Matty

Pornography in word, not in image. You won’t see such similarly artistic compositions of variously intertwined bodies as Noé’s in hardcore porn. The bodies are mostly shot in full (not fragmented), with imaginative yet relatively subtle use of colour, playing with light and shadow, as well as with the depth of the space (though you become aware of the 3D effect thanks rather to the ejaculation into the camera). However, with its run-of-the-mill story and the strained sentences uttered by the protagonist, who resembles a young Dennis Hopper (but without Hopper’s charisma and animal magnetism), Love isn’t far from being a porn production. The reluctance to draw a clear line between love and sex is not very effective if you don’t take love in any form other than the physical into consideration. A significant part of Murphy and Elektra’s relationship is recapitulated through the shoving of certain objects into certain orifices, which is nice to watch thanks to the attractive bodies of the young actors, but I don’t understand what viewers are supposed to take away from it other than arousal (but I’m happy to let someone who better understands Noé’s intentions explain). I understand that the physical interpretation of love corresponds to the fact that the protagonist is a self-centred prick who doesn’t think much about anything other than his own dick (though he does have good taste in films, as evidenced by the posters for movies such as M, Taxi Driver and The Birth of a Nation, among which the director seems to want to rank his own work). However, Noé cannot decide whether to condemn Murphy for this (which corresponds to the internal monologues revealing what a huge asshole he really is) or sympathise with him – the longing for love in the form that Murphy recalls is not in any way relativised through most of the film (not to mention the character’s autobiographical aspects or naming his son Gaspar). The way in which the intense sexual encounters are framed changes only in the last third of this inordinately long film. Sex is no longer framed as an activity that is beautiful and enjoyable, but as dark, exhausting and empty, i.e. like it was depicted in Shame. Due to the fact that these darker scenes chronologically took place before the more pleasant scenes, we are led to reassess what we saw before. It raises the question of whether Murphy was not actually a man hopelessly in love the whole time we were watching him, but simply addicted to sex. However, in the context of the many preceding minutes, I do not see the ambivalent ending, which hints at a possible slide into the hell of his own passions and perhaps sincerely intended sympathy for Murphy’s late (as in any melodrama) awakening, as a stirring challenge aimed at the viewer, but only as the latest manifestation of the creative cluelessness about how to make a meaningful film that communicates with the viewer almost exclusively through erotic scenes. Other filmmakers, such as Nagisa Oshima with In the Realm of the Senses, have managed to present an effective solution. Gaspar Noé, on the other hand, only spends two hours trying out possible methods, furiously stroking his own ego. Though it’s captivating at times, it’s mostly uninteresting. 50%

Blood and Black Lace is perhaps Bava’s most influential work, as it is the cornerstone not only of giallo films, but also of the first wave of American slasher flicks. Not only is its colourfulness reminiscent of Minnelli’s musicals, its narrative structure is also similar to that of a musical. It is not about the victims, who can be joined by practically anyone at any time, so identifying with any one character wouldn’t make a lot of sense. Nor is it about the detectives, who don’t reveal much, so we won’t get much pleasure out of the uncovering of new connections. It’s about the murders and their immediate emotional impact. The individual murders are staged as lavish musical numbers that are generally unnecessary for the development of the narrative (besides the symbolism of colour, music also plays a significant role in these scene). However, an aesthetically satisfying impression is made in them through a combination of unusual camera positions (the shot from the fireplace), ambiguous mise-en-scène (the terrifying mannequins) and extreme violence (which would still be extreme even by today’s standards, if we could just see more of it). In between, the men fall into frustration, the women engage in intrigue and paranoia rises. A baroque psychosexual thriller with everything that involves. Amare o lasciare. 75%

