These are the releases that hit movie screens this November 1:
By Jordi Batlle Caminal
The biographical genre can be exciting when someone goes crazy and subverts, sabotaging all its foundations, like Ken Russell (anyone remember the wild “Lisztomania”?), but generally it is a tame kitten that meows political correctness and purrs hagiography. In their approach to the sentimental and professional life of the unforgettable Eugenio, David Trueba and his co-writer Albert Espinosa move in the sphere of orthodoxy. But, yes, it is a brilliant orthodoxy, because Know that is based on three incontestable achievements. One is Trueba's direction, no longer solid and elegant, but with excellent mastery of narrative progression and temporal ellipses. It is a cinema with a popular vocation, not in vain does it revolve around a very popular figure. And it is this game with popularity that allows celebrities such as Pedro Ruíz, Miriam Díaz-Aroca, Mònica Randall (playing themselves when they were young) or Paco Plaza to appear as Chicho Ibáñez Serrador (homemade version of David Lynch doing by John Ford).
Another success is the evocation of the era, the sixties and seventies: streets, cars, trains, bars, daily habits... everything exudes authenticity, as if it had been filmed in those days where gas stations dispensed, in addition to fuel, pachangueros musical hits... and Eugenio cassettes. The third triumph of Saben esall (in fact, the first) is the extraordinary work of David Verdaguer, a perfect Eugenio who at no time falls into vulgar imitation or parody, and Carolina Yuste, immeasurable in the role of Conchita, the love of their life. Aware of having two interpretive sweets in his hands, Trueba gives them eloquent close-ups, some truly moving and one memorable: that of Verdaguer driving at night, flooded with tears and listening to Nino Bravo; That shot would have been the ideal one to close the film, too bad.
You know that one ends in 1980 and leaves us without the future Eugenio, the darkest: dissolute life, depression, drugs, etc. What is missing from Trueba's work is in the revealing documentary made by Jordi Rovira and Xavier Baig five years ago, whose title bears the comedian's name. It would be interesting to see both in a double program.
Por Philipp Engel
She went to live abroad, because she was ambitious and had her entire career planned in advance. He was stuck in her country, not standing out in anything. For years, they had no news of each other. But social networks arrived... This could be the synopsis of a love story that admirably combines the universal, challenging us all, with the personal career of Celine Song, who left her native Korea with her parents when she was a child, precociously pursuing the dream of becoming a playwright in North America. A dream that she achieved, in addition to marrying fellow playwright Justin Kuritzkes. As Nora's mother (Greta Lee), Celine in fiction, says, “when you change your life, you lose some things, but you gain others.” I quote from memory, but it's all there. Or almost, because the film talks less about the decisions we make than about the destiny to which we submit, despite our feelings: it is a monument to renunciation, to the honest impossibility of being able to lead several lives in one.
Past Lives opens with a prologue, which plays with the cliché of the triangle, although it is nothing like a sexual comedy. Furthermore, either because it speaks of a platonic relationship that begins in childhood, or because it is left out of the field, sex is excluded from the equation, as if it could not be a lasting link capable of crossing past and future lives: it will be a sign of the times, as virtual as they are in need of spirituality. As if it were a condensation of Linklater's trilogy, the film is built in three acts, separated by long years, which do not seem theatrical because Song, supported by the exquisite director of photography Shabier Kirchner (he of Lovers Rock, by Steve McQueen), never forgets that this is cinema, providing a film, between Manhattan and In the Mood for Love, capable of piercing our souls with a farewell in which Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye plays forever.
By Salvador Llopart
The New Zealand landscape, in its grandeur, is one of the protagonists of this dramatic pulse between a grandmother, a veteran photographer of all wars, and her self-destructive grandson. Between them a journey of knowledge is established in both directions. The grandmother is Charlotte Rampling, need I say more? Just to see her - angry, nostalgic and rebellious - is worth this trip with predictable emotional stops, perhaps, although no less successful for that reason.
By J. Batlle
A love letter from Mendonça Filho to his hometown, Recife (already explored in Sounds of the Neighborhood, of which images are evoked, and in Doña Clara), and especially to the movie theaters that forged his sentimental education and progressively became disappearing Any elderly film buff will feel recognized and in his head will change those majestic Brazilian temples for his own (the Windsor, the Urgel, the Novedades...). An emotional testimonial film full of sadness and nostalgia.
With astonishing regularity a French comedy appears that reminds us that our admired neighbors are capable of making them as deplorable as the worst American, or Spanish, ones. And with similar success: 4.2 million French people, in this case, surpassing the mark of Alibi.com, a deception agency (2016), of which this is the sequel. Barely a dozen gags work in a chain of jokes, between rancid, demented and eschatological, which is supposed to give no respite. The rest cause embarrassment to others.
Por Ph. Obstacle
Another that exploits the atavistic panic of child abduction, in that mixture of rarefied, distressing and uncomfortable atmospheres. Although the adaptation of the famous video game is an interesting piece of Stephen King-style horror, which looks as attractive as the best Blumhouse productions. And Josh Hutcherson is very convincing as the traumatized young man, who tries to explore the memory of his brother's disappearance in his dreams, while dealing with the diabolical animatronic dolls of an abandoned pizzeria.
By S. Llopart
Fernando wants to die. He is sick, the end is approaching and he does not want to be a burden on his family. From his bed, lucidly but barely mobile, this lucid Uruguayan speaks with Enric, his doctor and also his friend. Enric, from Spain, exercises conscience and asks for serenity. Think carefully about what you are going to do. A reflection, in documentary form, on euthanasia, its scope and its consequences. Marked by the monotony of the format itself: video conversations between both parties involved. With glimpses, few, of poetic cinema.
Por Ph. Obstacle
With astonishing regularity a French comedy appears that reminds us that our admired neighbors are capable of making them as deplorable as the worst American, or Spanish, ones. And with similar success: 4.2 million French people, in this case, surpassing the mark of Alibi.com, a deception agency (2016), of which this is the sequel. Barely a dozen gags work in a chain of jokes, between rancid, demented and eschatological, which is supposed to give no respite. The rest cause embarrassment to others.
