Captain Fantastic

An independent American road movie that goes against the global system every one of us lives in and more or less functions. It actually tells a story of a family that calls itself Trockians and that bought a piece of land in some Canadian forest. There they built two wooden buildings and live there happily, educate themselves and all in all, are very proactive. Well, and after the movie started with a pretty brutal scene (a hunt), it slowed down quite pleasantly afterward. But throughout, the movie confronts the world of the family (a dad and 6 children) in the middle of the mountains, forests, and rivers with our world and how much we are distancing ourselves from nature. Even though we arose from it. So I understood fully the director’s intentions who, for example, illustrates how today’s kids have fun and learn with the example of 2 consumerist children. Computer games, violence, and phones. All the while they know nothing about the world. This doesn’t mean I am agreeing with Viggo Mortensen, who gave an otherworldly performance but also tried a different, completely opposite extreme. There is everything in the movie. Great camera work, locations, music, all acting performances… I actually don’t know why I did not give it a full score. Maybe because their life in the wilderness was too idealized. It actually looked better than any Czech cottage. Finally, I want to thank the creators of Scope100 and Aerofilms that I had the chance to see this movie in the Bio Oko cinema. Thanks. (07/06/2016)

An indie film in a highly addictive presentation. It has beautiful performances (perhaps Aragorn deserves a major award), with a catchy narration and topped off with a big idea that the filmmakers manage to sell almost perfectly. I'm not saying that I wouldn't also occasionally love go somewhere in the middle of uninhabited forests, away from religious fanaticism, gluttony, social chaos and greed, and then read how to behave on a first amorous encounter (and the resulting knowledge would undoubtedly be as useless to me as my current ignorance), and I would play the uplifting country version of “Sweet Child O'Mine”... Not as free-thinking as its heroes, but certainly a playful and inspiring work that deserves universal attention and respect. 85% (26/12/2016)

Back in my day, The Addams Family used to be a comedy. Cynicism aside, though, because this is such a perverse midcult that a few of its pernicious aspects need to be listed. Primary among them is the appalling hypocrisy, in the name of which the film masquerades as an anti-mainstream alternative, but uses virtually every means to appeal to the widest audience, including the last dumbass in the back of the theater, for whom most Sundance films are otherwise a junkie bore about nothing. Indeed, the film carefully monitors the length of each scene lest it accidentally become boring, repeatedly demonstrates the glorified otherness of the Cash family through food, permanently rips the over-smart kids to shreds as evidence of superiority, and, most importantly, doesn't allow the protagonist to see his missteps from anyone but himself. This questionable aspect, however, is never capitalized upon critically, but only melodramatically. To see him as a dangerous, idealistic fool who, despite everything, deserves our appreciation through his diligence and conviction, is impossible; it thus arouses a provocative ambivalence, because for over half of the running time he fulfills the role of messiah, and the film gives him credit for being right by putting only obstacles in his way that he can use to demonstrate his truth. So much that, as a result of the isolation, the traumatic experience of his eighteen-year-old son's first love is rendered as a humorous cutesy scene, one of the many colors of their unbridled ride through America. The seemingly interesting concept of a post-hippie commune in response to consumer society is thus watered down into a mishmash of topics to be discussed by moms over a shelf of fair trade food with a baby strapped to their chest and three credit cards in an embroidered bag with Peruvian motifs. (01/11/2016)

Agitprop? Nope. Perhaps at first glance, it’s a clueless-looking road movie in the end, but without unnecessary pathos it both praises and denounces the strength of family togetherness, which can reconcile the pitfalls of socialism and the exploitation of capitalism. This will still mature intellectually. 4 ½. (10/10/2016)

A unique example of a film that impresses me and pisses me off in a single minute, but it's hard to resist the fact that acting and directing sometimes dragged me to the side of this Platonic idealism mixed with peppery ideological goulash. Manipulative yes, clueless at the end, but at the level of the intimate story of a tyrannical father and emancipating children, but the film is not far from the much purer and simpler magic of Fierce Creatures. Mortensen? This guy is not in the top league. He established his own a long time ago. He carries the film to a large extent despite all the considerable problems. An inspiring mix of resistance and sympathy. [75%] (23/07/2016)