Sunday, April 22, 2007

Strangers in Good Company


This little independent Canadian film by Cynthia Scott is quite a surprise, especially if you are a woman. Tells the story of a busload of elderly (average 75-80 years old?) women that become stranded in an isolated part of the Canadian countryside and while waiting to be rescued start to reflect on their lives.

There is absolutely nothing special about their lives, they lived ordinary lives, but they talk with such candor about their real-life lives that you will hear things that you may talk with women friends, but that are hardly spoken on the screen. Youth, death, men, fears, happiness, sex and many other themes are the subject of their conversation and no matter the age of female viewers, you will hear things that can touch you deeply in your own real-life.

Winner of four prizes in Canada and Germany awards for the director and editing, as well as four nomination for the same number of “actresses”, this is a film that has recognition for its originality as features non-professional actresses with spontaneously dialogue, which Cynthia Scott managed to have in control at all times.

This is a slow pace movie that I felt it was done like this because the elderly women moved that way and to show reality in the movie, it had to move slowly. Nice landscapes with some quite captivating scenes that suggest what the French Impressionist painters probably saw in the water and motivate them to generate their incredible paintings.

I wonder if men would like this movie, probably not. But if you are a man who wants to know a little bit more about women (no matter their age) this movie could be very didactic, to say the least.

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