Change Your Image
dromasca
living in Israel
makes a living out of computers and computer networks
best films ever - Casablanca, The Great Dictator, Citizen Kane
likes travelling, blues, rock and jazz music, reading, sports (especially football), and of course - films
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Reviews
Joker: Folie à Deux (2024)
the rise and the fall of Joker
Scott Silver and Todd Phillips knew what they were risking when they scripted 'Joker: Folie à Deux' the way they did. The film also directed by Phillips 5 years ago enjoyed immense success with the public and critics, received 11 Academy Awards nominations and 2 statuettes. Part of the secret to its success was that it fit well into the Gotham mythology and expanded and enriched the Joker character. The screenwriters of this sequel made two decisions: they made the continuation of the story into a musical and returned the Joker character to the human dimensions of the tormented Arthur Fleck. The first decision was inspired, but the second was a surprise and disappointment to the masses of viewers for whom Gotham is an entire universe in which the Joker is one of the brightest stars. Most fan reactions have been devastating. But I'm not one of the fans of movies inspired by comics, I liked the original 'Joker' for its complexity of the characters, acting and its visual power, so this sequel had no many reasons to disappoint me. Moreover, the musical adaptation and the casting of Lady Gaga as Joker's partner delighted me. I enjoyed 'Joker: Folie à Deux' almost as much as the first film.
The beginning of the film is delicious: a cartoon that basically recaps what happened in the past and introduces the Joker to the very few who wouldn't know the character. From Disney-style animation, we move to realism and reality. Arthur Fleck, imprisoned on an island connected to Gotham by a long and winding bridge awaits his judgment among the inmates, overseen by cruel guards - sometimes sadistic, sometimes falsely friendly. A ray of light appears when, as part of a music re-education program, he meets Lee Quinzel, a girl who introduces herself as a childhood neighbor and tells him about a past almost as unhappy as his own. Is there still hope for the death penalty threatened murderer of five (or maybe six) victims? Arthur's lawyer prepares a defense based on split personality: the evil Joker would take over the peaceful Arthur who is innocent of the crimes he is accused of. But are Arthur and Joker two different personalities? Ultimately, the admiration of the crowds who made of him a vigilante idol and especially the love of Lee are for the Joker and not for Arthur. It will all play out at the trial, but what we're about to see is very different from any courtroom drama we've seen on screen before.
The formidable cinematography is signed by Lawrence Sher, with whom Todd Phillips already collaborated on the first 'Joker'. The collaboration with the Icelandic composer Hildur Guðnadóttir also continues, and the role of music is amplified by the fact that we are dealing with a musical. In fact, the songs are not only aesthetic interludes, but also play an important role in fleshing out the relationship between Joker and Lee. They are mostly taken from what Americans call their great songbook, hits from the '50s or '60s, many taken from other musicals. I'm a big fan of both Lady Gaga (as an actress) and Joaquin Phoenix and their presence together made 'Joker: Folie à Deux' a treat for me. Phoenix went to physical extremes to get into the role. I also noted Brendan Gleeson's performance as the security guard who guards and escorts the Joker. The film can be criticized for its length and some repetitions that could have been avoided, but this is an almost universal disease of Hollywood productions nowadays. In the first 'Joker' movie we witnessed the transformation of Arthur Fleck into the Joker. In 'Joker: Folie à Deux' he is brought back to his human dimensions. But what the crowds loved about him was the character and not the man, and thus, he loses everything in the process, including the adulation of many of his movie fans. For me, however, this film was not a disappointment.
Tegnap (2018)
the inescapable past
'Tegnap' / 'Yesterday' is the 2018 debut in feature film of Hungarian filmmaker Bálint Kenyeres. A late debut, he being already known as an actor, screenwriter and author of short films, and which has not yet been followed by a second film. It's a Hungarian film, but it has nothing to do with Hungary, not a word of Hungarian is spoken, the story takes place in Morocco and is spoken in French, English, German, Arabic. Vlad Ivanov, the huge Romanian actor, appears in the lead role. He is also the main reason why I decided to see the film. I was left with a lot of question marks at the end of the viewing, but that was probably exactly the intention of the screenwriters and of the director.
Victor Ganz is a European businessman, the head of a large construction company, who travels to Morocco to fix a project that seems to have some problems. He seems like a confident guy who controls everything that happens in his business and life. The trip is also a return, he had been to Morocco twenty years ago, he has friends and relations here at ministerial level. The evening before returning, unable to sleep, he goes to a bar where he had been many years ago. Here he seems to glimpse the silhouette of a woman he had known and had a love affair with, a woman with whom he was supposed to go back to Europe, but who had disappeared without a trace from a motel on the seashore and the edge of the desert. He goes in pursuit of her, and from here begins a journey in which the present and the past, reality and delusion will mix to the point of total confusion. Morocco is no longer the one he knew, people have changed, communication is difficult or even impossible, the language barrier is amplified by differences in cultures, mentalities and symbols. The man secure and in control of every detail of life gradually turns into an obsessed man, unsure if he is in the present or the past, in conflict with the surrounding people and the desert and the merciless sun.
Where many other filmmakers would use flashbacks, Bálint Kenyeres keeps the narrative all the time in the present. Victor, his hero, has few clues to the past - a few weathered photographs and unreliable memories. The story is told from his perspective, but the hero's insecurities about the time he is in, the fate of the woman he is looking for, and his own identity are conveyed to the viewer. He may feel confused at many moments, even at the end, when a possible solution to the mystery of the woman's disappearance is told in a language he does not understand and which the director chose not to subtitle. But the confusion is intentional. The return to the present is only apparent. He who has lived his youth intensely remains in part the prisoner of past - this seems to be the message. Vlad Ivanov is formidable, as we know him. When Ivanov plays a role, we cannot imagine the character otherwise or another actor in his place. He plays the part of the foreigner in three or four languages, and that suits him perfectly, for none of them is his home language. The overwhelming cinematography, signed by Ádám Fillenz, reproduces the atmosphere of ruin in the desert and transmits the merciless climate beyond the screen. 'Teglap' / 'Yesterday' is a film that will appeal to lovers of cinematic experiments and psychological dramas, a film that will intrigue and puzzle many.
The Stranger (1946)
Orson Welles road-opening movie
The 1946 'The Stranger' is one of Orson Welles' attempts to make films within the Hollywood production system. It was a commercially successful gamble, but one that would remain an exception in Welles' directorial career. Many of his subsequent films either ran over budget or production time, to the point of canceling the projects in some cases, or forced him to make so many artistic concessions that Welles later disowned them and even refused the usage of his name in the credits. 'The Stranger', however, produced by Sam Spiegel and John Huston (who was also co-producer and co-writer, but was not credited) manages to bring to the screens a very actual theme in the years after the war - the hunt for Nazi criminals - and does so with an elegance and economy of means that make the film a milestone for many film noir and thriller productions.
'The Stranger' is one of the first films made after the war in which the main hero is a Nazi hunter. On the trail of a war criminal who has erased all traces of his identity or physiognomy from the archives, Detective Wilson frees another Nazi and pursues him, convinced that he will connect with his former partner in crime. The two arrive in a small American town where the former Nazi, under the false identity of a history teacher, is about to marry Mary, the young daughter of a judge. Trying to cover his tracks, the criminal kills his accomplice. The only person who can make the connection between the assassin and his past is his new wife, but she is both in love and faithful to the vow made at the church to be together with her husband through happiness or sorrow. Will Mary give up her adoration for the man she's in love with? Or maybe this one will be betrayed by his passion for clocks, the hobby that was also known to be that of the wanted criminal?
Here is a commercial film that is both an art film and a film that contains a treasure trove of references for what was to come in Orson Welles' filmography but also in other genres of American and world cinema. It is one of the first films in the Nazi-hunting genre. Many more will follow, until the 80s, when the genre reaches its peak. For the first time in a fiction film, documentary sequences shot at the liberation of the death camps by the Allied troops are used. They will return in Stanley Kramer's 'Judgment at Nuremberg' for example. The cinematography is outstandin as Russell Metty, a favorite collaborator of Welles and other great directors, creates unique frames, daring perspectives, makes extensive use of mirrors and of the studio space created especially for this film. Almost every frame is a lesson in cinematography. I was less than thrilled by the very intrusive musical score by Bronislau Kaper, but eight decades ago the effect was probably very different. Welles also resorts to brilliant counter-casting. He assumes for himself the role of the Nazi murderer and has Edward G. Robinson play the positive role of the detective on the trail of the Nazi murderers. The role of Mary is cast by Loretta Young, a famous actress and positive role model at the time among Hollywood stars. I think time has taken its toll here, the relationship between the young American woman and the husband who gradually reveals himself to be a criminal is played too emphatically to be believable to today's viewers. Even if not all the details have remained that fresh 78 after, 'The Stranger' remains a viewing that has every chance to please not only those who love the history of the film but also those looking for quality entertainment.
