Shallow Grave (1994) may seem merely like a modern variation on Alfred
Hitchcock's gruesome and intricate thrillers, but it is a powerful one.
The slightly neurotic and deliberately sloppy directing style adds to the
tension. The most impressive quality of the film is how
the personality of the three protagonists is slowly twisted. Each of them
undergoes a smooth metamorphosis towards a different persona
(from shy follower to evil calculator, from cruel torturer to terrified
victim, from sophisticated eccentric to defenseless "girl next door"),
a metamorphosis that continues until the very end, when each is revealed
to be something else yet again.
The situation itself mutates slowly and smoothly, from a macabre joke
to a deadly scheme to a psychological nightmare to a philosophical tale.
The film opens with the face of the protagonist that rotates as we hear his
stream of consciousness. Then we see the road as seen by a car that is moving
at high speed. That would be the car of a young man, Cameron, who is going for an
interview with his prospective new housemates: Alex, David and Juliet.
He is one of the many victims of their favorite passtime: psychological
torture and humiliate the people who come for the interview.
The trio eventually selects Hugo, a sophisticated writer who survives
one of their cruel evenings. Over dinner, asked if he ever killed anyone,
he answers "no" but we see the scene of a man brutally murdered by two
youngsters at an automatic teller machine, and the scene is shot from inside
the machine.
Hugo moves in with just two suitcases.
The following day they find him dead in his room. Under the bed Alex finds
a suitcase full of money and he convinces the others to keep it.
They decide to dispose of the body by burying it in the forest, and David,
the shy one, has to cut the hands (to avoid identification by fingerprints).
The rotating face of the beginning is David after the shocking experience.
The trio also disposes of Hugo's car by dumping it into a lake.
While we witness the almost comic clumsiness of the trio, we see another
scene in which the same two gangsters of the ATM episode are killing a man
by drowning him into a bath tub.
David works in a financial office. Juliet works in a hospital. Alex is an
aspiring reporter at a newspaper. But mostly we see them in the house.
Alex and Juliet tend to behave like a couple. David is asocial, lonely,
inscrutable.
The trio spends an evening at a formal club and sees Cameron who works there
selling flowers. Alex makes fun of him. Later, Alex is cornered by Cameron
and his friends in the restrooms and Cameron breaks his nose.
In parallel we see the two gangsters torturing another man and locking him
into a trunk to asphyxiate to death.
Back to the house, where the phone keeps ringing, Alex and Juliet go on
a spending spree. When he finds out, David, the rational business man of the
trio, is upset because those goods may "cost" them a lot more than just money.
In fact, we see that someone has found Hugo's car in the lake.
After someone breaks into an apartment of the same building,
David becomes paranoid and decides to hide the suitcase in the loft.
He is right: one day the two gangsters break into their apartment and
torture Alex. Alex tells them that the suitcase is in the loft. David
is up there guarding his little treasure and manages to kill both gangsters.
Then the trio, once again, buries the corpses in the forest.
David, who used to be the quiet one, is now barricaded upstairs and
uncontrollable, and his cold, cynical behavior terrifies even Alex.
David even drills holes in the ceiling to spy on his housemates.
Juliet is planning an escape to Brazil.
One day the police show up. Only David is home. The police insists that
four people live in the apartment, David insists only three live there.
Alex and Juliet plot to steal the money, but Alex does not find the money
in the loft. On the other hand, David catches them in the act, leaving
them even more terrified of him.
By coincidence, one day Alex's boss tells Alex that he has to cover the story
of three decomposing corpses found in the forest: those are "their" corpses.
In the meantime, Juliet switching allegiance and is giving herself to David.
The police, who have noticed Alex's scared behavior at the forest, come back
to interview first Juliet and then Alex. They show them the pictures of the
three men. When Alex replies that he has never seen them, they tell him that
the car of two of them was found parked in front of the apartment building.
David is listening to everything from the loft thanks to the holes he drilled
through the ceiling.
