Visualizzazione post con etichetta Amy Adams. Mostra tutti i post
Visualizzazione post con etichetta Amy Adams. Mostra tutti i post

mercoledì 18 gennaio 2017

Great Expectations

Il mio più grande problema nella vita, così come al cinema, è quello delle aspettative.
Sono una ragazza che sogna in grande, che non si accontenta, con una fantasia molto, molto sviluppata, dalle uscite a dir poco roboanti.
Hai voglia a sentirmi dire che no, non si dovrebbero avere aspettative, che è sbagliato, che non bisogna aspettarsi niente così poi quello che arriva è tutto bello.
Ma come si fa? Perché bisogna vivere e sognare al ribasso, dico io?
Certo, a furia di batoste, dalla vita comincio ad aspettarmi sempre meno (in effetti è molto più saggio, ne convengo), dal cinema però no: caparbiamente, assurdamente, continuo a richiedere un grado di meraviglia che stia alla pari con le mie più great expectations.
Metti ad esempio questo film che riuniva i miei due attori più amati al mondo, che sono notoriamente Jeremy Irons e Michael Fassbender. Quando ho sentito per la prima volta che questi due sarebbero stati insieme sullo schermo la lancetta dell'aspettativa è schizzata a dei livelli che chi la ferma più. Mi mancava il respiro solo all'idea.
Poi mi sono chiesta: ma che film sarà mai? Quando ho capito che era tratto da un videogioco, già mi sono cadute le braccia, quando ho saputo che il regista era Justin Kurzel (lo stesso di Macbeth), l'entusiasmo non si è esattamente impossessato di me, però mi sono detta, vabbè dai, vedrai, sarà comunque bellissimo. Qui in Francia usciva lo stesso giorno in cui partivo per le vacanze natalizie in Italia. Pianti e stridor di denti. E' andata a finire che è stato il primo film che ho visto nel 2017. 
Ecco, diciamo, non proprio un inizio con il botto.  
Assassin's Creed è uno dei film più brutti e inutili che abbia mai visto, e ne ho visti tanti, credetemi, uno di quei film per cui ti chiedi: ma perché? perché l'hanno fatto? (a parte i soldi, intendo). E passi il tempo a pensare a quanto sarebbe stato interessante vedere quelle scene di Irons e Fassbender insieme in un film - non dico tanto - ma almeno decente.
Allora ho pensato di rifarmi andando a vedere Paterson di Jim Jarmusch, di cui tutti mi avevano detto un gran bene, sicura e felice del fatto che, trattandosi di un signor regista (a parte qualche stronzata qua e là) mi avrebbe regalato un bellissimo momento di cinema.

Solo che è andata a finire che non mi è piaciuto neppure questo film.
Avevo la netta impressione che Jarmusch volesse fare un film alla Kaurismäki, solo che se non sei Aki Kaurismäki quella cosa lì non ti riesce. Quel misto meraviglioso di poesia della quotidianità, di ironia sottile, di semplicità nel racconto, di ripetizioni impacciate, di personaggi strani e tenerissimi. 
Ecco, se non sei Kaurismäki succede che viene fuori una cosa lenta, ripetitiva e ai limiti dell'irritante (il personaggio di lei non si poteva proprio sopportare).
E capisco che tutti si aspettavano che mi piacesse ma no, non mi è piaciuto, ridatemi Kaurismäki (che è dal 2011 che non fa film e io sto per raggiungere il limite estremo di sopportazione di questa situazione).
Ho invece trovato davvero notevole, un po' a sorpresa (i giudizi che avevo sentito erano dei più disparati) il film di Tom Ford, Nocturnal Animals.

