Invictus

The new movie of Clint Eastwood is ambientada in the first year of government of Nelson Mandela. The president of South Africa, in his emulation for joining a people at the edge of the civil war, uses the world cup of rugby that has to be played in his country. Risky company if it is born in mind that this sport was a symbol of the white oppression in the apartheid.

If by something Eastwood has been meant throughout the latter years in which he has devoted himself to direct his movies it is for being one of these outstanding figures who guarantee the highest level to you. Invictus is not an exception. Without stopping being the typical sports movie, it has something that makes her different.

On the one hand he would emphasize that the production design is impeccable. Every plane, every phrase of the script, every detail in the art has a justification. Nothing remains, nothing is missing. Quite in his measured joust.

The sports movies usually remember me in major or minor measurement to the movies of masses of the 20s and 30s, when the Soviet movies (for definition without individual protagonists) and the Nazi (especially in the always appealed documentaries of Leni Riefenstahl).

Those two movies, which were separating in many things, were joining in the leading role that assumes the mass as group capable of changing things. Of course, it was separating in that one was exalting only the mass as revolutionary element and other was using it to exalt a leader.

The sports movies tends, for definition, it is to be closer to the facismo for that one of that a few heroes in the field of game make to vibrate to the mass. In this case, what happens is showier because the movie is located with entire equidistance these two cinematographic models.

It is true that the team (led by the captain interpreted by Matt Damon and the black only one that dresses the green T-shirt and gold) and Nelson Mandela (interpreted by big Morgan Freeman), they are the protagonists of the movie and those that the movie dignifies.

But also the fact it is that like the really excellent of the movie there is like a people, which only was lacking the rifle to face definitely, it ends up by being reconciled. No value had had the risks that (at least in the movie) it assumes Order it and the victory of the national team of rugby, if one had not achieved that blacks and white persons were happening of the hand in the search of a common target; the victory in the world cup.

This is, undoubtedly, the distinguishing element of the movie. He accompanies a few interpretations of high level to all this. Matt Damon is more than correct in his representation of François Piennar. Although personally he is an actor who has cost me very much that I liked, I have to admit that every time the best hae.

But over all big Morgan Freeman stands out. Spectacular the stamp that it has obtained imitating that of the proper one Order it. For it, I recommend to see it very much in original version. For those that you should not be accustomed, think that they do not speak too rapidly and many scenes, to the sports being, they are of “action“ and one speaks little.

The decision to turn into movie the book The human factor of John Carlin was containing, at least, 3 risks;

Invictus, with personages so known in the real life was demanding a very meticulous casting to meet on the suitable actors of level. Since I have already justified, I believe that Clint Eastwood gave in the nail. Perhaps it did not also have it difficult bearing in mind the times that it had already worked with Freeman.

Another risk was that a personage as Order it is deeply anticinematographic. At least the image that we have of him is that of a big person, started to the others, arranged to everything for reconciling two conflicting families, which it turns into someone very flat and little given to the conflict.

The solution finds it in giving leading role to the people of the street, to the South African village. But it was containing a difficulty; how can you speak about so many people simultaneously and, simultaneously, give little depth to the "mass"?

Eastwood solves it with big workmanship. The agents of his personal safety it is composed by targets and blacks who will be evolving the same way as the history advances. And to underline the fact that the change does not take place only between the persons next to the mythical politician, he adds two more elements; a mass that at first boos it and that in the end there choruses his name and a nice child who pushes the T-shirt back before the world cup and finishes embraced the team in the last minutes of the final.

Finally, the historical thing is usually insipid. That usually goes to that the real historical facts ficcionizan to make them more "agreeable". On the other hand, in Invictus, it gives the sensation that has wanted to respect the historical situations that happened without resting on things that they did not spend.

For example, it had been much easier to write the script that the president and the captain should see more times than it goes out in the movie. He had had more time to construct a relation that, in fact, is sustained in the distance.

Nevertheless, Eastwood has been capable of making use of elements that should have happened in the reality to give relief to a friendship that goes further away. The visit to the prison and the later reflection that Damon does with his fiancée in the room of the hotel.

It seems that the American director reinforces his interest in the racial conflicts in Invictus after triumphing with Big Torino and, otherwise, in movies like Flags of our parents and Letters of Iwo Jima. Personally I believe that this time has reflected better in conflict than in Big Torino, in a great speech less maniqueo.

In what it never fails Clint is in explaining well what one proposes to make to come to the spectator. And there does not fit any doubt that Invictus is not an exception. If you have not seen it, do not get lost it. In my opinion, one of his most interesting movies.

