Wednesday, September 4, 2013

A Moveable Fest, Week 3: Mama, The Angel's Share, Before Sunrise

90s fashion choices ftw
Week 3: My Choice

Mama

There are abandoned feral children and a creepy maternal thingy they call Mama is looking after them! Somebody should probably warn their new adoptive parents that Mama doesn't share well. This movie isn't particularly terrifying as far as these things go (and they can go quite a long way), but has a surprisingly sad and unpredictable ending, and features lots of excellent atmospheric scuttling. Perfectly enjoyable in a Nell-meets-Mrs-Voorhees kind of way.


The Angel's Share

Glaswegian Robbie is on community service and turns out to be a whisky savant. Sounds like a perfectly standard Ken Loach plot, non? Well, non, obviously. I found this film to be really strangely paced until I worked out I was just waiting for the Horrible Loach Twist Of Despair. But no! It's consistently upbeat and for once I didn't want a whisky just to recover from a Loach encounter. (I do generally really like his films, by the way. But oh, Kes.)


Before Sunrise

Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy take a chance on their bond-at-first-sight, and wander around Vienna together being terribly charmingly earnest and awkward and 90s. While its successor (the older and wiser Before Sunset) is so far my favourite of these films (I've yet to see the third installment), I genuinely adore Before Sunrise in all its naive and bumbly glory. I love it in the same dorky-teen, passionate way that I love Dead Poet's Society. And Julie Delpy is definitely my idol (yes, even when she's sporting the unfortunate 90s outfit of tiny-tshirt-under-shoe-string-strap-dress-with-flannel-shirt-tied-around-waist).






2 comments:

HWC said...

In a director's commentary to Sweet Sixteen right at the end on the beach - Ken Loach said a lot of people find the ending sad and deeply depressing but he didn't think so! Something like they'd been through a lot but they had each other and he was optimistic about their future!! Hmm? Not my original reaction!

Anna Ryan-Punch said...

That seems quite bizarre - the ending of that film is so desperately sad.