Saturday, March 07, 2009

Hellboy II- The Golden Army

Once all creatures on earth lived under the big tree Eden. But men has been created with a hole in his heart that no possession, no power could fill. After a huge battle between men and magical beings the surface of the earth was covered with gobblins, orks, elves and other creatures. The king of the elves was desperate. Then the blacksmith-master of the gobblins offered to the king to build him an army that knows no hunger and could never be stopped. King Balor agreed. The blacksmith also built a golden crown to command „the golden army“. The army was as terrible as the gobblin had said, many men had to dy and again the earth was covered with corpes. King Balor was filled with grief of what he had done, so he devided the crown into three parts, two for himself and one for the humans. They made a contract, the forest would be the place where the magical beings would live, the rest was where the humans would live. But prince Nuada, king Balor´s son, could not believe in this contract and went into exile until his people would need him. And that day he decided is just at that point, when the humans want to auction the third part of the golden crown. His plan is to awaken the golden army to clear the world of the humans. At this point Hellboy is on his way, trying to stop the elve, fighting for humans that are afraid of him and don´t accept him. This movie is definitaly a „must see“. After „Pan´s Labyrinth“ I adore Guillermo del Toro anyway. I like so very much what creatures and characters he creates, and even though this story has many humorous moments, it has even more tragic ones. First Hellboy, a deamon who wishes nothing more but to be accepted as a human amongs humans, but has to experience one time after another the impossibility of his dream. Then prince Nuada, in whose face the despair is engraved, who is so desperate and full of anger. (By the way in my opinion Guillermo des Toro did the elves the best in comparisson to other movies. ) He is fast, strong, elegant, smooth, cruel and dangerous. And I remember the scene where Hellboy kills the forest god, the last of its kind, but he does not feel good. And he did it for the humans. A very sad scene I find, and very beautiful when the god dies. I could go on and on, how Hellboy and Abe (Hellboys college who is some fish-species) sit drunk in the library listening to the most popular love songs. And the troll market is full of wonderful creatures, man, I love this film. It´great.

 

Monday, March 02, 2009

Milk (USA 2009)

"Milk" is the story of the first gay man who made it to be - I forgot which - a senator or so in California. It's a nice story. It makes you feel good even though he gets shot. Because, as he repeats throughout the movie: "Politics is theatre. It's not about winning, it's about making yourself seen." In the end we leave the cinema touched by his achievements and waving our lights like the people in his funeral procession. And he's such a nice guy! http://www.dailydoseofqueer.com/images/harvey-milk-sean-penn.JPG Funny combination of an off-story (or is it?) with a Hollywood movie kind of storyline. (Actually, it's not a Hollywood movie.) In the early scenes Sean Penn sometimes reminded me of Lucian: Yes, you may take it as a compliment! Physically speaking, of course.

Jerichow (Germany 2008) / Der Architekt (Germany 2009)

"Jerichow" is the first of two movies I want to write about that have one thing in common: they are set far off in the country side and hardly anybody says a word. A classical triangle-story: the driver falls in love with his boss's wife. The boss saved the wife from prison with lots of money, for which reason she is bound to him. (She'll get the debt back in case they break off.) The lovers decide to kill the boss in an accident-like manoevre, directing his car down the cliff into the ocean. But in the supposedly last talk he breaks it to his wife that he's deadly ill and asks her to take care of him. Unfortunately, a moment later he finds out about the affair and kills himself, directing his car down the cliff into the ocean. Now there's a complicated ending! This movie is set in deserted Brandenburg, the second one is set in a village in Bavaria which is cut off from civilisation by snow: "Der Architekt" (Bierbichler) is a nasty guy who bawls at his family without apparent reasons. Except he is stressed, and, of course, he had a sad childhood with a mother-dragon. Who is dead now. Which is why his family accompanies him to his home village for the first time in a long time. In the village also live his lover and her (and his) son: No doubt a stressful constellation. I don't even remember the plot, except the revelations are awquard all through. And there are some surprising elements: like to see a naked old man, and that he kisses his daughter (but nobody comments on it ever, and it doesn't evolve into an incest story). Mainly everybody is behaving extravagantly excentrically in the movie, displaying the distress they must be feeling on discovering the family tragedy. (Nobody talks of the distress they are feeling.) The similar connection in both movies between far-off-setting and speechless complicated constellations struck me. The rural, isolated setting seems very appropriate as a background for relationships from which you can't escape, and which intensify love and family conflicts, if only by lack of alternative (alternative relationships, alternative topics: there's only the woods / the mountains / the sea and US). It makes both of them intense and purish and (despite all nature) slightly artificial.