Everything is Illuminated, Mirrormask
Saw two movies this weekend.
First, Everything is Illuminated. My first impression — the characters who are supposed to be speaking Russian, are, in fact speaking Russian! And without an accent! And the subtitles translate their speech correctly into English! It is a rare treat for an American movie to do Russian properly. The basic idea of the movie — an American Jewish kid decides to investigate a photograph that shows his grandfather with a woman who reputedly saved him from the Nazis in WW2 Ukraine. He travels to Lvov, meets a couple of eccentric Ukrainian tour guides, and the three go on a tragicomic search for the American’s grandfather’s old village — a search that affects the tour guides as much as the tourist. Superb acting, both from the English- and Russian-speakers. Superb music. Superb humor. Very sad in some places (the movie is about the Holocaust, after all). Ukrainian cities, villages, fields are shown honestly — no Hollywood sets. As the main character might put it, this is a “100% first-rate premium film”.
I might add that Eugene Hutz, the guy who plays the younger Ukrainian guide, is the singer for the band Gogol Bordello. Gipsy-punk music, crazy lyrics. Worth listening to.
And second, Mirrormask. Some people, apparently, really liked it. I am a bit more ambivalent. Sure, it is beautiful, in terms of eye- and ear-candy. The issue is acting. I think that Stephanie Leonidas is a pretty good actress, and in the real-world part of the movie, she is quite convincing. However, in the dream world, she probably was speaking her lines in front of a blue screen, and I suppose that messed her up. The dream-world scenes — which are most of the movie — are not well acted. But as long as you ignore the wooden delivery in the dream-world scenes, the movie is very enjoyable. The basic plot is along the lines of A game of you from Sandman. You have a girl who invents a fairytale dream world. She falls asleep, dreams herself into her world and helps its inhabitants, but soon finds herself fighting for survival. Some critics have compared it to Through the Looking Glass; IMHO, they are wrong. There are none of Carrol’s logical and linguistic tricks; the story is typical Sandman material, minus the Endless.
Both movies are worth watching, but I would say Illuminated is the better one.