[tv+] The irregular structure of the story contributes to building a dialogue between the different generations in a family marked by trauma and a certain fatality. And skillfully builds an eminently Eastern family saga with elements of Western narrative, which is not negative in this case, quite the opposite. And especially it rests on the perfect tandem of directors Kogonada and Justin Chon, who provide breadth and approach in their respective episodes.
[tv+] One of the best retro-futuristic dystopian thrillers that has been made recently, which has so many influences but so perfectly combined that it never sounds like it has been seen before. It is even forgiven for what other series are not forgiven, for leaving us with more questions than answers, but the final episode is so masterfully executed (Ben Stiller has revealed as a great director) that it manages to seduce both our "innie" and our "outie".
[VdR'22] A painful documentary about the abandonment of a home whose atmosphere is unbreathable. The physicality provided by Chaylle's close-ups, with his interlocutors out of shot, shows sadness, regret, even the shame of running away, providing a deep look at the issue of domestic violence. A vicious circle whose final hope is only moderate, impossible to offer a definitive resolution.
[Netflix] An exciting and vital journey that builds the portrait of the artist discovering the human being. Structured around sentimental relationships and friendships with Jed Johnson, Jon Gould and Jean-Michel Basquiat, it is a reflection of an era, of queer identity, of the threat of AIDS... Andrew Rossi achieves fluidity in the narration, guided by the reproduction of Warhol's voice using AI describing the words of his diary, showing himself as a person with contradictions.
[HBO Max] A fragmented representation of the need to build artistic bridges to survive. "Survival is not enough", it is the human condition that can rebuild life beyond simple subsistence. Shakespeare in an apocalyptic world, "King Lear" as a premonition of disaster, "Hamlet" as recognition of the past. Year 0 of the end of humanity, Year 20 of the beginning of the human being.
Tribute to a classic musical that does not avoid the theatricality, but at the same time is completely cinematographic (that neighborhood in the process of extinction), bringing breath to the musical numbers. There are some strange decisions, like changing "I feel pretty" after the ramble, but also beautiful tributes like Rita Moreno performing "Somewhere". Tony Kushner updates and honors the work of Jerome Robbins.
[Filmin] America assumes its own violence. Consequences of Vietnam. The radio talks about macabre and absurd crimes. Soundtrack of squeaks, screams and chainsaws. Rot and decay. Sally in the slaughterhouse. Flesh, bones and blood. An unbreathable atmosphere like few times. The horoscope already announced it: "Upsetting persons around you, could make this a disturbing and unpredictable day". Welcome to psycho America.
[HBO Max] A devastating portrait of the vicious circle of drugs that is the final part and summary of the trilogy starring Rob, Freddie and Deliris that Jon Alpert has recorded for 34 years. It is, literally, the life of three addicted people in a system incapable of offering real solutions to the drug problem, narrated between two pandemics, that of AIDS and that of Covid-19. It is the America of non-opportunities.
[Filmin] An extraordinary series about an extraordinary writer, who does not avoid controversies about his contradictory personality, repositioning some of the myths that have been built around his figure. With the usual classic format of the directors, this one favors the attention in the character, in his work and is life, with hypnotic voices of Peter Coyote, Jeff Daniels, Patricia Clarkson or Meryl Streep.
It extracts authentic cinema from a main stage, with a cinematic calligraphy that is most representative of Konchalovsky's talents as a director. It is so fascinating to dwell on the succession of visual discoveries between four walls, as it is to delve into the psychology of the characters, in that social decadence that is transmitted in the background. Surely one of the best film adaptations of Chekhov, undoubtedly one of the best Konchalovsky films.
[MUBI] This work, splendid in its simplicity, deepens like few others in the idea of an inherent racism, attached to a society in which there are no "safe spaces". It manages to create discomfort during the final minutes, brilliantly executed through close-ups, because it confronts us with a clear look at the preconceptions that lead our brain to establish relationships that are themselves racist.
[RussianFF] An intelligent film noir, splendidly filmed and performed, who reflects on the sense of justice and morality in a society oppressed by police control. The splendid B/W cinematography has expressive and psychological depth, creating a subtext that has more to do with the transformation of the protagonist than with the murder investigation itself. And it creates a reflection that is very contemporary.
