Matty

The filmmakers’ indecisiveness about which of the roughly six more significant characters would be the main protagonist probably stems in part from the fact that they relied on the memories of all of the survivors and their loved ones in an attempt at a comprehensive view of the tragedy instead of relying on a single source (Krakauer’s book, which had already been made into the television movie Into Thin Air: Death on Everest, would have served the purpose). No time or space remains for the more thorough development of the characters, who comprise merely a few types; usually the more interesting they are, the more charismatic the actor playing them (the cocky Texan, the easy-going American mountain guide, the responsible New Zealand mountain guide, the humble mailman who wants to fulfil his dream, the loving and caring women). Despite the faint outlining of the characters, the first hour of the film is important, as that is when, in addition to the dangers that await them, we are presented with the relationships between the characters and their ambitions and motivations. We thus better remember their names and later, despite the layer of frozen snow and the dark glasses on their faces, we can recognise who is shouting at whom. At the same time, the fatal decisions that some of the characters make (the bond between Rob and Doug) are more understandable and we are also better able to find our bearings in the individual sections of the journey to the summit, which are presented to us in advance. Whereas the formula of a disaster film is fulfilled by spreading attention among multiple characters, the disaster itself does not serve as punishment for the sins committed by the immoral characters. Atypically, perhaps out of respect for the victims, this is a drama about a group of good people who try to help other good people (The Martian will probably offer a similar story soon). There is no enemy to be defeated, nor is there a character who is supposed to see the light and undergo a transformation based on experience (if he had been a bit more inattentive toward his wife, Beck could have fulfilled this pattern of development). The will to survive is crucial. There is something similarly and likably old-world about the idea of “we have to help each other” as there is about the strictly linear narrative with no flashbacks and with a single (inappropriate) dream sequence. All of the information conveyed, which seems needless on the surface, is put to good use by Kormákur in the film’s second, extremely intense half with astonishing momentum (literally in places) and only a few sentimental moments (though the narrative is structured around them – see the storyline with the unborn child – so they are not superfluous). It serves no purpose to confront the protagonists with the question that will probably occur to every viewer who is not a mountain climber – why do they do it? After all, the rules of the game are not set by people in the second half, but by nature. In the spirit of the cinema of attractions (not intellectual), the aim is to provide an immediate visceral experience. In hindsight, I realise that’s not much. Immediately after the screening (IMAX 3D), however, with the subsiding feeling that I had just descended from the summit of the world’s tallest mountain, I found that I could not have wanted anything more. 75%

Nora Ephron: Everything is Copy is a superlative documentary portrait thanks not only to the personal (the filmmaker is Ephron’s son, according to whom the interviewees address the camera) and somewhat critical tone (she could be quite harsh with others, appropriating the lives of her loved ones as her own stories, not fond of forgiving, especially her ex-husbands, the quality of her screenplays declined after You’ve Got Mail), but also thanks to the reading of excerpts from Ephron’s essays by famous women (Lena Dunham, Meg Ryan, Reese Witherspoon) and the effort not to stay on the surface, but to get down to the essence of her work, or rather her life philosophy. I won’t suffer through Julie & Julia again because of this, but I will definitely keep an eye out for a collection of Ephron’s essays. 75%

An amusing and touching look through the album of a single family that has three fathers and brought fame to five sons (so far). The structure of a family melodrama, with a moving farewell, clearly definable villains and infallible heroes, corresponds to the pop-culture position of James Bond (for evidence of this, see the fans’ initial radical rejection of Daniel Craig). The team of editors did a nice job with the appropriate illustrative material, so the shots aptly complement what is being said at the given moment. I consider the documentary’s auditory highlights to be Dalton’s beautiful English and Lazenby and Brosnan reminiscing about their time as Bond, which they manage to do with a healthy sense of detachment. Though it is basically only a rehash of material known from the many bonuses on DVD releases of individual Bond movies (in which, however, there was a crushing prevalence of laudatory words), the approach to all of the important audio-visual material (including shots from the “traitorous” Bond flick Never Say Never Again) and mainly the boldly personal  tone elevate Everything or Nothing above the run-of-the-mill documentaries about films and their protagonists. 80%

