Ты забыл, во что мы играли? (Have you forgotten what we used to play?) (2010)

I've never thought I'd post a review of a Russian movie here, but here it is. As the saying goes: never say never. Apparently, there are gems in this country's cinematography.

This film is about reminiscences of one's youth. One can recall precisely what has happened when they were young. One can come back to the place where this happened. In three years, or even in a decade later. However, one can never return exactly what has happened.

Why? There are many reasons. A "return" suggests that the person and the the things or people the person wants to return to have been separated, have evolved  independently for some time. On the material side of life, there's always a possibility to catch up - basically, just to accept the physical changes that took place in lives of the separated parties.

However, on "spiritual" level it's almost never possible to get in sync with a person or a thing left behind, abandoned for some significant period of time. This is because our mind is driven by our memory, the things that we learn interactively, the situations we happen to be involved in. Being separated, we face different challenges that prompt different reactions of our mind. One can hardly pass to another person all the cognitive experience they've gathered through their life. And as such we start to "think differently", to not understand each other.

Basically, this film teaches us to always keep up with people who we think we love or care about, be they our relatives, or friends, or whoever we think we want to be in touch with. Watch the movie with English hard-subs here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7g37N3eoQ9s):



Traditionally, there are actors who sort of overact, e.g. the house buyer, or the mother of the protagonist. I think that this kind of acting is exceptionally good for theater performances, but it simply doesn't suit movies well and rather ruins them. That's why I dislike Russian cinema in general. Other than that, the movie is a well-played classic coming of age drama.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2699212/
http://www.kinopoisk.ru/level/1/film/540824/ (in Russian)
http://video.finar.ru/ (official site of the movie in Russian with an option for Google Translate to English)
My vote: 7 of 10

Who Killed Mrs De Ropp? (2007)

Wanna know how stories are created? How imagination works, and how surrounding things can spontaneously inspire us in an unexpected way? Then this movie is a must watch!

It's a wonderful, moving and exciting tale depicting a free flow of mind, showing how simple things - like a sight at the window, or a picture on a wall - can spark an incredible story that is solid and interesting to follow, even though the story itself may be a complete nonsense! :)

This film stars Bill Milner whom I've already mentioned in my review for Son of Rambow (2007), and although his appearance is very short, he does a great job as always.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1031295/
My vote: 8 of 10

Kibrit (Matchsticks) (2011)

Beliefs and opinions often differ, which makes disputes and arguments almost inevitable. People like wrangling at least to try to convince others of their "rightness" and superiority. Ain't it great? However, people rarely like to be convinced of anything by anyone, and the best way to avoid this is to build a border. Easy said, easy done.

What purposes do borders serve? To separate some people from others. To not let others through. To outline a territory belonging to the people. Hence a need to guard the border and maintain its borderline.

Recently I stumbled upon the following quote:

"When you think of it, borders are paradoxical. They connect what they aim to divide." (source)

After putting more thought into this observation it becomes clear that borders are artificial, unnatural constructions, especially if they aren't real but only imagined, or supposed to exist at certain locations. What this leads to is that borders change over time. Either because of natural processes that move borders physically, or as a result of social processes - people living nearby are likely to interact with each other more or less closely in one way or another. Not to mention a desire of some people to expand their territories, which isn't uncommon, too.

Forces that guard the borders, on the other hand, can rarely accept this. Their sole task is to prevent such changes. And when the changes nevertheless happen, a war comes.

This short movie precisely depicts the process described above. In its abstract animated world people are presented as matchsticks, and this is not accidental. People are often hot-headed, and inflammable heads of the matchsticks perfectly emphasize the fact. This peculiarity of human nature only adds fuel to the fire of war.

And what has it all started from? Ah, just from some differences in opinions and beliefs. In this short film we may observe disastrous consequences of establishing borders aimed to isolate such differences. We may see that border in no way help prevent arguments. Conversely, they can cause even bigger arguments. A model of a physical border and an armed war used throughout this movie should certainly not be taken literally. The scenario may apply to any kind of arguments between people.

Watch it on Facebook at the link provided (no FB account required).

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150285891343548
My vote: 8 of 10 (although there isn't an IMDB entry for this title, so this is my appreciation, not a vote)

De grønne slagtere (The Green Butchers) (2003)

At first glance, this movie is full of mad characters. A brain-damaged guy overcaring for animals so much that he kills almost all of his family in a car incident on a trip to a zoo just to save a life of a deer. Afterwards his brother starts to hunt animals and collect their skeletons at his home until he's forced to become a butcher to tame his insane hobby. Then a priest who ate his own wife. And a few other personages with similar deviations...

Nice people aren't they? After a friend of the ex-hunter starts to kill people in order to spice up meat products at their butcher shop, the plot seems to go way far from sanity and common sense. You may begin wondering what the point of the film actually is?

Don't be mistaken here. A popular today (esp. in modern Asian cinema) genre of trash-horror doesn't apply to this movie at all. Neither do bare 'drama' or 'comedy' as specified at IMDb, in my opinion. I'd call it a black Scandinavian comedy. Maybe even a black ironic Scandinavian comedy.

