Idiocracy

2006 film by Mike Judge on the sad state of America 500 years in the future.


Plot Sum:

Extremely average intelligenced dude volunteers for experiment to be freeze-dried and woken up a year later, only to wake up five hundred years later. In this new world, due to government welfare and cheap fast food, the below-average proliferated while the elites merely had one or two children. The human race have devolved themselves to retardation. Its a world full of hillbilly consumerism cliches, in which Carl's Jr. is the only form of food, Costco is as big as a city, and the President is a popular wrestler. Frozen alongside our hero is a prostitute, who defroze at around the same time. In this new world they are geniuses, and together they traverse this wasteland made up of lowest common denominators and save the people from themselves.

Thoughts:


The whole thing runs like an overlong SNL skit, which means the concept is funny, but it gets stale in movie form. SNL's Maya Rudolf starring in the film doesn't help. I'm not entirely sure I approve of the message either. Dysgenics, is it called? That's also known was eugenics, what the Nazis used to justify genocide. The anti-corporate message, though overused, is much more palatable.

Notable Scene:

"Welcome to Costco, I love you."

One of the few scenes I genuinely lol'd at.

TL;DR:
In the future, the whole world becomes dumb and dumber. The end.

Human Traffic

A 1999 film written by Justin Kerrigan, directed by David Buckingham. Five friends let loose one weekend at the local club/rave scene. That's it.

This has quickly proceeded to become one of my favorite films of all time. It runs like a Friends episode, except with drugs, clubs and pubs, and illegal substances that won't go well on prime-time. Its been criticized to have no point, no plot line, no tension or conflict, but I say who cares? Why does every film about drugs need to be moralizing? The only people who don't like this film must have never experienced the unrestrained unity portrayed in it. Its a perfect, heart-felt snapshot of the best of today (or slightly yesterday's) youth subculture. That's all it is, and it doesn't pretend to be anything else. There's no before and afters, no fall-outs or long term effects. It's not an epic. Just because it's momentary doesn't make it unimportant. As Jip says "ultimately, we just want to be happy", and be it happy for a night or a moment, that's all we're chasing after, and its all worth it. Those who know it love it.
Most of all, it has a happy ending. Not all happy endings are effective, but this one is. The temporary but effective escapism is real, The music, the characters, the mood, it stays and stays, and that's an indication of a good film. The fact that what stays is positive, is good, makes it an enjoyable, rewatchable, and therefore a 'favorite' film of mine.

I can rave about it forever (pun, haha) but bottom line is: awesome film that I fell in love with. Jip! Moff! Lulu! Nina! Koop! I've only known them for two hours, seen a brief weekend of their lives, but they feel like old friends. 

So many good things, least of all JOHN SIMMS!

 Awesome Jip

 Cool Cat Koop

 Paranoid Moff

 Pretty Lulu

Sweet Nina

Oh the classic lines, I can quote this movie forever. So many great scenes, set to great music. This film is simply gorgeous!

Lost Highway

I quit updating this blog in part due to my unwillingness to write about Lost Highway. This is Lynch, and Lynch is creepy, and I don't like to revisit creepy if I can help it. Lynch is not good creepy, like Jeepers Creepers scream-in-equal-parts-delight-and-fright creepy, or plot twisty Charlie-is-your-split-personality creepy. Lynch is under your skin, under your consiousness creepy. It unsettles on a deep level and stays with you for days, coloring the world a sickly, uncomfortable sepia. Lynch is a master in stream-of-consciousness. The loose narrative he throws in only serves to confuse as the audience tries to grab onto it, only to have it switch tracks or disappear altogether halfway through the film.

