Slumdog Millionaire

Slumdog Millionaire is a 2008 British drama film directed by Danny Boyle, co-directed by Loveleen Tandan,[3] and written by Simon Beaufoy. It is an adaptation of the Boeke Prize-winning and Commonwealth Writers' Prize-nominated novel Q and A (2005) by Indian author and diplomat Vikas Swarup.

Set and filmed in India, Slumdog Millionaire tells the story of a young man from the slums of Mumbai who appears on the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (Kaun Banega Crorepati, mentioned in the Hindi version) and exceeds people's expectations, arousing the suspicions of the game show host and of law enforcement officials.

After screenings at the Telluride Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival, Slumdog Millionaire initially had a limited North American release on 12 November 2008 by Fox Searchlight Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures, to critical acclaim and awards success, and later had a nationwide release in the United States on 23 January 2009[4] and in the United Kingdom on 9 January 2009. It premiered in Mumbai on 22 January 2009.[5]

Slumdog Millionaire won five Critics' Choice Awards, four Golden Globes and seven BAFTA Awards, including Best Film, and has been nominated for ten Academy Awards. The film is also the subject of controversy concerning its portrayal of India and Hinduism as well as the welfare of its child actors.



Danny Boyle's well-earned reputation as one of Britain's most versatile directors will be further cemented by his latest feature, a distinct change of tack from his recent films such as Sunshine and 28 Days Later. Based on Vikas Swarup's best selling novel, Q&A, and adapted for the screen by Full Monty scriptwriter Simon Beaufoy, Slumdog Millionaire is a vibrant, modern love story set and shot in India. Jamal Malik, an 18-year-old orphan from the slums of Mumbai, is about to experience the biggest day of his life. With the whole nation watching, he is just one question away from winning a staggering 20 million rupees on India's Who Wants to be a Millionaire. But when the show breaks for the night, police arrest him on suspicion of cheating: how could a 'slumdog' know so much? Desperate to prove his innocence, Jamal tells the story of his life – tales of the Juhu slum where and his brother Salim grew up, of their adventures together on the road, of vicious encounters with local gangs, and of Latika, the girl he loved and lost. Each picaresque episode holds the key to the answer of one of the game show's questions.

Intrigued by Jamal's story, the jaded Police Inspector begins to wonder what a young man with no apparent desire for riches is doing on the show. The revelation of Jamal's story, and the role of television in it, are fascinating and funny, and are well served by Boyle's confident direction, which brings an energetic, contemporary feel. The kinetic, visceral flashbacks to Jamal's life on the streets are stunningly composed and beautifully atmospheric, and exquisitely photographed by Anthony Dod Mantle. The cast brings together the acting talents of Bollywood actor Anil Kapoor and international cinema's highly regarded Irrfan Khan (The Warrior, A Mighty Heart) and marks the first big screen roles for British actor Dev Patel (Skins) and newcomer Freida Pinto. Neatly balancing humour and drama, and making inventive use of its eclectic, multi-cultural soundtrack, this European Premiere of Slumdog Millionaire promises to bring the festival to an upbeat, cheering close.

Doubt

Written and directed by John Patrick Shanley, Doubt, adapted for the screen, stars Oscar winners Philip Seymour Hoffman and Meryl Streep, and is supported by Oscar nominee, Amy Adams. Set in the early 1960’s at a Catholic elementary school in the Bronx, Father Flynn (Hoffman), a charismatic priest, is attempting to modernize the school’s Catholic customs – strictly enforced by the rigid Sister Aloysius (Streep). Struggling to fit in as the school’s first black student, Donald Miller, takes a particular liking to Father Flynn – a liking that is certainly reciprocated. Suspicious, and confident in her certainty regarding the true whereabouts of their relationship, Sister Aloysius embarks on a relentless mission to eliminate Fr. Flynn, and restore order in her community.




Unlike most films, Doubt lacks the conventional series of climatic turning points that peak a story. Fr. Flynn never gets caught in a graphic rape scene with Donald, leaving everyone heartbroken ad nauseas – However, the eerie, suspenseful tone of the score, and subtle shots of sneaky exchanges between the priest and boy alluding to inappropriate behavior keeps the film extremely engaging, and the viewers on the edge of their seats. The audience never actually witnesses a crime committed or a verbal confession from Fr. Flynn. This not only forces the audience to read between the lines, but keeps them from forming judgments about the characters until the film has ended.

