Matty

“We all got bosses.” Concerns that, unlike the unaffected Danish film A Hijacking, this would be a heroic drama were fulfilled by Greengrass’s Captain Phillips to a much lesser extent than I had feared. Yes, instead of an ordinary employee, the (moral) focal point of the narrative is a conscientious American in an important position and, what’s more, portrayed by an actor whose name is synonymous with the word “credibility”. However, Phillips realistically prioritises his own survival over dressing himself up as a hero, as evidenced especially in the climax with its non-Hollywood rawness, which is the final demonstration of the emphasis that the film places on the intensity of visceral experience. The expression of concern for Phillips’s wife (the considerably underused Catherine Keener) in a less emotive written form is a twice utilised method of “desentimentalisation”. ___ Whereas in A Hijacking Lindholm never loses sight of the socio-cultural context and sees the development of the events as a consequence of the uncompromising application of corporate logic, Greengrass sets aside the broader context after the beginning and uses the situation to focus particularly on strong emotions instead of the clash of cultures and classes (and generations). Nevertheless, he amplifies his criticism of inequality during the second half by expanding the point of view of the narrative, which had previously been limited to the two captains, to include that of the all-seeing American military. The shots of seamen exhibit cool professionalism in striking contrast to the “DIY” methods of both the pirates and the crew of Phillips’s ship. ___ Captain Phillips is political also in following the trend of contemporary genre movies consisting in depicting an individual having to rely on himself. The protagonist is gradually stripped of all privileges of civilisation and nearly all of his possessions (including his clothes) and, through his manoeuvring, finds himself at the same level as the pirates. A certain political nature can also be seen in the attempt at a balanced view of the causes leading to the actions of either side of the conflict. From the opening minutes, parallels are drawn between the lives and livelihoods of Phillips and the pirates. Like Phillips, the pirates want only to do their jobs, make money and get back home. Because the division of roles into prey and victim is not fixed, those roles can be reversed in the second half of the film. The inconsistency of this avoidance of a black-and-white view of reality becomes apparent when more closely watching the camerawork. The point-of-view shots belong exclusively to Phillips. By comparison, the protagonist is filmed with shots that are neutral in terms of perspective and seemingly don’t belong to anyone. In other words, the pirates do not have control over the image. ___ Regardless of the ideological implications, Captain Phillips is a particularly flawlessly rhythmised drama with twists delivered at roughly twenty-minute intervals and a rapidly approaching ending, thanks to which the narrative is gripping, even if you know the actual true story in advance. The essential twist and the broadening of awareness connected with it come after an hour. The sudden change of location serves for more than just making the viewer uncomfortable (“I didn’t expect that”). It also comments on the development of the position held by the main character, who gradually and literally loses the ground beneath his feet (due to the setting, the final phase of this destabilisation is more than obvious). ___ As in Gravity, an individual becomes a lightning rod for many of the problems troubling today’s society, though Greengrass takes that individual’s transformation in a different direction than Cuarón did. In this case, the film is an uneasy (in style) and disturbing (in emotion) response to an uncertain time, paradoxically thanks mainly to the fact that someone thought long and calmly about how to make it. 85%

