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Reviews
Verdens verste menneske (2021)
Rom com with bite
This Norwegian rom com wins on so many levels. The lead actress playing someone who is in search of meaning and a place of her own in the world to be. The two love interests fulfil their roles while being true to themselves and not cliches. Both male choices are not wrong or right they just merely are.
The gaze is mostly female as in the male nudity scene and what she sees in the world. When the journalist accuses one boy friend of sexism that is the protagonists view but she also recognises how unfair that accusation can be in terms of comic books.
The tone scintillates, is bubbly, but always real. The passive aggressive father who refuses to have anything to do with his daughter. He demurs at every count, even at the cost of parking for a couple of hours to see his daughter. Not a monster in his own mind but one the protagonist has to cut off.
The first two thirds of the film is fresh and determinedly tackles the protagonist and her two lover's with a deft touch that is kind to all. None have a standard career, but all want to do their part in the world.
The first two thirds of the film is classic rom com but the last third becomes mired in the nitty gritty of choices and more importantly being able to look at choices, know them, and only having the option of living in the past with them. So 7/8 for the first part and 1/3 for the last which is thought provoking but veers towards cliche.
Midnight Mass (2021)
Gritty and grim and down to earth
The tone is plane and grey and mud and decay. This island and these people are stuck in this time and space with each other. Vampirism happens but it is seen as an intrusion on the outskirts, in society, and becomes the society.
Religion and faith and belief permeate the story. What we believe can add strata of meaning to the here and now. When the early protagonist and antagonist open up to each other, alone, it becomes a time of joy though horror comes with the rising sun.
The island's character tells the story of the people. Almost forgotten, low slung in the sea, barely above water, buildings barely stand up. So anything can be a miracle like a young priest.
A sub-plot concerns modern victim mythology. From the beginning car crash where young man is lumbered with payments he can never make to attitude of village being forgotten by modern world there is the issue of why this is happening. Tragedy may happen, as in a lost pregnancy, but it is what we do with slings and arrows of misfortune that count.
Touches upon the walking dead territory where the word zombie is never mentioned. Vampire is not mentioned at all and gives more depth to the story by not relying on old fashioned stereotypes.
Just a quibble, but a couple of jump scares would have added some tension and added a dimension to the horror.
The Tangle (2019)
Lo fi sci fi
The central conceit of the film is that in a world without violence who watches the watcher? And are they qualified to watch the watcher. A pleasure to watch a science fiction movie where it is not all special effects, big bangs or monsters when we can be more than monstrous ourselves.
Like the retro look in that in a world of super connected technology the only safe places may be those without, where communication is through an old bakelite phone.
It was a spoken word intensive script where may be some physical demonstrations could have been shown such as the alleged impossibility of violence. The spoken word squeezed out the visual elements of the story which stymied the world creation.
The implications of an open society and a world without violence may have helped the story be more true and more relatable to the viewer. But a small 'a' for being different from the usual fare with its sense of retro style and the idea of policing in a mostly omniscient world.
Vyzhit posle (2013)
Best dressed zombies ever, an unguilty pleasure
Virus kills off all but turns healthy women in to well dressed zombies. Apocalypse, Russian style where the bad guys are bad, the good guys are good and grey is the time between night and day and the colour of a city deserted by all but zombies. Landscape is a character of wide open spaces where mostly one can see the zombies coming. Traditional pillars of the apocalypse, violence and sex are there, but pleasingly muted to let character development and the story proceed.
Good guys tend to have no fashion sense while the bad guys wear the worst of the corporate world.
As for the zombies they were all the dressed in their finest clothes before they turned. I come home a slob after an average day, but they are still dressed in the height of fashion after weeks. Dark eyes, the way they walk and their banshee cries give them a few chilling scenes but otherwise is more about the terror of who would do this and keep on doing this to people. Horror is downplayed to the terror of why people do bad things.
Subtitles were poorly done otherwise my rating would be an 8.
Tokyo Trial (2016)
Legal History Delivered
The pace is slow and deliberate to match the subject matter. How to define what are war crimes and who is responsible? The first episode does drag slightly but maybe necessarily in order to establish the immediate viewpoint from post world war 2, the judges and their viewpoints, and how to proceed with only the precedent of Nuremberg.
Characters apart from General MacArthur are never caricatures. The actors who play the judges come from the original countries and they bring an apropos dignity to their roles. All have strong viewpoints anchored in varying definitions of morality and ethicality. They are wanting to deliver judgment but go by various paths that have their own logic. For example I agreed with Judge Pal's legal reasoning but thought he was an ethical monster avoiding his remit as a judge for war crimes.
The cinematography was superb in its slow and measured pace to reflect the court hearings. Liked the scratches on the modern documentary footage to look like archival footage. 8/10 for a thought provoking piece of art that has a correct focus of four episodes with actors keeping to the spirit of the times and cinematography to catch the trials of the old so that the new may emerge.
Tôkyô vanpaia hoteru (2017)
Style, costume, design tick. Plot?
This series is bifurcated into the many things it does so well and the things which appal. The filming done on location in Romania, though short, is suitably strange and gives the series an international look. The anime flavour to the fluffy story inspires some of the best live action choreographed anime. People do walk into hits but that's to be expected with so many bodies flying about.
The costuming is exquisite and playful from tourists abroad to Grand Guignol vampire fashion. Cosplay elements helped define character and ordinary weirdness of this vampire world. Soundtrack plays well with the violence and mayhem. The strident stripes of the hotel give way to colour and warmth reflecting both sides towards the end coming to a friendly arrangement.
Characters have no life of their own, even caricature would work better. Manami, the major focus of the series, walks around stunned and not knowing what she is doing most of the time. The brilliant action sequences squeeze out the plot so that it is inconsequential. Some humour in the vampires' breeding programme for humans but drowned out by the violence. K's lesbian back story is tokenism and if foregrounded would have given the plot more sinew. The overriding plot of vampire faction machinations fizzles out to... From the very first massacre we are warned that style comes first, explanation if any is an afterthought.
Le mystère Henri Pick (2019)
Picking the mystery's lock
The film is an essay into existentialism on people deciding what reality is. The eponymous character is someone who simply lived life.
Fabrice Lucchini is brilliant as the thorny antagonist who cannot believe what other people want to believe. In the quest to speak the truth the edifice of his life crumbles away and he apparently wants to do the same with others. This surface of the film works hand in glove with the nature of mysteries.
Why can some people see a mystery and others cannot? Why do other people give a blank no or just not care? The solution of the mystery can be anti-climactic due to the what now factor. The film's gentle nudge at the end that existence goes on reflects upon us all as Henri Pick.
Epidemiya (2019)
Snow, snow, snow and the apocalypse
The snow scape of a Russian winter and the plague are dominant characters in this epidemic apocalypse. The plague strikes at random, violently, and upsets the order of the world so that a grunt with a rifle is now king of all that he kills. The real star and horror is the snow. The snow scape is one of claustrophobia. Long winding roads are hemmed in by trees, the eventual sanctuary is an island hemmed in by ice with trees on all the shore.
Cliches fall heavily like a blizzard but at the end of the world some cliches are appropriate. Marriage is hinted at as a survival set as two can be stronger than a lone hunter. Having an officially acknowledged tie can be stronger than whatever.
The acting, direction, and plot are good but the real star of the show is the snow. An outdoors gothic is invoked, you can see everything but everything can see you. Murder and mayhem abound but the snow endures while our civilisation fades.