Love & Anarchy Advent Calendar

 

So, we had a Love & Anarchy Film Festival this year as well. I was taking it slow in covering it, but then I realized it was over two months ago. But perhaps by starting an Advent Calendar I can cover 24 movies that were seen at the festival. They had chosen a really good program, and kept the audience as safe as possible in these circumstances. Check back to this post on every day of December to catch up on reviews.

1. First Cow (USA, 2019)
Director: Kelly Reichardt

Kelly Reichardt is known for making slow, quiet and ponderous movies, so it's kind of a jump when the new one is basically a buddy comedy of two grifters in the Old West. It's the kind of western that follows on the footsteps of McCabe & Mrs Miller and the like, everything is grey, brown, dirty, flimsily built and wooden. There's no glory or romanticism involved, even if the framing story tells of a modern woman finding out about the history involved.

The movie is a good, multilayered depiction of the friendship between two underdogs, played by John Magaro and Orion Lee. It also has some critique of the American Dream and drive towards entrepreneurship, which proves impossible for even the skilled ones if enough odds are against them right from the start. That's why they have to resort to cheating, stealing milk from the prize cow to improve their cakes and thus bake sales. The film has a cold, unflinching look at nature, which is at the same time utterly ruthless and oddly comforting. we are all parts of the woods in the end.

★★★★

2. Wendy (USA, 2019)
Dir. Benh Zeitlin

 

The impressionistic director Benh Zeitlin with his crew has prepared his follow-up to Beasts of a Southern Wild for seven years. While that one saw wonder and childlike amazement in poor and devastated Southeast terriories, this one takes a jump toward even more fantastic storytelling. It's a reworking of the story of Peter Pan.

The film is again visually stunning, and the locations in the Pacific Islands with an active volcano are nothing short of breathtaking. This time around, Zeitling guides a larger cast of child actors, none of which are as strong to carry a movie as Quvenzhané Wallis was. It also seems that the long production period and kids growing up so fast has made it necessary to tell the story fragmented and disjointed. It may be argued that its due to the logic following children's playtimes, but it makes for a tedious thing to follow. There are some kind of cool reworkings of the Pan story set to a more modern backdrop, but some are basically terrible. Mostly anything to do with Captain Hook and his pirates. Beasts of a Southern Wild was not without its problems, but it had a more clear purpose, now it seems it's a bit too childish and dumbed down for adults and not exciting enough for kids, satisfying no one.

★★

3. Lost Boys (Finland/Thailand 2020)
Dirs. Joonas Neuvonen, Sadri Cetinkaya

 

The documentary film Reindeerspotting made waves a decade ago, and also became a big hit in Finland. The movie depicted a group of drug addicts from Lapland in their daily lives, fighting against their urges, boredom, and the system. From the profits of the film, the real-life buddy group got enough money to fly to Thailand for the winter. After a few months of pure hedonism, sex, drugs and all other vices, only the film's director Joonas Neuvonen returned home. Soon after, one of the group was missing and the first film's main character Jani was found dead in shady circumstances.

The sequel film is of Neuvonen's attempts to recollect, what went wrong and to try to find out what exactly happened to his friends. The material he had for this film were fragmented, some in pooor quality. The reason the film took a decade was that it needed multiple screenwriters, editors and even co-directors to make sense of all this. Considering this, the resulting film is a wonder, a docufiction that is both a horrifying psychedelic nightmare in the vein of Gaspar Noé and Nicolas Winding Refn. On the other hand, it is also a sad look at the dead end facing the first film's characters. They might get some fleeting moments of happiness late in their lives, but it's all a illusion and the ground is approaching fast. This time around, Neuvonen puts himself more to under the magnifying glass, emphasizes his own bad feelings about the case and maybe his own fractured psyche.

★★★★

4. Radioactive (UK, Hungary, China, France, USA 2019)
Dir. Marjane Satrapi

 

The author of Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi, hasn't had the most successful career as a film director. His previous film, Voices, flopped in the Stateside, so she has had to resort to having an easy-to-sell biography project made with funding from around the world as her next project. The film tells the life story of chemist Marie Curie, discoverer of Radioactive elements. As it is, Radioactive has many moments of visual intrigue and good acting, but it can't avoid all the major pratfalls of the biography genre.

Rosamund Pike carries the film as headstrong Curie. As Satrapi tends to do with her comics work, she also intercuts the story with asides that show consequences of the discoveries, both good (radiation treatments) and bad (the Chernobyl accident). Those asides however reveal the film's limited budget, even if it's stretched admirably to fit these parts. The major problem is, however, that like most scientists, the life story by itself isn't really that captivating, and showing of all the various awards and stuff seems like reading from a Wikipedia page. The center is the relationship between Marie and Pierre (Sam Riley), but it lacks tension since Pierre is doing his best to share credits and help Marie as much as he can. The adventures in World War I with her daughter, shrugged off in the film's last 20 minutes, would have been more interesting to follow than focusing on the early parts.

★★

5. Nomadland (USA, Germany 2020)
Dir. Chloé Zhao

Director Zhao once again finds a way to make a western that's relevant to the themes for today. And she does it with a docufiction style, having plenty of people with the nomad lifestyle essentially play themselves. It's a touching film about the inability to find one's place in the world, but for once, not through the eyes of a teen or a young adult, but an actual adult, magnificently portrayed by Frances McDormand.

McDormand's Fern is tossed out after the closure of a major factory and an entire town's livelyhood. She does meaningless part-time work for Amazon and lives in her trailer, traveling the Great Plains of USA.  On her way, she tries developing relationships, but everything seems fleeting and avoid her grasp. The film has an anti-capitalist sting, but I feel the film could have had more brutally honest things to say about Amazon's worker practices, which were only alluded to here. It may be due to the realities of releasing such a melancholic film for adults, one can't rule out Amazon by biting the hand that may feed you. It's a shame Zhao herself seems to accept the odd job here and there, since she's moving on to the MCU. I think certain rising talents could produce incredible movies elsewhere, whereas with Marvel they'll probably do something reasonably entertaining but forgettable. But that's late-stage capitalism for you. It maximises profits, not art.

★★★★ 1/2

6. Dogs Don't Wear Pants (Koirat eivät käytä housuja, Finland, Latvia 2019)
Dir. J-P Valkeapää

 

I had actually seen this last year in festival screenings, but since then this movie has become a bit notorious abroad, so it warrants a mention. It's a sort of dark comedy of a man (Pekka Streng) struggling with grief finding a new lease in life with kinky sex and especially with a blossoming relationship with a dominatrix (Krista Kosonen).

Valkeapää is perhaps the most gifted visualist of the new generation of Finnish filmmakers. Here he has some shades of neon noir or the films of the likes of Noé and Friedkin, but manages to do something unique and undoubtedly his. It's a considerable step up of his previous work that had clearer pastiches. It's not as rough and kinky as one might expect, but it's also no surprise that some things get taken a bit far. The key of the movie is in its central triangle drama of sorts with a father being drawn into a sexy underworld, but his daughter also needing him in her struggles.

