Edinburgh International Film Festival

            Enlightened Blood is a Mexican film starring Gustavo Sánchez Parra, Jostein Roustand, Enoc Leaño, and Flor Payán.  The film was directed by Iván Ávila Dueñas.  This film is a Mexican version of X Files meets Quantum Leap.  It is a unique film that keeps the viewer guessing and as he or she follows the lives of a few individuals as they deal with the amazing occurrence that they each share.

            I can’t say that especially enjoyed this film.  From a technical standpoint, the cinematography really started to annoy me.  The cinematography used selective focus so much throughout the movie that I felt like it was perpetually out of focus.  The story itself was extremely hard to follow.  They would constantly introduce characters and then we would never see them again.  No explanation is ever given for what happens to these wondering characters.  Speaking of lack of explanation, the entire story is never really explained.  The premise is good, but we were never given in information on what is happening.  The film is not very clear on what is causing the occurrences in the movie and does little to help the audience understand.  I can only give Enlightened Blood one and a half stars.  It wasn’t very interesting to begin with and didn’t do much to improve on that.

            The movie Let the Right One In is a Swedish film from director Thomas Alfredsson.  It’s an adaptation of the bestselling novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist.  Starring in this film are young, talented Kåre Hedebrant and Lina Leandersson.  This film is an excellent tale of young love, coming of age, facing fears, and dealing with life changing differences.  The film is set in snowy Stockholm and reaches out to people of all age levels.

            This movie was absolutely excellent.  The acting in the movie was right on the money, the cinematography was wonderful, and the story was one of the best that I’ve ever heard.  This movie provides the audience with humor, action, drama, suspense, and horror all rolled up in one and delivered in a way that keeps the viewer glued to the screen.  I again and again found myself asking “what’s next” as the tale unfolded.  I went into the movie without any expectations and was blown away by what I saw.  The protagonists are easy to identify with and the antagonists make you wish for them to meet their fate.  The special effects were done well but not over done. I could find very little wrong with the movie.  About the only problem I had with it was a slight lack of back story for Eli, one of the main characters, which I would have liked to have had.  I give Let the Right One In four out of five stars and recommend that anyone looking for a good suspense thriller make an effort to see this film.

            Death Defying Acts is a feature length film starring Catherine Zeta-Jones and Guy Pearce.  It was directed by Gillian Armstrong and set in and around Edinburgh, Scotland.  The film is about the acclaimed escape artist Harry Houdini.  It revolves around Houdini’s search to find a psychic that will help him communicate with his deceased mother.  The film is an interesting look at this world famous character; complete with some true facts, a love story, and of course plenty of fantastic tricks.

            I liked this movie but wasn’t particularly blown away by it.  The actors were all superb.  They brought their characters to life for the audience and held everyone’s attention even when the plot seemed to drag.  The cinematography was very well done especially using some of the major landmarks in Edinburgh as a back drop for the film.  The story line itself left me a little unsatisfied.  I would have liked to have seen a little more action, or mysticism, or suspense, or anything that would have done more to draw me into the film.  What happened was fairly predictable and didn’t manage to excite the imagination very much.  It was merely adequate.  I will give Death Defying Acts three and a half stars out of five.  The movie is worth watching but it should be low on the priority list.

The South Korean Film Cadaver is directed by Derek Son and stars Han Ji-min, On Ju-wan, and Oh Tae-kyung.  It is a horror film that revolves around a group of medical students doing autopsies for their first time.  It’s full of thrills, chills, and twists to keep the audience guessing right up until the end.

            I personally found Cadaver to be a pretty entertaining film that was a pretty basic movie for the horror genre.  The cinematography was done quite well, shooting mostly in low light with somber colors that helped to set the mood and add to the suspense.  The acting was adequate with all the characters being fairly believable.  The movie itself was pretty good but there were times that it was rather hard to follow.  There were a couple of scenes, such as when a van wrecks and spills a lot of cadavers, which I found to be unnecessary to the movie.  The plot almost takes to many twists and gets confusing to the point of leaving the audience with a since of missing something.  It seemed almost as if they couldn’t quite decide how they wanted to go with the movie.  Overall I will give the movie three and a half stars.  With a little more refinement it could be an excellent horror film.

            Les Amants or The Lovers is a French film produced in1958 and Directed by Louis Malle.  It stars Jeanne Moreau, Alain Cuny, Jose Villalonga, Jean-Marc Bory, and Judith Marge.  This is a land mark film in the fact that it went to the Supreme Court of the United States ruling that the film was not obscene and could be shown in American theaters.  This ruling paved the way for almost all of modern day film and television.

