More Cinemanila goodness. This time it's a bit of football and darkness for all.
Together (Lukas Moodysson, 2000)
Let's begin with the reviews. Together comes from Lukas Moodysson, director of such films as Fucking Amal and the recent A Hole in My Heart. Thematically, this movie follows the mood of the Moodysson's earlier films - light, warm dramas with focus on character development. Set in Stockholm in 1975, the film is about how a housewife, Elisabeth ends up living with her two kids in a commune headed by her saintly brother after getting into a fight with her husband. Of course, each character has their own problems to deal with: Goran, the saintly brother, basically lets his partner get away with sleeping with another man in what they call an open relationship; Rolf, Elisabeth's husband, faces the prospect of losing his family, Elisabeth gets used to the situation of living in new, awkward surroundings and explores her life; Lasse, one of the member's of the commune, is concerned with his wife's newfound homosexuality; Klas, himself a homosexual, tries to let Lasse liberate himself, Eva, Elisabeth's daughter, befriends the son of a couple across the street who are critical of the commune; and the kid, whose name I can't remember, tries to make some friends.
The movie seems to tell us something about society and a bit on how we some of us are so politically idealistic. I look at the news and I see people trying to make a change in the way we live with these 'perfect' societal systems. The thing is, these things are made assuming people are not corrupt and totally unselfish. As we see the film unfold, the tightly-ordered commune lets go of its rules and gives in to a little capitalism. There is compromise. Also, one of the more telling segments of the film is when the zealous politically-inclined man tries to talk to Eva about the wonders of his political system. Eva doesn't care; she just wants to do something else. Much like most of us: we're all talking abut how this can change our society and how revolution is important, but the thing is, most of us just want to live our lives.
The look and feel of the film, from the editing, the art direction, the fade-outs and even the title credits, makes the movie feel like a film from the time period in which it had taken place.
The movie ends with football and a warm and fuzzy feeling - the game a fitting symbol for the change the characters went through in the movie, towards a hopeful ending.
Dilim (2005)
At first, I was expecting Dilim to be a serious drama of some sort. As I found out, the film turns out to be a superhero movie. The director of Dilim, Topel Lee, is a well-known music video director - and it shows. Dilim is a movie that visually fits it's title: not only does it take advantage of the darker pictre DV gives, it is almost completely bereft of color - with most coloers in dark violet or shades of gray.
As befiitting a superhero movie, Dilim has all the cliches - the troubled anti-hero protagonist, the straight cop who witnesses the effects of the hero's antics, the leading lady, the evil-as-hell villain. Dilim does not innovate on these stereotypes; the film aims more to present a visually interesting story.
The action scenes are edited with varying quality - the action sometimes seems choppy or perfectly fluid. The action is also heavily borrowed from films like the Matrix, and with sub-par computer graphics (understandable considering the drastically low budget) the effects do nothing but to give the action an amateur feel. Nice ambition, limited means.
The acting is theatrical - which would be fine in a theater, but would otherwise feel hammy, overacted and plain weird in a medium such as film, which is what happened here. I feel this is one of the weaknesses of our local actors: they are excellent in theater but the acting doesn't translate as well as it should into a medium like film.
Dilim wraps up its story in a clean, nice manner - but it leaves this viewer partly unsatisfied. At least I can say it was a nice try.
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