★★★★

7. My Octopus Teacher (South Africa 2020)
Dirs. Pippa Ehrlich, James Reed

Filmmaker Craig Forster recalls an unusual encounter with an octopus in an underwater kelp forest. Octopi are as intelligent as house cats, so the fil m goes out its way to show how they too can act as personally, gracefully and smartly as any pet, with footage to support it. I'm usually wary of films that make of animal behaviour to be to human-like, and there are some interpretations here that near the line. As it is however, is a reminder that we have incredible species around the world that have their own emotions, and we just can't go on destroying the landscapes in which they live in.  

★★★

Urban Gauntlets

One thing that gets lost amid all this quarantine is that major cities are seething hellholes. That's probably where I'm particularly drawn into the sort of neo noir films, where a hapless protagonist tries their best, but it seems the entire cities (usually NYC) are against them in every way. So, let's take a closer look at three of such examples.

 

Killing of a Chinese Bookie (USA, 1976)
Director: John Cassavetes

In the sweaty seventies, John Cassavetes was making his own minimalist art in between shoots of major big-budget Hollywood epics. He bled his own situation into his films, like here where an owner of a burlesque house (Ben Gazzara) strives to make art out of making middle-aged men horny.

He's also a gambling addict that gets into trouble with the local mob. The only way out is to do a favor, which in turn might suck out the last of humanity out of him. These kinds of films are basically tragedies about the failure of the American dream. The plucky underdogs dream of being big, but always have to face some harsh realities, and in the end, violence as well. Cassavetes didn't really like violence in films, so it's shot very discreetly, but the realities it causes changes the tone of the entire film. 

Unlike the two other films in this list, this one is set in Los Angeles. It can be seen in the greater emphasis on cars, distances, and heat eminating from the entire film. Cassavetes as a director usually had a very limited color palette to his films, this one also looks like the film was overexposed in the sun, even though it's mostly set during the night.

The film is mostly talk and no action. One shouldn't expect it to even have a climax of sort. Cassavetes is interested in the implications of the situation more than anything. The entire thing also works as a metaphor for the corruption of the power of money. How far are you willing to sell your soul?

★★★★

After Hours (USA, 1985)
Dir. Martin Scorsese

 

It used to be thought that the 1980's weren't really that good for the director Martin Scorsese. I beg to differ, I find he did some great work that riffed on ideas and themes he had set up in the previous decade. After Hours is one of his rare more comedic movies. But in fact, it's a thorough New York movie that sees the city, yuppified since the days of Taxi Driver, as dangerous as ever.

A hapless office worker (Griffin Dunne) is a regular young man but takes a few steps out of his comfort zone as he's looking for love. Out in the middle of the night in a weird part of the town alone and with no money seems to attract him to oddballs and authorities that don't mean him well and are out to get him. The neon-lit, cold and smoky New York never looked better but at the same time, more terrifying.

The film is emphatethic towards everyone who's down and out in the Big Apple, even if it casts most of the characters of the city with major mental issues and cynicism. But the key is that circumstantial setbacks can pile up and minor things like losing a $20 bill may cause a chain-reaction that only adds to the plight of the outcasts. It's a film that also gets to the heart of the loneliness felt in cities, even if there are plenty of people around. 

Scorsese has borrowed from Woody Allen a distrust of the city's intellectual and artistic class and mercilessly mocks it. He also manages to sneak in some of his personal obsessions, from late-night diners to talking about film classics to the mix as well, making this one of the movies surely influencing a young Quentin Tarantino. The only major problem with the movie is that it hits so close to truth it's not that funny as a comedy, but hey, you can't always have everything.

★★★★

Uncut Gems  (USA, 2019)
Dirs. Benny & Josh Safdie

The latest one, and the one that particularly inspired this writing comes from the arthouse cinema production house A24 and has Scorsese and Cassavetes in particular as influences. The seediness in the previous ones is now contrasted with more modern sports centers and auction houses. But even if it's not done in the open any more, the threat of violence looms even stronger behind every scene.

Lando Calrissian -styled gems dealer Howard Ratner (Adam Sandler) is at once a sleazy little rat, and a fast-talking trickster you can't help but to like even if his self-destructive adrenaline addiction is putting not only himself, but his his family and friends on harm's way. Ratner is about to make a huge sell on a particularly beautiful opal, which puts him in a position and mindset to make increasingly dangerous bets on sports. The movie follows as Ratner ups the ante again and again, always surviving by the skin of his neck, until finally the bets become way too big to handle.

For the fast-paced modern audiences, the movie is fast-cut and has plenty of side-plots going on at all times. The effect may be anxiety-inducing for some viewers, but the film also warrants repeat viewings if one is interested in seeing the strings of plotlines getting pulled. Given the chance, Sandler can be a great character actor, so it's a bit sad he didn't get the rcognition he deserved from this which will surely make him go back to making very half-assed comedies with no effort. But such are the joys and victories that the film presents, too. They are fleeting, and something much worse is yet to come soon enough.

 ★★★★ 1/2

Night Visions: The New Ab-normal

 
Things are different this year around, which meant for the regular spring edition of Night Visions film festival getting cancelled. But at least here in Finland things got a little better, so there was an opportunity to have a festival in August. Things are changing also in the way I'm writing a festival report after a long while.

Butt Boy (USA, 2019)
Director: Tyler Cormack

 
This is a movie about an obsession, addiction and the willingness to wreck lives to achieve it. It's also a serial-killer movie about a dude, who (SPOILER) sucks people and objects inside his cavernous butthole. As far as crazy premises go, this one takes itself as seriously as it physically can.

As a whole, this film moves quite slowly. It has some perks, like watching the slowly ravelling cat-and-mouse game between Tyler Cornack's perp and Tyler Rice's cop on the edge. When the actual reveal comes, it changes the film's dynamic entirely, making the last quarter or so a real blast of butt-jokes. It is not quite as crazy as I had hope it would be, but I got some good chuckles and the melancholic feel of the movie really got to me.

★★★

Luz: The Flower of Evil (Columbia, 2019)
Dir. Juan Diego Escobar Alzate

This latest word in folk horror sees a reclusive cult live off the land. The cult leader El Señor (Conrado Osorio) keeps multiple wives and declares his youngest child to be the next Messiah. The other children, three daughters, find an object of the outside world and have different reactions, from wanting to escape to undying loyalty and laboring hard for the cult. The film doesn't really manage to give a good athmosphere or raise the stakes as one would wish from a horror film. Visually, it's clearly a fan product of the works of Alejandro Jodorowsky. But the actors are quite good in their roles, and one manages to sit through the film woith relative ease, even if it doesn't ever really deliver as good as one would want.

