1001 Grams

Cine Europa 2018

Shangri-la Cinemas

From Norway comes a quirky and delicate love story between Nordic Marie and French Pi. Marie is a scientist who specializes in measurements. Her daily routine is going to work, conversing with her father who is a colleague at work and having meals alone at home. 

Her father Ernst is the one who brings the national kilo of Norway to Paris, France for some annual gathering of other like minded individuals for a conference on weights. When her father succumbs to a fatal heart attack, Marie is the one assigned to attend the Paris symposium. 

Marie strikes as a lonely, taciturn woman whose whole world revolves on her work and her close relationship with her father. There are hints/scenes of a ex husband/boyfriend moving out of their apartment although they never exchange any pleasantries. So Paris provides a welcome break from her routine as well as her grief upon the sudden loss of her beloved dad.

She meets Pi, a French professor/scientist who also volunteers at the institute where the weights are measured. They hit it off as she speaks a fairly good amount of French and an unlikely romance between them. 

Pristine cinematography invades our senses with great Nordic scenery, French countryside where the seminar is held  as well as the quaint little streets of Paris.  Never in my wildest imagination did I think that there is a whole industry devoted to the actual weight of a kilo, fascinating science stuff indeed. Dialogue is in Norwegian, English and French with English subtitles. 

It is a delightful art movie that tackles disappointment, grief and love in an unusual place for two less lonely people in the world. 

P.S.

1001 grams refers to the weight of the cremated ashes of Marie's father. An eerie yet interesting thought. 

A Vizsga (The Exam)

Cine Europa 2018

Edsa Shangri-la Cineplex

"Don't trust Anyone. Don't trust Yourself"

This 2011 Hungarian movie is set in 1957, Budapest. A period of uncertainty as the loyalty of every National Security officer is tested. Andras Jung is a young ambitious cultural NS officer disguising as a teacher who teaches German. In all eventuality, he is a government spy who gathers information and forwards it to his immediate superior, Marko. The older spy is a war hero and famous in the espionage industry. 

Marko is tasked to test Jung's loyalty so he clandestinely monitors his 'pupil' from the opposite building. Hidden hearing devices are planted, cloak and dagger tactics are employed - anything to prove Jung is a faithful and reliable agent.

The film is in the Hungarian language so the words are totally foreign to me. The spy game plays out well in the movie but for all intents and purposes, the filming shows an amateur streak. The cast are believable in portraying spies. The narrative gets murky when you lose sight of who is actually spying on whom. 

Yet the film succeeds in exploring the travails of a communist country (Hungary) in the dark era of the Cold War. A very volatile period for the espionage sector as the leaders are paranoid and need absolute loyalty from the members of the national security community. The Cold War is a sad period in Europe's rich history, it was plagued with violations of human rights, extreme poverty, a strong totalitarian government and no equal opportunities for all.

Todos lo Saben Everybody Knows

Penelope Cruz, Javier Bardem,

Ricardo Darin

"Who did iT??"

Iranian writer-director Asghar Farhadi (A Separation) presents a crime drama in the Spanish language with real life couple Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem in the lead roles. A tale of secrets and revelations + all the necessary ingredients of a whodunit saga.

Laura (Penelope Cruz) living in Buenos Aires returns to her hometown near Madrid with her two children  to attend the wedding of her sister, Ana. It is a typical small Spanish town where everybody knows of each other. A town rife with intriguing whispers and gossips which is a typical mentality among the local folks. On the night of the wedding, Irene the teenage daughter of Laura goes missing.

Frantic and panicking, Laura is distraught and seeks the help of the family's close friend, Paco (her former childhood sweetheart) who is now married to Bea, a teacher. She also contacts her husband, Alejandro (Ricardo Darin) in Argentina to inform him about the abduction. The entire family is drawn into this disturbing incident and try to come up with answers without causing a scene as Laura is told not to inform the police.

Mostly shot in dark tones with night scenes and dimly lit rooms, Everybody Knows runs like a typical Spanish telenovela, except this is a full length film. Multiple characters, most of them Laura's extended family make up the cast composed of top actors and actresses in the Spanish film industry. Headed by Penelope Cruz who gives Laura, much depth. She just gets better as she ages like fine wine. Javier Bardem as Paco is credible. He nails the characterization of a conflicted yet well meaning person with gusto. Ricardo Darin as Alejandro is more subdued as his character is dealing with her personal demons.

The revelation of closely guarded secrets, the intriguing nature of the disappearance all played out well in the narrative. But the quick 'resolution' of the main crisis in the plot seemed forced. It felt like Farhadi did not thoroughly think this part through so he snapped his fingers and decided it needed to end, just like that. Nope it has nothing to do with being lost in the translation, I have watched enough Spanish movies to be more or less familiar with the language. It is a watchable crime drama as the cast perform well but the strained plot change and the contrived ending are burdensome.