Review: Seraphim Falls
I rented this based on Ebert and Roepers recommendation. It is a very good film. In the movie, which takes place in the late 1860's, Pierce Brosnan plays a hunted trapper who gets shot early on and spends the rest of the film trying to escape from a pursuing Liam Neeson. Bronsan is good, but he mumbles a lot; I think he has trouble with an American accent. Neeson is awesome as the pursuing avenger in this film, he really nails the hard-boiled character he portrays. The film is starkly realistic in the first half, but moves more into magical realism at the end. The end kind of fell flat for me. The film was good, but not great. I'd watch it again.
Grade: B
Jun 24, 2007
Review: The Illusionist
It's been a long time since I could whole-heartedly endorse a movie, but The Illusionist is one I can back 100%. It is amazing. Ed Norton does a great job as Einsenhiem the Illusionist and Paul Giamatti is excellent as the investigator. Gianatti should be nominated for an Oscar for his work. I won't give a run down of the plot because its too good to spoil. But, beleive me if you see one movie this year make it The Illusionist.
Grade: A+
It's been a long time since I could whole-heartedly endorse a movie, but The Illusionist is one I can back 100%. It is amazing. Ed Norton does a great job as Einsenhiem the Illusionist and Paul Giamatti is excellent as the investigator. Gianatti should be nominated for an Oscar for his work. I won't give a run down of the plot because its too good to spoil. But, beleive me if you see one movie this year make it The Illusionist.
Grade: A+
Jun 3, 2007
Review: Madam Bovary
I finished reading Madam Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert, after two aborted starts. The beginning of the novel is slow and I kept getting sidetracked. I must say that the novel is excellent.
The story is about Emma Bovary and her husband Charles. Charles is a country doctor in a small French farming village. He barely gets his medical degree and settles down with an older widow that his mother chooses for him to marry. One day while setting a broken bone for an old farmer he meets Emma, the farmer's daughter. She is young and beautiful and Charles falls in love with her. His wife dies and soon he courts Emma; and they marry.While Charles is madly in love with Emma, married life is not the same for her. She becomes depressed and is unhappy, her only solice is reading novels, especially cheap romances.
He moves her to a new town hoping that a change of venue will do her good. There they meet Leon an aspiring lawyer and Mr. Homais the town chemist; two characters that will be very important in the story. Leon and Emma have a brief flirty affair that ends when Leon leaves to study in Paris, convinced that he will never consumate his affair with Emma. After Leon's departure Emma starts a torrid affair with a wealthy local playboy, Rodolphe Boulanger, who sees her as ripe for seduction.
Her relationship with Charles slowly disintegrates as Emma's unhappyness is compounded by her desire for a rich and extravagent lifestyle -- one that she leads by borrowing money from Mr. Lheureux. Emma wants to run away with Rodolphe, but he abandons her when she becomes too much trouble. This sends Emma into despair and she spends the next six months in her sickbed with a broken heart.
On her recovery Charles takes her to Rouen to see the opera. Here she meets Leon again. She and Leon conspire to meet again and this finally consumates their affair. They have a torrid affair in Rouen, with travelling to meet him under the lie that she is taking music lessons. During this time Emma is satisfying her desires for luxury and fine living; still on borrowed money from Mr. Leureux.
As her affair with Leon cools down Lheureux comes to collect in full all the debts that Emma had built up. She desperately tries to get money, from Leon, Rodolphe, and anyone else who she thinks could help her. No one will give her any money. In despair, she takes poisen and kills herself. Charles is heartbroken and later died a broken man, her duaghter is sent to a relative who sends her to work in a factory.
This novel is definitely a writers novel. It is starkly realistic and its tone is dark. The language used by Flaubert is amazing. The sentences work magic as the reader progresses through the story.
I finished reading Madam Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert, after two aborted starts. The beginning of the novel is slow and I kept getting sidetracked. I must say that the novel is excellent.
