Marigold

Literary cinematic boredom on the Baltic with with a suspiciously small thought displacement.

Flawless, pure dramatic form with the magnetic Sandra Hüller and a fantastic child actor. The film’s strength flows from the way it takes the central detective mystery from the field of a procedural crime movies to that of a character study with the child protagonist at the center. The post-Cannes hype was enormous, though I had mild reservations about Anatomy of a Fall due to the fact that it is in some respects too cold and professorial.

A cautious and selective Wikipedia entry that replaces psychologising with affected external “pictures from history”. Brothers is the most effective when it abandons its simple moral universe and focuses only on survival and determination, which perhaps best defines both Mašín the director and Mašín brothers in the film. It’s not as foggy as other Czech attempts to reflect on the bad old days of the 1950s, but it suffers from similar shortcomings in its characterisation of the period and the servants of the regime. Brothers too reverentially zigzags and hides behind what might be defined as “historical necessity” for it to really say something about the problematic issue of violent resistance and moral choices. Nevertheless, no one can deny that it offers solid directing, cinematography, editing and acting.

Beau Travail, primarily from the trio of Louvart, Vitalic and Rogowski. One can sense that Abbruzzese wants to infuse his film with tension and symbolism, to measure the EKG of the heart of darkness and to create a magical parallel between people of two worlds/faces, who are all fording the river of migration, which unfortunately is rather shallow in this rendering, though that doesn’t matter much. The visual aspect, sound design and, as usual, the superhuman intensity of the pit bull Franz carry it through to the expected climax. Though Disco Boy merely takes notes from Claire Denis, it’s still undeniably a joy to watch.

Borgli has great ideas, but he’s not able to bring them to fruition. Compared to Sick of Myself, which was irritatingly aggressive and stupid, his new film is slightly more refined. In the first half, which concentratedly works with simplicity, awkwardness and an acting masterclass on the part of Cage, it’s even one of the best black comedies that I’ve seen recently. Unfortunately, when Borgli spreads his wings and starts satirising cancel culture and the influencer vacuum through dreams, the film suddenly comes across as completely clueless and toothless. Fortunately, Cage’s professor is such a fascinating and ambiguous character, whose guilt consists primarily in thinly disguised egoism, that the film never completely falls apart. But where it was supposed to punch you in the mouth, it rather just dissipates and leaves behind the odour of the nervous fart in the film’s unquestionably best scene.

No, this really isn’t just a collection of vlogs. In fact, Manskyj elevates Titarenko’s raw footage of hell and limbo into an artfully rhythmic and graduated account of the war’s impact on the ordinary lives of a few volunteers in a medical unit. At the same time, he manages to sneak in a full range of interesting secondary topics, dominated by his long-time obsession with “the traces of empire”, into the regular alternation of footage from the battlefield and documentary scenes from the rear. The infernal scenes from the front form a chilling counterpoint to the raw testimonies of Ukrainian and Russian identity from the idyllic environment of the rear. The quiet power of Eastern Front consists precisely in the fact that it does not try to stylize or incite, but instead lets authentic scenes and utterances resound. After the initial feeling that it was going to be nothing more than topical reporting, I left Eastern Front with an oppressive, hopeless feeling that endlessly scrolling through Twitter videos doesn’t really provide. This is the kind of documentary that was needed!

Few filmmakers believe so much in the good of humanity and the power of film to make the world a better place. Few alcoholics have such consistency and detached humor. There is only one king of deadpan. Aki again occupies his unique position as a sentimental bastard and serves up the beautiful best of his tried-and-true moments. Around the fifth minute, I burst into tears of emotion and I never lost the feeling of being at home, in a place where the world can be tolerated despite its cruelty. I don’t know about you, by Fallen Leaves somewhat reminded me of Diary of a Country Priest, or maybe Godard. I’m going to go have my sixth second beer. Kiitos, Aki!

A return to the roots of a monster that grew out of traumatic guilt, a feeling of failure and the rise of the atomic age, which Japan felt on its body like no other nation. Yamazaki and co. have filmed an organic blend of post-war family drama and Jaws on steroids, making clever and aesthetically economical use of their limited budget. Even though those limits are perceptible, they are always in service of the whole, which is both intimate and epic at the same time. Godzilla Minus One is the kind of blockbuster that Gareth Edwards tried to make, i.e. unencumbered by compromises and pressure from the studio. It is depressing and uplifting, naïve and touching. Everything that I require from a blockbuster!

A typical lazy Netflix documentary in which the story and the respondents do almost all of the work while the filmmakers kick back and rake in the money. It’s a shame that Liza Williams didn’t put at least a little effort into the dramaturgy and rhythm, which are a bit soul-crushing.

It’s fine that Disney is keeping old dads in mind, even though the mouse lost his shirt on this film. No, it’s not Logan with a whip. Mangold made a safe, old-fashioned movie along familiar lines that is already a bit long in the tooth in the action scenes and, hand on heart, is reminiscent of a conversation with an old man who’s telling you the same old war story for the five hundredth time,  a sure sign of encroaching senility. The pace and gradation fall off after the fine first third and the film thus needs a defibrillator in the form of nostalgia, which fortunately comes so forcefully in the final minutes that the whip regains its crack. And no, I don’t mean that beautiful crisp metaphor of a person who lives from/in the past, but rather that tender scene of two people who are probably hurting all over. I can relate to that!