The Book Thief-Love, life, death, literature and the impact of war upon ordinary people

What I enjoyed most about the film was how death is introduced as a character. It's the voice of death which is used throughout the film to narrate much of what has happened in the past.

It's death who introduces Liesel, Sophie Nelisse, in the opening scenes and death who fills in her life story in the closing scenes. He's in and out throughout the film gently taking souls while passing on his own unique and inspiring message about all he has learnt about us, the human family. Very philosophical and really quite beautiful. His speech in the closing scenes was so uplifting I was almost moved to tears.

The story concentrates on the war in Germany and focuses upon the growth of the Nazi's and the impact that has on a small town in which Liesel is taken to live with 'adopted' parents. Liesel can't read much at first but develops a passion for books. A passion that will remain throughout her life and one that's encouraged by her new 'papa' and the Jewish boy, Max, hiding from the Nazi's in their cellar.

Some of the darker events of the times are shown but the film doesn't concentrate only on the fate of the Jews. It goes to great length to highlight the absolute racism and discrimination of the Nazi's even against their own people.

 There are a couple of great scenes set around Jessie Owens, American track and field Olympic gold medalist, which I thought were particularly well done. What 'The Book Thief' is asking you to consider is the effect an extraordinary war had upon ordinary people and how it impacted upon love, friendship and family.

I bought the DVD last week and I've watched it twice. It really is a good movie and such a clever blend of dark/light, sad/happy.

MOVE OF THE WEEK-GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL

GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL recounts the adventures of Gustave H, a legendary concierge at a famous European hotel between the wars, and Zero Moustafa, the lobby boy who becomes his most trusted friend. The story involves the theft and recovery of a priceless Renaissance painting and the battle for an enormous family fortune -- all against the back-drop of a suddenly and dramatically changing Continent.

The Grand Budapest Hotel is a British-German co-production filmed entirely on location in Germany, mainly in Görlitz.

One of the principal locations was the defunct Görlitzer Warenhaus , a huge Jugendstil department store with a giant atrium, one of the few such department stores in Germany to survive World War II. It served as the atrium lobby of the hotel. Filming concluded in March 2013 in Germany.

This wacky screwball comedy, loosely based on stories by Stefan Zweig, has a plot so labyrinthine and frantic it is hardly worth following, except for the fantastic sets and two very appealing central characters played by Ralph Fiennes and Tony Revolori. As the late Roger Ebert used to say, it's not what it's about, it is how it is about it.

Ralph Fiennes (“Skyfall”) plays M. Gustave, concierge of The Grand Budapest Hotel, and Tony Revolori (“The Perfect Game”) plays Zero, a lobby boy in the hotel and devoted trainee under the tutelage of M. Gustave. Their adventures begin in the aftermath of a murder of a wealthy woman who left a valuable painting to M. Gustave in her will. M. Gustave is a suspect in the murder, but of course it is a lot more complicated than that.

Much of the film consists of M. Gustave and Zero being chased around by a menacing killer, Jopling (played by Willem Dafoe of “Spider-Man”). Jopling turns out to be very skilled at erasing witnesses and clues. He is also very good at tracking M. Gustave and Zero, no matter how carefully they try to cover their tracks. One of the many frantic chase scenes in the movie has Jopling, M. Gustave and Zero all zooming down ski slopes, bobsled runs and ski jumps at ridiculous speeds.

Fiennes and Revolori both give wonderful performances as they carry this film, with able support from Jude Law, Tom Wilkinson, Jeff Goldblum, F. Murray Abraham, Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Harvey Keitel, Adrien Brody, Bob Balaban and a whole host of talented actors brought together by Director Wes Anderson. Indeed, few other directors could attract a cast this talented. Saoirse Ronan (“Atonement”) plays Agatha, the love of Zero's life.

Much of the story is told in flashbacks second or third hand, with F. Murray Abraham telling the main story to an author, played by Jude Law. Tom Wilkinson plays an author who was told this story. This author, apparently, represents the famed author Stefan Zweig. The sets in this film are amazing thanks to the work of production designer Adam Stockhausen (“Moonrise Kingdom”) and the rest of design team. It is a dazzling-looking film.

