Production Year: 2004 - Drama - Director: Nick Cassavetes - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over, 12 years and over - Starring: Rachel McAdams, Ryan Gosling, Gena Rowlands
Drama - Original Language: English - Classification: 12 years and over - Starring: Shelagh Fraser, Barbara Flynn, Keith Drinkel, Felicity Kendal, Pam Ferris, Colin Douglas
Advantages: A visual masterpiece Disadvantages: Overlong and slighly naff
for bigger and better things as her portrayal in both movies received such acclaim; however she rejected Hollywood and stuck with smaller roles in Italian cinema.
Ian Charleson is probably best remembered for his role of Eric in Chariots of Fire and also stared in hits like Car Trouble with Julie Walters and Greystoke. Charleson was more of a stage presence and was told that his performance of Hamlet was the best that Sir Ian McKellen had ever seen. Charleson openly came out as being gay no sooner had Chariots of Fire hit the screen. When he accepted the Role in Terror at the Opera he was feeling quite ill and realised that something was seriously wrong. Charleson vowed to do something far removed from his previous work and was a big fan of Dario Argento so continued with the project. Shortly after filming he fell even more ill was diagnosed ...
Advantages: A very moving film, historically accurate Disadvantages: The politics of the Spanish Civil War very were complicated, so may be a little confusing
seemed a little wooden, but I don't think this is down to Ian Hart playing him badly - imagine you are in a foreign country in 1936, you can't speak the language and you're surrounded by very passionate people. I think that this is part of the character, that he isn't entirely at ease in Spain, at least not to begin with.
One thing which many people may not like is the language. The dialogue of Land and Freedom takes place in a mixture of Catalan, Spanish and English, with subtitles in English where relevant. Personally I love this aspect of the film as I speak Spanish so I had no problems following it, and even so subtitles don't bother me. I liked the mixture of languages and the switching between them. I also feel that this is a very accurate device - many of the militia members would have been native Catalan speakers, while a young ...
Advantages: Intelligent and moving drama Disadvantages: A little bit of political knowledge can help
with the ordinary peasants who in the past had look up to it for moral leadership.
Allen himself was a committed left winger and was keen to show how in the end the hopes of the young men like Carr were dashed by a lack of focus and agreement on their part as to how progress the struggle as well as in more general terms by the betrayal of Stalin who in the end had probably more in common with the fascist aspirations of Franco and Hitler than the socialist ideals of Carr and his comrades.
As always Loach was keen to get make the film as close to the truth as possible and he instils a great sense of realism in the direction by being economic with cuts letting the story flow naturally and giving the scenes a gritty documentary feel. The dialogue sounds natural and Loach lets the Spanish speak in their own voice so that there are subtitles in some ...
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