Old Boy -
** Very disappointing. I remembered a trash and gore movie… but it's more about hypnosis and dreams. The script is inconsistent: why wouldn't the girl tell her lover where she's from? It means they haven't talk about their past at all if they couldn't imagine their were father and daughter. The sequences of tortures and actions are amazingly filmed though.
The Cook, the thief, his wife and her lover - Greenaway
** Aesthetics, for sure. But it didn't succeed to impress me. The formalism doesn't bring anything, any poetry, any enlightenment. Everything's vulgar: the paradox is that the only explicitly vulgar character (the husband) is really interesting in his monologues. He's the perfect figure of the ogre. But the easy metaphor with the hell-purgatory-heaven is simplistic. And the characters are grotesque: the 'lover' reading books, the exploited cooks etc. Disappointing.
Deux anglaises et le continent - Truffaut
Splendid. I particularly like the two british actresses and their mother. Léaud is at his best in the tragically comic character. At his ease in the world, his is nonetheless as affected as a child at the end (when facing the little sister, who's more adult than him). The explicit accent put on the sexual discovery of the two sisters is impressing giving what Truffaut usually does. The letters, both written and read (including face-to-the-camera) take a huge importance with Truffaut's voice narrating and commenting the emotions throughout the movie.
The Hangover -
. ***
La peau douce - Truffaut
Somehow interesting. The subject isn't new, the adultery. But the three actors are holding through and it eventually end up in an interesting way. Nice sequence in an elevator. Truffaut says he only cared about the way his actors had to look at each others (the bodies mattered less that the gesture of their eyes).
Only God Forgives - Refn
Disappointing. Very much so.
Tirez sur le pianiste - Truffaut
*** Impressive. Experimental shooting in black & white for today. Interesting work on the gangsters as grotesques and ridiculous. Aznavour's awesome struggling against life and sociability. The script is both sentimental, with suspense and absolutely tragic. Great movie.
La sirène du Mississipi - Truffaut
Boring from the beginning to the end. Almost. Deneuve's fresh but it's not making it worth watching.