My own Lost theory

Since you know many, I am corrupted of Lost, series that begins his last period tomorrow. It was difficult to me to decide to see it very much but the circumstances facilitated that it was gobbling it in a very little time up to the 4th period. The fifth one I already saw it as the episodes went being released. And I wait with big anxiety for the new period.

I could not have avoided, imagined than like all the faithful, to try to discover how it will finish the series. I have a proposal and I feel like sharing it. I do not have it nor designs if it will go round there or not. But yes that I warn you to that you do not like reading theories that you do not continue (and let's not say already those that you have not come at the end of the 5th one). I do not have it nor designs if he has published or not theories similar to mine because I belong to those that he denies to himself to read them.

The end of the 5th period supposed one I break with the last episode with Jacob's appearance. It seems obvious that the history has to take a draft. At least, the interests of the people have changed. Preguntémonos why.

Till now it was worrying us; how can happen the things that happen in the island? What happens is that, in the moment in which we accept that there is a species of divine or semidivine beings who control the island, this question stops having importance. That's why the spectators (at least the people that I know) now worry about the ending of the protagonists; will they have to sacrifice themselves? Will they return to the point where they were without know and as if nothing had happened?

Let's give a step backwards and hagámonos two key questions; what do we know? and: Of what has the series gone really?

We know that the island is controlled by two antagonistic personages where, at least one of them, there is corporizado, at least once, in a dead person. We know for the trailer that everything has been a species of game of chess, where the protagonists have been only pieces. He remains reinforced by two elements; it obviated one, the trailer of the sixth period. Much subtler other and that demonstrates that the ending is clear from the first; the Nankin game (is it called this way?) that John plays with Walt. Is it chance that Jacob and “other” is dressed by one of black and other in target? And that John is white and plays, precisely, with the black child? I doubt it.

And on what has it gone really? Let's do an effort to forget the aventuritas, the clash between “natives“ and “others”, atomic bombs, pirates … In my opinion, if naked Lost, what stays is; reason vs. faith. He would say more; the perpetual clash between Jack (reason) and John (faith). Not only that, the first episode of the second period, as announcement of the real subject-matter of this cycle of episodes, there is entitled scientist, man of faith.

And now what do we have? It turns out that we meet two conflicting divinities, like John and Jack. Moreover, one of them is corporeizado in John. This corporeización has "killed" Jacob (that in the last episode they have presented us a little like the causer of the evil). And here the following logical step comes, for me; if John and Jack have symbolized the clash, John is now “other one” divinity (I do not know how it is called) and Jacob has lost his body … Jack will "assume" Jacob's role and will face definitely John.

What happens is that Jacob has been presented like the villain and that is incompatible in spite of granting this roll to Jack. I know by intuition that this is only another trick of the series and that they will end up by turning it. In fact, let's not forget that the (resuscitated) father and Jack's sister run for the island. It seems very probable that they play a key role in this change.

And what luck will the protagonists cover? If you me it ask like spectator about my answer it is “I do not have it nor designs” and I die to know if Jack and Kate will finish together (the same I feel for the rest of plots). I incline for thinking that they will finish together. I see difficultly to justify (although not impossible) the this idea that have commented to me that could return to the point where they knew about forced form and should live through his lives as if they were not known. I incline for thinking that they will go out with some short song that they will not have insinuated but not expressed clearly in order to we surprised.

But if the question you do it of how will the protagonists finish to me like scriptwriter; it is irrelevant. Any end is valid. And nobody is going to finish unsatisfied according to the end of the personages if the important thing (what I propose like clash between Jack and Locke, but that could be another thing) is well raised. The only thing that I see forced (and I admit that it does not have why to be like that) is that it has to finish well.

What does to finish well mean? Very well, that finish happy, that have learned something of this process although they should not remember anything. It can be simply, even without being known, Jack and Kate are turned as if the face they was sounding and that was allowing them to reconstruct his ruined lives. The fiction has these things …

Solutions there is thousand; from expositions some trasnochados type Matrix (the whole world is a lie of these two divinities or of his "parents"), an indicative sleep in full flight that closes the series of circular form, or that they lower a Gods' heap to the purest style Jasón and the Argonauts (do you remember those gods moving the human beings in a board as if there were pieces of a game?) …

Anyway, the scriptwriters have ahead the highest risk of falling down in a Deus ex-crane, of which I have already said often that it is necessary to flee as of the pest. Talking each other of Lost and of it weighed that the faithful are / are, much more. I have already explained it one day, but just in case you have landed here for the first time, a Deus ex-crane is a solution without cause, as if God was going down and extracting us of the entanglement. In fiction, everything has to have his cause. Nothing of takes narrative short cuts. And when you have so to hand divine beings, as it says the title, The temptation lives above and it is very strong.

