Wings of Desire

"When the child was a child, it didn’t know that it was a child, everything was soulful, and all souls were one"

Title: Wings of Desire
Year of Release: 1987
Director: Wim Wenders
Genre: Drama/Romance
Rating: 9/10

Damiel is an angel, who spends every day helping and watching humans live their life. He becomes increasingly interested in a trapeze artist, and begins imagining what life would be, imagining the simple pleasures of something as simple as drinking a cup of coffee.

Throughout the entire film, there is little talking, and what I mean by that, I mean person-to-person talking. I'd say 80% of the talking in this film is narration. Because instead of hearing someone talk, a lot of the time, you were hear someones thoughts, seeing as Damiel & Cassiel are both angels. It's very effective I think, there isn't any point in the film where you actually think the thoughts should of been substituted with actual spoken person-to-person talk. A lot of the narration throughout this film is poetic, and seems (at least to me) very confusing, a lot of metaphorical references, terms, or whatever. This style of speech, particularly in one of the last scenes really helps increase the re-watchability (new word), I think. Though I've only seen this once, I know this film is a film you can watch twenty times and still be uncovering certain things, but it's not one where you'll be confused on how certain things happen, or the plot, I'm merely talking about the narration in some parts which add to the quality of this film.

This film mixes a sepia/monochrome look with occasional colour parts. The sepia parts are the way the angels see the world, it's to distinguish the difference, and it is greatly used in a lot of scenes, one in particular that when it goes into colour it's very effective. The sepia look in some scenes really looks good, especially when you see Damiel looking down on some humans near the beginning. The cinematography in this film is really some of the best I have seen in film, quite possibly even the best. There are some point of view shots of the angels which look really good, though you don't see the angels at any point flying above the humans, there is at least one time you see a point of view shot of one flying, can't remember who, exactly. The cinematography is so smooth, I remember one part that, for no particular reason just looked very good to me, and it's where the camera goes over the Berlin wall into the "forbidden zone" (or whatever it was called). I'm sure that every single human being with a pair of eyes can appreciate this films cinematography, it's just so damn good!

There are a lot of scenes where Angel-Human interaction is shown, well, not so much interaction, but how the angels help humans, with a simple touch. It makes for some really good scenes, especially the opening one, where you see a lot of the humans thoughts and whatnot. There is one particular scene involving a suicidal male, who is around his twenties. This scene was very good, but I can't really explain why, just the actual visual appearance of the scene, and effective power that radiates from the scene is really strong. This isn't important or anything, but if you do watch this film, in the opening there is a guy sitting on his bed, is it just me or does he look a lot like James Dean? You don't have to answer that, it's just an unimportant observation.

All in all, a very good film from Wim Wenders, I've only seen this and Paris, Texas, and he has impressed me a lot with the two. This one is very strong and much more appealing, because the style of it is so distinctive I thought, I just really enjoyed this film, I surely wouldn't love it as much if it didn't look the way it looks. I don't really know who to recommend this to, if you admire cinematography? check this out? Possibly fans of the film Stalker may like this, though I really didn't like Stalker, that's one that springs to mind. Oh! If you've seen the remake, City of Angels, spit that one out and stomp on it for a couple minutes, then watch this! As I've said, it's very good.

My top 100.

Hi, I've created a new blog where I am going to be posting my top 100 films of all time. As well, I'll probably post things like my top 10 Horror films, and things like that.

Click me to go to my Top 100 Films of All Time

The Bicycle Thief

"Why should I kill myself worrying when I'll end up just as dead?"

Title: The Bicycle Thief
Year of Release: 1948
Director: Vittorio De Sica
Genre: Drama/Crime
Rating: 10/10

This Post-WWII Italian film is about a poor man who is lucky enough to get a job, a decent paying one too, but for him to keep this job he needs to use his bicycle, not long after starting the job his bicycle is stolen, he and his son begin looking for it, it is extremely important to him he gets it back, without it, he and his family have little chance of surviving very long.

I didn't find it at all difficult to get into this film, from the beginning to the end I was interested and right into this film. It's one of those films that is very simple yet very good. I really do not want to spoil anything but this film will definitely leave an impression on you if you stick around until the end. It's short, I'm sure you can make it. I had my doubts, a man trying to find his bike, in Rome? Seemed a little too simple and a little too difficult. I don't know if that is what others have thought, and think, but trust me, get past that feeling and you will not regret it.

The characters are not professional actors as well. Vittorio decided to go with amateurs, which I think was a good decision. This film has a very realistic and authentic feel to it, all the characters seem like real people, which again adds to the power of this film, because by the end you sympathize with Riffi and his son in their search of the mans bicycle. The little boy was fantastic in this film and from the very beginning I found him very interesting, he does not seem like a completely normal kid, well maybe it's just the Italian culture, but he seemed very mature, plus I love the way he does the whole "Take it easy" sort of reaction to certain things, ya know, the reaction you see in Mobster movies. Lamberto Maggiorani, who played Antonio, was also very fantastic and felt very authentic, I don't know how to describe him, other than by just saying he does a perfect job of detailing how a desperate man would be, it's that simple, really.

The ending is definitely a very strong point in this film, it is the perfect ending to such a fantastic film. Of course, I don't want to spoil anything, I've mentioned before that this film is powerful, the ending is by far the part that raises it from good to great. I don't have a lot to say, it's my first time seeing this film and maybe in a second viewing I will take more notice to certain details, but this time round I was just enjoying the experience of seeing this film for the first time, and the best thing was that I underestimated it.

