Change Your Image
lynnsalcambrodted
Owner of the website bestlesbianmoviesever.com
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Reviews
City of Trees (2019)
Very authentic, yet slow
Ainsley (Alexandra Swarens) is visiting her hometown for Christmas, the first time in several years. Although she is happy to see her parents and her sister and her friend Teddy, she doesn't really feel comfortable in her old environment. To make matters worse, a reunion from her high school is coming up, but she hasn't even been invited to it. And finally, there's Sophie (Olivia Buckle), who she went to school with but never really became friends with and who now helps her mother out in the garden and is eager to get to know Ainsley. The two start to get closer - but Ainsley's complexes about her self-image and her past seem to stand impassably between them ...
Just looking at the home page of this website should make it clear that I am a fan of the works of director Alexandra Swarens. I love her latest film Spring dearly (the kiss picture is from that film). I had a few concerns about seeing City of Trees, which has been described by various people as much less ambitious and polished.
But my worries were unnecessary. Although City of Trees is even more minimalistic than Spring, it is worth seeing in every aspect and managed to captivate me with the same unexcited intensity. Not much actually happens in these almost 90 minutes, but what little does happen is characterized by authentic impact, by consistent atmospheres.
City of Trees is a slow and low-budget film. If you are looking for action (or stunning visuals), you are definitely in the wrong place. Whereas - there is action (and stunning parts), but it is a very subtle action that takes place under the surfaces. Many scenes invite you to imagine what thoughts and emotions are going on inside the characters right now. For that, however, you have to be willing to empathize and explore the inner conflicts that are not openly acted out.
More on bestlesbianmoviesever. Check it out. It owns a list of over 350 lesbian movies and where to watch them.
Ah-ga-ssi (2016)
Fingersmith, the second
The 1930s, Japanese-occupied Korea. The story begins when the swindler Fujiwara (Ha Jung-woo) pays a visit to the thug family of the pickpocket Sook-hee (Kim Tae-ri). He wants to win her over for a plan he is preparing for several years now. His goal is to get the fortune of the young Hideko (Kim Min-hee). This young lady has been kept by her uncle since her childhood at the stately home of her aunt (who hanged herself), and forced to give readings for her uncle and other wealthy gentlemen from the gigantic collection of erotic books that are the uncle's pride and joy. Fujiwara will offer himself to the uncle as a forger (as he does not like to give away the original books, he has them copied and sells the copies instead). Sook-hee is to become the new maid of the high lady and convince her to run away with Fujiwara. After the wedding he will claim Hideko's money and lock her up in an insane asylum himself, Sook-hee gets a share of the fortune won. At first, everything seems to work out well until Sook-hee becomes attracted to her victim, and it seems to be mutual ...
After the 2005 BBC TV series, The Handmaiden is already the second film adaptation of Sarah Waters' novel Fingersmith. Director Park Chan-wook takes his own approach, however, and so his film is significantly different from the ten-year older series; to the extent that Sarah Waters, who read the script, asked him to write that his film was only " inspired" by her novel.
A still rather marginal but nonetheless important contrast is the historical setting. Originally, the book (and the series) was set in 19th century Victorian England. Moving it to 1930s Korea not only makes the decadence of the uncle and his erotic book collection seem even greater than it already did in the original, but it also highlights social class differences a bit more (everything Korean was considered ugly and dull to many wealthy Koreans back then, everything Japanese glorious and worthy of imitation).
Go to bestlesbianmoviesever dot com for the rest of the review.
Fingersmith (2005)
Watch it!
Susan Trinder (Sally Hawkins) lives in one of London's poorer boroughs, in a house with the best view of the county's gallows. She grew up here with a thrown-together family of thugs, including her foster mother Mrs. Sucksby, who takes care of unwanted babies. One day, a thug friend named "Gentleman" comes along and offers Susan and her family the deal of a lifetime: Susan is to become the new maid to Maud (Elaine Cassidy), a country lady being employed as a secretary (and practically held captive) by her uncle, who will receive twenty thousand pounds (a pound was worth about 125x more then than it is now) when she marries, from her mother's inheritance. Susan is to befriend the lonely Maud and convince her to run away with Gentleman, who comes to visit for a few weeks as an art teacher. Afterwards, Maud will be sent to a madhouse (her mother had already ended up there). But Susan falls in love with Maud and also awakens unexpected feelings in her ...
The novel Fingersmith was written by Sarah Waters, who has written some great books with lesbian protagonists. I can only recommend reading the novel before the movie, although it can be read with profit afterwards as well. Director Aisling Walsh has done a good job of directing the film, although certain aspects of it, especially background information, are naturally missing.
