The Hunt (Jagten)

This powerful Danish drama stars Mads Mikkelsen (A Royal Affair) as Lucas, a divorced father, who becomes the target of a close-knit community’s wrath when he’s accused of sexually molesting one of the children at the kindergarten where he works.

Thomas Vinterberg’s provocative film touches on the very difficult and sensitive issue of child abuse and how the fearful, merciless persecution brought to bear by a secluded clannish community on the loathsome individual they believe to be responsible, can sometimes be misguided. 

The story is told from the accused’s perspective as we witness how Lucas becomes the victim of an innocent lie. It’s a dark cautionary tale of how quickly a community can turn against even its most trusted citizens when it comes to protecting children from sexual predators. 

Unable to believe that a child would ever lie or make up such a story, Lucas’ closest friends and family turn against him, while he tries to convince them that no such act ever occurred to no avail. Much like The Fugitive (1993), there is absolutely no tolerance to hear what Lucas has to say, even with his reputation as a well-liked and respected citizen. 

Mads Mikkelsen as Lucas is absolutely riveting as a gentle man rebuilding his life after a divorce and custody battle, who sees his only son and new girlfriend slipping away as his world is completely turned upside down. With everyone quickly turning sinister, he is now a pariah, a social outcast shunned by society. 

Lucas is in fact loved by all the children at the school where he works, especially Klara, the young girl in question, who is his best friend’s daughter and has special needs. Because Lucas is the only one sensitive to her needs, she developed a bond with him, maybe even a crush. But when he rejects a gift she makes for him, she misunderstands and takes it as a personal rejection.

Out of anger she makes up a story about Lucas. Everyone involved seems to do the right thing to protect the girl from further exposure to Lucas but Klara is shocked at how the adults and her parents react so strongly to her claims. Embellished by the adult’s imaginations and fears, they assume the worst before the girl realizes the consequences of what she had said.

It’s scary to realize how powerless we are as individuals when cut off from our social network and the fragility and importance of that social network to our wellbeing. The film’s disturbing but plausible story continues to haunt me long after viewing it as I became aware that a version of this scenario could happen to almost anyone in today’s fearful society.

Lucas, like most of us, really would have no other option but to leave his town and start a new life somewhere else, if it wasn’t for his strong conviction that he has done nothing wrong and hopes that the truth will eventually be revealed. Unfortunately, even if he were able to convince people of his innocence, his life would never be the same as there would always remain some doubt in the back of people’s mind. 

The Hunt (2012) is a thought provoking must-see drama that was nominated in the best foreign film category at the BAFTA Awards and nominated for the Palme D’Or at the Cannes film festival where Mads Mikkelsen’s stunning performance won him the best actor award.

JP

Prisoners

When two children go missing on the outskirts of a suburban community, a mysterious RV camper parked on the street is immediately suspected as a possible connection.

If you’ve ever seen French Canadian director Denis Villeneuve’s film Incendies (2010), you will know just how skillful he is with stories that take you on endlessly puzzling journeys and come to totally unexpected and shocking conclusions. Well, Prisoners (2013), Villeneuve’s first big budget Hollywood project is no exception and leaves you with that same disturbing impact at the end.

The film is reminiscent of other child abduction films like Without a Trace (1983) and Gone Baby Gone (2007), while adding some elements of Taken (2008) with the addition of a vigilante father who conducts his own search and rescue mission. 

In this particular case there are few likely suspects who may or may not have some connection to the crime. The father of one of the kidnapped children, Keller Dover (Hugh Jackman), is a very high strung paranoid type, who prides himself on being prepared for any emergency survival scenario. But in his frantic attempt to find his daughter we don’t know if he is helping or hindering the investigation.

The audience is kept as much in the dark as the detectives and parents are, while searching for and agonizing over the whereabouts of the two young girls and who is capable of such an unthinkable act.

It’s an extremely sensitive subject in today’s society where children go missing almost on a regular basis and are very seldom found alive if they are found at all. The case of Madeleine McCann, abducted while vacationing in Portugal, is one of the more high profile examples in which the girl has still not been found and where investigators focus sometimes mistakenly on the parents.

The first rate cast includes Jake Gyllenhaal as the weary perplexed officer Loki assigned to the case, bringing an appropriately calm and unnervingly restrained performance to the role. And Hugh Jackman plays his character with understandable desperation as he takes matters into his own hands when he feels the authorities are not doing enough to find his daughter. 

The movie centers on these two characters with very different mentalities and who use very different methods to reach their goals. One represents the rational analytical approach, the other is driven by his emotions and the certain knowledge that time is quickly running out if they hope to recover the children alive.

The movie felt a little on the long side at two and a half hours and lead us down a maze of false paths, or are they? We never know for sure which one of the two is on the right track. The surprising shock ending is well worth the wait and explains many of the questions we the audience and the characters puzzled over throughout the film.

This gripping drama unfolds at a deliberately steady pace, shot by Roger Deakins with a grim grey rainy look that gives a constant oppressive feeling as we see the suffering of all involved. I felt in expert hands as the film moves from one tension filled moment to the next and it was never boring. 

JP

iNumber Number

It’s not surprising that in the shantytowns outside Johannesburg, most cops have gone corrupt. Soweto is a land of lawlessness, where every cop goes through a dilemma; risk their lives on a daily basis to enforce the law for a meager salary, or join the crime lords and live like kings. 

