Shadowlands

I watched a movie and it is called Shadowlands, directed by Richard Attenborough, released in 1993. It stars Anthony Hopkins, Debra Winger and Edward Hardwicke. It is the story of the later part of professor and author C.S. Lewis’s life with his wife, Joy and how her death challenges his faith. It is an interesting movie in that it portrays Lewis as a man of particular traits and habits until he gets a letter from a woman in America that challenges him at every turn when they meet. It treats their story as something organic and indeed it builds and ebbs and flows in such a way that doesn’t seem forced in a movie conventional way. I’m not sure how much of it is truly based on their lives (as with all “true stories” kinds of movies and generally how people remember things) but it seemed genuine enough to me. I am familiar with C. S. Lewis through his critical work rather than the Narnia books. In fact, I owe him a debt of gratitude as his book, Miracles, helped me write a paper about the subject and get a decent grade on it at one of the colleges that I was attending while attempting to get my Master in Philosophy.
Attenborough uses an economy of shots but still using long takes of faces and places that really convey the human spirit of this movie. The acting is superb all around, from Hopkin’s Lewis being so aloof and so intellectual, Winger being so humble, abrasive but so loving after having such a terrible previous marriage, their chemistry so believable. The score is light and not at all overbearing.
I had seen this movie a few years ago on cable and was captivated by it and spent a number of years trying to find it again (I suppose it is out of print or something) because I didn’t get to finish it. I finally did and I feel better for it.
Like I said before, it may or may not hold true facts here and there but it might be a nice little movie to watch, if you are interested in some love story, heavy drama and want to see a little of what C.S. Lewis might’ve been like. Get some tissues though, fair warning.

Killing Zoe

I watched a movie and it was called Killing Zoe, directed by Roger Avary, released in 1993. It stars Eric Stoltz, Julie Delpy and Jean-Hughes Anglade. It is a story about Zed, played by Stoltz, who comes to France to assist his childhood friend, Eric, played by Anglade in what turns out to be a bank heist on Bastille Day and Zed is Eric’s safecracker. Will the heist go well?

This is another one of those films I spoke of before in my review of Four Rooms (http://movedbymovingimages.blogspot.com/2015/01/four-rooms.html), from the golden period of the 1990’s when independent films were making a comeback. This particular film, I feel, fell under the radar and got lost in the Pulp Fictions and Desperados and dare I say, Reservoir Dogs before that. This is a pretty simple bank heist movie, granted, but what makes it unique from other bank heist movies is that it takes place in France, and that the only professional is Zed. We really don’t know about any of his counterparts other than Eric, who is his friend and that becomes shady after the first 20 minutes he is on screen. He is a wild card of a person, played masterfully by Jean-Hughes Anglade and his character is quite morally ambiguous to say the least, compared to the more down to Earth Zed. Zed is calm and just there, not really joining in but still a part of the job, basically going along with it because it is a job; aloof, some might say.  Stoltz makes Zed likable from the moment he gets in the cab in the very first scene he is in. Julie Delpy plays Zoe, who is a prostitute escort that the French cab driver, Maurice, sets Zed up with. She is very pretty and plays her part well. For the record, this is the first time I saw her on screen, in a movie so any movie she has been in since, I always think of this movie. She has a heart and is very human in her acting style. All of the other players, the robbers, are played with vigor as well. You get a sense of how screwed up they are and how very nonprofessional this job is going to be right from the beginning. The music by TomandAndy is sparse but used in a great way to raise tension, though the most intense scenes have no music which works so well. Most of the movie takes place in the bank and though you might think that is boring, it makes for a nail biter for sure.
When I saw this originally, back in the 90’s, I thought it was gold. I still think it holds up because it is so different, very hard and not sentimental. It isnt nihilistic as the dvd cover would have you believe. It is dark in some ways because it is a bank heist movie. 
If you want to see a different kind of bank heist movie, don’t mind some French (with subtitles) and like that 90’s independent period, I think you will like this. Hell, just give it a look because it’s so underrated.