The Silver Screen Oasis

I watched Tom Tykwer's "The Princess and the Warrior" yesterday. I think he made it before "Run, Lola, Run."

I liked "Lola," better. This one started slowly for me, coming to life only when the bank robbery started. It became electrifying then (and the film made wonderful use of music) but I guess I just found the characters less interesting here than in "Run, Lola, Run."

I watched Luchino Visconti's "Senso" (1954) with a tour de force by Alida Valli as the beautiful Venetian Countess hopelessly in love with an Austrian officer (Farley Granger, playing a scoundrel). Beautiful scenery and cinematography, it's a fresco of an era and would made a great double bill with my favorite film of Visconti's: "The Leopard", set around the same time. Now I have to watch all the extras included in the Criterion DVD edition.

I might have to get the Criterion edition of Senso, I love the movie, the scenery is so lush, alas the region 2 release does not do it justice. I'll have to try The Leopard again, I remember being dissappointed by it the first time around, it was one of the first foreign movies I watched and knowingly little of directors or Italian film, I might have judged it too harshly.

Let us know when you do it Ali

I will Fernando, today though I watched Remourques, part of the Jean Gabin day. It means stormy weather and Gabin is the captain of a rescue boat, his crew and boat go out in all weathers to rescue those at risk. One storm washes a particularly slimy captain into their midst, the ship has no hope of survival and the captain can only think of the good of his cargo, not his crew and passengers, he gets rescues, is towed through the night but cuts the line before he reaches the harbour so he doesn't have to pay the rescue fees. Andre/Gabin starts an affair with the wife of the captain, despite having a lovely wife on land, his wife is ill but has never told him, when she does reveal this to him he doesn't believe her. I think the power of the film is the force of nature, the storms putting lives at risk and the storms of emotion that wait for the men on shore, the wives feelings of being left behind and possibly widowed one day, eaxh deals with it in their own way. The film starts with a wedding and ends with a death. I'm glad I've been able to add this to the Gabin films I've viewed. Gabin's acting seems so effortless.

Did anyone see Gueule d'Amour? Wow, this one blew me away, and made me love Gabin. To me it was like no other 1930's film I have seen, at least none from Hollywood. Very proto-noir.

Yeah, LADYKILLER! You bet! I loved it - glad I recorded it. I love when he goes ballistic at the end.

Haven't gotten around to watching REMORQUES yet...

kingrat wrote: Mireille Balin is a great femme fatale.

This is the same actress who played Gaby opposite Gabin in PEPE LE MOKO, isn't she?

I still have more Gabin's to watch, I absolutely love his work, I've got Maria Chapdelaine and Bandera. I'm looking forward to discussing them with all of you.

Maybe I can get to some of the others I have recorded from the TCM SUTS day.

This isn't exactly a foreign film, but I watched, and liked, "The Debt," the new spy thriller with Helen Mirren.

I'm mentioning it here because the movie has (GASP) a lot of subtitles, as many scenes are in German and Ukrainian.

I was very impressed by Jesper Christensen as the suspected Nazi war criminal. He really caught and held my attention. Really a powerful performance, one that the film would have been enormously weaker without.

For what it's worth, I was the only person in the theater watching this film.

I just watched (finally!) The Earrings of Madame De.. I was knitting (natch) and had to stop so I could give the movie my full attention. What a ride!
I'm sure there is a thread somewhere around here devoted to the film, I'll have to look it up. I do have a question... Does anyone think Madame was pregnant by M. Boyer? Since she was quite frail, and Nanny called out to her as she's rushing from the carriage, "Remember what the DOCTOR said!"...could that have caused her final downfall? h'm......