Well I’ve managed to fill the holes between the dolls house assembly line to watch this ones.
Escape from Sobibor – Jack Gold (1987)
This one it’s what I called a TV rewatch, saw it on TV sometime in the past and now gave it another view just to check the memories of it.
I was obviously impressed the first time I saw it; the film does give a remarkable and realistic account of how terrible life was in a Concentration Camp. It’s based on a real story but doesn’t strictly follow the real events, but that it’s not the point anyway, for what’s the matter Sobibor was indeed the largest escape from a Nazi Concentration Camp in WWII, still this is no Great Escape also that’s for sure.
Although a good film full of high-quality reliable actors, even the Polish beauty Joanna Pakula goes OK, I’ve notice that sometimes seemed a little bit to much like a BBC production, even if some of the main actors are not British, and in most of the cases this BBC/ITV feeling it’s a good thing, but in this film that does not happen in an British environment, it seemed something of a drawback, to give a even more realistic approach, giving me some strange feeling, I was always expecting that at any time in the film someone would appear with a cup of tea or something. In any case a good and powerful film from a very skilled director whose best work from the ones I’ve seen so far is The Naked Civil Servant, good performances from Arkin, Becker, Simon Gregor and Rutger Hauer.
Nightwatch - Ole Bornedal (1997)
What can I say about this one, a good European director with already proves given in the old continent, tries to make a Hollywood remake of one of his most successful films to date, the same story probably destroyed George Sluizer directing career when he tried the same trick with his magnificent terror masterpiece (and not only) Spoorloos.
Well in this one we can’t really complain about the cast Ewan Macgregor, Patricia Arquette (my favourite of the Arquette’s, she’s quite a bird), Josh Brolin, John C. Reily, Nick Nolte, Brad Dourif, the cast is full of familiar faces, the photography is pretty good, some scenes like the one in the restaurant are pretty good, but I just didn’t liked that much, the film doesn’t delivery the goods for me.
I confess I haven’t seen the original, but the story/script just doesn’t work, there isn’t much physical terror and the psychological one the most important just doesn’t feels right, and to come out with the an odd ending OHHHHHHHHH type, they just made it like the most stupid one. Maybe if I’ve seen it at the time before all that CSI shit, or maybe if I just didn’t have seen too many movies, I would like it more, but this one seemed like a failed project even more with the quality cast, (even not being a great fan of Macgregor’s acting skills, at least outside British films), lacked a better script in my view.
Farewell to the king – John Milius (1989)
I left the best of the lot the end. Another rewatch. Great film, Milius might be a peculiar guy who likes to shoot guns, but he’s a wonderful gifted director, with the right influences and with a great ability to tell a story (Don’t forget he’s the director of the quality Series Rome). In a way Milius reminds me a little bit of Peckinpah.
Nolte gives an amazing performance maybe his best, the story its about an American army deserter (Nolte) not fitted to the madness of war, that after escaping from the Japanese instead of returning to his lines, becomes a king among a tribe of Borneo head-hunters natives, only to be brought to war again by a British commando unit fighting the Japanese in the Borneo Jungle. The film had been compared a lot (Apocalypse Now, The man who would be king and others), but it’s quite a unique film, about loyalty, courage and honour. Also an amazing film for those who like real and historically correct war films (You wont found Rambo kills them all stuff, shooting with a Browning machine gun like if it was a water pistol, not in this jungle that I assure you), In my view the film its much different of Apocalypse now, while in that one we have almost a surrealist trip to the heart of madness, here we have very different values and a real enemy.
In any case a great film 5 stars stuff for me, a must see film.
