Matty

This self-laudatory story of the rise and fall of the PolyGram film studio is based on a book by the former head of the company, Michael Kuhn. It is thus no wonder that right from the start we hear from all sides how creative the atmosphere was in the company and how nice it was to collaborate with PolyGram’s management. The testimonies of talking heads, including producers and Jodie Foster (who sued PolyGram for breach of contract in 1996, which is unsurprisingly not mentioned in the film), are interspersed with clips from films such as Wild at Heart, Fargo and Trainspotting, whose creation is supposed to serve as proof of the courage to support unusual projects. The measure of success, however, is revenues, the number of Oscars won and screenings at Cannes (preferably during the opening of the festival). Dozens of other titles that would not fit the image of PolyGram as a progressive company (such as Barb Wire, Kazaam and Spice World) were thus preferably omitted. The story of PolyGram indisputably contains a number of interesting sub-themes (the age-old endeavour of European film producers to compete with Hollywood, the concept of “Cool Britannia”, the importance of film production for large media conglomerates), but these are lost in the repetitive enumeration of successes, motivated particularly by the attempt to convince us that the company’s downfall was an enormous loss for the European film industry and bold independent filmmakers. Formalistic embellishments in the form of animated backgrounds and playful transitions between settings don’t help much. Stories like the one about the necessity of coming up with a different title for the German release of a Michael Winterbottom film so that posters with the word “Jude” on them wouldn’t be plastered up everywhere (again) do actually help, but not many of them are told here, unfortunately.

A drama with two storylines, an omniscient narrator and clearly defined objective and solidly cohesive dramaturgy? Dialogue handled predominantly with the shot/countershot technique? Softening of violent moments though precise editing? Not this time. Though 12 Years a Slave has been reproached for its conservative classicism, what McQueen adopts from the classic Hollywood style is especially an interest in the human body, which could also be described as an expression of his creative signature. Faithfulness to the original book even at the cost of breaking up the narrative into a number of episodes that are not firmly interconnected, and when one isn’t conditioned by another, was one of the many wise filmmaking choices that resulted in a lacerating cinematic account of the atrocities that whites perpetrated against a race that they considered to be inferior. McQueen’s mastery consists in the way he manages to avoid twisting historical facts in order for them to fit into the bigger story (like Spielberg in Amistad and Lincoln), while providing an extremely intense viewing experience. Thanks to the suppression of dramatic tension and the numerous static shots, the film seems like a series of consecutively arranged images that slowly burrow into the viewer’s memory thanks to the spiral repetition of certain situations and shot compositions. True to his background as a video artist, McQueen does not recount history or turn it into a drama, but instead lets it come alive as if it were happening right now. The protagonist’s hardships are therefore not viewed from the outside. We experience them together with Solomon, through his body, eyes and ears. Throughout the film, we know just as little as he does (for example, we never see the whole ship by which he is transported to New Orleans) and, despite the telling title of the film, we have just as few reasons to believe that he can emerge victorious from the uneven struggle for his own identity. The reduction of life to mere survival and the transformation of a person into an animal (or rather property) are highlighted by the loss of consciousness of spatial and temporal contexts, as we are not informed about the time and place of the events, with the exception of the introduction. In combination with the complete lack of moments providing relief, the abundance of unpleasant shots and images, from which the camera never turns away (the unpleasant shots are also the longest) makes 12 Years a Slave one of the most audacious films of last year. 90%

Spielberg’s boorish variation on Dr. Strangelove (to which Slim Pickens’s character makes a direct reference) is similarly over-the-top as some of the overly ambitious ensemble war movies of the 1960s and ’70s (A Bridge Too Far, Tora! Tora! Tora!, The Longest Day). Compared to those, however, 1941 is well aware of its bombast and, starting with the opening scene in which it parodies Jaws from only four years previous, it makes it clear that the screenwriters and the director adhered to the motto “anything goes”. If “immoderation” remains the keyword throughout the film, it’s in an attempt to revive the anarchic legacy of slapstick and, at the same time, to present a hyperbolised version of what Hollywood usually does with historical facts (in line with the film’s self-deprecating humour, Hollywood is the main target of the Japanese submarine). 1941 is an assuredly false reconstruction of events that occurred (or didn’t occur) in L.A. in February 1942. While the general is watching Dumbo at the cinema, the soldiers are chasing girls and punching each other in the mouth instead of going after the enemy. As evidenced by contemporary reviews, American society was not prepared for this disparaging – “Italian”, if you like – depiction of war. However, disrespect for historical facts is not the film’s main problem (on the contrary, I was pleasantly surprised that Spielberg used American patriotism as a basis for pure farce). What’s more bothersome is the madcap chaining together of variously destructive misunderstandings, which gets old rather quickly due to its monotony, despite the skilful directing, decent tricks and outstanding music (which both ridicules and pays tribute to the soundtracks of serious war movies). There are no characters, let alone a plot line, that would unify the narrative, many of the sketches are drawn out and gratuitous, and overall the film is far less funny than it should/could be on paper. Despite that, it is a remarkable experience to watch 1941 as, for example, an imperfect prototype of current blockbusters, which also pile one attraction on top of another. Spielberg was (unsurprisingly) able to bring the poetics of animated slapstick (and many video games today) into a feature film more successfully only in the animated Tintin, in which the continuous action chaos seems much more organised. 60%

