Agata and The Storm

There are qualities great Italian movies share : a gentleness of the unexpected, an acceptance among people of one another’s foibles, an absense of guns and car chases, rich vibrant colors and a kind of electricity.

In ‘Agata and The Storm,’ Agata ( Licia Maglietta) actually crackles with energy, shorting out her computer, hair dryer, and inumerable lights. All of this is treated lightly, with a shrug and a sigh; before the real business of life and the film’s story moves on. Agata has taken a lover 10 years her junior; her architect brother discovers he is adopted. This draws Agata into her brothers new and eclectic family.

There are many things to love about this film. One of its great strengths must be its ability to fascinate despite frequent feelings of disgust — at the violences, the degradations. Another strength is the narrative’s Karmatic parable — one reaps what one sows.

Most of all I admire the language. This, of course, is the work of the novel’s author, Antony Burgess. The language sounds like a blend of rhyming cockney, street Russian and Hobbit-speak. Burgess’s language for Alex DeLarge and his three ‘droogs’ is called ’Nadsat’ .  My old paperback copy of the novel has a dictionary in the back. There are aso online dictionaries with word derivation theories. For example:

Horrorshow means Good, well  from Russian: khorosho/good
Groody means Breast from Russian: grud/breast

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One of my favorite scenes is when Roberto in his role as a poet lectures his university class on the importance of choosing words carefully. He gives a similar talk to his daughters when they ask why he became a poet. He tells them about a wonderous experience he had as a small boy but was unable to express to his mother. This made him think:

“There must be people whose job it is to use the right words, put things in a way who when their hearts beat, can get other people’s hearts to beat. That day I decided to become a poet… If the words aren’t right, nothing is right.”

This is the only one of his films available today on Netflix instant. Many others are available from Netflix as DVDs or will soon be.

Red Ink (2000)  The story is taken from the novel by Alberto Fuguet. Set in Santiago this grainy film follows a close-knit troup of police reporters. Alfonso joins ‘El Clamour’ as a university intern who wants to become a novelist. Alfonso grows into his new profession, triumphs and in the process comes to face some troubling aspects of his own personality.

In America, especially today,  the phrase ‘Red Ink’ is associated with financial loss; but here it refers to a sensational tabloid headline.

Search Netflix instant with Flicks-Now.com using ‘Spain’ to find this and other similar movies.

Tinta Roja is taken from the novel by Alberto Fuguet, a Chilean writer who is the founder of the literary movement ‘McOndo’. The name comes from his article, “I am not a Magic Realist!”  .

“Unlike the ethereal world of García Márquez’s imaginary Macondo, my own world is something much closer to what I call “McOndo” — a world of McDonald’s, Macintoshes and condos.” — Salon.com (June 1997). ”

I am now reading his novel — appropos to this blog “The Movies Of My Life” which tells the story of a seismologist who has the epiphany he must review the 50 greatest movies he has seen. We should add the list to Flicks-Now as a kind of web-addendum – autolinked to their Netflix DVD and instant plays.

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We built Flicks-Now so we could find the movies we wanted to watch on the Netflix instant site. In the past few weeks I have found and watched a series of great Spanish language films.

Butterfly: A great Spanish (sub-titled) film about the relationship between a boy and his teacher during the Spanish civil war.

The Method: Recruitment interview from heaven and hell – 5 Stars. Also Spanish – set in stylish modern day Madrid. The interview becomes a tense contest pitting the seven, or are there only six, applicants against one another.

 Arcibel’s Game:  An Argentinian film about a journalist whose article about chess gets him jailed as a political prisoner — for life !

and last night:

Sex and Lucia:  Tales intertwined with the love life of a Madrid watress. One of the most sexually charged films I have ever see. The plot was confusing but with its hot steamy themes and beautiful people this films keeps moving.  Directed by Julio Medem, who also directed ‘Lovers Of The Artic Circle’ .. also available with this Flicks-Now search … another restless Latin love story.

Mi Mejor Enemigo: I found this gem using this Flicks-Now search. At the outbreak of the war between Argentina and Chile a group of Chilean soldiers are sent into the wilds of Patagonia to defend a very lonely border. They become lost, adopt a dog when they encounter six Argentinean soldiers everyone digs in — twelve tense soldiers in two trenches facing one another — otherwise alone and lost on the vast and empty plain. The Chilean’s stray dog is soon running between the two trenches. Don’t miss this one.