The last two good cops left in Soweto township of South Africa are Chili (S’dumo Mtshali) and Shoes (Presley Chweneyagae). Against all odds they still manage to work together to put away the bad guys without any assistance from the rest of the corrupt police force. 

The film begins with an exhilarating opening sequence that has Chili’s cover blown and tied to a chair about to be tortured or killed. It’s Shoe to the rescue, but he has no weapons, only a walkie-talkie to communicate with his partner and no time to call for backup. Outnumbered, the two must work together to put a bold plan into action.

Writer and director Donovan Marsh, influenced by such masters of the gangster and heist genre as Tarantino and the Coen Brothers, tells a sometimes absurdly tragic/comic story of a hastily planned robbery of an armored money truck in transit, which is apparently common in the extremely dangerous poor parts of South Africa, where people are so desperate, they often resort to poorly thought out schemes to get rich quick.

Our cop buddies and best friends are an unlikely duo to be reckoned with; Chili is the hulking muscle with nerves of steel able to infiltrate any crime gang convincingly, while Shoes is the loveable experienced voice of reason on the outside looking in, making sure his partner doesn’t get himself killed.

The strikingly stylish sepia tinged images give a rich texture that exudes a feeling of oppressive heat. Visually, it almost felt like watching Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire (2008), with its extreme camera angles and filtered lenses giving an ant’s eye view of the scorched world that seems to give the camera, free to move into the smallest spaces, a life of its own and the resulting images are nothing short of spectacular.  

After being denied the reward owed to them, Chili, conflicted about continuing on their righteous path, decide to help a group of criminals to rob an armored truck and make some quick easy cash. Shoes reluctantly agrees to go along with the plan but in Soweto nothing goes as planned and soon our two hero cops are neck deep in a suspenseful bloody show down.

Filmed in actual locations in the Soweto Township of Johannesburg South Africa, the film is a non-stop adrenalin rush that doesn’t let up. The situations and thrilling set pieces are so inventively filmed with an array of in-camera visual effects like stop motion, fast motion and slow motion that help give the film a frenetic feeling that engages the audience to experience the film in an immersive way. 

The organic home grown soundtrack, which was actually performed by one of the cast members, who himself was a real gangster and a musician in Soweto, helps to give the film an authentic feel.

iNumber Number (2013), the title of the film is Zulu gangster slang for a crime job, had its world premiere here in Toronto on Sept. 12, 2013 and is scheduled for a big release in South Africa in March 2014, and in North American by XYZ films. Don’t miss this extremely entertaining must-see film for action fans.

JP

The Dinner (Het Diner)

How do you make a family drama into a psychological thriller and make it work? Well, Dutch director Menno Meyjes has done it. This is a unique revealing film about an upper middle class European family whose outer façade hides an ugly truth. 

The film follows a father, Paul (Jacob Derwig), an unemployed cynical ex-teacher, who has lost touch with his son’s life, and the family fallout after he learns of his son’s involvement with a Clockwork Orange style crime that seems to eco Anthony Burgess's account of the future.

Filmed as an intense thriller, the story surrounds a dinner conversation at a posh restaurant between two sets of parents, who have come together to discuss a crime committed by their children. Paul’s brother Serge (Daan Schuurmans), a politician, has arranged for them and their wives to meet at a restaurant to discuss the grave consequences of the situation and what action should be taken.

Based on a provocative bestselling Dutch novel of the same name by Herman Koch, and inspired by real events, it’s an unflinching account of how parents are both enablers and protectors of their children’s bad behaviors. 

The parents all have a different take on what should be done and everyone is taking steps to protect their interests. It’s almost like a political thriller the way the film cuts between the diner conversation and the crime itself as seen through surveillance footage.

The brothers want to take steps to make sure that their boys are punished according to the law and suggest disclosing what they know to the police, but the mothers are much more protective of their young sons and will do anything to cover up their crimes. 

It’s smartly written with sometimes scathingly hilarious dialogue and analogies about decaying morals in modern society. The film tries to deal with the negative influences of modern technology and violence in music and media that children are exposed to, and how it’s becoming increasingly difficult for parents to control or influence their children with positive messages.

In no way is the movie preachy. We are kept fully engaged with many thriller genre conventions, including a voice over narration by the main character Paul, giving us his thoughts as we get to see contemporary Dutch life. The film is beautifully photographed and full of close-up facial expressions as the characters plot their next move, secret meetings in public washrooms and underground parking lots, cell phone snooping and cyber surveillance footage.

As more details about the crime are slowly revealed, we watch as Paul’s world starts to slip away from him. All is not what it seems at first and soon we realize that the parent’s roles are much more complicated. 

It’s a provocative moral tale of family dynamics disguised as a thriller that asks difficult questions, but leaves you with few answers and lots to think about.

The Dinner (2013) is playing at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) and will hopefully soon be given a wider release in North America. Be sure to catch this disturbing but memorable film when it does.

JP

Hotel

In this genuine moving film we follow new mother Erika (Alicia Vikander), who also appeared in A Royal Affair (2012), as she goes through a crisis due to giving birth to a brain damaged child who may never be normal. Unable to accept this, she rejects the child, unwilling to see or hold it while plunging into a deep depression.

The second feature film from Swedish writer & director Lisa Langseth, Hotel (2013) is a brave thought provoking work that probes issues of identity and happiness while coping with the stresses and responsibilities of life.