We will see already with what we surprise his creators. I do not know where I listened / I read / they said to me that, when J.J. Abrams assembled the scriptwriters the first day said to them; “This is the history of a few types that get lost in an island in which rare things happen and in the end what it spends is …”. So, judging by the imagination of the personage, the thing promises. 17 chapters and the answer.

P.D.: Looking for images of Jack and John I have been that one of the most recognized theories go in the direction that I indicate. What I have not seen is that they have done it from a point of view especially of script (as it is my case). It is possible that we all are coming to similar conclusions for different ways.

Lost and Internet

Today it starts the sixth and last Lost period, I recover an interview that they did to Damon Lindelof, one of 3 creators of the series. The journalist asks him for the influence that Internet has had in the series. He says that it is impossible to quantify the effect multiplier who can have had the network on the success of the work. What yes that, for him, is obvious (and I also believe it) is that the possibility of, as it is finished the episode, of sharing your impressions has changed the laws of the game.

To part of the part that more worries me, that is the relation with Internet, attracts attention of me that the people who is capable of creating these so round successes they have not just known very well what does differently from the product with which they have exploited. It is demonstrated by cases as that of Flash Forward that, thinking about how to repeat model, has provoked a very serious disorientation in the scriptwriters.

If you want, you can recover the entire interview in The Country here.

Cineforum Invictus; The sport and the politics

Not long ago I hung the criticism of the new movie of Clint Eastwood, of which it paints the portrait how Nelson Mandela, after gaining the elections in an absolutely divided country, uses the rugby as an of integration element.

The movie is very well executed. As I say in the criticism, it seems to me that it is the sports "typical one" in the sense that Eastwood does a very classic movies. But, simultaneously, it is "different", a contradictory duality that usually happens in his histories.

The movie made me think about a debate that sometimes I have had with the people. I did not know this aspect of the government of the mythical African statesman, and it is obvious that it is a clear use of the sport with political ends. On the other hand, the people tend to say that they should stay always separated.

You know many (and if I do not say it to you) that I am a Barca patient and it was over there ends of 60's the president Narcís of Careers dared to qualify to the Barca of “more than a club”. Approximately 5 years later Agustí Montal popularized it using it as an electoral slogan of a few elections that, certainly, won.

This phrase had political connotations. It was trying to express that when the culé was singing a goal, it was not only that what it was celebrating, but it was a way of expressing the dissatisfaction with the established diet and the idenficación with certain way of understanding Catalunya.

Many culers we keep on considering this identification to be current between the catalanidad and the club. But it bothers many because they think that it is not legal therefore he was commenting of the separation of these two concepts.

On the other hand, Order it there did not have any objection in making a political use of a selection of rugby, which had been a symbol of the oppression of the apartheid. Also was illegitimate that was making this use? For me, he adds a very interesting element to the debate. I have not had the opportunity to share it with anybody, so I do not know what would answer me anybody who should criticize this aspect of the barcelonismo about which I have spoken.

In my opinion, Order it it very was right. The reality is that the unit between sport and politics has been, is and it will keep on being a whole. Not in vain, most of the most important sports events are done under definitely political ensigns; the Olympiads, the world cup of soccer or the glass Davis … The people are faithful to Nadal, Alonso, Héctor Barberá … The identification only comes for an aspect purely politically; prodecemos of the same political entelechy.

That the Spanish selection gains the euroglass it is not a fact politically neutral. That the basketball players gain an European and sing; “I am Spanish” neither. That the adjectives that are used to define the selection (or the virtues of a team) are of the type; caste, race … has a clear ideological load for the one who wants to see it. It is like that and what I do not see why he should be a villain.

Much subtler is the identification between other clubs and his territories or the proper Spanish nation. Anyhow, it should be significant that in the Bernabeu and other stadiums there are Spanish flags. Also in it there is a political connotation, it is not recognized.

The question of the million is; why in a case does one speak about political use of a club and in other it sees like something "normally"? Jordi Pujol reminded to me in his memoirs a concept that he had forgotten; the banal nationalism, which is the form of nationalism so socially recognized that is not perceived as such.

This way, the acceptance as something normal that when one continues the world cup is identified by the selection of his country and not other one, or the sympathies for Alonso instead of for another pilot of the broiler of another country are two natural expressions of this banal form of identification. And not only it is not bad but he wakes up certain identity sense empático and positively.

I promise you that this post is not born in order to that nobody feels annoying because I am not criticizing anything. On the contrary, I like. But I have to admit that it attracts attention of me powerfully (and it bothers me) the variable geometry of our perception of the asumible of a few beginning according to the proximity or distance of ours.

