gudaulin

City of Women is exactly the kind of movie that cannot be reviewed in one sentence, and it is possible to accept any rating according to the viewer's nature and current mood. A grotesque whim about the flirtation of an aging seducer with an unknown woman from a train turns into a typically Felliniesque journey of the main character confronted with self-confident men contemptuous of women. This colorful spectacle that contains several decadent elements and extravagant scenes, where the viewer does not know until the very end where reality ends and hallucination or dream begins, is the director's sarcastic account of the modern feminist movement. For myself, I can say that, for example, I was very entertained by the manneristic Satyricon, and I consider this one of Fellini's best films, although in the second half, the film unnecessarily drags on and some images are burdened by the author's self-centeredness. Overall impression: 85%. Even though some viewers may criticize the film for its lack of plot and excessive abstraction or exaggeration, it is in any case a great piece of filmmaking that has influenced modern cinema.

Mamma Roma is a more mature film compared to Pier Paolo Pasolini's debut, Accattone, which expressed a too great fascination with the world of prostitutes and pimps. In this film, Pasolini shows more of the flip side of life on the outskirts of the city and society. His characters are examples of naive dreams and the painful inability to cross the boundaries of their social class and position. The film is depressing not only because it shows the housing estates without proper infrastructure beyond the borders of better districts, worn-out prostitutes, arrogant pimps, and poor peripheral residents, but also because of the story itself, which ends tragically. Overall impression: 75%. Pasolini once again does not deny his left-wing beliefs as he sympathizes with his characters from the bottom of human society, despite their imperfections, and does no unnecessarily moralize their actions.

If you're going to visit Japan, do it with an expert on Japanese society and culture like Martin Vačkář and an excellent documentarian like Jan Špáta. Vačkář managed to select the most interesting aspects of Japan, and Špáta appropriately assembled and edited his selections, resulting in an impressive and information-rich documentary about what modern Japan and today's Japanese society represent. The only criticism I have of the film is its overly admiring and uncritical view of life in Japan. It needed to reveal more of the dark side of Japanese success and show the lives of the less fortunate inhabitants. Overall impression: 85%.

To be honest, I prefer Belle de Jour over Tristana - it is more playful and at the same time much more sarcastic than the relatively depressing Tristana, whose central theme is bitterness and resulting hatred. However, both films feature the wonderful Catherine Deneuve and the film works primarily thanks to her presence and excellent performance. It is not just a film about the relationship between an older man and an immature girl, but also a reflection of the society of its time, the dependent position of women, and the clash of the modern world with old orders and value systems. When Don Lope confronts a young artist and challenges him to a duel, he receives a punch in the nose instead of acceptance. This is how the world changes, where there is no longer room for old patriarchal nobility. Luis Buñuel is a sharp critic of the hypocrisy of old bourgeois and aristocratic rules, and his disdain for the world of so-called "better" people is evident in many dialogues. Overall impression: 85%.

While The Office is a deviation from the usual sitcom productions, The Thick of It goes incomparably further in denying the rules of the sitcom genre, basically forming its opposite - emphasis on the realism of the environment, almost documentary camera work, and the absence of artificial lines and dramatizing situations. Honestly speaking, there isn't much for straightforward laughter in the series, although countless absurd situations can be found within it. It's more of an insight into the workings of various manipulators and other government lackeys in the British rendition. At times, their actions and thinking even make you feel the way you do after consuming highly indigestible food. Overall impression: 60%.

When watching Eastern Promises, many film fans probably thought, "Thank God that Cronenberg has gained some common sense in his old age and started making understandable genre films accessible to a wider audience." I prefer the old "perverse" Cronenberg, who experimented and came up with original stories beyond the mainstream of cinema. Eastern Promises is not bad at all, although the script is definitely not original and an experienced viewer can guess where the story is heading after a while. For example, the scriptwriter lacked the courage to cross the genre taboo of the death of a child character. What makes this thriller stand out and surpass average productions is the excellent cast and great performances, far from typical B-movies. The atmosphere of the foreign Russian mafia with its secret rituals, tattoos, and "mythology" is naturally attractive. Overall impression: 75%. The depiction of several overly naturalistic shots, such as the stabbing of a human eye in a fight or the mutilation of a corpse, disturbed me, but many fans will probably appreciate it. :-)

I assume that it did not take a long time to find a suicide victim who was tough enough to direct such a despicable film. The screenwriter was probably tasked with writing a screenplay where absolutely everything happens, and with a large dose of hallucinogens in his blood, he more or less succeeded, resulting in a strange, unbelievably stupid film where characters from Dumas' novels, drug dealers, and pseudo-heroes with various sexual perversions appear side by side. The dialogues are incredibly stupid, and I'm surprised the actors didn't get red in the face during them. The actors are the only interesting thing that Blanche has, but Jean Rochefort was probably so old that senility was starting to affect him, or he foolishly lost his lifelong savings and couldn't make ends meet with his pension... Gérard Depardieu probably needed to pay for one of his stays in rehab or weight loss, so their presence serves as a cover for this embarrassment, which is a waste of time even for lovers of the cheapest forms of entertainment... Overall impression: 5%.

