I felt it was a good adaptation of the novel but I think the novel pulled harder.

That was tough.

♥

I got to see on-screen this in Montreal at Festivalissímo 2008. I'd found out about it only the day before. This is how I felt when I came back: "Maybe we were just able to access different parts of the “movie” that we usually don’t when things are delivered to us. I wasn’t actively trying to fill in the gaps between frames with my imagination..." http://cuaroninspired.wordpress.com/2008/03/22/ano-una/

When I saw this film I just couldn't reconcile that the man who made it was the same who made Hellboy. I highly recommend Charlie Rose's interview with del Toro (and Cuarón, and Iñárritu from the year of the three amigos: http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/81 The man has such an imagination!

I can't remember whether I found this film because I was in love with Romain Duris at the time or because I just was looking for something more recent from Linh Dan Pham (Indochine) but I felt this story was really compelling despite the cliche of the reformed gangster. I'm very interested to see more from Audiard now.

I (probably unfairly) hate Colin Farrell so much but in the last two films I've seen him in he's impressed me so much (the other being Cassandra's Dream). Great performances from Farrell, Gleeson, and Fiennes! I'm aching to see a play by Martin McDonagh now.

I went into this having read criticisms of "playing to Western sensibilities," and perhaps this is true, but it was so well acted and beautifully filmed. While it wasn't quite as evocative as 苏州河 Suzhou River, it was a peek at a time+place we rarely get to look at it in fictional form (as opposed to documentary), and at students who were there but not leaders (wondering where they've went since).

I think I found out Cuarón was signed to make this movie around 2002 or 2003 and I went to find PD James' book to read right away. Then he went to work on Harry Potter and I didn't get to see the movie for five years. You'd think that any film would be a let down if one sat around getting excited for five whole years but it still surpassed my expectations as a Cuarón-fan.

Arsinée Khanjian is a great actress but I found what I saw of this film rather cliché. I should note, however, that I only saw this film in clips in a 200-level uni lecture analysing representations of Muslim women in film. I was all right, but if the point was to challenge ideas about the sexuality of Muslim women or to like... liberate a female Muslim character, it was all not very interesting. It maybe seemed a little bit like how French secular culture wants Muslims to be? Friends of mine went to a screening of this film for their high school creative writing class and described it as "chick flick + Muslim." Ehh.

I watched this movie after seeing Julia Jentsch in Sophie Scholl in a class on modern Chinese literature (the prof was unable to get a hold of his Chinese film of choice and felt Sophie Scholl carried a similar theme). It was nice to see something more contemporary and see Jentsch play a more common Jule in a situation that somehow feels closer... maybe it was popular because it resonates with the generation... I'm not sure if the synopsis above really resonates completely with the film I thought I watched.

I'm going to Hong Kong in February and I will design a day around Chungking Mansions and chef's salad and shwarma and the Central-Mid-Levels escalators as the Mamas & the Papas plays nonstop. I realise Wong Kar-wai is supposed to be consistently brilliant, but I much prefer this one, and Days of Being Wild, over the more popular In the Mood for Love and 2046. In terms of his more recent work, his Midnight Poison spot for Dior, starring Eva Green, is probably my favourite.

I watched this a couple days ago and while some elements were stronger than others, I quite liked it. The interaction between Sabine (Arsinée Khanjian), Simon (Devon Bostick), and Tom (Scott Speedman) was especially intriguing. And while I did not find the back story or even the scenes of imagining of Simon's parents especially interesting, the integration of Mychael Danna's beautiful score felt so natural and maybe *made* those scenes for me.