3 Body Problem (Season 1)

3 Body Problem; science-fiction series, USA, 2024; D: Jeremy Podeswa, Minkie Spiro, Derek Tsang, Andrew Stanton, S: Jess Hong, Jovan Adepo, Liam Cunningham, Eiza Gonzalez, Rosalind Chao, Benedict Wong, Alex Sharp, John Bradley, Marlo Kelly, Jonathan Pryce, Zine Tsang

During a Struggling Session in Communist China, the young Ye Wenjie observes how her father is killed in front of the crowd. Ye is sent to a radio telescope station searching for alien civilizations, where she is able to increase the signals by bouncing them off the Sun. In 1 9 7 7, she receives a signal from an alien planet orbiting Alpha Centauri, a pacifist warning her not to reply, but she does. This triggers an alien invasion which will reach Earth in 400 years. In the present, several scientists die under mysterious circumstances in London. MI6 chief Wade and his assistant Benedict, as well as scientists Augustina Salazar, Jack Rooney, Jin Cheng, Will Downing and Saul Durand discover about this impending invasion, as well that Ye is leading an Earth cult which welcomes the alien takeover of Earth. The aliens, San-Ti, are technologically advanced, but their planet is constantly hit by solar disasters since they orbit the triple solar system of Alpha Centauri, and thus want Earth, which is stable. Humans thus start preparing plans for self-defence in the future.

The Netflix TV series adaptation of Liu Cixin's trilogy of novels about a circumtriple alien planet which plans to invade Earth, "3 Body Problem" is a grand contribution to the science-fiction genre, an incredibly audacious and imaginative achievement that blows your mind. It takes the often theme of alien invasion, found in such TV shows as "V", but upgrades it thanks to its ingenuity and 3-dimensional intelligence to such an extent that it reaches rarely before seen spheres of genius in that subgenre. The first five episodes are outstanding, bordering on a masterwork—but, unfortunately, the following final three episodes are a letdown, debasing its initial impression a bit. This is because the first five episodes are built on mystery and thriller components, while the last three episodes are a syrupy melodrama which is not that intense. Nontheless, the first five episodes need to be seen for its sheer brilliance which is one new momentum that just tops the previous one: indescribably fascinating, intellectualy stimulating and sharp. The 1 9 6 0s Struggle Session in the first episode, in which a young Ye sees her father humiliated and killed on stage in front of a crowd, shows a remarkably unflinching insight into Communist China of that era, but it also gives Ye a motive as to why she would later invoke an alien invasion. The fictional recounting of the 1 9 7 7 Wow! signal in episode 2 is incredibly suspenseful, in the form of the eerie moment where Ye, alone in the radio telescope station room, receives a signal on the screen translated as: "You are lucky that I am the first to receive your message. I am a pacifist in this world. I am warning you: if you respond, your world will be conquered. Do not respond". The moment where she types in "Come. We cannot save ourselves", and presses the button, followed by a cut to a black screen with end credits, is a masterful conclusion to the episode. 

The most questionable ingredient in this segment are the bizarre 3D virtual reality headsets which Jack and Jin use, and which show the alien world allegorically depicted as humans presented in the era of Thomas More and Kublai Khan, having the task to calculate when the next solar catastrophe might occur, as to prepare and save their civilization from the next apocalypse, but even that works in the end, since it is designed as a game that teaches humans sympathy with these aliens, the San-Ti. The trap set up in the Panama Canal in episode 5 is worthy of an episode from "Neon Genesis Evangelion", and the finale with the San-Ti revealing their plans involving two proton-sized supercomputers is so amazing that it expands your mind. Liam Cunningham is especially brilliant in the role of the intelligent MI6 chief Wade who uses all in his limited power to counter the upcoming threat. The last three episodes disappoint a bit, though, especially in the weird and pointless idea that only Will's brain be hibernated and sent on a space capsule to scan the alien flotilla halfway between Earth and Alpha Centauri—what exactly do scientists try to acomplish with that, since he cannot do anything in a state like that? Despite this, the story poses some challenging questions and allegories: the advanced aliens heading towards Earth can be interpreted both as a form of colonialism and spaciocide through the dire need for one nation to exterminate another one in order to survive on a limited availability of space. The San-Ti can also be interpreted as climate change refugees. A third contemplation is if two vastly different civilizations can ever be compatible, and if it is better to be in a form of isolationism in the Universe to secure safety. These and other virtues help "3 Body Problem" rise to the occasion, and create a 3D vision of future and space philosophy. 

