Matty

“There's no living with a killing. There's no going back from it.” Deadpool (and before it, for example, Kick-Ass) used an R-rating for infantile silliness. Logan is an adult drama with Oscar ambitions (which are overly obvious in places) in which someone occasionally gets their head ripped off. Symbolically, Wolverine, which seventeen years ago was instrumental in getting Hollywood to take comic-book movies seriously, now graphically exemplifies the evolution that the genre has undergone over the intervening years. Only time will tell how much of a game-changing film Logan will be as it closes one phase and opens another (as was the case with westerns such as The Wild Bunch). ___ Despite its sweeping runtime, the film stays much more grounded than other superhero flicks. It tries to win viewers over with a small cast of believable characters with understandable motivations rather than with epic action (the action scenes are not only very raw and “earthy”, which is aided by the low camera position, but unfortunately also rather chaotic). Unlike Nolan’s Batman movies, the narrative is very straightforward, as it stays with the main character’s point of view throughout, which, however, it manages to use to its advantage. ___ Logan is a portrait of a world that has stopped believing in heroes and happy endings. People distrust each other and consider a loaded gun to be the only valid argument. Power is in the hands of corporations involved in the military-industrial complex, for which people (especially poor people) are just another deductible cost item. Jackman’s burnt-out renegade, who no longer cares about anyone or anything, gives a face to this social lethargy (or bad mood, if you prefer). Like Clint Eastwood in more than one role, all he has to do is look irritated and say the words “shit” and “fuck” between his clenched teeth. The film adheres to the slogan that children are our future, but these children are characteristically the offspring of immigrants and, furthermore, mutants (i.e. “others”), which is to say people who are doubly unwanted in today’s America. The promised land, then, is naturally Canada. ___ James Mangold is probably the first director who has been able to fully exploit the potential of superhero narratives to comment not only on the universal battle between good and evil, but also on the times in which we live (again, there is a parallel with westerns, which began to be used for the purpose of commenting on the present sometime in the 1950s, when Shane, which is quoted in Logan, was made). Unlike earlier films such as The Dark Knight Rises and Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Logan involves more than just a few allusions to the current political situation; Logan is riddled with social malaise, which is apparent in the melancholic tone and the meditative pace of the narrative (which, however, is always kicked up a gear by the next action sequence). ___ I don’t recall ever experiencing a comic-book movie so intensely, let alone having it resonate within me for so long. Perhaps that’s because of my current mood, or maybe because of this day and age in which such sincere stories about the fact that we have to help each other make sense. In any case, I would not be angry (or surprised) if this uncompromising settling of accounts with the genre became the kind of classic that, for example, Unforgiven is today. 90%

The 2017 Academy Awards started out well enough with Timberlake, but wound up being a rather weaker edition of the annual ceremony. There were no major surprises (except for the final faux pas), memorable thank-you speeches or jokes that truly cut to the quick. Kimmel was able to respond swiftly to the ongoing events ("Fake tans we love, but fake news..." after the bronze Alicia Vikander exited the stage; “Linus, we're so sorry about what happened in Sweden last week” after thanking the Swedish cameraman), but he should have saved the obligatory trolling of Matt Damon for his talk show. Conversely, he could have done more to skewer Trump, against whom few of the award winners failed to define themselves. Since the leitmotif of the evening was anti-Trump-inspired breaking down of walls and uniting people of different races, genders and classes, that was also present in the thank-you speeches of the so-called social justice warriors, who wanted to show that they were on the right side. Most of the jokes were more or less successful variations on moments from previous editions (the food served to the attendees, interactions with seated celebrities), and the “unexpected” tourist excursion was nice, but it could have been shorter. As could the whole ceremony.

“They're here.” Poltergeist is a strangely disjointed horror movie that initially ridicules a model 1980s yuppie family and their lifestyle (rationality, pragmatism, disconnection from nature, which then strikes back in the form of intrusive mosquitoes and man-eating trees), but then, through that same family’s misfortune, defends the values on which Reagan’s America stood (the use of paranormal phenomena as the impetus to return the characters to a time when they still “believed in miracles”, as Diane says, is ambiguous). Similarly, the film is unclear as to whether viewers should fear or sympathise with the ghosts, because they are – according to the clairvoyant – so alone. Perhaps both, except that the transitions from family-friendly entertainment, keeping us under the illusion that nothing is really happening, to brutal horror, with characters peeling the skin off their faces (resembling a cut of meat that they were getting ready to consume, which I’m not sure was meant to be some sort of sophisticated critique of consumerism), manifested also in the changing style (urgent details vs. units with multiple plans of action), are not very subtle. The film is not balanced either rhythmically (its pace is slowed by long explanatory passages, the narrative continues in a “set time” after everything essential has been said) or in terms of tricks (some are still impressive, while others, like the digital tornado, are laughable). Though Poltergeist contains the best of both Steven Spielberg and Tobe Hooper’s work, it fails to combine the two approaches in a way that doesn’t seem irritating. 70%

