Filmmaniak

In light of Czech comedies such as The Spooks or Chasing Fifty, in which the motive of rape is disgustingly and amorally used as a source of tasteless humor, it is necessary to emphasize the importance of the fact that in contemporary domestic cinema, there is also a film that deals with the trauma of women from rape quite seriously and psychologically. The film deserves praise for its credible actors portraying mostly distinctly unsympathetic characters, a strong atmosphere underlined by the unattractive environment of an institute, a camera painting depressing cold images, and several emotionally impressive scenes. What is impressive, however, is the plot itself, the way it is told and the depiction of specific key situations. The debatable unreliability of the introductory act of rape does not necessarily follow from the fact that the girl does not shout in her defense, but rather that the rapist chooses an extremely risky moment to do the deed, in which he could possibly be easily caught. That fact that the main protagonist is silent about the attack against her is justified by possible fears of shame, but the film deals with this too superficially by not letting her talk about her feelings. At the end, she claims that she does not want to be considered a victim, but the film nevertheless presents her as a victim for ninety percent of the runtime, and thus she cannot be perceived otherwise. The film makes it almost seem as if victims of rape have no choice but to completely collapse mentally and become permanently afflicted wrecks longing for suicide. Even time spent in a hospital with incompetent psychiatrists, electroshocks and patients in the form of vulgar deviants doesn’t help. By exaggerating the deepening despair, the film creates bleak feelings of hopelessness, instead of acting therapeutically and showing how to work with such feelings and how to overcome traumas. Some satisfaction comes at the very end, but its oversimplified and very mild. A potential interpretation is the possibility that Špína is presenting a frightening case and that victims of sex offenders should not be afraid to come out with the truth. In any case, despite its lagging elaboration, the main significance of Špína’s film is its fundamental contribution to the discussion on the socially serious topic of sexual assaults and their consequences, which is definitely appreciated.

This is an extremely disgusting film. Normally, I wouldn't have a problem with that; I've seen plenty such films (the film can hardly shock anyone who has seen a film from the Troma studio, or Japanese gore perversions). The problem is that the disgust is quite self-serving, and this is exactly the type of film that should ideally be under 80 minutes long. For a film that is two hours long, the result amounts to unbearably slow and unnecessarily protracted boredom, in which there is not nearly enough plot, humor and or disgusting scenes to carry and justify the full two hours. Instead of exaggerated wasted fun, the film is terribly boring. Yet the theme looked so promising!

A masterfully directed, filmed, narrated and written, badass film, in which the escalation, tension, atmosphere and characters are carefully built. The film also includes homeopathic doses of black humor, which is always followed by a shocking cold shower and an honest shot to the solar plexus. An original, inventive and dense civil drama that gradually turns into several types of thrillers, and in which inner sensitivity perfectly combines with raw brutality. This is also Vince Vaughn’s best performance, who has transformed from the playing the lead role in romantic comedies into a human hammer. This is an uncompromising Dante's Inferno in a prison, a must see for all those who can handle open fractures and trampled skulls.

A wonderfully and amusingly strange film that will be appreciated especially by lovers of plenty of black humor and unusual films with crazy plots. For anyone who has already had the honor of watching Lanthimos’s films, this is simply another of his original and imaginative satirical images of human society, governed by absurd rules and funny-freezing cultural habits, and their creator does not need to explain in any way. Bizarre art. The best in Lanthimos's filmography so far (for me).

I have nothing against bittersweet, moving films, but Two Is a Family is a manipulative and superficial calculation that is fundamentally unpleasantly torn between trying to find a serious relationship-parenting probe in the style of contemporary European dramas, and an inappropriately chosen overflow of Hollywood comedy stylization. Both of these contradictory approaches interfere with each other. The result seems as if the creators want to shoot a new version of Kramer vs. Kramer, but to make it come off to the audience more like Big Daddy with Adam Sandler, which reliably kills any impression of realism. The first quarter of an hour is basically great, but the rest is an artificial spasm that is too bitter for comedy and too flat, transparent and unbelievable for drama.

The creators manage to generate an atmospheric psychological situation between three characters in a cramped space, but they are undermined by a lack of funds, lack of film lighting, ugliness and poor image quality, strange directing intentions (the film’s conclusion, camera flights over the cottage) and general inexperience. Some talent and the ability to apply various narrative and film techniques to the film are, nevertheless, visible. As a graduate film at FAMU, it is fully defensible, but the idea that I should pay over a hundred crowns to see it in the cinema makes me cringe.

I correctly guessed the final point after the first fifteen minutes, and then I just waited for it to get there. The fact is that an interesting and highly emotional romantic drama could have arisen from this theme, if it had not been so naive and stupid, and if its main protagonist didn’t behave like a suicidal fool. The dream visualization of an SMS conversation is an interesting move, but very poorly filmed.

The six youtubers in the documentary seem mostly sympathetic and sensible, so I have nothing against them. Not even against their video production, which seems to be intended mainly for children and young people up to fifteen years of age. However, Following as such is very superficial and flat, completely failing to explain why shooting videos on YouTube is such a phenomenon, why it is such a controversial topic and why so many children watch the creation of their favorite people with such enthusiasm and undisguised devotion. This documentary is completely uncritical of YouTubers, instead constantly praising them, saying how amazing they are, even through the testimonies of their fans. Therefore, in some places it looks more like a custom self-promotion instead of a documentary. Which doesn't matter much, because the target audience is probably the fans, who are only looking forward to new videos with their favorite YouTubers and don't expect a deeper probe into the Czech YouTube scene anyway. They are probably going to really like the film.

The animation is surprisingly good and the stylized rendition of the characters turned out great. The animators and artists definitely deserve praise, and so does Jiří Škorpík for the great lively musical accompaniment. However, the directing and screenplay fail across the board, as unfortunately, the plot is desperately incoherent, unstable and in places even Dadaistic. Most of the film consists more or less only of various dramaturgical and narrative errors (for example, Mánička and Mrs. Kateřina are completely useless characters, because they do not do or say anything fundamental throughout the film to justify their existence in the story) and surprisingly, there is also a lack any of the verbal jokes or puns that made Harvie popular.

If Stephen King fans go to see the film expecting an adaptation of his favorite book series, they will be exposed to an outright hellish experience. The Dark Tower, however, is not an adaptation, but rather an alternative variation on the first part of King's opus, which its creators also try to pass off as a kind of canonical continuation of these books (and yeah, it makes sense, but it's just something substantially different than most people were hoping for). The film evokes the feeling that this is an incoherent concoction of the motifs adopted from the books, entwined in a hasty and extremely condensed shapeless form, which seems terribly abbreviated and incomprehensible, and which most of all resembles various recent adaptations of fantasy novels for teenagers from The Giver to The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones. Although The Dark Tower is not worse than these films, given the quality, meaning and scope of King's masterpiece, this devaluation is truly terrible.