I can't remember the last time I saw a good movie, for two reasons: I'm not watching movies that much (work and personal life), and the very few I'd watched are barely decent.
The last movie I saw was for a Mexican director: C. Reygadas. I became interested in Mexican cinema after seeing some works for young directors like Inarritu (Love's a Bitch, 21 grams, and Babel) and G. Del Toro (Pan's Labyrinth). Both directors aren't superb but credit has to be given for they are miles ahead the current American blockbuster cinema. Between the two, Inarritu is the best... the last three works he did dance around one theme: absurdity of life (death) . Though this theme is over-consumed in European cinema (Kieslowski before, and recently Tykwer, Almodovar....) but the "Mexican" approach is worth checking.
The first, Amores Perros, lives of random people intersect around one car accident
The second, "21 grams": random lives change after a heart-transplant surgery...
The third, "Babel": four stories intersect after a tourist being accidentally shot by a kid
The three movies has a non-linear narrative that make them a bit more interesting, though the three works don't really go that high above a decent Hollywood movie (Babel and 21 g being better than his first work).
With Del Toro, though Pan's Labyrinth was a good movie, the rest of his work (like Hellboy) didn't go beyond video-games level.
Back to Reygadas, it's interesting how a lot of directors build a reputation by irritating audience, shocking people...etc yet with minimal (like M. Haneke) or absolutely nothing (like our Reygadas here) to say.
Battle in Heaven is the last movie I saw.... the movie was famous for its opening scene: an ugly fat middle-aged man being blown by a young naked pretty girl (no censure whatsoever), the camera pans around the couple (white background, no definite space or time) and then zooms in on the girl's teary eyes. The movie is a collection of scenes that almost don't move the narrative any where, with plenty of scenes contrasting fat ugly women and men with skinny beautiful ones (something the director seems to focus on). The movie is about a blue-collar couple trying to hide the fact that the kid they kidnapped died (with all the action occurring off-screen), the male after confessing to a young girl he knows, ends up killing her and escaping to a church.
Overall a major disappointing work, and the 43% on RT website seems too much.