Summary/Spoilers:

Plot summary might be the most challenging part of reviewing a Lynch film. This one's actually pretty straight forward compared to his other works. Some hotshot young hollywood couple start receiving creepy footage of their own house in the mail. The footage becomes longer and longer with each tape, until finally it pans inside the house, through the living room, into the bedroom, aaannnd darkness. In between receiving the tapes the couple goes out to a party, have a seemingly unimportant conversation, and have sex during which the man hallucinates a creepy pasty man-face as his wife's. They receive one last video tape, in which the camera finishes panning to the bedroom, to the man screaming, cradling his dead wife in his bloody hands. The lines between TV and reality disappear, and it seems the man really did kill his wife, although he doesn't admit it, doesn't remember it. He is locked up in jail, and then Lynch started working his magic.

The rest of the movie is too nonsensical to summarize. Basically the man disappears completely, to be replaced by a young man random and unrelated. This young man, with a different life, differently family, somehow meets the man's wife. Some confusing Lynchian mindfuck ensues, a long drive along a dark highway later, the young man transforms back into the husband.

Thoughts:

Lynch is so good at setting up a mood, a tone, at making the viewer feel whatever uneasiness he wants them to. The overly slow pan-overs mixed with sudden explicable phenomenons makes sure the viewer has zero comfort level throughout. Case in point all the appearances of Creepy Pasty Man. I am highly susceptible to non sequitor freak outs. His mini series Rabbits nearly did it in for me, while everyone I showed it to thought it was boring, or even funny. There's something so disconcerting about grown ups prancing around in animal suits (see The Shining's Furry Freakout).

Basically this is a great film. As a film lover, or even liker, it has a lot to offer. Its challenging, but not so much when compared to Muholland Drive or Inland Empire. There's loads to say about it, like all Lynch films its open ended and up to individual interpretations. It makes the most sense to treat the second half of the film as an extended dream or fantasy sequence, during which the man makes up a legitimate reason for the death of his wife, in which he's not the murderer.

I'd like to think behind the fucked up narrative about some sex murder story, Lynch is taking another stab at Hollywood, at the general materialistic lifestyle the couple leads. The man finds peace of mind living the simple life of a young mechanic, reveling in the youthful virility and simple mindedness. It is when he falls once again for the wife, the beautiful seductress, a symbol of the material, does he lose grasp on his newly forged reality.

I really didn't want to put any screencaps, really really, but Lynch's cinematography is too impressive to ignore.

Notable scene 1: Creepy Pasty Man

Creepy Pasty Man, or CPM, shows up in the midst of a crowded party. He walks straight to the protagonist, and proceed to have creepy-bananas conversation. “I'm at your house, but I'm also right in front of you, so who was phone?”

Notable scene 2: Highway Cuss-Out

Lynch is funny, there's no denying it, and this scene is proof.

Another thing, the wife:

I knew there was something familiar in her breathy voice. She's Kissing-Kate Barlow from Holes!

TL;DR:

Conclusion: hell is being trapped in a Lynch movie.

How many times did I use 'creepy' in this review?

Star Wars V & VI

Its one of those classics I never got around to watching. I started with episode V, which I kept in mind is the equivalent of starting with The Two Towers for LOTR. I tried starting properly with A New Hope before but never managed to get through twenty minutes.

The comparison with other sci-fi can't be helped. It does bear similarities to Star Trek, from the lightspeed travel (warp mode in Trek) to the charismatic all-American lead (though Kirk easily embodies both Han and Luke). Though its science is not as well thought out or as captivating. At their cores the two stories are about different themes, so the comparison is not apt. Star Wars is a very traditionally American underdog story (the Death Star is basically British, the allegory is pretty obvious), whereas Star Trek is really Utopian sci-fi, all about exploration and curiosity. I daresay Star Trek is much more universally appealing, especially to the female gender.
So Star Wars is not about fantastic new worlds or mind blowing technology. But its politics are not nearly as intricate as in say, Dune. Its a straight-forward story of a rebel force overcoming all odds and defeating the big evil dictatorship. And honestly its a bit of a mess between the explosions, unconvincing shoot-outs and Luke's inner struggle.

The biggest plot points have long been spoiled for me and for pretty much everyone not living under a rock, so the main 'twists' were no surprise at all, making the movie lose all suspense. I blame that for not even wanting to pay attention to the sixth and most exciting installment of this universally acclaimed series.