Di Ford avevo già apprezzato il primo film (anche se, essendo basato su uno dei miei romanzi preferiti di tutti i tempi, A Single Man di Christopher Isherwood, pure in quel caso non era stato facile essere all'altezza delle mie aspettative!).
Qualcuno trova irritante l'estetica estrema dei film di Ford.
Non io. Personalmente, trovo irritante quando dietro l'immagine perfetta c'è l'assoluto nulla, il vuoto cosmico, la mancanza di intenti. Se dietro scene di una formalità ricercata c'è una storia importante e ben scritta, quella formalità per me è benvenuta.
Basato sul romanzo Tony and Susan di Austin Wright, Nocturnal Animals racconta la storia di Susan, una ricca signora di Los Angeles con galleria d’arte e famiglia (fintamente) perfetta, che un giorno si vede recapitare un manoscritto destinato a sconvolgerle la vita. Si tratta di un romanzo, Nocturnal Animals appunto, scritto da Tony, il suo ex marito, qualcuno che lei non vede e non sente da quasi 20 anni. I due si erano lasciati malissimo, all’epoca: lui era un giovane romanziere di belle speranze, e lei voleva essere un’artista, ma il richiamo della vita agiata da borghese a cui era abituata avrà la meglio. Lascerà Tony, le sue velleità da pittrice, e si metterà con un bello senza anima ma pieno di soldi. Il romanzo che Tony le invia è potentissimo. Una storia nera ed inquietante dal finale terribile e straziante, che avrà un effetto dirompente sulla vita di Susan.

Film che hanno come tema principale la vendetta non sono certo rari, al cinema, eppure questo ha un sapore completamente nuovo. Di solito le vendette sono spettacolari, a volte un po’ assurde, quasi mai sottili e sistematiche. Qui invece si coglie perfettamente tutta la scia di dolore che Tony si porta dietro da innumerevoli anni. Una ferita aperta che si è imputridita, che gli ha tolto notti di sonno, e una bella fetta di vita. Costruire una vendetta attraverso un romanzo non è da tutti ma è anche un cosa che chiunque di noi potrebbe fare, volendo, a differenza di quei gesti sconsiderati che la maggior parte delle rivalse si portano dietro. La camera di Ford è elegante e fluida, si muove tra gallerie d’arte, appartamenti glaciali, vestiti perfetti di seta dai colori sgargianti e con la stessa forza cattura la follia e la violenza notturna nella trasposizione cinematografica del romanzo di Tony.    

Nocturnal Animals è un film che fa veramente paura, permeato da un’inquietudine ai limiti del sopportabile, e un senso di ineluttabilità difficile da scrollarsi di dosso.
Gli attori sono tutti bravissimi, ma non è certo una sorpresa, trattandosi di Amy Adams, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michael Shannon, Armie Hammer e Aaron Taylor-Johnson (il migliore in assoluto, nel ruolo di un cattivo ferocissimo).
In questo freddo Gennaio parigino, Nocturnal Animals è stato il primo brivido caldo cinematografico dell’anno.
Speriamo che le mie alte aspettative avranno pane per i loro denti nel 2017!


