These are the movie premieres that hit the screens starting this February 24.
By Jordi Batlle Caminal
An unexpected little gem among the week's novelties, The Quiet Girl is a film about love and the absence of love. Located in a rural corner of deep Ireland, in the days before the internet revolution, it is spoken in Irish Gaelic, an aspect that gives it a very peculiar idiosyncratic scent. Its protagonist is Cáit, a sweet, observant, sensitive girl, but rather despised or ignored by those around her: her three sisters, her pregnant mother, her miserable and drunk father, her schoolmates... As she seems to get in the way, her parents They send them to spend the summer on the farm of some relatives, a simple and quiet couple. There she is well received by the woman, who pours all her tenderness into Cáit and immediately understands her sadness, but her husband receives her with a certain hostility.
At the moment of her arrival, the aunt tells Cáit that there are no secrets in her house. It is not entirely true: the girl will discover one that justifies the cold and distant behavior of her uncle, a character who grows and enriches himself as the story progresses and whose relationship with Cáit will be of crucial importance (the actor who plays him becomes looks a lot like Elliott Gould). With this highly dramatic material, how easy it would have been to fall into indigestible sentimentality.
There's a lot of feeling in The Quiet Girl, but Colm Bairead doesn't indulge in exalted melodramatic effects. His look at events is as clean as it is austere. The tone, always right: precise framing, shots that breathe serenity, a predilection for a low voice or silence. It is subtle in the details and in registering the simplest gestures, which often define the character of the character: the way of putting out a cigarette on a plate or putting a cookie on the table, etc. In this very natural way, there is no need to demonize the negative characters, who already pay with their attitudes, like the harpy who destroys the girl with wicked questions.
Immensely emotional, The quiet girl is nominated for the Oscar for best foreign film along with Argentina, 1985 (Argentina), All Quiet Front (Germany), EO (Poland) and Close (Belgium). It is without a doubt, in a tough rivalry with Skolimowski's, the best.
By Salvador Llopart
Irati takes place where myth meets history, when ancient paganism must give way to triumphant Christianity. In a diffuse territory where magic and its designs come up against human passions. Sounds grand? Or too subtle? Well no, not at all. If Paul Urkijo's film does not have something, in its epic ambition, it is subtlety. On the other hand, he has plenty of sensitivity to capture the beauty of the landscape, mystery in his images and narrative daring.
This is a tale of sword and sorcery -in other words, fantasy- that draws heavily on Basque folklore, where the mother goddess Mari reigns alongside the lamias of the lake and the monstrous Basajaun, whom one already knew from the trilogy of Baztan, by Dolores Redondo.
Irati is as suggestive as the same mists that surround the great forests at the foot of the Pyrenees, and as forceful as a dry and unexpected ax blow can be. With the appeal of a wild and unpolished tale. All in all, one is left with the aforementioned epic ambition and the commitment to magical environmentalism, we could say, where nature ends up imposing its law. Everything starts in the forest and everything ends there.
The historical moment is marked by the invasion of the Hispanic March by Charlemagne, in the High Middle Ages. When neither Euskadi nor Spain nor France still exist. With the Saracens allied with the Christians, against the invaders from the other side of the Pyrenees. It starts with the battle of Roncesvalles, passed through spells and witches, and becomes a tribal fight for the succession of power. With eighties spells and, therefore, nostalgic: more Excalibur (1981) than The Lord of the Rings, to understand each other. Irati has a point of savagery and coarseness, with abrupt dialogues and without depth; It's not Macbeth no, but the lack of finesse is replaced with the energy of making it. Adventure film, magic and love. To the Basque
Por Philipp Engel
It was not until last year that the federal law against lynching, which bears the name of the victim in this story, was passed. The actress Danielle Dead-wyler embroiders the courageous mother who chose to show the world the horribly disfigured face of her teenage son, tortured, murdered and thrown into the river just for whistling at the girl from the candy store in a Mississippi town.
The African-American director carries out an exciting exercise in well-understood classicism and an elegant historical reconstruction.
By Salvador Llopart
It is not the most original story nor is it the most advanced drawing of the moment. But Mummies is full of charm, her best resource. As entertaining and unpretentious as she can be, dancing to the Bangles' Walk like an Egyptian; by the way, the flagship song of this animated film for everyone (children).
With catchy songs and predictable characters that are nevertheless sympathetically enjoyed. The charm, I say.
Por Philipp Engel
The debut feature of the Portuguese film maestro to whom the Palau de la Virreina pays tribute with unpublished material arrives with an exquisite premiere.
In black and white, restored for the occasion, imbued with classics such as Nicholas Ray or Kenji Mizoguchi, and with some shocking musical surprises, it is the fascinating and elusive story of two brothers left without a father, at the mercy of their creditors. A little gem that is a big fan of the future chronicler of Fontainhas and of slow cinema in general.
By Salvador Llopart
It is terrible to wonder why? What sense does this family drama of hatred between brothers have beyond hatred? Two great performances for nothing. On the one hand, Cotillard, more contained and precise than usual; and in front of her, Pouaud, excessive, histrionic.
A melodrama of unleashed passions where everyone is a companion of the brotherly clash. Big gestures and crucial scenes tangled in themselves, claustrophobic. In the end one is left with the feeling of emotional scam.
Por Philipp Engel
In his head, comedian Franck Dubosc appears here as a cross between Clint Eastwood and Alain Delon: an old-school tough guy, nostalgic for an America he never set foot on, determined to win back his daughter, abandoned two decades ago, with a few dance steps.
This feel-good movie works halfway, with isolated laughs and moments of parent-child emotion. Of course, it ends with Historia de un amor, and that is already a star.
