Duplicity (2009)

A complicated plot involving industrial espionage. Two spies - a man and a woman - team up in a plan to fool two competing companies.

A lot of cerebral work went into this, leaving realism behind, although nothing exactly absurd from the strictly logical angle happens, to my notice anyway. If you squeeze it for its essence, not much comes out, and I guess what does is something like "love means trust" or "even spies fall in love", or a little of both. The film tries a compromise between this kind of thing and a pervasive belief that there is a supreme beauty about these outsmarting games and the plot twists they entail. House Games was possibly the final word about that, with a difference that it had a psychoanalytic side to it which is completely lacking here. Gilroy's creative pattern seems pretty much discernible by this and his previous film, and I suspect that he may be comfortably filed under the guilty pleasure tag, unfortunately with guilt largely outweighing pleasure.

Rating: 45

Stella (2008)

A girl's life. Her parents own a bar and an adjoining hotel. They live there. She has difficulties at school and makes a friend from a very different social environment.

I can't find much to say about this film. The protagonist, a girl around 10 years old, wears the same listless expression throughout the film. When she is happy, the soundtrack bursts into pop songs from the 70's, the decade when the action is set. The point of the film seems to be exposing the sordid milieu in which the protagonist lives and her growing awareness of a vaster world to which she must endeavor to adapt. There are fine moments in it, although dullness is the predominant note. The supporting performances are, on the other hand, excellent, a special mention going to Rocher as the protagonist's mother.

Rating: 45

Guns of the Magnificent Seven (1969)

A Mexican peasant leader (who is not a peasant at all - don't ask) is imprisoned. One peasant hires an American to rescue him from jail. The latter hires in turn six men to help him do the job.

Watchable yet hackneyed action spectacle in the Mexican-Western subgenre.

Rating: 39

Rosemary & Thyme: Arabica and the Early Spider (2003) (TV)

The two absurd detectives come across another absurd crime. But the episode is light-minded and the leading characters are congenial.

Two Lovers (2008)

(Reportedly) loosely based on Dostoevsky's short story "White Nights" (1848).

A young man with suicidal tendencies meets an attractive young woman who lives next door to him. She is having an affair with a married man. Concurrently to all that, the young man's parents try to set him up with another young woman, whose family is about to become entangled with his in a businesslike fashion.

Genetic tests motivates break-ups, and one is either "bipolar" or "attention-deficit" afflicted. Talented filmmaker Gray remains interesting in this, though not as much, perhaps, as in his previous one, the superb We Own the Night. Both films (and also Little Odessa and The Yards) are about the weight of families on individuals, and about other things too. The musical score is good. Phoenix gives a superb, fully convincing performance.

Rating: 68

I Bergmans regi (2003) (TV)

This is the "making of" video of Saraband. Other than a surprisingly energetic disposition for his age, there is nothing about Bergman or anyone or anything else in this film that striked me as worthy of note.

Saraband (2003) (TV)

A recently widowed cellist takes his 19-year old daughter as a pupil. His estranged father lives near him and they hate each other. The daughter begins to feel suffocated by her father's possessiveness. Her grandfather's ex-wife comes to visit.

There was a soapish side to Bergman which began to become more evident in his later period. His statement of admiration for the TV show "Dallas" reveals beyond a doubt this side of his artistic personality. In Saraband, this is the only side of him we see. It is obviously better made than the average TV soap opera, but it is a soap opera nonetheless.

Rating: 45