Movies
Ten Minutes Older: The Cello
My first Szabo (outside an entry in the Ten Minutes Older anthology). I didn't really know what to expect, but based on the poster I had hoped for a slightly more expressive, unique film. Instead, Mephisto is a more traditional undertaking, one that submerges itself into the arts and theater world. It's a pretty familiar artist-gone-bad story, then again it is based on a literary classic, so that's not all too surprising. The direction is relatively vibrant, but only compared to similarly themed films. The setting is pretty poor (it never felt like pre-WWII Germany to me) and the acting was a bit overdone too. Not great.Read all
A Hungarian classic. This was my third Szabo, and like the ones I watched before, it failed to impress me. It's an epic undertaking though, a 2.5-hour biopic based on a play (and not so much facts, as the intro clearly stated), but the film is too traditional for my tastes, making the runtime a real bother. Attention was given to the cinematography, which I appreciate, but I found the colors, lighting, and mise en scene pretty ugly. The story was dull, the soundtrack somewhat annoying and 140 minutes was excessive. This just isn't the kind of cinema I like, and Colonel Redl couldn't convince me otherwise.Read all