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American Women's Club of Hamburg  Film Reviews -- July 2006Reviews by members of the AWC Film Group of films slated to open in Hamburg in July 2006.
(Karen P) Opening July 6, 2006 The personal untold stories of war victims are not only numerous but painful, especially involving women and children. Esam (Mirjana Karanovic) and her 12-year-old daughter, Sara (Luna Mijovic) lived in the ghetto quarter of Sarajevo, Bosnia. This area of the city, called Grbavica, was a known section of the city where women and children were indiscreetly delivered from war zones during the Balkans War. These transported women were left with nothing not even their dignity. In order to survive, they depended on each other for their daily needs. They organized support group meetings to give and receive according to their emotional needs.
(Osanna V) Opening July 6, 2006 Based on the film “Il Mare”, Alejandro Agresti directs Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock in a love story across time dimensions, with a screenplay by David Auburn. Dr. Kate Forster (Bullock) begins work in Chicago and has to exchange her beloved house on a lake for a city apartment. She leaves a letter for whomever moves in next, asking to have any mail she might still receive there forwarded, and to forgive the dog prints in paint on the deck and a box in the attic: they were both there when she moved in. Alex Wyler (Reeves) moves in and is rather surprised to find the letter. First of all, the house looks like it has not been lived in for a few years, and, secondly, there are no dog prints on the deck nor a box in the attic. He ignores the letter until one day, when painting the deck rail, a dog turns up, runs through his paint tray and leaves prints on the deck. Curious about how Kate could have known, he writes to her and they soon discover that he lives in 2004 whilst she lives in 2006. The correspondence across time develops into a love story; but it looks like it will have to remain platonic, as forces outside of their control work against their ever meeting now that they have found each other. To be able to appreciate and follow the thread of this story, it is probably necessary to be able to accept the concept of parallel dimensions, the idea that our future can unfold in a myriad of ways depending on each of our decisions, and that those parallel worlds could actually cross over or connect. If you do not believe this, you will probably be rather confused by the plot. With this in mind, I found the story did actually hold together. The problem was that, most of the time, the two main characters were not on screen together, or, if they were, they were only together in an imaginary way, by means of the dialogue in their letters. Unfortunately, the dialogue was so predictable (what's your favourite thing? kind of questions) and bland that no magic could be created. It is a difficult idea to pull off successfully and the film makers did not get close. The weakness was undoubtedly in the actual script.
(Becky T) Opening July 6, 2006 Small wild animals are the better species in DreamWorks’ newest animated film. R.J. the racoon (voiced by Bruce Willis) owes Vincent the bear (Nick Nolte) a truck full of fast food, payable within a week. R.J. recruits the help of possums and porcupines, a skunk, and a squirrel. In spite of the misgivings of Vern the tortoise (Garry Shandling), they follow R.J. over the hedge to the larders of the humans who live in abundance in synthetic suburbs. It takes only one possum in this sterile place to throw the neighbors into hysterics. The self-appointed head of the neighborhood is a grim, perfectly coiffed, trim, single, career-woman, control freak (similarities to living persons, e.g., Condolezza Rice, are not intended). She calls the pest exterminator, Dr. Dennis, who is a parody of Mr. Incredible (who is a parody of Superman). The possum plays dead in a spurt of dramatic acting worthy of an Oscar. The cat falls in love with the skunk. The animals lose sight of family values and succumb to the mass consumption of TV and marshmallows, just as Vern predicted. There is a grand action scene when Dr. Dennis’ weapon of mass destruction, “legal only in the state of Texas,” backfires. Besides pure American-style entertainment, there are several moral lessons: The environment suffers from consumerism and wastefulness. Fast food is bad for you. Families provide an important network against loneliness. Bears are tricky. Jeffrey Katzenberg, president of DreamWorks, said at the 2006 Cannes film festival that, “Animated films are having a renaissance; a good story is the most important element; the best comedies come out of the world of animation these days; and many cultures have long histories of describing humans through the eyes of animals.” All of this is true in this fun film for the whole family. (Karen P) Opening July 13, 2006 Producer Neal Moritz, owner of The Fast and the Furious franchise, allows director Justin Lin to expose the fanatical world of drift racing in the third Fast and Furious film, Tokyo Drift. The infamous words, “On Your Mark! Get Set! Go!” start racers of all kinds, especially race car drivers with hot engines pushing for a challenge. Misfit Sean Boswell (Lucas Black) never backs down from a dare with the stakes being pink slips and/or girls. His knowledge as an expert mechanic enables him to be a winner in street drag racing, but not without hardships. Boswell’s racing passion and its adrenaline high controls him and consistently gets him in trouble. One race wins him a trip to Japan where, as a deal made with the U.S. juvenile delinquent court, he will live with his estranged father, a career military man stationed in Tokyo. They offer him a clean record if he promises to cut off all ties with the sport of drag racing. The move forces him to learn another culture and the U.S. authorities hope it will curb his appetite for drag racing. Boswell is sincere in accepting the agreement until he is introduced to the sport of drifting. He is blown away with the precision needed to drive high-powered engines around tight curves. Provoked to show his muscle as the new kid on the block, Boswell gets his first dare from the underworld drift king, D.K. (Brian Tee). Drifting groupies, Twinkie (BowWow) and Han (Sung Kang) get a glimpse of Boswell’s skill and guts. With their help, Boswell makes difficult choices that will determine his future within the dark world of racing. If you are on your mark - and ready to experience racing with sensual intensity with no CGI segments -you are ready to go see this film.
