4 April 2025.
READING LOLITA IN TEHRAN ***1/2 (vo Farsi)
I’ve to admit that I had a tough time again then getting via Azar Nafisi’s 2003 best-seller of the identical identify, on which this movie is predicated. The rationale was that the group of women Nafisi included in her personal Western literature courses (held in her dwelling in Tehran through the early years of the Islamic revolution) had been typically troublesome to distinguish one from the opposite.
On this well-adapted movie by Israeli director, Eran Riklis, the wonderful Persian actresses come alive as people with their varied issues in a harsh society that doesn’t permit them to develop as they need. The internationally-known Golshifteh Farahani performs Professor Nafisi with a effective, layered efficiency, whereas the opposite distinguished, dissident Iranian actress, Zar Amir-Ebrahimi (“Holy Spider” – Finest Actress award at Cannes, “Shayda”, “Tatami”) portrays the tortured Sanaz with nice fragility.
The movie begins when Nafisi and her husband return to Iran on the eve of the revolution, with excessive expectations. She is a Western literature professor, he’s an engineer, and so they need to be a part of a renewed nation. However quickly they understand that this revolution is popping into an oppressive tyranny. Riklis reveals the numerous horrible aspects of the crackdowns, and the gradual however terrible consciousness of Nafisi as she sees her desires of literature as a therapeutic balm for the realities of politics eroding because the years advance. She is intimidated in her programs on the college, she is appalled at being compelled to put on head-covering, and her books by nice writers as Nabokov, Austin and Fitzgerald are thought of corrupting. She loves her individuals and her nation, however she begins to envisage leaving.
That is the second necessary movie, after the wonderful “Tatami”, that has been co-produced between Israeli and Iranian creators, due to the fearless push of ladies like Farahani and Amir-Ebrahimi. How lovely it will be if politics might imitate artwork.
THE LAST SHOWGIRL ***
This function is a dramatic transfer for Pamela Anderson, recognized primarily for being the blond bombshell in a crimson bathing go well with within the Nineties Baywatch TV collection and Playboy’s high cowl mannequin.
Right here she performs a showgirl in her late 50s in Las Vegas who has simply discovered that her razzle dazzle present stuffed with rhinestones and feathers is being cancelled after a long time of being a high attraction on the strip. As a easy lady counting on her youth and appears, she has been driving excessive on her glory days that are coming to an finish, and it’s a transferring efficiency.
It is a poignant story instructed with nice feeling by director Gia Coppola (sure, of the well-known household) in an virtually impressionistic mode. We don’t see the thrill of Las Vegas however the tawdry underbelly of a city in fixed transition. And Coppola presents the touching characters that make up a lot of its typically determined residents, together with an extremely daring efficiency by Jamie Lee Curtis as Anderson’s greatest buddy. Appearing in gaudy make-up as an ageing cocktail waitress, she lets all of it hang around with none vainness.
Each Anderson and Curtis had been alternately nominated on the Golden Globes, SAG awards and the BAFTAs, however snubbed on the Oscars. The small roles are additionally fantastically pulled off, particularly a young turn-about efficiency by the same old robust motion hero, Dave Bautista (“Guardians of the Galaxy”), because the supervisor of the present. A tragic however unforgettable indy movie.
HARD TRUTHS (Deux sœur) *
I’ve by no means seen such a relentlessly nasty, aggressive, damaging character portrayed in a film.
It’s a Mike Leigh movie (“Secrets and techniques and Lies”, “Mr. Turner”) together with his favorite actress, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, and he has a stable repute as a severe, down-to-earth director of movies concerning the English working class (a considerably greyer Ken Loach), however that’s no excuse for subjecting us to this barrage of vile, incessant ranting.
Nonetheless psychologically apt it could be in its comparability of two utterly totally different sisters – Pansy, the indignant, depressive one, and her gentle and sort youthful sister Chantelle, and the way their characters mould and have an effect on their particular person households, that is an exhausting movie and I personally was prepared to depart midway via.
Nevertheless it’s had high opinions, so go forward and take an opportunity, if you want.
LE ROUTARD *1/2 (vo French)
I assumed this would possibly lastly be a great French comedy because it’s set primarily in thrilling Marrakesh and has the at all times competent Christian Clavier (“Qu-est-ce qu’on à fait au bon Dieu?!” and the “Bronzé” movies) as a touring czar. It begins off as enjoyable leisure a few bumbling fellow (Hakim Jemili) with no journey expertise beginning to work for the well-known French journey books referred to as “Le Routard”.
Sadly it quickly veers right into a mangled script, dangerous course and far over-acting. Even the late, nice Michel Blanc is wood as a world antiques legal. All fairly foolish.
Very good **** Very Good *** Good ** Mediocre * Depressing – no stars
By Neptune
Neptune Ravar Ingwersen opinions movie extensively for publications in Switzerland. She views 4 to eight movies every week and her intention is to kind the wheat from the chaff for readers.
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