The tone of the film starts out very dark and intense as Erika deals with serious issues of postpartum depression. I thought I was in for one of those painful films about suffering, but to my relief quite the contrary is true. The movie unexpectedly changes its tone delightfully while still dealing with taboo issues it brings to light. 

Traumatized and unable to function normally, she decides to try group therapy sessions for people with varying disorders. While there, she meets other patients who each decide that they want to escape their lives by exploring other parts of themselves they’ve ignored for too long as a way of coping.

Erica notices the people in the group all have a child like quality about them, and also have trouble dealing with expectations in the adult world. By retreating into their inner child for guidance and reassurance, some comic and surprising situations emerge that make the experience of watching this film a touching revelation.

Soon the group decides that by staying at a hotel they can somehow reinvent themselves in their new surroundings and awaken as different people while helping each other continue with the therapy.

For some reason people sometimes become more open to new ideas and introspective when they are away from their everyday existence and travel to new unknown places. When they are in a place where no one knows them, they are free to explore new identities and be whoever they want to be.

In many ways this film reminded me of Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation (2003), as the characters in both films are dealing with personal issues of identity and the stress of coping with life while staying at hotels. Both films are also directed by young female directors with strong female lead performers and draw on their own experiences for their stories. You could say that Lisa Langseth is the Sofia Coppola of Sweden.

After having spent a good deal of time together on their retreat, the characters form strong intimate bonds, during which each member gets to act out their sometimes bizarre fantasies with the support of the group. But eventually the real world must be faced and hopefully they will have gained new insights to cope with it.

It’s an honest and inspirational film about healing and acceptance. And how by indulging our fantasies and delving into our past, we can sometimes find solutions to real problems and achieve some happiness.

This powerful film, playing at the TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival), is well worth seeing and like The Story of the Weeping Camel (2003) and Lost in Translation (2003), will leave you with a warm sense of wellbeing and reassurance.

JP

Head-On: The Cinema of Fatih Akin

The riveting passionate films of Fatih Akin, the German-Turkish director of such powerful cinematic works as Head-On (2003), Crossing the Bridge: The Sound of Istanbul (2005), The Edge of Heaven (2007), and Soul Kitchen (2009), are so visceral and uniquely fascinating in their depiction of the gritty life and love of people torn between two cultures, that it’s as spellbinding as watching a slow motion car crash.

In fact, his break-through award winning film Head-On opens with a car crashing into a brick wall as a tormented young Turkish man, Cahit, living in Germany, tries to commit suicide. But when he meets a Turkish girl, Sibel, while recovering in a rehab clinic, who’s as desperate and depressed as he is, the collision of passionate personalities is both shocking and mesmerizing. 

This is a daring unflinching look at life through the eyes of two head-strong personalities desperately looking for love in all the wrong places. Fatih’s movies are like documentaries about good people in bad situations, who have the perseverance to, not only survive, but thrive. When I first saw Head-On I was struck by the raw and realistic performances of the characters. 

Angry and alone after losing his wife, the heart-broken Cahit has become an alcoholic wreck on a downward spiral who has given up on life. Sibel, played by the gorgeous Sibel Kekilli, who can be seen in the HBO miniseries Game of Thrones, wants Cahit to marry her in order to gain freedom from her strict traditional Muslim parents. 

This gem is both tender and abrasive as an unconventional but uncompromising love story about finding love when you least expect it in a dark ugly world of isolation and despair that doesn’t conform to any Hollywood convention.

Cahit reluctantly agrees to go along with Sibel’s plan to arrange a fake marriage for the benefit of her parents so that she can finally leave home and live like other German women and go to parties where she can meet men she likes. But their fake living arrangement soon becomes more serious as they unexpectedly develop feelings for each other.

Sometimes disturbing but never disappointing, you must experience this film to believe it. Head-On has won many awards, including the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival and Best Film and the Audience award at the European Film Festival. 

On a lighter note, Soul Kitchen (2009) is a hilarious culinary comedy about a Greek restaurant owner in Germany, who wants to give his greasy spoon a makeover to draw in a more sophisticated clientele. It has all the same gritty characters and cultural clashes as his other films, but it’s so much fun to see these charming desperate, down-and-out people enjoying a light-hearted comedy. 

What I love about Fatih’s films are the beautiful, spirited Turkish heroines, and the cross-cultural music and traditions in his stories. His movies start out with characters in the most hopeless, and self-destructive situations and you cringe and wonder at what could be the cause of such despair. Then he slowly reveals the humanity, love and compassion just under the surface, waiting for the right circumstances to bloom. At that moment you gain new respect for people and life. 

Fatih Akin’s latest project is a documentary called Garbage in the Garden of Eden (2012), which is about a gorgeous, picturesque sea side village community on the Black Sea that its citizens are fighting to protect from the Turkish Government’s plans to turn it into a garbage dump. 

JP

Lee Daniels' The Butler

Inspired by the real life story of Eugene Allen, who worked at the White House as a butler for 34 years during eight presidencies, The Butler is a sweeping historical epic from an African-American perspective and a moving multi-generational account of the Civil Rights movement in the US, as seen through the eyes of White House butler Cecil Gains (Forest Whitaker) and his family. 

Raised as a slave on a cotton plantation in Macon, Georgia in 1920s, the young boy Cecil witnesses the brutal treatment of his family including the murder of his father and rape of his mother by white plantation owners.

