Tuesday, July 8, 2025

Nine Lives

Ni liv; war drama, Norway, 1957; D: Arne Skouen, S: Jack Fjeldstad, Alf Malland, Henny Moan, Joachim Holst-Jensen

Norway during the Nazi occupation. Jan Baalsrud is a resistance member who arrives with his friend to Hansen, a shoemaker, for underground contact, but it turns out the previous Hansen was arrested by the German army, and that the new Hansen doesn't want to have anything to do with the resistance. Hansen secretly snitches them to the Nazis. While Jan and his crew were smuggling arms from the British Shetland islands to Norway's north, their ship is attacked and sunk by the Nazis. Only Jan survives, who walks through the snow landscape and reaches the house of Agnes and Martin, who nurture him. Jan is hidden in a barn, and then under a snowy slope, since the Nazis are searching for every house for him. Finally, a Sami reindeer herder transports Jan in a sleigh over to the neutral Swedish territory, where he is saved.

Based on real life events of Norwegian World War II resistance member Jan Baalsrud, "Nine Lives" is one of the wildest survival and escape stories of its kind, offering moments of surprise and that feeling of persecution from which a person has to escape to another country to safety. Despite its simple and conventional directing, "Nine Lives" still works even today, but it is narrowed down only to this one episode from Baalsrud's life, and does not show his military career before or after it. Nonetheless, his plight and flight depicted here are astonishing, as if he is the original "Norwegian Chuck Norris": he survives in the cold snow mountains; suffers from snow blindness and thus has to throw snowballs in front of himself and tap with his ski pole to find them, blindfolded; he falls down an avalanche; in the barn, since the doctor cannot arrive due to a snow storm, he disinfects a knife on a candle fire and cuts some of his toes infected with gangrene... Indeed, his ability to endure all this hardship while trying to reach Swedish neutral territory is a story that deserves to be told. It is thus not far fetched when the farmers who nurture him have this exchange: "He must have nine lives!" - "And he will need them all." The exteriors of the snow landscapes have a certain aesthetic, and one stylistic idea is interesting: some 14 minutes into the film, the camera pans up through seven different mountains, all showing either Jan's footsteps left on the snow or the Nazi army in a search mission. Some moments are clumsy or heavy handed, and it is somewhat undignified showing Jan in such a unworthy situation, relying too much on others, yet the movie works both as a piece of history and an adventure drama.

Grade:+++

Monday, July 7, 2025

The Pinchcliffe Grand Prix

Flåklypa Grand Prix; stop-motion animated sports film, Norway, 1975; D: Ivo Caprino, S: Frank Robert, Kari Simonsen, Toralv Maurstad, Rolf Just Nilsen, Harald Heide-Steen Jr.

Flåklypa is a small village where poor inventor Reodor works as a cycilist repairman, employing penguin Solan and hedgehog Ludvig in his workshop. When Reodor's former employer Rudolf mocks him on TV and shows how he stole Reodor's invention to help him win in car races, Solan manages to persuade a sheikh to finance Reodor's new race car, Il Tempo Gigante. A jealous Rudolf slices an oval device inside the car to sabotage it. During the race, Reodor's car starts malfunctioning, but Ludvig enters the car and holds the sliced oval device to keep it intact, and thus Reodor's race car wins the race and surpasses Rudolf's car.

Even though it enjoys a cult reputation in Norwegian cinema, since among others it sold over 5 million tickets at the local box office, stop-motion animated film "The Pinchcliffe Grand Prix" is still heavily overrated, basically nothing more than a solid kids film. It confirms the old maxim that often some of the most popular local films lose their ostensible greatness or are difficult to understand when viewed outside the borders of their countries. The film is meticulous in technical aspects, especially in painstaking stop-motion animation and work with puppets, and eye for details, but its creative aspects are severely lacking, since it doesn't even attempt to be funny or especially creative. The director Ivo Caprino is only interested in setting up the final 20-minute race car sequence, but the first 60 minutes drag as an overlong set-up, whereas the character of the hedgehog (?) anthropomorphic animal Ludvig is disturbing looking, with a bizarre giant nose/beak placed above its mouth. The humor appears only intermittently, though it has sparse charm: for instance, when the penguin Solan is watching the sheikh through binoculars, commenting how rich he is: "Gosh, he's using dollar bills as fly-swatters!"; the image of a woman playing a harp composed out of two bicycle tires; or when the names of Italian and German race car drivers are revealed: Gassolini and Schnellfahrt. The movie needed more jokes and inspiration, since it seems it just settled at being good, never truly attempting to go beyond that. The final race car tournament is the highlight, but even that is a weaker highlight than, for instance, the wonderfully creative chariot race sequence at the end of "Asterix vs. Caesar" or the chase sequence in "The Wrong Trousers".

Grade:++

Thursday, July 3, 2025

The Fabulous Baron Munchausen

Baron Prášil; fantasy adventure, Czech Republic, 1962; D: Karel Zeman, S: Miloš Kopecký, Jana Brejchová, Rudolf Jelínek, Rudolf Hrušínský, Karel Höger

Tonik, an astronaut on the Moon, is surprised to find Cyrano de Bergerac and Baron Munchausen there, who mistake him for a "Moonman". Munchausen decides to show Tonik his world, so they board a ship carried by horses with wings that bring them to Earth, to a city in Ottoman Empire. Munchausen and Tonik free princess Bianca from the Sultan and escape on horses. The three see a ship in the sea and swim to it to safety, but it sinks in a sea battle. Munchausen, Tonik and Bianca are swalloved by a giant fish and find another ship inside its stomach. The fish gets stranded and the people escape from it. Munchausen, Tonik and Bianca help save a castle from a siege, but Tonik is sent to prison for suspicion that he wants to blow up the castle. Munchausen throws a candle on gunpowder which causes an explosion that catapults the castle to the Moon. 

Whichever fantasy story 'Czech Méliès' Karel Zeman decides to make into a movie, he makes it even more imaginative due to his unusual syncretism of live action and cutout animation. One of his most critically recognized films, "The Fabulous Baron Munchausen" is a charming and elegant fairytale and ode to escapism from reality, due to the title character who lies about his stories that are so over-the-top that the viewers have to chuckle at the absurdity of it all. Zeman is closer to von Baky's "Munchausen" than he is to Gilliam's dark and grotesque "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen", meaning that it is a movie with adventures, escape, danger and threats, but it's all harmless and relaxed. The storyline meanders from one episode to another, making it highly arbitrary, yet by setting people in the background of his paper set-designs, Zeman is able to create a little cult film. It starts with a comical opening where an astronaut on the Moon is surprised to find footsteps there, leading him to a crashed rocket with five people without spacesuits, including Munchausen and Cyrano de Bergerac. Using his cutout animation, Zeman conjures up a whole array of creatures: horses with wings carrying a ship from the Moon to Earth; a giant fish that swallows a ship; a giant eagle; a swordfish holding a jacket; a mermaid... But he is also able to insert a lot of humor with some moments that border on comedy. 

For instance, during the night, Munchausen has a duel with the Ottoman harem guard both with a sword and a chess board game, allowing him to move chess pieces. At one point, a dozen Ottoman soldiers enter the room, so the harem guard moves a chess piece and says: "Check!", while Munchausen replies with: "Mate!", as he stretches his hand out behind his back and shoots at the light on the ceiling, creating darkness which confuses all the guards, as he defeats them. Another guard is hitting the alarm bell, Tonik shows up and takes away his drumstick to keep quiet, then the guard throws him at the giant bell, but it swings back and makes one last alarm sound when it hits and knocks out the guard on the head. Munchausen wants to close the window with his leg, but it gets stuck, so he takes off his boot, which is left hanging on the window, as he takes care of Bianca. A steam ship shakes so much that even apples from a painted tree start falling off from the painting. Zeman doesn't have that Spielbergian sense for excitement and weight when introducing these fantasy creatures which sometimes just come and go in a minute, which feels almost superficial, and the characters are not as important as just being pawns in this giant set-up designed to create a fantasy world. Nontheless, "Munchausen" is a refreshing and imaginative non-Hollywood fantasy film.

