NA ZAWSZE MELOMANI (FOREVER MELOMANI) AND Q&A WITH PRODUCERS

Recommended. At face value it's a documentary on a jazz band, narrated by a rapper. But it's so much more than that. You learn that in Poland jazz was illegal to listen to until 1956, since it was perceived as anti-communist, too American basically. At the same time, in the post-war years, it was mainstream entertainment, preceding rock'n'roll. Lots of archive footage, contemporary interviews with big names even I've heard of, music like from old black and white movies. Then the documentary goes on charting the history of Polish cinema through its use of jazz soundtrack. You also get to see excerpts of Polański's film school etude. Among interviewees Antoni Studziński is a wonderfully expressive storyteller. Dynamic cut, lots of fascinating stories and well-known film fragments. When you recognize famous Polish movie themes, you realize it's all jazz. Eye-opening. I've never been a fan of jazz but it's a perfect documentary for an ignorant like me. 

Sadly Antoni Studziński, the last original band member alive at the time of shooting, passed away in August. Now the producers are making a documentary about Łódź as a city of film. The music event mentioned in the documentary brought a number of Polish celebrities together: Skolimowski met Polański and Komeda at the Sopot Jazz Festival. Before rock'n-roll there was only jazz. Throughout the 50s, 60s, 70s jazz was used in film. "Don't Look Up" is a rare example of this genre in a movie nowadays. Witold Sobociński filmed a dance in "Wesele" ("The Wedding") from the inside. 

RETRIBUTION

Watchable. Liam Neeson is superb as an old man tired of life, though his visible eye make-up is a serious distraction. Emily Kusche plays an episode as Zach's girlfriend Mila. Great electronic music and sound effects in Atmos clarity. The thriller is gripping: there's a menace, a puzzle, suspense. It's a shame the investment fund pretext for the plot is treated so superficially. But a solid actioner it is. 

THE NUN II

Walked out. A sequence of jump scares, a bit of a run-of-the-mill story, jump scars, a bit of a story etc. It's slow-paced, repetitive, uses overly exploited horror gimmicks and plot cliches. And the possessed grunt like pigs. Ludicrous.

HER DOCS FORUM

ЦЕ ПОБАЧЕННЯ (IT'S A DATE)

Watchable. This short film puts you behind the wheel of a vehicle rushing through the streets of Kyiv so fast that you see the atmospheric reddish lights along the road but can barely notice any details of the buildings. When the two girls finally fall into each other's embrace, you know it's a romantic town, even if the hurried ride wasn't. 

Reviewed from the organizers' screener, cinematic reception might differ.

THE BEE

Watchable. This short film is an atmospheric artistic vision. Enticing music gives way to slightly unsettling warning sirens-like sounds. The person's actions, shot in black and white, are incomprehensible until the last minute, spoken in Ukrainian, reveals it's a representation of a refugee's, presumably, judging by Migros bags, in Switzerland, emotional states. 

Reviewed from the organizers' screener, cinematic reception might differ.

VEILLEURS DE NUIT (NIGHTWATCHERS)

Watchable. A French observational documentary about volunteers helping refugees.crossing the Italian border into France. While you learn that pushbacks aren't just a Polish speciality, hear of appalling beatings and bullets fired in Libya, Croatia, Slovenia and Bosnia or of the French border police blackmailing business owners whose employees volunteer, it's all hearsay. Stunning day, dusk, night and dawn views of the mountains would appear enchanting but for the hypothermia the passage induces. Frostbite, other injures, deaths in accidents don't deter anyone from crossing and the more obstacles are created to hinder the passage, the more suffering results. A bleak picture of humanity.

Reviewed from the organizers' screener, cinematic reception might differ.

DOPPELGANGER

Recommended. Based on actual events, it's a thriller revealing facts piecemeal but it also has a tear-jerking psychological layer of how living in lies destroys you. Emily Kusche in the complex role of Nina stands out even among the fine performances all around. Top-notch costumes, hairstyling, make-up take you back in time to the cold war era. Shot on a few locations in Poland to represent Polish and other European towns: Gdańsk, Strasbourg, a Yugoslavian resort it skillfully convinces you to be a witness of two, or three - counting Yugoslavia, parallel realities of the period.