In light of Bava’s opulent horror operas, the application of a low-budget “carnal” aesthetic (ugly, dirty, evil and in detail) in his first and only thriller is doubly surprising (a more accurate genre classification might be, for example, carjacking poliziottesco). Though Rabid Dogs is often mentioned as a possible source of inspiration for Reservoir Dogs (although it didn’t have its official US premiere until 1998), it seems to have drawn inspiration from American feel-bad movies, particularly The Last House on the Left (a criminal gang with a single rationally thinking member, pissing oneself when under pressure). Bava, however, goes even further than Craven (and even further than he himself went in his giallo) in making it impossible to identify with the victims, most of whom are typically women who most “enjoy” psychological and physical terror. The straightforward linking of needless violence, psychopathic speeches and bizarre dialogue culminates in an extremely cynical twist at the very end (which retrospectively enriches the whole film with additional layers), and a bitter expression of the general mood of society in 1970s Italy. Instead of escalating, the tension is continuously maintained in the claustrophobic space of a single car so that we’re just waiting to see who will do what kind of moronic thing. It is pleasing that this time the “Bava-esque” shot compositions serve not only to please the eye, but also to express the distribution of forces, including hints that even the victims are not completely defenceless. At least in this respect – despite the cheapness of an exploitation flick, the seeming one-dimensionality and the high improbability of some situations (the child not waking up) – this is a more sophisticated film than those that made Bava famous. 70%

With his second film, Bertolucci returned to his native Parma in order to tell about the spiritual wanderings of a young man who lacks the courage to leave his petite-bourgeois certainties and step out into life. Anchored in the present, which paradoxically becomes the object of his nostalgia, he lives constantly BEFORE the revolution, perhaps out of fear that his life will lose direction after the revolutionary act. Fabrizio’s own aunt becomes a seductive challenge to disrupt the order. The depiction of an incestuous relationship and the soul of a man torn apart is significantly more playful than in the sombre Fists in the Pocket by another left-wing director of the same generation, Marco Bellocchio. That doesn’t mean that Bertolucci sympathises with the protagonist and lends him the main word. On the contrary, he uses many narrative perspectives and numerous alienating devices to draw our attention away from the protagonist’s suffering and put the focus on the cinematic form. The disruption of the linear flow of the narrative with discontinuous jumps in time and structurally unjustified interpolations (even in colour, for example), the Resnais-esque interweaving of subjective memories with objective reality and the Godardian omission of film frames reveal the young filmmaker’s tremendous playfulness and great cinephilic knowledge. We can perceive the stylistic contamination as evidence of how strongly Bertolucci was influenced early in his career by Pasolini, another intellectual who gladly combined sex and politics, classical and modern, the secular and the profane (and, like Bartolucci in Before the Revolution, cast non-actors in his films). When we start to notice the similarities between this film’s plot and that of Stendhal’s The Charterhouse of Parma, the question arises as to whether Before the Revolution offers anything original at all. I would say that the obviousness and ostentation with which it borrows from others are what make this film a timeless work, prepared for the rise of postmodernism. 75%

This harmlessly silly summer comedy for adolescent girls draws on the politically neutral setting of a fictional castle (it was actually filmed at Bouzov) and the unaffected speech of Sylva Julinová (who didn’t devote herself to acting beyond this summertime diversion). Despite that, Marguerites are not entirely without meaning for the given period. The issue of theft crops up in the dialogue more than once (the soothing statement that only hens are stolen; the question of whether only replicas are displayed in the castle because of thieves), the characters of the villagers show a pathological provincialism in relation to the ridiculed “Prague boy” and, despite the film’s attempt to accentuate the girl’s perspective more (the boys are awkward, the parents don’t understand anything), she reveals herself in the end to be a “sheep” who has to be shepherded to the right place by an understanding member of the police. No less characteristic of normalisation is the father’s devastating inability to self-actualise, because his wife has the final word (inactive nature of men vs. active nature of women, which was considered to be politically less dangerous) and the temporal setting of the plot during the summer holidays, when there is a notional stoppage of time. Overall, however, the film succeeds in unshackling itself from the period in which it was made. The atmosphere of innocent summer games, disrupted only by a disturbingly serious attempted rape, is infectious, the educational dimension is tolerable, and I will gladly add half a star for the retro goodness of unshaven underarms and a Mickey Mouse T-shirt. 55%

