- Time Regained (Le temps retrouvé)
A film that seems to merge the present and past, fiction and reality, in its own dreamworld. It’s set in 1922 where Marcel Proust lies on his deathbed looking back at his life. Scenes from an idyllic childhood intermingle with memoris of adult life and characters from “Remembrance of Things Past” appear: mummified, aggressive, blind, sometimes farcical.
The cast is certainly impressive with Catherine Deneuve, Emmanuelle Beart and John Malkovich, for example. At times confusing, perhaps this just more truly reflects the way Proust was feeling during the writing of “Rememberance of Things Past.” One particular anecdote concerns a particular writer on his deathbed being told by Death that he would be given enough time to reflect on all of his life before Death returned to take him away. Instead the man chooses to review his last book. He is only part-way through it when Death returns and explains that the book contains the experiences of his life and that of all men and would take an eternity to review.
- Kwaidan
A trio of tales directed by Masaki Kobayashi adapted from the work of Lafcadio Hearn each of which feature the supernatural : Black Hair, In a Cup of Tea, and Hoichi the Earless.
The idea of “In a Cup of Tea” that a writer (or indeed many writers) chose not to fit an ending to a story because any ending would be nothing compared to that which the reader’s imagination could instead provide. In the story within the story, a guard sees a samurai’s face in his teacup and absorbs the ghost’s soul into his body after drinking the tea.
“Black Hair” features a samurai who returns to his first wife whom he loved once he is finally able to leave the socially-elevating yet loveless marriage he cruelly divorced her for. Once they spend their first night back together again, he discovers her skeletal remains and long black hair lying in the bed.
“Hoichi the Earless” concerns a blind musician in the temple whose ears end up being cut off because he allowed himself to be caught in the power of a samurai ghost who wants him to recite the tale of a famous battle between the rival samurai clans.
The soundtrack complements the whole chilling nature of these tales and the look of the film as a whole is very good.
- Toy Story 2
If you haven’t seen the first film, go see it. If you have, go see it. Similar to the first though without the Woody and Buzz banter and with an annoying song about how Jessie used to be loved. Apart from that it is even more visually stunning (real people are still a problem) and the out-takes are wonderful.
- American Beauty
A worthy multi-Oscar winner for former Magdalen College School pupil Sam Mendes’s cinematic directorial debut.
- The Insider
I managed to see this early thanks to the Phoenix getting it for some kind of preview week. It could have been subtitled (for those who knew The Winslow Boy) “let news be done” and is based on true events (subject to the usual disclaimers about dramatisation of events and sugaring up of major characters to make us like them more). Russell Crowe very much looks like the man who has spent a long time in a senior position of a tobacco company (with the requisite bulk) and Al Pacino’s Lowell Bergman of Sixty Minutes manages to draw you in to the tale of how big tobacco tried to avoid having the fact that cigarettes were viewed as nicotine carriers (a means to create addicts, in effect) rather than just being “hazardous to your health (maybe).”
- The Beach
Having read the book, I found it difficult to like (despite Leonardo DiCaprio) . Richard’s initial alienation due to his illness and his later descent into a more serious degree of madness with “Mr Duck” visions made the book more interesting and I liked Jed, a character who didn’t make it into the film. I really wanted to know where the power for the sound system that they were dancing to for their festival came from too. Some of the visual aspects of the film were well done but I’d be unlikely to pay to see it again.
- The Daytrippers
- The House on Haunted Hill
The guests invited to a birthday party are offered one million dollars each (flashbacks to Dr Evil’s “I want one million dollars” are unnecessary and ill-advised at this point) if they can survive the night in “The House on Haunted Hill.” It used to be an insane asylum run by an evil doctor until a riot led to a fire and its closure a number of years previously. These guests have been specially chosen, but not by the organizers of the birthday party and there is something very sinister going on. The film features some of the most impressive CGI inkblot tests committed to film. Generally entertaining in a stop thinking and enjoy the visuals way.
![[BACK]](imgs/back.png)