Grade:+++

Sexmission

Seksmisja; science-fiction satire, Poland, 1984, D: Juliusz Machulski, S: Olgierd Łukaszewicz, Jerzy Stuhr, Bożena Stryjkówna, Bogusława Pawelec, Hanna Stankówna, Mirosława Marcheluk, Hanna Mikuć

In 1 9 9 1, two men, Max and Albert, volunteer to be frozen in a hibernation experiment for three years. However, when they wake up inside a chamber, they realize it is year 2044—and that all the men have gone extinct after an anti-male bomb was invented that targets the Y chromosome, and was used in a war. The underground civilization is run by women who reproduce through parthenogenesis, and led by Her Excellency. One female scientist, Lamia, likes them, and helps them flee when Max and Albert are put on trial and sentenced to sex surgery to "naturalize" into the society. Even though the Earth's surface is allegedly contaminated by radiation, Max, Albert, Lamia and a certain Emma  escape there and find out everything is normal. They stumble upon the mansion of Her Excellency, who turns out to be a man in disguise. Max and Albert mix their sperm into the fertility clinic and thereby introduce male babies back into the society.

Just like several allegorical social satires, "Sexmission" also takes one flawed aspect of a society that was normalized and exaggerates it to such an extent that the viewers can decipher several messages from it and take a more self-critical, revelatory approach after it, in this case by taking the patriarchy, turning it upside down and showing what it would look like if a matriarchy would behave the same, in this story where two men wake up in the future and find out they are the only males left in a world inhabited and ruled exclusively by women. The director Juliusz Machulski takes this concept to use it as a biting satire on sexism, discrimination, fanaticism, and totalitarian dictatorship in general, based on one group thinking they have the right to rule over the others which they deem inferior. There are several good jokes in the first half of the film. For instance, upon finding out that they have been awakened from the hibernation experiment after 53 years, instead of the planned 3 years, Max protests that he demands to be paid overtime. Despite a limited budget, far away from Hollywood, the set designs of the underground city hallways and the costumes are good—even using rudimentary computer graphics to depict a location on the screen.

The highlight is arguably the trial of the two men by a council of hundred women, which has some delicious dialogue, since one group of women are extremist feminists who argue with them: "At the present, we are all capable of protecting ourselves from the infection called - man!" - "If it weren't for men, the world would have never developed. The history of technology is male history. You can't deny that!" The women in the council then protest: "That is a lie, can you name one male scientist?" - "Copernicus." - "That's a lie! Copernicus was a woman!" This is a sly jab at ideological fundamentalism which resorts to distortion and historical revisionism just to fit their dogma in front of contradictions. The female prosecutor then goes: "Some man named Cain invented crime and applied it on his sister Abel. Another man invented prostitution, cowardness, laziness, slavery... Summing up, we should thank you for all the evil on the world, starting from religious wars up to uterine cancer!" The rest of the movie is nowhere near as fun, since the basic idea was not that well developed. The 40-minute escape segment of the two men is conventional and stale, lacking prepared inspiration or some clearer vision as to how to lead the storyline: the authors needed more imagination in developing this concept. Despite this routine second half and some clumsy flaws (the infamous last scene zoom-in that becomes a freeze frame), the film is still amusing and stimulates the viewers to think, advocating that we should have a more open mind and be able to reach out to people who are different, instead of resorting to narrow-minded exclusion.

Grade:++

Teddy Bear

Miś; comedy, Poland, 1981, D: Stanisław Bareja, S:  Stanisław Tym, Christine Paul-Podlasky, Barbara Burska, Krzysztof Kowalewski, Bronisław Pawlik

Warsaw. The balding Ryszard, nicknamed "teddy bear", divorced his wife Irena: they now both want to take their joint life savings from a bank in London before the other one does, but Ryszard discovers Irena tore up pages from his passport, making it useless. Ryszard thus asks his friend, Jan, a film production manager, for help: they publish an add searching for Ryszard's double, to use his passport instead. They find him in Stanislaw, a brute coal worker, but he has huge hair, so Ryszard's girlfriend Aleksandra pours a low-quality shampoo on his head, causing him to become bald. After they gave Stanislaw sleeping pills and knocked him out, Ryszard takes his passport and travels to London, but meets Irena in the same airplane. Irena writes that Ryszard has heroin in his suitcase to a passenger's customs declaration, but since Ryszard travels under Stanislaw's name, the customs officers cannot discover him. Ryszard takes all the money from the joint account and transfers it to another bank, and then returns to Warsaw.

