July 7, 1999
The City Of Marvels (1999) **
Directed by Mario Camus. An entertaining, but confusing adaptation of Eduardo Mendoza's novel set in 19th-century Spain.
Chang Jiang - The Great River Of China (1999) **
Breadtaking scenery of the Three Gorges of the Yangze River. An IMAX film.
God's Wedding (1999) **
Directed by Joao Cesar Monteiro. Portugese comedy about a 60-year-old Casanova sleeping with girls almost a quarter his age.
Face To Face (1999) **
Romanian film about a marital crisis caused by revelations that the husband was a Securitate informer spying on his wife.
Jam (1999) **
An inevitable consequence of the world-wide success of "Pulp Fiction" - a yet another tense gangster film with a fragmented storyline.
Rainbow Trout (1999) **
Directed by Park Chong-Won. A South Korean version of "Deliverance", pitting sophisticated city folks against simple country bumpkins.
Beresina Or The Last Days Of Switzerland (1999) **
Directed by Daniel Schmid. A very curious film about a Russian prostitute who deftly turns the tables on the male patriarchy, becoming a successful dominatrix and then being crowned as the first Queen of Switzerland.
Gamera 3 (1999) **
Directed by Shusuke Kaneko. Quite an impressive Japanses monster film, with Gamera battling giant Iris.
Three Seasons (1999) *
Directed by Tony Bui. Interweaving stories of several characters in modern-day Vietnam.
Autour de la maison rose (1999) **
Directed by Joana Hadjitomas and Khalil Joreigne. After the war, several families are expelled from a Beyrouth appartment building to make way for a shopping center. A typical example of feel-good, Third-World humanist cinema, celebrating civic virtues and other lofty themes. Quite watchable, but hardly compelling.
Pokémon: The First Movie (1999) *
Considering how bad this animé feature is, its title is a horrible threat.
La Femme de chambre de Titanic (1999) *
Directed by Bigras Luna. With Olivier Martinez, Romane Bohringer and Aitana Sanchez-Gijon. Weird drama about a young man (Martinez) who falls in love with a chambermaid from the "Titanic", and insists on telling everyone about his infatuation. Not surprisingly, his wife (Bohringer) isn't amused. Iberic helmer Luna, best known for his erotic celebrations of Latin machismo, comes up with a singularly boring and unarrousing piece of crap.
Elles (1999) *
Directed by Luis Galvao Teles. With Carmen Maura, Miou-Miou et Marisa Berenson. Pseudo-feminist drivel about five middle-aged women facing various melodramatic calamities. One falls in love with a younger man, another has a junkie daughter, yet another looses her man to a younger woman, a yet another goes blind... This Portuguese pic should be send back to Lisbon for some fine tuning.
The Dybbuk Of The Holy Apple Field (1999) *
Directed by Yossi Somer. With Ayelet Z'urer, Yehezkel Lazarov and Orna Porat. A disappointing adaptation of a classic Yiddish play, already filmed in Poland in 1937. The story revolves around a broken promise made by two fathers to marry their newborn children. The original was a perfect synthesis of the Jewish Orthodox mysticism and the specifically Yiddish folk traditions. Transplanted to modern-day Israel, the film looses its entire ethnographic context, and becomes a soapy melodrama, a Romeo And Juliet Meets The Exorcist-type of nonsense.
Not Of This World (1999) *
Directed by Guiseppe Piccioni. With Margherita Buy, Silvio Orlando and Carlina Freschi. An Italian drama about a Catholic novice who finds an abandoned newborn baby while strolling through a park in Milan. She leaves the boy at a local hospital, but quickly gets very attached to him and returns frequently to visit him in the nursery. Too quiet, too reflexive, too coy and too lethargic for its own good. It’s European cinema at its most ponderous.
Les Casablancais (1999) *
Directed by Abdelkader Lagtaa. With Abdelaziz Saadallah, Karina Atouf and Salah Eddine. The rise of Muslim fundamentalism in Morocco is forcefully denounced in this uneven drama about a middle-class family from Casablanca. A young boy, influenced by his fanatical teacher, becomes convinced that his parents will go to hell - his pop for drinking alcohol and his mom for not wearing a veil. The film has its moments, but the ending is hopelessly ridiculous.
