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Sunday 23 October 2016

‘The Shepherd’ (‘El Pastor’): Film Review And News

In this article we write a complete information hollywood‘The Shepherd’ (‘El Pastor’): Film Review And News  . In this article we write a list of horer movies missons movies civil war movies based on jungle movies batman movies superman movies Warcraft  movies based on animal movies based on biography drama comedy adventure based on full action movie based on full romance movies based on adventure action and other type of movies details are provide in this article. A good collection of all fantastic movies 2016 are here

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2016 ‘The Shepherd’ (‘El Pastor’): Film Review And News:

Jonathan Cenzual Burley’s Spanish David vs. Goliath tale took best film, director and actor honors at London’s recent Raindance festival.
A stirring tale of one grizzled guy's struggles to maintain his home and his dignity in the face of market forces, Jonathan Cenzual Burley’s debut The Shepherd works up its simple man vs. system premise into a rich and compelling drama that, like an erring sheep, loses its way somewhat over the home stretch. Buoyed by an intense central performance by Miguel Martin, the film is part rural drama, part social critique and part homage to the harsh landscapes of central Spain, its low-budget ambitions no greater than to tell its important little story effectively. Mission accomplished: Further festival interest following the film’s triple Raindance triumph should extend The Shepherd’s flock of followers.

We meet Anselmo (and his dog Pillo) preparing for a new day in his run-down shack, stuck just beyond the edge of a village. A striking outdoor sequence in the first minutes elegantly summarizes what his life is all about as he plies his lonely trade in misty fields amidst the wide landscapes of Salamanca in central Spain and even finding time to skim stones, as Tim Walters’ simple, effective score rises.

Idealized but not sentimentalized — as indeed the character himself is not — this sequence shows us that Anselmo is happy, something which most of the other characters don’t believe he can be, and shows that Cenzual Burley has the right cinematographic feel for the shepherd, his sheep and their landscape — three elements which the sequence shows as being inseparable from one another.

But trouble inevitably rolls up in the form of a couple of local businessmen who want to buy Anselmo’s land and build property on it (property which, given what we know about the problems in the Spanish construction industry, would probably remain empty anyway.) Unimpressed by their slimy, flashy offers of an “injection of capital,” Anselmo flatly refuses, so a couple of local men — suave slaughterhouse owner Julian (Alfonso Mendiguchia) and pathetic, hen-pecked Paco (Juan Luis Sara) — are sent to bring him round, initially gently, later less so.

Most of the film’s flaws are squeezed into its final 15 minutes, when the admirable self-control displayed by the script suddenly seems to evaporate with an unexpected onrush of events, one of which is frankly risible: Watching a group of boys playing around a well, Miguel mutters to himself, “One of them will fall in” -— and then, right on cue, one of them does.

Actually less a tale of David vs. Goliath than a tale of David vs. slightly larger David, the script is very good at showing how money — love of it and lack of it — can create fissures in even the most tightly knit communities. With this kind of storyline, characters can often too easily separated into hero and villain, but over the last half-hour, the focus shifts from Anselmo to the financial struggles of Julian and Paco, who are shown to have issues of their own which are making them desperate; to explain them away as merely greedy is to miss the point. This is what prevents The Shepherd from being just a simple story of good vs. bad and elevates it into a thoughtful, if slightly obvious, parable about the insidious, destructive power of cash.

Anselmo’s disdain for money is something the other characters can’t comprehend. He is not selling, but it’s not because he doesn’t need the money — it’s because he’s not interested in money at all. That makes him quite a saintly figure in this day and age, and Cenzual Burley does well not to idealize a character who could very easily be wearing an irritating halo. In order to demonstrate that Anselmo is not the village idiot that some consider him to be — and worse — the script has him visiting the library, reading Dickens and befriending the librarian Conchi (Maribel Iglesias), the one character who is sympathetic towards this isolated man. Both the character — good but too stubborn — and Miguel Martin’s nicely self-deprecating performance are well-judged.

The photography adds up to a celebration of the unforgiving landscapes of central Spain, with some memorable and unusual stylistic flourishes thrown in — a vertical shot looking down on Miguel’s flock is one example, while another, watching Miguel as a tiny silhouette advancing along a dusk horizon, is indeed cliche, but of the breathtaking kind.

