Kate Winslet had a good year with this and Holy Smoke – like Holy Smoke, this movie’s quite stunningly evocative of its subject matter, and, like Holy Smoke, that subject matter is primarily religion. The summaries I’d read of the plot were misleading, suggesting some part of the story occuring in London or somewhere between there and Morocco, whereas in fact most of the movie takes place in Morocco, and the entire movie is located at least nearby. The two girls who play Winslet’s daughters are incredibly cute, even though they speak at times in that stilted “school play” mode of speech. They’re really the stars of the movie, bringing laughs and tears in equal amounts. Like I said, the movie’s extremely evocative – Winslet mentions this quality of the book in some interviews on the DVD, so I guess they got it right: the colours and sounds truly leap out of the opening scenes, and you can practically smell Marrakesh. This movie also has one of the creepiest nightmare sequences I’ve ever seen, it’s damn near perfect at representing the weird sensation of the weird things that happen in the dream world. Really, truly, a beautiful movie I can’t wait to see again. I don’t know why I love these type of movies (thinking of things like Riding in Cars with Boys and Jersey Girl and I Am Sam) – I mean I know there’s a logic behind it, my mum had to deal with me and my brother for a few years after my dad died, but I don’t even remember that period of time … so I guess it’s just on some subconscious level I’m being reminded, or just appreciating what my mum had to deal with. I don’t know. But I love these kinds of movies.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 20th, 2005 at 2:13 am in 4 hearts, Movie Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.