When The Silence of the Lambs appeared in movie theaters, it wasn't the first film about a doctor with peculiar tastes and unpredictable behavior, but it immediately meant huge success for the audience and even for critics, because it was filmed with extraordinary elegance, a clever script, and skillful direction. These elements were able to elevate this typically B-movie theme with problematic ethical implications to an acclaimed classic of its genre. None of the films that followed The Silence of the Lambs succeeded for various reasons, but Hannibal Rising is the weakest of all those attempts. This film is one big disaster because it relies on a terrible script and obviously has an inadequate budget considering the ambitions it had. The screenwriter didn't address many things, so the film comes across as illogical and even ridiculous to anyone who doesn't settle for bloody action. Just a small example: Hannibal easily crosses the border of the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War, freely travels through Soviet territory, and in the Baltics where a bloody civil war was raging and the NKVD was conducting mass ethnic cleansing to suppress the national liberation movement. It's about as likely as if I paraded through the sacred mosques of Mecca and Medina with a cross on my neck wearing muddy boots. The villains only have loosely outlined character traits and they are only interesting as food for a budding cannibal. The film relies on too many coincidences and many motifs come across as kitschy (for example, a beautiful Japanese aunt is expected to greet young Lecter in France, of course with a collection of samurai swords). The gang of villains, of course, relocates to France after the war so Lecter won't have far to go during his vengeful campaign... The opening part of the film feels deaf, because the worst massacres were happening in the Baltic states and Belarus during World War II, and the film barely draws from those wartime horrors. Cannibalism was actually relatively common - just think of what took place in besieged Leningrad or in concentration camps. Massacres of civilians and especially Jews were apocalyptic; history enthusiasts know how the population of Lviv was reduced within 48 hours after the Soviet army withdrew from the city. The screenwriter and director weren't able to utilize any of this and the motive of young Lecter's revenge compared to what hundreds of thousands of children were experiencing in Eastern Europe is unconvincing as an explanation for his psychopathic actions and fails as a justification in the style of a small criminal punishing a bigger one. Where The Silence of the Lambs played with the audience and created tension, Peter Webber's film is too concrete, so there are only a few brutal murders that are meant to carry the entire film... Overall impression: 40%.

I have a problem with many Italian neorealism films in that they are simply hard to digest for me. But Paisan is not one of them. It is an excellent war film in every aspect that speaks volumes about what war means to its participants and the civilian population. It is an anthology film with six separate stories that, understandably, do not have the same level, as is typical for anthology films, but all of them have a decent and meaningful point. Indeed, Roberto Rossellini is not skilled when it comes to war scenes, but that does not significantly harm the film because there is only one battle scene in the final story. It is chaotically edited and poorly shot, but in Paisan, the micro-stories that have nothing to do directly with the war turmoil are much more important. The individual episodes may seem random, but together they form an impressive whole that is authentic and tells of the atmosphere of a country permeated by the front line. The story set in the ancient monastery, which is visited by a trio of American field priests, and where a confrontation between Catholic thinking and American openness occurs, was impressive to me. For Italian monks, it is absolutely impossible to understand that a Catholic priest gets along well with a Protestant priest and a Jewish rabbi, and together they console soldiers. For all the stories, it is typical that concepts such as truth, love, justice, and bravery can be quite relative in heated situations. Rossellini does not moralize; he simply shows what he witnessed during the war. Overall impression: 90%.

I was expecting a pleasant spectacle, excited by the previous films of the cycle about the fate of Antoine Doinel. However, I was shocked by the concentrated depression that fell on me while watching the introductory part of the pentalogy. While the subsequent films have a slightly ironic mocking style, the first part of the series is actually a harsh psychological drama about the difficult childhood of a boy who was born as an unwanted child to a selfish mother who prioritizes her own goals and sees her son as an obstacle. Little Doinel feels limited not only at home but also in an authoritarian school, and on top of that, puberty affects him, so he cannot avoid issues that have fateful consequences. Just like in Truffaut's other films, autobiographical elements also appear here, and in addition to his own adventures during adolescence, he draws inspiration from the fate of his classmate Robert Lachenaye. What is essential is that Truffaut never pushes too hard and although his film is oppressive, it is also strongly realistic, never needing to resort to any scripted gimmicks or cheap emotional blackmail. It quietly heads toward its goal, but the small tricks and lies of the boy with a fertile imagination gradually accumulate and evoke harsh reactions from an intolerant environment, so the film inevitability moves toward a dark ending. For me, it is an exceptionally powerful emotional work that I give a 100% rating. The best film by Truffaut, and made at a very young age.