INDIAN FILM FESTIVAL

WRONG SIDE RAJU

Recommended. "Truth is what you can prove in court" - the gripping half-rom-com, half-courtroom-drama was written over 1.5yrs by 3 guys and is full of twists and turns. Set in Gujarat, a city with an alcohol ban (out of respect for Mahatma Ghandi who was born and raised there), where the main protagonist initially is a smuggler. Supremely well-acted.

The movie is available on Netflix.


DWIE KORONY (TWO CROWNS)

Recommended. Who would have thought the famous saint designed spaceships? I had never heard of him setting up a mission in Japan either. I learnt the details of how his charisma manifested during the imprisonment in a concentration camp. That's how religion stops boring. Partly a documentary, partly feature adding a light touch - a combination working out surprisingly well.

VERDWIJNEN (DISAPPEARANCE)

Watchable. Wintry Arctic: vast, empty, snowy landscapes, dog-sledding, vodka, an accident with a moose, sauna, ice-fishing, ice-swimming, an ice-grotto and a story of a toxic daughter-mother  relationship. Reminded me my own Arctic winter holiday which was far better as lacked any toxicity.

On 19th October Kamera Akcja Festival starts in Łódź. PISF (Polish Film Institute) director has just been revoked by the Minister of Culture and that's going to be one of main topics discussed.


INDIAN FILM FESTIVAL

DEAR MAYA

Recommended. What happens if you meddle in somebody's affairs? Do you give them a new lease of life or do you destroy it? Two 16-year-old girls give a middle-aged lady a false hope of love and then spend 6 years trying to find out if she survived. Gripping and very emotional: true Bollywood.

BAANDHON (WAVES OF SILENCE)

Watchable. Relatively subdued colours and no interval. Gets you fond of an elderly couple who are trying to divorce over and over again about tiny issues from their school years which only show how much they love each other. Then they get hit with a terrible loss. It ends sad. The movie's devoted to those who lost their loved ones in terror attacks in Mumbai.

UKRAINA! FILM FESTIVAL

During the festival I skipped "Gnizdo gorlytsi" ("The Nest of the Turtledove") which had won last year's edition as I had seen it then. I also chose to ignore a meeting on Ukrainian cinema led by Jakub Majmurek. It's enough I stayed for meetings with directors conducted by him. He was nearly as rude to the audience as the last time I saw him - at a Czech film screening.

GOLOVNA ROL (THE LEADING ROLE)

Walked out. A documentary about making a documentary - like watching paint dry - and about the most mundane home matters like shopping lists.

Январь — март/UROD (UGLY)

Watchable. Disturbing at times (the heiress deprived of dignity in hospital, screams of agony) and painfully protracted throughout. About love at the stage when you love the person warts and all, fully accepting them ill or vomiting. Beautiful cinematography. Playing with sounds and silence.

RODNYE (CLOSE RELATIONS)

Watchable. That's when I first heard of the action "take in one stray dog" during the war - how wonderful someone thought about them! Putin is seen virtually as Stalin, young men get killed, Poland is perceived as a country which had gone from rags to richess. These trivia were the most interesting, otherwise it's just too intrinsically Ukrainian.

БЛАКИТНА СУКНЯ (BLUE DRESS)

Watchable. Intriguing as first you hear of a woman dying from a psychologic trauma and then her son's investigating her past. The rest is a moving love story, unfortunately intertwined with several movie excerpts which, while forming part of the story, look archaic, silly and should be cut short.

MOLOCH

Watchable. Very good shots of work on heights. The story of sex violence and the aftermath is involving but, as for the rest, it's not even clear who is who, especially in the drink driving case. Dimmed light pictures don't help.

NAJPIĘKNIEJSZE FAJERWERKI EVER (THE BEST FIREWORKS EVER)

Watchable. A smart idea to show modern day young Poles' reaction to riots and an armed conflict in the country. Two sensual lesbians and drug-taking are juxtaposed with curfews and tanks.

DIXIELAND

Watchable. Birds are sitting on electric wires and a boy sings as if they were notes on a stave is the most memorable sequence. I like neither jazz nor children but in this documentary the music sounds like in pre-war films and the children are smart and talented. A feel-good movie. Lacks a point but is pleasing to watch.

THE TRIAL: THE STATE OF RUSSIA VS OLEG SENTSOV

Recommended. A film-maker subjected to tortures like in Guantanamo because he dared to oppose Russian invaders. An Ukrainian arguing with Putin about "the little green men", his manipulative answers and Oleg Sentsov's pronouncements are spot on.

MY GRANDMOTHER FANNY KAPLAN

Watchable. Slow and dragging on. On what love makes to a woman rather than on terrorism in Lenin's times. Documentary bits give just the background to a fictitious story filling in our knowledge gaps: Fanny Kaplan gets perfidiously used by the man she longed for and is helpless in the face of love. Clearly it's the ones we love that matter, not the ones who love us.

SHKOLA NOMER 3 (SCHOOL NUMBER 3)

Watchable. Teenagers from Donbass talk about the start of the war, loss of loved ones as well as of the games they played before the conflict and their first loves to a powerful effect. A bit too long though, not all the 13 teens should have been included.

ENCYKLOPEDIA MAJDANU

Watchable. Very good music and form of the series of 6 documentaries by Lysenko.  Hard to understand at times when you don't know Ukraine. Uplifting - leaves hope as you see a number of people with the will to fight and to take care of the wounded.

PRYPUTNI (THE STRAYED)

Watchable. The worst translation into English ever: inaccurate, into English slang and full of mistakes. The film itself is about a number of specific individuals, like in Bruno Dumont's movies, so the story's weird, absurdly brutal and strangely enchanting after a while.


INDIAN FILM FESTIVAL

The festival organizers decided to step outside Bollywood and show a selection of Indian cinema without songs and dancing as well as in a few different languages. At the opening the director of "Sarkar 3", Ram Gopal Varma, mentioned his phone conversations with Sanjay Dutt who was in London at the time. The director would send the actor pictures of Poland and Sanjay Dutt suggested that they cheat and make Warsaw to be London next time ("Brexit takes on a new meaning" as an organizer remarked). But Ram Gopal Varma has a different idea: he loved Polish locations and wants Poland to be Poland either in his own movie or in a co-production. I'm looking forward to it.

SARKAR 3

Recommended. Great music even though there's no dancing. Young hot act: Amit Sadh. Excellently scripted and played. Luxury settings include a residence with an own pool of dolphins. "Game of Thrones"-style betrayal in the family and no holds barred power struggle.  A political thriller with jaw-dropping twists of action and a fantastic finale.


PEWNEGO RAZU W LISTOPADZIE (ONCE UPON A TIME IN NOVEMBER)

Recommended. The plot departs from the usual view of the homeless and makes it a bit like "The Pursuit of Happyness". Here the protagonists are an evicted teacher and her law student son (young hot act Grzegorz Palkowski). The storyline contains quite a lot of action but it's basically a gripping drama with bitter undertones. Polish law and state together with the police, the judicial system and charity organizations all get clouted. Especially the attitude to the dog highlights the inhumanity of the system and higher morals of the deprived. No happy ending in the Polish story.


INDIAN FILM FESTIVAL

VENTILATOR

Recommended. Kieślowski-style moral dilemma Indian way - family-oriented and faster-paced, as Priyanka Chopra mentions in her cameo: "It doesn't drag." I found the movie very uplifting. Several issues are tackled: A woman is fighting to get her own toilet (Indians often have to go in the open, lacking proper facilities). Her voice isn't heard just because of that - she's a woman. Then there's the hard decision about life and death. The first half is humorous, with everyone guessing what the "ventilator" is and "not telling" the whole village. Then it gets serious and touching to the core.

Director paid respects to Kieślowski who had inspired him. He came to the meeting with fans straight from the Polish director's grave. He was charming, warm-hearted, even shook hands with everyone in the audience.

SUBURBICON

Watchable. A movie attacking what's become of American values. Follows in the footsteps of the whole series of productions titled "American......" which seem to have created a genre of their own. Desintegration of family, religion which is just nominal and which divides and segregates instead of connecting. Ironed dresses and suits disguise dirty deeds. The 60s are obviously the mirror of contemporary times. It deconstructs the image of peaceful middle class suburbia. Everyone's playing mind games on others and on themselves. Old-fashioned "Is that right?" is the catch phrase. Greed is no longer good either. Earlier „American Pastoral” turned on family, showing them helpless in the face of their daughter's derangedly violent behaviour. This one targets hypocritical parents, alongside other societal issues: scapegoating blacks and gun violence (treated separately). Marriage and blood ties have become decrepit. The sequence after the recognition at the police lineup is accompanied by music matching the picture-perfect facade incongruous with what's just taken place. In another scene  a white woman, who claims to have nothing against blacks, says: „They should better themselves, educate themselves.” But when they try to better themselves, the whites throw roadblocks in their way. Only children are free from the predjudice, blissfully unaware the biased society expects them to become equally racist. With so many memorable segments, it's quite PC: the only black family portrayed here is perfectly neat and just like everyone else in the town and demons come out of the white population only. The mayhem is over the top. There's too much gore which shows the same delight in violence in the film makers as the pride the American protagonists take in their gun culture. The movie appears much better when analyzed a few hours later than during watching.

TINY GIANTS 3D
WILD AFRICA 3D

Watchable. Both by BBC Earth. Documentaries for adults who want to admire the beauty of nature. One is about the hard life of chipmunks and mice. The other shot in 11 countries, if I counted well, and with African music. Pretty ordinary but both, truly BBC way, with some amazing pictures. Even without the 3D, they'd be amazing just due to mind-blowing takes. Why on Earth are they marketed at children?! Kids don't understand the films and get scared of predatory animals. Caviare to the general.

APOCALYPSE CHILD

Watchable. I sat through it to see Philippino culture. It reminded me of a roommate I had years ago. Seing how thoughtlessly the protagonists engage in sex, without thinking of consequences, kind-of explained to me why Philippinas get pregnant at such a young age. The actual plot of the movie is made so mundane that even when a past tragedy is revealed at the end, it makes no impression.

UKRAINA! FILM FESTIVAL

The scope of makers as well as of protagonists was quite international, both of documentaries and of feature. It looks like no one in that country is pure blood. The festival was going to focus on contemporary Ukraine this year. But it was only nominally contemporary since Ukrainians tend to dwell on the past. Just like Poles.