Stroszek (1977)
broken dreams
Made in 1977, 'Stroszek' is one of the most special films of Werner Herzog, one of the few very special directors who were part of that unique generation of filmmakers who made German (West German) films into some of the more interesting productions of the 70s and early 80s. When I think about this generation of directors, I cannot ignore the fact that they grew up in the years after the Second World War and were formed in a Germany that had lived through two decades of reconstruction but also of historical amnesia. It fell to them to bridge the lost decades and generations with the artists (including filmmakers) of the formidable decadent and expressionist period of the Weimar Republic, also embodying the war traumas and conflicts that had left many scars and open wounds. 'Stroszek', a film unlike any other, is one of the proofs of the creativity of these artists, but it is also a film born out of pain and suffering, depicting the impossibility of adaptation of the less privileged.
The story begins in Germany. Bruno gets out of prison. We don't know exactly why he was convicted. He seems like a nice guy, with some mental problems, he takes life as it is, helps those around him as best as he can. He meets and shelters Eva, a prostitute pursued by violent pimps, whom he brings to the home of his older friend, Scheitz. When criminals make their lives impossible, the three decide to try their luck in America, where Scheitz has a nephew. They land in Wisconsin, in deep America, and begin to face the realities there. People are, at least in appearance, less violent, but life has other harsh rules of its own. They are each trying to work, they take out a mortgage for a caravan which they think is great at first, but paying the mortgage payments becomes a problem. Life again overwhelms the three heroes, each in-adapted in his own way there, in America,
It is very difficult to characterize Werner Herzog's style. If we were to look for its roots, we would find them in Italian neo-realism rather than in German expressionist cinema. Except for Eva Mattes, all the other actors are non-professionals. Some of them play out their own lives on the screen. Bruno S., the actor who plays Bruno, had been cast by Herzog in a previous film, but the character borrows a lot from his real-life story and personality. 'Stroszek' is a kind of road movie that takes its heroes from Germany to the United States, the locations filmed are authentic and the style is almost documentary. This does not mitigate, but on the contrary, accentuates the drama which sometimes has grotesque overtones, but very rarely we laugh. The ending is powerful and metaphorical. It caused controversy even among members of the film crew, and it is said that Herzog had to hand-hold the camera for the final scene. It is a pessimistic film, with no chance or hope for its heroes. We, the viewers who see the film almost half a century after it was made, enjoy a unique and impressive work.
I vitelloni (1953)
the magnificent five
'I vitelloni' is the second feature film directed alone by Federico Fellini, in 1953. It is a combination of neo-realist cinematography, social satire and character comedy, in which Fellini already demonstrates a perfect mastery of the means of expression, of the choice and control of the actors, of combining visual composition with the expressiveness of the music (composed by Nino Rota). It is a film full of humanity and sensitivity, which already predicts many of the major obsessions in the masterpieces that will follow and the evolution of the filmmaker from neo-realism to surrealism and to the magic of performances. In the end, it's a film that doesn't show its age and remains quality entertainment more than seven decades after it first hit the screens.
The story takes place in a small provincial Italian town by the sea. World War II has been over for less than a decade, but on the surface, nothing remembers it. Life goes on apparently normally, the ruins have been cleared, the dead buried and forgotten, and no one remembers the years of dictatorship or war. The economic situation is stable enough to allow the group of five men who are the film's heroes to live, in their mid-thirties, on their parents or sisters backs, to unenthusiastically search or not search for a job, spending their times in cafes or chasing local or visiting women, the young or the not so young ones. The unofficial leader of the group, Fausto, gets Sandra, the sister of Moraldo - another member of the gang, pregnant and is forced to marry her. At the intervention of his father-in-law, he is employed in a shop, works without enthusiasm and is quick to make advances to the boss's wife. Marriage did not change him into a faithful man, but other events will cause him to reconsider his attitude.
The dominant feeling experienced by the film's heroes is boredom. Portraying bored heroes on screen is a big challenge for screenwriters and directors, as they risk to pass the sentiment to their audiences, but Fellini was already on the path that would make him a master at tackling such situations. He succeeds perfectly by introducing scenes of the popular dance parties, theater and carnival events that would become an integral part of the thematic and aesthetic of his filmography and emphasizing character development. It's an example of classic melodramatic cinematography, but it works emotionally because each of the actors understands and lives his or her character perfectly. Among the actors, the audience has the best chance of recognizing Alberto Sordi, who was already quite well known and would become one of the great actors (especially in comedies) of Italian cinema of the 60s and 70s . However, the entire team of actors is formidable, and the characters of the film would become points of reference not only in Fellini's filmography but also in the world cinema, from the angry young men of the 50s, passing through the beatniks and the heroes of the French New Wave in the 60s and reaching to the hippies and protestors of the 70s. And thus, the comedy of characters takes on the substance of social satire, more subtle and powerful even than many contemporary neo-realist films. 'I vitelloni' - a film to be searched for, found and enjoyed.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024)
don't say it for the third time!
Tim Burton's 'Beetlejuice Beetlejuice' (twice) is a sequel to 'Beetlejuice' (once) made in 1988 by the same director. If a different director and an entirely different cast had produced the film, I would have treated it (and probably many others did the same) quite harshly. However, since we are talking about a director who has become famous, who reuses his characters and brings back to the screen the world he created in the film that launched his career and defined his aesthetics and to a large extent the themes, we cannot help but ask the question why Tim Burton wanted so much to make this movie. Corollary - was it worth the effort? How does the double-titled 'sequel' compare (comparison is inevitable) to the original? A little research reveals the fact that Burton had long wanted to resume the theme in a sequel, that he refused two other scripts and that he set the uncompromisable condition that Michael Keaton would resume his titular role. Meanwhile the Beetlejuice Universe has expanded with other films, TV series, cartoons and computer games. In the decades of computerized effects and of virtual and intelligent enhancements, a sequel has to bring something very different to be remembered in the future separately from the original. I doubt that would be the case with 'Beetlejuice Beetlejuice'.
Re-watching or, for the younger ones, watching for the first time the original movie is not mandatory but it is very useful to understand exactly what is happening in 'Beetlejuice Beetlejuice'. Some of the characters return, namely the mother and daughter from the Deetz family, a family that had a secondary (but important) role in 'Beetlejuice'. And of course Beetlejuice returns and he hasn't given up on his plans to spend the rest of his death with Lydia Deetz, now a TV star and an expert on ... ghosts and connections between the worlds of the living and the dead. 35 years later, the teenager in the original movie is now at her turn the mother of another teenager, Astrid, equally rebellious and innocent about contact with the world beyond the Styx. Beetlejuice turns out not to be exactly a bachelor either, but rather a divorcee, and Delores, his ex-wife and grave-robbing partner from the plague centuries, comes together (from pieces, literally) to reunite their family. The combination of teen movies, horror (the action also takes place before Halloween) and the constant interaction between the world of the living and the afterlife works. Up to a certain point.
The cinematic world of Tim Burton is always present on the screen: colorful and frightening, grotesque and macabre, full of coarse humor and no curtains, expressive music used in unexpected ways. The problem is that the audio-visual style can no longer surprise and is no longer enough. 1988's 'Beetlejuice' launched an approach and created a distinct commercial-artistic brand that became famous and hasn't changed much since, although the technical tools are different. Among the acting creations of this 'Beetlejuice Beetlejuice' (twice) I liked Winona Ryder's the most. She manages to create a believable evolution of her eccentric character created three and a half decades ago. The younger generation is represented by actress Jenna Ortega, who presents an alternative to the role of the rebellious, skeptical and inevitably in love teenager. Ryder was 17 years old in 1988 and the role in Tim Burton's film launched her career. Ortega, on the other hand, at 22 years old, already has more than 50 roles in her filmography, but she is still fresh, expressive, attractive and scared, as the role demands. Monica Bellucci has a minor role, but one that includes a spectacular, anthology scene. Willem Dafoe and Danny DeVito may also complain about under-casting, but on the other hand, they seem to be having fun, with make-ups beyond recognition, in Tim Burton's film. The main problem is the lack of an interesting story. The film has three main narrative threads - a story of coming of age and teenage love, and the two obsessive pursuits of Beetlejuice and Delores. None captures or engages. Gags and transitions between the worlds of the living and the dead are not enough. A lot can happen in the next 36 years, but unless something radically changes, I'd say that Tim Burton has no reason for another sequel. Or, as one can learn in the movie, saying 'Beetlejuice' three times is not advisable.
A Quiet Place: Day One (2024)
Manhattan is (again) destroyed
A morning with beautiful weather in New York. The metropolis begins another day of diverse, dynamic, noisy life. Suddenly, an extraordinary event happens, an event that will change everyone's lives. No, it's not about a movie about 9/11. 'A Quite Place: Day One' is a movie about the invasion of extraterrestrial aliens that will destroy, for the thousandth time in the history of cinema, Manhattan. We won't learn much about the invaders, except that they are ugly murderous monsters that are guided by sounds. In fact, chances are that fans of alien horror movies already know them, as the 2024 film is a prequel to the first two films in the 'A Quite Place' series co-written and directed by John Krasinski. This time Krasinki is only co-author of the script, with Michael Sarnoski directing.