Grade:+++

Tuesday, July 1, 2025

Man of the East

...e poi lo chiamarono il magnifico; western comedy, Italy / France, 1972; D: E.B. Clucher, S: Terence Hill, Gregory Walcott, Dominic Barto, Harry Carrey Jr., Yanti Somer, Enzo Fiermonte

19th century. Englishman Thomas Moore arrives to the United States to inherit a real estate from his late father. His stagecoach is robbed by three men wearing bandit scarves: Bull, Monkey and Joe. Later, when they meet again and Moore tells him who his father was, the three bandits become his friends since they worked for his father. However, criminals want to chase them away and take their land. Moore falls in love with a beauty from the nearby town, Candida, but a rough ranch administrator, Morton, wants to marry her, so he beats up Moore. Bull, Monkey and Joe train Moore, who becomes skillful enough to win against Morton in a shooting duel, and thus Candida stays with Moore.

E.B. Clucher's third cooperation with comedian Terence Hill, "Man of the East" is a fun western comedy, but it doesn't have a single unforgettable joke as did their first two films, "They Call Me Trinity" and "Trinity is Still My Name". As is the case with Italian 'Spaghetti Westerns", even comical ones, the Italian film crew again pretends to be somewhere in the Wilde West of the United States while never setting foot off Europe (in this case, the exteriors of the Plitvice Lakes). The meandering story is all over the place, not really able to decide what its plot tangle is, but Hill's physical jokes and Clucher's sense for comedy manage to carry this (overlong) film. Some jokes really do work: for instance, bandit Monkey is introduced behind bars in a prison, stealing money from the pocket of the prison guard (!) behind his back. His friend, Bull, is introduced as a mute worker at a stagecoach station, but suddenly speaks up in defiance as two bounty hunters sitting at the table badmouth his late friend, an Englishman, calling the latter a "bastard". Hill isn't in top-notch shape and is rather "subdued" as the late Englishman's awfully polite son, which works badly for him in the rough Wild West. In one of the most insane gags, after some criminals wanted to buy off their land and house, Hill's character Moore picks up some rubbery molasses from the ground, pressing it with his fingers, saying how the soil here is very fertile and that they could plant a lot of seeds here and expect a god harvest, but then Bull tells him he is actually holding horse's manure in his hand. The concept of the story that Moore should stop being polite and become a "tough man" is misguided, yet the actors all are fine, especially Yanti Somer as Candida, Moore's love interest, the opening song is catchy, the running gag involving the two bounty hunters always forgetting about the third member of the bandits who sneaks up behind them is amusing, as is the allegorical final scene about the end of the Wild West.

Grade:++

Monday, June 30, 2025

Man of Iron

Człowiek z żelaza; political drama, Poland, 1981; D: Andrzej Wajda, S: Jerzy Radziwiłowicz, Marian Opania, Krystyna Janda, Irena Byrska, Wiesława Kosmalska

A radio reporter, Winkel, is summoned by the communist authorities to find dirt and make a report about steel worker Maciej Tomczyk who leads a strike at the shipyard in Gdansk, so that the TV editors can later edit it into a disinformation campaign to discredit Maciej. At a protest where Maciej holds a speech, Winkel meets an acquaintance, Dzidek, who tells him more: in '70, Maciej's father Birkut was killed during the government crackdown of protestors. Winkel also visits Agnieszka in police custody, who tells him how she married Maciej, but had to leave with their baby to live with her father from fear of the authorities. Despite blackmail from the authorities, Winkel quits his job and embraces the Solidarity labour movement. An agreement is later reached, granting the protestors a labour union independent from the communist authorities.

One of Andrzej Wajda's most famous films, "Man of Iron" is an unapologetically activist film. There is nothing here besides politics, to such an extent that even characters, narrative and cinematic craftsmanship are neglected or even discarded, and thus viewers unfamiliar with the Solidarity movement and its role in the fight for democracy in Poland will not be able to understand the film and won't like it. Nontheless, it was a daring and subversive movie back in the time, a rare story openly critical of the communist dictatorship of Poland in 1981, and even today it is fascinating to wonder how it was allowed to be made in the first place—even the title, "Man of Iron", is a spoof of Stalin's propaganda name "Man of Steel". The opening text slyly says: "All the characters and their names in the film are a work of fiction. But they enact events that really happened." The protagonist Maciej Tomczyk, a shipyard worker, is an allegorical depiction of Lech Walesa (who even makes a cameo five times in the film, either through archive footage or direct appearance in front of the film cameras), whereas Wajda strives towards blending fiction and reality, since some of the protests were filmed on the spot, thereby achieving almost a documentary film at times, even including other key members of the Solidarity movement in certain scenes, such as Anna Walentynowicz. 

Some moments are brilliant. For instance, the ironic scene where a communist member turns around a big violin in his apartment, revealing alcoholic drinks hidden inside it, to offer it to radio reporter Winkel. The sequence where Maciej is assaulted by three paramedics in the hallway who sedate him and put him in a straightjacket, and later in a mental asylum, is a strong example of political abuse of psychiatry, as is the sequence where Maciej and his friends bury the corpse of his father in earth of a graveyard, but when they return later, they discover his body is gone and a new cement tombstone with someone else is now found on his place. These moments have weight since they illustrate that archetypical situation where an evil government is wrong, but instead of admitting its mistake and changing, it rather invests all the resources to gerrymander reality by trying to present good people as evil in order for said evil government to appear good. Some of the dialogue also works, for instance when father Birkut says: "No lie lasts forever" or when Maciej has this exchange with a shipyard worker: "But you will be a slave!" - "I know, but I will still live longer. Your uprising won't change anything." On the other hand, the majority of the lines are schematic and only at the service of checking political points, without much effort to make it more enjoyable for the viewing experience. At 2.5 hours, the movie is definitely overlong by at least 30 minutes and needed better planning—instead of its excessive inclusion of as many details and events from that historical time, since sometimes one symbolic scene is able to say more than ten superfluous scenes repeating the same thing. Unfortunately, despite noble intentions, "Man of Iron" is too dry, since it is more activist inspired than cinematically inspired.

Grade:++

Sunday, June 29, 2025

It Happened in Broad Daylight

Es geschah am hellichten Tag; thriller, Switzerland / Germany / Spain, 1958; D: Ladislao Vajda, S: Heinz Rühmann, Gert Fröbe, Sigfrit Steiner, Siegfried Lowitz, Michel Simon, Maria Rosa Salgado, Anita von Ow

Peddler Jacquier finds the corpse of a little girl in the forest, runs to the village pub and phones Lieutenant Matthai from Zürich police to report it. The police arrive at the crime scene, but find no clues except that the girl was killed by a razor blade, so they blame Jacquier who commits suicide. Matthai was supposed to fly to Amman to train the police, but changes his mind and is convinced the real murderer is still out there. Matthai takes the little girl's drawing which depicts her next to a tall man in black. Based on other two murders of little girls along a road from Zürich to Chur, Matthai rents a gas station, hires Miss Heller as a maid and uses her little girl Annemarie as bait. Realizing a businessman, Mr. Schrott, is seeing Annemarie in the forest, Matthai confronts him. Mr. Schrott attacks him with a razor blade, but the police shoot him.

