The 20th Athens International Film Festival ended last Sunday with a small award ceremony. The big award "Golden Athena" was given to the film '71 which unfortunately I didn't get the chance to see during the festival. Luckily it opens in greek cinemas on the 16th of October. The award for achievement in directing was given to Jonas Alexander Arnby for his film When Animals Dream and the award for best screenplay was given to Eskil Vogt for Blind.
The audience also played a significant role in the awards as it awarded the Brazilian film Hoje Eu Quero Voltar Sorinho which translates to Today I want to go back alone but its international title is The Way He Looks. Finally the "Golden Athena" for best documentary was awarded to the film 20,000 Days On Earth about Nick Cave.
The audience also played a significant role in the awards as it awarded the Brazilian film Hoje Eu Quero Voltar Sorinho which translates to Today I want to go back alone but its international title is The Way He Looks. Finally the "Golden Athena" for best documentary was awarded to the film 20,000 Days On Earth about Nick Cave.
After the ceremony, Gone Girl was screened and it was the film's European premiere. And boy, was it exciting. David Fincher decided to bring one of last years' greatest best sellers to the big screen. The book written by Gillian Flynn had sold over two million copies by the end of its first year of publication. So, naturally, this has been an eagerly-awaited adaptation. I hadn't read the book prior to seeing the film because I wanted to be surprised and excited and not judge what would be different from the source material. And for what it's worth the film managed to draw our attention and keep us on the edge of our seats for two and a half hours.
Without spoiling anything, I should inform you that Gone Girl tells the story of a -seemingly- happy couple Nick (Ben Affleck) and Amy (Rosamund Pike). In the morning of their fifth wedding anniversary Nick comes home and finds a glass table broken and his wife missing. He reports it to the police and an investigation begins. Under the intense pressure by both the police and the media, Nick finds himself in the centre of everyone's suspicion that he must have killed his wife. But has he? And that's all you get, either from me, or from the trailer.
David Fincher is a very successful director of many excellent -and naturally, some less excellent- films such as Seven, The Game, Fight Club, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Zodiac, Alien 3, Panic Room, The Social Network and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Gone Girl is an equally exciting film that really drew us in and made us live the story along with its characters. It's true that the characters are not very appealing and you cannot identify with them even if you try as some of them act in very sick ways and do things that a normal person wouldn't even think about, but the audience could invest in the story and wanted to see where it would all end up.
Ben Affleck was really good in his role and Rosamund Pike brought a very interesting flair to her character. As for the music, written once again by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, it offered the dreading emotion that kept you on the edge for the whole duration of the film. Gone Girl reminded me of some old Hitchcock films that kept the mystery until the very end. It was a very interesting closing movie to this year's Film Festival and it will surely be considered one of the best films of 2014. Nice.
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