Movie reviews

WARSAW KOREAN FILM FESTIVAL

같은 속옷을 입는 두 여자 (THE APARTMENT WITH TWO WOMEN)

Watchable. A drama about psychological violence but also about the lack of understanding each other at work or with potential friends. A lot happens on the emotional level between the characters but, however engaging the story is, it's not always comprehensible and doesn't evoke feelings in the viewer. Something rings false. It's the superficiality of the two protagonists, the lack of deeper justification, the reactions of both women involved are unnatural at times and often over the top on the mother's part and too subdued in the daughter - though the latter may be explained somehow. Some shots are overlong, many on the disturbing side and inexplicable. The flute music surrounds you but is so awful and ear-drilling I covered my ears. Not an easy film and not for emotional reasons. Feels staged a lot. 

브로커 (BROKER)

Watchable. It opens with a shot of torrential rain in what resembles the lowest situated street inhabited by the con artists form "기생충" ("Parasite"). The protagonists are in a similar line of work and form a peculiar false family unit. Will 是枝裕和 (Hirokazu Koreeda) ever stop creating those oddball families? Well, unlike "万引き家族" ("Shoplifters"), this one at least doesn't drag. And 송강호 (Song Kang-Ho) adds irony in the comic bits, however infrequent they are. The police women are quite wooden, especially the older one, and that whole subplot feels fake. But the two young actors: 아이유 (IU) and 강동원 (Gang Dong-Won) are good-looking and the story not so obvious, as you get to know everyone's motivations piecemeal. Shot with great sympathy to the hapless criminals, engaging, it highlights how unfair adoption laws are. 

APOKAWIXA

Recommended. I didn't expect a good movie from Xawery Żuławski after "Mowa ptaków" ("Bird Talk"). But this one is pure fun with lots of Polish culture elements, historical weapons, social changes. There's little macabre, it's all tongue-in-cheek and a riot of colour and music. Too-cool-for-school youngsters party like there's no tomorrow. Chances are there isn't. Written at the very onset of the pandemic, it presents the world imagined back then, though the dead fish and climate change ring true nowadays. Konrad Eleryk, Mikołaj Kubacki, Waleria Gorobets, Alicja Wieniawa-Narkiewicz, Tomasz Kot, Michał Karmowski, Matylda Damięcka are superb in their roles.