Matty

I expected The Post to be a good movie. I did not expect it to be nearly flawless. There is much to be admired in it, especially knowing that the project was announced in March 2017 and was in cinemas by December, but what I enjoyed the most was how various subworlds (family and work, men and women, friends and colleagues, The Washington Post and The New York Times) constantly collide in the film at the level of both narrative and style, which adds dynamics and layering to a film that is largely based on a few people in a room discussing huge amounts of data or deciding on something essential. ___ The differences between the worlds among which the characters move are made clear thanks especially to Kamiński’s camerawork and the directorial control of the space in front of the camera. There is almost no shot that does not convey something through its composition, the placement of the actors, the inevitability with which the characters dominate the given setting (Kay is more comfortable at home, Ben in the newsroom), the contrast of events in the foreground and background, the speed and direction of camera movements.... At the same time, the film never comes across as didactic, but rather as something entirely natural and organic. For example, granddaughters running in the garden in the background during a work conversation between Ben and Kay, and the camera’s sharp glance at a portrait of the female protagonist’s father hanging on a column that she walks past gives the scenes extraordinary emotional depth without descending into sentimentality and slowing down the narrative. ___ Even though we are subjected to a constant flow of information, especially in the first half, which covers several days (in the second half, the field of possibilities of how the narrative can develop further is significantly narrowed and mostly takes place in a single day, thus making it even more suspenseful), you can still find your bearings in the film and know where it is headed thanks to the clarity with which it was made. ___ Thematically, The Post is a prequel to All the President’s Men on the one hand and, on the other hand, another Spielberg story about an absent father, a family (due mainly to which a night-time conversation with the daughter is important, though for many that will be irritating proof that Spielberg can’t handle endings) and the occasional necessity of bending certain rules in order to keep democracy alive. For only the third time in a Spielberg film (after The Color Purple and The BFG), there is at the centre of events a female protagonist around which all storylines and motifs – the fight with the government, social expectations, self-confidence – converge (initially intersecting roughly halfway through the film, until which time Kay does not become involved in the newspaper’s contents). ___ The Post is thus relevant not only as a critique of unlimited power and defence of freedom of the press, but also as a story about a woman who has to risk everything in order to show men that she is just as capable as they are and to thus achieve, at the individual level, the same freedom desired by newspapers to write without sanction about dubious government activities (the strongest scenes include those in which Meryl Streep finds herself surrounded by men who literally and figuratively prevent her from moving and to whom she first submits before gradually learning to stand up to them).___ Due to its seeming lack of action, Spielberg’s latest work will not be easy to follow particularly for non-American viewers (especially those who don’t pay attention to what the film conveys visually), but if you liked Lincoln, you should be very pleased with The Post, despite its being even less of a spectacle (the most epic scene depicts the printing and distribution of newspapers). 90%

Though Nolan’s previous films were more refined in terms of narrative and intellectually more ambitious, their ostentatious structure often overshadowed emotion. Dunkirk, which stays more grounded in a number of respects, is his most functional prototype of the epic movie that Hollywood currently needs, a major film that you will want to see not only in a technically well-equipped cinema (preferably IMAX), but also repeatedly. Thanks to Nolan’s focused direction, everything in the film is subordinated to the maximum sensory experience, the intensity of which rises with each viewing, as you become better oriented in the temporal relationships between the individual storylines and can experience more while working less on solving the narratological puzzle. Dunkirk is intoxicating, dizzying and unrelenting in its intensity from start to finish. (Viewed three times in the cinema, of which IMAX twice.) 90%

