ocar movies

I watched a few movies that were nominated in the Oscar recently. Here are my views...

Away from her

This movie, where Julie Christie was nominated for Best Actress, is about an aging woman who starts to lose her memory. Not wanting to impose too much on her husband, she checks herself into an old age home. The home has a policy, that no guest can visit the patients during the 1st month. This is to enable them to settle into the new environment. However, when the husband went to see her after a month is over, he found out that she had forgotten about him and has formed a close bond with a fellow patient. She now sees her husband as a peculiar guest that visits her everyday. This slow movie is basically just showing how different people are affected by her attachment to the other patient (I can't remember their character names). Julie Christie is an actress that i'm not too familiar with, however she impressed me with her beauty (at that age) and her acting... very subtle and sad... This is a movie about undying love, from her husband, and how scary it is when you're old and losing your memory.

The Diving bell and the butterfly

Another movie about loss is this beautifully shot movie, about the editor of Elle magazine, Jean-Dominique Bauby. He suffered a stroke when he was 42 and thus suffered 'lock-in-syndrome' where he can only communicate by blinking his left eyelid. From his restrictions, he was still able to write a book about his life, his memoirs. This memoir is then made into this movie. Along the way, the audience is given shots of the movie in his view, thus seeing what he is seeing...however this is done nicely and beautifully unlike the vomit-inducing Cloverfield. You will see flashbacks about his life, his family and his love, the mistress...not the poor wife. This movie was nominated for Best foreign film as the whole movie is in french. Beautiful movie that u have to watch.

La Vie en Rose

This movie is about the life of another famous French, Edith Piaf. The actress that played Edith won Best Actress at the Oscar's and while watching the movie, its not hard to see why. She morphed from an aspiring singer to a drugged addicted ruined body. Edith died young with liver cancer and throughout her life, she depended on alcohol and morphine to support her pain and body, to go on stage and sing. And sing she can like nobody can. What a voice and how much passion. The only complaint i have about the movie was that the sequences of her life are all jumbled up. I get lost sometimes wondering which part of her life is this etc. As the whole movie focus on her, sometimes i am left wondering who are the people around her. Anyway, the movie is great because of Marion Cortillard, the actress that played Edith. Its a role that's bound to win awards. Just catch the scene where she found out that her only love, Marcel the married boxer, died in a plane crash while on the way to see her. It's heart-breaking.