★★ 1/2

Tezuka's Barbara (Japan, 2019)
Dir. Macoto Tezuka

 
The pinku film seems to follow pretty clearly the godfather of manga Osamu Tezuka's comics. It is a story of a regular guy becoming increasingly obsessed by a homeless girl he meets on the streets of Tokyo. Like most pinkus I've seen, this one is quite slow with very few and not very graphic sex scenes. The ideas and obsessions around sex are more important than the act itself. There are a few scenes of note here that remind of Tezuka's odd sense of humour and richness of his imagination. But as a whole, the film is quite stilted, not utilizing what film can bring to the table as opposed to manga. So, this one felt quite dull in the end.

★★

Klovn The Final (Denmark, 2020)
Dir. Mikkel Norgaard

 
After the bit disappointing Klovn Forever, it's fun to see the third part in a trilogy somewhat return to its roots. At this point, Frank Hvam and Casper Christensen's rowdy comedies know what audiences are expecting, and both tease them with it but in the end, also deliver. It's not quite as graphic as the two previous ones, but altogether it might be ruder. It's crazy funny, at least.

The movie opened in Denmark just before the Corona crisis, so it's weird to see it tackle self-isolation for a length of its time. However, since an embarrassing mishap has cost them their trip in Iceland, Frank and Casper have to hide out in a vacant house next door to Frank's family. One small lie leads to bigger and bigger ones, and the strain to Frank's marriage in particular is stretched to a breaking point. Casper works as a ruthless id, caring little about anything else besides getting laid and getting the two into bigger and bigger troubles.

Not all of the film's gags quite land, and they are eager to set up some scenes that they oddly drop off at the blink of an eye. But when a good joke is laid out, waiting and then suddenly given an unexpected punchline, one can't help but to fall over laughing. I laughed, I cried, I hurled.

★★★★

Rabid (Canada, 2019)
Dir. The Soska Sisters

 
Even if 1977's Rabid isn't the most popular film in David Cronenberg's filmography, it is still risky to even attempt to redo one of the corner stones of the body horror movement. The Soska Sisters realize this, and while the end result is definitely going to split viewers, I do think they managed to update the ideas to a modern setting quite well. Maybe this should be a Re:Make blog post later on?

The new version downplays sexuality and the inner shame caused by it, as seen in regular horror movie tropes. The idea this time around is more like a feminist satire showing a woman being punished by outside forces for showing initiative in general. Timid fashion designer Rose (Laura Vanderwoort) isn't getting the recognition she deserves until she has an accident and an experimental skin operation to fix it. Too bad it also makes her a Patient Zero in a vampiric disease that starts to wreack havock.

 

It's kind of a wonder how ahead the curve the Soskas were last year. The vampire disease and the reactions of it, ranging from trying to shrug it off and continuing as if nothing is happening to outright maliciousness of trying to benefit from people dying, seems like satire from the reactions to COVID-19. There's even a barb at the police violence against poor people that have the disease. The Soskas make plenty of changes to the original, with a lot of emphasis on a sisterly relationship, and a thoroughly bonkers final reveal to match. All the bitterness surrounding the depiction fashion industry don't quite work, but the film bursts with ideas enough that one can give or take a few clunkers as something entirely else is just around the corner.

★★★★

The Gangster, The Cop, The Devil (Akinjeon, South Korea, 2019)
Dir. Lee Won-tae

 
Supposedly this south korean crime actioner is based on actual events of a mob boss testifying in court against a serial killer. It does deliver some grisly violence, surprising twists and well-rounded characters. The actors are wonderful, especially Ma Dong-seok as the burly kingpin who has to revalue his pendant for violence and need for revenge as an even more ruthless murderer (Kim Sung-kyu) tries to kill him. There are only shades of grey here, as the cop (Kim Mu-yeol) himself is a corrupt gambler and a drunk, happily spending his spare time in mob-owned casinos. The film is well-done entertainment, but has a bit of an abrupt ending, like you would expect from a TV series, and it doesn't really feel to have a central idea strong enough to really elevate it into a classic. 

★★★

Dolls (USA/Italy 1987)
Dir. Stuart Gordon

 

Night Visions also paid tribute to the late horror master Stuart Gordon with a screening of his classic horror-comedy. Dolls may not be quite among the very best of Gordon's filmography, but as is usual for the director's oveure, it is better than you would think. And it's generally thought to be the best of producer Charles Band's various killer toy movies that also include the Demonic Toys and Puppet Master franchises.

For the hardcore horror buff, the film might be a bit childish, though. It's central character is a little girl (Carrie Lorraine) and all the adult characters are overplayed caricatures, like you would find in a Roald Dahl book. They also meet similar grisly ends in a magic mansion filled with creepy dolls, or getting turned into dolls themselves. There are a couple of rowdy punk girls, evil yuppie stepparents, a weird elderly couple, and a plump but well-meaning dweeb (Stephen Lee). 

While the plot isn't anything terribly extraordinary, nor scary, the film is kept reasonably short and gives a few good one-liners to chuckle now and again. The puppet effects are kind of crude, but kept in a way that makes them mysterious enough. That was some of the magic of Gordon's filmmaking, he always knew how to stretch his budgets to suit the storytelling he aimed for.

★★★

Three laughs: A Talking Cat?!

 

It is hard to rate some trashy films. Films can be really good entertainment in spite of the quality of the filmmaking. In fact, it might be even harder to create unique trash that keeps surprising you than most "quality" films with which you know what you are going to get. It certainly is an even better pleasure to watch them. My friend says that he knows a trash film is worth something if it gets three laughs out of me. I mean proper, good belly laughs when you just can't believe what the film is showing to you, scene after scene. That's as good a rating as any for these movies. Any film that has these three laughs has a special place in my heart.   

★ or ★★★★★

 

Three laughs case file #33:  
A Talking Cat?! (USA 2013)
Director: David DeCoteau 

A very cheap family movie about a magic cat helping out a family with their problems might sound innocent enough. But when you have a director like David DeCoteau make it, known from his trashy films, you might be onto something odd. Adding to the comedy is main star Eric Roberts, a veteran on hundreds of movies, most of them bad, cashing in a check with a vocal performance that sounds like it was recorded in his car while driving to get some coffee and donuts. Or maybe the trunk of the car. 

The film has some penny-squeezing qualities (many of which we come to in a minute), some of which is that the main house used in the movie looks suspiciously like a set from a porn movie. And in fact the film's set WAS used in a little film called Ass Worship 13. 

As you might know, cats aren't exactly known for being easy actors in movies, and the tabby Duffy with the physical side of the main part does look like he would have none of the bullshit the film keeps feeding us. He is replaced in the film's poster by a younger, cuter kitten. Other stars are made to be some wood-faced models, except the film's dad, played by Johnny Whitaker, who has some very unusual features for a leading man, which makes him of course all the more interesting to watch. One could only wish one of the cinematic Garfield movies was made with a similar who-the-fuck-cares attitude.

