acorral-1

This Mexican movie arrived to the city I live practically unnoticed. There was no plot summary and the only poster in the theater was very simple. Anyhow, I went with my wife and actually I liked the effort of both directors for brining a trivial situation seen through a small kid eyes.

The story involves a divorced mother trying to make a life along with her little (around 10 years old) daughter. All the picture we see the situations from the stand of view of the little girl and we are witnesses of all her fears, concerns and even confusions. The mother was recently divorced and the story starts when the little girl is explaining how she is feeling at that time and what she thinks of her mother. Both are in the process of moving their residence to a new apartment in the chaotic and big urban jungle of Mexico City.

In a parallel plot, we found another character (played by Juan Carlos Colombo) that is dying and he is in his final days. The little girl thinks of him as a vampire. With all these ingredients we have the perfect scenario for moving, touching and even funny situations. The performances are well developed and specially the girl gave us a very strong acting.

If you have the chance to see, buy or rent this movie you will have a good time. Is not a master piece or anything similar, but gives you the gift of simplicity. At the end you could appreciate how deep and complicated human relations can be. Between mother and daughter, between friends, between lonely people, between human beings. I think this is the key of this picture. I really enjoyed the exhibition, but as I said at the beginning, Mexican pictures need better advertisement. We (my wife and I) were the only persons at the movie theatre. Hope not the see this situation again.

See it you won't regret.

After making his master pieces ("The godfather I and II" and "Apocalypse now") between 1972 and 1979, Francis Ford Coppola never had the same success with other movie. He directed near a dozen of films in the 80's and 90's, and probably the most acclaimed were "The cotton club" (1984), 'The godfather III" (1990) and his adaptation of Bram Stroker's novel "Dracula" (1992). In 1997 he repeated a formula well known by him: adapt a novel to the big screen. He chose a story about a young lawyer, Rudy Baylor (fairly interpreted by Matt Damon) and his first experiences in the law world. There are four topics I would like to talk about this film, "The rainmaker" (1997). (1) Direction by Coppola. As a filmmaker, he proved that he is still capable of telling stories combining humor, drama and deep emotions. Coppola is very skillful developing his characters and has the ability to select a good cast to work with. Besides Damon (who is OK in his role), the director selected professional and experienced actors to support secondary roles. Mickey Rourke (as the folkloric Bruiser Stone), John Voight (as the big firm partner, Leo Drummond), Dany Glover (as the sympathetic judge), Danny Devito (excellent performance as the almost-lawyer Deck Shifflett) and even in minor roles was supported by good actors like Roy Scheider (Great Benefit CEO), Dean Stockwell (as the corrupt and hard smoker judge Hale) and Virginia Madsen (Jackie Lemanczyk). Other good thing about the director is his ability to move the characters to the exact point where they deliver a solid and convincing acting performance, including young actors in main roles, like Damon, Clare Danes (as the beaten wife) and Johny Withworth (as the young character dying of leukemia). As I mentioned in the title, Coppola is still a good director. (2) The criticism against two major American institutions: lawyers and insurance companies. As always, the poor and low income population is the affected. During the movie we can see what reality is along the "land of opportunities": big institutions and firms don't care about the individuals but for money. Individuals are only the means to get income, nothing more. There are interesting procedures used by the insurance institutions to get the majority of the income with the minimal expense (related with claims and reimbursements). In the other hand, lawyers are radicalized: since the young and idealistic attorney through the experienced and money oriented firm partner. Every lawyer in the movie represents a kind of attorney and the different believes. (3) Stories developed. During the film we follow at least four different sub-plots: the young wife beaten by her husband, the great trial against the insurance company, the tragic tale about a young man dying of leukemia and the old lady and her will. Rudy Baylor is personally involved in the different stories and we are moving from drama to romance, from tragedy to humor. Good combination and balance. (4) Finally, I would like to comment about Danny De Vito's role. With no doubt, is the best developed character of all. He is the responsible of most of the humoristic scenes but at the same time is the key element. He has a lot of connections, experience and non-sensibility manners to get what he wanted. De Vito developed his role with energy and comedy. He is the one that stole the movie for him self.

