Kolya, an aging father, lives in a small coastal community running an auto repair shop to support his family. When Kolya becomes involved in a property feud with the local government, he enters into a battle that threatens to destroy everything he cares about. Andrey Zvyagintsev's Leviathan is a dense exploration of power, capturing the control it has on nearly everything it touches. A somber experience, Leviathan manages to unravel in a way that is both intimate and grandoise, capturing the disintegration of a family unit while commenting on how power can corrupt all men, no matter their class, religion, etc. Koyla is a powerful example of this, a man so wrapped up in winning that he neglects the strained relationships between his son and wife. Zvyagintsev does an incredible job creating this tale, capturing the cold hand of bureaucracy, and corruption that can exist anywhere. Starting as an intimate character-driven drama, Leviathan unfolds masterfully, gradually reaching a mythological commentary on the human condition. Andrey Zvyagintsev's Leviathan effectively captures societies often devastating impact on the individual, showing how man's thirst for power determines all things.
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Viago, Deacon, and Vladislav are three vampires living together in a house in New Zealand. All of them being at least several hundred years old, coping with modern life can be a challenge, but Viago, Deacon, and Vladislav attempt to blend in with normal humans. Sure their thirst for human blood sets them apart, but they still go out to nightclubs and bars during the night like everyone else. When Petyr, their 8,000 year-old flatmate, turns 20-something Nick into a vampire, the guys decide to help guide him through what it takes to be a vampire, learning a thing or two about contemporary culture along the way. Taika Waititi & Jemaine Clement's What We Do In The Shadows is an uproarious mockumentary that expertly toys with vampire tropes, delivering a truly hysterical experience. Not since Shaun of the Dead has a film so masterfully mocked a well-established horror genre, with What We Do In The Shadows creating a cast of truly memorable characters. Viago, Deacon, and Vladislav are alll extremely enjoyable characters in their own right but how What We Do In The Shadows creates empathy for these three guys is what makes the film so fun. Born centuries ago, these three vampires are simply living in a time they can't hope to understand and the film takes advantage of this beautifully, with hilarity ensuing. What We Do In The Shadows is sure to appeal to anyone who is a fan of the vampire genre, delivering an intelligent parody that is one of the funniest films of the year. Damian Szifron's Wild Tales is an anthology of sorts, that captures humanity at its most irrational, violent, and absurd. A gleefully subversive spectacle, Wild Tales is made up of six segments, each with their own warped situations. The film gets started off with a bang, delivering a highly entertaining segment on an airplane which perfectly sets expectations for the rest of the film. Wild Tales is an extremely enjoyable experience that does an impressive job at balancing the absurd comedy and violence. I was most impressed with Szifron's ability to capture escalation, with each and every segment building to a furious and fun climax. While subversive and often absurd, Wild Tales delivers a whirlwind of emotions, even offering a few moments of surprising poignancy centered around relationships, money, and bureaucracy. Films of this ilk tend to have have a weak link or two but Wild Tales doesn't suffer from this problem, making it one of the better films of its kind. That being said, the blue collar vs. white collar highway war segment would be my favorite, a masterful blend of violence and comedy that has moments remenscient of great Three Stooges sketches. Lisandro Alonso's Jauja opens with a prologue, referencing a mythical land of happiness which has completely eluded all those who endlessly search for it. From there we follow a 19th century general who is accompanied by his daughter as they survey new land. When she vanquishes in the middle of the night with her lover, the general sets out alone into the wilderness to find her. Existential and incredibly challenging, Jauja uses the story of a fathers journey to find his daughter as a way to ponder complex questions about life, time, and existence. While Jauja certainly captures the harsh conditions of the time and place and somewhat comments on imperialism, calling this film a Revisionist western would be selling it short. I'd be lying if I said I fully grasped everything Alonso was trying to say but with Jauja he has created a metaphysical experience. Reality and fantasy, fact and fiction all blur together in a film that puzzles but enriches. Viggo Mortensen gives a great perofrmance in this film, bringing a mysterious yet smoldering energy to this character, a perfect vessel for this challenging experience. For me, Jauja is a film that attempts to comment on just