Fellow Movie Lovers
For over six months you’ve been bright and avid readers,
And now with some regret I am gifting you a breather!
It is with great expectation and some trepidation,
That I venture forth on this wild, exotic vacation.
My friend and I no longer too young,
Will tackle the bush and avoid the sun.
With copious sightings of untamed beasts,
We pray, not yearning for an American feast.
For almost four weeks no film will I view,
But expect from YOU as to what to review!
For Now………….Peneflix
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Monday, April 5, 2010
Fellow Movie Lovers
Fellow Movie Lovers
THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK (Sunday, April 11, 2010 at 9 PM on PBS)
How many times have we read, seen and anguished over the fate of the doomed Anne?
No matter how often, our nature prays for a different ending, a joyful conclusion, where the Franks and their neighbors emerge from their self- imposed imprisonment into a world purged of evil, a world where goodness takes it rightful place on the throne of humanity.
Let us imagine an adult Anne (she would be approaching her eighty-first birthday) an accomplished Anne, a writer, a doctor, wife, mother, grandmother? She would be lined, arthritic, but like the finest steel, strong of mind and character because of her wartime experiences. Maybe she would have been recruited by Jewish Organizations to speak world wide about her travails or maybe her Diary would have remained buried, waiting for a Lily Koppel (The Red Leather Diary) to resurrect its author and breathe life into its long comatose pages. These fanciful speculations, are simply whimsical, wishful hopes; “if onlys”, slaughtered by reality.
This PBS production of “The Diary of Anne Frank” should be seen by all. Anne (perfectly portrayed by Ellie Kendrick) is a modern young woman; she embraces the diary she receives on her thirteenth birthday, days before her family’s clandestine exile in the attic of a commercial building in Amsterdam; she names her diary Kitty a homage to her beloved cat left behind. The year is 1942, she has less than three years to live, but live she does and records every meaningful moment. Anne is universal, like all thirteen year olds she feels the frustrations of puberty, patronizing adults, confinement; striving for individuality amongst those barricaded in the memory of the life they have been excommunicated from, clairvoyance terrifying!
Socrates said “an unexamined life is not worth living” and Anne dissects her microscopic universe and its inhabitants with wisdom and understanding far surpassing her youth. Through bombings and daily fear of betrayal she fills her diary with hope, love and a feisty fight for her keen sense of individuality.
This production, so different from the 1959 version (Millie Perkins) lacks sentimentality therefore is more contemporary in its approach. Watching these caged people who strive religiously to maintain their dignity (the men donned ties and jackets everyday) and knowing their dismal future is brutally poignant.
Anne dies of typhus in Bergen Belsen concentration camp in March 1945, three months shy of her sixteenth birthday. In questioning why, I have concluded that we all live as long as ordained by the gods or fate. Anne in her miniscule minute on this earth has gifted mankind a treasure of infinitesimal proportions; she is the icon, the patron saint of survival, courage and beauty in a world where light was anathema and bleakness prevailed. She fulfilled in fifteen years her destiny!
PBS is to be lauded and applauded for bringing Anne back to life!
FOUR STARS!
FOR Now………..Peneflix
THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK (Sunday, April 11, 2010 at 9 PM on PBS)
How many times have we read, seen and anguished over the fate of the doomed Anne?
No matter how often, our nature prays for a different ending, a joyful conclusion, where the Franks and their neighbors emerge from their self- imposed imprisonment into a world purged of evil, a world where goodness takes it rightful place on the throne of humanity.
Let us imagine an adult Anne (she would be approaching her eighty-first birthday) an accomplished Anne, a writer, a doctor, wife, mother, grandmother? She would be lined, arthritic, but like the finest steel, strong of mind and character because of her wartime experiences. Maybe she would have been recruited by Jewish Organizations to speak world wide about her travails or maybe her Diary would have remained buried, waiting for a Lily Koppel (The Red Leather Diary) to resurrect its author and breathe life into its long comatose pages. These fanciful speculations, are simply whimsical, wishful hopes; “if onlys”, slaughtered by reality.
This PBS production of “The Diary of Anne Frank” should be seen by all. Anne (perfectly portrayed by Ellie Kendrick) is a modern young woman; she embraces the diary she receives on her thirteenth birthday, days before her family’s clandestine exile in the attic of a commercial building in Amsterdam; she names her diary Kitty a homage to her beloved cat left behind. The year is 1942, she has less than three years to live, but live she does and records every meaningful moment. Anne is universal, like all thirteen year olds she feels the frustrations of puberty, patronizing adults, confinement; striving for individuality amongst those barricaded in the memory of the life they have been excommunicated from, clairvoyance terrifying!
Socrates said “an unexamined life is not worth living” and Anne dissects her microscopic universe and its inhabitants with wisdom and understanding far surpassing her youth. Through bombings and daily fear of betrayal she fills her diary with hope, love and a feisty fight for her keen sense of individuality.
This production, so different from the 1959 version (Millie Perkins) lacks sentimentality therefore is more contemporary in its approach. Watching these caged people who strive religiously to maintain their dignity (the men donned ties and jackets everyday) and knowing their dismal future is brutally poignant.
Anne dies of typhus in Bergen Belsen concentration camp in March 1945, three months shy of her sixteenth birthday. In questioning why, I have concluded that we all live as long as ordained by the gods or fate. Anne in her miniscule minute on this earth has gifted mankind a treasure of infinitesimal proportions; she is the icon, the patron saint of survival, courage and beauty in a world where light was anathema and bleakness prevailed. She fulfilled in fifteen years her destiny!