Alex is ready to call the police and turn himself in. But David decides to
leave with the money. Juliet confronts him. David shows her the ticket she
bought for herself for Brazil. Alex defends her, telling David that he bought
the ticket, and one for himself as well. Alex seems to wish that David just
left with the money. But Juliet is determined not to let him go. David
hits her and the three start fighting. David pins Alex down and then pushes
a knife through Alex's shoulder and through the floor. David is about to
finish off Alex, but Juliet stabs him in the back. Despite the pain, Alex
smiles, but Juliet has other plans: she takes her shoe off and hits the knife
that is nailing Alex down to the floor, to make sure Alex can't run after her.
Then she grabs the suitcase and runs. Alex dies, but we see him grinning
at the police inspector while the coroner is taking pictures of his corpse.
Next we see Juliet screaming in the car: she opened the suitcase and found
only worthless paper. Someone took the money. No matter how dead he is,
Alex is still grinning: he took the money and hid it under the floor, not
knowing that he would die nailed to that very floor, not knowing that the
killer would be the very Juliet that he still loved and planned to save.
Juliet takes off anyway for Brazil.
The last image is the same as the beginning: the face of David. He is
meditating about friendship: after all, he did believe in friendship,
but he felt betrayed by both his housemates.
And now we realize why it is not moving: it is his face before they close
his coffin at the morgue.
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Trainspotting (1996), tratto da un romanzo di Irvine Welsh di tre anni
prima gia` diventato un dramma teatrale,
Mark racconta la sua vita di eroinomane e ladruncolo.
Il film comincia con la prima di molte fughe: Mark inseguito dalla polizia
quasi finisce sotto le ruote di un'auto.
Mark condivide un appartamento con Sick Boy, Spud e Allison, la ragazza di
tutti e tre (non e` chiaro di chi sia la sua bambina). Sono tutti
tossicodipendenti e tutti decisi a non trovare lavoro.
In realta` Mark ha deciso di smettere e vuole soltanto comprare un'ultima dose.
In una discoteca incontra Diane e, imbottiti di droga, fanno l'amore, ma il
giorno dopo Mark scopre che e` minorenne. Lui non vorrebbe piu` rivederla
ma lei minaccia di denunciarlo alla polizia se la scaccia.
Mark ha ripreso gli amici Tommy e Lizzie (gli unici che non prendono droghe)
mentre facevano l'amore e, quando Lizzie lo scopre, lascia Tommy pensando
che lo abbia fatto lui per venderlo.
Mark torna a drogarsi all'impazzata e a compiere piccoli furti con l'amico
psicotico Begbie.
Mark racconta come si procurano droghe di tutti i tipi, rubando persino la
morfina agli anziani dell'ospizio.
Tommy, demoralizzato dalla partenza di Lizzie, si fa dare un po' di eroina da
lui.
Finalmente la tragedia colpisce. Il bebe` di Alison muore.
La ragazza strilla come un ossessa mentre tutti i ragazzi sono drogati.
Mark e Spud vengono arrestati per furto e il giudice condanna l'ingenuo Spud
ma concede al furbo Mark la liberta` condizionata.
Dopo l'ennesima dose, gli amici lo portano moribondo in taxi all'ospedale.
I genitori lo chiudono a chiave in camera e Mark viene colto da incubi in cui
vede scorrere le immagini del suo passato,
dalla bambina morta al giudice che lo condanna.
Mark ne ha abbastanza di quella vita e decide di partire per Londra. Trova
lavoro e comincia una nuova vita. Ma dura poco: prima Begbie, inseguito
dalla polizia, e poi Sick Boy, interessato a fare il protettore, si
installano nel suo appartamento.
Mark non tollera le loro maniera, in particolare quelle di
Begbie, che quasi lo accoltella quando torna a casa furibondo perche' stava
facendo l'amore con un travestito.
Non fidandosi di loro, lascia il passaporto in un locker.
Tornano a casa per i funerali di Tommy, morto di AIDS.
Spud e` uscito dal carcere e lo portano con loro a Londra, dove vendono
la droga che Begbie ha comprato da un marinaio.
Nel pub in cui stanno festeggiando, Begbie ha un alterco con un altro avventore
e gli taglia la faccia con un pezzo di vetro. Mark non ne puo` piu`.
Nottetempo, mentre gli amici stanno dormendo, Mark prende la borsa con il denaro
e scappa. Spud lo vede uscire ma non lo ferma.