The horror - aliens combination is already known, but the screenwriters had the inspiration to add two very different and very unlikely characters for films of this genre. Samira (Sam) is a poet, suffering from a probably terminal illness. She is in Manhattan with her caregiver from the clinic where she is being treated, for what could be her last visit to the city where she grew up and with which she has the best childhood memories. In a way, though, the constant pain and awareness that death is coming anyway make her a special kind of fighter for survival. She is the one who provides moral support to those around her, including Eric, a young Englishman visiting New York just as catastrophe strikes. The two will form an alliance for a few hours in order to survive. Manhattan is the loudest place in the world, and that's why the odds are better for the marginalized, the outsiders.
The creators of this third film in the cycle 'A Quiet Place' manage to continue on the same line of quality what they had achieved in the first two films. They don't insist too much with the description of the monsters, which we only see for fractions of a second, and they do not get complicated with technologies. The the story is kept at minimal necessity and nothing excessive is added. There are some fairly well done horror and action thriller scenes, but they aren't the principal. The only thing I felt was missing from the script was more consistency in the portrayal of the character of Eric, played by Joseph Quinn. Sam dominates the story, and not just because of Lupita Nyong'o's excellent acting. Manhattan is, perhaps, destroyed again, but we will remember - even after the movie ends - Sam, the poet who knows how to suppress her own cries of pain and help those around her.
A Haunting in Venice (2023)
Poirot haunted
Kenneth Branagh continues his series of adaptations of Agatha Christie's novels and seems to feel quite comfortable in the skin of Hercule Poirot and in the position of director of the films that bring him to the big screen. The third film in this series is 'A Haunting in Venice', a rather loose adaptation of one of the late novels of the British detective master, 'Hallowe'en Party'. The book, also mentioned in the movie 'Belfast', was one of Branagh's mother's favorite books. Unlike the two previous films in this Poirot series, it is a film that forgoes lavish locations, and the cast - without compromising on quality - is much less rich in first-rate stars. A different film, much more personal and special.
The story is moved from England to post-World War II Venice. The reverberations of war are still felt. Poirot, whose past had begun to be revealed in the previous film, is now retired, living his quiet life and small habits in a Venetian palace and on its roof. He no longer deals with cases, but the cases follow him. When the writer Joyce Reynolds (a kind of alter-ego of Agatha Christie) invites him to participate in a spiritualist session in a haunted building, the detective cannot refuse the invitation to expose the imposture or perhaps to confirm the identity of a famous medium. A storm begins that isolates the semi-ruined palace from the rest of the world, creating the closed setting of Christie's novels, and the corpses soon show up.
Ghost story buffs and Agatha Christie fans will excuse me, but I wasn't caught up in the atmosphere at all. Perhaps it was Poirot's hesitations that prompted me to take his place as a science-backed skeptic. Both the ghost story and the detective story have solutions, it's up to the viewer to what extent to believe them. The quality of the film lies in the psychology of the characters, and mainly of Poirot. The screenwriter is Michael Green and he, along with director Kenneth Branagh, give actor Kenneth Branagh enough material to expand the human dimensions of the character. The rest of the cast is very well chosen. The most famous names are those of Michelle Yeoh and Tina Fey - acting excellently and with visible pleasure. For the first time in the current series, Branagh is using digital film, which probably makes it easier to create effects, and many of them are spectacular. Even though the detective-ghost plot failed to impress me, I found enough other reasons to enjoy watching 'A Haunting in Venice' and recommend it to others. In the end, Poirot decides to return and take on new cases. This means that there will be new films in this series. I will definitely look for them.
Raising Arizona (1987)
a feel-good movie by the Coen brothers
The 1987 'Raising Arizona' is the second feature film written and directed by the Coen brothers. The first film, 'Blood Simple' had impressed but also disturbed many of the viewers with the combination of strange or banal characters doing extreme things, with the comic or dramatic situations often resolved with realistic and refined violence. The two filmmakers had been criticized that their characters were almost all negative - criminals or immoral. 'Raising Arizona' tries a diametrically opposite approach. Almost all the characters are positive, the only exception being a murderous thug who rides a motorcycle and who could very well just be the materialization of a nightmare of the main hero of the film. That's not to say that the plot of the film isn't full of strange happenings, chases, beatings and crimes of all kinds. But the approach is comical and empathetic, and this is one of the Coen brothers films that comes closest to the feel-good genre . It is also a film that already has the clear imprint of the style of films that the two brothers would make for the next almost 40 years.
Hi is a recidivist supermarket robber. Ed is the cop who takes Hi's mugshot arrest photos and fingerprints so many times that she ends falling in love with him and convincing him to become an honest man after they marry. Life as honest newlyweds isn't easy, though, especially when the couple discover they can't have children or adopt because of Hi's criminal record. Since most of the the Coen brothers' characters have an atrophied moral sense, kidnapping one of the quintuplets of a wealthy couple seems like a reasonable solution. Kidnapping the baby proves to be the easiest part.
'Raising Arizona' is a well written and excellently executed action comedy. As we can expect, the baby wins the hearts of the viewers and of the villains who kidnap him. Nicolas Cage seems to be playing a role that is a prelude to his later Nicolas-Cage-with-a-shaggy-hairstyle roles. Here he is young, full of humor and in love with the character played by Holly Hunter. How could he not be in love? Two more of my favorite actors appear in the well-chosen cast: John Goodman and Frances McDormand, the latter in a small role but showing that she was present in the casts of the Coen brothers from their first films, building the career that has brought her 4 Academy awards and counting. Cultural and cinematic references, from character names to entire scenes abound and beg to be discovered and savored. 'Raising Arizona' was in 1987 and is still in 2024 quality summer and all-season entertainment.
Smilla's Sense of Snow (1997)
frozen passions
Director Bille August's 'Smilla's Sense of Snow' (1997) should have had every reason to be a standout film. The script brings a successful novel by Peter Høeg to the big screen. The story belongs to a cinematographic genre - techno-thriller - which is successful with the public. The cast is excellent and includes a female star - Julia Ormond - then in the prime of her career, who is given a complex role that combines action with psychological analysis of a very interesting character. And yet, the film fails to live up to its potential and ambitions. What starts out interesting and complex ends up like another action movie. As if something was lost along the way.
The film's heroine, Smilla Jaspersen, is half Inuit, originally from Greenland. Her mother died when she was 6 and she was raised by her father. A brilliant mathematician and ice researcher, she still can't find her place either in her career or in her personal life. At 30+ years old, she is single and out of work, when a strange accident happens in the apartment block in Copenhagen where she lives. A little fatherless boy from an Inuit family, whom Smilla had befriended, falls to his death from the roof of the house. The incident is classified as an accident, but many details do not seem right to Smilla. What was a child suffering from dizziness and fear of heights looking for on the roof? If this was just an accident, why was he being autopsied and sampled for biopsy? The questions she asks seem to be uncomfortable for the police but also for the company that had hired the boy's father, a big concern that dealt with mineral exploration in Greenland. A neighbor who seems like a decent man, but whose intentions are not clear to the woman, is also interested in the same case. How does he appear in key moments and places of the investigation? Maybe he just looks for an opportunity to start a relationship with her?
The story gets complicated, but it remains interesting as long as the investigation reveals details that are also related to the Inuit identity and the woman's relations with her neighbor, with her father, with the investigators who try to remove her from the case. From a moment on, however, the events become less and less believable. Smilla and her new friend find themselves embroiled in a James Bond-esque plot and fighting a global corporation willing to commit any crime to achieve its goals. Their transformation into action movie heroes is a little believable. The script that adapts the plot of the book is probably also to blame. For the director Bille August the great success may have come too soon, and after the Palme d'Or and the Academy Award for the best foreign film (received in 1988), expectations were always high. About two-thirds of the way through the film I think he manages to maintain interest and create a Nordic thriller atmosphere, enhanced by the icy landscape that covers Copenhagen and envelops everything in Greenland. The director is also helped by the actors, especially Julia Ormond and Gabriel Byrne, who play the main roles. The whole cast manages to reproduce the Scandinavian atmosphere well (at least it seemed to me) even though it is an international cast. If Ann Biderman, the screenwriter who adapted Peter Høeg's novel, had resisted the temptation to include adventure movie pyrotechnics, I think 'Smilla's Sense of Snow' would have been better. But even so, it's a film worth watching.
All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
the lost generations
Lewis Milestone is one of those immigrant filmmakers who laid the foundations of the American film industry and whose biographies await screenwriters to turn them into memorable films. 'All Quiet on the Western Front' was made in 1930, only a year after the publication of Erich Maria Remarque's novel. Just as the German writer's book is considered one of the most successful anti-war works, Milestone's film about war is also considered a masterpiece of the genre. Any good war film is also an anti-war film - I've said it on other occasions and it applies here. Additionally, the film earned Milestone the first Academy Award for film directing in the sound film era, a year after he had received the award (in the comedy category). To this day, he is the only director in the history of the Academy to receive two Academy Awards for film directing in two consecutive years. 'All Quiet on the Western Front' had two versions, one of which was silent for the many venues that were not yet equipped with sound amplifiers in that transitional period. It is a remarkable film and it is also a milestone in the history of the transition from silent to sound film.
