The Sacrifice (1986) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): Tarkovsky’s last work

Posted on August 24, 2024 by kaist455

Andrei Tarkovsky’s last film “The Sacrifice”, which happens to be released in South Korean theaters in this week, is definitely slow but undeniably fascinating in many aspects. While the story and characters are pretty simple on the surface, the movie will gradually immerse you into its calm and reflective mood once you go along with how it is about, and you may willingly go along with that even if you sometimes scratch your head on what it is about.

The movie is mainly set in and around a little country house belonging to Alexander (Erland Josephson), a middle-aged dude who was once a famous actor but retired to work as a critic and journalist at present. During the opening scene, we see him and his little son planting a dead tree outside his house, and the camera focuses on their ongoing activity from the distance as he talks about his purpose to his little son, who has incidentally been mute due to his recent throat surgery.

Anyway, it turns out that Alexander is about to have a little birthday party for himself, and we get to know a bit about several figures who will attend his birthday party. Besides his wife and their older daughter who have lived with him in his house, a close friend of his who is a doctor will join him along with a local part-time postman, and he and others will be served by the two housemaids during their upcoming party in the evening.

However, something quite unexpected happens later in the outside world. For some unspecified reason, the World War III is about to happen, and everyone in the house becomes quite alarmed and devastated after seeing a TV announcement on whatever will happen to them and many others in the whole world. As trying to process that the end might be quite near to them, Alexnader and the others in the house go through some soul-searching, and the mood among them naturally becomes a lot gloomier while they get isolated more and more from the outside world.

Watching a series of somber but intense human moments generated among a small number of characters within a small space, you will be instantly reminded of those powerful chamber drama movies of Ingmar Bergman, and you will not so surprised to see that some of the cast and crew members of the film actually worked in some of Bergman’s notable films. For example, Erland Josephson, who was particularly memorable in “Scenes from a Marriage” (1973), was one of Bergman’s frequent performers, and cinematographer Sven Nykvist was mainly known for how he closely worked with Bergman throughout their whole respective careers.

Nykvist, who won two Oscars for “Cries and Whispers” (1972) and “Fanny and Alexander” (1982), deservedly received the award for his technical contribution to “The Sacrifice” when it was shown at the Cannes Film Festival in 1986 (It also received the Grand Prix award, by the way). In most of many extended sequences in the film, his camera seems static at first, but then it makes some subtle moves here and there as steadily patiently focusing on the mood and characters, and the overall result is quite absorbing and striking to say the least. As the possibility of the apocalypse constantly hovers over the characters, the interior of Alexander’s house becomes darkened bit by bit, and Nykvist and Tarkovsky deliberately go for more color desaturation for accentuating the growing sense of existential dread among the characters.

Meanwhile, Alexander is approached by the aforementioned postman, who tells Alexander that Alexander can actually save not only him and others but also the whole world. According to the postman, all Alexander will have to do is approaching and then sleeping with one of his maids, who incidentally resides alone in a nearby abandoned church. Alexander naturally does not believe this at first, but, of course, as things get all the more desperate and hopeless later, he eventually goes to that maid’s residence later in the story.

What follows next is rather hard to describe, but the film steadily holds our attention while also making its hero’s viewpoint less reliable than before. Regardless of what actually occurs between him and that maid, Alexandre comes to reveal more of himself in front of her, and that leads to an ambiguous but utterly spellbinding moment to remember.

While being a bit baffled and then overwhelmed a lot by the following final act of the film, I was reminded of Akira Kurosawa’s “I Live in Fear” (1955), which is about a middle-aged man constantly anxious about the possibility of nuclear war. As comparing the devastating finale of “I Live in Fear” to the climactic part of “The Sacrifice”, I wonder whether the movie is actually the reflection of Alexander’s fear and anxiety on what may happen-to the world and his dear little son in the future, and I guess I can understand more of why Tarkovsky dedicated the film to his young son.  

 On the whole, “The Sacrifice” requires some patience at first, but it will eventually come to you as a rewarding cinematic experience to remember just like Tarkovsky’s other works including “Andrei Rublev” (1966) and “Solaris” (1972). Although I am still not so entirely sure about what and how it is about, the movie engaged me a lot as it did when I watched it for the first time more than 20 years ago, and I am willing to revisit it someday just for more appreciation and admiration.

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The Book of Solutions (2023) ☆☆(2/4): Annoyingly whimsical

Posted on August 24, 2024 by kaist455

Michel Gondry’s latest film “The Book of Solutions” somehow annoyed me more than expected. While this is another typically whimsical piece of work from Gondry, it is sometimes difficult to watch its rather obnoxious hero behaving like your typical narcissistic jerk throughout the film, I must confess that I tried to stop myself from shouting at this prick more than once during my viewing.

The movie is mainly about one young filmmaker’s desperate attempt to keep the artistic style and vision of his new film. When Marc (Pierry Niney) shows his rough cut to the people of the production company, they coldly respond to it for an understandable reason, and his producer willingly steps forward to taking care of their problem, but, of course, our filmmaker hero does not approve of that at all, though I think he has absolutely no idea on whatever he is going to do about his film.