Filmography-wise Star Wars gives off that pirate-y feeling. The Jabba the Hut sequence was fantastic. The designs made some memorable characters, from Vader to Yoda to R2D2. The Ewokese really left something to be desired though, looking like furbies and speaking like racists mock-imitating Asians.

The almighty Empire, brought down by these furbies.

Sidenote:

Why do most sci-fi favor either icy freeze-your-arse-off planets or scorched barren desert planets? Are there no in-betweens? Like moderately-weathered pine forest planets or all manners of climate Earth-like planets?

Also I know its an old movie,, but I don't recall seeing acting this stilted way into the 80s.

The sidekicks are not as endearing as the film makers think. Chewbacca's gurgle got repetitive and annoying real fast. Not to mention it never added anything to the film, only wasting time as Han second-hand interpreted the gurgle for the audience. The two robots were less so but getting there at the end of two hours.

kindly STFU

Vader's theme is absolutely kickass, no arguments there.


So all in all, this franchise never delivered the enchantment it promised. Maybe its because I watched them out of order (1, 3, 5, 6), or because I never finished the entire series, but at this point I have no intention to.

Osama

A raw and heartfelt portrayal of women's lives under Taliban rule, Osama (2003) is purportedly the first film filmed entirely in Afghanistan after fall of Taliban. Directed by Siddiq Barmak and starring first time actress Marina Golbahari.

Plot:
After years of warfare, Afghanistan is full of widowed families. Under Taliban rule, however, homes without males are homes without livelihood. In a society where women are not allowed to go out in the public without being escorted by a man, a widow struggles to provide for her young daughter and elderly mother. They hit rock bottom after the hospital she works in closes and the last of her patient dies. In desperation the grandmother recalls a story in which a boy walks under a rainbow and becomes a girl. They decide to cut the young daughter's hair and have her pretend to be a boy.
She gets a job at a teashop and lives in fear of being discovered everyday. Her fears are elevated when a Taliban recruiter rounds up all the boys around town for training and religious education. Her femininity becomes increasingly exposed. It seems her position would be jeopardized after an elderly educator calls her a nymph during absolution (a ritual to clean the genitals). The other boys tease her ceaselessly until a beggar, her only friend, comes to her rescue. He gives her the name Osama, perhaps to inspire some measure of fear and respect by association.
Eventually she is found out due to her untimely menstruation. She is sent to some sort of guru/judge and given to an old man as a bride. When she arrives she finds out the man already has four wives, all of them kept under lock and key, and says the man ruined their lives. In a demonstration of his cruelty, he takes a string of padlocks and asks Osama to choose her own prison lock as a wedding gift. The last scene shows the man performing his absolutions, probably after he has 'ruined' Osama's life.

Thoughts:
This film seeps hopelessness throughout. There are a lot of negative themes, including oppression, discrimination, abandonment, loneliness, loss of innocence, resignation, and most of all, utter despair.
A little girl, hung in a well, with blood trickling down her legs and crying her heart out for mommy while surrounded by hostile men and indifferent boys. Its pretty much despair personified.

Despair Personified.

Osama is not a Mulan. She's obedient and shy, a girl through and through. Sometimes she came across as way too passive. She does virtually nothing to help herself, calling for Espandi every time. She can't even begin to make the effort to be a boy, and who can blame her?  She is only a child, as the film reminds us with poignant scenes:

I suppose the actress is to be commended. She has scarcely ten lines throughout the film and must convey most of her character through expression alone. I lose track of how many times she cried, but it was heck of a lot.

Things that struck me:
The most heartbreaking moment of the film is when poor Espandi, infinitely street-wise and independent, cries as he watches his friend being chased down and arrested by a swarm of Taliban instructed boys. He can't save her this time. In another world, perhaps, their friendship could have turned into something more. Espandi is played by Arif Herati, who according to IMDB can manage get by now a days in Afghan, a reminder that the glamour of acting and the big screen is very much a first world by product.

