Blue valentine (2010)

Dean is a high-school dropout who makes a living as a painter. Cindy is a nurse with ambitions. They are married, and have a young daughter who was born just after they married. Derek Cianfrance crafts a grown-up drama about the agonies of adulthood - life becoming different than what would have dreamed it to be. Blue valentine is a raw film about people who fall in love and grow apart, who fail to take responsibility and seem to perceive no possibilities of where to go in life. Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams play the leading roles and they are both excellent. The way these people grow apart is painful to watch - the words that are intended to hurt, the crushing silences and the sorrowful kid. One day, the daughter's dog goes missing, and the parents accuse one another of it happening. Most of the important stuff that happens is not expressed in dramatic lines; the dramatic thing here is a slow change that is hard to pin down; when did it go wrong?

What sets the film apart from most of the movies in this field - the grown-up, realistic dramas about adult relationships - is its class setting. Where most other movies are set in glossy city centers or leafy suburbia, Blue valentine's couple is working-class, barely getting by, hardly working any flashy dream jobs (they are not lawyers or shrinks). We see Dean slowly drifting into a state of alcoholism, while his wife resents his lack of ambition. She seems to mourn the possibilities that were unfulfilled in her own life, how she ended up with this guy who most of all likes to sit at home. The film uses flashbacks to illustrate how their life together was always full of problems. Flashbacks are mostly OK in this movie, but sometimes I feel they are used indulgently. But like for example Revolutionary Road, this is a serious drama about tensions between people who view life differently and who fail to understand how much they hurt one another. There are a couple of scene that works less well than others, but mostly, the rawness hits hard.

Honey (2010)

Honey is the third film in Semih Kaplanöglu's brilliant childhood trilogy that starts with a middle aged poet and ends with a curious little boy. Visually, this is a stunning effort; the camera instantaneously not only establishes glorious-looking rural landscapes - a fictional world is quickly established - a sensually heightened world at that: the birds are chirping, the wind is breezing in the trees. It's strange how the film balances a contemplatively dreamy tone with ordinariness. With regards to the dreaminess, I come to think of the Spanish directors Carlo Saura and Victor Erice - they share the attention to the child's perception and exploration of the world s/he has at hand, a world that is often disconcerting. The resemblance to these Spanish directors is hard to forget when I watch the camera saunter around in the family house, a dimly lit place, a place of shadows and light.

In this case, the six-year old child is worried about his father, a beekeeper, who has disappeared. We see the boy's close, tender relationship with his father; they share a way of talking, a way of being silent, a way of putting shoes on. It is startling and rare to see this kind of quiet intimacy. He is angry with his mother, who tries to comfort him. He walks alone in the woods. At school, he wants to be the boy who earns the Star for excellent performance in reading. But he is not very good. The kid stammers, and through his stammering presence, the grief is almost too much too see. Kaplanöglu works with scenes and rhythm, rather than narrative. His films - the trilogy which I have seen - have a placid pacing which also sometimes harbors ruptures and abrupt cuts. But the feel of the images come first; the progression from one thing to another is poetic, rather than conventionally 'rational'. He is not, I think, a director who seeks to impress his viewer, suffocating us in stunning beauty. The aesthetics of Honey is starkly rooted in everyday life. For this reason, the way he focuses on nature never gets clichéd; the film sticks closely to the kid's perspective, his exploration, his fears. One example of this is when the kid sneaks out on a nightly walk to look at the rain. These are, for me, completely engrossing scenes.

I'd like to watch this film again - I am sure I will be able to make out new dimensions and appreciate new things in the rich images if I watch it a second time.

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1964)

Tony Richardson made the brilliant A taste of honey, one of the best films about growing up I know of. It’s head-spinning in its bitter-sweet depiction of family tensions and rejection of stupid social mores. The Distance of a Long Distance Runner is almost equally good and in a similar way, it is a splendid film about being young, about not ‘maturing’ in a conventional sense – the main character resists the tiredness and facileness of adult life. Basically, this is about creating one’s own space, a space of freedom.

