-Faced Liar (2010)
Unoriginal & predicatable
There are several movies like this, with similar story lines and all end up the same way. Am I the only one that thinks these stories are too unrealistic and predictable? "Elena Undone" and "Below Her Mouth" are other titles in which a seemingly straight woman (either engaged, married or in a relationship) embarks on a lesbian affair behind their partners back, of course. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of movies in which the cheats are guys or the cheating is straight but there is a trend emerging now.
The boyfriend, fiancee, husband etc that is being cheated on, always loses out as the cheating pair in each story, predictably end up together. It's always a case of the woman feeling bored, unhappy with their current love life or kidding themselves about their own sexuality but then not even coming clean to their partners about any of the developments.
Those being cheated on are painted as ignorant, naive, weak, violent, misogynists etc. Surely, this can't always be the case. The films do not deal with the aftermath or fallout of these predicaments and if they did, they could have been more interesting. Yet we as the viewers, are meant to cheer for the ones doing the cheating and lying.
I've given this a low rating as it became frustrating feeling of deja vu and uninspiring script.