So what's the irony, anyway? As I see it, the message is simple: there's not a single sane person in this world. Everyone is crazy in one way or another. To a smaller or larger degree. And this movie, being an act of art, simply utilizes hyperbole to present the idea.

How could one live in such a crazy society? Watch the movie to see how it resolves. In a nutshell, we just have to put up with the fact and accept people as they are. We should remember that we ourselves can look insane in other people's eyes. And that's OK.

To my surprise, both brothers mentioned above have been played by the same actor - Nikolaj Lie Kaas. I didn't even realize that until I watched the movie and took a look at the film credits. Wonderful performance, in my opinion.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0342492/
My vote: 7 of 10

Son of Rambow (2007)

This is an ode to imagination. Kid's imagination, to be precise. Have you ever noticed that children are much more imaginative than adults? Duh! And yet, the way this movie depicts this subject is just brilliant.

The most exciting scene is when Will, the principal character, accidentally watches First Blood (1982) at friend's place, and on a way back home he imagines himself being Rambo running through the fields and "shooting" imaginary creatures all around him! :) Next time he's taken home by a priest, and, while watching at the window from a back seat of the car, he sees imaginary laser beams and cartoon explosions happening by the road. Also, his notebook (a paper one, the movie is set in the beginning of 1980's) is full of drawings which, when turning the pages quickly enough, transform to a moving picture.

Such an extreme level of imagination is possible because kids aren't limited by social norms, moral dogmas, or, after all, by the science itself. The more we educate ourselves, the more often the knowledge we've acquired evidences that there are boundaries in what can be done in reality and what cannot. Growing up, we tend to avoid even thinking of that infeasible stuff.

For instance, take a flying dog, huh? First it appears in Will's drawings. Then Lee, his friend, steals a clay dog, attaches deltaplane's wing to it, and voilà, they've got a dog that can fly for real! What mess that experiment brings in real life is another story, though. :)

While education helps us understand what technically can or can not be done, norms and dogmas, on the other hand, teach us what may not be done [1]. Where do the norms and dogmas come from? You could have guessed already - the religion, where else? Like in my previous review of a short Timothy and the World of Tomorrow (2010), this feature film deals with parents who, being religious, project their rules onto their children. Watching TV is banned, friendship with faithless schoolmates is prohibited. Just constraints, and no way to develop one's creativity.

However, Will's sincere friendship with Lee, their common interest in filming a remake of First Blood together, and finally, his everlasting energy help Will break through the restrictive rules. There's no way to keep a kid away from dreaming!

Since the film depicts 1980's, the soundtrack pleases us with a lot of New Wave music, and tunes by The Cure in particular. Spectacular acting by Bill Milner as Will must be mentioned as well. I've seen him in Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll (2010), Mixtape (2009), and he always makes a great performance. This amazing move is not an exception.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0845046/
My vote: 8 of 10

[1] Watch this marvelous excerpt from Avalon (1990) to learn the difference between may and can:



I like it when he says "Can I please go to the bathroom?" :)

Timothy and the World of Tomorrow (2010)

A religion sets rules and constraints. On the contrary, imagination and curiosity help break limitations and reveal new possibilities. When the two collide, a conflict is inevitable.

The movie tells a story of a 9 yo boy, Timothy, who dreams about outer space and loves to watch TV news about the Apollo program and the first men on the Moon. His mother, however, is overly religious, and as such mostly disapproves his interest. And the father of the family is too timid to support his son's passion.

When new Indian neighbors settle down across the street, their foreignness, and therefore different religion cannot be left unnoticed by Timmy's mother, and the boy is prohibited from communicating with the new family and their kid of the same age. Staying at home in a room with hammered windows all day long is the least thing a child may want or actually need.

Will Timothy be able to escape from his conservative parents, and how the situation will resolve? Watch the movie to find out!


Timothy and the World of Tomorrow on Vimeo.com.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1650011/
My vote: 9 of 10

Cashback (2006)

An artsy guy experiencing insomnia finds inspiration in dreams about naked women's bodies while he works nightshifts in a supermarket. I guess I've just told you the whole storyline in just one sentence. :) Blame me not, since the most interesting part of the movie is in the details, but the story itself is as stupid and absurd as stated above.

Actually, apart from camera work (worth noting that some of it resembles that seen in Vertigo (1958)), there isn't much to mark. Perhaps the most important part is how this movie depicts the process of creating art. An artists has to virtually freeze the time to make out features of a person, a place, a circumstance, or whatever else they want to devote their piece of art to.

While looking through the features, the artist chooses either beautiful and perfect, or bizarre and weird ones. Finally, these features are layered on a "canvas", perhaps undergoing through hyperbolization, metaphorization, or some other sort of transformation. I put the word "canvas" in quotes because the process applies to any form of art actually, be it paintings, literature, or, say, music.

Note that there's also a short version of the movie: Cashback (2004), however, it doesn't carry the same amount of meaning as the full one. Basically it looks simply like a short comedy. Although some people may start with the short film first and consider it as a teaser for the full version (that was my case, actually.)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0460740/
My vote: 7 of 10