If you are not already put off by its length, don’t read this review if you have not seen The World’s End yet. It is probably the most mature film that this bunch of eternal nerds is able to make. Just like in the previous parts of the trilogy, to which it is connected by the “jumping over a fence” gag and the green Cornetto wrapper in the epilogue, this time the development of the relationship between Pegg and Frost adds dynamics to the narrative. However, their long-standing friendship is thematised by the film and The World’s End can be seen as a tour of film genres whose story axis can be either the strengthening or disintegration of a friendship. After the prologue in the style of high-school comedies, we find ourselves in the realm of a bitter recapitulation comedy that, at the moment when it could start to come across as clichéd and sentimental, turns into an action/sci-fi horror flick with robots full of blue gunk. The epilogue then throws in a post-apocalyptic adventure and perhaps even some vampirism (or am I the only who thought Pegg looked like Vampire Hunter D?). Each of the newly introduced genres does not displace the one that came before, but in some way enhances it so that, for example, the debts paid by the protagonists are always higher (in the end, it’s much more than just 600 pounds). Stacking up motifs inherent to numerous types of films logically results in an intentionally overwrought climax whose anti-climactic point parodies the epic endings of serious sci-fi films. ___ The filmmakers’ ambitions to go to greater depths are most apparent in the greater sophistication of the characters. Gary is mentally stuck in the past, which he refuses to leave behind. He again embarks on a partially completed endeavour, using the same seductive tricks and driving the same car. However, his outlandish behaviour draws attention away from his dependence on his friends (borrowed money, the car registered in Peter’s name), whom he accuses of being envious, though it is clear that there are a lot of reasons for him to envy them instead and that the others actually serve mainly as a means for him to egotistically bolster his own feeling of importance (he dominates the shots with his friends like a real “king”). ___ The placement of the altogether authentic heroes in the context of a mythical narrative, which is explicitly pointed out to us only in the epilogue, attest to Wright’s fondness for surprising viewers by creating unexpected contrasts, though the names of the protagonist (King) and his car (Beast) and references to the Bible and The Three Musketeers can also be considered indicative of this. The friends’ get-together is thus shot from the beginning in a boisterous style that accentuates even the entirely unimportant moments as if they were the climax of an action blockbuster:  “action” close-ups of objects, super-fast cuts in the dialogue, spectacular transitions between shots, inspiration taken from the aesthetics of comic books (the scene that looks like a strip of images) and video games (fight scenes viewed from a third-person perspective). Like Gary, who only slowed downs for stop lights, Wright refuses to stop, forcing the protagonists to resolve unsettled disputes from the past while massacring hordes of robotic aliens. Because the characters are traumatised by, for example, bullying or a very unpleasant traffic accident, another kind of tension that prevents the film from stagnating arises between its amusing form and its content suitable for a psychological chamber play. ___ Thanks to the ceaseless intertwining of the serious and the playful, Wright can, for example, fearlessly use the well-known “who’s infected” scene from Carpenter's The Thing as a model for the confidence game. The question of who is actually human and what form authentic humanity has in the current era, choked with demands for uniform perfection, permeates the  film, so this does not involve a gratuitous allusion that would be exhausted by revealing it (the broken back à la Bane, for example, fits into this category). Regardless of the numerous other quoted films about the robotisation of the globalised world (e.g. Village of the Damned) and humanity’s extraordinary talent for self-destruction (e.g. Soylent Green), Wright manages to combine outside sources in an original and entertaining way, so the result doesn’t disintegrate into isolated scenes. ___ The carefully thought-out structure of the film, which at first may seem to be an unorganised multi-genre mess, becomes apparent upon repeated viewings. The group arrives at the first pub and the first indication that places are also losing their form comes after a twenty-minute exposition, during which we get to know all of the protagonists in rough outlines. The first twist – the initial fight with robots – comes after not quite forty minutes. A new goal is established at the 45-minute mark (or rather the original goal, which everyone except Gary wanted to abandon, is restored). An hour into the film, we learn some important information about the way the people are being “lobotomised”. The goal (the last pub) is achieved twenty minutes before the end, when all of the storylines converge and the time comes for the denouement, the protagonists’ confrontation with themselves. A bonus for attentive viewers is the director’s obsession with numbers, which are hidden throughout the film in accordance with the number of pubs that the protagonists visit in succession. In the third pub, Gary drinks three beers; in the seventh, Steve points out that he has already drunk seven pints; after they leave the eighth pub, we find out that Adrian died eight years prior in Italy; at the ninth, there is a sign with the numeral 9, and so on. On the second viewing, you may notice that roughly two-thirds of the events repeat (again, the motif of recycling) what Gary and his friends had previously experienced in high school (in both cases, first Oliver falls away, then Sam, then Peter). ___ The frenetic pace of the narrative makes The World’s End a film that is impossible to fully appreciate with just one viewing and which every (im)mature nerd will gladly watch again and again. Well, maybe not every nerd, but definitely me. 90%

The transformation of a ghostly horror movie into an emancipation drama was just as surprising for me as the heroine’s reaction to the paranormal activity in her new home: “Haunted. How perfectly fascinating.” Mrs. Muir displays the same prudence later, when she comes to understand that the ghost of the sailor, whose actions make it clear to everyone that he is in charge (a phallic spyglass dominates several scenes), embodies long since discarded values and that it would be best if she accepted him as her collaborator, as the masculine side of herself. Only his advice can make her the mistress of her own domain. The film most urgently encourages us to not be afraid to dream in the final minutes. Because the film was directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, who perfectly understood the weight of words but underestimated the power of images, the minutes preceding the ending are as agonisingly long as the wait for the man of one’s dreams. That ending, however, is heavenly. 80%