Anyway, without any permission from the production company, Marc decides to take away all those stuffs shot by him and his crew, and his several key crew members gladly help him. Once they has all the materials in their car, they quickly get away from the production company, and then they go to some rural country where Marc’s old aunt Denise (Françoise Lebrun) resides. His aunt certainly welcomes him and his key crew members into her house, and they soon try to work on their project more while staying there for a while.

However, Marc does not seem to have any particular plan on what to do next. At first, he tries to shoot an extra scene in a very clumsy (and cheap) way. And then he talks a lot about how his movie should be edited in a very unconventional way. And then he tries to compose and record the score within a very short time. And then he also works on whatever he may do next after his current project is completed. As watching him constantly distracted by one impulsive thing to do after another, I was reminded of what my late mentor/friend Roger Ebert once said about James Joyce’s very elusive novel “Finnegans Wake”: “It is the stream of conscious of a man trying to write “Ulysses” and always running off to chase cats.”

I guess all these and other moments in the film are mainly for showing how Gondry’s preferred filmmaking method, and this demonstration sometimes works well enough to interest us. At one point, Marc modifies an old, abandoned truck into a makeshift editing room, and that looks rather amusing even though you may wonder whether it is actually practical or not. In case of the sequence where he tries to compose and then record the score for his film, he tries a lot of impromptu improvisation, but he somehow persuades a bunch of musicians to do whatever he wants, and then we get an unexpected moment of harmony and inspiration as they gladly go along with his very unconventional method.

However, I observed this supposedly creative process of his without much care mainly because it is evident from the beginning that Marc is your average egoistic asshole. So drunken with self-importance, he often mistreats his several key crew members without much thought or consideration, and his several key crew members, all of whom except one guy are incidentally female, have to tolerate him a lot just because they do care about whatever is being envisioned by him.

Around the midpoint, the movie comes to spin its wheels more than before as Marc continues to be willful and irresponsible as before, and you may become more uncomfortable with the depiction of his considerable mental illness in the film. As a guy who has depended much on medication due to occasional anxiety and depression, I was disturbed by how the movie regards medication as a negative influence on creativity, and I also did not like how it often makes an excuse from its hero’s increasingly problematic mental condition. I understand well that he frequently cannot help himself, but, folks, I also felt the growing urge to shake him up and then send him to any available medication and therapy as soon as possible.

Most of all, we still do not get to know that much about what and how the hell Marc’s movie is about. As far as I can see, it looks a bit too simple to work as a feature film, and the movie merely throws a little humorous moment of punchline when his eventually completed film comes to have an official premiere in front of many audiences.

The main cast members of the film try as much as they can do with their rather superficial roles. While Pierry Niney is often driven to numerous neurotic moments, Blanche Gardin, Françoise Lebrun, Frankie Wallach, and Camille Rutherford are stuck with a thankless job of functioning as a sensible counterpoint to Niney’s character, and you will probably be amused a little by the unexpected appearance of a certain famous musician in the middle of the film.

In conclusion, “The Book of Solution”, whose title incidentally comes from another impulsive stuff by its hero in the film, frustrates me with its supposedly free-flowing but ultimately pointless narrative, but I appreciate to some degree Gondry’s willingness to keep working as before. Although he has been less active for several years after his previous feature film “Mood Indigo” (2013), he shows here at least that he does not lose any of his own whimsical style, and I sincerely hope that I will be more intrigued and entertained by whatever may come next from him.

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On the Come Up (2022) ☆☆(2/4): A conventional and messy mix of rap and coming-of-age drama

Posted on August 23, 2024 by kaist455

I saw through nearly everything in “One the Come Up”, a rather conventional mix of rap and coming-of-age drama. This is so predictable and contrived in terms of story and characters that I could easily guess each plot turn it was about to make, and it is also rather messy and superficial in how it handles several serious social issues. Above all, those rap songs in the film are not particularly catchy in my inconsequential opinion, and it is sometimes hard to believe in how talented its young heroine is.

Newcomer Jamila C. Gray plays Bri Jackson, a 16-year-old African American girl living in one slum neighborhood. Due to her father’s early death and her mother’s drug addiction problem, her childhood was pretty unhappy as shown from the opening scene, but she has been determined to become a rapper as good as her father was right before his unfortunate death, and we later see her attending a local rap battle competition along with her aunt Pooh (Da’Vine Joy Randolph). At first, Bri looks very confident on the surface, but, not so surprisingly, she gets frozen right from the first round, and she certainly feels quite humiliated as running away from the competition.

However, of course, Bri subsequently comes to show more of her talent in her next attempt, and that draws the attention of an influential producer named Supreme (Method Man), who incidentally worked once with her father before his death and willingly gives her an offer she cannot easily refuse. Mainly because her family can be evicted from their residence at any point, Bri comes to accept his offer, and she breaks up with her aunt, who has been her promoter/would-be producer and is surely disappointed with her niece’s decision.

What follows next is Bri experiencing the bright and dark sides of rap music business. Along with her two close friends, she goes to Atlanta, Georgia for what may be her first big break, and she soon finds herself making her first official single at a local recording studio under Supreme’s guidance. Unfortunately, her sincere personal pieces do not impress Supreme and others much, so she agrees to do something much more aggressive as advised by Supreme, though the movie does not fully present it to us because, well it is rated PG-13.