KIEDY TEN WIATR USTANIE (WHEN WILL THIS WIND STOP)

Watchable. I learnt a lot about Crimean Tatars - the history and the present of Stalin's and Putin's (respectively) persecution. A cattle carriage exile and lagers then, dismissals from work and quiet deportations now. They speak Tatar and Russian. The families live in decent, tastefully furnished houses, with beautiful gardens or conservatories at home, taking care of pets. And you just can't help but feel sorry for such kind and beautiful people being discriminated against, isolated socially, with TV and the Internet cut off. The documentary is slow-paced and feels lengthy though.

LOVING VINCENT/TWÓJ VINCENT

Watchable. I'm a great fan of Van Gogh's painting style and expected to be mesmerised by this homage paid to his art. I hadn't known much about his life however. Contrary to my expectations I found the crime story around his puzzling death more interesting than the artistic layer. From what I saw of Van Gogh in London and Amsterdam, the paintings used in the movie weren't very representative, at the same time they hailed from his most famous period characterised by vivid colours, basically they were neither famous, nor did they show his development as an artist. Reminiscences were shown in black and white in a style which didn't resemble Van Gogh's drawings. What's more, his paintings were altered to adjust them to the movie and actors' features were kept. In the plot it's hard to make out who is who. Nevertheless, it was the first time I heard about the riddle of whether he committed suicide or was mugged and murdered.

ZGODA (THE RECONCILIATION)

Watchable. What consent or agreement from the title is the movie actually about? The story of cursed soldiers and their obsession with one woman is very simple. What  struck me was no female nudity in spite of a few scenes of sex and of rape. Just like in "Historia Roja" the cinematography is dark but in "Zgoda" at least you can distinguish the characters.

KROTKAYA (A GENTLE CREATURE/UNA FEMME DOUCE)

Recommended. "Krotkaya" goes one step further than "Leviathan". It's a bleak, Kafkaesque picture of Russia, with murder being an everyday subject of conversations, corruption, false promises, alcoholism, human trafficking and sexual violence treated as a norm, human rights advocates facing predjudice and absurd allegations. In the midst of all these distorted norms a strong but helpless woman. It's long but totally gripping. Russia in a nutshell. Undeservedly not submitted for an Oscar.

PHOTON

Walked out. A monotonously spoken, archaically shot lesson on evolution. Looks like from the 1970s.


The "Jest życie po końcu świat" book premiere followed the release of "Ptaki śpiewają w Kigali" ("Birds Are Singing In Kigali"). Movie director Joanna Kos-Krauze and one of lead actresses Jowita Budnik acted like stars of the evening: both arrogant and as vague as the movie. The director ridiculed food allergies. She actually had sent back home some European staff who couldn't eat certain products in Africa, since she had seen it as a lack of sensitivity. If she had had some knowledge she would have known that a lack of hygiene, like in war-torn zones, successfully prevents the occurence of allergies. In Europe such health issues are genuine. It was Joanna Kos-Krauze who manifested a lack of sensitivity. And a lack of education.

The "Happy Olo" premiere was a welcome contrast. Aleksander Doba is a hands on, down to earth guy, fond of people and very warm-hearted. I tried some freeze-dried foods: a delicious pasta with nettle (which he hadn't eaten, preferring meat), strawberries and smoothies all made of freeze-dried fruit - the kind of meals the kayaker had on his Atlantic journeys. The kayak was on display too. No one was guarding it and kids were able to open it and get inside which upset the hero. He lets children go in but only in his presence. During interviewes and answering ad hoc questions he showed some signs of impatience too. Clearly the tour promoting the movie and both books is taking its toll on him. Apart from hearing the story of his she-shark encounter again, I found out the desalinator would break down during all his voyages and he had to pump water by hand. Once a membrane, at other times other parts, something would go wrong with it each time. His entrance to the screening room was brilliant: he circled a column three times - "Actors go out three times at the curtain call, so I entered thrice." He's a firm believer in achieving one's goals even at 71. He greeted the audience in the other screen differently as he "hadn't learnt it by heart." It was remarkable how he may have been fed up with all the necessary hype but would go out to the people, sing books, pose for pictures with a great smile and cheerfulness.

MANIFESTO

Watchable. Composed of quotes of several 20th century art manifestos read out by Cate Blanchett speaking with different accents and professional mannerisms in 13 totally different roles deserving an Oscar for the role and make up at least. When watching it's best to ignore the philosophical nonsense and just get engulfed in the images and changes in the language since all manifestos are pure form, I just couldn't tell them apart by art trends though I have some educational and professional art background. Shot on locations in Germany, mostly Berlin but also e.g. a disused factory in Cottbus. Locations are a great pick  and render the film hypnotic.


NA UKLADY NIE MA RADY

Watchable. Very true to life: entrepreneurs are pestered by salesmen of all sorts, politicians are enticed to accept bribes and nepotism and get later blamed by the media regardless of what they have or haven't done, law enforcement services fight between themselves for cases to take or discard. It's just hardly funny and was meant to be a comedy.

Seen courtesy of Cinema City.


MLYNARSKI. PIOSENKA FINALOWA

Watchable. I used to think of Wojciech Młynarski as of a boring old prick. From the documentary I know he was quite good-looking when young and very smart, with a sharp mind. The music style is not what I listen to but it was an ongoing commentary to social and political developments of his era and very to the point. His suffered from bipolar disorder which was responsible both for his creativity, brilliant mind and social mixing abilities and for his darker periods which destroyed his family. A surprisingly involving film, even for those younger than Wojciech Młynarski would be now.

PARK

Watchable. It's all about the carnal. A group of teens whose activities are all physical. Their way of expressing joy or coping with a tragedy is invariably physical. The male and female leads are both beautifully muscled. While the events are chronological, they're just a sequence of scenes with no clear beginning or ending.

SIMRAN

Watchable. Not your average Bollywood, at least in the Polish version shortened by half from nearly 4 to about 2 hours (why? why?): little music, no dancing and based on a true story. All that makes for a more realistic view of the community. In a patriarchal Indian family the offspring can't just talk to parents, they must obey. I wouldn't use "my father's going to kill me" even as a figure of speech. The protagonist is genuinely scared of her father. The story is quite American (it's set in the Indian diaspora in the US) or rather... about an Asian girl who gullibly believed in the American dream. The picture of contemporary world, shown with a pinch of salt, is bizarre yet plausible: online tutorials teach you how to rob a bank or how to kill someone and not get caught, an object bulging under a jacket can scare bank employees into handing over the money, with them firmly believing they had been attacked by Al-Qaeda. Kangana Ranaut is superb in her capability to enact a number of moods and behaviours of the ever changing girl in one movie, truly Bollywood-style.

Seen in the comfort of Cinema City, at least most of their cinemas have kept the comfy seats. Still, I'm upset Bollywood gets cut short in Poland! Absolutely outrageous!

2 NIGHTS TILL MORNING

Watchable. Very pleasant, totally plausible and involving. Reminded me of one friend I made at the airport and of several other chance encounters in travel. Both protagonists are well off which makes the story less versatile it could be.

ANG BABAENG HUMAYO (THE WOMAN WHO LEFT)

Watchable. In spite of the nearly 4-hour duration. It's low budget: black and white, with few actors and locations, no music score. It has a story though a predictable one. You know what's going to happen, you just don't know how and which of the characters will play what role. What makes it so easy to follow for so long is its calm, steady rhythm.

AURORE

Watchable. A simple, quite pleasant life story about a perimenopausal woman, other men and women of her age (50), her 2 pregnant daughters (with a pointless nude scene of one in a bath) and a few elderly ones. Cheerful.

HOME AGAIN

Watchable. Two hotties: Reese Witherspoon and Pico Alexander in the main roles, Candice Bergen as her mother, lots of wit, beautiful cinematography, an involving story full of endearing characters and just one thing wrong. It starts funny when the 27-year-old realises his sleepover was with a 40 who's a mum of two. The difference in lifestyles cleverly shows the generation gap. The gap quickly closes through the two parties being supportive to each other. What rings wrong in the film is that she gives up on the blooming relationship with the younger guy and blames his age on letting her down while in fact it was her ex of her age who was the disappointment. The movie portrays the new generation as much warmer and more reliable than the older one. In spite of that she decides to stay alone. Hard to believe a woman created such a sexist ending.

SHUBH MANGAL SAAVDHAN

Watchable. Plenty of funny exchanges, e.g. parents finding porn in their 12-year-old son's belongings: "Do you want to go off the rails?" "Not yet." Decent Bollywood music. But really, devoting a whole movie to the fiance's soft problem?! India clearly lacks elementary sexual education. At least now I know why Indians don't know foreplay. The culture which doesn't care about women's satisfaction has produced the movie because men happen not to get satisfaction either.

Seen courtesy of Cinema City.

TO STAY ALIVE: A METHOD

Watchable. Do you really want the old wreck of a man, drug addict and bum Iggy Pop to tell you how to live? According to him suffering enobles and you should find a structure through which you can express your suffering. I understand the latter can prevent getting sectioned but the need to dwell on suffering hasn't done him or other protagonists of the documentary any good as all off them struggle with mental issues. Another of his lines: "The question where to lead your life will never present itself. You will live where you can." is also questionable and shows only that he doesn't feel the master of his fate. The notion that on a rainy day you can slip into the exit lane of a mental illness sounds true in the context. So does the girl protagonist's statement that no revolution is possible since once people secure themselves a steady job they prefer to maintain the status quo.



NIGHT FILM MARATHON - THE NIGHT OF HORROR BY KING

I skipped "It" as I had never seen a horror at Imax so I decided to see it there.

DREAMCATCHER

Partly watchable. I started watching it in one screen and then I took advantage of different start times to skip part of the nonsense and just catch the ending in another screen. "Jackass" meets "Aliens" and "Invasion of the Body Snatchers".

THE SHINING

Watchable. I once couldn't stand it on TV but on the big screen it was surprisingly good. Jack Nicholson's best role ever as he transforms from a friendly, chatty guy into a deranged psycho. The main frame of the horror storyline is pretty standard but with the addition of mysteries: Is he insane or haunted? What do the pig nursery rhyme and a man dressed up as a pig at the 20s costume ball mean? What is the caretaker's identity? Very well shot too. It's the masterful enactment of the script that makes the movie unforgettable.

Updating on 15th Oct.: Having just read about Manson's murders, now I think that was a major inspiration for Stephen King and the movie makers a few years later - his gang would leave "pigs" notes on the walls in the houses they raided.


