POMO

It was clear that Garland wasn’t going to make a blockbuster out of this. However, it wasn’t clear what his masterful balancing between reality and dimensions beyond human perception would bring to a film that is supposed to stand solely on raw realism. Civil War contains grand scenes with tanks and helicopters, but without a cinematographic concept of the kind that Alfonso Cuarón employed in Children of Men and which would be needed here. At its core, Civil War is merely an intimate road movie spanning a broken America as it follows a team of three seasoned journalists and their novice colleague, whose innocence stands in contrast to their experience and professional detachment. Our question of why such a young girl would be doing such work is immediately answered for us: “I’ve never been so scared in my entire life. And I've never felt more alive.” ___ Civil War avoids sentiment and the dark tone of the story is lightened by the use of American pop oldies, but it lacks the artistic optics that we like Garland for in the first place. The film should me made up entirely of terrifying scenes, but it contains only one, which reflects the one-dimensional thinking of America’s redneck population and features a standout performance by Jesse Plemons. The director amplifies the rawness not with dark instrumental music, but with the intense sound of gunfire. And even though the film is compelling and engaging thanks to its characters, it lacks refined and unexpected conflicts, as well as an intellectual reach that would go beyond warning us about Donald Trump. And the climax is literally ridiculous.

The first half of Fallen Fruit presents the protagonist in his youthful fumbling as he comes out of a breakup, with no desire to work and no idea what the future holds. The film itself is slightly boring and just as fumbling, with feeble dialogue, the parameters of a student film and one WTF narrative misstep (two complete strangers catch a brief glimpse of each other through the window of a passing car and then text each other a few hours later). As a hurricane approaches, however, the protagonist’s parents join in the presentation of his day-to-day life, characters seen earlier in the film add more meaningful contours to the causes of his loneliness, and Fallen Fruit turns out to be an honest portrait of a young man living in Miami, a city whose exotic identity is aptly expressed with the wow effect that it initially provides, which conceals its darker, less hospitable side. [Miami Film Festival]

Lanthimos has taken a sharp detour from his recent mainstream films. He knows that we will eat anything out of the palm of his hand. Kinds of Kindness is a decadent riddle reminiscent of Paul Thomas Anderson’s sultry conversational flicks and his own early Greek films, but with Hollywood stars and an American setting. The first and most polished of the three stories masterfully draws us in from the opening seconds with its subject matter and characters. The second one throws us off balance and the third, in relation to the two that came before, is already fodder for a roundtable discussion. The dark, unexplained supporting character R.M.F, around whom the stories revolve, is most likely the alter ego of the director himself (and is played by Lanthimos’s Greek friend Yorgos Stefanakos) and represents a metaphor for his journey through big-time show business. There is no shortage of funny, bizarre, disturbing and bold moments in Kinds of Kindness, as Lanthimos again takes an original approach to exploring sexuality, sensuality, cruelty, dominance and all of the other things that we love him for. Only with a smaller budget and in a realistic contemporary setting. [Cannes FF]

Better to have a short life in freedom than a long non-life under a communist dictatorship. A powerful true story of young Cubans who chose freedom in the 1990s. The film gets its joyful spirit in an isolated treatment home, where its characters live after deciding to shorten their own lives by deliberately injecting HIV. Because they can live as they please there. However, the introduction in the city is more interesting – rawer, more dramatic, packed with restlessness and rebellious energy. Clichés and mild kitsch pop up in the constellation of characters in the treatment home. But the ending works well. This group deserved to have their story made into a film. Blockbuster-makers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller are aiming to make inroads into independent cinema. [Miami FF]