When that aggressive rap song makes a hit as expected by Supreme, it looks like Bri is going to be a new local star just like her father, and she is particularly delighted to take care of her family’s current financial problem, but, as many of you have already guessed, there comes a big problem. While getting more popular day by day, her song also becomes quite controversial due to its harsh and violent words, and we see how that song galvanizes her schoolmates when they protest for how she was brutally and unjustly handled by two school security guards early in the story. To make matters worse, her song displeases certain local criminals, and she inevitably comes to experience a traumatizing incident as a result.

However, the screenplay by Kay Oyegun, which is based on the novel of the same name by Angie Thomas, looks like being too afraid of delving more into its heroine’s problems and resulting conflicts. We only hear about what that controversial song of hers is about, so we do not get the full understanding of how it causes a lot of troubles in public, while only expected to side with her position to the end. In addition, the movie only comes to scratch the surface in case of her school problem, and this is further exacerbated by her rather passive attitude. She seems traumatized a lot by those two mean school security guards, but she is not particularly willing to express her trauma and anger on the incident, and she hesitates even when many of her schoolmates come forward for demanding the justice for her.

Above all, I could not help but notice how the soundtrack is not strong enough to linger on my mind at least for a while. Sure, what is performed during the expected climactic scene is fairly good enough to make the scene a bit exciting, but the rest of the rap songs in the soundtrack do not excite me that much on the whole, and that makes the artificial absence of Bri’s controversial hit in the movie all the more glaring.

Nevertheless, Gray’s earnest lead performance manages to hold the center as required, though she is sometimes eclipsed by several showier supporting performers around her. While Da’Vine Joy Randolph, who would advance more with her Oscar-winning supporting turn in “The Holdovers” (2023), quickly draws our attention, Sanna Lathan, who also directed the film (This is her first feature film, by the way), brings some sincerity and gravitas to the story as Bri’s flawed but caring mother. In case of Mike Epps and Method Man, they dutifully fill their flatly sleazy supporting roles, but the movie does not utilize their presence and talent much, and that is another disappointment in the film.

In conclusion, “On the Come Up” tries to do its own stuffs via its young female lead character, but the result is not satisfying enough to hold my attention to the end, and my mind often went to some other better rap music movies out there during my viewing. While “8 Mile” (2002) will immediately come to your mind, I also recommend “Bodied” (2017), which provides a series of genuinely electrifying (and disturbing) rap battle moments with some thought-provoking materials. These two movies are much more interesting in terms of storytelling as well as music, and I think you should spend your time on either of them instead.

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One Life (2023) ☆☆☆(3/4): He simply tried to save them…

Posted on August 22, 2024 by kaist455

It is hard not to be touched by the story of “One Life”, which is about one compassionate British man who tried to save many kids right before the World War II. Once he saw what was going on at that time, he could not possibly walk away from that, and it is really moving to watch how he tried hard to the end – and how much his and several others’ humanitarian efforts were appreciated in the end.

His name is Nicholas Winton, and the movie opens with how old Winton, played by Anthony Hopkins, lives day by day along with his wife in 1987. Whenever he is not handling those daily matters, old Winton focuses on some old documents from his past, and that often takes him back to when he and several others attempted to rescue refugee kids from the Nazi-occupied territory during 1938-1939.

At that time, young Winton, played by Johnny Flynn, was just a mid-level stockbroker. He was simply supposed to help his colleagues a bit in Prague, Czechoslovakia just for a few days, but he immediately changes his mind after seeing how things have been getting worse and worse for many Jewish refugees who fled from Nazi Germany. Around that time, Nazi Germany took over Austria and then the considerable part of Czechoslovakia, and it became quite more apparent that it was also going to occupy the rest of Czechoslovakia.

While trying to think of any possible way to help the refugees, Winton comes to have a rather daring idea. He and his colleagues are going to transport the children of the refugees from Prague to London, and, of course, they certainly have to set up their operation as quickly as possible, especially when the German takeover of Czechoslovakia looks more and more imminent. First, they must convince the refugees to cooperate with them, and then they must also gather enough money to fund their operation while also getting the approval from the British government.

All these and other things have to be quickly prepared within a very short time, but Winton and his colleagues manage to do that as pushing their noble cause as much as possible in public. In the end, they amass enough fund for their operation, and, above all, the British government approves of their operation, as long as they can provide foster parents willing to take care of those refugee kids at least for a while.

And we see how things go fairly well for their operation during next several months. While there is always considerable risk for those refugee children as they will pass through Germany for reaching to England, Winton and his colleagues become more confident after their first trial, and they come to handle far more refugee children than expected before Europe is eventually thrown into the World War II in September 1939.

Still feeling regretful over how their last attempt was tragically failed, old Winton wants the story of those refugee children to get known more in public, but he becomes frustrated as nobody seems to be particularly interested in the story. Some time later, he approaches to one certain public figure who might help him, and, what do you know, he soon finds himself appearing in a well-known BBC TV program.

While the part associated with young Winton’s efforts feels rather generic, the part involved with old Winston is undeniably poignant even though we can clearly see where it is heading. Yes, his and his colleagues’ efforts are surely recognized and appreciated in the end, and he certainly comes to have a big moment to remember. Nonetheless, this modest but powerful moment is presented well enough to move us, and it will surely remind you of the importance of doing the right thing for others in the need of help.

