Winter Films

While I am writing this post, the snow is falling outside the window.
It is always amazing to watch big snowflakes transforming your usual view into something completely new and unreal. For few hours, the world is a giant, immaculate and silent place. 
It is fascinating for children as well as for adults.
Movies, of course, have very often exploited the incredible potential of white "laplands" on screen, and Zazie has decided to give out a short list of her favourite winter films.
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!    

8. Smilla's Sense of Snow by Bille August (1997)

Ok, I admit it: I don't consider this film particularly good. But when in the middle of a snow storm you are home and in your kitchen appears a man like this (black turtleneck sweater and Irish accent included), the only thing you can dream of is that you'll be obliged by the storm to stay home with him for the rest of your life. Amen!

Gabriel Byrne For Ever...

7. The Ice Storm by Ang Lee (1997)

Winner of the award for Best Screenplay at the Cannes Film Festival 1997, this movie is a little gem by always interesting director Ang Lee. Set in New Canaan, Connecticut, during the Thanksgiving week-end of 1973, The Ice Storm perfectly shows the confusion of an entire country through the stories of two families and their relationship. The Watergate, the sexual revolution, the hypocrisy of the society all mixed up. And a great cast too!

6. Let the right one in by Tomas Alfredson (2008)

Forget about all the movies you've seen on vampires.
In this superbly filmed and very weird Swedish horror movie, the relationship between a shy and bullied 12 years old guy, Oskar, and his new neighbor Eli, a strange and androgyne creature who feels livelier at night, it is so intriguing that you can't get enough of it.
Watch out, though, there's a lot of red on the white snow!
There is also an American remake of the movie (Let me in, 2010). I didn't see it but I seriously doubt it could be as good as this one.

5. Frozen River by Courtney Hunt (2008)

Disgusted by the syrupy Xmas movies the TV is showing since last week?
No worries, here's the anti-Xmas film par excellence! Set two days before the "fatal" day, this is a desperate story about a desperate woman who, in order to find a way to survive for her and her two sons (after the husband left them taking all their savings), takes a bad decision. She will drive poor people eager to (illegally) emigrate in America from the Canadian borders through a frozen river in the Mohawk Reservation.
Oscar nomination for the incredible Melissa Leo: her Ray is the role of a lifetime.  

4. Winter Sleep by Nuri Bilge Ceylan (2014)

Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival 2014 and incontestably one of the best movies of this year, Winter Sleep is - as it is often the case with this Turkish film-maker - an extraordinary human experience more than a simple vision. The psychological impact of a Russian novel condensed in 3hours15minutes. The soul of a man, the good and bad of it, stretched upon your eyes in vivid and deep dialogues. Cechov, here we come!

3. Winter Light by Ingmar Bergman (1963)

No, there is no hope in this world. 
God is silent and indifferent to human suffering, and in this land covered with snow not a single light comes to cheer up the poor characters of this pitiless but magnificent movie. Bergman's favorite film of his own career is a vision you can hardly forget. 
His snow is the chilliest one of all.

If you dare to, you can complete this vision with the other two movies of the "Silence of God Trilogy": Through a Glass Darkly and The Silence. Good luck!
2. All that Heaven Allows by Douglas Sirk (1955)

American film-maker Douglas Sirk elevated the concept of mélo to a completely new and outstanding level (not to mention the fabulous dresses her actresses used to wear in his movies!). 
In his masterpiece, a still young and beautiful widow falls in love with her gardner. For the profoundly hypocrite American society of the time (mid-'50s) this is totally unacceptable.  The two will have to suffer and go through a lot before love could reign. 
In the meantime, Sirk's unbelievable use of colours and his witty and superbly crafted dialogues do the trick...

... and the house where Rock Hudson lives is simply to die for!

1 . Ma Nuit chez Maud by Eric Rohmer (1969)

Eric Rohmer's masterpiece and one of Zazie's favourite movies of ALL time.
Clermont-Ferrand in winter, the snow, Blaise Pascal's thoughts longly discussed in a café, an invitation to sleep over that will not end the way you expect, a brilliant conclusion of the story. And three actors in the prime of their life and career: Jean-Louis Trintignant, Françoise Fabian and Christine Barrault.
After this movie, to be under a blanket watching the snow outside, will never be the same.

Eric, we miss you!

September (Underestimated n° 2)

All bloggers have their favourite month, I guess.

As far as I'm concerned, it is September. I love the end of summer, the warm light in the streets at sunset, the crispy colours of things around me.

Every time September is back, I think about the Woody Allen movie having the same title. It is one of those Allen's movies people usually don't talk about and I never understood why. I watched it for the first time 23 years ago, in a Milan cinema, and I still clearly remember how much I was taken by this picture.

Lane (Mia Farrow) and Stephanie (Dianne West)

A house in Vermont, six characters, different loving disasters.
The movie never shows the outside world. This is a "chamber piece", a theatrical movie.
The owner of the house is Lane, a woman who's recovering from a nervous breakdown. It is the end of the summer and few friends has joined her for the week-end. Lane is in love with Peter, a writer, but Peter is in love with Stephanie, Lane's best friend, while Howard, a neighbour, is in love with Lane.

Things are already a bit complicated, but to make them worse, Diane (very lively Lane's mother) arrived at the house together with her third husband. Friends will spend the days talking, eating, drinking, avoiding to show or showing their feelings to the others, until a big storm comes to trouble them. It is a kind of signal: all the things remained unsaid until that moment come to surface, exploding and exposing the hidden feelings and wounds of the group.

There will not be blood, but tons of sadness.

Diane (Elaine Stritch), Lane's mother

Interestingly enough, Woody Allen directed September twice. He practically made the movie a second time because he wasn't happy about the first version, and especially his cast. He had the guts to replace two actors like Christopher Walken and Sam Shepard for the role which was eventually played by Sam Waterson, and even to replace Maureen O'Sullivan with Elaine Stritch for the role of Diane. Not that O'Sullivan was extremely famous, but she was (at that time) Allen's mother-in-law. Bad move, I guess.

By the way, I was personally very happy with the cast, thanks to the presence of an actor and an actress I have always been a huge fan of: Denholm Elliott (probably better known for his role as Mr. Emerson in A room with a view, who sadly died few years afterwards, in 1992), who's playing Howard, and Dianne Wiest (an amazing actress, and here particularly adorable with her short haircut), who plays Stephanie.

Lane (Mia Farrow) and Peter (Sam Waterson)

What I really like about September, is that Woody Allen doesn't even try to make people laugh.

I think this is one of the few movies (together with Interiors and Another Woman) where Allen allowed himself to show his (deeply) dark side. I mean, it is not by chance that Ingmar Bergman is his favourite film-maker. I read very often that this could be considered Allen's Autumn Sonata (because of the relationship between Lane and her mum), but I think that September is more Allen's Winter Light. It is just that, instead of winter in Sweden, it is autumn in Vermont.
Many themes he cherishes are present here: the cruelty of love, the volubility of feelings, the betrayal, the difficulty of human relationships, the meaning of life and the reasons behind this universe's existence. Allen's vision is not a cheerful one, and September doesn't leave the audience with much hope. In his other movies, Allen is usually able to hide his gloomy attitude through the lens of irony. I think about that scene of Radio Days where a little boy is taken to see a doctor by his mum because he is depressed. When the doctor asks him why, he answers: "Because the universe is expanding". And his mum replies: "But you live in Brooklyn and Brooklyn is not expanding!".
Maybe somebody should say to Woody that Manhattan is not expanding as well.

This is the only scene of September I was able to find on the net (with Spanish subtitles!) but it is a good example of the general atmosphere of the movie.