SoTrumpBelieve
Must See Movie...
Curt
Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.
Francene Odetta
It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.
bella-chase
This movie tells a story held secret by most people who write about the Holocaust, which is the crippling effect of the Survivors' war experiences on their children. Studies have shown that the children of Nazi Holocaust Survivors share many if not all of their parents' psychological issues, particularly depression and post-traumatic stress. This film has the rare courage and honesty to show the bleak emotional damage left by that war, not only on its direct victims but on their children as well. The portrait of the mother is particularly bitterly real -- her seemingly inexplicably outbursts and fits of violence a near-mirror of the unexplained violence she witnessed as a girl; her narcissism and coldness linked to her own abandonment as a girl. Again, a poignant and tragic reality of the psychological landscape of all survivors of war. The actors were superb, the dialogue actually worth LISTENING to. Haas and Lucas put in beautifully nuanced performances and Bisset was outstanding in arguably the best, most emotional performance of her career, and looking more beautiful than ever.This is not an easy film. It is most definitely not a family film (there are explicit depictions of sex). It is a disturbing portrait of broken people struggling to find reasons to stay alive. It's pretty great, really.
Siamois
What happens when the writer of some gems as "The Punisher", "Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights" who also directed crap like "Uptown Girls" decides to write and direct an artsy flick?Death In Love is the answer. This film does not pull any punch when it comes to gruesome and explicit scenes. Writer/director Boaz Yakin had to finance this film all by himself because he had specific things in mind. This would never have been approved by studios and I understand why he got no financial backing. Having a specific vision, refusing to compromise are all laudable as far as I am concerned. It's just that, unfortunately, Yakin's vision seems terribly limited. So are his skills as a storyteller. The founding story arc revolves around a Jewish girl who begins an affair with a doctor overseeing experiments on human in a concentration camp during WWII. Yakin goes all guns blazing trying to showcase the intensity of this relationship and fails spectacularly because there is a total lack of chemistry between the actors and the script is emotionally numb right from the start. She just supposedly falls in love at first sight, with a psycho doctor who looks like an extra in an infomercial. The second story arc (which gets the most screen time) takes place in the present and features this woman again with her husband and two adult sons. All of which seem to be mysteriously as nuts as she is for no reason whatsoever. In between, we get flashbacks from the time her sons were children and how she'd go nuts and scare them, but it's done awkwardly, like what you'd expect in a direct to video "it happened for real" melodrama featuring Melissa Gilbert or some other has-been. The present-day story arc features the most interesting and intriguing scenes. The youngest son (Lukas Haas) is a total waste of screen time as an obnoxious man-child who has various phobias and still live with his parent. But the eldest son (Josh Lucas) gets a lot of screen time. He's almost 40 years old, seemingly jaded about everything. Of lot of his scenes (particularly with his co-worker played by Adam Brody) feature dialogue that, while not amazing, is still better than what the rest of the movie has to offer. There are a few themes displayed but Yakin, in the least subtle way EVER implies a strong connection between pain and sexuality. In fact, so strong that he almost implies one is synonymous with the other. This could be a powerful and interesting theme to explore in a few characters but here, it's just not done well. Every character on screen has intense desire to masturbate, and it seems nobody is able to make love without beating his partner at the same time. It's just... amateurish. The story and characters feel artificial despite all the courageous grit Yakin put in the film. There is also a strong undercurrent of self-loathing in all the main characters. Yakin is Jewish himself and I sensed that he was extremely critical of a segment of people who shun their origins and hate what they are. And I can appreciate his attempt to highlight that. One of the most powerful scene, to me, was a small one where the Jewish girl at the concentration camp (who receives favorable treatment from the doctor, her lover) refuses to give the rest of her meal to a starving Jewish violinist. Instead, she sadistically eats every last crumb, as if she renounced her Jewish heritage and what she really is.All in all, I think Yakin tackled powerful issues in a very confusing way. This feels like a very personal film but unfortunately, the few powerful scenes in there, the great performances by Lucas, Bisset and Haas and the grittiness can't save a weak script and a weak story.