As much as Penn and Nicholson delivered a remarkable effort in their crime film "The Pledge", their remake could not reach the genuine simplicity of brilliance of the excellent original "It Happened in Broad Daylight", one of the best Swiss films. Based on a script by Friedrich Dürrenmatt (who was not satisfied that his meditative ending was changed into a happy one in the film, so he wrote a novel "The Promise"), "It Happened in Broad Daylight" plays with the people's deepest fears, in this case with an unknown misogynist criminal who kills little girls due to his private frustrations, but a one who leaves no trail, yet insuppressible police Lieutenant Matthai (comedian Heinz Ruhmann in a remarkably serious edition) will not give up until he captures him, even if he has to use unconventional methods via a little girl as a "bait". The opening act sets up an incredibly tight mood thanks to sharp writing that creates strong characters and dialogue, relaying on sophistication, not on violence or banal thrills. 

Little details and clever ideas go a long way in this film. When a mob wants to lynch Jacquier, the man who found the corpse of the little girl, but is now suspected of being the murderer himself in the pub, Matthai realizes his small police escort is heavily outnumbered, so he untypically addresses them: "If you can give me one evidence he is guilty, I will hand him over to you." One man says he saw Jacquier walking in the valley, but since three other men from the crowd admit they were also in the valley but said man didn't see them, Matthai ironically comments that he would now have to execute all five of them. While investigating, Matthai stumbles upon a drawing of the murdered girl in the elementary school which depicts her with a tall man giving her a hedgehog, while a car and a goat are also depicted. Upon sitting next to a man in a plane, eating chocolate truffle, Matthai relizes the "hedgehog" was actually said dessert, and that the goat is an insignia of canton Graubünden on the car plates, so he rents a gas station along the road where the murders happened and writes down every car plate with a goat insignia. He also builds a playground right next to the road so that the girl Annemarie can become a bait, in a risky move. The attempts at psychological explanation of the murderer's motives feel weaker, though, and the ending with the large doll is not that well thought out, which comes off as illogical. Nontheless, the movie is crafted with such an elegant and natural craftmanship by director Ladislao Vajda that it seems universal and fresh even today.

Grade:+++

Saturday, June 28, 2025

Kes

Kes; drama, UK 1969; D: Ken Loach, S: David Bradley, Freddie Fletcher, Lynne Perrie, Colin Welland, Robert Naylor, Brian Glover

Barnsley. Billy Casper (14) lives with his older bully brother Jud and divorced mother in a small house. Jud works in the local coal mine, but Billy doesn't want to follow his footsteps. Bullied in school by other students and uninterested in class, Billy one days climbs up to a nest and steals a little falcon, naming it Kes. Billy feeds Kes in his shed with mice, dead birds and raw meat. When he tells about his falcon in front of the entire school class, his English language teacher Mr. Farthing praises him and even goes to see the bird himself. When Billy spends Jud's money not on a horse race but on fish and chips, and Jud's preferred horse wins, Jud is so angry that he kills Kes. Billy finds the bird in a trash can and burries it in the open.

"Kes" is a Walt Disney film subverted into a depressive social tragedy. There are many movies about a lonely, neglected kid who bonds with an animal as a therapy and escape from the cruel world—a whale in "Free Willy"; a dog in "Lassie"; a horse in "Black Beauty"—or even a fantasy companion—such as "E.T." or "How to Train Your Dragon"—but few had such bitter, sombering aesthetics and naturalism as Ken Loach's approach in "Kes", about a friendship between a kid and a falcon. There is no sugar-coating that pretends nothing too bad cannot happen in life. It is grim, 'raw' and desolate in its gruelling honesty. Loach strives towards showing life as dirty as it is, in this case a kind child, Billy (excellent David Bradley), a hostage of a brute society: Billy is bullied in school not only by students, but also by his physical education teacher (Brian Glover) who throws a football at the boy, causing him to fall in the mud, and later punishes him for not dedicating himself to the football match by throwing Billy into the shover while he turns off the warm water, forcing the naked Billy to climb out of the window as to not freeze any further. 

At the same time, Billy himself isn't idealized—in the opening act, he works by delivering newspapers, and has this exchange with his boss: "I haven't taken nothing of yours yet, have I?" - "I haven't given you a chance, that's why." - "You don't have to. I haven't been nicking for ages now." Billy is also seen in unsympathetic light when using a shotgun to shoot a small bird on a branch to feed his falcon Kes. Despite these highly naturalistic approaches, the movie does "slip" towards a few brief satirical moments, such as the one where the camera shows a comic-book panel Billy is reading or the fantasy football match of the PE teacher with subtitles showing "Manchester United 1 - Spurs 2". The choice of a falcon as Billy's best friend is a strange one. A dog or a cat would have been a much more natural choice than a falcon that just mutely stares at Billy and never shows any affection towards him, aiming only for his food. It would have also made more sense if Billy had found the falcon abandoned, instead of abducting it from the nest. Their interactions are slightly too sparse, while the sequences of Billy in school are too superfluous. But the main theme still rings as strong as ever: the need for self-actualization. As strange as it is, the falcon becomes a symbol for Billy's discovery of some abstract happiness, meaning and a sense of purpose in his empty life. Few people can understand it, but it has an effect on him that is profound. The emotionally devastating ending thus hits you like a brick in the head—this denial of personal happiness, attack on innocence and insisting on cruelty is one of the strongest condemnations of human primitivism, inconsideration and malice caught on cinema. In spite of that, the final scene is flawed, since it feels strangely abrupt and incomplete, as if some conclusion is missing. 

Grade:+++

Tuesday, June 24, 2025

My Beautiful Laundrette

My Beautiful Laundrette; drama / tragicomedy, UK, 1985; D: Stephen Frears, S: Gordon Warnecke, Daniel Day-Lewis, Saeed Jaffrey, Derrick Branche, Roshan Seth, Rita Wolf

London. Omar is a Pakistani migrant living in a shabby apartment with his father, Hussein, a broke left-wing journalist. Luckily, Omar's uncle Nasser, a businessman, is there to help: after a job at a car wash, he gives Omar a laundrette to manage, and hopes he can arrange a marriage with Tania with him. But Omar is gay and meets his former lover, Englishman Johnny, who was a member of a far-right anti-immigrant group. Omar and Johnny smuggle drugs for Salim, hidden inside a fake beard, and thus gain money to renovate the laundrette which becomes a hit. Nasser has a mistress, Rachel, but his wife makes a potion that gives Rachel a skin rash, so she leaves Nasser. Tania leaves Omar. Thugs ambush and attack Salim in the laundrette, and beat up Johnny who protected him. Omar and Johnny splash each other in the sink.

"My Beautiful Landurette" is all over the place, and yet, this mess gives it that feeling of genuine 'slice-of-life' that makes it realistic even today. It tackles several themes (Pakistani-British relations, lives of immigrants, gay people), but they are always in the background, since the script just takes a funny and witty "proper" observation on life in general, centering around Omar trying to find a job and grow up. The best performances were delivered by Daniel Day-Lewis as Omar's business (and gay love) partner Johnny, and the underrated, excellent Indian actor Saeed Jaffrey as Omar's wealthy uncle Nasser, who senses he can always make a business from the "dirty", undesirable jobs Londoners don't want to do: "There's money in the muck!" This is a sly jab at capitalism and Thatcherism, since Nasser plans to use the capacity of the lower class of Pakistani migrants to catapult himself into the upper class. As he explains to Omar: "You have to know how to squeeze the tits of the system." Several of these subplots are introduced, but subsequently not that fully developed, which comes off as a flaw: the sudden attack of the far-right thugs on Salim at the laudnrette feels almost as an "imposter" in the film; it wasn't explained why Johnny was one of their members; some of Johnny's peculiar behavioral quirks are unexplained (he suddenly leaves with Tania in the rain, drives on the bicycle and crashes back into the house). 

