Edinburgh Intrnational Film Festival

Bigga than Ben:
A Russians’ Guide to Ripping Off London

Director: S A Halewood
4.5 trees of 5

This movie is about two hoodlums and their hair brain scam to get rich and then return to the motherland. Our two protagonists are met with many harsh realities of the modern world. Where you need papers to get anything or anywhere. Spiker (Andrei Chadov) and Cobakka (Ben Barnes) make a decision between legal work and the not so legal work; this is where our protagonists begin to go their separate ways. When Spiker becomes involved in drugs, thing end up going south for him. Only one of our protagonists make it in the big city I will let you go and find out whom.

The use of 16mm film really helps bring out the grittiness of the black humor that is used in the film. Based on the book Bol’she Ben, the top selling diaries of Pavel Tetersky & Sergei Sakin, this film sometimes seams like a documentary. The different camera styles and music thoughout the film really brings out the mood in each scene. This is one of my top five movies from the film festival and I would suggest it to anyone looking to see how life is for a foreigner in a strange place.

Cadaver
Director: Derek Son
DP:Sung Seung-tak

Five youthful medical students start their course in human autonomy and autopsy. Their reactions to the first cadaver that they will be dissecting are distinctive for every person, and tell you a little about what there role in the film will be. When a paranormal aspect enters the plot things get eerie. The movie ends with half the cast dead and the rest not mentally stable. I would highly suggest this movie to anyone who likes horror films and doesn’t mind subtitles.

This South Korean film does justice to the horror genre. The talent in this film does and excellent job showing the horror that is entailed in this plot. This classic Hollywood horror narrative raps up to hastily in the last ten minutes, which is one of the weak points in the film. But overall it is a good film.

Café De Los Maestros
Director: Miguel Kohan

Rating: 1of 5
A dying generation of tango musicians has their last big performance in this out of the ordinary documentary. The region is Buenos Aires and the set is a recording studio for the most part. This ragtag group of men and women tear up the stage in this stunning performance. It is the culmination of decades of knowledge and skill and the music tells the story.

It is very apparent that they use nine different DP’s in this movie because there is no apparent style in the camera work. They really dragged out scenes that made no sense. The male dancers were old and I was not impressed with their skill. In the end I like the music, but the film was horrible.

Married Life
Director: Ira Sachs

Rating: Two of five trees

Is it better to hurt the ones you love or put them out of their misery? When the movie suggest this vary notion, it’s downhill from there. This recreation of John Bingham’s crime novel does accurately portray the late 1940’s however, anything more than that is a stretch. The only reason that I even gave the Married Life two trees is for my fondness of Pierce Brosnan who plays Richard, a womanizer with no need for morals and camaraderie. The film comes to a boiling point when Harry (Chris Cooper) comes up with an insane plot to end his marriage, so he can be with his mistress, Kay (Rachel McAdam’s). The end confused me and left me wondering how many people live their lives in misery while they’re assumed soul mate enjoys life with another.

This period peace does an excellent job in recreating the nineteen forties. The costumes are outstanding and the sets are flawless. It is cool to see a Director from my home State producing a film this gives me hope. There are not many high points in the film to talk about. If you like Pierce Brosan then I would suggest you go see this film, otherwise don’t waste your time.

Death Defying Acts
Director: Gillian Amstrong
Rating 4 of 5 trees

Harry Houdini (Guy Pearce) sends out a challenge to the world and two unlikely con artists come to collect the reward.  Benji, (Saiorse Ronan) a young girl and Mary McCarthy, (Catherine Zeta-Jones) her mother, are going through a rough time and are desperate for a big score. The time is nineteen twenty and the scene is Edinburgh. Harry Houdini takes a liking to Benji and Mary the first time he sees them toghter. He challenges them to reveal what his mother’s dying words were, a secret known only to him. In the end he gets the answer he wants and they get the money they kind of deserve.

It is really neat to see streets you walk down on a regular basis in a movie. The director, Gillian Amstrong really let’s her abilities show in this fantastic movie. The use of minimal CGI really made the movie more believable. The focus of the movie is really about Houdini the person, which sets it apart from other movies about magicians and stunt men where the focus is about the trick or stunt. I found it to be refreshing and exciting. In the end I was about to explode in anticipation of the conclusion. All around I think that this movie was excellent and is definitely something I would recommend to friends.

Director: Louis Malle

The Lovers (Les Amants) is a Louis Malle movie set in the nineteen fifty-eight. It is an excellent B&W movie staring Jeanne Moreau. She is a wife of a prosperous newspaper owner and is discontented with her existence. While going to meet her husband, her friend and lover boy for an out of the ordinary dinner party, she has car trouble and encounters a mysterious man that transforms her life evermore.

The director Louis Malle was 26 when he did The Lovers, but do not be mislead by his age, as he is essentially an endowed director. This movie takes full advantage of the low lighting and the atmosphere. The dialogue in this movie is a little shy of excellent but the use of close-ups of Jeanne Moreau to tell the story is an exceptional substitute. This motion picture really changed the movie industry forever; an individual and a cinema owner who went to court over it changed film forever. After making all the way to the Supreme Court, They found the movie to be harmless to the public. One of the most legendary phrases that a Supreme Court judge ever uttered about pornography; “I know it when I see it and the motion picture involved in this case is not that.”

An encounter on the lake
 By: Steven McLaurin

Rating; 1 of 5 Trees
 Animal lovers read no further! The movie Red is about a man who loses his best friend in a horrific turn of events. When a group of hoodlums kill AvÕs (Brian Cox) pet dog Red given to him by his late wife just prior to her tragic death, he tries to gain some closure by seeking justice for the slaying of his dog.  This legal pursuit only results in dead ends. After the legal system fails, he turns to other more extreme measures to try to make the people understand the pain and grief that they caused him.
 The quality of film is very good in this movie but it was wasted on a predictable plot and Hollywood ending.  One of the reasons that I only gave it one tree though is because there was not one scene or shot that really got my attention.  I could predict what was about to be said more than half the time.  That really destroyed one of the basic things a film needs.  Anticipation.
 

A Man in Iran
By: Steven McLaurin

Director/producer: Majid Majidi
Music Score: Hassan Alizden

Rating:4 of 5 Trees

The film Song of the Sparrow is an excellent movie in which the protagonist Karim played by Reza Naji struggles to provide for his family in the countryside of Iran. He is confronted on a daily basis with what I consider to be the choice between right and wrong. He has lost his job as an ostrich farmer and all of a sudden he finds himself in Tehran trying to acquire the needed money to buy a new hearing aid for his deaf daughter. In his pursuit, his morals are questioned as new opportunities to make money present themselves. In the city he encounters a variety of characters and along the way is infected by greed, obsessively hording material possessions. It is this greed that leads him to ignore the needs of his family, the very thing he is trying to protect.

The director of photography did an excellent job with the cinematography. There was one scene in particular that I liked where Karim was walking in the desert with a door on his back that really conveyed the isolated and barren path he was taking. The score was written by, Hassan Alizden a truly talented composer. During a scene where Karim’s son and friends had their dreams smashed right in front of them, the characters were silent and you had only the music to convey the emotions that they were feeling. Alizden’s music really did the trick.