Wednesday, March 02, 2011

carlos. eden is west . fish tank . latcho drom . 7 khoon maaf . beautiful losers . pirates of silicon valley

the 6 hour epic drama about the jackal ' carlos' plays like a terrific thriller. he doesn't shapeshift as much as the forsythe characters but the story is way more exciting/ his journey through the murders in paris through the opec kidnapping and his eventual capture in libya. a terrific story and unstoppably told.

a road movie through france 'eden is west' cuts through landscapes from a high end beach resort on the mediterranean through rural landscapes with gay german truckers, all the way to paris as an illegal migrant searches for a magician who promised him work in paris. at the end the magician hands him a magic wand that makes the eiffel tower twinkle.

the 'fish tank' is dreary working class housing in britain where a dysfunctional family lives in the endless grid of rundown skyscrapers and derelict parking lots and overgrown gardens. it is in these that sudden beauty is found- a sky through the window where birds fly rapid in formation; or the waves hitting the shore in the desolate landscape around an industrial area; or in the skin on an aging horse caressed in the morning light. its beautifully shot. the heart shaped balloon in the last shot as it flies above the housing complex was a redundant metaphorical image in a film that before that had managed to stay above such symbolism. reminded me of the last scene in 'the flight of the red balloon' when the red balloon flies over paris.

the music in 'latcho drom' is fantastic. i am not quite convinced by the journey of gypsy music as constructed by the film- from the plains of rajasthan through egypt, turkey, hungary, romania, france and eventually in spain. i am also not certain about the pretend gyspy lives that the singers are purported to be living- singing on the tracks of trains, or otherwise. regardless- the music is gorgeous- the voices!

i tried to love '7 khoon maaf'. not quite dark comedy, not quite romantic drama, not quite anything much. murky and meandering for most of the time. some of the husbands were fun to kill. my favourite bit is the s&m seduction of irrfan. but the final murder was a cop out. and the music disappointing.

'beautiful losers' - a talking heads documentary american style that makes heroes out of so-called freewheeling out-of-the-box artists; and then goes ahead to in a half-hearted way explore the problems when this avant garde begins to be mainstreamized. utterly predictable and would have been completely pointless if it wasn't for the drawings. street art and graffiti. nothing 'radical' about the film making though.

is the title of 'pirates of silicon valley' a reference to the johnny depp series? are we supposed to see steve jobs and bill gates with pirate hats on and eye-patches as they steal ideas from each other and mega-companies to make their own massive monoliths. ibm and xerox play the giants that windows and apple brings down. while jobs comes across as a self centred power hungry ass; gates is a slimy weasel. the only hero is steve wozniak who steps out of the fray and is therefore the only person the film is partial to. don't film makers like geeks? think 'the social network'.

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