Matty

“Not getting fuck.” It looks like Scorsese decided to apply the delaying tactic from his last film on a larger scale. Multiple scenes in the first episode of Vinyl are reminiscent of the funniest segment of The Wolf of Wall Street (the paralysed DiCaprio), which was long and entertaining, but advanced the plot only minimally as a result. I really don’t know if this retarded narrative was the intention or if its creators only needed to stretch a one-hour plot to twice its length, so they added tens of minutes of verbal exchanges that go nowhere, at the end of which something essential and absolutely unpredictable occasionally happens. Thanks to the feeding of the narrative from several genre sources, it is also difficult to predict the plot twists. This insensitive comedy joyride, which doesn’t spare Anne Frank, ABBA or Chekhov, overlaps with the existential drama of a has-been producer whose descent into darkness and estrangement from his family (which we first learn about after roughly 40 minutes) hastens the shift to a dark crime story. The striking visual references to his earlier films (Taxi Driver, Goodfellas) and the disorderliness of the narrative contribute to the impression of a wild party that Scorsese threw mainly for his own pleasure. Though the point of view of Richie, who introduces himself to us as an unreliable narrator immediately at the beginning, is dominant, it is enhanced by Jamie’s point of view – without contributing to the construction of the story – and in one scene we abandon the protagonist in favour of Devon. The frequent flashbacks (which become more and more frequent as the ending approaches) and musical interpolations serve mainly to rhythmise the narrative, which – paradoxically thanks to the scenes with a long-delayed point – cannot be faulted much. Vinyl’s pilot is reminiscent of an overwrought rock musical. Thanks to the rights to the biggest rock hits, it sounds great and, thanks to the agitated camerawork, it’s never boring because of how it looks, but it doesn’t care too much about the narrative structure and what it is telling us. Perhaps the individual pieces will fit together better with subsequent episodes.

The penultimate collaboration between Sternberg and Dietrich gave rise to a somewhat eccentric work which, during its transformation from a studio costume drama into a very European-style and more than a little disturbing fairy tale, recalls the best works of German Expressionism and the (later) second part of Peter the Great. Sternberg again proves to be a distinctive stylist who doesn’t pay much heed to realistic period details or the psychological motivations of the behaviour of the characters, whose gestures are melodramatically exaggerated. He rather pays more attention to the constant contrasts of black and white, where the white in the climax, similarly dramatic as at the end of The Godfather, ironically evokes quite different connotations than at the beginning of the film. The extravagant decorations and props serve as materialised shadows of the actors, whom Sternberg often makes “disappear” among inanimate objects. The protagonist also becomes an object upon her arrival in Russia, but she soon comes to understand how to stand up for herself among the uncivilised madmen. She transforms herself from sexual prey in that she starts to enjoy her humiliation. Played by Dietrich, who lustfully observes both men and women and knows how to precisely serve up ambiguous lines without losing any of their sensuality, this is a very convincing transformation, which is also well “reasoned” by the screenplay and ensures that the film has fans not only among lovers of camp but also among feminist critics. I am neither, but I did not find even a single shot boring. 75%