The story is about Emma Bovary and her husband Charles. Charles is a country doctor in a small French farming village. He barely gets his medical degree and settles down with an older widow that his mother chooses for him to marry. One day while setting a broken bone for an old farmer he meets Emma, the farmer's daughter. She is young and beautiful and Charles falls in love with her. His wife dies and soon he courts Emma; and they marry.While Charles is madly in love with Emma, married life is not the same for her. She becomes depressed and is unhappy, her only solice is reading novels, especially cheap romances.
He moves her to a new town hoping that a change of venue will do her good. There they meet Leon an aspiring lawyer and Mr. Homais the town chemist; two characters that will be very important in the story. Leon and Emma have a brief flirty affair that ends when Leon leaves to study in Paris, convinced that he will never consumate his affair with Emma. After Leon's departure Emma starts a torrid affair with a wealthy local playboy, Rodolphe Boulanger, who sees her as ripe for seduction.
Her relationship with Charles slowly disintegrates as Emma's unhappyness is compounded by her desire for a rich and extravagent lifestyle -- one that she leads by borrowing money from Mr. Lheureux. Emma wants to run away with Rodolphe, but he abandons her when she becomes too much trouble. This sends Emma into despair and she spends the next six months in her sickbed with a broken heart.
On her recovery Charles takes her to Rouen to see the opera. Here she meets Leon again. She and Leon conspire to meet again and this finally consumates their affair. They have a torrid affair in Rouen, with travelling to meet him under the lie that she is taking music lessons. During this time Emma is satisfying her desires for luxury and fine living; still on borrowed money from Mr. Leureux.
As her affair with Leon cools down Lheureux comes to collect in full all the debts that Emma had built up. She desperately tries to get money, from Leon, Rodolphe, and anyone else who she thinks could help her. No one will give her any money. In despair, she takes poisen and kills herself. Charles is heartbroken and later died a broken man, her duaghter is sent to a relative who sends her to work in a factory.
This novel is definitely a writers novel. It is starkly realistic and its tone is dark. The language used by Flaubert is amazing. The sentences work magic as the reader progresses through the story.
Jun 2, 2007
Review: Death in Venice
I just finished reading Death in Venice by Thomas Mann. I must start by admitting that this is a very disturbing story. The main plot is that the main character, Aschenbach, goes to Venice on vacation. While there is sees a young boy that infatuates him and the rest of the novel he stalks the boy and his family around the town while a plague settles into the city. The theme of pederasty is tough to take. I understand the artist's license and personal past that Mann operated under and that he was making a point, but that did not make reading it any more comfortable. One thing is clear: this is NOT a simple story of pederasty. It is a discourse on the Platonic dialog of Phaedrus. Not being an expert in Plato I had to read up on the dialog on Wiki (see the link at the end of the post). In it Socrates discusses the two types of love: the lover and the non-lover. In it he argues against pederasty, that by overcoming this desire, it ennobles both the lover and the beloved. So in the end the story is about, in Socrates' words:
After a horrible dream, in which Aschenbach dreams of some feral Dionysian rite, which demonstrates the internal war Aschenbach is fighting with the god Eros, he takes ill while following the boy, and in his delirium he dreams of Socrates' lecture with Phaedrus. Thus he realizes his urges, and overcomes them. He dies a few days later while watching his beloved play on the beach.
The character of Aschenbach is a pompous, aging intellectual writer who has been widowed for many years. One of aspects of the story that the reader follows in how the self important, egotistical man becomes so completely obsessed with the young boy that even after knowing that Venice is beset by a Cholera epidemic he does nothing to warn the family of the boy, for if he does the family will leave -- depriving him of his stalking victim. That act alone demonstrates the base nature of the character. That nature makes it tough to identify with the character and makes it impossible to sympathize with him. Aschenbach does not enter into the pantheon of great, identifiable literary characters.