The Afghan landscape is coarse, broken, and lends a special bleakness that compliments the film subject. That is not to say its not beautiful.

Rapist/Husband performs absolution. Somehow forms a beautiful picture

TL;DR:
A desperate family dresses up their only daughter as a boy to make livelihood under Taliban Afghan. Its a unique and saddening story of a childhood and girlhood lost.

A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)

A re-vamp of the slasher classic series, Freddie Krueger comes to life once again stalking the kids on Elm Street.

Plot:
The same as the original movie. Teenagers begin to have nightmares about a guy named Freddie coming to kill them. These dreams are quite real, and when they die in their dreams, they die in real life. A few realizes this and desperately tries to stay awake. When they are so tired they start having micro naps Freddie starts chasing them around in a fun blend of reality and nightmare. Turns out that the kids' parents kept a secret from them. When they were in kindergarten, there was a kind gardener who loved playing with them. But the kids started showing up at home with bruises and cuts in strange places. The parents mobbed up said gardener into an abandoned factory and burned him alive.

In the original Freddie was merely a child killer, but in our new racy age he's the pedophile he's always meant to be. Apparently 80's audience couldn't handle it so Wes Craven had to keep his plot point until now. Somehow pedophilia is a crime less acceptable than infanticide. This country is mad.

Thoughts:
Creative kill scenes. The guy's got a scissored glove and man does he put it to good use. Overall not very scary for a horror film. The most off-putting scare wasn't even Freddie, but a traditional shot of a dead girl in a body bag. The old ones weren't scary either, and some argue this movie's actually more terrifying than the original. If so I can't imagine how the original series were billed as horror for so long. I'm a fan of American non-terrifying horror films though (Jeepers Creepers is a favorite). They're always satisfyingly gory without being traumatizing.

Unlike his brother Edward, Freddie had a better use for his scissorhands

I haven't watched the original so I can't make any comparisons. This movie is enjoyable enough on its own, though it won't provide any good scares. Its decent, with decent effects, decent acting, etc. Nothing remarkable.

Other things:
Oh my God I love his voice! I don't know what digital wizardry they did to Jackie Earle Haley's voice but I love it! If only Watchmen had done the same for Rorschach. Freddie's voice is not so much creepy as downright captivating and dare I say it, sexy. I'm not sure they were playing that card with Freddie, I mean after all, he's a pedophile covered in 3rd degree burns, but that's the effect they achieved.

It doesn't help that the guy's really, honestly funny! I know some think his one-liners campy, but all the ones in this movie (and there were quite a few) were lol material. I always thought the Nightmare series were pegged as absolute horror, and was unprepared for the zingers. I ended up enjoying the film a lot more than expected, almost as a comedy. Freddie was wasted as a gardener.

"I'm your boyfriend now, Nancy"

TL;DR:

Slasher film in every sense of the word. Watch for evil burn-victim Rorschach!

Cube Zero

Cube Zero is a 2004 Canadian horror film directed by Ernie Barbarash, the third of the Cube series.

Synopsis:

A woman wakes up in a metal room with nothing but a sparse military/prison uniform on her back and the memories of her abduction. Soon strangers come in through one of the round people sized holes on each of the six walls, all seemingly in the same predicament as she. The name of the game is survival. They crawl from one room to another to find an exit, an answer. Each room is more than likely to be equipped with something deadly, and there's no sure way to tell. Their best method is 'booting', tossing in the heavy duty shoes they wore in the hopes of activating any boobytraps.

Boobytraps. Basically the highlight of this series is the various ingenious and often gruesome deathtraps in each room. Off the top of my head there's death by exposure to extreme base (saponification), death by fast acting flesh eating bacteria, death by microwave.... It's all pretty magnificent to be honest, all flesh-dripping and bone-melting. Definitely the best part of the film, probably the only part worth praising.

Death by steel strings cutting you to pieces

Does saponification really happen like this?

