Omar (***1/2)

One thing that occurred to me when watching this was that, while I’ve seen plenty of Israeli films that have nothing to do with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it’s hard to imagine a film about Palestinians that is not also, in some aspect, about the Israeli occupation. Omar (Adam Bakri) has to climb the giant separation wall that runs through the West Bank just to visit his girlfriend Nadia (Leem Lubany), a college student. In another scene, he is stopped and beaten by the Israeli security forces. The film certainly is from Palestinian perspective. But it would be a mistake to see it primarily as an anti-occupation film, even if its main characters, Omar and his two best friends, are involved in an anti-Israel plot. Instead, the film is about conflicting loyalties and self-preservation.

It’s better not to know much about what happens, but it involves the Israeli security forces trying to enlist Omar’s aid in capturing his friend. Omar doesn’t want to do this, but if he doesn’t he may never see Nadia again, let alone marry her as he wishes. Omar is the work of Hany Abu-Assad (Paradise Now), who gets strong perfromances from a cast of newcomers.
Despite the somewhat drab setting, the film is picturesque, with its shots of the giant wall and chase sequences showcasing narrow alleys; some of the most memorable shots in the film are those in which Omar looks in over the fence at the school his girlfriend attends, wondering whether he can trust her. It is such personal questions, not political ones, that dominate this film, right up to the shocker of an ending.

IMDb link

viewed 2/27/14 9:40 pm at Ritz Bourse and posted 3/5/14

Haywire (***)

These are good times for ass-kicking movie heroines. While Saoirse Ronan in Hanna, Zoe Saldana in Columbiana, or Angelina Jolie in Salt may have convincingly looked the part, Gina Carano is the real deal, a mixed-martial-arts fighter in her first starring role, in a Steven Soderbergh film as it happens. So maybe she could really knock around Channing Tatum, as she does in an opening scene that teases the audience by setting it up so that her character, Mallory, seems like the victim of an abusive boyfriend. But Mallory, an operative for a government contractor doing high-risk undercover jobs, gives as good as she gets (better, actually), whether she’s outrunning a kidnapper in Barcelona, nearly destroying a hotel room in Dublin, or fleeing the police in upstate New York.

You’ll recognize Soderbergh’s hand if you’ve seen his Ocean’s Eleven and its sequels, or Traffic, or The Limey, his previous collaboration with screenwriter Lem Debs. Note the way, when Mallory and her team go into a building, guns blazing,  tones down the artillery he noise and turns up the music instead, opting for panache over thunder. Style points don’t quite overcome what is still essentially a genre exercise. The non-linear structure, confusing at first, doesn’t quite hide a familiar plot. The Limey, for one, has richer characters, even if this film has some well-known actors (Michael Fassbender, Antonio Banderas, Bill Paxton) in small roles. And Hanna had a fairy-tale quality that made me overlook its basic implausibility. But this film does boast the best rooftop foot chase sequence since The Bourne Ultimatum. Its fight scenes are very good if you don’t insist on strict reality. I imagine even MMA champions wouldn’t get up so quickly from a couple of the blows inflicted here.


IMDb link

viewed 1/16/12 at Ritz East [PFS screening] and reviewed 1/16/12 and 1/19/12

Atonement (***1/2)

Ian McEwan’s novel becomes a passionate tearjerker in this adaptation from Pride & Prejudice director Joe Wright and Quiet American writer Christopher Hampton. Or, at least, the first half does. Pride star Keira Knightly is the heroine, a wealthy girl whose mysterious relationship with the educated son (James McAvoy) of the family housekeeper piques the interest of her younger sister Briony (Oscar-nominated Saoirse Ronan). What follows, which is best not given away, is one of those old English-y sort of love stories where the passion is pent up, like in Pride & Prejudice, but even more like in The English Patient.

It’s 1935 when the story begins, and the setting is one of those impossibly large estates that are now, frequently, tourist attractions. Cecilia (Knightly) has returned from college, where she encounters Robbie (McAvoy), whom she’s not seen in some time. Also present are some cousins, a brother, a friend of the brother’s, and Briony, whose powers of imagination will drive the plot in unexpected ways. Wright’s direction is crisp, moving to a musical motif that cleverly incorporates a clicking typewriter. No scene feels wasted, and indeed, when the plot moves devastatingly forward I was sorry to leave the manor and the minor characters behind.

The war is what comes next, and the love story becomes, also, a story of tragedy and redemption. I’m being deliberately vague here about how that happens, but the themes the movie’s title points to are about how we judge ourselves and come to grips with mistakes that cannot be undone. The hallucinatory mid-section of the movie might seem to be about something else, and to lose momentum, but is rescued by the ending. The plot is very faithful to McEwan, but not in a way that makes it feel like something is missing. Besides, what is added is a series of picture-postcard images that makes the movie visually as well as narratively stunning. McAvoy, the faun in The Chronicles of Narnia, the callow doctor in The Last King of Scotland, is a surprisingly convincing romantic lead. Actual displays of passion are limited, but the one unmistakable love scene smolders.

If you thought English Patient was dull and overlong, you might still like Atonement, which comes in under two hours and is less talky. But if understatement doesn’t appeal to you, if The Notebook is the sort of romance you’re searching for, this ain’t it.


IMDB link


reviewed 12/27/07

Notes on a Scandal (***1/2)

? Judy Dench plays the character who was the narrator of Zoë Heller’s novel of the same name. A teacher of history to surly adolescents, she writes copiously in her diary, eruditely but witheringly sizing up her fellow faculty, including the new arts teacher (Cate Blanchett). Seemingly as honest about herself as others, she’s aware of her reputation as respected, but not liked, and so welcomes the friendship offered by the most recent hire. But when she discovers her married colleague’s affair with a fifteen-year-old student, she sees it as a betrayal that it had been kept secret from her.

+ This movie works as a thriller but more so as a morality play that looks at its characters more deeply than the Jerry Springer premise would suggest. The two women are very different, but both cross social boundaries and pay the consequences. The heavy dose of narration that introduces the story could have seemed tedious were it not for the crisp, tart voice that screenwriter Patrick Narber has created for her. Dench’s performance is a tour de force that slowly peels away her character’s vulnerabilities and flaws. She’s the clearest villain of the piece, but she’s a little pathetic as well, which you don’t expect at the outset. The supporting characters are also noteworthy, Blanchett of course but also Bill Nighy as her significantly older husband. This is the sort of movie where you can have a wonderful time afterward dissecting it and arguing about how blameworthy each of the women is, how society should treat adult affairs with teenagers, and so on. Narber’s best known for the play and screenplay Closer, which tackled certain similar themes relating to trust, but this is a warmer movie with a more linear plot structure and a higher emotional peak. 
- It certainly didn’t ruin it for me, but a pivotal scene near the end requires an uncharacteristic sloppiness on the part of Dench’s character that seemed more convenient than likely.

= ***1/2 I found this movie, which has earned Oscar nominations for Dench, Blanchett, Narber, and composer Philip Glass, quite riveting. It’s unusual to see a movie that so particularly examines some unsavory behavior and yet expresses human desires that everybody has in some fashion.

IMDb link