Andreas Zeller
This is one of the movies which will be loved by those wannabe intellectuals, because it appears profound, alternative and provoking. It offers a lot of opportunity e.g. for a class to discuss the problems and personal backgrounds of each character and their histories, but after all it's just very average and way too pretentious.About the plot: It starts off very good and interesting. Our protagonist talks about life in general, people, expectations and how to deal with that in life. His monologue pisses off his one-night-stand so badly that she gets dressed immediately and leaves.The movie switches inbetween three timelines: Childhood: He and his neurotic brother grew up with a mentally deranged mother and a father who couldn't keep her from snapping. That's the first of the timelines. You'll see the mother snap, scream and shout, destroy their kids' room for some bogus reason. Scenes appear very depressing (and annoying).Concentration Camp: The mother survived a German concentration camp by sleeping up with her angel of death, some German concentration camp doctor who apparently lets her live because she has her body to offer as a reward for that. In this time snipplet, you'll most likely see them have sex, have dinner, dance or do other couply stuff that doesn't seem very romantic, but also very depressing and pretentious. The last scene of this time period shows the mother cry over her doctor leaving, because the russians were coming. She gets a hold of herself again. But it appears that she never really got over that separation.The here and now: Most of the movie is set in the present. The mother still snaps every once in a while and destroys inventory, her husband still doesn't have the guts to do something about it, her first son (the main character) gets conned by his new business partner and sleeps around with a lot of women while the second one has a weird eating disorder. The mother meets her concentration camp entertainment again, just for the masochistic sex, which her son likes too, by the way. The neurotic son doesn't seem to ever have had sex, so he stays at home and plays the piano.All this may seem very depressing and annoying, and it is. The question I have been asking myself the entire movie, is 'What is the writer trying to tell us?' - And honestly, I have no idea. The movie ends very sudden, while the plot doesn't really thicken. There are just those three stories told, and of course their history: Protagonist gets stabbed by his masochistic Asian lover, although it might have been just regular sex, judging from previous scenes. Mother meets her doc again in a hotel and has sex with him. Brother breaks most of his fingers smashing the flap for the piano keys shut with his hand inside.There are still some weird scenes showing human body parts being cut, a human brain being BBQ'd, some more of this weird stuff without any connection to the already very weird plot. I don't even know how to comment on these scenes, so I just chose to ignore them.On the whole: Personally, that was a waste of my time. I was waiting for the movie to resolve some of the plot parts that seemed intriguing. That is by the way the only reason why I gave it 4/10 instead of just 1/10.If you like dark and wannabe meaningful movies, go ahead and waste your time. If you want to be entertained, don't watch this movie with any of your friends, that you'd like to have a fun night with later on.
mhelen
movie ends with woman in her seventies screaming while having orgasm and her son being stabbed by his Chinenese-American female boss while roll playing rape mazo fore-playing . Woman is having sex with her long forloren lover who used to be a doctor in a Nazi extermination camp and she were interned while being abandoned in Paris by her father and step mother . Flashbacks are absolutely amazing .Actors in them speak in french and German unlike in those usual pathetic flicks where bad guys speak with German accented English to make a flick more authentic. if u think its yet another holocaust survivor thingy don't .I've seen quite a few of the kind and I never seen anything like that. Woman got two sons. One working in a shady semi con "model" agency where he gets a cut from fleecing plain average looking females from their money by implying the possibility of them getting jobs as models Other one is 'live with his parents till his forty' type .He got a good excuse though, he is seemingly talented pianist and composer unable to deal with everyday life . The borderline conman brother gets conned by dashing new addition to agency.He looses his apartment where shortly before his brother began experimenting with living away from home .to summarize the movie in one word its Smart .Its Smartly cut .Smartly shot .Smartly written you don't feel for one minute that something is out of place or fake . I watch like 4 to 5 movies a day and a bunch load of TV shows .I know I know sad case .So like I said my brains are conduits to pretty much huge amount of movie stuff .Not that that makes me an expert or anything but I love this movie .