Thursday, October 08, 2009

To Die Like a Man / Everyone Else

To Die Like a Man




“…rewards patience with beauty and mystery. Fernando Santos plays Tonia, né Antonio, a drag queen whose unhappy life consists of familiar Almodóvar highs and Fassbinder lows…. Mr. Rodrigues transports Tonia and her boyfriend into a sanctuary where another drag queen, channeling Judy Garland circa 1961, takes them — and us — over the rainbow…. A moment of rapture… And then everything shifts again, this time into justly earned tragedy.”
-Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

To Die Like a Man / Morrer como um homem
João Pedro Rodrigues, 2009, Portugal, 138m

There’s never been a drag-queen film like this endlessly surprising tragicomedy, the third feature by the Portuguese director João Pedro Rodrigues. Tonia, born Antonio (Fernando Santos), a battle-scarred veteran of the Lisbon clubs, must deal with a junkie lover young enough to be her son, an actual son who’s prone to violent outbursts, and a buxom rival who delights in reminding her she’s past her prime. Throw in medical complications, Catholic guilt, and a fateful trip to an enchanted forest, and you will begin to understand why someone so determined to live like a woman reconciles herself to dying like a man. A moving rumination on the mysteries of identity, To Die Like a Man is a film of subtle raptures, with a brittle, anguished sense of humor that doesn’t conform to any existing notion of camp.



Everyone Else

"… [a] delicious, acutely observed dissection of the mercurial emotional and psychological ties between two young lovers…Everything in this film seems new, yet at the same time, completely recognizable and completely right." –Hollywood Reporter

Everyone Else / Alle Anderen
Maren Ade, 2009, Germany, 120m

One of the most accomplished unraveling-couple films of recent years, writer-director Maren Ade’s second feature brilliantly captures the growing disconnect between mismatched young lovers Chris (Lars Eidinger) and Gitti (Birgit Minichmayr), whose moments of tender intimacy are often immediately followed by cruel passive-aggressive behavior. On vacation with Gitti at his parents’ villa in Sardinia, architect Chris feels his artistic greatness has been unrecognized; his sulking is sometimes indulged by his far more sanguine girlfriend. After spending time with an older, more successful friend and his pregnant wife, the fault lines in Chris and Gitti’s relationship grow even wider. For all the film’s emotionally volatile scenes, Everyone Else never devolves into histrionics, its precise examination of the hazards of coupledom always ringing honest, true, and instantly recognizable.

so, [as ya'll know] I have been attending the NYFF these last two weeks [and some have been amazing, and great, and others snooze-fest[s] and less-to-be-forgotten] but two that stood out to me that I wanted to bring to your attention was "TO DIE LIKE A MAN" [+] "EVERYONE ELSE" two very different movies, but both spoke to me on similar levels and made my cinematic experience all that much-more. {After a few days recovery from Antichrist... i needed a change of cinematic-scope} HA! =] The plot synopsys[s] are above ... [+] i highly reccomend both. xo xo :el fano:

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