POMO

Perfume is a work of art, a parable and an allegory, masterfully wrapped up in a beautiful, spectacularly attractive mainstream package. It is an amazing sensualist film about everthing that a talented person can do and, mainly, create when driven by love. I don’t feel sorry for Grenouille’s single victim; I feel sorry for Grenouille. And I admire him. Tom Tykwer brings perfect balance to the collage of drama, thriller and comedy, the sets are amazing, and the actors – including Dustin Hoffman and Alan Rickman – fully embody their characters (and that’s not even to mention Ben Whishaw...) and some scenes (the maze, the climax) are exemplary demonstrations of film editing. Perfume reawakened in me a memory of the melancholic student days of Branagh’s Frankenstein.

An ambitious subject rendered in the form of a disjointed and confused television farce. The only positive aspect here is the high-quality actors.

A winning combination of social drama and action/adventure. Bleak scenes of violence are insterspersed with gripping action, which is tempered by intimate dialogue – and this pattern is repeated over and over again, which unfortunately makes Blood Diamond seem drawn-out and repetitive in places. In the end, however, it is still a respectable example of first-rate Hollywood filmmaking, like almost everything else by Edward Zwick. And that is thanks to the beautiful visual aspect, the attractive setting, great actors and a lot of very powerful scenes, especially the last one.

Though A Good Year is a modest little film, it is one of the best in Ridley Scott’s filmography in terms of fulfilling its objectives. There is nothing for which to fault this film. It doesn’t overdo anything, it’s pleasant and positive, and it makes full use of Russell Crowe’s acting skill and charisma. The poetics of the setting (camera filters, music) uniquely complement the intimate story, with the added bonus of sensitive and intelligent humor.

The Holiday is a fake romantic comedy with a few sincere moments. Besides that, it gives off a whiff of sucking up to people in the film industry, let’s say directly to academics (the storyline with the old Oscar-winning screenwriter). Sorry, but there’s a deep chasm between Hollywood’s The Holiday and the British Love Actually.

Smokin’ Aces is essentially just another variation on the music-video-inspired crime flick in the style of Guy Ritchie that won’t surprise you with anything new. However, the adrenaline-fuelled dynamics and the exposition of the bad guys are at a high level, and if the film had a slightly slower build-up with a more thorough introduction of the characters, the bloodbath climax could have not only faked BIG EMOTIONS, but actually evoked them. And then it would rank among the better gangster cult movies. Joe Carnahan’s slapdash dramaturgy weakens the impression that the film makes as a whole and leaves “only” the visual/editing treats (something similar could perhaps be said about the first Kill Bill, but that film has the benefit of Tarantino’s more original concept).

Venom suffers even more from moronic screenwriting tricks than from its predictability and worn-out clichés. However, Agnes Bruckner is a treat in the lead role, the swampy locations have their charm and the film’s visual aspect is far above the level of a B-movie. The fewer films like this you have seen, the more you will enjoy this one. Otherwise, I would recommend watching the more imaginative Wrong Turn instead.

Jane Campion is both a feminist and a perceptive artist. Her Holy Smoke is a well-made ode to the subject of a strong man falling into the trap of attraction to a femme-fatale. Visuals imbued with warm colours play an important role in the film, enhancing the sultry atmosphere of the Australian outback in which the (also sultry, in places) story plays out in a small, isolated location. As always, Harvey Keitel turns in a minimalist performance, but he is well suited to both of the positions in which he finds himself – as the rakish cowboy in black jeans and as the broken loser in a lady’s red dress. In terms of acting, Kate Winslet leads the film, as the importance of her character grows with each passing minute as the power of Keitel’s protagonist wanes. Holy Smoke is a self-contained film that lacks nothing. Though it is not easy to give oneself over to it, it is hard to deny its narrative originality and, at times, its controversial openness. It could have been unforgettable if, instead of the wanna-be artsy optics, Campion had given priority to intimacy that would have made the viewer-voyeur a viewer-participant.

Lucky Number Slevin is black-humor gangster flick that wants to be a Tarantino and/or Ritchie film, but it just does NOT have what it takes because of the immature screenwriter. I’m just surprised that director Paul McGuigan thought it did. After the brilliant Wicker Park, I expected more from him.

This film’s technical brilliance and orgiastic creativity in its visuals will cause film connoisseurs’ jaws to drop and the plot with a powerful theme and even more powerful scenes will melt the hearts of children and adults of all ages. Even though Alfonso Cuarón and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki show off a bit in the manner of “Look what we can do!” in places, their film will leave absolutely no one cold. In a packed cinema, Children of Men is an excellent collective experience, with people clutching their heads, laughing and groaning as if they themselves had been hit in the mouth with a car battery. I believe that just as Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Francis Coppola and co. got a dying Hollywood back on its feet in the 1970s, Cuarón, Alejandro Iñárritu, Paul Greengrass and co. will now take it to another level in this age of calculated digital confections. *** FILM OF THE YEAR ***