YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE
Watchable. The title carries a double meaning: you can read it either as pointing a finger of blame at the main protagonist as he has never taken responsibility for his deeds or pointing at the images in his head where the current events mix with painful past and potential future situations. The hitman is not a hunk. He's ugly, fat, aging, burnt out and suicidal - remorses have caught up with him. The highlight is the dynamic instrumental music used a few times. However, the credits reveal fragment of the score of "The Shawshank Redemption" applied as well. As the music doesn't stand out on its own, I believe it's a reference to the film title pointing us towards the explanation of the protagonist's motivation as trying to redeem himself. Just once we get a mention of his girlfriend of 20 years earlier who "would have been a good mum" which provides us with another clue - he may be building the life he never had. A prolonged shot of a house landing with a centrally positioned note of a "Recycling program" also indicates that. The whole thing looks like a cross of "Taxi Driver" with "Leon" and "Hitman" meaning it's weird and lacks originality. While the callousness and cynism of the sex perverts is shocking, the nude painting in the flat and the prolonged shots of smeared blood are so in your face the story could really do without them. The main problem with the film is that its brutality trivializes the tale.
MARIA BY CALLAS
Recommended. I barely knew who she was but half-way through the documentary I remembered a TV serial about Jackie Kennedy and Aristotel Onassis and it dawned on me: she was the diva who became his lover. So now I got the other end of the story. And much more. Maria Callas was first a conscientious conservatory student and then a work titan. A magnetic actress on top of her opera mastery. She was very assertive, especially with prying journalists, had impeccable work ethic, strong personality, adamantly stating a woman couldn't do both a full-time job and domestic chores and children. She focused on her career, seeing it as a destiny which was indisputable to her. She lived an enviably privileged life and was fully aware of it. As she put it, fame got to everyone's head, especially her first, much older than her, husband's but not hers. Died of heart attack at only 53, following the passing away of her true love - Aristo. The film is chronological and features interviews and letters intertwined with music. I felt truly moved a number of times.
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