Original title: BlacKkKlansman· Spike Lee· USA · 2017 · Script: Spike Lee, Kevin Willmott, David Rabinowitz, Charlie Wachtel · Performers: John David Washington, Adam Driver, Jasper Pääkkönen, Laura Harrier…
Original title: The blood tree· Julio Medem · Spain · 2018 · Script: Julio Measure · Interpreters: Ursula Corbero, Alvaro Cervantes, Najwa Nimri…
Original title: Ramen Teh· Eric Khoo · Singapore · 2018 · Script: Tan Fong Cheng, Wong Kim Hoh· Interpreters: Tsuyoshi Ihara, Seiko Matsuda, Takumi Saito…
When approaching a film like Infiltrator in the KKKlan, the latest production by American director Spike Lee, we must do it from two different levels. At a first level we treat the product from the point of view of the story. Based on the true story of its protagonist, Infiltrator in the KKKlantells the difficulties that a young Ron Stallworth had to go through,the first African American to hold a detective position in the city of Colorado Springs, in El Paso County, state of colorado, in the heart of the USA. Ron's incorporation into the city's police department will inevitably be conflictive in a town where racial confrontation reigns.. We are in the seventies of the last century and the fight for the so-called civil rights is a reality throughout the country.. Far from staying put, Ron embarks on a risky mission: infiltrate the ranks of the local Ku Kux Klan to dismantle their supremacist plans.
There is in the director's latest production Do the right thing, some good things, others that don't quite fit. The least good: a plot that, even though it is based on real events, is weakly justified in a script that is in too much of a hurry to get to what interests it, leaving some aspects less attended to and that, basically, They focus on the logic of a police operation that is based on a simple oversight by its protagonist., with no more justification for starting their investigations than a political interest that, however, will come to discover a great plot. Too many coincidences. The cartoonish tone of the film does not exactly encourage the viewer to accept certain alibis that they will have to overcome if they want to continue enjoying the show.. The best: a cast that gives its best. Especially brilliant we find Adam Driver who manages to build a character with nuances despite the little material he works with.. It is true that the majority of characters do not go beyond a mere stereotype in many cases., but that does not have to be an impediment for a viewer who, surpassed those a prioriwhat we were saying, he knows what terrain he moves on. Lee demonstrates here that he still has a very high sense of humor.
But, con Infiltrator in the KKKlan, what he was least interested in was, however, the story of ron stallworth. What Spike Lee was most interested in was making a political statement about the situation of the black community in his country.. And his argument has remained. Nothing to object. If that was what I intended, has achieved its goal. would have been grateful, however, that the speech was less obvious. Lee doesn't want us to look at the past, wants us to look at the present. For the African American director, history repeats itself, and the speeches too. Lee puts into his characters' mouths many of the slogans that could be applied to the Trump administration today.. What it comes to tell us is: the same thing is happening. And to a certain extent it is like that. What Spike Lee does not seem to calculate is that there are certain speeches that fail to penetrate those to whom they are supposed to be addressed.. Things today are certainly more complex. Spike Lee puts his community at the epicenter of a racist society. And racism still exists, as shown at the end of the film. However, when Trump ran in the last North American elections, three circumstances would represent an insurmountable wall to his victory. Women would not vote for him, because he was a sexist. Immigrants would not vote for him, because it would expel them. The African American community would not vote for him, because he was a racist. But they voted for him. something is wrong, Yeah, but it seems (waiting for what happens in the next so-called midterm elections that will be held today, Tuesday) that the darts are not pointing in the right direction. And that's when propaganda fails., both in speeches and in analyzes.
Facing Julio Medem's latest production requires an exercise of caution on the part of this commentator. I say it now. I am not a special fan of his filmography. Their aesthetic and emotional worlds never stop seducing me.. I found tapes like Cowso The red squirrel, but, from there, I must admit that his cinema is not among my preferences. Which doesn't mean that there isn't someone who doesn't experience the opposite.. Hence the caution. It is not so much about judging the extent to which his cinema has value in itself., but for whom. Something particular happens with Medem's cinema for which he does not understand the reasons, It is a matter of particular militancy.
The blood tree narrates the arrival of a couple, Rebeca and Marc, to a mansion located between mountains in some idyllic place in the Basque Country. The mansion looks like it hasn't been inhabited in a while.. After leaving your luggage, The couple settles in Rebeca's mother's studio ready to write a story., yours. Using this reason as an excuse, The characters take a journey through their past to conjure their ghosts and mutually discover what has led them to the relationship they have today.. Clearing the past will be the key to building a future together free of all burden. But of course, The past hides secrets that will be difficult to digest.
