6 January 2023.
By Neptune
THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN **
I’m going out on a limb on this one. All the critics are drooling over this film and, starting off as a big winner at the Venice film festival, it’s going to all the award shows such as the Golden Globes, Oscars, et al…
Of course, the reason is its writer/director Martin McDonagh and his two favourite actors, Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell. McDonagh has come out regularly with award-winning films such as “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” and “In Bruges”(with Gleeson and Farrell). They were brilliant, captivating, character-driven films.
Compared with those previous masterpieces, this one is McDonagh’s grimmest and dullest – a monotonous work that goes painfully on and on about a friendship that disintegrates from one day to the next on this cold, windswept island off Ireland.
Colin Farrell plays against type as the bewildered fellow who can’t understand why his best friend, played by Brendan Gleeson, is shunning him in all their usual haunts. The acting is obviously good (Farrell will probably end up with an acting Oscar), and there’s a certain dreadful humanity to it, but it goes torturously on with the utter stubbornness of the older fellow who sets awful parameters for ending their close camaraderie.
You will surely go see it because of the hype, though it doesn’t fully deserve all the accolades that have been heaped upon it. But then that’s the way the snowball effect works.
16 ANS **** (vo French)
There is nothing quite as moving as innocent young love blossoming against all odds. It happens every so often, as in Shakespeare’s timeless “Romeo and Juliet” from the 16th century, with its many interpretations through the ages. Now we are gifted with this updated version set in modern-day France, written and directed by Philippe Lioret.
The teenage lovers (Sabrina Levoye and Teilo Azais) who meet in high school are from vastly different backgrounds and social milieux, but are irresistibly attracted to each other. No one else seems to exist but just the two, completely oblivious of their surroundings. And we experience this delicate magic along with them.
On the other hand, the girl’s brother has just been accused of having stolen an expensive bottle of alcohol from the supermarket in which he works. The manager does not heed his pleas of innocence and fires him on the spot. The boy, of Arab background, badly needs the job; the arrogant manager is the father of young Romeo. A fissure is already opening in the lives of our budding lovers.
Lioret has created many dramas about difficult relationships (“Mademoiselle”, “Je vais bien, ne t’en fais pas”, “Paris-Brest”), and here he has surpassed himself in this perennial tale of fate crushing the dreams of two innocents. There are the tensions and boiling points of racism, the dire consequences for the supermarket director, and the desperate acts of the young lovers. Beautifully conceived, written and acted, there is not a moment when we as audience are not fully involved in these intertwined lives that are so enmeshed in their own beliefs. Everyone talks and no one listens until it is too late. It is achingly poignant and the Bard would be well pleased…
OPERATION FORTUNE (RUSE DE GUERRE) ***
Guy Ritchie, of such gangster delights as “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels”, “Snatch” and “RocknRolla”, is at it again. If you want delirious fun and action at the movies, run to his latest – you won’t be disappointed.
He features two of his choice actors – Jason Statham plays the formidable Bond-like hero, Fortune, and Hugh Grant plays the naughty but charming villain who deals in some world-threatening weapons. The plot is not as important as the entertaining encounters between the various characters. One could almost call Ritchie an English version of Tarantino, though with more amusement and less gore.
Like his name, Ritchie makes “guy” films that also thrill women – not an easy task!
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Superb **** Very Good *** Good ** Mediocre * Miserable – no stars
By Neptune
Neptune Ravar Ingwersen reviews film extensively for publications in Switzerland. She views 4 to 8 films a week and her aim is to sort the wheat from the chaff for readers.
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