These are the releases that hit movie screens this February 9:
By Jordi Batlle Caminal
Ferrari is not a biopic as we understand the genre, since the film focuses on the supposedly biographed subject only on a brief period of his life, a few months in 1957. They were difficult days for the deified businessman Enzo Ferrari, both professionally and as in the family. On the one hand, there was the pain over the recent death of his son Dino, whose grave he visited every day. On the other hand, his unstable, chaotic love life, divided between his wife Laura (long-term marriage; they married in 1923 and now their relationship was, domestically, an exalted battle, very “all'italiana”: Mastroianni and Loren with full scale scalextric in the background) and his lover Lina, who had given him another son. On a professional level, an area no less agitated and with serious economic difficulties, the most serious was the accident that, on the route of the traditional Mille Miglia, claimed fifteen lives, among them that of the Ferrari driver Alfonso de Portago, and for who was charged with unpremeditated murder.
According to the papers, Michael Mann had been preparing this project for no less than thirty years. In fact, the script is by Troy Kennedy Martin, who died in 2009 (and screenwriter of another car movie, A Job in Italy, the original from 1969). Obviously, the figure of a titan like Ferrari is good material for a cinematographic story, but neither Mann nor Kennedy Martin intended to draw his epic profile, much less sow hagiography, on the contrary: the character is insecure, sullen, unfriendly, and Adam Driver ( Is there a more appropriate surname for the occasion?), who has already dressed as an illustrious and elegant Italian, embodying Gucci under the leadership of Ridley Scott, extracts from his catalog of records the serious, sour face of Kylo Ren from the galactic saga and does not the affable and melancholic Jarmuschian Paterson.
Despite the long gestation period, the restrained painting of the protagonist and the hard work of Driver, Ferrari is a disappointing film, lacking dramatic force, depth, and incapable of injecting emotion even in the scenes of racing cars at full speed. The product has a solid bill, yes, but Mann, the excellent stylist who goes from Thief and Manhunter to Collateral and Public Enemies, shines in Ferrari due to his absence.
By Salvador Llopart
Morbidity is the risk that a documentary about illness and disease like this one assumes, focused on the actress Carme Elias and the Alzheimer's she suffers from. Staying stark at an affectation that, in the long run, and as long as science does not remedy it, condemns those who suffer from it, like Elias, to forgetting themselves. But that is not the case, far from it. To begin with, it is the chronicle of a friendship; the friendship of Claudia Pinto, the director, with Elias, and from friendship it becomes a true tribute. The film does not exploit low feelings or invade privacy. It has the courage, with the complicity of the protagonist, to approach the disease head-on, and thus finds the right distance - a documentary like this is always a question of distances - to combine emotion with respect.
Pinto has been with Elías from the beginning; since, on a shoot, precisely under her orders, the actress could not ignore the symptoms. Then the diagnosis would come and, with the diagnosis, the shared will to both undertake this journey. The film is full of exciting moments. The actress getting rid of the memories of her, getting rid of them. She visits the doctor, along with her family, with the cruelty of the future ahead of her. And the moment when, with surprising fortitude, Elias is able to offer support to others who, like herself, are close to the disease. He takes the documentary to a point of dramatic progression that makes it go further and further. But that does not make him get carried away by sentimentality, the greatest danger that threatens him.
Elias herself has had a lot to do with that, as she faces the role of her life, literally. A vulnerable woman, at times scared, but at the same time strong and determined like the heroine of a Greek tragedy. The curtain threatens to fall; darkness is covering everything. But the show is not over: Carme Elias is still here, with us. To offer comfort, with her testimony, to those who, like her, are suffering.
Por Philipp Engel
If the Arab Spring triumphed in Tunisia, many jihadists also emerged from there, like the two eldest daughters of the protagonist of this Oscar-winning documentary, who had previously been Gothic. The other two are still at home, and with the help of three actresses – a spare mother for the “hardest scenes” – they reconstruct the story through a bold meta-cinematic device where artifice is part of the game. Although praiseworthy and moving, it leaves the feeling that it could have been rounder.
By S. Llopart
We would talk about an initiation story if something started, but we sense from the very beginning that something has happened in the protagonist's childhood that has devastated her. At the beginning, then. nothing. Story in past and present. With sublime interpretations and surprises at every turn. Until a logical and unexpected ending at the same time, conducted with a firm hand by the director, who traces a disturbing story with a pencil. The camera, more than moving, buzzes and vibrates, shaking us like the story itself.
By S. Llopart
Musical version of this classic of African-American literature that Spielberg already adapted in the eighties. Now the same story of abuse and barbarism returns, and also of hope. Where the drama is more (melo)drama; the more vibrant colors, and the songs and dances may make you clap, or something else, as viewers of the Broadway version on which it is based surely did. Everything is more energetic and invigorating. And simpler and without subtleties too. From Oscar. At the time.
Por P. Engel
Another teenage coming-of-age film with autobiographical overtones by a debut filmmaker? That's how it is. A notable Maite Aguilar lives her suburban boredom in a Buenos Aires neighborhood, where her father teaches her to drive, while the family is going through problems that are partly economic, but above all linked to the mental fragility of the eldest, who has been hospitalized. . Prints, t-shirts, pool and amusement park, first kisses and jobs. She is reminiscent of Coppola or Hansen-Løve, but she has her own particular charm.
Por P. Engel
To no one's surprise, the idea of building a horror movie around a cursed pool came from a short film. The challenge was to keep it soaking for an hour and a half, displaying irregular ingenuity. To the classic premise of a family moving to a new suburban house, are added textbook scares that Hideo Nakata already put to rest 20 years ago with Dark Water, and even a sports-medical baseball drama. Humor, which seems repressed at all times, would have been his lifeline.