And the prize for 'winning', escaping, is to end up on top of a heat vent, life and death hinging on that age old question:

"Do you believe in God?"

Watching our heroine struggle through the tunnels are two cube technicians. They have no memories either, but they know they must do their job or risk the wrath of those 'above'. One of the technicians develop an attachment to our heroine, and decides to go in the Cube to help her. The 'above' send some men in black and a 'pimp' boss guy to rectify the situation. So begins our hero and heroine's race against time to save themselves.
Against all odds, they escape, because our hero's conveniently a proper genius.

Once outside a game of unfair chase ensues in the beautiful green foliage of native Canada. The military guys tranq our hero and leaves it unclear whether the woman escaped. When he wakes up again he's strapped to an operation table, ready to be lobotomized. Apparently he signed away his life years ago to the government and became a test subject of some huge complicated psychological study involving elaborate death chambers. Apparently everyone who's in the cube signed such a contract, and 'deserve' to be there.

Our hero screams, the screen fades, and he wakes up an idiot in the Cube with a few new people.

The end! Or is it?

Thoughts:

This film makes it seem like Canadians are all conspiracy theorists. Why the government would carry out such a pointless and expensive psychological experiment is beyond me. Maybe the rest of the 'Cube' series explain this better, but I was completely unsold on the concept. The set up of the 'main' characters were also lacking. I just couldn't care less about the woman or her daughter, or whether it was a real memory or a fake one, which was the notion they were trying to instill I'm sure.

Kinda looks like a washer

This movie was strangely less claustrophobia inducing than I expected. The rooms, or cubes, were nice and spacious, modern and clean. The most claustrophobic thing about it was the ending, in which our 'hero' gets a lobotomy and becomes trapped in the Cube again. See now its not the Cube that's imprisoning him, its his own mind! It was completely oppressive and hopeless and really hurt its rewatch values. Call me a wimp but the notion just makes uncomfortable on a basic level. Death is death. Torture is torture. Demoting someone's consciousness and identity until they can't even seek death if they wish? That's true horror.

Canada doesn't even have the death penalty. Is this series some form of repressed expression?

They'll have you believe its science fiction - it isn't. It's an excuse for gore, which I'm happy with.

Also this:

Hello, I think I'm on the wrong set.

This guy's suppose to be some supervisor/boss's lackey. He's bizarre to the point of being surreal. He's a complete caricature, so out of place he could be spliced in from the seedy alleys of some B-grade gangster flick (or a Lynch movie). I mean a diamond/mechanical eye? Really?

TL;DR:
Its like a lower budget version of SAW, less psychological but no less gimmicky. Gory enough.

Uzumaki

Uzumaki is the film adaptation of Junji Ito's very awesome Spiral (Uzumaki) manga. It came out in year 2000 and never really caught on in the west. Its got elements of fantasy and absurdity that makes it atypical in its genre.

Summary/Spoilers:
A quiet little town in Japan is haunted by an abstract spirit: the spiral shape. Kirie is a nice girl living in the town with her potter father. One day she spots her boyfriend Shuichi's father filming a snail. When asked Shuichi tells her he's been depressed lately because his father's been infected by spirals. He implores Kirie to run away with him, believing the entire town to be possessed by spirals. Kirie dismisses him, but soon the spiral curse begins to manifest and the town becomes consumed by it.

From there on the film follows the generally linear storyline of Shuichi's family, his father's descent into madness and his mother's breakdown. There are many small side stories, like in the original manga.

Here are some spiral manifestations:

A boy infatuated with Kirie throws himself in front of a car and gets spiraled up by the wheels.
A girl begins to have spirals in her hair, and attracts positive attention because of it. The spirals get more and more ridiculous and big until they touch electric wires and kill her.

Hairgirl in Manga

hairgirl in movie

A classmate who liked staring down the central school staircases (because they spiral) is drawn in and jumps to his death, smearing his brains right in the center of the spiral.
Snail people. I'm rather sad they cut out the hermaphrodite scene. It was a gross-out in the manga.

