Friday November 17, 2006 SGN.org |
 |
Volume 34 Issue 46 |
 |
|
Wednesday, Dec 03, 2008
|
 |
|||||||||||
|
|||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||
|
 |
| Two films that should be contenders come Oscar time | |
 |
|
|
by Rajkhet Dirzhud-Rashid -
SGN A&E Writer Babel Directed by:Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu Starring:; Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Mohamed Akzham Peter Wight, Ali Hamadi, Gael Garcia Bernal, Monica del Carmen Rinko Kikuchi, Koji Yakusho Now playing Fur, An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus Directed by: Steven Shainberg Starring: Nicole Kidman, Robert Downey, Jr., Ty Burrell, Haris Yulin Jane Alexander, Emmy Clarke, Genevieve McCarthy Opens November 17th In the play, 'Six Degrees of Separation', the premise is put forth that only 'six degrees' separate most of us from knowing everyone on the planet, or something like that. And that sense of connectedness, how one action in the middle of nowhere can come come to influence many other people somewhere else is also the basis for the excellent film, Babel. Two young Moroccan boys, one of whom has a major crush on the young, female live-in staying in their modest shack, are having a sibling rivalry beneath the noses of their parents, who are more concerned with the basics of survival in this unforgiving landscape. In the midst of this rivalry, a neighbor brings a gun to the shack to give to the father for keeping the herd of goats the family depends upon for food and money safe. The oldest boy immediately seizes on this opportunity to show off to his younger sibling, but the youngest is not only the live-in girl's favorite (she lets him peek at her while she dresses) but he turns out to be a better shot than his older brother. This starts a more pitched rivalry that sets off a chain of events from a single, random gunshot at a tourist bus, which happens along while the boys are watching over the goat heard. Inside the bus, a couple (Cate Blanchett and Brad Pitt) are forever changed when it's discovered she's been shot and their shaky relationship is thrown into a tailspin as they try to find help for her wound in a place where medical techniques are primitive at best. And in another part of the world, a Mexican nanny (Monica Del Carmen), who is watching the couple's children, takes a risk to see her son married, only to be derailed by the hot-headed actions of her nephew (Gael Garcia Bernal) at the border between Mexico and America on the return trip. While in Japan, a shy, young girl (Rinku Kikuchi), who is also deaf, tries to find companionship in all of the wrong ways, with all of the wrong people, including a young, attractive police lieutenant who comes to her apartment to inquire about her father's sale of a rifle, to a Moroccan guide. A lot like Crash, last year's Oscar winner, Babel weaves ordinary stories into the extra-ordinary, showing clashes of culture, class and economic status, while also pointing up some of today's major issues. A splendid film which shows off to great advantage the talents of Bernal, Pitt and Blanchett, as well as newcomer Kikuchi, who brings a heartbreaking vulnerability to her role that should get her an Oscar nod too. Another film that should be noticed during Oscar season (in a truly fair world), would have to be the daring portrait of the innovative 20th Century photographer Diane Arbus: Fur, An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus. Starring Robert Downey, Jr., as a man suffering a rare disease that causes him to have to wear masks and shun public attention -- something that attracts the young Arbus (Kidman), when she sees him moving into the upstairs townhouse in the building where she lives and works with her photographer husband (Ty Burrell). And it is this meeting that -- eventually -- blossoms into a secret romance, which takes her out of the confining world of her husband's career as photographer for Arbus' parents fur business. Soon she is mingling with members of the demi monde that her hirsute host (Downey, Jr.), introduces her to on a series of 'field trips' into the seamier side of the city, and starting to take photos of her own. But she keeps the work to herself, as she does with her growing affair with her neighbor, until both are revealed by Diane's oldest daughter, Grace (Emmy Clarke), who takes out her anger on her mother by showing her father the secret rolls of Diane's film. From this moment on, the film takes on an inevitable feeling of impending tragedy, which even when it does dawn, is still shocking and moved me to tears. A mesmerizing and truly magical film, Fur draws the audience in, and one begins not to care if any of these things actually happened or not, because the film itself is so engaging and believable. And even if, like me, you only know what you read in Art History about the legendary Arbus, this film will still enthrall you, so go see it and let's see what Oscar says about it come next year. As for me, it's already on my top ten list for 2006 . |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
International Readers read the SGN in Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 post your own information on Seattle Gay Blog |
copyright Seattle Gay News - DigitalTeamWorks 2006