Screening closed, the highlights of The blood tree I find it in the construction of a script that little by little weaves together the elements of a plot that is unraveled without haste., revealing a piece of information here and another there until all the pieces fit together. Besides, there is no interest in what happens, but in what happened, Therefore, what is revealed to us cannot be discovered in any other way than through the mouths of those who carried out the events.. This is a very frequent element in Julio Medem's cinema.: no matter how much emphasis is placed on its visual poetics, For some time now it has been fundamentally spoken cinema. And so much parliament, in this case, I don't know if it's worth it. To this we should add the little interest that arouses in those who subscribe to a plot that does not deprive itself of resorting to all kinds of pirouettes of a melodramatic and feuilleton style mixing the editorial world., passionate loves, the russian mafias, Is Spain in crisis or family betrayals. Surely there are those who enjoy it. I understand. Simply, I don't find delight in so much artifice. matter of taste, I already say. Nothing else.
On the other hand, There will be those who maintain that the plots, the argument, It is the least relevant thing in Medem's cinema. However, we cannot separate them from the visual element. Both aspects coexist indivisibly in the same artifact.. are not excluded, but they tie themselves, and that makes the supposed visual strength of its aesthetic proposal become helpless.. to get to her, we must go through the first and that, depending on the day, requires an effort that does not always seem gratified. Muddy my vision with so much dramatic pirouette, I can't connect with its symbolism., that are thus diluted, dislocated, of the image of the tree that the protagonists embrace as a metaphor for their roots and their union-disunion, passing through bulls as a phallic element, The landscape, there are others. Medem carries in his hands a very perceptible game of symmetries that he displays throughout the film.. They are elements that are placed on the screen as a visual symbol of that duality/unity that is being built between the characters.. The Yin and the Yang, the sun and the moon, man and woman, Marc and Rebecca, two parts of a being that will not be perfectly complete until the empty spaces between the two have been filled. It is difficult to know what Medem wants to tell us in this film. Launching an interpretation, Maybe what it seeks is to make us reflect on the difficult construction of our individual identities., mix of traditions, conditions of life, coincidences and everything that, in a crazy way, we are adding each one of us. But the infinite dissemination of plots and sub-plots (some easily understandable, others frankly obtuse on first viewing) ends up giving the impression of a confusing amalgam, heavy, sometimes, others too simple. This without failing to consider an ending with more than dubious ethical justification and that, personally, It left me a little perplexed.. There will be those who will excuse all this and can move on.. Question of particular passions, I already say.
Much more mundane, less showy, It is the latest production by director Eric Khoo, A family recipe, in its translation into Spanish. Khoo tells us in this simple story the story of Masato, a young chef who, after the death of his father, inherits his small business, a modest ramen restaurant in Japan. But before taking over the business, Masato feels the need to take a trip to Singapore to learn his mother's story., also deceased, y, with that, the origin of his relationship with his father. There he will meet the other part of his family and discover some secrets..
With these elements, Eric Khoo develops a moving drama that aims, at least, in two directions. How They Measure, Khoo makes us participate in the need to strengthen this intimate construction of our identity and how the conflicts inherited from our parents affect us.. Something dark is hidden in the relationship between young Masato's parents.. Deeply in love with his wife, His father always experienced the pain of the sudden loss of a woman who was unable to settle accounts with her past.. This conflict weighs on the heart of the young chef who must travel to his mother's family home to resolve it.. Only then can he continue with his life.. The other direction in which the film points refers to a problem that, like westerners, Maybe it affects us less, What is the tense historical relationship between Japan and Singapore?, especially after World War II. In this aspect, The film opens to notarize the relations of mutual distrust that exist between the populations of both countries. A story of racism, of that suspicion that always arises between peoples and the need for mutual understanding and brotherhood that Masato and, by extension, Eric Khoo himself tries to solve through food.
It is true that A family recipetravels many times through long plot plains in which the script delights in explaining to us the preparation of countless recipes to the point that, sometimes, one may think that one is looking at a kind of strange culinary guide rather than a fiction. But it is no less true that the construction of the plot through these passages gives the film a certainly original structure.. Little by little, Eric Khoo is displaying a whole catalog of emotions that, as they come together, will penetrate the public. We are talking about a simple cinema, modest in ambitions, but captivating. Much of our national cinema could stop with so much stylistic pyrotechnics and pay attention once and for all to the simple emotions that, like in this movie, they arise naturally from what we call, with its fissures and its greatness, human nature. Guarantee of a good time at the movies. GERARDO LEON