Whereas American musicals have Singin’ in the Rain (also made in 1952), the propaganda films of the Czechoslovak Communist Party have Kidnapped. The film’s heavenly prologue, supported by appropriately majestic music, reveals the filmmakers’ considerable ambitions. Later, this “epic” impression is evoked by transferring part of the plot to the grounds of the United Nations. The organisation with a reputation as an international moraliser was also misused for the typically Czech narrow-minded point of the whole film: just let them vote at the UN, and we will vote for what we want at home! And unanimously! Other highlights of this pseudo-spy pseudo-thriller include the International’s singing in unison and the identification of a comrade thanks to his addition of the essential hammer to an abandoned sickle. ___ The bearer of the ideas of the Communist Party is a comrade of the most deliberate kind, deputy Horvát (which is a Hungarian rather than a purely Czech surname, but we are still on the soil of a friendly country, so that’s okay). This member of parliament is decisive and incorruptible, and thus unanimously followed by his true-blue fellow citizens. The narrative formula involving the ideological “cure” of a doubting comrade takes the form of the engineer Prokop. From a “political illiterate” living under the bad impression made by the capitalist world, he is transformed into a man whose head and heart belong to Communism. Others who don’t recoil from bribes in the form of Western food (instead of eating paper with the others) and find pleasure in decadent American culture (Kopecký’s jazz musician) are beyond help. Let them perish in the West! ___ Collectivism, one of the central value norms of Communist ideology, is highlighted throughout the narrative. A Czech (i.e. Communist) is always part of a larger collective and must mainly be careful not to betray the domestic representation, which he can always rely on in an emergency. His interests are transpersonal, motivated by the beneficial effect for the whole republic. Therefore, every gesture carries political weight. Because taking action means disseminating Communist ideals, speaking for oneself and expressing one’s own thoughts would be a betrayal (this is also why it’s necessary to make the apolitical Prokop politically aware). ___ Conversely, the negative characters act of their own accord. They pursue only personal enrichment through their socially irresponsible actions. They necessarily look at the ideological tenacity of the Czech people, who are immune to the American dollar and brute force, with astonishment (“What kind of people are these?”). The capitalists long ago traded all ideals for dollars. Proclaiming “the customer is king”, the capitalist deals with business matters even when he should be invested in his fellow man and his health. Even in his self-centeredness, however, the character representing Western values humbly admits that “your heavy industry is competition for us”. Besides his heightened interest in financial matters, you can also recognise an imperialist based on his devotion to the idea of war. It is necessary to be on guard, because the West is ceaselessly arming itself against the peace-loving countries of the East. The motivation for killing? Money, of course. Among other things, the root of warmongering is the surviving legacy of Nazism (Wanke’s SS uniform coat). ___ The work of degeneracy is completed with comical English (“Okay, boys”) and action scenes peppered with lines like “Lock up, you bastards!” Today we laugh at it, convinced that we ourselves would not be fooled by such transparent ideological manipulation. Or would we? Would it really not have occurred to us somewhere deep in our minds that it’s damned cool to be Czech and always go to the left (or today very much to the right)? Because of such questions, it makes sense to keep an eye on such atrocities, though with a wary sense of amusement, and to examine the mechanisms by means of which the “truth” of a particular group is passed off as the truth of an entire nation. 40%

In the same way that we talk about the “Hitchcockian” attributes of some thrillers and use the term “Lynchian” to describe weird films, we may soon find ourselves relating the name of Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu to movies around which media buzz is artificially created. As was the case with Birdman from the year before last, the hype that accompanies The Revenant is far greater than the attention that the film deserves based on its cinematic qualities. With their respective skills, the dream team of Iñárritu, Lubezki and DiCaprio could have made one of the most powerful adventure movies of recent years. Unfortunately, their straightforward B-movie plot couldn’t be “boosted” by the fluid camerawork, which performs even more captivating tricks than we could see in I Am Cuba (for me, the benchmark when rating films with sophisticated long shots). The story of a man chewed on by a bear, who returns “home” in the manner of Odysseus, is interspersed with mystical dream (hallucination) sequences, dialogue about God reincarnated as a squirrel and manifestations of the devastating nature of unregulated capitalism. Iñárritu, who always takes delight in the suffering of his characters, would be the ideal director for a raw western in the traditional mould, in which violence serves as the main means of communication, sets the action in motion, sets up the plot twists and solves problems. Unfortunately, as pointed out above, he decided to communicate meanings in ways other than through spectacular violence. With words, for example. The use of violence as a central narrative element is justified by its insertion into the unsteady framework of a family melodrama, enchanted by Indian mysticism. I am convinced that The Revenant would have been a tonally and rhythmically more balanced film if it had not so stubbornly pretended to have philosophical depth and tremendous spiritual reach. Unlike in the case of Tarkovsky or Malick, the spiritualism in this film is limited to empty words and unoriginal symbolism. The formalistic aspect is in no way uplifting. Besides the motif of the spiral engraved on the canteen, for example, the cyclical concept of time, which is inherent to the indigenous American population, only highlights the repetitiveness of the protagonist’s suffering. Otherwise, the film has a thoroughly standard structure, with precisely timed twists, conscientious utilisation of all motifs and a satisfying ending that leaves no essential question unanswered. It’s okay for one-dimensional characters to serve as tools for conveying information and pushing the narrative in the required direction, but I don’t think it’s okay if they serve no other purpose, despite the film’s attempt to use them to convince us of its own inventiveness and its commitment to a cause (in this case, the interests of Native Americans; see the documentary about the making of A World Unseen, which is basically very naïve anti-capitalist and environmentalist agitprop). For me, the most fitting metaphor for the film, which outwardly criticises pragmatism but is at the same time supremely pragmatic in the handling of its characters and themes, remains the gif of the lead actor as Hugh Glass buried alive, torn and broken, clawing for his dreamed-of Oscar with his last ounce of strength. 65%