Poetry in motion. John Wick is a delightfully straightforward action movie that is constantly surprising and incredibly stylish with every shot. It is a film of movement that should theoretically satisfy fans of Buster Keaton, Akira Kurosawa, Sergio Leone, John Woo and video games. The comic-bookishly exaggerated world with a taciturn western hero (who, however, is skilled at expressing himself with a pen) makes more sense than in the first film thanks to the elaboration of the mythology, but a halting rhythm is the price paid for the second instalment’s longer runtime. The wheels come off the film for a moment after Laurence Fishburne, the king of New York vagabonds, appears (too late) on the scene (I believe he will be better utilised in the sequel) and just needlessly burns minutes towards the end (the return “home”). Though the first John Wick wasn’t so long that it would start repeating itself, and I will watch it again with greater enthusiasm, but from now on I will be happy to use the second instalment of John Wick, alongside Sherlock Jr., as a prime example of the fact that action doesn’t have to be created only through editing, but also through movement in thoughtfully composed shots. Who would have said a few years ago that the most respect-worthy action hero of the 21st century, whom you believe has a love for a nameless dog, distinctive taste in clothes, an understanding of intelligent modern art (you never know when a properly adjusted mirror might save your life) and the ability to shoot up the entire Camorra without batting an eye, would be Keanu Reeves in his fifties? 80%

“Where is the love?” Scenes from relationship life for the 21st century. Nichols does not in any way try to disguise the film’s theatrical origins; on the contrary, the chosen structure (several long conversational segments), perfectly timed dialogue and classical music accentuate them. It is only after the encounter at the exhibition that he begins to cut between the individual couples’ dialogue scenes, thus giving the impression that their stories are more closely intertwined and influence each other to the point that they cannot be together because of the others (the flashback to the signing of divorce papers, which is interspersed with Dan and Anna’s conversation in the theatre, serves the same purpose). I consider the big jumps in time, which we are usually informed about ex post and as if in passing through dialogue (we’ve been dating for four months, we got together a year ago, he left me three months ago...) to be a courageous decision, as they bring the film closer to a time-lapse documentary that captures only the turning points of relationships. Unlike Bergman, however, Closer is not a carefully nuanced psychological drama, but a contrived melodrama full of walking (arche)types, “chance” encounters and bookish-sounding lines, and throughout its runtime, I wasn't sure to what extent it was aware of its own exaggeration and unnaturalness or the extent to which it was convinced that it was revealing the unvarnished truth about love and relationships, or something along those lines. Many scenes, such as the bitter conclusion, graphically illustrating the fact that we often truly get to know even the most beloved person after they have left us (i.e. when it is too late), suggest that the simplistic characterisation of the characters was a way to convey a universal, almost allegorical story in which everyone who has ever experienced the ambivalent feeling of not knowing whether to kill or fuck the one you love (as in the last dialogue scene of Dan and Larry) can see themselves. So, there is some sort of life lesson to be learned from that. Personally, however, I prefer films that don’t pretend to have depth where there is none. 70%

