Central Station is the story of a young boy and older woman brought together to form a bond. Young Josue is with his mother in Central Station where she is having a letter written to the boy's father. Shortly after this, Josue's mother is hit by a bus and killed, leaving Josue abandoned in Rio de Janeiro. Dora, the letter writer, takes him in, but eventually sells him to what is presumed to be an adoption service. She soon finds out that they actually harm the children and steals Josue back and begins her attempt to reunite him with his father. Once Dora has had enough, she tries to abandon Josue at one of the bus stops, but fails, and then they are both stranded. They hitch rides with truckers until they finally reach the address where his mother had written the letters, but Josue's father does not live there anymore. They both keep searching until they find Josue's father's other sons who reveal that their father had vanished months ago. They ask Dora to read a letter than their father had sent to an "Ana" (Josue's mother) at their address many months ago. The letter reads that he had gone looking for Ana in Rio de Janeiro, but assumes she had finally left to go home to him. He promises he will be home soon and Josue and one of the other sons are especially hopeful that this is true. Dora then leaves in the middle of the night, but by then her bond with Josue had grown tremendously. Josue realizes this at dawn and begins chasing after her, though she is long gone. Dora writes Josue a letter while on the bus, and tells him not to forget her.
A prominent theme in Central Station is forgiveness. In the very beginning of the movie, before Josue's mother is killed, she returns to the letter writer to write a new letter to replace the nasty letter she had written earlier. In this letter she wants to be nice, and forgiving to Josue's father. Another instance of this forgiveness is between Josue and Dora. No matter what Dora does; selling Josue to the "adoption service", deserting him at the bus stop, saying horrible things about his parents; Josue forgives her. Even Josue's half brother is hopeful that their father will return and will forgive him for leaving for months without a word. I enjoyed the characters in Central Station. Josue as a stoic, mature seeming 9 year old boy and Dora as a cold, middle aged, unattractive, unmarried mess. Their peculiar pairing made the movie good. Their interactions were almost always amusing with Josue never smiling or appearing to have a good time and Dora causing trouble one way or another. When the end of the movie neared, it was clear that Dora wanted to stay with Josue and even wanted to take him all the way back home with her. So her leaving, and her heartfelt letter even made me choke up a little. In the end, Dora knew Josue was where he belonged, waiting for his father with respect and with his brothers.
What do you do when you lose a pair of shoes? Well, you get frustrated trying to find them, but eventually you just give into wearing a different pair that you own. Easier said than done in this film, when you only have one pair of shoes to wear. Ali loses his younger sister's shoes, and to avoid getting in trouble, they must share Ali's sneakers. Ali is continuously late for school, but never has a good excuse, because who wants to say, "Oh, sorry sir. I was waiting for my little sister to return from school because we share sneakers"? Nobody. Not even some poor children in Iran. With a mother who's ill, and a father who barely pays the rent, Ali can't put another burden on them by confessing that he lost sister Zahra's shoes, so the two children do what they can. Luckily Ali finally thinks he may have a chance at fixing their problem when there is a race announced at school that offers new sneakers for the 3rd place winner. With all the running Ali's been doing to avoid being late to school, now's his time to show off his skills. Well, not so ironically Ali actually winds up winning the race and not winning a new pair of shoes, but instead a more awesome prize that he can't consider appreciating. So he goes home and delivers the bad news to his sister and stews in a mixture of sadness, frustration and disappointment. Luckily, we the viewers had gotten a glimpse of dad on his way home with new shoes for the kids, after he earned some extra money working in the wealthy section of town.
Children of Heaven's themes revolve around family in Ali and Zahra's sticky situation. The audience is brought down to the level of these children, as they tackle obstacles over something that seems so simple. Zahra never tells on Ali, and Ali never gives up trying to fix the problem straight through to deciding he was going to win the race. Both of the children try to get by for the sake of themselves, but also because they know their family cannot afford another pair of sneakers. Zahra races through a test and even asks the teacher what time it is just so she can leave to be on time with Ali's shoes. Ali gives Zahra gifts while he tries to find a way to get back her sneakers. They stick together, and that's what family is about, and that's what this movie portrays in a really heart warming way. Anybody can relate, even though most cannot relate to not having another option in footwear.
Children of Heaven is enjoyable because it's relatable. You want to see these kids win in the end, and at every turn you're waiting for something good to happen. There's no way to watch that race without keeping track of what place Ali is in. You watch it on the edge of your seat, hoping that he keeps third. You want to jump in when he gets reprimanded for being late, because you know he didn't mean to. These kids are the most genuine kids you'd ever seen. For a foreign film, I'd definitely recommend it, even to a younger audience. It's simple, gets the message across, tells a story straight and to the point, and to top it off, even has a happy ending, even if Ali didn't know it yet.