Anthony Hopkins, who has been always a pleasure to watch for more than 50 years since his solid debut performance in “The Lion in Winter” (1968), is inarguably the best thing in the film. As bringing some class and humanity to his several key scenes, Hopkins demonstrates again that he is still one of the best performers of our time, and his understated acting is especially wonderful when he subtly illustrates how much his character is surprised and then touched around the end of the story.

Around Hopkins, several other cast members dutifully fill their respective spots. While it is a bit difficult to connect his performance with Hopkins’ acting, Johnny Flynn acquits himself fairly well as effectively supported by Romola Garai and Alex Sharp, and Lena Olin, Jonathan Pryce, and Helena Bonham Carter fill their supporting roles with enough presence, though Olin does not have much to do as merely being around Hopkins.

In conclusion, “One Life”, which is adapted by Lucinda Coxon and Nick Drake from Barbara Winton’s nonfiction book “Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport”, is an engaging human drama, and director James Hawes did a competent job of handling the story and characters with enough respect and sensitivity. If you have ever watched Oscar-winning documentary film “Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport” (2000), you surely know that Winton’s story is just a small part of the bigger story, but the movie is still worthwhile to watch at least, and you will be certainly pleased to see Hopkins still active as usual.

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Freud’s Last Session (2023) ☆☆1/2(2.5/4): A fictional meeting of two minds

Posted on August 22, 2024 by kaist455

Any good two-hander movie should trust its characters and performers, but “Freud’s Last Session” does not do that much. Here are two fascinating real-life figures who might have an interesting conversation if they had really had a private meeting in real life, but the movie often gets distracted by some other things besides what is going on at the center of its story, and the overall result is rather middling despite the good efforts from its two lead performers.

These real-life figures in question are Dr. Sigmund Freud and C.S. Lewis, and the movie, which is based on the stage play of the same named by co-writer Mark St. Germain, focuses on one fictional meeting between them shortly after the beginning of the World War II in 1939. As an Oxford professor who has a deep faith in God and religion, Lewis (Matthew Goode) surely has a lot of things to discuss with Dr. Freud (Anthony Hopkins), and Dr. Freud is eager to meet Lewis even though he knows well that his atheistic viewpoint will clash with Lewis’ religious faith in one way or another.

Once they meet each other in Dr. Freud’s current residence in London, they naturally begin to pull and push each other in their following intellectual conversations, and they certainly come to talk more about themselves to each other. While Lewis willingly talks about how his father became quite distant to him and his younger brother after their mother’s death, Dr. Freud tells a bit about his difficult relationship with his strict Jewish father, and he also shows his growing concern about the ongoing war in Europe. After all, he recently fled to England from his country along with his dear daughter Anna (Liv Lisa Fries), and his mind often cannot help but swept by the memories of how things were grim for him and his family in Austria due to the political rise of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party.

Of course, their different viewpoints on God and religion lead to some argument between Lewis and Dr. Freud, but the movie somehow fails to generate more interest to hold our attention. Their argument simply shows what has been generally known about each of them to us, and it is also frequently interrupted by several things including an air raid alarm and Freud’s deteriorating medical condition. In addition, there is also a subplot involved with Anna’s complex relationship with her father, who still depends a lot on her but does not approve much of what is going on between Anna and her female romantic/professional partner.

If these and other supposedly minor plot elements just stayed around the fringe of the story instead of interrupting the narrative flow between its two main characters, the movie could be more focused in terms of story and characters. After all, it has two very talented performers at its center, and I wonder whether the movie could be more improved if it simply observed and listened to whatever is being exchanged between them for around 2 hours.

Their efforts are sadly undermined by the rather unfocused screenplay, but Anthony Hopkins and Matthew Goode are mostly solid whenever their characters make some interesting interactions across the screen. Hopkins, who remains active as before even though he will soon have his 87th birthday, has some fun with his role as expected, and that is always evident whenever we see the twinkles in his eyes. Although he is frequently reminded of how he is dying day by day, Dr. Freud still cannot resist having an intellectual argument with somebody as smart as him, and Hopkins did a good job of balancing his role between humor and pathos while thankfully not resorting to a thick German accent (I can easily imagine how Laurence Olivier would ham it up like he did in “The Boys in Brazil” (1978), you know).

On the opposite, Goode is less showy in comparison, but his unflappably earnest acting complements well Hopkins’ showier acting, and he is particularly good when his character, who was incidentally played by Hopkins in “Shadowlands” (1993), reminisces about how traumatizing his World War I experience was. Even though the movie throws another redundant flashback scene at that point, Goode manages to convey to us how his character was changed a lot by his war experience, and we come to understand a bit of his strong faith in God and religion.

Around Goode and Hopkins, there are several other performers who manage to leave some impression despite their thankless supporting roles. Liv Lisa Fries is well-cast as Freud’s long-suffering daughter, who surely deserves her own story to tell in my humble opinion. Jodi Balfour clicks well with Fries as Anna’s romantic/professional partner, and Jeremy Northam is rather under-utilized as a caring friend of Dr. Freud.

On the whole, “Freud’s Last Session”, directed by Matthew Brown, has some interesting moments to observe thanks to Hopkins and Goode, but it eventually fizzles without much satisfaction, and you probably should check out some other movies associated with Lewis or Dr. Freud instead. “Freud” (1962) and “Shadowlands” already came to my mind, and I especially recommend the latter, where Lewis comes to question a lot on his faith in God and religion as going through the joy and pain of his unexpected middle-age romance. After being dissatisfied with “Freud’s Last Session”, I felt an urge to revisit “Shadowlands”, and I will surely do that sooner or later.