In this cult comedy starring comedian Stanislaw Tym, who also co-wrote the script, the humor is firmly entrenched in Polish mentality and satirical local cultural references (typical for Eastern Europe during Communist mismanagement), which made it ideal for the Polish audiences, but somewhat less so for the wider, universal audience. Nonetheless, "Teddy Bear" also has enough "universal" jokes which can be understood by people worldwide, though the Poles will understand it the most, feeling it is just on their "wavelength". Tym plays the balding, sleazy Ryszard who is rushing to get his life savings from a bank before his wife, but the plot is just an excuse to insert as many jokes as possible that spoof corruption, incompetence, clientelism, primitivism, scammers and chaos in his society where rule of law is absent. In one of the best jokes that reveal with what kind of characters we are dealing with, Ryszard explains to his friend Jan that he has a rich aunt in London who was deceived that he has a twin: "She's old, rich, and lives in London, get it? My parents sent her my picture, slightly altered. There were two of me in it, like twins. Aunt kept sending money for two kids. It wasn't a big deal for her, but it was to us." 

While filming a movie, the crew is tasked with finding a rabbit for one scene on the field, but since they are too lazy, they just attach the fur of a stuffed rabbit on the back of a cat (!), so when the cameras start rolling and the dogs start chasing it, the costumed cat simply climbs up on a tree. At the airport, Ryszard has this exchange with a nervous flight attendant: "A bad hair day." - "Excuse me?" - "That's what we call a day when all planes leave on time. It's chaos." This is a sly jab at public transport where being late was so normalized that any random punctuality would actually cause a fuss. In a public canteen, the plates are fixed to the tables, and two spoons are attached with a short chain to prevent them from being stolen. The giant stuffed teddy bear which is being flown on a helicopter thus becomes a symbol for the origin of all this vice, Moscow's Communism imposed on Eastern Europe. "Teddy Bear" is clumsy and chaotic, with not that much sense for being cinematic, since Stanislaw Bareja directs the film in a conventional manner, and some misguided jokes seem as if they came from a Benny Hill sketch, but its underlying theme and hidden motives reveal that it did not become a cult film for nothing.

Grade:++

Riders of Justice

Retfærdighedens Ryttere; black comedy / drama / thriller, Denmark, 2020; D: Anders Thomas Jensen, S: Mads Mikkelsen, Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Lars Brygmann, Andrea Heick Gadeberg, Nicolas Bro 

Tallinn. A girl wants a blue bicycle for Christmas, so her grandpa arranges that thieves steal one in Copenhagen, belonging to teenager Mathilde. This causes her mom to accompany Mathilde on a train, but mom dies in a train crash. Mathilde's distant father Markus, a soldier, flies from a NATO mission in Afghanistan back home. However, stastitician Otto contacts Mathilde and Markus, claiming he has seen a bald man suspiciously leaving the train before the crash. Using face-recogniction software by Emmenthaler and Lennart, Otto thinks he identified the man: the leader of Riders of Justice, a motorbike criminal gang, who was acquitted of all charges on a trial because the only witness conveniently died in the train crash. Markus uses guns to kill one gang member after another, but then it turns out Otto misidentified him, since the leader arrived to Copenhagen after the train crash. In a showdown, the gang attack Markus' home, but is killed. A wounded Markus and Mathilde bond for the first time in a long time.

The writer and director Anders Thomas Jensen delivers another deliciously cynical story with this film that starts off as a drama, then traverses to a black comedy, then to a revenge thriller. Jensen combines all these disparate genres, but the black comedy one suits him the best, though he is not as inspired nor as funny this time as it was the case with his excellent crime comedy "Flickering Lights". "Riders of Justice" dwells on the notions of chaos theory, coincidences and the tendency of people to decipher patterns there where there aren't any, figuring that sometimes bad things happen without a reason, and that the protagonist is seeking a revenge against invisible enemies, due to unprocessed grief inside him. Mads Mikkelsen is excellent as Markus, a NATO soldier on a revenge spree, and some of the best bits involve him in Jensen's typical twisted humor. For instance, in one sequence, Markus snaps and kills the suspect inside his own home, utterly unexpectedly, and thus Markus' friends are now unsure what to do, call the police or just leave the corpse there with potential evidence, so one of them goes: "Let me at least find some detergent with DNA dissolving components!"