Alexander Doba, the protagonist of "Happy Olo" visited Warsaw to promote the movie and the book. I asked some questions at the meeting and in return I heard fascinating stories about how he got robbed of all his valuables on the Amazon or his encounters with sharks. First a shark would bang the bottom of his kayak so he would hit it on the head but at the second encounter when the traveller saw a shark he recognised "upon the big black eyes" it was a she so he caressed her on the tail! The book, "Doba na oceanie", has been written for children but the contents are so informative an adult can read it with interest too.

AMERICAN ASSASSIN

Watchable. An American secret agent who's skilled at combat and doesn't take orders. Predictable and full of nonsense but you can't stop watching. Fight scenes make sense at times, they're a notch higher than in most movies. The Varsovian bit about the Cardinal's visit caught the essence of living in Poland.

BORG MCENROE

Watchable. Luckily I don't watch tennis so I had no clue of the score of the famous 1980 match which let me feel some tension in spite of a retrospection put right in the middle of the scene. The whole movie is like that: it jumps to and fro in time and appears to reflect on the two players' psychology though with no depth. One thing I liked was that the actors were made look the spitting images of the originals.

IT AT IMAX VS. DOLBY ATMOS

Watchable. Horror for children. Clowns with spiky teeth, the walking dead, a paedophile father, a possessive mother, a deformed woman and school bullies, of which only the adolescent thugs were a little bit scary. The realistic layer composed of different sorts of abuse and the conquer-your-fears subtexts were OK. However, the most frightening moment is at the end when you read all this nonsense "was chapter one". Visually rubbish, in the Dolby Atmos version the sound makes it scary at times. No mid- or post-credit scenes.

The Dolby Atmos sound is crystal clear and after that ordinary Dolby Stereo seems like mono. Imax was louder but Dolby Atmos clearer - in fact I heard several sounds I hadn't caught at Imax.

The breakthrough sound system requires movies to be recorded in it. Two new productions coming out in Atmos are: "Kingsman: The Golden Circle" - here, too, the sound of the trailer is much more spacious and clearer than at Imax - and "Blade Runner 2049"- here neither the visuals nor the sound made impression on me but I'm still curious of the whole movie.

KURACJUSZ JESTEM

Watchable. Fat old people trying to hook up in a sanatorium are revolting but funny. A bit pathetic that such people are real. It's a documentary.

MARIE-FRANCINE

Watchable. Another French satire this year. This time a woman betrayed by her husband with a younger one moves into her parents'. She loses her scientist job too and sets up an e-cigarette shop. Her ineptitude at selling is amusing, she gets so wound up she has to relax lighting up a traditional one. The whole thing is warmhearted and typically French, e.g. parents barging in when she's having a tete-a-tete with her boyfriend - both in their forties.

NIEZWYCIĘŻENI (THE UNCONQUERED)

Watchable. A short animation propaganda of the prowess of Poles in combat. Good music. May be pretty fine on a bigger, real cinema screen, as each frame is hand-painted, or in an interactive form since further explanations are required.

PTAKI ŚPIEWAJĄ W KIGALI (BIRDS ARE SINGING IN KIGALI)

Watchable. Wooden acting ruins the fascinating premise of Rwandan genocide. In a bigger part the movie's about dealing with a trauma and laws on refugee status. Not much about the conflict. The limited colour palette and the choice of the range of shades make it look dull.

DYRENE I HAKKEBAKKESKOGEN (IN THE FOREST OF HUCKYBUCKY)

Watchable. As a child I never liked songs in films and I didn't quite fancy muppets. The first half an hour follows the song-scene-song-scene pattern which only later develop into a story with fewer songs and said singing, at least in the Polish dubbing, sounds just awful. However, when you turn a deaf ear to it, you notice bright, cheerful colours and later get hooked on the story of true friendship. I wonder if the tale was created by a vegetarian because in this forest even carnivores go veggie.

Seen at my local Cinema City. I was the only viewer - not sure whether due to the school year or the virtual lack of advertisment preceding the release of the movie.

TARAPATY (DOUBLE TROUBLE)

Recommended. A movie like the ones I loved watching in childhood. And I still enjoyed it a lot as an adult. No, there are no serious subtexts. While it's psychologically true, with children often seen as a nuisance, their opinions and needs ignored, the director doesn't dig into it. It's purely entertaining. Very well scripted and acted by adults and children alike. Intriguing storyline, funny dialogues, e.g. an aunt asking her niece for a photo ID before opening the door for her. The gang was brilliant too - who they were and what they were like. I had fun and would love to see a sequel with the same kids, aunt, gang and police. I only found the music annoyingly Polish. The rest is top notch amusement.

The book, of the same title, is based on the script and contains a number of original dialogues.

VICTORIA AND ABDUL

Recommended. Delightfully British from the sophisticated self-deprecating humour, e.g. "the Indian drawings weren't Indian enough", through meticulous enactment with details like the head of the Royal Households speaking with different accents to servants and to the kitchen staff, to the sad finale. The second half is increasingly weighty and heart-rending.

MAUDIE

Watchable. Not very promising at first, develops slowly, but the moment the cripple villager starts painting the action becomes truly involving. It's a thorough observation of a several-year-long relationship which started as a marriage of convenience. It's constant adjusting to each other and reluctant acceptance of what life brings and what people are. A few various life outlooks are presented in-depth. I just left the cinema with a feeling that I had just seen something beautiful. The beauty of taking life as it is, however little you have and transforming your surroundings impressively while changing the other person proves impossible yet results in mutual love.

INHUMANS - EPISODES 1&2 AT IMAX

Recommended. Wow! That was my primary reaction. I just can't wait to see the continuation. It's full of suspense and mystery but the story and characters are clear-cut. Medusa's ginger hair is contrasted with the grey Moon settlement in the first part, in the second the lush greenery of Hawaii becomes the colour focus. I loved the costumes, it's a complete futuristic yet realistic fashion style. The world portrayed is complete too, with the protagonists' superpowers, personalities, a sketch of the society and politics, technology available to them. The powers are revealed gradually which results in great twists of action. Teleportation can be conducted in two different ways, both quite ingenious. "Game of Thrones" meets "X-Men" but in an improved way: superpowers, of other kinds than in the X population, replace the "GoT" magic and there's more story than battles and brawls in which it surpasses more recent Marvel productions. More special effects than in the "GoT" too. I definitely favour SF over fantasy in general and in this case in particular. Anson Mount is superb as kind-of-mute Black Bolt. I loved the plot, it's so full of surprises (though I haven't read the comics). It wonderfully shows the clash of attitudes of the royals and the commoners, they just react differently. There's a post-credit but I couldn't wait for next episodes even without it as suspense grows with every minute.

1:54

Watchable. It's funny to watch a French Canadian movie. It's so clear it's not French: a teacher says "Go, go, go!" and the rest in French and the francophone students have English names. Very good music by Cult Nation which consists of French names. Well, the story of school bullying, youth suicides and discovering being gay is pretty standard but very well enacted, keeps you on the edge of your seat.

RENEGADES

Watchable. Filmed on rarely seen locations in Croatia, Belgium and Malta all pretending Bosnia and Herzegovina. Good, uplifting music by Eric Serra. At times, mostly in the first half, it feels like made for half-wits, at other times, mostly in the second part, the commandant (fantastic J. K. Simmons) comes to the fore with sharp, hilarious lines and exchanges with his subordinates. I was laughing out loud like hardly ever. The plot is standard action fare about a heist. At the end of the movie $152 million remain unaccounted for.

TOIVON TUOLLA PUOLEN (THE OTHER SIDE OF HOPE)

Recommended. Atmospheric and scintillating, with irony permeating the whole film. "Foodie's Mecca" was just hilarious. Retro scenography and costumes are combined with high-tech elements of our contemporary world creating a town lost in time.

TANNA

Watchable. Fantastic cinematography shows beautiful landscapes of Vanuatu at all times of day and night as well as muscles on nearly naked bodies of people living traditionally off manual work and running long-distances on a daily basis. Everything appears to be happening according to the laws of nature. The thing is - it isn't. The tradition of arranged marriages ruins the paradise. The love story is shown quite unemotionally.

THE DARK TOWER

Watchable. A standard dark fantasy about evil forces trying to destroy the world. I liked the fake skins and the monsters adjusting them like clothes, also the portals between the worlds were fun to watch. But when you add the boy having to block his Shine so he can't be tracked or Seers, you realise the story's compiled of stolen motifs. Idris Elba is perfect for his Gunslinger role, Matthew McConaughey as a dark lord less so. The boy (Tom Taylor) is cute and a future hottie, his mum (Katheryn Winnick) lovely.

VICTORIA AND ABDUL

I've seen it already but, due to a publication ban, will be able to post a review no earlier than on 5th Sept.

CAPTAIN UNDERPANTS: THE FIRST EPIC MOVIE

Watchable. Not as stupid as the title implies. Superheroes look like they're wearing underpants so it only makes sense to create one like Captain Underpants. Primary school gets a make-over when two brats change the principal into a childish superhero. No more boring for children Invention Conventions at 8 a.m. on Saturday. "Weird Al" Yankovic performs the theme song. There's a good mid-credit. For viewers of the same age as the pranksters in the film.

LICHOZROUTI (THE ODDSOCKEATERS)

Watchable. The sock-like creatures evoke many warm feelings even if they are all mafia. The movie feels like one for nursery/early primary school children but contains foreign language bits: Italian "padre" and several more in Russian, Einstein's theory of relativity is mentioned and Munch's "Scream" gets mocked in one scene. The pace is a bit too slow for me.

HAMPSTEAD

Watchable. I expected a sad love story for elderly people. Luckily it's much more optimistic and versatile. The age of the protagonists has the effect that this love story is not as tacky as it would be with a younger couple in. It'a a surprisingly pleasant tale. In one of early scenes there's a kid on a leash wreaking havoc in a clothes shop, when the shop assistant ties the brat to a desk, the mum gets upset calling it barbaric. An even funnier scene is when the lead lady says: "What could I be possibly hiding?" and that guy comes out of the bathroom humming a tune.

I'm still a great fan of my local Cinema City, where I saw all the movies reviewed above, but at more popular movies I realised the row and seat numbering was a bit unclear. A number of people, me included, has problems identifying the right row or finding the seat number. A map at each entrance would help.