PBS is to be lauded and applauded for bringing Anne back to life!
FOUR STARS!
FOR Now………..Peneflix
Fellow Movie Lovers
Fellow Movie Lovers
VINCERE (Win)
Directed and written by seasoned Italian filmmaker Marco Bellocchio this epic film depicts the woeful tale of Ida Dalser the supposed first wife of Benito Mussolini. No physical evidence of the legitimacy of this union has ever surfaced; Mussolini never recognized Ida’s son as his progeny.
This is an erratic film; there are moments of glorious unmitigated genius, the acting is gut wrenchingly sublime, the transitions from archival film clips to Ida’s saga are blurred to perfection; it stumbles in defining Ida’s erasure and the emergence of Rachele, Mussolini’s legal wife. Also the religious metaphor was bludgeoning; in one scene Mussolini, with his head bandaged from a wound won in the First World War, is writhing in agony as the two “wives” come to blows over his supine body, all the while a film of Christ’s crucifixion is projected on the wall of the hospital ward. A taste of irony, viewing it on Good Friday.
It is a gift to an audience when two performers match each other with such provocative and powerful intensity. Giovanna Mezzogiorno as Ida Dalser (1880-1937) defines the soul and obsessive passion that dominates Ida’s entire existence from the second she meets Benito Mussolini (1883-1945). Her adoration for him palpates in their scenes together; she loves with frightening abandonment. The audience gaze with embarrassing voyeurism at these intimate moments, but never look away. Even rejection and humiliation does not demolish but only magnifies her addiction to the demonic Il Duce. Ms. Mezzogiorno’s beauty shimmers under the most torturous circumstances.
It is fascinating that the Italian Government, complicit in the subterfuge against Ida paid her a stipend until she was incarcerated.
Filippo Timi has the dual role of playing Mussolini, as Ida’s lover and the creator of
Fascism and later playing the son he has shunned. He is haunting as the frigid megalomaniac; in his first scene he is messianic in challenging God to strike him dead within five minutes; there is no God if he survives! (We know the outcome, the movie continues for another two hours.) As much as Ida emotes selflessness and wantonness in their relationship Benito withholds at the glacial level any real affection; he views her through an egotistic lens and concrete heart.
As Ida’s son Benito (1916-1942) Timi he is even more mesmerizing; unbelievable that they are one and the same actor. He is pathetically brilliant in imitating his fathers’ fantastical oratory powers to a stupefied group of fellow students. Visions of his demise, in the embryonic stage.
Benito Mussolini, Il Duce, was executed by his own people on April 28, 1945, by a firing squad. He annihilated colossal numbers, but his first wife and son are portents of the future of his heinous dictatorship and “Vincere” honors and recognizes the legitimacy of their lives and heritage but at what cost? Blood of Benito Mussolini running through one’s veins would best be denied.
THREE STARS! (Out of Five)
For Now………..Peneflix
VINCERE (Win)
Directed and written by seasoned Italian filmmaker Marco Bellocchio this epic film depicts the woeful tale of Ida Dalser the supposed first wife of Benito Mussolini. No physical evidence of the legitimacy of this union has ever surfaced; Mussolini never recognized Ida’s son as his progeny.
This is an erratic film; there are moments of glorious unmitigated genius, the acting is gut wrenchingly sublime, the transitions from archival film clips to Ida’s saga are blurred to perfection; it stumbles in defining Ida’s erasure and the emergence of Rachele, Mussolini’s legal wife. Also the religious metaphor was bludgeoning; in one scene Mussolini, with his head bandaged from a wound won in the First World War, is writhing in agony as the two “wives” come to blows over his supine body, all the while a film of Christ’s crucifixion is projected on the wall of the hospital ward. A taste of irony, viewing it on Good Friday.
It is a gift to an audience when two performers match each other with such provocative and powerful intensity. Giovanna Mezzogiorno as Ida Dalser (1880-1937) defines the soul and obsessive passion that dominates Ida’s entire existence from the second she meets Benito Mussolini (1883-1945). Her adoration for him palpates in their scenes together; she loves with frightening abandonment. The audience gaze with embarrassing voyeurism at these intimate moments, but never look away. Even rejection and humiliation does not demolish but only magnifies her addiction to the demonic Il Duce. Ms. Mezzogiorno’s beauty shimmers under the most torturous circumstances.
It is fascinating that the Italian Government, complicit in the subterfuge against Ida paid her a stipend until she was incarcerated.
Filippo Timi has the dual role of playing Mussolini, as Ida’s lover and the creator of
Fascism and later playing the son he has shunned. He is haunting as the frigid megalomaniac; in his first scene he is messianic in challenging God to strike him dead within five minutes; there is no God if he survives! (We know the outcome, the movie continues for another two hours.) As much as Ida emotes selflessness and wantonness in their relationship Benito withholds at the glacial level any real affection; he views her through an egotistic lens and concrete heart.
As Ida’s son Benito (1916-1942) Timi he is even more mesmerizing; unbelievable that they are one and the same actor. He is pathetically brilliant in imitating his fathers’ fantastical oratory powers to a stupefied group of fellow students. Visions of his demise, in the embryonic stage.
Benito Mussolini, Il Duce, was executed by his own people on April 28, 1945, by a firing squad. He annihilated colossal numbers, but his first wife and son are portents of the future of his heinous dictatorship and “Vincere” honors and recognizes the legitimacy of their lives and heritage but at what cost? Blood of Benito Mussolini running through one’s veins would best be denied.
THREE STARS! (Out of Five)
For Now………..Peneflix
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