September 27, 2017No Comments

Dunkirk – Christopher Nolan – 2017

Dunkirk is the elite’s epic blockbuster, a stylised, beyond elegant and silent version of a WW2 event I’ve never previously heard of: the retreat of 300 thousand British soldiers stranded on beaches of Northern France. 

The film left my emotional reservoir untapped and kept me conscious of its bits and pieces throughout its run. Being numb from the common armada of conventional imagery and storytelling that we receive through all medium and faced with the raw freshness of Nolan’s imagery I stood glancing aware of every move. No tearjerking narrative tricks, no ample orchestras breaking into major scales to free the audience from the bleak anxiety and tension built gracefully by Nolan’s constructions, just a conscious feeling that this is “epic” of never before seen good taste.

July 18, 2017No Comments

The Party, Sally Potter, 2017

Sally Potter is an unusual film director making unusual films. Orlando or Rageare good examples of her cinema where form itself has center role. The Party is also a form-monster, packing seven highly distinct characters inside one house, for a comedy of errors that would make Carlo Goldoni blush. Highly enjoyable and tight, theatrical in DNA, the film is a brave follower of other previous examples from film’s history, simply called The Party.

May 28, 2017No Comments

David Brent Life of the Road, Ricky Gervais

David Brent, Life on the Road is more tragedy than comedy for Ricky Gervais is merciless in scrubbing the floor with his best known character, the guy from the original Office. Film follows the same faux verite style of the Office, and you’d want nothing but that. Problem is that the character is older now and a blanket of decay and unchangeability hovers over it. He hasn’t grown any wiser since last time, but he’s even more sleazier, lonelier and lost. He’s a tragic character.

And an exceptionally crafted one. He resembles a cigarette filter, like all the western man’s horrid traits that one looses growing up stopped in him. Gervais is king.

January 27, 2017No Comments

Eyes Wide Shot, Stanley Kubrick, 1999

This one’s special. 

Eyes Wide Shut is my go-to Christmas movie. It evokes a universe rich in lust, luxury, jealousy and danger, inside the City, thus becoming a deranged personal fantasy of how I wished my life would turn out - a stroll on a line between the good and the bad (but cowardly comfortably, never too good or bad).

Because for all it’s menace, at all times we are safe inside this universe, a feeling that probably comes from the sensation that no bad thing can ever happen to the 1%, that the characters’ naturally belong to. Especially during Christmas. 

This one’s special. The good doctor’s character is sickeningly relatable. 

I started this blog with a post referencing Eyes Wide Shut.

November 25, 2016No Comments

I, Daniel Blake – Ken Loach, 2016

I, Daniel Blake, Palme d’Or 2016. On the far end of the DRY spectre for a social realism drama - as far as the works of the Dardenne brothers might appear as stylised afternoon tearjerkers. Political, follows the story of a middle life working class man interacting with the state system. Political, but un-engaging.  

Rigorous form, deadpan storytelling, very economical, like the steps of an old person, always holding back, never delivering any punch, keeping beats uneventful even in presenting life/death situation. 

All cinematic means are kept to a bare minimum.

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