That's The Way I Like It (1999) *
Directed by Glen Goei. A Singaporean rip-off of "Saturday Night Fever".
The Perfect Education (1999) **
Directed by Wada Ben. A nice little drama about a polite middle-aged man who kidnaps a young schoolgirl, and keeps her tied in his appartement for months, while patiently teaching her how to become a good and obedient wife. Not surprisingly, (considering this is a Japanese flick), his educational efforts turn out to be amazingly successful.
Breaking Out (1999) *
Directed by Daniel Lind Lagerlof. Swedish drama about an unemployed actor staging a play inside a prison.
Voyages (1999) *
Directed by Emmanuel Finkiel. With Shulamit Adar, Esther Gorintin and Nathan Cogan. After not fewer than three comedies about the Holocaust, it was about time for a properly depressing movie on that subject. Set in Poland, France and Israel, it’s a bitter psychological drama dealing with deep wounds left by the Shoah on the heart and soul of the Jewish people.
Après trois comédies sur Holocauste - La Vie est belle, Train de vie et Jacob The Liar - il était grand temps pour un film tragique, grave, et oui, plutôt déprimant, sur ce sujet. Voyages, la première réalisation d’Emmanuel Finkiel (l’ancien assistant de Krzysztof Kieslowski) présente les quêtes de trois femmes juives hantées par des souvenirs terribles. On y parle de l’exil, de l’incertitude face à la persecution, de l’impossibilité d’oublier le passé... et surtout de le comprendre. Sombre et très douloureux, le film a été tourné en Pologne, en France et en Israel.
When The Dead Start Singing (1999) *
Directed by Krsto Papic. Croatian black comedy about corpses and funerals. The film moves from a morgue to a hearse to a family grave, with German Mafia goons, Yugoslav secret police hitmen, Ustashi partisans and Czetnik warriors in hot pursuit.
The Lord's Lantern In Budapest (1999) *
Directed by Miklos Jancso. Self-indulgent mise-en-scene and pretentious ideas ruin this otherwise ambitious film. The old Hungarian master of long-takes has suddenly discovered the joys of editing and the results are not pretty. The film seems... well, choppy, unfocused and very derivative. There is nothing sadder than a cinematic legend abandoning his signature style and desperately trying to imitate a much younger collegue, in this case Emir Kusturica.
In The Rye (1999) *
Directed by Roman Vavra. Czech film consisting of three segments, all set in the fields.
Indivisible Partners (1999) *
Directed by Wang Heng-Li. A Chinese rip-off of "Shall We Dance" and "Strictly Ballroom".
Hypnosis (1999) *
Directed by Masayuki Ochiai. A mysterious hypnotic spell induces people to kill themselves. A horror movie from Japan.
Un Soir apres la guerre (1999) **
Directed by Rithy Panh. With Chea Lyda Chan, Narith Roeun and Ratha Keo. The plot is hardly original - a former soldier (now a boxer/gangster/butcher) falls in love with a beautiful prostitute - but the film is quite good, with beautiful scenery and a slow, but mesmerizing tempo. Unfortunately, an action-movie ending almost ruins what until then has been a tender romantic melodrama.
Windhorse (1999) **
Directed by Paul Wagner. With Jampa Kelsang, "Name Withheld" and "Name Withheld". A political drama set in Lhasa, where a young Buddhist nun is arrested and brutally tortured for protesting against the Chinese occupation of her country. Some of the footage (especially the exteriors) have actually been shot clandestinely in Tibet, with cast and crew posing as tourists. For all its narrative shortcomings, Windhorse still emerges as a fascinating piece of guerrilla filmmaking, made by truly brave men and women determined to expose the cruel reality of the Communist oppression.
Requiem For A Romantic Woman (1999) **
Directed by Dagmar Knopfel. Sexy German film about love and hate.
Propaganda (1999) **
Directed by Sinan Cetin. With Kemal Sunal, Metin Akpinar and Meltem Cumbul. As result of a minor frontier readjustment, some inhabitants of a small Turkish town find themselves living on the wrong side of the border. And without passports, an idiotic guard refuses to let them into their own country. A heavy-handed, but often hilarious political satire about bureaucracy, oppression and stupidity.
