
I'm on a bit of a Ingmar Bergman kick lately. I watched Fannie & Alexander a few months ago, then Cries & Whispers, and last night I watched Persona. I highly recommend seeing any of these films, they're all astonishing (C&W is probably my fave).
Next I've got Hour of the Wolf coming, which sounds really fascinating - it's Bergman's take on a Gothic horror movie in the "scary woods", and it sounds as if it's a love-it-or-hate-it kinda thing. Roger Ebert says,
"... if we allow the images to slip past the gates of logic and enter the deeper levels of our mind, and if we accept Bergman's horror story instead of questioning it, Hour of the Wolf works magnificently. So delicate is the wire it walks, however, that the least hostility from the audience can push it across into melodrama. But it isn't that."
Anyway, being on a Bergman kick exposes you to a lot of Liv Ullmann, and I think I'm sort of obsessed with her right now. She's got one of the most amazing, expressive faces I think I've ever seen, and watching her just makes one realize what a sad, sorry lot of "actresses" we celebrate here in the U.S. these days.

I should've known it'd be Manohla Dargis at the NY Times that'd gotten me thinking lately about how much better foreign actresses usually are - in a Q&A Dargis wrote recently, she said,
She specifically points out Juliette Binoche in Cache, which I couldn't agree with more - Binoche makes Best Actress Oscar front-runner Reese Witherspoon look like a little girl playing dress-up.
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"I sound like a broken record, a broken record, a broken record…but American movies are now, overwhelmingly, made by men for men, which means that they are also primarily vehicles for male acting talent. There are still great female roles and performances, mind you, but you may need to travel through world cinema to find them."
She specifically points out Juliette Binoche in Cache, which I couldn't agree with more - Binoche makes Best Actress Oscar front-runner Reese Witherspoon look like a little girl playing dress-up.
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