CLIP REEL: Quick notes on some movies I’ve seen recently.

Brothers: This is the 2005, Danish version which got an American remake. When the responsible brother is missing, presumed dead, in Afghanistan, the layabout brother becomes a surrogate father to his kids–and maybe something more, to his wife. This is a brutal, heartbreaking story with incredible acting. Some kind of tragedy is inevitable from fairly early on, but the specific nature of it is the result of choices by the characters. The daughters, in their grief and anger and attempts at solidarity with each other, are very realistic kids. I’d definitely recommend this if you are up for two hours of feeling awful.

Apartment Zero: Lurid, politicized thriller, very well done despite many cliches. A serial killer is on the loose in the aftermath of the Pinochet regime. Is it the paranoid man in Apartment 0?

There’s a Tragic Transvestite, which is a trope I could really do without, but other than that this movie actually uses its genre’s inherent insouciance about actual human psychology to great advantage. This is about as reliable a guide to mental illness–or post-conflict reconciliation, for that matter–as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, but it hits the right emotional notes. Fans of The Talented Mr. Ripley might also check it out.

Death and the Maiden: A vastly more serious post-South-American-dictatorship thriller than Apartment Zero, and a vastly worse one.

Sigourney Weaver plays a torture victim who believes that the man she has trapped in her home is her tormentor. Ariel Dorfman’s script is overwritten and often cops out; Roman Polanski’s direction sexualizes Weaver’s character in a way which really feels like the movie exploiting her rather than the character making choices; Weaver overplays to the point that she sounds like Katharine Hepburn’s character pretending to be a gun moll in Bringing Up Baby. She’s just way too chop-licking. If you want a look at the intersection of sexual violence and political torture, Closet Land is much, much subtler and better. The best thing about this movie was the Schubert.

Of Gods and Men: Now playing. The story of Algerian monks murdered in the mid-90s. It’s hard to know what to say about this movie other than that it’s incredible. The use of singing, as pointed out by the friend who watched it with me, is especially beautiful. It’s a believable and gripping portrayal and all of the actors are doing exactly what they need to do at every moment.

My one interpretive note is that I loved the use of Swan Lake toward the end, in a Passion of Joan of Arc-like scene focusing on each of the monks’ faces in turn as they enjoy a meal together in the shadow of death. I think this is the only secular music in the entire movie, which makes it the most poignant way of representing what it means to lose this life, the world, even if you gain Heaven.

Here’s Victor Morton’s review. I really can’t recommend this highly enough.