Production companies: Jonathan Cenzual Burley, Matchbox Films
Cast: Miguel Martin, Alfonso Mendiguchia, Juan Luis Sara, Maribel Iglesias, Jaime Santos, MAite Iglesias
Director-screenwriter-producer-director of photography-editor: Jonathan Cenzual Burley
Executive producer: Murray Dibbs
Production designer: Laura Drewett
Composer: Tim Walters
Sales: Wide


Not rated, 105 minutes

'Restless Creature: Wendy Whelan': Film Review And Rating

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2016 Hollywood 'Restless Creature: Wendy Whelan': Film Review And Rating:

The prima ballerina takes her final bow after three decades with New York City Ballet in this revealing documentary by Linda Saffire and Adam Schlesinger.
There's a tender image that speaks volumes near the end of Restless Creature, an intimate chronicle of New York City Ballet principal Wendy Whelan's emotional departure from the company that had been her professional home for 30 years. While Whelan works with choreographer Christopher Wheeldon and partner Tyler Angle in a small rehearsal room, developing a piece that will serve as the 47-year-old ballerina's farewell performance, a growing cluster of bunheads from the School of American Ballet watches rapt outside the door. They appear to be contemplating their own futures in a punishing field in which most careers are over by 40, their faces a flickering collision of admiration and apprehension.

That's not to infer that Whelan dances like somebody no longer in command. Even after undergoing hip reconstruction surgery and pushing herself hard through recuperative physical therapy, her sinewy body still moves with the angular grace and sensual intensity, the playfulness and dramatic complexity that made her such a distinctive star.

It's that resilience that makes this probing documentary portrait by producer-directors Linda Saffire and Adam Schlesinger so pleasurable. It focuses not on an artist in decline but on a woman of extraordinary strength and determination as she concedes to the dictates of time while figuring out a way to continue doing what she loves. In a presidential election year in which questions concerning "stamina" have been hurled at the female candidate like a dirty word, the film is inspiring. That factor alone should make it of interest to audiences beyond ballet aficionados, in home-screen formats and select theatrical dates.


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With a half-laugh suggesting that she's aware of the self-dramatizing nature of the statement, Whelan early on confesses: "If I don't dance, I'd rather die — I've actually said that." The reality of a limited shelf life is arguably more unforgiving for ballet dancers than for artists in any other field, putting them in the same league as professional athletes. While Whelan had already shown more endurance than most in her City Ballet career by the time shooting on this documentary began, the honesty, anxiety and even the occasional humor with which she approaches its looming end date are quite moving.

A ballerina since she was three in Louisville, Kentucky, Whelan moved unaccompanied to New York to train at 15. (Photographs and footage of her dancing as a child and teenager are charming.) She joined City Ballet as an apprentice in 1984, becoming a company member in '86, a soloist in '89 and a principal dancer in '91. More than once, Whelan points out that she's been fortunate in remaining relatively pain- and injury-free throughout her long career, despite being diagnosed with scoliosis, which required her to wear a back brace to ballet class at age 12. However, the extended grace period ended in 2012 with a joint tear requiring hip surgery.

Whelan is a candid subject at every turn as she prepares to go on the operating table and then throughout her recovery, all the while wondering if the difficult decision about her retirement from City Ballet has been made for her by her body. Anyone versed in the ballet world — which means a large part of this film's audience — will know the outcome, and yet the filmmakers skillfully build an element of suspense.

Her farewell performance, with a piece titled By 2 With & From, created for Whelan by two of her most frequent choreographer collaborators, Wheeldon and Alexei Ratmansky, took place in fall 2014. It's recapped here with gorgeous footage from the ballet itself, but also of the stirring curtain calls, during which Whelan is swamped with roses, most touchingly receiving an individual stem from each of the company members as they flood the stage.


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Eschewing talking heads for Whelan’s own first-hand recollections and snatches of conversation between her and some of her many City Ballet colleagues, past and present, the film assembles a full-bodied appreciation of her contribution to the art and the profound respect she commands within the field. This is enhanced by thrilling footage from celebrated pieces by George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, Ratmansky and Wheeldon, among others, and pas de deux in which she dances with longtime stage partner Jock Soto, and then later with Angle and Craig Hall. But alongside the celebratory coverage is a frank account of the sadness for a prima ballerina at being gradually nudged out of the leading roles for which she was so acclaimed.

Refreshingly, Whelan chooses to dwell less on the sacrifices she has made and the losses of late-career transition than on the conviction that continuing to dance for her is simply a physiological need. The process by which she accepts the end of her tenure at City Ballet — while exploring new paths in modern dance, working with four young choreographers to develop the piece that gives this film its title — is both humbling and triumphant.

Aided by impeccable work from editor Bob Eisenhardt, co-directors Saffire and Schlesinger weave this extended diary into a narrative as fluid, committed and elegant in its movements as one of Whelan's performances. Perhaps the loveliest touch is a string of images over the end credits from Whelan's Instagram feed, validating her choices with evidence that she continues to perform Restless Creature and other post-City Ballet work at age 49 and into the future.



Venue: New York Film Festival (Spotlight on Documentary)
Production company: Got the Shot Films
Producer-directors: Linda Saffire, Adam Schlesinger
Executive producers: Diana DiMenna
Director of photography: Don Lenzer
Music: Philip Sheppard
Editor: Bob Eisenhardt
Sales: Cinetic Media


Not rated, 93 minutes