Skip to main content

FOREIGN FLICKS

I have this fascination with foreign films and for the past few days since I’ve been battling a nasty bronchial infection I’ve been lying around “reading” the television set. It’s very much my alone time because I can’t get anyone in my family to watch them with me. My son has proclaimed that if he wanted to “read” he would buy a book; that movies are supposed to be “watched” and that’s why they’re “movies”. Kid doesn’t have a clue what he’s missing. I know that my fascination comes from my love for other cultures. They are like really good books and I can be taken away to an exotic local with a push of the remote for the DVD player.


I watched three today. The first was a movie titled Three Times, a Chinese film directed by Hsiao-hsien Hou. Don’t ask me how to pronounce that because I don’t have a clue. I do know that it was a beautiful story. It was a romance, and exceptionally sensual. It was actually three stories set in three times, 1911, 1966 and 2005. Two actors played the two main characters in each story. The lead actress, a woman named Shu Qi was brilliant. Her performances were so convincing that a few times she moved me to tears.


The second, a Vietnamese film, was titled Lady Vengeance, a kick-ass mystery thriller about a young woman falsely imprisoned for thirteen years. When she’s released, with the help of a few former prison pals, she sets out to get revenge on the man who got her locked up. Girlfriend was vicious! It was truly brilliant if I say so myself. The acting was impeccable, the photography was great and a very nice musical score kept me glued to the set.

But my absolute favorite was the movie Water by acclaimed director Deepa Mehta. This film is set in 1938 India when the country was ruled by the British and Gandhi was doing his thing. It’s the story of a ten-year old girl named Chuyia who’s in an arranged marriage to this really old man. Shortly after the wedding, hubby kicks the bucket. As was the tradition, widows are shunned by the community and little Chuyia is taken to “the widows house” where she is expected to live a life of celibacy and solitude with the other widows. Chuyia is the youngest widow there and most of the women in this home are elderly. There’s an amazing love story between one of the other widows and a young man who falls in love with her. The little girl is just a spitball of fire and energy and she wrecks sheer havoc on the house and you spend the entire movie cheering on her and the two women she becomes attached to. This movie is just visually stunning and the young actress who played the part of Chuyia, a little girl named Sarala, clearly has a promising career ahead of her. I highly recommend it!

If I still feel crummy tomorrow I’m going to watch brain dead films. My son is good at selecting brain dead cinema. It would seem that teenage boys have a knack for them.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

DAMMIT, DO BETTER!

I love reading. I get excited when I discover a new author or find an outstanding story. I’m eager to leave reviews and share with others my new finds. When a book or story is lackluster, leaving me less than thrilled, I usually remain silent. I know the effort that an author has put into a story. I know how hurtful a bad review can be. It is not for me to dash anyone else’s dream because what I might not have liked, someone else may have loved. Recently I read books that left me disappointed, and angry. One was an award-winning title, the author gleefully claiming a coveted statue for her efforts. Clearly what I hated, others found award-worthy. And that actually scares me. The story was as well-written as any other in the genre. Its formulaic plot hit all the buttons that her publisher required. But as a woman of color, I found it as insulting and as distasteful as any story I have ever read. The story featured a Native American heroine. She had self-esteem issues, co...
40 comments
Read more

TREYVON MARTIN

Seventeen-year old Treyvon Martin was walking back from a convenience store to his father's home, when he was allegedly accosted and shot dead by a community watch captain.   Heading home put him in a “gated” community where he clearly wasn’t welcomed.   Treyvon was black and his presence in that “gated” community was a source of consternation for the man who shot him dead as evidenced by the 911 telephone call that was made just minutes prior to the deadly shooting. The media reports that George Zimmerman, a white man, called for police assistance, reporting that Treyvon was “a suspicious person".   Despite being advised by the 911 dispatcher to not follow the young man and to wait for police, Zimmerman felt that he had the authority to approach and confront Treyvon instead.   That confrontation has now left a family to bury a child who once had a bright and promising future. The central Florida police have yet to levy any charges against Z...
16 comments
Read more

NAUGHTY OR NICE TOUR - DAY 6 - DEBORAH FLETCHER MELLO

I'm so excited to be a part of the NAUGHTY OR NICE BOOK BLOG TOUR. And it gives me great pleasure to give you the first peek at my next release, PLAYING WITH FIRE . Available from Dafina books on February 24, 2015, wherever books are sold, PLAYING WITH FIRE is the first in my two-book Sultry Southern Nights series. ENJOY this excerpt and please, PRE-ORDER your copy today! Romeo Marshall is over six feet of cool, smooth, hot, southern seductiveness--just like the music at his popular Raleigh club, The Playground Jazz and Blues Bar. With his beloved mother gone and no father he's ever known, the business is Romeo's everything. It's a place where anything can happen--and the evening one gorgeous young woman and one intriguing old musician walk into the bar--and into Romeo's life--it does. There's something about high-powered, down-to-the earth Taryn Williams that captures Romeo's attention like no other woman has. Yet unanswered questions from his past s...
30 comments
Read more