now that i got that out of my system...
a couple of days ago, let's call it "thursday", i saw mischief night (imdb). "mischief night" is the first film i've managed to see that is in the cinema of the muslim world fest-within-a-fest. actually, the COTMU category is rather lame this year. there's only a handful of films, only two in arabic and one of those two cancelled. not only that, but "mischief night" is a british film, with a british protagonist and from a clear british point-of-view. just the fact that they would call this a COTMU shows that they were stretching a bit.
bitching aside, however, "mischief night" was a fun, and rather harmless, comedy. to the extent it had anything big to say about the situation of muslims in britain, the film took the bold position that bigotry is bad and religious fundamentalists are crazy hypocrite. they really went out on a limb with that one.
but i had fun with it anyway. if you're looking for insight into muslim-english relations there are better places to look. and "mischief night" won't ever go down on anyone' greatest film ever lists. but i liked it. and sometimes that's good enough.
the greatest love of all (imdb) was more of a disappointment. it's about a successful brazilian living in the u.s. who returns to his country when he finds out that he is dying. a conversation with his father sets him off on a journey through the slums of rio, looking for the woman who gave birth to him. the film had some good buzz, including a best picture award from the montreal film festival, but ultimately i just thought it was trying to cram too much into what should have been a very personal story. the film touched upon a ton of different issues: individual identity, violence and poverty of the slums of rio, the brain drain of successful brazilians, the leftist rebellion against the military dictatorship in the 1970s, and the exploitation of poor by the rich. as mrs. noz pointed out to me as we left the theater, the strange this is that the film seems ultimately to be pro-exploitation. at least it portrays the main character buying his way into the heart (and pants) of a beautiful slum dweller, just like his father did a generation earlier.
"the greatest" wasn't all bad. there were some well done moments, and while i found the film to be confusing at the beginning, it did come together before i gave up on it entirely. but because it tried to do so much, and included a gratuitous romantic subplot that actively undermined what should have been one of the points of the film, i will mostly remember it more for its flaws than successes.