Although the story is a screwball comedy, there is also a sombre overtone to the story, at least to that part of the story that tells us of the fate of the main characters. Perhaps this is to be expected since the story of Stefan Zweig is ultimately a tragic one (both he and his wife commit suicide in 1942 in despair over the rise of the Nazis and anti-Semitism). Then again, one could argue that the tragic endings tacked onto the story are no more convincing than happy endings tacked onto the ends of other films, but tragic endings will give garner better reviews, perhaps because of the nature of critics themselves.

Blue Jasmine

Blue Jasmine is the story of Jasmine’s further humbling, of upper-class pretension dashing against the rock of working-class earthiness; also like Streetcar, Allen’s work shares its heroine’s snobbery, the director as appalled as Jasmine by Chili’s and Ginger’s gaucheries, their lack of interest in high culture, their aspirational void.

 A scene where Chili and Ginger try to set up Jasmine, still clinging to her Chanel bag, with a schlubby, grease-monkey pal of Chili’s is cringe-inducing, though more because of the writer-director’s condescension toward his working-class characters than for their cluelessness as matchmakers. 

That said, Allen does grant Chili and Ginger good hearts, and as a director he has elevated his occasionally tone-deaf script by casting Bobby Cannavale and Sally Hawkins, both excellent here.

MOVE OF THE WEEK-THE GREAT GATSBY

"The Great Gatsby" follows Fitzgerald-like, would-be writer Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire) as he leaves the Midwest and comes to New York City in the spring of 1922, an era of loosening morals, glittering jazz, bootleg kings, and sky-rocketing stocks.

 Chasing his own American Dream, Nick lands next door to a mysterious, party-giving millionaire, Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio), and across the bay from his cousin, Daisy (Carey Mulligan), and her philandering, blue-blooded husband, Tom Buchanan (Joel Edgerton).

 It is thus that Nick is drawn into the captivating world of the super rich, their illusions, loves and deceits.

 As Nick bears witness, within and without of the world he inhabits, he pens a tale of impossible love, incorruptible dreams and high-octane tragedy, and holds a mirror to our own modern times and struggles.

MOVIE OF THE WEEK-PERFUME:THE STORY OF A MURDERER

An obsessive French perfumer with a highly developed olfactory sense and an all-consuming drive to capture the essence of love eventually resorts to murder in his unrepentant quest to find the key ingredient for his recipe in director Tom Tykwer's adaptation of author Patrick Suskind's best-selling 1985 novel. 

Born in a fetid fish market and raised in a dilapidated orphanage, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille (Ben Whishaw) toiled his childhood away in a rank tannery run by the thuggish Grimal (Sam Douglas). Subsequently obsessed by smell, Grenouille's keen olfactory sense becomes so finely tuned that it eventually overpowers such human qualities as love and compassion.

 Though he has indeed discovered the unmistakable scent of a woman, Grenouille finds it impossible to connect with the fairer sex on any sort of meaningful level. Roaming the streets of Paris late one night, Grenouille catches the scent of a young girl selling plums and impulsively strangles her, later sniffing her nude corpse in a twisted attempt to preserve the distinctive scent in his memory.

 

After persuading legendary perfumer Giuseppe Baldini (Dustin Hoffman) to take him on as an apprentice, Grenouille travels to the town of Grasse in Southern France in order to learn the art of enfleurage at a firm run by the highly respected Mme.

 Arnulfi (Corinna Harfouch). It is there that Grenouille becomes dangerously drawn to the vestal aroma of the young and beautiful Laura (Rachel Hurd-Wood), the daughter of widower merchant Antione Richis (Alan Rickman). Soon driven to madness by such a pure scent.

MOVIE OF THE WEEK-JAKOB THE LIAR

This remake of the 1975 German film Jakob der Lügner stars Robin Williams in a dramatic role as a man who uses his active imagination to bring a ray of hope where hope was all but unknown. Jakob Heym (Robin Williams) is the owner of a small café during the Nazi occupation of Poland; he has little money and is struggling to keep body and soul alive in the shadow of the Third Reich. One day, he overhears a radio broadcast, forbidden to Polish ears, that reports a major victory for Russian troops over the German army. Enthusiastic about this good news, Jakob begins spreading word of the Russian army's progress through the Polish ghetto. He notices that the story gives people hope and makes it easier for them to get through the day. So Jakob begins inventing stories and passing them along, creating fictional war reports that suggest that the occupation may soon be ending. However, when the occupation troops get wind of these stories, they become convinced that someone has communications equipment stashed away somewhere, and they're determined to find both the radio and its operator at all costs. Jakob the Liar was the first American feature for director Peter Kassovitz