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    A Farewell to Fools

    Reviewed by
    pietroantoni@

    This WWII movie from Romania has much going for it. The one thing it does best is to allow us to better understand our frail humanity, so many faults... who are the wise, who are the fools... the good, the bad, if you will. As the film opens a young boy discovers the dead body of a German soldier. The ultimatum put to the town's people is staggering, no two ways about it! Oscar Nominee Gérard Depardieu as Ipu, the town fool, certainly looks the part with the way he has let himself go. His weight and the accentuation of certain physical features has me boggled as the man gets one great role after another. No question he is a very fine actor so producers still think he's bankable. The other Oscar nominee of the film is Harvey Keitel as the "iffy" Father Johanis. It's been quite a stretch since Harvey has been on the silver screen. Good to see him again. What the film aims to do ( I can't reveal the point of plot ), it does very well. As in life, this war drama has its comic or lighter side which becomes terribly entangled with the darker side of human nature as the war and the film rush headlong to its climax. It's shocking to see how Romanians in authority, and this includes the priest, seem to be playing God with some devastating decisions they feel they must make by the next day. This is when one starts questioning A LOT! Is it possible that one decision in particular can be viewed as the moral, upright thing to do? This is all very frightening and urgent when even a priest of WWII Romania is willing to go as far as he does, actually hatching the plot, the total antithesis of the teaching of ' any higher power.' Even the contemplation of the plan makes me shudder as, to my mind, it is vile and " smells of something most foul!" Every person in this our universe, whether of the greatest rank or the lowest of men have one thing in common. They are created equally in the eyes of that higher power. One does not tamper with something so fundamentally basic in our genetic make-up as members of the human race... It's a shame that unusual but great films don't get the exposition they deserve. I have come to understand, by and large, that North Americans are the worst offenders when it comes to decisions of what films they will see and what they WILL NEVER SEE! More's the pity!

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    pietroantoni@  22.10.2014 age: 36-49 14,551 reviews

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