Movie reviews

OUISTREHAM (BETWEEN TWO WORLDS)

Watchable. My current job search has put me in the mood quickly. The plot, however, disappoints. Nothing revelatory in the insider look at low end jobs. Been there done that. OK, I never had to clean toilets for a living. But I had a series of jobs which paid by the hour and were physically demanding. Funny that in France a book author is a higher class. The reading culture must be rife. Still, the film's engaging, the characters simple but amiable. Realistic and truly based on facts. Sadly the story doesn't explore the reasons behind these people's predicament.

WEREWOLVES WITHIN

Recommended. A whodunit comedy with a little horror twist. But most of all a crime puzzle and social satire on Americans. Smart and damn hard to work out the culprit since everyone's a suspect.

MOODY

Watchable. A short documentary with no lead story. Gamelan and modern western music make the film sound pleasant. Moody is a great dancer. Milky blue ocean looks alluring.

The two directors went to study Indonesian music and dance, Karolina Karwan had played in Warsaw Gamelan Group, they ended up in a school with no English spoken. The directors spent 1.5 years in Indonesia, a country of 17 000 islands. The film is not shot on Bali but on an island not far from Java. Ghosts are believed in daily life. Animism and islam are present. People told them not to sail to that island. So they went there. What you can't see in the film is the potable water problem: the well water is half-salty half-sweet, so e.g. tea is salty. Indonesian people hide negative emotions, while in Poland you witness eruptions of those.

Tomasz Ratter gave no explanation of his work. The female director wanted to transmit spirituality and isolation. 

KOT (THE CAT)

Watchable. A short film with no lead story. It's basically an adult hip-hop cartoon with decent animation. Kot (Cat) leaves jail after 20 years in a post-apocalyptic reality of climate disaster. Rap music matches images. They're all graphic. The form is attractive but the content lacks lucidity. 

GRANICA (THE LIMIT)

Watchable. A short documentary with no lead story. What strikes you is a woman who "won't go back to jail, ever". Still, I couldn't make out the subject matter.

It turns out it tells about director Michał Kawecki's family. To him it's about a brother-sister relationship.

FOLLOWERS. ODPALAJ LAJWA (FOLLOWERS. LIVE SHOOTING)

Recommended. A short actors' film with a consistent storyline. The boys' meeting and relationship are astonishing. Hot Adam Borysowicz as Przemek and Ignacy Liss as Adam are fully convincing in the leading roles. A great end-credit song by Vabang means it's all fun till the very end. 

No reason is given for the shooting massacres in order not to trivialize the issue. 

IL MATERIALE EMOTIVO (A BOOKSHOP IN PARIS)

Watchable. Sergio Castellitto's performance drives the movie. Interestingly, his direction ruins it. It's overacted, exalted, theatrical at times. Occasional glimpses of his two female co-actors' naked breasts and one lovers' meeting on a bridge with the Eiffel Tower glittering in the background are clearly meant to lure the viewer but both are cheap tactics, the plot isn't plausible psychologically and I found no sense in it.