#83 of 2010: The Curse of the Cat People

"Oh Kay, we're gonna do the short, short version":

Mr. Golly Gee/Dad (still attached to spurned, cursed dead wife) has effectively domesticated his former office buddy/new wife, or she has domesticated herself to the point that you wouldn't know anything about her past life as a working gal if you hadn't seen the previous film. They have an imaginative and solitary daughter, Amy, and in raising her, Dad takes his characteristically simplistic approach (play with other kids = happily normalized life, tell me what i want to hear = i've taught you a lesson, incredible truths = lies). There's a somewhat underdeveloped and maudlin interwoven storyline about an aging actress (with something akin to alzheimer's) and the daughter who struggles to care for her. Simone Simon is as charming as ever, and her singing to/interaction with Amy is a highlight of the story, alongside the young character's personality and openness to the world. The plot climax during a blizzard on christmas is a bit too much.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Curse_of_the_Cat_People

#77 of 2010: Cria Cuervos

like "spirit of the beehive", "cria cuervos" is a movie about pivotal events during childhood, stars Ana Torrent as the central character, and allows children to be complex and/or uncomfortably (though realistically) amoral. the later film also echoes the earlier in the way that it treats fascism and political turmoil as secondary to the more immediate experiences of family life, but makes sure to demonstrate a strong connection between the socio-political situation of the time and the behavior of the adult characters, which in turn seems to offer insight into the behavior of the children. one thing I could have done without was the flash-forward adult Ana appearing on screen in several highly contrived scenes (she is basically a speaking bust that seems to be answering the unasked question "what was your childhood like?") where she explains how she felt at age nine. this could have been included to introduce some instability into the narrative, call into question what we've seen. after all, if the movie is taken as the telling of memories by the adult Ana, we can assume that a good deal of it is confabulation, and that would somewhat explain scenes like the strange mash-ups of arguments between parents, where the girl Ana circles and observes in a way that tells us that the scene is not literal, not meant to be understood as "what happened", and that the camera is not acting as a witness, but as a "mind's eye". still, i feel that the subjectivity of the visuals- the fact that we are meant to see the movie as a look into Ana's mind- was clear without the adult version applying her overarching conclusions retroactively. it might have simply been the lines in these scenes that i didn't care for, or the fact that a woman staring into a camera as if she is being interviewed by a psychologist (who happens to be more interested in studying What People Say About Childhood than Childhood Itself) is not as visually stimulating as seeing what a little girl thinks. regardless, the movie as a whole is a successful (moving, articulate, beautiful) argument for the differentiation between inexperience and innocence. watch it, and relish "porque te vas".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cría_cuervos

#74 of 2010: The Spirit of the Beehive

everything about this film- from the lighting, to the editing, to the dialog between sisters, to the fade-as-small-scale-time-lapse technique, to the loose narrative (almost without plot, as the word is conventionally defined)- combines to create the effect that we are travelling back into our own childhood minds as we watch. "The Spirit of the Beehive" is not so much a story about a single fictional child as it is a reminder that children, living in the same disturbing world as adults without any guarantee of shelter from loss or grief or disillusionment, have the ability to cope in incredible ways. it's hard to say much about this movie except that it was transporting, filled with the awe and discovery of being young without any condescension, and without forgetting that there is pain and confusion (right alongside joy and beauty) in living, from day one on.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spirit_of_the_Beehive

#73 of 2010: I'm Not Scared

after reading some of the facts about the setting of this film (which were not made explicit in the movie), i get the feeling that there is more here for Italians than for the international crowd. it's like setting a film that's not about slavery in the 1850's in America: we're gonna automatically figure that historical moment in as we watch the specific story unfold. but in "I'm Not Scared"s case, i would have had no idea that the 70's was a particularly dangerous decade for Italy, when assasinations and kidnappings were relatively common. national implied history aside, the narrative is generally heartwarming, culminating in the main character (a ten-year-old who you couldn't convince me was less than twelve by the looks of him) demonstrating incredible altruism and compassion in defiance of the selfishness and violence of the adults in his life. there is a bit too much maudlin music and the slow motion hand grasp of the ending is sort of terrible, but the film breaks even overall, because it is SO much FUN watching the brother and sister gesticulate and bicker. i feel like children can sometimes act as lovable caricatures of cultural habits (after all, they are in the process of learning their own culture), and these kids do a fierce whole-hand point, a mannerism i've come to know as particularly Italian. "I'm Not Scared" ends up falling somewhere between recommended and not, so you decide.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I'm_not_scared