This review contains minor spoilers. Manchester by the Sea is one of the most useful film simulators for living with a broken heart. You can either let tragedy paralyze you completely or you can maintain a certain detachment from it – as Lonergan does, and as the protagonists of Manchester by the Sea also try to do. The film does not restore the status quo or reassure us that everything will be all right again. The real catharsis and return to harmony captured in a few flashbacks do not come, just as deliverance and at least some form of satisfaction after a similar tragedy may never come in real life. This is not the only departure from the conventions of American family melodramas, which usually offer simple solutions to similar dilemmas. The tragedy is not caused by fate, against which one can do nothing, but by human error; the characters are not rendered in black-and-white and, unlike the protagonists of ordinary melodramas, they are largely unable to externalise their emotions. Rather, their emotions are expressed for them through flashbacks and solemn music, which at the same time make us aware of the constant (and paradoxical) presence of loss, of an empty place (even more painful on second viewing are the mentions of the children in the dialogue – the man who repairs the dripping faucet for Lee speaks about his sister and her children; the doctor reports that the nurse Bethany has just given birth to twin girls). Like the female protagonist of Lonergan’s previous film, Patrick and Lee mainly have to learn to overcome the communication barrier and to find adequate words to describe the misfortune that they have endured (as, for example, the man whose boiler Lee repairs at the end has no problem with it and who uninhibitedly launches into a story about his father’s death). Unlike Lisa, however, they do not act melodramatically, despite the melodramatic potential of the situations in which they find themselves. Conversely, even the scenes that are shot with operatic exaggeration are disrupted by their unwillingness to let themselves be fully overcome by grief (Patrick’s ringing phone during the memorial service). People die, but the lives of those they leave behind go on. Manchester by the Sea, a melodrama that doesn’t want to be a melodrama, is thus for me not only a superbly written and acted drama about insurmountable loss, but also a film that is both formalistically and stylistically inspiring. 85%

The problem with Fifty Shades Darker is not that it doesn’t know when to end, but that it never properly starts. An essential tenet of screenwriting is that without conflict, there is no drama. Niall Leonard is apparently unaware of this. The popular statement that “nothing happens in it” applies to such an extent to few other films. Any attempt at suspense or plot twists thus comes across as unintentional comedy because of its lack of substance. Both of the protagonists do basically the same things that they did in the first instalment, though one would think that this time it is a voluntary decision on Ana’s part (she didn't know before that sex doesn’t have to be painful), which is only half true (when, for example, she tells her partner what to do to her). Grey continues to act like a faithless, possessive emotional manipulator who again lays out the rules of the game and doesn’t give much choice to his ingenuous partner, who likes to be bought a big bouquet of roses, a set of Apple products and luxury lingerie. As a result, moments that should seem romantic are actually rather creepy, because we don’t see any sincere feelings behind them. It’s also quite difficult to sympathise with the female protagonist, who has Ben Wa balls inserted into her vagina and only then asks what they are for. The adjective “vanilla” applies less to the central couple’s relationship than to the film as a whole, in which the unfortunate lack of knowing winks at the viewer prevents it from being an expression of self-reflection or an act of subversion (which, I'm afraid, should not have been a scene like something out of Magic Mike). Though the narrative of the first instalment was marked by a similar ponderousness, I found it generally thought-provoking on a deeper level of meaning. The second film is just a sequence of pretty but completely hollow shots that barely hold together (on the other hand, it’s possible that I’m just too annoyed by the film to give it any further thought). It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a similarly arrogant wager on the certainty that the target audience, longing to see a bit of harmless “kinky fuckery”, will come to the cinema anyway. 30%

”What are butt plugs?” I haven't read the book and I don’t know what the sequel is about, nor am I an expert on female sexuality. Therefore, please take this review only as the comments of a lay observer who would, however, give this film a two-star rating regardless of what he has or has not learned from it. ___ Fifty Shades of Grey exposes the rules of traditional romantic dramas and pushes them to the extreme with an anticlimactic story of the awakening of a naïve romantic who discovers, in addition to her own identity, the male-dominated world of market capitalism (“Welcome to my world”). With his cold-blooded business approach and acquisitiveness, Grey is the perfect prototype of a man as capitalist, convinced of his own superiority. He understands relationships as business transactions, prior to which it is necessary to negotiate the most favourable conditions (“I don’t do romance”). He buys and Ana sells, both literally and figuratively. He showers a woman with expensive gifts and “fucks her hard”, in exchange for which she humbly submits to him. He manages to convince her that freedom is gained through giving up responsibility. If a woman does not respect his rules, she will be punished. At the same time, the scenes with his domineering mother and memories of his relationship with his partner, who has subjugated him, indicate that Grey’s need for eroticised domination stems from his fear of women or rather loss of control over what makes him a man according to the current social order. ___ In her inexperience, Ana guilelessly accepts the rules of a world in which male pleasure takes priority over all else, in which a feeling of humiliation is determinative for the woman, in which the man is active (not only in sex) and the woman is passive. She does not know any other rules and for the purposes of the wonderfully straightforward narrative with black-and-white characters, it is not even desirable that she would know them. For Ana, the opportunity to submit to a man is a privilege for which she rewards the man in question by preparing breakfast (the way in which Ana takes on her role as a homemaker, as if it’s a matter of course, can also be perceived as the fulfilment of a male fantasy). It is only gradually, as she goes down the S&M rabbit hole, that she discovers who she really is (through sexuality, among other things) and begins to understand that being a woman does not mean being a tool for others, sharing everything (including a sandwich prepared for dinner) and becoming invisible. She slowly brings her own rules into Grey’s world along with her own ways of getting pleasure (“It's you that’s changing me”). ___ Despite that, the relationship remains unfulfilled according to the principles of melodrama. Peculiarly, the reason that he and she do not end up happily in each other’s arms is the knowledge of what the man really desires and what it means to be a woman. Fulfilling Grey’s fantasies – and thus playing the role that he requires from her – does not give Ana satisfaction. I would therefore like to believe that the blandness of the relatively tame and too brief erotic scenes (with music that kills any excitement) was the filmmaker’s intention. The film is at its sexiest when the characters only talk about sex and the story remains in the realm of the unrealised fantasies of the female protagonist, who thus controls the narrative and has the man under her power for at least a moment (the conversation over the contract). Conversely, Ana loses all of her power during the erotic games played out according to Grey’s fantasies. From a certain perspective, the empty-seeming ending and the lack of physical eroticism (in terms of both duration and explicitness) are not a mistake, but an attempt to undermine the androcentric vision and understanding of the world as it is represented by dozens of other romantic films about invisible women and dominant men (to go even further beyond the limits of valid interpretation, the discontinuity of the editing and the jumps during the scene involving Ana’s first sexual encounter could also be read as an expression of  her personal “paradigmatic break”). 50%

