Father Geek here with Robert and his review crew for this week's Euro-AICN column.

I've just returned from 2 weeks on the French-Spanish border at the Sitges Film Festival where Harry and I along with a few other AICN writers were exposed to around 300 films. Well, ol' Father Geek tried to see them all but only managed to catch around 70, or so. Included in that delightful run were: DOLLS; DARKNESS; El SEGUNDO NOMBRE; SPIDER; IRREVERSIBLE; DARK WATER; THE RUSSIAN ARK; MAY; THE LAST MINUTE; CYPHER; REQUIEM; THE DISCOVERY OF HEAVEN; TED BUNDY; NARC; SNAKE OF JUNE; SPIRITED AWAY; 800 BALAS; RULES OF ATTRACTION; RED DRAGON; TRECE CAMPANADAS; DEVDAS; PACTO DE BRUJAS; DEATHWATCH; CABIN FEVER; ZU WARRIORS; LA SIRENE ROUGE; DOG SOLDIERS; BANGKOK HAUNTED; ASESINO EN SERIO; THE EYE; DEMONLOVER; FEARDOT.COM; MY LITTLE EYE; and the phantastic DRACULA: PAGES FROM A VIRGIN'S DIARY. All of the above films have something to recommend them, I enjoyed them all to some degree, and quite honestly of the above only Feardot.com, Bangcock Haunting, and Demonlover left me with any real feeling of emptiness. Where as Dracula, 800 Balas, Dolls, Spirited Away, Deathwatch, Russian Ark, Dark Water, Eye, Bundy, May, Irreversible, Asesino en Serio, and Rules of Attraction were simply OUTSTANDING... great screen entertainment.

One day, the fourth of the fest, was one of my best movie days ever in over 40 years of film going... after watching a group of wonderful shorts including the delightful SPONGEMAN (El Hombre Esponia), I nestled into my 9th row #5 seat to watch 5 fantastic feature films in a row without having to leave the theater... the hellish DEATHWATCH kicked off the series, then the totally mesmorizing MAY, followed by the strangely beautiful DOLLS, then the dark and brooding SPIDER, and finally at 1:30am the kickass LAST MINUTE. All on one of the largest indoor screens I've ever seen a motion picture on, with an absolutely ear-shattering surround sound system. I'll be returning to Sitges again next year, it's my kind of festival.

Oh, the WORST film of the fest that I saw... a crock of steaming pig shit titled "La Vie Nouvelle"... avoid it at ALL costs. If you don't, you'll be BORED to death by this poorly executed pretentious crud.

Now here's Robert and the regular Euro-report...

Hi people. Welcome to a Euro Aicn column entirely dedicated to reviews. We have our great James Bartlett with three articles (about Talk to Her, Ivansxtc, xXx) and our beloved Ethan with his opinion of Brian De Palma latest Femme Fatale.

Unfortunately, I have to open the column with a review I really had problems to write: Pinocchio. I strongly wished to rave about this one, but it's such a mess that I can't say something positive about it. Even if it grossed already 9,5 millions of euro this weekend (defeating the record detained by The Fellowship of the Rings), the audience doesn't seem to like it. Anyway, if you want to see a few pics, let's click here: let's click here Let's go...

Pinocchio

This friday the most important italian movie of the last 20 years was released in our country in 940 screens, an astonishing record for Italy. Roberto Benigni worked hard for two years to complete his dream, which was also the most expensive italian pic ever (around 45 millions dollars or euro, as you prefer). I didn’t had great expectations for Pinocchio. First, when I read the cast involved I didn’t like many choices Benigni did, because it seemed to me that a few actors didn’t fit their role. Then, the long delays of the movies are always a bad sign (even if there are many exceptions to this “rule”). On the other hand, I strongly wanted it to be a great and successful movie. Probably many of you knows that italian cinema is affected by a crisis since the mid 70’ (a period that saw the death of many italian great directors, as Vittorio De Sica, Luchino Visconti, Roberto Rossellini, Pietro Germi). During the last 25 years, we had a few very interesting directors as Nanni Moretti or Gianni Amelio able to win best prizes in festival as Venice and Cannes, while someone else (Tornatore and Salvatores) won the Oscar for the best foreign movie, even if later on they weren’t able to confirm their value, due to many mediocre movies they realised. Anyway, it is very difficult to see an italian movie well promoted and distributed in countries as the United States, France or Uk. So, you can easily understand what meant for entire Italy (and I’m not talking only about the national cinema industry) Life is Beautiful success. Not only prizes conquered in every part of the world (including three Oscar and a jury award in Cannes), but, most important for our industry, a 229 millions gross worldwide.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to attend the press screening which occurred the past week and I’ve seen the movie on friday with the audience. Of course, reading the newspapers, seeing tv (of course, this was a hot new during this time) and talking with my colleagues, I noticed that their impression was of a general disappointment. Someone also told me that children won’t like this movie, because they’ll find it very boring. So, seeing the movie with a regular audience could have been perfect not only to valuate his artistic importance, but also to understand if it’s appealing to people.

