Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Retrospective: Saturday 11th January 2014

The Eye Cinema  Screen 2, Amsterdam - Inside Llewyn Davis

If you find yourself in Amsterdam, I would recommend that instead of following the tourists out of Centraal Station  into the city, that you strike off  in the opposite direction and take the GVB ferry (free of course) across to The Eye...
The Eye Cinema is one of the modern gems of the city and as such shows an eclectic mix of film genres. On Saturday 11th January I took myself up to the busy city to watch an intriguing film by the Coen Brothers.....
The first thing that strikes you is the music as we are introduced to the unlucky musician/merchant seaman Llewyn Davis and his life in Greenwich Village in the early 60's.
We proceed to spend a week in his company as he moves around the city playing in dingy clubs and sleeping in friends apartments by night. He has a great deal of emotional baggage, but very little in the way of possessions....unless we count the cat?

Llewyn is the remaining member of a moderately successful duo, his partner having recently committed suicide. Our hero becomes the guardian of a friend's cat  following its escape from the apartment where he has couch surfed the night before....The characters are well observed with stars Justin Timberlake, Carey Mulligan and John Goodman take supporting roles in the life of our
eponymous hero played in a low key style by Oscar Isaac.
I believe this film to be a gem, the look and feel of Greenwich Village and the folk scene of the early 1960's is very well observed and the acting is very well observed and sharply focused.


For me the music is the driving thread through the movie. Of the films that I have seen in 2014 it is the one I simply must see at least one more time. It is a film where I feel sure that if I see it again I will find out things that I missed first time around. This may be wishful thinking however it is how I feel. For a film where there are no dramatic cars chases or 3D sets this is quite a feat, but there it is.... Inside Llewyn Davis 9 out of 10 from me.... I would readily accept the soundtrack as a gift also :-)

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