Watch Lost S06E08 Recon free

Dialogue of CARMEN JONES

Carmen Jones dressed in a black blouse and a skirt red passion, rushes towards an applicant to pilot of the American army who has just asked his fiancée of the people for marriage. Carmen Jones takes him of the belt that he is on bad terms put.

CARMEN JONES

(putting well the belt and to his span)

What is happening? Perhaps me are you afraid?

(approaching moreover to spend the belt to him behind)

Or …? Are you afraid of you?

The movies unsay of dad that it is finished

It does a pair of weeks it closed Miramax, one of the most important producers of last 3 decades. His specialty has been to produce movies of independent movies in USA. But his closing is much more than a closing. It means the end of a certain well-off independent movies. Perhaps wonder why.

Miramax founded it in 1979 two very well-known brothers; Bob and Harvey Weinstein. In his beginnings, they threw his first productions and distributed some European movies in America. But, in my opinion, the most important thing came when it was bought by Disney in 1993.

Suddenly it happened of producing movies with four five-peseta coins, financed movies the same way of "minority" cut but, of course, with all the money that it was necessary to have. This is what Salvador Llopart in The Avant-garde has hit in calling movies I ungave of dad. The image has seemed brilliant to me.

The Miramax banner we might say that it has been Tarantino, which has grown to his patronage. His movies, of court avant-garde but infested of stars, answer very well to this new style that was opened.

Immediately after this movement, many of the big producers realized similar movements; or they were acquiring an independent producer or, straight, they were creating his. Examples there are many.

Warner Bros. created a division for movies of less than 20 million dollars that there called Warner Independent Pictures, who ended up by acquiring New Line Movie theater. Paramount Vantage was created by the Paramount at the end of the 90. The list of created subsidiary companies is enormous; Go Fish Pictures, Fox atomic or Hollywood pictures are only some examples.

But now almost they all have closed (those of the previous list all). In fact, important it remains Sony Classics and small sew more. This way, it seems that Miramax initiated a productive model and it seems that also it has closed it.

Now it costs of believing that in the 40s the industry of the movies was who was financing largely the Second World War. His hegemony has been falling down. It would give for another post to speak about how the big producers, in fact, already have no autonomy to decide his strategy, since they depend on big conglomerates mediáticos.

Already bearing in mind the proper difficulties of the industry, now there has joined the financial crisis that has given the last thrust to the sector. In fact, the brothers Weinstein, when in the middle of this last decade they left Miramax, created The Weinstein Company. In spite of having values so recognized as Tarantino, Michael Moore or Rob Marshall and of all the knowledge that they have of the sector, it is at the edge of the failure.

Unfortunately, really either there are a lot of ways of financing movies outsider. Movies that there is not part of the structure of the big producers. This is a serious problem that has the movies in general and the North American in particular. In the fund, it is like finishing with the quarry or, what is the same, gait towards the creative stagnation (if it is that we are already not in this point).

Nevertheless, one never stops being an optimist. If in due time values like Wes Anderson, Spike Jonze or Michel Gondry found the way to be announced, I do not have you doubt that the young talents will finish with meeting on him also. Will it be youtube?

Of course, the movies as industry will have to appear how they facilitate this process that so much can enrich them. Or the pain can be even more intense.

Dialogue “24 hour party people”

JOURNALIST

Tony Wilson: What answers the fascism accusations?

TONY WILSON

What?

JOURNALIST

His group, Joy division, one calls like the women captured by the SS with the intention to breed Aryan perfect. Is not it disgusting?

TONY WILSON

Has it heard to speak about the situacionismo? Or postmodernism? Does it know the free game between important and significant? If! We have a band called Joy Division and also another called Durruti Column. Does it receive the irony?

Situacionismo: The movement situacionista is a current of thought that was born in the 50s and that it was defending that the human being had to generate situations much planned with concrete targets. At the bottom of his philosophy the idea was of that another world is possible. They were very opposite to the passivity and they are, partly, responsible for the May, 68. If you want, you can read his document fundacional. It is a movement essentially modern.

Postmodernism: One treats as a movement of typical movements of beginnings of the 80s and that is born of the disappointment of seeing that the world could not be changed as he was proposing the modernism.

Cineforum Incarnation: an analysis on spirituality?

It already does a time (rapid what happens!) I went to see Incarnation and did the criticism in the blog. I was defending that the movie was superficial and a wanton in the topics who was treating. Many have agreed with me. But I have surprised that the people who was not sharing this criterion with me, not only they were not agreeing, but they were radically in against.