Even Johnny's and Omar's relationship was not that clearly written. They have one (almost) sex scene in the laudnrette's office before they are interrupted, with one unusual detail (while lying on top, Johnny takes a sip from the champagne bottle, kisses Omar, and then lifts his head up to "flow" champagne from his mouth into Omar's), but otherwise their emotional bond is not sensed that much. Omar sees him more as a business partner and acts distanced and cold towards him, an thus their final scene is not earned. The director Stephen Frears shows a lot of sense for depiction of people of that milieu (Omar is smiling watching Tania showing him her breasts outside the window of the living room, behind the backs of Nasser and his friends sitting and talking) and even has some creative camera drives (one fantastic one appears some 83 minutes into the film, as the crane lifts up camera up to the rooftop of the laundrette, showing a thug with a club on top, and then the camera descends on the other side, abck to the street), showing that the rather abrupt and incomplete ending had much more potentials. It doesn't matter, since there is some energy and likeability in the film that makes it almost invincible to flaws.

Grade:+++

Sunday, June 22, 2025

Distant Voices, Still Lives

Distant Voices, Still Lives; drama, UK, 1988; D: Terence Davies, S: Lorraine Ashbourne, Angela Walsh, Pete Postlethwaite, Freda Dowie, Dean Williams

First segment: Nell is married to alcholic Tommy, who is violent and sometimes even beats her. They live in Liverpool and have three children: Maisie, Eileen and Tony. After being drafted to the army, Tony rebels against his dad and even breaks the window with his fists. Tommy becomes sick and lands in a hospital. He returns back home and dies. At Eileen's wedding, the siblings are split between those who wish their father was still there and those who are glad he is dead. Second segment: Eileen and her husband Dave have a baby. Maisie also marries, but their marriages aren't always good. Tony falls and is injured in a construction accident. Tony recovers and marries Rose.

A critically acclaimed independent British film drama, "Distant Voices, Still Lives" is a more bitter than sweet anti-nostalgic and semi-autobiographical depiction of director Terence Davies' childhood, but also the working class in the UK during the 40s and 50s in general. Assembled like a stream-of-consciousness, it goes back-and-forth in time, with the three siblings intermittently having flashbacks of their agonizing relationship with their alcoholic father Tommy (very good Pete Postlethwaite), thereby making the movie seem like a very loose collection of episodes, reminiscent of impressionism. The first half of the film is the best precisely because this tension between the three kids and father is sometimes electrifying. In one such moment, Tony, in his 20s, wearing a military uniform, wants to have a drink with dad sitting in the home, who refuses, so Tony shows him the money he received as severance pay and throws the coins into the fireplace: "That's all I've got. But I wouldn't give you daylight." During the Blitz air raid, several people hide in a bomb shelter, but Tommy sleps one of his little daughters in front of everyone ("Where the bleeding hell have you been?!"), showing heavy-handed negligence and inability to be considerate. After dad becomes sick and lands in hospital, Eileen opens the door and sees him standing there: "I've signed myself out of the hospital! I've walked home." The second segment is weaker, though, and feels rather aimless. It has some poetic moments and a few neat camera drives (70 minutes into the film, Maisie holds the hand of her injured husband on the hospital bed, the camera pans up and looks through the window, and then there is a "time jump" to the mother and the family holding the hand of the injured Tony on the hospital bed), but the dialogue and the events are standard, bland and routine, not managing to ignite a bigger enjoyment or spark out of this material.

Grade:++

Thursday, June 19, 2025

Schtonk!

Schtonk!; satire, Germany, 1992; D: Helmut Dietl, S: Götz George, Uwe Ochsenknecht, Christiane Hörbiger, Veronica Ferres, Harald Juhnke

Hamburg. Fritz Knobel doesn't earn much money for his paintings, but earns a lot for inventing Nazi memorabilia, a hobby he started since he was a 9-year and sold a fake Hitler's visor cap to an American soldier. Fritz secretly cheats on his wife Biggi with model Martha, who poses while he makes a painting of Eva Braun using her naked body. Fritz sells it to the rich Lentz, and later even makes a forgery of the last volume of Hitler's diary. Slimy reporter Hermann Willie buys the diary for his newspaper, "HH". Smelling a fortune, Fritz starts writing earlier volumes of Hitler's diaries, all until the newspaper pays 9 million Deutsche Mark for it. Fritz flees to a Swiss town, while the federal police concludes the diaries were written on notebooks manufactured only after World War II, and are thus a forgery. Hermann becomes crazy and decides to search for Hitler, thinking he is still alive.

Based on the real case of forger Konrad Kujau who created Hitler's fake diaries, "Schtonk!" is a satriical German auto-reflection on its own society (but also other countries) where that unhealthy fascination with Nazism and its legacy still lies on the margins, contemplating why some people are so obssessed with the past they never experienced, instead of living their own lives in the present. The writer and director Helmut Dietl uses unusual camera angles and sharp framing, but also relies on several jokes and black humor to carry the story, though he did not manage to make something more than the standard storyline that was expected from the concept. He shows how desperate the yellow press reporter Hermann (very good Gotz George) is, as he has to resort to playing a gigolo for the rich Freya von Hepp, Göring's grandniece, already obvious when they meet in the restaurant and have this exchange: "And you are...?" - "Broke." This gives justification for Hermann's attempt to get out of this slump and his motive for trying to gain a fortune to persuade his newspaper to buy Hitler's diaries. When Hermann wants to speak to the deputy editor, he greets him with contempt: "How long have we not see each other?" - "We have actually never seen each other." Fritz's "inspirations" for writing the diaries is a 'hit-or-miss' affair: in one sequence, he sees some people running a marathon on the road, so he already imagines writing a section about how Hitler opened the Olympic Games in '36. At one point, he is seen wearing a dark coat and even having a Hitler's accent in his mind as he writes further text on paper at his home. "Schtonk!" spoofs the supply and demand problem, since scammers will invent a fake supply just to sell it to the masses and earn a fortune, though some banal or lukewarm jokes could have been improved (for instance, Fritz writing in the diary how Hitler had "flatulance").

Grade:++

Monday, June 16, 2025

Children of Nature

Börn náttúrunnar; drama, Iceland / Norway / Germany, 1991; D: Friðrik Þór Friðriksson, S: Gísli Halldórsson, Sigríður Hagalín, Baldvin Halldórsson, Björn Karlsson, Bruno Ganz

Geiri (78) shoots his dog, packs his things and abandons his desolate farm. He goes to live in a Reykjavik apartment of his daughter, but since her teenage daughter argues with him, the family arranges that Geiri is transferred to an elderly home. There he meets Stella (79), his childhood friend. Together, they steal a car and drive off to die together at their childhood village on an island. The police tries to find them. They take a boat to the island and find the former fishermen outpost abandoned. Geiri finds Stella dead on the beach. He goes to the outpost and walks to the edge of a cliff, disappearing in a cloud of smoke.