Tsotsi revolves around a young man who calls himself "Tsotsi", which means thug. A confrontation about his real name at a bar causes an intoxicated Tsotsi to beat one of his friends very badly and then leave to wander into a wealthy community. He winds up shooting a woman and stealing her car, but when he realizes there is an infant in the backseat, he crashes the vehicle. Tsotsi begins to flee from the scene, but eventually returns to retrieve the baby. Through flashbacks we discover that Tsotsi lived a very rough life where his abusive father led him to grow up homeless. Because Tsotsi is having a hard time actually providing for the infant he has taken in, he ends up forcing a young woman to breast feed the baby at gun point, and continues to do so until this woman asks if she can keep and take care of the infant. Meanwhile, the woman Tsotsi shot is still alive and recovering in the hospital while a manhunt is under way for the baby and the man who stole him. Tsotsi eventually takes in the man who he had beaten and tries to recover the relationships he as with his friends. He goes with these friends back to the residence of the baby's biological parents and ties the father up while searching for things for the baby. When one of Tsotsi's friends is about to kill the father, Tsotsi steps in and shoots his friend dead. Everything leading up to this moment, showing Tsotsi is not just a heartless criminal. After he returns to the woman caring for the infant, she confronts him about stealing the child and asks him to give her the baby so she can return it to them. Tsotsi then leaves with the baby, but asks if he can still come around if he brings the baby back. In a dramatic conclusion, Tsotsi brings the baby back to the residence and is promptly arrested, as the house has been under surveillance since Tsotsi came with his friends.
I think one of the main themes in Tsotsi is survival. It seems that Tsotsi's thug character is a front put up when he was younger in order to survive. Through flashbacks we see the struggles Tsotsi went through, and begin to understand why he didn't just leave the baby in the stolen car when he easily could have. As the story is told, we see Tsotsi's survival instinct when he forces the woman at gun point to breast feed the baby. But as time passes, you can see him actually beginning to care for the woman. It's obvious that whenever Tsotsi shows aggression, it is his method of fighting to survive.
I didn't particularly enjoy Totsi. I didn't really think the movie had a point. I think the only reason it won any awards was because it touched on some rough subject matter, and of course because he eventually did the right thing. Otherwise, I didn't think any of it really left me feeling fulfilled or like a story was told. On the other hand, I did think there was good, admirable cinematography. The shots, such as the one above, seem meticulously crafted to get a certain clean look at Tsotsi's life.
Amores Perros starts off with a car chase led by Octavio, followed by the consequent car crash to leave the audience with nothing but questions. From here the movie follows three separate lives to show how they wound up at scene of the accident. Octavio is pining for the affections of his brother's wife. When his brother's neglectful ways show no sign of improvement, Octavio sees the opportunity to use his dog to make money through dog fights. With every win, he gets a wad of cash which he willingly gives to his sister in-law, Susana. At first, Susana doesn't seem interested in Octavio's advances, but does hide the money he gives her and even eventually begins having a romantic affair with him. They agree that they will run away together after one last dog fight against his arch rival, Jaricho.
Meanwhile, Daniel, a husband and father of two, is cheating on his wife with a young beautiful model, Valeria. He eventually abandons his family to move in with Valeria and continue his new life in a new home with his young, energetic girlfriend.
The third story involves the vagrant dog collector, El Chivo, who abandoned his family long ago. He's working as a hitman, but after attending his estranged/ex wife's funeral, he seems like he wants to change his ways and reconnect with his daughter. El Chivo is offered a hit for 150,000 dollars, and while at first he insisted he wasn't going to kill anymore, he does eventually take 50,000 and agree to kill the man.
As Octavio is about to leave for his final dog fight, he discovers that Susana has left with Ramiro and all of their money is gone. He takes the $20,000 he has and goes to the match anyway. As Octavio's dog appears to be winning the fight, Jarocho quickly pulls out a gun and shoots the dog. Octavio is given his money back and he rushes the injured dog to his car. Full of vengeance for not only his dog, but Susana abandoning him, Octavio rushes back in to stab Jarocho. This is where the car chase begins.
When the car chase ends, we find out that Octavio has crashed into Valeria's car. The first person on the scene is ironically El Chivo. He proceeds to steal Octavio's cash from his pocket, and takes his injured dog with him too. Valeria, the successful model is left with a broken leg that is eventually amputated, more or less ending her career, while Daniel is having second thoughts about leaving his wife and family.
