POMO

Set in a green rainforest (and on a beach), Annihilation is a more intellectual version of The Thing. It has a rather mainstream theme with a slightly B-movie nature but interesting ideas, escalated into a hitherto unseen close encounter of the third kind, fascinating by its far-reaching imagination and a provocative need to find as many answers as possible in it. The final scene is a return to genre rules, but it turns out well. Garland is not a hitmaker, but rather a hard-core sci-fi filmmaker. While Arrival was about the relativity of the perception of time, Annihilation is about the relativity of biological lifeforms. Totally different, but in both cases brilliant, innovative sci-fi works, ambitious in their content.

A bunch of well-known actors in a surprisingly predictable story that - while you watch it in the hope that it eventually happens - does not deliver any surprises. The emotions of the desire for revenge work in the viewer, however, so it’s definitely not boring. I would just expect a broader story/range of thought from the whole thing. And somehow I can’t see Harrelson as the ultimate bad guy, even though he’s trying hard to act like one. For me, he will always be a stoned, chilled-out bohemian.

The final shot of Ama Dablam, the most beautiful mountain in the Himalayas, which is used several times in the movie, confirms that the filmmakers wanted above all to pay homage to mountains, the majestic works of our planet’s greatest artist – Mother Nature. It is therefore a pity that they borrow well-known footage from hit sports movies (The Art of Flight) and other documentary series and attempt to make the movie a retrospective “best of” (including pointing out every possible use of the mountains by civilization) rather than contenting themselves with piano music and the thoughts spoken by Dafoe. While some of those could have been written by any of us viewers, others lift the film to the philosophical heights that are its ambitious aim.

National Parks Adventure offers a quick look into several American national parks, with demonstrations of sports for which they are suitable (dry tooling, cycling, ice climbing), as well as a nicely conceived reminder that the term “national park” was coined by nature lover John Muir and introduced as a legal concept by his friend and kindred spirit, US President Theodore Roosevelt. The film is visually beautiful – the larger the screen, the better the experience.

A Fantastic Woman is a fragile, you could almost say introverted, film about saying goodbye to a loved one. In this case, the story is made even more painfully powerful by the impossibility of a dignified parting and the realization that finding a person that one could similarly love would be almost impossible. As is customary with South American art films, there is no milking of the viewer’s emotions; everything is intellectually subtle. For example, the use of the symphonic music score is sparing, minimalist, without clear melodic motifs.

Redirected is saved by its second half; moving the story to the countryside and introducing the local characters makes it quite funny. But the constant, totally illogical discovery and meeting of characters anytime and anywhere, which doesn’t even pretend to be a bunch of absurd coincidences, drags the movie down to the level of a cheap farce. The good thing, on the other hand, is that the Lithuanians, acknowledging their admiration for Guy Ritchie, made a frantically paced genre movie with a British action star and partly set in London. And that they weren’t afraid to show their country as an “Eastern European backwater” full of thieves, perverts and the most severe forms of redneckery.

The Sinful Dwarf is a cute, perverted guilty pleasure. The only fault to find here is the overacting and inane dialogue. Otherwise, it is a proud euro trash masterpiece of a B-movie. Don’t expect much blood or gore; there are no murders. The Sinful Dwarf (the character, not the film) is not evil. He’s just perverted. All he wants is nudity, sex and depravity. The uncut version contains a few minutes of pure porn shots with a very different coloring, which sticks out like a sore thumb but, on the other hand, lends the movie the unique charm of unscrupulous exploitation smut, made more interesting by the poetics of childish innocence in the form of mechanical toys. Irresistible.

Though Toman is a high-quality work in terms of production (cast, staging, period atmosphere), it is interesting only for quite a restricted audience, among which I do not belong. The main character’s personal life outlines the narrative, but 90% of it is devoted to chattering and plotting among politicians. I did not enjoy it despite the historical significance of the events depicted, the decent character portrayals and the interesting, dazzling mosaic of diverse political beliefs, motivations and moral values.

Outlaw King offers nice set decorations and a praiseworthy introduction to a historical personality who was remarkable for his achievements (though overshadowed by his political predecessor, William Wallace), yet remains less well-known in the world of film. Containing all necessary mainstream attributes, it is satisfactory as a genre movie, but what prevented me from fully enjoying it was its predictability and lack of narrative originality, particularly without any personal contribution from the director. What I mean are scenes and moments that would distinguish this movie from a large number of similar films. I would appreciate such moments even more than the carnage of war. And something better than the very average soundtrack wouldn’t hurt anything.

I’m not exactly a fan of Fincher’s take on Stieg Larsson’s first Millennium book (I prefer the Scandinavian version), but I appreciate this film for the quality of its depictions of the characters, refinedness and wit. The Girl in the Spider’s Web is well plotted and its story has great potential, but Noomi Rapace and Rooney Mara made for a more interesting Lisbeth than Claire Foy, and Sverrir Gudnason would be a better fit for Fifty Shades of Grey than for the role of Mikael Blomkvist. Above all, this technically well-crafted thriller is more of an action flick full of genre clichés and stereotypical one-dimensional characters than a movie with a more detailed character psychology and Scandinavian atmosphere.