SPOILERS AHEAD. “Feast on this, motherfucker”, or “Why Men Don’t Understand Witchcraft and Why Women Shouldn’t Play with Electric Knives”. When this absurdly phallocentric horror movie turns into a “feminine” rape revenge flick at the end – using a quote from Carrie – that is the last of a plethora of extraordinary inconsistencies in content (as opposed to the filmmaking craftsmanship on display, which remains constantly at a high level). Evil Dead gives the impression of being a film by at least two directors, or rather multiple screenwriters (which it actually is), each of which took their own approach to Raimi’s original. Some of them are obliging toward horror fans, attempting to step out of the genre in a post-modern way and to make fun of the banality of slasher flicks. The others, who unfortunately had the last word, conversely slept through several decades and loaded the film down with terrors long past their sell-by date – fear of sexually transmitted infections (a curse passed on through bodily fluids) and of the wilderness, specifically a forest (which in the climax is ironically conquered using a non-environmentally friendly chainsaw). This disjointedness is directly personified in the film by the two male characters, who represent two possible types of viewers. David is prone to sentimentality and regrets every bruise. He lacks a sense of detachment. The rational Eric, on the other hand, remains above things, because he has read the book (everything has been written already). Like a knowledgeable horror-movie viewer, he has also read the source work, he knows what to expect and, together with the cynics in the audience, he is derisive of his friend’s oversensitivity. Both of them are necessary. If David doesn’t adhere to the horror clichés in his behaviour, the film would end a few amputations early, which we bloodthirsty viewers would not accept. Through Eric, we are simultaneously made aware that one the film’s creators ranks among the knowledgeable and sympathises with the community of horror fans. Surprisingly, the one who comes out on top in the end is neither of them, but rather the representative of the previously, mostly passively suffering (and, as the case may be, self-mutilating) gender. The delay in equalising gender strengths compels us to atypically redistribute our empathy to the body, which has caused others so much unpleasantness.  (With respect to the body and carnality, it’s worth mentioning that the men in the film are usually penetrated by something – pellets, a needle, nails – whereas the women lose body parts – head, arms, legs; the Freudians can analyse and interpret that however they like). Thanks to the unsatisfying culmination of the drug storyline, we also retroactively become witnesses to the harshest withdrawal scene from Trainspotting. The unclear creative direction has unintentionally given rise to the subgenre of melodramatic horror, in which tumultuous family relationships are almost given greater care than the burning of witches and other forest activities (besides the gore scenes, the melodramatic “excessive” also refers to the spectacularly postponed reconciliation between the brother and sister). What can we learn from this very inconsistent film? The soul is more important than the body and drugs make you hoarse. Appendix: I definitely would not use the twice presented “medical” procedure of putting adhesive tape on anything that bleeds. 65%

With its essayistic style and thematic divergence, Exterminate All the Brutes is reminiscent of the work of Adam Curtis. Except for occasional flashes of dark humour, however, Peck is more serious, takes a more personal approach and uses performed sequences, often quite brutal and pulling us out of the concept by employing deliberate anachronisms, in which Josh Hartnett almost always portrays a racist swine. In various episodes from ancient and recent history, from the Crusades to the Holocaust and today’s neo-Nazi marches, Peck examines how a “deviation in pigmentation”, i.e. white skin colour, was “transformed into a source of power”. He is interested in the stories that form the basis of the belief that the white race is superior. In gathering together examples of how the happiness of some people was purchased at the cost of pain inflicted on many others, he puts himself in the position of a biased narrator, not a neutral historian. Therefore, he does not shy away from using words that you probably would not encounter in a serious sociological or anthropological study. He bluntly calls Andrew Jackson a murderer of Indians and talks about how the Belgians plundered the Congo and how the genocide of the native population is still ongoing in the United States today. To support his arguments, he uses scenes from Triumph of the Will and John Ford westerns, quotes from Thomas Hobbes, excellent animated maps, well-made animated sequences, classic paintings set in motion and Eva Braun’s home movies. In addition to his sombre voice, we hear a broad range of music ranging from funk to classical. The way in which Peck places individual images and texts behind himself (sometimes even on himself) and thus cleverly confronts us with facts that have been excluded from our culture for centuries (preventing us from cultivating the ability to perceive them) is in itself so suggestive that I momentarily became so absorbed in the visual component that I forgot to listen to the commentary. Exterminate All the Brutes is the most transgressive documentary of recent years.

The rating relates to the episodes about Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly. The lives of famous ladies seen as mismatches between women of unimpeachable character and the masculine world of unfaithful, neglectful and power- and profit-hungry men. However, the idea of women as victims is not called into question by the series, but is rather exploited. Instead of seeking out causes, it only shows consequences, and suffering is taken as an irrefutable fact that can only be accepted. On top of that, the tabloid-like focusing of attention on relationships at the expense of professional successes raises in the unknowledgeable viewer the question of how exactly these women were extraordinary. In this respect, it also works with a certain givenness of issues that do not need to be elaborated upon (they were simply famous), even though a documentary series of this kind should be about the reasons for its subjects’ exceptionalism. Extensive biographies of both actresses have been  published and they also tell only one version of the story, but at the very least, they do not overload us with unimportant information.