Blood and Sand is not merely a melodrama energised by the Spanish temperament (some of the lascivious glances would be allowed today only in porn or in a parody). It is also a meaningful self-reflection of the star system. (I don’t know to what degree credit for that is due to Dorothy Arzner, a film editor and director of subversive films about show business, such as Dance, Girl, Dance). If we would like to find parallels between the film’s protagonist and Rudolph Valentino, the story recounting the rise and fall of a toreador is almost prophetic in some ways. Thanks to his body, a young man from a humble background becomes a legend overnight. Loved by children and women, admired by men, he has to face the  temptations that accompany fame. His inner conflict is mirrored by the two different women, representing two female archetypes (vamp and Madonna), who come into his life. Carmen spends most of her free time praying and never removes the crucifix from around her neck. Conversely, Doña Sol enjoys seducing and rejecting men and, so that the Biblical symbolism is abundantly clear, she gives her lover a ring in the shape of a serpent. We should most likely believe that Juan has become her victim, that she has made him just as much of an outcast as the bandit Plumitas (this parallel is most apparent in the climax). The film’s moralistic undertones gradually gain strength, coming to the surface in the simple ending, when the moralising point is surprisingly repeated by the character of the intellectual who enjoys writing about human vices. Leaving the last word to the film’s second most malevolent character, who could have easily served as a prototype of some tabloid journalists of the time, gives a strong impression of ambivalence. At the time of the film’s premiere, both the puritans, expecting to be punished for their sins, and the viewers (of both genders), who came to the cinema for the fetishising close-ups of Valentino, could be satisfied and only laugh at the dissatisfied intellectual. Similarly, the whole film can be seen as the simultaneous creation and destruction of the cult of a star. 65%

Is it merely a coincidence that Ron Howard did the most masterful work of his career not in Hollywood (which would surely not have allowed so many warts and broken bones protruding from the bodies of injured racers), but in an independent production put together by several smaller studios? Rush is not flawless. You will see the awakening of the two protagonists coming in the numerous circuits, the female characters are passive and serve only for decoration, some of the “deep” dialogue is there only to fill silent gaps, and the attempt at two equally valuable character studies is hindered by the fact that screenwriter Peter Morgan put substantially more work into humanising the monster (the “horror” shots of a mutilated face border on distastefulness) than making the playboy wiser. However, the doubling of narrators and the wringing of tension out of their essentially friendly rivalry (there is no actual bad guy) comprise the main draw of this otherwise generally good but not exceptional film. Two strong characters are a guarantee of sufficient dramatic material throughout the film's two-hour runtime and it is highly probable that you will be left wanting more at the end. Morgan offers enough information about the organisation of races in the 1970s to keep even a person unfamiliar with Formula One in the picture and, at the same time, is very careful not to anger fans of either Hunt or Lauda. In comparison with the similarly structured Crying Fist, whose climax evokes much more ambivalent feelings (because it is about life), the careful manoeuvring of Rush caused me to feel indifferent to who would win, and I thus manoeuvring generally lost interest in what was happening on screen during the final act. Rush probably owes its extraordinary popularity to the fact that everyone ultimately wins in their own way. However, another key factor is undoubtedly the precision of the film’s craftsmanship, thanks to which you perceive the racing sequences hopped up with superbly tuned sound and the fetishistic close-ups of various machine parts with all of your senses. It’s not as immersive as a PlayStation racing game, but comes pretty damned close. 80%

Escape Plan is helped a lot by the detached humour that Stallone and Schwarzenegger (and, to a lesser extent, the brilliantly sleazy Jim Caviezel) bring to the increasingly imbecilic story. Together, they transform the film into a reunion of alumni who passed a test composed of testosterone-fuelled gestures sometime in the 1980s. However, Håfström makes no effort to stylistically recall any of that. The only upgrade of the (arche)types that the two aging action stars have played over the past forty years is most likely supposed to consist in complementing pure muscle mass with an exceptional intellect. Unlike their ability to hold a ten-kilo machine gun in one hand, I did not believe either one’s shrewdness bordering on genius. Unfortunately, the action – i.e. the main reason the film exists – comes only after a hundred minutes of recycling the most hackneyed escape motifs. In addition to that, the resulting plan is so encumbered with the factor of chance that the presentation of Stallone as a master escape artist is cut off at the knees. After Sly’s unsuccessful attempt to address the matter at hand intellectually, the screenwriter sensible turns him back into good old ultra-violent Rambo. Overall, Escape Plan is just another unsuccessful attempt at a major (double) comeback that much more frequently raises a bemused smile rather than the adrenaline level. 65%