The script follows quite faithfully the novel, the film being considered one of the most outstanding screen adaptations of an important novel in world literature. The first scenes take place in a German town at the beginning of the First World War. The patriotic atmosphere and the confidence in an easy victory also infected the students of a high school class, encouraged by their teacher's demagogic speeches. Most enlist voluntarily. Paul Baumer, a young man with ambitions to become a writer, is not very enthusiastic, but he lets himself be carried away. He, along with six of his colleagues and friends, will go through basic training and be sent to the front after a few weeks of rudimentary instruction. The realities of the front are completely different from those described by the press and teachers or imagined by the young men. Violence, disorganization, hunger, corruption reign and the danger of mutilation or death is constant. Paul befriends an older soldier, Kat (Katcinsky), who takes the group of recruits under his tutelage, manages to procure food, teaches them the secrets of survival. The war begins to grind down the members of the group one by one. On leave after being wounded, Paul visits his family and the town, but is immediately shocked and disgusted by the ignorance of those back home about the realities of war and the unchanged patriotic demagoguery of the café bourgeois, including his teacher. Back on the battlefield, he will only find Kat. The end of the war is drawing near, but Paul's generation, what few are left, is lost.
The narrative structure is excellent, building on the story in the novel. The names of the actors no longer mean much to today's movie fans, but I will still mention the memorable creations of Lew Ayres (Paul) and Louis Wolheim (Kat). The former was only 22 years old when he made this film. It can be seen that he is already an actor of the sound film era and he indeed had a long career. Louis Wolheim had trained at the silent film school. He specialized in expressive compositional roles and at one point was declared 'the ugliest actor in Hollywood'. He would die a year after playing the role of Kat, a pinnacle of her career. Fix camera scenes bear the stamp of the silent movies, with elaborate compositions and sophisticated framing. It is the battle scenes that are especially impressive. This version of 'All Quiet on the Western Front' was made in the so-called Pre-Code period, that is, before the formal adoption of the censorship rules that determined what an American film could show on screen. The violence of war depicted realistically, with mobile cameras and bold angles, could not have been shown in this way after 1934 and until 1956 when the Code was revised (total elimination only occurred in 1968). Without the visual impact, this political, social, moral story about war and anti-war would not have had the same impact. Revisited today, as the one-century anniversary of its filming approaches, Lewis Milestone's film remains surprisingly expressive and powerful in its message. This message is also still relevant, and will be as long as other generations of young people are lost in wars.
Cross of Iron (1977)
for a piece of metal
Any good war movie can only be an anti-war movie. This axiom is also confirmed by 'Cross of Iron', the 1977 film by Sam Peckinpah, the only war film by the American director who was a master of western films and their derivatives, one of the two films he made in Europe from throughout his career. Based on a novel by a German writer, 'Cross of Iron' brings to the screen an episode that takes place in 1943 on the Eastern Front, lived and narrated from the perspective of a unit of German soldiers. Hollywood influences are not absent, but the film manages to create a gallery of truthful portraits of ordinary soldiers, younger or older men, each with his own destiny and luck in the hell of the war. It is a film that has been appreciated by great directors from Orson Welles to Steven Spielberg and Quentin Tarantino. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to watch it.
Corporal (and then Sergeant) Rolf Steiner commands a platoon of soldiers at a time when the fate of the war is increasingly decided against Germany after the defeat at Stalingrad. The assaults of the Soviet army are getting more and more furious and the moment of withdrawal of the German army from occupied Crimea is approaching. The regimental commander, Colonel Brandt, is intelligent and lucid enough to understand the situation, but Steiner's direct command is Captain Stransky, who has volunteered for the Eastern Front after serving in France. None of the soldiers are staunch Nazis, each for his own reasons. Stransky's ambitions are personal, his Prussian noble family waiting for him to return with the Iron Cross. Steiner already earned the decoration, but he doesn't give a damn about it. He's a good soldier but he's a human being first, and his goal is to make as many of his soldiers survive the inferno as possible. Stransky and Steiner will clash when the captain takes credit for a bravery of another officer, killed in action, and Steiner refuses to confirm his report. In order to take revenge and eliminate his opponent, Stransky is capable to send to danger the entire platoon.
Anti-war literature and film have a tradition in Germany, the most famous example being Remarque's 'All Quiet on the Western Front' and the films inspired by this novel. Without reaching their depth and clarity, 'Cross of Iron' also presents a nuanced and humanized picture of German soldiers in the trenches of World War II. The film is a co-production of studios in England and Germany. For audiences outside Germany such an approach was quite new in 1977, and this is probably one of the reasons why it was originally much better received in Germany than in other countries. The cinematic qualities are undeniable. The opening and ending credits are impressive and put the events and characters depicted in the film into the context of the horrors and war crimes committed by the Nazis. The war scenes are very well directed and the depictions of violence (Peckinpah's trademark) are impressive. I didn't mind the repetitions, I think they effectively emphasize the hell in the middle of which the conflict between the characters takes place. However, the Hollywood influence is also felt, precisely in this film made while Sam Peckinpah was running away from Hollywood. It's one of James Coburn's best roles, but he also acts in some scenes more like the cowboys he plays in other movies. James Mason also looks more like an English gentleman or American officer than a Wermacht soldier. On the other hand, Maximilian Schell creates here one of the best 'bad German' roles he has played in international films. 'Cross of Iron' is a movie with and about men, and the two episodes with female presences don't fit very well. The idyll with the hospital nurse (an obviously under-cast Senta Berger) is too sketchy, and the episode with the platoon of Soviet women seemed too voyeuristic. The strongest part of the film remains the gallery of soldiers, each with its own personality, with actors excellently chosen for small but well-craft roles. Almost 50 years after its creation, 'Cross of Iron' is an interesting film production even if it has rusted in some places.
La vie de château (1966)
the unlikely heroes
8 feature films in 50 years. This is the entire filmography of Jean-Paul Rappeneau between 1966 and 2015. And yet, the French director and screenwriter managed with these 8 films to make a name for himself and occupy a visible and honorable place in the history of French cinema. He did it without revolutionizing the 7th art as some of his contemporaries tried and without choosing shocking themes as others tried. The 1966 'La vie de château' ('A Matter of Resistance' in the English distribution) is his first feature film. Rappeneau also wrote the screenplay, along with a few more credited collaborators. He enjoyed already in this film an exceptional cast which he used skillfully. What was his secret? I think it's primarily about respect or maybe even love for the audience. I think Rappeneau knew throughout his career to listen to the audiences and understand why people come to the cinema and pay for tickets. He responded by creating films that severe critics labeled as commercial, but he proved that this label does not necessarily mean compromising on quality. The public responded by making most of his films box office hits. The first one was 'La vie de château'.
The 1960s were the first time in which some of the European and particularly French filmmakers felt comfortable enough to look back at the Second World War without anger and to make films in which the approach to the conflict was somewhat more nuanced, including the genre of comedy. Not all of these attempts were met with sympathy, and even 'La vie de château' had its critics, particularly for presenting the German military in an insufficiently evil light. A viewer who knows nothing about the film might think, upon watching the first 10-15 minutes, that he is watching a romantic family comedy set somewhere in Normandy. The generic exposes a series of luminous close-up still shots of Catherine Deneuve at the peak of her youth (beautiful she was and still is) at 22, creating an atmosphere of sensuality. Deneuve is Marie, the young wife of Jérôme, the owner of a castle about to return to ruin. Marie dreams of going to Paris, Jérôme opposes because he cannot afford it financially, but also because he fears that he could lose his young wife to the temptations of Paris. The zoom-out occurs later, when we understand that the story takes place in the summer of 1944 in the days leading up to the Normandy landings, that the area is swarming with German soldiers, Resistance fighters and British and American spies, and that the castle has a strategic position, being located near a German super-gun that could endanger the landing plans. Marie remains the center of attention, being courted by both a young resistance man sent to destroy the cannon and a German officer commanding the regiment that decides to occupy the castle, under the eyes of the jealous husband. The affair ends in a fight between the suitors on the very night before D-Day. To win back his wife's heart, Jérôme is willing to become a hero. In other words, when two lovers quarrel, the husband wins.
Philippe Noiret plays here perfectly the role of the unlikely hero. He will repeat it, in a tragic register, nine years later in 'Le vieux fusil'. For Catherine Deneuve this is one of the first roles in which she is the undisputed star and the object of all men's desire. Many more will follow. The tone is light, comical, even romantic, and the debate whether the 'feel good' approach to the events of that period is appropriate is a legitimate one. I have no intention of settling it. I will mention three more elements that contribute to the film's cinematic quality: Pierre Brasseur as Marie's father, Michel Legrand's music and Pierre Lhomme's cinematography. The use of black-and-white film in the mid-60s was no longer an economic choice, but an aesthetic one. Rappeneau belonged rather to the category of directors who rejected the approaches of the New Wave, but from a technical point of view and from the liberties with which he draws his characters, he shows in this film (his debut!) that he has a good command of the lessons and innovations brought by his already famous colleagues. Revisited almost six decades after its release, 'La vie de château' surprises for the better with its charm and freshness.
