Movie of the Month :BREAKING AND ENTERING (2006)

ARE MOVIES more to you than entertainment? Without dreams, ambition and inspiration, life is harder than it has to be. Who says only the very young are hungry for knowledge. This good movie has taught me something about foreign relations, love and families, crime and punishment, truth, imagination, diligence, experience...the list goes on.Rarely have I seen a film cover as many layers as flawlessly as this film does.

The title itself is a bounty of different meanings to it. Taken literally, it refers to the several break-ins that occur throughout the beginning of the film that spiral everything that is to follow. However if you look deeper, you can find several different metaphorical meanings to the title. It could be referring to the lives that we see. They are already broken, and we enter these lives to see how they play out and progress

SYNOPSIS:

Jude Law plays Will, an architect who lives with Liv (Robin Wright Penn), a documentarian and her behaviorally challenged daughter. After a series of break-ins at his office, Will begins staking it out in order to find the culprit. This puts an extra strain on his already tenuous relationship with Liv. One night, he sees a young man breaking in. He shouts to him, and when the kid runs away, Will pursues him. Will follows the kid, Miro, to his apartment in a rundown area. At once he becomes entranced by Miro's mother Amira , an refugee from Serbia who works as a seamstress. Will invents reasons to keep coming back to see Amira. They soon begin an affair. Amira believes if she keeps sleeping with Will he won't turn in Miro. As Will grows closer to Amira, he begins to pull away from Liv. The tension and uneasiness grow until the spacious rooms of their posh townhouse are full of all the things they can't seem to say to each other.

REVIEW:

Anthony Minghella uses this setup to explore the issues of trust, love and honesty in the intertwining relationships of these characters. As always, he proves himself to be an intelligent and insightful writer. His story and characters are authentic and every emotion is real. He is also an outstanding director. He has an excellent sense of pace, tone, and the composition..This is Minghella's most moving film to date. He provides a light insight into the lives of immigrants and he does a good job of suggesting, in a subtle way, how life for immigrants living in England is different from that of Brits.

He also cleverly shows , how the actions of one character leads to having an influence on the lives of another character.His obsession with darkness hidden in his characters hearts is as universal a theme as unrequited love. Minghella loves his characters and the darker they re, the stronger the love. In Minghella's sphere every human being is welcome and lovable,he's not accusing or justifying the people, but the circumstances.It is a film that tells the story of a lot of people of our times when political and social insecurities have broken the borders between countries and made many people immigrants

I also loved how Minghella studied the parallels between the two mother-child relationships in the film. Both deal with troubled children and mothers who are trying their best to create the best lives for their child. On one spectrum there is Amira and Miro. Due to an absent father and poor finances, Amira is forced to work as hard as she can to provide for Miro. However, he gets involved with criminals and becomes more and more entwined into these break-ins, as he is the only one who can actually be punished by law since he's the only one who physically breaks in. Amira has to work as much as she can and, as a result, she neglects Miro which leads to his actions.

On the other side of the spectrum there is Liv and Bea. Bea suffers from a very extreme case of obsessive compulsive disorder and this takes a heavy toll on the lives of her and her parents. Unlike Amira though, Liv has a husband who works very hard and can provide constant economical support to the family. This allows her to quit her job and spend all of her time with Bea, doing her best to make sure she's alright. It's very interesting to see how these two similar relationships progress throughout the film with opposite approaches to trying to fix the problem.Even though sadly this great director is no more, his films will stay and 'Breaking and Entering' is just the right swansong.

Jude Law gives his most mature and honest performance to date. Admittedly I am not a big fan of Jude Law, but he plays his part so efficiently it was a masterstroke casting him in the lead role. His character is seemingly disinterested and frequently irritating but wholly believable and realistic. He may come across as a London male stereotype but as said Law is so convincing it does not matter it just adds to the realism. Robin Wright Penn excels at playing emotionally distant women and she is able to communicate all of Liv's submerged emotions with small gestures or looks.

But the star of the film is the magnificent Binoche. Her performance is easily the best female performance I've seen in a film... ever! She plays the suffering mother of a troubled youth and lost her husband years before. She becomes entangled in a relationship that she should avoid but, as she states herself, it has been years since anyone showed her affection so she is vulnerable to an advance. There are two scenes which exemplify Binoche as the best actress in the business; when she decides to take pictures of her sleeping lover against his knowledge, she tries to make it look like she enjoys it but immediately reviles with disgust and disgrace, and when she descends to desperate begging from her lover for his help.

Rafi Gavron, who plays Miro, despite this being his debut, holds his own among these seasoned pros. In addition there are several interesting characters such as Bruno (played by a vivacious Ray Winstone) the chatty good-hearted CID, Sandy (a funny Martin Freeman) the friend who might have found the 'love of his life' and Oana the philosophical prostitute (by a brilliant and barely recognizable Vera Farmiga).

Like most of Minghella's films, 'Breaking and Entering' is visually very appealing. It has a very polished look but at the same time it portrays London in a very stark realistic way. The nightlife and daytime on the streets is well captured. Production design and art direction are fantastic. Benoit Delhomme's cinematography is wild. The frame and compositions are outstanding. Whether it's a wild red fox running through the streets or the sequence with Will chasing Miro, they have been skillfully executed. The rich score by Gabriel Yared flows smoothly with the story.

A very complex, but a satisfying film. It is a film that makes us feel responsible towards each other, and creates a land for all of us to live in, that of compassion. Those who need car chases or special effects in their movie experiences should avoid Mighella's parable, but those who value thoughtful and nuanced works will find much to admire here.

TITLE; Breaking and Entering

Director : Anthony Minghella

Cast: Jude Law, Robin Wright Penn, Juliette Binoche, Vera Farmiga

Rated R for sexuality and language.

Language: English

Country: USA/ UK

DVD extras: feature-length audio commentary by Minghella

deleted scenes are also included with optional commentary

making of featurette

Trailer link www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2Ekg4rYSKE

TorrentsBreaking And Entering[2006]DvDrip[Eng]-leetay