Les ojos de Julia

One could say that this is the reverse story of 'Les yeux sans visage' ('Eyes Without a Face') by Georges Franju, the qualitative difference being that Franju's film is very thrilling and well realized. This film doesn't reach the same level although there are some good material and ideas.

In this case it all begins with Sara (Belén Rueda), a woman seemingly being chased and tormented by someone, a person we can't see clearly, only guess his or her presence. Sara heads for the basement in order to hang herself but when she senses the presence of this person, she cries out that she is not willing to let the person see her hang, trying to losen the noose from her neck. Before she succeedes in doing so, her chair is kicked away and she is hanged in the presence of this mysterious person.
Her twin sister Julia (Rueda) collapses at work, miles away, feeling that something has happened to Sara.
Julia and her husband Isaac (Lluís Homar) drives to the house, just to find Sara hanged.
The police think it's a suicide, caused by the fact that Sara became depressed after loosing her sight. She had a degenerative eye disease and the same is tormenting Julia.
Julia is however convinced that her sister was murdered. She thinks someone was in the house after finding a disc on the record player with a song Sara hated.
Later by her sisters grave, she suddenly feels a hand on her shoulder thinking it is her husband, as he is/was standing behind her. Looking up she sees her husband ten-fifteen meters from her, talking to a man. She turns around and sees noone.
She talks with Sara's blind neighbour, Soledad (Julia Gutiérrez Caba), visits a center for the blind where she overhears a conversation among some women concerning the fact that her sister had a boyfriend with whom she had spent a weekend in a hotel.
When the blind women sense her presence and she responds, they also ask who came with her. Julia says she was alone but they say that there was a man with her too. All of a sudden Julia sees him like a shadow, starting to run. She follows him but the stress causes her momentarily blindness.
Julia finds a key and the receipt for Sara's stay at the hotel in Sara's house and she persuades Isaac to spend a night at that hotel. When there Julia is mistaken for Sara but the information of her sisters stay, is eradicated in the books.
She also get to know - when confronting Isaac about it - that the surgery her sister went through, failed.
The story continues with her husband being found dead, hanged in the basement where Sara was found, leaving a note behind. In that note Isaac says he has had an affair with Sara and can't live without her, therefore killing himself. He also tells her in the note that a donor has been found, meaning that Julia can go through with a surgery of her eyes, if she wants to.
Being totally shattered but on the same time wanting to return to Sara's house when leaving the hospital, the doctor assigns a daykeeper, Iván (Dani Codina) who will help her and protect her to some extent. Is he reliable?

As written above, the story in itself is not bad but the implementation of it, is not impressive.
First of all, there are to many loose ends and one can ask oneself why people do as they do, that is to say, it's hard to find credible logic in their behaviour.
One of the problems is of course that Julia is taking to many risks and when knowing - or being convinced - that she is dealing with a murderer, not being sure who he or she is, the logcial reaction is of course to be very cautious, not trying to act like Sherlock Holmes on your own, as she does.
This behaviour tend to make the spectator somewhat irritated but also creates a feeling like: "Well, if she delibaretely is willing to take all those risks, I don't feel sorry for her if she is hurt or killed".
I believe that this is one of the major problems with psychological thrillers or horror movies. The personalities in them, enter dark rooms, knowing that there might be a psychopath there and knowing that they might get killed. When this happens again and again in a film, the reaction tends to be that one yawns, thinking: "Oh, no, not now again..." and this diminishes the potential suspense that could have been created through another approach.
We expected more out of this film, not least after the beginning that seemed very promising.

Kådisbellan/ The Slingshot

This is a film where the action is taking place in Stockholm of the 1920's, a rather turbulent era in a way. Partly one talk about 'The Roaring Twenties', even if this was more in the United States, London, Berlin and Paris partly poverty was a great problem in these countries, in those days as much in Sweden as in the above mentioned cities or countries. During these conditions the xenophobia and a growing antisemitism began to resurface among people in Europe, Sweden being no exception.

