Wednesday 26 January 2022

I can finally type here again almost normally after weeks of a serious technical issue. I have 39 screens and 26 paper pages of notes on dozens of films I saw in the meantime so it'll take many days for me to catch up but that also means you can expect a number of long posts on several movies coming up shortly.

POWROT DO TAMTYCH DNI (RETURN TO LEGOLAND)

Recommended. About alcoholism. You can't deny realism of the picture - confirmed by addicts present at the screening. I closed my eyes at times although normally I don't, even at horrors. But here he pees himself, lies in his own vomit - it's painfully realistic. At the same time Maciej Stuhr is superb in the role. The first act though just sets the ground depicting the 90s - another down to earth representation, including lines like: "Zapraszam cię do siebie na komputer." ("I'd like to invite you for the computer at mine.")

Nowadays alcoholics get more help than in the 90s, there are highly skilled psychotherapists who turn around the way the addicts see themselves and the world. Also help for families is provided. All free. Experts claim there's less social permission now. So many people drink in hiding, especially women. They want to get respite from daily fear. 30% of the ACoAs are fine later in life due to internal resilience. But many suffer from generalized anxiety. More men than women drink. In the past people would seek help in their 40s, now they do in their 30s. Since the awareness of the problem is bigger they reach out for help earlier. The director's real story didn't end the way we see in the film. In 1998, just after matura (the final secondary school exam in Poland) he moved out as far as possible - to Australia for 6 years. His mother left the flat, fell in love with a German and was married to him for 15 years. His father stayed OK when taking care of his grandmother but his last drinking string killed him. His aorta got clogged and he died. He had been living with no electricity, with rubbish in the flat. Addicts list good and bad points of drinking in AA sessions. In his 'plus' notes he had put: "lepszy kontakt z synem" ("better contact with my son"). As for the movie world, Aksinowicz saw Nicholson's character in "The Shining" as an alcoholic. In "Powrót do tamtych dni" ("Return to Legoland") his flat was recreated one to one, Stuhr looked like the director's father. The actor would turn round and round to deceive his labyrinth in preparation for shooting. Since finishing the film Aksinowicz has had no more nightmares of his father drinking. Teodor, the boy actor, had no experience of alcohol in the family, his reactions to the father character's changing behaviour were natural and spot on.

KNERTEN OG SJOORMEN (TWIGSON AND THE SEA MONSTER)

Watchable. A children's tale on friendship. Costumes in wonderfully matching colours, quirky characters, quality CGIs, an 80s song over the end credits make it pleasant, though on the silly side. Only the Polish dubbing version was available in this country. 

KARSTEN OG PETRA PA VINTERFERIE (CASPER AND EMMA'S WINTER VACATION)

Watchable. Norwegian winter: deep snow, a night in an ice cave in subzero rated sleeping bags on beds lined with spruce wigs and reindeer hides, wooden cottages on pillars, a ski jumping grandma, waffles for children. Delightfully matching costumes and interior decor - it's cosy at grandparents' - warm up the frosty winter. The story's simple, with the same mascots as in the rest of the film series. The visual layer is more attractive than the mediocre plot. Only the Polish dubbing version was available in this country.

PITBULL

Recommended. The same director (Patryk Vega) but a totally different story of the policeman dubbed "Gebels" than in the 2005 film of the same title. Famous Polish gangsters like "Masa" and "Pershing" form the background to "Nos" who leads the story. Andrzej Pałucki "Nos" ("Nose") was responsible for the documentation for the movie. Both the cold-blooded mob boss and the shrewed, experienced cop play cat and mouse with each other. Who outsmarts who keeps you in suspense till the every end, especially that there are more players in the game. If only all crime films could be so inventive. This one is the Sevres model of how gangster cinema should be made. 

قصیده گاو سفید (BALLAD OF A WHITE COW)

Recommended. Iranian. The first act studies the repercussions of death penalty on the family and the outcomes of its irreversibility on everyone involved. But this intimate drama soon reveals the second bottom which makes it so intense it watches like a thriller. And it offers two versions of the ending.

GHOSTBUSTERS: AFTERLIFE

Watchable. Ivan Reitman is peddling his most successful franchise to children. The first 1.5 hours is all tedious plot development, horribly predictable, poorly acted, with unfunny skits. The plot tries hard to convince you Summerville in the middle of 'nowhere' Oklahoma is the most boring place on earth and Phoebe's odd. The result is you feel the cinema is the most boring place on earth and the movie's odd. Wrecks of the van and equipment, ghosts of the past. The "Who ya gonna call?" catch-phrase is a given. About the only funny exchange is: "I'll be 16 in February." "It's June." Big names, like Dan Ayckroyd, Bill Murray, JK Simmons, Sigourney Weaver only make cameos and all the fun takes place in the last half-hour, including the mid- and longer end-credit.