Hope that Coppola has the opportunity to direct a few more movies like this. If well, "The Rainmaker" is not his best film by far, the picture is a good example of what he is still capable to do. I recommend this picture to see it, discuss it and have a good time.

Rashômon (1950)

By the time that Kurosawa was shooting Rashomon, other genius film makers were involved in crucial projects: Luis Buñuel was filming "Los Olvidados" (1950), Ingmar Bergman was writing the screenplay for "Summer Interlude" (1951) and filming two full length movies ("To Joy" and "High tension", both in 1950) and Federico Fellini was shooting his first film "Variety Lights" (1950). Probably was only a fortunate coincidence that four of the best filmmakers ever were involved in very personal and decisive project in the early stages of their careers. It's important to mention that by those days the Italian Neo-realism was clearly the most dominating and extended film movement. In the international film festivals a lot of pictures in that style were awarded and directors like Visconti, Rosellini and De Sica were considered the top of the list. But in 1950 something happened and changed the film industry forever. Bergman was acclaimed by his early works and the 1950 projects and the decisive film "Summer interlude" (with the Sweden star Maj-Britt Nilsson) meant for him enough budget to start shooting other more personal movies. His first major film was filmed three years later (Summer with Monika (1953) with his first collaboration with Harriett Andersson) and since then, Bergman had one of the most admirable film productions. Buñuel, on the other hand, was filming his first personal project since "the golden age" (1930). The film received an award of Cannes festival for best direction. (For further information about this film refer to my comment in "Los Olvidados"). Fellini by his side had a well received debut with his first film and a young actress was awarded with an acting price (Gulietta Massina, Fellini's wife). The three of them had very solid and world acclaimed film careers. But I would like to talk in more detail about Kurosawa's first major film: Rashomon.

In 1947, Kurosawa met Toshiro Mifune (the most important actor for Kurosawa, along with Takashi Shimura). In his book "Something like an autobiography", the Japanese director mentioned the impact that was to met Mifune. He described the young actor as a strong presence, with hard character and natural acting skills. Actually Mifune and Shimura had a collaboration with Kurosawa in the 1947 film "Ginrei no hate". By 1950, Kurosawa invited those two actors again and left the main male character to Mifune. The result is brilliant. A murder story involving three persons (one woman, two men). The film started at Rashomon (a ruined temple) during a rainy afternoon. Two persons were sheltered there and a third one arrives. Then, one of them (The woodcutter, played by Shimura) started to tell a very confusing story. He was walking into the woods and found some personal objects and a body. Then we can see the trial (where only the witnesses are visible) and the woodcutter version was heard. During the movie, the director change from the scene in the rainy temple to the trial several times. Then we can hear the version of Tajomaru (Mifune), a well known thief and he described his version as a love and honor tale. He was touched by the woman and cheats the other man in order to possess her. At the end, the killing took place after a samurai style combat between the two men. Then we witness the woman and the death character's (through some magic conjure) versions. Every story is totally different from the other. In one, Tajomaru is a brave and fair warrior, in other is a villain with no feelings, in other is a coward. Beautiful sequences where we can see the same action viewed and told by four different characters. At the end the woodcutter told the real version (totally opposite from the others) to the stranger and at that stage of the movie is very difficult to know which version is the truth or at least the closest. The decision is on us. The final sequence with the baby is magnificent and the acting performances (especially from Mifune) are superb. All the characters took the human emotions and feelings in a very emotive way, the existential questions are present all the time and this simple history is told beautifully by this great Japanese director.

The film received the golden lion award in the 1951 Venice film festival along with the Italian film critics award. One urban legend said that the category for best foreign movie was created after the honorary Oscar given to the film in 1952. This is, with no doubts the first Kurosawa's master piece. After this, several major films were produced during the 50's through the 90's under Kurosawa's direction. A must see movie and reference.