Movie reviews

WARSAW FILM FESTIVAL

CHOKOLADEKRIGEN (THE CHOCOLATE WAR)

Recommended. Nestlé and Cargill representatives lie through their teeth that they "abhor" and "vehemently oppose child labour" while human rights lawyers have been "diddling around in courts" for 15 years fighting for their clients who were abducted from their country and beaten and tortured by cocoa plantation owners on top of having worked for 2-3 years without pay. A shocking and eye-opening documentary. "Trump's US Supreme Court" letting these corp criminals get away with "aiding and abetting" is another shock. As is the basic fact these giants have been paying lawyers $1000 per hour to perpetuate child slavery for 19 years.

FEMI

Walked out. Not only is it quite slow-paced, the shambolic plot means I couldn't make out who was who and why they did the things they did. 

뉴 노멀 (NEW NORMAL) and Q&A WITH DIRECTOR 정범식 (JUNG BUM SHIK) AND ACTRESS 하다인 (HA DA-IN)

Recommended. 6 stories tied together by props, locations or people - all fun to spot. You never know where each story will take you. Spotless acting and execution (forgive me the pun). Acted with poker face, especially by the last episode actress 하다인 (Ha Da-in).

The content is rooted in real life cases in Korea. Before his work on the movie the director worked on the music - imitating e.g. a US sit-com, old black and white Disney etc. In Korea, many movies are waiting for theatrical release after the pandemic. 

DER WALDMACHER (THE FOREST MAKER)

Watchable. It takes a while to make out what the film is about. The meandering introduction, with a philosophical opening text, repeated later, put me off right away. Afterwards I discovered it's about the Green Sahel Wall which was meant to be a wall of trees stretching from Dakar to Djibouti, of which only 4% has been created. It's a multilateral look at the problem, the most interesting being the simplest statement: each continent has its crop: Europe has wheat, Asia rice, America corn, Africa sorghum and millet. Other crops, like now-dominant corn, can even deprive African soil of nutrients. Volker Schlöndorff's first documentary is full of agricultural details. It also applies varied visual techniques - a few styles of animated insertions illustrate the presented history every now and then.

UKRAINA! FILM FESTIVAL

The 2022 festival featured Sebastian Płocharski's photography exhibition "Ja tu zostaję!" / "Я залишаюся тут!" - elderly people outside of the context of eponymous "I'm staying here!" didn't look any special.

WARSAW FILM FESTIVAL

TI, KTERI TANCI VE TME (THESE WHO DANCE IN THE DARK)

Watchable. A documentary where black and white pictures are justified since it presents a few blind people. They're highly functional: they work, practise sports, travel the world. The film offers insight into all practicalities of their lives: arranging the flat, living with a partner, walking in the block of flats and in the street, using a camera or a computer. Origins of the disease are explained too. It's informative.. They also have dogs - more pleasant to the eye than the protagonists who are sometimes ugly (in our visual understanding), whether capable of seeing or not. 

LISSA'S TRIP

Recommended. A modern-era coming-of-age story. The girl drinks LSD by mistake and has to cope with its effects on an important day. The movie adopts extensive animation to show what it's like to have an acid trip. It looks fabulous on the big screen, her adventure is engaging, every now and then profound issues shine through.

Q&A WITH "LISSA'S TRIP" WRITER/DIRECTOR/CINEMATOGRAPHER/PRODUCER JEFFERY SCOTT LANDO

Lots of technologies were used in the movie - they're all obsolete now, they change so fast. AI was used as well. The CGIs were free. They used codes provided in AI researchers' publications and used high-speed computers offered by Google. The producer didn't want to reveal the budget: "less than $100 million". The director had made some movies before but felt stuck in his life, also #metoo, patriarchy, white supremacy, colonialism issues came round. They never wrote the script. Most of the music was not ad-libbed, it was tailor-made. The director has done lots of LSD in his past and finds it life-changing, also a movie on it lets you experiment a lot. With "a handrail" - Homer's "Odyssey". Lissa's like Circe. Sophia (Lissa) said: "pain and suffering is unexpressed love" and "everyone suffers". The actress argued in the final scene she'd become the Hawk Girl. She embraces the creative and the commercial. She flies after getting to know her shadow (Nietzsche). 

