Movies

In the past 2 days I've seen 3 new movies. Not much else has been going on, so I'll write about them. The first was "Sexo con amor," (Sex with Love) a recent Chilean movie that we actually had to watch for our Chile & Globalization class. I thought it was an interesting commentary on marriages and on infidelity. Though its a really, really funny movie, ultimately the message is pretty depressing: while the movie's called "sex with love," none of the people who are having sex are in love, and none of the people who are in love are having sex. Anyways, its a really enjoyably trashy movie, and we couldn't stop laughing when we were watching it. I was pretty surprised that a movie with so much sex in it was allowed to be produced in conservative, Catholic Chile. Over 1,000 movies, ranging from The passion of the Christ to Monty Python to certain Pedro Almodóvar movies, have been banned here.

Second was Citizen Kane, which we had to watch for our Historia Cine class. I was glad to have seen it, since there are some movies which are such a big part of American culture and history that you just really should see them, and this is definitely one of them. That said, I didn't particularly enjoy it.

Last night Jon, Kati, and I watched a movie that Jon had recommended, "Nirgendwo in Afrika" (Nowhere in Africa). This movie is about a Jewish family who leaves Nazi Germany to settle in Kenya. The introduction in itself is amazing...scenes of the main character, a little girl, sledding in the snow with wealthy German contrasted with scenes of her and her family arriving in the 'outback' of Kenya. We kept talking about what an incredible childhood this would have been for her...to grow up in both Nazi Germany and in Kenya, to speak German, English, and Kiswahili, to wear little white dresses while making mud pies with Kenyan children, to return to post-war Germany knowing only life in Africa. This was an amazing movie, I really recommend it!