Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN

This Film is a reflection of rising Mexican Cinema as Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna portray two adolscent boys on  a journey to self-discovery as they embark on a road narrative driven by sex, drugs and questions of life and death.

The worlds of Mexico collide in this film with recollections of old-war Spain embodied by Luisa (Ana Lopez Ricardo) and modern Mexico with its collisions of the very poor the very rich, the very beautiful and ugly, the city and the countryside, and the paradox that Mexico which vacillates between these foils of thoughts, actions and politics.

Cuaron juxtaposes scenes of very surface, light portrayals of these boys lives, usually involving sex or alcohol, or some party they attend, with moments of self-revelation, or omniscient parables that are injected into the narrative telling of the interconnectedness of all characters within the film no matter how insignificant they seem to be. 

Sex in this film is used as a metaphor for the boys' move from selfish adolescence to self- realized human beings who realize their relationship through a climactic menage-a-trois involving Luisa, the voice of experience, reason, and the matriarchy.

This film is well written, contemporary, and important to our generation. It communicates the complications that dwell within the realationships of youth, no matter how shallow they seem to be.

La Strada

La Strada is magic neo-realism that shows us the world of a simpleton girl that finally gave the world a laugh.

Sunset Blvd

This film, like singin' in the rain emphasizes the transition from silent films to pictures, but instead of finding success, the outlook of the main character, Norma Desmond, views this as the downfall of the movie business. Yet it is she who can't hack it anymore, as this film ends up being a post-modern notalgia flick that ends in murder and madness.

my favorite quote: "I am big, the screens have gotten smaller!"

Ghost Dog

This film is a womderfully written piece following a hit-man for the mafia in the streets of New York. Yet this hit-man follows the code of the samurai, and finds honor in violence, serving a master, and keeping to the code. Forest Whittaker takes on the challenging role of interpreting a lovelable cold-blooded killer, who befriends a franco-phone who owns an ice-cream truck, a small girl, who like Ghost Dog enjoys reading books about far-away lands, and different cultures. She and Ghost Dog discuss these books in the park over ice cream while he is not doing -hit jobs for one of the mafia lords. 

The theme of old- gangster vs. new gangster is apparent throughout the film, as the Italian mafia is altogether being phased out of the drug cartel, leaving that to new ways of machiavellian style war-lording, those that hold no codes and no honor.

He reminded me a lot of marlon brando's character from the movie waterfront as he kept a coop of messenger pigeons and slept with them. The mafia that ended up after ghost dog also shot his birds as the mob killed all of marlo's as well.The biggest difference here I think is that Ghost Dog actually was a contender.

Innocence

This film is set in a utopian-seeming setting as a school for girls, that serves as both a sanctuary and a prison. We open in the film following Iris, a girl who arrives at the school in a coffin, being born into the system in which the young girls for the most part govern themselves, sort of a reverse- Lord-of-the-Flies scenario. The girls are separated both into age-groups, signified by the color of ribbon worn in their hair, and into different houses, we follow House number three, where we are introduced to Alice and Bianca, two other girls whose stories we get to see. 

Within this film the camera changes perspectives with the narrator, of which there are more than five transitions, as the audience tries to piece together the mystery that is held with in the boarding school the camera allows us in to each narrator's unique perspective of the school, as sanctuary, salvation, a comfortable home, a prison, an obstacle to the outside world, or part of the journey of life, the leg that precedes adulthood. 

 While the plot is tres lent, the cinematography keeps one's eye's glued to the screen as the natural landscape shots interweave with action shots of young faces and stories telling  of the feeling of longing, secrets, and all in all the anti-climax of growing up. Something seems to be brooding inside the movie, as one watches young girls live together in what surmises must be a dance school obsessed with the idea of the life-cycle, birth and death, caterpillar to butterfly. yet the death  and disappearance of two of the young girls seems more of a foreboding never realized than tragedies within themselves. The need for secrecy is also never realized as the climax of the film simply reveals what can only be referred to as a recital, nothing so dark as what an audience member would expect. 

In this way the film is frustrating and gives the audience member little satisfaction in finding out the mystery of the setting. Yet the film gives great reward to the aesthetic viewer.

Il faut d fidel

This film poses an interesting insight into the inner-workings of a family of communist activists, and especially how the transition from capitalist-living effects the daughter and main character of the film, Anna. In 1971 Paris,  Anna has been raised a stoic capitalist, attending a Catholic School, living in a big house with a garden and a cuban-refugee nanny. All that changes as her parents take a trip to chile which was currently undergoing a revolution, and become active communists. They move to a small apartment, hire communist-refugee nannies, and need to conserve heat and electricity to pay bills. Yet, Anna learns to adapt to her new communist life-style, and eventually accepts the change as one for the better. 

This is intriguing not only for its politically volatile setting, but for the humanity attached to each political movement, whether it be revolutionary or reactionary. There are faces and stories paired with each point of view, Communist, Fascist, Capitalist, Women's Liberation, and all seen through the eyes of a primary-school girl who wants to know why she had to leave her big house, why her aunt is not with her husband, what an abortion is, and what a communist really is. She explores the big questions, and settles for sunday-ing with her family. 

Her evolution is what is central to the film, and it is magnificent and life-affirming, and finally, abandons politics for family ties. 

all about my mother, todo sobre mi madre

This film was extremely well written, offering a play within a movie, paired with a movie within a movie that weaves together the lives of the characters. the characters themselves were memorable, and well played by the talented actors that came together to make this movie. 

There are quite a few perspective shots made within the movie, which I think reflect the theme of changing perspectives that is incorporated throughout the film.

Utilizing the world of Transvestites, and the transgendered in order to tell the story of a middle aged woman who has lost her son is poignant, and moving, as is the open attitude, and humane and tolerant way in which the characters are treated throughout the film.