Colin (chilly acting by Tom Courtenay) ends up in a reform school after having robbed a bakery. He is from a working-class family, and his father has just died. His mother is a cold woman, but also a sad, fumbling creature. The reform school does its utmost to live up to the ideas of the Empire; the boys are to become docile, hard-working, healthy men. Some of the teachers are bullies. The teacher of physical education has decided that Colin is a promising long-distance runner and sets out to make him a star runner who wins the important race with another school. Colin is skeptical, but it turns out that long-distance running is a space of freedom, so he seems to submit to that suggested path. He meets some friends in the school, and also with these friends, he finds a loophole. They go out to town, and meet girls. The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner is for the most part a bleak film about adult alienation from joy and a sense of being alive. But Colin's running bears the promise of another life, close to nature, where he does not need to succumb to the shady ideals of the British Empire. The small circle of friends and its youthful play is filmed with a similar ease; the characters are allowed a small break, and all of them are well aware that it is only a very limited space of freedom. This mini-zone is starkly contrasted by the school's order and joyless routines - in one prominent scene, we see dutiful and not so dutiful boys howling 'Jerusalem'. A problem with the film is that it never settles where it seeks to be in the territory in which realism borders parody. Nonetheless, Richardson does a good job in describing a person who does not want to fit in, or win, for that matter. One could say that this film is about class hatred. The school system it depicts seems to be about creating perfectly obedient citizens and workers. The future looms ahead full of worry and angst. The answer seems to be a little private sphere that one can save for oneself, untouched by a society of dignity and hard work.

Not only does this film have some good acting and lots of good lines (it is based on short story) - the cinematography marks the shift from the drably modernist school to the lonesome runner's contact with nature.

Mask (1985)

I was a child when I first watched Peter Bogdanovich’s Mask. In fact, it was one of those films that I watched over and over again, its sadness never failing to touch me. As a grown-up, I was a bit surprised that I still found myself moved by the story, but perhaps in a little different way when I saw it as a kid. The sugary parts didn’t bother me as much as I would have thought and most of all I liked how Bogdanovich conjures up a small world of mother, child and – a friendly motorcycle gang, friends of the family. The kid with the disfigured skull is a sympathetic character and it is hard not to be charmed by Eric Stoltz’ a bit sentimental acting. But the best thing about Mask is actually Cher – she plays the tough mother who scares the shit out of a school principle. She does lots of drugs and hangs out with motorcycle guys – and she seems to be a lovely mother. Mask is basically a story about their relationship. A coming-of-age romance is thrown in, but that is perhaps what strikes me as embarrassing about the film when I watch it today - even though it is fun to watch a young Laura Dern do her version of a girl next door.

A Perfect Day (2014)

The war in Yugoslavia is ending and a group of aid workers find themselves stuck in bureaucratic structures that renders them unable to help. Their mission is to drag a dead person out from a well, so that the corpse won’t spoil the water. This is the set-up of Fernando Leon de Aranoa’s A Perfect Day, a film that tries to be rowdy comedy and social document all at once. Benicio del Toro and Tim Robbins play the tough guys who have grown cynically world-weary - they act like some kind of rock stars. As the well business lapses into a farce, it is his character that delivers the bitter lines about organizational fuck-up. Mélanie Tierry plays the newbie, the one with a working conscience. So, does it work? A perfect day is crass, but not always successful in its attempt to deliver a harshly comical image of aid work. The result is sometimes simply rather insensitive towards what it is in fact trying to do – the war that it chronicles is at times transformed into a mere background for slapstick and action - not to speak of blasting Marilyn Manson and Gogol Bordello tunes. The film's juxtaposition of the idealistic girl and the gnarly cynical male is tiresome and goes by the book in a cheap kind of way. Indeed, the cynical male cracks jokes to impress the sweet idealist girl - he laughs about getting laid and seeing his first corpse. Of course one could say that these things might exist in real life too, and that real people can be clichés and crack stupid and tasteless jokes. But the problem with A Perfect Day is that it does little to show what this reveals about aid work, bureacracy within organization or the psychological pressure of working in a war setting.

Shoeshine (1946)

De Sica's Shoeshine is a rough-hewn, sometimes a bit shaky, film about two kids trying to fulfill their dream - buying a horse - in post-war Italy. Despite its mannerisms and technical flaws (strange cuts and so on) this story about youngsters trying to get by tugs at your heart. Things start going bad when the two boys are commissioned by a calculating brother to sell blankets. They visit a fortune teller and sell a blanket to her. With that money, they are finally able to buy the horse they have been dreaming of. In gloriously joyous scenes, we see the kids riding outside the city on their horse. But the cops are after them. They are accused of having stolen money from the fortune teller, and are sent to a juvenile detention center. The rest of the film is a harsh study of the conditions in the juvenile detention center. The kids are separated. The police try to force them to admit their guilt or to reveal who stole the money. After one of the kids thinks that his friend is beaten, he reveals the truth. The kids have their hearing and are sentenced to several years in prison. One of the kids try and escape with another friend. There is a prison riot and one youngster dies. The kid who is left behind is angry and seeks revenge.... Shoeshine is not a pretty film. The acting is not perfect, but the roughness in these actors make it all work. The brutality goes all the way from lines to settings - the story starts with a Dream, and ends with - you guessed it. Even if this is far from de Sica's best film, Shoeshine is worth watching because of its fearless attempt to shed lights on the outsiders of society and the cruelness they are met with. The disintegration of the boys' friendship is linked to the authoritarian prison system. The kids' former bond is broken and the kids start to act like the calculating brother - each thinking of his own interest. De Sica simply confronts us with this brutal set of social conditions that transform people into scheming behavior, never falsely relying on sentimental tricks. Here, its all about dog eat dog.

