My Favorite Movies

How selective is our memory? What this selectiveness says about ourselves? Minimalist. Groovy. Beautifully subtle movie.

Visually strong and stunning and with a naturalistic plot, "The Flight of the Red Balloon" follows the characters and Paris´s day-by-day life. Nothing different or huge happens... that´s life just as it is.
Like in "Three Times" (unfourtanely I´m just beginning to know Hsiao-hsien Hou´s work), we see a poetically filmed slice of common life.

Albert Lamorisse ´s "The Red Balloon" is brought into the movie by the film student baby-sitter Song who films a short film about red balloons. I´m pretty sure that the first scenes where we see Simon talking to the balloon and later, alone in the metro, hiding himself from it are part of Song´s film. In "The Red Balloon" Pascal takes the bus and goes alone to school, but here we clear see that Simon never stays by himself. Also, Simon is a boy of "modern times" who likes video game and stuffs alike. When he is with the other school kids at the Musee d'Orsay (to look at the Félix Vallotton's painting "Le Ballon") and suddenly turns his head up and see the red balloon seems to be the first time he really sees the balloon (and not a "fake" one of Song´s film).

I don´t know if the boy who plays Simon is a real actor, but he talks and acts so naturally that I tend to think he is not. Speaking about acting, Juliette Binoche is simply great. With a not usual character type to her, Binoche plays Suzanne (kinda mix of her previous characters in "Jet Lag" and "Code Unkown") amazingly joyful.

2046. A number of a hotel room. A place/ year where nothing ever changes. A place from where only one man ever returned. A sci-fiction story called 2047. A story about love or whatever it is.


The fragmentary shooting is like the story itself: life is a bunch of lost moments and memories, some of we try to hold and keep forever, and love, it end up being a college of idealizations and of what could have been.
"Love is all a matter of timing. It's no good meeting the right person too soon or too late. If I´d live in another time or place......my story might have had a very different ending".


Three movies came to my mind:

Chungking Express, for obvious reasons: Faye Wong and Tony Leung Chiu Wai costarting after ten years.

The Double Life of Veronique (or Kieslowski himself) for the stunning use of colors (specially the green and red) and for the "poetic" focus on gestures.
And Hirokazu Koreeda´s After Life, where people can choose only one memory to take to eternity.

Fantastic with all that a noir film has: the loner, troubled and pessimistic protagonist; the femme fatale; the nice wife; a corrpupt world; the perfect crime.

And a long sequence entirely without dialogue or music. Amazing!

A girl is going to Paris. A watch seller. A cake as a gift. Two people connected by loneliness. Subtle humor, sadness, minimal dialogues, slow movie.



This absolutely great film also brings an homage to Truffaut and a small part of Jean-Pierre Léaud. You don´t need to know The 400 blows, but if you do, you will definitely have another view of "What Time Is It There?".

"As I Was Moving Ahead is a record of subtle feelings, emotions, daily joys of people as recorded in the voices, faces and small everyday activities of people I have met, or lived with, or observed - something that I have been recording for many years. This, as opposed to the spectacular, entertaining, sensational, dramatic activities which dominate much of the contemporary film-making.

Now, all this has to do with my understanding and belief of what acts really affect the positive changes in man, society, humanity. I am interested in recording the subtle, almost invisible acts, experiences, feelings, as opposed to the tough, harsh, loud, violent activities and political actions, and especially, political systems of our time".

(by Jonas Mekas)

"So far, I'm a nobody. It could last for some time, but I'd like to become what is called a human person".

Who are you? What do you want? With these simple questions, Kieslowski makes a deep (but not intentional) study into human condition. Beyond their words, these common people, interesting characters, say much more about themselves by facial expressions, tone of voice, way of speaking and by way they look or escape from Kieswloski's eyes.

It's expected of a country that had been under the communist regime for a long period and suffered many changes and wars, people with a different perspective of life, but the depth inside the simplicity of their speech, especially the kids', amazes me. How would it be today? Probably and unfortunately, very different.

"Who am l? That's a difficult question. There are so many expectations, it's impossible to remain unchanged. l'd like to live in a real world, not one of fiction and facades".

The characters and the storyline are definitely full of cliches, however, there´s something really nice and fresh in this sweet "little" film.
Forget everything you ever saw, read or heard about love. Or, better saying, remember all you ever saw, read or heard about love and you´ll find it there.




*Watch it here: http://www.imheremovie.com It´s an amazing experience to watch it directly from the site.

**There´s also something to think about between the robots that need to recharge and us that live over-connected, all the time. (something to write later, in a proper review)

"Most people think of themselves as individuals; that's there no one else on the planet like them. This thought motivates them to get out of bed, eat food, and walk around like nothing's wrong. My name is Oliver Tate".

Among others, references to Eric Rohmer, Woody Allen and, I take the risk to say, Godard (specially in the opening credits). A proper review coming soon.

Perfect!

"I'm convinced that separations, divorces, domestic violence,
the excess of cable TVstations, the lack of communication,
listlessness,apathy, depression, suicide, neuroses, panic attacks,
obesity, tenseness, insecurity, hypochondria, stress and a sedentary lifestyle are attributable to architects and builders. I suffer from all of these illnesses except suicide."