Movie reviews

HUMAN DOC FESTIVAL ONLINE

THE UNDAMAGED

Watchable. With this film this year's festival continues the subject of dams on Balkan rivers and environmentalists' protests. The documentary states the investments are all Austrian and the investors adopt construction solutions which would be illegal in their own country. The whole movie is, however, quite joyful, kept in a light tone. The opening pictures are awesome visually and accompanied by ambient music. The film amazes you with beautiful scenery every now and then. All the more the dammed canal scene is tear-jerking: having seen picture-perfect translucent willow rivers along the way you are suddenly confronted with brown, muddy water. Children are perfectly environmentally aware, unlike adults who first opposed the creation of a national park, only to be forced to protest against dams now. Albania appears to be perfectly democratic nowadays. Clever, very light in tone. While I understand the rivers protection action, the film itself doesn't seem to have a direct purpose.

WIELORYB Z LORINO (WHALE FROM LORINO)

Watchable. Their lives are based on animal exploitation. Appalling treatment of animals, e.g. dogs or foxes. Poverty. At first I thought of it as of a sad film showing how such values don't transform into people's prosperity. An outdoor party - one I'd love to join myself or a handsome teacher are the only bright elements in these people's miserable lives. But then I analyzed it deeper and realized the inhabitants' attitudes reflect Maslow's pyramid of needs: sustenance comes first. The film writes into the representation of Russia known from "Copper Mountains" - a systemic neglect and a reality of poverty and helplessness. When they haul the killed humpback whale onto the shore it's almost unreal.

Director Maciej Cuske has shed more light. Firstly, the Polish film crew was so poor, in comparison to other countries', the locals decided not to help them. Chukotka itself fell into a general disrepair at the fall of the USSR. Even a greenhouse went bust. People were dying of hunger so they were allowed to hunt whales as a cheaper option than the state's support. Delivery of fruit and other goods, e.g. pasta, potatoes, old-fashioned clothes comes just once a year. The foods are at least a year past their expiry dates. School covers just 4 grades. Education earlier wasn't even needed. The wooden shack of the poor couple who talk about having it refurbished bears traces of bear nails. The Chukchi have a permit to hunt 150 whales per year while Norway or Japan a few thousand - for supposedly scientific purposes - so it's the rich countries that do it on an industrial scale. The director is clearly fascinated by Russia and dreams of going back there. 

BLIZNY (SCARS)

Recommended. Powerful. Shocking and delightful simultaneously. The topic of women Tamil Tigers fighters is attractive and I've been looking forward to see the film since I first heard of it when it won the best script award at Human Doc 2018. It does not disappoint. You hear the gruesome stories of war and survival, e.g. one woman was saved from burning by three of her subordinates, all of who got killed, one was found lying on her decapitated. And those were their life experiences when they were in their teens. The picture of them now, after the war officially ended, being invigilated, despised and even, already crippled by war, battered by husbands, made me wonder whether it's politics, human nature or local culture - a forced marriage maybe? In addition, the film stands out as an artistic creation. You get to see the refraction of light in hot weather, upside-down reflections, the constant juxtaposition of the teenagers of nowadays, e.g. eating icecream with the now-middle-aged women's memories, a train going under palm trees towards and under a ruined bridge, a snake, goddesses in temples. The film abounds in symbols and cinematic thrills.

The last movie was the best but impossible to watch from a distance due to white subtitles on frequently light background. Also the font wasn't most legible.