"Children of nature" is one of those movies that tackle the ultimate taboo: death, or better said, accepting the inevitability of it. The simple story about an old couple who decides to die together in the abandoned village of their birth is subtle, emotional, minimalist and humanistic, but also has a certain sense for directorial craftmanship that tries to imply and rely on the subconscious rather than on a clear narrative—in the first 10 minutes, there is no dialogue; in the last 20 minutes, there is no dialogue. Several contrasts imbibe the film: the protagonist Geiri leaves a rural area, his farm, to live in an urban area, a residential building; whereas the finale becomes almost metaphysical and negates the realistic approach up to it (Bruno Ganz is credited as "The Angel" and appears as a man in a black coat who puts his hand on Geiri's shoulder in the sequence in the abandoned building; a naked woman is waving from the shore at Geiri and Stella in a boat, as the sailor says: "There is no need to be afraid of her. She is just a ghost"). The nature plays a big role in the film, showing the landscapes as a journey whose end leads to its beginning, the birth place of the couple. The two lead actors give fine performances, and are given intimacy to understand them (for instance, while sleeping on the hay in the open, they have this exchange: "I wonder if it's the same moon that shone on us back in the old days?" - "I don't know. I don't think it has ever recovered since they started taking strolls up there"). "Children of Nature" suffers from at times an overstretched running time and slow pacing, yet as a meditative contemplation on the cycle of passing and death, it is shaped to work completely. 

Grade:+++

Sunday, June 15, 2025

The Round-Up

Szegénylegények; historical drama, Hungary, 1966; D: Miklós Jancsó, S: János Görbe, Zoltán Latinovits, Tibor Molnár, Gábor Agárdy

A prison in Hungary, 1868. The 1848 Hungarian Revolution failed, and thus the authorities are persecuting the last remnants of the followers of Lajos Kossuth and outlaw Sandor Rosza. The prison officers suspect that some of Sandor's men are among the convicts, so they summon a convict, Janos, who is sentenced to be hanged, and offer him amnesty if he can find someone who killed more people. Janos becomes a snitch and singles out convict Veszelka as one of Sandor's men, but since Veszelka doesn't want to confess anything, the prison guards whip a woman he loves in a gauntlet, causing her to die, so Veszelka, who was forced to watch from the tower, jumps into his death. Janos is later found strangled in his cell. The prison guards suspect convict Kabai. The prison guards start a mobilization of the convicts, and order convict Torma to assemble a unit made out of the former rebel army. The guards declare that their leader, Sandor was given amnesty, but that this does not apply to his unit, which is now identified and captured.

Ranked in a local poll ("The Budapest Twelve") as the best film of Hungarian cinema, Miklos Jancso's drama "The Round-Up" is in reality still a notch below all the hype. Set in only one location, a prison in the middle of a meadow, far away from anywhere, where the authorities are frantically searching for the remnants of the former rebel army of the failed 1848 Hungarian Revolution, the movie was interpreted as a sly allegory on the anti-communist '56 Hungarian Revolution, with a sense of isolation of the Eastern Europe and a well conjured up, depressive feeling of repression and authoritarianism. It starts with cynical sketches of military uniforms, boots, helmets, guns, sabers and cannons, as the narrator explains: "The spirit of 1848 has become a mere empty phrase..." Jancso is able to craft aesthetic, sharp shot compositions, but the overall storyline is still too monotone, grey, standard and narrowed down. The character development is abandoned as there are no emotions, no intimate scenes or some clever lines that gives these characters some greater interest, leaving the whole cast as cold, disposable (the top billed actor playing the seemingly main role of snitch Janos dies already some 57 minutes into the film) and mechanical. Only occasionally does the film offer some more untypical or strange situation (a naked woman running in between a row of some twenty prison guards who whip her). The final ploy with which the prison guards manage to trick the convicts into revealing they were members of the rebel army is neat, yet the movie simply needed a more colorful, higher amplitude of events and style.

Grade:++

Sunday, June 8, 2025

The Promised Land

Ziemia obiecana; historical drama, Poland, 1975; D: Andrzej Wajda, S: Daniel Olbrychski, Wojciech Pszoniak, Andrzej Seweryn, Kalina Jędrusik, Anna Nehrebecka, Bożena Dykiel, Andrzej Szalawski

Łódź, 19th century. Karol, a Pole; Moryc, a Jew; and Max, a German, decide to unite forces and build a textile factory, but they lack money. Karol works as a managing engineer under the ruthless Bucholz, owner of a taxtile factory. Karol also has an affair with Lucy Zucker, the wife of a rich tycoon, and through her reads in a letter that a 25 kopeks tariff on American cotton will be imposed in two weeks. Thanks to this advance knowledge, Karol, Moryc and Max quickly buy as much cheap cotton as possible, and secure a lot of money. However, it is not enough, so Moryc borrows money from a Jewish lender. Max is trying to persuade his father to invest into modernization of his dated textile factory with manual labor and no automated machines, but to no avail. The trio builds their factory, but since Karol had an affair with Lucy, her husband sets it on fire. Karol marries the rich Mada Muller, owns the factory, and orders the police to open fire on workers on strike.

Even though it was ranked as one of the best Polish films of the 20th century in a local film critics' poll, Andrzej Wajda's 3-hour drama about early industrialization and capitalism doesn't feel that fresh anymore today. Instead of enjoying in watching the movie, it feels more like homework. The major problem is that it is overlong, and that it isn't as interesting as it could have been. "The Promised Land" shows how the accumulation of wealth needed to start a business isn't that easy, and how the investors trying to finance their textile factory have to resort to unethical means, and later become as cold and distant from the workers as their bosses whom they initially despised, which kind of aligns with the socialist advocation for Poland during that time. Some of the dialogue is comical and witty. For instance, the main protagonist Karol enters the office of his cold boss, Bucholz, who gives him letters addressed to himself, to entertain Karol, who reads out loud one of them: "Most eminent Mr. President, emboldened by the fame and respect with which all the unhappy remember your name...". When Moryc wants to borrow money for his business, the Jewish money lender says this: "Why do I treat you like a son? What am I saying, like a son? Like a son and a daughter together!" In another sequence, the rich German industrialist Kessler belittles not only Karol, but the Polish nation, too: "First you must civilise, create an industrial culture. Only then will your attempts stop being laughable," and thus Karol replies with wit: "You are right and you are wrong. A pig, if it ever thought of an eagle, would think this way." The hyped orgy sequence, some 68 minutes into the film, today feels rather timid; whereas some unusual camera tricks are neat (the wide fisheye lens); yet the movie needed more of such eccentric, unusual and grotesque moments to become more entertaining, since such a long running time didn't justify its sole standard storyline.

Grade:++

Friday, June 6, 2025

The Saga of Tanya the Evil (Season 1)

Yojo Senki; animated fantasy war series, Japan, 2017, D: Yutaka Uemura, S: Aoi Yuki, Saori Hayami, Hochu Otsaka, Shinichiro Miki

A Japanese businessman fires an employee from his company, who in turn pushes him in front of a speeding train at a station. While falling to his death, a divine being appears and talks, but the businessman refuses to recognize that God exists, calling it being X, so the divine being has the man reincarnated as a blond girl, Tanya, in an alternate history Europe of the early 20th century, claiming that hardship in life will make him more religiously devout. At 10, Tanya discovers she has magical powers, and is drafted in a huge war of its homeland, the Empire. Tanya and a dozen other soldiers with magical powers fly and use machine guns to kill enemies. Tanya is ruthless and cruel, and thus climbs up the military hierarchy, followed by her friend Viktoriya. Despite victories, more countries join forces against the Empire, fearing its growth of power, leading to a world war.

