Films I've watched recently

1917. This is a quest film. At the height of the First World War, two young British soldiers, Schofield (and Blake are given a seemingly impossible mission. In a race against time, they must cross enemy territory and deliver a message that will stop a deadly attack on hundreds of soldiers--Blake's own brother among them. If you were waiting for a good old fashioned war film, you’ll have to keep waiting because this ain’t it. While this isn’t a chick flick, it ain’t far away from becoming a chick either. Essentially it’s a good, tense film that does well in translating the first-person experience of war. The cinematography is beautiful. All of it is hampered by a predictable script and the film doesn’t deserve the hype it’s gotten.

36 Quai des Orfèvres (as 36th Precinct) is a 2004 French film with Gérard Depardieu. The film is directed by Olivier Marchal, a former police officer who spent 12 years in the French police. The story is loosely inspired from real events which occurred during the 1980s in France. This is a gritty cop-thug film with an intense atmosphere, that moves quickly and into unexpected directions that takes place in Paris, where two cops are competing for the vacant seat of chief of the Paris Criminal police while involved in a search for a gang of violent thieves. 

Chronically Metropolitan. I think placing actor Shiloh Fernandez in the lead as a young writer from New York City who returns home and tries to reconnect with his estranged ex-girlfriend, either wasn’t the best possible choice or the actor wasn’t given much to work with.  There’s no reason to like the character. There is no reason to dislike the character. He’s boring, which is okay I suppose but what annoyed me was that he has nothing in common with his highly emotional family. The father is a raging ego, the mother has more up’s and down than the alps and the sister is bizarre, but the   Fernandez character doesn’t have a single one of those wonderful faults of these Upper East Side New Yorkers. And he should because in life, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.  As a result the film sort of skims across the surface of something that could be deeper. There are some truly funny parts to the film but otherwise is somber and  predictable. Only the very end of the film and its message, is what saves the it.

You Were Never Really Here. I just found out the main character is supposed to be a traumatized veteran, which isn’t at all clear in the film and should be. So without that nugget, I wrongly assumed I was watching a film about psychopath. Anyway, it’s another quest film, a killer for hire tracks down a missing girl. Here’s the important part to know about the film, its written by Lynne Ramsey, a Scottish writer producer and cinematographer, whose low on dialogue films are marked by explicit story exposition, a fascination with children and the recurring themes of grief, guilt, death, and its aftermath. She uses vivid images, tiny details and sound to carry the story. If you understand that, the film gets better. But even with that, this a brutal story that left me sad for the characters. There is an overriding sadness to this film.

Burning. When I read the positive, must-see-reviews for this ilm, it reminds me that a lot of people don’t know what they’re talking about.  Made in South Korea, Burning is the story of three young people….who do things…I don’t know, this entire thing was lost on me. My film buff friends are encouraging me to give it a second view in order to appreciate it, but life is much to short for that sort things. This is a bleak film about  a love triangle. I had no sympathy for anyone in the film, the bewildered protagonist leave the impression that even he doesn’t know why he’s in the film.

Listen up, Philip. This is one of the films you have to watch to end to appreciate. The film was dubbed “A complex, intimate, and highly idiosyncratic comedy” and every word of that is true.  Philip is an angry writer awaiting publication of his sure-to-succeed second novel, yet he has an indifference to promoting his own work. He is taken under the wing by his literary idol Ike Zimmerman who offers his isolated summer home as a refuge. This film doesn’t even make the slightest attempt to be cute or likeable, yet it somehow manages to charms more than it alienates. While watching it, the viewer must accept the fact that Philip has an emotional blankness. This is a (darkly) funny and deeply sad film.