VOS

20.08.2009 (Renoir-Floridablanca, Barcelona). VOS (2009) by Cesc Gay
An urban comedy centered on romantic relationships between four people, the product of an adaptation of a play by Carol Lee. Intelligent thoughts crossing from everyday conflicts, some pretext, the unwanted pregnancy of one of these women, Clara, his best friend Manu, and the beginning of a romantic relationship is with Anderson, Manu Basque friend recently came and Vicky is partner, the fourth group. This creates a simple story, very well designed to hold up well on stage because of the interpretation of the actors and actresses and the structure or staging of the film.
Thus, we witnessed a live shooting, with overlapping scenes from fiction and the making of film. All at once creates a suggestive atmosphere of the viewer that the director met with the previously recognized Krámpack (2000).

Cesc Gay said about the play by Carol Lee, who was trapped by that from the moment he saw her, the challenge was to film. Therefore, the most meritorious of the film is how a story is told that maybe I should not have left their original language, the theater. A story like Krámpack or later the author and The City (2003) had more of that, history or a story of characters to be transmitted to the viewer. Nevertheless, the formal result, the final structure of the film becomes downright satisfying.

At Home at the End of the World

19.08.2009 (Barcelona). At Home at the End of the World (At Home at the End of the World, 2006) by Michael Mayer
Is a film that begins with a perfect ambience of 1967, where the clothes, hairstyles, music and creates an evocative for the viewer. Bobby is a boy of nine years old that observes the hand of his parents and brother. Gradually, everyone will die (the tragedy of his brother, boring glass and cut the neck is the initial shock of the story) and he will be alone until going to live with Jonathan’s parents, his great friend and first love.
This is a story of friendship to the U.S. This is unfortunate, as it is with a lot of topics and no possibility of further characters so suggestive as Bobby and Jonathan himself, or Clare, the companion of the New York apartment, which will close the emotional triangle that is created between the three. Will the eighties, the goal of the director in the atmosphere of the second part of the film. Again, the music of the time will increase the expectations of viewers. The pursuit of the relationship between the three protagonists, engineered with great improbability, precipitating an end to the timid attempts to blend the principal to discuss issues of great importance in the late eighties as AIDS, the decision of the maternity or other . A film with initial features of interest cannot find a satisfactory resolution for viewers seeking something more than the musical atmosphere in recent decades. Perhaps the best is the interpretation of Colin Farrell in a film released a year later Alexander the Great (2005), and the text, an adaptation of a novel by Michael Cunningham, author of the text which was used for the film The Hours ( 2003).

Men who hate women

3.08.2009 (Renoir Floridablanca, Barcelona) Men who hate women (Man we Hatar kvinnor) (2009) by Niels Arden Oplev
It is always difficult to assess the adaptations of novels to film and, this time there is no reason for the exception. It is clear that the history of Stieg Larsson is designed to be a widespread and intense novel. The two and half hour-long film does not collect many of the subplots of the first part of Millennium, the pieces that make it a magnificent work. However, probably due to the authorship of the Swedish-Danish film, the viewer does not feel cheated, all I have read the novel. The changes maintain the vigor of the main story, as there is some loyalty in the construction of the characters, especially with the difficulty of giving life to the detective Lisbeth Salander, a role that Rapace Noomi addressed in several scenes as the Nils Bjurman violation guardian. In short, a proper film adaptation.

Satin Rouge

10.08.2009 (Renoir Floridablanca, Barcelona). Satin Rouge (Satin Rouge) (2009) by Raja Amari
Are Tunisian and French production film that comforts, while offering us an insight into the world of women in the Maghreb today, amid Western modernity and Eastern traditions. A woman’s vision, the director is well aware, that allows to build up the psychological evolution of Lilia a young widow who literally gets bored and has the only dedicated clean house dust and worry about the teenage daughter, Salma.
Soon after chance for her daughter, discovers the world of cabaret, the musical richness of color and belly dancing. Lilia is attracted and begins her own improvement, from the transgression of the role that their own cultural society as a brand is a widow. A film about the advancement of women, the struggle in adverse conditions, without theoretical or practical claims, makes the viewer understand perfectly the reasons for its action and the outcome of the story. It´s a good film to better understand the timid attempts of the transformation of women in the Maghreb.

Paranoid Park (2007)

03.08.2009 (Renoir Floridablanca, Barcelona). Paranoid Park (2007) by Gus Van Sant
Although released before the latest film from director Gus Van Sant, My name is Harvey Milk (2008) in our country has finally reached the story links to Gerry (2002) and Elephant (2003). A new portrait of teenagers lining the society and violate them. Elephant If we went to the realization of a murderer out of balance, now is a new character in the same generation, Alex, the head projecting how fate or chance may bring one of these young people to become a murderer.
One of the most coaching is the alternation of scenes filmed in Super 8, as a kind of portrait close to the reality of the skaters. It has a natural and a temporary effect that is enhanced by the fact that the casting was done through MySpace.com. The result, some players coming, credible, unprofessional, how could it be otherwise-and a story that leads us to think about the type of generation that comes behind: without emotions, without illusions and with a spirit of rebellion or willingness to cope with things almost nil. A film that is, without doubt, the technical and emotional signs of other works by Gus Van Sant.

Harry & Max (2004)

12.08.2009 (Barcelona). Harry & Max (2004) by Christopher Munch
Is a story that addresses the issue of incest between siblings with a surprising peacefulness. Harry is 23 and is a member of a boy band, his brother Max, 16, continues its way in the world of music. The interaction between two brothers who come separate but increasingly permeates a film that cost to be understood by the viewer. Despite the odds between the images of the present and the past (which seem to derive in super 8), lack of psychological depth of the characters do not just build any expectations in understanding their evolution. A giant step that is forced at the end of the story, when you try to understand that everything remains the same-sex and affection between them, despite the existence of new intimate partners. Anyway, the serenity and lack of major conflicts becomes a suggestive way of approaching a subject as complex as the relative incest and its existence in today’s society.

Let the right one in

27.05.2009 (Renoir-Floridablanca, Barcelona). Let the right one in (Let me in) (2009) by Tomas Alfredson
This Swedish film, which won the Méliès d’Or at Sitges in 2008, has been a real find. It is a comfortable film, despite the terror and the grim determination of a large portion of the images with blood and offal that has designed the director. The interpretation of the two young characters, Oskar (Kare Hedebrant) and Eli (Lina Leandersson) are a pleasant surprise. It is  a mature and a decisive issue. A history full of vampires where little Eli becomes the mestizo character, mysterious, and the origin of a circular story, within an ending that evokes and explains the beginning of the history based on the novel by John Lindqvist Ajvide. A new example of that film may be better known than the original literary work.