martedì 13 dicembre 2016

Arrival

Is there life on Mars?
Apparently there is, or at least there’s life on some planets in this immense universe and, sooner or later, people living there will come to see us.
This has been one of the biggest fears in human history and one of the most exploited subjects in science-fiction movies since the creation of cinema more than 100 years ago.
There is a bunch of titles that obviously come to mind thinking about this, from the (almost) reassuring version of Steven Spielberg in Close encounters of the third kind and ET, to the frightening one of the Alien series, to the irreverent and crazy exploit of Tim Burton in Mars Attacks!.
From now on, we must add a further view, the one signed by Québécois film-maker Denis Villeneuve: his movie Arrival is, by far, one of the powerful and poignant aliens landing
of cinema history.
Louise Banks, a linguistic teaching in a college, remembers very well the day aliens arrived on planet earth. Suddenly, overnight, twelve immense spacecrafts almost land (they are not exactly touching ground but remain suspended over it) in twelve different parts of the world. One of them is Kansas, and this is where Colonel Weber of the US Forces asks Louise and mathematician Ian Donnelly to go to, in order to understand the aliens language and to decode their messages, hoping they’re coming “in peace”. Time is an urgent matter, because in other places (China, especially), politicians are about to declare war to the aliens, and panic is spreading everywhere in the world.
Louise Banks (Amy Adams) and Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner)
I seriously start to believe that Québécois do it better. Cinema, of course.
In these last years, some of my favourite movies have been made by film-makers coming from the Montreal area, and I’m talking, ça va sans dire, about Xavier Dolan and Denis Villeneuve.
Even if extremely different, they both have a very personal and passionate approach to what they film, and the wonderful habit of creating movies that can’t possibly leave the audience indifferent.
They’re talented and they want to make movies in their own way. And I like it!
Villeneuve’s breakthrough was the amazing Incendies, back in 2010, followed by Prisoners and Enemy, both made in 2013, both with stunning performances by Jake Gyllenhaal, so-called thrillers but much more than that. Thrillers with a deep soul, if you know what I mean. In 2015, Villeneuve was in competition at the Cannes Film Festival with Sicario, a breath taking movie about the cartel war on the Mexican border, having as main character a strong yet amazingly vulnerable woman, superbly played by Emily Blunt.


Villeneuve, it is clearer at each new movie, has this tendency to embrace a certain cinematographic genre and to change it from the inside, to spread elements of disturb, to widen the borders of it and go deeper down, where anybody has gone yet.
Arrival is certainly this: it is science-fiction, but just on the surface, because what Villeneuve wants to tell us has nothing to do with it. And there is a scene in the movie that summon up his whole career: Louise going nearer the glass that separates her from the two enormous,
pretty scary aliens, bringing in her hands a panel where she has simply written: HUMAN.
We are human and this is what the film-maker is interested in: why we do what we do, in the way we are doing it? What is the mystery behind our decisions, behind our feelings? And will a new, possible awareness of our future lives, change the way we act?
Arrival also talks about the world we live in: the fragility of our social systems, of the relationships between countries, and the lack of understanding that could so easily lead to ghastly catastrophes.
We need to better understand each other if we want to avoid the worst, maybe it is as simple as that.
And Villeneuve seems to strongly believe in it: the only element that could save this messy world from his destruction is the humanity in us. 

And it is not by chance that, in another key scene, the scientist confesses to Louise: "The most amazing thing that happened here wasn’t meeting them. Was meeting you."  
Maybe science-fiction will save romance, after all.