In another sequence, Markus has an opportunity to eliminate many members of the motorbike gang who are gathering at a building, so he rushes with his three friends in the car to shoot them in a crossfire. One of them, Otto, sitting behind him, constantly advises against it, even mentioning that his late wife won't come back because of that, so Markus snaps, hits him, knocking him unconscious, and then leaves Otto lying on the street. As they resume driving, Lennart, sitting also in the car, asks: "Won't we lack crossfire now?" When Markus trains them how to assemble parts into a machine gun, Lennart protests: "If I wanted to assemble stuff, I could have gone to IKEA!" The interactions of these wiseguys and pretentious intellectuals have a spark and display amusing insight into the Danish mentality and quirks. The twist ending is delicious, and it is surprising how Jensen constantly keeps the viewers out of balance, showing one moment an outrageous joke, and in the next one an honest, emotional situation. He does go overboard with melodrama in the end, showing that he did not polish this movie to the fullest, though.

Grade:++

All My Good Countrymen

Všichni dobří rodáci; drama, Czechia, 1968, D: Vojtěch Jasný, S: Radoslav Brzobohatý, Věra Galatíková, Vlastimil Brodský, Vladimír Menšík, Waldemar Matuška, Drahomíra Hofmanová

A Czech village just after World War II. Two kids find a gun and randomly shoot with it. A farmer finds a landmine in his field, so the villagers detonate it in a quarry. 1 9 4 8 Czechoslovak coup d'état: organist Očenáš, the photographer Plecmera, the postman Bertin and Zejvala become Communist loyalists and are thus awarded as the adiminstrators of the village, but the people despise them. Bertin is shot by an unknown assassin, and thus many are arrested. 1 9 5 1 : Zášinek, plagued by guilt for divorcing his Jewish wife who perished in the Holocaust, gets drunk and is killed by a bull. Thief Jořka dies from a wound on his leg. The villagers rally around the honest farmer František who goes against Communists who mismanage the village and want to take further debt. František is sent to prison, released, and then dies from a disease. 

Vojtech Jasny's drama that chronicles Czechia under Communist mismanagement, "All My Good Countrymen" is sometimes hailed as one of the best Czech films of the 20th century, but it does not feel that fresh anymore today. Jasny takes on a lyrical, slow, contemplative approach, but it does inevitably come off as boring at times, with several episodes and supporting characters that feel either pointless or unnecessary to the overall plot. At least three sequences are brilliant: the hilarious opening sequence shows a church choir singing a song about evolution ("Billions of years ago, our beautiful world was born... Whirling waters gave it life, cell produced cell... And what happened next?"), with the organist playing music. The anthological scene of local thief Jorka (comedian Vladimir Mensik) falling down and dying on the farm, while thousands of goose feathers cover his body. The cynical assembly hall moment where the Communists read out their plan for the village and then clap to themselves (!)—while the audience, the villagers, just remain sitting there, motionlessly, in defiant silence. Mensik is able to insert a few jokes here and there, for instance in the scene where he plays with a cable: "Soviets plus electrification equals Communism". Jasny takes some key moments from 20th century Czech history and shows them with an elegant ease, so that they often say everything in just simple terms and consequences on the lives of the farmers of this village. One very poignant example is when a farmer with the largest barn is informed that he will be evicted due to collectivization, and one man who is helping him pack his things on a horse carriage admits: "If my farm was just a bit bigger than yours, it would have been me, not you." However, the stream-of-consciousness mood is rather vague, jumping from one segment to another, where not every episode works (the scene of a bull impaling Zasinek is especially poorly done), and the ending is somewhat weak and anticlimactic. 

Grade:++

Tomorrow I'll Wake Up and Scald Myself with Tea

Zítra vstanu a opařím se čajem; science-fiction black comedy, Czechia, 1977; D: Jindřich Polák, S: Petr Kostka, Vladimír Menšík, Jiří Sovák, Vlastimil Brodský, Marie Rosůlková, Otto Šimánek, Valerie Chmelová, Slávka Budínová, František Vicena, Zuzana Ondrouchová

Prague in the near future. A rocket with time travel has been invented, allowing tourists to visit historical events, but it is sealed off from the outside to prevent any of them from interfering with the past. However, three surviving German Nazis—Abard, Kraus, Bauer—who are still fit thanks to anti-aging pills, decide to use the rocket to give dictator Adolf Hitler a hydrogen bomb which will allow him victory in World War II. They bribe pilot Jan to help them, but he chokes on a bread roll and dies, so his twin brother Karel takes his role, to not break the heart of Jan's fiancee. Abard, Kraus and Bauer force Karel to open the rocket in 1 9 4 4, but since they misplace their briefcase with a tourist with only underwear inside, Hitler does not believe them. Karel uses the rocket to travel back to the present, a few hours before the events, take the role of Jan who died, anyway, and even help his alternate Karel to find a girlfriend.