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In a Violent Nature (2024) ☆☆☆(3/4): From a killer’s viewpoint

Posted on August 19, 2024 by kaist455

When I started to become fascinated with movies during the early 1990s, “Friday the 13th” (1980) and its countless sequels naturally drew my attention whenever I spent some time in local video rental shops. Because of my young age, I could not possibly rent their VHS copies for myself, but I eventually got a chance to watch “Friday the 13th Part 2” (1981) on TV, and, boy, how much I was disappointed! First of all, it did not scare me at all, and, above all, I could not understand why some big dude wearing a bag tried to kill all those young (and boring) people who simply seemed to have a good time at that lakeside camp.

And that is the main reason why I had some naughty fun with “In a Violent Nature”, a little independent horror film which turns its very familiar story premise upside down in an amusing way. While it is surely drenched in lots of blood and violence as expected, the movie handles the story and characters with enough wit and competence to be appreciated, and that certainly distinguishes itself a bit from the main source of inspiration.

In the beginning, we are introduced to the killer character of the movie, who is simply named Johnny (Ry Barrett) and will surely look quite familiar to any connoisseur of the American slasher horror films of the 1980s. He is a hulking dude who does not speak at all as lurching here and there in his remote forest territory, and we later get some obligatory background information on how he was turned into a boogieman figure of that area many years ago.

Anyway, he has been somehow dormant during last several years, but then he is awakened as a group of college students inadvertently disrupts his hibernation, and he is certainly ready to kill anyone who dares to mess with him or his old territory. After eliminating one very rude local guy early in the story, he subsequently approaches to those college kids who are going to spend a night at a little lakeside cabin, and the mood naturally becomes a little tense as he is watching them from the distance without being notice at all.

It goes without saying that most of these college kids will get killed in one way or another just like many characters in the Friday the 13th flicks. Whenever one of these college kids happens to be alone by himself or herself, our killer character automatically comes for another killing, but the movie skillfully provides some good moments of nasty and fun surprise, and my favorite moment in the film is when a young lady is forced to do a very fatal physical stretching thanks to our killer character.

Things becomes a bit more interesting as the few surviving main characters try to get away from our killer character as soon as possible. When they come across some local ranger guy later in the story, this ranger dude turns out to have an old score to settle between him and our killer character, and he is certainly very careful because one cannot possibly be too cautious about Johnny, who, not so surprisingly, cannot be easily stopped or killed at all. 

Meanwhile, the movie closely sticks to its killer character as he slowly goes for one target after another, and it shows some wry sense of humor in addition to bringing considerable realistic touches to the screen. As shot in the screen ratio of 1.33:1 by cinematographer Pierce Derks, the movie often limits itself within its killer character’s perspective, so we usually observe him from the behind, but the movie does not disappoint us at all when it finally shows how its killer character’s expectedly hideous face, though he eventually covers his face with something equivalent to that hokey mask in “Friday the 13th: Part III” (1982) and its following sequels. 

In the end, the “Final Girl” character emerges as required during the last act, and the screenplay by director/writer Chris Nash, who makes a feature film debut hear after making several short films, puts a little nice twist on this genre convention. No, we do not get something like that infamous final scene in “Friday the 13th”, but we are served with something much more intriguing instead, and you may actually come to wish for a possible sequel to come in the future.   

The main cast members of the film fill their archetype roles as much as demanded. Although his job is as thankless as whatever those big stuntmen did in the Friday the 13th flicks, Ry Barrett manages to bring some deadpan humor to his gruesome character, and his character will probably draw a fair number of fans like Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers. In case of several other main cast members, Reece Presley provides some gravitas to the story while Andrea Pavlovic is also effective as the “Final Girl” character, and the fans of the Friday the 13th series may appreciate a brief but crucial cameo appearance by a performer from “Friday the 13th Part II”.   

On the whole, “In a Violent Nature” simply has a fun within its familiar genre playground, but it is a lot more engaging and skillful than those Friday the 13th flicks and their countless imitators. Needless to say, this is mainly for genre aficionados, but you can enjoy it enough if you have ever watched any of those American slasher horror films of the 1980s, and you may find yourself gladly going along with all those gory and violent moments in the film.

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The Devil’s Bath (2024) ☆☆☆(3/4): A woman’s nihilistic descent into madness

Posted on August 19, 2024 by kaist455

“The Devil’s Bath”, which was recently selected as the Austrian submission for Best International Film Oscar in the next year, made me seriously conflicted about whether I can recommend it to others. Here is a well-made psychological horror period drama film which will definitely leave you a very unpleasant but undeniably strong impression for good reasons, and I suggest you that you should brace for yourself before trying this relentlessly grim and chilling film.

The movie, which is set in some rural town of Austria in the 18th century, establishes its chilly mood and austere attitude right from the shocking opening scene, where some woman kills a little baby just because she wants to die. Yes, she could kill herself instead, but suicide is not an acceptable option for her from the beginning due to a religious reason, and she willingly submits herself to the local authorities without any hesitation.

