I’m currently in Udine, where yesterday began the 9th edition of the Far East Film Festival. This is the 3rd year in a row I come here to attend the festival. In case you don’t know, FEFF is the largest showcase of popular Asian cinema held in the western world. Here you can see international previews of movies that will come to our theaters months ahead, and several movies that will never reach european theaters. Of course directors, producers and main actors come to Udine to present their work and feel the warm welcome this city can give them. They shoot movies from Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, China, Hong Kong, Philippines, and so on.

Today I attended five movies in a row and now I’m exhausted. The most interesting was Eye in the sky. I’ll keep you posted!

You know those plots where half a dozen very different characters meet just by chance, talk, cross their lives, almost fall in love but actually never can create a stable relation because Destiny doesn’t want them to? Yes, this is one of those

Thierry is a real estate agent and is trying to find a good appartment for Nicole e Dan, a couple with a problematic relationship, never satisfied of Thierry proposals. Charlotte works in the same real estate agency, is a solid believer and likes to gift Thierry with videotapes of a TV show about religion, with a rather embarassing bonus track at the end. Thierry’s sister, Gaëlle, is looking for a partner by posting personals on newspapers. Dan spends his time confessing his problems to a barman, Lionel.

All of them are frustrated looking for love, escaping loneliness, including Nicole and Dan who are breaking their relation. In the round of random events, they got to meet in unexpected ways and help each other, but at the end of the day they are still alone. Oscillating among brilliant comedy, serious pathos and theater, Alain Resnais built a mysterious and fascinating atmosphere, light and candid as the snowflakes falling all the time on a cold Paris.

Sabine Azéma and Laura Morante both deserve a mention for their excellent interpretation.

Cœurs (aka Private Fears in Public Places),
France 2006, by Alain Resnais, Drama
with Sabine Azéma, Laura Morante, Isabelle Carré, André Dussollier, Lambert Wilson, Pierre Arditi
IMDB: 498120

This week in Florence there has been France Cinema, a festival dedicated to french movies. This year’s edition was dedicated to world class actor Philippe Noiret, an actor that both France and Italy literally love. I’ve had the opportunity to watch several movies, and Zazie dans le métro is just one of them. As soon as I have time I’ll write something on Coeurs, definitely a masterpiece.

Louis Malle authored this movie in 1960, starting from the experimental work that made Raymond Queneau famous the previous year. Yes, this is the same author of Excercises de style, the book where the same short story is repeated in 99 different styles.

Zazie is an 8-years-old high-energy dirty-talking metro-loving terrific girl, always spitting out horrific insults but somehow still so cute. Her mother wants to stay a weekend with her lover, so she brings Zazie to Paris and drops her off to uncle Gabriel, a professional drag queen interpreted by wondeful Philippe Noiret. No matter the ongoing strike, Zazie wants to try the metro, so she finds the way to escape custody and starts to wander around exploring the city, meeting unlikely characters.

I love surrealism and this movie is one of the most surreal thing I’ve ever seen. Several scenes were shot at 12 or even 8 fps, with main actors playing at half or one third speed while everything on the background looks hilariously accelerated. It’s so deliberatively absurd you can hardly believe what you find yourself staring at. Mustn’t miss it.

Zazie dans le métro,
France 1961, by Louis Malle, Comedy
with Catherine Demongeot, Philippe Noiret
IMDB 54494

It looks like Beckham is the most famous football player in UK. I didn’t know. I’m not exactly the average italian soccer entusiast. Anyway, Jess (Parminder Nagra) is an indian young girl living in London and dreaming to become a football player. Beckham is her hero. She meets Jules (Keira Knighley) who plays football in a local team. Jess joins the team, but her parents are very upset. Indian traditions are strict and girls are not allowed to wear short pants and play soccer. They should marry and cook dinner. Jess is even frustrated by her sister who’s going to get married in a big fat huge traditional wedding.

This is the first Bollywood movie I happen to watch. It’s a playful comedy but talks about racial integration, sex discrimination (since they are girls, everybody tries to stop them on the path to success, they are misbelieved as lesbian, they have a gay friend), surpassed traditions, generation gap and how hard it is for youngsters to choose their future life in spite of their parents thinking they know better. And of course there is the mandatory romantic love story with the team coach. Enjoyable, lots of fun.

Bend it like Beckam,
UK 2002, by Gurinder Chada, Comedy
with Parminder Nagra, Keira Knightley, Jonathan Rhys Meyers
IMDB 286499

This a second movie, I mean after The curse of the black pearl, and you always expect second movies to be at least as good as their first. Unfortunately most of the time you get deluded, but I’d say Dead man’s chest is an exception to the rule. Here things become harder, more complex, more violent.

Underneath exciting action sequences with well used special effects, you can see the good and the bad sentiments compete on each character, often exchanging roles. Life is tough and often we have to pick our poison, the least bad among all bad choices, even if this means we have to do horrible things and become bad as well. Nobody would whip his son, but what if that’s the only way to avoid someone else do it with even more violence?

But hey, this not a drama, this is an action movie where each scene is a new surprise, with fantastic characters, cannibal tribes, fishmen, the horrible kraken monster, the flying dutch and dozens more shocks. It’s so fast you can hardly breathe.

You basically feel the same atmosphere that Stevenson can create in his books (there are even clear quotations), but amplified by spectacular images. Johnny Depp is so great he alone could fill the 150 minutes, but Orlando Bloom and Keira Knigthley are good as well.

The biggest defect: this movie is just a bridge to the third episode (At worlds end), and you will leave the theater disappointed by the huge suspense they put you in.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead man’s chest
USA 2006, by Gore Verbinski, Action
with Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley
IMDB 383574

This is one of the most famous movies by Japanese animation director Hayao Miyazaki and dates back to 1997, but I had the chance to watch a it just a few days ago. The plot is complex and deep, depicting an ancient world covered with forests where spirits and gods live, guarded by huge beasts. In their quest to progress, humans destroy forests to reclaim land use and extract iron to build shotguns, ending up in cruel fights with animals. There’s an ecological message underneath, but this movies is far from a good-bad simplification.

Violence and war pervade both humans and animals, and both are selfish and willing to exclude others, including members of their race. When somebody gets infected by the anger there’s no escape to damnation and they are condemned to slow and suffering death. Even the most wise of the animals, just can’t escape his violent fate and becomes a raging and unreasonable daemon when hit.

There’s no hero and no simply bad character in this story. Can’t we just live together? Maybe not, surely hard, the movie seems to suggest. In all this tension, even love struggles to emerge.

Princess Mononoke (Mononoke-hime)
Japan 1997, by Hayao Miyazaki, Animation
IMDB 119698

Last wednesday I’ve been to the movies, watching Volver by Pedro Almodóvar. I think it’s a great movie describing how important it is taking care of close relatives and friends. This is a movie about women and their relashionship, the wind driving people crazy, ghosts and bad men. The few men you encounter in the plot are completely marginal and disappear after a few minutes. And Penelope Cruz has never been so beautiful and fascinating.

Volver (aka To return)
Spain 2006, by Pedro Almodóvar, Drama
with Penélope Cruz, Carmen Maura, Lola Dueñas, Bianca Portillo
IMDB 441909