THE CREATOR AT IMAX AND Q&A WITH DIRECTOR GARETH EDWARDS

Watchable. Written and directed by Gareth Edwards, the plot is simplistic, ballistic and doesn't make sense, virtually every minute of it is nonsense, visually it's quite derivative. It's basically reverse "Terminator" - here the humans want to exterminate the AI. Visually it's hardware-heavy like in "District 9", with "Blade Runner"-like cities. Few futuristically-altered landscapes are a nice change. There's little background to the plot, just a brief chronicle of preceding social and political events. The leading protagonist is an AI kid so the movie's on the sappy side. Dogs and monkeys' actions constitute brief nice touches in the constant warfare. In addition, warfare defying logic. The robots, called 'simulants', can be shot like humans or can't - hard to work out, anyway that constant mindless shooting must make the NRA happy. People can donate their likeness to simulants. The robots worship their creator. The 'ultimate weapon' robot is stupid even for a human child, let alone AI. Burning robots on funeral pyres is religious nonsense, especially with metal creatures. A code error caused an atomic bomb detonation. Improbabilities and stupidity just pile up. The futuristic architecture has its style but is fairly uniform all over the world. Most of what you see is just lots of machinery and robots. The flying objects are visibly superimposed on natural backgrounds. Clumsy dialogue makes you cringe further. The sexist look even at cyborgs: "she was beautiful" (as an erotic dancer) perpetuates earlier sexism of movies peddling go-go dancers as objects of love and makes you wonder if Cronenberg had been right with his excitement over tech. There are occasional attempts at references to famous blockbusters or well-publicised real life incidents, e.g. the dead soldier will go to "Valhalla" and the black protagonist utters: "I can't breathe" although in a different context altogether. Luckily the movie's just over 2 hours long. But at Imax the ludicrousness is just greater.

The interview (rather than a Q&A it was supposed to be) was more interesting than the picture. The director says he just hopes his movie, which took him 7 years to make and was going to be both independent and a blockbuster, "isn't shit" - poor guy, it is. He's conducted "loads of research". The idea came to him after hearing of an experiment with animatronic rabbits where people were first playing with them for 15 minutes, then offered a $100 to kill it. No one did. He himself says "Please" and "Thank you" even to Siri in his phone.

His inspirations were plentiful, e.g. the robots' design came from "Ex-Machina", another visual from a few hours' drive through the US where he saw a Japanese factory among fields, "Apocalypse Now" and a handful of obscure movies. He says it was all serendipity. He made his first movie at 35 when he reached a point where his fear of failure was overtaken by the fear of non-achievement. He had been nervously checking at what age e.g. Steven Spielberg or others made their first film. The movie was being made during the pandemic and back to front: first shooting on location, next adding the machinery etc. Someone painted over it and it was passed on to Industrial Light and Magic to "make it look real because that's what they do". They used 8 locations, e.g. Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand - sadly I failed to spot that many or any natural beauty in the film. In Phuket they saw a temple  with a statue which he decided to replace with a robot. Madeleine, impersonating the AI kid, was 7 years old at the time of shooting. The original version was just under 5 hours and it took 3 months to cut it down to a 2-hour movie.

THE MIRACLE CLUB

Watchable. Colourful 1960s in a little Irish town with its pastimes centred round the church and little vices of its inhabitants. Relatively little happens till the trip to Lourdes. Then comes a hilarious false miracle scene. You also get a humorous take on men taking over shopping, house chores and childcare. The movie turns downright feminist towards the end as reproductive rights are discussed: having 12 children is too many even for a traditional Irish housewife, home abortion attempts are an experience shared by all the women, just like house chores are all the women's burden.

VILDMAEND (WILD MEN)

Watchable. Zany comedy meets drama in this Danish film about finding your identity. While you follow one guy's story to see what comes out of his sudden attempt to change his life, you witness inept, weak police unable to deal with criminals and cherry-picked historical re-enactments both of which prove resignation from modern creature comforts impossible. The inability to live in nature is a stronger message than the greed implied at some point. It also tells about what matters in life. Luckily it's all taken with a pinch of salt and entertaining.

Reviewed from the distributor's screener, cinematic reception might differ.

NASZOSC - TYLKO DLA NIENORMALNYCH (NASZOSC - ONLY FOR THE ABNORMAL)

Recommended. Early 1990s, system transformation times in Poland. Naszość was a political activism group adopting creative, humorous, performative methods which gained them public support. E.g. "jeleń w garniturze jest mniej awanturujący się" ("a deer in a suit is less rowdy") was a paraphrase of a famous line from a Polish comedy. The documentary astonishes you when it delves into their 1999 protest against the Russian invasion of Chechnya, as you hear them talk about Ramzan Kadyrov in whose house cellars people were tortured and compare Putin to Stalin - now, during the invasion of Ukraine, these reminders of the events hit you even stronger. Then there's the brilliant list of how judges are distinguished from prostitutes. Some memories are hilarious like when they were demanding the release of their friend from a police station but it turned out he had been released about 15 minutes before they stormed the building. It shows how their initially anti-communist agenda subsequently turned into rightist opposition to the modern-day left as now some of them run "Gazeta Polska" and similar right-wing media.

Reviewed from the distributor's screener, cinematic reception might differ.