It is a debate which also I have met in the street. In some dinners with friends they have emphasized to me that seems almost heroic to them that a mammoth production that comes from the big industry has dared to defend with so much force values ecológistas.

In the same blog, with fidoboy we have supported an interesting debate. Essentially, he was defending that his esthetic beauty and the visual impact that they produce, help to make us permeable to the ideas that the movie tries to transmit. Also, it discovers certain references to the relation that some tribes establish with the way.

With regard to this 2 comments occur to me;

I do not believe that anybody doubts of the importance that they have for all of us what the movie raises. There are very deep questions and that formulate the keys of our existence; does he have sense our life? where from are we? where do we go? are we destroying our environment? how do we treat the others? does everything use if the end is very valuable? what price must we pay for the progress?

It costs, ok. I have raised big questions. But: does that imply that this post is deep and touches big topics? Man, perhaps yes that touches them. But no, it is not deep. At least not till now. Just as the Cameron movie.

There are many movies that do a much more serious dealing on this topic; better almost always of the northerly directors; “The seventh stamp” of Bergman, Breaking the waves of Lars Von Trier, Dies Irae or The passion of Juana de Arco de Dreyer are only some examples.

There are movies for a very elitist public. I realize. But it is not necessary to go that far. There are wonderful and very commercial movies simultaneously that treat as a much more serious form two debates that the movie raises; the spirituality and the respect to the environment. And, in some cases they are much focused on the big public.

10 orders, The formless pelican, Wall - e, Children of the men, Gattaca, Jurassic Park are some examples. There are others that treat it as badly as Incarnation but equal sound of TV/radio commercials, like Tomorrow, 2012 or Waterworld. Other movies treat it as an indirect form, for example, proving to be a sweetheart for the way. Movies since Liberate Willy or Bambi are not environmental manifestoes, but they do very much for him. There are even movies that treat on the dominance of the human being in movies like The colossus in flames or Titanic.

The second point is almost an extension of the first one. The reading that does of our relation with the way is very superficial. I already accept that the human beings we have not treated everything well that we should have done the planet. Now then, hence to come to the conclusion that the model to be continued the prehistoric tribes are, there is a stretch.

I believe that there is something of true in that we should more that to learn to recover certain aspects of the life of the life of our ancestors. But the idealization of this life …: What life expectancy did they have? With the illness: how much were they suffering? What quantity of different food could they enjoy? How many options to do different things (be called a freedom) did they have? What political system (extremely hierarchic, at least as far as I know) did they have? What dealing was given to more dweebs in the social scale? Does housing deign? And worthy work? Wars? Safety?

It is clear that we have many things to be changed. There keeps on being a lot of famine, calamities, the people who suffers … But I believe that we would be wrong if we were thinking that most of the "bad" things that we do form sound "gratuíta". We do it with a "good" end.

When we put the air conditioning to a too low temperature, we do not do it gathering the bridge of the nose and rubbing the hands thinking about all the evil that we are going to cause. And the movie shows it as if of that it was talking each other.

I have to admit that only I am surprised partly that the movie is considered by many like deep. Sometimes, with good faith, we tend to confuse the defense of positive values with intelligent speech. But I believe that it is a serious strategy error. I prefer a speech that puts in crisis my positions that staunch but flat defenses.

Incarnation is clear that it has generated many controversy, but basically between defenders and detractors of his quality. But Earth and the human being will not sit the bases of any reunion between the planet. És only one blockbuster like Tomorrow and in that it will stay. And if not, to the time.

THE LIGHT IN FABRICE'S MOVIES REVAULT D'ALLONNES

The last book that I have read myself is “The light in the movies”, of Fabrice Revault d'Allones. For time I have the (confirmed) impression that my weakest point in the audio-visual thing is the light. In fact, I believe that it is more díficil. In the personal thing, in spite of having read a few books and of having received classes, I keep on feeling that I do not have it does not even design. And the fact is that a thing is to place four lights and very different other one, to transmit emotions with them.

I have read several books that were telling how to place lights. But I believe that, to place foci, it needs slightly more that to know 4 manual dispositions. It is necessary to know what you want to transmit. After all, from the point of view of the achievement, it is a much more important knowledge what you want to count that not how that does technically. At least, this is my opinion.

The case is that I bought the book after driving away it and after seeing that it was a book essentially of “philosophy“ of the light, of his language. It does not treat so much of how to use a quartz as of what it can "transmit" with them.

I believe that the book is very well raised, since everything makes it turn about 3 very clear concepts and that they help very much to the comprehension. Essentially, the book distinguishes 3 types of treatment of light; classic, baroque and modern.