A Fantastic Woman begins where most melodramas end – with the death of one of the partners. For Marina, Orlando’s death initiates a multi-phase process of defending her own identity. In front of the doctor, the police investigator, and members of Orlando’s family, she must defend everything that shapes her self – her name, her body, her voice. Almost no one is interested in what Marina wants. No one asks how she feels. Others see her not as an equal, but as an anomaly, a threat to the status quo. Each of the characters who judge Marina also represents a certain institution, by means of the which the story of one farewell takes on a political dimension. Marina is not defending only her right to live a full life. She represents everyone who doesn’t seem sufficiently normal to people like Orlando's ex-wife. ___ Lelio bases the narrative more on parallels and variations than on a causal chain of events and plot twists. We perceive Marina’s nudity during her lovemaking with Orlando differently than during the compiling of police documentation or the sauna scene. When she embraces an unknown man in a nightclub, the moment lacks the warmth of her earlier dance with Orlando shot with by a similar camera approach. The protagonist’s search for a strong voice is motivated not only by her desire for equality, but also by her dream of a singing career. Lelio’s directorial skill is perhaps even more evident in the natural blending of the individual and emancipatory stories than in the scenes where he abandons the dominant realistic style and allows the protagonist at least an imaginary escape into a world where she can be herself. ___ A Fantastic Woman is one of those films in which every shot excels by being well thought out. The colours, the framing and the objects in the mise-en-scène bear meanings and provide commentary on the life situation in which the characters find themselves. For example, Marina wears a necklace in the shape of a semicircle through most of the film. When she realises that she cannot base her identity on the absence or presence of a compatible other half, she replaces the half-circle with a key. It’s not the most subtle metaphor for finding the key to one’s soul, but Lelio isn’t going for subtlety. Like the main female character, his bold film, precise in its details and uplifting in the end, does not conceal anything and is not afraid to meet the audience halfway. At the same time, it doesn’t pander or beg for sympathy. Furthermore, it doesn’t force you to accept Marina in all her diversity. The final realisation that you would have liked to spend a lot more time with this fantastic woman is thus all the more valuable. 90%

Without the participation of personalities such as Spielberg, del Toro and Streep (who reads the commentary), this look at the Second World War through the eyes of five famous Hollywood directors would easily fit in with the dozens of other war documentaries for military enthusiasts that some television channels put on their broadcast schedules with iron regularity. Bouzereau chose the most ordinary form of exposition – talking heads, archival footage, excerpts from scripted films, more talking heads, animated maps, and so on. Therefore, the content rather than the form is worthy of attention. Paradoxically, the series would have benefited if the filmmakers had adhered to a more factually dense book with greater regard for context as the source material and not tried to give the project greater prestige by attaching famous names to it (the directors involved in the documentary are connected with the directors being discussed only because they feel respect for them, not because, for example, they knew them personally – therefore, I would rather understand, for example, the presence of Peter Bogdanovich, who interviewed Ford). Though the gentlemen speak nicely about their filmmaking role models, they don’t say much of value in the end and their words of almost uncritical admiration only needlessly take up space that could have been given to something more revealing. Unsurprisingly, their colleagues who experienced the war at first hand get much more to the point in the earlier interviews. A fascinating aspect is, for example, the account of the formulation of the Why We Fight concept by Frank Capra himself, whose frustration stemming from the pinnacle of German propaganda (Triumph of the Will) led him to the idea of using that same sort of propaganda, but with a different intention. Unfortunately, Five Came Back wants to tell not only the story of how documentaries with artistic ambitions were made during the war (and subsequently used by the government for propaganda purposes), but also about the war itself, so it offers a very simple retelling of the history learned in school. The same “kitchen sink” approach characterises the whole series, which tries to cover a large number of topics, thus leaving no time to discuss at least some of them in greater depth. The view of film propaganda presented here is driven mainly by the effort to interest viewers and spur their admiration for the heroism of Capra, Ford, Huston, Stevens and Wyler, rather than to prompt them to ask more complicated questions (basically, we are led to the idea that German propaganda was bad and American propaganda, often working with similar racial and national stereotypes, was good). Though, thanks mainly to the unique footage from battlefields, Five Came Back is not a failure, it is certainly a missed opportunity. 75%