I would be interested in knowing what made the distributor, after two overlooked Apatow films, buy Trainwreck, which requires a certain knowledge of American sports and is built entirely on the person of a comedian who is practically unknown in this country. The film’s uniqueness and most of its shortcomings lie in the degree to which the title reminds us of Amy Schumer’s previous work. ___ The narrative has a conspicuously sketch-like nature. The overabundance of supporting characters, comic scenes that go nowhere and cameos of famous athletes fundamentally disrupt the rhythm and the film, already short of supporting plot conflicts, lasts a good half-hour longer than the plot would need. Of course, all of Apatow’s films (and most of the films that he has produced) have the same problem, giving priority to improvised scenes over the cohesiveness and focus of the narrative. Trainwreck is the only comedy-drama work put out by Amy Schumer, who bases her humour on being brutally honest to everyone around her, mainly to herself. ___ The concept of a sexy blonde in a miniskirt who has her sex life completely under control and is not unwilling to talk about it at length is used less imaginatively than in some of the sketches in Inside Amy Schumer, but it is still a pleasurable stirring of the stagnant waters of romantic comedies. Contrary to convention, the sexual predator here is not a man, but a woman whose dilemma consists in whether to continue to resist monogamy and dread the thought of marriage and children or to start behaving less promiscuously and more responsibly. Similar problems are usually solved in films and the “seduce and destroy” method is much more commonly applied by men. What is also likable is the fact that the film does not excuse the protagonist’s manipulative behaviour, tendencies towards alcoholism or lack of empathy, nor does it glorify them. That’s just how she is. ___ The film submits to conventions only in its climax, which also works with the idea that Amy is not ashamed of her sexuality and does not hesitate to use it to get what she wants, even if that involves her sweating and embarrassing herself terribly. She doesn’t become a completely generic female character. Despite that, Trainwreck has a significantly “softer” ending than many pre-Code films about passionate and wilful gold diggers who are so rotten that redemption and reform are no longer a consideration for them. ___ Unlike Amy, the men are very transparent and predictable from start to finish. Whereas in Steven’s case this serves to play with stereotypes (the bodybuilder with homoerotic tendencies), Aaron remains Mr. Perfect throughout the film, so there are not many obstacles to overcome in the relationship between him and Amy. The chemistry between Aaron and LeBron James paradoxically works better, as their relationship has such a functional dynamic that I wondered if the film would break down into another Apatow bromance. ___ Trainwreck is not as sure of its own genre identity as its promotion as a risqué comedy would suggest. The storyline with the sister (whose name is Kim, like Amy Schumer’s real sister) and the father (who, like Amy Schumer’s real father, suffers from multiple sclerosis) is definitely not secondary or negligible. In fact, it has much more emotional impact than the coming together of Amy and Aaron, as it shows us the protagonist without her defensive cynical mask, thus revealing her as a vulnerable, emotionally insecure woman. The scene in which Kim’s stepson Allister is momentarily transformed from a comedic character into an extraordinarily empathetic human being is one of the most moving that Apatow has filmed to date. The film has more such sober, though not cheaply sentimental moments and it’s regrettable that they don’t comprise its focal point instead of dialogue about penis size and pulling a condom out of a cervix. ___ Trainwreck thus turns out to be more honest in the area of emotion than in the area of sex jokes, some of which are a bit forced. Unlike in other romantic comedies, real people with authentic feelings appear in it (at least for a moment here and there). I consider this to be screenwriter Amy Schumer’s main contribution to Judd Apatow’s filmography. For her own film career – and I don’t write this gladly – the actress Amy Schumer would do better to stick to shorter and preferably comedic projects for the time being. 75%

Nicholas Sparks for adult female viewers and male viewers with nostalgic inclinations and a weakness for old things. We don’t often see a film that gains importance by pretending to be an adaptation of a novel. A branching narrative, a lot of characters, numerous flashbacks and an omniscient narrator with a very bookish form of expression are not the most appropriate means of making a smoothly and naturally flowing romantic film. Definitely not in the hands of two neophyte screenwriters with outsized ambitions. The Age of Adeline could have been an excellent melodrama in the classic mould (an externally characterised, passive and suffering female protagonist, flawless characters versus the relentless passage of time, many happy and unhappy coincidences, the inability to express one’s feelings) if it had stuck to relationship issues and not tried to deal with the infinite nature of the universe and the unpredictability of fate in addition to emotional conflicts. The result is a hybrid literary-film structure with the outline of a novel and sufficiently rich content, but without a sufficiently broad thematic scope. There is no justification for the sweeping nature of the narrative and, because of that, the film has no momentum. At its core, it is basically a fairy tale, which corresponds to the slightly surreal creative style (especially the lighting of certain scenes, as well as the narrative shots with the camera hovering high above the actors’ heads). The film is visually graceful and enchanting in its naïveté, and Blake Lively gives the protagonist the proper old-fashioned flair (not only in the dresses that she wears, but also in the way that she moves and expresses herself) without coming across as artificial. However, I see her main contribution in her willingness to go against the anti-aging trend and to admit that it us unnatural to not age. It is such a praiseworthy, yet banal and so little seen presentation of things on the right scale that I want to forgive the film for its fake depth and the would-be sophistication of the structure that bears this message. 70%

