Talk To Her

Review on Talk To Her

by Pedro Almodovar

Synopsis

     After a chance encounter at a theater, two men, Benigno and Marco, meet at a private clinic where Benigno works.

Marco, a journalist grieving for a love affair that ended ten years' ago, falls in love with Lydia, also on the rebound. Lydia, Marco's girlfriend and a bullfighter by profession, has been gored and is in a coma. It so happens that Benigno, a nurse, is looking after another woman in a coma, Alicia, a young ballet student. Benigno dedicates his life to his only patient, a young dancer in a coma as a result of an accident four years' before; he talks to her, reads to her, holds photographs in front of her closed eyes. When Lydia is brought comatose to the hospital where Benigno works, he and Marco become friendly, and the nurse encourages the journalist to talk to her and hope for a miracle.

The lives of the four characters will flow in all directions, past, present and future, dragging all of them towards an unsuspected destiny. Marco is Sancho to Benigno's Quixote, and as Benigno's hopes for his patient become fantasies, Marco tries to inject reality. Does a miracle await?

Review

The story is a desperate cry of deep loneliness and the damage caused by superficial relationships. Could the hospital workers have prevented Alicia’s tragedy just by taking the time to talk to Benigno and recognise his mental state earlier? Yes, probably. Could Marco have saved Lydia’s life just by letting her talk about her problem and face the bull with clean conscience? Yes, possibly.

However, the story is also about accidents that nobody can prevent or escape. The strong influence of coma and unconsciousness is present in the film also in a symbolic way. In today’s society, nobody listens, just talks, taking little interest in the partner’s response. We might consider Benigno a fool, but looking deeply inside, we do the same everyday: showing pictures to people with closed eyes, telling events which have no relevance at all and just waste our time waiting for some miracle to happen. Almodovar’s film holds a mirror of truth in the face of our concept of friendship and love.

Additionally, Talk To Her shows a beautiful panorama of European, especially Spanish life, where the role of cinema culture is just as important as real experiences of life. This slight confusion of the two worlds usually dissolves during childhood, but in Benigno’s case, who grew up nursing his own mother,  these boundaries don’t exist. It might be the reason why a black-and-white movie called ‘Shrinking Lover’ influences him to rape the unconscious Alicia. Seemingly he’s unaware of the severeness of his act, because he doesn’t even try to run away, but plans to marry her.

M by Fritz Lang

Review on M by Fritz Lang

Plot summary

There have been a rash of child abductions and murders in Berlin. The murderer lures the children into his confidence by candy and other such child friendly items. Everyone is on edge because the murderer has not been caught. The most substantial pieces of evidence the police have are hand written letters by the murderer which he sent to the newspaper for publication. Unknown even to himself, a blind beggar, who sold the murderer a balloon for one of the child victims, may have key information as to the murderer's identity.

The murder squad's work is made even more difficult with the large number of tips they receive from the paranoid public, who are quick to accuse anyone of suspicious activity solely for their own piece of mind that someone - anyone - is apprehended for the heinous crimes. Conversely, many want to take the case into their own hands, including the town's leading criminals since the increased police presence has placed a strain on their ability to conduct criminal activity. Although they both have the same end goal of capturing the murderer, the police and the criminals seem to be working at cross purposes, which may provide an edge to the murderer in getting away.

The murderer has been marked

Review

An amazing archive on the story of a serial killer. The film clearly reflects the human fear of pedophile murders and the effects of it which turns a crowd to an angry mob in minutes.

The realistic portraying of working class people helps the audience identify with the characters. The worrying mums face builds more tension in the viewers because they imagine themselves being in the same situation. Most events happen off-screen rather than showing the actual murder to the audience. The frequent use of empty shots and emphasis on shadows let the viewers imagine the rest.

 The opening of the film is brilliant in anticipation and foreshadowing the cruelty of the events. The children of the house sing a mockery version of the usally harmless eenie-minie-monnie-moe, such as:

Children: [singing]
‘ Just you wait, it won't be long. The man in black will soon be here. With his cleaver's blade so true. He'll make mincemeat out of YOU!’

which reflects how topsy-turvy the story is.

