Movies You Can't Miss

               SOPHIE SCHOLL  

            The Final Days 

                      (2005 - Germany - 120 minutes) 

               Directed by 

              Mark Rothemund

This film details the last six days of the primary members of a resistance group called the White Rose. The White Rose was an organization of students, mainly around Munich, during the years 1942-1943.The story of the events leading up to the actual execution in 1943, of Sophie Scholl, her brother Hans and friend Christoph Probst, is horrifying for the sheer banality of their offence. As members of the student group they were secretly distributing pamphlets daring to question Hitler's conduct of the war and the likelihood of victory. They are caught by a tiny thread of circumstance and increasingly dragged deeper and deeper into its destructive mechanism.

A great strength of the movie is that Sophie's religious faith is shown but left entirely personal. Both in her interrogation and sham trial, she appeals to moral principle and humanity not religious belief, in her defence of freedom and her refusal to be silent in the face of injustice.

The acting of the three main characters is simply superb.

This movie is more like a documentary movie than a Drama. This is for sure no light entertainment, and those, that don't like long conversations or even are not interested in history, need not watch it.The film, of course, deals with very difficult subjects, the show-trial, the tearing up of the truth, basic freedoms etc. "Sophie Scholl" is an intelligent film that shows a talented director, Marc Rothemund.This film appears to have been made with a low budget. But, the impact is as powerful as large-budgeted films of similar themes like "Schindler's List" and "The Pianist." 

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Movies You Can't Miss

 

 

Norwegian Wood

(japan - 2010 - 133 minuts)

Director

 Tran Anh Hung  

Writer

Haruki Murakami

Most of the films based on celebrated novels have been disappointing since the images in the minds of the reader or the emotions the book created wouldn't match with what they watch on the screen. It doesn't happen with “Norwegian wood”. With the help of the stunning photography and the fascinating locations Tran Anh Hung has created the visuals beyond the reach of the imagination of an average reader. Though very slow paced, the movie never make make us borred.

Movies You Can't Miss

 

THE RETURN

RUSSIA - 2003

DIRECTOR 

ANDREY SVYAGINTSEV

The Return is a 2003 Russian drama film directed by Andrey Svyagintsev and released internationally in 2004.

It tells the story of two Russian boys whose father suddenly returns home after a 12-year absence. He takes the boys on a holiday to a remote island on a lake that turns into a test of manhood of almost mythic proportions. It won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.

Movies You Can't miss

 

PARADISE NOW

2005 (U S A)

DIRECTED BY 

HANY ABU-AZAD

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Paradise Now follows Palestinian childhood friends Said and Khaled who live in Nablus and have been recruited for suicide attacks in Tel Aviv. It focuses on what would be their last days together.

Their handlers from an unidentified resistance group tell them the attack will take place the next day. The pair record videos glorifying Allah and their cause, and bid their unknowing families and loved ones goodbye, while trying to behave normally to avoid arousing suspicion. The next day, they shave off their hair and beards and don suits in order to look like Israelis. Their cover story is that they are going to a wedding.

An explosive belt is attached to each man; the handlers are the only ones with the keys needed to remove the belts without detonating them. The men are instructed to detonate the bombs at the same place, a military check point in Israel, with a time interval of 15 minutes so that the second bomb will kill police arriving after the first blast.

They cross the Israeli border, but have to flee from guards. Khaled returns to their handlers, who have fled by the time Said arrives. The handlers remove Khaled's explosive belt and issue a search for Said. Khaled believes he is the best person to find Said since he knows him well, and he is given until the end of that day to find him.

After Said escapes from the guards, he re-enters Israeli territory alone. At one point, he considers detonating the bomb on a commercial bus, but he decides not to when he sees a child on board. Eventually, Said reveals his reason for taking part in the suicide bombing. While in a car with Suha, a woman he has fallen in love with — who plays the role of the doubter or the men's conscience — he explains that his father was an ameel (a "collaborator," or Palestinian working for the Israelis), who was executed for his actions. He blames the Israelis for taking advantage of his father's weakness.

Khaled eventually finds Said, who is still wearing the belt and about to detonate it while lying on his father's grave. They return to the handlers, and Said convinces them that the attack need not be canceled, because he is ready for it. They both travel to Tel Aviv. Influenced by Suha, who discovered their plan, Khaled cancels his suicide attack. Khaled tries to convince Said to back off as well. However Said manages to shake Khaled by pretending to agree.

The film ends with a long shot of Said sitting on a bus carrying Israeli soldiers, slowly zooming in on his eyes, and then suddenly cuts to white.

Paradise Now was the first Palestinian film to be nominated for the Academy Award for the Best Foreign Language Film.

Movies You Can't Miss

 

Even the Rain

(Spanish-2010)

Director: Iciar Bollain

                                                                

   

Spanish director Sebastián, his executive producer Costa and all his crew are in Bolivia, in the Cochabamba area, to shoot a motion picture about Christopher Columbus, his first explorations and the way the Spaniards treated the Indians at the time. Costa has chosen this place because the budget of the film is tight and here he can hire supernumeraries, local actors and extras on the cheap. Things go more or less smoothly until a conflict erupts over the privatization of the water supply. The trouble is that one of the local actors, is a leading activist in the protest movement.

                                                              

Movies You Can't Miss.

