Blame It on Fidel
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Movie Reviews of Blame It on Fidel
Movie Review: overall a great film
Summary: 5 Stars
I enjoyed this film very much. The young girl has such a natural talent that she makes the movie! I recommend watching this movie.Movie Review: He who shall teach the child to doubt, the rotting grave will ne'er get out.
Summary: 3 Stars
Nina Kervel-Bey, the young star of this movie, is a gifted actress who gives a marvelous performance. She brings this movie to partial life, portraying the main character with a natural presence. The story is told through her eyes, and I could not help but feel sympathy for her. Her childhood is turned upside down by her parents infatuation with leftist politics, and she feels abandoned. Her parents have little time for her now that they have joined the revolution. We see the effects of that neglect, and we see her anger.
The nuns who run Anna's school never have a chance, portrayed as distant figures who tolerate no discussion about their authority, and waste no time in verbally reprimanding Anna for her youthful questions. Her catholic classmates eventually turn on her with cruelty because of her forced absence from bible study. Her best friend spends the night at Anna's apartment, and gets a view of her father's naked body. This upsets the child, but only because she is a young reactionary.
The communist friends of her parents initially tease Anna for her counter-revolutionary beliefs, but eventually the movie shows them to be kindly and understanding friends. Anna learns to doubt everything, (even her parent's politics, to the filmmakers`s credit) and leaves catholic school of her own accord.
Reading the other reviews of this film, I was struck by how easily the Amazon reviewers slip into the Marxist vernacular. Words like bourgeoise, communist solidarity and fascistic conformity slip off the pen. The true believers still exist.
Although no one is demonized in the film, the filmmaker's leftist sympathies are never in doubt. Other reviewers have noted that the viewer is never hit over the head with "ham fisted polemics." This film is a very polished piece of propaganda. Fidel must be very proud. My own experience was a catharsis of all emotion, which befits the tragedy.
Movie Review: Clowns to the left of me, Jokers to the right.....
Summary: 5 Stars
Little Anna is stuck in the middle between conservative bourgeoise grandparents, Catholic school friends and teachers, and her increasingly radicalized parents in 1970's Paris, and she doesn't like it one little bit.
Centered on an astonishing portrayal by young Nina Kervel-Bey, her defiant Anna with her pugnacious chin jutting-out fearlessly faces the various forces swirling around her with justifiable frustration and anger at the upset and turmoil created in her young life by neglectful parents caught up in their leftist political passions and the likewise estrangement from the conervative foundations of her previously privileged life. Her spirit is undiminished however as she faces them all down with wit and preternatural common sense, asking the difficult question and demanding attention and respect. This little girl is wonderfully expressive and impressive and Gravas has elicited a marvelous performance from her.
While I assume Gravas sympathies probably lie with the politics of the parents, she is very even-handed in her depiction of all sides and is never polemical but instead finds the humanity in all. Being the daughter of a famously political director herself, she must have brought great understanding to the confusion and anger of a young child who could care less about politics but experiences only absent and distracted parents and a comfortable life overthrown for passions and principles she does not understand and is very perceptive in pricking the pretensions of while revealing the confusion in the adults around her.
A very fine film, well acted by all, but little Nina is the whole show and for one so small and lovely to dominate and carry a film of this depth with such ferocious confidence and humor is a tribute to the wee actor and her director and is well worth anyone's time.
Movie Review: You say you want a revolution . . .
Summary: 5 Stars
Set in Paris in 1970-71, this is a film about 9-year-old Anna, growing up in the home of leftist political activists. Directed by Julie Gavras, daughter herself of political filmmaker Costa-Gavras, the film represents the attempts of a child to make sense of the earnest turmoil that has upset her previously untroubled middle-class life, as well as concepts like solidarity. Her father, played by Italian actor Stefano Accorsi, has fled Franco's Spain and along with his wife (Julie Depardieu, daughter of Gerard Depardieu) becomes involved in the election of Chile's socialist president Allende. Chilean exiles begin filling their home, while Anna's mother embarks on a project to make abortion more freely available to French women.
Meanwhile, Anna and her young brother, are exposed to the anti-communist sentiments of a Cuban nanny and her wealthy grandparents. A conservative friend from Catholic school provides a further complication. Torn in a variety of directions, the young heroine soldiers on, with an independent spirit of her own, confronting both the certainties and uncertainties of her parents. Told from her point of view, the camera is often at a child's eye level, and amid all the unresolved confusion there are also moments of comedy, provided often by her diminutive little brother. The DVD includes a making-of featurette, deleted scenes, and other features, with an emphasis on the challenge of directing children.
Movie Review: Satisfying moral/political tale!
Summary: 5 Stars
I ended up loving this film. I wasn't sure exactly where it was going at first, as it views political ideology from a child's perception of different adults' contradictory messages. Others have done a better job of describing the film; I can only say that it is an extremely well done and entertaining film with a heart-warming message! Loved it.
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