Latest movies updated

T he year 2016 saw the release of three very interesting award-winning films from three countries on two continents—all films on the same theme.  All three films deal with the father-daughter protective relationship under different patriarchal scenarios.  Daughter is an Iranian film and presents an interesting tale set in a society where the male members of the family protect their wives and their daughters until they are married with a ferocity that might surprise many in Western developed countries. Graduation is a Romanian film with another interesting tale where the father travels the proverbial extra mile to ensure his daughter benefits from a prized graduate education in a prestigious English university that will help her in her future career, a chance he himself never got in Communist and post-Communist worlds. The third film is Toni Erdmann from Germany where the daughter is older and busy trying to climb the corporate ladder without much thought for her father whose...

A poster that reveals the structure of the film R omanian cinema is on the march. In 2005, Romania gave the world the lovely, realistic film The Death of Mr Lazarescu. In 2012, that country followed up with the powerful movie Beyond the Hills , (which scooped up the Best Actress award for the two leading lady thespians in the movie and the best screenplay award at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival and the Best Film award at the Chicago Film Festival soon after). A year later, yet another fascinating work, Child’s Pose , won the coveted the Golden Bear award at the Berlin Film Festival. The three films are by three different directors but all three have common factors—each of these are critical social essays on life in post-Communist Romania that will resound well with scenarios that are universal. All the three films provide a mighty cinematic punch delivered at the end to make a viewer think and reflect on what preceded the unusual, abrupt end-sequence.  These seemingly abrupt ends ar...

R omanian cinema produces fascinating movies from time to time. Beyond the Hills is one of them.  There are several reasons why this film is remarkable. F irst, it is amazing to have a film with two women, who have never acted in a movie before, to face the cameras and do a job that is so convincing on screen that they both walk away with the prestigious Best Actress Award at Cannes Film Festival, 2012. So what, a cynic could exclaim.  The fact remains that the two ladies won the award when they were competing  against a rather outstanding performance of Ms Emanuelle Riva in Amour (Love), a rare performance that even the American Oscars felt worthy of nominating for the Best Actress Oscar, even though Ms Riva was performing in a movie in a foreign language. The postures tell a tale of award-winning performances The two Romanian actresses in Beyond the Hills are Cosmina Stratan (playing an angelic nun named Voichita) and Cristina Flutur (playing a not-so-religious ...