The theme of the red headed men runs throughout the story. Aschenbach sees an old evil looking red headed man in church before he goes on his trip. He later sees as he arrives in Paris an old fool who has dolled himself up with hair dye and makeup to look younger. This foreshadows Aschenbach's own attempt to do the same to remain young looking and vibrant. He never sees the correlation. There are a few more red headed men, most important is a gondolier that tries to take him on a round-about trip. I'm afraid the imagery is lost on me. I know it means something but I haven't been able to figure it out.
Mann's writing does not jive with me. I find it too flowery and flowing. The words seem to flow without any great direction or force. This style does not encourage me to read any other works from Mann.
Overall, this is a deep story that invites a great deal of re-reading. Unfortunatley, the subject matter discourages re-reading. I would not put this story very high on my list of great stories, if it got there at all. I had no clues on the Greek gods and philosophy that were being referenced in the story. I found that a little reading on the subject enhanced the impact, and lessened the disturbing nature of the story somewhat. And Plato is good to read on his own, but I'm no philosopher, so I end up dog paddling through Plato's words.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phaedrus_(Plato))
I just finished reading Death in Venice by Thomas Mann. I must start by admitting that this is a very disturbing story. The main plot is that the main character, Aschenbach, goes to Venice on vacation. While there is sees a young boy that infatuates him and the rest of the novel he stalks the boy and his family around the town while a plague settles into the city. The theme of pederasty is tough to take. I understand the artist's license and personal past that Mann operated under and that he was making a point, but that did not make reading it any more comfortable. One thing is clear: this is NOT a simple story of pederasty. It is a discourse on the Platonic dialog of Phaedrus. Not being an expert in Plato I had to read up on the dialog on Wiki (see the link at the end of the post). In it Socrates discusses the two types of love: the lover and the non-lover. In it he argues against pederasty, that by overcoming this desire, it ennobles both the lover and the beloved. So in the end the story is about, in Socrates' words:
"And thus he loves, but he knows not what; he does not understand and cannot explain his own state; he appears to have caught the infection of blindness from another; the
lover is his mirror in whom he is beholding himself, but he is not aware of this."
After a horrible dream, in which Aschenbach dreams of some feral Dionysian rite, which demonstrates the internal war Aschenbach is fighting with the god Eros, he takes ill while following the boy, and in his delirium he dreams of Socrates' lecture with Phaedrus. Thus he realizes his urges, and overcomes them. He dies a few days later while watching his beloved play on the beach.
The character of Aschenbach is a pompous, aging intellectual writer who has been widowed for many years. One of aspects of the story that the reader follows in how the self important, egotistical man becomes so completely obsessed with the young boy that even after knowing that Venice is beset by a Cholera epidemic he does nothing to warn the family of the boy, for if he does the family will leave -- depriving him of his stalking victim. That act alone demonstrates the base nature of the character. That nature makes it tough to identify with the character and makes it impossible to sympathize with him. Aschenbach does not enter into the pantheon of great, identifiable literary characters.
The theme of the red headed men runs throughout the story. Aschenbach sees an old evil looking red headed man in church before he goes on his trip. He later sees as he arrives in Paris an old fool who has dolled himself up with hair dye and makeup to look younger. This foreshadows Aschenbach's own attempt to do the same to remain young looking and vibrant. He never sees the correlation. There are a few more red headed men, most important is a gondolier that tries to take him on a round-about trip. I'm afraid the imagery is lost on me. I know it means something but I haven't been able to figure it out.
Mann's writing does not jive with me. I find it too flowery and flowing. The words seem to flow without any great direction or force. This style does not encourage me to read any other works from Mann.
Overall, this is a deep story that invites a great deal of re-reading. Unfortunatley, the subject matter discourages re-reading. I would not put this story very high on my list of great stories, if it got there at all. I had no clues on the Greek gods and philosophy that were being referenced in the story. I found that a little reading on the subject enhanced the impact, and lessened the disturbing nature of the story somewhat. And Plato is good to read on his own, but I'm no philosopher, so I end up dog paddling through Plato's words.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phaedrus_(Plato))
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