Part of the base of that the light, so much if he loves as if he does not love, transmits a certain meaning, therefore it comes to the conclusion that the light is always significant, although sometimes it is certainly insignificant. And this classification is based on this essential fact of the light.

The classic light is that that transmits the only and univocal, very typical meaning of movements as the expressionism or some of the esthetics cohetáneas. The baroque light, that one that transmits more than one meaning, typical one of the American classic movies.

Let's depart from the base that any of these different types of movies they tend not to look for a naturalistic light, fleeing of the open spaces (with a light very much less controlable). Of course, it would not be necessary to confuse baroque esthetics (with many elements on the screen) and a baroque light (polisémica). For example, the expressionism is tremendously baroque in the visual but univocal thing in the meaning of the light and, therefore, classic.

It went over to such a point of excess of control of the light and of abuse of transimisión of meanings, which with the modernism one thought about how to avoid to transmit things with the light, using as much as one could natural light that everything floods with light and, therefore, it makes her insignificant. This is the modern light.

The book studies in depth very much this classification. It is a clarifier, although it is necessary to realize that it is very dense. Also it is true that it would find it hard to myself to put very much examples of those that the book does not use, so perhaps he had needed at times a more flat speech and with more accessible examples (in this type of books there appear many qualifications difficult to see). Although when you read a book of a French author (there the movies has much more prestige that here) you already know what exists.

It gives me the sensation that I will need some thing more for aprehender the use of the light, but also I believe that these concepts, when sedimenten, they me are going to be tremendously useful. I believe that the book is adapted neither for the first approach nor for the people who has not seen classic, but very useful movies sufficient in the opposite case.

The cliché of the mirror

I have received a mail of the author of Planet I smelled this morning spending the link of a video to me so that he was throwing a glance and I have been interested in so much that I am going to put it in blog. It is a question of a compilation of scenes in which a mirror plays an excellent role in the tension of a scene.

When I have given some course of cinematographic language, I believe that what more he was surprising to the people was when he was speaking to them about the importance of out of field. When we speak of out of field we refer to all that that it affects to the history but that happens it "was" of the frame of the image. In fact, as I have already commented one day, for theoretical some, this is the characteristic more definitoria of the movies. There is no any other art where such a strong tension takes place in what there is "inside" and what exists "out".

This that sounds so esoteric, in fact, is something that we have much assumed. For example in a terror movie, when we see the typical girl traveling for a corridor of what we are afraid the fact is that it could turn out to be slightly sudden that it is “out of field” but that, in any moment, can "enter" the field.

One of the typical formulae to "put" in the field something that, in fact, is be there are the mirrors. They have turned into a cliché in the terror movies. Almost we wait for it. Not only that, but when a mirror appears in a door we rely on already that, on having turned the door, there will appear someone reflected that, in fact, must not be there.

In fact, one has gone so far as to abuse this skill. That has taken that, in some movies, has been used just for the opposite. They take us to the wash-basin with the typical beautiful girl drying off after the shower. Then it opens the closet to extract the brush and for what we wait is that, when it closes it, the "villain" will appear. And it does not happen. It is an interesting perversion of the cliché that can help to recover the interest in planes of this type.

There are other perversions almost more interesting (like not using mirrors or "curious" mirrors) but that you already will see. The compilation is very entertaining. You will see many images that will remind old times to you. There have come to the memory movies that are part of my personal mythology but that I do not see for a long time. I want to emphasize two that I was loving; Halloween (my favorite movie of child's terror) and An American wolf in London.
Anyway, enjoy it. Thank you I Smelled!

Me one to Verycocinar

Today I want to give you good news. For a few weeks I have integrated to my professional life the functions of person in charge of contents in verycocinar.

I do not believe that it does great it is missing that it presents the project. Verycocinar has already more than two years and a spectacular growth. The project was founded by Sergio Espeja, expert in ruby on rails, and Manel Carrere, journalist. For personal motives, Manel has left the project and I am assuming his functions.

Personally it does a lot of illusion to me. With Sergio we met in the roadweb. Later we are in some events and we supported a cordial relation. But one day called me and invited me to eat. In front of a proposal of this type, I could not say that not.

There he me offered to take charge of the contents of the portal. I did not doubt it and said to him that yes. It was only a question of finding the suitable formula in which the two were feeling comfortable. In my opinion, it has been really easy to find the formula because the two were joined by some aspects that seem fundamental to me;

First of all we are very complementary. Let's say that me one gives me well the part of contents (and I can make sure you that I am already putting so many spoon to contribute my point of view) but I am much limited in the technological thing, although I can programme. He, on the other hand, is a crack programming but it does not dominate so much the audio-visual contents.

