Film Reviews by SS

This is an honest film which portrays a character embodying both the the cruelty of the U.S. welfare system, the heartless vagaries of capitalism and the personal traits of character which can resist these while preventing an escape. Frances McDormand is one of the greatest actresses of her generation. ask the question:What makes a great film actor or actress? One who can play a part so well that you forget the character they portrayed in a film you also liked. (Sadly , Kevin Spacey also meets this definition.)

The film replays in a classic revenger's tragedy, the horror and cruelty of Ireland's potato famine.For anyone Irish, it's cathartic, for anyone who isn't, it's an education in the history and language of the country.Hugo Weaving is brooding and dynamic, an Australian who masters the language and character of the ex-British Army renegade, who expiates the guilt of the atrocities he has committed in Afghanistan in the Queen's service by visiting violent revenge on those who have evicted and murdered his family in Ireland.

Given the contested history of the Nazi occupation of Ukraine and the persecution of the Jews, this brilliant film lets us see how a Jewish girl managed to evince help and protection from a family suffering its own contradictions under the hammer of Nazi oppression and partisan resistance.The primitive anti-Jewish prejudice in the people who protected her and their common suffering are shown without sentimentality, as is the humanity of an Orthodox priest, the barbarity of Nazi reprisals and her own steely determination to survive.

This collection of six films contain the best,most telling satires on modern capitalist society I have seen since "Oh Lucky Man" by Lindsay Anderson -and that was in 1970! Sharp, funny, unsentimental -Johnathan Swift would have welcomed them as worthy successors to "Gulliver's Travels". I have rented this DVD twice!

"The Vanishing " sets a claustrophobic backdrop to inter-generational and greed vs wisdom clashes between three lighthouse men.Based on the poem "Flannan Isle" ,the film takes its theme from the real-life disappearance of the keepers of Flannan Isle Lighthouse. Terse dialogue degenerates into graphic violence as the three seek to hold on to gold that washed up on the island in a dinghy accompanied by a psychopathic mariner whom the youngest member of the team dispatches with a traditional rock to the side of the head. As each member of the lighthouse crew probe each other's character in light of their acquisition, two Norwegian sailors turn up looking for their loot.The following scenes could be titled" The Birthday Party" meets "Straw Dogs" -the ensuing violence is personal and graphic...and I have to say, too much for me as the character exploration is smothered by paranoid acts involving ropes and blunt objects.

Good films tell a story about memorable characters and their struggles.This film is so confused that I found it difficult to like any of the characters or know what they thought about each other -so dull and amateurish. Nor is there a social commentary of any kind like in Amarcord (a fantasy film composed of disjointed images.) or 'American Werewolf in London' or 'World War Z' all fantasy/horror films with zig-zag plot lines.

This film is well named as I felt i had been shown the door to Hell while watching it.It is a promotion of female self-loathing that doesn't shy away from repetitive ,revolting scenes which are hung with existentialist maxims and pseudo-psychological diagnoses.

If you like to experience existential anomie (detachment) or in contrast, want to confirm that your own life, however humdrum , is packed with incident and meaning, meaning, watch this film.