THE HOUSE

Watchable. A movie by and with Will Ferrell. It goes from silly to ridiculous and then to silly back again and it's disastrously unfunny. It's just involving because the losers are so likeable you just want them to succeed in gathering the money for their daughter's college. And it's fast-paced so you don't get bored.

Seen at my ever-friendly local Cinema City.

THE BEGUILED

Watchable. Civil War movies aren't my thing so when a girl found a wounded Yankee soldier I feared... boredom. But it was nothing like it. The historic setting was just a set-up allowing enclosing 7 women and 1 man to create a psychologic trap. Clear structure, tension and psychologic truthfulness. Bitter, with a sad ending.

SAGE FEMME (THE MIDWIFE)

Walked out. In this film each minute feels like an hour. I just couldn't bear to watch it for the remaining 53 minutes.

THE SQUARE

Watchable. Long, with a human acting like an ape, issues of power, instrumental sex, a person acting inappropriately in a public space - much like "Toni Erdmann" but less weird. Additionally it tackles the issues of financing art, social trust, alienation, impact we have on others, miscommunications, boundaries of art, advertising and freedom of speech. The square can be interpreted in a number of geometic and linguistic contexts.

AMERICAN MADE

Recommended. It joins the league of "Lord of War" and "War Dogs": based on true events, about big-time international gun and drug smuggling and a hell of a ride for the viewer. This one is not only great fun but also a presentation of the less known backstage to the rise of the Medellín Cartel, the Iran-Contras and dealings of US government agencies. Authorities of Medellín supported the production. While Tom Cruise plays the leading part, Domhnall Gleeson in the supporting role looks hot and acts disarmingly tongue-in-cheek. Some lines are brilliant e.g."Thank you for coming to see me" when a guy has been kind-of-kidnapped. Very well shot. Barry Seal's demise is accompanied by rapidly fading video footage.

VALERIAN ET LA CITE DES MILLE PLANETES (VALERIAN AND THE CITY OF A THOUSAND PLANETS) AT IMAX 3D

Recommended again. Necessarilly at Imax. Absolutely amazing. I was sitting quite low - in the 5th row and it let me immerse in the universe even better. How on Earth is Luc Besson ever going to beat that? I don't share the director's view that you notice more details every time you see the movie. I did pay better attention to Rutger Hauer, appearing only in one of the initial scenes, and Herbie Hancock, once I learnt it was him. I keep wondering what music genres like bio or nano would be like. I was right expecting the visual layer to gain on a larger screen. Luckily the action kept me on the edge of my seat for quite a while too.

밀정 (THE AGE OF SHADOWS)

Watchable. One to watch carefully from the beginning in order to get a full grasp of the story which may be additionally difficult for Westerners to who all Asian faces tend to look alike and some appear in disguises too. It's also not clearly indicated which language is spoken when and in practical terms when I focused on distingusihing Japanese from Korean I would lose the contents of the exchange. The music, with truly spatial sounds, forms a gripping background to the otherwise dull-coloured movie. Acted in style - watching the relationships develop is as involving as the historical double agents storyline. The last hour contains two heavily brutal scenes. I loved the music over the credits. Best to wait for a DVD - technically it'll be still excellent and additionally will let you fast reverse to recatch details.

SPARK: A SPACE TALE

Watchable. Dubbed by stars in the original, in Polish by nobodies. Heavily drawing on "Star Wars", "The Lion King", "Robin Hood", "King Arthur", "Kung Fu Panda" and Chinese mythology it lacks originality. Can be enjoyed for cute bugs. One human character speaks with a brilliant Russian accent (at least in the Polish dubbing).

THE NUT JOB 2: NUTTY BY NATURE

Recommended. The best cartoon since "Sing" - for children and adults alike. This time I enjoyed the Polish dubbing like hardly ever as the excellent dialogues got a brilliant translation, probably even better than the original, e.g. Mr. Feng becomes Myszu. Lots of cuteness and gags as well as hilarious lines, e.g.: "Use your female charm!" "I've used it up already." or "But they stock eco whew!" (I'm translating from Polish.) With adult undertones such as corruption, child obesity, cruelty to animals and, last but not least, developers threatening urban green areas. It ends with a mid-credit with Jackie Chan dubbing Mr. Feng in the original.

KRÓLEWICZ OLCH (THE ERLPRINCE)

Watchable. I didn't take to it at first but I shortly realised it was more of an art project than a movie and stopped analysing. I just revelled in the pictures and sounds and these are quite special. Towards the end there's a special effect of a video breaking up which was like nothing I had seen before. Annoyingly, in spite of language consultants listed in the credits, English was incorrect at times and mostly unnatural and even Polish contained one mistake. All the more, it's best not to analyse.

Seen courtesy of Cinema City.

GIFTED

Watchable. A simple moral tale saying that mathematically gifted people need love too. Good courtroom parts and the aftermath.

HAPPY OLO

Watchable. A crowdfunded documentary looking amateurish. Lame beginning and ending from a child's viewpoint and awful folk/disco polo-like songs. But Aleksander Doba is so funny and genuine it's worth seeing for him. He tells about practicalities like the toilet when you're kayaking for more than 3 months across the Atlantic or ocean salt (5 times as much as in the Baltic Sea) giving him all-body rash, but also how he couldn't send a text message and his position signals got mistaken for a rescue call and how he got repeatedly hit by fish flying at 90 kph. You get to see the specially constructed kayak too.

TULIP FEVER

Watchable. Very involving although quite far-fetched. Lots of famous actors: Dane DeHaan - looking like young DiCaprio in the role of a painter just like Leo in "Titanic", Cara Delevingne, Christoph Waltz, Zach Galifianiakis, Judi Dench, Alicia Vikander - getting naked again, seems her type of roles.


NIGHT FILM MARATHON

As I had seen "Annabelle", "The Conjuring" and "The Conjuring 2" before, this time I saw only:

ANNABELLE: CREATION

Recommended. Scary as hell. In many tried and tested Hollywood ways. Fits neatly into the whole series. The post-credit implies the next movie will explain the demonic nun from a Romanian Abbey.

Just as one of the characters uttered: "We shouldn't be in here", one viewer quickly ran out. A hilarious experience only a cinema can provide.


THE HITMAN'S BODYGUARD

Watchable. Really entertaining. Of course the plot is totally implausible and the dialogues full of vulgar language but when you've got two characters grudging each other and having to work together you're bound to enjoy the banter. Great airviews of London, Manchester, Amsterdam, The Hague and Dutch landscape. Bulgaria appears to stockpile baddies for co-productions. The black guy is to go to prison but has planned his walking free already. The white guy has hooked up with his sweetheart and is getting his AAA status back. A sequel seems likely. A deleted scene makes a post-credit.

RAID DINGUE (R.A.I.D. SPECIAL UNIT)

Watchable. A comedy about a clumsy cop who wants to join elite special forces makes for plenty of gags some of which made me burst into laughter. The plot's predictable but entertaining.

SNATCHED

Watchable. An adventure comedy with Amy Schumer so it's occasionally funny, e.g.: "They want young beautiful females. So you two are safe." or when they want to jump off a truck top and it drives away, but mostly silly and sometimes gross. Predictable. The music's fine. The movie's full of action. Oahu imitates Ecuador and Columbia.

Seen courtesy of Cinema City.
 
WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES

Watchable. For the first hour or so it's a regular war picture with apes and humans fighting one another to martial music. It develops into a cliche of an orphaned child. It's only when they reach the labour camp that the story becomes moving, gripping and a new science fiction idea is introduced when the sadistic commander explains his motives. The idyllic ending looks like from a Bible movie. As Caesar leaves a son and there's a little girl with a name bestowed on her by an ape I'm expecting yet another sequel.

Seen courtesy of Cinema City.

FUN MOM DINNER

Watchable. Not funny. A "Bad Moms" copycat without the flair. With significant contents of kids and their physiology. Makes you totally happy you're single and childless. You just get to see how both parenting and relationships suck. The music's quite good.

I was one of interviewees for a Korean documentary on Poland today which was a fascinating experience but long and, which I didn't feel at first, ultimately exhausting. Re-thinking all of it just deprived me of all my energy. Well, of course my concerns are about my own performance while the crew seemed to care more about our reception of Korea than theirs of Poland. Still, they were totally nice and I'm happy I took part in it, whatever the outcome may be.

RED DOG: TRUE BLUE

Watchable. A typical family movie about a dog. The beginning is sad - the situation is like mine: dogless and only watching them at the cinema. The middle is more cheerful, with some hilarious bits, like the fragment when the boy tries to train the dog - I've just chuckled again remembering it. The ending is sad again. I wish movies about pets had more optimistic endings.

PARIS PIEDS NUS (LOST IN PARIS)

Watchable. A charming, old-style slapstick comedy. Contemporary, brand new but resembling the best of Charlie Chaplin and the like. A few hilarious scenes, like a foreign visitor to the city being led by a blind man, falling into water or off the Eiffel Tower. The rest is just cute. Extremely well acted. Simple, yet smart plot. I only don't understand the French obsession with the homeless. Can't they make a comedy without any?

MON POUSSIN (HONEY BUNNY)

Watchable again. No longer that funny but at some bits, e.g. forced waxing, tearing a phone from son's grasp, falling of a ladder and a handful of other, I did laugh out. The soundtrack is a perfect match for the story.

SIERPNIOWE NIEBO. 63 DNI CHWAŁY (AUGUST SKY. 63 DAYS OF GLORY) (2013)

Walked out. 75 minutes of rubbish. The action develops in a few different times parallelly, with music ranging from something like moaning, through rap to war-time songs. Dialogues are either spoken with theatrical exaggeration or muttured incomprehensibly. Genre? Junk movie.

PUNKT KRYTYCZNY. ENERGIA ODNOWA (THE TIPPING POINT. ENERGY ANEW)

Watchable. One of several now movies on climate change. So it is important and interesting but the only new thing it brings is the Polish perspective: we've got the technology, with brand new solutions being developed, it's feasible economically, only the political will is missing because "coal is our tradition".

The debate afterwards was even better than the film. Director Łukasz Bluszcz couldn't make it but Aleksandra Kardaś, Marcin Popkiewicz and Tobiasz Adamczewski were great talkers with immense knowledge. The documentary is available on WWF's channel on youtube.