(Becky T) Opening July 13, 2006 Slasher movies seem to follow a pattern: a small group of young people get lost in a remote area, fall into the hands of a sadistic pervert, escape, are recaptured, are tortured and one person lives to tell the tale. Wolf Creek is no different. Liz (Cassandra Magrath), Kristy (Kestie Morassi) and Ben (Nathan Phillips) drive to the Australian bush in an old jalopy, which breaks down. Naturally, a soft-spoken geezer, Mick Taylor (John Jarratt), helps them and they end up in his shack, tied to the wall or a stake, looking at the bloody remains of their predecessors. Supposedly based on a true story, the film begins by saying that 30,000 people go missing in Australia every year and thousands are never found. Director Gary McLean said that the purpose of the movie is, “to scare the shit out of the viewer,” which he manages to do very well, besides making me, in particular, sick to my stomach at the blood and screams and hacked-off finger. He creates a murderous atmosphere with darkness punctuated by low headlights or a single flashlight. Where are we going in the night? The film reminds me of Hostel, so if you enjoyed that, this is the film for you. The saving grace for me was the beautiful shots of the fantastic Australian scenery at all times of the day or night by photographer Will Gibson. (Adele R) Opening July 20, 2006 Claude Chabrol , the French New Wave director with more than 40 excellent films to his credit, has just has delivered another. This time he takes on the questionable practices of French business and a government policy which allows an underlying corruption to flourish and in many aspects even legalizes it, in order to, as one company CEO remarks, openly “keep the wheels greased and the economy rolling.” Big business passes out envelopes of money to foreign governments, CEOs maintain mistresses in a style once accorded Mme du Pompadour on money they have “redirected” from their company coffers, and Isabelle Huppert delights in the delicious role of a magistrate assigned to explore some of the more openly notorious deviations of these practices. As she uncovers more and more flagrant breaches of moral and legal conduct and is able to put a number of CEOs in jail, at least temporarily, she develops what can only be described as a power high bringing down the mighty. How far can she go? If she works 24 hours a day, will she be able to trap even more of them? And when will she run up against the immovable object of the ponderous State? Meanwhile, her marriage is faltering under the burden of her workaholic habits and the obvious delight she has in the degradation of her targets. Her husband is not in the least amused, but her nephew (an unemployed gambler who camps out with them played by Chabrol’s son, Thomas Chabrol) is. And so are we! The film is fast-paced, highly entertaining, funny, engrossing, and only in retrospect seriously depressing as we reflect on the picture of a society which is as much American or German as French, even if all the back-room shenanigans remain out of public view most of the time. Chabrol begins his film with the a disclaimer: “No one in the film is meant to portray any living person nor is any particular firm the basis for the film, it is all just fiction” but the case of Elf Acquitaine in France, Jack Abramoff and the corruption of Congressmen in the US, or the behaviour of the “gentlemen” from Volkswagen is all too clear in our minds. But since, as one character says, “Everybody does it” we can just move on and enjoy the film.
