Filmmaniak

A dreadful attempt at an adventure thriller that resulted in an unintentional parody of the hixploitation genre that brings to mind a blend of The Rafters and Deliverance. The primitive plot culminates with a transparent twist, which is presented as surprising and shocking, despite the fact that it had to have been obvious to viewers no later than the midpoint of the film. As time passes, the suspense and mystery fade from the story instead of building up. The actors are there only so that there is someone to hold the paddles; the female characters are there so that each of them can show their breasts at least once. A shining exception is Miroslav Krobot, who is the only one to hand in something that could be called an acting performance. Unlike the others, only his character is given some dimension and at least a little spontaneity. The retarded would-be Balkan language of the natives/cops is in a category of its own and definitively buries the last hope that anyone could take this unentertaining and agonising film seriously.

This unbelievably rich animated comic-book movie draws from a deliberate sense of detachment, internet memes, pop-culture references, the long history of comic books and the sense of refinement with which its creators approach the frenetic action scenes and work with the characters. Despite its ultra-brisk pace, abundance of gags and wealth of dynamic action, the thrilling audio-visual feast packed with imaginative details maintains, through the story of two young superheroes and their family background, a serious dramatic level highlighting the quiet emotions and slower dialogue passages built on family relationships and the themes of fatefulness, growing up and the struggle against predestination.

The best Czech comedy of recent years, She Came at Night elevates the theme of warped family relations to a world-class level by associating itself with elements of more disturbing genres such as horror and the home-invasion thriller – a genre built on the oppressive premise that the intimacy of the main protagonists’ home will be disrupted by an intruder from the outside. In this case, that intruder is the inconsiderate, manipulative, touchy, self-pitying and emotionally extortionate, though also tragically lonely mother, who forces her way into the apartment that her son shares with his girlfriend. The filmmakers made the absolute most of a simple idea, modest resources and an intimate setting. The film is based on familiar and precisely observed dialogue and situations arising from familial cohabitation, whose unpleasantness rises to absurd levels. The narrative is systematically conceived so that every scene offers comedy and anxiety at the same time and can be interpreted metaphorically as a probe into the issue of failing intergenerational communication. The intertwining of these two tonally different moods, when eruptions of loud laughter frequently and regularly alternate with intense chills down the spine, works seamlessly and harmonically in She Came at Night.

This animated family film about the friendship between a glowing boy and a girl with a lively imagination, who live in an apartment building that is a picture of a society contending with the thirst for power, anxiety and the inability to listen to itself, manages to appeal to children and adults alike. Tony, Shelly and the Magic Light deals in depth with the theme of accepting differences and sensibly shows us how, despite those differences, mutual understanding can lead us to accept ourselves much more self-confidently. The film provides a valuable lesson without the necessity of literally explaining everything and combines magical fantasy elements with the sorrows of both growing up and parenthood, and hints at other serious issues without losing its radiant fairy-tale nature. In addition to that, it works beautifully and deliberately with colours and light.

This lavishly spectacular epic looks back at the wildly ecstatic and tragically sad stories of movie stars whose dreams and livelihoods went up in smoke when interest in them waned. The return to the 1920s, when talkies were ascendent, serves not only as an expression of love for films as such, but also as an extraordinarily sharp criticism of Hollywood as a factory built on oppression and the trampling of human rights. This hypnotising picture switches between genres depending on the prevailing moods of the characters – the first third of Babylon is a dreamily magical and merry narcotic trip, the second third is more of a comedy and the rest is drama-oriented with crime elements. Though the film as a whole may not seem entirely cohesive and it flirts with bombastic excess right from the start, its individual parts are masterfully directed in most cases. Throughout its runtime, however, it is primarily a stylised and exaggerated behind-the-scenes look into filmmaking that illustrates how many of the films that we love and admire were often made in a sea of iniquity, blood, sweat, vomit and excrement.

This epic film about the life of theoretical physicist and father of the atomic bomb Robert Oppenheimer is not so much a standard biographical drama as it is a modernistic dramatic political thriller in which two narrative lines alternate across several time planes. Shot with intense filmmaking vigour, Oppenheimer offers an informationally rich display of ambitious, intelligent and intriguing characters and clever dialogue that doesn’t let us catch our breath. This fierce and dynamic film with an impressively complex structure built on the conflict between two egotistical men and the story of one scientist’s struggle to save his own soul poses questions relating to the transformation of civilisation after the invention of nuclear weapons and the ethical aspect of their use, as well as the willingness of people to take risks for the sake of glory and the ascendancy of the possibility of global destruction, which is still relevant today.

Killers of the Flower Moon is a monumental and masterfully written, acted and directed lament for the decline of society that slowly and forcefully delves into the darkness of America’s controversial history with a focus on the nature of evil in a story about the covered-up crimes perpetrated against the indigenous population in the name of the desire for power and wealth. It is an epic portrait of the United States built precisely on a mixture of gangster movies and westerns, two American genres based on the thematisation of amoral behaviour.

Smugglers is an entertaining action thriller with a lot of exaggeration, combining proven formulas and motifs known from Bond films, numerous heist movies and South Korean hits. This lightweight story about professional divers who make the switch from harvesting mussels off the sea floor to smuggling goods, and then having to learn the ropes of the black market among gangsters, the coast guard and trade inspectors, touches on the social issue of exploitation of female workers, but it is primarily a popcorn genre spectacle in which scheming and dirty tricks are ever present. An undemanding, stylish flick whose highlights are two action sequences in the second half of the film – a bloody brawl in a hotel corridor and the heroines’ underwater battle with divers and sharks.

For a horror comedy about amateur filmmakers, All You Need Is Blood is extraordinarily unfunny (most of its characters are rather unbearably annoying), with a lot of weak point in the narrative, from extreme naïveté in the motivations, dialogue and actions of the characters to endless nonsense in the plot continuity. The effort to make this into a meta-film about making a film comes across as hollow, as the result is merely dumb, incoherent rubbish. Some entertaining ideas and humorously bloody scenes turn up at the end, but until then, the prevailing impression is that of drawn-out agony.

A simple metaphor for violence in society and the absurdity of conflicts, Vincent Must Die starts out as an adrenaline trip with elements of black humour, but it ultimately runs only at half-throttle and the rather slower narrative pace is given priority. Particularly in the first half, a number of scenes are entertaining, but then the film starts to get bogged down in its own inconsistency and a lot of questions come up that it is unable to answer. Furthermore, the plot shifts over time from being about the necessity of adapting to newly established rules in order to survive in a world in which violence is spreading like the plague to a bizarre romantic storyline, which is an unwelcome diversion from the most interesting part of the film.