Streep’s story line carries the film, and ultimately serves as the film’s final payoff. A woman dedicated to maintaining order and honoring tradition, is forced to challenge her religious vows in order to restore peace in her community. Could a woman so confident in her faith, admit to experiencing doubt? The film shows that regardless of how committed someone can be to a particular way of life - in order to truly stick to the books, you might have to bend the rules.

Doubt is entirely character driven, giving Hoffman and Streep yet another opportunity for critically acclaimed performances. Their scenes are fiercely committed, screaming Oscar nominations from start to finish. Doubt requires an audience to be in a very specific mood - which may stifle is appeal to a broad audience. But if you’re in the mood for some of the best acting of the year - spend the ten bucks.

Camino

Camino. España. 2008. 143 minutos. Dirección: Javier Fesser. Con: Nerea Camacho, Carmen Elías, Mariano Venancio, Manuela Vellés.

Es tan peculiar el tercer largometraje de Javier Fesser, que no sólo otorga a sus anteriores El milagro de P. Tinto (1998) y La gran aventura de Mortadelo y Filemón (2003) valores retrospectivos. Además, su evidente irregularidad suma en vez de restar, al ser fruto de una ambición técnica y artística inusual en el panorama del cine español.

Porque Camino es más que la invectiva notoria contra una secta capaz de transformar los sufrimientos de una enferma terminal en sostén ideológico de sus delirios. Es más que el emotivo retrato de las ilusiones rotas de una adolescente y los juegos de poder en el seno de una familia. Es más que la película de terror enigmático que se atisba en algunos momentos (no por casualidad registrados en el seno de la ficción por una cámara); terror que deriva de la imposibilidad de concretar cauces expresivos para tanto dolor, tantos errores y tanto desamparo existencial.



Camino constituye sobre todo, y en este aspecto adquieren importancia primordial los efectos digitales y las escenas imaginarias que muchos han denostado, la evidencia de que entre tantos girasoles ciegos, cobardemente sumisos al registro físico y átono de imágenes, uno se ha atrevido a alzar la mirada para sonsacarle a lo real lecturas más significativas. Lástima que Fesser prefiera tener como modelo a Jean Pierre Jeunet antes que a David Fincher. Aunque, quién sabe si eso no podría cambiar.

SAN SEBASTIÁN.- Aunque Javier Fesser no considera haber cambiado su esencia cinematográfica, ha sorprendido el giro al melodrama de su película 'Camino', ambientada en el entorno del Opus Dei y que el Festival de Cine de San Sebastián ha proyectado en su Sección Oficial junto a la canadiense 'Maman est chez le coiffeur'.

Tras salir airoso de comedias como 'El milagro de P. Tinto' o 'La gran aventura de Mortadelo y Filemón', Javier Fesser aduce a la pasión que arrastra la historia de 'Camino' para adoptar un nuevo lenguaje en su cine, "que es el que requería" este cuento de amor y de muerte inspirado sólo en parte en la historia real de Alexia González-Barros, según ha explicado el director.

La hija menor de una familia integrante del Opus Dei falleció en 1985 a los 14 años de edad tras una dolorosa enfermedad y actualmente está en proceso de canonización.

Ella sirve de punto de partida para retratar a una niña de 11 años a la que se intenta inculcar el placer de la redención a través del dolor, en esta cinta que llega a las salas españolas el próximo 17 de octubre y que se ha hecho "desde el respeto y sin ambigüedades", ha defendido Fesser ante los medios.

En los sueños de Camino, rodados con la ambición visual de sus anteriores trabajos, se conectan elementos contradictorios; la presión que ejercen sobre ella los dogmas impuestos por su familia y los sentimientos incontrolables que nacen en su interior, al enamorarse de Jesús, aunque, para desgracia de su madre, no del hijo de Dios sino de un niño de su misma edad.
Así Fesser plantea a una especie de 'Alicia' que huye de su desgarrador destino a través de un espejo onírico y catártico, tutelada por una mujer cuya devoción parece mantener bajo control al más visceral de los sentimientos, el maternal.

El personaje de la madre, interpretado por Carmen Elías es el más definido del relato y a su vez el que aporta la universalidad buscada por Fesser, gracias al trabajo común con la actriz, que tuvo que trabajar "con el guión como enemigo, ya que sobre el papel, es fácil sentir rechazo por esa madre".