Mon ennemi intime (1999) **
Directed by Werner Herzog. With Werner Herzog, Klaus Kinski and Claudia Cardinale. Thanks to documentaries like Burden Of Dreams, we already know that German filmmaker Werner Herzog is certifiably mad. Now, in his newest film, Herzog reveals that his madness has never been a solitary affliction, but a disease he has always shared with his longtime friend, ennemi, collaborator and star, Klaus Kinski. This raw, unpleasant film shows these two larger-than-life geniuses - a performer and a showman - marching hand-in-hand towards an abyss of obsession and megalomania.
June 6, 1999
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Felicia's Journey (1999) **
Atom Egoyan's film about a young Irish lass and an strange English gentleman (Bob Hoskins).
The End Of The Affair (1999) **
Mélodrame de Neil Jordan ("The Crying Game", "Michael Collins"). Avec Julianne Moore, Ralph Fiennes, Stephen Rea. Le célèbre (et controversé) metteur en scène irlandais Neil Jordan, connu surtout pour les films violents (pleins des vampires, des terroristes et des tueurs cinglés), s'intéresse pour la première fois au mélodrame traditionel. Adapté d'une nouvelle de Graham Greene, "The End Of The Affair" raconte l'histoire d'un jeune écrivain cynique (Ralph Fiennes) qui tombe amoureux d'une femme mariée (Julianne Moore). Heureusement pour lui, l'époux de sa bien-aimée est un diplomate particulièrement terne et ennuyeux. Mais comme nous sommes à Londres dans les années 40, l'adultère est hantée par un sens aigue de la culpabilité. C'est à la fois une réflection sur l'amour, une audacieuse critique sociale, et un drame existentiel. Les spectateurs se retrouvent devant un film inégal, mais très fascinant. L'intrigue est carrément déroutante: est-ce un drame religieux ou une histoire d'adultère? Que faire de ces guérisons miraculeuses et d'autres interventions divines? Car ici, au triangle amoureux traditionel - la femme, son amant et le mari trompé - s'ajoute un quatrième élément: un Dieu vengeur, qui punit la faiblesse et la tricherie. A l'instar des oeuvres de Robert Bresson ou Carl Dreyer, "The End Of The Affair" semble s'adresser au public adult, sophistiqué et... croyant.
The Last September (1999) **
Irish fight for independence, seen through the eyes of a young girl from an aristocratic family.
Something More (1999) **
Directed by Rob King. With Michael Goorjian, Chandra West and Jennifer Beals. Unable to decide if it wants to be a raunchy sex farce or a serious drama about relationships, this Canuck flick from Saskatchevan emerges as a disappointing flop. Which is too bad, because with only a few minor changes, it could have been quite a memorable film.
Angela's Ashes (1999) **
Drame d'Alan Parker ("Midnight Express", "The Wall"). Avec Emily Watson, Robert Carlyle, Joe Breen, Ciaran Owens, Michael Legge. La célèbre autobiographie de Frank McCourt, couronnée d`un Prix Pulitzer en 1997, arrive enfin sur nos écrans. Alan Parker - connu surtout pour les drames carcéraux ("Midnight Express") et les films musicaux ("Pink Floyd's The Wall", "Bugsy Malone", "The Commitments") - n'est peut-être pas le réalisateur idéal pour traduire toutes les subtilités psychologiques du livre, mais il réussit quand-même à créer une étonnante fresque sociale. L'action se déroule à Limerick, une petite ville d`Irlande, dans les années 30 et 40. Le jeune Frank, l'ainé d'une famille extrêmement pauvre, voit ses petits frères et soeurs mourir l'un après l'autre, tandis que son père (Robert Carlyle) sombre de plus en plus dans l'alcoholisme. La rôle de Frank est superbement interpretée par trois acteurs differents: Joe Breen à l`age de 6 ans, Ciaran Owens à 12 ans, et finallement, par Michael Legge à 16 ans. Il faut également remarquer la très belle musique de John Williams (nominée au Golden Globes), qui contribue beaucoup au succès de ce film.
Of course, the book was WAY better. And an egocentric director like Alan Parker ("Pink Floyd's The Wall", "Evita") would be just the type to turn a literary masterwork into a pretentious mess. But surprisingly, he has actually crafted a rich and deeply satisfying adaptation of Frank McCourt's Pulitzer Prize-winning autobiography, set in a poor Irish town in the 30's and 40's.
