The man who killed Don Quixote (2018)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2018
	Director: Terry Gilliam
	Actors: Adam Driver, Jonathan Pryce
	Country: GB, F, B, E, P
	Genre: Adventure, Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 17.09.2018, Schauburg, OV Sneak Preview, English/Spanish version with German subtitle
Synopsis: Toby (Driver), a cynical advertising director finds himself trapped in the outrageous delusions of an old Spanish shoe-maker Javier (Pryce) who believes himself to be Don Quixote. In the course of their comic and increasingly surreal adventures, Toby is forced to confront the tragic repercussions of a film he made in his idealistic youth - a film that changed the hopes and dreams of a small Spanish village forever.
Review: I heard about this movie when it was a project of Terry Gilliam and failed due to the illness of Jean Rochefort and other unexpected events. At that time (2000) it sounded like a curse on the movie. This had been filmed in the almost-making-off of the movie, Lost in La Mancha (2002).  The convinced Don Quixote of now acted by Jonathan Pryce, the lost in acting Don Quixote of Toby's first movie, the ideal of Don Quixote in Toby's mind. The connotation to Don Quixote is imbricated. I like that. We have the impression of travelling in time via the movies shown in the movie, via the costume party that has a major place in the script, via the weird situation of Javier in the village, via the dreams of Toby. And this quest for the remembered hot girl transforming into a quest for his youth brings the arrogant Toby to a human level. And like for Don Quixote the true and cruel reality remains. It is one's choice what we do and what we don't. Toby met his Dulcinea making his study film. The acting of Adam Driver and Jonathan Pryce are great. Especially Jonathan Pryce being Javier convinced to be Don Quixote and calling Toby Sancho and treating him as a valet. Adam Driver does not show much emotion visually. Some teacher prefer this to let the story be driven by the director and his story-telling, by the shots. Technically I liked the mix of different types of scenery and of prop and of costumes. This was for me kind of part of the travel through time and space. This travel is also done via the encounter with migrants, with the extravagant mecene and his wife. This way we see how Javier and Toby go through these different worlds.  I like this kind of movie that make me dream and think about parts of the story.
Rating: 7 /10

John From (2015)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2015
	Director: João Nicolau
	Actors: Julia Palha, Clara Riedl, Filipe Vargas
	Country: P
	Genre: Drama, Fantasy
	Conditions of visioning: 03.10.2016, ArteKinoFestival, Streaming, Portuguese with French subtitles
Synopsis: Rita (Pahla) is 15 years old and is bored by the summer in the city. She floods the balcony floor and splashes about while soaking up the mighty sun. She has an ever-present best friend (Riedl). When Rita visits the exhibition put on by a new neighbour (Vargas) she falls not only in another world.
Review: I did not expect much from this movie apart from the sweet naivety and torpor of many Portuguese movies. And what a surprise when I saw Nicolau daring magic realism as a movie. While the first part sets us in the realism of a Portuguese city during the Summer school break, actually everything is getting settled and prepared for the magic realism part. I loved this aspect. The reality is quite boring as it is supposed to be for the characters. Only problem is that I got bored a bit as well. By luck I did not miss the heart of the movie. Even if it starts sweet, the love à la Lolita of a young girl for an adult is kind of controversial in a traditional society like the Portuguese one. This was also good to see.  The use of the John From religion from the Vanuatu is also quite interesting as the same process of idealisation of one person appears when Rita falls in love for the neighbour. The acting reflects the typical torpor. The acting of Julia Palha is not naive but quite proud and complex. This makes her character very interesting. The secondary characters are more decoration of her story, but it is fine this way, as it forces to focus on her thoughts and her psychology.  The narrative process builds a realistic world of one character in a very clear way, maybe a bit too long for me, but explodes in a very creative and well controled fantasy part.
Rating: 7 /10

La mort de Louis XIV (2016)

	Also Known As: The death of Louis XIV
	Year of first release: 2016
	Director: Albert Serra
	Actors: Jean-Pierre Léaud
	Country: F, P, E
	Genre: Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 04.10.2016, ArteKinoFestival, Streaming, French version
Synopsis: Death and suffering don’t spare the mighty, not even absolute monarchs: In August 1715, King Louis XIV., the Sun King, suddenly feels a pain in his leg. He spends the next days in his chambers, running the government as best he can as death gradually draws closer. – An opulent costume film as chamber play, a dance of death for a bedridden autocrat, brilliantly depicted by Jean-Pierre Léaud.
Review: The originality of the movie is the detailed agony of Louis XIV. As the guy is almost dead and old and can barely move alone and does not talk much. It is exactly what you see. And therefore it is quite slow, very suspenseless and extremely boring. I don't know whether I learned much from the life of the Roi-Soleil as nothing happens. So I do not know what this movie is good for. If one of you knows and tells me what I missed there, feel free to comment.
Rating: 1 /10

Cavalo dinheiro (2014)