VALERIAN ET LA CITE DES MILLE PLANETES (VALERIAN AND THE CITY OF A THOUSAND PLANETS)

Recommended. The times have come when, as Luc Besson says, "the only limitation to work on a movie is our own imagination." It's the most expensive European production in history. "Star Wars" were "Valerian et la Cite des Milles Planetes" ("Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets") on a small scale. Apparently George Lucas got his inspiration from the comic book series. Now his company Industrial Light & Magic, together with Weta Digital, Rodeo FX and Ubisoft's Hybride division (the 4 companies combined have won 21 Oscars) is responsible for the mind-blowing animation. While the visuals are amazing, the 3D is just OK, so it should be perfectly fine in 2D as well. Best to watch on as big a screen as possible. I'll try to check it out at Imax - an ordinary size cinema screen felt too small for the 100 alien species. As Luc Besson said, "Doghan Daguis are French. They look French." The rest of the cast is not alien but also international. Cara Delevingne looks very beautiful. Baby-faced Dane Dehaan resembles young Leonardo di Caprio. Musician Herbie Hancock is the Defence Minister. Rutger Hauer appears as the President of the World State Federation but he's so wrinkly I failed to recognize him! The movie's beautiful from the start: In 1975 Russian and American astronauts shook hands. And smiled. Then we see subsequent astronaut handshakes past and future and that's when the first alien contacts take place. To the director first comes a story, whether it's a play, a book, a movie or a painting, the rest is just a tool. Great music doesn't come to the forefront, remaining a perfect background. The movie features an alien performance, just like in "The Fifth Element", but what strikes the most when you compare the two is the technological progress. The same progress which made this production possible. According to Luc Besson the movie will resonate better with Asian and European audiences rather than American since in the US the superhero has to be American and be a leader. While the director is not going to continue any of his previous stories, this one is just a warm-up for upcoming ones - "some movies have sequels in the DNA" and 29 albums of the comic books have been created. Luc Besson assures he's "always working". The two leads both look so young I hope for many sequels without digital de-aging. What's rare in contemporary SF cinema there are no mid- or post-credits.

THE SON OF BIGFOOT

Watchable. The story of an evil corporation experimenting on a yeti is prolonged and stereotypical, the bullying plot is better but the cutest are the animals, especially the squirrel. Sadly they occupy relatively little of the movie time.

KEDI (CAT)

Watchable. A thought-provoking documentary about people's attitude to cats. In Istanbul (kedi is Turkish for a cat) they are allowed to roam freely and reproduce at will. The feline inhabitants of the city are taken care of, fed, caressed, taken to vets. They're free, not stray. Feels disturbing when you compare it to how they are treated in Western culture. Lots of traditional tunes: bellydance drum solo music as well as "Üsküdar'a Gider İken" accompany the slow-paced film portrait.

UNA MUJER FANTASTICA (A FANTASTIC WOMAN)

Recommended. Una pelicula fantastica. Very clear structure and a mystery at the same time. Quite disturbing at times but totally engulfing. The protagonist is not an average Jane but is so convincingly portrayed, it's easy to relate to her. Some shots are so thought through they stand out.

SONITA (2015)

Recommended. Luckily there's little rap and its Afghan version is quite mild. I felt touched by the stories of girls sold to future husbands, sometimes very old, without being asked. In Iran they could say no to the sale, in Afghanistan they have no voice. Literally, as I was also sad to learn that in neither of the countries can a woman sing. Seems such a little thing in the West.

ASK TESADUFLERI SEVER (LOVE LOVES COINCIDENCES) (2011)

Watchable. A naive love story made to all the rules of the genre. A bit too slow for my taste. The subplot of how to live with a terminal illness is more realistic: the opposition of going from a doctor to a doctor set against living to the full and dying young.

AMERICAN MADE

Removed due to a publication ban I wasn't aware of. Will repost it asap.

DUNKIRK AT IMAX

Watchable. Boring - typical Nolan, with dreadful, tiring, jarring music - surprisingly by Hans Zimmer. The initial note on the screen is just some bla bla bla instead of historical info. So you're thrown into the middle of something you don't understand. At the same time technically it's excellent, especially the sweeping views of the sea and the beach from the air giving the impression you're flying right above. War effects sound realistically close. Air-con chills the air similarly to the wind blowing on the stretch of sand. War technicalities include the incoming tide bringing in corpses. With time it dawned on me the stranded soldiers must have felt the same not knowing what's going on. Major actors got minor roles, with the bigger ones given to no-names, just like the movie is devoted to the thousands of no-name soldiers. Still, I was happy it was shorter than usual Nolan's films.

Seen courtesy of Cinema City.

There's a special screening of  "Punkt krytyczny. Energia odNowa" ("The Tipping Point. Energy aNew") at Muranow cinema in Warsaw. Finally, having missed that at the Docs Against Gravity festival I'll see the film I have been curious of ever since I heard the director talking about the first documentary on renewable energy and the current state of energetics and environmental changes in Poland.

ROUGH NIGHT

Watchable. Lots of product placement, including even diapers for adults, and PC stuff: gays, fat people, colour - everyone. Hard drugs get a green light which I find disturbingly common in American productions. Is it really OK to market them in movies? But the rest is really good. Kate McKinnon, Scarlett Johansson, Demi Moore appear in a comedy of errors with great music. Some hilarious scenes like the one with "How many strippers did you order?" or "I think it's the stress of killing the guy and trying to dispose of his body." "Like what?!" The mid-credit is essential as the presented event is the continuation of the story and features a hilarious song. The post-credit is less important.

Seen in the comfort of my regular Cinema City.

GAME OF THRONES - SEASON 7 EPISODE 1

Watchable. Made for telly so the big cinema screen didn't make it look any better. The blurred contours of the background looked fake while on TV they must be just fine. No cruelty, one multiple death, no nudity in the episode. Looks like women will have a lot to say this season. A number of jokes I didn't find funny. Only one was so-so: a rider overhears a group of men singing: "I don't know this song. Is it a new one?" and Ed Sheeran replies: "Yes, a new one." All in all, I'm not very curious what's going to happen next. Can live without it.

ALIBI.COM

Watchable.  The idea of and the working procedures of the company are ingenious and some gags are good fun but most are silly. Over the credits there's a stupid song, nothing more.

21 X NOWY JORK

Watchable. In spite of good music this docu-drama is tiring, often feels protracted. It presents plenty of average people preoccupied with trying to build relationships. New York, which is the background to the people stories, appears as multiethnic and multicultural as London with the difference that London is less deranged and far more prudish. I mean my London, couldn't help comparing, the city doesn't appear here.

NOMA, MY PERFECT STORM

Watchable. Good to watch for the behind-the-stage look at the world's No. 1 restaurant, purely for the informative value. You also hear of the racism the Macedonian owner experiences in Denmark. Still, no tension or emotion accompanies this documentary so as a film it's just OK.

ATOMIC BLONDE

Recommended. If you've ever thought true espionage ended together with the Cold War, you're in for a treat. The story harks back to the last days before the fall of the Berlin Wall. The intrigue has been thought throughout. What rings wrong in the beginning, makes full sense in the ending. The soundtrack spans 43 years (from 1974 to 2017). Only one song comes from 1989 but all sound like they do.

ONCE UPON A TIME IN VENICE

Watchable. Neither Tarantinoesque nor a comedy. The Polish translation of Lewdy Jew has little to do with the original. But the characters are likeable, even the gangster and I'm waiting for a sequel, just like the final scene implies as there's still one bunch of bad guys after our detective. There's a little mid-credit.

DESPICABLE ME 3

Watchable. Nena, A-ha, Madonna, Van Halen, Dire Straits, name it - great music forms the background for the baddie. I don't know why the villain is a frustrated ex-celebrity from the 80s but at least it sounds good. Decent 3D but not a must. In the Polish dubbing popular comedians: Mikolaj Cieslak as Dru i Robert Gorski as Bratt are a special attraction. One character sports Star Trek's Captain Kirk's hairstyle and a "Finding Nemo"-like clownfish makes a cameo, there's a mum of three who's "still learning the ropes" of motherhood. No more attractions than these.

GOING IN STYLE

Watchable. Gone are the days when robbing banks was a way to get rich quick. Nowadays it's a means to beat the system. Three elderly chaps are fighting for their pensions. In style. What's the worst thing that could happen? If they fail, at least they'll get 3 meals a day and better healthcare than they get at large. The heist story comes a full circle. There's decent humour, e.g. "He's thinking. Looks painful." Alan Arkin, Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman with the addition of Christopher Lloyd in a minor part ensure quality. Still, I think it's not exactly for ny audience below 60.

The last 3 movies seen in the comfort of Cinema City.

L'AMANT DOUBLE (THE DOUBLE LOVER)

Recommended. The first few minutes are absurd. The very first scene exceeds the limits of intimacy and nudity showing... the inside of a vagina. Just after that the woman hears she's got a mild infection but instead of treating the condition medically she goes to a shrink. From the first psychiatrist appointment it makes more sense. The surreal is much better than the real. You never know if what she sees and feels are figments of her imagination or authentic. Some scenes are SF-inspired: "Alien" or as carnal as in Cronenberg's movies, one fragment reminded me of the corporeal pistol in "eXistenZ". The final scene makes a bang.

MON POUSSIN (HONEY BUNNY)

Watchable. In spite of it being gross and vulgar (it's French, you know), it's very funny. The broken-hearted teenager wails, another couple warns the parents of a similar case when a boy ran away and "Interpol found him in Belgium", the parents go to extreme lengths to relieve him of his agony, the teenager's sister wants to move to an orphanage so that a normal family can adopt her and there's a blender scene with brilliant music.

MUMMY

Walked out. All elements of a class B horror: plenty of zombies (out of one mummy) crawling on all fours or jumping at a running car, a curse victim having visions and all scares starting early on. They startle rather than frighten. Only for die hard (pun intended) zombie fans.

Service at Cinema City doesn't stop to amaze me. The cleaning lady in the toilet was concerned she might cause me nuisance refilling soap containers when I was trying to get the clearest reflection of myself in the mirror.

ENKLAVA (ENCLAVE)

Watchable. Sad and depressing. Questions the boundaries between good and evil along with the boundaries between childhood and adulthood. In the beginning nothing much happens, later there's some local folklore - a Muslim wedding and an Orthodox Christian funeral and only after the lengthy intro something actually happens. This and the aftermath of the deed are truly chilling.

The screen adaptation of the graphic novel "The Coldest City" is coming out soon. I've just drafted my review which will appear here on the 22nd of July.

SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING AT IMAX 3D

Recommended. The very beginning was so lousy I was seriously worried whether I'd tolerate the whole: Captain America reduced to lecturing schoolkids on how they should behave, Spider-Man having a crush on an, undoubtedly PC, mixed-race girl (half-black) and running a video diary of shaky quality made me want to run. But it was just the first few minutes. Later it gets better and better and the tension keeps growing. The result of the whole is fantastic. There are some funny lines, e.g. a teacher talking right after a life-threatening situation about how he'd hate to lose a student on a school trip, as well as references to earlier Spider-Man movies and to the infamous beginnings of Iron Man. They're straightforward so it's enough to have seen the films, no need to remember them in detail. Michael Keaton is superb. He has clearly benefited from his Birdman image now impersonating Vulture and having a black bird-like costume. There's an obligatory Stan Lee cameo, a mid-credit announcing a sequel and a post-credit joke. I think the movie will be still OK in 2D on a regular size screen.

TRANSFORMERS: THE LAST KNIGHT AT IMAX 3D

Watchable. This one is worth seeing in 3D as these effects are pretty good throughout the movie. The amazing landscapes in the beginning will certainly gain in IMAX. The location is probably Scotland and it much resembles takes from "Prometheus". In the plot, however, geography gets mixed up, placing Trinity Library in Oxford. In reality Oxford has Trinity College with the Old Library while the Trinity Library is located in Dublin, Ireland. Usually peaceful and often pedestrianized Pall Mall in London is a scene of a car/transformer chase. The rest of the film takes the viewer all over the world as the globe is facing destruction. History-wise it starts in legendary Merlin times and ends "today". I still find machines tiring and... heavy but at least in this installment they come in various shapes, including dragons, men with beards like those belonging to Caribbean dead pirates or a fairy-like flying robot in a wiry dress. They are kept as pets like one in "Chappie" with the difference that here one looks like Wall-E and several are mechanic dinos (dinobots). A male scientist fights superstition: "I'm relying on physics and mathematics, not mysteries, fairies or some Hobgoblins." At the same time a female Oxford professor fights sexism in the form of her aunts persuading her to find a man and ignoring her meteoric career as well as hearing from a guy she's wearing "a stripper dress". Butler Cogman and the Lord (by brilliant Anthony Hopkins) are a delight, especially the Lord silencing the Prime Minister who, in turn, has David Cameron's hairstyle.

Cinema City had excellent service again, very nice people work there.

DARKLAND

Watchable. A standard brother revenge plot is well enacted and gets a social-cultural twist as it's set in the second generation (people around 20 and 30, with their parents living) of Iraqi refugees in Denmark. They have penetrated the white world. White Danes, including one "white" Iraqi - working as a surgeon and living with his Danish wife, can't penetrate theirs. Subtly, the finger of blame is pointed at immigrant families sitting on the couch instead of preventing their children becoming criminals.

HYMYILEVA MIES (THE HAPPIEST DAY IN THE LIFE OF OLLI MAKI)

Watchable. Painfully slow. You just see them pouring each cup of coffee. The whole thing is about how distracting love is when you're supposed to be doing something important and instead you keep thinking about that person. Nothing unusual. Can serve only as a wake-up call for people experiencing the same.

SMURFS: THE LOST VILLAGE

Watchable. Latest Smurfs are up-to-date with tech gadgets so they snap pictures with a mobile... ladybird and use firefly torches. Some ideas are taken from other films and tales, e.g. slow mo in the air like in "Inception", a bluish forest with flowers glowing in the dark reminiscent of "Avatar", lines from "Little Red Riding Hood" and they look and sound tacky. A delightful original concept is a colourful, translucent river reflecting the rich and vivid vegetation and changing hues with the current.  A number of pop songs are featured, including famous "I'm Blue" by Eiffel 69, here gaining a new cute meaning. There's a mid-credit scene with Gargamel. Earlier on I heard a child imitating Azrael's meowing so the movie's fun for kids too.

Seen courtesy of my favourite Cinema City.

IT COMES AT NIGHT

Walked out. Chit-chat in a cabin and a deadly epidemic in a forest.

I heard from my movie companion that in Pakistan there was just one one-screen cinema in a one-million city. The country's deprived of entertainment. I clearly wouldn't survive there.

KING ARTHUR: LEGEND OF THE SWORD

Watchable. Guy Ritchie should stick to the gangster genre. His King Arthur is a bandit, a liar and probably a pimp too, with an ultra-modern hair-cut and a beard giving him a hipster look. The film has got great music but so modern that, apart from the main song, it's completely incongruous with the story located in Londinium of the 4th or 5th century AD. Curiously, the term graffiti is used and while it gives a present-day feel, it's in fact ancient. Also, a Chinese teaching kung fu may seem out of place, yet it has some grounds in facts. As recently as in 2016, Chinese skeletons from Roman times were discovered on the site of Londinium. While no one knows what the Chinese were doing there, it gives a wide field for interpretation and triggers imagination. The movie got its release in 2017 so the discovery must have come up during research for the production.

BAYWATCH

Watchable. Good fun for this time of year, beautifully shot. Plenty of summer and enough entertainment to forgive its flaws. I love Priyanka Chopra and I've stated many times she's the most beautiful Bollywood actress. However, now at the age of 34 and starring in Hollywood, she's had botox injected in her face - you just can't mistake this disfigurement with anything else. Most of humour is of primitive variety, like somebody's balls getting stuck in a deck-chair or someone else throwing up. Well, I know vomiting in water is realistic as I've heard it from a professional diver who had done it. Still, it doesn't amuse me. Luckily, a number of jokes are based on references to the previous "Baywatch" series as well as to other movies. So there are David Hasselhoff' and Pamela Anderson's cameos, busty girls run in slow motion and the bustier the girl, the slower mo it is and Mitch calls a new recruit, by Zach Effron, "Hey, High School Musical!" Matt Brady is pretty and as daft as a brush. Great summer music by the Americanoes, With the Quickness and plenty of others.

The "Blade Runner 2049" trailer looks superb - I can't wait to see the movie.

TUBELIGHT

Recommended. Looks like the version shown in Poland is half an hour shorter than the original. Anyway, it was just over two hours, nothing close to three. From the credits I can see that digital de-aging has inevitably reached Bollywood too. Better this than botox. The movie is family type but with lots of action, you just never get bored. Salman Khan in a comedy role playing also with his image - you never know if he has a superpower or just believes to have: "Is he going to stir up another earthquake? Hold on to the railing!" Very uplifting, full of warmth but touches your heart as well. True, first-class Bollywood.

The last two movies in super-comfy seats of Cinema City. Luckily, apart from one screen in Arkadia, other Warsaw cinemas of the chain have retained their comfort I like so much.

개를 훔치는 완벽한 방법 (HOW TO STEAL A DOG)

Recommended. The children are disarmingly silly. There's a crime plot, dogs, obviously, plenty of family warmth, serious undertones about families falling apart for different reasons and on various lines, seeking fulfillment in life, personal freedom, whether money brings happiness or just fills a void, funny police pursuit scenes and scheming to steal a living animal. Both funny and sad. I just wished it lasted longer. The one mid-credit completing the story didn't quench my thirst for more.

OLD FASHIONED

Watchable. It's not so much about chastity as it is about disillusionment with earlier relationships with sex which ended badly. Well, which ended. And while Clay "doesn't want dating", this is exactly what they both end up doing. Boring and predictable. Not very religious. About paralysis by analysis and fear of failure.

摇滚藏獒 (ROCK DOG)

Watchable. Made in Hong Kong. Based on the graphic novel "Tibetan Rock Dog" created by Chinese rock star Zheng Jun from Xi'an on the mainland. With music by Foo Fighters and several others. So predictable only children will buy it. And they will - some were dancing after the movie. To adults the Chinese wolves controlling the mountainous village will be a clear reference to the Chinese occupation of Tibet. And that's all there is on the serious part. The only part I liked was the rock star's house and garden with a hedge that could be moved underground or a doormat litterally throwing unwanted visitors out of the residence.

VOLTA

Watchable. Intelligent, based on Polish politics, language and craze for historical treasures. Plenty of references to the Polish currently ruling party will be adorable to the left of the political scene. The heist is smart as well so this part will be comprehensible even to foreigners. I didn't laugh at this crime comedy though. Lack of comedians in the cast.

In the trailer Luc Besson's new SF flick "Valerian" looks like it's going to be another "Fifth Element" - good visuals, a standard (alien invasion here) plot.

CHOPIN - THE SPACE CONCERT

Recommended. "From space I saw no borders" comes at the beginning of an astronaut's commentary. Chopin's music forming the soundtrack will be probably handed in to Donald Trump during a visit. Views from space and the cabin like I've never seen before. It's these views that merit watching it, on a big screen if possible.

JOUR J (WEDDING UNPLANNED)

Watchable. "Thanks for hosting me, guys" - to the police when leaving a custody is one of few instances when the (Polish at least) translation is better than the original. Some gags are hilarious. The rom-com plot is standard. Deleted scenes are shown over the credits, a group photograph is shown at the very end.

THE LADY VANISHES (1938)

Recommended this time. Watching it for the second time I found it so delightfully witty at first and gripping in the second half, I managed to stand the nightmarish Polish voiceover it was screened with. Hitchcock was truly the master of suspense.

STAGE FRIGHT (1950)

Watchable. All of the above applies. With even more dress-ups. Very Agatha Christie-like. So fails to make the same impact.

LAST MEN IN ALEPPO

Recommended. Assad's regime's and Russian bombings are everyday, literally everyday reality for the 250 000 people still living in Aleppo and 1 million living in other places of the ongoing war. You see them up close excavating people, living or dead, from the ruins. The bodies and body parts are not shown which doesn't lessen the impact in the least. For survivors there are 3 ways to live: right there, safe but still far from normal life in Turkey or in Germany (other countries don't even come up in the film - only a regret that other muslim states have abandoned them). Several of the men who appeared in the film are already dead. It's almost post-apocalyptic there.

50% of the children living in the war-torn territories were born during the armed conflict. They don't know life other than the war. The Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs finances only aid in Ukraine. The UN is the greatest funder of humanitarian aid organizations working on reconstruction, providing water and electricity supply.

GOSFORD PARK (2001)

Walked out. So many characters that half-way through the movie I still hardly understood who was who. A murder didn't help understand the plot.

