Here are my three favorites in the past month, each kind of similar for some reason. Is it my current state of mind? Pondering where I am in life and how I got here? Having a midlife crisis of sorts? Regardless, I am so grateful for the escape of movies.
Eyes without a Face
Creepiness abounds in this movie!
A plastic surgeon becomes obsessed with making things right after his daughter Christiane's face is terribly disfigured in a car accident that he caused. Overcome with guilt, Dr. Genessier and his vicious nurse, Louise, concoct a plan to give Christiane her face back by kidnapping young girls and removing their faces ... and then grafting them onto Christiane's.Good times, right?! It's beautifully shot and such a psychological thriller that I've been thinking about it ever since I saw it.
Go rent it now! I'll wait.
OK, you're back. Here's the next one: Picnic at Hanging Rock.
To celebrate Valentine's Day, teachers at an austere Australian boarding school take a group of students on an outing to the mysterious Hanging Rock. Soon after the party starts, the headmistress and three girls go exploring and mysteriously disappear. One week later, a sole survivor returns to school -- with hardly any memory of the incident.
If you're looking for a satisfying ending that wraps up all your questions . . . well, that's just not going to happen in this movie. But if you're the type of person who likes to pick things apart and ponder the "what-ifs", then go out and rent it right now. Return Eyes without a Face and get this one. Go now.
And while you're there, get this one: my favorite so far.
Innocence
The students at a mysterious all-girls boarding school learn strange life lessons from their two young teachers in this beguiling and surreal feature debut by director Lucile Hadzihalilovic. Featuring poetic and startling images by acclaimed cinematographer Benoit Debie, the film captured awards at film festivals in Amsterdam, Stockholm, Istanbul and San Sebastian, Spain.
OK, so a little girl, named Iris, (and the cutest tiny thing), arrives at an all-girls boarding school in a coffin! A coffin, people! Suddenly, this is nothing like The Facts of Life. We learn about the school and the rules through the eyes of Iris, who isn't sure how she got there or why she should be. The movie is an eerie study of puberty, womanhood, and transformation. You could write a term paper about it. And again - if you want a movie to tie up all the loose ends, it's not going to happen here, either. But it's totally worth it.
So that about wraps it up for me. It's Grey's Anatomy night, so I shall be retiring to the couch shortly, wrapped in a blanket and wearing my favorite pajamas. I had a root canal today and couch time sounds really good right now.
2 comments:
do you have some sort of weird thing for all-girls boarding schools? hee hee hee
When I first saw Picnic at Hanging Rock, I have to admit that it left me unsatisfied for the lack of closure/resolve to what really happened to the girls. My curiosity led me to discover that the author of the book this movie was based on (Joan Lindsay) originally had an explanation to what happened , but took it out at the last minute. Someone eventually published it after she died, revealing the "mystery."
But when I recently re-watched the movie, I regret knowing what really happened, because it totally took away from the feel and meaning of the film, guess I had the case of curiosity killed the cat :-)
PS: A night of browsing through blogspot led me to your doorstep, and I just wanted to say hi. You have a lot of good posts here, and definitely good photography :-)
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