Filmmaniak

A pleasantly fast-paced short story comedy whose individual, loosely intertwined stories have a solid basis in well-constructed situations and even consistently escalate, but they are not always brought to a satisfactory point. As a result, this a fun mix, entertaining through funny events soaked in stress and gradually escalating pressure.

Adam Sedlák is at the top of Czech cinema with a precisely created film on the European level. This is a perfectly escalating drama/thriller/horror with a clear artistic vision and an original and well-thought-out concept. The film also excels through an excellent musical component, which makes the film an even fiercer ride rather than being firmly directed. The film has strong acting and a gradual pace of storytelling, painfully as intense as a day's cycling after a night spent in an oxygen tent. Too bad it didn't keep going, and too bad it couldn’t have been even harsher.

Visually, Pawlikowski excels even more than in the Oscar-winning Ida, which he copied through his black-and-white image and aspect ratio, and at least in the first half hour his film is able to enchant through its ferocious and dynamic direction and the story of a folk singing and dancing choir that must submit to the wishes of the regime. The subsequent main plot, a melodrama about two unsympathetic protagonists who would really like to be together, but do everything they can so that they can't be together, gets tiring faster than the omnipotent song ojojoj.

Family Film was a lot more hardcore art. Winter Flies, on the other hand, is a very spectator-friendly and relaxed road movie about freedom and liberty, but with an obvious social level and with the motif of a boy's coming of age. At the beginning, it is relatively difficult be on the same level as the film, because its main protagonists are a pair of teenage hooligans who imagine freedom mainly as car theft, running away from home, shooting at cars from an airsoft rifle and contempt for authorities, which the film feeds by presenting adult characters as careless and irresponsible individuals or as untrustworthy con men. Over time, however, you can finally empathize with the story and its characters, mainly thanks to the constantly-dosed light humor and the very natural acting performances of the main protagonists. In any case, freedom and relaxation have seeped into the structure of the film and some specific plot aspects, which seem very crude, whether it is the division of the story into two timelines told out of sequence, or the way in which one of police officers is "removed" from the police station for most of the film.

A genre-torn film that starts a new interesting topic every so often, but soon replaces it with another one or sweeps it off the table with a twist of the story without being able to use it properly. On the other hand, this results in at least the pleasant unpredictability of the story. It is very non-standard horror, although it does not deny its roots in genre classics and traditional motifs - but it is more of a social horror, which does not even act as a horror film for ninety percent of the run time and is in fact mostly not even filmed as a horror. Maybe that's why some of its purely horror or bloody scenes are inadvertently funny, although in the context of everything around them, they are actually extremely impressive at the same time. In addition, the tempo of storytelling is well drawn-out, and the film tries to start more and more different ideas over time, but not all of them can lead to a satisfactory completion. However, a few scenes are etched into your memory easily and for a long time.

A remarkable observational documentary about one specific event, which does not bring much new to those who are familiar with the Czech social and political context. Ironically, those who are not familiar with it will find it difficult to orient themselves in the film. The funny excursion to the tense workplaces of Czech Television and the Hospodářské noviny editorial office shows how things usually work at these media institutions (and what kind of people work there and how they talk to each other, even though you find out their names and job functions at the very end). This is a light-humor testimony about the difficult work of journalists, the cunning of the President and the mocking of the bizarreness of the Czech political scene.

It is too bad that Gilliam did not succeed the first time, because after eighteen years of hope, seeing this messy tangle of wasted chances, which is promising at the beginning, but then slowly disintegrates into a carousel of Don Quixote motifs stacked on top of each other haphazardly, this quarter-of-a- century-long project can hardly be considered successful. Gilliam wonderfully and playfully stylizes the protagonist, played by Adam Driver, into an alternative version of himself - a director cursed with his own creative desires and demands, who gradually loses his mind and becomes Don Quixote, fighting in vain against the windmills - but he is unable to surround the metaphor with a coherent story and to give his undoubtedly original, extravagant and colorful visions a supporting basis. Everything happens without any causality or clear focus on anything, the dialogues seldom have traction and the result is a Dadaist-surrealist bedlam, in which Muslims and Russian vodka also play a significant role for some reason. The traditionally good Adam Driver with the engagingly playful Jonathan Pryce only save the film when they aren’t asked to grotesquely fall down or frolic about. The best passages are in the first half hour and then whenever the echoes of the originally filmed material flash (three giants at the end), or the meta-jokes referring to the filming captured in Lost in La Mancha (the Japanese on the set, blaming problems on force majeure). Gilliam used to be a victim of circumstances, and now his film is a victim of his own boundless creativity. Who is the man who killed Don Quixote? Unfortunately, the same one that created him.

A purebred, rough western with an engaging and well-written plot, fantastic directing and brilliant actors - rumors about Christian Bale's best performance of his life did not lie, although it is debatable whether it is in fact his best performance (but it is definitely in the top 3 and it is amazing to see how great Bale acts using his eyes, eyebrows, the wrinkles on his forehead and mustache). However, there is no doubt about this being the best performance of Rosamund Pike’s career. Her tragic character combines female fragility with strength and determination, while Bale's protagonist is no less of a tragic warrior, who gradually runs out of comrades-in-arms in the ruthless environment. This is a film brimming with strong and serious themes, from controversy about violence, human nature, and morality and the burden of conscience, to the differences between murder ordered by someone, and murder in general. A majestic atmosphere, emotions, brilliantly written characters and perfect work with motifs. The last four minutes may be too sweet, but they are actually logical. The Indians may not be what they seem. Amazing film.

Social deviation everywhere, absolution nowhere. The main protagonist (the excellent Jenovéfa Boková) is so intrinsically troubled by her pessimistic grandmother, her mother who does nothing, her demanding father and her married lover. So much so that she cannot even express it in words to her psychologist. She therefore decides to act in a way that completely stupid and dangerous for her. Everyone constantly nags at her and undermines her self-confidence, but she always just accepts it passively, doesn't say anything to anyone and pretends that she’s ok so that she can go and cry somewhere in private later. Many viewers, also to some extent those who are similarly oppressed and emotionally manipulated by their own family, will certainly recognize themselves in the story. However, the film gives them no way out of the trap, instead providing only silent suffering. There is a remarkable authenticity and feel for dialogue to the film, in particular at the beginning, but it is later taken over by cold depression, amounting to “moments" with family members that only offer a very indistinct and flickering light at the end of the tunnel.

Jafar Panahi, the director of Taxi, forced to be under house arrest, once again managed to make a clever and extremely impressive film, gently yet strongly critically reflecting the conditions in contemporary Iran. And he did it from his car with minimal resources. This time around, playing himself and accompanied by popular actress Behnaz Jafari, he sets out to tour villages to find the truth about a young girl who allegedly committed suicide. The film is very well written and acted and very captivating, although its point is easy to predict. More important in this case is the journey to get to the point. I would like to send you my congratulations and I wish you many salty foreskins.