Friday, January 12, 2007

Everything Is, Indeed, Illuminated

Just saw a great somewhat unknown movie (at least unknown in relation to how great it is). I don’t really do reviews for many of the reasons I’ve previously stated here. Like I don’t know who reads this blog and I don’t want to badmouth people that I work with, want to work with, might want to work with, my friends work with and I might meet. And in general, there isn’t a whole lot of need for me to negative about other people’s work. Its not like I expect everything I will ever do to be Academy Award worthy.

But that shouldn’t stop me from making reviews of things that are great. Right? Because if you don’t have anything bad to say, then why shouldn’t you feel happy to say it.

Everything Is Illuminated, which was directed by Liev Schreiber, and starring Elijah Wood. It’s a comedic, and subtly ethereal journey through the past of the Ukraine into a personal history of two families during the Holocaust. Its beautifully photographed, classic cinema based on character development and an intriguing story. Schreiber wrote the screenplay as well, which was based on the book by the same title by Jonathan Safren. While certain reviews have said that Liev greatly simplified the storyline from the book, I see a lot of depth in the way the movie brings across the tales that the characters want to portray. I haven’t read the book, but I don’t see this as a simple film at all. In any event, I hope you all will take the time to see it. Its worth your time.

Grumpy.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I read the book -- LOVED it ...almost as much as Jonathan Safren's other book "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close."

Unknown said...

i did the nbr q-and-a with liev and elijah wood; it is indeed a wonderful movie, though based on only a fraction of the book. they smuggled some footage out of ukraine, otherwise the rest was shot in hungary (i think). craig mckay came on to finesse the editing and it is now perfectly edited. you should do more reviews -- not current movies, since most of them suck -- check out some melville flix, they are incredible and big influences on the departed, and i'd love to hear what you have to say after a re-viewing of bertolucci's 1900.

Annie said...

Sounds great, I will check it out.

I have a gripe with people who complain about films simplifying original texts from books — of course they do. Films will never be able to fit in everything that's said in a 400 page book. The best texts for adapting into feature films are short stories. Whole books into 2 hours of sound and vision? Pfft.

Anonymous said...

That's so true, Annie. I had read the Pat Conroy book "The Prince of Tides" well before the movie came out. When my friend told me that she saw the movie, I asked her how they'd handled the tiger scene. She said "What tiger scene? There was no tiger in the movie." At first, I thought "but that was integral to the story" but, you're right, not everything is integral. Else the movie would be 11 hours.

Grumpy O. Selznick said...

Dawn - Movies and books dont have to be the same to both be great, to me. This is just proof.

John - You got the DVDs, I got the reviews. Of course, reviewing stuff that is new and good, at least helps people find their way through all that which is "sucky"

Annie- Didja see it yet? What DVD region is Iceland, anyway?