Movie reviews

UKRAINA! FILM FESTIVAL

During the festival I skipped "Gnizdo gorlytsi" ("The Nest of the Turtledove") which had won last year's edition as I had seen it then. I also chose to ignore a meeting on Ukrainian cinema led by Jakub Majmurek. It's enough I stayed for meetings with directors conducted by him. He was nearly as rude to the audience as the last time I saw him - at a Czech film screening.

GOLOVNA ROL (THE LEADING ROLE)

Walked out. A documentary about making a documentary - like watching paint dry - and about the most mundane home matters like shopping lists.

Январь — март/UROD (UGLY)

Watchable. Disturbing at times (the heiress deprived of dignity in hospital, screams of agony) and painfully protracted throughout. About love at the stage when you love the person warts and all, fully accepting them ill or vomiting. Beautiful cinematography. Playing with sounds and silence.

RODNYE (CLOSE RELATIONS)

Watchable. That's when I first heard of the action "take in one stray dog" during the war - how wonderful someone thought about them! Putin is seen virtually as Stalin, young men get killed, Poland is perceived as a country which had gone from rags to richess. These trivia were the most interesting, otherwise it's just too intrinsically Ukrainian.

БЛАКИТНА СУКНЯ (BLUE DRESS)

Watchable. Intriguing as first you hear of a woman dying from a psychologic trauma and then her son's investigating her past. The rest is a moving love story, unfortunately intertwined with several movie excerpts which, while forming part of the story, look archaic, silly and should be cut short.

MOLOCH

Watchable. Very good shots of work on heights. The story of sex violence and the aftermath is involving but, as for the rest, it's not even clear who is who, especially in the drink driving case. Dimmed light pictures don't help.

NAJPIĘKNIEJSZE FAJERWERKI EVER (THE BEST FIREWORKS EVER)

Watchable. A smart idea to show modern day young Poles' reaction to riots and an armed conflict in the country. Two sensual lesbians and drug-taking are juxtaposed with curfews and tanks.

DIXIELAND

Watchable. Birds are sitting on electric wires and a boy sings as if they were notes on a stave is the most memorable sequence. I like neither jazz nor children but in this documentary the music sounds like in pre-war films and the children are smart and talented. A feel-good movie. Lacks a point but is pleasing to watch.

THE TRIAL: THE STATE OF RUSSIA VS OLEG SENTSOV

Recommended. A film-maker subjected to tortures like in Guantanamo because he dared to oppose Russian invaders. An Ukrainian arguing with Putin about "the little green men", his manipulative answers and Oleg Sentsov's pronouncements are spot on.

MY GRANDMOTHER FANNY KAPLAN

Watchable. Slow and dragging on. On what love makes to a woman rather than on terrorism in Lenin's times. Documentary bits give just the background to a fictitious story filling in our knowledge gaps: Fanny Kaplan gets perfidiously used by the man she longed for and is helpless in the face of love. Clearly it's the ones we love that matter, not the ones who love us.

SHKOLA NOMER 3 (SCHOOL NUMBER 3)

Watchable. Teenagers from Donbass talk about the start of the war, loss of loved ones as well as of the games they played before the conflict and their first loves to a powerful effect. A bit too long though, not all the 13 teens should have been included.

ENCYKLOPEDIA MAJDANU

Watchable. Very good music and form of the series of 6 documentaries by Lysenko.  Hard to understand at times when you don't know Ukraine. Uplifting - leaves hope as you see a number of people with the will to fight and to take care of the wounded.

PRYPUTNI (THE STRAYED)

Watchable. The worst translation into English ever: inaccurate, into English slang and full of mistakes. The film itself is about a number of specific individuals, like in Bruno Dumont's movies, so the story's weird, absurdly brutal and strangely enchanting after a while.


INDIAN FILM FESTIVAL

The festival organizers decided to step outside Bollywood and show a selection of Indian cinema without songs and dancing as well as in a few different languages. At the opening the director of "Sarkar 3", Ram Gopal Varma, mentioned his phone conversations with Sanjay Dutt who was in London at the time. The director would send the actor pictures of Poland and Sanjay Dutt suggested that they cheat and make Warsaw to be London next time ("Brexit takes on a new meaning" as an organizer remarked). But Ram Gopal Varma has a different idea: he loved Polish locations and wants Poland to be Poland either in his own movie or in a co-production. I'm looking forward to it.

SARKAR 3

Recommended. Great music even though there's no dancing. Young hot act: Amit Sadh. Excellently scripted and played. Luxury settings include a residence with an own pool of dolphins. "Game of Thrones"-style betrayal in the family and no holds barred power struggle.  A political thriller with jaw-dropping twists of action and a fantastic finale.


PEWNEGO RAZU W LISTOPADZIE (ONCE UPON A TIME IN NOVEMBER)

Recommended. The plot departs from the usual view of the homeless and makes it a bit like "The Pursuit of Happyness". Here the protagonists are an evicted teacher and her law student son (young hot act Grzegorz Palkowski). The storyline contains quite a lot of action but it's basically a gripping drama with bitter undertones. Polish law and state together with the police, the judicial system and charity organizations all get clouted. Especially the attitude to the dog highlights the inhumanity of the system and higher morals of the deprived. No happy ending in the Polish story.


INDIAN FILM FESTIVAL

VENTILATOR

Recommended. Kieślowski-style moral dilemma Indian way - family-oriented and faster-paced, as Priyanka Chopra mentions in her cameo: "It doesn't drag." I found the movie very uplifting. Several issues are tackled: A woman is fighting to get her own toilet (Indians often have to go in the open, lacking proper facilities). Her voice isn't heard just because of that - she's a woman. Then there's the hard decision about life and death. The first half is humorous, with everyone guessing what the "ventilator" is and "not telling" the whole village. Then it gets serious and touching to the core.

Director paid respects to Kieślowski who had inspired him. He came to the meeting with fans straight from the Polish director's grave. He was charming, warm-hearted, even shook hands with everyone in the audience.