Koenschoen

Gee, what a crappy movie this was! I cannot understand what people find so scary about "The Grudge". The director plays one trick (I'd have to admit a very good one, that is brought to life very stylized) and then he repeats it for the rest of the movie over and over again. As a consequence I startled a few times in the first quarter of the movie, but once I knew the drill I practically fell asleep as The Grudge grew more and more predictable by the minute. To conclude, I can say that there are a lot better movies in the genre to begin with, that the so-called predecessor "The Ring" was way scarier and that buying a ticket for "The Grudge" is a waste of money.

I've seen this movie seven times already, and each time I like it better. It is also the only movie thusfar that has brought tears to my eyes and left me unable to make some kind of wise-crack to release the emotional tension (the moment Will Hunting breaks up). Everything about this movie is brilliant: the photography, the acting (what a performance by the ever so irritating Robin Williams, whom I forgive all the Flubber, Jumanji and Robin Hood-crap for this flick), the story, the dialogue, the music.

The story starts of as a no-good punk teenager drama, with lots of swearing but already the emotional weakness of the characters can be sensed underneath the tough surface. It then develops into a story which beautifully explores how difficult it is to love someone if you haven't had a loving childhood, and are inclined to distrust people. Out of fear of betrayal, out of a desire to keep control all the time, Will Hunting (a superb Matt Damon) first tends to settle for nothing rather than to have the high peaks and of course the great downs that inevitably come with relating to people other than himself. In the end he learns that his first option in unliveable, through some sublime dialogues with his surrogate father, the psychiatrist (thank you, thank you, Robin Williams) he gets to know

Then there is the music, of course. Very seldom have I seen a movie that had such appropriate music in it as the Elliott Smith songs: as well textual as musical After seeing this movie, I've started buying his work like a madman, and I can assure you: it's worth the buy!

Bruno Dumonts "La Vie de Jésus" is one of the best movies I saw that year. It's a very gripping tale of a group of bored, at first glance no-good youngsters, who end up in a lot of trouble because of their racism. To me, without being a patriot, this isn't really a French, but a Belgian movie. The setting (French Flanders), but also the themes it deals with, the environment (no foreigner can fully grasp the horror of all those old people sitting on their chairs in the doorstep, waiting for something to happen, staring at the occasional passer-by). But whatever country it is made in, it is a strong story, filmed in a raw way, which very much fits the rawness of the characters in the movie. If you take under notice that all the actors were amateurs, yet they manage to make lots of so-called pros look like the real amateurs, you have to give the director credit for that.