Pedro Almodóvar’s latest Movie Julieta is a Homeric family biography, bookended with Hitchcockian disquiet. I am not sure if those two moods go easy together; the story is loosely based on three Alice Munro short stories, so maybe this is what kept me watching. The movie starts when the older Julieta (played by Emma Suárez) gets word that her long-lost daughter Antía is alive and well and a mother of three, living in Switzerland. Julieta leaves her lover and moves back into the flat where she and Antía used to live so that the daughter can find the mother at the old adress – if she wants to. This and the brooding score made me expect some long-simmering family conflict. Continue reading
Author: Mege
Giving us some song and dance
Damien Chazelle’s La La Land harks back to another era of moviemaking, but it stands entirely on its own two feet. Sometimes those feet jig and hoof and skip and jump, but they are also able to stand completely still while the head looks at someone else across a crowded jazz bar. It’s a musical, but it is much more. It starts as an exuberant fantasy, and when the romantic bits or the musical numbers run the danger of getting too much, real life comes crashing in, rooting the whole dream in firm ground, only to take off again later. It’s over two hours long, but there are no boring bits. There is funk, soul, jazz, tap-dance and waltz, there are vinyl records and live bands, there is beer and coffee. There is love, and there are kisses, and there are fights. Continue reading
Bring me the head of 2016
In a lot of ways, 2016 was the year to get suspicious about a lot of things, most of all about the future, and maybe some of us even got superstitious a little bit. As far as my movies are concerned, I think I detect a pattern: the two movies I liked best in 2015, Whiplash and Birdman, ran here in January, and 2016 began with Carol and The Big Short, another couple of great movies. Superstition? Coincidence? Perhaps. I can’t quite shake the feeling that this year, you had to dig slightly deeper to find a really good movie. I wrote about The Assassin and American Honey, which are far from light entertainment, but are immensely rewarding and beautiful to look at. I also highly recommend Sing Street for its youthful irreverence and its music; Arrival, for its use of the sci-fi genre to learn a lot more about us humans than about the extraterrestrials (if you haven’t read thirithch’s excellent review, you should do so). And Rogue One, which tried hard not to be a blockbuster and was all the more successful because of it. Continue reading
She can handle the truth
I like the Dardennes. Their movies have something immediate and unfiltered, something of the here and now. Their realism isn’t intrusive or voyeuristic, it’s simply part of their world without being moralistic or downtrodden. All of their features are set in or around the same area, in Seraing, Belgium, where they are from, a down-on-its-luck area of industrial estates and anonymous apartments. We’re amongst the working class, and things generally look bleak. But the people are real and breathing, and there is no need to zoom in on their weaker moments. Just look at them, and their glow and zeal will reveal itself. Continue reading
Bittersweet bird of youth
I like drifters. I am fascinated by them because I am not one of them, and never really have been. Story-wise, you never know what’s going to happen to them, or where they will go. Neither do they. Their stories are full of surprises, and screenwriters and directors often use them as the center of a road movie, the kind that doesn’t seem to have a destination. Star, the young heroine in Andrea Arnold’s American Honey, played by newcomer Sasha Lane, is not a drifter in the strictest sense, but she is on the road because she’s had it with her old life: looking after two kids that are not her own, avoiding her lecherous boyfriend, eating out of dumpsters, being broke. Something needs to happen, and soon. Continue reading
The long dark journey through The Night Of
I was hypnotized by The Night Of for five or six episodes, which isn’t bad at all considering that it’s an eight-part HBO miniseries. To me, it seemed to scratch the itch that season 2 of True Detective left me with. It’s on the dark side of things: it mostly takes place at night and/or indoors, but even the exterior daylight scenes look sort of gloomy. It’s about crime and punishment, and about the law, about justice and injustice, and about courts and prison. It’s set in New York, but is based on the British TV series Criminal Justice from 2008-09, starring Ben Whishaw. The Night Of, however, has no problem standing on its own. Continue reading
Fritz Bauer’s history lesson
The People vs. Fritz Bauer made me angry. I think it is supposed to. Fritz Bauer was the man in charge of bringing former Nazi key criminals to justice. He worked for the courts in Frankfurt am Main as a district attorney and was put in charge by the German department of justice in the late 50s at his own request when the majority of lawmen there were either former Nazis themselves or at least sympathizers. His task was close to impossible: he was a Jew, a Socialist and a homosexual. It’s entirely possible that his superiors thought that he would be inefficient. In this movie, his department ridicules him, his legal team is utterly useless, unable to locate Bormann or Mengele for many years. His health is failing. In fact, the movie starts with him almost dying. Continue reading
A boy on his way home
Midnight Special is a sci-fi movie for those moviegoers who wouldn’t dream of going to see a sci-fi movie. It avoids many plot points that the genre might bring: no space wars, no dark against light, no dogfights, no exploding planets, no time travel. There isn’t even a spaceship in sight. It trusts its characters enough to drive the story forward and keeps a moderate pace so that we have a chance to think about how those three characters, two men and a boy, repeatedly find themselves in a boarded-up motel room.
VVitching hour and a half
Robert Eggers’ The VVitch: A New-England Folktale works both ways: if you think there is a witch in this movie, then there is one, and we’re in the realm of the supernatural. You can also explain the whole horror by claiming that these people are driving themselves and each other insane. Either way, it’s a pretty good horror flick. It features a Puritan family who are thrown out of their community and build a new home in the wilderness, next to some woods. In 1630, that might well be a death sentence. We are never told why exactly they get banished, but it has something to do with putting God’s law above that of men. They are almost glad about being banished, because to them, it is God’s will. Continue reading
Donuts and Depression
While watching Olive Kitteridge, the 2014 four-part HBO miniseries, I kept thinking back to Six Feet Under more than once. Both are HBO, both feature Richard Jenkins, and while SFU has a lot to say about death and dying, OK deals with depression and suicide. Before you quit reading: it is surprisingly upbeat and wise about it. All right, upbeat is probably the wrong word, but it is not as dark and… well, as depressing as you might think. It’s a well-told story about a Maine family, so there is also good reason to think of John Irving’s stories. The series never goes for broke with guns and gore, but skates over thin ice while hinting at the dark waters underneath. Continue reading
A Damn Fine Cup of Culture 