And then we are introduced to another woman living in that area. Her name is Agnes (Anja Palschg), and she is about to marry a guy named Wolf (David Scheid), but things turn out to be far less hopeful than she expected. While her husband is a fairly nice guy, he does not seem to be particularly attracted to her as shown from their utterly joyless wedding night. Furthermore, her mother-in-law frequently hovers around them as Wolf and Agens’ residence happens to be not so far from his family home, and Agnes’ mother-in-law usually points out how unprepared Agnes is as a wife in many aspects.

While Agnes struggles to get accustomed to her new environment, the movie gradually conveys to us her apparently fragile state of mind. She often feels lonely and isolated without anyone she can casually talk with, and that makes her more anxious and depressed day by day. At one point, she actually looks like considering befriending a certain pregnant woman in the town, but her mother-in-law does not approve of that at all because that pregnant woman seems to have some bad reputation. In addition, the movie implies a hidden reason behind Wolf’s apparent disinterest in his wife, and that leads to a devastating personal moment later in the story.

As she is frequently demanded to work more and also have a child someday as usual, Agnes slowly descends into more mental deterioration. While the movie does not spell out each step of this disturbing happening of hers, directors/writer Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala, who previously drew our attention for their very disturbing debut film “Goodnight Mommy” (2014), fills the screen with the gloomy aura of inevitable doom, and they firmly stick to their coldly detached storytelling approach. Even when their heroine is driven further into her ongoing downward spiral, the movie remains cold and distant as before, and that makes us all the unnerved than before.

In the end, as already announced to us during the early part of the film, Agnes eventually begins to pass the point of no return, and that is where I came to have more reservation on how the movie is about. Based on the historical research and records on the two shocking real-life incidents in Austria during the 18th century, the movie surely wants to make a strong feministic point about how numerous women got their spirit crushed by those toxic influences of patriarchy during that point, but I must confess that I winced more than once as observing its cold-blooded objective presentation of the stark horror of its real-life stories. This is quite unpleasant to say the least, and this disagreeable impression is further accentuated by the truly nihilistic finale which comes right after when Agnes finally gets what she has desperately wanted.

Nevertheless, I also found myself admiring how the technical details serve the directors’ uncompromising vision and storytelling. The cinematography by Martin Gschlacht, who deservedly received the Silver Bear award for his considerable technical contribution when the movie was premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival early in this year, is vivid and realistic in every individual shot, and you will come to sense more of what has been tormenting Agnes’ mind, even while observing her descent into madness from the distance. The editing by Michael Palm is concise and efficient as steadily building up the narrative momentum of the film, and the sparse but effective score of the film provides extra moodiness to the screen.

As the center of the film, Anja Plaschg, who also composed the score, dutifully carries the film with her good low-key performance. While we never get to know much about her character, Plaschg is still believable in the accumulating madness inside her character, and she is also supported well by several supporting performers including Maria Hofstätter and David Scheid.

On the whole, “The Devil’s Bath” is certainly not something you can casually watch on Sunday afternoon, but I eventually decided to recommend this gut-wrenching piece of work for its mood, storytelling, and performance despite some reservation. As my late friend/mentor Roger Ebert once wrote in his famous rebuttal letter to the filmmakers of “Chaos” (2005), we should merely not depict evil, but we should express an attitude toward evil, and, for now, I guess “The Devil’s Bath” did that job fairly well even though it made me very, very, very uncomfortable from the beginning to the end.

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Daughters (2024) ☆☆☆1/2(3.5/4): Imprisoned fathers reconnecting with their daughters

Posted on August 17, 2024 by kaist455

Netflix documentary film “Daughters”, which was released a few days ago, presents an aching human story of a bunch of prisoners trying to reconnect with their young daughters. As frequently alternating between these two different groups, the documentary lets us sense and understand their pain and sorrow, and that is why it is quite touching to see how these fathers and daughters eventually come to have a little special moment to remember together.

At first, we get to know a bit about an extraordinary fatherhood program in a number of prisons in US. The participants of this 10-week program are male prisoners willing to try to reconnect with their young daughters, and the early part of the documentary shows us how this special program is done at a big prison near Washington D.C. Under the guidance of their kind and thoughtful coach, the participating inmates, most of whom are incidentally African Americans, are going to prepare for their upcoming meeting with their daughters, and they all recognize how challenging this task can be. After all, they still struggle with being fathers, while also feeling guilty about how they have often been absent throughout their daughters’ life.

Among these inmates, we get to know several particular individuals. In case of a guy named Keith, he wants to reunite with his wife and their 5-year-old daughter as soon as possible, but he will have to be imprisoned for 7 years at least, and he is certainly worried about how that will put more distance between him and his daughter. Although she is still very young while innocently hoping for her dear daddy’s return, his daughter will surely be more aware of his absence in her life, and that will certainly hurt her feeling a lot.

From a 10-year-old girl named Santana, we see how Keith’s daughter may feel when she grows up to be around Santana’s age. While her mother is often occupied with raising her two younger siblings, Santana always has to be the de facto head of her family to take care of one thing after another, and you can instantly sense how much she has been resentful about her father’s absence. Although she agreed to participate in the program nonetheless, she does not seem that willing to meet her father again right now, and it is really heartbreaking to see how weary and disaffected this young girl looks as going through another hard day of her life.

