Servant of the People (Season 1)

Sluha narodu; comedy series, Ukraine, 2015; D: Aleksey Kiryuschenko, S: Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Stanislav Boklan, Olena Kravets, Jury Krapov, Mykhailo Fatalov, Oleksandr Pikalov, Eugene Koshovyi, Viktor Saraykin, Natalia Sumska, Kateryna Kisten

Kiyv. Vasiliy Goloborodko is a high school history teacher, living with his parents and sister Sveta in a shabby house. One day, during a break in class, he goes on a rant against corruption in Ukraine, a student secretly films him and uploads the video to the Internet, which gives the teacher such popularity that the students start a crowdfunding to have him elected as the President of Ukraine. To Goloborodko's surprise, he is indeed elected. Now facing problems with how to run the country, he hires his ex-wife Olha to be the Director of the National Bank of Ukraine; broke actor Serhiy to be the Minister of Foreign Affairs... Initially, he is not that popular, leading to protests over budget cuts. At the same time, devious oligarchs want to bribe him to take control over the country's government. However, Goloborodko outfoxes them when he arrests his Prime Minister, Yuriy, for corruption on a live TV show, leading to the applause of the audience.

After the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, people worldwide retroactively gained renewed interest for the comedy TV show "Servant of the People", which enjoyed such a popularity domestically that it managed to help the comedian Volodymyr Zelenskyy get elected as the President of Ukraine in real life, similarly as the role he plays in the story, achieving a rare feat. “Servant of the People” has several funny jokes (though some are very specific to Ukraine’s mentality and history, and thus several references might fly over the viewers’ heads) and Zelenskyy is irresistibly charming and sympathetic as the protagonist Goloborodko, the unlikely hero who eventually rises to the occasion during crisis, and is always an optimist. The first episode shows Goloborodko living with his sister and parents as he prepares to go to work as a history teacher in a high school, whereupon his dad laments at him: “You studied in school just to go back to school”. After Goloborodko’s rant about how each election in his country is just a choice between “plague and cholera” goes viral, he is unexpectedly elected as the President of Ukraine, as a TV programme ostensibly shows clips of world leaders (Barack Obama, Xi Jinping, Angela Merkel) “dubbed” in Ukrainian as they congratulate him for his election. The effects are immediately visible, as public officials clean his dad’s back yard, paint a parking spot for his car and paint the wall of his house. A man with flowers even proposes Goloborodko’s niece Natasha, even though he broke up with her six months ago. 

The authors describe several specifics about Ukrainian way of life, from their dream of becoming part of the EU, through their anxiety due to Russian irredentism, up to several cultural puns and proverbs (“Two Ukrainians make for three Marshals”). Through the subplot of oligarchs scheming to take control of Goloborodko's administration the series even touches upon more subversive themes, about the plutocracy and the tendency of the rich trying to control every aspect of society, which is almost comparable to political satire "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington". However, the 1st season is uneven: some episodes are brilliant; others are boring, bland or uninspired fillers. About seven episodes could have been cut to make the story more concise. One of the best jokes is when Goloborodko is in the office, browsing through the candidates for the job position in the Central Bank, and doesn't want to hire Georgians, so he insists on a Ukrainian candidate. Finally, among the documents he finds one who has excellent references, but reads the name of the candidate: Yanukovych. After the 2022 war, some moments in the show sound very eerie, creepy, almost prophetic. One of these moments with a darker context today is the final episode, in which Goloborodko is hallucinating talking to Ivan the Terrible, which leads to this dark dialogue: "Bloodbrothers, soon we will liberate you." - "No, no thanks, we don't need to be liberated." - "What?!" - "We belong to Europe! ...You go your way, we will go another way. Let's go separate ways and meet again in 300 years" Despite omissions, the first season of the "Servant of the People" is a funny, honest and courageous series that allowed Ukrainians to dream bigger, and if it didn't give them a greater storyline vision, it at least gave them a greater political vision. 

Grade:++

Walkabout

Walkabout; adventure / drama / art-film, UK / Australia / USA, 1971, D: Nicolas Roeg, S: Jenny Agutter, Lucien John, David Gulpilil, John Meillon 

A Sydney family drives with their car to the Australian outback. The father sets the car on fire and committs suicide by shooting himself. The kids, a 16-year old girl and a 6-year old boy, have to survive by themselves. They find an oasis with water and a fruit tree in the desert, and encounter an Aboriginal 16-year old guy who helps them survive. They travel by foot through the forest. In an abandoned house, the girl finds photos of a family. Outside, the Aboriginal guy starts a mating dance, but the girl is scared and hides in the house. The Aboriginal guy committs suicide by hanging himself. The girl and the boy reach a town and are saved. Years later, the girl is in a Sydney apartment with her husband.  

