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Reviews
Domakinstvo za Pocetnici (2023)
A deftly crafted universal tale
Australians had better start claiming this gifted writer/director as one of their own quick-smart. This is Goran Stolevski's 3rd feature release in as many years. He has a knack for authentic, energetic stories fleshed with deeply flawed, funny, evolving characters. He is also a wonderful storyteller. In lesser hands, this could be a well-worn tale of misfits and society's marginalia finding a place to call home. But in Stolevski's deft hands, we get carried into a universal tumble-dryer about everybody's family and our need for a place where we can need and want and feel. The performances he manages to get out of his 5 year-old scene stealer and the cast of dozens of untrained actors is a masterclass for up-and-coming film-makers. Stolevski's raw, intimate cinematography and energetic editing complete the showcase of instincts this talented film-maker is blessed with. I hope he starts to get the attention he deserves.
Poor Things (2023)
Poor Film
If you want to see a thoroughly entertaining movie, watch the first hour of Poor Things. Then stop. And avoid spoiling your night by walking away.
First, let's take a moment to appreciate. Beautiful cinematography does justice to superb costuming and fabulous set designs. The acting too is hard to fault and for Emma Stone this could have been an actor's dream vehicle for a tour de force. Unfortunately, the story and screenplay are appallingly bad.
This story is dominated by a disturbing, shallow and insulting faux-feminist narrative of self-empowering womanhood. The only thing more revolting than this is the shamelessly appalling representation of every single male in the movie as grotesque, self-absorbed and monstrous. I'm no film snob but trust me, anybody raving about this as a great film is as easy to please as a puppy.
The biggest problem by far is the overwhelming narrative arc of an infant brain in a woman's body. Just as we are enjoying Stone's physicalization of an awkward, tantrum-throwing child, Bella for some reason suddenly discovers masturbation. This launches an unrelenting 2-hour cavalcade of insatiable sexual adventures. Of course, in some flimsy neo-feminism, Bella learns from early naivety, to become her own master - as a cheap prostitute in a seedy Paris brothel. You go, girl! Prisoner no more!
Every male in the movie is unlikable at best. Bella's creator, God (short for Godwin - such adolescent cleverness) is physically repulsive, obsessive and controlling. Also damaged psychologically by his own father, who we learn tortured him "for science". When asked whether he created Bella (means beautiful, get it?) to be his mistress, he replies, not that he wouldn't dream of sexualising his infant daughter, but simply that he is a eunuch thanks to his father's horrendous experiments.
Every man who meets the beautiful young Bella must have her, must possess her, must bed her. And the 60 minutes plus of screentime given to sex scenes is some puerile account of all the perversions of men. Most of these salivating, self-centred ogres are physically repulsive, scarred, over or underweight, they smell, snore, bite, tie and whip Bella, scratch, pull and enjoy hurting her. While Bella mostly takes a scientifically objective interest in her educational journey. For some reason, the only thing Bella needs to learn in adult society is sex.
Ultimately, Bella abandons at the altar the only half-decent man in the film (he is a decent man because he allows and wants Bella to do only whatever she wants, and won't even have her before marriage).
There is little else to the story besides the tired 1960s trope of female sexual liberation as the journey to freedom. Hilariously, the screenplay gives about two minutes of screen time to some quick virtue-signalling for Socialism. In one brief scene our usually dispassionate Bella is suddenly overwhelmed with sadness when she is shown for the first time the poor, suffering as they do in the dirt. Moved to help them, she steals all her partner's money to donate. Strangely, when earning her own money as a prostitute, she has forgotten about those in need. And the final triumphant scene of Bella and her lesbian partner sipping cocktails in the enormous London mansion left to her by her father is hilariously incongruous.
If meant as a comedy or satire, I should think those crusading for real equality across gender, race and class, should be appalled or at least insulted. If meant as a serious adult fairy tale, then Poor Things should be howled down as a very old and outdated idea of what it means for a woman to be free, and an insultingly shallow account of men, women and the possibilities of their relationships.
Yorgos Lanthimos, the talented director of memorable, sophisticated works like The Lobster and Dogtooth, has gone for Millennial-pleasing pap.
Moonage Daydream (2022)
A Feast for Bowiephiles
Some reviewers don't seem to get "Moonage Daydream". Bret Morgen's piece defies categorization; perfectly apt since the artist we tried to know as David Bowie was also so much more than his many parts, so undefinable. But some miss the point: Mogen grasps at the spirit of Bowie. Impossible to understand chronologically, although there are powerful threads - like the Starman obsessed with and outside of time - which are woven through the tapestry. Experiencing the film on the big screen with terrific sound (the only way for it to be appreciated, I dare say), I thought it tempting to trot out the old line, "Bowie knew no boundaries." But in fact, as this film explores so successfully, he knew boundaries very well. He just hated them. Feared them, perhaps. Instinctively understood that boundaries are an artist's undertow. He sought the limits, wanted the danger, knew that overcoming them, challenging them was his only hope of staying on top of, ahead of the game. Morgen has dared to make a film OF Bowie, not "about" him, the real value of which will be savoured by those who grew with him, felt his songs were a soundtrack to their lives, and have already seen all of the Bowie Docos they need.