Three laughs (SPOILERS): 

1. The movie has two main houses where the action is set in, but it leaves even The Room behind in its obsessive use of establishing shots. Hilariously, also many of these don't seem to fit together. Is the film supposed to be set on a beach, or a forest, or maybe the desert? Is it some tropical country or California? Well, at least the movie crept just above the required 85 minute length.

2. Eric Roberts' lazy-ass dialogue is heard throughout the movie but in fact the titular cat can only talk to people once each. During the first 15 minutes it might be hard to recognize when people are hearing the cat, but once he really talks, you can't help but notice. The reason being that the cat's mouth has been animated by the cheapest possible MS Paint images put into a GIF animation possible.

3.Getting back to the gay porn qualities of the movie, although the film has the most white bread and milquetoast romantic comedy plot possible, we do have an extensive scene where Justin Cone and Daniel Dannas have a conversation by the pool. The film lingers very long on the wet, shirtless and fit young dudes' bodies. The question remains if there's a problem the cat didn't help the boys with or if this is just an obsession of director DeCoteau he couldn't shake even when making a kids' movie.

Re:Make - Suspiria

In this blogging series, I am contrasting a classic movie and its remake. This is to showcase that a remake is not always a bad thing. Very rarely do movie remakes attempt to do anything fresh with their concept, but usually just blandly redo every major scene. But sometimes this is not the case. A new director might find some new angles on the established IP and possibly given a totally new twist rather than same-old-same-old. Some great cinematic feats would not have been possible if there wasn't a rogue filmmaker ready to give a shot in redoing something beloved.

Suspiria (1977)
Director: Dario Argento

vs.

Suspiria (2018) 
Director: Luca Guadagnino

How similar do remakes have to be to earn the same name as its predecessor? While this blog maintains that remakes are all right when there is a fresh take on an old material, are some movies so canonized and huge, no one should ever even try them? Is a horror film's purpose to be scary first and work loftier ideas into the script second, or could a throughly political film about Europe in the 1970's be scary? And how much playing with audiences' expectations is allowed?

Luca Guadagnino is certainly one of the most celebrated Italian directors working today, with a unique voice. But his films often feel to me to be mixed bags. there are brilliant ideas and visual touches, yet often the end result doesn't click together in a meaningful way. But there are plenty of people who admire Guadagnino and his brand of filmmaking. I may be on the minority.

Nevertheless, if Dario Argento's 1977 horror classic Suspiria had to be redone, I was glad it was at least by an auteur with such strong visual flourishes. And the resulting movie is at the very least an interesting one, even if one's mileage of the things Guadagnino has done may very. But let's start by talking about the original.

Often branded as a giallo movie, I think Suspiria was actually Dario Argento's major leap out of the giallo genre and the start of his true auteur status. It is a supernatural horror film but other than that, many of Argento's later films are harder to label and brand. The play between light and music and architecture (and a very flimsy excuse for a plot) are something that only one person in the world could have made. Other Italian directors could keep on churning straightforward murder mysteries.

An american student Suzy Bannion (Jessica Harper) arrives to Germany to go to a esteemed ballet academy. But as soon as the airport's sliding doors close behind her, she is actually in an expressionistic fairy tale world, where a coven of witches plots and the young blood of the young girls is used to revive the ancient evil of Mother Markos back to life. There are plenty of gory demises and unforgettable death images that seemingly are caused by hexes and dark magic. No better explanation is given.

The original's striking architecture was an influence on the remake's poster art and opening and end credits.

But it's easy to criticize the film's plot's lack of coherence or the bad dialogue or silly dubbing. But they seem consequental, of no bigger reason for Argento's nightmare world. If there are bigger flaws in the movie, would one say they revolve around the fact that beyond the expressionism it doesn't seem to have much to say. Certainly not about the time and place it is set in, rather, Argento seems to want to take us to a timeless place untouched by the rational world.

Likewise, the film doesn't dwell too deep in its portrayal of either dance and ballet or the coming of age of a group of girls in a disconnected location far from home.The film has its basic teenage scenes of lessons and bullying and whispering during sleepovers, but mostly these are used to set up the next victim of the unstoppable murder spree rather than to say something about growing into a woman.

Since it would be futile to challenge Argento at his own game, Guadagnino wisely seeks to remedy these sidesteps that the previous movie didn't have concern for. Visually and aesthetically, his film is more similar to the works of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, all cold grey, brown and ugly pastels rather than bright RGB lights. The film switches the focus more on the witches, who are trying to choose a new leader, as well as preparing a spell to do with a dance routine. Dakota Johnson is playing Susie Bannion, the new girl, here, but Chloë Grace Moretz's Patricia is the girl which the film has the most emphasis.

Perhaps the major issue of Guadgnino's film is that it tries to bite more than it can chew. It deals with both blossoming and withering age's issues and traumas as well as Germany's post-war situation, the scars left of the Holocaust, European value system's flimsiness, women's rights, the power of art and the political workings of the witches' coven, all of which bloats the film to more than 2,5 hours long. The characters may be more well-rounded, but they don't feel as comfy to follow (or edgy to see their ultimate fates) since all their scenes are built around a message being delivered. All the time that should be spent on building tensions and delivering shocks, is rather used on building a kind of academic paper with highbrow arthouse filmmaking.


While its good that a film also embraces its weirdness, Guadagnino's experimentations does not always serve the film. Thom York's soundtrack just sounds like vintage Radiohead. Lead actor Tilda Swinton in a dual role works to be majorly distracting, since there is no good bridge between the two (main) characters of the film. The idea falls particularly flat in the climax when her Madame Blanc and Dr Josef Klempener share screen time, as well as a third character that utilizes even more overacting and prosthetic makeup.

The film doesn't feel threatening enough, or even playful enough to deliver on this kind of experiments. Likewise the take on the more body horror-like aspects of the story are a bit hit-or-miss, some striking, some a little half-baked. Though he has certainly seen Hellraiser, the horror side of the movie does not seem to interest Guadagnino as much. He's certainly no Andrzej Zulawski that has the ability to melt both the political and the personal aspects into a great spiral into madness.

While it has good ideas with which to drive these points forward with the story, it is inevitable these its plethora of various ideas will battle each other for the dominance of the movie. At the end it feels like very little conclusions on each is reached. Where the film works wonders is delivering on some dreamlike fast-changing images (one can see the influence of music video filmmaking between these two movies) and its dance school setting, perticularly in its climatic ballet scene that does feel a bit scary and like it could be actual dark magick in the making. In this case, it was smarter to ration the strongest and most colorful visual scenes sparingly.

So, in conclusion, we have to Suspirias that set out to do almost exactly different things, yet also both are horror movies set on a dance school. While Argento's film feels surprisingly effortless even though it keeps upping its visual stylization and shocks, Guadagnino seems to try too hard and looses the playfulness in trying to fit in too many ideas. In the end, I'm still glad we have both of these movies, and Guadagnino's film has plenty to enjoy to warrant multiple viewings as well. But, y'know, it's no classic.