Featuring an Oscar worthy performance by Forest Whitaker as the butler and appearances by a long list of big name actors, including Vanessa Redgrave, Jane Fonda, Allen Rickman, Robin Williams, Oprah Winfrey, Lenny Kravitz, John Cusack, Mariah Carey, Cuba Gooding Jr. and Terrence Howard, it’s a fascinating historical account from a unique perspective. 

After his father’s death, young Cecil is taken off the cotton fields to work indoors as a house servant where he learns the refined ways of catering to wealthy land owners.                                                               
A  mixture of Roots (1977) and Forrest Gump (1994), the film does a wonderful job of blending family drama with the African-American experience during the long struggle for justice and equality, showing us the many attitudes and reactions to those landmark events that define the civil rights movement.

Cecil eventually escapes the plantation as a young man to avoid falling victim to his father’s fate and travels north to Washington where his quiet dignity and jovial manner around white folk lands him a job at the White House. 

Like Cecil and others from his generation, middle class black Americans embraced the American way of life while suffering under its inequalities and double standards. But his son Louis, and those of the next generation, will not tolerate what they see as the bigotry and oppression by the white ruling society, and actively fight in protest against it. 

A rift opens between father and son as Cecil’s activist son, played by David Oyelowo, who was recently seen in Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) and Lincoln (2012), routinely lands himself in jail from a life of protesting, while steadfast and loyal Cecil must be a silent witness to decisions made in the Oval Office that will affect America and his own family as they struggle with domestic riots and unrest stemming from those policies. 

Ultimately, the most fascinating thing about this movie is the honest bitter account of one man’s journey through life as he witnesses the long hard fought rise of his people from slavery and serving the President of the nation, to finally achieving the presidency itself. 

As The Butler tries to draw parallels between the segregation of African-Americans in the US with the violent apartheid era in South Africa, taken together with such recent films as The Help (2011), Red Tails (2012), Django Unchained (2012), 42 (2013) and Fruitvale Station (2013), these films are writing new chapters in American black history. 

This is a moving tribute worth seeing for its powerful and emotional message giving a new and passionate perspective on race relations in America that has been lacking in mainstream media. 

JP

Elysium

In the year 2154 overpopulation and pollution have ravaged the earth and rendered it virtually uninhabitable, making it necessary to build an artificial earthlike environment in space.  However, only the wealthy elite can afford to live on this high tech utopian paradise orbiting the earth. The majority masses of poor must live in earth’s shantytowns as slaves to an authoritarian society while dying of diseases and injuries that could easily be cured if they had access to the highly advanced cure-all medical system on Elysium.

This visually striking dystopian sci-fi action thriller by South African director Neill Blomkamp, is a mesmerizing mix of Mad Max (1979), Johnny Mnemonic (1995), District 9 (2009) and Total Recall (2012). So far, this year has been an unusually strong year for original science fiction projects, with surprisingly smart and visually exciting products like Oblivion, World War Z, Pacific Rim and now Elysium.

When a factory worker and ex-con Max (Matt Damon), is exposed to a lethal dose of radiation during a work related accident, he has only five days left to live.  With the help of the resistance who have found ways to get people onto the city in the sky illegally, Max agrees to let himself be used as a data courier, carrying highly secret data inside his head that can potentially grant access to Elysium’s medical technology.

The potent thought-provoking premise offers many social political analogies from our current universal health care system, corporate corruption and immigration policies to Apartheid segregation in South Africa and Nazi Germany’s Jewish ghettos and concentration camps.

The orbiting biosphere is a heavily protected, gated community if you will, who’s ruthless defense minister (Jodie Foster), will do anything to keep the lowly earthbound vermin out and keep its own citizens safe from the filth below.

If you like movies with high tech military hardware and cool futuristic vehicles and weapons, you will really be amazed by the inventive gadgets in this film. Robotic security guards, floating drone seekers, personal force fields are all used to great effect here.

With nothing to lose, Max must now race against time to save himself. Using a mixture of potent drugs and an exoskeleton surgically attached to his body, he is able to keep himself functioning temporarily under the weakening effects of the radiation. If that doesn’t kill him, stealing the sensitive data in a military style ambush and getting it through the orbiting space station’s defenses while fighting off rogue operatives, surely will.

This fast paced, non-stop thrill ride can be enjoyed on many levels with its graphic welding of sleek futuristic design and a grungy hammered together industrial look, visually enhancing the clash of two contrasting worlds.  

Elysium has a distinct multi-cultural flavor as the cast is made up of excellent actors from around the world including Diego Luna from Mexico, Alice Braga and Wagner Moura from Brazil, Sharlto Copley from South Africa and Faran Tahir with Pakistani roots who was recently seen in Star Trek (2009) and Iron Man (2008). 

But for all its sci-fi tech imagery, the story is firmly grounded with engaging human characters that we can easily relate to and the menacing music gives an added dramatic punch to the suspenseful story.  

JP

The Band's Visit

An Egyptian traveling ceremonial police band, scheduled to play at an Arab cultural center in Israel, take a bus into a small sleepy desert town. While asking for directions at a rundown eatery, they discover that they are in the wrong town with a similar name and that there are no more buses leaving until the next day.

This is a sensitive, heart-warming and hilarious fish-out-of-water tale that mixes many contrasting sensibilities for much of its subtle comedy. The story is told visually using people’s facial and body expressions to give us a unique glimpse into these Arab and Israeli characters.

Dressed in their meticulous ceremonial police uniforms, the band makes a bizarre sight in this sparse sand-swept Israeli settlement. Stuck with no accommodations, the restaurant owner, Dina (Ronit Elkabetz), offers her place and that of one of her patrons, to temporarily put them up for one night until the next bus arrives.