Valkyrie

In the film Valkyrie, Tom Cruise plays Colonel Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg, the man who, on 20 July 1944, placed a bomb next to Hitler in his east Prussian headquarters, the Wolf's Lair. The bomb failed to kill Hitler, merely blowing his trousers to ribbons. That night, when the coup was seen to have failed, Stauffenberg was shot in the courtyard of the army headquarters in Berlin on the orders of General Fromm, his superior, who was in on the plot and hoped - in vain - to save himself. Sandbags were piled in the courtyard and the lights of staff cars illuminated the victims. Von Haeften, his aide, threw himself in front of Stauffenberg. He and two others were also shot that night and their bodies quickly buried. Stauffenberg died with the words "Long live our sacred Germany" on his lips, or perhaps - some heard - "Long live our secret Germany". In German, there is even less difference between the words "sacred" and "secret" than there is in English.



The producers of Valkyrie have muffled his last words; the story behind secret Germany does not figure in their script, but they were clearly aware of its significance. Within a few weeks, 80 plotters had been executed in Plötzensee prison by slow strangulation, hung from meathooks; in all, at least 3,000 were killed and many children, including Stauffenberg's, were taken from their families and placed in orphanages. Many of those executed were from Germany's most distinguished families, people who, like Stauffenberg, were appalled by the direction Germany had taken, both in relation to the Jews and to the disastrous war in the east.

The film is true to most of the facts of the plot, but fails to convey any sense of the catastrophic moral and political vortex into which Germans were being drawn. Nor does it give much sense of the immense charisma of Stauffenberg, to whom generals and politicians deferred and who had for some time been tipped as a future chief of staff. A revealing private memoir I was given, which describes a visit shortly before the bomb plot by Stauffenberg to one of the other resister's houses, suggests that the female staff were sent into paroxysms of adoration by the wounded hero. And the film gives no indication at all of Stauffenberg's background and philosophy: he fitted perfectly into the German tradition of Dichter und Helden, poets and heroes. For a start, he looked the part, tall with classical features; he was often compared to a medieval statue of a knight in the cathedral at Bamberg, his home town, and his wedding in this cathedral in 1933 to Nina von Lerchenfeld was a huge social event. Even Hitler believed that Stauffenberg was the embodiment of a German hero.

So when the generals failed in their plots against Hitler - there were as many as 15 of them - someone was needed to head the disparate but substantial resistance, which extended from the army into the Foreign Office, the secret services and to important clerics and trade unionists. Stauffenberg was persuaded by his uncle, Nikolaus Graf von Üxküll, long disenchanted with the Nazis, that he should lead the movement. It seemed that he was the man who unmistakably wore the mantle of a near-mystic German past, a warrior Germany, a noble Germany, a poetic Germany, a Germany of myth and longing.

There is nothing in the script or in Cruise's performance that explores these particularly German preoccupations. At times Cruise looks and sounds like the troublesome cop who has been given a tricky assignment, with 24 hours to get the bad guy before he has to hand in his badge: the assassination attempt is treated as a thriller. It lacks the intelligent understanding that Florian von Donnersmarck brought to The Lives of Others (2006), as people from different backgrounds, and with wildly different ideas of what Germany should become, tried to work together.

Stauffenberg's stroke of genius was to subvert the emergency plan for defending Berlin against insurrection, Valkyrie, into a plan for a putsch after Hitler had been killed. As Hitler became more paranoid, it seemed that Stauffenberg was the only one who had both the access and the resolve to kill him. He was fully aware that the chances of success were slim, but he felt that he needed to demonstrate to the world that there was a better Germany - what he thought of as secret Germany - and perhaps that he was the agent of history.

When I was writing my book The Song Before it is Sung, about a conspirator in the bomb plot, I was puzzled for some time that the British refused to trust the various overtures from the resistance in Germany. Stauffenberg was a close friend and confidant of Adam von Trott, the Rhodes scholar who was also deeply involved in the resistance and executed a few weeks after the July plot. I also pondered the question of why Trott's friend at Oxford, Isaiah Berlin, a magnanimous and generous man, came to distrust him, and I wondered why, 30 years later, he wrote in a letter to Shiela Grant Duff, who knew them both well, saying that Trott was no hero and "not on our side". What he saw, I think, is that in ideas of a mythic German past, and in the belief in a historical destiny, lay the genesis of Nazism.

The idea of a noble Germany, uncorrupted by racial inferiors and alien philosophies, a Germany that would be led by a world figure, was not invented by Hitler. Long before he came along, the simple word Führer - leader - had been turned into something messianic, and I think Berlin knew where the blame lay. During their walks and discussions in Oxford, Berlin often said to Trott that when he was at a loss, he turned to Hegel. Hegel believed, essentially, that history had a forward motion to a point where all contradictions would be resolved.

