Filmmaniak

A documentary film that is almost a film with acting and a documentary reconstruction about people who, due to various forms of mental blocks, are unable to experience intimacy, sexuality, and essentially even ordinary physical touching, without taking part in therapeutic sessions and receiving "professional" advice (psychotherapists, prostitutes or transvestites). The whole film is a terribly superficial, two-hour-long therapy session with the message that in the world of sexuality there is nothing like a deviance, fetish or deviation from the standard; in short that everything should be considered normal, including night swing/BDSM clubs. However, these clubs are also counterproductively filmed terribly naively and in a clichéd way so that they seem repulsive in the first place. The supremely artistically shot film full of naked bodies deals with the emotional path of its characters to inner openness, but everything that is heard from them has zero informative value, because everyone just deals with their own problems and feelings, but their self-reflection is not subjected to any meaningful analysis.

Comedic genius Williams could not have gotten a better film portrait. It is surprisingly comprehensive, coherent and devoted to his work and private activities throughout his life. Excellent editing work, done quite obviously with love and respect, accompanied by Williams's colleagues, friends and family members, who were well-chosen. Sometimes the film stands still for too long and wastes time unnecessarily by showing more and more photographs with Robin's sympathetic face, but on the other hand, the recordings of his comedy performances and films are practically sure to keep your attention (and sometimes these are incredibly unique shots). In the end, the director of course couldn't help but feel a little sad, but she still conceived the conclusion very sensitively and without going all out. It rarely happens that I laugh out loud so often during a documentary. We will always miss this great actor.

A pleasantly fast-paced short story comedy whose individual, loosely intertwined stories have a solid basis in well-constructed situations and even consistently escalate, but they are not always brought to a satisfactory point. As a result, this a fun mix, entertaining through funny events soaked in stress and gradually escalating pressure.

Adam Sedlák is at the top of Czech cinema with a precisely created film on the European level. This is a perfectly escalating drama/thriller/horror with a clear artistic vision and an original and well-thought-out concept. The film also excels through an excellent musical component, which makes the film an even fiercer ride rather than being firmly directed. The film has strong acting and a gradual pace of storytelling, painfully as intense as a day's cycling after a night spent in an oxygen tent. Too bad it didn't keep going, and too bad it couldn’t have been even harsher.

Visually, Pawlikowski excels even more than in the Oscar-winning Ida, which he copied through his black-and-white image and aspect ratio, and at least in the first half hour his film is able to enchant through its ferocious and dynamic direction and the story of a folk singing and dancing choir that must submit to the wishes of the regime. The subsequent main plot, a melodrama about two unsympathetic protagonists who would really like to be together, but do everything they can so that they can't be together, gets tiring faster than the omnipotent song ojojoj.

Family Film was a lot more hardcore art. Winter Flies, on the other hand, is a very spectator-friendly and relaxed road movie about freedom and liberty, but with an obvious social level and with the motif of a boy's coming of age. At the beginning, it is relatively difficult be on the same level as the film, because its main protagonists are a pair of teenage hooligans who imagine freedom mainly as car theft, running away from home, shooting at cars from an airsoft rifle and contempt for authorities, which the film feeds by presenting adult characters as careless and irresponsible individuals or as untrustworthy con men. Over time, however, you can finally empathize with the story and its characters, mainly thanks to the constantly-dosed light humor and the very natural acting performances of the main protagonists. In any case, freedom and relaxation have seeped into the structure of the film and some specific plot aspects, which seem very crude, whether it is the division of the story into two timelines told out of sequence, or the way in which one of police officers is "removed" from the police station for most of the film.

A genre-torn film that starts a new interesting topic every so often, but soon replaces it with another one or sweeps it off the table with a twist of the story without being able to use it properly. On the other hand, this results in at least the pleasant unpredictability of the story. It is very non-standard horror, although it does not deny its roots in genre classics and traditional motifs - but it is more of a social horror, which does not even act as a horror film for ninety percent of the run time and is in fact mostly not even filmed as a horror. Maybe that's why some of its purely horror or bloody scenes are inadvertently funny, although in the context of everything around them, they are actually extremely impressive at the same time. In addition, the tempo of storytelling is well drawn-out, and the film tries to start more and more different ideas over time, but not all of them can lead to a satisfactory completion. However, a few scenes are etched into your memory easily and for a long time.

A remarkable observational documentary about one specific event, which does not bring much new to those who are familiar with the Czech social and political context. Ironically, those who are not familiar with it will find it difficult to orient themselves in the film. The funny excursion to the tense workplaces of Czech Television and the Hospodářské noviny editorial office shows how things usually work at these media institutions (and what kind of people work there and how they talk to each other, even though you find out their names and job functions at the very end). This is a light-humor testimony about the difficult work of journalists, the cunning of the President and the mocking of the bizarreness of the Czech political scene.

It is too bad that Gilliam did not succeed the first time, because after eighteen years of hope, seeing this messy tangle of wasted chances, which is promising at the beginning, but then slowly disintegrates into a carousel of Don Quixote motifs stacked on top of each other haphazardly, this quarter-of-a- century-long project can hardly be considered successful. Gilliam wonderfully and playfully stylizes the protagonist, played by Adam Driver, into an alternative version of himself - a director cursed with his own creative desires and demands, who gradually loses his mind and becomes Don Quixote, fighting in vain against the windmills - but he is unable to surround the metaphor with a coherent story and to give his undoubtedly original, extravagant and colorful visions a supporting basis. Everything happens without any causality or clear focus on anything, the dialogues seldom have traction and the result is a Dadaist-surrealist bedlam, in which Muslims and Russian vodka also play a significant role for some reason. The traditionally good Adam Driver with the engagingly playful Jonathan Pryce only save the film when they aren’t asked to grotesquely fall down or frolic about. The best passages are in the first half hour and then whenever the echoes of the originally filmed material flash (three giants at the end), or the meta-jokes referring to the filming captured in Lost in La Mancha (the Japanese on the set, blaming problems on force majeure). Gilliam used to be a victim of circumstances, and now his film is a victim of his own boundless creativity. Who is the man who killed Don Quixote? Unfortunately, the same one that created him.

A purebred, rough western with an engaging and well-written plot, fantastic directing and brilliant actors - rumors about Christian Bale's best performance of his life did not lie, although it is debatable whether it is in fact his best performance (but it is definitely in the top 3 and it is amazing to see how great Bale acts using his eyes, eyebrows, the wrinkles on his forehead and mustache). However, there is no doubt about this being the best performance of Rosamund Pike’s career. Her tragic character combines female fragility with strength and determination, while Bale's protagonist is no less of a tragic warrior, who gradually runs out of comrades-in-arms in the ruthless environment. This is a film brimming with strong and serious themes, from controversy about violence, human nature, and morality and the burden of conscience, to the differences between murder ordered by someone, and murder in general. A majestic atmosphere, emotions, brilliantly written characters and perfect work with motifs. The last four minutes may be too sweet, but they are actually logical. The Indians may not be what they seem. Amazing film.