Sleeping Beauty

(104 min, 2011)
Plot: A haunting portrait of Lucy, a young university student drawn into a mysterious hidden world of unspoken desires.
Director: Julia Leigh
Writer: Julia Leigh (screenplay)
Stars: Emily Browning, Rachael Blake and Ewen Leslie

Belle de rêve

“Their eyelids keep the shade.
No harm can come to them.
We cast out skins and slide
Into another time.”

- The Sleepers, Sylvia Plath

What an amazing year for cinema – it's not even November and I've already seen so many wonderful films from 2011. “Sleeping Beauty” was one of those which were the most anticipated by me. This year we have two movies dealing with the subject of sexuality and shame assigned to it, apart from that there is “Shame” - both stories seem to be portrayed in the same, cold and detached way.

Barely 22- year old Emily Browning who ever since “Sucker Punch” is a permanent star of male fantasies takes on one of the most courageous roles I've seen here. For most part she is either naked, degraded, humiliated, licked or touched by old men and during all of that she must appear as if she was sleeping. For any viewer watching this film is not one of the most pleasant things in the world – the story deals with sex, but there is something so repulsive about what we're seeing. Sexual practices shown in the movie are perverse and shameful and if shame was ever the prime emotion to feel it should be for the men who used Lucy's “services” and not for Brandon, the main character of “Shame”, who whilst being a sex addict doesn't depict fetishes so weird I can't comprehend them.

Saturday TV Special: American Horror Story

Plot: Cheating husband, resentful wife and their teenage daughter move to a new house. But the house has secrets - last owners died, there is a kinky latex suit in the attic, the neighbors are strange, the wallpaper covers creepy paintings and the basement...don't even get me started on the basement.
Structure: The story takes place in haunted house and in the beginning of each episode we see one of the horrible things that happened there. Then there is creepy opening sequence and after that - let the scary begin! 
Verdict: I'm so happy.Horror is my favorite genre and I love TV series - and apart from "Twin Peaks" which isn't even a horror series nothing on TV scared me. Until I saw first two episodes of American Horror Story. It's certainly the best new show and I haven't waited for next episode that badly since "Lost" was on air. Scary, edgy, unique and interesting "American Horror Story" is horror at its finest. I'm not often scared - but if I watch the show in full daylight and still have to switch off full screen and turn down the volume, then you know it's surious.

The Tree of Life

(139 min, 2011)
Director: Terrence Malick
Writer: Terrence Malick
Stars: Brad Pitt, Sean Penn and Jessica Chastain  

Come, watch the tree grow!

“I didn't at all find on the screen the emotion of the script, which is the most magnificent one that I've ever read. A clearer and more conventional narrative would have helped the film without, in my opinion, lessening its beauty and its impact. Frankly, I'm still trying to figure out what I'm doing there and what I was supposed to add in that context! What's more, Terry himself never managed to explain it to me clearly."
- Sean Penn

Watching “Tree of life”, Terence Mallick's recent movie and the winner of this year Palme d'Or reminded me of the scene from “Clerks 2” where Randall criticizes “Lord of the rings “and states this movie was only about bunch of people walking. Oh, how I love to hear his thoughts on this film. Ambitious and unique, “The tree of life” is also insufferable and dull. It's like walking into art gallery – beautiful images, various pictures, stunning colors. Except in the gallery you have freedom – you can go around as you please, chose directions. Watching this movie is like being in the car with Terrence Mallick and he is driving. The only way out is jumping out and had I seen this movie in theaters, I'd jump out of the cinema after about 40 minutes.

I'm not a fan of Mallick's films, the only one I enjoy is “Thin red line”. But even with boring mess like “The new world”. Mallick's films always had plot and richly painted characters. “Tree of life” lacks both. One can't disagree with Penn – the longer the movie lasts, the more it unravels. I couldn't care less about the people on screen. Mallick yet again spends so much time showing nature, but the movie is almost offensive in praising it – it is not worthy of even talking about it. Nature is full of life, fascinating, always changing, restless. “Tree of life” is the opposite of that – it's the movie so boring I'd recommend watching it to my worst enemy.

First trailer for Steve McQueen's Shame

I waited for "Shame" ever since I read the script, the trailer is so amazing it makes me even more eager to see it. Last time I was that hyped to see a movie was last year with "Black Swan" and seeing how much I enjoyed Steve McQueen's directorial debut "Hunger" and how much I love Michael Fassbender I'm sure "Shame" will not disappoint. There are very few good trailers that were released this year and this one is among them, it includes mesmerizing original score for the film.

Secretary

(104 min, 2002)
Director: Steven Shainberg
Writers: Erin Cressida Wilson (screenplay), Mary Gaitskill (short story)
Stars: James Spader, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Jeremy Davies
Plot: Lee Holloway is a smart, quirky woman in her twenties who returns to her hometown in Florida after a brief stay in a mental hospital. In search of relief from herself and her oppressive childhood environment, she starts to date a nerdy friend from high school and takes a job as a secretary in a local law firm, soon developing an obsessive crush on her older boss, Mr. Grey. Through their increasingly bizarre relationship, Lee follows her deepest longings to the heights of masochism and finally to a place of self-affirmation.

Spank me harder

“In one way or another I've always suffered. I didn't know why exactly. But I do know that I'm not so scared of suffering now. I feel more than I've ever felt and I've found someone to feel with. To play with. To love in a way that feels right for me. I hope he knows that I can see that he suffers too. And that I want to love him.“

There are not many movies I saw that portray love accurately. In fact, the feeling itself is so grand, that only movies which show some aspects of it exist and the fact they managed to capture them is already a great achievement – there is longing (“Brokeback Mountain”), desire (“Mulholland Drive”), sweetness (“Amelie”), purity of the feeling (”The Village”) and fragility of it (“Closer”). And now “Secretary” shows beautifully another aspect of love, perhaps the most crucial one – the sense that the one you love knows what you are going through and understands you completely.


“Is it that sometimes the pain inside has to come to the surface, and when you see evidence of the pain inside you finally know you're really here? Then, when you watch the wound heal, it's comforting... isn't it? “