It is ironic that Stauffenberg's son should have been contemptuous of the notion of Tom Cruise playing his father, on the grounds that he is a cultist, because Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg and his two brothers, Berthold and Alexander, were themselves members of a cult that formed around a mythical secret Germany; their master was the poet Stefan George. George is a sinister figure, but in an American newspaper article of the 1920s he was rated one of the most important men in the world. Hardly remembered and little read today, he was a poet who rivalled Hölderlin and Schiller in his fame.

The Stauffenberg family had held the title of "Schenk", which meant "cup-bearer", since the 13th century, an honour bestowed on them by the Hohenstaufens, the legendary monarchical family of Swabia who also ruled Sicily in the middle ages. At the time of Stauffenberg's birth in 1907, his family was to be found at the Altes Schloss in Stuttgart, in the service of the Württemberg monarchy. The Stauffenbergs were a family steeped in tradition, highly cultured, highly regarded.

It was hardly surprising that Stefan George welcomed these good-looking and aristocratic brothers into his circle. This may in part have been because of the homoerotic element in his movement, but it was also because the Stauffenbergs represented everything George felt had been lost in Germany - the medieval greatness of the Hohenstaufen Friedrich II and the warrior qualities of the Teutonic Knights. Poetry was to lead the way back to greatness, and George was Germany's poet; he and his disciples propagated the notion of a unique German-ness, Deutschtum, which was traced back to Friedrich II.

Members of the George circle were subject to some bizarre rules. Only Claus von Stauffenberg kept his own name, presumably because of its flattering historical resonances. His brother Berthold was told not to marry the woman he loved, and he obeyed, at least until George was dead. But even after the war, the surviving brother, Alexander, eulogised George as the spokesman of something uniquely German. Göring revered him too, and after the Nazi takeover of 1933 wanted to instate him as the head of an academy of poetry. George replied that he had for a long time been the leader of German poetry, and didn't need an academy. His circle had many Jewish members, but his views became broadly antisemitic as the Nazis became more important. None the less, he fled to Switzerland and died before it was completely clear where he stood on national socialism. The Stauffenberg brothers were made George's heirs, and after his death tended his grave in Switzerland and continued to organise candlelit readings of his poetry.

As the war progressed, Stauffenberg enjoyed a rapid rise in the army. He was at first enthusiastic about military successes on the eastern front, but had for some time been deeply alarmed by Hitler: Kristallnacht had disgusted him, particularly as his brother was married to someone of Jewish descent. He quickly became aware that the SS, the SD and the Gestapo were creating a lasting legacy of hatred that would one day be avenged. He began to seek out like-minded officers and spoke at times quite openly about his fears for Germany and the army. Sometimes he recited George's poem "The Antichrist" to support his argument. As the advance east was halted, it became more urgent to end the war with at least something of Germany intact. Stauffenberg had particular cause for alarm: he was in charge of logistics for the 10th Panzers and knew that for every thousand casualties, only 300 replacements could be found - disaster was inevitable. At the same time he found himself increasingly appalled by the indiscriminate killing of Jews, Slavs and Russian prisoners, and by the SS battalions' unbridled lust for murder, which was having a corrupting effect on the army too. He often ignored or changed orders: he managed to thwart an order that all Russian prisoners should be tattooed on their buttocks.

After Stalingrad, his outspokenness caused some of his superiors to decide that he should be sent to north Africa, which was relatively free of the SS. There he was severely wounded, losing part of his right arm, one eye and two fingers on his left hand. Through determination he made a dramatic recovery and found himself second in command of the home army in Berlin, under General Fromm, and was also appointed to the general staff, which gave him access to Hitler. After his first visit to the Berghof, he described the atmosphere there as "stale, paralysing, rotten and degenerate". A few months later, he primed the bomb with the three fingers of his left hand and placed it beside Hitler.

The question the film does not raise is what kind of Germany Stauffenberg envisaged had the coup succeeded, which in all probability it would have, had Hitler been killed. Stefan George's poem "Secret Germany" was the inspiration for Stauffenberg's oath of mutual intent for the conspirators, which was typed by his brother Berthold's secretary:

We want a new order which makes all Germans responsible for the state and guarantees them law and justice; but we despise the lie that all are equal and we submit to rank ordained by nature. We want a people with roots in their native land, close to the powers of nature, finding happiness and contentment in the given environment, and overcoming, in freedom and pride, the base instincts of envy and jealousy. We want leaders who ... are in harmony with the divine powers and set an example to others by their noble spirit, discipline and sacrifice.

