Some Recent Films

These last weeks I've gone to the cinema to watch some films, so I thought I would write some short comments here.

• Carol. Seems like this film has got pretty good reviews, and here in France it's been displayed both by "blockbuster cinemas" and by Art et essai cinemas
. A dramatic "lesbian love story" in the 50's in USA seemed not particularly appealing to me, but well, I felt like going to the cinema, and the spoken English/French subtitles is just what I look for these days. I got what I expected, an entertaining film, but that I will forget in a few weeks and that probably I won't watch again. Of course, Rooney Mara and particularly Cate Blanchett (yes, I love mature beauty) make the film more interesting than it would be otherwise.
• The Hateful Eight. First of all, I'm not at all a Tarantion fan. I can say with no shame at all that for me he's just one more "action films director". I went to watch this film because I felt like going to the cinema and it was an easy choice, for sure it would not delight me, but at least would entertain me. It ended up being right like that. Probably the story is more exciting than average (I like how he made the "racial problem" a constant all over the film, it's pretty interesting bearing in mind that such problem is still present in USA society), but I really miss the presence of some beautiful female character.
• A Second Chance. This is an excellent film. Though the main character is a policeman it's more a drama than a crime film. Harsh and intense, if I had watched it on my laptop I think it would have fallen in that limited category of films that I watch in one go. I can not think of many films which title expresses so well what the film is about. The whole story revolves around a second chance for a child, but it will end up as a second chance for a mother. When it finished I thought that the style reminded me a lot of other films (specially Brothers by a Danish film director that I used to follow until a few years ago. So right, this is the last work by Susanne Bier. I absolutely recommend to watch all her filmography.

I've watched these films in ABC (in its 50th anniversary) and Utopia, the 2 Art et Essai cinemas (cinemas more focused on independent films) here in Toulouse (along with la Cinémathèque). I've watched them in original version with French subtitles (pretty needed for the Danish film or for Tarantino's, cause I barely could undertand a word of the English accents in that film). My spoken French is still null, but have no problems reading ("Je peux lire le français sans problème"). Unfortunately, French films are not screened with subtitles (quite odd, I would expect some more respect for people with hearing disabilities), so there is a good bunch of films that I've had to miss, these are 3 of the main ones that come to mind:

• Tête baissée, a thriller/drama set in Bulgaire and Marseille, maphia, human traffic... seems pretty interesting.
• Les Chevaliers blancs tells the story of the Zoe's Arch charity controversy in Chad.
• Timbuktu revolves around the monstruosities perpetrated by Islamist during the occupation of this ancient city in Mali.