TURTLES CAN FLY

(IRAN-2004)

DIRECTED BY

BAHMAN GHOBADI

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The film is set in a Kurdish refugee camp on the Iraqi-Turkish border on the eve of the U S Invasion of Iraq. Thirteen-year-old Satellite (Soran Ebrahim) is known for his installation of dishes andantennae for local villages who are looking for news of Saddam Hussain and for his limited knowledge of English. He is the dynamic, but manipulative leader of the children, organizing the dangerous but necessary sweeping and clearing of the minefields.

The industrious Satellite arranges trade-ins for unexploded mines. He falls for an orphan named Agrin (Avaz Latif), a sad-faced girl traveling with her disabled, but smart brother Hengov, who appears to have the gift of clairvoyance making people think he can predict the future. The siblings care for a blind

toddler named Riga, who is the son of Agrin after being gang raped 

by soldiers in their previous village.

Movies You Can't Miss

 

DUEL

A Steven Spielberg Film

(1971)

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David Mann (Weaver) is a middle-aged Los Angeles electronics salesman driving his redPlymouth Valiant on a business trip. On a two-lane highway in the California desert, he encounters a grimy and rusty Peterbilt 281 tanker truck, traveling slower than the speed limit and expelling thick plumes of sooty diesel exhaust. Mann passes the unsightly truck, which promptly roars past him and then slows down. Mann passes the truck a second time and is startled when it suddenly issues a long air horn blast.

The truck follows him into a filling station. While there, Mann makes a phone call to his wife (Jacqueline Scott), who is upset with him for not confronting one of their friends at a recent party who was making a pass at her. The gas station attendant mentions that Mann needs a new radiator hose, but he disbelieves the attendant and refuses the repair.

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Once both Mann and the trucker are back on the road, the truck begins blocking Mann’s path each time he attempts to pass it. At one point, the truck driver waves at Mann, indicating that he can overtake. When he does, he almost strikes an oncoming vehicle. Mann realizes the truck driver was trying to trick him into a fatal collision. He passes the truck again, using an unpaved turnoutnext to the highway. The truck soon begins to tailgate Mann at high speeds—over 90 miles per hour (140 km/h)—forcing him to maintain his speed to avoid being rear-ended. The chase continues down a mountain road with the truck bumping him several times until the Plymouth goes off the road, colliding with a guardrail across the road from a diner. The truck keeps going.

Mann enters the diner (Chuck's Café) to compose himself. After returning from the restroom, he is shocked to see the truck parked outside the diner. Mann studies the diner patrons carefully and begins an inner monologue in which he contemplates the driver's motives and second-guesses his decision to sit helplessly in the diner. Most of the patrons sitting at the counter give Mann the impression of malice, but when one leaves, appearing to approach the tanker, he instead drives away in a pickup truck. Mann eyes the patrons again to try to identify his pursuer, and when he thinks he has, he confronts him. The man he approaches (Eugene Dynarski) is angered by Mann's accusations and engages him in a short fist fight. After the fight is broken up by the café owner, the falsely-accused man drives away in a livestock truck; the tanker truck leaves a few seconds later, suggesting that Mann's tormenter was never in the diner in the first place.

Mann leaves Chuck's Café and stops to help a stranded school bus, but his front bumper becomes caught underneath the rear of the bus. The truck appears at the end of a tunnel. Mann panics, manages to free the Plymouth and flees, but then is puzzled to see the truck helping the bus get moving. At a railroad crossing, the truck quietly approaches Mann's car from behind and starts pushing the Valiant towards a passing freight train. The train passes by just in time and Mann crosses the tracks and pulls off the road. The truck passes him by and disappears.

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Mann then stops at Sally's Snakerama Gas Station to call the police and refuel his Plymouth. Before he can complete the call, the truck roars up and plows into the telephone booth, with Mann jumping clear just in time. The truck proceeds to chase Mann as he is on foot, destroying Sally's Snakerama and releasing several rattlesnakes that had been caged on the premises. Terrified, Mann jumps into his car and speeds away. Mann then hides behind an embankment off the road and sees the truck pass by, apparently without noticing him. After a long wait, Mann heads off again but is dumbfounded to see that the truck is waiting for him just around the bend. Mann stops his car and attempts to get help from an older couple in a car that is cruising by. They think he is crazy and refuse to listen until they see the truck themselves, and flee when the truck backs up towards them at increasing speed. Mann returns to his car. The truck eventually allows him to pass by and a high-speed chase begins. Mann races up steep grades, putting some distance between himself and the truck. However, his Valiant begins to overheat when its weak radiator hose fails and the truck quickly begins gaining on him. Mann barely makes the summit and coasts down the other side in neutral as the truck bears down on him.

Descending at speeds too great to control, the Plymouth spins out and impacts a rock wall. The truck speeds toward the damaged car as Mann accelerates, drives up a dirt road, and turns to face his opponent on a large hill overlooking a canyon. He places his briefcase on the accelerator and steers his vehicle directly toward the oncoming truck, jumping from the car at the last moment. The tanker hits the car, which bursts into flames, partially obscuring the truck driver's view. Too late, the truck's driver realizes he is headed for the canyon and brakes hard. With a blast of the air horn the truck plunges over the edge of a cliff into the canyon below. Above the smoking wreckage Mann sits, exhausted, at the cliff's edge, tossing stones into the abyss as the sun sets.

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