A Clockwork Orange

"The Korova milkbar sold milk-plus, milk plus vellocet or synthemesc or drencrom, which is what we were drinking. This would sharpen you up and make you ready for a bit of the old ultra-violence. "

Title: A Clockwork Orange
Year of Release: 1971
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Genre: Drama/Crime/Thriller
Rating: 7.5/10

Set in (at the time) the future, the film follows Alex (played by Malcolm McDowell), who is a hoodlum criminal who commits some terrible crimes, goes to jail and then volunteers for an experimental test therapy to make him "cured" of wanting to commit a crime.

The acting from Malcolm McDowell is generally spot on, but I felt a lot of the rest of the cast were mediocre actors. Particularly Alex's "Drooges", I'm not sure which one it was, but the entire time he was apart of the film he would just sit there and giggle, and it really felt to me quite forced so it bothered me, but I could get past that. But at later parts the same actor was mediocre, who just seemed to be read lines and giggle like a little school girl. It wasn't just him, though which I felt wasn't too great in the acting aspect, some of the other people let down, though it was generally minor things, when they gather, its more clustered.

Whenever I read about this film, people always talk about how "graphic" they though this film was, or how disgusted they were about all the nudity, and sexuality everywhere. There is undoubtedly quite a lot of those things, for example, a lot of nude art, rape, sex and nudity, even a penis shaped ice block. Though people may see this as perverted and exploitive, I see it as very necessary, without it being this "graphic" it would not be at all disturbing in any sort of aspect, it would just be "Oh, rape.. interesting.". It also feels like it's an intention to show that the times have changed from the older days, and now the world has become quite a different one, so by emphasizing on that aspect you get a grasp of that intention. With that all said, I don't think it is that graphic, it's not like you will want to cover your eyes or look away, but it's enough to get the point across, and it's the content that is what "does it".

From the opening scene right until the end, this is quite obviously a different and stylised film. Though that's not an entirely bad thing, just at times, it felt to me Kubrick was trying too hard to stylise it. But a lot of it is very interesting and great, but again, as I said, just it clusters a bit and begins to become a bit over the top, defeating the point, or the intention. Now this may be contributed to the novel, and Kubrick was just trying to keep faithful in every detail, but since I haven't read the novel, I won't go there.

The film really stresses over certain aspects of psychology, that one must be able to choose to remain "human". It is quite affective throughout, using the "Ludovico technique", which is where they forcibly keep your eyes open and make you view disturbing videos, while your on some sort of drug which makes you feel like your dying, or makes you want to die, to some extent, thus making you not want to commit crimes, etc. Despite building this up quite a lot, I felt that in the end, they didn't go too far with it, I'm not saying the ending was "bad", but they could have done more, or thats how I felt.

Despite my criticisms of this film, I still enjoyed it, and it is still a good film, but it does have it's fair share of mediocrities, which seem to be less talked about when it comes to this film in particular. I haven't thought long and hard about this film, but I did try talk about as much as I could.

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IMDb

Hello, I've now added all the reviews onto IMDb, and I'll begin making a habit on putting my reviews both on here and there. Also for those who have come across this blog from other than IMDb, you can go to the IMDb page for whatever film I have reviewed and tell me what you think of my review there because I would of made a thread in the message board.

Thanks.

4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days

"I'll go to the bathroom. When I come out, you give your answer. If it's yes, tell me who goes first. If it's no, I get up and go."

I've been wanting to see this for quite a while, I suddenly got in the mood and just decided to watch it, got more than I had anticipated.

Title: 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days
Year of Release: 2007
Director: Cristian Mungiu
Genre: Drama
Rating: 8/10

This is a film set in the 1980's, in Romania. A woman wants to have an illegal abortion, she needs her friend, Otilia's help with arranging the abortion, etc.

I found this quite an exciting film which is weird thinking back because I don't think it is an exciting film of sorts, I don't think the intention is to be excited while watching the film. I'm not sure if the intention in certain scenes was to make you feel paranoid and worry about what is going to happen, that's how I felt throughout the entire film, that really made me enjoy it more. I'm sure a lot of people will find this film quite boring because there are a lot of scenes with little or no dialogue, one scenes goes for about six or seven minutes where the main character doesn't talk at all, only the people around her are talking, and it's nothing amazing, it's just small talk conversation. The constant use of silence throughout this film I felt was very affective, it really helped you feel how awkward, or worried the characters themselves felt. I personally don't find any of the scenes in this film pointless or overlong, which I'm sure other peoples opinion differs on.

The simplicity of the films plot is quite different from the usual, but the film itself isn't simple. There is a lot of mental and emotional feelings sent through this film. For those who watch this film in search for a film about pro/anti-abortions and political statements against Communist Romania, you won't get any of those. This film keeps itself simple and simply shows what the two women had to go through, their struggles and troubles. As I've said, this is a simple film, but there are some subtleties that help improve the film and for me at least, it lets you get paranoid and sometimes over-think certain elements.

I don't have a lot to say about this film, simply put, I just really enjoyed this. It really connects you to the characters feelings and uses some basic techniques to greatly enhance each scene. As a side note, this film looks really good too, has a nice foreign look to it (yup that's how I'll describe it ;D). For those who are interested and don't mind some decent length scenes with little dialogue I'm sure you'll enjoy this Romanian film.

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