I have had a successful season in which the attraction of going to the cinema is concentrated in a few Spanish films.
The rest, with some exceptions, I find it as predictable as dispensable.
And in that Spanish cinema there are titles that have struck me, films that continue to spin in my head long after they have finished, that cause me disturbing sensations.
It happened to me with
The Rite of Spring,
which narrates the complex relationship, including the ration of sex, between a quadriplegic man and a mysterious girl hired by his mother to give him pleasure.
The argument is as strong as it is excellently developed.
And I see with lamentable delay
Manticore,
bearing the identifiable signature of Carlos Vermut.
This director surprised me and left me in awe with the perverse and enigmatic
Magical Girl.
He does it again in this proposal for a suicidal approach.
It stars one of the monsters that most aversion can arouse in people.
He is a pedophile.
It takes courage to wade into such sinister and muddy territory.
The job of the moron is to model monstrous creatures for video games, virtual realities, three dimensions, those very modern things.
Vermouth creates an oppressive atmosphere and a disturbing narrative.
And he even allows himself the luxury of feeling pity for the abominable, for that guy who is lonelier than one, who tries to change his nature by starting an impossible love story with a girl who has an androgynous point.
Everything is cloudy, sick, lacerating.
But it is described with talent.
Also with humanity.
And he appreciates it, since he's talking about a sore monster.
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Hirokazu Kore-eda: "I wouldn't make the same films if I hadn't been born poor"
Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda is not conventional either.
And in all of his work there is a permanent obsession.
Is the family.
The need to find her and protect herself from the unbearable affective cold, from loneliness, to find a solid refuge.
His cinema is frequently inhabited by very strange families.
In many cases, their members are not united by blood.
He describes them with sensitivity and intelligence.
With a very particular sense of humor.
With a bittersweet tone.
I remember with special affection and admiration
A family affair.
Others less, but it is always convenient to take a look at such a particular universe.
In
Broker
Kore-eda returns to his permanent obsession.
He leaves Japan to move to South Korea.
He also uses the actor who starred
in Bong Joon-ho 's triumphant
Parasites .
And the theme that he develops, like that of
Manticore,
also carries moral hazard.
It is inhabited by a woman who works as a whore and who killed someone, the baby she just gave birth and her intention that a family adopt him.
He hopes to make a bucks out of it.
And he appeals to some men who are dedicated to baby trafficking to bring the transaction to fruition.
They are professionals and try to find the best parents for these children, but their reasons are fundamentally economic.
There are people who pay a lot of money to achieve their dream of adopting a child.
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The normal thing is that the viewer feels allergic towards the characters who practice this shady business, but Kore-eda refuses to condemn them, to simplify, to the temptation of falling into sentimentality.
She accompanies her protagonists on their incessant journey through South Korea, shows them to be fragile and credible, creates emotional bonds and complicity, shows their helplessness, does not moralize, is not sour or schematic.
It's a nice movie.
Broker
Directed by:
Hirokazu Kore-eda.
Cast:
Song Kang-ho, Gang Dong-wo, Bae Doona, Lee Ji-eun, Lee Joo-young.
Genre:
drama.
Japan, 2022.
Duration:
129 minutes.
Premiere: December 21.
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