Films

Babel [2006]

Director: Alejandro González Iñárritu
Actor: Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett

This story is told through the eyes of four different people, most of them continents apart, but all directly or indirectly involved in the shooting of an American tourist (Blanchett) in Morocco. Her husband (Pitt) is confronted by the inability for a lot of people to comprehend him as he struggles to get his wife some medical help in the middle of rural Morocco, while back in the United States his maid (Adriana Barraza) takes care of the children, but wants to attend her son’s wedding back in Mexico. America is claiming it to be a terrorist attack, while the Moroccan police desperately try to find the perpetrator in order to avoid a political conflict. The perpetrator is a boy whose father is a goat-herder, and recently bought the rifle used off a friend, who frequently acts as a guide for tourists. The man told his son to shoot jackals, but the boy got a little carried away showing off his prowess to his brother. Meanwhile, halfway around the world, a mute Japanese schoolgirl is struggling in her own world of being unable to communicate as her father is sought by the police for questioning regarding the rifle he owned, and gave away to his guide when hunting in Morocco several years back.

Each of the characters is faced with their inability to properly communicate with those around them. Miscommunication in every linguistic form you can think of passes the revue in this film, and ironically, I took my girlfriend to see it, who couldn’t understand the Dutch subtitles so was left guessing as to what happened most of the time.

Not as good as I thought it would be, relatively predictable, though you are constantly angry at how the characters seem to dig their own grave deeper and deeper, seemingly disconcerned with the consequences to others. It’s a long movie, but very, very beautiful.

Children of Men [2006]

Director: Alfonso Cuarón
Actor: Clive Owen, Julianne Moore, Michael Caine

It’s 2027 and for the last 18 years women have been infertile, thrusting the world into a veritable anarchy. Terrorism is rife, cults and sects are gaining power as the last generation is slowly getting older and dying. Most countries are in anarchy, but “Brittain marches on.” Great Brittain is assaulted by waves and waves of refugees from all over the world, who are put in internment camps. Terrorist organisations fight for refugee-rights, refugees are trying to keep out of the hands of authorities, messiahs rise up and claim to have the one true faith that will guide people to safety while they are nearing the end of days, the end of humanity. People become apathic, polution is rampant simply because there’s no new generation to donate the world to. Who cares, anyway?

And then there’s is this young, refugee girl, Kee (Ashitey), who is miraculously pregnant. At first she doesn’t know what’s wrong with her because she’s never been taught by anyone how reproductivity works. When she reveals that she’s pregnant, she immediately becomes a pawn in the game of the Fishes, a terrorist organisation fighting for refugee rights and against government oppression. Lead by the charismatic Julian (Moore), the Fishes want to get her to the near-mythical Human Project, a group of researchers, grouped together on boats, disconnected from any country or authority, having mythical paradise havens on small islands. Kee will be well there, Julian believes, and she might unlock the mystery of fertility to the scientists. Others within the Fishes want to dissent and use her as a figure-head of refugee hope. Julian approaches her ex-boyfriend and jaded, long-time activist-turned-bureaucrat Theodore (Owen) because he might be able to help her get Kee to the coast, and onto the Human Project boats.

That starts a dramatic race against time to reach the boat of the Human Project, while the country is visibly breaking down further and further. Fighting in the street, Man’s inhumanity against Man, and one of the last countries on the break of dissaster.

This is one of those films that leaves a lasting impression on me. Anything with a dystopian outlook has the tendency to do that with me, but this film does it amazingly well. The acting is good, the story is compelling, the cinematography is amazing. It’s a great film that I recommend to everyone.

An Inconvenient Truth [2006]

Director: Davis Guggenheim
Actor: Al Gore

Every once in a while, a movie comes along that appeals to your sense of righteousness, your ethics, your morality, and your sense of urgency. It opens your eyes to those things you were aware of, either directly or indirectly, but you kept putting off dealing with it because you know that once you start it’s going to be long and frustrating battle.

This is exactly such a film. Film really isn’t the right way to describe it. It’s part documentary, part spoken word performance, and part lecture; Al Gore speaks about what he has always been passionate about, and which give him direction after the 2000 election defeats; global warming.

Most of the things he talks about you will probably already know, directly or indirectly, but never really wanted to accept as truth, simply because it forces you to accept that you’re going to have to make a change. Most of us have all this dissociated information stored inside our little nugget, but it pays to have someone as intelligent and as charismatic as Al Gore put it in a neat and concise package which is easy to consume and understand. He appeals to your sense of responsibility and honestly makes you want to do something about global warming. And he does all that without being overly political about it, which is important, especially in the U.S. if you want to reach the republican base. It’s also nice to have some of the information presented to you without an overly biased political statement marring the purity of the message.

Anyway, I highly recommend everyone to go and see it, and I’ll be happy to hear your opinions on it.

The Black Dahlia [2006]

Director: Brian De Palma
Actor: Josh Hartnett, Scarlett Johansson, Aaron Eckhart, Hilary Swank

You remember the guy who wrote L.A. Confidential? Yeah, me, too, considering what a great film it was. Written by Mr. Noir, James Ellroy, and it was pretty good. So where did The Black Dahlia go wrong? I have no clue, I think it was in either the screenplay, or the editing, or something, because, while it’s not a bad film, it does take a while to get going, which I didn’t mind, and then near the end it felt like they wrapped things up too fast. The entire plot is explained in one bit of (confusing) dialogue. And when it is explained, it ends up dragging characters into the plot that were only briefly mentioned. It all makes for a bit of a shitty storyline, in my opinion. However, the acting, atmosphere, and directing is done pretty well, and any chance to see Scarlett or Josh is a good one, so I recommend it to those who loved L.A. Confidential. (Yes, that means you, Eva.)

Lucky Number Slevin [2006]

Director: Paul McGuigan
Actor: Josh Hartnett, Bruce Willis, Lucy Liu, Morgan Freeman, Ben Kingsley, Stanley Tucci

This was a great movie. Full stop. It’s a difficult movie to say anything about without giving away the ending, and since I’ve been accussed of that before, I’m going to be very careful. The ending is great, mostly because I didn’t see it coming (did I give it away yet?), which means that this film is hardly formulaic. Most movies give away the ending because they follow certain patterns, but this one didn’t. They don’t give away too much information, so you know there’s something coming up, but you don’t know exactly what until that very last moment.

The movie is about a guy named Slevin, who is just in town, looking up a friend. Immediately he gets mistaken for his friend, and dragged to two different crime-bosses, The Boss (Freeman) and The Rabbi (Kingsley), respectively. Apparently his friend had a bunch of gambling debts that Slevin is now supposed to square. He can square it with The Boss by killing The Rabbi’s son – apparently The Boss’ son was murdered only recently, and he suspects his arch-rival The Rabbi behind the attempt. Apparently at one point The Boss and The Rabbi were at one time very close friends and crime-partners, but they had a falling out that left them paranoid and bitter. And amidst all of that there is the strange, enigmatic Smith (Willis), who also goes by the name Mr. Goodkat, a world-famous assassin, seemingly playing both sides of the fence. Oh yeah, and there’s Lindsey (Liu), a tasty and energetic love interest and armchair-detective trying to help Slevin in finding out what the hell is going on.

A great film. The Kansas City Shuffle is da shit, baby!