La chambre bleue (2014)
love and crime in a small French town
Mathieu Amalric is one of my favorite actors and his presence on the credits of a movie is reason enough to want to see him. From time to time he is also behind the camera as a film director. This is the case with 'La chambre bleue' ('The Blue Room') from 2014. Amalric proves that he is an interesting and versatile filmmaker, playing the lead role, directing and also co-writing the script together with Stéphanie Cléau who also is his partner on the screen. This is the adaptation of a novel by Georges Simenon - a love story combined with a psychological thriller in which for quite some time the main question is not 'who committed the crime?' but 'who is the victim?'
The setting of the story reminded me of the films of Claude Chabrol. We are in a provincial town where almost everyone knows almost everyone, an oppressive space where passions are bubbling and love is never too far from crime. The opening scene of the film shows Julien and Esther in a steamy love scene in a blue-walled room in a small hotel. In the next scene we see Julien arrested, interrogated, questioned about his life and his relationship with Delphine. We do not know for a long time why he is arrested and suspected. The narrative will advance on two parallel planes, the testimonies from the investigation foreshadowing flashbacks through which Julien tells his version. But what happened? We, the viewers, will find out gradually, receiving with each flashback a piece of a puzzle that is not fully completed even after the last scene. The liaison was clandestine. Julien, a successful agricultural machinery dealer, was happily married to Delphine, with whom he had a daughter. Esther, the town pharmacist, is less happily married to a sickly man much older than her. The two lovers had superficially known each other in their teens and their lives had diverged for many years. At the reunion, passion triggers, especially at Esther's initiative. Does Julien love her enough to leave his wife and family? Things get complicated when Esther decides to test the man's love. Corpses also appear. Are these crimes? Natural deaths? Accidents?
Mathieu Amalric is an actor capable of playing many roles, but he seems to be best suited to those in which he embodies men in love, undecided, about to lose control of their lives due to the dilemmas of love. That's exactly the role he plays here. He probably chose to make this film just for this role. Stéphanie Cléau, a screenwriter and actress with surprisingly few screen appearances, is a perfect partner, building with Amalric an adulterous couple in which the woman tries to take control of the man's destiny. Léa Drucker, another actress I really like, doesn't get enough time to develop her role. However, I would not want to criticize the film's duration. With less than 80 minutes of projection, 'La chambre bleue' is perfectly dosed and excellently paced. In an era dominated by lavish 150-minute-plus movie productions, this minimalist approach manages to prove that an interesting and complex story can be built in fewer minutes, where there is focus and talent. The cinematography uses a narrow screen format, befitting the feeling of claustrophobia on which the tension is based. The knock-out finish is memorable. There aren't many reasons to avoid this movie.
Civil War (2024)
too dark to be true?
Dystopias on screens seem to impress less lately, and this is probably also due to the fact that our lives and the events around us contain more and more elements of dystopia. 'Civil War', the film written and directed by Alex Garland in 2024, depicts an ultimate American dystopia: the United States is ravaged by a civil war in which California and Texas (with Florida as allies) are rebelling against federal power and are on the way to win the war. Neighbors are pitted against each other, anarchy reigns, and war crimes that Americans only read about in the press are taking place on American soil. The script tries and skillfully succeeds in not associating any of the conflicting parties with current political camps, nor does it explain how and why Texas and California became partners in the secessionist alliance. Alex Garland's attention was directed to another aspect - the role of the media in such conflicts and how journalists deal with the violence and war crimes they witness. The whole thing is packaged as a political action thriller (a well done one). What happens on the screen is in many moments horrible, sometimes even hard to watch. By not providing explanations, Garland leaves the audience to ask. How did they get there?
At the heart of the story are four journalists who decide to undertake what has become a journey strewn with deadly dangers from New York to Washington, DC to try to get an interview, perhaps the last interview, with the President of the United States barricaded in the White House. Lee is a famous photojournalist, whose name and biography are inspired by Lee Miller the famous 20th century American photographer and war photojournalist. Jessie is a much younger version of the same character, wanting to follow in the footsteps of Lee, who is for her idol and role model. Joel is a young, brave and experienced war reporter. Sammy, much older than the other three, is a veteran journalist who writes for 'what's left of the New York Times'. The road of the four is dotted with images of devastated America and unimaginable but highly suggestive war scenes as photo subjects. The final part of the film takes place in the besieged White House. An empire is about to fall.
Is a bloody road movie. We witness Jessie's coming of age, with her becoming more and more like her role model. At the same time, it is precisely the most hardened reporters who reach their psychological crisis points when faced with the deaths of their colleagues. Many films have already been made about the profession of war journalist, some very good. 'Civil War' adds to this list, asking tough questions about the nature of the professions of war reporter and photographer. What is the ultimate duty of journalists in extreme conditions? To record and report what they witness? When it comes to extreme violence, atrocities, seen without reacting, don't reporters become accomplices? Does 'embedding' with one or other of the forces - without which access to the battlefields is in many cases impossible - mean complicity with them? Alex Garland deliberately chose, I think, the profession of photojournalist and presented his heroes using the slightly old-fashioned tools of their trade. I think he meant that the questions asked in the film do not refer to a specific period, but to all the wars covered by journalists, since the press exists.
The cinematography is fluid and spectacular, although it does not appear to have been an excessively expensive production. Action movie buffs will be pleased, I think. Kirsten Dunst (Lee) proves that she has moved into the category of solid actresses with a diverse filmography. Cailee Spaeny seemed a bit counter-cast at first (too young?) but as the film advances she goes through a maturity process that manages to convince. Wagner Moura and Stephen McKinley Henderson round out the cast of characters with satisfying supporting roles. 'Civil War' is more than just another dystopia.
Master i Margarita (2023)
'The Master' of our times
Mikhail Bulgakov's novel 'The Master and Margarita' was written between 1928 and 1940, but the writer never saw it published. The first - censored - version of the book appeared in the USSR in 1966. I guess this is the version that was translated into Romanian that I read in the late 60s. I have seen several more theatrical and cinematographic versions in the years that followed. It can be said that every generation since had its version of 'The Master and Margarita'. Mikhail Bulgakov created a complex and profound literary masterpiece, still relevant as long as individual freedom in general and the creative freedom of artists in particular is questioned under different political systems. The film directed by Michael Lockshin, an artist who lives in two cultures - Russian and American - was shot about 3-4 years ago, and its release was delayed after the start of the war in Ukraine in 2022. Filmed in Russia and acted mostly with Russian actors, the film was released only at the beginning of 2024 and is enjoying success with audiences in Russia. The controversies surrounding the script and production seem to echo what happened to the novel that inspired the screenplay in a complex of situations where life imitated the book (and the film). This 'The Master and Margarita' has a chance to become the major film version of the period we live in.
The screenplay is a rather loose adaptation of the novel, which has three narrative planes: the fate in the Soviet Moscow of a writer who is in constant struggle with censorship and in love with Margareta, a married woman; the appearance in Moscow of Professor Woland, a magician who may be an incarnation of the Devil and who dialogues with the atheist citizens of the new Soviet Union; and the evocation of the New Testament episode in which Pontius Pilate confronts Jesus and seals his condemnation. The biblical narrative plan is almost completely neglected. The focus is on the story of the Master, who is a playwright whose play about Pilate is taken off the stage due to its 'un-Soviet' theme. Events related to Bulgakov's biography itself are added. The writer is criticized in a public meeting and then expelled from the Writers' Union. When he decides to express his sufferings in the only way he knows - by writing a novel - he meets Margarita. Woland makes his appearance only about 40 minutes in the movie and becomes kind of a protector of the writer, the hero of his book and a witness to the love story between him and Margarita. The relationship between the two can only end tragically. Creators who have the courage to tell the truth are the fools of any age, and those considered fools in a dictatorial system like the Soviet one are sent to forced treatments. Lucidity among madmen is neighbor to death. The last part of the film is dominated by the story of Woland, leading to the destruction of yet another empire. He and all his companions witnessed yet another episode of the grandeur and folly of mankind.