Blue is the warmest color (2015)

Is Blue is the warmest color (Abdellatif Kechiche) a harrowing description of the rush of falling in love (and the pains of falling out of it) or is it rather an exploitative sexualization of lesbians aimed at a male, straight audience? Controversies around this film abound, and it is difficult not to take them seriously. But what about the film (is there such a thing as 'the film itself' - I'm not sure, that type of distinction are valid at times.) The film does capture what it means to grow up in a way that does not quite fall into the usual traps (a cynical attitude towards what is perceived as 'innocence'), even though it certainly focuses on a process of maturation. The high-school kid we see in the beginning, who falls in love with the older art student, changes into a grown-up who has to decide what is important in her life. Blue is the warmest color is a story told from her perspective - it is her awakened and head-spinning love and also the isolation she later comes to feel in the relationship that the audience gets to know. Her partner is always the more experienced, better educated, and they both know it. Later on, the distance that grows between them is portrayed with regard to their different attitudes to the dying romance. This is where the film succeeds - it focuses on the rancor, the insecurity and the desire to reconnect felt by the ex-lovers.

An aspect that hasn't really been brought out in relation to this movie (when so much attention is paid to its sex scenes...) is its preoccupation with class. Adele and Emma are from different social backgrounds, and this is an aspect both of how their affair develops and how it fades out. One comes from a sophisticated family where you eat oysters and talk about art, while the other's family eat spaghetti and trying to act normal. Emma is an aspiring artist, and early on in the film, I worried that the movie would fall prey to the plentiful clichés about beautiful, romantic young artists who love to sketch their amour in a leafy park. But by and by, the image of the art world changed - the viewer notices that we see Adele's changed relation to Emma also from the point of view of the role art and the art crowd has in their lives. In one of the best scenes, a garden party is arranged in their garden. Emma has invited her artsy friends. Adele has prepared to food, and is trying to act the part of the easygoing hostess. The sadness and the insecurity she feels in the setting is forcefully conveyed.

What sets the film apart is how Kechiche never treats young love as an immature stage which you are suddenly over, so that you are now prepared to see what life is really about. The relationship between the two is treated as an encounter and a connection between two specific people, not a 'preparation' where the lover is just a sort of anonymous role. Kechiche, one could say, takes the lives and emotions of young people seriously - they are not reduced to, for example, cynical or plaintive ideas about What It Is Like To Be Young. This is revealed in how much of the film pays attention to nuances in how young people talk and act (and act in different settings). That said, I think the accusation of exoticizing sexualization of lesbians is not entirely unfounded - there are clumsy (yet sophisticated) scenes in which the audience is simply invited to ogle young folks' bodies; I simply don't agree with the people who argue that also these scenes in a precise way show the character of the relation. Instead, I felt that they were orchestrated in accordance with cinematic traditions about how to deal with sex 'without shying away'. There are also other, quite many, tacky details where the film leaves its perceptive route and chooses cheap symbols or references instead (the color blue...).

They were expendable (1945)

When I watch They were expendable, John Ford's reputation as an all-american director really gets clear to me. I mean, this is the same director that made The Grapes of Wrath, but one could say that the images of "the nation" (or whatever you want to call it) are from two different world. Where the latter emphasizes antagonism and conflict in a time of turmoil, the former presents a nation that must stick together in difficult times. They were expendable is a war movie made when the war was still roaring. It does not seem exaggerated to call it a propaganda movie. The story centers on the flotilla retreating from the Philippines in 1941-2. Here we have the gloriously brave & super-masculine navy men who made the Nation proud. Amid the torpedo-boat action some tear-jerking moments bring forth the gallantry and women-loving character of these men. Heroic battles and slow-burning love scenes: John Ford not only wants to make a movie about war but also about how the soldiers are ordinary people as well. Too bad that he is so involved in the quest for patriotic storytelling and that the film, as a result, contains almost no tension whatsoever. The thrill of the battle scene feels dusty and the sections that take us to the harbor or the war hospital drip with sentimental American pride.The film is said to be good because it realistically shows people committed to doing their job. This description hints at the perspective on war here: war is a project to simply go through with, as a man, with dignity and courage. John Wayne & Robert Montgomery play the heroes. The tragedy is that of the doomed battle, and at times there are moments where the fear of the soldiers shines through. These are the best parts of They were expendable - when the film diverts from its patriotic framework. It does this in focusing on the failures of the central characters - rather than being acknowledged as war heroes, they are dethroned. What can be said for this film is also that it never demonizes Japanese soldiers - they are simply never shown.