In case of an adolescent girl named Ja’Ana, she looks mostly fine under her dear mother’s care, but she still needs to be connected more with her father, who will definitely be incarcerated for many years without much possibility for parole. As pointed out at one point in the documentary, father and daughter relationship is as important as mother and daughter relationship, and, as letting out more of their personal thoughts and feelings, the participating inmates of the program come to discern more of how important the upcoming event with their daughters will be for their daughters as well as themselves.

Meanwhile, the documentary sometimes reminds us more of how things have been harsh and difficult for the inmates of the prisons in US and their dear family members. As a matter of fact, many of American prisons do not allow any direct personal meetings between inmates and their families at present, and the documentary lets us sense and understand more of how frustrating and suffocating this really is for both sides.

As the participating inmates of the program show more progress week by week, the daughters also go through the preparation stage along with their mothers, who are incidentally going to step aside during the upcoming event. When that day finally comes, the daughters are all excited or anxious, and we soon see them entering the prison one by one as going through some security procedure as required.

Of course, their eventual meeting with their fathers feels pretty awkward to say the least, even though the fathers wear suits instead of their usual orange attire now. Nonetheless, it does not take much time for the fathers and daughters to reconnect with each other, and that is followed by a modest but undeniably touching scene where they dance a bit together as music is being played in the background. Directors Natalie Rae and Angela Patton wisely step back for letting this sweet human moment to speak for itself, and we come to reflect more on the importance of genuine human connection in our life.

However, the documentary does not overlook how things will be hard and difficult as before for everyone once this meeting is over. The fathers cannot help but emotional as they are about to be separated from their daughters again, and the same thing can be said about their daughters. At least, it is undeniable that the program brings considerable positive effects on the inmates, and we are not so surprised to learn later that the recidivism rate of the participants of the program is less than 5 %.

On the whole, “Daughters”, which deservedly won the US Documentary Audience Award when it was premiered at the Sundance Film Festival early in this year, did a splendid job of presenting its various human subjects with respect and sensitivity. It is certainly one of the better documentaries of this year, and I assure you that its many moving moments will linger on your mind for a long time after it is over.

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Skywalkers: A Love Story (2024) ☆☆1/2(2.5/4): A couple of thrill-seekers

Posted on August 17, 2024 by kaist455

Good documentaries engage us and then let us get to know more their subjects, but Netflix documentary film “Skywalkers: A Love Story”, which was released in last month, feels rather and hollow in my trivial opinion. Sure, there are a series of remarkable moments which will make you feel dizzy and tense at times during your viewing, if you are afraid of high places as much as I am. However, the documentary does not delve much into what makes its two human subjects tick – or how they have bonded with each other.

They are young Russian rooftoppers Ivan Beerkus and Angela Nikolau, who frequently draw lots of attention on the Internet whenever they try and then succeed in their highly risky (and usually unauthorized) public stunts during last several years. Without any particular safety measure, this couple climbed onto the top of many different tall buildings around the world, and the documentary opens with how they are planning to embark on one of their most ambitious projects at a certain well-known skyscraper in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

What Beerkus and Nikolau are going to do is not just climbing on the top of that skyscraper. Once they reach to their destination, they are going to photograph themselves doing some risky things before eventually going down to the ground later, and it goes without saying that their photographs will surely go viral on the Internet if they succeed.

Of course, they cannot possibly be permitted to climb up there, and we get to know more about the considerable legal risks they are going to take. For not getting caught and then arrested for imprisonment, they must carefully plan how they should infiltrate into that skyscraper, and they must also be prepared for any unexpected setback on their way to the top. For avoiding getting noticed by anyone in the building, they decided to try on the night of a big World Cup match, but there is still always the risk, and we later see them having to wait for several hours within a very small spot where they have to evade being noticed by anyone.

The early part of the documentary focuses a bit on these two young persons’ respective backgrounds. In case of Nikolau, she was the daughter of two circus performers, and she was quite interested in doing risky stuffs even when she was very young. When she heard about Beerkus and his fellow Russian rooftoppers, she quickly became determined to go all the way for rooftopping, and it did not take much time for Beerkus to notice how competent and competitive she was. In the end, he invited her to join his latest project, and Nikolau grabbed the offer even though she did not know that much about him.

What follows next is how Nikolau and Beerkus fell in love with each other as they pushed each other more and more via their shared passion and understanding. Both of them became more popular on the Internet thanks to their following joint projects, and we see them appearing on not only Russian TV programs but also American ones.

However, their fun time did not last that long around the early 2020s, which will be forever remembered for the COVID-19 Pandemic. Due to the pandemic, Beerkus and Nikolau could not easily travel around the world anymore, and, naturally, they came to suffer a considerable financial problem as they came to lose their sponsors. At one point, Beerkus’ concerned parents suggest that he should really get a real job which actually pays, but that is still the last thing he wants.

Of course, there is also the Russian Invasion of Ukraine in early 2022. While showing a bit of how their country is thrown into considerable turmoil as a consequence, both Nikolau and Beerkus curiously keep themselves from expressing any direct opinion on that. Considering that he is partially Ukrainian, Beerkus may actually have something he wants to say, but the documentary does not delve much into that possibly sensitive issue, and neither does he or Nikolau.