'The Master and Margarita' is a complex work, with multiple layers and meanings. Michael Lockshin and his team found cinematic equivalents for many of the novel's narrative threads and added some nuance and development to ideas that, if present, are not central to the book. Visually, the film is formidable. The director created together with the designer Denis Lischenko and the director of cinematography Maxim Zhukov filmed a vision of Moscow where the mess of everyday existence is combined with the grandiose constructions of the communist era. It is not the Moscow of a hundred years ago, but rather the city of the future, as Stalin dreamed of the future, in the making. I believe that the trio of actors in the main roles are exceptional. Evgeniy Tsyganov makes in his character a synthesis of Bulgakov and many other writers, poets, artists whose voices were censored and strangled during the period of Soviet terror and who nevertheless did not give up their creation, often at the cost of their health or life. The love story with Margareta is believable and crosses the screen thanks to Yulia Snigir's beauty and talent. Finally, the German actor August Diehl is an excellent choice for the role of Woland, the character with magical and evil powers who dominates the second part of the film. Michael Lockshin's 'The Master and Margarita' also has some flaws in my opinion - an excessive and unnecessary verbosity considering the expressive force of the images and its screening duration. Here again, as in many other contemporary films, I don't think that exceeding the 120 minute limit added anything good to the viewers' experience. However, this screen version of Bulgakov's book is probably the best yet produced. I hope that international distribution will overcome all kinds of barriers, because this film deserves to be appreciated by its contemporaries, just as I believe it will be appreciated in the future.
Nachts wenn der Teufel kam (1957)
justice under terror
The life path and the career of Robert Siodmak has been winding, full of ups and downs, worthy of the script of a biopic waiting to be written and brought to screens sometime in the future. The German director of Jewish origin had to leave Germany when the Nazis came to power and ended up in Paris where with the few films made between 1933 and 1939 he came to be considered a possible rival or perhaps successor to René Clair. Terror followed him and at the outbreak of the Second World War he left for the United States where in 13 years he directed 23 films, becoming one of the specialists of the 'film noir' genre - appreciated by critics and film history, but not by the American public of that immediate post-war period, who preferred more optimistic-escapist films. Back in Europe he enjoyed several years of success and recognition and this period includes 'Nachts wenn der Teufel kam' (the English distribution title is 'The Devil Strikes at Night') from 1957. He was one of the first filmmakers who took refuge to America during the Nazi period returning to make films in Germany. 'Nachts wenn der Teufel kam' combines elements of American 'film noir' (many invented by Siodmak himself) with the tradition of German expressionist serial killer films, but it is above all also a political film, with a critical message about the political class and the police and justice apparatus subordinated to Nazism during the Second World War.
The story takes place in the last summer of the Second World War, the summer of 1944. German cities are already being bombed daily, the front lines are getting closer, the number of fallen soldiers is constantly increasing, but the official propaganda still talks about the final victory. All aspects of civilian life are subject to the directives of the Nazi Party and the terror of the Gestapo, including what remains of the police and judiciary. Captain Axel Kersten returns from the front after being seriously wounded and is assigned to the post of commissioner in the criminal police. When he is entrusted the case of the murder of a woman in Hamburg, he makes the connection with a series of crimes that had been committed in the last decades in different cities of Germany. The arrest and conviction of an innocent man prompts him to act determinedly to find the real killer, but solving the crimes does not sit well with the Nazi authorities. Public disclosure of the truth would harm official propaganda, as the culprit does not belong to those declared by the regime to belong to 'inferior races', and the recognition of judicial errors as well as the fact that so many serial murders were committed and remained unpunished during the years of Nazi rule would mean that the regime is not infallible. A strange complicity is born between the criminal and the system that tries to cover him, and those who still believe in justice in an unjust system are in great danger.
I have seen many films set in Germany during the Nazi years, but most of them were not German or were made many decades after the events. 'Nachts wenn der Teufel kam' is different. It is a documentary in its own way, as it was made only 12 years after the fall of the regime, filmed in the same Germany where the story takes place and played by actors who lived through the era. The script is based on a real case made public by a series of articles published a year before. The descriptions of the decadence and corruption of the regime are based on testimonies and direct experiences. A scene such as the party that takes place in the villa of the high Nazi official has a Fellini tinge, but is actually based on historical reality. The action unfolds fluently, the characters are well described and the relationships between them built from few but well placed words. Images of buildings about to collapse, if not already in ruins, evoke the state of Germany in that final year of the war. There is also a love story that provides the necessary sentimental counterpoint. The most impressive of the performers is Mario Adorf, an extremely prolific actor whose career of over 200 films continues to this day. His role is part of the series of serial killer characters that began in German Expressionist films (some silent) and continues through Hannibal Lecter and his successors. 'Nachts wenn der Teufel kam' is not only a film that deserves the label of 'important' but also a story on the screen that gives many reasons for satisfaction to the viewers of today.
The Death of Stalin (2017)
history as a farce
One of the most famous quotes attributed to Karl Marx (who in turn was commenting on Hegel) is the one that claims that history and its personalities repeat themselves twice: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. Marx (Karl) did not live to see the invention of the cinema, but the genre of film comedies - parodies, satires, farces - dealing with the darkest characters and moments of history seems to be one of the exemplifications of this phrase. Cinematic versions in comic registers of tragic periods of the past have not infrequently generated interesting films and more often also controversies. This is also the case with 'The Death of Stalin', the 2017 film by Armando Iannucci, a screenwriter and director who is not afraid to satirically attack taboo subjects or monsters of history. The script is inspired by a French comics book and the production is a collaboration of the Gaumont studios with other European and North American film houses. The result is a film that cannot help but spark discussion, bringing one of the turning points of 20th century history into the debates of the present.
The last evening of Stalin's life and his agony after the cerebral attack he suffered, alone in his room due to his own order not to be disturbed under the threat of death, are known facts and recounted in numerous documentary and fiction books. Quite a lot is also known about the events that followed, about the internal struggles in the Politburo between Khrushchev and Beria that ended with the latter's arrest, conviction and execution, and about the de-Stalinization process that would culminate with Khrushchev's famous speech at the 20th Congress of the CPSU in 1956. The script of 'The Death of Stalin' preserves the essential lines of the conflict, but compresses the entire story into a few days, from the evening fateful to the dictator to the day after the lavish funeral. Released from the permanent terror in which they lived, the characters around Stalin wake up to the new reality sooner or later and begin the struggle for power in parallel with the preparations for the official ceremonies. They are all products of the system of corrupt and violent dictatorship that Stalin had built during the 30 years he was at the helm of the USSR. The psychological profiles, as they appear in the film, are diverse: Beria is a sadistic and cunning psychopath, Khrushchev is an opportunistic arriviste, Malenkov is indecisive and half-senile, Molotov is weak, blackmailed for years by the arrest and deportation of his wife, and Marshal Zhukov with his chest laden with decorations looks like a caricature of militarism. They all fear everyone else, hypocritically embrace each other while planning criminal alliances to eliminate their opponents before those eliminate them, mime democracy while setting the apparatus of repression in motion. Meanwhile, terror, arrests, executions continue outside the Kremlin walls. Until a certain moment, when everything stops. But even this sudden change is unreal, as it is impossible to erase the traumas, the sufferings, the deaths.
Approaching such tragic moments of history in a satirical register cannot but arouse controversy. Nostalgics of the Soviet system and its successors may be outraged. Victims and their descendants may question the approach. Armando Iannucci could not avoid controversies, nor does he seem to have intended to. He mostly kept (to my knowledge) the gist of the events, but changed their timeline to create something close the temporal unity of classical drama. He thickened the characters as or historical farce, but not as for cheap parody. The words spoken by them sometimes resemble absurd theater texts, but many are actually extracted from transcripts of historically attested meetings or scenes. The cast is international, most of the actors are English or American, and they were asked to use their native English accents and not imitate a Russian accent. Steve Buscemi as Khrushchev and Simon Russell Beale as Beria are far from the physiognomy of the historical figures, and no make-up effort was made to change them. Jeffrey Tambor as Makenkov was the only one I found excessively caricatured. I thought the background was very well presented, with some real-life scenes that set the historical farce in the context of the tragedy that the peoples of the Soviet Union were experiencing, in the empire of fear. One of the scenes is downright brilliant. A KGB-style execution is depicted, in which the convicts are gunned down one by one. In the middle of the line comes the order to stop mass executions. Four men among those condemned to death remain standing as the executioners flee. The four will be the first survivors of the terror.
Thelma (2024)
old is cool
Movies with people at advanced ages as characters are all the rage. At the rate they are being produced and released, the Academy may soon create a new category of Academy Awards - for Best Actor/Actress over 85. If such a thing were to happen next year, then one of the nominations (at least) would belong to June Squibb, who at 93 plays a woman who is exactly her age, in the sparkling and tender comedy 'Thelma' (2024) written and directed by Josh Margolin. June Squibb is a phenomenon. She has about a hundred films and TV series in her filmography, but she was over 60 years old when she debuted on the big screens. But once started, she didn't stop. She featured in 'About Schmidt' (she's the wife who dies in the opening scene) and received an Oscar nomination for a supporting role in 2013. She's been on screen in several movies or TV shows every year for the past decade. For writer-director Josh Margolin, this is his feature film debut, but, to use a cliché, I'll mention that it doesn't show. With the role of Thelma, June Squibb comes close the awards zone, even if the Academy does not establish that new and imaginary category.