In the end Shuichi is taken by the spiral curse and twists towards Kirie like a long noodle. The film ends with Kirie's voice intro, leaving it unclear whether she escaped.

Thoughts:
As a film adaptation (or live action of sorts) of a manga, its very impressive. Other than Shuichi's unnecessarily pasty Hitler hair, all the other characters are straight out of the manga. Granted this isn't a manga with exaggerated characters and crazy hair styles, still, I felt the directors took some care in casting and everyone fit their roles perfectly. A lot of scenes were straight out of the book. Its regrettable the film wasn't a complete adaptation, as the last parts of the book were all-out insane. I would've loved to see masses of tangled spiral people writhing about, not to mention the hilarious 'Hair-off' between Kirie and spiralhair girl.

Shuichi whyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?

straight outta the source material. props!

Don't expect to be scared senseless. Though Junji Ito's works are labeled as horror, there are only a handful that are truly frightening. Most are of the deliciously twisted category and all are very very interesting. Spiral has its moments, but its really just a demonstration of Junji Ito's talents at making crazy, creepy tales out of the most random subjects. This film isn't the sort of Japanese horror that leaves the viewer paranoid and dogged by nightmares for weeks, months, and years(maybe its just me). There is no real after effect. All those with a morbid fear of Asian horror cinema (like yours truly) can watch in peace and enjoy some very imaginative horror imagery.

Things that Struck Me:
I thought a film about spirals would make me motionsick. It didn't. In fact this film had the slowest, most drawn out camera pan out I've ever seen, and it didn't even amount to a scare scene!

Lots of green. I think its suppose to be eerie, but instead just reminds me of Goosebumps.

The film featured some really gross-out scenes. It was disturbing, but I interpreted it as absurdist humor.

The scariest & most ridiculous scene of the whole film

TL;DR
A quirky, non-scary Asian scary movie with a Spiral theme. Anyone who read the manga should give this a go. Anyone who hasn't should read the manga, and then give this a go. Its only three volumes. I finished it in one sitting in the public library.

Spiral film readiness test: if you're scared of this don't watch the film

Watch Uzumaki:

The Thing

1982 'Horror' movie by John Carpenter. One of those cult classic must watch things if one is a supposed horror fan, or something.

Spoilers:


I didn't bother following the plot, hearing 1/3 sentences, and still managed to get pretty much the whole story. It follows the tried and true classic formulas of alien/isolated group of people movies. Some alien thing crash into the frozen tundras and sneak into a nearby scientific base. A convenient snow storm then cuts off the base from the rest of the world. The alien has the ability to shape-shift or take over any body. It takes on the form of a dog first(I totally called it), then proceed to possess various men. The scientists go haywire second-guessing each other. The details are not important, whats important is the glorious flesh horror filling the screens. The Thing has some pretty gratuitous gore: its debut as an inside-out dog with intestinal tendrils, its melted twisted two-headed face, its chomping stomach..the list goes on. All in all, it was lovely to beheld. Bonus points for Kurt Russell's lion's mane.

Lion's Mane

Thoughts:


The Thing just seems like an unapologetic excuse for wacky gore. The whole thing is filled with 80s bad horror campy goodness, and watching it on a dingy hotel room TV really topped it off. One thing I did notice was the lack of any female characters. Maybe some of the dogs were female, but otherwise there was not a lick of feminine touch to this movie. It was refreshing, no contrived romantic subplot, which never has a proper place in horror movies. No low-topped blondes running through the screen screaming their heads off, which begs the question of who were the target audience for this flick? I suppose it could be due to the fact its that 'other' category of horror films, the sci-fi gone wrong sub-genre instead of the slasher-murder sub-genre, which usually have lower requirements of female influence. I honestly enjoyed this one.

