Dogs Bark

Belgian Wafflers - - Le Silence De Lorna [Lorna’s Silence] (2008) - - 12 June 2010

Recommended. Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, like a pair of American brother/directors we all know and love, understand that what lifts characters out of the pabulum is moral ambiguity. As with The Child, the Dardennes begins lifting in the grimy storm drains of Belgian poverty, people who struggle to crawl out but are crippled by ethical retardation. This story is told in the face, and silence, of Kosovoan actress Arta Dobroshi.  One wonders if her minimalist affect was minted in a Yugoslavian childhood. She’s possibly a major new talent in the style of Samantha Morton (Morvern Callar comes to mind). Dobroshi plays off Dardennes sophomore, Jérémie Renier (The Child, In Bruges), well-creating her extremely pathetic, junk-addled, green-card husband.  Both are entangled in a treacherous immigration scheme by a Russian mobster.  I didn’t care for the ending - - a bit too fairy-tale . . . literally - - but elsewhere this is a clean, well-lit flick.

It’s Alive!! Unfortunately - - Splice (2010) - - 5 June 2010

Not recommended. Having skipped the midnight showing of The Human Centipede (Google at your own risk), I wanted a milder version of The Mad Scientist and went for the twofer of Sarah Polley and Adrian Brody and Splice. It turns out I experienced exactly the sort of recycling as the satiric fundament of the first film. Vincenzo Natali has intercut his movie between the back door of Species, a fine movie, and the maw of godforbid, Splice II, since the story allows that depressing option. In addition to Species, Slice regurgitates and reconsumes a dozen other stylistic and narrative movie tricks, without homage or honor.  The titular DNA smoothie is winsome but I wonder if Natali auditioned actresses based upon the distance between their eyes. Attempts at establishing a back story to the married biotechnicians, Brody and Polley, spawned a litter of unintended snickers. The ending is offensive and spectacularly uncompelling. 

A Great Could-Have-Been? - - Bright Star (2009) - - 3 June 2010

Not recommended. First off, I found this movie almost unbearably boring. Surprising, I suppose, since I was one of the few who liked In The Cut, also directed by Jane Campion. Clearly she has the franchise on socially constricted but entirely unique heroines and Abbie Cornish (Elizabeth: The Golden Age) does her best to bring her part alive. Maybe it’s just Keats, my least favorite dead, white poet, tho' Ben Whishaw (I'm Not There) seemed as un-Romantic a poet as could be imagined. Having said all this, Campion’s film does approach an ode in its rustling, sweet images. In fact, nightingales seem to sing in every frame and the dew is always on Hampstead heath. There just seemed little purpose to this beauty and no great truth.  And a joy forever?  Be honest. Past that first, famous line, who among you can recall even one word of Endymion?