Taking place over the course of a single night, we follow the eight band members and its rigid stern conductor, Tawfiq (Sasson Gabai), as they spend the night with the local Israeli townsfolk. The Band and the people of the town don’t speak each other’s language and must somehow communicate using broken English and awkward body gestures.

The Band’s Visit (2007) uses the language barrier to great comic effect, as director Eran Kolirin communicates volumes through a combination of facial and body gestures and strategic camera placement. It’s almost like watching a silent film where the story is told visually to show the absurd humor of the situations.

There are powerful underlying emotions in the subtle physical performances that become more important than what is being said. The actors are all the more mesmerizing to watch as they try to communicate what they cannot with dialogue, and movement becomes the main mode of expression.

Tawfiq, the strict band leader, reminds the band members to be on their best behavior as they represent their country and takes its youngest and most rebellious member under his wing to keep an eye on him. When the free-spirited, sexy Dina invites the stoic disciplined Tawfiq out to a bar for drinks, they make for an amusing contrast as she tries to loosen him up with her playful flirtations.

This is a rare gentle gem of a film that leaves one with a warm feeling of a shared human spirit between strikingly opposed cultures and personalities. By no means a political film, there’s a genuine innocence about the human story that captures how external appearances are often completely in contrast with how we feel inside. 

Meanwhile, Haled, the handsome young romantic member of the band, decides to join a couple of teenagers as they go out to a disco and ends up helping a very shy young man to win over an equally shy and awkward girl. 

There is a timeless fairy tale quality about this film as the strangely quiet town in which the band is stranded for an evening seems to be a cultureless twilight zone where both hosts and guests are curious but suspicious of each other.

This is a deeply satisfying film where nothing really happens, except that people from differing cultures are forced to spend a short intimate time together, and those who are open to it are richer for the experience.

JP

Adriatico My Love

Wine, olives, fish and olive oil, Adriatico My Love is a charming romantic culinary comedy and sentimental journey back to a quaint Mediterranean village along the same lines as Under the Tuscan Sun (2003) and Mamma Mia! (2008). But don’t expect a slick Hollywood production like those films. This long in the making Canadian film was made on a shoestring budget using a mix of professional and non-professional actors.

Have digital camera, will travel. A Toronto based cooking show host and single mother Alex (Valerie Buhagiar), whose career is in jeopardy when her producers threaten to pull the plug after the show’s ratings drop, decides that now is the time to take the show to a whole new level. 

Filmed in the ancient historical town of Stari Grad, which literally means ‘Old Town’ and is one of the oldest in Europe, located on the island of Hvar, Croatia, this story will appeal to many Canadians who have roots in Europe and eventually get the irresistible urge to return to the homeland.  

Taking her show on the road, Alex decides to bring along her reluctant daughter Lucy (Dorian Kolinas) and seek out the authentic local cuisine of this small Adriatic settlement where she once had a romantic fling as a young teenager.

The film has a home video quality that’s a little rough around the edges, especially in the beginning stages, but is totally in keeping with the documentarian feel of a TV hostess who brings a video camera on a European trip, not knowing what to expect. 

After arriving at a picturesque rundown village nestled in the seaside shores of the Adriatic Sea, troubled daughter Lucy is ready to return home when their accommodations turn out to be an uninhabitable ruin. However, they quickly warm to the endearing village characters as they acclimatize to their new rustic surroundings.

Director Nikola Curcin allows this gentle story to unfold organically and gives the multicultural cast freedom to experiment and improvise. The cooking scenes, mixed with stunning natural village scenery and accompanied by traditional music, have a fun travelogue quality that keeps the tone light and enjoyable to watch.

Relying on the hospitable locals to put them up in a temporary lodging, mother and daughter begin filming footage for the show, and with the help of some citizens, the two foreign women eventually start discovering the charming local flavors while capturing townsfolk in their natural surroundings as they cook customary dishes. 

This type of film is not easy to make on such a tight sparse budget, but the makers of this film have somehow managed to pull it off quite well under the less than ideal circumstances.

While Alex secretly searches the island for someone from her past, she hides a family secret from her daughter, who makes some romantic connections of her own. But as in real life, some of the mysteries and relationships in the film are not fully explained and left to the audience’s imagination. 

One of the major attractions of this film is the allure of the breathtaking island locations, which gives one a real sense of having been to a unique magical place. Despite the films unpolished homemade look, its heart is in the right place and in the end, our time with the characters pays off as we see them genuinely bond and grow, and become part of an intimate isolated community.

JP

Pacific Rim

No, this is not a new Transformers sequel. But it does feature loud titanic smackdowns, in the kaiju tradition, between mammoth monsters and giant battle robots, in this overwrought, audacious new Sci-fi fantasy epic Pacific Rim. It’s an affectionate tribute to Japan’s epic monster action films and more recent alien invasion and superhero trends.

Can Earth’s cities survive a barrage of attacks by gargantuan plasma-spitting creatures emerging from a fissure in the ocean floor? After earth's nuclear arsenals are no longer an option during the war against the enormous enemies, an unusual group of soldiers and scientists known as The Pan-Pacific Defense Corps is called upon to develop giant military robots to destroy them. 