Octavio is hurt in the accident, but he recovers to find out that his brother was killed while he was attempting to rob a bank. He attends the funeral and talks to Susana again, telling her that he is leaving on a bus and that he will wait for her. When the day finally comes to hop on that bus, Susana does not show up, and Octavio does not get on the bus.
After nursing Octavio's dog back to health, El Chivo returns home one day to find all of his other dogs killed by him. While he is upset and ready to shoot the dog in the head, he has a change of heart. He also has a change of heart about the hit he agreed to do; instead El Chivo kidnaps both of the men involved, ties them up, takes the money he's owed, and leaves them to sort out their differences themselves. From here, he breaks into his daughter's apartment, and leaves her a large stack of money under her pillow. He then leaves her a voicemail trying to explain why he hasn't been around, but that he loves her.
It's clear that an important theme in Amores Perros is betrayal. Octavio betrays his brother, and then is betrayed by Susana. Daniel betrays his family with his affair, El Chivo is betrayed by the dog he saved, and then betrays the man he agreed to do a hit for, while this man appears to betray his own brother that he wanted killed. But amongst all of this betrayal is love. Octavio's love for Susana, Daniel's love for his girlfriend, but also the second thoughts he's having for his wife, and El Chivo's love for his daughter.
I really enjoyed Amores Perros. I'm easily swayed by actors, and I do have a new found love for Gael Garcia since viewing Bad Education, but once again I was left to hear the annoying complaints of FILM STUDENTS hating the fact that dogs were fighting in a movie. Their whiney discussion before class made me so excited to see this film. How are 20-25 year old men going to complain back and forth about how they love dogs and they don't appreciate having to view this film? It had to be bad, so I was ready to see the most grotesque violence against dogs imaginable, and it turns out, dog fighting wasn't even the point of the movie. It was a film that tied three different lives and three different stories together. It was interesting, it was entertaining, and it kept my attention easily. Besides the storyline, I really enjoyed the cinematography, with the hand held cameras, and interesting shots through windows. Both of these techniques really make the movie feel real, and like you're really watching these events unfold in people's lives.
Akira Kurosawa's Dreams chronicles segments of a man's life from boyhood to adulthood through dreamlike sequences. The first dream finds a young boy disobeying his mother and going out on a rainy day, and watching the foxes' wedding. Having now angered the foxes, his mother will not let him back inside her home and insists he go beg forgiveness. In another dream, the boy is taunted by the spirits of peach trees that had been cut down. When this boy is finally an adult, there is a dream where he is returning from war, and seems to be pursued by the ghosts of his fallen comrades that he had led. He must explain to these ghosts that they have died and to accept that fact and move on. In this dream there is a dog growling and guiding him that seems to symbolize the guilt he feels for the deaths of these men. This idea of war is continued into a dream where the world appears destroyed from nuclear energy, and everyone has died or will die from the effects of the gases that surround them. This dream goes on to a world where there are "demons" or people who have been painfully mutated from the effects of the poisonous gases. And in the final dream, this man comes upon a village where everyone lives naturally. Naturally being taken as literal as possible; where they use no man made energy, and are actually in the middle of using a person's death to actually celebrate life.
Arguably, the most enjoyable dream is Crows. In this dream, the man searches for Van Gogh and seems to actually wind up living through his artwork after speaking with him.
The most apparent theme of all the dreams is nature; being aware of nature, using nature, and most importantly, respecting nature. In the first dream, the boy does not show respect to nature and ultimately must either kill himself or beg forgiveness from nature. In the second dream, nature is taunting the boy for letting nature be destroyed. In the dreams about nuclear energy release, the effects of not taking care of the earth are highlighted. And in the final dream, the audience is shown how peaceful, simple, and happy life can be just by using natural resources to sustain life. Being one of Kurosawa's final films before his death, it's not unlikely that these dreams are a certain reflection on his own life and the world around him.
I found Dreams to be a very interesting concept. I mean, have you ever tried to explain a dream you had to someone, and it just didn't make sense, and there were pieces missing, but somehow it seemed so real to you at the time? Well, I think it'd be pretty darn cool to script and film whacky dreams you've had. I'm thinking maybe that's how David Lynch came up with Eraserhead... Kurosawa's dreams gives you a surreal look at the real world. Even though some of the concepts are strange, like the foxes' wedding story, it still has a point to be made.