Secondly I believe that the passion joins us for throwing ourselves to do risky projects but with big expectations and the taste for the audio-visual thing. It can seem anecdotal but, in fact, it is almost the most important thing. This type of adventures has a few very specific characteristics that, if your targets are distant, can generate conflicts.

In the third place, I believe that the two have demonstrated a big aptitude to adapt ourselves to the interests mútuos.

And, finally, he would add an important aspect. This "integration" has started for verycocinar, but we are already thinking how to integrate him to him in flashmotor. In fact, it will come to What if from movie that one of his associates dominates like him it does the technological thing.

The life of the entrepreneur tends to be a roller coaster. There are epochs in which you float and epochs in which everything gets into a crisis. So that little spends the above mentioned, it is ideal to have new challenges that feed ambitions and expectations. So to join me to verycocinar is big news.

I will be already telling you …

THE WHITE TAPE

The white tape places us in the period before to the Big War, in the 10s of last century in a calm people of the interior of Germany. Without apparent cause, there begins happening a series of murders and tortures. The terror will begin gripping the inhabitants without they being capable of finding the culprit.

Directed by Michael Haneke, of German origin, the movie tries to be a subtle metaphor on the origins of the Nazism that only 20 years later would take Hitler to the government. The personages are only a representation in small scale of the relations that were established in the Germany of the beginning of the XXth century.

I believe that Haneke is right in almost all the decisions that it takes. A conmedido script, a black and white photo that it transports inevitably to the epoch, a casting more than hit and the rhythm most adapted to count a drama of these characteristics. It is clear that the director and scriptwriter has born much in mind the details of the epoch researching, at least in the visual thing, to prepare the plot.

I always try that, before explaining spoilers, there is the majority of the criticism. In this case, The white tape seems so interesting to me that I prefer to make use of the whole space that comes next to prepare a speech that between in details. This way, if you have not seen it, I recommend not to keep on reading to you and that you are covering to see it. Of course, when you have done it, remember to pass again to yourself somewhere here.

Entering detail, I love how the personages are outlined, both as for his narrative construction and from the creation together with the actor in the phase of the interpretive direction, happening for the time being of selecting the actors.

Perhaps it would be necessary to emphasize the capacity that Haneke has had to give dimensions to the personages in a movie essentially choral. He has known how to transmit that the personages are not good or bad, without falling down in simplifications maniqueas. For it it has had the intelligence to include details that adjust, for good and for evil, the design of the personages.

Cost like sample the bird of the reverend one. The fact that he accepts that his son remains with the bird it makes him win in thickness. Also, he makes use of our prejudice against him making us believe that he is going to refuse. On the other hand, we surprise his decision and it does that we discover a new way of analyzing the personage.

Also the case of the doctor is paradigmatic. After beginning the movie he suffers an accident, which already leads us to feeling certain sympathies for him. In the scene in which it reappears, he looks like to us a father worried by his children. Also it is a question of the doctor, it presents itself to the one that presupposes to him that it helps the people. And, in fact, it does it. That enters contrast with the dealing that then does of the lover in one of the rawest scenes that I remember. And, skylight, with the abuses to his daughter.

On the other hand, the personages of The white tape with less I weigh inside the history also they remain with a certain tridimensionalidad. And, especially, they are very well guided. I would like to emphasize the work of Leonie Benesch, the fiancée of the teacher. An actress who almost is his first movie (in fact, the first one with an excellent role and the second one as the IMDB) manages to transmit, on the other hand, a species of hopeful ingenuousness.

Finally, it looks like to me a big challenge (and it is not the first time that I emphasize it) to work with children. In this case, the children have a big leading role, what does that it is critical. Also, it was not a question of finding 1 or 2 children but a legion of these. And, if this was not small, 1 of them with syndrome of Down, with the added aggravating circumstance of that has scenes of an enormous dramatic load.

But if there is something that he emphasizes on the rest it is the photo. Haneke it is dedicido with big wise move to transport us with the images to the movies of the epoch. It is not necessary to forget the important contribution that the German art had in the creation of the Nazism. The less, it seems that there are references to an expression of the movement protonazi.

There escapes the romantic music and not even the painting, like expression of a certain sense of the identity. And the movies also did his contribution with the expressionism (and some futurist experiments) although, at least his most excellent representatives, ended up by having that to flee when the divided Nazi took the power.

One of the big representatives of this artistic expression that would finish with taking ideological significance is the movie of Robert Wiene The office of the Doctor Caligari of 1920. In fact, it is a question of that expressionist is considered to be the first movie. In this movie, a person is manipulated by his psychologist, fact that was interpreted as the expression of the need of the German village to be directed by a big leader.

