Bloggish review blog

Under discussion:

Crimes and Misdemeanors  (1989)

Strangers on a Train  (1951)

Three Monkeys (Uc Maymun)  (2008)

Rachel Getting Married  (2008)

I find movies about secrets to be terribly interesting. Affairs, murders, accidents, humiliations and the lengths people will go to hide them generally make for pretty compelling stuff.

"Three Monkeys," the Turkish entry for the best foreign language film Oscar, is one such movie, and (I think) probably a pretty strong contender. I'm assuming the title has to do with the proverb "see no evil, hear no evil, do no evil," since the family at the center of this movie has plenty of issues that they deal with by not talking about them.

Things start off when a Servet, a campaigning politician, is involved in a hit-and-run accident. Not wanting to tarnish his reputation right before the election, Servet has his driver, Eyüp, take the fall for him in exchange for a sum of money to be given to his family. In the meantime, Eyüp's wife, Hacer, has an affair with Servet, only to have it abruptly cut off when her ne'er-do-well son discovers them. Oh, and the family is also haunted by the ghost of their dead son...there's a lot of tension going on.

Probably the best thing "Three Monkeys" has going for it is its subtlety. The film's style is very subdued, and we only see characters behaving in extreme ways when the situation absolutely calls for it. The performances are all very natural, never over-the-top. We can identify with all of the characters (except, perhaps, Servet, who's pretty much a scuzzbag). The movie is also very solid visually. It looks like it was shot on DV, which gives it a gritty, but also intimate feeling. The camera is unsparing in its portrayal of the characters. We see every flaw, every stray hair, wrinkle and stress line, all of which goes into making a better, more detailed vision of who these people are, and the effects their years of supressed emotions have had on them.

I am very, very glad I got to see "Three Monkeys." It's a well-worked, intense movie that nobody has talked about, but that everyone should be. This movie has all of the intrigue of a Hichcock film (atmospherically speaking, it feels like "Strangers on a Train," but more subdued) but most of the action happens behind closed doors. It's a really intriguing approach to a premise that could easily have been made into a preachy, hysterical melodrama.

Related movies to watch:

"Rachel Getting Married": Some of the drama, but with the added plus of joy and redemption.

"Strangers on a Train": Intrigue with more thrills

"Crimes and Misdemeanors": Affairs and examinations of the people that have them.

Under discussion:

The Motorcycle Diaries  (2004)

The Year My Parents Went on Vacation  (2008)

The Year My Parents Went on Vacation is a movie about many things. It's about the process of growing up. It's about soccer, it's about politics, and it's about judaism. Somehow, all of these elements come together to make a touching movie that's just as beautiful and haunting as other South American politically and culturally charged dramas, such as "The Motorcycle Diaries."

Our main character is young Mauro, a 12-year-old sent to live with his grandparents when his own parents flee Brazil's totalitarian regime in 1970, under the pretense of "going on vacation." Upon his arrival, Mauro finds that his grandfather has just died, and it's up to an elderly jewish neighbor, Shlomo, to take care of him. Turns out that Mauro's family is supposed to be jewish, too, but the boy was raised outside of the faith, something Shlomo finds to be highly disturbing. Fortunately, during the course of his stay in Sao Paulo, Mauro forms a sort of family with Shlomo, a group of kids in the building, and other members of the synagogue and the neighborhood where they live.

The scenes in which the whole community comes together, for bar mitzvahs, funerals and (of course) world cup soccer matches, are particularly touching. It's sweet to see how much the people in the film's neighborhood care about each other and their country.

Mauro's confusion over what has happened to his parents is equally touching, although it's more heartbreaking than joyous. He is always hopeful, but continually disappointed, angry and sad. Michel Joelsas, the actor who plays Mauro, is a real find. He's earnest, sweet and utterly convincing. Daniela Piepszyk, who plays Mauro's fiesty friend Hannah, pulls off a clever, charming performance. It's not often I find child actors very praiseworthy, but these kids have really got it going on.

Engaging and lovely in every sense of the word, Cao Hamburger's "The Year My Parents Went on Vacation" is a movie that should have gotten a lot more buzz than it did. Apparently it was Brazil's entry for the foreign film academy award, and deservedly so. There are very few movies I've recieved from Spout that I'd want to watch again. "The Year My Parents Went on Vacation" is definitely one that will be making its way back into my DVD player soon.

Under discussion:

Manda Bala  (2007)

During this last year, I had the interesting experience of living in a house with two girls from Brazil. One of them had a fiancee still living there, and every week it seemed like she had some wild story about some close call that either she or her intended had experienced. She once told me that she wouldn't even think about going to the bakery two blocks from her house without getting into a car. It was just too dangerous to walk.

I've heard lots of stories from many different sources about the high rates of crime, especially kidnapping, in Brazil, but I never knew very much about it until I watched "Manda Bala," a fascinating and sharp documentary that looks at corruption and the criminal element in Brazil from many different angles.

"Manda Bala" starts out investigating a corrupt politician's failed program to help poor Brazilians in the north of the country, in a state called Para, which includes part of Brazil's Amazon region. It turns out that the politician, who has held every elected office in Brazil save that of the president, was using this employment program to embezzle money from the government. Director Jason Kohn examines some of the effects of the country's imbalance of wealth on the citizens of Para and also in Sao Paulo, a city famous for its' kidnappings. Kohn interviews victims, police officers and even a kidnapper and gives us a portrait that is creepy, troubling, and surprisingly neutral.

Two of the most interesting characters Kohn interviews are a plastic surgeon who does reconstructive surgery for kidnapping victims (the audience is treated to pretty visceral, but still really interesting footage of reconstructive ear surgery) and the kidnapper, who claims to have been born in a slum in Sao Paulo, and started stealing when he was nine.

The kidnapper, who also moonlights as a bank robber, seems to think of himself as some kind of Robin Hood character. The juxtaposition of a man who thinks very little about the many cops he kills and victims he maims while he still claims to have the best interests of his friends and family at heart was surprising and, oddly enough, a little heartwarming, too.

I do wish that Kohn had tied the political situation and the social issues of the film together more than he did. For most of the film, the corrupt politician's scandal and the stories of kidnappers and victims in Sao Paulo seem rather isolated, but Kohn manages to kind of tie the two together, although the connecting thread seems kind of weak. Otherwise, with its' nearly perfect cinematography, hip score (I want that soundtrack!) and enthralling subject matter, "Manda Bala" is 85 minutes well spent.