Everything Is Illuminated
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Movie Reviews of Everything Is Illuminated
Movie Review: This is a brilliant movie
Summary: 5 Stars
This is one of my all-time favourite movies. It is funny at times and sad at times. Elijah Wood is great as the slightly strange collector, Jonathan, but even greater is Eugene Hutz as Alex the tour guide translator. Alex speaks english as if through some sort of thesaurus dictionary combination. When he wants to describe something as "hard" (difficult), he says it is "rigid" which does mean "hard" but not "difficult". He does this with many words, to the great amusement of the viewer. This may be my favourite thing about the movie because I so greatly enjoy playing with language in fun ways.
The whole story is great as well and handled really well in my opinion. There are a lot of great images. All of the actors played really well, and really well together too.
I highly recommend it.
I do not however, recommend the book it was adapted from (sadly), but that is a different review.
Movie Review: How we continue to learn...
Summary: 5 Stars
I watched part of a PBS documentary about Auschwitz last week. After the first two hours I found myself restless and eventually had to change the channel. At a certain point it just becomes too much. I did catch an interesting comment by an Historian who said (I'm paraphrasing) that we learn nothing from the Holocaust and that all interest in its details were gratuitous and bordering on ghoulish. He then said that that didn't change the fact that it was everyone's responsibility to educate themselves about it. Sorry for the long build up, but I believe this film (and the book of course) prove that statement to be incorrect. We continue to learn from the survivors of the Holocaust, and while some of what we learn is ugly and necessary, there is also beauty and towering triumph in the tales of their survival. There is a bit of both in this film.Movie Review: Ukrainian Road Trip
Summary: 5 Stars
An odd young man, who collects family momentos in plastic baggies, travels to the Ukraine for a Jewish heritage tour. He seeks answers about who was the woman in the photo with his grandfather standing in the Ukrainian wheat field in 1942?
Serving as his translator on the road trip across the Ukraine is a glib young man who often mangles English. The translator's grandfather, a taciturn character, drives them. The grandfather's insane dog livens up the trip.
The viewer is often left wondering (what did he say? what did that mean?) but hangs on for the ride. There is humor, pathos, history, ethnic music and hiphop and glorious scenery to enjoy along the way. Eventually the role of the Ukrainian grandfather becomes clear and the ways their lives touch and blend ends the movie in a sad but illuminating way.
Movie Review: Everyone gets illuminated
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought this dvd because I was curious about Eugene Hutz as an actor. For those of you not familiar with is band GOGOL BORDELLO, he is the charismatic (to put it mildly) frontman for a gypsy punk band that is one of the most exciting and unique live acts out there. I knew nothing of the story prior to purchasing the dvd.
Wow.
This is a road-trip film that is a journey of self-discovery. It offers everything: humor, sadness, confusion, more humor, beautiful scenery, conflict, and a poignant resolution.
The other reviews go deeper into the storyline of this film. I was glad that I knew almost nothing about this film prior to viewing.
If you want to view something totally fresh and unexpected, watch this film. It's not like anything else out there.
Movie Review: It will illuminate you too!!
Summary: 5 Stars
I found out about this movie in a class and thought it was really interesting even before I saw the whole movie. When I watched it for the first time I knew this was a movie I wanted to own. I spent two years in Central and Eastern Europe and I met a lot of people who lived through WWII and told me about what it was like. I saw many Jewish synagogues that were now empty-merely monuments to what used to be a thriving culture. This movie sends such a wonderful message about what it is we should remember about the tragedy there. It also has a wonderful message about understanding others and ultimately, understanding ourselves. I love this movie! Also, it is sometimes difficult to find this movie so I think Amazon is great and it was shipped to me in a couple of days. Awesome find to say the least.