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The Man Who Cried

The Man Who Cried

List Price: $14.98
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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The man who still cries
Review: I have recently whatched this movie on TV(before DVD release) and I have almost forgot last time I was touched as deeply as I was. This movie is about a father (played by Oleg Yankovsky - one of the most respected actors of Russian cinematography) and a daughter (Christina Ricci) that were parted before WWII. It is about a journey that this little jewish girl had to take, about hard and good times, about good and bad people, about music, passion and soul. I would recommend this movie to those people who appreciate a decent storyline and an emotional stir of feelings.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Moving, sensual and honest
Review: This film really touched me on many levels. The chemistry between Christina Ricci (as a lost child/Diaspora Jew) and Johnny Depp (as a West-European Gypsy, a member of the one other people besides the Jews that Hitler wanted to wipe off the face of the earth) is palpable, and the one (very modest, but memorably intense) sex scene between them is strikingly tender and passionate.

The score deserves a mention, too. Not many film scores have this kind of musical integrity -- but the score for "The Man Who Cried" is based on the harmonic congruence of a famous operatic aria ("Je crois entendre encore," from The Pearl-Fishers by Georges Bizet) with a Yiddish folk-song.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A must for Johnny Depp fans
Review: I have recently started watching and renting as many Johnny movies as I can get my hands on. The movie begins a bit slow, but for anyone that enjoys the artsy, historical flicks that pop up on occasion, you can get through it. The story of the poor little Jewish Russian girl is just beyond sad. Watching Christina Ricci, I couldn't imagine feeling more sorry for anyone. But when she meets Johnny, Cesar, her life changes and she actually finds a smile. Although the dialogue between the two is minimal, it says so much. Johnny has such a way of expressing himself with his eyes and facial features. Its one of my favorite things about him. I definitely recommend this for any Depp fans. I find it an amazing movie and it nearly brought me to tears.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Tragic and Touching Story
Review: This movie is great for someone who prefers a certain European twist to their films. The characters do an excellent job in portraying life as it was in the time period. Johnny Depp and Christina Ricci carry the movie along well until the resolution. The end is so abrupt and in a sense leaves the viewer hanging. Aside from the sad ending, the movie is excellent to curl up on the couch on a quiet evening and watch.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A tragically beautiful story
Review: This is a movie that will make you weep. Reviewers who scorned it obviously have no soul, especially the puerile person who said the highlight was the sex scene. There are a couple sex scenes, but no nudity. The purpose of the movie wasn't to titillate, it was to tell a romantic tragedy of people falling in the love at the wrong time in the wrong place.
Christina Ricci, a truly gifted young actress, plays the daughter of Russian Jews, separated from her only surviving relative, her father, by continents and years. We see him at the start of the film in 1927. Beset by the reality of persecution and economic woes in Russia, he decides to make a new life for his family in America. After he leaves, devastation is visited upon his small hometown. The grandmother sends the little girl off with other children to seek refuge in the west. She wants to go to America but is instead adopted by an English couple and raised in England. Stripped of family ties, she is gradually stripped of her language and culture by her adoptive parents and the harsh English school system.
We later see her as a young woman. Still remembering her father, she goes to Paris to earn money as a dancer and singer and so be able to afford the boat trip to America. In Paris she meets up with fellow Russian ex-pat Cate Blanchett, the star dancer in the Moulin Rouge type setting. They get the opportunity to be singers in the chorus of an opera. John Turturro is brilliant as the egotistical Italian tenor and Harry Dean Stanton is also welcome as the humble opera director.
Johnny Depp plays one of the gypsies hired as bit players. It takes a while, but eventually Ricci and Depp meet and share their lives. It's an unfortunate time because the Nazi war machine is steamrolling across Europe and jackboots come marching into Paris. It's not a safe time for any Jew. Ricci's dilemma is whether to stay with her new love and risk their lives, or pursue her dream of finding her father.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Loved It
Review: Loved this unique film. The music (according to writer/director Sally Potter, where the film itself originated) is particularly haunting. The performances are wonderful and the images powerful. Its expression is remarkably compact.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Deserves a look.
Review: "The Man Who Cried" is not at all as terrible as many (re)viewers purport it to be. Sure, it has some questionable moments and developments but redeeming qualities abound in it as well. It is a movie-ballad of sorts. Its strengths are in compelling musical highlights and background, vivid -- troubled and resilient -- characters, the provocation of emotion. "The Man Who Cried" is like an elaboration on a legend -- colorful, passionate, with leaps of faith, one where fate is both contested and inevitable.

All actors deliver undeniably strong performances. Cate Blanchett is unsurprisingly exquisite in the role of a resourceful, hedonistic but emphathetic seductress. John Turturro's marvelous acting is successfully flavored with obsessive streaks evident earlier in "The Quiz Show" and "The Luzhin Defense". Johny Depp is back in the 'noble savage' saddle (a character well that may be running dry). Christina Ricci is exciting, devoted, endearing, and intense, as usual. Oleg Yankovsky (one of Russia's top actors) is strong in his small but spirited role.

As has been pointed out by others, the script may be the movie's weakest feature, with all but perhaps one character (Blanchett's Lola) yearning for stronger lines, or at least more of them. Yet, both a minimalist script and a plot that is not particularly inventive or complex can be justified by the movie's attempt to play more like a ballad than a novel.

Deep icy blue is the film's signature color and is at times joined by brilliant reds and sparse whites. The DVD's bonus notes mention that Sally Potter drew inspiration for the scenes and locations from Cartier-Bresson's and Koudelka's photography -- something that doesn't quite come across in the movie. Still, it is an appealing cinematic experience, and one that does not deserve to be discarded as worthless.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Beautiful,yet a little lacking,film!
Review: Christina Ricci is at her best as the quiet russian who plans to find her refugee father.She plays a woman who as a child was sent to live in england with others.She moves to Paris to dance as ww 2 breaks out.This is the best part of the move,and things go weak when she comes to america.It just seemed like a false "hollywood ending".Still a pretty great movie for the most part.The photography,sets,performances, and music are top notch!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Nice-looking film, great music but dragging script
Review: Oh, how I wanted to like this film. Set in Paris at the beginning of the Nazi invasion, featuring Johnny Depp, Christina Ricci and the marvelous Cate Blanchett and opera music, how could you go wrong?

Too bad the script dragged and meandered. The story is rather simple; girl loses family, girl tries to get to America to find father, girl wanders around along the way. Along the way means getting somehow to Paris as an unlikely cabaret dancer and falling in company with a loveable Russian adventuress, a Gypsy horseman and a wicked, manipulative tenor.

Cate Blanchett does what she can with a stereotyped role as a conniving but goodhearted Russian beauty, Ricci is perfectly cast as the little lost girl tossed around by Fate, and Johnny Depp is getting dangerously typecast as the Gypsy-Romantic lover. But he's fun to look at. So is the scenery, some of which is an homage to Cartier-Bresson's marvelous black-and-white Paris photographs.

The sound on this DVD is particularly good, the score is excellent. I wish I could say the same about the film.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A haunting movie for the eyes, ears and soul...
Review: First of all, the music is fabulous. Then there is superb acting, as well as a haunting plot in the midst of an increasingly turbulent period of history. I picked this up on a previously viewed sale rack and was very pleased I took the risk (I hadn't seen it). No, it isn't for the action junkies... but then, I wouldn't be recommending it if it was. It is artistic, sensitive fare for those who prefer that to mindless action and violence, or juvenile humor.


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