Anime series "The Saga of Tanya the Evil" is the darnedest thing. It has a fascinating plot tangle—but it treats it as a subplot on the margins, even though it should be the center point of the story—and for some reason pushes the far less interesting (and questionable), standard war and battlefront story as the main segment. This uneven decision in the construction of the storyline which gives undue weight to the lesser story ultimately hinders "Tanya". One isn't quite sure what the point is, at least from this first season. This better plot tangle revolves around a nameless Japanese businessman who is pushed in front of a speeding train, but just then time stops—and an invisible divine being speaks through the mouths of "frozen" people around him, and even through the beak of a pigeon (!), but the businessman is an atheist and refuses to believe in God ("Are you unfamiliar with the 'duty of disclosure?' If you claim to be God, you should put more thought into your decisions." - "Administering 7 billion people is already beyond my capacity." - "Overwork is the sign of a failed business model."), defiantly calling it being X, as if his powerless, mortal status only leaves him with mental rebellion and critical wit at his disposal. The sequence is sheer genius, a fascinating contemplation on the problem of evil and satirical take on religion, but for some reason the authors stubbornly refuse to simply continue this story. 

Instead, they just focus 90% of the rest of the story on the businessman reincarnated as a punishment as a 10-year old girl Tanya, who is mobilized due to her magical powers to fight in an Empire in a big war. The allegory isn't well conjured up: the country is only named "Empire", but the maps of Europe clearly show Germany during World War I. Then why not just simply say so? What is the point of a militaristic fundamentalism and warmongering in Tanya who enjoys being cruel to get to the next promotion? Why is Tanya only a 10-year old, when she could have been a grown up (the 10-year old mobster in "RoboCop 2" fallacy), as it would have been more logical for such a war-themed plot? A lot was not that well thought-out or well written in the story. A rare critical distance is taken in episode #8 where Tanya orders the artillery shooting of rebellious Republican remnants retreating from a city, including civilians, even though a military colonel refuses to do so—because it is a clear war crime. A few post-credit jokes have charm, such as in episode #9 where Tanya writes to a family about a soldier who was injured and relieved of duty, but decorated with honors—only to comment that this is the first time she lost a soldier because he ate rotten potatoes. However, one simply cannot get engaged with the obscure sight of dozen soldiers flying in the sky, "Harry Potter"-style, shooting with machine guns at the battlefront. The viewers simply long for the confrontation with the divine being from the start, but this happens only three times (besides the said first encounter, it appears speaking through a toy soldier and through the corpse of a killed pilot in a war plane), which consolidates "Tanya's" lost opportunities. 

Grade:++

Wednesday, June 4, 2025

Hugo the Hippo

Hugó, a víziló; animated fantasy adventure musical, Hungary / USA, 1975; D: Bill Feigenbaum, S: Ferenc Bessenyei, Gábor Berkes, László Márkus, Tamás Major

On the island of Zanzibar, the harbor is far away from land and thus sharks always attack people coming from the ships. The Sultan thus orders his assistants Aban-Khan and a Wizard to bring hippos to chase away the sharks. A dozen hippos, including the little Hugo, are abducted from Africa and deported to Zanzibar. The sharks disappear, but since the people forgot to feed the hippos, the animals start eating food from the city. Due to these complaints, Aban-Khan kills all the hippos, except for Hugo who manages to escape, swim across the Indian Ocean and find refuge in Dar es Salaam. There Hugo befriends Jorma, a little boy, but when the animal eats all the crops from Jorma's father's farm, people again turn against him. Hugo is put on trial, but due to Sultan's compassionate speech, the judge acquits the hippo and orders that the kids take care of him.

One of the most famous animated films by the Pannonia Film Studio, "Hugo the Hippo" is a surreal, bizarre and phantasmagorical little flick, but it is honest, heart-warming and with a humanistic message that animals should be treated with compassion. Its weakest link is the dated animation which feels pale compared to modern examples the viewers are accustomed to; forced musical segments; as well as the meandering story (Hugo's best friend, little boy Jorma, doesn't appear all until 45 minutes into the film), but the title hippo is adorably cute—he doesn't speak a single line, but his innocence creates an emotional charge since he suffers from abduction, displacement, becomes an orphan and has to start a new life all over again, with grown people attacking him for eating from their farms. Luckily, the director Bill Feigenbaum allows for several comical moments, some of which are almost cartoonish: for instance, when the sharks attack the ship and see several people hanging from a pole, they imagine shish kebabs on sticks. The Sultan summons the Wizard, who is introduced sleeping wrapped up in paper and floating above ground. The clumsy teacher in Dar es Salaam is so distracted while reading a book that he "shaves" himself with a toothbrush and accidentally places a snake around his neck, mistaking it for a scarf. The most expressionistic and memorable moment is the sole sequence of the abduction: the Wizard creates a robot cowboy on a robot horse which sucks out all the water from a pond, leaving the dozen hippos in a crater. The cowboy then lassoes the biggest hippo, but it pulls the rope so hard that the robot horse's and cowboy's screws start falling apart. This and the sequence where giant vegetable creatures attack Hugo might come off as too scary for some kids, yet the overall story has some distinctive charm and flair. Sultan's final words at the trial are remarkable, showing that even some characters appear to learn and change in the finale: "Unless we can embrace the whole of life on Earth, unless we can manage to learn from Jorma, we are doomed. The fate of Hugo the hippo is our fate. Let there be justice for all living things!

Grade:++

Tuesday, June 3, 2025

Ćaća

Ćaća; documentary short, Croatia, 2025; D: Matej Beluhan, S: Ivo Sanader

The film chronicles the career of politician Ivo Sanader, member of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), who was elected as the Prime Minister of Croatia in 2003 and 2007. However, he suddenly held a press conference and announced his resignation in 2009. Later, he was indicted for corruption, including through rigging public tenders, illegally selling Croatia's oil and gas company INA to the Hungarian company MOL, and taking a bribe to allow the foreign Hypo Bank to enter the Croatian market. He was sentenced to 18 years in prison.

One of the best films from Kino Klub Zagreb, excellent satirical documentary "Ćaća" (Croatian slang for "Pops") is a grand analysis of corruption, political pliability and that effect of 'rise and fall' of an influential figure. It's all archive footage, there is not a single word of a narrator nor any new scene intended to be a direct intervention, but through its suggestive images and playful re-arrangement of some scenes everything is clear to such an extent that no commentary is necessary for the viewers to understand what the author wanted to say. The unwillingness of politician and former Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader to star in the film and be its "protagonist" is inversely proportional to the fun of this whole 13-minute movie. The director Matej Beluhan initially only presents political campaign ads in the first five minutes of the film, such as they were broadcast on TV, in all their propaganda. In the first ad, an old man points to a giant poster of Sanader in a park, and says: "I believe this man!", while a lad with long hair cheerfully replies: "Me too, my friend!" In a house, Sanader's speech is seen on TV, as a man with a goatee, sitting on a couch, scratching his chin, says: "Grampa, I believe this man", as the grandpa, with big moustache, just nods. 

In another public speech, Sanader is speaking: "Where are all those HDZ thieves? Why are they not in prison? It can't be that there are none!" In the second political ad, Niko Kovač, a football manager born outside Croatia, but allowed to vote in Croatia, looks into the camera and confidently says: "Precisely because of that, HDZ and Dr. Ivo Sanader." In a third political ad, the most surprising of all, the German Chancellor at that time, Angela Merkel, also promotes him: "Croatia is on the good way to become a member of the EU. All this was achieved under the leadership of HDZ and Ivo Sanader". Then the movie starts its deconstruction of all this. New inserts show how Sanader was indicted for corruption, and all those previous ads are now intermittently played again, gaining a new, comical conext, as if they drive in reverse: Merkel again repeats "all this was achieved under the leadership of HDZ and Ivo Sanader". At a court hearing, Sanader announces he is rejecting the accusations with disgust, and this is followed, indicatively, by the repeat of the ad where the lad with long hair says: "Me too, my friend!" A judge reads out the first degree verdict finding Sanader guilty, and the clip with Kovač is repeated: "Precisely because of that, HDZ and Dr. Ivo Sanader." When a news anchorman says Sanader was sentenced to 18 years in prison, the grandpa with the moustache is seen noding again. All the previous statements now sound incriminating and farcical. That everything is understood just through these subtle re-arrangements just shows how cleverly set-up and edited this whole film is.