how small our existence is in the scope of time and space, but there are many interpretations to be made, which is what makes Jauja a challenging but rewarding experience. Taking place in a Ukrainian school for the deaf and mute, Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy's The Tribe follows Sergey, a new student at the school who quickly discovers the darker side of his new institution. The school is rampant with drugs, prostitution, and crime, with Sergey quickly finding a place among the elite of the school. When Sergey becomes entranced by one of his schoolmates, who is one of the more profitable prostitutes, his new discovered obsessesion threatens to upset the fragile balance of The Tribe. Shot completely without subtitles and any dialogue, The Tribe personifies why film is a visual medium, using only staging and composition to tell this tale. A well orchestrated visual treat, the film is masterfully staged using an assortment of long tracking shots and beautiful compositions that dare I say are remenscient of Tarkovsky. This film presents a very cold and uncaring world, where no sympathy or empathy is anywhere to be found. This is a world full of damaged young souls, with Sergey's romantic interest in his young classmate being subversive to say the least. As the film escalates, Sergey's actions could be viewed as good natured but I'd argue his actions are more out obsession than love. He is able to save her from the others but it is more based on his desired possession of her. Sergey is a character that is warped by the world around him, making him a character you root for, even if he is extremely flawed. A film that could have easily been a gimmick, The Tribe Is an unflinching, poignant portrait of a dark world where no one escapes cleanly. Jay is your typical 19-year-old teenage girl. Uninterested in high school, She loves spending time with her friends down at the lake chasing boys. When she meets Hugh, a seemingly innocent, handsome boy, they hit it off but after a sexual encouter, Jay finds herself plauged by a nightmarish presence. No matter what she does, Jay believes that someone or something is following her. David Robert Mitchell's It Follows is an ingenious horror film that plays against our primal sense of fear - the fear of the unknown. With It Follows, the evil force is very ominous, never being explained to the viewer, a type of monstrous supernatural force that can only be seen by Jay. Mitchell uses this unique antagonist to his advantage, creating a thrilling atmospheric tension where evil can arise at any minute. I reallly enjoyed David Robert Mitchell's first film, The Myth of The American Sleepover, but it's nice to see the filmmaker tackle a totally different genre with strong results. With its fantastic synth-score, It Follows is remenscient of the old 70s and 80s horror flicks, which combined with Mitchell's astute direction, make It Follows a highly enjoyable and memorable horror film. While I think it's a bit of stretch, some could even argue that It Follows serves as a parable about virginity and the dangers of unprotected sex but fortunately the film doesn't rely on this either, working just as well as a highly entertaining, creepy horror film. Living in a small, isolated cabin deep in the Mexican woods, an elderly man finds his world shattered when local bureaucracy calls into question his ownership of the land. Unable to hold onto his home, the elderly man begins to lose grip of reality around him, falling into a deep state of sorrow. Nicolas Pereda's The Absent is an extremely minimalistic film with almost no dialogue to speak of. While the films tepid pace is bound to turn off some viewers, Pereda has created a powerful examination of the importance of home. The Absent argues that our perception of home is important because of the memories involved, an important part of our existence. Sorrow stricken, the elderly man relives aspects of his life through memory, coming face to face with the inevitable he must leave his home. The first film of Peredas I've seen, I found his use of extremely slow pans intoxicating, effectively establishing the setting of the story while also observing every small nook of the elderly man's small home. He is an atmospheric filmmaker and i loved how the films aesthetic grows darker, mimicking the inxreasing sorrow of its main protagonist. The Absent is not a film for everyone but it's a powerful examination of loss, memory and the importance of the place we call home. While in the process of developing a film about surveillance in the post-9/11 era, Laura Poitras, a well regarded documentary filmmaker, starts receiving encrypted emails from a mysterious source calling himself "Citizen Four". Citizen Four is about to blow the whistle on a massive surveillance program run by the NSA and other intelligence agencies all around the world. Along with renowned journalist Gleen Greenwald, Pointer flys to Hong Kong to meet with "Citizen Four", who turns out to be Edward Snowden himself. Laura Poitras' Citizenfour is a remarkable documentary that