Saturday, January 3, 2009

Blame it on Fidel

I love foreign films. I don't watch enough of them to really speak to them on a level like I do the Coen or Tarantino films, but I do enjoy them for the most part. Maybe it's because I like reading subtitles, which stems from my love of silent films ... it's like going to the library while watching a film. I don't really like dubbed foreign films. There are a few good ones, but for the most part, I prefer subtitles.

Blame it on Fidel is a French film. Why do all the european films have the cutest kids? Bruno in The Bicycle Thief, the kid in Life in Beautiful ... well, Blame it on Fidel has Anna. She has well to do parents, lives in a beautiful house with a staff, a nanny from Cuba who destests what happened when Fidel took over, went to a hoity toidy private nun's school. Well, her parents decided to chuck it all away to become left wing activists. Leave the house for a small apartment. This movie is about how Anna must adapt and interpret what her parents are doing in the name of group solidarity. The little girl who played Anna was terrific. Her dad starts organizing revolutionaries to support Allende in Chile ... my history studies did me well in this instance ... Allende is the main reason that Henry Kissinger can't travel the world freely anymore ... interesting, the CIA wasn't even mentioned in the assassination of Allende, which was probably done to not open up another can of worms, ugh.

All in all, a great interpretation of early 70's Paris and all the political turmoil that was involved from a child's perspective and how even the adults don't have it all together ideologically.

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