Cecil says: I should have learnt my lesson by now: don't be fooled by the one-liners on the film posters. "Hilarious", "joyful", "comic" this was not. And I ought to know also that a Nordic film with a title like "happy, happy" will be out to test our notions of what is happiness and is less likely to be a rolling-in-the-aisles experience than you might think.
Having said all that, I thoroughly enjoyed this film. It was drama along the lines of that UK TV series from the 1990s "Cold Feet"; in fact, one of the lead actresses in this film (Maibritt Saerens, who plays Elisabeth) bore an uncanny resemblance to Karen from Cold Feet (Hermione Norris), both in looks and temperament.
And there was one scene, which might have been hilarious, had it not been a rather tame reminder of the nude vicar chase in Room with a View...
No, this is all about two couples living in snow-covered Norway in the middle of nowhere. One couple comprises the nervous, child-like Kaja and her taciturn, hunter-type husband Eirik. The other couple are the newly-arrived urbanites: Elisabeth is a lawyer, sophisticated and out-of-place in this rural outback away from culture and conversation; her husband Sigve a smiling mean-well man who prefers to sing or go for a run than join the neighbour on a hunting trip.
Of course things never turn out quite how you expect, on film or in real life in many cases, and this plot has lots of twists and turns as the four learn about each other and themselves over a period that cannot last more than a few weeks (though time is not that important here).
There's also the sub-plot of their two sons: the urbanite couple with an adopted black kid "from Africa", and the local couple with the very blond, very fair Theodor. Except Theodor is not very fair and plays out his own frustrations in a disturbing slave-master roleplay game with poor old Noa, which carries on intermittently throughout the film.
And then there's the four singers, who begin and end the whole film, and throw in a few excellent numbers in between scenes. They are kind of somewhere between the Blues Brothers and Four Puffs and a Piano, and I'm not really sure what role they are playing, except possibly as some Brechtian commentator on how things develop in the storyline. It's great music, though, and they're fine singers, so I'll be watching out for them - their names appeared in the credits, but I can't find them now when I search online, so if anybody reading this can tell me who they are, please help...
And finally, I saw this one alone in DC (Bea and I still apart for one week more). I checked the UK release date and of course, there is none. It opened in Norway a year ago, and played in France, but no, the Brits aren't interested it seems. Well, I think they're wrong and would like to see it on release when I'm back.
So, not hilarious, not even a comedy, but I'll give it ***.5 out of 5
Sunday 25 September 2011
Saturday 10 September 2011
Colombiana
Cecil says: It's not often I go to films on my own, but Bea and I are apart for a few weeks. So I watched this one with nine teenagers in a 250-seater movie theater in downtown Athens, Tennessee.
The film opens with a helicopter-eye view of somewhere third-world-looking. It's interspersed with lots of guns, grenades, fighting, so we're probably supposed to wonder if it's Beirut or Damascus (though, hey, maybe not, if we think about the name of the film we came to see...).
That's right: it's somewhere in Colombia, probabaly Medellin, in 1992. There's this awful scene next with two druglords having meaningful man-to-man brotherly hugs before they go off and try to kill each other. And then we're left to focus on the daughter.
She's about 9 when her Dad is killed and the third scene is actually a rather good chase through the shanty town (not often you get a chase so early in a film), as she dramatically gets away from the drug gang members.
We quickly switch to 15 years later and this cute, but feisty 9 year old has become a lethal killer herself, bent on revenge for the killing of her parents.
To be honest, the best parts of the film are the opening scenes. I never saw Angelina Jolie in Catwoman, but somehow I felt throughout that this was a kind of carbon copy. Zoe Saldana does a pretty good job, but I reckon her stunt double had more fun in this movie.
And the police side of it was somewhere between Columbo and Without a Trace. Just got me thinking: why do we always emotionally side with the FBI over the CIA in these stories? And just how quickly CAN these sort of services track you down in the bathroom of X apartment block, using all their modern technology?
You also had suspend disbelief most of the way through the final scenes. Where did Cataleya get the money for all this very sophisticated armoury? How did she manage to case her joints so thoroughly before going on the killing spree?
That said, it runs along smoothely, and takes you with the flow. I haven't really been a great Luc Besson fan since his very early stuff in the 1980s, but this was not bad. Some might find the ending a bit too tidy, but I kind of liked it - and great Johnny Cash song to bring on the credits at the end...
Such a shame more people don't use the cinema in these small towns, They're lucky to have a big screen venue still there. Hey, two of the teenage couples spent the evening snogging on the back row, but in a way, that's great. Isn't that what teenagers are SUPPOSED to do (I can remember going to see Abba The Movie with one girlfriend and I don't think we saw more than five minutes of the film). Where are the rest of the Athens community? Come on, guys, it cost just $10 (that's £6 if you're a Brit) and you just can't beat the big screen for atmosphere, regardless of who you're with...Shame Bea wasn't there, though.
***
The film opens with a helicopter-eye view of somewhere third-world-looking. It's interspersed with lots of guns, grenades, fighting, so we're probably supposed to wonder if it's Beirut or Damascus (though, hey, maybe not, if we think about the name of the film we came to see...).
That's right: it's somewhere in Colombia, probabaly Medellin, in 1992. There's this awful scene next with two druglords having meaningful man-to-man brotherly hugs before they go off and try to kill each other. And then we're left to focus on the daughter.
She's about 9 when her Dad is killed and the third scene is actually a rather good chase through the shanty town (not often you get a chase so early in a film), as she dramatically gets away from the drug gang members.
We quickly switch to 15 years later and this cute, but feisty 9 year old has become a lethal killer herself, bent on revenge for the killing of her parents.
To be honest, the best parts of the film are the opening scenes. I never saw Angelina Jolie in Catwoman, but somehow I felt throughout that this was a kind of carbon copy. Zoe Saldana does a pretty good job, but I reckon her stunt double had more fun in this movie.
And the police side of it was somewhere between Columbo and Without a Trace. Just got me thinking: why do we always emotionally side with the FBI over the CIA in these stories? And just how quickly CAN these sort of services track you down in the bathroom of X apartment block, using all their modern technology?
You also had suspend disbelief most of the way through the final scenes. Where did Cataleya get the money for all this very sophisticated armoury? How did she manage to case her joints so thoroughly before going on the killing spree?
That said, it runs along smoothely, and takes you with the flow. I haven't really been a great Luc Besson fan since his very early stuff in the 1980s, but this was not bad. Some might find the ending a bit too tidy, but I kind of liked it - and great Johnny Cash song to bring on the credits at the end...
Such a shame more people don't use the cinema in these small towns, They're lucky to have a big screen venue still there. Hey, two of the teenage couples spent the evening snogging on the back row, but in a way, that's great. Isn't that what teenagers are SUPPOSED to do (I can remember going to see Abba The Movie with one girlfriend and I don't think we saw more than five minutes of the film). Where are the rest of the Athens community? Come on, guys, it cost just $10 (that's £6 if you're a Brit) and you just can't beat the big screen for atmosphere, regardless of who you're with...Shame Bea wasn't there, though.
***
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