Inspired by del Toro’s childhood love of Japanese Kaiju films, featuring mega monsters like Godzilla, Mothra, Gamera, Rodan, Ghidorah and Mechagodzilla, the story is a loving amalgam of Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin’s Godzilla (1998) and Independence Day (1996) with elements from Paul Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers (1997), James Cameron’s Avatar (2009), Tony Scott’s Top Gun (1986) and del Toro’s own Hellboy films.

Set in the near future, when giant robotic suits of armor, known as Jaegers, fail to stop the extra-terrestrial creatures from wreaking havoc on earth’s cities, they’re disbanded in favor of huge anti-kaiju barriers built around heavily populated cities like Hong Kong. But the walls are no defense against the powerful skyscraper sized terrors from beyond and soon the Jaeger program is brought back.

Following in the footsteps of George Lucas and James Cameron, Guillermo del Toro, who directed the Hellboy films and Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), has now created his own original epic sci-fi fantasy franchise for the 12 year old in all of us. Although it has the ambitious spectacle of Star Wars (1977) and Avatar, unlike those beloved films, Pacific Rim doesn’t feel as polished story wise, but has the potential to be a great franchise.

Resurrected with funding by a colorful black-market kingpin, Hannibal Chau, played with hilarious comic relish by Ron Pearlman (Hellboy himself), the new Pan-Pacific Defense program of hotshot Jaeger pilots now has a more steampunkish retro riveted, heavy metal look with an international variety of unique armored robot defenders. 

Visually, we get a chaotic visceral mix of heroic battle scenes between a variety of unnatural colossal creatures and heavily armored robots, the Jaeger pilots manipulating the robots from inside its head, and the military base of strategists monitoring the battle from the ground. As in Star Wars, instead of The Force, here we get The Drift; a kind of neural connection between the two Jaeger pilots when operating their robotic suit.

The movie is full of derivative characters such as the ragtag group of Jaeger pilots who are more like macho WWE wrestlers, as it takes physical and mental stamina to operate the robots, and a comic duo of bickering scientists who seem to be modeled after R2-D2 and C-3PO. Some of the better performances come from Idris Elba, who was recently seen in Ridley Scott’s Prometheus (2012), and the Japanese actress Rinko Kikuchi, who is best known to western audiences for her breakout role in Babel (2006).

This is purely a popcorn film that will appeal to young fan boys and it’s definitely fun to watch the mega mayhem on the big screen. The special effects by Lucasfilm’s ILM are breathtakingly spectacular. If there was ever a film that takes full advantage of the IMAX and 3D format, this is it.

Pacific Rim is dedicated to the late stop-motion effects legend Ray Harryhausen and Ishirô Honda, the Japanese director of many of the original Godzilla films.

Overall it’s a fun blend of sci-fi, action and creature feature disaster tropes, which is what Guillermo del Toro is so good at and where his passion lies. 

JP

In the Mood for Love

Not your average love story, this is romance Hong Kong style. During a hot humid summer in 1962, the bustling Shanghainese community provides a sensuous grungy backdrop to one of the most unusual love stories ever told by one of cinemas most interesting directors.

Wong Kar-wai’s In the Mood for Love (2000), a melancholic, nostalgic movie that is more about mood than love, follows the tentative encounters between two well dressed, married office workers living in shabby surroundings. 

The story follows a young journalist (Tony Leung) and a secretary (Maggie Cheung) who both moved into rooms next to each other on the same day in a rundown apartment building. Dressed in the latest chic, while spending much of the time awaiting the return of their spouses, who are frequently away on business, they eventually come to the conclusion that their spouses may be having an affair. 

Filmed mostly in dark narrow alleyways, stairwells and claustrophobic corridors of Bangkok, during the sweltering summer heat, and using a seductive color palate of deep reds, jade greens and slick blacks, the sensual steamy imagery is mesmerizing with its contrasting textures.

Lonely and bored, the fashion conscious neighbors find themselves coming together for casual dinners and conversation as they relate the possible infidelity they each suspect is occurring. While comparing notes they recognize their spouses’ cover stories and some gift items they have in common, and soon make a surprising discovery.  

In slow motion sequences with soft latin Nat King Cole musical refrains playing in the background, there’s a sense of longing and loneliness of people dreaming of an intimate connection in a rainy nocturnal underworld. They seem to be locked in a dance of regret, suggested with subtle non-verbal body gestures and expressions.

When they realize the unfortunate connection they have in common, they try to understand how it happened by roll playing the possible circumstances that may have led to the current situation and how they will confront their spouses about their extra marital activities. 

The overwhelming experience you get while watching this film is one of total immersion into a cloistered environment. We are shown vignettes of a hidden world of tight spaces and smoke filled alleys and noddle shops where people pass each other anonymously.  

When they decide to collaborate on writing a martial-arts serial, which they both enjoy reading, and secretly rendezvous away from their gossipy landladies; they form an unexpected close bond of friendship. The platonic affair is almost like a forbidden act of pleasure in an oppressive Orwellian style environment.

In a world where infidelity seems commonplace, this couple resists the urge, stopping just short of being unfaithful. Even though they’re probably more justified than most, they are unable to bring themselves down, morally, to that level.

The pleasure of watching this film is not so much in the story but more in the visual style, the ambience, the 50s set design and decoration, the romantic soundtrack and the photogenic actors. It takes several viewings and careful observations to fully capture the subtle nuances. It’s very much an art-house film with a capital A. 