So gross and yet, so artistic

Things that struck me:


Stomach-churningly good effects. This Carpenter guy's so awesome, doesn't afraid of anything! For all the cheesiness of the storyline and characters, the acting wasn't over the top. The ending was pretty bomb too, with the philosophical ambiguity, the resigned determination to die with The Thing. It went instantly from thoughtless horror to intriguing sci-fi in my book.

Upside down head spider-thing

TL;DR:
Shape-shifting meat blob vs. scientists with flame throwers. On ice!
Fun! Funny! Ridiculous gore to satisfy all your campy 80s horror needs.

Here's The Thing on youtube!

La Bataille d'Alger (The Battle of Algiers)

The Battle of Algiers is a 1966 black and white film directed by Gillo Pontecorvo based on the events during the Algerian War. It specifically focuses on the rise of the FLN in Algiers and takes on the perspective of the insurgents, mostly. This is a film so close to a documentary they show it to troops heading to Iraq to give them a sense of what they are facing. Its 50 years old and still getting viewers today for good reasons.


Summary/Spoilers:

The summary of this movie is basically a history lesson. The French inserted themselves into Algeria and set up a perfectly segregated city in Algiers, with the Casbah on one side and a whites-only sort of deal on the other. Something's brewing in the Casbah...a revolution! The National Liberation Front, a strictly underground insurgency organization, cooks up discreet plans that mobilizes everyone from women to children against the French. So commences guns hidden in fruit baskets, bombs sneaked in women's purses. This is urban guerrilla warefare, where every attack is a sneak attack. It might be considered dishonorable in traditional warfare. But then again, who defines these things. The French strike back with Colonel Mathieu's brilliant Operation Champagne. The NLF is headed by four men, one of whom is former minor offender Ali La Pointe, another is Saadi Yacef, who's actually played by Saadi Yacef (makes the film that much closer to a documentary). The French decide to cut the tapeworm at the head, and one by one they are hunted down. Finally it was just Ali La Pointe, a streetwise little revolutionary, a female bomber and another supporter squatting behind someone's bedroom wall, clutching a machine gun. meet their end in that little crevice.

Left to Right: Supporter, Bomber, Streetwise Kid, Ali

It seems like a sad ending, but the film skips forward two years, and "for some unknown reason", the people starts up again, this time out in the open. And with the devastating use of FLAGS, they earn their independence.

Thoughts:
One of those films that builds up slowly and sinks into you. The nature of insurgency warfare is scattered and incidental, yet the film manages to be coherent. By the second half you'll be firmly invested in the outcome of the revolution. The deaths are not tragic, on either sides. Or are they equally tragic. There are innocent colonists having a good time at a cafe blasted to oblivion, and there are heroic nationalists choosing martyrdom. The director is exceptional and portraying both sides (almost) equally. He obviously has a liberal bias. The colonel of the French, who would usually be the 'baddie' is a surprisingly rounded character. The keyword of the film is humane. Despite the bombings and killings on both sides, neither lost their driving ideologies. As the colonel says, "We are neither madmen nor sadists."

the good humoured colonel

Things that struck me:


The women bombers changing into French attire to really REALLY dramatic music:

Drums.Drums.Drums.Drums.

The casual and sudden violence in broad daylight, police shot by teenagers point-blank, police knifed in the throat at a street corner. Guns are hidden everywhere.

A harrowing scene of an old hobo half beaten to death by children.

There is a torture scene(of many tortures), swinging the sympathy towards the Algierians majorly.

The final moments of the film were moving, triumphant. Although it felt like all the crowd scenes were shot all at once, at the same street corner.

'Long Live Algeria'

TL;DR:
French: Algierians! Surrender now or prepare to fight fight fight!
ALGERIANS used FLAGS. Its super-effective!
Bombings and shootings galore. The French win but the Algerians don't lose. Then they bust out their secret weapon of torn up bedsheets and the French blast off at the speed of light.


Its meaningful, vintage, historically relevant, well-acted. Watch and be educated.


I had the good fortune of watching a big screen showing (thanks to my urban theory course again), but I imagine the effect won't lessen with screen size, so here you go:
The Battle of Algiers