When the teacher of a remote village in China must leave for a month, his class is left at the hands of a 13 year old girl, Wei. Wei isn't much older than the students herself, but with no else available to take his place, the teacher leaves, promising to give her 10 extra yuan as a bonus to her original payment if all of the students are still there when he gets back. At first, Wei doesn't seem at all interested in her responsibilities until the mayor drops in and reveals that he's taking one of her students out of the school to become a professional athlete.Reality sets in for Wei when she is unsuccessful at hiding the student and keeping her enrolled in the school until the teacher returns. To make matters worse, it's not long before another student is shipped off to the city to find work instead of going to school. At this point, Wei is determined to make her extra money and begins trying to come up with bus money to go to the city. She manages to get the entire class involved in raising money, but when it comes time to buy the bus ticket, she discovers that the price of the ticket was grossly underestimated. Not discouraged, Wei finds her way, on foot, to the city. Once in the city, Wei continues to try different things to find the missing student, including having an audio message broadcast to the city, using the last of her money to hand write missing posters, and even standing outside of a tv station for over a day, waiting for the manager to come out so she can speak with him. Once word reaches the manager that there has been a girl waiting for him, he calls her in, hears her story, and helps broadcast a story about the missing boy on a television program, which ultimately brings the boy home. Along with this happy ending, the awareness of the village's struggle to offer schooling to the children on the countryside brings much needed funding from outside sources to the school. In the end, Wei earns her bonus and through pure patience and determination brings the small village much more assistance than the absent teacher could have ever imagined.
Not One Less contains many different themes including ones about the media, education in rural China, and the clash between rural and urban living. One theme that I found to be quite profound was the importance of money. From the start, money is an issue for Wei, who is working an entire month of school for 20 yuan. For an uninformed American like myself, it isn't realized how little 20 yuan actually is until Wei begins trying to raise money for a bus ticket. She makes little purchases like soda along the way, thinking she'll have enough left for a bus ticket, but as it turns out a bus ticket was a lot more than she or anyone in her class anticipated. Money is very important in the film because it seems she can't do much without it, but it is ultimately the source of all of her patience and determination. Ironically enough, the conclusion of the film brings more money to the village's school, and it seems all of her patience paid off. Literally.
This film was definitely different from the movies I regularly watch. It had a much slower pace and lot less going on. It seemed like there was the one main goal, and it focused on that for the entire film. There were no side plots, there was a problem established at the very beginning of the story, and Wei set out to make things right. Definitely not something I'd recommend to someone as a "good movie". And by that, I mean it's not very entertaining. It certainly has a point to be made about a situation in China, but it's not something that you want to kick back with some popcorn and watch. It's much more serious and leaves the viewer to observe a hardship that they will likely never face. On the other hand, I did think the acting was remarkable. Wei and the children in the classroom were believable, which makes you feel like you are a part of their struggle.
Ever feel like robbing a store to feed your fix? Or maybe even wind up killing a cop while your comrades lay dead? I mean, what's the worst that could happen? Being recruited into a secret government agency as an assassin after your funeral is staged? Yeah, that's what. La Femme Nikita is an action packed story of a young woman who encounters this exact scenario. While at first unwilling, Nikita is eventually set up on her first hit as a surprise in a restaurant. After her dramatic and unlikely success, she is discharged from her training facility and must learn how to adjust to society with a new identity and dangerous responsibilities. After falling in love, Nikita struggles to juggle both her relationship and her job as a government assassin.
All seems to be going well and perhaps even better, when Nikita is informed that she will be in charge of her next job to kill and retrieve important documents for the government. Everything is going smooth until Nikita finds out that a crucial piece of information, the password used between the target and his bodyguards has been changed. A "cleaner" is called in to get rid of all persons involved, and Nikita is forced to impersonate a man she barely resembles to access the crucial documents. But everything is all down hill once the cleaner is called, and while Nikita did indeed retrieve the information, the messy outcome means she must now run for her life from the government.
After Nikita returns home, her boyfriend lets her know that he is aware of what she's being doing, and knows that she must leave. After she leaves, Nikita's supervisor from day one arrives at their apartment looking for Nikita. Her boyfriend informs him that she left the necessary documents and gives them to him, but it is also understood that Nikita is gone and while both of them loved her, they will probably never see her again.
La Femme Nikita is a powerfully seductive movie that captures the audience in the very first scene. Always wondering what will happen next, this film is the epitome of an action/suspense/thriller for its time -- 1990. One of the main themes in this movie is surprisingly love and sacrifice. From the very moment Nikita steps back into society and goes grocery shopping, she meets her love. And from then on, she strives to keep her alter assassin ego a secret from him to maintain their fun loving relationship. In the end, she must sacrifice this love to carry on living, literally. Another semblance of this theme is found from her supervisor. While the audience can tell that Nikita has feelings for him, and that he has feelings for her, he must sacrifice this notion for his job. And in the end, this love quite possibly works in her favor since he may not pursue finding Nikita to finish off the job that most certainly ends in her death.
