We all know Jennifer Lawrence, the brilliant actress who conquered Hollywood and stars at The Hunger Games movies, but do you know the books are - without doubt - much better entertainment? The Hunger games is a trilogy by American author Suzanne Collins. The story begins in a future time in a dystopian post-apocalyptic society called Panem. It’s based on a far-reached model of capitalism where the poorer Districts are ruled by the wealthy Capitol. There are 12 Districts, and every District has to give up a Tribute to fight to the death in a televised Arena. One boy and one girl of every district has to go. Every child under 18 can be chosen. Why? Because once there was a District 13 who led a rebellion, and the Capitol can’t let that happen again. The Hunger Games keep everyone living in fear and they use the games as a weapon against the people but also as a promise: the winner gives his district food and money for the rest of the year, and he/she can live in prosperity and fame for the rest of his/her life. This cocktail of the deadly adventures in the arena, the suspense of the fights, the doomed love affair and the losses of family and friends will keep you drunk until you’ve read the last page of the last book! The quote of President Snow, the ruler of Panem, explains this all: “War, terrible war. Widows, orphans, a motherless child. This was the uprising that rocked our land. Thirteen districts rebelled against the country that fed them, loved them, protected them. Brother turned on brother until nothing remained. And then came the peace, hard fought, sorely won. A people rose up from the ashes and a new era was born. But freedom has a cost. When the traitors were defeated, we swore as a nation we would never know this treason again. And so it was decreed that, each year, the various districts of Panem would offer up, in tribute, one young man and woman to fight to the death in a pageant of honor, courage and sacrifice. The lone victor, bathed in riches, would serve as a reminder of our generosity and our forgiveness. This is how we remember our past. This is how we safeguard our future.” In the first book “The Hunger Games” we are introduced in the life of Tribute Katniss Everdeen, a 16-year old girl who volunteers after her sister Prim has been chosen for the games. Her male counterpart is Peeta Mellark, a baker’s son and the most compassionate and good person, good with words and charismatic. A story evolves, but it’s not the one you would expect. In the end, it is the cunningness of Katniss that saves them both, but now she has to deal with the fury of the Capitol. In the second book “Cathing Fire” Katniss is being hunt by the Capitol because of her little berry-accident. Her act of saving Peeta was the spark for a rebellion to rise up in all the Districts. And there are uprisings everywhere in Panem. She is being forced back into the arena and the games begin. But the rebellion has grown deeper then President Snow would ever expect and things take their turns. In the third book “Mockingjay” Katniss actively takes up the role of being the face of the revolution. But this mockinjay has broken wings. She is destroyed from within, traumatized and most of all angry. This book doesn’t contain an arena and camera’s, sponsors, audience, festivities, but the fight has grown so big, it’s in all Panem. It’s Katniss against President Snow and it’s a fair fight.
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Simply said this movie is breathtaking and heart touching. We were fascinated from the first second till the last. Beautiful shots of nature,strong Academy Award nominees Reese Whiterspoon and Laura Dern and a lot of silent flashbacks that give you the thrills. You feel and understand something bigger than life is happening. You feel how one person's trauma’s affect her and others whole life. Wild is a biographical drama film directed by Jean-Marc Vallée, written by Nick Horny. Wild is based on Cheryl Strayed’s 2012 memoir: Wild: from lost to found on the pacific Crest Trail. This is deservedly an award winning movie! The story begins with a divorce, and a clear cut break with real life. A hike of 2.650-mile in the Pacific Crest Trail is just something Cheryl Strayed (Reese Witherspoon) feels she has to do to heal and find herself. This journey of self-discovery is well written on screen and well played. Flashbacks make you understand how she leaves Minneapolis to reflect on her childhood, her mother, and herself. You get to see Cheryl is clearly inexperienced in hiking, and you also get to see how her preservation makes her to end this hike. You understand why she did what she did and does what se does. This movie isn’t about big effects, it’s about the big impact on you as a viewer. Silent scenes interspersed by great quotes and well meant ‘fuck you’s’ to God and the universe. That one moment she loses her hiking boots and continues with sandals reinforced with duct tape makes you realize, you just have to keep on living your life whatever happens to you. The storyline is all about the loss of ther mother. It’s all compassing. You can feel the regret for the years that are lost, and for her adolescent arrogance towards her mother. She wants to be reunited so bad, at one moment she eats the remaining of her mother’s ashes. We realize it sounds weird, but this movie can actually pull off a scene like that.
