PAN'S LABYRINTH. It's 1944 Spain, and 13-year-old Ofelia, along with her pregnant mother, is traveling to the countryside. They are going to live with Ofelia's new stepfather, a Captain in the Spanish fascist army. They are stationed in the country at an outpost that exists to fight the anti-fascist rebels that still remain from the civil war. The Captain is not only a fascist, but a brutal, sadistic man. And Ofelia's mother is having a bad pregnancy, and is on bedrest. So Ofelia escapes into fantasy, into a world where she is a formerly immortal princess, who can return to her underground kingdom if she just completes three tasks. The movie parallels the two stories, real life with the Captain terrorizing the local populace, and the people fighting him, and Ofelia's fantasies. The visuals in the fantasy are fabulous, and the both stories are gripping. I found the ending very moving. I loved this movie, my favorite 2006 movie. THE PAINTED VEIL. Edward Norton is a late 19th century doctor, in love with Naomi Watts, who is a spoiled bored-with-life upper class socialite. He proposes, and she actually accepts, just to get away from her mother (who annoys Naomi by going on about what a lost cause Naomi is). Naomi doesn't love Edward, and he knows it, but hopes things will get better. He takes her to Shanghai, where once again she is bored with her life. She starts behaving badly, and Edward finds about about it, and he starts behaving badly too. In revenge, he takes her to a small village in China that is suffering a cholera epidemic. Of course, they will begin to see each other through new eyes. It sounds a bit corny, but I believed that people could act the way they act, the actors are really quite good, and it's all very emotional at the end. And the scenery is gorgeous. My only quibble is that although Naomi is a really good actress, I really think the part should have been played by someone a bit younger. But overall I liked this old-fashioned movie.
CHILDREN OF MEN. The movie opens with a newcast announcing the death of the world's youngest person. It's the year 2027, and no woman has given birth for 18 years (not sure why). The rest of the world has completely fallen apart (I guess because there is no hope if there are no children), and England survives in a kind of Blade Runner atmosphere, nasty and polluted. Immigrants are hunted and locked up; the borders are closed. Clive Owen plays Theo, a former political activist who, after a family tragedy, has taken to drink and not giving a shit about much of anything. One day he is kidnapped by the resistance, and asked to help obtain forged traveling papers for an illegal. He does, for the money, but ends up having to accompany the illegal, while they are chased by both the government and the anti-government forces, who want to use the illegal for their own purposes. I had really high expectations for this movie, which is maybe a problem, because I didn't find it all that compelling or optimistic. It's only 90 minutes, but felt much longer to me, and I just didn't identify with the issues. For an interesting take on the movie versus the book it was based on, check out Neva Chonin's column at http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/01/21/PKGMKLMK981.DTL&hw=children+Chonin&sn=001&sc=1000
SWEET LAND. This movie opens in present day, with an old woman passing away. Then it goes back to the 60's, when her husband passes away. Finally, the bulk of the movie takes place in WWI-era farm country, probably someplace like Minnesota. A young Norwegian man has asked his parents to send him a bride, and they send him a German girl. Who doesn't speak much English. The community is not supportive, I guess because Germans were considered threats during WWI. Because the couple can't get married (the pastor won't permit it), she goes to live with a neighbor friend of his. But she perserveres, and they do eventually develop a relationship. There's not more to it. This is a very small movie, a slice of life character study.
CATCH AND RELEASE. This romantic comedy stars Jennifer Garner as a young woman whose fiance has died on the eve of their wedding. While acting as the executor of his will, she finds out things about him that she didn't know, which upsets her view of their relationship. She hangs out with his best friends and slowly recovers. Yada yada yada. There are some small hints of bigger ideas in the movie - i.e., do we ever really know someone, and how often do we let our loved ones see our true selves, but they aren't really well developed. There's not that much comedy, nor that much romance, so I'd give this one a pass. Not horrible, but nothing special.