Prisoners bears the hallmarks of a high-quality psychological drama and a very good crime thriller. However, it ultimately falls short on both genre levels. As a character-focused film, it fails due to the restrained (even in the context of the situations in which the characters find themselves) or, conversely, exceedingly prudent actions of the protagonists. With the exception of Jackman, about whom the hunting prologue tells us most of what’s important, and Gyllenhaal, who adds a peculiar element to his performance with suspiciously frequent blinking (which could indicate that he has a dark past, or that he simply has a facial tick), the actors in the film are dead weight. They do not help with evoking the morally ambivalent feelings that comprise the core of the narrative, as Villeneuve doesn’t bother to better justify their infrequent presence or involve them in the main action. Keller’s wife pays the highest price for the utilitarian handling of the characters. Of all the actors, Maria Bello overacts most aggressively, so we needn’t feel sorry for her as she sometimes wearily and sometimes hysterically staggers her way through the film. ___ The film’s sense of gravitas is apparently supposed to be bolstered by long shots (of tree bark, for example), frequent fade-outs, heavy rain, the use of ambient noise instead of non-diegetic music (which is similarly cacophonous as the aforementioned noise, so – like in Fincher’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – it is sometimes difficult to tell where one ends and the other begins). These are not very original means of evoking a gloomy atmosphere, but they generally serve the purpose. However, Villeneuve overuses them and because of that – among other things – the film fails as a procedural thriller. ___ Shots intended to shape the atmosphere predominate over shots that convey any determinative information. Furthermore, most of the essential revelations are based on unconvincing coincidences rather than on collecting and analysing evidence. The length of the investigation (and thus of the film) is not proportionate to the manner of revealing the perpetrator. At the end, you will come to the most powerful realisation that the whole investigative storyline, with all of its dead ends and ambiguous clues, was designed solely for the purpose of forcing the characters to face certain moral dilemmas so that they would both experience and do something very unpleasant and somehow redeem themselves after staggering out of the labyrinth of (a)morality (this involves one of the many traditional religious motifs that the film works with, along with serpents, crucifixes and Bible quotes). ___ If Villeneuve cared primarily about the psychological level of the narrative, why does he devote so much space to the investigative level, spending most of the film trying to convince us that this is a crime movie after all? The two different levels ultimately weaken each other. Disinterest in the past and deeply rooted motivations of the characters can be accepted in a procedural, but not in a psychological film. Holes in the logic would not matter so much in a psychological study of a person in an extreme situation, but they are distracting in a detective story. Instead of one consistent film, Villeneuve made two films, both of which are thoroughly unsatisfying. 70%

The life and death of the best man, Lumpy. Koland’s courage to approach a conventional indie narrative about an outsider in an unconventional way becomes apparent as early as in the prologue. The film begins with its most cheerful scene, a wild wedding reception, something with which other comedies would end. The assumption that we will spend the subsequent eighty minutes watching the tragicomic events of the newlyweds’ life together is turned upside down by what comes next. Lumpy turns out to be the real hero of the story, even though is mostly physically absent, but he is the one who sets the story in motion. In any given crude comedy of recent years, Lumpy would merely be the protagonist’s humorous friend. Koland, however, set himself the goal of convincing us that a sensitive human being is hidden behind the mask of the chubby jester. Conversely, the outwardly happy couple lose their lustre as they become aware of the world of losers. Kristin and Scott show themselves to be two mentally unstable hypocrites who are made better people only by those who have no reason to pretend anything. Of course, at its core this involves the awful cliché about how we conceal who we really are and we either cannot or do not want to unleash our real potential. Thanks to the use of stereotypes, you will be able to formulate a psychological profile of the characters after twenty minutes (the uptight, hysterical woman; the unappreciated genius) and there is also lustre room for a publicly delivered “grand” speech touching on the most personal experiences. However, I appreciate the fact that Koland used the blueprint of the mainstream newlywed comedy in a way that defies expectations and focused attention on those characters that truly deserved it, i.e. characters like those from an indie film. The idea of combining two types of humour (crude and “heartwarming”) and two types of acting (comedic excess and intimate understatement) is not the apex of creative inventiveness, but it is a change that counts for something among the dozens of cookie-cutter romcom productions that are out there. 60%