This documentary is disturbing in multiple ways. It starts out as a fascinating case study of a very topical issue – the tendency to become enclosed in social bubbles and the creation of an alternate reality based on fallacies spread over the internet. However, the director gradually abandons the Slenderman level in order to focus on the attackers, or rather their families, which takes a toll in the form of numerous emotive shots of crying faces that do not reveal anything. In the end, the girls who brutally assaulted their peer eventually emerge from the documentary as victims (of the internet, of the group, of psychological disorders, but not of a haphazard upbringing). The serious nature of the crime remains in the background and the actual victim does not get nearly as much attention as the accused, who, thanks to this film, basically become celebrities whose “legend” will in all probability spread on certain internet forums just as the legend of the Slenderman did (see the fan drawings of the two girls holding knives). I consider the capitalising on the Slenderman myth to be even more problematic than the reversal of the roles of attacker and victim (which is perhaps partly due to the American media culture’s fascination with criminals). Instead of the film clearly declaring that it is about stories aimed at scaring teenagers, it attempts to create a horror atmosphere with photographs and videos of Slenderman set against a background of disturbing music. As a result, the documentary (probably inadvertently) does not deconstruct the myth while keeping a reasonable distance, but rather aids in creating a myth without any such distance. I would not be surprised if there is an increasing number of people who, having seen the film, start seeing a tall, faceless man with tentacles on his back in various places. 50%

Following A War, this is another Danish drama about conflict continuing off the battlefield. However, don’t expect Land of Mine to have the same ability to examine a complex situation from multiple perspectives and the disturbing moral ambivalence as found in Lindholm’s film. The Germans’ point of view is given priority. From the start, we get to know the young German soldiers as anxious boys who want to survive and return home to their mothers. The film portrays them as innocent victims who must face the brutality of Allied officers, at least one of whom manages – for the sake of balancing forces – to find some humanity despite being characterised as (initially) hating Germans (though he loves his dog). No conflict between the film’s sub-worlds and micro-worlds (Germans against the sergeant, Germans among each other, the sergeant against his superiors) is omitted, and most of the motifs that you would expect after being briefly familiarised with the subject matter (inhumane treatment, the bond of brotherhood, the father figure, a child in peril) are present. What’s worse is their interconnectedness. The narrative piles up emotionally powerful moments that do not allow us to get to know the characters “at ease”, outside of extreme situations in which either life or nerves are at stake. The element of surprise in an otherwise predictable film is provided by the fact that a deadly explosion is a matter of a single wrong move, which Zandvliet puts to good use, though even that becomes somewhat predictable by the end of the film. Even without excessive sentimentality and exaggeration, Land of Mine tries too hard to be a moving humanistic drama that will appeal to an international audience and reinforce the belief that war is evil and should be banned in all cases. Unlike A War, this film does not ask the very difficult questions for which there are no clear answers. 70%