When Stauffenberg's body was burned, a ring was lost with it. Engraved on it were the words FINIS INITIUM, which is drawn from another of George's poems with the final line "I am the end and the beginning".

Justin Cartwright, The Guardian,

El Otro

The Other) (2007) is an Argentine, French, and German drama film, written and directed by Ariel Rotter, his second feature.

The film was executive produced by Aqua Films' Verónica Cura, and produced by Enrique Piñeyro and Christian Baute.

El otro was funded by the Instituto Nacional de Cine y Artes Audiovisuales (Argentina), the Vision Sudest Fund (Switzerland), the World Cinema Fund (Berlin International Film Festival), and the Hubert Bals Fund (Netherlands).




The picture features Julio Chávez as Juan Desouza, who was awarded the Silver Bear as Best Actor at the 2007 Berlin International Film Festival.

The film tells of Juan Desouza (Julio Chávez), a lawyer in his late 40s, who's happily married and his wife is expecting a child.

Casi dos años después de recibir dos premios en Berlín, el del Jurado y el de interpretación masculina para Julio Chávez, llega a las salas españolas la cinta argentino-alemana "El otro", segundo largometraje de Ariel Rotter ("Sólo por hoy"), que desde entonces ha ido acumulando reconocimientos en diversos otros certámenes y en los Cóndor. "Mi película es simple y oscura, pero tengo muchas expectativas de que el público la disfrute", ha dicho el cineasta argentino.

En "El otro", el prestigioso actor argentino Julio Chávez ("El custodio") es Juan Desouza, un abogado de mediana edad que está a punto de tener un hijo y paralelamente asiste a la decadencia física de su padre. En clara crisis vital, durante un viaje de trabajo, la muerte súbita de su compañero de asiento en el autobús agudiza su angustia frente al final de la vida. Por ello, decide adoptar la personalidad del fallecido. "El personaje busca entender el ciclo de la vida", ha explicado Rotter. El realizador de "Sólo por hoy" ha reconocido que siempre pensó en Chávez como protagonista, y que sin su concurso la película hubiera sido casi imposible.

Por su parte, Chávez considera que la actitud de su personaje de adoptar otras personalidades "es sin ningún tipo de maldad, es un juego ingenuo, como una travesura infantil que surge después de que Juan descubra que, inevitablemente, tiene que morir". En su opinión, este film -que se estrena este viernes por fín en España- tiene mucho que ver con sus previas cintas "Extraño" y "El custodio", y considera el todo una "trilogía del silencio", en la que sus personajes respectivos apenan usan la palabra.

Rotter, quien empleó cuatro años desde que empezó a escribir "El otro" hasta su finalización, dijo a DW que "las expectativas en el plano íntimo de la película van más allá del juicio del público. En el plano privado tienen que ver con cuánto de uno está representado en la película. En el plano social de la película, uno tiene la expectativa de saber qué le sucede al otro al verla, cuánto puede resonar adentro de cada espectador lo que uno tenía para decir. Me estimulan las sensaciones que recorren al espectador y ver si esas sensaciones de algún modo tienen que ver con las que tuve yo al hacerla".

"No es -añadía- necesariamente autobiográfica. Es cine que trata sobre algo que crees conocer. En lo que yo hago, me interesa filmar o escribir cosas que conozco o creo conocer y no sobre cualquier cosa. El cine argentino tiene mucha diversidad. Se hacen 50 películas por año. Lo que existe es una tendencia al cine de autor, también cine documental y de alto contenido político. Se conciben las escenas de las películas de un modo valiente y fuertemente ligado con la tradición europea. Argentina como sabes, está construido, por inmigrantes europeos, de ahí viene el lazo y el gusto por lo europeo. Hay una cultura cinematográfica más poderosa si se compara con otros países de Sudamérica".



On a one-day business trip to the country-side, Desouza embarks on an unintended journey. When he reaches his destination Desouza discovers that the man traveling next to him is not sleeping but dead.

Secretly, he assumes the dead man's identity and invents a profession for himself. He finds a place to stay in the village where the man used to live and contemplates not returning.

Juan Desouza undertakes an adventure into nature, into the rediscovery of his tastes and his basic instincts. He tries to grasp the idea that the life dealt out for him, and which he chose to live, is not the only one possible.

He eventually goes back home, stronger from the spiritual experience.