(Becky T) Opening July 20, 2006 Jean-Claude (Patrick Chesnais) has the hapless job of throwing debtors out of their homes. This, plus the fact that he is 52 and divorced, makes him a sorry figure with no relief in sight. One day he looks into the window across from his office and sees beautiful people dancing the tango. What does that remind you of? Right: Shall we Dance, or the original Japanese version, Shall we Dansu. As in these films, Jean-Claude makes the leap and begins lessons where he meets Francoise and they shyly begin to date. This is where the similarity ends. Francoise (Anne Clonsigny) is engaged to Thierry, a less than attentive, wannabe author, who finds excuses not to attend tango class although the purpose of the lessons is to make a good figure at the post-wedding party. By opening up to each other, Jean-Claude and Francoise take a hard look at reality. He sees that his grown son is miserable in the business and that his elderly father is quite capable of terrorizing him from his senior-citizen bed. She sees that her mother and sister have undue influence on her life and she is too eager to please to take a stand. With this new awareness, they have the opportunity to take charge of their lives. The ending left hope for a tender romance. (My male colleague disagreed and said, “Be realistic – it will never work.”) I’m hopeless at defining French films, but this one by director Stéphane Brizé is very human and one I can identify with and even comprehend. My colleague compared Chesnais to Bill Murry in Lost in Translation, but the Frenchman is much, much better than Murray.
(Rita PS) Opening July 20, 2006 Director Ayassi’s film is about what happens when you wander into other people’s lives by accident, e.g., by a look at their fabulous entry hall or following the woman of your dreams. Vinzent, the main protagonist, is a shy do-gooder with a limp who’s collecting signatures against animal experiments. He follows a smiling child in a pink pinafore dress into the building because he thinks he saw his girlfriend Rose walk inside the same building. As he searches for Rose she appears showering in a rear window but no one knows the tenant and no one answers the bell. We share Vinzent’s intimate knowledge of the building with his increasingly disconcerting experiences with the neighbors until the inevitable but obvious conclusion. The film has a good premise: is this real or am I imagining this supernatural experience? Am I real or are the neighbors? It’s clear Ayassi has watched a lot of films. His fluency with the conventions of expressionist cinema and film noir is apparent but the film suffers from overkill: strident colors, exaggerated makeup, rain. Too many glistening or steamy surfaces, too many dames with time on their hands, too many vertiginous staircase shots and too many eccentrics for one address. Contrary to noir- not enough flawed heroes with a plan or a chance because we know nothing about Vinzent really. Very good use of manga elements, Berlin dance scene music, great body painting. Better luck next time. (Karen P) Opening July 27, 2006 "Fifteen men on the dead man's chest, Captain Jack is back in full buccaneer form in the film Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, directed by Gore Verbinski. The whimsical Captain Sparrow frivolously bargained for his soul in a pact with legendary Captain Davey Jones (Bill Nighy). The thirteen year pact comes to an end and Captain Jones, along with his ghostly barnacle shipmates, now surfaces from the world beneath-the-sea anxious to collect on the debt. The payment is a long awaited balm to soothe Jones’ suffering broken heart and his shipmates’ tormented spirits. The related proverb, “Scoundrels plot for evil and their speech is like scorching fire,” supports the claim made on Captain Jack’s life. Captain Jack is not comforted by the grueling message nor is he ready to pay up. To avoid his doom of everlasting torment and servitude in the afterlife he has tried to stay away from the sea which would surely take him captive prematurely. The mystic call of the pirate work song (above) assembles the remaining living pirates to help in his distress. His sailing vessel, the Black Pearl, has run aground and is found by Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) who also has a score to settle with Captain Jack for ruining his chance to marry Elisabeth Swann (Kiera Knightley). Jack is a good man and a dying breed among the pirate community. Therefore to preserve his pirate’s life, he seeks the help of the gypsy queen, Tia Dalma (Naomie Harris) for special remedies that require choices of consequence. In his attempt to make amends, the misadventures of Captain Jack Sparrow will amuse the simple, intrigue the curious and expose true love while the Pirates of the Caribbean search for yet another peculiar treasure. While the song of the pirate lingers on, “Yo ho, yo ho a pirate’s life for me, we're rascals, scoundrels, villans, and knaves, drink up, me 'earties, yo ho. we're devils and black sheep, really bad eggs, drink up, me 'earties, yo ho”, Captain Jack Sparrow remains a legend of hilarious goodness.
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Grbavica (Esmas Geheimnis - Grbavica) 
The Lake House (Das Haus am See) 
Over the Hedge (Ab durch die Hecke) 
The Fast and the Furious 3: Tokyo Drift 
Wolf Creek 
A Comedy of Power (Geheime Staatsaffären, L’ivresse du pouvoir)
Not here to be loved (Je ne suis pas la pour etre aime, Man muss mich nicht lieben) 
Vinzent 
Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest (Fluch der Karibik 2) 
Questions?