lunedì 25 marzo 2013

The Oscars 2013 - Part 4: The Governors Ball

I have to confess I didn’t know about the existence of a thing called Governors Ball until the previous day, when I received the invitation to attend it. On the card there was written: Hollywood & Highland, Ray Dolby Ballroom, Immediately Following the Ceremony.
Once the Oscars were over, in fact, we have been invited to reach the top floor of the theater building: before entering the hall, there was the usual wall of journalists and photographers waiting for the stars, and those immense reflectors that, believe me, are the most annoying things on planet earth. The life of a star is a tough one…. how can you resist making an interview under those liquefying lights? The Governors Ball was taking place in an enormous, quite dark space, with an orchestra on the far left side, round tables elegantly set up everywhere and few big tables on the corners covered with food. I guess a place like El Morocco in the 20s should look like this.
I immediately understood that all the stars, sooner or later, would be passing by. And I was right. 
As a matter of fact, there were too many stars arriving. Helped by the first glass of champagne (at empty stomach), I started walking around: Jean Dujardin was the first in my line of vision. He was by himself, and I knew he doesn’t speak English super well, so I thought I could talk to him in French. Yes, good idea! but when I started walking towards him, Alexander Payne crossed my path. Oh, I love your cinema! I wanted to tell him. Yes, but just in front of him there was George Clooney with an absolutely irresistible beard, smiling.
What am I supposed to do now??! It was impossible to choose, believe me, so I just walked around enjoying the funny scenes I had the opportunity to look at, like Adele, Barbra Streisand and Shirley Bassey drinking and laughing all together, or Jason Gordon Levitt posing for pictures with Amy Adams and the-most-gorgeous-woman-in-the-universe, Ms. Charlize Theron (and her fabulous, new short haircut!).
 After a while, it was pretty clear that tables were naturally arranging around every Oscar movie: there was the Argo area, the Life of Pi area, and the Lincoln area, where I was. I was introduced to Steven Spielberg. My boss explained to him I was a cinema freak. Spielberg told me: "I love that you love cinema!" The second glass of champagne didn’t help: I felt like we were old friends and that it was actually normal talking to him.
Anyway, where is Daniel??! I wanted to scream. His family was there, all the actors from Lincoln were there, the director was there. And there he was, all of a sudden, the happiest man I have ever seen in all my life:
I looked at him, completely and utterly mesmerized by his smiling, his joyful expression, his way of walking and talking. Everybody wanted to say something, to shake hands, to compliment him. He was looking around, clearly enjoying every minute of it, distributing with equal magnanimity smiles and thank you. I could have stayed there forever. When I was about to approach him, Daniel Day Lewis looked around and said: "Could somebody bring me to my wife? I didn’t see Rebecca since I had the Oscar!" What a lovely and romantic thing to say… but the problem was that somebody actually brought him to Rebecca and soon afterwards they seated down at a table and started to eat. I was panicking. I missed my chance to talk to him. Definitely. So stupid of me! I was there with a desperate expression on my face when Heather, from the Academy, saw me and asked me what was going on. I explained. She said: "Let’s go, there is just one life, and we have to take advantage of it." And off she went towards Daniel. We arrived from behind him. She put a hand on his shoulder, and Daniel looked up at her: "I’m sorry to bother you Daniel, but there is an Italian woman who would like to tell you something." Day Lewis looked at me, smiling, and making a gesture with his hand, meaning: come, no worries. When I arrived, he gave me his right hand, I took it and I didn’t let it go until the end of my love declaration. Daniel listened carefully to my speech, having - I guess - a lot of fun. When I told him I have been following his career since I was 15 years old, he raised his eyebrow, and he commented: wow! He kept telling me thank you, smiling, and squeezing my hand every time I said something nice (basically every two seconds).
I don’t remember anything about the end of that scene. I was completely blown away by the events, and so I started walking around the place without a destination. 
And it was then that I saw Mads Mikkelsen walking in my direction. Alone.
Before I could even think what I was doing, I walked towards him.
He didn’t have a choice: he had to stop, because I went right in front of him saying: Hello!
Mikkelsen looked at me (down at me, because he is pretty tall): Hello!
- I’m a huge fan of yours!
- Oh, thank you!
- Actually, I have a cinema blog, and every year I give my personal Oscars, and this year you have won the award for Best Actor!
- Oh, really? For which movie?

(Is he really asking me this? I thought in a brief moment of lucidity)
- For Jagten! (are you impressed? – I wanted to add – that I quote the movie's original Danish title?)
- Oh, that’s a very good movie. Did you like it?
- Sure, a lot, this is also why I decided to give you this price.

Mikkelsend looked at me: And the price consists of...?
Dear readers, believe me or not, when he asked me that, I moved closer, I put my arms around him, and I kissed him on his right cheek.
Mikkelsen was puzzled: Oh, well… nice price! Thank you!
- You’re very welcomed!
- I have to go now, because I have friends waiting for me, but it was nice meeting you.
- The same for me! 
And while I was looking at him disappearing into the crowd, I thought: And you’re lucky I didn’t give you the Man of my Life Award…. Otherwise you wouldn’t make it out just with one kiss, darling!
To celebrate, I took a picture of myself as a real star:
The Governors Ball was over. On our way out we saw Christoph Waltz drinking coffee with the Oscar under his right arm and Tim Burton with a broken arm, and then we started waiting for our limousine to pick us up.
There was one more thing to do… the night was still young!

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