Light Empire, great experience

Inside the subtype, or let’s call it the type, like this, with a capital letter, is called A love letter to the moviesAnd light empire he looks like Fablemans, by Steven Spielberg, last updated. It’s a movie about going to the movies, not watching movies. Yes when they saw Paradiso cinema They ripped off, this is their movie.

Sam Mendes directed his own solo screenplay for the first time (the previous one was co-written for him). 1917). Oscar winning director for American beautyas well as a managersky fallMost of the shots of his new movie take place in a theatre. Heroes are people from that complex, the Empire.

Mendes, in the midst of the coronavirus lockdown, and with movie theaters closed, imagined a story in which he isolated himself in a comfortable environment: a movie theater, with art deco doors, and more than telling the experience of watching movies, sharing that. A space with anonymous people, they choose to tell what those who work there experience.

Olivia Colman is the manager of the Empire Cinema, circa 1981, in a town on the coast of England. Disney pictures

Director Hillary (Olivia Colman), who does everything from selling tickets to candy to cleaning up the venue, grumpy principal Ellis (Colin Firth), projectionist Norman (Toby Jones), and assistants Neil (Tom Brooke) and Janine (Hannah Onslow).

Hilary lives alone and returns to working in films after suffering an undisclosed breakup. It’s 1981, and Empire, located in the seaside district of Margate, to the east of London, is surviving as best it can. The recession has hit Great Britain—the complex has had to close two of the four cinemas it had, as well as the bar, on the floor above, full of pigeons—as much as racism has hit it.

Stephen (Michelle Ward) and Hillary (Olivia Colman), in the abandoned bar on the first floor of the Empire.

A new employee arrives, Stephen (Michelle Ward), a young black man with college and other life interests, who has a direct connection with the much older Hillary. Although he prefers to hide and hide.

Touching moments

Yes, light empireFor those of us who love going to the movies, it’s an amazing experience. Perhaps, more than the film’s narrative thread, what captivates or seduces us is the array of poignant moments that Mendes offers us.

Michelle Ward does devotional work.

From the debutante’s tales to a certain final reveal from the projector (when Stephen enters his projection booth, something everyone was forbidden to have, perhaps the most exciting moment), the love story between Hilary and Stephen, looks and shakes. Preparing for a movie premiere Fire vehicles Separate sequence.

It’s also an acting movie, with all the actors being very good. Of course Olivia Colman (FavoriteAnd the crownAnd Dark daughterAnd the father) steals the movie with this emotionally frustrated character, but knows how to salvage it from any clichés.

Toby Jones and Coleman. The actor who was Truman Capote in “Infamous” is the projector on Empire.

The film is wonderfully lit by Roger Dickens (73), the Coen brothers’ favorite cinematographer, who deserves this film with a well-deserved … 16 Academy Award nominations, an award he’s won twice so far, for 1917Yes, by Sam Mendes, and Blade Runner 2049.

Mendes chose Empire as a vocal platform for issues of race and even mental health, but I insist that what prevails is the love of cinema and watching movies at the cinema. What nothing can change.

“Empire of Light”

very good

Romantic drama. UK/US, 2022. original address:The Empire of Light115′, Sam 13. to: Sam Mendes. with: Olivia Colman, Michael Ward, Colin Firth, and Toby Jones. Rooms: Show Belgrano and Norcenter, Cinepolis Recoleta and Hussey, Cinemark Palermo and Hoyts Unicenter.

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