DA MERE GATENDA (AND THE SUN RISES)

Watchable. Barely. This slow-paced one-location drama about a bed-ridden son-dependent grumpy old man who used to abuse his family in the old days and now attempts to torment both his son and his girlfriend mentally while tormented by nightmares himself is disturbing at times, yet with each incident different and the girl enlightening the picture with her make-up tutorials - to the father's despair - you can get through the movie. Still, I see no other reason for shooting one like it, other than assumed scriptwriter's self-therapy.

The festival had a complete program brochure, sadly only Polish and English titles were given, not original ones. White background made it easy to take notes. 

YELLOWJACKETS EP. 1

Watchable. Very American: baseball, a senator, high school to college rites of passage, name it. If you forgot where the serial idea originated, the episode reminds you with an iconic element of American culture every five minutes. Christina Ricci is unrecognisable as Misty and she's not the only one cast appropriately to the genre. But the school sports team girls are awfully stereotypical and sex-crazed (the one sex scene is realistic), hard to believe one of the writers was a woman. The high school is so trite it's just boring. The opening looks like "Blair Witch Project" and weird plane crash aftermath reminiscences resemble "Alive" from 1993 - the event in "Yellowjackets" takes place in 1996, not far from the original. It ends with a little cliffhanger but I can bet the rest of the season will reveal the girls had turned cannibal to survive.

Seen courtesy of Canal +.

UKRAINA! FILM FESTIVAL

ВІКТОР РОБОT(VICTOR ROBOT)

Watchable. I didn't quite grasp the idea of the 2050 universe but the central storyline of the girl travelling with a cute little robot is a touching tale of friendship. The animation is pleasant but the presented world quite uniform. It lacks variety.  

ВІДБЛИСК (REFLECTION)

Watchable. In some ways it's a reflection of Russian "Нелюбовь" ("Loveless"): prolonged shots, next to no emotions shown. Running in a wood. Роман Луцький (Roman Lutskyi) as Сергій (Serhiy), known from the role of Денис Добровольський (Denise Dobrowolski) in "Обручка з рубіном" ("Ruby Ring"), leads this drama in which first you're confronted with outrageous Russian lies like "humanitarian aid", next with the protagonist's mixture of guilt and grief. Everything resembles him of Андрій (Andriy): fire, washing off with water. Not al of his actions are clear, e.g. what was he doing with the vinyl records? 

ЯК ТАМ КАТЯ? (HOW IS KATIA?)

Recommended. No one cares about your loss. Corruption, mourning and a few tear-jerking moments.

LES PASSAGERS DE LA NUIT (THE PASSENGERS OF THE NIGHT)

Watchable. A warm film about daily struggles. Nothing life-changing happens. There's some moral product placement since a new lover accepts the protagonist's partly amputated breast and drug-taking, even "just once", is condemned. Pleasant, light, ambient music consists of obscure 80s pieces. Grainy cinematography - like 80s, sometimes clears, e.g. for one lovely shot of Talulah (Noée Abita known from "Ava") with Paris in the backdrop. Gently acted by both Charlotte Gainsbourg and Noée Abita. But while the events take place in 1981, 1984 and 1988, no one's look changes. 

UKRAINA! FILM FESTIVAL

БУДИНОК ЗІ СКАЛОК (A HOUSE MADE OF SPLINTERS)

Watchable. Tiring, especially with audio description which, even if helpfully clarifying e.g. everyone's mood and highlighting vital details of locations, makes the film overtalked. Awful styleless music is pointless therefore more annoying. The documentary sees children play, dance, socialise, long for parents and the staff providing heartfelt yet wise care. From time to time children discuss their drunk parents experiences or manifest pathological behaviours themselves. You feel grateful the social care for children works so well. At the same time it's scary how many behaviours are picked up by kids at home. Depressing.