Frankly, I can’t tell I’m disappointed, because I was well aware of what I should have been expecting. But I’m really angry, because this is not only one of the worst movies I’ve seen this year, but also one of the most boring ones. In fact, the audience I was seeing the movie with, was well ready to amuse itself, reckoning that Roberto Benigni doing Pinocchio should be a wonderful experience to watch. But, first huge flaw, Roberto Benigni decided to annihilate himself: he’s not the incredible buffoon that americans started to know during his triumphal tour for the Oscars in 1999, but an actor so frightened by this role (“It is a dream comes true”, he said many times) to express all his skills. I mean, this is the guy who was able to make us laugh telling a story set in a lager: how it is possible he’s afraid to take a fable (even if it’s one of the most popular worldwide) to the screen?

An example of it is his voice. I’m sure you all know as he speak. Well, forget it. He tries to talk as a child (not easy, considering that is almost 50 years old), speaking in an unbearable falsetto. The strange thing is that doesn’t seem able to maintain the same voice for the entire movie. Sometimes it is more acute and impertinent, sometimes more similar to his normal one (and these are the moments the audience seems to appreciate the most). I’m curious to know how Benigni will dub himself in the english version of the movie…

One of the particolar the italians critics noticed unanimously was that Roberto Benigni’s Pinocchio is very faithful to the book. And, even if few journalists told it, this is one of the worst mistakes you can do. The book, in fact, was stricly divided in chapters, each one with different characters who appear and disappear. Being faifhtul at the book, Benigni decided not to give his personal interpretation to this classic (like the great Peter Jackson is doing with the Lord of the Rings trilogy), but to simply illustrate the fable. I was very critic with Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone for the same reason a year ago, but, compared to Pinocchio, that movie was a masterwork.

If this wouldn’t be enough, the movie was ruined by the cuts Benigni did. In fact, the first version of it lasted almost three hours and someone (even if I can’t confirm this rumor) told me that Miramax’s Harvey Weinstein asked Benigni to cut it and make an usual running time product. Whoever decided it, it doesn’t matter. You can easily see that the movie has problems thanks to this decision. It occurs, for example, that Pinocchio describes a character as a friend of him, even if we never haven’t seen him introduced. And many scenes are abruptly cutted (one of them is the meeting between Pinocchio and Geppetto in shark’s stomach, which stirred a controversy with the actor paying Geppetto, Carlo Giuffré, who felt betrayed by Benigni for reducing his time on screen).

Indeed, the confusion seems to reign in the Pinocchio’s crew. For example, Academy Award Winner composer Nicola Piovani (who, by the way, provides a very anonymous and mediocre score here) told that he was working very hard to underline some hidden sides of the movie, as the erotic relationship (!!!) between Pinocchio and the Blue Fairy. And even if in the screen you can’t notice absolutely nothing different from a mother-child relation (and Benigni denied that his intention was different), I find a big mistake to cast Benigni’s wife Nicoletta Braschi as the Blue Fairy. First, we are accustomed to always see them as a couple in Benigni’s movies, so it looks strange to see them as mother and son (and, in fact, there is a scene where they are very near and the audience seems unconsciouly expecting they kiss each other). Second, Nicoletta Braschi (who proved to be a good actress when is directed by someone else, as in Paolo Virzi’s Ovosodo) is awful in his husband’s movies. In particular, she should be here a charming and delightful character, but she’s able to ruin it with a wooden performance (and, by the way, she is not absolutely sexy to provide some hidden message, as Piovani suggested, mostly if you think to Gina Lollobrigida in the Luigi Comencini version for television in the seventies, a must for italian audience and probably the best non-animated version of the Pinocchio fable so far).

