As I explained in my previous post, I got to go to the Amsterdam Film Week (for frizzles!) and draw my movie reviews for VERS magazine. After reviewing 'Argo', I went to see two more movies.
© Anna Denise Floor for VERS
'An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker' is beautifully filmed, but I found the film somewhat slow paced and the acting a little bland. The movie depicts the life of a Roma family. The mother cooks, cleans, and tends to their two hyperactive kids, while her husband picks up scrap metal from abandoned cars and junkyards. A hard life that gets worse when the wife falls ill and needs an expensive operation to survive. They can't afford the operation and a frantic search for money ensues. Dramatic, to say the least, but the non-professional actors re-enacting bits of their own life, seemed somewhat camera-shy and unable to conjure the emotions they must have felt going through the ordeal the first time.
© Anna Denise Floor for VERS
The third and final movie we got to see was 'The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet', by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, who also directed Amélie. Knowing this, I probably was biased before I even went to see this movie, but it did not disappoint. I laughed, I cried, I want to see it again. It's a story about a brilliant young boy, leaving his family to pick up a science award in Washington, DC. It's kind of Amélie meets Moonrise Kingdom. Full of beautiful colors, animations, jokes, and images. A feast for the eye.
I want to thank VERS magazine for this awesome challenge, as well as the Amsterdam Film Week. Yay!