POMO

Equivalent to film testimonies of suffering in concentration camps, this raw, silent drama is about the atrocities committed on women (and girls) in Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1992 and 1995, as seen through the eyes of a young woman who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Almost the entire film takes place in the dense atmosphere of a women’s camp, a deserted area with three barracks. Most of the unpleasant things (killing, rape, humiliation) take place out of sight, but there is also one naturalistic scene, longer than the audience would be comfortable with. Minimalist Natasha Petrovic is sufficient in the main role, and Stellan Skarsgård’s cameo was nice. In the end, the film changes from the depressing testimony from the camp into the pondering of the consequences of the terrible acts with which the main character not only has to live, but has to accept within her family as her own blood... I can’t give it four stars, as the second half of the film (the affair with the captain) is less believable in terms of the characters’ psychology and behavior. Still, it is a powerful, memorable experience that will haunt you in your sleep.

Though the characters and certain situations are funny with their dry Scandinavian humor, in the end A Somewhat Gentle Man is an easy-to-forget film with an overused plot and none of the poetic overlap (both in terms of its content and form) that makes similar stories special, such as those by Kaurismäki.

Bastards works better as a comedy than as the drama that it aspires to be. The humor brought to the film by children–non–actors with their natural behavior and down-to-earth lines –lighten up the drama, which comes across as naïve or even tacky (the church scene). Which is a pity, because it overshadows the bold move on part of the filmmakers in telling the truth about things we’ve never seen in a Czech feature film and will probably never see again. Tomáš Magnusek is a big filmmaking enthusiast and, unlike some other such individuals, he also makes films himself. As a screenwriter, however, he might be more successful in the field of vulgar comedy.

Bedeviled is a decent revenge drama with a gory reckoning in which you will cheer enthusiastically for the scythe-wielding female executioner for all that she has been through. And you will empathetically wish that you could join her in the bloodbath. The well-managed continuous building of psychological pressure in a remote place from which there is no escape is effective, but the friendship between the girls doesn’t work at all, even though the protracted ending tries to explain it and give it some meaning.

Beyond is a typical depressing Scandinavian movie whose purpose is to show us glimpses of the protagonist’s difficult past in flashbacks and let us suffer with her. What’s the point? We already know that Noomi Rapace is a great actress.

Buried is surprising in that it’s not an indie festival flick, but a mainstream movie. Some viewers may consider that to be a drawback, but for me, the film’s ability to captivate and move the masses with a single actor in such a small place is its greatest asset. It thus comes closest to Joel Schumacher’s Phone Booth, in which the desperate protagonist squirms in an equally confined space, though standing upright and with a better view:-). Buried is superbly written, filmed and acted, with an ending that delivers an uncompromising knock-out blow.

Conscience and love entrapped by insurance corruption extending to the highest government bodies. Argentina is wild. Carancho is engaging due to its shocking topic rather than to the filmmaking aspect, which is mundane and unremarkable. It is not until the final scene that the emotions escalate enough to really get to the audience. The chemistry between the central duo, which is an important pillar of the film, works well.

Centurion is a historical adventure-hunt movie. Congratulations to Neil Marshall for working himself up to be a director of actors such as Fassbender, West, Cunningham and Morrissey. All of them, together with the fantastic natural scenery, help make the movie fun and engaging. This film is not bloody and brutal just to shock the audience; rather, it is realistic and its violence fits into the concept of a harsh drama in which the likable main characters are hunted in the wild by the bloodthirsty Lady Vengeance hitchhiker. Her anger and cruelty are justified and therefore her character does not inspire disgust and hatred in the viewer, but fear and respect. Less realistic is the make-up and blow-dried hairstyle of the beautiful wild woman living alone by a river in which she catches a fish breakfast with her bare hands – but still we are grateful for a bit of tenderness in the gray world of hopelessness. If the ending had been more confrontational, I would have considered giving this film four stars.

The rulers of heaven, which looks like something from a cheap porn flick, send two “scary” characters – a dimwit from Star Trek and a CGI Medusa with a model’s face – to stop a modern-day Chuck Worthington Norris from preventing Kraken’s King-Kong dinner. If Louis Leterrier really is a fan of the 1981 original, which, as he says, is forever in his heart and on his mind, he should get a brain transplant.

This documentary is able to evoke the atmosphere of Detroit and life within it, but it does not provide the most important thing, namely information either from history or from the present (or a comparison of these periods using facts). As if the creators did not want to deal with the causes of the decline of this once important industrial city, they sum them up in one sentence: “And then came the drugs...” The dialogue scenes with some suburban residents are on point, interesting and funny (the old gentleman growing vegetables in his garden is the best) while some scenes are completely unnecessary. The fact that over the past 50 years the number of white residents has decreased by 93% and the number of black ones has increased by 160%, and that the drugs that destroyed the city were not brought by the former, is not mentioned at all. Even the ratio of the skin color of its protagonists in front of the camera is 1:1. The documentary, especially when intended for festivals, is the last medium that should hide the truth only for the sake of so-called political correctness.