Even though Rapture did not enjoy a long run in Spanish cinemas and none of the major festivals showed any interest in it, it achieved cult status and became an emblematic work of the Madrid Scene. It is a film made by people with no idea how to make films and how much they cost. Despite that, it looks much more professional and less cheap than anything by Almódovar in the early stages of his career (or rather, the trash aesthetic wasn’t the only possibility for underground Spanish filmmakers). Like other cult movies, Rapture loses a key part of its appeal in an era when even the most obscure cinematic work is generally easily available. Despite that, however, this unconventional vampire flick about the enthralling power of vivid images and other related elements manages to engage even the uninitiated viewer who didn’t have to wait many years to see THIS film. The motif of returning to the past, which was very popular in post-Francoist cinema, was given an extremely subjectivised form here. Though it is somewhat unbearable (someone is always talking in the picture), it disturbingly points out the ease with which earlier events can be rewritten. Whereas José’s flashbacks show what happened, his friend’s recorded commentary in the present puts things in context and connects the present with the past. The protagonist is offered the possibility that makes films so seductive – the possibility to partially take on someone else’s perspective. At the same time, films – together with drugs – multiply the protagonist’s experience of reality. He sees and feels more, he touches immortality, but he is distanced from real human existence. The powerful climax, with a bittersweet reward for José and for viewers eager for the fulfilment of genre conventions, expresses the ambivalent position of Spanish artists, who, with the abolition of censorship (1977), gained unrestricted freedom, the consequences of which were often devastating for them. Abundantly fed with avant-garde currents, Rapture does not offer a manual on how not to drown in the open cinematic sea. However, the fact that the film was finished and that it can enthral the viewer despite its narrative emptiness and sluggishness can be taken as proof that even the non-swimmers – the more foolish and crazier ones – can quickly learned to swim. 75%

“With (every) other activity, I betray film.” This masterful documentary portrait uses scenes from Truffaut’s films to illustrate almost every event in his life (or rather in his autobiography). But if you accept that the focus of the documentary is on Truffaut’s contradictory personality (an introverted intellectual with uncomfortable views who, for example, didn’t mind leading the filmmaking “revolution” at Cannes) rather than on his work, you will experience a pleasant fifty minutes in the company of Truffaut himself and people who were relatively close to him (as opposed to the absent film critics and historians, who might offer an unbiased perspective). It’s a shame that the documentary’s creators don’t incorporate much unique material from shooting and the filmmaker’s family archive (private letters) or scenes of Truffaut speaking into a more meaningful whole. After the introduction, which promises a chronological journey through his life, there is a shift to the crucial themes of his life and work (children and women), so that instead of continuing to tell his life story, the film goes into greater depth only in describing the kind of person that Truffaut was. The film will thus be appreciated rather by people who have already read something about the most watched director of the New Wave and will thus be able to put the confusingly distributed information into a consistent framework.

It is no longer necessary for anyone to bother with making a film adaptation of the legendary adventure game Broken Sword – in terms of atmosphere, that’s exactly how I imagined it. The exotic settings, the interconnectedness of the plot with history, the brilliant combination of humour and action. Furthermore, there is some slightly adventurous problem solving (figuring out what to do with what’s currently at hand, finding keys, combining objects). The economically managed narrative without a single unnecessary diversion is fully subordinated to the fluidity of the action, which, after the initial explanation of the context and the express introduction of the protagonist, only continues to build. The objective is clear, the fun can begin. With an average shot length of 4.8 seconds (according to the Cinemetrics website), it may have the fastest editing of any of Spielberg’s films, but compared to other 3D action movies, the shots do not alternate very often. On the contrary, great care is taken to arrange the action in space and to work with multiple plans of action simultaneously. It’s a bit in the spirit of slapstick; Spielberg long ago mastered the art of making the context clear through movement instead of words. The movement, whether vertical (forward) or horizontal (into the past), almost never stops and when, as in the middle of the desert, it seems for a moment that no action will happen, the wild hallucinations of one of the characters appear. In addition, the transitions between scenes are very inventively designed, which contributes to the impression of unprecedented fluidity. The rising action curve reaches its peak in a scene lasting several minutes without a single cut, for which I would not shy away from usin the word “masterful” to describe it. It’s all about having fun, isn’t it? But wasn’t the summation of the entire story in the title sequence intended to be a call to lower the demands on the intricacy and intellectually stimulating nature of the content and, with the fascination of a small child, to mainly enjoy the exciting spectacle? I haven’t had this much fun in a long time. Without feeling guilty about the silliness I was watching. The first time, the second time and the third time. And I have zero doubt that I will enjoy it the fourth time. 90%