[HBO] A masterpiece at the height of "When the leaves broke" (HBO, 2006). Visceral, personal and political. It is Spike Lee in his purest form, controversial but accurate. A love letter to New York as a survivor of the great tragedies of the 21st century, from 9/11 to Covid-19. A complex vision of today's North America (Black Lives Matter, Orange Agent President ...) that sometimes seems chaotic but contains a precisely measured structure and pace. An inspiring journey through the past reflected in the present.
[CPH:DOX] A necessary film because it finally poses, calmly, a dialogue about what states are becoming and about clear concepts that seem forgotten: "Democracy isn't consensus, but dissensus!". The screened images demonstrate the end of impunity for violent actions, the camera of a mobile phone as a witness to the unjustified repression. The police reveals finally as the protector of governments, not of citizens.
[CPH:DOX] An unclassifiable film that constantly moves between genres, building and deconstructing narrative lines to create its own path. But the formal prestidigitation doesn't prevent it from delving into complex issues about the role of security forces in a country like Mexico. It's also a deeply cinephile film, marked by the use of classic compositions by Lalo Schifrin that underline its heterogeneous character.
[Disney +] Pete Doctor said at BFI London that "Inside out" had prepared him for "Soul". It's, in fact, a more complex film, a reflection on the "soul" that makes us who we are, a life lesson that is committed to enjoying it every minute. Technically, it's perhaps the best Pixar film, the most open in design, the one that combines in a three-dimensionality of a place outside of space and time that is overwhelming.
[Huelva FF] Describing a community based on the difference. The protagonist of this beautiful film is a teenager who is looking for the moment to confess his secret to his parents. In a small Mexican village, where difference is not welcomed, that is an admirable act of bravery. It has one of the most exciting scenes I have seen recently. Silence and looks are revealed wrapped in an captivating cinematography.
[Movistar+] An effective police show with complex characters from Chris's depression to Rachel's paralyzing fear, police officers incapable of solving their own problems while carrying out the task of solving the problems of others. There is a reflection of Liverpool at night that exposes the virtues of the personal experience of screenwriter Tony Schumacher, creator of an intense series, both emotionally and narratively. The development of the characters in S2 consolidates it as one of the best police series produced by the BBC in recent years.
[TVNZ] If the viewer's first option may be to prepare to attend another drama in which the central theme is to prove whether the protagonist is right in accusing her husband of child abuse, the script is much riskier and much more profound, because it addresses the consequences it has caused in her family. So it is a drama, but one that cleverly addresses complex issues about the presumption of innocence. Robyn Malcolm offers a profound performing of a difficult character, one of those works that manages to convey the complexities of human psychology.
[Visions du Réel '24] In this powerful chronicle about the constant resistance of women in Iran, director Farahnaz Sharifi remembers her childhood divided into two planets, the one outside with the impositions of the Khomeini regime and the one inside her home, represented by the image of her herself at the age of seven with the hijab in her hand: "My planet was full of dancing, even with Khomeini on the wall," she comments as the narrator of her own story. The dance, prohibited in Iran, becomes one of those daily acts of resistance against the culture of hate imposed in the country. It is an exciting and visceral film at times, which vindicates filming as an act of protest, especially when the popularity of cell phones made it possible to "record the story that they did not want to be recorded." And in this powerful account, Farahnaz Sharifi uses personal experience as a tool of resistance that reflects the collective experiences of Iranian women.
[CPH:DOX '24] One of the most interesting aspects of the film is how it presents the contradictions around three controversial topics, avoiding adopting an eminently activist position, although claiming the individual right to make certain decisions, to present different points of view which invite reflection. The most difficult part of the film is the one that addresses euthanasia, through a Swiss doctor who practices assisted suicide but has an anti-abortion speech. The director is possibly more emphatic in the representation of religious iconography, especially in the fragment that accompanies Robin, expressing the way in which the mainly masculine perspective of Christianity is what has promoted control over decisions regarding the female body. It is a complex film that navigates the contradictions of a Europe that has different political agendas in relation to the control of the body, but raises a decisive question about why political decisions must be the ones that manage personal decisions. .