I am reluctant to use the word “complex”, which for me means a film that offers numerous opposing perspectives and ambivalent impressions, which is not the case in Greengrass’s factually concise docudramatic reconstruction, in which he constructs two relatively unambiguous ideological positions (similar to Bloody Sunday), which he pits against each other so that he can offer the intended political statement in the end (threats against Lippestad only bring shades of grey into the narrative, but they are not laid out in greater detail and can also be seen as a means of supporting the argument for the power of democracy, which, regardless of the possible risks, cannot serve only those who deserve it, but everyone). ___ Good versus evil, love versus hate, a deranged individual versus a community which, thanks to mutual support and cooperation following the trauma, can get back on its feet and face evil. With his movements, cold-blooded thinking and belief in his own infallibility, Breivik is reminiscent of a machine. If we learn anything about his motives, it is from his mother’s statement, which the attorney needs because of the trial, or thanks to the fact that he has become a research subject for psychologists. In the scenes from the prison with a predominance of cold colours, he is aggressively set apart from his surroundings by his red shirt. Conversely, through flashbacks and subjective sounds, we “see into the mind” of the traumatised, insecure and vulnerable Viljar and get to know him in a number of situations with his supportive loved ones in which he gives expression to his emotions. We not only observe him, but we experience who he is. Instead of a “traitor”, a “Marxist” or a “member of the elite”, as Breivik blanketly labels his victims, we get to know an actual person and his story. As we are shown through numerous parallels in the way the two figures are depicted, Viljar is not from a certain moment most at risk from the wounds that he suffered, but rather from the possibility that he, like Breivik, is starting to become isolated from others and will stop seeing himself as a member of the broader community.___ The rhythm of the smoothly flowing narrative is masterfully set by the large number of viewpoints between which Greengrass cuts. After the dynamic beginning, which offers a broad variety of rapidly alternating viewpoints, a calming occurs and we watch only Breivik and Viljar for a moment. If the narrative jumps to another character, thanks to the prologue we are already familiar with them and we know what role they play in the web of relationships and what element of Norwegian society they represent. After this slowing down and narrowing of focus, the film also transitions from individual actions, recorded step by step almost in real time, to their more general sociological and political implications. Of course, they still serve mainly to support the arguments employed in the final trial. The whole film is a textbook example of how to apply dialectical logic in practice. It does not try to depict the reality of polarised Europe in all its complexity, but rather as a clash of two principles, which it succeeds in doing in a very factual and extremely suggestive manner. 85%

I don’t know if I’m a more spiteful viewer than the film assumes, but instead of being moved, I was amused by the exaggerated thoroughness with which the screws of the melodramatic narrative are tightened. Truffaut handled the genre conventions skilfully and was fond of using the commentary of an unbiased narrator. However, I also remembered Truffaut, one of the founders of the French New Wave, in the context of his interview with Hitchcock. You can either shock the viewer by suddenly letting a bomb hidden under the table explode, or you can show the bomb in advance and keep the viewer in suspense for several minutes, wondering when it will explode. In 3 Hearts, the protagonist’s heart is such a bomb and we spend nearly the whole film waiting for it to go off, which is due to more than just the horror feel of some of the scenes. At the same time, the film works as a darkly humorous thriller without looking down on the characters or spoiling the experience for those viewers who don’t want to laugh at the (literally) incredible irony of fate, but rather cry about it. However, it shows one of the possible paths that melodrama can take today if it is not to be ridiculed for its old-fashioned nature. 75%

Bonus points for trying not to show Africa as a land where undernourished children living in slums wait for Angelina Jolie or Bono to fly in to take photos with them. However, this poetic tribute to the dark continent by a colleague and friend of Roland Emmerich has other flaws. In the manner of Emmerich’s (and Bay's) spectacles, it revels in grand details, repetition of the same shots, slow motion and rapid cuts. It is accompanied by slightly ominous, important-sounding music like that heard in a Hollywood epic. We see only Africans during their tribal rituals. The English translation of the natives’ utterances is inscribed directly into the picture, whereby it becomes an inseparable part of the picture and gains the status of great wisdom that must be written down. The second segment, a portrait of an individual set in Brazzaville, is also made up of shot compositions that mainly sound and look good, regardless of how unnatural their half-art film, half-Hollywood (but hardly African) stylisation seems in the given context. The visually no less aggressive final chapter about wrestlers again works with faded colours and fetishising shots of muscular bodies, and the music is somewhat more belligerent. The informational value is minimal, but the visceral experience may be powerful enough for some to forgive the film for forgetting that it is supposed to be “about something”. The platitudinous statements of the people interviewed do not have much narrative value, nor do they add much to the observational shots with respect to the stylisation, which does not fit very well with what we see and thus does not highlight certain topics (the meaning of the rituals performed, the specific features of African wrestling). On the contrary, it draws attention away from them. 50%