If the subgenre of alcoholic films existed, Bruce Robinson’s directorial debut, Withnail and I, could be held up as a typical example. The British cult comedy about two friends who do everything they possibly can to avoid getting sober is characterised by adjectives such as “coarse” and “decadent”. Even with the best intentions, these modifiers cannot be applied to Robinson’s fourth film. At least not soberly. ___ Hunter S. Thompson naturally somewhat dramatised what he actually witnessed in the Caribbean at the time. Observation is the activity that his cinematic alter ego spends the most time on. His effort to not get too involved and to keep his distance generates most of the conflicts in this boldly undramatic spectacle. Kemp first becomes familiar with the new environment and then tries to understand it, only to find out in the end that he still doesn’t understand. The only plot line that undergoes any development from the beginning, and which relates to the dramatized suspicious businessman Sanderson, fades into nothingness instead of leading to a dramatic denouement. The secondary romantic storyline, which was probably written into the film just for the sake of sneaking in a few shots of Amber Heard, isn’t any more satisfying. ___ The film’s structure has the most in common with the titular diary, in which there is also no rule ensuring that the individual entries are connected to each other. Instead of a cohesive story, we see a series of various obscure incidents, most of which are connected with alcohol and others with drugs and black magic; a rooster and a frog play a role in the most bizarre of them. The protagonist observes the events happening around him, but he doesn’t much interfere in them, rather letting himself be led by other, more substantial characters. The filmmakers somewhat desperately try to save the incoherent narrative with a closing textual explanation, according to which Kemp’s Caribbean drinking has the nature of an initiation, so it would be presumptuous to expect a better-formulated protagonist with a clear goal and motivation. Kemp is only just finding the path that he will follow later in life. ___ At the same time, the final message retroactively explains that the film was intended as a tribute to Thompson. It’s no wonder that, of all the characters, only Kemp exhibits some understanding for the Puerto Ricans’ situation and, instead of listening to the great white man, he stands in opposition to him. He displays foresight by rejecting the cynical colonialist approach in the twilight of colonialism. The contemporary political context of the film is not treated with complete indifference, but like most of the other motifs, it remains only implied and undeveloped. ___ The digression from the already vaguely defined main storyline is the cause of two crucial flaws that make it impossible to just simply enjoy The Rum Diary, namely the inconsistent pace and the incoherent atmosphere, which could be explained away by the filmmakers’ attempt to emulate Thompson’s “gonzo” style. The power of each new emotional experience breaks down the more coherent structure and makes it impossible to work with the pre-defined concept. Due to Kemp’s adventurous nature, the events in Puerto Rico are unpredictable and the film can thus be assigned various genre labels at various times. The variety of genres is also apparent in the heterogeneity of the visual aspect. The postcard-like shots of the landscape contrast with the close-up of Kemp’s bloodshot eyes and the brutal cockfight. The film is simply appealing for a while and then it becomes unpleasantly authentic. ___ The Rum Diary is a dramatically fragmented film without a clearly defined genre and its satisfactory ending is decidedly not a great attraction for viewers. The film goes nowhere, lacks a main theme and is not about anything important. Though it may be an accurate depiction of how the Caribbean affected Thompson in the 1960s, I would be reluctant to describe this load of impressions as a high-quality film. 55%

The forced optimism from the period of normalisation imbued with a variation on Hollywood backstage musicals works well – with the exception of the idiotic acting performance of Luděk Sobota (who is to blame for the failure of the romantic subplot) – and is unexpectedly tolerable. This is thanks particularly to the screenplay, which doesn’t endlessly use variations on a single idea (and thus the film isn’t a series of sloppily strung-together music videos) and the skilful directing of Ladislav Rychman, who had a feel for rhythm (if there is such a thing). Even the “action” scenes (the house on fire) are well arranged and believable while having an appropriately brisk pace, which was not common in Czech comedies of the period. Interpreting this film is a matter of skating on thin ice, but we can understand its premise as a metaphor for the conditions in which artists were forced to create under totalitarianism, i.e. in fear. But the characters who represent a threat to the altruistic image of the communist regime are two capitalist-minded entrepreneurs for whom the finished work has greater value than human health and wellbeing. 55%