Twice
Born (2012/E One DVD)
Picture:
B- Sound: B- Extras: C Film: B+
Gemma
(Penelope Cruz) was a wealthy Italian professor, is single mother who
wishes to show her son where she met and fell in love with his
father. Diego (Emile Hirsch) an American photographer. As she
journeys into Sarajevo, she has flashbacks of not only her romance
but also the war and heart-ache which tore them apart. As she meets
old friends, she has a secret she has been keeping from her son, that
she is not his actual birth mother... but then her friend have even a
even a bigger secret that they have been keeping from her all these
years, a secret that will change both their lives in Sergio
Castellitto's Twice Born (2012).
Until
she fell in love with the penniless American photographer Diego and
was moved by the his free spirit and carefree life of an artist,
Gemma has a hot, passionate summer of love (et al) and after their
marriage, Gemma discovered she was sterile and unable to produce an
heir for Diego. Their only recourse was to pay Diego's friend Aska,
to bear a child for them, but when the war came, they became
separated. Years later, Gemma returns with her teenage son to show
him land where she and her father fell in love with and contemplates
to tell him the truth, but her surviving friends held a darker secret
from Gemma the truth of what happened to Diego and Aska during the
war. That her son was never Diego's child. Aska's child was
the result from her being raped by Bosnian soldiers and Diego saved
her but can he keep her safe and protect himself?
This
was a tragic love story, a story of star crossed lovers, where at
first everything seemed perfect believing all you need is love, but
reality is even a harsher mistress forced them to face reality and
hardships. It was a very symbolic movie as the character Gemma was
born twice in the fact each time she came to Sarajevo, first time was
when she met Diego and the second time was when she found out the
REAL truth about the origin of her son. While story-wise it is a
tragedy it also show how love can change and forgive a person over
time.
The
anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image is really good for this format
and lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 mix well recorded and presented for that
format. Extras include interviews with cast and trailers.
-
Ricky Chiang