Included in Roger Ebert’s list of Great Movies, Nicolas Roeg’s “Walkabout” is a strange and hermetic allegory about the relationship between civilized humans and raw nature (both outside and hiding inside of them). It unravels almost as a darker version of “The Wizard of Oz”, the latter depicting Dorothy bored with her daily life routine and traveling to an adventure, only to return and in the end conclude that there is no place like home. Similarly, “Walkabout” could be interpreted as the teenage heroine being bored with her life in urban Sydney, only to be thrown into a survival adventure in the Australian outback, but not enough information is given since the movie has no classic three-act structure nor a clear narrative, and is instead a meditative experience that addresses the subconscious. It refuses to depict nature as something heavenly or idealistic: while the urban life is presented as dull, sterile and under order, the wildlife is alive, full of energy, but also raw, crude and vile, without order, evident in several scenes of the Aboriginal hunting and killing kangaroos and lizards to survive. 

The girl and her brother are symbols for modern humans who lost touch with nature. She cannot understand why her father would commit suicide, nor why the Aboriginal guy would start a mating dance. Wild instincts just happen in nature, they lurk inside, and appear randomly without asking. Their journey to nature is thus a journey to the roots of life and emotions which they cannot understand anymore, having been alienated from them. As the sole title already implies, the Aboriginal tradition of a 16-year old sent to the wilderness to survive as a rite of passage, “Walkabout” is also an allegory of growing up: the girl discovers the real harsh world, full of cruelty and indifference towards the weak, and becomes a grown up in the process. Roeg does not reach the level of sheer enchantment of nature obtained by Weerasethakul's similar "Tropical Malady", but he is able to create strange images that conjure up that feeling of adolescents going through growing up, both the bad and the good parts that go along with it. As the ending implies, wildlife and urban life cannot mix. While for the girl the tresspassing into nature is tolerable, because she does not have a strong emotional side anymore, for the Aboriginal guy coming in contact with such indifference is fatal, since he cannot fathom the apathy. The image of the three of them swimming naked in a lake is thus the only moment where they find a common ground, since they are otherwise worlds apart.

Grade:+++

Great Expectations

Great Expectations; drama, UK, 1946, S: David Lean, S: John Mills, Bernard Miles, Finlay Currie, Valerie Hobson, Anthony Wager, Jean Simmons, Martita Hunt, Alec Guinness  

England, 19th century. Little kid Pip lives with his older sister and her husband, a blacksmith, ever since the death of his parents. He encounters Magwitch, an escaped convict, on the cemetery, and gives him food and tools to break his chains. The police arrive and arrest Magwitch. Pip is summoned by the rich, but bitter Miss Havisham to be with her adopted daughter Estella on their mansion. A decade later, a grown up Pip is informed that an anonymous benefactor will finance his education in London. Pip later finds out it is Magwitch, who wanted to thank him for giving him food. Pip is unable to help Magwitch escape from England, since he is still sought after by the authorities, but finds out Estella is his daughter. After Magwitch is caught and dies, Pip persuades Estella that he loves her.  

Having a title that is at the same time considered a classic of literature as much as it is regarded a classic of cinema is a rare treat. And yet, the director David Lean achieved this double feat with “Great Expectations”, a critically recognized adaptation of Charles Dickens’ eponymous novel. In fact, even today it is considered the best adaptation of this novel, having even been included in Roger Ebert’s list of Great Movies, and a golden standard of future film versions of Dickens’ rich opus. When adapting a great novel, half of the job is already done for the filmmakers, since the story and the dialogues are already written, and yet the other half of this responsibility lies on the director, actors, screenwriters interpretating it to fit the cinematic medium, and here it was done thoroughly, since the viewers cannot help but watch the entire story in one sitting. The opening sequence is already concise, having the escaped convict Magwitch encounter the kid Pip at the church backyard, where we find out everything about the latter, from the grave of his parents up to his good nature. 

The sequence where the kid secretly exits the house at night, during the fog, to bring tools to Magwitch, yet imagines that a cow calls him a thief, is great in establishing the eerie mood. Naturally, every character plays a role later on, and nothing happens just like that without a payoff later on. Dickens depicts and criticizes the cruel society of England in the 19th century, where kids struggle to survive, once again having the protagonist serve as one of the rare normal and moral characters that contrast this dark era, whereas he abounds with strange details (for instance, Miss Havisham hasn’t left her mansion since her fiancé abandoned her, so all the clocks at her place stopped at that time, and she kept a giant wedding cake just standing on her table for years, illustrating her misguided reaction). Unfortunately, Miss Havisham is the most dated character, since her motivations (she wants to take revenge on men, so she trains Estelle to break every man’s heart) seem too naive and obscure in modern times. Another flaw is the rushed ending, which abruptly cuts the storyline, revealing that the novel was maybe too large to fit everything inside the movie. Nonetheless, the virtues clearly dominate, and the whole film feels intelligent and classy. Similarly like Scrooge was visited by a ghost in “A Christmas Carol”, it seems Lean was visited by Dickens’ ghost to guide him in this film adaptation, and everyone was pleased with the finished result.  