Good Time is a much grittier and sweatier bit of neo(n)-noir than Drive, in terms of both style and digressive narrative. Instead of a straightforward journey from point A to point B, it offers unnecessary detours and dead ends. Good Time comes close to being a pure genre movie only during the opening bank heist, after which everything goes downhill in a way that other heist movies don't prepare you for. Connie doesn’t have a plan. He improvises based on who/what gets in his way. One half-baked (and sometimes very funny due to its idiocy) decision is followed by another. The film also gives the impression that it was made “on the fly”, but it holds together thanks to good rhythmic structure (alternating between quiet scenes without music and dynamic passages) and recurring motifs (Connie is convinced that he was a dog in a previous life, which explains why he and a four-legged friend get along so well later). Furthermore, the protagonist’s efforts to save his brother from going to prison are used systematically to portray the life of the New York underclass, and this portrait of people with no money, no ambition and no hope for a better future, whose drinking and drug use are occasionally supplemented with police brutality, is thus as important as the melodramatic story of self-destructive brotherly love (which makes the film reminiscent of early-period Scorsese). Together with an edgy, highly visceral thriller (shot almost exclusively in close-ups without establishing shots), we get a social drama in neon colours and with electronic music (which, apart from arcade video games, reminded me of the first Terminator) in one surprisingly compact package. What is certain is that you will not experience a similarly unpredictable and comparably intense film in the cinema any time soon. 85%

The first half Gerald’s Game plays out promisingly with just two well-matched actors and a dog (a similar setup as in The Mountain Between Us, which is currently in cinemas) in one room, an unpleasant situation and a few objects that could potentially resolve it. There are plenty of cuts and changes of perspective to hold our attention, the uncertainty of what is real and what is only imagined (in which the film is a more sophisticated variation on torture porn – it’s not just about physical pain, but also about holding on to one’s sanity). The presentation of the female protagonist’s train of thought is handled more elegantly than in, for example, 127 Hours with its affected flashbacks. I consider the flashbacks, which first appear after roughly fifty minutes, to be the film’s main stumbling block. The heretofore concentrated narrative, with its strictly limited number of ways to continue the game, loses traction and gets bogged down in pseudo-psychological explanations for Jessie’s difficulties with men. This is King’s favourite abusive cliché, with which he works in It, for example, and which is based on the rather questionable belief that in order for a woman to discover her inner strength, she must first suffer terribly. Cutting out the flashbacks and the very awkwardly appended emancipatory afterword could turn this into a brisk low-budget surprise that has no need to complicate a simple initial idea with lengthy explanations. At the same time, however, I understand that it is also a service to King’s fans, who will most likely appreciate this self-destructive fidelity to the source material. 65%

Tin Star is a modern noir western with gradually rising gangster elements (Several times I was reminded of Anthony Mann’s dark westerns and Cronenberg’s A History of Violence). Rowan Joffe previously wrote the excellent The American and the rather lousy thriller Before I Go to Sleep. Tin Star shares an existential heaviness with the former and a fondness for B-movie plot twists with the latter. Of course, Joffe is largely aware of the trashiness of his own work and manages to deal with the clichés he uses in an original way, so there is no lack of desired (perverse) humour. As the headline of one IMDb review says: "enjoyable but silly". Nevertheless, I can imagine that for some viewers, who require a (psycho)logical explanation of what they see and hear at all costs, the odd tone of the series (excellently captured in the title of the first episode, “Fun and (S)laughter”) will be too "silly" and not so “enjoyable”. ___ The story is based on well-known situations (the sheriff comes to restore order in a town under the control of a corrupt oil company; a recovered alcoholic starts drinking again; a father avenges his son's death), but those situations develop in unexpected directions or are combined in imaginative ways. Perhaps no character, regardless of how much of a caricature he may appear to be at first, is so unambiguous and predictable in the end. Almost all of them are hiding some dark secret whose gradual unveiling, together with the exemplary cliff-hangers, forces you to keep watching. ___ I also appreciated the degree of patience with which the whole series is directed, including the care put into the composition of every shot. Many of the shots are unusually long, based on the gradual revealing of new information, or rather on the fact that we don’t have access to certain information because the camera follows a single character. A number of scenes start earlier and end later than is necessary to say what needs to be said (which sounds like a terrible banality, but it has a fundamental impact on the atmosphere of the series). The occasionally ostentatious incorporation of landscapes into the narrative is reminiscent of westerns and the visual leitmotif comprises shots with the characters placed precisely in the middle of a symmetrical composition, which feels unnatural and adds to the protagonists’ unease. ___ On the other hand, ten episodes are too many. Some less-essential storylines are developed in the second half and draw attention away from what the series does best, thanks in part to the indefatigable Tim Roth – an honest portrayal of a self-destructive man who takes control of his life through what is simultaneously destroying it. If the characters were not forced by the script to make sometimes rather stupid (and, with respect to their characterisation, inconsistent) decisions and let themselves be controlled by their emotions, the series would probably be more balanced and cohesive. Due to my concerns that this dilution will continue, I’m not looking forward to the second season (which, due to the open ending, seems highly probable) with overly high hopes. ____ However, I'd definitely give Tin Star a chance, at least the first three episodes (the third one is clearly the best thanks to the ingenious alternation of two different time planes), especially if you like gritty westerns and Tim Roth.