A cult film par excellence, sci-fi black comedy "Tomorrow I'll Wake Up and Scald Myself with Tea" is one of the most unusual Czech movies of the 20th century, a true rarity that traverses between pulp and satire, high and low art, combining time travel, people who want to give dictator Adolf Hitler a hydrogen bomb so that he can win in World War II, "Groundhog Day" and twin paradox, yet it does so with so much ingenuity and clever planning beforehand that it all fits in the end. The director Jindrich Polak directs the film in a conventional and ordinary manner, but his story and concept are so unconventional and unusual that nothing matters besides them. This is one of the rare movies that go so over-the-top, and yet play it all so relaxed and harmless at the same time, so that everything seems uncontroversial. The concept of a time travel rocket used to send tourists to visit historical events is neatly set up, with the agency even using employees to dress up in a fur bikini and Marie Antoinette for promotion in the hallway, while the loudspeaker mentions: "Passengers are notified that the flight to see Alexander the Great has been delayed by a week". 

When the characters finally arrive with their rocket to World War II era, one of the old Nazis goes: "I'm already looking forward to meeting von Braun, he never dreamed of something like this." The sole encounter with Hitler (a huge anachronism is that he speaks Czech instead of German) doesn't go well for the three old time traveling Nazis who are decalared traitors and spies, and one of them, Abard, is even executed by his younger self! Polak then plays with several time travel paradoxes, as the fake pilot Karel travels with the rocket a few hours earlier to the present, to prevent this whole situation happening, and since he knows what events will unfold, he can predict the next obstacle and stay ahead of the curve. In one of the most insane moments, Karel is unable to prevent the death of his twin brother, Jan, so he simply gets rid of his corpse and presents himself as a Jan (!) in front of Karel in this alternate reality timeline, which now features two Karels instead of two twin brothers. The way he outsmarts the villains and the whole chaos is resolved is delicious, and even poses some philosophical questions about identity, coincidence and time travel contradictions. The movie needed a better pacing and more jokes "in-between" these big plot points, yet it is so unique and demented that it simply stands out from the mold. How many Czech films are there that like this one? Only one.

Grade:+++

Top Five

Top Five; comedy, USA, 2014; D: Chris Rock, S: Chris Rock, Rosario Dawson, Kevin Hart, Gabrielle Union, Sheri Shepherd, J. B. Smoove, Romany Malco, Hayley Marie Norman, Jerry Seinfeld, Whoopi Goldberg, Adam Sandler

New York City. Comedian Andre Allen is in a pinch: he decided to stop drinking, but thinks it was alcohol that made him funny in his early career. He starred in three "Hammy the Bear" comedy films, wearing a bear costume, but he now wants to be a serious actor, yet his upcoming new film "Uprize", about the Haitian Revolution, may not attract that much attention. On top of that, he is about to get married to reality TV star Erica. Andre spends the day with New York Times reporter Chelsea and they are attracted to each other, but then he finds out her alias is actually a film critic who bashed his films. Andre does a stand-up and finds out he is still funny, even without alcohol. He parts ways with Chelsea in friendly terms.

