Plastic Love (short film - 2012)

Next Time Do It Harder

Plastic Love is a very British short movie about strange fetishes, death, and relationships. When I say very British, I mean that barely no one else could produce such a controversial work that is both funny and disturbing. The first contact I had with this project was through the teaser video and I obviously thought of Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange. But Plastic Love is not about non-consensual sex, it's about dealing with  fantasies and their consequences in a relationship. Even if it's consensual, it doesn't mean it's not dangerous. The 4 main characters are embracing their darkest desires and their performance is absorbing. The brilliant original score composed by Martin Dubka makes me feel like I am in a Refn movie in which the characters are clearly more uninhibited. Dubka is the new Cliff Martinez. I particularly enjoy the use of intense close-ups to help me connect with the characters deepest emotions and sensations. I also appreciate that no nudity is shown as it is not necessary to the plot. You will enter Jamie Hooper's mind with an undefinable slow-motion world of peculiarity. His film is an emotional and perceptual tale on modern love, death, and sexuality. 

1 reason to watch: unleash your urges

Read my interview of Writer/Director/Editor/Producer Jamie Hooper!

Plastic Love - Teaser Trailer from Jamie Hooper

Plastic Love - Trailer 

Brokeback Mountain (2005)

Summer of '63

It was the summer of '63, Wyoming. Jack Twist and Ennis Del Mar are hired to herd sheep on Brokeback Mountain. They get to know each other in the middle of nowhere and their friendship soon blossoms into feelings they cannot deny. When they part ways due to the ending season, what seemed to be a summer fling actually turns out to be a lifelong passionate love story. Brokeback Mountain tells Ennis and Jack's secret relationship over almost 2 decades. This masterpiece is a love manifesto avoiding clichés. Its focus is the struggle to live with yourself when society doesn't accept who you are and dictates who you should or shouldn't love. The fight against self-hatred and prejudice are also central topics of the storyline. Ang Lee majestically directs one of the most beautiful love stories ever told on the silver screen. He succeeds where others have failed: he delivers a dynamic movie out of a plot that could have been slow. Lee certainly is an actor's director. The cast he's chosen to prove this point radiates with truth. The late Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal in the leading roles praise tolerance with their magnificent interpretation. You can also enjoy the performance of a plethora of good supporting actors: Michelle Williams, Kate Mara, Anne Hathaway, Anna Faris... The fabulous country original score is soothing and echoes in the splendid hills of Wyoming. The sound of the resonator guitar transports you to those quiet great outdoors. I can only hope the blatant moral of this picture will stick to your shoes forever. Brokeback Mountain highlights the cruelty of mankind towards difference. There is a paradoxical challenge enlightened by this tale: whether you embrace or hide who you are, you will have to pay the price. Let's hope Brokeback Mountain, a figurative mountain of New Queer Cinema, helps people not to ever have to pay the price again.

1 reason to watch: BM will be a wakening whether or not it's about your own situation. You are concerned. We all are.

In the Land of Blood and Honey / U zemlji krvi i meda (2011)

A Mixture of War and Love

As I am no expert on the Bosnian war, I cannot judge this movie from historical facts but I can tell you that In the Land of Blood and Honey is a very promising directorial debut for Angelina Jolie. She wrote, directed, and partly produced it. It is by definition an American Foreign-language movie as she made the logical but clever move to film it in Bosnian and Serbian with a totally local cast. In the Land of Blood and Honey is a story set in the heart of the Bosnian war that took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 90s. It is a love story on a war background... Or is it the other way around? Both stories are intelligently tangled up together. The plot is simple: Danijel, a Bosnian Serb soldier, finds his former Bosniak love, Ajla who becomes his prisoner. I am definitely not a sucker for war movies but I have to admit that it is a poignant tale even if it's a bit slow at times. Jolie has the balls to show the atrocities of war and the treatments of prisoners during this specific battle (human shields and rapes among others). I thought that In the Land of Blood and Honey raised good questions. Mainly this one: what would I do in their position? You soon realize that both positions are complicated: being the persecutor of your former friends or lover among your hateful fellow soldiers AND being the prisoner of someone you used to hang out with. What would you rather be? I found out, I'd rather not have to choose. This movie shows brutal scenes: to watch with caution. I am blown away by Zana Marjanović's interpretation of Ajla. It might come from the fact that she has actually experienced this war. As I said before, actors who speak the language of the country where the story is supposed to happen is always the best option.

1 reason to watch: Angelina Jolie's directorial debut

English-speaking version of the trailer but I recommend you watch the movie in its original language