Then, I was also stunned by an interview I read with the screenwriter Vincenzo Cerami. He told that it will be difficult to explain to americans that it wasn’t Disney who created Pinocchio but Collodi. I don’t find very clever to tell it, and not only because I’m sure there are a lot of americans who know Collodi and can feel insulted, but also because it’s not very advantageous to describe this way the most important market for the movie. And, if you ask me, the first ten minutes of Walt Disney’s Pinocchio are most rich of ideas than the entire movie by Roberto Benigni is.

But, probably you are wondering, is there anything to save in this movie? Yes, it is. And that’s the work done by the great production designer Danilo Donati, who died during the shooting. I didn’t see a set designing so brilliant in an italian movie since Federico Fellini’s Casanova (which was, of course, another masterwork realised by Donati and for whom he won his second Oscar). He is a sure bet to be nominated at the Oscars (even if, because the competition from The Two Towers, Gangs of New York and Chicago, it will be quite hard to win). Unfortunately, I can’t tell the same for the other people involved in this movie (which probably will receive another nod as the best foreign movie, but nothing more). And, of course, I’m absolutely sure it won’t gross the same amount of money as Life is Beautiful, meaning that our industry won’t abasolutely benefit from its release as we could hope.

What a pity…

Here we are with the reviews of James Bartlett...BE CAREFUL - MANY SPOILERS

Talk To Her (Hable Con Ella)

d. Pedro Almodovar Javier Camara, Leonor Watling, Dario Grandinetti, Rosario Flores, Geraldine Chaplin

The latest offering from the Spanish wizard is a high-concept film that deals with the universal themes of love, death, friendship and family - but in Almodovar's usual different way. Working mainly in flashback to reveal the story and up the emotional content, Talk To Her focuses on two men and their relationship with each other and their respective lovers - though this is not as clear-cut as it sounds.

Beningo (Javier Camara) is a devoted nurse to long-time coma victim Alicia (Leonor Watling). He cuts her hair, puts on her make-up, bathes her, gossips with her and basically takes care of her as if she were still alive - and not in the permanent vegetative state that she is.

He is ideally suited to the job though, as he cared for his mother for years and he knows Alicia's father and her paternal mother, ballet teacher Katerina (Geraldine Chaplin).

The opposite of Benigno, who spends all his days in the hospital, Marco (Dario Grandinetti) is a travel journalist who gets sent to interview the ballsy bullfighter Lydia (Rosario Flores) with whom he soon starts a passionate affair, though he is never sure whether she has totally forgotten her last love, fellow fighter Nino.

When Lydia is gored in a fight, she ends up in a coma and Marco and Benigno are thrown together in this limbo state, with Benigno offering the advice of hable con ella - "talk to her" - as he feels that talking to Lydia/Alicia is more important than almost anything else - and after all, miracles do happen.

However, Marco struggles to find his place in this one-way world and when he finds Nino at Lydia's bedside and he explains that they were reunited shortly before her accident, Marco leaves for foreign shores to continue his travel writings.

When he reads of Lydia's death, he calls the hospital to find out what happened and learns that Benigno is in prison, charged with raping Alicia while she slept; she is pregnant and due to give birth very soon.

Shocked at Benigno's actions - he had told him he wanted to marry Alicia, but Marco had said that it was madness - he is compelled to help his friend and returns to Spain to visit Benigno, who tells him he will go out of his mind unless he knows what has happened to Alicia and the baby.

Marco promises he will find out what he can and takes on Benigno's flat - which, as he said, had a balcony that faced the studio where Alicia used to learn ballet and from where he first her. It is from this very balcony window that Marco sees Alicia - a miracle has happened after all.