Suspiria (1977) ★★★★ 1/2
Suspiria (2018) ★★★

Three laughs: Crazy World

It is hard to rate some trashy films. Films can be really good entertainment in spite of the quality of the filmmaking. In fact, it might be even harder to create unique trash that keeps surprising you than most "quality" films with which you know what you are going to get. It certainly is an even better pleasure to watch them. My friend says that he knows a trash film is worth something if it gets three laughs out of me. I mean proper, good belly laughs when you just can't believe what the film is showing to you, scene after scene. That's as good a rating as any for these movies. Any film that has these three laughs has a special place in my heart. 


Three laughs case file #25:
Crazy World (Ani Mulalu? - Crazy World), Uganda 2019
Director: Nabwana I.G.G.

Times are tough and what the world needs now is some mirth and laughter. A gathering of the world's most prestigious film festivals are currently having a streaming festival called We Are One. Most of the festival's programme doesn't exactly capture my fancy, execpt when I noticed that Toronto International Film Festival has presented us a new "supa action" movie straight outta Wakaliwood, Uganda. It was Crazy World Time!

Now, one might need a bit of background of these films. In the poor village of Wakali a group of local filmmakers have taken it to themselves to create movies with what they have. Thus these movies put on screen every villager from small kids to elders, and have some very creative solutions in terms of technics. They never take themselves too seriously, as every movie also includes a VJ, a video joker, making fun of characters and scenes as a running commentary. That's also how one doesn't feel like laughing at people living in the 3rd world, but rather, sharing a joke with some people from a totally different background. It's no wonder Wakaliwood has found fans all over the world.

I'd also like to add that the films keep also getting more inventive and have some clever in-joking as well. The 4th wall is blown up in gags so inspiring, they remind me of the ending of Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles. The first worldwide sensation was Who Killed Captain Alex?, then came Bad Black and now Crazy World. Each of these movies also touches upon more serious aspects of life in Uganda, including militarization, organized crime and kidnappings. But these ideas are more made fun of and thus also laughed at the poor image Uganda may have in western eyes. It's not hard to fall in love with Wakali with its sense of community and love for filmmaking after viewing these.

Three laughs (SPOILERS)

1. The star of this film is Isaac Newton Kizito, as noted by the VJ, the son of the director. Together with some other small kids they form Wakas Stars United! In the film's plot, they are kidnapped children plotting for their escape from the Tiger Mafia. But this plot is only needed to showcase the kids throwing kung fu kids at gun-toting adults. It is clear they are having the time of their lives.

2. There's an anti-piracy PSA in the middle of the movie. In a radar they notice that someone somewhere is pirating the film, and thus they send out the robotic Piracy Hunter to capture them. After some bloody inserts of Piracy Hunter getting rid of fans out in Canada and Paris, it turns out that the culprit is actually the film's director himself, showing his creation to his family. Piracy Hunter doesn't feel any remorse, though.

3. In one scene a gangster discovers that the big wad of money is only colored from the other side. The VJ gives a memorable one-liner to this: "See kids, adults, too, can be stupid."

Re:Make - Maniac

In this new blogging series, I am contrasting a classic movie and its remake. This is to showcase that a remake is not always a bad thing. Very rarely do movie remakes attempt to do anything fresh with their concept, but usually just blandly redo every major scene. But sometimes this is not the case. A new director might find some new angles on the established IP and possibly given a totally new twist rather than same-old-same-old. Some great cinematic feats would not have been possible if there wasn't a rogue filmmaker ready to give a shot in redoing something beloved.

Maniac (1980)
Director: William Lustig

vs.

Maniac (2012)

Dir. Franck Khalfoun

The original Maniac was born out of the cheap grindhouse thrills of the late 70's, early 80's. It is a New York movie through and through, and so seedy you feel like you need a shower afterwards. This aesthetic is very particular, but it gives Maniac some edge its flawed realization might otherwise miss.

We are taken to a journey to a mind of an overweight, bug-eyed, bad-skinned and greasy haired loner who also happens to be a mentally ill serial killer (Joe Spinell). The character is clearly suffering from his conditions, having hallucinations and manic bursts, as well as the uncontrollable urge to date women with his knife. It would be easy to hate this pathetic creature, but there is some unwilling sympathy to found in him. As evil as he seems, at worst he is just lost in his delusions, as helpless to pull himself together as the audience is to stop his gruesome murders.

That's not to say there are misogynistic roots in this rotten apple. He is a total predator, unreleting and unforgiving when he gets his killer instincts on. The stalking scenes, culminating in gory effects by Tom Savini himself, are some very effective use of horror filmmaking. The film is sad and nihilistic, seeing the murders as unstoppable and the killer not even particularly wanted or searched. Just another sad story in a city full of them.

Though by the end the film breaks the main character's insanity twirling out of control into the storytelling as well, the grounded viewpoint was a clear pathfinder. In the film we are stuck to the killer's mind, whether we like it, or rather, not. More grounded serial killer fare followed this, like Angst and Henry - Portrait of a Serial Killer, which overemphasized the mundaness and banality of people like this.

After the Giuliani cleansing of New York, it stands to reason another Maniac could not have been updated to the same setting. Instead, screenwriter Alexandre Aja and director Franck Khalfoun decided to set the new version to Los Angeles, a city who gives even less of a fuck of the mentally ill and the unsuccessful sad souls. The viewpoint was then stuck even more inside the killer's head, to the point of shooting the entire thing in POV. These decisions work to show how the entire world in each of the citizens of LA revolves only around themselves.

Elijah Wood's Frank seems at points to be even too nice a soul to belong in the city where everything is sheer surface and real thoughts are kept tightly inside, to the point of bursting. The city of fake people can't help a soul just trying to find a connection. His work as a mannequin creator is an important metaphor to this as well.

But Frank is just as much a madman as his predecessor. When he can't relate to women, he resorts to stalking, killing and scalping them. Though his extreme misophobic deeds are horrifying and disgusting, this lost soul might be even more symphatetic this time around. The film wisely keeps Wood's face and doe eyes out of screen for the most part, telling the story more by just his voice. He doesn't do what he does out of evil, but because he has lost his sanity and is as terrified, unable to help himself and as lost as the audience.

In the end, the seedy and gory Grindhouse shocker was updated into a more clean but genuinely unnerving POV film. It allows perhaps a bit more insight into the mind of a titular maniac. Rather than going through motions, this one dares to surprise and take the story into unexpected territories.

Maniac (1980) ★★★ 1/2

Maniac (2012) ★★★★

Three laughs: Eega

It is hard to rate some trashy films. Films can be really good entertainment in spite of the quality of the filmmaking. In fact, it might be even harder to create unique trash that keeps surprising you than most "quality" films with which you know what you are going to get. It certainly is an even better pleasure to watch them. My friend says that he knows a trash film is worth something if it gets three laughs out of me. I mean proper, good belly laughs when you just can't believe what the film is showing to you, scene after scene. That's as good a rating as any for these movies. Any film that has these three laughs has a special place in my heart.