            This was a very entertaining film.  It contains a strong female lead and several good supporting characters.  The story itself is one that is so realistic that it caused me to be irritated with several of the characters.  The story is about something that happened in the period when it was filmed and still happens in today’s society, adultery.  The plot was developed rather well and left me guessing up until the end.  The story doesn’t leave the viewer with a true since of closure.  The ending is definitely open to different interpretations.  It was pretty obvious why this movie was considered risqué in a time when men and women were not even supposed to be portrayed in bed together.  I give The Lovers four stars.  It isn’t the greatest film in existence but it is definitely worth seeing.

            Café de los Maestros is a documentary created by Gustavo Santaollala and directed by Miguel Kohan.  The film takes place in Buenos Aires and concerns itself with the effort that goes into a Tango concert bringing together a lot of the surviving original greats of this style.  This documentary shows these individuals as they prepare for this major event and then finishes up with segments of the concert its self.

            I found this documentary to be disorganized and hard to follow.  There was little or no explanation given for what was happening in the film.  There was very little footage of anything outside the practice hall or the concert itself.  There was only brief coverage of the art of Tango dancing which helped this musical style to achieve the fame that it now enjoys.  I was, however, impressed with the idea of the film.  The musicians that are shown are the last artists alive that began the original Tango movement.  I did learn all of the different elements that go into making Tango music.  The music was exceptional and the musicians themselves were phenomenal at what they did.  As documentaries go it was a great concept.  I would like to have been given a little more explanation about what exactly was happening and the origins of this music.  I did enjoy the way that the movie used clips of the musicians in everyday life and shots of Tango dancers, both young and old, to show Tango as an integral part of the Buenos Aires culture.  As a documentary it didn’t provide me with easy information or education.  What I learned I had to assume from the film without having any verification.  This made it seem somewhat like an extended home video.  I would give Café de los Maestros two and a half stars for idea and musical content.

            The movie Married Life is directed by Ira Sachs and stars by Chris Cooper, Pierce Brosnan, Patricia Clarkson, and Rachel McAdams.  It is the story of two men, one torn between his comfortable married life and a new and exciting mistress, the other torn between his bachelor life and the love interest of his best friend.  The movie is a fairly predictable tale of love and woe set in 1950’s America.

            Married Life was an ok movie as long as you’re not expecting any major plot twists or surprises.  The actors do a very good job of playing their individual parts and the movie itself is done adequately.  They seemed to nail the period down both in costume and attitudes of the characters.  I felt the story was lacking any real plot twists to keep the audience involved.  I was not surprised at anything that happened and found myself watching something that I found uninteresting.  The movie is laced with subterfuge, adultery, and intrigue in an attempt to provide suspense but sadly fails.  I can’t say that the movie was a waste of time.  It was entertaining to watch if you like seeing other people’s problems but all in all is not a film that I’m dying to run out and buy.  I’ll give it three stars, a mediocre rating for a mediocre movie.

            The movie Red is an American film starring Brian Cox and Directed by Trygve Allister Diesen.  It is the story of a man who is seeking justice for the murder of his dog.  It is a prime example of a classic Hollywood narrative.  It has several other fairly well known actors playing in supporting roles including Tom Seizmore.  The movie is an emotional look at how one man, attempting to do the right thing, is forced to fight money and power with whatever he has.

            The Song of Sparrows is a feature length Iranian film about a man in his middle ages, Karim, and the changes he faces in his life and the world around him.  It’s a unique look at an Iranian common man’s life.  It is a story about reaching for the unattainable and the struggles that that entails.  It also showed a strong belief in karma.  The idea that either doing good or bad will come back to an individual is strongly represented in the movie.  There is a lot of symbolism during the course of this movie.  There are the contrasts between wealth and poverty, old ways and new, even rural life and city life.  Although the movie seems to leave things unfinished, they are unfinished because the struggles that Karim is facing are going to continue.  They will probably continue for the rest of his life. 

             The movie is well worth seeing, if for nothing else, then for the fact that it was a very entertaining story.  Personally, I enjoyed the movie even though it left me with a feeling of something unfinished.  It was a series of problems that Karim must face without an actual climax or resolution.  However, a resolution wouldn’t have fit very well into the theme of this movie.  My favorite thing about this movie was the camera shots that it contains.  They used a lot of wide angle shots that showed some beautiful scenes in the Iranian country side and very hectic scenes in the city of Tehran.  I found that the acting was done well.  Over all I thought that this was a well done movie.  One that I enjoyed but probably wouldn’t go out of my way to see again.