I loved La Femme Nikita. After viewing the original French version, I had no desire at all to see the later American version. Even more so after viewing tidbits in class. Luc Besson's Nikita, (Anne Parillaud), is one of a kind. Just seeing the American version of her character completely turned me off. From the start, this film had me ready to see more, and if this "tv series" I've been reading about starred Anne Parillaud, I'd probably be buying the DVDs for all seasons. Her quirky character thrown into life or death situations is always suspenseful and action packed without all of the exaggerated explosions that today's action movies seem to require. Without a doubt, this movie is awesome. And I think anyone would love it, even those jerks who "hate subtitles/foreign films". It's just that good.
Pedro Almodovar's 2004 release, Bad Education is a twisted tale of love, lies, betrayal and deception focusing on the interconnected lives of two men, Ignacio and Enrique. These childhood friends are reunited as adults when Enrique, a film director, is sought out by Ignacio who is looking for work as an actor. Before he leaves, Ignacio gives Enrique a copy of the autobiographically story he had written about their childhood to read. As Ignacio's story unravels, it is revealed that these two men were each other's first loves as boys in school. But their affair was brought to a heart breaking end when their seemingly pedophilic teacher, Father Manolo, discovers their relationship and forces Enrique to leave the school in what appears to be a sick jealousy over Ignacio. As the story continues into adulthood, Ignacio has apparently chosen to live his life as a woman, Zahara, and plans on blackmailing Father Manolo to get money for the sexual reassignment surgery she desires.
After reading this story, Enrique is inspired for his next film and casts Ignacio as the character of Zahara. As the movie unfolds, Ignacio's identity becomes the real mystery of the film, and after some investigating of his own, Enrique discovers that Ignacio has actually died some time ago.
As production for Enrique's film comes to a close, a man claiming to be Father Manolo has a very different story for Enrique. The sudden unraveling of truth, paralleled with the production of Enrique's film, forms a very climactic ending, that leaves not only the audience to sit back and wonder what has just happened, but also the characters left in disarray.
The most overpowering theme in Bad Education centers around the idea of identity. It seems as though the entire movie revolves around discovering who Ignacio really is. While the audience is introduced to an attractive young man, claiming to be Ignacio, even his childhood friend isn't entirely convinced he is who he says he is. This doubt is then even more profound when introduced to Ignacio's alter ego, Zahara, who is shown going to a hotel room with a man she discovers to be Enrique; a man who doesn't seem to show any clear resemblance to the Enrique we had just been introduced to. It is in the way that reality, Ignacio's story, and Enrique's film are sewn together in this movie that creates the mind bending mystery of identity through out the entire movie.
Bad Education is nothing that I expected. The strong themes surrounding love and sex are nothing that American mainstream Hollywood films would ever dare attempt to encompass in the fashion and expression that Almodovar has in Bad Education. Not so surprisingly, I overheard pre-class discussion between male classmates about the shock value and discomfort they felt in viewing homosexual conduct on the screen in class. I think it's important that instead of being an unrealistic prude suddenly, that a film student should look deeper into the 'why' of seemingly shocking, irrelevant, or unnecessary scenes. The sexual scenes in this movie, like most heterosexual love scenes, pronounce the love intertwined between these characters. Anyone who's ever seen Basic Instinct knows that there is an attraction and love between Detective Curran and the murderous Catherine Tramell. The sex scenes, though quite dramatic and explicit, create the relationship and bond between Douglas' and Stone's characters. Take the intimate sex scenes out, and try to explain why Catherine doesn't leave Detective Curran in a pool of blood in the final scene. This being said, I can appreciate the somewhat bittersweet and explicit themes of love in Almodovar's Bad Education, despite my own personal taste and preference.
are both stranded. They hitch rides with truckers until they finally reach the address where his mother had written the letters, but Josue's father does not live there anymore. They both keep searching until they find Josue's father's other sons who reveal that their father had vanished months ago. They ask Dora to read a letter than their father had sent to an "Ana" (Josue's mother) at their address many months ago. The letter reads that he had gone looking for Ana in Rio de Janeiro, but assumes she had finally left to go home to him. He promises he will be home soon and Josue and one of the other sons are especially hopeful that this is true. Dora then leaves in the middle of the night, but by then her bond with Josue had grown tremendously. Josue realizes this at dawn and begins chasing after her, though she is long gone. D
ora writes Josue a letter while on the bus, and tells him not to forget her.