Three laughs case #19:
Eega / The Fly (India, 2012)
Director: S.S. Rajamouli

A lot of western people have stereotypes about films produced in India, even though it's a huge country with multiple huge film industries producing movies for different language regions. One of particular note is the Tamil area based in Tennai. Their action movies in particular tend to be more over the top and violent than ones under harsher Bollywood restrictions.

The film discussed today is an action movie that does have its share of triangle dramas and dance sequences. But in other ways it's one of the more out there cases I've seen. Since it's part of its elevator pitch, I have to spoil stuff a little. The film's protagonist is killed 30 minutes in and reborn as a common house fly.

What follows is a good case on why Tamil cinema is often more inventive than what you would get from Hollywood. Every scene tops the previous one and there are more ideas at play here than in a season of Dexter. Everything is based around the idea on how a small fly can revenge the death of his former incarnation and kill the man responsible. The film treats its ridiculous premise fairly seriously, but at the same time it keeps its tongue firmly in cheek and gives good physical gags in vein of some classic Looney Tunes vibes. It has the qualities of a Sam Raimi or Joe Dante flick, with some nice effect work and camera trickery also used.

Three laughs (SPOILERS):

1. As said, the first 30 minutes of the film are fairly conventional triangle drama material. It's surprisingly bleak to see Nani's main character strangled to death by the villainous Sudeep. But what emerges is a sort of scene like in superhero movies when the costume is first put on. "He's back!" chants the soundtrack. Yet he is a CGI fly. Learning the ropes of fly lifestyle, Eega has to run a gauntlet from getting stepped on to getting caught in a soap bubble and finally ending inside the villain's chai drink. Dark music notes play as he recognizes his nemesis.

2. The height of the film comes after Eega has revealed himself to his loved one Bindhu (Samantha). They begin to to plot on how to murder Sudeep. What follows is a training montage which has Eega lifting Q-tips, running on a C-cassette tape and practicing flying, while Sudeep has his goons deliver as many dead flies to him as they can. At the same time, the fly also almost kills him by disturbing a barber about to shave him, putting pesticide in his beer and lighting his bed on fire with a cigarette. Of course we also get to see the fly's dance moves during this sequence.

3. Probably the most bizarre scene in the film has the increasingly desperate Sudeep resort to black magic. The wizard bewitches two sparrows into becoming demonic hell-birds. The ensuing chase in particular utilizes the smaller scale and everyday objects in the house in a pretty inventive and interesting ways, while still keeping the pace going. And even this is topped by the film's explosive finale, which is something you should go out and see for yourself.

Three Laughs: Surfer - Teen Confronts Fear

It is hard to rate some trashy films. Films can be really good entertainment in spite of themselves, and it is an even better pleasure to find some trash that keeps surprising you than watching most quality films. My friend says that he knows a trash film is worth something if it gets three laughs out of me. I mean proper, good belly laughs when you can't believe what the film is showing to you. That's as good a rating as any for these movies. Any film that has these three laughs has a special place in my heart.

Surfer: Teen Confronts Fear (USA, 2018)
Director: Douglas Burke

One might think once you have seen The Room, you have reached an absolute nadir of so-bad-its-hard-to-believe quality. You would be wrong. Tommy Wisesau might have been an auteur that sabotaged every part of the film he was involved in (ig. acting, directing, producing, writing), but at least his cameraman managed to shoot sharp shots. Another important thing is the self-importance and deluded belief in the film one is making. You can't copy the sort of enthusiasm.

Well, move over Tommy, since here comes Douglas Burke, auteur and physics professor at USC. He has directed, written, produced and stars in Surfer. As well as the soundtrack is based on tunes hummed by him. The film's main role is played by his son, Sage Burke, who doesn't seem to be quite as enthusiastic about the art they are creating. It would appear that the titular teen looks so antsy for the most of the movie as if would rather be surfing than listening to his old man's inane monologues throughout the movie.

The super-low budget movie is supposed to be a life-affirming lecture with overt Christian overtones. The titular teen has traumas from  surfing in too massive waves and now has a fear of the ocean. He confronts the spectre of his long-lost father (made, according to him, from squid ink and electricity), who gives him mystical advice on how to confront one's fears. The latter half sees the teen exploring what actually happened to his father, along with lots and lots of filler material about surfing, most of which seems to have been shot on a family vacation.

Three laughs (SPOILERS):

1. The main thing one gets from this movie is an idea of how much Douglas is trying to act as hard as he can. Never so much than in an endless monologue (10? 15? 20 minutes? Who can tell?) where he laments his own situation and how in the afterlife they didn't tell him how returning to life would also make him FEEL. Burke adapts a sort of Patrick Stewart imitation, I guess in order to appear Shakespearean. With lines like "I AM LIVING IN AN IRON MAIDEN OF PAIN, BOY!", laughter comes often and tears were rolling down my cheeks on both of my viewings of the movie.

2. The second half has an equally "interesting" take from Douglas, having him break the advice given in Tropic Thunder and attempts to act as a catatonic patient in a wheelchair. The astonishingly tone-deaf and ableist performance is made even sillier with the repetition, with a supervising doctor ordering Sage to repeat that he loves his father over and over again, which makes him go even further catatonic, falling from his wheelchair, and knocking open tha comically huge Coke bottle army underlings had just brought Sage, along with a huge purple plastic straw.

3. There would be plenty of good choices for the 3rd Laugh from Douglas's teachings (like the scene with a beached whale carcass, when he orders Sage to "look at it without me"), but I would like to showcase how brilliant the supporting cast are. Two regular bozos in from lunch are sent to check under cars for hidden bombs by the military, I guess in order to add to the runtime, and to show how secretive the military base really is. And Dr. Burke (Gerald James) meets an old skipper at the pier and gets a few answers out of him by presenting him "really good cognac", ie. Hennessy. The conspiracy thriller plotting went a little over my head since I was staring at the loop of a bird flying a circle across the camera or how the bad green screen effects makes the Skipper's (Mitch Feinstein) glasses disappear every time he turns his head.

Apparently there exists a black-and-white version of the film that tool the filmmakers 20 months to make. It reportedly slowly fades into color by the third act. Whichever version is possible, grab a few drinks and a few friends along and you will have a good time. Especially if you like watching footage of surfing.

Movie year 2014

Since it's become more or less a tradition, I decided to write a blog post about my favorite movies from this year (2014). I think I'll try to keep my reasoning brief. First up, though, I want to give out a few additional shout-outs.

