35 Shots Of Rum (Claire Denis, 2008)

A strange thing happened to me after watching Claire Denis' 35 Shots Of Rum. Once the film was over, I thought I would forget both the story and its characters very quickly, because it seemed to me that nothing remarkable had happened during its 100 minutes running time. Only after a few days I realized how much the film had settled in my mind, despite (or maybe I should say precisely because of) its unremarkability. 

The Minister (Pierre Schoeller, 2011)

In the same way that Krzysztof Zanussi's 2005 Persona Non Grata offered us a cross section of the intrigues taking place in a Polish Embassy, Pierre Schoeller's The Minister has undoubtedly the merit of introducing us into a world we know only superficially, and generally never get in contact with. Most of its appeal indeed comes from the great care it devotes to illustrate the mechanisms of power unraveling inside the departments of a French Ministry.

Barbara (Christian Petzold, 2012)

"The heavens are what split first", wrote Christa Wolf in her 1963 novel Divided Heaven in the aftermath of the construction of the Berlin Wall. Even if a quarter of a century has passed since the heavens reconciled (the Wall fell in 1989) apparently that chapter in German history still proves an inexhaustible source of inspiration for contemporary German cinema, see for example Sonnenallee (1999), Goodbye Lenin (2003) and the Academy Award winner The Lives Of The Others (2006). But when is the former East Germany backdrop motivated by the urgence of filmmakers to grapple with a recent past that still hurts, and when is it more an exploitative choice, of the sort made by Liliana Cavani with The Night Porter?

La Moustache (Emmanuel Carrère, 2005)

Don't be fooled by the apparently innocuous title. Written and directed by first and foremost writer Emmanuel Carrère and based on his own novel, La Moustache is a powerful, unsettling film that will make you feel uneasy long after the end credits have rolled.

The Hunt (Thomas Vinterberg, 2012)

Continuing on a path begun with 1998's The Celebration, Thomas Vinterberg's The Hunt tells the story of a man falsely accused of child sexual abuse who is ostracized by the small Danish town he lives in. If that previous feature centered on a harsh truth that everyone seemed unwilling to accept, here the situation is reversed, the plot revolving around a blatant falsehood that everyone for some reason is willing to swallow.

Welcome to Goya Cinema!

Thank you for taking the time to stop by. I do my best here to write open-mindedly about the film experiences I enjoyed the most. Good or bad, sad or happy, smart or stupid, all of them have improved on - paraphrasing a film critic I greatly admire - the sight of my room's ceiling viewed for the same length of time.

It's all work in progress. I encourage you to post comments, share opinions, start discussions. Suggestions about the blog itself are welcome.

Have a nice time!