Guinevere (1999) **
Directed by Audrey Wells. Canadian film starring Sarah Polley. An award-winner at Sundance.
Molokai: The True Story Of Father Damien (1999) *
Directed by Paul Cox. Story of a priest to chooses to live among lepers in Hawaii.
Accelerator (1999) **
Directed by Vinny Murphy. Exciting existential drama about Irish youth stealing cars and running for their lives.
Love And Rage (1999) *
Directed by Cathal Black. Greta Sccachi plays an aristocratic woman who falls in love with a handsome brute. Essentially, it's an Irish variation on D.H.Lawrence, except that here, people can lose their nose during foreplay.
In Her Defense (1999) *
Directed by Sidney J.Furie. With Marlee Matlin, Michael Dudikoff and Daniel Pilon. There are way too many boring cliches in this Canuck courtroom drama-slash-suspense thriller: a horny lawyer (Dudikoff), an abused woman (Matlin) wanting to get rid of her husband, an ambitious crown prosecutor (Pilon). Add to it a complicated, but very predictable plot, and you get another example of Canadian taxpayers wasting their money on a film nobody will ever want to see.
Siam Sunset (1999) **
Directed by John Polson. With Linus Roache, Danielle Cormack, Ian Bliss. Filled to the point of overflowing with a busload of odd and peculiar eccentrics from Down Under, “Siam Sunset” is a surrealistic comedy about refrigirators falling off the sky, freak storms, earthquakes, psychotic ex-lovers and poisonous snakes. The humour is broad, and yet oddly nuanced and precious. The film greatly benefits from the clear, lambent quality of the natural southern light, which allows its talented cinematographer to capture the incredibly bright, gaudian colors of the Australian desert landscape.
Cette première réalisation brilliante de John Polson (l’acteur australien qu’on a vu dans “The Sum of Us”) renoue avec une certaine forme de narration, dite “surréaliste”, organisée autour d’une multitudes d’évenements tantôt drôles, tantôt bizarres et toujours inexplicables. Ainsi, on y peut voir des frigos qui tombent du ciel, des serpents géants qui dorment sous les lits des amoureux, et finalement des huragans, des tremblements de terre et d’autres catastrophes quotidiennes qui pursuivent sans cesse notre héro en acharnant sur lui leur furie furieuse. C’est pourtant une comédie très légère, et ulta-sympathique, qu’on nous sert ici, façon de dire “regardez comme c’est drôle quand ça arrive aux autres...”.
May 5, 1999
Emporte-moi (1999) **
Directed by Lea Pool. With Karin Vanasse, Pascale Bussieres and Monique Mercure. Nostalgic, often meandering drama about a young girl (Vanasse) growing up in Montreal in the early 1960's. She divides her time between fighting with her Holocaust survivor father, french-kissing her brother, having an adolescent crush on a girl, imitating Anna Karina in "Vivre sa vie", running away from home, and collecting stray dogs.
Elvis Gratton II: Miracle a Memphis (1999) **
Directed by Pierre Falardeau. With Julien Poulin, Yves Trudel and Jean Chretien. Is Falardeau a chauvinistic xenophobe? Well, he obviously loath the American culture and the Canadian federalism, but he reserves his strongest hatred for those pure-laine Quebecers (like Elvis Gratton and Jean Chretien) who dare to look beyond the narrow confines of the separatist/nationalist perspective. But Falardeau is still one of Quebec's best filmmakers and even this mean-spirited, eneven, and often desperate farce is infinitely better, funnier and more intelligent than most local comedies.
Le Dernier souffle (1999) *
Directed by Richard Ciupka. With Luc Picard, Julien Poulin and Donovan Reiter. The latest attempt by the Quebec film industry to recapture the local market from the Hollywood domination by producing Hollywood-style commercial blockbusters. It features the most bizarre cast of heroes and villains representing every corner of the political spectrum: FLQ, MUC police, FBI, neo-nazis, right-wing militia, and the Russian mob. The film is rarely boring, but always contrived, and hopelessly conventional.
