Snow White (2005)

Thanks for the memories!

hyped garbage

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

"Snow White" is a Swiss/Austrian co-production that resulted in a 2005 film written and directed by a filmmaker who goes by the alias of Samir and is apparently somewhat known in Switzerland. There are also some French-language parts in here, but most of the film is in German or Swiss German. This movie had its 10th anniversary last year and runs for almost two hours. The lead actress is the absolutely stunning Julie Fournier as you can see from the title photo here on IMDb. She plays a character who struggles a lot in life due to difficulties in finding out what she wants, in terms of private and professional life, and most of all because of permanent drug abuse. Sadly, her friends aren't exactly a help as they keep doing drugs all the time with her. But then, strangely enough, a man appears and he is a rock musician who, because of experiences in his family, is strictly against drugs now, despite his profession and he may be the light at the end of the tunnel for our Snow White here. He is played by Carlos Leal and Leal achieved a decent deal of awards recognition for his performance here. I think he was pretty good, but so was Fournier. I personally think she is more than just a pretty face. Kinda sucks to see her career has not really been that great in the least decade. But back to this film here. The reason why I still give this one not that many stars is because I was not impressed with any of the supporting performances. If you do without some of the less influential characters, you easily could have kept this film at 95-100 minutes and it would have been an even more essential and more focused outcome. Admittedly, there are sequences in here when the film drags and honestly two decent lead performances alone are not enough to let me recommend the watch here, if everything else is mediocre or even weak. Admittedly without Fournier or Leal playing the core characters, it would have been way worse. No idea why the actress who played Snow White's best friend (and who was very generic and forgettable) got some awards recognition as well, but the lead actress doesn't. Oh well, cannot come up with an explanation for this. I myself think overall the weak outweighs the strong and there is more negative in this film than positive. As a consequence, i cannot recommend the watch here, even if I would have loved to.

Nico (Julie Fournier) is a spoiled-but-troubled brat, and Swiss indie musician Paco (Carlos Leal) is her one chance to escape the world of wealthy weasels she has grown up in. Now this girl, why haven't I seen her before? Why isn't she on the covers of magazines? Maybe she is, but only in Switzerland? Either way, Julie Fournier is the most beautiful young actress I have seen in a long time, and, believe me, check out rising female stars is pretty much all I do. A good-looking girl makes for a good-looking movie: swimsuits, parties, dancing, all with a somewhat 1980s feel, down to the visual gadgetry: split screen, patchwork interlace, spaghetti preparation time-lapsed into a three-second sequence. The same goes for subject matter. It's all there, the coke and the rap and the booze and the pain. What you see is what you get, and it's watchable enough as it is, although there is probably a more substantial movie here, struggling to get out. Go see it if you liked "Tempo" (1996/II). Typical line: "I'm too cranked up on coke to get laid. Let's smoke some pot first."

I saw this piece in Dark Nights Film Festival almost by accident but I'm true to my feelings when I say I'm so very glad that I did. The piece itself has it all what I would look for in a movie - catching photography that makes you forget everything else and really connect to the movie, great ((acting)) by which I mean the storyline being so somehow close to the heart that it doesn't even feel like the characters are acting out parts, amazingly soulful touch of music background all through. I would advise anyone who have ever had a deep emotional bonding in a relationship to go see this one. I felt for the main characters all the way through and the story reminded me of the beauty of having and losing in a relationship. This movie has incredible warmth to bond with and at the same time it has the sweetly cold takes that show you the beauty of loss and losing control. My words can't do justice for this one - You just have to see it for yourself.

Snow White, in the first line, is a love story: Paco, the lead singer of a rap group from the french part of Switzerland, son of Spanish emigrants, occasionally falls in love to Nico, spoiled daughter of a swiss banker. But lots of things stand in between this predestined couple... of course the story plot line refers to the famous fairy tale "Snow White".But the movie is far away from being just a simple fairy tale: The question the author emerges with his film is: What do you do when you finish school if you got all the possibilities in the world?! the answer is frightening: Nico does not know what to do with her life and gets more and more in the swamp of endless partys, drugs and prostitution. What makes the movie interesting is, that it deals with different important aspects of contemporary swiss society like self-identity problems of young people (switzerland has one of the highest suicide rates), drug problems, the exchange between french and German speaking part, the immigrants etc. without rising the moral forefinger and combined with a entertaining and touching love story... Formally interesting about the film is its technique of editing. Samir uses - as in the preceding movies - different methods of montage, especially very carefully composed sequences with split screens...The reception of the movie in Switzerland has overall been very positive. Some bad reactions had to with the expectations: Samirs most known films have been highly intellectual documentary films about swiss and Iraqi society and culture. So for a part of "his audience" it was difficult to accept that he made an entertaining fiction film for a bigger audience... My main critique about this overall great movie is about the (too simply drawn) profile of some of the minor important characters like the parents of Nico. Last thing to mention is the great soundtrack including severals songs composed by the brilliant main actor Carlos Leal and interpreted by him and some of the members of his former music group "Sens Unik".