A BRAS OUVERTS (WITH OPEN ARMS)

Watchable again. The second time I actually liked it better. I picked out some nuances, e.g.first Babik kicks his cousin, then, when he has "assimilated", he swats another cousin with... a baguette. The dress-up party is no coincidence: while the Romani teenage girl is trying to get some personal freedom, her father drags her out of a club in which she's wearing a... Wonder Woman costume. The movie hits upon not only international differences but also the clash between the higher middle class and the lowest class lifestyles and values: "I'm an intellectual. I don't fight, unless with a pen." "So you take a pen, I take a hammer." Ary Abittan, even in a suit, looks nothing like his earlier impersonation in "Qu'est-ce qu'on a fait au Bon Dieu?" ("Serial (Bad) Weddings"). Christian Clavier, for a change, is suited and booted in the role opposite to the one from "Les Visiteurs" ("The Visitors"). Both of them in the main roles as well as Armen Georgian as the Indian servant Ravi act suitably exaggeratedly. The movie still isn't hilarious, most of humour unfortunately stays lower-class.

UNLOCKED

Watchable. The script is trite but fun: an action movie made by the book, with a few red herrings and and an obligatory cliff-hanger towards the end. I didn't get the logic behind mistaking flats, found the burgler being a war veteran implausible and the final explanation of motives of the terrorist attacks too far-fetched. Still, the suspense and twists of action worked the trick. Noomi Rapace was unrecognizable from her earlier part of Lisbeth Salander in "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo".

ROCK'N ROLL

Watchable. The film's about dealing with aging but the few scenes that made me laugh were rather standard situation humour: "Have you taken anything else?" "Yes, cocaine." or gags like falling over a fence. I have an impression it just went too far. The caricature got distorted out of proportion. The soundtrack is a mix of French and English-language songs with significant titles including: "Enola Gay", "Lady Wacko", "Don't Dream It's Over", "You Can Do It", "Ma gueule" ("My mouth"), "Pour qua tu m'aimes encore" ("So that you still love me"), "That's Not My Name", "Take Me Out", "Promesse" ("Promise"), "Forever Young", "Ca Plane Pour Moi" ("It's plain sailing for me") or "Go On Forever". Apparently there's also my beloved "You Spin Me Round" by Dead or Alive but... I only saw it in the credits having missed the bit in the movie.

PRÓBA (THE TEST)

Watchable. Three would-be monks walk for one and a half weeks having to beg for food and shelter. The film has less direction than the pilgrimage but their utterances "Jakie to szczęście mieć żonę i dzieci. Ja nie dam rady." ("What happiness it is to have a wife and children. I won't manage.") or about living in celibate: "Przecież to normalni mężczyźni są." ("They're normal men after all") inadvertently reveal that nature will always imbue actions contradictory to its laws.

In the meeting after the screening it struck me that two of the monks were totally hot! How is that possible that so many women in the world are single and the hottest guys are... in the Jesuit order?!

"La Tortue Rouge" ("The Red Turtle") has just been released. It's this year's Scope 100 winner in Poland. I wonder how it's going to score in the box office. My review can be found via the search engine on the right.

CHINESE CIRCLES OF ART IN POLAND

XIZAO (SHOWER) (1999)

Recommended. A beautiful, often moving and sometimes cheerful story about moral duties towards your closest relatives, about community and facing irreversible life changes. Funny, endearing characters, e.g. playing with their crickets in a public bath, singing only in the shower or working fastidiously in spite of a disability. Very well acted.

HEI PAO SHI JIAN (THE BLACK CANNON INCIDENT) (1985)

Watchable. A comedy? Far from that: a bureaucratic drama on the one hand, on the other it presents the inefficiency of group decision-making where everyone means well but is tied up in the problem resolution where just one piece is missing. Lost in German-Chinese translation in the depth of communism. I felt like pressing fast forward several times.

BEI JING YU SHANG XI YA TU (FINDING MR. RIGHT) (2013)

Recommended. Sometimes babies are illegal. This love story could be made by the Chinese only. It's a tear-jerking tale full of twists and turns. Beautifully shot. Money compensates for the lack of love but the emptiness of frivolity catches up with Jiajia and she's swayed.


BABY DRIVER

Watchable. "Drive" for a younger generation. Lots of music and driving guaranteed, as well as crime action. Just with a younger protagonist and clearly aimed at a younger audience.

EVERYTHING, EVERYTHING

Watchable. Really cheesy. A beautiful girl suffering from SCID (severe combined immunodeficiency) is bound to make you sob. Lines sound hackneyed. There are some inaccuracies in the plot, e.g.: how does she breathe in an air-tight house with no plants, how can her mum first sit next to her and then go to open the door without a risk of getting her robe contaminated, why does the girl swim if she doesn't know how? Luckily everything and everyone is pleasing to the eye. Most of the plot is predictable, with one twist towards the end but it's tacky as well.

PARIS CAN WAIT

Recommended. A real feel-good movie about getting the most out of your life. Leaves you loving everyone and enjoying life even more. After all, a problem will be always where you left it, so you can step aside and have a good time.

LADY MACBETH

Recommended. Shockingly brutal: there's physical violence, sexual violence, emotional violence. In all directions and it's all psychologically justified: exposure to violence and being held against the wall generating it further. The movie's tense and intense. It's as brutal as if it were Korean.

LA REINA DE ESPANA (THE QUEEN OF SPAIN)

Watchable. Movies about making movies have never tickled my fancy. Too chaotic. This one is like a cross between "Their Finest" and "Ocho apellidos vascos" ("Spanish Affair"). A few vivid characters and just a few scenes that made me laugh, e.g. a drowsy director saying "Action!" through his sleep, are not enough for a comedy.

LOU

Watchable. A short film preceding "Cars 3". About school bullying. Stereotypical but it all ends well.

CARS 3

Watchable. I hadn't followed the series and the beginning seemed to me to be something for car crazy Americans: lots of roaring and car talk. Then I saw beautiful landscapes of different terrain with the cartoon cars superimposed on them. Alongside that action started making sense. It tackles age discrimination and the glass ceiling for women racers. Psychological put-downs are shown competently. The Polish translation is very good.

At that movie I discovered that not all Cinema City has comfy seats any more. At least one of the screens in Warsaw's Arkadia doesn't have them any longer.



CHINESE CIRCLES OF ART IN POLAND

PASSING ON BUDDHA KASAYA (2017)

Walked out. I don't like theatre and Chinese musical theatre is no exception, especially a play about a Buddhist monk, even if shot in real life locations.

A BRAS OUVERTS (WITH OPEN ARMS)

Watchable. Interesting but not funny. If the creators wanted to ridicule stereotyping immigrants, they didn't succeed - the Romani here are primitives, thieves, beggars and parasites. The whole film resembles "Borat" without the vulgarity. The movie shows that sharing is an empty slogan - we don't want to resign from our standard of living to raise theirs.

I left the cinema with some free food samples, a gratuitous cup of tea, collected a free magazine on the way and generally feeling happy to live in the better part of the world.

MA VIE DE COURGETTE (MY LIFE AS A COURGETTE)

Watchable. Deeply sad. While it seems to be an accurate depiction of life of children from troubled families who end up in orphanages or foster care, it's so doleful, sombre and heavy, it just feels like a social commercial imposing a guilt trip to collect money for a noble cause. The movie will be comprehensible to adults and children alike, even if on different levels.

Children from such families were present at the screening with their foster parents were surprisingly quiet and well-behaved. How come they are better-behaved than kids from regular families?

WONDER WOMAN

Recommended. Great fun for all superhero fans, pure entertainment made according to all blockbuster rules: I laughed a lot and nearly cried a few times too: "You let this little thing rule your life?!" (about a watch, obviously) Most of the humour is based on gender stereotypes but they cheerfully re-work all the usual hero gimmicks as well: "Is he likely to follow my instructions?" "No, I honestly don't think so, no." Fantastical landscapes filmed in Camerota, Salerno and Campania in Italy, additionally inspired by Chinese mountains and enhanced with a plethora of CGI waterfalls. London at war time all covered in soot.  Chris Pine looks fattish but the best scenes are where he acts with his face and makes all viewers burst out laughing.  I loved Wonder Woman speaking all languages, especially the scene with the Turkish polyglot. Most of the Amazons are wrinkly but beautiful and inspiring at the same time. Ah, Wonder Woman here is, like in about the oldest of the comic books, of Greek gods' descent but takes on the disguise of Diana Prince, like in the ones from the 60s. During the battle the mythical characters hover in the air or cast strikes like Storm and Magneto in the X-Men series. There's no mid- or post-credit scene!

12TH AFRYKAMERA FESTIVAL

SEARCHING - SHORTS

THE BIRTHMARK MAN

Watchable. About the trauma of having a discoloured face. Well acted which makes it bearable to watch even if you're lucky not to have this problem.

LAND OF MEN

Recommended. An insightful shortie showcasing Libya in ruin and torn in conflicts while loudly denying women their rights. On the one hand you witness women's frustration with the status quo imposed on them in spite of the revolution. On the other you see how this social order has devastated the country and how men, remaining blind to the fact, are reasserting their power where they still can, i.e. over women. All that in just 4 minutes. Made by a man (Kelly Ali).

LOVE, HATE & KETCHUP

Watchable. Supposed to be comical, John Ukpe and Omobola Akinde's acting looks silly rather. It's tongue-in-cheek movie-wise as ketchup is used as blood.

IN MY FATHER'S VILLAGE

Watchable. Enigmatic and about a local feud but the ostracism creates mystery.

UN COUP DE BALAI SUR LE PONT (UPRISING ON A BRIDGE)

Would have walked out if it hadn't been so short. Shoddy animation about an obscure (for Europeans) event in Burkina Faso.

COLOURISM

Watchable. About albinism as if it was a fad of fashion. Quite an issue in African culture but the doc is full of talking heads.

EDEM (SAVED ME)

Watchable. Beautiful, colourful animation with very good music. The story is barely sketched.

HYMENEE

Watchable. Exaggerated acting suggests a comedy yet the topic of an arranged marriage and losing virginity with a stranger is barely funny. At the same time it's a rare occasion for a glimpse behind the veil of that Moroccan tradition.

DEM DEM!

Watchable. Attractive views of a white sandy beach and blue skies don't really compensate for a lack of a plot. It's a short film made by 3 or 4 directors from 2 countries: Senegal and Belgium. Too many cooks spoil the broth.


