The Fading Light, Shutter Island, Eyes without a Face, Retour de Flamme, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

“The Fading Light” was one brilliant piece of cinema, not to be enjoyed but admired. The story is about two girls who come home to their dying mother’s last days and have to figure out what they are going to do with their special needs brother. The three siblings come together because of their mother, when she dies the family beaks apart. It was difficult to watch not only because of the subject matter, but the authenticity from the story and the performances from the actors. In the Q&A afterwards Ivan Kavanagh, the director said he wanted to capture in this movie the general feeling of hopelessness, that he feels is about in post celtic tiger Ireland. He said the older sister represents hopelessness and she chooses to reject life. The younger sister chooses look to the future and to live her life creatively. The brother lives in the past and waits for things to go back to the way they used to be. If you want to see a moving and beautifully crafted piece of cinema go see “The Fading Light”, although if you have a child with special needs this will probably give you nightmares. I am finding it hard to shake the characters from my mind, when a thought about them pops into my head and I have to keep reminding myself, they’re not real people.

“Shutter Island” is one of those movies that I’m sure some people can’t wait to see. The people who made the trailer for it did a terrific job, makes it look like a great movie. I thought maybe I wouldn’t like it if it was too gory. It turned out not to be, but I still didn’t like it because it was far too long and boring. I could see where it was going early on and sat waiting to see how it got there.

“Eyes without a face” is good old fashioned horror movie where people tend to die dramatically. I decided to catch it up in the lighthouse before “Retour de Flamme” There are a few squirmy bits when the doctor is stealing faces!

Certainly the most bizarre thing I’ll have seen by the end of the festival, is a little french man (well he looked small beside the dinosaur) hopping about on front of the screen with a whip and a watermelon, talking to an animated dinosaur on the screen called Gertie, in case you’re familiar with her. The man’s name is Serge Bromberg in case you’re familiar with him. Bromberg brought his delightful “Retour de Flamme” to the Lighthouse last night. This guy is passionate about film and seems to hold an infinite amount of information about the subject in his head. Most of the movies he showed to us were silent, he introduced the movies then played piano accompaniment through the film. I loved this because it was so different and the little films were so bizarre.

I have just seen “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” I was really late, buses suck. Luckily I had read the book so I was able to pick up on the movie and follow it. There are some gross bits I thought I’d miss but I was in time for unfortunately. What I really noticed from this was how the audience burst from total silence to excited chatter as the first credits appeared. I’m glad to have seen the Swedish version before it hits Hollywood. This is worth seeing even if you’re not into the books. You’ll be discussing it with whoever you go with for ages.

Time for me to get some air I think…

Kala

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