A few spoiler-ish remarks on the facts contributing to my opinion that The Last Jedi is the best episode of the Star Wars series (a hair better than The Empire Strikes Back, which this film – like other parts of the saga – in many ways mirrors or even boldly revises): 1) Both films interweave three central conflicts – intergenerational, class and between the light and dark sides of the force (all dialogue scenes between Kylo and Rey as well as the dialogue Rey carries on with herself). Eager young heroes make rash decisions, which generally end badly for them. If they had listened to their older and more experienced masters, they could have avoided some complications. However, generational change is unavoidable. Therefore, it is a matter of whether the young rebels entirely reject or take inspiration from the teachings of their predecessors. The ability to be an inspiration to the younger generation is decisive for the storyline with enslaved children on the planet Canto Bight. In order for the bourgeoisie to enjoy themselves, someone has to work. The final scene indicates that this exploitation may be the impetus for a class revolution. 2) Luke explains to his apprentice that the force does not come only from inside a Jedi, but is founded on balance with the world around him. An example of a person who has achieved harmony with nature is Luke himself, who can get by with the gifts that the island offers him (there is a good reason for the maligned milking scene; it serves as more than just a comical aside). Later, we twice witness how listening to nature saves the heroes’ lives – Finn and Rose escape from Canto Bight thanks to ungulates resembling a horse-llama hybrid, the last insurgents find their way out of the cave thanks to arctic (crystalline) foxes. 3) The film repeatedly and intentionally does not fulfil our expectations and does not build myths, but instead casts doubt on and demolishes them; it does not play according to the rules that the previous episodes followed, thanks to which it is a very stimulating viewing experience. The film does not allow us only to passively watch it and tick off “mandatory items”. Jedi training is terminated prematurely; the expedition to Canto Bight ends in fiasco (though the gifting of the ring to the boy will probably play out in a significant way in the next episode); the main nemesis dies much sooner than you would expect; with the exception of the initial action sequence, the good guys find themselves on the defensive, almost constantly running away from someone and trying to save lives, which is fully in accordance with the motto of the eighth episode – it does not make sense to fight what we hate, but to save what we love. 4) The whole thing looks incredibly good. It is obvious that the filmmakers cared deeply about the compositions, and put a lot of thought into the choice of lenses, the size of the shots and the colour contrasts (how they play with red and white at the end is breathtaking). In short, compared to other franchise genre movies, the camera work here not only fulfils a practical function, but it lays claim to an Oscar nomination with almost every shot. 5) The Last Jedi is truly funny and truly sombre (where neither aspect outweighs the other and the transitions between them are very natural) and, especially in the second half, one wonderful scene follows another, making the film an incredible emotional ride. 90%

