POMO

The Conference is a quite entertaining Swedish comedy with characters who are not particularly likable, but they work sufficiently well in the plot. And with killings that – due to the fact that the film doesn’t have even a hint of a horror atmosphere – are exceedingly brutal. I praise the approach by which the film doesn’t show the initial massacres of supporting characters and dynamically edits them into the cheerful moments of the main characters, whose elimination is then shown in more detail, which creates at least some sort of “slasher escalation” concept. And the very last killing is literally a treat, for which I’m giving The Conference a solid third star.

The first segment in the apartment / on the street / in the store is congenially filmed paranoia. With goosebumps and my mouth hanging open, I witnessed the beginning of the film of the year, a film that I had been waiting decades for, a film that would put me in a cinephilic trance with every shot, every cut, every expression and every move that Joaquin Phoenix made. The second, laid-back and more comical segment still held the bar high and aroused my curiosity as to what would happen next. But with the segment in the forest, the film began to lose everything from the plot that had won me over and became an incoherent muddle of motifs and metaphors that don’t make sense in the psychological study of the main character. And if they’re supposed to makes sense, the viewer has long since lost interest in figuring them out.

…and Edward Scissorhands found the love of his life in Bella… The intellectual Yorgos Lanthimos in the fantastical world of Tim Burton with a considerable portion of sex, the socially hot topic of emancipation and framing in an artistic form for the highest film awards. Distinctive humor spiked with a bizarre parable about growing up and awareness of the feminine self. A delightful black-and-white paraphrase of Frankenstein with a brilliant depiction of the instinctive behavior of a curious childlike mind in an adult body with its physical needs. The aptly depicted process of the downfall of male rationality and ego after falling in love with a sexually animalistic and mentally unstable woman. Poor Things has the sole of a European arthouse delicacy that all Hollywood actors long four. I may or may not give it a fifth star in due time. A lot of scenes struck me as overly strained and not as funny as most of the guffawing audience found them to be. [Sitges Film Festival]

An interesting subject with unconventional depiction of the characters (particularly the ambiguous protagonist Akira) and unexpected connections with their past. A crime thriller with Miike’s edgy, entertaining creative signature and the continuous uncovering of new facts that give meaning to previous strange events. Unfortunately, however, without sufficient emotional engagement that would have made the film a more powerful experience. [Sitges Film Festival]

An excellent metaphor for the successful restart of a languishing relationship! We simply have to kill something inside of us and carry on with new versions of ourselves. Karoline Lyngbye's technical handling of the film could be made into a phenomenal invention. When, before the screening, the director acknowledged her admiration for the films of David Lynch and Villeneuve‘s Enemy (his best film, in my opinion), dealing with a split personality, no one in the room could have anticipated just how close she would take us to their level. Her Superposition is a psychologically refined schizophrenic work in which everyone who has live through the disintegration of a relationship will see themselves. [Sitges Film Festival]

A vampire Addams Family? An endearing comedy about a kind young vampiress who doesn’t want to kill anyone and an emo boy who doesn’t want to live. And they fall in love with each other. A slow film with the dark colors of night, but also with gentle perception of the central characters’ feelings and refreshing humorous interludes. Humanist Vampire is by no means groundbreaking, but it is an enjoyable film that is definitely more meaningful than the pseudo-artsy A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night about a similar young vampiress.  [Sitges Film Festival]

Red Rooms explores the bleak world of snuff-video distribution on the dark web and the trial of the murderer of three girls who filmed his macabre “work”. However, it doesn’t properly develop either of these storylines and spends most of the time on the short-term friendship between two strange girls who attend the trial as spectators because they are fascinated with the killer. I don’t understand the enthusiastic response that the film received. It’s true that it is shot with precision and is well acted, but in terms of content, it absolutely squanders the potential of its powerful subject matter. [Sitges Film Festival]

A likable children’s adventure in 1980s garb, with fairy-tale music and shot in magical 16 mm. A hunt for eggs for mom’s cake, paintball gear, a conflict with a wanted gang led by a malicious sectarian, the beautiful scenery of the western American mountains. The acting is slightly dull (particularly the cowboy from the gang) as if it was part of the director’s game with the children’s naïve perception of reality. Weston Razooli loves movies, understands children and is fond of recalling his own childhood. Riddle of Fire is his love letter to all of that, with absolutely GREAT use of music from Cannibal Holocaust in the epilogue, thanks to which I was brought to tears. [Sitges Film Festival]

Godless is a sad drama pretending to be inspired by an actual event. For the people around her, the object of the titular exorcism – a fragile girl traumatized by a major tragedy in her life – is a harmless, suffering victim of fate, while her exorcist is a fanatical maniac and violent swine. The brief horror interludes in the form of demonic apparitions are intended to scare with their powerful volume, but they don’t work at all. The filmmakers try to pass Godless off as a horror movie, which is fraud, and they have no idea how to build an effective drama. [Sitges Film Festival]

A thriller about a family tragedy and revenge in which the emotions don’t work and which, with the later revelation of unexpected facts, turns out to be a religious sermon about atonement for making bad decisions: Failure to be guided by one’s conscience is a greater sin than not having a conscience at all. With the combination of its setting, theme and religious dimension, the film is very much tied to Spanish culture, which may be the reason that it left me cold as a northern European atheist. On the other hand, I can imagine that in the hands other conscience filmmakers, it could have been a culturally universal and effective drama with an interesting concept. It’s only a matter of the creative approach and the ability to tell a story for everyone (in the manner of American cinema). Two and a half stars [Sitges Film Festival]