Performance recital, we have. Challenging meetings, we have. Documentaries about great creators, we have. Stories that tighten like a tight corset, we have. Teenage worries, we have. Psychological thrillers, we have. Award-winning films, too. If you too are in the mood for some good cinema (until the end of the year initially), read on.
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Tár | Todd Field | Cate Blanchett, Noémie Merlant, Nina Hoss | USA, Germany
Lydia Tár is the first female conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, award-winning, multi-talented, genius, narcissistic and often unacceptably bad-tempered. She is preparing to record a symphonic work that will catapult her career. But when various factors seem to conspire against her, her six-year-old adopted daughter, Petra, plays an important role.
The world of high culture and the male-dominated environment of classical music is the milieu. The borderline personality of a great talent is the focus. And the meeting of the famous creator of the Oscar nominations ("Secrets of the Bedroom" and "Hidden Desires") Todd Field with the unrepeatable and awarded at this year's Sample Cate Blanchett, a ticket to a cinematic delight.
PS Lydia Tár is a fictional character that director and screenwriter Todd Field inspired exclusively for Cate Blanchett to play. And Cate Blanchett undertook with absolute success, by all accounts (as expected), to highlight the complex psyche of a woman in a position of power.
Moonage Daydream | Brett Morgen | David Bowie | USA, Germany
The David Bowie Estate granted director and editor Brett Morgen unlimited access to his archives to create a kaleidoscopic cinematic account of the personality and art of one of the greatest artists of the past 50 years.
Brett Morgen spent four full years editing the voluminous material from concerts, behind-the-scenes, anecdotal images, rare recordings and the vast personal collection of art and poetry of the unforgettable David Bowie, while for 18 months the entire documentary team worked on the sound design, color palette of the photo and the embedded animation elements.
PS The question is how the director managed to fit such a rich artistic and private life as that of David Bowie into two hours. From the looks of the film's trailer, however, he probably found a clever way. To highlight, for example, his protagonist's sexual liberation, he chose a clip from an interview in a television studio, with the singer sitting comfortably in the guest chair with his fancy red shoes (red, thick and high-heeled) in the foreground and the journalist to ask:
"Is that shoe you're wearing a woman's shoe or a man's shoe?"
And David Bowie calmly answering:
"This shoe is a shoe shoe a dud!"
The Son | Florian Zeller | Vanessa Kirby, Anthony Hopkins, Laura Dern | USA, France, Great Britain
Teenager Nicholas, son of divorced Peter and Kate, lives with his mother until she discovers that he hasn't been to school for a month. Looking for a solution to the problem, she asks him to go live with his father, who has since remarried and had a baby.
The film, based on Zeller's play of the same name, which opened on the London stage in 2019 to rave reviews, is a dynamic commentary on family relationships and the fragile balances disrupted by mundane (such as a divorce) or non-events.
PS Florian Zeller is the creator of the Oscar-winning "Father", starring the sensational Anthony Hopkins. His "Son" is the second part of the trilogy, which is expected to be completed with "Mother". It remains unknown to us (yet) whether the middle member of a family, "The Son", is worthy of his cinematic "Father". However, the penetrating look at family journeys is always expected with interest, at least when the director who works on them has films like "Father" in his quiver.
Bones and All | Luca Guadagnino | Taylor Russell, Timothée Chalamet, Chloë Sevigny, Michael Stuhlbarg | USA, Great Britain, Italy
Maren, a young girl living on the fringes, and Lee, a young and equally fringe guy, travel deep into America, searching for their roots and lost innocence, while trying to understand why they cannot resist their passion to they (literally) eat the people they love.
The film's Italian director Luca Guadagnino (with a fan following from 2017's Call Me By Your Name ) has, with the help of screenwriter David Kajganich, turned Camille DeAngelis's book of the same name – the story of two little cannibals – into sensitive creation for everyone's anxiety to belong somewhere.
At least this is what those who attended its screening in Mostra support, as well as the jury that awarded the Best Director Award to Luca Guadagnino and the Marcello Mastroianni Award for New Talent to Taylor Russell/Maren.
PS The boundaries of each viewer often do not coincide with those of the director. In other words, whether you choose to see a story with little cannibals in the cinema is a purely personal decision.
