Marigold

A noble film about the time of Stalinism and its forgotten bones... a retro noir with a Sorel texture, which completely satiated me with its precise style and constant control over the used references and procedures. Only the color line is somewhat out of place - it is not very interesting in terms of filmmaking and, moreover, it arouses a little bit of doubt (can Stalinism really only be coped with through a merciful lie and compassion built on deception?). In any case, Lankosz made a film that reminds me in many ways of what Jan Hřebejk is trying to do in vain regarding the "dark" Czech past. The Polish filmmaker undoubtedly has more talent and a better screenwriter. The other side of the coin is a balanced mix of comedy, a noir detective story and drama from which nothing stands out - neither a violent message, nor musty humanism, nor nosy melancholy. Using old procedures in a surprising context, this is a fresh and modern film, at its core similar to our Protector.

A melancholy tale of misunderstanding, detachment and revolt going into a tough Icelandic black frost in a ruthless ending that clicks like a coffin lid. Kári's strongest film, minimalist, yet ornate in its details (textures and exteriors) and subtly escalated from lethargic wandering through Icelandic solitude to a great tragedy. Noi is one of the emblematic characters of Nordic film. Until the last few seconds, it was hard to think something certain about him, much like the eccentric assembly of his fellow citizens. At the same time, there is clearly a sketch of what is typical of the director in other films: the motif of an individual incompatible with the system, the main hero, who cannot distinguish ideas from reality, and a wondrous lovers couple. There is a complete lack of propensity for the obligatory mantras of independent film, which unnecessarily spoil Kári's simple language with false poses (especially in The Good Heart). Noi the Albino is a condensed version of what I like about Nordic cinema. The more closed and cold everything is here, the more it affects me.

It can be argued that 127 Hours has no great overlap, and that it is simply a post-modern stylized testimony of courage and desire to survive. It can also be argued that subliminal stressing of fate and miraculous hunch smacks of melodramatic cheesiness. A lot can be argued about, but what really counts is the experience. Pain, despair, fear, and above them a triumphant animal desire to escape and live, no matter what it takes. And 127 Hours has plenty of raw experiences to give. That's why this is an exceptional film and one of the most intense experiences of pain I've ever experienced in a movie theatre (Gibson and his biblical exploitation should study how it's done "for real").

It was only the silver screen that finally allowed me to feel the greatness of this gem, which, in the limited and shallow surface of the TV screen, always felt kind of convoluted and without the depth of some of Coppola's other works. It was, of course, a mistake. The Godfather is an extraordinarily robust epic, a purely narrative film whose monumentality is full of fine details and scenes constructed with architectural precision (the way the director masterfully combines different elements of storytelling to amplify intense tension is unique). It cannot be consumed in parts, it cannot be turned off. Coppola is intense, the scenes logically blend into each other (the interlining edit is not self-serving), and it is fascinating to watch the transformations of characters who seem to have aged with the film and radically reshaped themselves internally. The Godfather is "film-life," a radical manifesto of a fictional time that, with its grip and power, can completely control the current time. A captivating, contemplative experience that really needs this great canvas.

*SPOILERS* The key to why Kári chose seemingly distant and only frame-related stories of the judge and the "association" may be in one seemingly unimportant detail, which the director "mysteriously" emphasized. It is a double scene with punch-outs of paper from a hole punch, which the desperate judge first sprinkles on himself, and a little further on, in the same activity, the outsider Daniel marks them as holes (after which he is corrected that these are punch-outs, that the holes are in the paper). This "psychoanalytic" detail quite faithfully captures the two opposing characters: the judge has everything, yet he still lacks something, something that uproots him and drives him into desperate solitude. Daniel has nothing and desires nothing, he deals with the system (the great other) with a complete passivity that has nothing to do with revolt, and much more with the misunderstanding that there is any "symbolic order" to which I am subordinate at all. Daniel's indifference to the object of desire and "rift" is, in fact, what allows him to be happy (his story conspicuously resembles the post-hippie poetics of Copenhagen's Cristiania district – it's no longer about rebellion, just a slightly shy parallel existence "next to" the great other, with the need to accept at least the general rules of responsibility). On the other hand, the judge, the lawyer and the representative of the order, is condemned to dissatisfaction and to spontaneous disappearance – there is no place for him either "in" or "next" to the system. Grown-up People is not so much about revolt as it is about the possibility of coexisting – I like its naïve silent ending in many ways. Even if he answers yes, he leaves the door ajar. At its core, it's another praise for the simpletons, but thanks to an excellent second line with a man who's disappeared, it keeps its feet on the ground and, unlike its protagonist, doesn't lose touch with reality.

The whole pleasant and vigorous quack remedy narrative of the unlikely friendship of two deranged men is ruined by the predictable motif of symbolic debt that predestines the outcome of the film from the outset. Unfortunately, Kári is not Trier, and he does not keep his emotions in check. In the end, the film gets out of hand into an unlikely fairy tale that it hasn't been all along. Too bad. Maybe the Icelander was able to handle it in Grown-up People, but he lacks perspective here. But I give it than better than good score for the decent majority of the film.

Funny, quite solid action and an imaginative change of the superhero scheme. The heroes of The Green Hornet do not rely on the power of the mask and try to handle the symbolic power through a controlled newspaper - the result is extremely refreshing. Though transparent in places, The Green Hornet turns into a very exciting and epicurean spectacle thanks to a few twists and an inevitable sense of trouble behind an otherwise teenage ride. Add to that Gondry's poetic inserts, the excellent Waltz (the guy waltzes again!), a fresh heroic duo and a pleasant tribute to The Pink Panther, we soon have a candidate for this year's best blockbuster. Minuses: unnecessary 3D that looks like a children’s concertina book, and also that The Green Hornet does not have a completely balanced pace. That's why it loses half a star from me compared to last year’s Kick-ass.

A little environmental ideology doesn't hurt, especially in this (un)fairy tale about finding harmony between the elements. It's very sweet, visually dizzying and has beautiful sound. From the beginning, I didn't like the form of the characters, but the pleasant surprise was that the script and everything else is so well done and tolerably naïve that there was no time for any animosity. For a 2010 production, How to Train Your Dragon is going to very high places.

Solid and conservative work on the part of the director, a traditional concert by Suchet and a rather toiling, but all the better gradating plot in terms of the script. By the way, an episode that clearly illustrates that the power of a detective (as well as the power of a psychoanalyst) begins only when the order is irreversibly disturbed (until then, he is only a passive "evil-Precog" with no possibility to intervene).

Two provocative psychoanalytic theses - "a woman does not exist" and "a woman is just a man's symptom" - find their dizzyingly accurate, yet simple expression in Vertigo. The hero obsessed with the fantasy construction of a femme fatale (a woman who is too fragile to actually exist) goes through two key stages - a stormy melodramatic love story and disillusioned psychological drama. In the first part, charged with convention, we follow the archetypal story of romantic love for a woman doomed to die, in the second a refined analytical study of the male obsession with fantasy, the impossibility of fulfilling it with "reality", to the sadistic desire to transform a real female body into an unrealistic fantasy shape (pleasure, fulfillment). The ending then subtly opens up the question of what the hero's vertigo real lies in - in the experience of the "depth" of the real world, or in the menacing depth of a woman's gaze, which hides the bizarre and elusive shapes of potential ideas and concepts? The seemingly simple and, at some stages, perhaps excessive system is actually a precise analysis of the relationship between a man and a woman, which makes the almost consistent "desexualization" of the aged James Stewart even more eloquent. A fantastic film that can make your head spin because it accurately names the terrifying emptiness of desire.