The moment she arrives at the Bridge of the Gods, is the ending of her journey. How wild it was just to be. We’ve all seen Jack Kerouac’s On The Road, or Jon Krakauer’s Into The Wild, but this movie is the real deal. Cheryl Strayed is a brutally honest women about her strengths and weaknesses. It’s about finding beauty in the wound. It’s about knowing that seeing the fish beneath the surface of the water was enough. The Rise of the Flemish Movie
In case the title doesn’t speak for itself this article is about the Dutch speaking part of Belgium. The Flemish movie hasn’t always been important, although a pioneer on animation devices was a Belgian professor of experimental physics – Joseph Plateau – who invented an early stroboscopic device in 1836. He called it the ‘phenakistoscope’ and it projected stroboscopic photographs that created the illusion of motion which eventually led to the development of cinema. But we’re not here to talk about the technical side of cinema, we are here to talk about who’s behind the curtains and what’s displayed there for the public. This article is the introduction of a series about Flemish Cinema and it’s most popular directors, movie’s, festivals and actors. We will guide you through the past by reviewing some of our best directors and their productions like Erik Van Looy, Stijn Coninx, Jan Verheyen, Felix van Groeningen, Michaël R. Roskam and others. Some of our best actors like Matthias Schoenaerts, Jan Decleir, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Koen de Bouw and Veerle Baetens. Also the animated movies directed by Ben Stassen and the rise of Studio100 and their influence on children’s programming will be discussed. At the end of these series we will talk about important Flemish Film Festivals like the ones in Ostend and Ghent and we give credit to the Flemish Audiovisual Fund and their influence on the movie industry. Of course it’s not possible to review everyone and everything so we made a small selection based on importance, popularity or success. In this article we will resume some of our best movie directors and their productions. We start with Stijn Coninx (1957), because he was one of the first to put the Flemish Movie in the spotlight with Daens in 1992. Coninx studied film directing at HRITCS which is now known as the Rits at the Erasmus Hogeschool Brussel. He is the director of several movies like Hector(1987), Koko Flanel (1990), Further Than the Moon (2003), To Walk Again (2007) and Soeur Sourire (2009). Daens, played by Jan Decleir, was nominated for an Academy Award in the category Best Foreign Language Film in 1994. Although he did not win, the movie – based on a novel by Louis Paul Boon – was an international success. This drama tells the true story of Adolf Daens, a Catholic priest who strives to improve the miserable working conditions in the local factories. In 2008 the movie was transformed into a stage musical, which proves the quality of the movie’s screenplay. Now in cinema is the movie Marina (2013) who went in world premiere on the Montreal World Film Festival, an autobiographical movie about the childhood memories of Rocco Granata who’s played by upcoming talent Matteo Simoni. Erik Van Looy (1962) was born five years later and is one of the most important contemporary Flemish directors and presenters. His first success was the movie Ad Fundum (1993) which he directed in association of Independent Films – the organization founded by Jan Verheyen and Marc Punt. In this scenario some students of the University of Leuven follow an initiation rite that gets completely out of hand. A student dies and people’s lives are changed, but the university is indifferent and tries to protect his reputation. Recently Van Looy knows international success because of his productions of the movie thrillers Loft (2008) and his American remake The Loft (2014). Loft was a big international success starring actors like Jan Decleir, Filip Peeters, Koen De Bouw, Matthias Schoenaerts and Veerle Baetens. As you can read this movie starred some of the most renowned Flemish Actors, and success followed. Van Looy is now making an American reproduction ‘The Loft’ with new actors besides one: Matthias Schoenaerts. This young Flemish actor is becoming internationally appreciated after the success of Bullhead (2011) by Michael R. Roskam. Roskam himself wrote the script which tells the story of a young cattle farmer that gets involved in corruption with a beef trader that catastrophes in a murder on a federal policeman. Bullhead won several prices such as the AMD-sponsored Next Wave Award at Fantastic Fest, Best Film Award at the Ostend Film Festival, Best Flemish Coproduction, Best Screenplay, Best Actor (for Schoenaerts) and Best Editing at the Magritte Award. Matthias Schoenaerts also won twice an award for Best Actor at the Ostend Film Festival and at the Palm