Category Archives: crime

8,0-8,9, crime, drama,, female director

“Frozen River” (Courtney Hunt, US 2008)

frozen-river

Director: Courtney Hunt
Writer: Courtney Hunt
Actors: Melissa Leo, Misty Upham, Charlie McDermott

A feminine world from which the masculine is exiled at the fringe.
A world of women and children showing the universality and interchangeability of motherhood.
A multifaceted world on which it is as treacherous to tread as on a frozen river…

7,0-7,9, crime, drama,, male director, romance,

“The Unfaithful” (Vincent Sherman, US 1947)

the-unfaithfu

Director: Vincent Sherman
Writers: David Goodis (original screenplay), James Gunn (original screenplay)
Actors: Ann Sheridan, Lew Ayres, Zachary Scott

Same year, same director, same actress, same infidelity theme as precedent movie (Nora Prentiss) but this one with a more traditional approach. As in Nora Prentiss, a film noir with no real bad guy (or bad girl), except for the greedy Martin Barrow (Steven Gearey).

Eve Arden steals the show, a feminine counterpart to George Sanders.

6,0-6,9, crime, drama,, female director, romance,

“The Dressmaker” (Jocelyn Moorhouse, Australia 2015)

the-dressmaker

Director: Jocelyn Moorhouse
Writers: Rosalie Ham (novel), P.J. Hogan
Actors: Kate Winslet, Judy Davis, Liam Hemsworth

A film over bullying with very intelligent aspects and many contrasts, but some very weak points as well.

A few remarks (SPOILERS ahead):

  • The main personage, Tillie, has been bullied and chased away when she was a girl, but comes back as a strong woman wanting to have her revenge. However, at the contact of the people at the origin of her sufferings, she turns weak and is bullied again (for ex., the scene when the teacher closes the door of the church on her).
    Other interesting personages: the mother, the policeman…
  • There’s an impossible chain of events: within one afternoon, Tillie learns that the man she hates is her father, that the boy she’s supposed to have killed is her brother, that she eventually didn’t kill him… and then, just after all this, she crowns her day by making love with the man she loves for the first time … and he then stupidly kills himself afterwards!!!
  • For me, the most annoying was the music: David Hirschfelder had made a musical patchwork in which we hear Ennio Moriccone, Johann Söderqvist, Bruno Coulais, and a few others. The final effect is that the music fills the movie with gratuitous references instead of sustaining its narrative. For example, whereas the imitation of Ennio Morricone nicely fits what the camera shows and how it shows it, the (over)use of the music of Les Choristes (The Chorus) makes no sense at all.