A difficult concept to take in at first, Talk To Her is a film about love and devotion. Despite his actions, we know that Benigno is motivated by pure love in his actions; the tragedy is that he will never see Alicia awake again, nor will she know how much he cared for her - whereas Marco spent time with a woman he loved, but lost her too.

The film looks bright and colourful, Spain looks gorgeous - even the bullfighting scenes - the music is evocative and the actors are convincing in their subtlety.

But most of all, the emotional impact is resonating - you sympathise with Benigno because he cannot express his love/sexuality in a way we would easily recognise, yet you don't pity or despise him - how can Almodovar pull that off with his characters, film after film?

James Bartlett

Ivansxtc

d. Bernard Rose Danny Huston, Peter Weller, Lisa Enos, James Merendino

Though it was shot nearly three years ago, Ivansxtc has become a bit of a cult film in the meantime, gathering plaudits for showing the sleazy side of Hollywood - the beast in the beauty, as it were.

Its lofty pretensions are apparent straight away when you see that it is based on a story by Leo Tolstoy, "The Death of Ivan Ilyich" and when the credits sequence goes on and on to a slow classical score.

The film starts as a room of office suits learn of the death of a colleague. Most cannot believe the news, but when it is confirmed, their attention soon changes to dealing with his clients and dismissing him as a "coke whore and pussy hound" - the implication that it was expected and almost part of the game, which, in a sense, it seems to be.

The film then unravels in flashback after the funeral and we see Ivan Becker (Danny Huston,) a hot-shot agent in Hollywood who was the toast of the town, as he had just lured hot actor Don West (Peter Weller) to his agency to star in "Weeds", the new film written by Danny McTeague (James Merendino) that - Ivan confesses to his girlfriend Charlotte (Lisa Enos) - he hasn't actually read. No matter though, as the deal is done and the movie is a "go".

But here the problems start; Ivan visits his doctor and is told that he has a tumour on his lung. He is devastated, but that doesn't stop him having to take phone calls/have frenetic meetings with a frustrated Danny, who is worried that Don isn't the man for the part - and vice versa.

But all Ivan wants is to talk to someone about his impending early death - yet he really has no one. All his friends are "in the biz" and live at parties, where coke, ecstasy, alcohol and sex replace any sense of depth or real friendship. Even Charlotte doesn't seem to be interested; she's keener on him reading her script.

Ivan indulges for a while like everyone else, but you just know he's going to be left behind when he goes down - and the inevitable crash soon comes.

Shot on DV (Digital Video) - which I usually dislike as it looks crap - it actually works really well here, almost coming off as a documentary about Ivan, almost as if we were silent recorders of his life. It also allows for some evocative and impressive camerawork - i.e. shots into the sun, shots of LA at sunset and sunrise look blurry and edgy, which works well in this case.

That said, the promise isn't delivered; it really was a bit of a disappointment. The use of classical music to provoke emotion was different and innovative in this scenario, but the film felt very very short and was far less brutal and rotten than it could have been - or promised to be.

Ivan doesn't really over-indulge in anything, we just meet him at a point in his life when that is the last thing on his mind, so we get more of a snapshot of him and therefore just a glimpse of what is definitely a good idea.

I guess this is partly down to the restrictions on budget and time, which is a shame, as there was a potentially deeper and darker story than we actually saw here - especially if, as rumoured, it was in part based on real Hollywood agent Jay Maloney and, as must be true, the "beautiful people" indulge in more than some common drugs.

On the acting side, everyone came across as the Hollywood clichés they were supposed to be and Danny Huston was especially great - all ringletted hair, wide grins and very Jack Nicholson-like.

James Bartlett

xXx

d. Rob Cohen Vin Diesel, Asia Argento, Samuel L Jackson, Marton Csokas

Xander Cage (Vin Diesel) is one of those dangerous sports freaks; we meet him when he steals a Ferrari, wires it up with cameras and then drives it over a huge bridge - parachuting to safety as people watch the whole stunt on the web. Nice intro there xXx (he has these initials tattooed on the back of his neck by the way).

But this car theft does not go unpunished and a SWAT team arrives at the celebration party and tranquillizer-darts our hero - and he wakes up in a diner. Two guys try to hold up the diner and Xander deals with them, but it turns out that it was a set-up, a role-play test, to see if he was what the NSA (National Security Agency) is looking for these days.

