DesertTalkies Film Reviews!

  Golden Blood (Talad Khoon)  [2022] Direction by Ebrahim Sheibani  Starring: Zahra Hatami, Shahab Hosseini & Bahar Ghasemi Language: Farsi I often hear that China is going to be the next superpower, or that India will have its golden age soon. But I think people are ignoring that Iran is the next big thing in terms of film (I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again).  Anything that has been done by a director in the western world has probably been done by an Iranian director. The difference is that Farsi movies are three times more intense, five times more poignant, and ten times better to watch. I’m a Farsi movie convert, everybody, what can I say.  What I realized from this movie in particular was that class divide. I’ve mentioned it before whilst talking about Farsi movies, but it is very interesting how all the Farsi movies have coincidentally looked at class divide, whatever plot the movie may have. Iranian Farsi movies have done such an excellent job ...

 I have been doing some English Summer Homework, and then I realised that it may be interesting to reflect on all the films I have reviewed on this page, and remember what dialogues I have found the most impactful - so that's what I'm doing right now.  'I don't want realism. I want magic! Yes, yes, magic! I try to give that to people. I misrepresent things to them. I don't tell the truth, I tell what ought to be the truth. And it that's sinful, then let me be damned for it!' - A Streetcar Named Desire  'It's not the cancer that kills them. It's the fear.'  - The Farewell 'A reverend once told me, 'When things that are too dangerous to say, sing.'  - Elvis Anita: ‘And no one will ever forgive him.’ Maria: ‘Will you?’ Anita: ‘You can’t ever ask me that.’ - West Side Story ‘When children have been away from home for too long, they forget who they are.’ Crazy Rich Asians  ‘Shahabuddin! Ao dekho, apne beabrui ka yeh tamasha dekho!’  [S...

  Past Lives [2023]  Starring Greta Lee, Teo Yoo, John Maguro Direction by Celine Song  Languages: Korean, English Can we all agree that A24 is the best? Lady Bird, Everything Everywhere All At Once, and now this!  I am finally in the US, which means that I can actually see a variety of movies in the theatre (film in my area is very heavily censored). And of course the first one I went to see was Past Lives. I was told my one of my friends here that ‘Past Lives’ broke her - her experience of immigration to the US was plagued with ‘What Ifs’ that resurfaced after she had seen this movie. And whilst that wasn’t the case for me, the movie was pretty good.  I found that my experience of watching this movie was very similar to what I faced watching La La Land. As is often the case with these long, very artsy romance movies, the movie ends and I think the movie was decent. However, as time passes, the storyline starts to build, and you start to connect all the dots to...

 Whitney Houston:  I Wanna Dance With Somebody [2022] Starring: Naomi Ackie, Nafessa Williams, Clarke Peters Dorection by Kasi Lemmons Language: English And here is the third and final installment of my airplane movie watching. This movie first came on my radar in December of 2022, but I never got the chance to watch it because I was on holiday when it was in theatres, and the country I was visiting wasn't showing the film. By the time I got back, the movie had swiftly exited the movie timetables. This flight was my chance. I have been obsessed with Whitney Houston for years, and I thought it was high time that a biopic came out celebrating her life. I don't care what the critics have said, but I loved this movie. And any true Whitney fan would love it too.  Everyone knows Whitney Houston, one of the biggest music stars in the 1980s and 1990s in the US. A figurehead for African-American representation in the music industry, Houston broke all sorts of records to ascend to ...

 Bi-Madar [2022] Starring: Pejman Jamshidi, Mitra Hajjar, Amir Aghaee Director: Seyyed Morteza Fatemi Language: Farsi 'A finger is sometimes cut by a blade, sometimes with a piece of glass, sometimes with a knife, sometimes with a piece of paper. But all bruises are different from one another. Some cuts are a never-healing pain.' If this little snippet doesn't give you an idea of what this movie is like, I don't know what will.  Nobody knows how to show class divide in a film like the Iranians. Here's installment two of me watching foreign language movies on my flight.  One would think that motherhood is universal, and this movie, if anything, proves that. The story follows Amirali and Marjane, a wealthy couple living in urban Iran. Marjane longs for motherhood, whilst Amirali is passionately against it. However, this changes when Marjane finds a surrogate, Mahrouz, who is a poor, single woman trying to escape from an abusive relationship with her brother whilst sim...

 Love Life [2022] Starring: Fumino Kimura, Kento Nagayama, Atom Sunada Direction by Koji Fukada Language: Japanese Watching this movie was a product of a) not knowing what else to watch on the plane on the way to my vacation, b) knowing that I would like to start watching movies in languages I have not had experiences with, and c) being too tired to sleep. My first perception of the movie was very different to what I actually thought of it - the movie's poster on my seat's screen was quite colourful, whereas the film explored pretty dark themes of failed marriages and relationships, familial issues, and premature deaths with a lack of acceptance. It was very strange, because I feel like there was nothing completely stand out about the movie: nothing really excelled (in my opinion), but the direction was very cohesive and so everything came together quite nicely. Sometimes, a good watch is not something that has to be 'the best', but something that is good overall.  This...

THE LAST QUEEN [2022] Starring: Adila Bendimerad, Dali Benssalah, Nadia Tereszkiewicz, Imen Nouel Direction by Adila Bendimerad & Damien Ounouri Language: Arabic I can't lie: I tend not to enjoy historical films when they are set in time periods before the mid-1850s. I don't know why: it's just a personal preference, I guess. But the timings worked out for me so I went to see it. My only real motivation was the fact that the movie centered around a woman, unafraid to challenge stereotypes. Seeing characters like this on the big screen is always fun - and I am grateful that I dragged myself to see the movie, because it was amazing.  The film, set in early 16th century Algiers, follows the story of the pirate Barbarossa, masquerading as a 'liberator' Aruj, as he tries to convert Muslim land to Christianity. He penetrates into high Algiers society, but, he must overcome obstacles to reach his goal: most notably Queen Zaphira, the wife of the late King Salim Toumani...