DaViD´82

Despite the somewhat unfortunate final five minutes, this is an achievement that finally brings this directing duo out of the deep shadow of their masterpiece (yes, Internal Affairs). It was about time.

As soon as this flops over into a type of Hitchcock, it loses its seal of originality. Because it begins to strum on well-known genre strings, but nobody knows for sure how they will sound. Not that it all goes to pot at that moment, but it does become rather more ordinary, while still remaining sufficiently unusual, uncompromising and dirty mirror holding to stop it becoming just another run-of-the-mill genre movie, immediately forgettable as the closing credits come up.

An unfortunately executed adaptation. It is based on an ironic (and funny) anti-bureaucratic toned, House-style novel by Mørck and a psychological depiction of the investigator and the victim. Contrarily, the standard genre plot is more an essential excuse linking everything together than anything else. But here the two most special assets that make this different from the regular productions of this genre are thoroughly overshadowed and the stress is put purely on the crime storyline; and that is as run-of-the-mill as is possible in this genre.

Nothing for xanotphobes, arachnophobes or an audience who would like to see something more than just a regular, run-of-the-mill Lynch movie. And my theory “what’s going on and what are these gigantic, totalitarian spiders and loss of identity"? Villeneuve just wanted to make Jon Peters happy.

The Tolkeinite inside me is surprised to find where the Hobbits disappeared to when Isengard was flooded. The believer inside me is incensed over disrespect to the Word of our Lord and the unbeliever in me just shakes his head in disbelief over that really current “love Gaia" message... In any case, the movie has its own style and is interesting in the best meaning of the word; however much incongruous and slightly (really) slap-dash. Two thirds is a post apocalyptic vegan version of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers which perilously frequently topples on the brink unintentional ludicrousness, but doesn’t fall over it, thanks mainly to the charisma of Russell Crowe. The last third, however, suddenly becomes a heavy, existential intimate psycho-thriller with classic (although unfaithful to the Book) Old Testament dilemmas. And that is utterly outstanding. It just doesn’t have any connection with the preceding catastrophic epic fantasy.

I can't shake the feeling that it would have been better suited to the form of a two-hour film rather than a three-hour miniseries divided into four episodes, but it's still highly topical and, in its "it could happen in your neighborhood" realism, disturbingly chilling.

A female True Detective. Or isn’t True Detective a male version of Top of the Lake? It’s not just that it has the same cameraman and therefore has the same film-like and really darkly gritting appearance (the presentation of the beauties of New Zealand do not remind one of Lord of the Rings; apart from the fact that it’s all rain and fog and if you get lost you can toss a coin to find out if you’ll die of hunger or exposure). In both it applies that the case itself is of secondary importance (and here this applies a little more, since “who and how" becomes clear in the middle of the first episode). Both play more with symbolism, reading between the lines and the omni-present subliminal tension. In both it applies that when, on occasion, it lowers itself to be literal, it immediately loses a lot of its magic. Both have ambiguous characters, excellently written and played. Both play on a disconcerting string. Both are primarily about the characters, about life and all that... and both are perfect.

I may not speak Hungarian, but I am fluent in "Andersonian" and so once again his distinctive visual poetics suited me like few things. If nothing else, it can at least be taken as an example of what an adaptation of “I Served the King of England” by Karel Zeman would look like.

Does it go into depth and is it unbiased? It doesn’t, it isn’t, plus it’s decidedly melodramatic. The power of the documentary about years of protest in Tahrira lies in something else. It is direct. It gives the impression that it arose as a spontaneous event “come and film us protesting". It is direct in the moderate introduction “hand in hand, Muslim or Christian, let’s topple Mubarak’s regime", it is direct during “let’s topple the military regime and begin to get into politics" and direct during the passage “let us, brother against brother, topple Mursi and the Muslim Brotherhood clique". And the gradual harsh disillusionment with revolutionary fervor for better tomorrows which to the letter reflect the old adage “from the frying pan into the fire" is the saddest and also the most fascinating thing about this.

It has little (if anything) to do with reality, and it's stylised to the point of being over-stylized in places, but what the hell, it's actually better than most regular Bond films.