filmic fems

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I’m in love with a girl—well, enchanted. In my next life, I’m coming back as Lale (age 11 or so) in the Turkish film “Mustang” (2016), played by Günes Sensoy (4 shots there). If you haven’t seen it, you absolutely must (especially if you’re a girl-woman).

A movie that feels profound to me, but evidently considered obscure by reviewers (though it was very well received critically) is the Spanish film “Sex and Lucia” (2001), written and directed by Julio Medem, which is about creative process and the risk of madness for the fictionist who must figure out a way to turn his affection for Magical Realism into a product for money. If you haven’t seen it, you must. (The official trailer is misleading—a marketing gimmick—as if the film is about eroticism; it’s not.)

Then, you must see Medem’s fabulous “Ma Ma” (2016), which he did with Penelope Cruz: They both produced it, Medem wrote and directed it, and she stars. It is truly wonderful (including the intentionally sappy song—which is simply, yet profoundly valid—that turns up in it). When Cruz’s character makes a little video by talking into her smartphone, it’s overwhelming. (The blond orphan from Siberia in “Ma Ma“ is the magical return of the 4 year-old daughter from “Sex and Lucia." Medem has a “thing" about the daughter who needs a father.)

Those three were streamed. In a theater, I saw “Phantom Thread,” very worth seeing. It’s evidently the last film that Daniel Day-Lewis was to do before he retired. The bizarre love between the old fashion designer and the girl-woman model becomes truly original.

Beyond that—and normal life management—I’m doing project development, as briefly indicated at today’s (3/24) update note for gedavis.com. (I’ve also done things too bizarre to indicate briefly.)

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