Of course, there is nothing wrong with films that cater to the tastes of the masses. The fact they want to be liked (even though they may deal with rather painful issues) and do not arouse any antipathy in viewers only puts critics in a non-conformal position, as they are being manipulated. Therefore, I had a similar problem with The Big Sick as I did with last year’s Sundance hit Captain Fantastic. In a film that boldly combines observational comedy about the clash of different genders and cultures (with humour based on commenting on everyday situations in the manner of stand-up comedy) and melodrama, there is less banality and more truth. The first welcome disruption of the romantic-comedy formula is the unexpectedly early break-up, which is not the worst thing to happen in the central couple’s relationship. After the sudden genre shift, a relationship remains the focal point of the film, but it’s not the relationship between the guy and the girl, but between one of the partners and the other partner’s parents. Considerations as to whether the solution is original or cowardly and rather insensitive toward one of the characters are not very relevant, given the knowledge that this is how it actually happened. Though the film does not completely lose its humour after a change of tone, which may be reminiscent of some of James L. Brooks’s comedy-dramas, it is more serious, more moving and less egocentric than other romantic comedies by young filmmakers. The parents are given almost as much attention as the children, whose self-centredness and unreadiness for life are that much more apparent. The unexpected change of perspective, which Aziz Ansari also works with brilliantly in Master of None, leads us, just like the protagonists, to reassess what is really important in life. Emily and Kumail’s inability or unwillingness to perceive the situation that has arisen from the other’s perspective is more thoroughly elaborated in the slightly repetitive final act of this somewhat drawn-out film (which is, however, a shortcoming of most of the films made or produced by Judd Apatow). The filmmakers like to spend time with their characters and let them carry on dialogue often lasting a few minutes longer than is necessary. Most of the time, however, they adhere to the central theme of "love in spite of” and never deviate from the main storyline for so long that the narrative loses traction and starts to be boring. Besides that, they succeed in utilising most of the plot detours in an emotionally powerful climax, where the alternating perspectives make you care not only about the fortunes of the central couple, but also about the many characters around them. 75%

When it comes to love, words can be just as unsatisfying as the climax-less sex with which Claire Denis’s new film begins (and which is not the only kind of sex found here). Following the example of Barthes’s A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments, we find out why the protagonist’s emotional and love life is unsatisfying from an episodic series of her encounters with both familiar and newfound lovers. They differ in appearance, intellect and class affiliation. Some of them are not self-assured at all, others are overconfident. Isabelle is an attractive woman who draws the attention of men with her short skirts and tall high-heeled boots. However, few of her partners are able to correctly decode the signals that she sends as an expression of need for understanding rather than for unsatiated lust. However, Isabelle herself doesn’t know exactly what she wants and, in some ways, seems as thoughtless as her partners. It’s no wonder she can’t maintain her happiness even when she meets a man who doesn’t push his ego (like a dung beetle pushing a ball) in front of himself and with whom she apparently feels good. It seems that Isabelle can only be honest with people from whom she receives no promises and to whom she is not afraid to expose herself completely, at least with words. When asked a polite question by a man she regularly runs into at the fish shop, she truthfully replies that she is not well. Similarly, she is not afraid to tell a taxi driver that she is unhappy. The cyclical nature of the situation in which she finds herself and which stems from the fact that she constantly seeks validation from others (who doesn’t?) is humorously summed up in the final conversation with the clairvoyant, who turns out to be another egoist acting only in his own interest. The entire film follows the protagonist’s failed attempts at successful communication in which the partners speak the same language and are able to tell each other (even without words) what bothers them, what they like, what they desire, what they want from each other. Denis maintains a slightly ironic distance not only from the relationship problems of the Parisian bohemians, but also from her protagonist, who confides to a friend that she stayed with a possessive banker mainly because she was turned on by the idea of sleeping with an “old scumbag”, thus basically blending fact and fantasy. But a relationship based on an illusion is not sustainable in the long run. Sooner or later, there must be an awakening, expressed in the bar scene by the slow movement of the camera away from the two actors (contrasted with the briskly flowing dialogue based on the conscious acceptance of a certain role, shot by panning between the two actors instead of using the traditional shot/counter-shot technique). Let the Sunshine In is not a typical French comedy with broadly accessible humour that wraps its ideas up in nice phrases, but a maximally unobtrusive, beautifully sad comedy of manners (with a touch of class satire) in which (as in the discourse of lovers) every gesture, every word and every pause bears meaning. It is thus important that the actors, especially the amazing Juliette Binoche, are able to sum up a long list of reasons for their contempt or the multi-year history of one interrupted stint of living together with an almost imperceptible change of expression or with the way they say certain words. Thanks to the accuracy and matter-of-factness with which it depicts the various phases of coming together and breaking up and how relationships can be both fulfilling and frustrating, Let the Sunshine In is one of the best films about love and communication.