The Hateful Eight is a great Tarantino revival and, after a long time, a film for which I would not regret paying a higher ticket price (though I’d still rather pay more for a screening from a 70 mm print). Faces familiar from Tarantino’s previous films, a return to the intimate “whodunit” concept of Reservoir Dogs (despite the epic establishing shots and imaginative use of spatial partitioning, which best stand out on the big screen), references to its own universe (Red Apple tobacco), division into chapters (which, in addition to rhythmising the narrative, serve to reveal new information and redirect the viewer’s expectations), the non-chronological organisation of the narrative (which doesn’t break up the film, but contributes to its overall integrity), visual and motif references to spaghetti westerns (Jackson stylised as Lee Van Cleef) and John Ford’s westerns, as well as to (slapstick) splatter flicks and Carpenter’s The Thing, variations on narrative formulas from blaxpoitation and samurai films, not individual scenes but almost the whole film based on waiting (ours and the characters’) for something to happen (and when something finally does happen, there is – in the roadshow version – an intermission followed by a flashback with Godard-esque commentary) and whether it turns out at the end that some of the characters were connected to each other by something other than a chain. The constant delaying of action and the use of dialogue to draw out scenes of simple actions, which the aforementioned Godard enjoyed using to test the patience of his viewers (see the magnificently retarded scene from Breathless with Belmondo and Seberg blabbering in a hotel room) make The Hateful Eight a unique film not only in the context of contemporary Hollywood production, which offers viewer satisfaction much more quickly, but also in Tarantino’s filmography. The first half of the film is not just a sadistically long prelude. The director uses various delaying tactics from beginning to end and even lets the characters provocatively point that out (“Let’s slow it down”). Regardless of the large number of identified (self-)references, this is a masterfully written and acted film in which everything elegantly clicks into place in the end; it just intentionally takes longer than would have been necessary, which would seemingly work as well only as a stage play (the film is aware of its theatrical structure and thematises it with gusto). Most of the characters play a certain role and the film derives much of its tension from the characters/viewers not knowing who is pulling which end of the rope. Though basically everyone is a lying bastard (those who aren’t won’t survive long), your sympathies will constantly shift from one character to the next depending on what Tarantino reveals about them. As much as to the detailed distribution of power (consisting not only in who has a loaded gun in their hand, but also in who knows what – see all of Chapter Four), the film owes its dynamism to the fast-paced dialogue, the energetic acting and camera movements (drawing our attention to important motifs), the lighting, the refocusing, the work with the depth (height and width) of the space and the editing (taking into account who is looking at whom and how). Even more than Django Unchained, The Hateful Eight would like to be a political allegory in the style of the subversive counterculture westerns of the 1970s, using not very sensitive means to draw attention to the parallels between racism and capitalism. The literalness of the film’s ideological level (lines like “When niggers are scared, that’s when white folks are safe”, the division of the bar into individual American states) contrasts with the much more subtle means by which Tarantino builds tension, creates an oppressive atmosphere of distrust and communicates essential information about who is an ally or an enemy. Even so, this is a brilliant allegory that offers very disturbing and not entirely unambiguous commentary on a different interpretation of law and justice. Tarantino has made an extremely nihilistic western that successfully creates the atmosphere of an era in which people are united mainly by their hatred of a common enemy. Primarily, however, it abounds with the narrative skill of the best Agatha Christie novels. I believe that, like Christie’s books, The Hateful Eight will only get better over time. 90%

