We started this day with the film Videocracy by the Swedish director Erik Gandini (of Italian descent).
This œuvre depicts Italy and its dubious prime minister Silvio Berlusconi (born the same day as I, Gunnar) and all his 'small popes'/petty kings running the country from their different posts in society not least radio- and tv-statons.
The picture one get from this film is that Italy and its population is manipulated using different kinds of imbecile tv-shows with half naked women and men and quiz shows of more or less humiliating character (nothing unique for Italy however), leading people away from important issues and the real problems in society.
The film became very controversial in Italy and I can't remember if it was stopped from being distributed and shown in Italy or if it only was the ambiton of Berlusconi that it should be stopped.
We had though expected something more critical and more controversial than this.
Imbecile tv-shows and the like is something universal - unfortunately - and serves in Italy as well as in Sweden or any other country in the world, to create non-enlightened and passive citizens paving the way for the same kind of politicians.
Quite an interesting documentary but not as provocative or controversial as we had thought.
The picture one get from this film is that Italy and its population is manipulated using different kinds of imbecile tv-shows with half naked women and men and quiz shows of more or less humiliating character (nothing unique for Italy however), leading people away from important issues and the real problems in society.
The film became very controversial in Italy and I can't remember if it was stopped from being distributed and shown in Italy or if it only was the ambiton of Berlusconi that it should be stopped.
We had though expected something more critical and more controversial than this.
Imbecile tv-shows and the like is something universal - unfortunately - and serves in Italy as well as in Sweden or any other country in the world, to create non-enlightened and passive citizens paving the way for the same kind of politicians.
Quite an interesting documentary but not as provocative or controversial as we had thought.
Pusher 3 (- je suis l'ange de la mort/Pusher 3 – I'm the Angel of Death) is the third (of course) and last film in the trilogy with the same name, directed by Nicolas Winding Refn (born the same day as I, Gunnar but ten years younger).
As I have written before we both like the aesthetics in Refns films and we found the third film being the best, the second the weakest link.
These films depicts the criminal world in Denmark, Copenhagen, among not least drug dealers from different parts of the world. Death and violence is an integral part of these films.
As I (Gunnar) have been working among people with drug problems and criminals, I can say that these films actually show the reality, just as tough as it can be. This said as some people seem to have thought that Winding Refn exaggerated the life of criminal individuals.
As I have written before we both like the aesthetics in Refns films and we found the third film being the best, the second the weakest link.
These films depicts the criminal world in Denmark, Copenhagen, among not least drug dealers from different parts of the world. Death and violence is an integral part of these films.
As I (Gunnar) have been working among people with drug problems and criminals, I can say that these films actually show the reality, just as tough as it can be. This said as some people seem to have thought that Winding Refn exaggerated the life of criminal individuals.
Eternel Regret (a French translation but the original title is Jernanger/the English; The Storm in My Heart), by Pål Jackman (no his not related to Hugh Jackman as far as I know!) is a film about a man with great problems with alcohol who owns and lives on a boat called Jernanger.
By and by we get to understand that when he was younger, he had a great love in another pat of the country, a woman to whom he gave the promise to return.
His ambiton was to return with this boat and to live with her and maybe sail away but things came in the way - that is to say alcohol and bitterness.
A young, homeless man, stay on the boat one night, gets discovered and saving the elderly man when he is afflicted with a heart attack.
The young man do also have a loved one but instead of taking care of her (as they plan to get engaged or married), he starts helping the elderly man, restoring the boat, in order to - at last - make his trip to his loved one, in the northern parts of the country.
This project is filled with great many problems and how it ends I'm not going to tell.
A quite charming film with one of Aurore's favourite actors Bjørn Sundquist!
By and by we get to understand that when he was younger, he had a great love in another pat of the country, a woman to whom he gave the promise to return.
His ambiton was to return with this boat and to live with her and maybe sail away but things came in the way - that is to say alcohol and bitterness.
A young, homeless man, stay on the boat one night, gets discovered and saving the elderly man when he is afflicted with a heart attack.
The young man do also have a loved one but instead of taking care of her (as they plan to get engaged or married), he starts helping the elderly man, restoring the boat, in order to - at last - make his trip to his loved one, in the northern parts of the country.
This project is filled with great many problems and how it ends I'm not going to tell.
A quite charming film with one of Aurore's favourite actors Bjørn Sundquist!
La Reine et moi (Drottningen och jag/ The Queen and I), by the Swedish-Iranian director Nahid Persson Sarvestani show us why and how Persson Sarvestani made a documentary about the former empress Farah Pahlavi.
The making of this documentary creates a lot of emotional turmoil within both these women, as Nahid Persson Sarvestani, as a young woman living in Iran, was a decisive enemy to the shah and his wife, fighting for the return of ayatollah Khomeini.
Later one - when the promises from the ayatollah about freedom of speech and the same democratic rights as in democratic countries all the world, was betrayed - Persson Sarvestani turned against the ayatollah.
The documentary is very interesting, revealing sentiments and historic background information around the two women, information that also reveals the history of Iran before and after the shah.
Persson Sarvestani has made two other documentaries about a muslim man living with four wives ('Fyra fruar och en man'/'Four Wives - One Man') and another one about prostitution in Iran ('Prostitution bakom slöjan'/'Prostitution: Behind the Veil'), sanctioned by the priesthood, in order to make it possible for muslim men to go to prostitutes without breaking the Sharia laws! How is this done? It's done as follows:
The imams married the muslim men with the prostituted women during their 'encounter' and when it was all over, he divorced them!
This last film created a lot of turmoil among the leadership in Iran and Nahid Persson Sarvestani was forbidden to visit the country and she also received death threats.
I find her documentaries very interesting and they tell us a lot about the life in Iran and other cultural contexts, for better and for worse.
The making of this documentary creates a lot of emotional turmoil within both these women, as Nahid Persson Sarvestani, as a young woman living in Iran, was a decisive enemy to the shah and his wife, fighting for the return of ayatollah Khomeini.
Later one - when the promises from the ayatollah about freedom of speech and the same democratic rights as in democratic countries all the world, was betrayed - Persson Sarvestani turned against the ayatollah.
The documentary is very interesting, revealing sentiments and historic background information around the two women, information that also reveals the history of Iran before and after the shah.
Persson Sarvestani has made two other documentaries about a muslim man living with four wives ('Fyra fruar och en man'/'Four Wives - One Man') and another one about prostitution in Iran ('Prostitution bakom slöjan'/'Prostitution: Behind the Veil'), sanctioned by the priesthood, in order to make it possible for muslim men to go to prostitutes without breaking the Sharia laws! How is this done? It's done as follows:
The imams married the muslim men with the prostituted women during their 'encounter' and when it was all over, he divorced them!
This last film created a lot of turmoil among the leadership in Iran and Nahid Persson Sarvestani was forbidden to visit the country and she also received death threats.
I find her documentaries very interesting and they tell us a lot about the life in Iran and other cultural contexts, for better and for worse.
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