These are the releases that hit movie screens this November 24:
By Salvador Llopart
It is difficult to talk about comedy in an approach to Napoleon's life as monumental as the one Ridley Scott has made. It is easy, however, to fall into the temptation of reducing the character of the emperor to a malicious satire of an Englishman, like Scott himself, on a capital figure of French history like Bonaparte, more French than Asterix (although he was born in Corsica). .
From the outset, Joaquin Phoenix's incarnation of the emperor helps this Napoleon of a practical joke a lot. The histrionic actor draws a static character, in his autism, who barely changes with the historical development. He bored even at the execution of Marie Antoinette by guillotine in the French Revolution. Drunk with power, his charisma is barely visible on the battlefield. A Napoleon more typical, at times, of the parodies of Muchachada Nui in his good times than of the annals of history.
Even in his relationship with Josephine (Vanessa Kirby) - central to the film - Napoleon is pathetic. She, by contrast, is a strong woman, aware of her power over the emperor. Napoleon owns the world and Josephine owns him Largely thanks to the sexual games between the two, which at times awaken the emperor from his usual apathy, if only to lift the empress's skirts.
But there are the historical events that the film captures in a way that is more faithful to the myth than to the story itself (as Domingo Marchena recounted in these pages last Saturday). Scott recreates - or invents - in a spectacular way, with visual emotion typical of his cinematographic genius, many of the epic moments that marked the character's career: the failed invasion of Russia, in its absurd greatness; Austerlitz, his zenith as a soldier, and Waterloo, his epitaph. Battles that move from the first cannon shot.
And so, the epic ends up masking the hints of parody until it becomes blurred. That's why Napoleon is not a joke, far from it. But the satire is there, hidden, in its desire to ridicule the thirst for power of a (poor) man in crisis. A satire with epic grandeur and the saddest. Let us not forget, for example, that a work like Don Quixote is also a satire.
By Jordi Batlle Caminal
Andrea is a bright and intelligent teenager, who lives with her very busy mother and two younger brothers. Her life consists of taking the little ones to school, going to school (when she's not playing hooky), picking up the kids after school and, after a short walk in the park, returning home, making dinner and putting them to bed. Her main obsession, however, is getting to know her father who supposedly abandoned them, a task in which she will not give up despite her mother's persistent refusal.
This succinct description of Andrea's Love may dissuade due to its lack of originality and the fear of another common sentimentalist billet sprayed with tear gas. Fortunately, the shots are not going that way. Martín Cuenca's cinema is allergic to sentimentality, it tends to be cold as a stalactite. In Andrea's Love, a film bathed in the sunny, sedative Cádiz luminosity (excellent photography by Eva Díaz Iglesias) and punctuated by the delicate musical notes of Vetusta Morla, Martín Cuenca does not leave Andrea for a moment, he studies her and scrutinizes her with crystalline calligraphy in each of their daily activities, in their gestures, in their extremely communicative looks. We empathize with her from the first minute, thanks in large part to the performance of newcomer Lupe Mateo Barredo, a prodigy of naturalness.
It is clear that beneath the director's characteristic expository coldness lies an enormous reservoir of sensitivity: Martín Cuenca, deep down, is an ascetic of tenderness. The last minutes of the film, wonderful, focus on the eloquence of silences, those very human moments in which, between loved ones, the words refuse to come out because there is an abyss that separates them and, when they finally come out, they are as trivial as “eat the potatoes.” That ending in the restaurant and the beach, which is followed by an epilogue also on the beach, is one of the most beautiful we have seen in recent months.
Por Philipp Engel
Disney's magnificent self-tribute for its centenary: traditional animation, both in form and in its approach with a magical kingdom, fast-paced adventure and carousel of situations that refer to the classics claimed in the final credits. Ideal for a family combo, she is also a daughter of her time: an independent heroine with tan skin, without romantic motivations, faced with a narcissistic tyrant who has kidnapped the illusions of her people with the promise that, one day, those desires will be individually realized. .
By S. Llopart
A fable that, despite the background of misery, brightens the spirit. The girl Georgie (Lola Campbell) exudes strength and character. She goes so far as to make us believe that she can survive alone after the death of her mother. She is the mature one in her relationship with her parent, who appears when she has already learned to live according to her. And from the air. Elegant, sober fable that brings us closer to the magical tone of Paper Moon (1973), to point out a classic of a self-sufficient girl, disguised in a dirty realism more typical of Ken Loach.
Por P. Engel
There are countries in which cinema has not lost its ability to denounce and open debates in society, as is evident in this production by Michel Franco, who already attacked the all-powerful Mexican army with the dystopian New Order. Based on real testimonies, with the same desire to disturb and violate the viewer, his collaborator David Zonana puts us in the shoes of a cadet who enters a military school where he witnesses the wildest hazing and ultra-violent criminal activities. worthy of the drug dealer
By S. Llopart
The life of -Saint- Teresa, called into question by an implacable representative of the Inquisition. We are faced with a fascinating visual experience, unleashed and free, which starts from baroque chiaroscuro to reach the visions of Hieronymus Bosch. It is based on the work The Language in Pieces, by Juan Mayorga. Portillo gives everything in this "journey" through the mystical outbursts of the Saint, where the word reaches the limit of its capacity for expression. There are things that can't be talked about. Ortiz, the director, at least tries to show it.
Por P. Engel
In the era of the precariat, being homeless is no longer an exception. This is what one of the tenants of a shelter apartment says in this implacable work by Octavio Guerra, known for the pseudo-documentary In Search of an Oscar, about a critic who values films by the poster (something we would never do here) . In this case, there is no longer any room for irony or meta-linguistic games. I Had a Life is the fruit of the eight-year follow-up of Jesús Mira, who struggles to reintegrate outside of social assistance. The last shot is devastating.