Widowed for two years, Thelma is 93 years old, still strong and lucid enough to live alone. At least she thinks so. She is helped by her grandson, the adorable Daniel, who at 24 has not found his way in life, but is kind enough to visit often his grandmother and to introduce her to the secrets of computers and the Internet. When the somewhat naive old woman falls victim to an Internet fraud sending ten thousand dollars to the address of some crooks for a supposed bail for Daniel, neither the family nor the police can do much to help her get her money back. Then Thelma decides to act alone. Not that she critically needs the money, but a matter of principles. Her only help - reluctant too - comes Ben, an old friend from the same generation, who has chosen to become a resident in a nursing home and is very happy with life there. Will the two aged persons, using an electric scooter in the urban jungle of the Los Angeles area, manage to find the criminals, recover the losses and do justice? What is certain is that their disappearance puts the family, nursing home staff and the police on alert. Everyone is looking for the two, who are looking for the crooks.
Getting older is not a very nice thing. Physical and mental limitations appear, the world around is changing in terms of technology and mentalities, and not necessarily for the better, loved ones and friends have disappeared, or if they still exist, they are also suffering from the ravages of old age. Josh Margolin's script is sometimes naive and simplistic, in the style of television sitcom series, but it has the great quality of getting it right in what concerns the old age, dealing with it with understanding and empathy. I also have in care a soon-to-be 96-year-old mother, and I can testify that I recognized many experiences and situations in what I saw in 'Thelma'. June Squibb does not act, she rather lives her age on the screen, and therefore her role is truthful and also loaded with humor. Richard Roundtree, her partner in the film plays the role of Ben, who would be the same age as Thelma, but in reality he was 13 years younger. He died in October 2023 and this was his last feature film. Malcolm McDowell is probably the best-known actor in the cast, and he's 14 years younger than June Squibb. Her Thelma dominates the film, not only because of the character but also because of the quality of her performance. The narration is cursive - even if the events on the screen do not quite fit into the calculation of the hours of a day - and the humor is natural and constantly present. 'Thelma' is good summer entertainment that proves that even the experiences of older ages can be made into funny, sensitive and good taste comedies.
Teströl és lélekröl (2017)
dreams with deers
'Teströl és lélékröl' ('On Body and Soul' in the English distribution), the film that won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival in 2017 and was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards, is one of the successful films of Hungarian cinema from the last decades. Ildikó Enyedi, the film director and the author of the script, directed for Hungarian television the local version of psychologists series 'In Treatment', the format created by the Israeli Hagai Levi and exported in numerous adaptations on almost all continents. A psychologist also plays an important role in 'Teströl és lélékröl', as she triggers a plot in which dreams, an unusual love story and a social parable are combined. Cinema from Central and Eastern Europe does not hesitate to blur the classical delimitations between cinematic genres and add different perspectives - the proof is this film that draws its viewers into its world and haunts them long after the viewing is over.
Endre is the general manager of a cattle slaughterhouse, a fairly modern establishment with industrial processes and production lines that only make the killing of animals harder for the sensitive to watch. This is just the unsettling background for the small human dramas we watch on screen. Endre is about 50 years old, his left hand is paralyzed, he is shy and lonely. Equally lonely is Mária, a new employee in charge of quality control. She is about 30 years old, extremely meticulous, a beautiful woman, but who has an obvious problem in communicating with those around her. A bizarre incident (the theft of an aphrodisiac substance for cattle, used for 'insemination') brings the police and a psychologist woman to the factory to clarify the case. She asks employees to tell their dreams. This is when we, the viewers, understand that the images of snowy forests that appear from time to time in the film are actually the dreams of the heroes. Endre and Mária dream exactly the same dreams: a deer and a doe meet in a forest. He is the deer, she is the fawn. The psychologist is convinced that the two want to play a prank on her. The man and the woman try to understand what is happening. Their lonelinesses approach, then they touch. Can the dream become a reality?
I really liked the story and the approach, until close to the end. We don't learn anything about Endre and Mária's past, about the traumas that made them the way they are physically (Endre) or behavior-wise (Mária about whom we only know has undergone some psychiatric treatments since childhood). Their approaching is timid and gradual, their meeting occurring first in a dream, then as an exploration of a possible friendship, and then the budding of a relationship. Both avoid physical contact for a long time. As in many fantasy stories, when the resolution belongs to the plane of reality, there is a risk of being disappointed. The two actors who play the main roles are superb. Alexandra Borbély is beautiful, strange and vulnerable as Mária. Géza Morcsányi, who plays Endre, is not a professional actor, and the choice is excellent, as he gives naturalness and sincerity to the role of the single man, who gets a chance at love late in life, and is afraid to commit himself in order not to hurt his partner The ending, like I said, let me down a bit, but I can't imagine a better one. A strange and delicate film that I do recommend.
Potiche (2010)
at the theatre with Deneuve, Luchini, Depardieu
'Potiche', François Ozon's 2010 film brings together Catherine Deneuve, Fabrice Luchini and Gérard Depardieu, which is reason enough to want to see it without delay. The film brings to the screen a plot inspired by a play that was successfully performed in the Parisian theaters of the time. The feeling I had while watching it was exactly this - I was lucky to enter a theater where a light comedy - like many of the comedies staged in Paris - was being played, with an exceptional cast. Even if the respective roles are not career peaks for the great actors on the stage, you can't leave the theater unsatisfied.
The story takes happens in 1977. Suzanne Pujol is the heiress of an umbrella factory that is run with a capitalist iron hand by her husband, Robert. The beautiful grandmother is reduced to the role of 'trophy wife' ('potiche' in French), jogging, gardening and taking care of the household (with the help of the maid). When a labor dispute breaks out at the factory and Robert is sequestered and then suffers a heart attack, Suzanne assumes the role of an active participant in running the business, a role her husband had denied her for many years. Together with her daughter and son, Suzanne manages not only to resolve the conflicts, but also to make the business prosper, waking-up her long-suppressed talents. Robert, however, recovers from his illness and returns, not being too happy with Suzanne's role or her ideas. In addition, there is a sentimental complication related to the relations between Suzanne and Maurice Babin, a communist politician with whom the woman had an affair long ago and who now plays an important role in local politics.
This whole story sounds like a political farce played out on a stage, and so it is. François Ozon decided that if it's theater, theater be, and he didn't avoid the theatrical lines in the script. In addition, he shot many scenes as if the actors were looking towards the fourth wall, that of the audience in front of the stage. If we understand and accept the conception, the result is not bad. We are dealing with a script that sounds like a play, a sparkling but a little too predictable comedy, with three great actors who are happy to act together. Catherine Deneuve seems to have found the recipe for slowing down time, Gérard Depardieu has put on a lot of pounds but this sin we can forgive him, and Fabrice Luchini is more diabolical than ever. Watching or re-watching 'Potiche' can cause no regrets.
Merci pour le chocolat (2000)
cool psychological thriller on the shores of the Lac Léman
In 2000, Claude Chabrol, having turned 70 years old, was entering his last decade of life and cinematic career. 'Merci pour le chocolat' (distributed in the English-language market under the rather funny title 'Nightcap') was the sixth film in which he cast Isabelle Huppert, one of his favorite actresses. It would be the penultimate. Chabrol was and continues to be regarded as a disciple and follower of Alfred Hitchcock. In his films, the main heroines are women with icy allure who hide hot passions, and who better than Isabelle Huppert could play such roles? The film has many of the characteristics Chabrol is known for. It is a not-so-veiled critique of the morals of the bourgeoisie - the Swiss one in this case, the action taking place in and around Lausanne. It is a psychological thriller where the suspense is not created by the question 'who committed the crime?' but rather 'Was there a crime?' and 'if yes, why was it committed?'. Finally, he abounds in reverence to his masters - Fritz Lang and Hitchcock. It's one of those Chabrol films (about half of his filmography) where I get the impression that the French director wanted to continue the filmography of the British master in the French-speaking world.
The film begins with a civil marriage ceremony, with few participants, but all handpicked from the wealthy class living on the shores of Lake Léman. It is actually a re-marriage. Mika Muller, the heiress and CEO of a prosperous chocolate factory, and the famous pianist André Polonski are getting married again after being separated for 18 years. During this time, he had experienced another marriage from which Guillaume had been born, a boy out of adolescence who does not quite know what to do with his life. André's second wife had died in a car accident, after an evening all spent with together with Mika. The three live in a villa on a mountain coast which resembles the motel in 'Psycho', especially since Chabrol films it in such a way that he makes sure that spectators don't miss the hint. Their peaceful life, sweetened by the cups of hot chocolate prepared by Mika, is disturbed by the appearance of Jeanne, a young girl born on the same night and in the same maternity as Guillaume, who had just discovered a strange story: at birth there had been the suspicion that the two babies were were exchanged between them. Does she want to infiltrate André's life? Or maybe she just wants to benefit from his music lessons, as she is also a very talented pianist? Maybe the fact that the girl is so gifted musically is not a coincidence either.