An ancient drama set in a futuristic New York with literary quotes from classics and existential contemplations, ridiculously incongruent with the film’s overall execution. It’s sexy once and funny once, but in its aesthetics, the rest of the film is a mix of styles ranging from embarrassing to kitschy, making it absolutely unsellable to a broader audience. Crowd scenes with dozens of extras, costumes with motifs from ancient Rome and digital scenes out of a television fantasy for retirement homes. The groundless, half-baked motif of stopping time and many other outlined ideas go nowhere. Is it possible that Coppola would consider this to be his great final work to which he gave his all? Just as he kicked his career into high gear with the long wedding scene in The Godfather, he lays it to rest with this horrible theatrical event for the cream of Megalopolis like something out of the mega-flop Caligula. Otherwise, Nathalie Emmanuel is beautiful, Aubrey Plaza is dangerously seductive and Shia LaBeouf is the best of them all. [Cannes FF]

A lot of dark drama inspired by actual events, which you ideally shouldn’t read about beforehand. Because even though the protagonist, Karoline, has it as badly as possible, more unexpected blows will come. The impressive production design gives a sense of the filth and hopelessness of the time. The film also impresses in places with almost expressionistic compositions, whose meaning is symbolically filled out by the appearance of Karoline’s husband, who had been disfigured in the war. There are a lot of details that make us wonder how people lived in such discomfort during that time a century ago. Vic Carmen Sonne in the main role leads the film with her brilliant, quiet performance, which veteran actress Trine Dyrholm later darkens (literally) in a smaller space with equal intensity. Facial expressions are paramount here. Viewers will experience the maternal moments even more powerfully; many gasps were heard in the screening room and people could be seen covering their eyes. [Cannes FF]

This documentary is shocking in its depiction of the conditions in which American authorities allow anyone to keep an animal in captivity, including Lolita, a well-known killer whale held for decades at the Miami SeaQuarium. It’s as if there are no laws against animal cruelty, or no one is enforcing them. The film follows a group of Native Americans from the orca’s territory of origin as they strive to secure her freedom. They explain their spiritual connection to the killer whale and the importance of returning her to her native waters, where she can still encounter her mother again after fifty years. Don’t expect a story like My Octopus Teacher and the emotions that it evoked, as Resident Orca is purely a television-style documentary featuring interviews with people involved in the issue. Its power lies in the question of whether the orca will be freed and in the unexpected outcome of the story. [Miami Film Festival]

Drenched in Florida sunshine, Road House is highly entertaining, testosterone-fuelled bullshit with the surprisingly cast Jake Gyllenhaal turning in another fine performance. Doug Liman helps Joel Silver update his eighties classic by dressing it up in the dynamic attire of music videos with intense fight scenes, but always with the detached humour of undemanding home VOD entertainment. The new Road House contains one psychologically effective scene (the dialogue in the bar teasing the main character’s trauma) and is more like an energetic punk comedy than a drama. Its most comical character is Gyllenhaal’s main adversary, the ultimate fighting machine Conor McGregor, who embodies bombastic, brainless macho cocksureness with mindless fury. An invitation to join the Fast & Furious crew is a certainty after this bold big-screen debut.

Sensational. The narrative was clearly inspired by the Oscar-winning Free Solo. But that film was about the world’s best professional climber and was made by the world’s best professional outdoor director. Skywalkers is an enthusiast’s project about a pair of young adventurers, with a lot of selfie videos taken with mobile phones and drones – including some that are packed to the gills with adrenaline. Seeing it on the big screen means experiencing it with them. A hell of an adrenalin rush! However, what makes the film a sensation is the intertwining of their potentially lethal hobby, in which they find the meaning of life, with the romantic relationship that develops between them thanks to their shared passion and, through absolute trust in and support for each other, helps them to achieve the impossible. And the setting of their Instagram story in the period from the beginning of the pandemic to the Russian invasion of Ukraine (which they disagree with). A great, powerfully emotional love letter. [Miami Film Festival]

The best Oscars in a long time, capping off an extraordinarily strong year in film. Funny surprises like a nude John Cena, Guillermo with a mega-bottle of Tequilla and the twins Arnie and Danny DeVito. Again hosted perfectly with humour by Jimmy Kimmel, statuettes handed out to those who deserved them. I was pleased with all of the results, especially the awards for Best International Feature film and sound for Zone of Interest. And a powerful speech by the director of 20 Days in Mariupol! And the singing Ryan Gosling stole the show.