captures the day-by-day, hour-by-hour plight of Edward Snowden, one of the largest and most important whistler-blowers in history. Citizenfour plays more like a thriller than a documentary, capturing the paranoia, anxiety, and tension revolving around a man in Snowden who has essentially given up his way of life for the perceived betterment of others. This is a film that effectively shatters the notion that whistle-blowing is an act of treason, showcasing the importance of a man standing up against a powerful system intent on taking away its civilians freedoms. No matter where your politics lie, Citizenfour is a genuine film that revels the horror of civilization's growing loss of privacy in a digital age. While the film itself is a remarkable time-capsule of a world-shattering news story, Citizenfour never forgets Ed Snowden the person, capturing the man behind the infamous leaks. Poitras beautifully captures the mediatative state of a man who has effectively given up his life as he knows it, capturing the anxiety, paranoia, and conviction he has about his actions. Honestly, I can't imagine how anyone could view what Ed Snowden did as wrong, with Poitras creating a vivid and convincing portrait of a man who sacrifices himself for the betterment of others. Citizenfour is an intoxicating portrait of the current state of privacy, beautifully capturing a behind the scenes look of Ed Snowden, showing us the man behind the facade. Laurent, a 14-year-old boy, is part of a bourgeois family living in Dijon, France. The youngest of three boys, Laurent takes after his mischevious brothers, learning the ins-and-outs of growing up. He drinks and smokes thanks to his older brothers, even losing his virginity due to them, but Laurent doesn't have a closer friend in the world than his mother. When Laurent is diagonised with a heart murmur, he is accompanied by his mother to a nice, mountain resort where they can relax. Louis Malle's Murmur of the Heat is a daring coming-of-age story that is focused primarily on the sexual maturation of young Laurent. Highly intelligent, Laurent is a young boy whose been thrown head first by his brothers into a world he doesn't understand, learning very quickly about sexuality and maturation. While Laurent is desperate to grow up fast, his mother is seeking escape from the confines of her marriage, partaking in a marital affair. Murmur of the Heart is a film that received a lot of attention because of its subtle incestuous nature, using this taboo topic as a way to comment on a young man's confusion about love and lust. Laurent is a child who doesn't fully grasp the difference between love and lust, confusing the two with his own mother. He is a lonely individual who views sex and/or love as a right of passage, which inevitable leads to a strange relationship with his loving mother, who is quite oblvious to her son's warped perception. With Murmur of the Heart, Malle seems to be commenting on the turbulent nature of adolescence, showing a world that forces children to grow up fast. Tender, funny, and provocative, Murmur of the Heart is a unique coming of age story showcasing the fragile nature of maturation and how easily one's perceptions can become warped. Jo is a twice-divorced, mother of six whose recently met and fallen in love with her third husband, Jake, an aspiring screenwriter. Living in a home paid for by her aging father, Jo and Jake appear to be the heads of a happy family, athough looks can be deceiving. As Jake reaches new levels of success, he begins to begins to fraternize with other woman, leaving o home alone with six children. Jack Clayton's The Pumpkin Eater is a profound domestic drama that beautifully and tragically explores the emptiness of love when it isn't reciprocated. This is a film that many would consider depressing but what makes The Pumpkin Eater so impressive is its ability to explore many aspects of domestication. This is a film that explores the gender roles which are so often placed on individuals, with Jake being a man who expects Jo to be his domesticate housewife, placing nearly all responsibility solely on her. Jo doesn't see things this way, wanting to share responsibily and be more of a family because of it. Many of the film's arguments revolving around gender roles are impressive and quite frankly ahead of their time given The Pumpkin Eater's release date. The film also subtlely explores the impact of children on a relationship, capturing the strain they put on independence, which of course drives Jake towards other woman as well. Stylistically, Jack Clayton shoots the film more like a horror film than domestic drama, capturing this trapped, almost claustrophibic feel which Jo feels being in a loveless marriage with no decernible way out. Between Anne Bancroft's astonishing performance and Clayton's superb direction, The Pumpkin Eater is a powerful and poigant domestic drama that shows the true horror of loving but not being loved back. |
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June 2023
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