A model escape thriller or a dark screwball comedy? Of Hitchcock’s early works, The 39 Steps is definitely the film that most obviously anticipates North by Northwest, compared with which we are better informed about the central crime/MacGuffin and, instead of grappling with unanswered questions, we can enjoy the smoothness with which the individual scenes follow each other, thus ensuring continuous forward motion. The environment changes constantly and new characters appear, differing in their nature and nationality (Canadian, English, Scottish). A significant slowdown occurs only due to several longer explanatory dialogues in the second half. Unlike Hitchcock’s later works, greater openness (or less sophistication, if you prefer) is evident in The 39 Steps. It is not necessary to read only between the lines to find Hitchcock's sense of humour (black) or his opinions of the fairer sex (treacherous monsters) and rural areas (backward hicks). Thanks to a parody of speeches whose emptiness masks their indolence, there is even a bit of political satire, which is not a common feature of the director’s work. 80%

“I’m Adam Lerner, schwannoma neurofibrosarcoma.“ Another developmental stage of the bromance genre. Apatow’s comedy is intertwined with a “dying” melodrama. The boy-girl romantic storyline serves mainly as means of presenting the protagonist in greater detail, but it doesn’t answer the question of whether Adam’s girlfriends leave him melodrama because they’re bitches (as Kyle clearly believes) or because of his bland character and lack of will to change anything. Conversely, most of the truly touching moments are provided by the bromance storyline that sensibly uses Rogen’s committed (only?) position that he is a horny idiot and doesn’t care. He credibly complements Gordon-Levitt’s decent “I don't drink, I don’t smoke, I don't have a driver’s license” character (whose only bad habit is apparently biting his fingernails). The striking contrast between the two central characters is entertaining and their friendship is believable, while also offering two possible concepts of the human body – for survival/for satisfaction through pleasure. The laid-back pace of the narrative, sensitive incorporation of a serious subject into a comedy and the reduction of sentiment are definitely not qualities seen in every cinematic enrichment of oncological discourse. 50/50 not only enriches that, but also expands on it by putting a spotlight on false compassion and selfish unwillingness to take the negative with the positive, which is achieved through an initially likable girlfriend. Adam’s subsequent depressing loneliness casts doubt on the validity of the saying “live with people, die alone”. Some people are assholes, dying alone is a drag and living with a tumour involves pain, fatigue and vomiting. Banal, but true. The conveying of the knowledge that there may be no "after" was among the most powerful instance of such a message that I have ever experienced thanks to a film. Vastly superior to carcinogenic dramas. 85%

Billy Crystal's boyhood. Those who want a classic load of jokes will be disappointed. 700 Sundays is more than just a stand-up set; rather, it is essentially a two-act play for one actor (who, of course, brilliantly portrays a wide range of characters). Crystal does not try to be funny at any cost when talking about his family, childhood and relationship with his father. The ending is much more sentimental, but that does not detract from the performance’s entertainment quality, as it is brilliantly written and acted from start to finish (and understatedly supplemented with home videos and lighting that adds meaning). Instead of offering up profound wisdom, Crystal lets the insights that he has gained in life flow gently from the stories that he tells. Even in life’s worst moments, we should not forget to laugh. 700 Sundays is an excellent way to remind ourselves of that and have our spirits lifted at the same time. 85%

A Brony Tale is an unexpectedly perceptive, non-exploitative look into the inner workings of a subculture that would be very easy to laugh at. The film is surprising simply due to its subject matter (at least for those who were previously unaware of the existence of “bronies” before). In addition to basic information about one of today’s less common pop-culture phenomena, the film offers enough of a positive mood for a full-grown horse, which makes it different from a number of serious documentaries about the problems of today’s world (the subculture itself, with its ideological foundations, can be seen as a counter-reaction to the cynicism and irony of contemporary society). The effort to combine intimate portraits of “bronies” with an analytically unbiased documentary about them, however, causes a certain schizophrenia in the resulting account, which on the one hand avoids uncritical adoration, but on the other hand lacks greater distance from its subject. In any case, the film is a valuable contribution to the discussion on the crisis of masculinity, gender stereotypes and sexuality. 55%