Va a prendersi il passaporto e lascia a Spud meta` del bottino nel locker.
Begbie intanto, furibondo, sta facendo a pezzo l'appartamento: arriva la
polizia e lo arresta. Mark ha deciso di ripartire da zero e di diventare
un borghese per bene.
Boyle non ha alcun merito per la storia, ma a suo credito va il continuo assalto
visivo e sonoro con cui l'ha trasferita sul grande schermo, e il caos
narrativo in cui la affoga.
Ma a rendere celebre il film e` stata forse soprattutto la colonna sonora.
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28 Days Later (2002) is a slow, implausible science-fiction/horror movie
full of predictable Hollywood-ian cliches.
A gang storms a top-secret research laboratory. Apparently, they are activists
opposed to using animals for laboratory experiments. They intend to open all the
cages and release the chimps. The scientist begs them not to do it because
the beasts are highly contagious. The gang does not listen. Mayhem follows,
as the chimps have been infected with a psychological virus that spreads
vampyre-like.
28 days later,
Jim wakes up, hungry and thirsty, in a deserted hospital. He walks outside
and finds the city of London completely abandoned. Not a soul in sight.
He walks into a church and a demonic priest starts chasing him. Other
zombie-like beings join the hunt. Jim is saved by a man who wears a gas mask,
Mark, and taken to a building where another woman is hiding, Selena.
He tells them that he only remembers an accident. They tell him that since that
day a deadly virus has spread and killed most people, including the police,
the government, etc.
After a useless trip to check on his parents' health (of course, they are dead),
jim and his two new-found friends are attacked by a zombie. They kill him,
but Mark gets infected. Selena butchers him with a machete in a few seconds and then explains
to Jim that one has only ten seconds to kill the infected ones before it's
too late. They are chased by more zombies and saved by another man with
a gas mask, Mark. He lives with his teenage daughter Hannah.
Both Mark and Selena think that the entire world has succumbed to the plague.
There has been no sign of government ever since an evacuation was ordered
and failed (it was too late). Frank, though, has a radio that picks up a
strange broadcast from a military base outside the city. They decide to
take their chances and venture outside. During the mythical journey to the
base, they have to fight dozens of zombies and witness apocalyptic scenes.
They have rediscovered a sense of family when tragedy strikes again: Frank
gets infected. Selena tells Jim to kill him but Jim hesitates. A soldier
jumps out of the woods and starts shooting at Frank. Then he takes the
survivors to the country mansion that a major has turned into a fortress.
That night the soldiers have to fight a major battle against a zombie attack.
Afterwards, a soldier tries to rape Selena. The major tells Jim that he has
promised the women to the soldiers in order to recreate the human race.
Jim refuses to cooperate and is thrown into a jail with another dissident
soldier. The soldier tells him that the world is perfectly safe: the contagion
never spread beyond Britain. The major is insane, that's all.
The major orders the execution of Jim and the sergeant. A group of soldiers
takes them to the woods, where Jim sees the dead bodies of dozens of men,
all of them probably executed for the same reason: they refused to let the
soldiers rape their own women and/or to join into the rape of other women.
Luckily for Jim, the soldiers start fighting each other and he gets a chance
to escape (of course) and to reach the mansion (of course) before the rape
is consummated (of course). Jim releases an infected soldier that is kept
prisoner so he can go on a rampage infecting all the other soldiers.
Jim is also helped by the zombies that surround the compound, that stage another
attack and this time easily break into the perimeter of the compound.
Hannah manages to hide. Jim rescues Selena from the soldier who desperately
wants to rape her (but somehow wasted all that time). Jim is so ferocious that
Selena believes him infected and would kill him. Except that (of course) she
has fallen in love with him, and can't do it. The trio tries to run away but
the major catches up with them and shoots Jim, before being bitten by an
infected soldier.
28 days later the zombies are dying. Jim wakes up once more time from a coma.
This time he finds Selena and Hannah. Perfectly healed (of course), Jim helps
the women lay down sheets to attract the attention of a foreign airplane.
They smiled at each other knowing that help is on the way.
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(Translation by/ Tradotto da xxx) Se sei interessato a tradurre questo pezzo, contattami
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