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Broken Embraces + Invictus
Jan. 2nd, 2010 17:09I like movies. Someday I will see three in one day in theaters. But this New Year's Eve I only managed two.
Broken Embraces (Los abrazos rotos). Dir. Pedro Almodóvar, 2009.
I actually haven't seen almost any of Almodóvar's films other than Talk to Her, but I went to see this with a Spanish-major friend of mine and her sister, both of whom have seen almost all of his movies, and their conclusion was that Almodóvar needs to get some new fixations. Despite the fact that it was a retread of some of his earlier material, however, it's a very enjoyable movie; Almodóvar is a really great filmmaker, and even a somewhat slight film like this one can be really good in the hands of a master, and it is. Almodóvar clearly loves movies a lot (he actually reminds me of Quentin Tarantino in that respect, though obviously they like very different movies), and this movie is just beautiful to look at, the colors and the composition of the shots in particular. The scene where Penelope Cruz cries onto the tomatoes is ravishing, to take just one example. In some ways actually it reminded me of anime in its persistent calling attention to its own (hyper)flatness--anime is composed of multiple layers within its images, and Almodóvar does a lot of the same thing in this film: the camera focuses on photographs, on computer screens, on films projected within the film; sometimes we see direct camera footage and other times we're within the shots of the movie-within-the-movie. Interesting, to say the least. Given that Almodóvar has directed at least one movie under the name of the protagonist of the movie, himself a film writer and director (Mateo Blanco), I'd wager it's semi-autobiographical, too, or at least an autobiographical fantasy, which is also interesting.
Invictus. Dir. Clint Eastwood, 2009.
I really liked this movie. It does a good job of grafting some fairly serious concerns onto a rather stereotypical frame (that of the sports movie) without condescending to either the sports of the social politics. It's so much Nelson Mandela's movie rather than Matt Damon's character's--which is very much not the impression one would get from most of the advertising here in the States, uncoincidentally--and, yeah, in case anyone needed more proof, it shows conclusively that Mandela really is a remarkable human being. It's not every day that someone with so much virtue, in the ethical sense of the word, turns up, let alone is at the right place at the right time and has the political wisdom to make the most of everything he's got.
It was also interesting, as a sports movie, in that it focused not on the coach or manager of the sports team in question but on the team captain. The sports films I've seen tend to focus, when they focus on a player, on the key person on the side, usually the pitcher in baseball or the QB in American football. And I thought the movie did a good job of showing the effect of Mandela and his policies on the team, the team captain (played by Matt Damon, great as usual), and on the country without getting heavy-handed.
As a U.S.-ian it's very hard to resist seeing in South Africa an imperfect mirror of society here in the States, which is both dangerous and simplistic, though not completely wrong-headed, I think--at the end of the movie, when blacks and whites are celebrating in the streets together, I immediately thought of the street celebrations last Election Day night, when Barack Obama won. But I really don't want to draw any other comparisons besides that one. Instead, I'd also like to congratulate the movie, despite being made mostly by Americans behind the camera, for telling a story in which the United States doesn't really feature, a fact which was brought home to me by the exchanges between Mandela and the New Zealand PM at the World Cup match. And on another level it's a really great case study of the unifying power of petit nationalism--though it's explicitly state- rather than nation-based nationalism, which is interesting.
Finally, South Africa is a beautiful country to judge from the location shots. The Tenured Radical, whose blog I enjoy a lot, has been on sabbatical there this season, and I'd recommend her posts on her experiences for some contemporary context.
Broken Embraces (Los abrazos rotos). Dir. Pedro Almodóvar, 2009.
I actually haven't seen almost any of Almodóvar's films other than Talk to Her, but I went to see this with a Spanish-major friend of mine and her sister, both of whom have seen almost all of his movies, and their conclusion was that Almodóvar needs to get some new fixations. Despite the fact that it was a retread of some of his earlier material, however, it's a very enjoyable movie; Almodóvar is a really great filmmaker, and even a somewhat slight film like this one can be really good in the hands of a master, and it is. Almodóvar clearly loves movies a lot (he actually reminds me of Quentin Tarantino in that respect, though obviously they like very different movies), and this movie is just beautiful to look at, the colors and the composition of the shots in particular. The scene where Penelope Cruz cries onto the tomatoes is ravishing, to take just one example. In some ways actually it reminded me of anime in its persistent calling attention to its own (hyper)flatness--anime is composed of multiple layers within its images, and Almodóvar does a lot of the same thing in this film: the camera focuses on photographs, on computer screens, on films projected within the film; sometimes we see direct camera footage and other times we're within the shots of the movie-within-the-movie. Interesting, to say the least. Given that Almodóvar has directed at least one movie under the name of the protagonist of the movie, himself a film writer and director (Mateo Blanco), I'd wager it's semi-autobiographical, too, or at least an autobiographical fantasy, which is also interesting.
Invictus. Dir. Clint Eastwood, 2009.
I really liked this movie. It does a good job of grafting some fairly serious concerns onto a rather stereotypical frame (that of the sports movie) without condescending to either the sports of the social politics. It's so much Nelson Mandela's movie rather than Matt Damon's character's--which is very much not the impression one would get from most of the advertising here in the States, uncoincidentally--and, yeah, in case anyone needed more proof, it shows conclusively that Mandela really is a remarkable human being. It's not every day that someone with so much virtue, in the ethical sense of the word, turns up, let alone is at the right place at the right time and has the political wisdom to make the most of everything he's got.
It was also interesting, as a sports movie, in that it focused not on the coach or manager of the sports team in question but on the team captain. The sports films I've seen tend to focus, when they focus on a player, on the key person on the side, usually the pitcher in baseball or the QB in American football. And I thought the movie did a good job of showing the effect of Mandela and his policies on the team, the team captain (played by Matt Damon, great as usual), and on the country without getting heavy-handed.
As a U.S.-ian it's very hard to resist seeing in South Africa an imperfect mirror of society here in the States, which is both dangerous and simplistic, though not completely wrong-headed, I think--at the end of the movie, when blacks and whites are celebrating in the streets together, I immediately thought of the street celebrations last Election Day night, when Barack Obama won. But I really don't want to draw any other comparisons besides that one. Instead, I'd also like to congratulate the movie, despite being made mostly by Americans behind the camera, for telling a story in which the United States doesn't really feature, a fact which was brought home to me by the exchanges between Mandela and the New Zealand PM at the World Cup match. And on another level it's a really great case study of the unifying power of petit nationalism--though it's explicitly state- rather than nation-based nationalism, which is interesting.
Finally, South Africa is a beautiful country to judge from the location shots. The Tenured Radical, whose blog I enjoy a lot, has been on sabbatical there this season, and I'd recommend her posts on her experiences for some contemporary context.
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