Grade:+++

Tuesday, May 27, 2025

Starlet

Starlet; drama, USA, 2012; D: Sean Baker, S: Dree Hemingway, Besedka Johnson, Stella Maeve, James Ransone, Karren Karagulian

Jane lives in a house with Melissa and her boyfriend Mikey. They work as porn actors. One day, after buying a thermos from a certain Sadie (85) who has a yard sale, Jane discover bundles of money inside. She spends thousands of dollars on herself, but then has guilt and decides to meet Sadie better. At first, Sadie is suspicious and evasive, but slowly Jane becomes her friend and they play lottery. Jane lets Sadie watch after her dog. The dog escapes, causes stress for Sadie, but she manages to find him again. Jane buys Sadie a plane ticket for Paris. Melissa informs Sadie that Jane took her money from the thermos. During their ride, Sadie tells Jane to stop at a cemetary to gie flowers to her deceased husband. Jane goes to the cemetary and finds out it also contains a tombstone of Sadie's 18-year old daughter.

Sean Baker's 4th feature length independent film, "Starlet" once again follows his fascination with people living on the margins of society. On the one hand, it shows the isolation and neglect of people at old age, presented through the character of the 85-year old Sadie; on the other, it shows three young people living together in a house, until it is only later on revealed what their profession is—at 53 minutes into the film, the protagonist Jane goes to a film set of a porn to film a sex scene. Highly unusual blend of two extremes—and it is kind of a pity these two social groups never quite interact fully with each other. Baker, as a screenwriter, is not able to write a fully developed storyline, as if he is never interested in his stories any more than just the outline for his social themes. As such, "Starlet" has banal, schematic dialogue—Jane says she wants to re-decorate the room; Jane says to Sadie she wants to be her friend; Melissa says she needs money for her debt... All of this is said just at face value, without much sense for intricate writing or creative prose. The best line is actually said by someone who makes a surprising cameo, real AV actress Asa Akira, who delivers a funny joke that stands out, the one about how it would look like if Captain Hook was fingering someone. Baker strives towards de-glamorization and naturalistic depiction of life as it is, as realistic as possible, and as such creates a 'raw', messy and vital film. The supporting characters of Melissa and Mikey are annoying (especially Mikey who can only be a "pothead" and play video games the entire day), and thus the friendship between Jane and Sadie is the anchor of the film. Remarkably, this is the first and only movie role for Besedka Johnson, here playing Sadie with genuine ease, and it feels a bit sad that she is so underused here. Baker's trademark "surprise ending" here gives Sadie another layer, but isn't as effective as it could have been. She needed more "character build-up scenes". Compare what Nicholson says in the movie "As Good As it Gets" at the dinner sequence, about how he wants to be "a better man", and what Hunt says back to him—in just one sequence, these two lines are so creative they make time stop for the viewers. Is there any dialogue here between Jane and Sadie that ever comes close to that?

Grade:++

Monday, May 26, 2025

Tangerine

Tangerine; drama, USA, 2015; D: Sean Baker, S: Kitana Kiki Rodriguez, Mya Taylor, Mickey O'Hagan, Karren Karagulian, James Ransone

Los Angeles on Christmas. African American transgender prostitutes Sin-Dee and Alexandra meet at a donut shop. Upon hearing that her pimp and fiance Chester has been cheating on Sin-Dee with Dinah, Sin-Dee storms off and walks the streets to find said woman. Razmik, an Armenian taxi driver, has a sex encounter with Alexandra in his cab. Sin-Dee finds Dinah at a motel and drags her to Chester, to confront him. Chester admits having sex with Dinah, but only to "check her out" as a prostitute. Alexandra sings at a bar, but there are no customers there. Razmik leaves his family's Christmas dinner to feign he has to go to work, but instead finds Alexandra at the donut shop. Razmik's mother-in-law finds him there and confronts him cheating on his wife. Upon hearing Chester also had sex with Alexandra, Sin-Dee leaves them all. Someone throws urine on Sin-Dee, so Alexandra comforts her at a laundromat and gives Sin-Dee her own wig.

"Tangerine" is another naturalistic social drama by Sean Baker about the people on the margins and the lower class, in this case two transgender prostitutes (impressive performances by first time actors Kitana Kiki Rodriguez and Mya Taylor), but uncharacteristically set on Christmas. For all his humanistic and noble approach, Baker is again not that good at writing a proper, focused storyline—the narrative is often improvised, comprised just out of random episodes and disconnected adventures of his protagonists without much plot strategy, which hinders the enjoyment value of the viewers. However, on the other hand, that is Baker's intent—he creates movies as 'raw', messy, dirty (drunk passenger throwing up in the cab) and unglamorized as daily life, in accordance with his movie influences (Cassavetes, Loach, Jarmusch). This is not very cinematic, but it is genuine and honest. One major plot point isn't that convincing, though, and feels forced (would a transgender woman really just drag another woman through the streets, against her will, without anyone intervening or without the latter at least screaming for help in public?). The best moments are when Bakes turns a bit more creative and intimate: Armenian taxi driver Razmik cleverly conceals his sex encounter with prostitute Alexandra by driving his car in a long car wash; the Christmas dinner of the Armenian immigrants where Razmik feigns he has to go to work because their Christmas is actually celebrated later, on January 6. In a very innovative idea for independent cinema, the entire film was filmed using only iPhones. Baker's trademark are startling, emotional endings, and the viewers never know how he will surprise them. The ending in "Tangerine" isn't as strong as the one in "The Florida Project", but it is still endearing—despite all their disagreements and problems, the two main characters have only each other for support.

Grade:++

Sunday, May 25, 2025

Inspector Palmu's Mistake

Mysteriet Rygseck; crime comedy, Finland, 1960; D: Matti Kassila, S: Joel Rinne, Matti Ranin, Leo Jokela, Jussi Jurkka, Leevi Kuuranne, Elina Pohjanpää

Helsinki. Bruno Rygseck is a decadent millionaire who stages parties at his mansion, and killed the cat of his aunt Amalia as a prank. Inspector Palmu is informed the next day that Bruno has been found dead, drowned in his giant swimming pool, allegedly after tripping on a soap on the ground. Palmu arrives with Detectives Kokki and Virta to the mansion, but concludes it was a murder based on the butler's testimony that the lights in the swimming pool room were turned off. Bruno's wife Alli is poisoned via a drink, and Palmu assumes it was intended for Bruno. Since her brother Aimo was forging Bruno's signatures to repay his debt, Airi agreed to go to Bruno's room. Airi's fiance Erik claims he killed Bruno, but Palmu disputes this. It turns out Amalia killed Bruno because he killed her cat, and uses Virta's pistol to attack Airi, but is arrested by Palmu's men.

