These are the releases that hit movie screens this October 27:
By Jordi Batlle Caminal
It is evident that, for any film lover, the premiere of a new feature film by Hayao Miyazaki is a memorable date, a first-class event, and even more so if there is a distance of ten years from the previous feature film. Miyazaki's cinema does not end (nor begin) in the “anime”: it is “tout court” cinema, and of the great kind. Its overflowing imaginary world and the visual conception of it have few equivalents in contemporary cinema. Let's say that, in the apparent siding of Terry Gilliam, perhaps only two “magnificent Ambersons”, one of them with a double that, could share the throne with the Japanese: the American Wes Anderson and the Swede Roy Andersson.
Miyazaki's drawings, of incomparable poetic delicacy, are sublime, honey for the eyes. And in The Boy and the Heron he once again shines that gigantic tapestry of images of sublime beauty that make up his already long filmography, referring without prejudice to the imagery of works such as Howl's Moving Castle or Spirited Away. Initiatory film, its protagonist is a boy who, after the death of his mother, begins a new life with his (almost absent) father in his aunt's country house, where an enigmatic heron will introduce him, in a Lewis-Carrollian way, to a endless parallel universes. It is amazing to see how Miyazaki links, with his transparent lines and rigorous detail, the realistic, or hyperrealistic, register with the most unbridled and dreamlike fantasy, where impossible creatures coexist (the same heron and its metamorphoses or other indescribable birds: giant parakeets, pelicans...) with picturesque humans (the young adventurer in the style of Sinbad) and the most elaborate and bewitching designs reign (a decadent and ruinous tower like Usher's house). The four elements (fire, water, air and earth), already a constant in his films, once again take center stage.
There is so much Miyazaki in The Boy and the Heron that, in its final stretch, one has a certain feeling of saturation or saturation. In this sense, it is fair to recognize that, despite the artistic greatness of the ensemble, there are rather tiring parts, something that did not happen in the very refined The Wind Rises, his previous feature film, made in 2013 and the zenith of his expressive maturity.
By Salvador Llopart
In Alimañas there are many friendly mean people and chicken-flight scoundrels with their little miseries. Small-scale vermin, indeed; scoundrels rather than true villains. The debut of Jordi Sánchez and Pep Antón Gómez, as directors, is the closest thing to a zoo of unfortunate people. Closer to the old tradition, so Spanish, of the rogue than to black comedy.
Jordi Sánchez himself has reserved one of the leading roles for himself, in addition to directing. He is one of two brothers fighting - the other is Carlos Areces - over an inheritance. With a mother who is dead (or not), and some neighbors -Loles León, Carmina Barrios and Pilar Bergés- who do not miss an opportunity to get involved in the mess. Entanglements and shocking situations, where the sister-in-law, that essential character in any family conversation, and this film is still a long family joke, falls on Silvia Abril. An all-terrain comedian, Abril has a Land Rover suspension to navigate comfortably through the rockiest corners of this story of blows, especially for her.
Disastrous characters, in short, that refer to The Day of the Beast, for example, or The Community, both by Álex De la Iglesia. But on a smaller scale, more theatrical, perhaps more seen (on television). An effective, successful comedy, but one that risks little. None of the proper names mentioned -Sánchez, Areces, Loles León, etc.- come out of the roles that they have repeated over and over again. Starting with Sánchez himself, a constant presence on the small screen since those Plats bruts on TV3, along with Joel Joan, who, as an actor, has been molding a character of a hapless rogue, eloquent in his nonsense, in series like Here there is no who lives and the one who is coming. If you know those series, you already know what you will find, more than enough, in these Domesticated Vermin.
Por Philipp Engel
The best thing about this Cinema Paradiso-style nostalgia exercise is the freshness of the Chilean Sara Becker: she is the one who makes a living staging films for her neighbors, employed in a saltpeter mine, who cannot pay the cinema ticket. . But, although this adaptation of Rivera Letelier's novel handles interesting ideas, such as the history of Chile seen from the Atacama Desert, it ends up leaving a musty taste, due to a scattered script and stars reduced to troupes.
By J. Batlle
A senseless but frankly enjoyable cocktail of artisanal police film and science fiction story with multiple echoes: Inception (without Nolan's metaphysical pretensions), Telephone (Siegel), The Fury (De Palma) or Paycheck, John Woo's film for the that an Affleck very similar to the one here was already swarming. Rodriguez takes the helm of this “patchwork” in a more restrained manner than usual but with a sense of what intrigue and action cinema is all about with the aroma of an old B series.
By S. Llopart
There is a lot of denunciation in this film about a woman who, in her old age, explores her desires and flees from her fears, especially religious ones. Kiti Mánver, perhaps in the best role of her career, breathes life into it. She, like the rest of the entire cast, gives everything and more. It's a pity that the meaty issues that drive the story stumble at times against her good intentions and some unfortunate visual solutions, like that churro dipped in chocolate after an obvious sex scene.
Por Ph. Obstacle
Specializing in a hopeful social cinema, between the realism of Laurent Cantet's The Class and the feel-good movie a la Untouchable, the director of The History Teacher embraces the biography of the orchestra director Zahia Ziouri, and her cellist sister, who triumphed in the field of classical music despite being the daughters of Algerian immigrants from the banlieue, leaving a bittersweet feeling: the barriers of social determinism can only be broken down by exceptional talent.
Por Ph. Obstacle
Remake of the Spanish thriller The Unknown, but with the now septuagenarian Liam Neeson instead of Luis Tosar, sitting in a car bomb, forced to follow the telephone instructions of a psychopath, and with his children in the back seat. In addition to the change of location, the ingenious and effective, although not very credible, script by Alberto Marini suffers significant variations, but the action does not let go of the wheel and the charisma of Liam Neeson reminds us that not so long ago he was still delivering firewood.