Quand je serai parti...vous vivrez encore (1999) *
Directed by Michel Brault. With Francois Reddy, David Boutin and Claude Gauthier. Patriotic, heavy-handed, slow and unbearably tedious historical drama about the 1838 rebellion of Freres Chasseurs against the British tyranny. Led by Chevalier de Lorimier, the insurrectionists were quickly routed, captured, tried and executed. The film will annoy both sides: the francophones will be depressed by its defeatist attitude, while the anglos will squirm over the intensely negative portrayal of their ancestors.
Matroni et moi (1999) *
Directed by Jean-Philippe Duval. With Alexis Martin, Guylaine Tremblay and Pierre Curzi. First the good news: The dialogue is superb, expertly mixing pretentious intellectual mumbo-jumbo with down-to-earth, obscenity-ladden gangster lingo, and creating a delightful cacophony of verbal contrasts. But now the bad news: The film stinks, wasting its qualities on an idiotic plot, annoying characters and desperate jokes.
Jacob Two Two Meets The Hooded Fang (1999) *
Directed by George Bloomfield. With Gary Busey, Miranda Richardson and Max Morrow. After a very promising start, this bizarre children fantasy quickly degenerates into a series of violent, unpleasant and vaguely dickensian confrontations involving enslaved kids and their adult tormentors. Written by Mordecai Richler, this alleged kidpic has a very R-rated sensibility. Give it a pass and see Elmo in Grouchland instead.
Le Grand serpent du monde (1999) **
Directed by Yves Dion. With Murray Head, Zoe Latraverse, Gabriel Arcand and Louise Portal. Imagine, if you will, a middle-aged bus driver from Montreal. He's into philosophy and young women. Night after night, he picks up the same people from the same bus stops: a mentally-challenged excentric, an old lady with a dog, a man who could be a vampire and a seductive young girl. The film - slow, meditative and artfully directed - explores their alienation with a flegmatism worthy of Wim Wenders.
Souvenirs intimes (1999) *
Directed by Jean Beaudin. With Pascale Bussieres, Yves Jacques and James Hyndman. Hopelessly pretentious film about rape, revenge and forgiveness. Characters suffer, torture each other, scream, suffer some more, reveal their true identities, fight, and finally reconcile.
Alegria (1999) *
Directed by Franco Dragone. With Frank Langella, Julie Cox and Rene Bazinet. Some film are just so irritating in their utter and insufferable mediocrity, they compel viewers to kick the chairs, throw the popcorn at the screen, spill their drinks and scream like wounded hyenas. This cinematic adaptation of the famous Cirque du Soleil spectacle is a case in point. It's like a cross between "Oliver Twist" and "Big Top Pee-wee", made by tone-deaf fashion victims.
Laura Cadieux.. la suite (1999) *
Directed by Denise Filiatrault. With Ginette Reno, Dominique Michel and Pierrette Robitaille. Remember, it ain't over until the fat lady sings. But while Reno & Co.'s can-can number is literally side-splitting (remember those dancing hippos in Fantasia?), the rest of the film is downright pathetic. Who wrote that dialogue? And while it's supposedly set on a Saguenay cruise ship, we don't even see a single rocky cliff! Did they run out of money and couldn't shot a single scene at Cap Trinité or Cap Eternité?
Pin-Pon le film (1999) **
Film pour enfants de Ghyslaine Côté. Avec Yves Soutières, Thomas Gratton, Philippe Lambert, Julien Poulin. Les tout-petits seront enchantés par cette gentille comédie pleine d'humour et de la joie. Même les parents auront un sourire aux lèvres en regardant les démélés rocambolesque de trois clowns en balade. Les aventures du Pinpin, Ponpon et Pouet Pouet ne sont peut-être pas aussi excitantes que celles de James Bond (moins d'explosions, par exemple...), mais elles vont sûrement réjouir ceux et celles qui savent apprecier une joile chanson melodieuse, un beau numero de danse et une plaisanterie de bon gout. L'intrigue est plutot mince (on part en camping, on dessine des papillons, on attrape des poissons...), mais on ne s'ennuie jamais.
Little tots should be enchanted by this pleasant comedy about three gentle clowns going on a camping trip. The humor is simple (lots of slapstick, very little sophistication), the songs are marvelously melodious and the pacing is quite energetic. Pinpin and Ponpon are no Laurel and Hardy, but their innocent charm is quite infectious.
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