Ludwig (1972)

Finnish state television made a bold move by broadcasting a rather unconventional movie on Christmas Eve - Visconti's Ludwig is not your standard chrimstmassy Capra fare but rather a zany, bombastic (in a good way) movie about Ludgwig II, king of Bavaria, who became king in 1864 . The film has not always gained positive reviews. Ebert calls it "lethargic". But for me, it was the wonderfully gloomy lethargy that drove this film to its conclusion, and doing it in unfaltering style. One may complain about Visconti's strange obsession with decadence (as in others of his movies from this period) - there are some scenes in which you are not sure whether you are watching this movie or The Damned. But here what he does conjures up a culture, what that culture creates.

Ludwig the king is a melancholy fellow who is friends with Wagner. This friendship is rendered in an odd way - we see the two huddle in Wagner's rooms, accompanied by the composer's big and fluffy dog. Wagner is acted with a sort of understatement - he is a workaholic and a supremely self-centered man. The film follows Ludwig's progression, or digression/depression) from shy young man to the king who built crazy castles and tried to rule the world from his bed. But we know very little about the world outside Ludwig's bedroom. We get the sense that Ludwig has very little insight into the world around him. His being king is a heavy burden he cannot handle.

Instead of relying on the traditional biography movie pattern - creating historical panoramas, as it were - Visconti opts for a much more enigmatic and, well, personal path. Which makes Ludwig much more interesting than most films about historical figures. Idiosyncratic, yes, hard to follow at times, yes, tedious moments, yes. But all in all - the weirdness and the brooding, heavy atmosphere (not to mention the sets) saves this movie. The shadows loom depressingly over rotten civilization while the hollow-eyed characters sleep-walk through ridiculously ornamental hallways. Ludwig may be a shallow film that doesn't teach you a lot about Germany in the 19th century, but what it loses in seriousness it wins in decadent splendor.

Taxi Teheran (2015)

A taxi driver who does not know the city (Teheran) very well talks to a bunch of people who, for different reasons, ride with him in his car. The idea of Taxi is a very simple one, but for all that, an entire world seems to seep into this apparent simplicity. Jafar Panahi often toys with the distinction between reality and fiction, and here he does that as well, in a tender and extremely unpretentious way. Or at least that was how it seemed to me. Some of the customers recognize Panahi as the prominent director. Movie-making is also the topic of some of the conversation between "Jafar" and his precocious niece, who is engaged in a film project at school. The charm of the film lies in the vivid portrait of various people it manages to paint. It has the gentle flow of life itself, with a variety of people from different walks of life. The camera is always placed on the front panel of the car, but even so, the perspective we are given never feels static. Plenty of things are going on, despite the very limited framework. Taxi Teheran is a light-hearted film that takes on its sometimes controversial (in Iran) subjects - among them censorship and punishment) with gentle humor and warm humanity. It is impressive that a director who has been banned in his own country (a 20 year ban on making films!) is able to keep up this kind of complete lack of resentment or bitterness.

What perhaps makes this film so good is that its improvisational feel works very well here. The conversations drift here and there, and always succeeds in keeping me focused and interested. The references to Panahi's celebrity at no point feels like an act of self-glorification; the Panahi we see here as a fiction character is a humble guy who often embarrasses himself and whose celebrity always has a very ambiguous role. In one of the most funny sections, some kind of under-the-table-video-store guy rolls into the car and starts to chat with Panahi. He rents out banned movies - a perfect moment to make some good business! There is also the niece for whom Panahi is a bumbling old-timer who never does the right thing. She establishes her own perspective by directing her camera at Panahi. The two talk about what can and cannot be shown on film. The girl's teacher has instructed the pupils sternly, and now she is already trying to revolt a little - by filming a boy who is taking money which isn't his and then demanding the boy to give the money back because otherwise she would be breaking the rules of film-making! The film also has sad moments, as when Panahi meets an acquaintance he hasn't meet for a long time, and there is an uncanny awkwardness between them. For all this, Taxi Teheran is in a most curious way a hopeful and quietly defiant film about people who are living in difficult surroundings.