Rev Stan's film blog

50th film this year is South American movie Undertow

Yes I'm sad, I count the number of films I see each year or rather I keep a numbered list, and on Sunday I notched up my 50th, a little South American film called Undertow.

And I must start by saying that it didn't live up to expectation but that is mainly because the film I expected from the trailer seemed to be an entirely different film to the one of watched. What I was expecting was a story of a poor fisherman, wife expecting, drawn into some sort of crime/murder endangered his life.

What Undertow is in fact about, is Miguel a poor fisherman, wife Mariela expecting, who has an affair with Santiago, a rich male artist visiting Miguel's village. It is more of South American Brokeback Mountain crossed with Ghost.

So you see why it didn't quite meet my expectation but that isn't to say it isn't a good film. ***Plot spoilers*** The pace can be a little slow and it is a little bizarre if you aren't expecting it when it wanders into Ghost territory. What happens is that Santiago accidentally drowns and his ghost asks Miguel to find his body and give it a proper sea burial so that his soul can move on in the traditions of the village.

The Oscar winning Secret in Their Eyes

Lucky enough to score a Curzon member's free preview screening ticket for this Argentinian film this afternoon. It won the best foreign film Oscar in February but the academy don't always get it right as we know. So was it a worthy winner?

Well the first thing that struck me about the film, described as a thriller and with an 18 certificate, is how much humour there is in it.

The film starts with Benjamin Esposito, who is retired from the legal profession and trying to write the first paragraph of a novel. His creative vision is haunted by two things: an unsolved rape and murder of a beautiful young woman from 25 years ago and his long held but secret love for his boss Irene.

He visits Irene to test out his idea of writing a novel based on the murder and so begins a series of flash backs to the events that followed the crime. The boundaries between fiction and fact are as hazy as the witty repartee and put-downs between the co-workers within the legal profession are crackling.