Grade:+++

The Collector

La Collectionneuse; drama / comedy / art-film, France, 1967, D: Eric Rohmer, S: Patrick Bauchau, Haydée Politoff, Daniel Pommereulle

After his girlfriend goes to London for a job for a couple of weeks, Adrien, an art dealer, decides to spend his summer in an empty mansion at the French Riviera together with his friend Daniel. Adrien plans to do nothing there, but his routine is disrupted when Daniel allows a 20-year old girl, Haydée, to live with them. Random guys often drive with their cars to the mansion to take Haydée out to hang around. Adrien tries to seduce Haydée, but she falls for Daniel. At the end, Daniel is annoyed by her and breaks up. Adrien and Haydée are finally united in a relationship. While they are driving, they stop at an intersection when Haydée spots two guys in another car. The guys invite her to spend the weekeed with them in Rome. Haydée is unsure, but already takes her stuff out from Adrien's car. As another car honks behind him for blocking the road, Adrien initially just drives his car to move away, but in the end continues to drive without stopping, leaving Haydée behind, realizing he doesn't want to be just another unimportant "throw away" boyfriend of hers. He returns to the empty mansion, and calls for the next available flight to London. 

"The Collector" is one of only two Eric Rohmer's films that Roger Ebert included in his list of Great Movies, yet one could argue that the film critic should have picked some of Rohmer's better films, like "My Night at Maud's" or "Claire's Knee". Rohmer's opus is an acquired taste: his movies have no plots, are just a combination of casual 'slice-of-life' and 'hangout' movies about the relationships of youngsters. There are mostly no action moments, the characters just talk. And yet, in many of his movies, the bitter-sweet observations about human relations are equally as sharp today as they were back then. "The Collector" is "only" good. It has a wonderful beginning and an end, but almost 2/3 of its running time in between these two are boring. When one makes a movie only about talking, there better be one heck of inspired dialogues there. Yet "The Collector" is stymied by too many bland and ordinary scenes in the middle, losing the viewers' patience. The opening act starts on a high note by presenting all the three characters in short two-minute prologues—"1st prologue: Haydee", "2nd prologue: Daniel", "3rd prologue: Adrien"—and each one of them starts with the same number of people in the title of the prologue, from only one (Haydee), through two (Daniel and a philosopher sitting in a room) up to three in the third prologue (Adrien and two women at a mansion), in a neat metafilm touch. 

The set-up for these three protagonists hanging around in the mansion near the beach has some sparks, mostly through dialogues ("I've done absolutely nothing since I arrived, and I actually do less every day", says the pretentious Adrien, while Daniel is more substantial: "A real idea is like a flash of lightning. We have just three or four real ideas in our lifetime"), up to humorous little moments (the bored Daniel and Haydee start picking up pieces of dirt on the garden and throwing them at a couple of chicken far away, with the birds just standing there, perplexed at what is going on). Adrien and Daniel may be symbols for existentialist nihilists, people who have given up on doing anything in life because they feel nothing makes any sense or a dfference, but when Haydee enters the scene, she changes their perception, and the two are actually "awakened" into doing something, whereby Rohmer ponders how romance and love can give meaning to the people. Haydee is frustratingly underdeveloped, serving only as an allegory of a "collector" who collects men and then throws them away after a short time, to find someone new all the time. One sequence in particular shows a neat foreshadowing: Haydee is running around with the art collector Sam, until she accidentally knocks over a valuable vase from the table, breaking it—a future indicator of Adrien's fate in her hands. Too bad the movie has so many "empty walks" when it could have been more dense. The ending is fabulous, equally as heartbreaking, surprising, sudden, as it is logical in its conclusion, a touching meditation on Adrien realizing he is replaceable and not special in this world. One is so enchanted by this incredible ending that one wishes the whole movie would have been better and more worthy up until that point.

Grade:++

The Last Boy Scout

The Last Boy Scout; action, USA, 1991, D: Tony Scott, S: Bruce Willis, Damon Wayans, Chelsea Field, Noble Willingham, Taylor Negron, Danielle Harris, Halle Berry 

Los Angeles. Detective Joe sets out to find the killers of his business partner Mike, and thus follows Mike’s trail of a stripper Cory who has a tape recording of sports millionaire Macrone who bribed Senator Baynard into legalizing sports gambling. When Cory is shot, her boyfriend Jimmy teams up with Joe. Macrone’s henchmen intend to assassinate Baynard at a football game and put the blame on Joe, but luckily Joe and Jimmy are able to stop it. Macrone takes a briefcase thinking it is full of money, but Jimmy switched it with a briefcase with a bomb inside, and thus the villain explodes when he opens it at his home.  