Decision to Escape | Park Chan-wook | Tang Wei, Park Hae-il, Go Kyung-Pyo | South Korea
It all starts with a fall. A climber is found dead. Tragedy; Suicide; Homicide; Handsome detective Hae-jun (Park Hae-il), a kind man, happy, married and dedicated to his work, investigates the mystery. The youngest inspector in Busan, a city plagued by crime, meets the victim's wife during his persistent investigations. Soon he will be confronted with his suspicions, but also his romantic desire for her.
South Korean Park Chan-wook ("Oldboy") makes a psychological thriller, possibly labyrinthine, about infidelity, duty, love and cowardice.
PS The film, which won the Best Director Award at the Cannes Film Festival, is said to also be a tribute to Park Chan-wook's much-loved Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo. He himself, in his interviews, denies it.
Corsets | Marie Kreutzer | Colin Morgan, Vicky Krieps, Finnegan Oldfield | Austria, Luxembourg, Germany, France
At Christmas 1877, Sissy celebrates her 40th birthday. As First Lady of Austria and wife of Emperor Francis Joseph I, she is not allowed to express herself and must remain the beautiful young empress forever. To meet these expectations, she follows a strict regimen of fasting, exercise, combing her hair and measuring her waistline daily. Stifled by these conventions, hungry for knowledge and life, Sissy rebels more and more against her image.
PS The life of Empress Sissy has been seen time and time again on the small and big screen, with Romy Schneider having more than any other leading lady identified her name with the role. Furthermore, royal (cinematic) stories have either fanatical viewers or an audience that remains coldly indifferent to the news of a new similar film. In this case, Marie Kreutzer's approach can make the difference – to attract even the uninterested – since she chose to leave the romantic prince figure aside and deal with the darker side of the palace's occupants.
Drive my Car | Ryûsuke Hamaguchi | Hidetoshi Nishijima, Tôko Miura, Reika Kirishima | Japan
Two years after the unexpected death of his beloved wife, stage actor and director Yusuke Kafuku still cannot cope with the loss of his partner. He decides to travel to Hiroshima to direct a play. But, he is faced with a secret from his wife, Otto.
PS An Oscar and a Golden Globe for a foreign language film and double praises from the New York Critics Association accompany the film by Ryûsuke Hamaguchi ("Stories of Fortune and Imagination"), who adapted the novel by Haruki Murakami - one of the most important Japanese authors of the 20th century. In the credits of the film and the rumor that it is an elegy for loss, made with eloquent silences.
Blonde | Andrew Dominik | Ana de Armas | USA
"Blonde" with Ana de Armas, a brown-haired actress in reality, with her Cuban-Hispanic blood defining her acting temperament (she played Joi in the remake of the classic "Blade Runner", "Blade Runner 2049"), will theoretically be the feminist version of Marilyn Monroe's personality.
The film, which still plays on the title with the blonde hair color of the Hollywood star, is according to the prolific and Pulitzer-nominated Joyce Carol Oates, on whose biography the script is based, "amazing, intelligent, very disturbing and with an absolutely "feminist" interpretation... I'm not sure any other male director has achieved something like this."
PS When "Blonde" was screened in Venice, it created a stir. As well as the joint appearance on the red carpet of the protagonist Ana de Armas with Brad Pitt (the co-existence is due to the fact that the charming Pitt is one of the producers of the film). Beyond the spicy comments, however, the question is one: do myths die? And yet: can Marilyn be "resurrected" by the hand of Andrew Dominik, through the flame of de Armas?
Close | Lukas Dhont | Eden Dambrine, Gustav De Waele, Émilie Dequenne | Belgium, Holland, France
The close friendship of two sixteen-year-old boys is abruptly interrupted by the comments made by their classmates. Toxic masculinity, forced losses and the need to belong, shape the simple and clear story that Lukas Dhont tells without frills, taking care above all and first of all to zoom in on the faces of his excellent protagonists (Eden Dambrine, Gustav De Waele ), that is to highlight the complex psychology of those who feel they don't fit in anywhere.
PS 31-year-old Belgian director Lukas Dhont, with only his second film – after his also Cannes award-winning “Girl” (as well as “Close”)∑ may make a serious bid for a prominent place in our cinematic hearts.
Source: a8inea.com