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My recommended film of the moment is
A MIGHTY HEART, Mariane Pearl's account of her husband, Wall Street Journal reporter Danny Pearl's life and death at the hand of terrorists. Based on the book, it is a wife's tribute to her husband and the team of searchers of various nationalities who participated in a desperate ho-holds-barred against-the-clock hunt for her kidnapped husband; ultimately a fruitless search that culminated in the video-taped beheadal (not shown on film) that made world headlines.
The style is almost documentary turning one man's gruesome death and a pregnant woman's agonising loss into a powerful statement of 'mighty' (potent, valiant, indomitable) humanity standing up to be counted in the face of inconceivable brutality.
The film's power comes from its basis in shocking real-life events that thrust ordinary law-abiding people into terrifying circumstances. It also raises provocative in-your-face issues. When it gets down to the wire, and it is no longer a question of theoretical moral positions, would you accept torture as justified if the information gained would save the life of someone you loved?
Recommended by Consuelo Roland.
 See featured article In Extremis
RECOMMEND A GREAT MOVIE
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Starring: Angelina Jolie, Dan Futterman
Director: Michael Winterbottom
www.imdb.com *The Internet Movie Database*
You can buy A Mighty Heart video/DVD, soundtrack & book at Amazon
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La morte è la strada verso l'assoluto
The Fountain, 2006
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Motion pictures capture the diversity of human existence on a sweeping scale; wide-lens cameras and audio-visual stimuli seduce us with the immediacy of a 3D world. Why else is it that I always carry tissues with me to a potentially great movie?
We present some of the greatest movies of all time. A truly great motion picture, with its own unique take on the dynamics of life, love and death, has the power to hit us in the solar plexus and not let us forget it.
* Warning: Cinematic anaesthesia is not our thing. Prepare yourself to be moved.
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Breaking the Waves (Denmark/France, 1996)
Review: *Warning: this motion picture may be hazardous to your health. You may be haunted by deeply disturbing images for the rest of your life. Lars von Trier once claimed it was a simple love story. If so then it is about unconditional love and the willingness to sacrifice all. Is Bess's obsession lethal madness or transcendant faith? Is it a feminist film or anti-feminist? You'll have to see it yourself to decide, but don't miss it. This compulsive mix of devotion, sex and faith makes for one of the most original and powerful films you'll ever see.
Recommended by Consuelo Roland.
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You can buy Breaking the Waves on video/DVD at Amazon
Buy the soundtrack from iMusic
Buy the poster from Allposter
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Starring: Emily Watson, Stellan Skarsgard
Director: Lars von Trier
Synopsis: Oilman Jan is paralyzed in an accident. His wife Bess, who prayed for his return, feels guilty; even more, when Jan urges her to have sex with another. Bess and Jan exchange explicit sexual fantasies and she willingly subjects herself to depraved sex.
imdb.com * The Internet Movie Database *
brightlightsfilm.com * Bright Lights Film Journal *
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Don Juan DeMarco (1995)
Review: Zany film with excellent performances by Johnny Depp (the patient) and Marlon Brando (psychiatrist). A movie that fascinates by blurring the lines between fantasy and reality while placing old-fashioned romance on centre stage. How much romance maketh a man? The patient, believing he is Don Juan, tells the remarkable events of his life in a straight funny way that is oddly touching. The psychiatrist is deeply affected by his patient's romantic vision; what seems like madness at first starts to take on the aspect of total sanity. Don't we all create our own reality? The roles of patient and doctor are reversed; he finds a new fire in himself for life and love.
Recommended by Consuelo Roland.
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You can buy Don Juan DeMarco on video/DVD at Amazon
Buy the soundtrack from iMusic
Buy the poster from Allposter
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Starring: Johnny Depp and Marlon Brando
Director: Jeremy Leven
Synopsis: A soon-to-retire well respected psychiatrist has his life transformed by a patient who believes that he is Don Juan, the greatest lover in the world. The patient has come to New York in search of a lost love and has tried to take his life by jumping off a billboard. His patient's delusion sparks in the doctor romantic feelings he has long denied.
www.reel.com - 'your connection to the movies'
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House of Sand and Fog (2003)
Review: * Warning: this motion picture may be hazardous to your health. You may weep buckets of tears as I did. The emotional impact left me feeling as if I'd been kicked by a mule. The cast are all superb. Sympathy swings from one side to the other, the tension unbearable, as the impossible situation escalates to a devastating climax. Against the backdrop of inter-cultural dehumanisation and the pain of loss a human drama plays itself out with consequences of greek tragedy proportions.
Recommended by Consuelo Roland.
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You can buy House of Sand and Fog on video/DVD at Amazon
Buy the soundtrack from iMusic
Buy the poster from Allposter
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Starring: Ben Kingsley, Jennifer Connelly
Director: Vadim Perelman
Synopsis: An abandoned wife is evicted from her house and starts a tragic conflict with her home's new owners, an Iranian family banished from their home country, to reclaim her property.
www.imdb.com * The Internet Movie Database *
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The Big Blue (Le Grand Bleu, France, 1988)
Review: In the novel The Good Cemetery Guide Anthony Loxton mentions the cult movie The Big Blue, perhaps because this unique epic adventure is all about adult choices and free will. As Jacques' obsession with the sea grows he begins to feel that he belongs in that secret underwater world. Each dive comes to represent a choice between living and dying. The spectacular dive locations make this a mesmerisingly beautiful film. The dreamy ambience makes one feel the pull of the bottomless big blue that seduces Jacques. In the end he must choose between staying at the bottom of the sea (killing himself) or coming back to the air-breathing surface to face love, a different kind of dangerous passion.
Recommended by Consuelo Roland.
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You can buy The Big Blue on video/DVD at Amazon
Buy the soundtrack from iMusic
Buy the poster from Allposter
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Starring: Rosanna Arquet, Jean-Marc Barr, Jean Reno
Director: Luc Besson
Synopsis: Jacques and Enzo are two free-divers (no oxygen bottles) who compete against each other in competitions, trying to beat each other's records, going deeper and deeper, risking their lives to be the best. To complicate matters Jacques falls in love.
www.imdb.com * The Internet Movie Database *
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The Unbearable Lightness of Being (USA, 1988)
Review: * Warning: this film may be hazardous to your health. You may suffer from a lingering melancolia for the rest of your life. Besides the tragic inevitability of life getting up to its old tricks in the face of rampant lust, this film has possibly the best sex scene with a hat in the history of cinema. If you haven't seen it yet you have missed an iconic master-piece of cinema.
Recommended by Consuelo Roland.
See review The Unbearable Lightness of Being, by Milan Kundera: Features: BOOKS
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You can buy The Unbearable Lightness of Being on video/DVD at Amazon
Buy the soundtrack from iMusic
Buy the poster from Allposter
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Starring: Daniel Day-Lewis (Tomas), Juliette Binoche (Tereza), Lena Olin (Sabina)
Director: Philip Kaufman
Synopsis: In 1968, a Czech doctor with an active sex life meets a woman who wants monogamy, and then the Soviet invasion further disrupts their lives. Based on the acclaimed novel of the same name by Milan Kundera
www.imdb.com * The Internet Movie Database *
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Contact details:
email:
info@goodcemeteryguide.com
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