The first film adaptation of the novels about Insector Palmu, "Inspector Palmu's Mistake" is a light crime comedy that works as some sort of a Finnish version of Agatha Christie or Inspector Columbo 'whodunnit' murder mystery, without adding anything specific or new to it. It is elegant and fun, albeit straightforward and lacking in surprises or humor, except for the funny "twist ending" as to what the motive was for the murder. Some of the plot points are more of strained ploys than true clues to solving the mystery (for instance, the only hint that Bruno's drowning in the swimming pool was murder is that the room's lights were switched off from the inside, which is overstretched). The most was achieved out of the leading actor Joel Rinne as the title Inspector, who is both competent and charismatic enough to carry the film even when objectively there isn't much happening on the screen. The best segment is when a group of friends make a bet at who will perpetrate the best misdemeanor without the victim having the guts to contact the police due to embarassment, so a woman feigns she fainted in front of a man, he takes her inside his apartment, but as he goes to the kitchen to get her some water, she "wakes up", steals his manuscript for the novel and escapes, while he is unable to tell anyone because "he could not explain to his mother what a foreign woman was doing in his apartment". A few dynamic camera drives, an occasional cinematic technique (Alli drinks the poisoned drink and falls down with the glass, as it dissolves to the same (later) frame of Palmu's shoes standing above said glass on the floor) and a couple of solid jokes, but otherwise a rather standard and at times overstretched little crime flick.

Grade:++

Friday, May 23, 2025

Uncle Marin, the Billionaire

Nea Mărin miliardar; comedy, Romania, 1979; D: Sergiu Nicolaescu, S: Amza Pellea, Jean Constatin, Sebastian Papaiani, Brândușa Marioțeanu, Ștefan Mihăilescu-Brăila

During a flight from Frankfurt, a group of gangsters drugs and kidnaps Samantha, the daughter of rich American Marlon Juvett, and escapes from the plane via parachutes in Romania. They hand Samantha over to another group of gangsters, who then kill them in a car explosion. An ordinary peasant, uncle Marin, arrives for a visit to Constanta, so his nephew Gogu arranges for him to stay at a hotel room reserved for Marlon. When Marlon arrives with a briefcase containing a million $ to pay for the ransom of the gangsters holding Samantha, it turns out he looks identical as Marin, and their briefcases switch often, causing chaos. Finally, Marlon persuades Marin to help him. In the meantime, Samantha escapes from the gangsters and returns to Marlon. The gangsters kidnap Marin, thinking he is Marlon, but Marin makes them all drunk, so the police and an inspector arrest the gangsters.

"Uncle Marin, the Billionaire" unexpectedly became the highest grossing Romanian film of the 20th century, with over 14,600,000 tickets sold at that country's box office, gaining an almost mythical reputation in Romania, but outside of its home country, it still feels below all the hype, rarely managing to be something more than just mildly amusing. A peculiar pastiche of American screwball comedies and Romanian mentality, this film also carries some of their clichees revolving around the concept of a comedy of mistaken identity, since the main actor Amza Pellea plays both the simplistic peasant Marin and the American billionaire Marlon—it suffers from forced set-ups, contrived coincidences and occasionally spasmodic situations, whereas not all jokes ignite. However, there is still enough of good moments here to be found that are surprising, and they arrive swiftly thanks to the elegent directing by Sergiu Nicolaescu, who usually directed serious movies. 

In one of the best jokes, Marin is annoyed by a fly in his hotel room, so he tries to hit it with his hand, but instead pounds the top of the TV set which just turns off (after it was previously turned on by a pounding in the first place) and then hits the fly standing on the button to call the room service, a maid (as Marin comments: "Her mind is as short as her skirt"). In another visual gag, Gogu chases Marlon across the hotel hallway, finds a door locked, so in order to try to break it, he runs a few steps back to gain momentum, but goes too far and instead falls down a shaft on the other side of the wall, landing (again) in the basement with the dirty laundry. And in a commotion at a crowded night club, Marin's wife Veta mistakes Marlon for Marin and starts attacking him for dancing with another woman, which goes so far that Veta at one point walks to the singer, tells him: "Shut up!", takes his microphone away (!) and uses it to say: "Marin, stop! You can't get away from me!" The car and motorcycle chase sequences at around 49 and 54 minutes into the film, respectively, were inserted for more dynamic charge, but while it is amusing watching motorcycles driving across a beach full of tourists, they don't quite translate into humor. Overall, "Uncle Marin, the Billionaire" is a fun and relaxed light comedy, creating problems and twists, but in the end, just like in the works by Moliere, everything is resolved with a relieved gusto.

Grade:++

Wednesday, May 21, 2025

It Rains in My Village

Biće skoro propast svijeta; drama, Serbia, 1968; D: Aleksandar Petrović, S: Ivan Palúch, Annie Girardot, Mija Aleksić, Dragomir Bojanić, Eva Ras, Bata Živojinović

A village in Syrmia, Vojvodina. Triša is a pig owner on a farm who claims to enjoy his independence as a bachelor. Joška, another farmer, gets Triša drunk and finds a priest who marries him to Goca, a mute, mentally handicapped woman. Triša and Goca get a son. When an art teacher, Reza, arrives in the village to teach painting, Triša falls in love with her and even chases Goca away from his house. A pilot crash-lands with his plane on a tree and continues the affair with Reza, who dumps Triša. Later, Goca is found killed, and the police suspects Triša, but his father gives himself in, instead, thereby saving Triša from prison. The pilot leaves, admitting to Reza he is already married. The villagers tie Triša's arms and legs to church bells, leaving him having above the ground, and then kick him until he dies.

Compared to his wonderful film "I Even Met Happy Gypsies" where he had an impeccable sense for 'magic realism' which he combined with unexpected avant-garde, the director Aleksandar Petrovic delivered a weaker, meandering and vague film "It Rains in My Village", which didn't quite satisfy as the follow-up to his interest in rural areas and minorities living there. Petrovic aimed for a lyrical, surreal, even disconnected approach in his movie style, but some disjointed and underdeveloped moments clash badly with each other, and simply don't fit well. The relationship between the pig farmer Trisa and the mute, mentally handicapped woman Goca is handled the worst, since Petrovic ignores Goca so much it borders on artistic negligence—take, for instance, their sequence of ending up together: Trisa is drunk and then tricked into marrying Goca at night of a ruined church in a montage without any dialogue; in the next scene there is a baby next to Goca while the villagers stare at them; in the next scene the kid is already a five-year old and speaks to a slow-moving snail on a table... all these ellipses happen within only three minutes, with an impossible sense for rushing through such a delicate and crucial sequence that simply is not given due weight, and already the new character is introduced coming to the village in the car, the art teacher Reza, with whom Trisa will have an affair. 

But as the old film rules says, before the viewers can sympathize with the poor girl whose brute husband cheats on her, they first need to get to know the girl better, and the movie needs to conjure up emotions towards her, as Babaja rightfully concluded in his similar drama "The Birch Tree". Here, Goca has only maybe 5 minutes of running time in total in the entire film, which is not only too little, but is at the disservice to the excellent actress Eva Ras who had so much more potential. The rest of the film's focus in amost exclusively on the love triangle between Goca, Trisa and a pilot who randomly enters the film and stays there. Petrovic doesn't bother with the classic narrative and instead insists on random collection of episodes, some of which work better, and some worse. One interesting episode is when farmer Joska stumbles upon Czechoslovak cars parked in the meadow, and the drivers listening to the Yugoslav radio, depicting the then actual Soviet-Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, claiming that "500,000 foreign soldiers are in the country" and that they are "shooting at every moving vehicle in their way". Another is the comical bit where Trisa's father confesses on his deathbed that he lied about the murder to protect Trisa, but the man (Bata Zivojinovic) who wore black and pretended he is the priest, just takes his black robe off and reveals to be the police inspector. The ending aimed at being a great tragedy, but since the emotional anchor was missing (Goca's intimate state), it didn't amount to quite the punch it intended, and feels rather overstretched. 

Grade:++