	Also Known As: Horse Money
	Year of first release: 2014
	Director: Pedro Costa
	Actors: Ventura, Vitalina Varela
	Country: P
	Genre: Drama
	Conditions of visioning: 07.09.2015, Schauburg, OV Sneak Preview, Original Portuguese version with German subtitles
Synopsis: Ventura (Ventura) traverses a seemingly endless night populated by the ghosts of his, and his country’s, past. Bureaucratic questioning, and wandering through remembered spaces... and suddenly it is also then, the mid '70s and the time of Portugal's Carnation Revolution, when Ventura got into a knife fight with his friend Joaquim.
Review: The movie starts with a serie of pictures coming from old ages of Portugal accompanied by spleen music by Messiaen (master of the contemporary music). Then the movie turns into a serie of almost still pictures from the hard-to-understand story of Ventura. It is not easy to catch what he is talking about. Rememberances, his friend, bureaucratic question on his daily life. This is for me rather than an experimental or poetic movie (implying movement) as often written by the press and the festivals, a very beautiful pictural exhibition. The way the light falls on the characters or on dark rooms, the way the darkness split space, the way people are visible via the light on them or via their shadow. This is full of magnificent light-contrasted pictures. This is beautiful.  I did not see  the previous film by Costa, Colossal Youth (2006), but it could be interesting from the photographic point of view. From a movie, I expect a bit of movement and a story. And both are missing terribly in that movie. It was not to sleep even if the movie was only 93 minutes, it felt like ages.
Rating: 3 /10

Cosmopolis (2012)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2012
	Director: David Cronenberg (The Fly, A History of Violence)
	Actors: Robert Pattinson (Twilight), Juliette Binoche (The English Patient), Sarah Gadon, Paul Giamatti (John Dies at the End), Kevin Durand (Real Steel)
	Country: CDN, F, P, I
	Genre: Drama, Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 27.10.2013, Blu-ray, Home cinema
Synopsis: A young billionnaire (Pattinson) crosses the city in a limousine, meeting the people in his life on the way.
Review: It pains me to give such a bad rating to a David Cronenberg movie but I really didn't get into it. The concept is interesting and there is nothing wrong with the acting of Pattinson (a good role to turn the Twilight page), but people are just talking, talking, talking... It was already maybe the case in Videodrome, A History of Violence or Eastern Promises, but it was interleaved with some action scenes and/or the music was excellent. In Cosmopolis the discussions are so weird and unrelated one with another that I quickly lost interest and kept on watching only for the quality of the direction. I didn't like all this philosophical chit-chat. I didn't get the meaning of the movie. I thought it could be a dream because the movie is jumping from one topic to another with no link. Very dissapointing to me.
Rating: 3 /10

Night train to Lisbon (2013)

	Also Known As: Nachtzug nach Lissabon
	Year of first release: 2013
	Director: Bille August
	Actors: Jeremy Irons, Martina Gedeck, Jack Huston, Mélanie Laurent, August Diehl
	Country: D, CH, P
	Genre: Thriller, Romance
	Conditions of visioning: 10.03.2013, Schauburg, OV
Synopsis: An aging Swiss professor of classical languages who, after a chance encounter with a Portuguese woman, quits his job and travels to Lisbon in the hope of discovering the fate of a certain author, a doctor and poet who fought against Portuguese dictator Antonio de Oliveira Salazar.
Review: I like a lot the plot. A guy moved by a book decides to change his life to know more about it. It is like falling in love. And then, the history of Portugal is shown in the feelings of its people. The veterans still afraid of speaking about what they have seen. The rebels also moved by their love feelings. This reminds me the story of my parents. It is also the first time that the Portuguese history is shown on screen also. Or I may have missed something. This is usefull for the people to work on the rememberance and on the justice, in order to move on with real freedom. My rating may be therefore high. The alternance of scenes on Portuguese dictature time and on current time is well cut, so that something remains open everytime and holds the breath of the viewer. The acting of Martina Gedeck, Jack Huston, August Diehl and Mélanie Laurent are great. Mélanie Laurent is barely to recognize. I did not read the book before, but this makes me wanting to read it, even if I heard a lot of bad about it.
Rating: 8 /10

Painless (2012)

	Also Known As: Insensibles (original)
	Year of first release: 2012
	Director: Juan Carlos Medina
	Actors: Irene Montalà ( L'Auberge Espagnole, Les Poupées Russes), Derek de Lint (Deep Impact), Félix Gómez (Agnosia)
	Country: E, F, P
	Genre: Horror, Thriller
	Conditions of visioning: 09.03.2013, CITY Kino, MFFFN13
Synopsis: Tragic events will lead a man (Gómez) to dig into the past of his parents. In parallel we follow a group of children locked in hospital in the 30's.
Review: In this kind of movie children are always scary. The investigation edited in parallel makes you wonder how both stories are going to merge. I found that the political background of the 30's-40's in Spain doesn't bring much to the movie (not like in Pan's Labyrinth). On the contrary, the movie switches from a political story to a family investigation to a scary children movie to a gore horror torture flick. The crudeness of the horror bits contrasts too much with the rest of the film, and my general impression over the whole movie is mitigated.
Rating: 5 /10