If you think Fingersmith is just a costume drama, you're wrong, even if the first 60 minutes of the film (which was originally a mini-series with 3 episodes of 60 minutes) match this expectation in all respects. The fact that there is much more behind it, from larger thrilling story arcs to fascinating details, is revealed as the film progresses. Of course, Fingersmith still lives on the flair of the 19th century and picks up various stylistic elements (such as the female fainting attacks).
Go to bestlesbianmoviesever dot com for the rest of the review.
An Unexpected Love (2003)
Middle Ground
Kate (Leslie Hope) has not been happy in her marriage for a long time. So in one of the first scenes of the film she tells her husband Jack that she wants to separate from him. He agrees. But now, from one moment to the next, after being a housewife and mother for over 15 years, Kate is faced with the task of building a life for herself. The first thing she wants to do is to look for a job, but this turns out to be quite difficult. But then, just as she is about to give up, she is picked up by Maggie (Margo Martindale) in front of a real estate agency and introduced to her boss McNelly "Mac" Hays (Wendy Crewson). Right from the spot, she offers Kate a job as a receptionist at her small business. Kate, delighted to get a job without any references at all, agrees. Soon she settles in and even aims for a job as a saleswoman in Mac's business. And she also gets closer to the boss herself one evening ...
An unexpected love was a difficult film to judge. On one hand, it is a brave attempt to adequately portray the difficulty of coming out late as a mother with children and in a rather conservative environment. On the other hand, the acting performance and also some of the dialogue have the charm of a second-class TV drama. The characters seem quite authentic in their conception, but they display their feelings and ideas so openly and abruptly that it seems very intentional and unnatural, just as the dramatic turning points of the story seem intentional.
Go to bestlesbianmoviesever dot com for the rest of the review.
Lost and Delirious (2001)
Beautiful and stunning
Mary (Mischa Barton) is sent to boarding school by her father, presumably on the insistence of her stepmother. Shy and a bit younger than the other girls, she is nevertheless immediately accepted in a friendly manner by her two roommates. Pauline (nickname Paulie, played by Piper Perabo) and Victoria (nickname Tori, played by Jessica Paré) are a dynamic duo, Paulie tomboyish, rebellious and clever, Tori pretty, popular and carefree. Soon, however, Mary finds out that the two are not only best friends but also lovers. When the rest of the student body also discovers this through a mishap, some quick decisions are made and Paulie's world threatens to collapse ...
Lost and Delirious is one of those films that stirs me up every time I watch it; I'm inspired and wounded by it all over again. I consider it a masterpiece, but I don't know if this is due to my personal preferences or actually has something to do with the way it is made. Even now that I've seen it for the eighth or ninth time, however, I'm still not sure exactly what it is about the making of the film that is so brilliant, so engaging, so compelling. Maybe it's the touch of youth, maybe it's the great camerawork - maybe it's just my sentimental heart.
One aspect is certainly the very trinity of the main characters. All three in some way embody one part of the idea of love, or rather the idea of loving. In Mary, who lost her mother at an early age, quiet, a thinker who does not seek social connection and prefers to help the gardener plant the lands around the school, I see an embodiment of innocent love, somewhere between childlike and platonic, with a tendency toward longing rather than action. Tori, on the other hand, who is firmly entrenched with her mother in a love-hate relationship, a spiral of attention and humiliation, embodies a pragmatic view of love that is guided by reason and security: you do love, but it's best to love only what is good for you, to seek for something possible and accepted. Love is important for such people, but they don't risk everything (or anything) because of it. Paulie, on the other hand, who never knew her biological mother and was adopted right after birth, embodies the uncompromising, unconditional part of love that wants to maintain this connection by all means necessary. To love means to both live and survive, and no rational argument can contain the feeling, the happiness, or the pain.
Go to bestlesbianmoviesever dot com for the rest of the review.
Benedetta (2021)
Tempting
The Italy of the Renaissance. Benedetta, the daughter of a nobleman, enters a nunnery at an early age. She is devoted to her role as a nun and obsessed with her worship of Mary as well as her belief that she is a bride (if not THE bride) of Jesus Christ. After some visions, she even sees herself as a chosen one and bringer of salvation. One night the stigmata (the wounds of Jesus Christ at the crucifixion) appears on her and the other Christian authorities in the small community of Pescia also start to take notice. While Benedetta comes closer to the status of saint, she also starts an affair with the nun Bartolomea and in the country around Pescia rages the plague ...