JP

World War Z

Zombies, long a cult favorite, have finally made the leap into mainstream cinema. Not being a fan of horror films, I have mostly avoided the zombie craze that has been infecting our cinemas and televisions. No longer a zombie virgin, I recently watched two zombie based mainstream films; Warm Bodies (2013), a romantic teen zombie comedy just out on video, and World War Z (2013). 

After cutting my teeth on zombie lore with Warm Bodies, I was ready for a more epic zombie picture. World War Z was just the ticket. Grounded more in the alien invasion genre, it’s an exhilarating blend of Steven Spielberg’s War of the Worlds (2005), Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion (2011) and Battle: LA (2011).

Based loosely on the novel by Max Brooks, the film wastes no time throwing us into the middle of a vicious global viral outbreak. If you’re not a predator, you’re the prey. The concept is quite scary; once bitten the virus kills the human host and takes over the body within 12 seconds, ready to infect others. What could be scarier than rabid swarming corpses attacking everyone in sight like locusts and spreading the virus faster than you can run from it, pushing humanity to the edge of extinction?

Brad Pitt plays a retired UN investigator with experience working in war zones, forced out of retirement to help find the source of the zombie plague.  To ensure his family’s safety, he must travel to far-flung reaches of the world, where there are small pockets of precarious humans fending off the manic zombie hordes. 

The speed at which the virus spreads is what keeps our eyes glued to the screen throughout the entire film. Both attractive and repellent, it’s a stunningly photographed depiction of the horror of an ugly enemy, which was once human just moments before, is what makes this film so engaging to watch.

Filmed in Malta, Budapest and other fascinating locations around the world the movie is truly epic in scope, taking us to Korea, the streets of Jerusalem, on board aircraft carriers in the pacific, and various international airport runways.  The movie is as realistic and detailed as a documentary, raising the bar for future epic scale apocalyptic visions. 

Director Marc Forster keeps the sentiment to a minimum and before long people are running through the city streets to escape an unknown deadly threat that could be terrorists, aliens or Godzilla. More than a zombie film, this breakneck action thriller, owes its inspiration to such recent global disaster films as District 9 (2009), Contagion (2011), War of the Worlds (2005) and Battle: Los Angeles (2011).

One of the main complaints by hardened fans of the zombie genre is that there’s not enough gory, hand to hand fighting, but I think that leaving the gore to the imagination makes the story more suspenseful and accessible. 

Shot with a mix of wide panoramic vistas and a documentary point of view style similar to Battle: LA, and Cloverfield (2008), director Marc Forster, who also made the film adaptation of the hugely successful book The Kite Runner (2007) and Monster’s Ball (2001), puts us into the action as it happens, which adds to the tension and horror of the situations.

Brad Pitt does a credible job of realistically portraying someone whose basic instinct to survive and protect his loved ones from an epidemic that is consuming everyone around him, we can all relate to.

You don’t need to be a fan of walking dead films to enjoy this adrenaline induced, white knuckle ride, but for hardcore horror fans that are looking for a gore fest, this may not be the film for you.

JP

Blancanieves

Olé! A silent fairy tale that trumps any loud summer blockbuster with its seductive beauty and emotional storyline, this inspired marvel takes place in 1920s Seville, a classic period in Spain’s bullfighting culture, and is a mythic, operatic vision that harkens back to the golden age of Hollywood. 

A legendary matador, Antonio Villalta, takes on six bulls in a series of matches at the Seville bullfighting arena, while his adoring pregnant wife looks on. In the final round his concentration falters and he is gored, sending his shocked wife into premature labor.  While in hospital, both husband and wife undergo medical procedures. When the injured Torero awakens he discovers that he is paralyzed for life and his wife has died during childbirth. Only his newborn child, Carmencita, has survived.

The power of fairy tales on film is evident in this passionate tragic rendition of the brothers Grimm’s Snow White, using characters inspired by Bizet’s Carmen and Tod Browning’s Freaks (1932), Pablo Berger’s Blancanieves (2012), which played at the Toronto International Film Festival last year, is a work of art in its own right. 

The grief-stricken husband eventually re-marries an opportunistic diva nurse, Encarna, played by Maribel Verdú of Y Tu Mamá También (2001), and the child is sent to be raised by her loving grandmother in the Andalusian countryside. While there, she is happy but wonders about and longs for the father she has never met.

This inventive and visually alluring film has the seven dwarfs as a delightful traveling sideshow act, an evil stepmother as an S&M dominatrix, and Snow White as the daughter of a famous matador and a flamenco dancer. Everyone in this film has a classic beauty reminiscent of the old Hollywood studio portraits and gives appropriate melodramatic performances so iconic of the time.

After her grandmother dies, Carmencita is sent to live with her stepmother where she is mistreated. There she meets her ailing father for the first time and they secretly foster an affectionate bond while the gold digging Encarna, spends her time dressing in expensive clothes and vainly having her portrait taken for fashion magazines.

Snow White has been the inspiration for several new films in the past year that has seen a resurgence of films based on famous myths and folk tales with Mirror Mirror (2012) and Snow White and the Huntsman (2012), and now a silent Spain/France co-production that fuses the famous children’s tale with Spain’s bullfighting culture, traditional Flamenco music and a fantastic score by Alfonso Vilallonga.

When her father dies mysteriously, Encarna has the teenage Carmen eliminated but she ends up being saved by a band of dwarf Toreros who perform in a hilarious traveling sideshow. In a Pinocchio inspired sequence, she joins the show and discovers her talent for bullfighting taught to her by her father and is soon recruited by a shady manager to perform in the big bullfighting arenas of Spain.