Thirst for life is equal to thirst for Technicolor. Stairway to Heaven is not only a visually captivating but also carefully thought-out film containing more than naïve lobbying for Anglo-American friendship. It calls into question the attempts to rationalise sensorially intangible phenomena and the impenetrableness of thinking in strictly legislative terms (love above the law). Thanks also (and literally) to the unwillingness to see matters of life and death in black and white, the validity of its humanistic message did not expire with the end of the Second World War. It is not made clear whether Peter’s visions are “real” or whether everything is taking place only in his wounded brain. Though the doctor is presented as a sceptic when it comes to phenomena that we cannot scientifically document, he is given the privilege of being the protagonist’s advocate in his dispute with death. The film is similarly ambiguous in its approach to traditions. Clinging to them hinders development (more precisely, it hinders love), but the ideas of great men are nevertheless used in the trial to demonstrate the maturity of a civilisation standing on a very solid cultural foundation. However, Stairway to Heaven is rightly appreciated primarily for its work with colour and space, which gives an abstract, slightly fairy-tale impression even on earth (the futurological design of the other world, in the spirit of Lang’s Metropolis, conversely evokes scientific starkness, which is further reinforced by numerous symmetrical compositions). The colours of the scenes tell us in advance the spirit in which the following minutes will pass. The red in the opening scene indicates not only danger, but also the budding romance between Peter and June (her deep-red lips are a reminder of the dominant colour of this scene later in the film). The yellow after the first awakening on earth may signify Peter’s uncertainty as to where he is, but also his newly charged life energy (the colour of the sun). The subsequent romantic scene is set among green plants with bold pink and red flowers – the lovers find themselves in a fairy tale or perhaps even in paradise. The scenes with natural colours and without one dominant hue are filled with an attempt to scientifically explain what happened to Peter. The sterile white of the hospital works similarly. Later, in the scene from the doctor’s house, the meaning of green (represented by the ping-pong table and the plants above it, as well as Philidor’s dress) changes. It is the colour of something unnatural (poisonous) that threatens Peter’s life. Besides taking care to ensure that unwanted colours do not interfere with their shots, Powell and Pressburger (and cinematographer Jack Cardiff) also humorously play with the transitions between colour and black-and-white, which serve as a self-referential visual metaphor for other transitions (between life and death, American and British culture, the rational and the paranormal). In any case, it is a picture of many colours. In more senses than you would probably expect from a sixty-year-old fantasy. 85%

I can’t entirely come to terms with the fact that this chronicle of one life only veils its war-propagandistic message – the mythologising of the British army – with a boldly humanistic message of friendship between nations (the same idea on which Stairway to Heaven is based). The jovial Clive Candy, convincingly portrayed by one actor in all three acts, personifies everything good about the British Empire, a tradition that all young whippersnappers should revere. He is the bearer of qualities such as loyalty, leniency and love of country (the endlessly mentioned home). The music of his life is a military march. Each of his gestures and everything he says presents an argument for the existence of the army. Fortunately, Powell and Pressburger were clever and capable enough as filmmakers to stick with forming an idealised image of a man who may easily have been modelled on Winston Churchill (who hated the film because of its sympathetic portrayal of the Germans). Above all, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp is an exquisite example of how to engagingly chart two human lives over the course of forty years. With the storytelling confidence of New Wave filmmakers, the duo employ original narrative shortcuts (resolving multi-year transitions, omitting important events, condensing time) and audacious Buñuel-esque tests of the viewer’s attention (the three different characters played by Deborah Kerr). The flashback structure of the narrative, where the whole film is an explanation of what happens in the prologue and the individual sequences are similarly based on the explanation of the information provided (the narrative thus atypically moves from effects to causes at both the lower and higher levels), stimulates our curiosity while also functioning as a formalistic expression of the film’s central idea. It is always good to know the context and the origin of current events and thus avoid any possible misunderstandings. Wars are also interpreted as a product of misunderstanding, at least from a female standpoint, the consideration of which is evidence of the filmmakers’ effort to confront different perspectives, all of which in the end, however, confirm the inevitability of a difficult defence. Ideological unambiguity simply belongs to national epics. Let’s enjoy the fact that this one is told with the elegance of real masters. 80%