Three movies to watch this week

Winner of the Annecy Festival and nominated for an Oscar for Best Animated Feature Film, Memoirs of a Snail , by Australian Adam Eliott (author of Mary and Max ), is the story of Grace Pudel — one of those people born under the fate of unhappiness, bad luck and social inadequacy — who tells her life of sadness, loneliness and misfortune to her favorite snail, Sylvia (Grace loves snails and hamsters , and accumulates them at home, alive or in all their decorative forms) who she has just freed, after the death of Pinky, an eccentric and restless old lady who was her best and only friend. Eliott made the film in stop motion (frame-by-frame animation), his chosen technique, and despite the protagonist's unfortunate story not lacking in humor (most of the time acidic or quite dark), Memoirs of a Snail is, without a doubt, one of the most completely depressing animated films ever made.

“The Empire”

To call Bruno Dumont's new film delirious is to err on the side of caution. The director of Camille Claude 1915 and France mixes the pastiche of science fiction with a space opera slant (with special effects to match) and his brand of burlesque-grotesque naturalism, and films, in the North of France where he was born and has already set some of his films, as well as the series Le Petit Quinquin (the pair of ridiculous, country-boy police officers from this one also appear here), the decisive battle between the forces of Good and Evil, giving Fabrice Luchini the role of a composite of cosmic Satan and mannered Darth Vader. The unusual juxtaposition of these two cinematic universes that have nothing to do with each other is amusingly extravagant for half an hour. After that, Empire becomes too repetitive and silly. Anamaria Vartolomei, however, is a very interesting agent on the side of Good.

“Parthenope”

Paolo Sorrentino's new film features a beautiful, sensual and intelligent young woman called Parthenope (played by newcomer Celeste Dalla Porta in her youth and by Stefania Sandrelli in her old age, at the end of the story), the classic name of Naples, the city where Sorrentino was born (and where he is also from), and of the mermaid from Greek mythology who inspired him. While telling the story of Parthenope, the director uses her as a conventional character, but at the same time, he makes her a symbol, an emanation of the city in female form, an ideal of woman and also a vehicle through which he meditates on youth, the passage of time and the power and impermanence of beauty. Silvio Orlando and Gary Oldman, the latter playing the American writer John Cheever, also appear in the cast. Parthenope was chosen as film of the week by Observador and you can read the review here .