Reviews

Dardennes are admired for their austere, down to earth , documentary style cinematography. Critics and I guess leftists love them for good reason. This films gives aplenty.

However, will beg to differ. The story is the exception not the rule, so the real-life effect appears misleading, at best. Likewise, the loving husband who devotedly supports Cotillard is another fairy tale aspect that conflicts with film-makers supposedly realistic approach.

It is clear that Dardennes love their heroine, her passion to invade other people's lives with no regard for their personal space; this may seem to them as a fine way to deconstruct capitalism's apotheosis of individualistic psyche. Apologies, not buying it.

Fitting end for an installment that repeats itself over and over. Family or career? Duty or friends? Love or sex with blue aliens? As usual there is some pseudo-philosophical bubble particularly where misguided Borg queen is involved. Yes dear robot-alien, we are human, terrible flawed, but deep in our hears we supposedly sacrifice everything for our children , so we cannot be that bad, can we?

Acting is good, although Picard often get slightly overenthusiastic, possibly to hide the tiring script but there is no hint of creativity or originality. Fast forward is the only response left , the way to deal with this epic cube of intellectual laziness. If you need another family drama in space, this is as good a soap-opera as you can get.

This is might seem as a coming of age, romantic comedy. It's neither.

The protagonists are fine, particularly Anders Danielsen Lie as Aksel. The first part of the movie seems to relate to Vicky, Christina , Barcelona mostly regarding the ironic and self-referential panopticon embodied through a third-person narration. Then comes the hardly unexpected crisis, acting as a turning point. In the last part , the movie diverges to a more sentimental approach due to a deux ex machina.

Some people argue this is a millennials post- feminist movie. I beg to differ. Trying to avoid any spoilers, Julie just makes her first couple of mature decisions in the ripe age of 30 and in the very last scenes of the movie. Now, is someone considers this a feminist epitome, it simply proves there's a very long way to go even in Scandinavia.

This is a nice little movie, more like a room drama with two protagonists. Retired teacher books high-end prostitute and their interactions, verbal and sexual provides some interesting drama along with the traditional British humour. The latter is a film's pillar as it provides the main way the Puritan teacher is able to deal with the notion of sexual pleasure. Or perhaps pleasure in general. Clearly this is a very British that the rest of the world is only able to comprehend and enjoy thanks to English cultural hegemonism.

Expectantly, Thompson's performance is spotless. The young Irish call boy also plays convincingly. Yet how important is such a movie in 2020s? Despite the clever dialogue and Thompson performance, her character often seems like a caricature. I would have expected to watch such a film in 1960 and 1970 by a director who just read de Beauvoir's 'Second Gender' but nowadays seems like an entertaining nudge by Hippie sympathisers rather than a polemical call to arms.

This superbly made prison movie is one of the few that put homosexuality in the epicentre. Great Freedom centers around the postwar life path of a German homosexual which more often than not leads him to incarceration whenever he exercises his Freedom of choice. The irony of the German modernity miracle is plain to see.

The protagonist's -played by Rogowski- pathway intertwines more and more with another inmate's, a drug addict played by Friedrich. Both actors performances are exemplary and the latter shines particularly towards the end.

The film has a low profile, recreating a realistic and moody representation of 1950s- 1970s. There are few colours, just a dark grey and washed away blue are used that help acclimatise the viewer. The incorporation of the 'Great step for mankind' into the prison's microcosm is another brilliant moment.

Understandably, many people will consider this a movie about true love. Whatever that means. More generally, it is a story about human condition and the effort to retain one's defining qualities, our humanity in the most arid wastelands. Ultimately, as Rilke would have put it, this can only be a tale about loneliness.

An emblematic scene arises at the court when the judges clinically y summarise Rogowski's moral crimes and deprivation. The bureaucratic onslaught carried out with impeccable bureaucratic professionalism and disregard for human life leaves the audience numb and speechless.

To capitalism critics the movie offers a striking parable to former-communist countries collapse. The Great Freedom they were promised, never realised. This can explain the last scene, which I nevertheless find more convincing than Moonlight's far-fetched virginity supposition.