Whiplash

It never occurred to me that I would see such a great and well-made drama. This movie is also about music, but the focus lies on the story and the relationship between the two main protagonists. The young and talented Andrew, played in an exquisite way by Miles Teller, gets regular dressing down from the brutal conductor Terence Fletcher, who might be a bastard with the best catchphrases in this millennium. The comparison of J. K. Simmons’ role to those of other movie psychos, for example from Full Metal Jacket or Apocalypse Now, is really apt. You won’t believe until you watch this. And the hardest to believe will be the ending itself, which for me immediately became one of the most important and fundamental dramatic film endings I have ever seen. I stared at the screen and sweated for the actors. This was one of the most challenging films I've seen in a very long time... but it was worth it! (31/01/2015)

Is there a line? The Black Swan of 2014. In a younger guise, with liters of sweat, blood, and tears. And with a visual side that, with its precision, cuts, and interconnection with the unrelenting rhythm, does not allow you to exhale. Every attempt at harmony, every moment when you push Andrew to finally rattle the drumsticks in a satisfying way, which will keep the demon Fletcher under control for at least a few more minutes – they always result in the same thing: accelerated breathing, tensed muscles, heightened senses. Whiplash grabs hold, crushes, and does not let go. And it chewed me up to the highest rating, because even just a few years after it was shocking, it had aged in a remarkable way. However slightly it pinched me towards the end of its time and I wanted just one more hint, today I wouldn't change anything in the movie at all. It runs at full speed the whole time and in the era of increasingly predictable academic elections or nominations, it remains possibly the last surprising choice that pleasantly caught the critical and audience public off guard. And now I'm going to catch my breath. With every longer viewing, the finale physically exhausts me more and more, although I'm afraid to even move one bit. (10/01/2015)

The film may push the despot-pupil relationship a little too much, but there’s no better demonstration in recent years that talent alone is not enough; that talent, not nourished by daily grind, immeasurable diligence, focus and a desire for maximalism, regardless of the obstacles, is actually useless. Because as J.K. Simmons says “There are no two words in the English language more harmful than ‘good job’.” Fuck "good job", geniuses must want more. The last time I experienced similar feelings was with the 1961 film The Hustler, with Paul Newman, which says the same thing about talent, though in a completely different industry. The message of this film is more or less clear and it doesn't matter if it is about drummers, violinists, billiard players or tennis players, its insight about Talent is universal. (04/02/2015)

It's like a Frost / Nixon Duel, where Nixon and Nixon face each other. Not only a captivating exercise in rhythmic editing, but surprisingly unpredictable at the right moments - none of the characters (teacher or student) represents a positive or negative model here. Instead of enlightenment, creative madness takes place. Chazelle pitted two obsessed and unscrupulous bastards against each other, treating their human aspects the same way they treat each other. He bluntly throws them away as a burden and returns to them only marginally. Whiplash could have been crap in many ways - a melodrama about a boy who appreciates the power of love, a celebration of a genius who rises in a difficult struggle with his unrivaled role model, but in reality it is more of a captivating solo about the obsession and destructiveness of those who desire perfection at any cost. I appreciate that Chazelle avoids annoying genre schemes at key moments simply because he ignores any other themes and dares to uncompromisingly release scenes that we would watch for much longer in other films, and which would "characterize" the characters more and allow us to identify with them (e.g., the preparation for the final concert). Like Andrew and Terence, Whiplash pursues what it wants hard - euphoria mixed with light resistance and never-fulfilled peace between the central duo. In Star Wars terminology: the dark side has once again won. The triumph of sociopaths. That's the way it's supposed to be. Certainly not the most layered film, but definitely something like Black Swan made without a snobbish effort to be demonic. It's there from the first bar. In every tone and in every shot of photogenically dark New York. [85%] P. S. I am categorically asking for an Oscar for jazz Darth Vader. (23/01/2015)

Packed with energy (a real risk of leg cramps caused by nonstop stamping to the rhythm). Drummer Full Metal Jacket following the rhythm of the first Rocky movie which, however, often (and above all unnecessarily) scores its own goal by too obvious intensified emotional calculation in the behavior of (intentionally) not nice characters/plot twists. And so the same question can be applied to Whiplash, which the creators themselves indirectly ask the viewer during the footage: Was/is it worth it? (09/01/2015)