The director Tony Scott often spent too much emphasis on the aesthetic of cinematic images than on the sole story, characters or style in his movies, but “The Last Boy Scout” is one of his three movies where he managed to rise to the occasion and deliver something more than technicalities (the other two being “True Romance” and “Enemy of the State”). It’s a pity that “The Last Boy Scout” is among one of those neglected movies that were forgotten despite being unexpectedly good, since it is actually one of the best “Die Hard” rip-offs, featuring a role that perfectly fits Bruce Willis. The screenplay by Shane Black is at times simply clever and is able to set up events fluently, so that every sequence leads to the next one with a natural transition. The opening act establishes the sloppy hero Joe, a Detective, as he listens to his business partner Mike over on the phone, who is bragging about meeting an attractive stripper, Cory: “She’s hot, Joe. She rates a three on my finger scale. That means I would cut three of my fingers if God would let me shagg her.” 

All of this plays a role later on, and isn’t just a throw-away comic line. When Joe goes to his estranged wife’s home, he suspects she is having an affair and hiding her lover in the closet. She initially denies it, and tries to frame it as if Joe is crazy, but Joe just pulls out his gun, aims it at the closet, and says he is going to shoot it by the count to three, since nobody is in there, anyway. The closet doors open—and reveal the man hiding inside is Mike. Willis and Damon Wayans (who plays Jimmy) don’t have that much genuine chemistry for a buddy cop flick, yet the script always gives them consistently good situations to be in or that say a lot about their personalities. Danielle Harris has a nice supporting role as Joe’s 13-year old daughter Darian, who has a genius sequence in which she saves him: pretending she doesn’t know him, Darian inisists that Joe, who is held hostage by the villains, should take her beaver hand-puppet, and once he puts it on, he realizes why—the puppet has a gun hidden inside it. The main plot revolving around corruption and sports gambling isn't that important as much as creating plot points to give Joe and Jimmy something to work together against the main bad guy. Maybe the movie didn't do so well because its title isn't that catchy, yet it compensates this thanks to a lot of inspiration and spirit.

Grade:+++

Kekko Kamen

Kekko Kamen; animated erotic comedy series, Japan, 1991; D: Nobuhiro Kondo, Shunichi Tokunaga, Kinji Yoshimoto, S: Arisa Ando, Emi Shinohara, Kikuko Inoue, Mitsuaki Hoshino, Jouji Yanami

The Sparta Academy is notorious for forcing students to study, and its principal, Satan's Toenail, is very strict. During a test in the middle of the night, one student, Mayumi, falls asleep from exhaustion, and is thus punished by the school teachers, who lock her up in a dungeon and whip her. However, Mayumi is rescued by Kekko Kamen, a naked superhero woman who only wears a red mask to hide her face. The school hires a new gym teacher, Schwarzu Negetaru, who makes Kekko Kamen blush from his muscles, but she defeats him anyway. A cyborg student and a Samurai are sent to fight Kekko Kamen, as well, but she defeats them again, gaining admiration from Mayumi and Yuka.

The 4-episode OVA "Kekko Kamen", by buxom-fan author Go Nagai, seems like an April Fools' Day anime, since it features an upside down concept of a naked superheroine who only disguises her face with a red mask, and thus fights the strict teachers as some sort of parody of the Japanese tendency to exhaust their students with neverending demands. This anime series is trash, but it is a deliberate trash, a tongue-in-cheek spoof that has no other pretension than to be just simply fun. It's ridiculous, silly and crazy, and yet it has some sort of 'guilty pleasure' charm to it. The first episode is already insane and doesn't even try to hide it, by showing such ludicrous moments as the principal (wearing a mask and a court jester-like wardrobe!) ordering that the worst student of the school will be publicly punished in front of all, so the poor Mayumi is tied up to a giant swastika, topless, and made rotate so that her skirt will fall down once her legs reach the upside down position, but is luckily saved by the title heroine. Kekko Kamen even finishes off her enemies by jumping with her legs stretched (a beam of light covering her vagina) and grabbing their heads with her legs, after which one of the male teachers falls on the floor, happy. The final, fourth episode, even has a Samurai ask Kekko if she is not ashamed walking naked like that in public, after which she seems to question her choice for the first time and cover her body with her arms for a second, before she continues, "in the name of love and justice". It is no wonder the series enjoys a cult reputation, and even had several live-action adaptations. It walks on thin ice all of the time, and it is not consistently entertaining in each episode, but it is so cartoonish and exaggerated that one cannot be angry at it. "Kekko Kamen" is akin to a burger with fries—it's not nutritious, but you enjoy it in spite of yourself.

Grade:++