KEMTIYU, CHEIKH ANTA

Watchable. Senegalese Cheikh Anta Diop, who died 30 years ago, in his lifetime conducted research which led him to two history-shattering conclusions: ancient Egyptians were black and the Sphinx had an African nose, the white man only appeared 20 thousand years ago. However fascinating his revelations were, the documentary goes through his biography step by step tediously. Well, it's partly French and certainly French in style. At least the presented scientists wear beautiful African outfits.

THE CURSED ONES

Watchable. Very African in climate and subject - about witchcraft accusations. Could be acted better so as to evoke some emotions, other than that it's very good. I liked the plot.

Sadly its reception in the part of rural Ghana where it was shot showed a lack of understanding, in cities the belief in magic is less prevalent apparently as it was received better.

KATI KATI

Recommended. Very mysterious and puzzling - about the afterlife. With good suspense: Is it the final stage? Who will disappear when? Are they dying... more? Great cinematography.

A UNITED KINGDOM

Recommended. A piece of the history of Botswana and its arduous struggle for independence from Britain. An excellent political thriller written by life. Top-notch lines, twists of action defying belief.

12TH AFRYKAMERA FESTIVAL

CHILDREN OF AFRICA - SHORTS

SAMEDI CINEMA

Watchable. Interesting civilization-wise - little boys in Senegal earn money writing letters for adults. The story, however, leads to nowhere.

THE SENTINEL

Recommended. A hard-hitting animated tale of child soldiers and the circle of violence.

KHALLINA HAKKA KHIR (WE ARE JUST FINE LIKE THIS)

Recommended. An endearing short film about family ties.

TALES OF NAZIR

Watchable. An educational video where an animated virus teaches what it doesn't like. Well made but about a local problem the notion of which, in addition, is salient in Europe.

BEHIND THE WALL

Watchable. I couldn't really make out what it was about but it was well shot and I hoped I would finally see what was behind the wall.

MARABOUT

Watchable. Shows the mechanism: a marabout has child slave-disciples who steal for him. The policeman could be less stereotypical: he moves and dresses like in film noir which is just over the top.

ዕቅድ ሐ (PLAN C)

Watchable. A heart-warming tale of a girl fighting a bully with her knowledge and making friends with him. Straight in your face but pleasant.

AYA WAL BAHR (AYA GOES TO THE BEACH)

Recommended. A 10-year-old girl working as a servant is shocking enough. It's just heart-wrenching when she's not allowed to go and visit her mum.

MAMAN(S)

Recommended. Legal bigamy through the eyes of a child. An intimate portrayal of a family pattern unknown in Europe.


KIMPA VITA: THE MOTHER OF THE AFRICAN REVOLUTION

Watchable. A history of the Congo in which too many detailed facts mix with the legend. Also a bleak picture of the Catholic Church.

CHILDREN OF THE MOUNTAIN

Recommended. Many times the film selection felt like a festival of sexual violence. It's one of several movies of Afrykamera in which it's eminently present. It's like the reversal of recent German "24 Wochen" ("24 Weeks"). In the Ghanaian film the woman gives birth and there's more superstition than knowledge around its disability. The story's powerful all the same. Picturesque landscapes and many beautiful dresses make the story vivid rather than bleak.

COMBOIO DE SAL E ACUCAR (THE TRAIN OF SALT AND SUGAR)

Watchable. I didn't quite get the ins and outs of the political and economic situation background. The people story is straightforward, grim with a light of hope but with a tacky ending, very African however so their audience should like it.

NOEM MY SKOLLIE (CALL ME THIEF)

Watchable. A gangster and prison story so not my favourite. Awfully brutal but, supposedly, inspired by a true story - John W. Fredericks's autobiography. For a bigger part I waited for him to get his back on the guy who'd raped him. That didn't happen. Instead more brutality, with and without rapes, followed.

12TH AFRYKAMERA FESTIVAL

LES DEUX VISAGES D'UNE FEMME BAMILEKE (THE TWO FACES OF A BAMILEKE WOMAN)

Watchable. It reminded me a lot of what I learnt in the course of African studies. Now it's just disturbing to me to hear how women are treated in that part of the world. From the film you get the impression the only thing African men do is fertilize women. The documentary would be harder-hitting without the philosphical intrusions.

12TH AFRYKAMERA FESTIVAL

AL-FEEL AL-AZRAQ (THE BLUE ELEPHANT)

Watchable. Too many protracted scenes. Khaled El Sawy ineptly cast as Sherif. Amazing post-narcotic visions in the second part of the movie.

12TH AFRYKAMERA FESTIVAL

AKOUNAK TEDALAT TAHA TAZOUGHAI (RAIN THE COLOUR OF BLUE WITH A LITTLE RED IN IT)

Walked out. Nothing much happens, the music is the same all the time and I'm not a fan of the guitar in the first place.

MALOYA

Watchable. Another film with monotonous music but with a warmer rhythm. Gives some info about cultural changes in Reunion.

I SHOT BI KIDUDE

Walked out. About a singer but with hardly any music. Investigating what's happened to the money of somebody I've never heard of was no fun.

TO CATCH A DREAM

Watchable. A short film preceding "The Traveller". Imperfect technologically yet very mystical and very African - a short film about ghosts.

THE TRAVELLER

Watchable. A fun film with good music, inspiring dancing and bewitching festive outfits - at the Blues Du Fleuve Festival in Senegal. I should go one day. Nothing particularly insightful in the film
though, more like a reportage.

LE GANG DES ANTILLAIS (THE GANG OF FRENCH CARIBBEAN - IN THE UK, GANG OF THE FRENCH CARIBBEAN - IN THE US, THE GANG OF THE CARIBBEAN - IN SA)

Watchable. Quite fun. Inspired by a true story. Evokes memories of living as an immigrant. A bit chaotic.

SUDANESE NIGHT

SUDANIA

Watchable. A brief (5'), nice yet forgettable, impression of Sudan.

NYERKUK

Would have walked out if it hadn't been a short film. About a small boy in the realm of a mafia. Depressing, unclear, with no storyline.

ONE WEEK, TWO DAYS

Would have walked out if it hadn't been a short film. Checking one's own pregnancy test makes more sense than the film.

YALLA KHARTOUM

Walked out. About a local meeting place for artists, showing random people talking about nothing in particular. Boring for anyone who's not an artist based in Khartoum.

Finally posting, got a bit behind, no time even to copy my notes...

DOCS AGAINST GRAVITY

VIRTUAL REALITY 7 SHORT FILMS

INSIDE AUSCHWITZ

Watchable. Shot from the air a bit above the ground which makes it less realistic, but presenting the camp throughout. You enter through the gate, listen to survivors' tales and get to see how enormous the area was - the expanse of the camp was something I hadn't realised before.

ENFANT PREMATURE (PRETERM BABYor whatever the title was since they showed a different film than they were supposed to)

Watchable. The only one shot from below. You see parents and doctors from a baby's hospital bed. Being an infant isn't fascinating, especially a premature one, in hospital but good-looking parents and VR soften the watching.

CLOUDS OVER SIDRA

Watchable. Life in a refugee camp looks like in ordinary documentaries but is shown from the point of view of a girl living and going to school in such a place.

PIERWSZY DZIEN W PRACY

Watchable. A unique chance to get inside a mind of a person with Asperger's syndrome, the story ends well and contains an interesting mathematical task but is just a day in the office.

NOTES TO MY FATHER

Watchable. Shown from above which detracts from realism. Contains one terrifying scene when you're surrounded by men leering at you, all that right after you've heard the teenage sex slave's harrowing story.

AFRIPEDIA

Watchable. Contrary to a popular belief Africans aren't good dancers. They just tend to slack. The film is shown from a bit above so you don't really face the dancers either. But it's short and musical.

NOTES ON BLINDNESS - INTO DARKNESS

Recommended. The only interactive one. With beautiful bluish shades on black background. A fascinating focus on sounds and recognising your surroundings with them.


BLACK CODE

Recommended. Subveillance (citizens filming riots) and hacktivism are the most efficient weapons against regimes. When all your phone calls can be tapped, emails read, online chats intercepted, the safest thing to do is to stay high-profile. When invisibility is no longer feasible, visibility becomes a weapon.



THEIR FINEST

Watchable. Not very appealing at first: set during the second world war among scriptwriters of a propaganda war movie, it gains in meaning and quality as you get to know and like the characters. It's British so sarcasm is quality stuff, e.g. to an actor training his voice singing about a kettle: "If I hear about that kettle one more time, I'll find one and shove it up your ass! Sideways!" The serious tones tackle defiance in the face of loved ones' death and the fragility of life, but also age and sex discrimination and how you must take an opportunity when given one. Constant script adjustments are one look behind the curtain of film-making, which looks exactly how Olivia Hetreed once described her work so that's certainly realistic.



12TH AFRYKAMERA FESTIVAL

BANGAOLOGIA - THE SCIENCE OF STYLE

Recommended. Rich in colour and music. Teaches you how much of contemporary western fashion comes from Africa. I wonder if patterned tights and leggins do. They look so. It's also about how Angolans take pride in their look. "African women don't run" so they wear very high heels to strut. African men have their own style too and take great pride in their appearance. Fun to watch.

(L'AFRICAIN QUI VOULAIT VOLER) THE AFRICAN WHO WANTED TO FLY

Recommended. The first picture you see is of a Chinese temple and as the camera lowers you see black men practising kung fu. A Luc Bendza, training them, is the first African wushu master. The movie tells his incredible story of teenage fascination with Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan's movies which led to a sports championship and moving to China. It also tells you how to deal with racial abuse: Luc came up to such a guy and told him in Chinese he was a disgrace to his country. The African became so popular, Gabonese press made jokes about him, e.g. there was a comic strip showing the... Chinese-Gabonese border. With Luc placed on the Chinese side. And the border guard saying: "We can train our own karatekas without your help."

GILBERTE'S WORLD

Walked out. An extremeley talented artist's day-to-day and nearly minute-after-minute struggle with a disease?! Her paintings and her flower garden are beautiful. the rest of the film is boring and frustrating.



FAI BEI SOGNI (SWEET DREAMS)

Recommended. First comes a mystery, then a tragedy happens. And you have to deal with the burden for the rest of your life. The movie's deeply sad but it moved me to the core. It has a heavy, dark atmosphere about which you know it veils a secret. On a happier note, it's about "se" ("if") meaning a failure and a "nonostante" ("in spite of") propelling you in life.