Chris Rock's 3rd feature length film as a director is a semi-autobiographical comedy with a lot of 'rough' edges, sometimes even misguided scenes, but its ending is even a bit emotional in its contemplation of a comedian who wants to be more in life than just someone who tells jokes. Rock is the best when he simply acts the way he is and displays his witty, sharp wisecracks: the joke where his character Andre is discussing with Chelsea if "Planet of the Apes" is actually an allegory on white man's fear of black people taking over the planet is hilarious, worthy of the best lines in early movies of K. Smith, and some random thoughts about life and the world provide a genuine 'hangout' mood: "Bill Murray's like, you know, perhaps top three funniest human beings to ever walk the Earth. And the guy you most likely want to hang out with, and drop his name. Like: yeah, I know Bill Murray... Charlie Chaplin, he started this shit. He is the KRS-One of comedy. He is the Grandmaster Flash of ha-ha." Unfortunately, the movie strays way too much from intellectual humor to go towards dumb, tasteless, low type of humor: at least two sequences (Andre has sex with two prostitutes in the hotel, but then his guide enters the room, pushes him away and continues having sex with the two women; Chelsea putting hot sauce on her tampon and then pushing it into her boyfriend's butt) are bad and unnecessary, wrecking the overall impression of the movie. "Top Five" is a loose slice-of-life film about an actor who is just "a little famous", as Rock puts it, and the contradiction of life of celebrities and their private life, whereas it offers sometimes food for thought: a movie about Haitian Revolution, referenced in the story, would actually be a fascinating project.

Grade:++

Oslo, August 31st

Oslo, 31. august; drama, Norway, 2011; D: Joachim Trier, S: Anders Danielsen Lie, Hans Olav Brenner, Ingrid Olava, Øystein Røger

Oslo. Anders (34) is in a rehab clinic to quit drugs. He goes to a river, holds a giant stone in his hands and dives to commit suicide, but then abrupts it. He goes to the city for a job interview for a magazine. Anders also visits his friend, Thomas, and tells him he is thinking of killing himself. Anders tries to call his ex-girlfriend Iselin, but she does not answer. He goes to a party where he drinks some alcohol and talks with a woman. At a bar, he meets two girls and goes with them and a friend to a swimming pool, but refuses to swim with them. At his home, Anders uses a needle to inject himself with heroin, and dies in bed.

"Oslo, 31 August" is a movie about suicide. All of its aspects are guided by this theme and thus it might prove too depressive and dark for certain viewers. It is deliberately crafted in an ascetic, bleak, grey, humorless and lifeless manner to bring this point across and show the state of mind of the troubled protagonist Anders, trapped in his own mental prison, contemplating about fatalism. The director Joachim Trier doesn't quite translate this trauma into great art, since there is too much empty walk and bland, disjointed moments that wreck the mood, even though such a 'confused' narrative might have been the point to show Anders' feeling of isolation and helplessness in the world. Trier uses aesthetic, though by now standard shots, such as close-ups, over-the-shoulder shots and shaky camera, to craft the rather thin story. 

Some cryptic scenes do ignite a mystery. In the opening shots, Anders is seen next to a naked woman in bed, who is never seen again. Is it his ex-girlfriend, Iselin, for whom he longs for the entire film, but she never answers him? Is the encounter with friend Thomas, who has a wife and two kids, a subliminal statement for Anders' own sadness due to loneliness which causes his suicidal thoughts? As Anders says to Thomas while sitting on a bench: "If you're unsentimental about it, nobody needs me. Not really." One sentence can sometimes say more about a character than a whole hour of babble. One unusually amusing moment has Anders going to a job interview, as he subtly criticizes the editor for "intellectual articles on HBO TV series and video games", comparing it to "Samantha from "Sex and the City" seen through Schopenhauer". Most of the dialogue is banal and schematic, just there to fill in the blanks, but one of Anders' thoughts while in the park is outstanding and memorable, thinking about his parents: "They never taught me how to cook or build a relationship." This might be one of the clues to understanding the film: people are taught everything, but are almost never taught how to create inter-human relationships. The lack of these spiritual nutrients can sometimes cause equally as fatal consequences as physical deprivation.

Grade:++

Cosy Dens

Pelíšky; comedy, Czechia, 1999; D: Jan Hřebejk, S: Michael Beran, Kristýna Badinková Nováková, Miroslav Donutil, Jiří Kodet, Ondřej Brousek, Eva Holubová, Jaroslav Dušek, Sylvie Koblížková

Prague, 1 9 6 7. Teenager Michal Šebek is suicidal because he is in love with Jindřiška, a girl from the Kraus family that lives in an apartment on a floor above him. It is Christmas and the Kraus and Šebek family celebrate, even though they do not quite get along: Mr. Šebek is a communist official, while Mr. Kraus, a war veteran, is a firm anti-communist who says that the "Bolsheviks have a year left at most, maybe two". Jindřiška falls in love with Elien, who goes to the US for a year to visit his parents. Jindřiška regards Michal only as a friend. She takes over the household after her mother dies from a stroke. Mr. Kraus marries a single mother and teacher, Eva. After the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in '68, Eva and Mr. Kraus disappear and their apartment is sealed off.