[CPH:DOX '24] Two months after having her son Roja Pakari was diagnosed with incurable bone marrow cancer, which turned her motherhood into a kind of fight against time to take advantage of the moments she could share with Oskar among her continuous hospital admissions. Over the past six years, she has crafted a beautiful and inevitably painful love letter that she presents through a second-person narrative that sometimes has the tone of a farewell. The film is full of deep sensitivity, always attentive to Oskar's gaze, but without placing him in the center of the camera. Roja Pakari has taken as a reference the extraordinary book "The Year of Magical Thinking" (2005), in which the writer Joan Didion (1934-2021, United States), narrated her experience after the sudden death of her husband, the also writer John Gregory Dunne. And it actually flies over throughout the film that idea of "magical thinking", which attributes causes to effects that have no concrete relationship, as if the inevitable could be avoided by carrying out different actions. But placing it closer to the power of resistance and the need not to give up, driven mainly by her condition as her mother. It is a powerful idea that has especially moving moments in this powerful reflection of love for a child.
[CPH:DOX '24] Milo and Khalili represent the resistance of a generation that lives in a kind of spiral in which time seems to repeat itself: 2023 is reflected in 2019, revolutions are constant and their achievements, such as the resignation of the government in November of that year, end in new, equally corrupt rulers. At the beginning of the documentary it is noted that there are scenes that have been recreated because they have not been able to capture reality due to the danger they pose to their protagonists, but it never feels like a film where the fictional stands out over the true. The story is shot and edited with a sense of suspense that maintains constant attention, and time seems to stop around the two protagonists, in a medium shot of reflective and indecisive faces, which reflect the chaos that surrounds them. The title refers to those video game characters that usually occupy the time of young people but in this case are represented in the daily lives of a generation accustomed to death, but persistent in its rebellion. It is a powerful celebration of the resistance and never lost hope of a country in reconstruction.
A young woman in search of happiness in a cruel world, surrounded by a baroque, exuberant staging of saturated colors. Lanthimos offers a bizarre tale from Belle's point of view, shown through fish-eye lenses in settings inhabited by those who subdue and those who are subdued. And despite that, it is a fascinating story of female liberation, where the man becomes infantilized as she matures, driven by satirical humor. It is a complex film that possibly manages to be more incisive than others by the director in the representation of power dynamics.
[Berlinale '24] A nostalgic look at the cinematographic revolution that the Oberhausen Manifesto represented in 1968 through the reunion of the students who participated in a pedagogical experiment 55 years ago that defended the need for cinematographic teaching within primary education. In a certain way, this film conveys the sensation of being a farewell in which the director reflects on the passage of time and highlights the idea that drove that experiment: the educational nature of cinema as a fundamental means for learning.
[JFF '23] As part of his war trilogy, this film contains some of its director's characteristics, wrapped in a theatrical texture, with imperfect backgrounds and discordant sounds, which construct a fictitious reality, a kind of dreamlike look on adolescence. But developed under the shadow of a war that, in one way or another, will end up trapping them all. A compact and reflective film in which not only the war is present, but also the idea of defeat, a kind of look of incomprehension towards the justification of thousands of deaths to end a humiliation that still remains in Japanese society.
[Disney+] It has the ability to mix genres (romantic, spies, fantasy, violence...), with a structure into micro-stories that serve to develop the characters (even the most secondary ones have a somewhat tragic background), and create one of the most entertaining and enjoyable series in this year. Good CGI contribute to a solid narrative that actually ends up talking about family in its concept of protection ("I'm willing to become a monster to protect my son"), so that the dividing line between the heroes and the villains is adequately diffused.
[Netflix] One of the best series that have ever been made about the world of drugs, complex in its plots, unexpected in the construction of the characters and unpredictable in the development of the story. If Channel 4 phase was more focused on the construction of the Summerhouse, Netflix phase turns into a splendid thriller with social ramifications. Each character, main or secondary, could have their own series. The last season is a perfect exercise in tension that closes the series as if it were a Shakespearean tragedy.
[Sheffield '23] Romanian director Vlad Petri draws a parallel between the 1980 Islamic revolution in Iran and the popular uprising in Romania in 1989, through a fictitious epistolary relationship between an Iranian woman and a young Romanian girl who studied together in Bucharest. The letters that are exchanged over the years show the hope of the beginning of both revolutions to end in disappointment and hopelessness, in a fictional story that surrounds reality through a montage of archival images that is remarkable and revealing.
[Festival Scope] Throughout the film there seems to be a clear intention to develop not only a narrative that mixes fact and fiction avoiding the usual mockumentary style, but also a prominent experimental manifestation. Although the incorporation of some elements such as dance seem like additions that do not fully fit with the whole, this unique work addresses problems of addictions and mental illnesses in a different way, in which the artistic pulse is mixed with the documentary impetus, achieving a fascinating connection between reality and fiction.
