Which movie did you last see?

[Yazeh]

Nor by day, nor by night 2023

Very powerful drama, about a secular turned religious Sephardic family, trying to integrate in an Ashkenazi Haredi community with tragic results. We all know it won't end well.
It has the intensity of Bergman but with extreme restraint. Nothing like the screaming of Autumn Sonata. Suffocating at times.
And it ends with the lines: " I am the Lord, and there is no other, I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster".

It confirms my thoughts about "dogmatic ideology".

[Yazeh]

Running on Sand 2023 2023
An exceptional dramedy. Like many good Israeli movies, it doesn't mess around. It deals with the "migrant problem" the world is facing.
From IMdB.
"A young Eritrean refugee deported from Israel is mistaken for the new foreign player of a struggling football team, his survival depends on the team's success".

[Kaputnik]

Saw two films the last two nights.

First was Hollywood Boulevard, a 1976 schlocky low budget picture which is intentionally satirizing other schlocky low budget pictures. "The film [says Wikipedia] was made as a result of a bet between producers Jon Davison and Roger Corman to make the cheapest ever film for New World Pictures." Funny in places, not so much in others.

Last night I watched Persepolis, an animated film based on an autobiographical graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi, an expatriate Iranian living in France. It follows Satrapi's life from the final year of the Shah's rule, when she was just a little girl, to the time she left Iran for good in her early twenties.

Animated, but definitely not a film for children. In French (which I don't speak) with English subtitles.

[Yazeh]

Part of the online Israeli film festival in Montreal.
Arugam Bay 2023.

2 Israeli ex-soldiers and the widow of their best friend go to Arugam bay in Sri Lanka to mourn, through their love of surfing.
It's a window into trauma and the fight/ flight response in the Israeli psyche, always ready to fight, and suffering the consequence of loss.
I didn't like it at as film, but it's a thought provoking and makes one reflect on the nature of trauma/loss, which is a plus.

[~JJ]

Jane Got A Gun
Western, not bad, but very guessable story.

[Yazeh]

Very indie low budget film, effective story telling.
A young man decides giving free tours on Jerusalem's Jaffa street where the most suicide bombing happened, to work out his own journey of trauma.
It gives a new meaning and urgency to what's happening in the eternal cycle of violence in the Middle East and the effect of trauma on normal people....

[Yazeh]

Away 2019 - Animation by Latvian filmmaker Gints Zilbalodis.
It's interesting as it's without dialogue and the whole feature is done by the director, which is a tour de force.. However, it lacks in storytelling and feels more like an old school video game

I'm looking forward to see his new feature animation which is also dialogue-less, but seems more promising.

Saw also a few Disney/Pixar animations:
Elemental 2023, by Pixar, which I found it had a deeper spiritual meaning than intended by the filmmaker.



Wish 2023 - Atrocious Disney animation. It's really bad when you want all character dead by midpoint.

and an uplifting movie by Disney, which was enjoyable about the first woman who swam across the English Channel.

[Sailor Kenshin]

2001's Spirited Away (Miyazaki Hayao, director) may very well be my favorite film. We first saw it dubbed in a huge theater, and I enjoyed it. But with the original Japanese voice cast, it's....

Well. Different.

Timid, ten-year-old Chihiro is moving to a new town with her parents. What happens to them when they take a wrong turn and enter a world of gods and sorcerers will send her on a quest to save them. You feel everything she does, and I was terrified, overwhelmed, captivated, and ultimately uplifted by this amazing hero's journey.