Marigold

Euphoric opening scene (the best road tension since Drive), very good first hour, and a few solid scenes after it. Unfortunately, the rest is one of the worst things Nichols has ever written/filmed. The conclusion is purely full retard... i.e., full late Shyamalan. A terrible pity... as a tribute to seventies sci-fi ok, but as a dramatic whole with a rather subtle psychological line its very scattered. [Berlinale 2016]

On the edge between an Östlund socio-probe and Darden's (anti) morality - the story of a bankrupt man who deliberately destroys his life, which brings him to the bottom of Swedish society - poorly paid foreign workers at a car depot in Malmö. Dehumanized work, dehumanized relationships, totally dehumanized form, dominated by distinctive frames, cold colors and an aggressively industrial sound component. A film that deals with a lack of empathy and does not try to evoke any, either with immigrants or with a protagonist who is far too passive and surrendered to receive any compassion. His decisions in the second half remind of Rosetta of Dardenne brothers, but the viewer is not offered any satisfaction, only a brutally torn and austere ending. The unfortunate thing is mainly the instructive use of opera overture in the background music and the sometimes somewhat debatable attempt to make the film a metaphor for Sweden, but the work is remarkable. [Forum Berlinale 2016]

Contemporary Tunisia through the story of a young man who cannot choose between a plan (tradition) and no plan (liberal relationship). What may sound like a model love biscuit, under the hands of debutant Mohamed Ben Attia, turns into a lively, bright and captivating pilgrimage of lands that hang in the timelessness between tradition and modernity. Between revolution and sobriety. Disaster and...? A strong film, self-inspired by Darden's kinetics, from which the director takes a part, but it does not feel like an epigon, but rather as an inventive observer of intimate relationships and their social context. A pleasure on many levels. Tunisian version of A Separation. [Berlinale 2016]

It is very difficult to evaluate, and at least a slightly non-participatory attitude toward it should be sought out. Rosi filmed his documentary much more thoughtfully and composed than any feature film, with explicit scenes from the "ships of death" interspersed with an almost comedic routine of the life of a little boy from Lampedusa. It is this alternation of emotional heat and frost that gives the film a rhythm and power, from which it is very difficult to escape the cynicism of the refugee "mass". Rosi speaks directly. Part of the scenes from the refugee camp deliberately follow the refugees in the twilight, while the part at sea takes place in raw detail. The explicitness of some shots will provoke a debate about what is permissible and what is over the edge. But for social pornography, Rosi's approach is far too sophisticated and consistent on both story levels. The two worlds – in one people suffer and die, and in the other people live a completely ordinary life - are separated by several kilometers and are connected by the character of a doctor who takes care of refugees. His testimony (by the way, one of the few that appears in the film, otherwise most of the talk is provided by civilian dialogues) is the strongest moment of the whole so-called refugee crisis for me. Rosi tries to persuade the viewer not to resort to several adopted escape strategies. This is simply happening and we have to deal with it somehow. Fire at Sea is not custom work or a social order. It is a well-thought-out artistic image of poetic ordinariness and a catastrophe that is happening on our doorstep. There will be heated debates about the moral and political dimension. Fire at Sea will polarize. Like any big and serious movie. [Berlinale 2016]

Watching Deadpool is a bit like walking around Wenceslas Square with a drunken friend who goes to the middle of the sidewalk and starts pissing. Every ten seconds he screams: I GOT MY DICK IN MY HAND!, which is quite funny at first, but then it becomes a little predictable and tiring. Deadpool is unique not in that he is so different from other superheroes, but in that he constantly thematizes the difference and hits the audience over the head with it. Otherwise, he’s just as transparent as Captain America, only where the captain behaves like Dušín, Deadpool will necessarily always behave like a dick. It is simply a model return of the suppressed. Marvel has pushed the violence, vulgarity and sex out of its films for so long that there was enough material for Deadpool to fill all the holes (fists) in an exemplary manner. It works as fan service and lubricant for the next X-Men films, where there will definitely not be any cursing or masturbation. And the same goes for the entire Marvel Universe, whoever is behind it. Don't get me wrong - the one-liners are great, the action is great. But beneath the surface of the jokes toward correctness and masturbation, at its core is exactly the same barren romantic story with a bad villain (Ed Skrein = lame), as in the case of many other comic films. Deadpool earns money by pointing out its weaknesses, but the result is not as fun and cohesive a spectacle as The Guardians of the Galaxy, but rather a confusingly zigzagging mix that masks its weaknesses with pubertal excesses. From my point of view, it doesn't work as a movie, but rather as a fanboy mix of gags with a variable level. As the runtime grows, so does the feeling that the film is on auto pilot and there is one good gag for every three average ones. OK, it’s fine, but the magic of Kick-Ass doesn't happen again, because Vaughn can pee against the wind without stressing to you a hundred times that he's holding his dick in his hand, and that is something that’s not supposed to be done. Too bad I'm not 20 years younger. As my colleague Samohan Řepák rightly remarked: it could have been the best film I had ever seen. In the tradition of Czech film, I have to rename this to a SUPERHERO FILM. [60%]

Violence against (often) innocent people turned into violence against innocent viewers. Vicario filmed an offensive and simple pamphlet which, instead of materiality and the ability to capture the absurdity of the situation, chooses clumsy blackmail, which it excuses through documentary footage. Ordinary exploitation - a film that only plays on the first signal because it has no resources to do more. The worst type of film that turns me from a supporter of an idea into a cynic. P. S. Filmed with the support of BNP Paribas? Oh, the paradoxes of capitalism.

The last romantic, the first realist. A clever demystification film and masterfully directed and visually absolutely current. Exactly the kind of view of the greats of history that takes away their rotting shroud of reading books. Ladislav used to have spoiled blood, while Hudeček didn't spoil anything, also because he cleverly managed without dialogue. The film is just right for Vladimír Macura. I hope this is a sign of the birth of interesting talent... In fact, I have no doubt about that. There is no need to apologize for the studenthood or the Czech basin. This is simply a confident filmmaker who has something to say anytime, anywhere.

A film that is absolutely breathless, toiling like a barge on a stormy sea. The subdued and skilled camera technically stands up, but what is the point when the actors act between the naivety of the 1950s and the misinterpretations of Shakespeare (especially nominate Hamlet from Casey Affleck's engine room for the Golden Raspberry)? Wooden dialogues, a very vague structure and de facto the only exciting scene (overcoming the surf on the way from the port) result in probably the most boring disaster film, in which the film itself is the biggest disaster. The only thing that deserves some recognition is that Gillespie is trying a more civil approach than, for example, Wolfgang Petersen in The Perfect Storm... but what's the point when nothing but stupor comes from the film?

Searching for the essence of the past in the present as a farce about three suffering heads. Was or was there not a revolution at 12:08 east of Bucharest? Do the lamps light up suddenly or gradually? The first comedic half wrapped in the Porumboiu lethargy of a television debate, in which three actors revolve in a circle of helplessness, insults and their own narratives. It would be fun if it wasn't so accurate in terms of post-soc societies. (It should be mandatory to screen this film once a day in the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes instead of the morning anthem)

Deconstruction of the moral imperative and policing as an adventurous romance, at the end of which stands the Truth. This is sadistic wandering, at the end of which is a rational compromise. Ingenious transitions from the hyperrealism of everyday situations to an absurd drama, where the nobility of the intention is broken by dictionary definitions. In the end, nothing makes sense, just mechanical existence in a circle. A brilliant dialectical detective story with a point that pushes the adjective "procedural" above the dictionary entry.