Intermittent Rant

I saw two really great movies today. The first one was The Cloud-Capped Star, an old Bengali film from the 60’s. It’s about this young woman from a middle class family fallen on hard times and how she struggles to keep them going. Her faith in her brother and in the beaux that is courting her compels her to do all that she can to keep them in their innocence. She ends up quitting school and getting a job to support her family. But somehow they all turn on her. It’s a clash between Romantic ideals and the real world. It’s almost Madame Bovary-esque. It reminded me of my mother.

The second film was The Man Who Copied. It’s playing in select theaters now and well worth seeing. Since I saw City of God – another great film — a couple of years ago, I felt compelled to see this as it seems that a lot of great films have come out of Brazil in the last few years. It’s about a guy who operates a copy machine in a little shop, a guy that earns peanuts and spends his time spying on a girl through her window with his binoculars. He eventually falls in love and tries to pursue her. That’s where I’m leaving off…trust me, it’s a great film. And very smart.