 Although the murder is unknown for a long time there is one detail that makes him clearly recognisable: his whistle. This is how a serial killer gets identified by a blind old man. This tune, Hall of the Mountain King is a very interesting choice of music. It is not only known from the Peer Gynt opera by the 19th century Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg, but also had been reused since by such iconic bands as The Who. More gothic, horrifying interpretations were made by  Apocalyptica and Trent Reznor. Maybe the most well-known is an a capella version in Social Network. This tune has melted together with malevolence, despair and disappointment.

But ‘M’ is not only the story of a murderer, but the story of the victims as well. The victims, in the sense of the mothers and fathers who have to live on after losing their children. That strong anger and bitterness, which makes average citizens bloodthirsty revengers. The film shows how easily people can carried away towards the extreme, which is a basic element of many modern waves of fanatism such as fascism and nazism. This view became the biggest threat in the 20th century Europe, the one that hates and destroys by its own judgement, not the law. Towards the climax the audience starts to feel like it becomes harder to decide who is really the monster: the murderer or the crowd? We, as we are part of a crowd, even associate ourselves with them and ask questions: would you kill him? Would I kill him?

The Cabinet of Dr Caligari

Caligari's mysterious friend

Review on The Cabinet of Dr Caligari

Plot (Spoilers!):

Francis, a young man, recalls in his memory the horrible experiences he and his fiancée Jane recently went through.

   It is the annual fair in Holstenwall. Francis and his friend Alan visit The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, an exhibit where the mysterious doctor shows the somnambulist Cesare, and awakens him for some moments from his death-like sleep. When Alan asks Cesare about his future, Cesare answers that he will die before dawn. The next morning Alan is found dead. Francis suspects Cesare of being the murderer, and starts spying on him and Dr. Caligari. The following night Cesare is going to stab Jane in her bed, but softens when he sees the beautiful woman, and instead of committing another murder, he abducts her. Jane's father awakens because of the noise, and he and some servants follow the fleeing Cesare. When Cesare cannot outrun his pursuers anymore, he gently places Jane down on the ground, and runs away. Francis and the police investigate the caravan of Dr. Caligari, but the doctor succeeds in slipping away. Francis follows the fleeing Dr. Caligari, and sees him disappear into a madhouse. Francis enters the madhouse, where he is sure he will find the truth behind all these mysterious events.

    When he finishes the story we realise that he was in the madhouse all this time and Dr. Caligari is the director of the institute.

Review

A slightly fragmented narrative does the trick and lures the audience into believing that the narrator is completely reliable. Who would think that the young, innocent Francis is at the realm of madness?

The famous kidnapping/ chasing scene

The actual story being a mixture of horror and detective genre is quite exciting and original. However, for today’s viewer, who is accustomed to the so named ‘talkies’, it is really hard to keep concentrating for such a long time without dialogues and sound effects other than orchestral music.

The figure of the somnambulist Cesare could be associated with a dead, horroristic creature. The raise and awakening from a coffin conventionally is a (rather cliche-ish) element of vampire movies.

The probably most interesting and mysterious character is Dr. Caligari himself. Is he a magician in the fair, crazy scientist or an experienced psychiatrist? It is very likely that he’s all of them at once as he is smart enough to play around with citizens, detectives and even doctors.

He might have influenced great characters in literature such as  Cipolla in Thomas Mann’s Mario and the Magician (1930).

The actual hook-up in the end that reveals the unreliability of the narrator, Francis and makes the film a real classic, resembles in a lot of ways to Shutter Island (2010) by Martin Scorsese, which is also built around a madhouse and its serious patient.

Apart from the story there are many aspects that deserve our attention, such as fictional, mysterious lighting and the absolutely artistic decor.

Dreamlike setting

Sources:

• www.imdb.com
• www.german-films.de
• www.exha-le.blogspot.co.uk