Last weekend, Amazon Prime Video invited us for a delightful movie experience. A screening of their new film “The Aeronauts” and a fantastic themed fair.
The Film is found on the 1862 real-life scientists James Glaisher and Amelia Wren, played by Best Actor Oscar winner Eddie Redmayne and Oscar nominee Felicity Jones.
The fair had a world-class phonograph DJ who was playing period music. Attendees danced the polka and Viennese waltzes, visited the Mesmerizing Hypnotist, and roasted coffee on the Remarkable Ready Roster.
Also, many visited the fabulous fortune teller. Participants had their photos taken with stereoscopic proportions by climbing up into the basket of the “Mammoth” hot air replica to capture a spectacular image.
The Devil-May-Care Rope-walker is always fun, and many people dressed in costumes from that particular period. After that, the fun continued. The audience was invited to attend to watch the movie on “The Fly-In Theater,” which is a hot air balloon with a screen attached to it. The organizers prepared two gigantic screens where everybody could perfectly enjoy the film. It all happens in the open air of a lovely autumn evening outside Pasadena's historic Rose Bowl Stadium.
“The Aeronauts” is an inspiring, captivating and engrossing film. The movie is highly recommended for the entire family, mainly for those girls and boys who are avid to discover and explore new horizons.
“The Aeronauts” is the true story of two scientists, the meteorologist James Glaisher (Eddie Redmayne) and the pilot Amelia Wren (Felicity Jones), who decided to help each other on a venture to research further in their respective fields.
James will investigate a way to accurately measure the weather report by combining temperature and humidity measurements.
As a brave female pilot, Amelia will try to break the world flight altitude record and become one of the most admired pilots of our time.
Thefilm's non-linear structurem makes us aware of the characters’ backgrounds, personalities, emotions, and true desires. The multidimensional story keeps the audience wondering about the scientists’ fate up there, in the air and the cold.
“The Aeronauts” is a British period movie directed by a BAFTA nominated helmer, Tom Harper; his credits include “Wild Rose,” “War Book,” and some episodes of the TV series “War and Peace.”
This journey made me think of other epic movies such as “The Titanic” or “The Impossible.” In those films, humans defeat nature to prevail with their mission, whether to survive nature’s adversity, eternal love, or discover essential elements that will change the course of humanity forever.
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COLCOA REVIEW: Vibrant and compelling, “Papicha” is a must-see drama with social content. The coming-of-age story is about courageous young Muslim women claiming their place and time in a world of inequalities.
During the “black decade” of the 1990s, an oppressive system doomed women’s rights in Algeria, and the Civil War in the African country brought them back to obscurantism. Director Mounia Meddour decided to move from making documentaries to directing her first feature loosely based on her experiences around those tumultuous years in college.
When Meddour was a journalism student, she saw first-hand the uprising in her nation-state. Many wanted to leave - others, the daring ones who had to stay, experienced religious, political, and physical repression by the conservative system in power.
According to the director, during those dark times, men were awful. Also, ultra-conservative women were making religious propaganda in the streets. They were interrupting classes, attacking broad-minded girls by going to their houses and threatening them, violating their intimacy – forcing them to wear hijabs all the time.
In Meddour’s intimate story, the hero is a young woman named Nedjma. “Papicha,” played by Lyna Khoudri, winner of the Best Actress Venice Horizons award for the 2017 film “The Blessed.”
While waiting for her Canadian Visa to leave the country, Nedjma’s dreams cannot be placed on hold. As a severe design student, she won’t give up her fashion show so easily but cannot obtain delicate fabrics. She improvises dresses with bargain fabrics to create original designs that will wow everyone. The other young women students from various fields of study join her on the runway show as an act of rebellion in their struggle for freedom.
The film does not often show the authorities, but they are a present dark force that moves in the shadows, repressing those who dare to be different.
The project took
five years to complete, and it required many script drafts. The female director expressed that
“Papicha” was hard to put together, and the film’s subject matter is still a sensitive topic for the authorities. Once she got financing, Meddour could show her country’s reality accurately and vividly, thanks to her background as a documentarian.
The
opposition against women’s liberation in Algeria has never been seen so vividly and
realistically until “Papicha.”
Meddour
started production with mostly non-professional actors in the cast. The most
challenging task in making the project was editing the film because, in
every take, the actors had different dialogs. The director
gave the actors plenty of freedom to improvise on the set.
The
actresses had plenty of time to rehearse and lived together in the same house
for a week before filming. Their natural performances enlighten the screen,
making “Papicha” a delightful movie.
Other
contemporary films dramatize the women’s struggle for emancipation in the Middle
East, such as this year’s Cannes Grand Prix winner, “Atlantics.” Also, “Adam,” a
cathartic film about women who want to live free from old biases. Another
relevant project about sexual repression in Morocco is “Muchly Loved,” directed
by Nabil Ayouch in 2015. “Mustang,” the French-Turkish Oscar nominee, ends up in
tragedy over women’s awaking. “Divines,” made in France, shows a young woman of
color fighting for a chance to survive in a violent city.
The Afghan feature “Hava,
Maryam, Ayesha” relates three feminist stories about their struggles dealing
with chauvinistic men in their culture. Finally, the Canadian production
“Antigone” is the story of a young African/Muslim immigrant struggling in
Quebec’s courts to keep her family together and out of trouble.
In
many Muslim countries, men use religion as oppression to submit to women
for their benefit. This brave piece properly acknowledges women’s struggle in Algerian society. Part of the Un Certain Regard
competition at Cannes 2019, “Papicha” was also selected as the Official Algerian submission
for Best International Film at the 92nd Academy Awards.
Daring and splendid, “Papicha” responds to the imperative
necessity of World Cinema serving as a tool in the women’s fight for equal
rights.
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