Quiet Quiet

Again is been quiet in here. This time is not because I watched movies I did not liked is because my health has been playing tricks on me!!

Anyway, I have seen my first Su Friedrich film and even if it was a docudrama, I have to tell you that I liked Hide and Seek very much. I have been wanting to watch her work so much that last year I almost went to New York just to go to MoMA that had an exhibition called The Personal Films of Su Friedrich which was a midcareer retrospective that screened The Ties That Bind (1984), Rules of the Road (1993), Sink or Swim (1990), The Head of a Pin (2004), Seeing Red (2005), Hide and Seek (1996), The Odds of Recovery (2002), Damned If You Don’t (1987), and First Comes Love (1991).

Friedrich is well known for skillfully mix experimental, narrative and documentary forms with provocative feminist and lesbian themes to create a significant body of original hybrid films. She is considered as a groundbreaking member of the avant-garde film community that has created an oeuvre that is marked by her unabashed –often autobiographically based- investigations of intimate subjects.

Besides being honored with a retrospective in the Museum of Modern Art she has won several awards in film festivals like the Grand Prix at Melbourne International Film Festival for Sink or Swim and was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival for Hide and Seek.

I am looking forward to watch more of her work.

Then I watched Chung Mo Yin (Wun Yen) a 2001 comedy/fantasy by Johnny To and Ka-Fai Wai, a gender-bender film from Hong Kong that was fun to watch.

Also watched Rossini a 1996 German film directed by Helmut Dietl that is a great comedy and satire of urban decadence. Set at the most “in” restaurant called Rossini, where you have to go to be seen and to see others, a plethora of different characters start to appear one by one, each with their own drama. All are tied by friendship, by being Rossini’s regulars and by living what it seems no more than a few days a so close to real-life situations. This fantastic very European movie won 12 awards and had 4 more nominations in German and European awards.

Last I want to share with you that I was able to watch Plein Soleil (Purple Moon) a 1960 film directed by René Clément with a very young and charming Alain Delon as Tom Ripley!! Yes, this is the first movie adaptation of the 1955 novel by Patricia Highsmith The Talented Mr. Ripley. This film is a classic that is much better than the Anthony Minghella 1999 adaptation where Matt Damon plays Tom Ripley. Alain Delon is ravishing and obviously Maurice Ronet is a lot better than Jude Law as Philippe Greenleaf. A very young and unrecognizable (at least by me) Marie Laforêt plays Marge the role that was played by Gwyneth Paltrow in the later movie. If you can find this movie, watch it and you will see that Plein Soleil is a lot better adaptation with better performances by these great French actors.