The year's most talked about movie:

Nymphomaniac, parts I & II
Dir. Lars Von Trier

Yeah, certainly not The Interview. I don't have Nympho on my proper list, because I feel it's less a movie, more a theraphy session with Lars Von Trier. That's not to say there's not plenty of interesting content within. Actually so much so, that I talked about and thought about this movie more than any other this year. I also saw it twice, both the theatrical and extended versions.

Trier seems to take basically any complaint people in general have had with his work, particularly concerning his films' treatment of women and his status as a provocateur. In the movie he has segments built on countering these complaints. Particularly in the extended version of part II this even reaches the dialogue. This meta-movie approach suddenly popping up is frustrating, since Charlotte Gainsbourg does a magnificent performance, and one would really like to appreciate her character as her own, not just an extension of Trier's public (and/or artistic) personae.

But yeah, it is certainly a fascinating piece of work. I personally would have liked to be the sort of movie that engages and stands on its own, but it is one of those take it or leave it deals. Trier really wants to specialize in those.

My review (in finnish)

The greatest scene in an otherwise disappointing movie:
The school cart, Snowpiercer
Dir. Bong Joon-ho

The start of Bong's postapocalyptic thriller rolls along nicely, with plenty of time used to show how desperate the lower-class passengers are in their position of the life-sustaining train. They haven't seen much of life outside their cart, and by extension, neither have us viewers. The initial push later, comes the first of the movie's surprises, with cheery kids being taught outrageously fascist lies about the world. We also get a bit of the train's backstory.

Now, this sunny cheerfulness has a satiric stride that brings to mind Paul Verhoeven's future fascist-bashing in RoboCop and Starship Troopers. It's also funny how the so-far main antagonist Tilda Swinton seems to join in the fun, thinking herself so righteous that influencing kids might tone down the rebellion.

But then the film has nowhere to go but down beyond this high point. Boring action takes over most of the film, which still tries to justify itself with tepid twists that only manage to stretch the already thin premise to breaking point. Any previous set-ups are contradicted almost immediately. To add the insult, Swinton's delicious baddie has nothing more to offer, and she is replaced with a boring mute, unstoppable assassin-type antagonist. The rest of the movie makes me think of Elysium in terms of squandering a perfectly good allegory in order to have the most boring and unrealistic gun-fights possible. The frustratingly regenerating villain is another similarity.

Geez, I really would've wanted to like this film a lot more.

Runner-up:
The opening scene of RoboCop
Dir. José Padilha

Padilha seems to have had some good sense on how to update Verhoeven's satirical scifi-action to the modern age, but sadly it seems that studio interference (mostly over the PG-13 rating, I'll bet) cut out most of his bite. Scattered throughout the film, there are flashes here and there on the film that might have been. None more so than in the very first scene, depicting ED-209's patrolling in Iraq, shouting "Salaam Aleikum" to the natives, and of course blowing any possible terrorist subject to pieces on live television.

Festival films top 10:

Several of the most interesting films of the year never got a proper release in Finland. This is a list of those. Drawing the line seems to get trickier this year.  I've allowed limited releases to be on the main list. Then certain, films, namely Whiplash and Turist (a.k.a. Force Majeure), should definitely be on this list, but they will get a theatrical release next year. Thus, I'll leave them out of this now since I might want to have them on my 2015 list.
 
10. The Babadook

This twisted parental horror is at its best in the middle when it balances reality and a fever dream together.

9. The Trip to Italy

More witty word-playing between Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, now on beautiful Italian landscapes. They have seen what was it people liked in the first one, so now there's less shots of food being prepared and more imitation battles. A little less of the latter would also have sufficed, but even as such it's very funny and likeable.

8. The Look of Silence

Joshua Oppenheimer offers another look into the heart of Indonesian war criminals, this time with the viewpoint of the victims as well. Now he doesn't have to rely on staging fantasy film sequences, the interviewees provide all the necessary drama.

7. The Kidnapping of Michel Houellebecq

This French comedy is as dry as the driest of wines. It's first and foremost about its author. But luckily Houellebecq is game about making fun of himself.

6. The Rover 

A tough-as-nails post-apocalyptic road movie, that showcases the only two paths for the weak when all chips are down. 

5. The Guest

Adam Wingard and Simon Barrett finally come to claim what You're Next promised. The Guest is so much fun from the soundtrack to the movie referencing plot devices. It starts out Killer Joe but ends The Hitcher - with a little Shining in the mix.

4. The Salt of the Earth

A surprisingly touching and heartfelt documentary about the photographer Sebastião Salgado. During his lengthy career, Salgado has seen the best and worst of the Earth. In the end the film has a hopeful outlook for tomorrow.

3. The Unknown Known 

Donald Rumsfeld spoke to Errol Morris and didn't at all come across as reasonable, intelligent nor altruistic. Instead, the man doesn't seem to care if he seems uppity, snooty or downright unscrupulous. As a companion piece to The Fog of War, this also manages to showcase how much the foreign politics have turned more and more ruthless in the course of recent history.

2. Starry Eyes 

This horror film offers everything I wish from the genre. I particularly like that all the horrors in the movie reflect the anxieties and personality flaws of the main heroine. The plot is also a twisted mirror image of A Star is Born -type of story in an unique way.

1. Winter Sleep

Distribution in Finland is so bad, Cannes Palm d'Or winners are routinely left out of movie theatres. This is a shame, since this 3,5 hour drama would deserve to be seen by more. Basically, it concerns the image of a wealthy author, who works as a patron for his home town. Although he holds himself in high esteem, lengthy dialogues begin to bring cracks to his image and way in the world. But will he learn from his mistakes? There are plenty of layers at work here, making the lengthy run time still feel rewarding.

The List:

The requirement to get to the list is a Finnish release in the year of 2014 (even if it was limited to a single theatre). That's why this mixes films that were completed in both 2013 and -14. I didn't list films like Borgman, Moebius, Nebraska or The Dance of Reality, since I listed them last year on the Outside distribution side.

These are mostly listed alphabetically. Since I have already singled out the top 5, they are seperately, as is the film I found to be this year's best. 

To be seen:
As much I'd like to, I haven't got the possibility to see every interesting movie there is. These ones are those recommended to me by various other lists and I'll be sure to check them out soon.

'71, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Locke, Mr. Turner, Återträffen

Runners up:
These warrant a mention, if only to make it to a round 20.

12 Years A Slave (Steve McQueen, USA)
Dallas Buyers Club (Jean-Marc Vallée, USA)
Emergency Call - A Murder Mystery (Ulvilan murhamysteeri; Pekka Lehto, Finland)
The Homesman (Tommy Lee Jones, USA)
The LEGO Movie (Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, USA/Denmark/Australia)
Nightcrawler (Dan Gilroy, USA)

Places 14.-6.

 

Grand Budapest Hotel (USA/Germany/UK)
Dir. Wes Anderson

Anderson has been on a roll for his two previous films, but it still took me by surprise on just how much he has mastered his craft. It is rare that he has as vicious a stride as in this film, where people are brutally murdered, fingers cut off and stabbed. but he gets away with it with his laconic sense of humor that makes this film such a hoot.