In this film we meet Roland (Jesper Salén) a boy living with a socialist father Fritiof (Stellan Skarsgård) and a Jewish mother, Zipa (Basia Frydman) having a brother - Bertil (Niklas Olund) - who is a boxer (or trying to be).
Even if the social movements grew stronger during this time, socialism and communism was not always accepted as ideologies among many people. This not least after the October Revolution in Russia, a political movement also having the reverse effect, making those ideas more and more popular among the workers.
Roland's mother is selling condoms illegally, something the state and not least the Church doesn't approve of and his father is fighting for his and his fellow workers rights and this struggle sometimes gets him in trouble.
His brother is bullying him around to some extent, not least as Roland is not interested in boxing and tries to avoid fights.
When Roland gets hold of some condoms, he starts making slingshots of them, selling them to the kids and youngsters in the neighbourhood. This causes him a lot of problems of course, not least when his teachers get to know this. In turn this also causes problems for his mother with the authorities. In all it's a very turbulent situation for Roland and his family.

Roland is a sort of catalyst and mediator of the social environment in which he lives.
Through him we get to see how the society is structured, the hierachical structures and the intolerance on different levels.
Still the Swedish society was very unequal and the rich could oppress the poor in a much harder way than today (at least if we look upon this from a Swedish or European horizon, even though the rich still oppress and humiliate the poor or less rich), creating deadly conflicts and also giving rise to the Social Democratic Party and its long rule in Swedish politics.
On the same time the growing nazism or fascism was displayed not only through how less fortunate people were treated but also how people emanating from other cultures were 'welcomed' by the average Swede.
In this case Roland's family consisted not only of a poor working class (hero) man but also a Jewish woman (selling condoms!!!).
On the same time one can detect Fritiof's ambition to learn and read, something not so uncommon among the poor and politically engaged people at the time. We had a period in Sweden where the learning was important and where people tried to raise themselves from poverty through a high general education, often being autodidact.
The acting is mainly good and the story is interesting from many points of views, not only the macro-societal but also the micro with Roland discovering his sexuality for the first time in his life.

Director: Åke Sandgren.

Café chez Didier Godet et sa famille

Le projectionniste du Cinéma Lux à La Châtre, nous a invité à boire un café avec lui et sa famille et en même temps parler un peu autour du cinéma.
Oh la la!! Comme le gourmand que je suis, vous voyez ici que je n'ai pas été déçu!

The Animal Kingdom

Leslie Howard stars in this film as Tom Collier and I (Gunnar) remember him from my childhood or adolescence from different roles, not least 'The Scarlet Pimpernel', 'Pygmalion' and 'Pimpernel Smith' but also from many other films.

In this film he is a rather selfish and egocentric man who has a relationship with Daisy (Ann Harding). Everyone finds them being the 'perfect couple' but the day he decides to marry, he marries another woman, Cecilia (Myrna Loy).
He is soon bored with his life, not least his 'social duties' being connected to the fact that he is a best selling author. The problem is however that he writes books people want to read but not the books he wants to write.
In his home he has an old friend working as a butler, the friend having had problems with alcohol, or rather still having problems with alcohol. He is also a very rough and rude character, not pleasing neither Tom's wife nor the guests. Cecilia wants him fired.
At this point Tom is longing for Daisy again as he realizes that she was the woman for him but Daisy reacts in a quite different way from what he had expected. She leaves in order to protect both him and Cecilia and this causes some problems.

The story in itself is rather dull and not very imaginative but what saves the film is of course the acting and not least from Leslie Howard's side. He incarnates the intolerable individual very well and this is perhaps the ingredient making the film tolerable.

Les neiges du Kilimandjaro

We don't get to see much of the snow of Kilimandjaro but it plays a certain role in the film anyway.
This is not the film 'The Snows of Kilimanjaro' from 1952 with Gregory Peck, Susan Hayward and Ava Gardner but the one from 2011 directed by Robert Guédiguian.
It's inspired by a poem by Victor Hugo; 'Les pauvres gens' ('The Poor People'. Did he depict anything else but the poor and 'Miserables'?).