Woody no longer even tries to disguise the fact that the whole story is merely an illustration of a particular intellectual concept and a pretext for philosophical discussion. In order to make his work easier, he alternately articulates his thoughts through two narrators (one of whom speaks to us from who knows where) and an infinite number of “walk and talk”/“sit and deliver” verbal exchanges. Other than the climax, which offers the film’s only funny moment, I’m trying in vain to recall a scene that is based not on what we hear, but on what we see (as beautiful as Khondji’s romantic shots of the setting sun are, they serve the narrative only minimally). The half-baked plot would have perhaps served better for one segment in a story cycle. The plot twists are so predictable (the only surprise lies in the choice of the murder weapon, as it is initially indicated that it could be something else) and, at the same time, implausible in the style of Hitchcock (but without a well-developed narrative structure that would draw us in and draw our attention away from their implausibility), and the plot is pushed forward so lazily that I felt as if I had spent a good three hours in the cinema. After a promising opening scene, the film turns into the tedious mush of an idea that Allen dealt with much better in his earlier films (Crimes and Misdemeanors, Match Point). In addition to its literary nature and very shoddy narrative, The Irrational Man is connected with Allen’s late-period work through the cliché of the irresistible masculine protagonist with whom all of the female characters immediately fall in love – sweet, but absolutely unconvincing (through no fault of the actresses). Despite that, the actors remain the only reason not to experience The Irrational Man in book form (if such a book existed). Woody would do better next time not to waste time with directing and not to torture viewers with a narrative devoid of suspense and surprise, instead putting his thought-provoking scenarios down only on paper. 55%

“Good luck!” Self-aware in a post-modern way, Rogue Nation is a high-octane action/spy flick with by far the best action scenes, an enthralling narrative, a very unpleasant bad guy, a very pleasant female character (in terms of both looks and behaviour), and plenty of nostalgic allusions to the series (where the Syndicate first appeared) and the preceding films (Moscow, the rabbit’s foot, motorcycles, the mention of infiltrating CIA headquarters). Viewers who considered any of the previous four M:I movies to be the best of the franchise should thus theoretically be satisfied. ___ Despite its more or less episodic structure, the film is cohesive not only on the level of smaller plot segments, but also thanks to their interconnection. McQuarrie constantly repeats crucial information and places it in new contexts for greater clarity, without losing sight of the central theme of fatefulness and chance, thanks to which some of Hunt and Loan’s decisions are justifiable (it’s easier to forgive numerous coincidences in a film that thematises the randomness of fate), and he doesn’t forget that he is filming a team event, not a solo performance. The relationships between the team members, the losing and gaining of trust between them, replaces the usual romantic relationship storyline, which the film managed to avoid entirely, much to my delight. (Surrendering to Hunt’s magnetic charisma would only detract from the believability of the fearless female double/triple agent.) Almost all of the action scenes are given dynamics by cutting between multiple characters, and Hunt repeatedly finds himself in situations from which he would not have safely escaped without outside help. The unification of the team roughly halfway through the film, when all four of them sit at the same table for the first time, is a key turning point. There is a shift in genre from “exotic” action adventure towards spy thriller, which also corresponds to the change of colour tone (warm colours are replaced with cool ones). The film continues to focus mainly on gathering and assessing information, but not in such adrenaline-fuelled ways. ___ McQuarrie’s concept of the action also adds pleasing variety to the torrent of loud action scenes with quick cuts. The scenes are relatively well arranged and, thanks to the “live” shooting, they are also very physical and evoke a strong feeling of danger (with its intensity, the diving scene is comparable to certain moments in Gravity), and they also work superbly with the alternation of longer and shorter shots, noise and silence. In addition to that, each of the action sequences has its own developmental formula while also advancing the main narrative (the IMF’s reputation, the capture by Lane). ___ In addition to serving as a warmup, the delightfully escalated pre-title action serves as the final nail in the IMF’s coffin. The next two major events are first presented separately, like episodes of a series (the sound of classical music as Benji plays on an Xbox foreshadows the scene at the opera, Ilsa’s diving in the pool foreshadows Hunt’s underwater mission), and each is riveting thanks to the different approaches to distributing information. In the first case, we know just as little as the protagonists and we are subsequently just as surprised as they are. Conversely, in the second case, the plan is laid out in detail in advance and we wait anxiously to see when and how badly it will go wrong. A third striking example of clever work with audience expectations and an unreliable narrative (or rather a narrative that doesn’t tell us everything) is the action that takes place in London, suggesting to us that we know more than some of the characters (Brandt’s telephone call), but it immediately turns out that we were in fact led down a blind alley. From the humorous scene in Cuba, which is only half of Cuba, we are led to approach what we see, what we hear and what we infer from our knowledge of classic narrative norms with a degree of circumspection. ___ We can see a significant part of the plot as one big MacGuffin, which tempts the characters off of the path leading straight to the objective. But like the third instalment, Rogue Nation is an action movie about action movies, as the film itself draws attention to the structure that carries its action scenes. It knows that we know. It knows the rules of the game just as well as the viewers do, and it therefore bends those rules to suit its own needs and it isn’t afraid to significantly deviate from them (the slowing of the pace and the “multiplication” of the villains in the second half). What is important for us, however, as in the case of Hitchcock’s films (with comparably implausible plots), is how entertaining and thrilling this messing around with the rules is. Speaking for myself, I can say that it is maximally entertaining and thrilling. Appendix: A quarter of a star is given for the director’s (cinematographer’s?) fetish for women’s feet and shoes. 90%

