4 April 2025.
READING LOLITA IN TEHRAN ***1/2 (vo Farsi)
I have to confess that I had a hard time back then getting through Azar Nafisi’s 2003 best-seller of the same name, on which this film is based. The reason was that the group of girls Nafisi included in her private Western literature classes (held in her home in Tehran during the early years of the Islamic revolution) were often difficult to differentiate one from the other.
In this well-adapted film by Israeli director, Eran Riklis, the excellent Persian actresses come alive as individuals with their various problems in a harsh society that does not allow them to develop as they wish. The internationally-known Golshifteh Farahani plays Professor Nafisi with a fine, layered performance, while the other prominent, dissident Iranian actress, Zar Amir-Ebrahimi (“Holy Spider” – Best Actress award at Cannes, “Shayda”, “Tatami”) portrays the tortured Sanaz with great fragility.
The film starts when Nafisi and her husband return to Iran on the eve of the revolution, with high expectations. She is a Western literature professor, he is an engineer, and they want to be part of a renewed country. But soon they realize that this revolution is turning into an oppressive tyranny. Riklis shows the many terrible facets of the crackdowns, and the slow but awful awareness of Nafisi as she sees her dreams of literature as a healing balm for the realities of politics eroding as the years advance. She is intimidated in her courses at the university, she is appalled at being forced to wear head-covering, and her books by great writers as Nabokov, Austin and Fitzgerald are considered corrupting. She loves her people and her country, but she begins to envisage leaving.
This is the second important film, after the excellent “Tatami”, that has been co-produced between Israeli and Iranian creators, thanks to the fearless push of women like Farahani and Amir-Ebrahimi. How beautiful it would be if politics could imitate art.
THE LAST SHOWGIRL ***
This role is a dramatic move for Pamela Anderson, known mainly for being the blond bombshell in a red bathing suit in the 1990s Baywatch TV series and Playboy’s top cover model.
Here she plays a showgirl in her late 50s in Las Vegas who has just found out that her razzle dazzle show full of rhinestones and feathers is being cancelled after decades of being a top attraction on the strip. As a simple woman relying on her youth and looks, she has been riding high on her glory days which are coming to an end, and it’s a moving performance.
This is a poignant story told with great feeling by director Gia Coppola (yes, of the famous family) in an almost impressionistic mode. We don’t see the excitement of Las Vegas but the tawdry underbelly of a town in constant transition. And Coppola presents the touching characters that make up much of its often desperate citizens, including an incredibly bold performance by Jamie Lee Curtis as Anderson’s best friend. Acting in gaudy makeup as an ageing cocktail waitress, she lets it all hang out without any vanity.
Both Anderson and Curtis were alternately nominated at the Golden Globes, SAG awards and the BAFTAs, but snubbed at the Oscars. The small roles are also beautifully pulled off, especially a tender turn-about performance by the usual tough action hero, Dave Bautista (“Guardians of the Galaxy”), as the manager of the show. A sad but unforgettable indy film.
HARD TRUTHS (Deux sœur) *
I have never seen such a relentlessly nasty, aggressive, destructive character portrayed in a movie.
It’s a Mike Leigh film (“Secrets and Lies”, “Mr. Turner”) with his favourite actress, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, and he has a solid reputation as a serious, down-to-earth director of films about the English working class (a somewhat greyer Ken Loach), but that is no excuse for subjecting us to this barrage of vile, incessant ranting.
However psychologically apt it may be in its comparison of two completely different sisters – Pansy, the angry, depressive one, and her mild and kind younger sister Chantelle, and how their characters mould and affect their individual families, this is an exhausting film and I personally was ready to leave halfway through.
But it’s had top reviews, so go ahead and take a chance, if you wish.
LE ROUTARD *1/2 (vo French)
I thought this might finally be a good French comedy as it’s set mainly in exciting Marrakesh and has the always competent Christian Clavier (“Qu-est-ce qu’on à fait au bon Dieu?!” and the “Bronzé” films) as a traveling czar. It starts off as fun entertainment about a bumbling fellow (Hakim Jemili) with no travel experience starting to work for the famous French travel books called “Le Routard”.
Unfortunately it soon veers into a mangled script, bad direction and much over-acting. Even the late, great Michel Blanc is wooden as an international antiques criminal. All quite silly.
Superb **** Very Good *** Good ** Mediocre * Miserable – no stars
By Neptune
Neptune Ravar Ingwersen reviews film extensively for publications in Switzerland. She views 4 to 8 films a week and her aim is to sort the wheat from the chaff for readers.
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