Adlocutio

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIk-Yt85dCo&feature=channel_page

“O Mistério da Estrada de Sintra”. O argumento fugiu de uma recriação do livro homónimo e transforma o título num filme sobre a criação do livro e não um filmo do livro. Apesar de a linguagem estar adaptada ao português dos nossos dias, o guião está muito engraçado, cheio de humor, muita ironia e sarcasmo por vezes.

O filme está muito bem feito. Realização óptima, produção com muita atenção ao detalhe e esforço para conseguir um bom conjunto que resultasse num interessante resultado final, edição soberba, figurinos muito cuidados. Os actores vão todos lindamente com excepção de Bruna di Tulio que, nas cenas mais difíceis – e por vezes também em cena não tão exigentes como isso – cai frequentemente em over-acting. No final, para quem ouve a faixa em português também há uma troca entre a palavra carácteres e caracteres. O que, num filme sobre escritores e a criação de um livro é bastante mau.

Quem conseguir descobrir o Sérgio Godinho no filme recebe um prémio! Eh, eh!

Vejam este filme. Vale mesmo a pena!

URL do filme: http://www.filmesfundo.com/omisteriodaestradadesintra/

One of those movies you either hate or love. I’m the kind who loves it. One of the comments that slipped out of my mouth when watching the first scenes was “this is cinematic poetry” (or something of the sort). No really, don’t trust me: watch it!

Here’s the synopsis:

Hong Kong 1962, Chow Mo-Wan (Tony Leung Chiu-Wai), a journalist, rents a room from Mr. Koo. He will live there with his wife, a hotel receptionist. It’s sheer coincidence that he moves in the same day that Su Lizhen (Maggie Cheung Man-Yuk) moves in next door, at Mrs Suen’s place. Lizhen works as a secretary to Mr. Ho (Lai Chin), the boss of a shipping company. It’s also a coincidence that both of them are moving in without help from their spouses. Chow’s wife is working her shift at the hotel at the time of the move. Lizhen’s husband, Mr Chan, is away on a business trip; he works for a Japanese company, and is often abroad. Despite having convivial and neighbourly landlords, Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan often find themselves alone and lonely in their respective rooms.

Neither of them ever finds out how it began, but Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan discover that their respective spouses are having an affair. The discovery shocks both of them. Chow, feeling hurt and wishing to understand how the affair happened, begins finding excuses to spend time with Mrs. Chan. They begin rehearsing what they will say to their spouses when they confront them with what they know. Then Mr. Chow invites Mrs. Chan to help him with a martial-arts series that he is writing for the newspaper. Their meetings are discreet, but people begin to notice. There seems no possibility that they, too, will drift into an affair. But Mrs. Chan’s emotional reticence begins to haunt Mr. Chow and he finds his feelings changing. It’s almost like being in love.

Four years later, as a Singapore-based reporter covering General De Gaulle’s visit to Cambodia, Chow Mo-wan finds himself remembering an old story about a way of unburdening yourself of a secret you don’t want anyone to know.

For Portuguese speakers search for “Disponível para Amar”

More opinions:

http://www.coldbacon.com/movies/wkw-inthemood.html
http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/01/13/mood.html
http://www.criterion.com/ASP/release.asp?id=147

More at: 

Official website: http://www.wkw-inthemoodforlove.com/
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118694/
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Mood_for_Love

Some weeks ago I watched Surveillance from Jennifer Lynch, a 2008 almost indefinable movie. I started feeling a bit suspicious when I saw the poster of the movie. Usually a good director would feel the hair of his neck lifted by the mention of having another director’s name on the poster, but this poster’s author didn’t flinch at having David Lynch’s name on it. Is daddy cheer-leading for his daughter? Oh, yes, most definitely!

Most comments and reviews I have seen fall into some types:

a) Yes, the movie is awfully violent, but it has the David Lynch touch so it’s wonderful;
b) The movie is too violent. Be aware!
c) The movie is too bad, don’t waste your money.

These are the hard lines, the gist of the things I have been hearing about this movie. Here’s what happened to me on the theatre:

I was feeling kind of sleepy when I went to see this movie and I must say I kept opening my mouth (from sleepiness) almost until the end of the movie. Major point of interest during most part of it was to see French Stewart playing such a role. You know, we’re kind of used to see him in more funny works. He did well. Nevertheless, I started feeling sorry for having payed the ticket. The use of the camera, the angles, the soundtrack, nothing made me change my mind.

The characters are not one bit believable from the start. They are very poorly developed in terms of script, and some of the behaviour is so stupid and unbelievable that one has the sense of watching some B-rating movie struggling to become something more.

Secondly: you don’t give away the story so soon. Right at the beginning the male false FBI agent asks to the police officer to take the photos away from the board. Yeah, pretty natural. Moreover, the Police officer finding it natural and taking the photos off the board? Even more natural and believable! Gee… After that in the interrogation room the false female FBI agent threatens a witness with sexual violence if she doesn’t behave. Very, very believable indeed. So, at the start of the movie the director kindly tells us those two are not who they seem. Thanks for spoiling it for us, okay?

After this two less than believable scenes we have a looooooooonnnng period of describing… almost nothing to be exact. How can you spend so many time describing “they went ahead on the road, the police patrol behaved illegally and like perfect jack-asses and then the murders that were on the same road killed almost everybody”? Booooring! In the middle of this, a police officer shoots a tire of a car at an incredible distance while the car was speeding!!! One of the caracthers cries: “supernatural!”. You bet! Considering 1mm deviation of that type of gun in the hand would be translated into a very wide angle on the destination of the bullet… yes, it would take a God or supernatural help to achieve that shot. Okay, so Jennifer and David are not exactly gun savy. What else?

Finnaly something overlaps my lack of sleep: when the editor/director thought it was about time to start moving the movie and making a development in the script, alas! It all went down the drain.

First, the little girl watches the police behaviour (physical and psychological violence charged with disturbed and sick sexual intensity) and feels nothing, acts like if all that was perfectly natural and even goes to the police officers (who had just forced a kiss on her mother) with all the confidence in the world to report something she saw on the road!!!! Jennifer Lynch doesn’t understand filming a lot but she understands children even less!

After that, the murders throw themselves at high speed inside a truck against cars parked on the way and they suffer no physical damage! Wow, dudette! The truck had airbags inside the cargo area! Fantastic! By the way, would that really be the way a murder would kill someone when he has a gun??? As believable as it can get! Then, one of the police officers kills his mate by mistake in a situation when I couldn’t see why a police officer would do that. Okay, he was the nervous type. Yeah, yeah.

At this point, the little girl understands the murders work as a team. After that in the police station she says to the male murder she knows who they are. However, she spent the entire time feeling close and friendly with the female false FBI agent who she knew was a murder!!!! Yeah, kids looooooove murders and feel real comfortable near them! And they smile at them, and they hug them! For crying out loud!

She then goes to say to the male false FBI agent that she knows who they are! Why??? WHYYYYY??? Why would a little girl do that? Where’s the self preservation instinct??? Amazingly the guy softens by this confession and sends the girl away to go and kill the other police officers in the immediate second.

Right at the end we get a positively needless violent murder scene with no purpose whatsoever.

Know what? This movie is violent alright: violently stupid and needless. A piece of advice to Jennifer and David Lynch: violence and sex have their place on a movie ONLY IF NECESSARY TO TELL THE STORY!!! And that doesn’t make it less necessary for the rest of the production to be good! If you don’t have a good, believable story, you don’t have nothing, okay? Get real, will you?