In the principal role as Michel we see Jean-Pierre Darrousin, as a man working in a factory and also being a fervent representative for the trade union. His married to Marie-Claire (Ariane Ascaride, in real life Guédiguian's wife) since 30 years.
Michel and 20 other workers loses their jobs when hard times hit the company and he is responsible for a sort of lottery system, where one randomly draw those who must leave the company.

After leaving his job, his colleagues organize a party to celebrate his and his wife's 30 years as a married couple and it's during this party Kilimandjaro becomes the topic. They have raised money and bought a ticket to Mount Kilimandjaro in Tanzania for the couple. They also sing a song by Pascal Danel called "Les Neiges du Kilimandjaro", thus the title of the film.
Up til this point, everything is fine but during an evening with their best friends Raoul (Gérard Meylan) and Denise (Marilyne Canto), playing bridge, some men burst into their apartment and brutally rob them of their money.
This traumatize not least Denise, who becomes psychologically unstable and insecure.
Some time after this, Michel discovers two children reading a rare comic book, also being stolen at the same time and by following them, he discovers that it leads him to their older brother, Christophe (Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet), one of the workers being discharged the same day as Michel.
Now the film take another turn, as Michel is having feelings of guilt after having reported Christophe to the authorities, leading to his arrest and imprisonment. Raoul doesn't share his feelings, on the contrary, he thinks that Christophe has been mildly treatened. This is very understandable as the robbery made his wife become terrified, traumatized for life perhaps.
What bothers Michel's wife Marie-Claire, is the children, the two younger brothers of Christophe. Without knowing it, they both start to arrange for them.

Robert Guédiguian's film takes on questions about guilt and responsibility, of moral on different levels.
When the workers where dismissed this was done by drawing lots and even though Michel saw to that he himself became one of those having to leave the factory, the process in itself might have created a lot of anger and disappointment with those being 'selected'.
On the other hand, the primary anger was directed towards the responsible managers at the company but as so often with people prefering the collective, they didn't dare to rage against those being outermost responsible, instead they hit against people being almost in the same situation as them. So common among cowardly people.
Christophe later in the film argues with Michel (when the latter visits him in prison) meaning that Michel is leaving a bourgeois life, the former leftist and unionist. This is more or less true as Michel - as most people being a part of what I (Gunnar) call the 'chic leftists' - is living a rather good life, though not being rich.
On the other hand, this doesn't justify Christophe's actions, as he doesn't strike against the 'power' but the lower parts of the hierarchy in the enterprise. This not least as he and his friends are using an exaggerated amount of violence, depriving Michel and his wife of the little money they have.
This is of course what the politicians and decision makers, including the heads of different enterprises want: Let the 'populace' fight each other, that way we are left alone. This approach doesn't change the conditions in society on a profound level but this is of course what our politicians want.
The acting is however excellent and the story is engaging in many ways. Than, we all side with either Michel and Marie-Claire or Raoul and Denise, tend to understand - or not - the way Christophe acts but perhaps all of us, pity the children whose mother (Karole Rocher) is an irresponsible person with not empathy for her children.
Perhaps are we able to see each and every side of this story, thus being able to understand every character to a certain extent?









(Photo poster copied from: http://www.avoir-alire.com/IMG/jpg/les_neiges_du_kilimandjaro_grande-2263d.jpg)
(Photo Jean-Pierre Darrousin et Ariane Ascaride copied from: http://www.cinemovies.fr/images/data/photos/21238/les-neiges-du-kilimandjaro-2011-21238-1278497139.jpg)
(Photo Jean-Pierre Darrousin with a gun to his head copied from: http://www.le75011.fr/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/jean_pierre_darroussin_les_neiges_du_kilimandjaro.jpg)