My Cinema: more reviews

La Sconosciuta / The unknown woman, by Giuseppe Tornatore, Italy 2007

Tornatore (remember Cinema Paradiso?) comes back in shape after a couple of years without major films. The script is fairly good, despite some flaws maybe, but which are not so important to the effectiveness of the whole. The director manages to keep the suspense rising and the plot always takes unexpected turns... navigating in ambiguity. He is served by good acting and a good soundtrack, sometimes a bit too eloquent maybe. We follow a former prostitute/slave from Eastern Europe and her path in search of a better future away from a troubled past, that keeps haunting her. Tornatore’s cinema here becomes violent, sadistic and cynical, quite different from Cinema Paradiso. Even though this is not a masterpiece, it is great Italian cinema. [3,5/5]

Charlie Wilson's War, by Mike Nichols, USA 2007

Incredibly enough Mike Nichols’ film has received only one nomination for the Hollywood Oscars… for best supporting actor for Philip Seymour Hoffman (well deserved by the way…). This film is a good combination of an excellent script, intelligent, sarcastic and witty with great acting and very entertaining. In an unpretentious way it shows us the backstage of political life and decision making in Washington and how a bon vivant Congressman (played by Tom Hanks) together with a wealthy anti-communist woman (Julia Roberts) and one intelligence and cold-war expert (Philip Seymour Hoffman) managed to get the financial support needed for the Mujahedin in Afghanistan to defeat the Russian Army in the 80ies, still during the Cold War. Amazingly, it really happened back then. Maybe the reason it hasn’t made a huge success is because the American are not yet ready to be confronted with their recent past failures and with high class satirical smart dialogues (as when Hanks says "You know you've reached rock bottom when you're told you have character flaws by a man who hanged his predecessor in a military coup."). And of course, as Hanks also said, “the ball keeps bouncing”… and (yet again…) the North-American did not foresee what might come afterwards, and did not continue with aid to develop the country… so the rest of the story is well known, and what might have been cheaper back then turned out to be much more expensive, also in human lives… just see how Afghanistan is today. Maybe this is too much to deal with right now, despite the liberal turn that things have taken recently in the US… Excellent film, an absolute must. [4,5/5]