These are the releases that hit movie screens this November 17:
Por Philipp Engel
The films of Ken Loach and his faithful screenwriter, Paul Laverty, collaborators since Carla's Song (1996), are like a pint in the pub on the corner. Same flavor, same color, same container. They couldn't have found a better, or more obvious, metaphor than that old dilapidated pub with the R (or K) falling off, and which gives the title to their fourteenth album together.
The establishment, with a charismatic, lonely and noble owner (Dave Turner), who survives as best he can, saw better days when its dusty hall decorated with black and white photos of tough miners, was a hive of weddings, baptisms and union meetings. There are barely a few bitter regulars left who come for their daily beer... until, due to low rents in this semi-abandoned town in the northwest of England, busloads of Syrian refugees begin to arrive.
In one of them, comes a young woman, Yara (Ebla Mari), who speaks perfect English and is a passionate black and white photographer. From there, the entire film is projected on the wide screen of the mind of the minimally seasoned viewer: it can be comforting, like the taste of the pint in the pub on the corner. Although accommodation and comfort are not the first qualities one would expect from the one who, at 87, still presents himself as the leader of cinematic Labor, her venerable age commands a certain respect.
In any case, Loach was never Godard (a filmmaker always at the avant-garde, until the last consequences). But, strictly speaking, even in the case of a pleasant film, with its touches of emotion and with a commendable social function, to the “old oak ” goes a little too far with his utopian idealism. Once again, the pamphleteer Manichaeism that has always characterized him is evident, even more pronounced and less subtle in recent years. Of course, it doesn't fool anyone, nor does it demand too much: Only if we feel like another pint.
By Jordi Battle Caminal
Wild Route is Marc Recha's most disconcerting film because, for the first time and without restrictions or complexes, it openly addresses traditional genre cinema, a work that oscillates between thriller and high mountain western, let's say between Don Siegel and Sam Peckinpah. Nature, open and rural spaces are already a constant in his films, and here he makes great use of Cerdanya. Recha already flirted with the western, tangentially, in the splendid Petit indi, set in the Vallbona neighborhood.
The challenge must be applauded, even if the final result is not up to par with what the filmmaker usually offers us. Here, the bad guys of the show are not outlaws or Apaches, but two fearsome criminals from a rather cartoonish eastern country. They speak correctly, with an accent, Catalan (where did they learn it?) and try to sell some stolen jewelry. They provide intrigue and suspense, but Recha and her co-writer Nadine Lamari focus the story on a soap opera plot, which concerns a woman with wounds and secrets from the past (convincing Montse Germán), her teenage son and a friend of both. (the always effective Sergi López); All three, in addition to the son's girlfriend and the mother's occasional lover, will be involved in the criminals' maneuvers.
In Wild Route there is a notable description of the regional environment: the chalets of the urbanization, the airfield, the golf course where the jewel dealer plays, etc. And an elegant, attractive visual composition: the image of the dejected man, who falls to the ground to die in the foreground, with the impressive mountains in the background, is worthy of Duel in the high mountains. In any case, even if it is unbalanced, Recha's film is interesting, curious, and pleasant to watch. And it is instructive: from now on, when we go on excursions to Bellver, Prullans or Meranges, we will be armed.
By Salvador Llopart
Juan José Millás, as a writer, knows how to highlight the extraordinary of existence starting from the most ordinary. Méndez Esparza, as director, achieves the same in this adaptation of his work. Malena Alterio, as a recycled taxi driver, in a superb performance, tells us about a cornered life, of displaced beings, lies and cruelty. Of desires and silences. I emerge from her adventures as I emerge from the columns of Millás himself: not knowing whether to laugh or cry. Convinced that all I can do is applaud.
Por Philipp Engel
The long-awaited debut of Laura Ferrés, after her short film Los desheredados (2017), has also been filmed in her native El Prat. But she takes off the dress of social realism to put on that of absurd and fragmented comedy, combining surrealist customs with a harsh and melancholic humor, like a cross between the cinema of Roy Andersson and that of Chema García Ibarra. All to tell the meeting of two women (magnificent natural actresses), who fit together like the pieces of a hypnotic and suggestive puzzle.
By Salvador Llopart
George Lucas tried it with Darth Vader and failed. The fall into the abyss is difficult to explain. This new installment of The Hunger Games tries it, and continues President Coriolanus Snow's drift to the dark side, and fails. The film, as a show, has its moments, not exempt from imagination and strength. But the forging of a villain cannot be easily simplified and the adventure ends, like evil, in banality.
By Jordi Battle
The party starts with a brilliant prologue (the bestial, bloody stampede in a supermarket) and then follows the canonical path of the film with psychopath and teenagers in danger (Scream model), putting the emphasis on sadism (Saw model, but more refined or elaborated and filtered by healthy sarcasm). Roth is talented, he masters the subject, he creates tension. A sign of the times, mobile phones appear in every scene, almost in every shot, they are the primary narrative element.
By Salvador Llopart
It is a shame to see how a story of spells and witchcraft that has, on its side, the mist of the north and its dark legends, is unraveling. With curses and haunted places, the hermitage of the title, intertwined with childhood traumas and good interpretations. Like Maia Zaitegi -in her meeting with Belén Rueda-, a girl who embodies loneliness and helplessness. There is a longing for more dramatic twists and hackneyed situations.
