Monday, March 21, 2011

Timecrimes (2007)

An ordinary guy takes an extraordinary step through time in this science fiction thriller. Hector (Karra Elejalde) is spending a few days in the countryside with his girlfriend, Clara (Candela Fernández), when he sees something that catches his attention while playing with his binoculars. Looking at a nearby house near a wooded area, Hector spies a beautiful woman taking her clothes off, and decides to take a stroll and give her a closer look. However, when he arrives at the house several minutes later, the woman is lying in the grass and appears to either be dead or passed out. As Hector examines her, he's attacked by a strange man and flees on foot. Hector seeks refuge in a building that turns out to be a research facility owned by a mysterious scientist (Nacho Vigalondo), who gives him a place to hide inside a futuristic closet. However, Hector realizes it was actually a time-travel machine when he emerges a few minutes later and looks out the window to see himself standing over the unconscious woman in the distance. Los Cronocrimenes (aka Timecrimes) was the first feature film from writer and director Nacho Vigalondo, who also appears as the scientist. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
Timecrimes (2007)

Hector keeps going over the same stretch of time and can not alter the past, as in the first experiences and he continues to play the same scenario as he seems more driven to repeat the same mistakes than to correct the problems. The only thing he seemed to change was who was going to die in the end. We also never do find out how the three Hectors become back to the single one.

The movie was a good attempt at portraying the time travel with overlapping stories from Spain. Needless to say, I did not like the ending, but no one knows what someone would do to get his/her life back to normal.

Timecrimes (2008)

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Teorema (1968)

Terence Stamp is known only as "The Visitor" in Pier Paolo Pasolini's Teorema. The mysterious stranger insinuates himself into the home of a wealthy Italian family, where he exerts a curious, sensual spirituality over everyone in the household. He then proceeds to seduce everyone in the family (male and female) including the maid, which gives each person some sort of unique epiphany. Because he reveals so little about his innermost thoughts, "The Visitor" becomes all things to all people. What it boils down to is this: Is the enigmatic visitor Christ, or is he the Devil? Matching Terence Stamp's multi-textured performance every step of the way is Laura Betti as the family's maid; Betti, in fact, won the "Best Actress Award" at the 1968 Venice Film Festival. Director Pasolini adapted the screenplay of Teorema from his own novel. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Theatrical Feature Running Time: 98 mins
Teorema (1968)

Clearly the visitor is the devil as he creates the ruination of a family and its individual components. The family may have had troubles before but it was still functioning. Instead of promoting the best in each individual, it brought out the nihilistic thoughts and then manifested itself in self destructive behaviors, like the father running naked in the desert, the mother whoring herself and ending up in a ditch getting it, and the maid getting buried alive -- although supposedly not to die.

Special features included a long interview by Giuseppe Zigaina entitled "Pasolini and Death: A Purely Intellectual Thriller {52 minutes-dubbed}. Sure enough it explains the life of Pasolini as a communist/Marxist. And this explains his own nihilistic thoughts even through his death by suicide. Truly a troubled self-centered individual with delusions of grandeur. He wanted his death to stand out above all others. In the interview it is brought up that he anguished over his mother that was ill at the time. Of course suicide is a selfish act.

"I observe my massacred self with the quiet courage of a scientist."
P.P.P. - Poesie mondane, 1964 -

--Either from grief, or neurosis
or boredom from a weekend afternoon
a man has finally put death to some good use.--
P.P.P. -Orgia, 1966 -