Springs International Film Festival. The film was also nominated for an Academy Award in the category of Best Foreign Language Film in 2012. Van Looy also directed The Alzheimer Affair (or The Memory of a Kiler 2003). The Alzheimer Affair is a movie about detectives of the Antwerp Police department With Koen De Bouw and Werner De Smedt as detectives Vincke&Verstuyft and Jan Decleir as hitman for organized crime. It is Jan Verheyen who directs the successor with his movie Dossier K., the scripts of both movies are based on the detective novels by Jef Geeraerts. Jan Verheyen (1963) is a Flemish movie director and presenter, who launched himself as co-organizer of the Knokke-Heist Film Festival at the age of 18. He Also founded Indepent Film with his associate Mark Punt and was involved in introducing PolyGram Filmed Entertainment in Belgium. We already dropped his name when reviewing Erik Van Looy. His first movie, Boys (1991), was the Belgian equivalent of the American teen-pics of the eighties and was one of the most successful Belgian films ever with 300.000 admissions. In 1996 he produced Everything Must Go which was based on the local best seller by Tom Lanoye. The film was also an international success and seen on several film festivals. But his success was silvered with producing Team Spirit in 2000, a Flemish remake of the Holland movie All Stars, and attracted more than 350.000 admissions. Team Spirit is a comedy that tells about the lives of amateur football players and their girlfriends. In the meantime he produced the movies Alias (2002), Team Spirit 2 (2003), Buitenspel (2005), Vermist (2007), Los (2008), Dossier K. (2009), Zot van A. (2010) and now in cinema is the courtroom thriller about law and justice The Verdict which won the price on the Film Festival of Montréal for Best Director. Our fifth director is Felix Van Groeningen (1977), and his biggest movies were Misfortunates (2009) and The Broken Circle Breakdown (2012), the latter gave him international recognition after it was selected in Cannes. It won several awards such as Best Screenplay and Best Actress at the Tribeca Film Festival and won awards at the Berlin International Film Festival, CPH:PIX and was nominated at many more Film Festivals. Misfortunates is based on a book by Dimitri Verhulst and the movie is a rude comedy drama about a 13-year-old boy that tries to defy his marginal destiny namely: living in the Flemish slobs with his alcohol drinking father and uncles. With a preference for drama he directed the movie The Broken circle Breakdown together with Dirk Impens, a film based on the stage play with the same name by Johan Heldenbergh and Mieke Dobbels. It tells the story of a mother, brilliantly played by Veerle Baetens, and a father that have to deal with their daughter becoming seriously ill. Their love suffers – even though it was love at first sight – because their differences in faith arise. Other films of Felix van Groeningen are Steve+Sky (2004) and With Friends Like These (2007). Flemish directors aren’t afraid to deal with controversial subjects, prove of this is Nic Balthazar (1964) with Ben X (2007) and Geoffrey Enthoven (1974) with Come as You Are (Hasta La Vista, 2011). Ben X gives you the story of an autistic boy who loves to game but loses his real life sensation and won several prices at the Montreal World Film Festival such as Most Popular Film, won the Heineken Red Star Award at the Palm Springs International Film Festival and won the Audience Award at Sedona International Film Festival. Come as You Are touches the issue of disabled people and their desire for love and sex. We don’t claim being complete with this article, but we do want to point out that the Flemish movie is getting more internationally recognized and appreciated by the audience. In the next article we are going to dig deeper in the actors and their achievement in making these movies possible. As an epilogue for this article we give a small resume of the directors and the movies they made so you get a clear review of some excellent Belgian cinema: Stijn Coninx (1957) Daens (1992) Hector (1987) Koko Flanel (1990) Further Than The Moon (2003) To Walk Again (2007) Soeur Sourire (2009) Marina (2013) Erik Van Looy (1962) Ad Fundum (1993) Memory of a Killer – De Zaak Alzheimer (2003) Loft (2008) The Loft (2014) Michael R. Roskam (1972) Bullhead – Rundskop (2011) Jan Verheyen (1963) Boys (1991) Everything Must Go – Alles Moet Weg (1996) Team spirit (2000) Alias (2002) Team Spirit 2 (2003) Buitenspel (2005) Vermist (2007) Los (2008) Dossier K. (2009) Zot van A. 2010) The Verdict – Het Vonnis (2013) Felix Van Groeningen (1977) Steve+Sky (2004) With Friends Like These – Dagen Zonder Lief (2007) Misfortunates (2009) The Broken Circle Breakdown (2012) Nic Balthazar (1964) Ben X (2007) Geoffrey Enthoven (1974) Come as You Are – Hasta La Vista (2011) |