My Netflix preferences are British murder mysteries, preferably TV series so that the episodes can keep on coming. Alas, I've exhausted that category for now, so in desperation I ordered two foreign films that I knew nothing about.
One was I am Love, an Italian film starring Tilda Swinton. I ordered it because I loved her performance in Orlando and because I love her odd, androgynous appearance. The second one was an Argentinian film called The Secret in Their Eyes starring Ricardo Darin and Soledad Villamil. Both films turned out to be about obsessive love.
They were good. Not great, but good, with engrossing characters and unexpected story lines. I Am Love is a romantic story with dark undertones. The Secret in Their Eyes is a dark story with romantic overtones.
European films these days seem to center around families. There's always a big family reunion scene with everyone seated around the dinner table. On the surface all is formal and perfect, but explosive tensions crackle underneath. And so it was in I Am Love. Whatever was going on was a bit mysterious to me, being in Italian and all, but the sets were beautiful: elegant and streamlined like something out of an Italian design magazine.
The Secret in Their Eyes is centered on the past. Can we ever know what happened? Is it worth going back to revisit the pain? To search for an absolute? An answer, justice, ideal love?
No comments:
Post a Comment