The poetic artistry of the silent film is making a triumphant return to cinema. The Oscar winning hit The Artist (2011) seems to have opened the door for filmmakers who love the early silent classics and want to revive this cinematic art form. If you liked The Artist, Blancanieves should definitely be on your ‘must see’ list. 

Be sure to catch this enchanting and unique film while it’s still playing in cinemas. The experience is well worth it.

JP

The Great Gatsby

Baz Luhrmann’s adaptation of the classic American novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald bursts at the seams with a highly stylized and romanticized 3D vision of the roaring twenties. Hyper edited, and excessively designed, the visual splendor and extravagance on display could compete with the best of Bollywood’s dramatic spectacles.

Set in 1922 Manhattan, an aspiring writer, Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire), is invited one day by a dashing young millionaire, Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio), living in a mansion next door to his rundown bungalow, to one of his lavish parties for the wealthy high society types.  

The movie jumps off the screen like explosive fireworks demanding to be awed at, while throwing everything it can at you. Visually it’s almost like watching a Fast and Furious film, with digitally animated sequences that gives the film a comic book look and style.

Before going off to the Great War, a young soldier falls in love with the daughter from a wealthy family. When he disappears after the war, she is married to a rich business man, but the boy never forgot the first love of his youth. Feeling financially inadequate and unworthy of her love, he obsessively sets out to make himself into a successful tycoon. 

There’s a wild energy to the film that’s beautifully represented in a musical Jazz sequence set against Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue depicting the decadent New York City night life in the 1920s that owes its inspiration to a similar musical sequence in Disney’s Fantasia 2000.

The story is told through the eyes of Nick Carraway, the aspiring writer who despite the rumors about Gatsby’s past and current reputation, reserves any judgments while he becomes a close confidant to his eccentric neighbor. 

Known for being grandiose and epic, director Baz Luhrmann has given the story a modern feel with a contemporary soundtrack as he did with his other extravagant romantic musical Moulin Rouge (2001), and it seems to work beautifully to establish the liberal sexual ethics of the time.

When Gatsby finally feels the time is right to reveal himself to his love Daisy (Carey Mulligan), it’s a hilariously awkward moment but they eventually rekindle their past romance. However, this is a cautionary tale of how the wealthy establishment will not part easily with their possessions and their superficial way of life.

Again, the main complaint by critics seems to be that there's too much emphasis on style and not enough substance, but I found it to be a thoroughly entertaining and enjoyable visual spectacle blended with a classic story. Aimed more at a young adult audience who will perhaps be studying the novel in school as part of their curriculum as I did when I read it in school; it’s designed to engage the modern sensibilities of a hip new audience. 

The Great Gatsby is a wonderful kinetic kaleidoscope of colorful images that will keep you mesmerized and may hopefully even inspire one to read the classic book on which it’s based.

JP

The Croods & Kon-Tiki: Looking back to discover our future

What could the latest from DreamWorks animation, The Croods (2013), possibly have in common with Kon-Tiki (2012), a Norwegian historical drama and a recent Oscar contender for best foreign film? 

Well, quite a lot actually. In both films someone asks the question, when faced with an insurmountable challenge, ‘What would Tiki do?’ or in the case of The Croods, ‘What would Guy do?’ Both questions are asked in the face of certain doom when radical strategies are called for to survive.

Both are exciting family films that pack an emotional punch and can be enjoyed by adults and children. One film looks forward to find the answers; The Croods is about ancient man evolving by reinventing themselves. The other looks backwards to find the answers; Kon-Tiki is about devolving to prove that ancient men were actually more advanced than we gave them credit for.

Our pre-historic past and the achievements of early man have always fascinated me. A world that was both brutal and mysterious in its unlimited potential for discovery, a natural untouched paradise of unknown vastness. Much like our Oceans, the world was mostly unexplored by humans but our predecessors were quickly breaking new barriers, testing new ideas and discovering new lands.

The Croods deals with the historical displacement of Neanderthal (Cave men) by Homo sapiens (modern humans) during pre-historic times.  A family of Neanderthals fights all manner of strange pre-historic beasts to survive using their superior strength and fear of the unknown. But when their world crumbles beneath their feet, they are forced to follow a strange young boy with some progressive ideas on a journey through the unknown.

The humor is quite clever and deals with the theme of living day to day while barely surviving, as opposed to living to dream of and invent a better way of life. It’s a look back at how we evolved from brute strength beings, to thinking reasoning inventors of new technologies that improved our daily lives and set us on a course to the future we live in today. 

Whereas Kon-Tiki is about modern humans recreating ancient methods used by primitive humans to navigate ocean currents and winds, while re-discovering the basic thought processes and ideas they may have had. 

The results are very similar in both films as we follow clans of barely clothed hominids on voyages through vast distances, isolated from other humans, and battling the elements using only their physical strength and ingenuity.

Kon-Tiki is about a band of young Norwegian adventurers who set out on a voyage drifting across the Pacific Ocean using only a balsa wood raft made of materials available to pre-Columbian Indians, to prove the theory that the Polynesian islands could have and were actually settled by ancient South Americans.

Isolated from the civilized world and using only basic primitive materials, the crew places their fates into the hands of nature and the ancient knowledge of our ancestors to float across the perilous unknown expanse of the open seas. 

Both these engaging films are inspired by the adventurous spirit of our early ancestors and pays homage to their courage and perseverance.

JP