Be or do not be a guessed right vision, I believe that The white tape is framed in this delicacy line. For it, Haneke looks for these esthetics that resembles (although modernized) that of that epoch. The target / black, with a very confirmed lighting, resembles not only the German movies, but the northerly movies that he speaks on the good and evil. Especially, the references to Dreyer are clear.

We usually, of natural form, associate the white person to the good and the black to the evil. On the other hand, there is a tradition line in the north of our continent of doing a colors countersignificance. The black turns into a color that almost protects us, to which to protect us and where to shelter of a target that dazzles us, that hurts us in the eyes, which it threatens us to every second that appears.

In this case it is even more suitable, since the Nazism associated with the blaco the purity of the Aryan race. That's why, the most terrible personages have in the target an important element of his significancia; the duke, the doctor, the reverend one (when the situation was allowing it, obviously) and, skylight, this white tape that represents the emotional castration (in some almost literal moment when there prevents the masturbations of the child) causer of the future revolution that would finish in the Second World War.

He would add that there are 2 scenes of The white tape where the target exceeds us, it threatens us. In the first one it is a covered with snow scenery. It takes place after one of the terrible facts (now I do not remember which). Other, when there is narrated the murder of archduke Francisco Fernando of Austria that would unleash the Big War.

They are constant, to reinforce this deja vu sensation the panoramas (that prevail on the travellings), the planes sequence, the countercut lightings and the frontal planes that they can go so far as to remember, it adding to the use of the dialectics target / black, to the mythical one The passion of Juana de Arco or The word, the two of Dreyer. And, in fact, to the whole audio-visual tradition.

The script is other of the elements that they emphasize. I believe that the dialogues are acertadísimos. They contribute a cadenza that fits to the perfection with the rhythm of the assembly. Also, they help the actors to do very much his work.

On the other hand, there is very well construído the coloring that contributes the personages' scale. I believe that Michael Haneke has been able to find the suitable number of personages so that the whole social stratification that the movie tries to reflect they are present. Especially those persons who had so much importance in the hierarchy of a people; the duke, the priest, the teacher and the doctor, in addition to a big scale of popular personages.

Finally, and in harmony with the delicacy about which I have been speaking, the script leaks the repression and the fear of God (there would fit for another post the relation that establishes the movie between faith / god / fear, much in tuning with the movies about which we have been speaking). Also with delicacy, cautiously and carefully of not falling down in an excessively flat speech. But yes doing a fierce environment, which scratches you to every bad step that you give.

Finally, I believe that it is one of the most finished movies that I have had the opportunity to see in my last visits to the movies room. Of course, I wait for your opinions about the movie.

Web Series Festival

With much (but that very much) I am late, this post comes to speak to you about one of the most interesting and curious festivals of which they happen for the network. At least a lot of illusion has done me to me that someone was daring to do this to himself. I tell you.

If you continue the blog you have to meet the Nikodemo people. For that not, to that sure that you know it is to mythical Cálico Electrónico (certainly, separate note is deserved by the effort that they are doing to convert the series in adapted to the characteristics of the television 1.0). Well, since they, not long ago, crearón Nikodemo TV. Essentially, it is a question of a portal that offers a few series of that they guarantee the quality and, skylight, a loutish puntito.

The truth is that they are bold. And that takes me to what, really, I want to comment to you. One treats of Web Series Festival. Of what is it a question? Since I believe that the name is sufficiently clear; A series festival for the network.

To take part, what you have to do is to present a pilot chapter of between 4 and 7 minutes, in addition to a brief synopsis, a pair of images and to have prepared the argument of a pair of chapters more. Anyway, if you want to know the details, better you read yourself the bases. The winners will be chosen between a committee composed by the people so recognized as Elizabeth Coixet, Mar Coll, Nacho Vigalondo, or Fernando de Felipe (critic of television and movies) between some others of recognized prestige.

And to what do you choose? Hear! You will see that it is not badly at all. To begin pasta, which always comes well. We are speaking about 6000€ for the winner, 3000€ for the second, 1500€ for the third one and 700 € and 300 € for the 4th one and the 5th one. But there is something more interesting. The 3 first ones will manage to appear in Nikodemo TV with the relevancy who supposes that.

And in all this they have been involved without having all the money of the awards guaranteed by sponsors, which implies that they believe the project. And, also, on account of their own risk they are invigorating the sector and promoting the creativity. This way, quite at once.

I recommend to you to read (if you have not already done it) the post of Albert Garcia Pujades, CEO of Nikodemo, explaining them for qués of the festival. So if you want to do something, you do not doubt it. But you hurry up because the time is finished!