Her (USA)
Dir. Spike Jonze

It isn't just that the ethereal style and the unconventional romance depicted in the movie feel real and heart-felt. It's that this is a futuristic movie that feels realistic without having to depict big technology or major inventions, just develop a bit those that we have today. The glances we get of a city of tomorrow feel peaceful and warm, yet this utopia still has its wrinkles, the major one being the loneliness that still plagues many in big cities.

Ida (Poland/Denmark/France/UK)
Dir. Pawel Pawlikowski

Ida is one of those films you would not have any trouble believing was a lost classic from 40-50 years ago. That has to do with the way the film is shot, with every B&W image closely thought out and giving the characters the weight of the world to carry. The other part is the universality of its story, with a search for roots that turns ever more recluctant when it starts to become clear that even if Ida finds the final resting place of her parents, the burden will not lighten, but maybe even get heavier.
 
Inside Llewyn Davis (USA)
Dir. Joel & Ethan Coen

A wicked circle of a movie. Drying funds have made making a living with art harder than in a long time, and the Coens reflect on this. The thing is, there might be no escape even with giving up. The bleak lighting, using natural light or unhealthy looking greenish fake lights make no mistake that the times are tough all around. While the film has plenty of that trademarked Coen humor, at heart it is one of the darkest they have ever done.

My review (in finnish)

A Most Wanted Man (UK/USA/Germany)
Dir. Anton Corbijn

The sudden and sad loss of the brilliant character actor Philip Seymour Hoffman casts a shadow over this downplayed spy thriller. Hoffman carries one of his final roles with a powerhouse performance, as usual, but what makes this such a notable film is the way it portrtrays the doubt and shades of grey involved in studying immigrants who have already lost everything in the name of the war on terror. The film maintains that with all the paranoia, and with various agencies having petty contempt over each other, the humanism tends to get forgotten.

The Tale of Princess Kagya (Kagya-hime, Japan)
Dir. Isao Takahata

Studio Ghibli has been threatening to call it quits (although I'm not sure if they really mean it), since their two grand old men and founders, Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata have decided to retire. From their final goodbyes, I was more taken by Takahata's historical fable, that also finds some time to study the expectations and role of women in general. Always one to try out different styles more, the film has an exquisite line-drawn style that to my mind makes it unique.

They Have Escaped (He ovat paenneet, Finland)
Dir. J.-P. Valkeapää

The most notable Finnish film of the year stunned many for once not relying on plot. Rather, the film is told symbolically, with a heavy emphasis on visuals. What seems to be a regular teenage rebellion story in the beginning, turns out to have universal implications on the outside world creating cages around us, and never allowing us to just be free.

Two Days, One Night (Deux jours, une nuit, Belgium/France/Italy)
Dir. Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne

Yet another film about being driven to a corner. The Dardennes do manage to keep a very basic and self-repeating Herculean task interesting. But the most important element that really makes the film is Cotillard in the main role. She gives another performance nothing short of incredible. There are some fumbles (like the handling of the main character's depression) along the ride, but as a whole, the movie is catharctic.

Wolf of Wall Street (USA)
Dir. Martin Scorsese

Scorsese still has that spark that used to produce some of the greatest, most innovative American movies of the last 40 years or so. Here, he does repeat the pattern of some of his greatest hits, but the bitterness he feels about the recklessness of the 1% wrecking the economy carries out the movie. It's an exhausting movie, but in the end feels like we at least got a little kick back at these vultures.

My review (in finnish)

Places 5. - 2.

To my Finnish-speaking audience these may already be familiar from this questionnaire I filled. Nevertheless, here they are again, with some added commentary.

Boyhood (USA)
Dir. Richard Linklater

A mosaic-like impression about the last decade. It is a film not only about time and those sensitive, forming ages. It is also a view of America itself, its people and culture. Linklater has a knack of making his actors become multi-dimensional characters seemingly easy. It's also important to have scenes that seemingly don't connect to anything to give the impression that life is not just those moments that change everything, but a collection of fleeting little things. In some places it's a little cheesy, but it's always compelling.

Clouds of Sils Maria (France/Switzerland/Germany)
Dir. Oliver Assayas

I still plan to write something about this film (at least now I've gotten some of my blogging mojo back), so I'm not sure about what to say here. In a way, while there's plenty of themes of time passing, the film is about the contrast between art and nature. Nature's miracles come punctually, art may work if the time is right. I haven't liked any of the previous films by Assayas as much as I liked this.

Gone Girl (USA)
Dir. David Fincher

Fincher handles a good bait-and-switch from first presenting this as a thriller, but slowly unravelling this to be a pitch-black comedy where bad people plot against each other. So he basically gets to play with all the best storytelling toys from his three previous projects; House of Cards, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and The Social Network. Some reviews have suggested this represents the relationship between men and women in modern relationships. I wouldn't go as far, but Fincher definitely feels that the sensation-hungry media chases revolving personal tragedies have a knack of leading these situations from bad to worse.

Only Lovers Left Alive (UK/Germany/France/Greece/Cyprus)
Dir. Jim Jarmusch

When a good movie somehat reflects your feelings, you sometimes can't help but to fall for it. For me, Only Lovers Left Alive is among there with Jarmusch's best films. It captures the sense of dread about the tomorrow, and the worry that the best days of movies, music, art and culture in general are behind us. But it's also oddly comforting, bleakly funny, and has characters you want to hang out with, even if they don't do much but whine.

1. A Touch of Sin (Tian zhu ding, China/Japan/France)

Dir. Jia Zhangke

To complete my preference of stories of desperate people in bad situations, this magnificent Chinese movie presents four (or four-and-a-half) heartbreaking stories where getting cornered by an unforgiving society eventually leads to bloodshed.

Supposedly, all stories are based on true human fates that the national media in China has not reported. In any case, it helps to understand China to understand the difficult situations small, ordinary people can find themselves rather than to just look at the booming business and hear the info official sources hand out. The completed movie was very controversial in China for fears it might raise social unrest. That, to me proves, just how powerful the film really is.

Us westerners tend to see foreign, far-away countries through the prism of the pop culture we consume. Director Jia Zhangke's brilliant idea is to build the stories in the way martial arts movies or revenge-driven Asian thrillers are built, towards the final confrontation. It makes the social message get across with a lot more ease. But in the end there's no grace or catharsis in the bloodletting, it only ends stories or serves to make them worse. None of the main characters survive the movie intact, there's bound to be at least psychological damage, also the threat of punishment looming in the horizon.

Many of this year's finest movies have a grim quality and a sense of dread on what tomorrow may bring - to these parts of the world, too. A Touch of Sin may serve as a cautionary example on a society that has no real value on a persons life. It also serves to remember how much suffering there may lurk beyond the reach of news channels. Luckily films are an excellent way of making these difficult subjects visible.