Looking Out To Sea

I’ve been saving these up, so it’s three movies in one post today.

The Lives of Others or Das Leben der Anderen

This film is a few years old but we only just got round to watching it. There was a German film season at the Filmhouse, which was a great opportunity. Just before the screening, a lecturer from the university gave a small introduction to the film and its relevance to the political landscape in Germany. By her interpretation, it had done a lot to bring the topic of East German affairs into the public again.

This is an amazing film, and if you haven’t seen it you really ought to. This is also the first time I’ve felt some anger that there is a special award for foreign films at the Oscars. This film could have taken best movie from The Departed, I think.

Slumdog Millionaire

This is a Danny Boyle movie though it’s a bit of a departure from everything else I’ve seen of his. Fewer heroin addicts and zombies than I’m used to.

It’s about a boy from the slums of Mumbai who gets on the Indian edition of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? and does extremely well. Is he cheating? Is he really a genius? Was it all luck?

His interrogation forms the framework on which the film hangs the little vignettes from his life that “made” the boy who he is. A mixture of dark comedy and romance in an unusual setting. It deserves to make the term “chai-wallah” a household word, too.

The Wrestler

The first Darren Aronofsky film I’ve seen since Pi, the amusingly-clichéd but interesting debut about numerology and the stock market. This one stars Mickey Rourke, making a come-back after his career as an old boxer… to play an old wrestler.

Some martial arts movies make a big deal about the action. This is not that kind of movie — after all, this is American pro wrestling we’re talking about here. The appeal, or whatever you call it, is in its showmanship. The heroes and the villains, the staged fights, the comedic action.

The point of this one is, I suppose, what happens to old warriors. People who can do nothing else, but who are too old or decrepit to do what they want. It’s quite a slow film, without any sense that it’s stopped or spinning in circles. Mickey Rourke is excellent as the lugubrious Randy “The Ram”. Watching him ruin his life and his body and his relationships, to the point where the only thing he can do is carry on, is a little bit heart-breaking.

We’ll be watching more films this year. Helen got us a joint membership at the Filmhouse, which gives us a bit of a discount at the box office and at the bar. We hope to make good use of it, and we’ve been marking the calendar with stuff that we’d like to see.