In life and in movies, family relationships ('blood links' as they say) are in most cases an axis of stability. Not in 'Merci pour le chocolat'. Paternity relationships are uncertain and DNA testing has not yet entered the arsenal of forensic experts and movie writers. Jeanne may be André's daughter, but then Guillaume is not his son. Even though Jeanne is the daughter of the mother who raised her, she will find out that her father is not the one she adored (and who had also died) but an unknown donor. Even Mika, the rich heiress of the chocolate empire is an adopted daughter. To what extent does heredity determine the talents, destinies and behavior of each of the heroes? In one way or another, each of the film's characters is in an identity crisis or is involved in the crises of the others. The screenplay adapts an American novel written by Charlotte Armstrong and published around the middle of the 20th century. The artist André Polonski is a pianist in the film and not a painter, as in the novel. This change introduced by the screenwriters allows the director to create a soundtrack based largely on the piano music performed by the heroes. Franz Liszt's 'Marche funebre' in several different interpretations has an important role. Jacques Dutronc amazes me in almost every film I see him in with his acting talent, and I don't know whether or not to regret that he didn't act in more films, because that would have meant less composing and performing, or I also like him a lot as well as a musician. Anna Mouglalis is excellent in the role of Jeanne. She is a beautiful and talented actress. Why didn't she become one of the screen stars in France? Finally, what can be said about Isabelle Huppert, except that she is fantastic as almost always and that the role suits her perfectly? As in many of Chabrol's films, the suspect and mysterious woman is a master of drugs and poisons. In this case everything is mixed in chocolate, with milk, of course. Yes - milk that reminds us of 'Suspicion' or 'Spellbound'. However, Hitchcock is not the only master who is quoted. In which other film does the female suspect present one of the potential victims with a DVD of a Fritz Lang film as a present?
La reine Margot (1994)
bloody thrones
Historical movies are getting old too. 'La reine Margot', the adaptation of Alexandre Dumas' novel produced by Claude Berri and written (in collaboration) and directed by Patrice Chéreau was made in 1994. I am passionate about history (including historical books and films), I am quite knowledgeable in the history of France, I read Dumas's novels (albeit half a century ago or even more) and I also did some reading in preparation for watching this movie. And yet, with all that and all the cast and some remarkable cinematic moments, I was left quite disappointed. 'La reine Margot' is a difficult film to watch, which fails to tell the historical drama. Its qualities have nothing to do with the novels of Alexandre Dumas and little to do with Queen Margot herself.
I think that those who have not read Dumas' novel last week or who are not experts in the history of France in the second half of the 16th century will find it quite difficult to make sense of the first 20-30 minutes of the film. The opening scenes depict the 1572 wedding of Henri de Navarre with Marguerite, sister of King Charles IX of France, a marriage of convenience intended to ease the conflict between Catholics and Protestants that had torn France apart in recent decades. It would be a good opportunity to get to know the characters of the historical drama that unfolds, but the solution chosen by the director is not the most suitable. On the one hand we are dealing with a dynamic, diverse and interesting cinematic portrait of the era. On the other hand, dozens of characters that appear on the screen and viewers have too little time to get to know them and understand their relationships. The event that follows does not need much explanation, however. This is the massacre triggered on the night of Saint Bartholomew in which thousands of people, mostly Protestants, lost their lives. It is one of the most successful parts of the film, and the dramatic filming style brings to the viewers' minds events from recent European history (the Holocaust) and even contemporary to the years when 'La reine Margot' was filmed (the Balkan wars). The continuation of the plot quite faithfully follows the story in Dumas' novel - with the love story between the young queen and one of the Protestant soldiers in the service of the king of Navarre, with the religious wars and court intrigues sprinkled with betrayals and assassinations.
Seen 30 years after it was made, Patrice Chéreau's film version failed to captivate me. Isabelle Adjani was stunningly beautiful, but neither her relationship with La Môle nor her maturation within the political intrigues of the court seem convincing. Daniel Auteuil seemed to me at first a strange casting for the role of Henri de Navarre, but his personality manages to impose itself and offer a dramatic version of the historical character. I found Jean-Hugues Anglade in the role of the hypochondriac and corrupt King Charles, whose human dimensions are revealed only in the last hours of his life, to be a remarkable creation. Finally, among the memorable roles, I cannot fail to mention that of Virna Lisi who plays Catherine of Medici, in the evil vision conceived by Alexandre Dumas. The acting, dramatic cinematography and Goran Bregovic's music only partially compensate for the confusing narrative. A few of the film's memorable sequences rise above the whole.
Kinds of Kindness (2024)
a triptych by Yorgos Lanthimos
Yorgos Lanthimos invites us into his world with the triptych 'Kinds of Kindness' (2024). The format of the short-medium format film collection is not entirely new. Of course, we know him from the small screens with illustrious precedents such as 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents' or 'Tales from the Crypt', but also from the creations for the big screens by directors from Jim Jarmusch to Cristian Mungiu. The world of Yorgos Lanthimos is that of parables loaded with symbols, of absurdity combined with the horror genre, of extreme experiences anchored in a confusingly familiar immediate reality. The three films that make up 'Kinds of Kindness' are linked by several common thematic elements (individual will in contrast to social control, the relativity of the independence of individual actions, the presence of death as an element of reality rather than a metaphysical threat. The stronger ones belong to the style and the cinematography: the same group of actors, characters with similar names or initials, a continuous soundtrack that combines the sometimes inharmonious piano with church hymns, alluding to another, holier, Trinity. As in the case of the brothers Coen, Lanthimos' (and co-screenwriter Efthimis Filippou's) characters are bizarre and rarely invite sympathy.
All three stories take place in immediate American reality, although any localization is carefully avoided. In the first episode, Robert, an employee of a corporation based in a metropolis, is under the total control of his boss, Raymond. He dictates his daily schedule, what to wear, what to eat and drink, when to have or not have relations with his wife. On the day Raymond asks him to commit a murder, Robert hesitates and tries to refuse. Can a bird that has lived a long time in a cage return to free life? In the second story, the policeman Daniel mourns the disappearance at sea of Liz, an oceanographer. After a while, she returns after being found on a remote island. But is she the real Liz? Some details do not match. Maybe they are changes due to the trauma the woman went through. Daniel becomes more and more convinced that she is a hoax. Those around him consider him paranoid. Maybe they are right. Events evolve into madness. The third story has as the main heroine, Emily, a woman who left her family to join a bizarre cult dominated by the all-powerful Omi. The task received from them is to search for a woman who has supernatural powers, including healing any wound or disease and even raising the dead. But she too falls victim to the brutality of the world she is trying to leave and is cast out by the cult. But what if he finds the healer? Will she save herself and rehabilitate herself in the eyes of the community that had rejected her?
Quotations and symbols abound in the three stories, from Cinderella to the films of Stanley Kubrick. Lanthimos constantly attacks the taboos without destroying them. Cruel parody is ultimately a form of admiration. Willem Dafoe and Emma Stone were with the director in his previous film, 'Poor Things'. It will be interesting to see if these collaborations continue and where they will evolve. They are joined in this film by Jesse Plemons, Margaret Qualley and a few more actors with roles in each of the three films. The atmosphere in 'Kinds of Kindness' is that of a theater performance by a troupe playing with the same actors, in the same evening, three different plays in one act. Black and macabre theater, farces and tragic comedies about the cruelty of life and dancing with death. A show signed by Yorgos Lanthimos.
Ensemble, c'est tout (2007)
Claude Berri's elegant farewell
'Ensemble, c'est tout' (2007) is the last film that Claude Berri wrote (based on a novel by Anna Gavalda) and directed to the end. His filmography ends with another film ('Trésor'), which he was unable to finish and see released, the film being completed by another director. 'Ensemble, c'est tout' can therefore be considered as a beautiful end to his career, a 'feel-good' film, having at its center a love story as it happens with many of his successful films. The title, oddly enough, fits the story. It was strangely translated in the English distribution as 'Hunting and Gathering' (!).
The film has four main characters, and at the beginning of the story none of them seems too happy. Paulette, an old woman who lives alone in her house, surrounded by her beloved cats and parrots falls, fractures her hip and has to be hospitalized for surgery and a long recovery. Her grandson, Franck, the only one who takes care of her, is exhausted from his work as a chef in a restaurant and also takes care of his grandmother (and her cats). Franck lives in a huge apartment with Philibert, a young man from an aristocratic family, a rich boy, unhappy as well because he aspires to become a stand-up actor despite an obvious stutter. In the same Parisian building lives Camille, a pretty and modest girl, a talented portretist, who works hard as a cleaning woman for a living. The four loners will grow closer and turn their relationships into friendships and more than that.
The recipe for this kind of films can be found in the American comedies of the 40s and 50s of the last century. The role of young Camille is played by Audrey Tautou, an actress I adore, part of a series of roles of her that seem to be inspired by those played by the other Audrey - Hepburn - in American films. How is it that this formula, where the characters get better and better with little obstacles, and which seemed outdated even in the original films, works so well here? One of the secrets is, I think, the fact that the characters are believable and many of the situations described are part of real life experiences. Guillaume Canet and Françoise Bertin play their roles excellently, but next to the incomparable Tautou I would mention Laurent Stocker, an actor with a special comic talent in a delicious role. 'Ensemble, c'est tout' is an elegant farewell film that Claude Berri left us at the end of his career.