Joy from sorrow. The joy of animation. The joy of discovering a new world. The gradual familiarisation with the rules of Riley’s inner universe (the film is most communicative in this respect even before the opening credits), which is entertaining in its appearance and everything that it references (psychoanalytical metaphors like dream factories, modern art, Disney movies from the 1950s), is gently incorporated into an adventure story about a budding friendship. The amusing falls, thrilling action scenes, jokes with the “maintainers” of the mind and the goofing around with Bing Bong – who is annoying in a Jar Jar Binks kind of way, but the filmmakers know that – all serve a purpose and help us get to know Riley in detail (notice the degree to which her identity is defined by playing very action-packed contact ice hockey, which is definitely not a traditional pastime of girls in American movies). We are thus entertained by the dynamics of the relationships between the characters, what happens and how the whole thing works. What happens “inside” has a direct influence on what happens “outside” and the relationship and plot lines are thus doubled, so there is always something on which to focus our attention and there is no risk that the film will get out of control. There is justification for the fact that neither of the parallel stories offers a traditional villain. The solution to the girl’s inner emotional crisis lies not in overcoming/eliminating obstacles, but in accepting them as part of her own personality (we recently saw an adult version of this in Wild). Few American films, let alone American animated films, have ever dared to cast doubt on the materialistically oriented ideology of individual happiness in this way or to assert that we should also value negative emotions (you never know when anger turned into a blowtorch might save a life). Unlike most feel-good genre films, the feeling of happiness here is not the goal or the solution, but only a means of finding inner peace, which does not derive solely from the individual’s own decisions. As Riley realises through the memory of losing a hockey match, followed by her parents comforting her and the encouragement offered by her friends, joy and sorrow work together best when we have someone to confide in. As we often retrospectively realise in real life, much later than Riley, happiness is other people (and hell is too, but that’s for another film). Thanks to this, the new Pixar movie speaks to all generations without for even a moment being preachy or blatantly lecturing us on the right way to live. Despite that, I can’t estimate how much children will enjoy a film that thematises (and very imaginatively visualises) nostalgia for childhood. For me, Inside Out is one of the most powerful film experiences of the year so far. Yes, I was moved. In this case, however, I don’t see that as having yielded to emotional manipulation, but as proof that the film worked flawlessly on every level and led me to exactly the emotional state that the filmmakers were aiming for. 85%