The NSA rep is Augustus Gibbons (Samuel L Jackson), who has put Xander in a crack squad of various dodgy geezers and heavies who will battle it out to see who gets the "honour" of going to Prague and infiltrating a dodgy terrorist organisation called Anarchy 99.

Naturally, Xander tells Gibbons where to go, so it's tranq tie again and next up Xander and two other toughs are on a drugs bust in Columbia. But this time it's not a test - the guns and helicopters are real - even though Gibbons is still behind it all.

Xander, after an amazing rescue/escape by motorbike, is offered the choice of jail or the trip to Prague - tough call. So, Xander arrives in picturesque Prague and soon gets in with Anarchy 99 leader Yogi (Marton Csokas) by asking him if he can 10 Ferraris for him (hello, The Fast and The Furious).

From then on, Xander is one of the gang - and soon starts flirting with Yogi's tough-as-nails girlfriend Yelena (Asia Argento). This backfires though, because when Xander's cover gets blown and Gibbons orders him home, he will not go without her, who, it turns out, is a Russian agent on a similar mission too. Fancy!

The film ends up at Yogi's mountain hideaway, where Xander has gone back to rescue Yelena. Firstly he has to knock out the castle's CCTV/monitors -which he does in a snowboarding stunt of breathtaking skill, then he has to try and disarm the chemical bomb that Yogi has been building - a touch more difficult, that.

This final task isn't so easy, as the bomb is mounted on a hydrofoil and is steaming up the river towards Prague city - and all Xander has is Yelena, his souped-up GTO, a harpoon and a parachute. Not quite outward bound is it?

A huge success in the States, xXx promises to take the spy/action hero and throws him into the 21st century - and believe it or not, it could succeed in becoming the new Bond, even condemning the old one to a death on his fortieth birthday.

Sure, Diesel is not much of an actor and the story is ropey and the characters are one-dimensional, but lordy, the stunts! They really were beautifully shot, stunning to look at and amazing to watch - the cinema screen was actually shaking with the noise and music of it all; truly thrilling stuff all the way through and a credit to the kind of sheer entertainment that Hollywood can do if it puts its mind to it.

Such a clever ploy to take the culture of tattoos, snowboarding and fast cars and combine it with elements of Armageddon and Bond (indeed the film is almost a parody of Bond, right down Gibbon being like M, to the Q-like guy who soups-up Xanders car and the cheesy end credits,) add some thrash dance music stuff (catch Orbital in one scene) and you really have re-invented what was a limited - but lucrative genre.

The sequel is already in pre-production and we can expect to see more of Mr Diesel over the next few years. xXx is pretty instantly forgettable save for the action sequences, but it is nevertheless one of the best films in a while.

James Bartlett

And, last but not least, Ethan with his Femme Fatale review...

FEMME FATALE

Only a book can truly explain why Brian De Palma must be regarded as on of the greatest auteurs. Ever. This is why his importance is delivered as axiomatic value as we tackle FEMME FATALE.

In 1995 De Palma stumbled into the ranks of high-concept Hollywood production. He always used to express himself in order to create while other authors usually choose the other way. Seemingly, this league allowed him to do what he wanted, create. See, esotherics like De Palma can rely on visual elements and their attitude doesn't need direct shape of plot or poignant subject matter. De Palma did this kind of movies while yearning to be American Godard, after he started pursuing Hitchcock, the termite writings inhabited his work. However, after several years of deliberate lowering of audience expectations, Hollywood jeopardized even the creation itself. Industry realized that McTiernan, Cameron and Verhoeven can commercially be replaced by Rob Cohen or Peter Hyams who bring low budgetary demands, even lower criteria, absolutely no intention of pushing the envelope and the painful absence of intellectual ambition as they tackle genre cinema.