The funniest thing about this film is that Brakhage spent roughly a year on its production.

“I will never forget how it tasted.” Some relationships are like fast food. Eat quickly and move on. There is no time left for conversation, people’s lives are merely canned goods. The world offers so many flavours that there is a natural need to try more and more new things. But what do we achieve by that? Emptiness and the recognition of how much the same thing can be seemingly different. The surface, which so fascinates Wong Kar-wai with all of its screens, neon colours and mirrors, is deceptive. It doesn’t reveal what is hidden within, nor do the inner monologues of the multiple narrators. We have to seek the truth between slow and long shots here, fast and short shots there. Between moments of silence and moments of deafening gunfire. With the film’s irregular rhythms and slapdash alternation of its objects of interest, Wong prevents us from watching Fallen Angels like any other relationship film working with a particular set of narrative conventions. Like the protagonists, the narrative is governed by its own rules, forcing us to be alert and find our own path to understanding the story. Like love, the beautiful thing about Wong’s film is that it cannot be entirely understood. Because of that endlessly elusive “something”, there is no point in hesitating to dig in. 80%

The first hour is full of life, physical pleasures, warm colours, and opulently furnished and spacious rooms, which give the protagonists a lot of freedom. Many characters, many micro-stories, the joy of discovery. After the father’s death comes a severe cooling, rigorous rules, austere interiors with minimal furniture, small closed rooms and more detail shots of faces. The family farce turns into a claustrophobic psychological horror film culminating in an extremely unpleasant scene in which Alexander is punished for letting his imagination run riot and taking the liberty of doing that of which Bergman’s autobiographical last will and testament is a celebration – telling a (fictional) story. There follows a magical scene of rescuing children, who at one moment appear to be in two places at the same time. Our willing to believe fiction (suspension of disbelief) is equally as important as fiction itself, those little worlds into which we can escape. The rules of the hitherto more or less realistic fictional world simply had to be broken in order for the children to escape the bishop and for the story to continue. Either accept it or let it be. Great art is born of great pain and the restriction of choice thus paradoxically stimulates Alexander’s imagination, which is his last refuge and on whose understanding and acceptance the third and most imaginative act of the film is focused. If Bergman truly excelled at anything, it was mise-en-scène direction. Few films prove this as convincingly as Fanny and Alexander, in which he captivatingly summed up the ideas and stylistic processes of his life’s work (even though the protagonists are children, the theme of aging and dying also emerges). The crowning work of a master at the peak of his powers. 90%

A Fantastic Woman begins where most melodramas end – with the death of one of the partners. For Marina, Orlando’s death initiates a multi-phase process of defending her own identity. In front of the doctor, the police investigator, and members of Orlando’s family, she must defend everything that shapes her self – her name, her body, her voice. Almost no one is interested in what Marina wants. No one asks how she feels. Others see her not as an equal, but as an anomaly, a threat to the status quo. Each of the characters who judge Marina also represents a certain institution, by means of the which the story of one farewell takes on a political dimension. Marina is not defending only her right to live a full life. She represents everyone who doesn’t seem sufficiently normal to people like Orlando's ex-wife. ___ Lelio bases the narrative more on parallels and variations than on a causal chain of events and plot twists. We perceive Marina’s nudity during her lovemaking with Orlando differently than during the compiling of police documentation or the sauna scene. When she embraces an unknown man in a nightclub, the moment lacks the warmth of her earlier dance with Orlando shot with by a similar camera approach. The protagonist’s search for a strong voice is motivated not only by her desire for equality, but also by her dream of a singing career. Lelio’s directorial skill is perhaps even more evident in the natural blending of the individual and emancipatory stories than in the scenes where he abandons the dominant realistic style and allows the protagonist at least an imaginary escape into a world where she can be herself. ___ A Fantastic Woman is one of those films in which every shot excels by being well thought out. The colours, the framing and the objects in the mise-en-scène bear meanings and provide commentary on the life situation in which the characters find themselves. For example, Marina wears a necklace in the shape of a semicircle through most of the film. When she realises that she cannot base her identity on the absence or presence of a compatible other half, she replaces the half-circle with a key. It’s not the most subtle metaphor for finding the key to one’s soul, but Lelio isn’t going for subtlety. Like the main female character, his bold film, precise in its details and uplifting in the end, does not conceal anything and is not afraid to meet the audience halfway. At the same time, it doesn’t pander or beg for sympathy. Furthermore, it doesn’t force you to accept Marina in all her diversity. The final realisation that you would have liked to spend a lot more time with this fantastic woman is thus all the more valuable. 90%