There is a whole sub-genre in European cinema about Russian or Soviet invasion of their country. In Czechia, one of the most often themes is the historical period of the '68 Prague Spring and the Warsaw Pact / Soviet invasion, but its dark background is curiously often contrasted by being set up against a humorous story, and one of them is Jan Hrebejk's "Cosy Dens", which blends cosy slice-of-life, Czech humor and nostalgia. It centers on two families in Prague from Christmas holidays up to the invasion era, and uses them as a symbol for the division of the Czech society back then: one father, Mr. Šebek, is a communist official wearing a military uniform, while the other father, Mr. Kraus, is a staunch anti-communist. A further divide is among their teenage kids, showing each generation branches off into a different thinking and mentality. All this is wrapped around numerous wacky jokes and gags, which come swiftly and unexpectedly. 

For instance, in one scene teacher Saša is urgently running to the toilet, but it is occupied, so he simply urinates in the sink, lowering his head in relief on the boiler — but its heat causes a small fire on top of his hair. In another moment, Mr. Kraus brags how to drink brandy properly, that one must first smell it, but he accidentally spills it onto his nose and starts coughing, and as he bends his suspenders break lose and fly upwards, hitting the chandelier, as he runs to the sink to wash his face. Already classic is the scene where Mr. Šebek proudly presents the superior communist invention of plastic spoons from East Germany, but as the guests use them to stir up their hot coffee, the spoons melt and deform. The pacing is a bit slower and there are some 'empty walks' here and there, revealing that the movie could have been tighter in its execution, but it is full of subtle ideas and symbols (after the Soviet invasion, the overweight Mr. Šebek is so disappointed with the system he wants to hang himself on a rope, but his weight only causes the entire shack he was in to fall apart on top of him), and its characters grow on you, and thus the viewers watch them even during some lesser moments, knowing a better one is just around the corner.

Grade:+++

The Ice Storm

The Ice Storm; drama, USA, 1997; D: Ang Lee, S: Kevin Kline, Joan Allen, Tobey Maguire, Christina Ricci, Jamey Sheridan, Sigourney Weaver, Elijah Wood, Katie Holmes

Connecticut, 1 9 7 3, Thanksgiving. Student Paul Hood arrives via train from the University to spend the holidays with his family: sister Wendy and parents Ben and Elena. Ben is dissatisfied with his marriage and has an affair with Janey Carver, the wife of his neighbor Jim. Wendy is curious about sexuality and tests it out on the Carver teenage boys, Mikey and Sandy. At a key party where the guests swap partners, Elena and Jim have sex in the car. A curious Mikey walks across the city after an ice storm, but a branch causes a power line to fall on the guardrail, and since he is standing on a metal surface covered with water and ice, Mikey is electrocuted and killed. Ben finds his corpse and brings him to Jim's house. Ben later cries in the car.

Even though film critic Gene Siskel named it his no. 1 film of the year, Ang Lee's existentialist psychological drama "The Ice Storm" engages only partially. Filmed in a flat cinematography to emphasize the bland, routine and boring lives of two families stuck in an endless apathy during the 70s, the film is the strongest when it implies that people need some exit out of this grey routine, but fails to truly develop this theme or to give any answers. It starts out strong, with a brilliant monologue narrated by student Paul (Tobey Maguire) about the Fantastic Four as a symbol for family contradictions: "And the more power they had, the more harm they could do to each other without even knowing it. That was the meaning of the Fantastic Four: that a family is like your own personal anti-matter. Your family is the void you emerge from, and the place you return to when you die. And that's the paradox: the closer you're drawn back in, the deeper into the void you go." The actors are excellent, especially Kevin Kline as dad Ben and Christina Ricci as teenage daughter Wendy, but they don't always get much to do to expand the story and their character development. In one of the most bizarre moments, the sexually curious Wendy puts a mask of Richard Nixon and has sex with the neighbor's teenage guy in the basement. However, the storyline has troubles articulating what it wants to say or what directions it should take. It just observes these characters stuck in a void, not knowing how to find a way to escapism to something more in life. As sudden as one character meets his death in the finale, so much is the ending abrupt and sudden—one might even wonder if that should have been the main plot in the middle of the film, exploring the effects on the two families, instead of just randomly appearing in the end without much time to develop the drama out of it.

Grade:++