De Palma's MISSION IMPOSSIBLE was undoubted introduction into the new era of techno spinning inside the superagent mythology. That film was a hack-job. And a high-caliber success which proves that genius remains great even when hacking. SNAKE EYES was more of an auteur fare but it proved that Hollywood no longer has the hardware to support the aristocratic approach. MISSION TO MARS is an unexplainable misstep. The shadow of all these movies that map De Palma's demise is NAZI GOLD, probably the ultimate heist movie to end them all that was being built aroung Jay Cocks' script for MGM. It's probably the only film he wanted to make in the last seven years.

FEMME FATALE is the return of the great genius. Movie opens with the scene where the title character watches the quintessential femme fatale noir in history of cinema Billy Wilder's DOUBLE INDEMINITY. This frequency may be the proper channel for biting into this juicy movie. Immortal elements of Wilder's masterpiece are passion, crime, punishment and style. De Palma takes these elements into the new millennium, into the sequel of our lives, after the failed apocalypse (or did it fail?). And he does the stuff that should be done. He uses the fundamental dramatic tensions and integrates them with style and the technology of the 21st century.

By stripping the key elements, De Palma supresses the realistic context and goes for purely cinematic interpretation of crime nad passion. However, the structure which denies storytelling uncovers the main attributes of De Palma's weltamschaung. See, passion and crime are pieces of film reality for De Palma. Without style they make no sense. And it's not just that feverish routine of overhyping Hitchcock's influence but it's the celebration of Argento's style - the style which drowns the whole by turning the film into a dark dream done through a number of transcendent set-pieces. And death in sleep can be more horrifying, painful and aestehetically relevant than the real one. Like life itself, De Palma's and Argento's films are collections of moments that have no need of connecting into a whole. These make sense as they last. While we live through them. They don't need any sense when compiled. Because when completed they are gone. This is why FEMME FATALE isn't compact like DOUBLE INDEMNITY. And it doesn't have to be. Because here it isn't the question of what HAPPENED. It's the question of what HAPPENS. And how.

De Palma's puppets this time Rebecca Romijn - Stamos and Antonio Banderas. Geek community mostly refers to Stamos as the X-MEN chick but there she plays a blue-skinned mutant, you barely see her. Her pivotal role is Aurora in McTiernan's ROLLERBALL, the film no weaker than XXX. In FEMME FATALE, Stamos is shaped into one of the most lucious babes of contemporary cinema. She is as relaxed as Asia Argento. And a couple of times closer to the ideal blonde from Hitchcock's Technicolor phase.

Antonio Banderas cannot truly be linked with Fred MacMurray who converted the insuarnce investigator into the genre myth but he can be compared to Peter Berg in LAST SEDUCTION. And he is better as much as De Palma is better than Dahl and is worse as much as he can` t adapt.

European beginning is marked with new associates. Instead of longtime DP Stephen H. Burum, the film was shot by Besson regular Thierry Arbogast who brings his typical illumination into the process. Still, it doesn0-t offend the Burum-De palma chemistry but works on its` own.

FEMME FATALE is vintage De palma. If Gilles Mimouni`s L`APPARETEMENT was VERTIGO-inspired new millennium movie, then FEMME FATALE is the new millennium VERTIGO. Literally. Mimouni`s masterpiece respected Hitchcock. While De Palma cannot relate to Hitchcock anymore. He remains De Palma, but still he is the organic part of the late Alfred. And it`s not just because of his obssessions but also because of his attitude towards cinema. De Palma is the greatest because he was the only one who truly dug Hitchcock`s conception of cinema.

FEMME FATALE is not an uncommercial movie, even though Warner Brothers were step behind when it came to acquiring rights for American release. It`s the auteurist movie that is commercial in a healthy way. It is bankable but it remains a film not an ad. That is the point. It`s so rare to find the prioducer who really understands the spirit of the product. De Palma found such backer, his own Lew Wasserman, in Tarek Ben Ammaru. And Ben Ammar is the search light who lures great American authors into Europe like Wasserman used Siegel and Hitchcock to attract young directors under the Universal globe.

This film bears the historical title. And it ought to be included into history. This title is an obligation. Today, only De Palma has the right to use it. Great German expressionists are dead. Long live the German producers who fund new projects by John McTiernan, Kathryn Bigelow and Renny Harlin.

God bless, Ethan

That's all for today see you next week

Robert Bernocchi

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