I must admit that my expectations regarding Benedetta were quite low. I expected a monotonous erotic thriller - and was pleasantly surprised. Paul Verhoeven - from whom I have not yet seen one film that I could take seriously - managed to make a quite sophisticated drama, which, despite the ingredients of religious obsession, lesbian love, plague, and intrigues, is not even too much of a lurid film.
Much of the film's refinement, however, is due to the performance of the cast, especially Virginie Efira. She breathtakingly personifies the delicate balancing act between religious passion and religious delusion, between selflessness and self-interest, that makes the character of Benedetta so enchanting and, at the same time, so ambivalent, with small sprinkles of irony and naivety.
Go to bestlesbianmoviesever dot com for the rest of the review.
Zwischen Sommer und Herbst (2018)
A balanced love story
The first contact between 17-year-old Lena (Linn Reusse) and 24-year-old Eva (Isabel Thierauch) takes place in the middle of the night at the refrigerator. Here Eva is confronted with Lena's quirky sense of humor and Lena with the fact that Eva is the new flirt of her brother Jonas. Right from the start, the two women get along well and Eva is a regular guest in the harmonic home of Jonas, Lena, and their single father. But one day, when Jonas accidentally forgets a meeting with eva, the two women go off on their own to do something together. And out of the blue, Eva kisses Lena. Though Eva has a difficult relationship with her own feelings, as it soon turns out. So poor Lena is thrown into even greater emotional chaos ...
Between Summer and Fall is a beautiful film, there's no other way to put it. It is one of those films that you can watch on a dark, rainy afternoon to warm your soul and yet it is almost entirely free of kitsch and exaggeration. Instead, it develops wrapped in a special tenderness, a simple but fine sense for the dimensions of its story. That makes for its special charm.
Part of this charm, for me, is the performance of Thomas Wolff, who plays the father of Lena and Jonas, in a warm and good-natured. I would like to be such a well-balanced, friendly person, that's what I keep thinking when I watch the film. I could watch him play this role for hours.
But Linn Reusse and Isabel Thierauch also play their roles well. The attraction between them is quite believable. The character of Eva is a bit too edgy, the role of Lena a bit too vague, but because of the combination, both single factors don't stand out that much.
Go to bestlesbianmoviesever dot com for the rest of the review.
Schau mich nicht so an (2015)
A non succesful experiment
German cinema is strange, I keep hearing from friends, at least from those who are not from Germany. And for those who are more used to American Hollywood cinema, or also to fine arts films from France, Italy, etc., in other words, for those who expect either mainstream or poetry when going to the cinema, German movies in their bareness, in their whole style, will indeed seem a bit strange. Krud is perhaps also a word that someone would use to describe many German movies.
Many people with whom I have seen German-language films have afterward, in their helplessness, begun to praise or damn the experimental nature of the film (it is amazing how people deal with irritation while looking at/consuming art - in the eyes of many, it lacks entertainment and therefore has a negative connotation. Yet this is precisely one of the great benefits of art: that it evokes feelings of unease without being a threat to us. It creates spaces and scenarios in which we come into contact with things that we do not yet understand, and perhaps never will. But the experience remains and will help us to dig deeper if we want to). Most of the time I was surprised by this approach because often I didn't find the structure of the narrative experimental at all, but on the contrary very functional, just in a different way than in the usual Hollywood cinema. But probably it is more helpful if I now move away from these general considerations and have a look at the film; for here it becomes apparent that irritation is by all means not always a stimulating experience.
Go to bestlesbianmoviesever dot com for the rest of the review.
First Kill (2022)
Will not last
Savannah, Georgia. This is where high school student Juliette (Sarah Catherine Hook) lives with her parents Margot and Sebastian and her older sister Elinor. However, the Fairmonts are no ordinary family, they are an ancient vampire race that traces its origins to Adam's first wife, Lilith, and the Garden of Eden (more precisely, a snakebite). They live hidden among humans, feeding on them while trying not to attract attention. Juliette is just coming to the age when she is supposed to make her first "kill", drain her first human victim - which, however, she resists. Much more desirable to her seems a flirt with the new girl at the school, Cal (Imani Lewis). What she doesn't suspect is that Cal, unlike her, is eager for her first "kill". Her family, however, is a group of monster hunters who have been protecting people for generations from supernatural creatures like zombies, ghouls and, of course, vampires ...
Let me say it straight from the beginning: this show is a mess. I probably never would have made it past episode 1 if I hadn't talked to someone about it yesterday (thanks T., I DON'T owe you). I know the trailer and synopsis had already trash written all over them and so I expected nothing less. But even I wouldn't have thought that the actual show would be so bizarre - and bad.
Read more on bestlesbianmoviesever dot com.