In the end, the documentary comes to focus again on their aforementioned project in Kuala Lumpur, but it simply sticks to their narrow viewpoint without providing any particular counterpoint opinions on their apparently reckless stunt. Sure, they are really serious and passionate about their project, but they do not seem aware that much of the dire possible consequences of their many risky activities, and the documentary simply recognizes that grim aspect a bit without really facing it.

Furthermore, Nikolau and Beerkus are sometimes a little too self-aware of how they are presented in front of the cameras. We later observe a bit of their personal conflict caused by her accidental physical injury which occurred in the middle of their preparation stage, but this conflict is soon resolved rather easily as they keep blatantly emphasizing on how inseparable they are from each other. While I guess their relationship is really based on a lot of love and comradeship, they are sadly not very interesting figures to observe from the beginning, and I cannot help but observe instead how narcissistic and superficial they are just like millions of digital influencers and creators out there.

In conclusion, “Skywalkers: A Love Story”, directed by Jeff Zimbalist and Maria Bukhonina, is not satisfying enough for recommendation, but whatever they vividly captured via their cameras is still a good selling point. Sure, these striking moments will remain in my mind for a long time, but the human figures behind them are not compelling enough to hold my attention, and that is a shame.

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Twisters (2024) ☆☆☆(3/4): There will come more tornadoes, you know

Posted on August 14, 2024 by kaist455

Lee Isaac Chung’s new film “Twisters” serves us as much as expected, and it did a fairly good job on the whole. While not going that far from the story formula established in its predecessor “Twister” (1996), the movie provides a number of big and stormy moments as demanded, and these moments are certainly worthwhile to watch in a big screening room equipped with an excellent sound system.

While it is connected with its predecessor to some degree, the movie works as a standalone piece featuring the completely different story and characters, though it is still all about chasing after tornadoes and then beholding their awesomely catastrophic power. This time, we meet a young female meteorologist named Kate Carter (Daisy Edgar-Jones), and the opening sequence shows her and her several colleagues attempting their little scientific experiment on a tornado in the middle of Oklahoma, which turns out to be much more dangerous than expected. As a result, three of her colleagues get killed in the end, and she is certainly devastated by the consequence of her serious error.

Five years later, Kate is now working at the New York City branch of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), but then she is approached by her surviving colleague Javi (Anthony Ramos), who has been participating in another tornado research project in Oklahoma. He suggests that she should join his ongoing project at least for a week, and Kate agrees to return to Oklahoma that even though she has not fully recovered from the trauma of that horrible tornado incident.

On the first day, Kate and Javi and their research team come across a bunch of other storm chasers, and one particular group comes to draw their attention. This group, which has been considerably famous due to its constant online promotion, is led by a guy named Tyler (Glen Powell), and Kate and Javi are not so pleased to see how this rather cocky dude and his team often compete with their team for chasing after the latest tornado to come.

However, Kate comes to change her opinion about Tyler and his colleagues as getting to know them more during next several days. They may look a bit too showy and ridiculous on the surface, but most of them are also well-experienced professionals, and Tyler turns out to be more intelligent and thoughtful than expected, though he was totally wrong about Kate’s background from the beginning.

In the meantime, Kate also comes to discern that Javi is not totally honest about how his research team has been funded. His main financial backer turns out to be a wealthy real estate businessman who will probably benefit a lot from Javi’s research, and Kate becomes more distant from Javi and his team after getting to learn more about their main financial backer.

While the screenplay by Mark L. Smith, which is developed from the story by Joseph Kosinski, stumbles and lags a bit during its middle act, the movie keeps rolling as handing out one big stormy sequence another. I was a bit disappointed to see that it does not have something as outrageous as the sudden appearance of that unfortunate cow in “Twister”, but its tornado sequences are grand and terrifying enough to hold my attention for a while, and I was not disappointed at all in case of the expected climatic part where Kate must confront a very huge tornado for her scientific success (Is this a spoiler?).

The three main cast members naturally look inconsequential in front of all these gigantic (and expensive) CGI spectacles in the film, but they manage to hold each own place well without being overshadowed by a lot of special effects on the screen. Daisy Edgar-Jones, who was memorable as the ill-fated heroine of “Fresh” (2022), fills her character with enough spirit and presence, and we accordingly root more for her character along the story. On the opposite, Glen Powell, who has been one of the most promising new actors to watch since his fun supporting turn in “Top Gun: Maverick” (2022), functions well as an effective counterpart to his co-star, and Anthony Ramos, who has steadily advanced after his electrifying lead performance in “In the Heights” (2021), acquits himself well despite his rather thankless supporting part.

Around these three main cast members, the movie assembles a bunch of interesting performers to notice. While Brandon Perea and Sasha Lane are the showiest ones in the bunch, Maura Tierney briefly appears as Kate’s concerned mother later in the story, and I was especially delighted to see Tunde Adebimpe again, whom I still fondly remember for his gentle supporting performance in “Rachel Getting Married” (2008).

In conclusion, “Twisters” is a competent blockbuster product packed with enough spectacles for your ticket price, and Chung, who previously received a Best Director Oscar nomination for his modest but undeniably powerful Korean American immigrant drama “Minari” (2020), demonstrates here that he can also handle well a big-budget film like this. Although it is not better than “Minari”, this movie will probably lead him to better things to come, and I will surely look forward to watching whatever he will make next.

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