The Last Old Mod***MDP74 v. 3.0

Last night we were watching The Bank Job, a true story based 2008 crime drama by Roger Donaldson, coincidentally with the last British news just running into press in the same time.

Yes, British imperium as well as the American, has a lot to hide and must play a higher games than we, mortals, do play everyday. We do the little lies, they do the important ones. In contrast to actual “oil justice” case, which injects literally oil into blood of every honest citizen and Lockerbie survivors especially and puts UK government and secret services into a public doubt, The Bank Job describes with a slightly romantic license a forty years old unbelievable story of a bank robbery on behalf of preservation of royal family credit and national security.

It tells a story which in the end of the day is, lets say, slightly uplifting having in mind what’s going on in todays world. Starts as a traditional robbery story, with couple of losers in need having a chance for a change, but reasons and results are quickly multiplied and in less than two hours climax into justifying scenery where the British old-time Robin Hood complex is totally fulfilled raising questions about guilt of “small” criminals in comparison to “big” criminals. The happy ending (omitting several main characters’ death) and breathtaking robbery-story describes a job booked through beautiful Martine by MI-5 or 6 to get rid of couple of nude/porn pictures of the british princess allowing wiping out one black activist, a serious danger, being a pimp and pusher in the same time. Corruption everywhere and against it stands a bunch of little swindlers with Terry in front having stronger fundamentals that the holy kingdom. Superb casting, beautiful cars, stylish outfits, the real british criminal feel. Quality evening entertainment with a little bit of “lateral after-thinking” if you wish.

Today, some of the most controversial hits of the 45. IFF KV. Plus trailers in this and previous posts.

Mr. Nobody

For sure one of the most talked-about film of the festival, very controversial, very big. At the beginning I should admit that despite I HATE the movie, there are qualities and some conceptions that really catch me in the first let’s say 30-40 minutes. As the trailer shows, inside of the overinflated story of Mr. Nobody, probably the most opulent European film ever made, there was a place for couple of fantasque and dummies-friendly philosophical ideas. The freedom of choice, the duty of choice, dreams, value of life, immortality. The whole film takes 155 minutes and almost the same number of parallel story lines being told forward and in reverse. It could be a huge film achievement quite easily apart from the fact that it isn’t, in my very honest opinion. In reality you can judge the film either as a brilliant cinematographer’s showreel with an ability to win any advertising pitch for a great looking commercial or as an uncontrolled bullshit being drawn back by self-admiration and twittle-twattle muse. Imagine Gondry-esque plot and storytelling plus enormous loads of money, brilliant ads-like cinematography, stunning CGI, breathtaking postproduction, even more narcissism than you saw in La Science des reves (y’know Gondry is French, but Jaco Van Dormael is Belgian) minus talent. People love it. And I say, yes, go and watch it and make your own opinion.

45%

Tucker & Dale vs. Evil

Simple, stupid and brilliant. This parody on camping-students horrors like Friday 13th is pure entertainment with the script being written tightly, with no logical gaps. The cast, the camera, the dialogues, the SFX (blood, body parts), the grading – everything is right. Plus the twist which makes this parody a little outstanding: it’s not these creepy local rednecks, be aware of the students – they are the pure evil. It is what it is and as it is it’s RECOMMENDED.

85%

A Serious Man

I don’t want to talk too much about this one because this one isn’t easy. It’s an entertaining bitter and black comedy from the masters of the genre: Coen bros. I’ve been dragged into the story of “Larry Gopnik, a Midwestern professor who watches his life unravel through multiple sudden incidents” (imdb.com) and I liked it despite the tempo is not fast and not even steady. If you don’t get the connection of the overture and the film itself, you will be disappointed, or left a bit unsatisfied in the end. Now, after few weeks, when I already know that a damnation is the name of the game, the picture of the whole film in my brain is brighter and I see the story clearly as superb as fatal. In my defense I must say I knew right after the screening that I should give it some time and it paid off. One of my favorite Coens movies.

85%

Son of Babylon

For me definitely the most breath taking film of the festival. Imagine The Road being a little bit less dangerous but way more real and hopeless. A few weeks after Saddam’s fall in Iraq. A grandmother and her grandson, a 12 years old boy, both Kurds, on a thousand kilometers long journey to find their son/dad in a Saddam’s prison. When the story turns rapidly into a landless and never-ending search for at least a sign of the sons/dads identity, when the only wish remained is to know for sure that he is dead but getting no certainty, the journey becomes literally deserted. The grandmother becomes inconsolably sad, the son is perplexed and exposed to unlimited misery all over. The grandmother dies on a back of a car hallucinating while he faces the road in front of him with tired and forever changed eyes. Thanks to amazing actors and to the character of a willful boy this incredibly sad story has its own entertaining potential and surprisingly, you will have a laugh in some scenes. The dialogues are temperate but greatly written and every single character in the film is not only “real” but important and highly interesting. Some friends said that it’s too much calculative and emotionally hijacking. I don’t think so at all.

85%

La Isla Interior

Why all Spanish movies want to look like another Almodovar? This one is much closer to a telenovela than to a festival film and despite some very fine moments and interesting plot, the film itself feels hollow and constructed. Schizophrenia, sexual abuse in a family, wrong and ill people. Maybe it was all too much, maybe it was just because the same day I saw Son of Babylon, but I felt distant. And I didn’t bought it. It is not a bad film in comparison to an overall production in Europe, it’s just nothing you would need to think twice and then talk about.

45%

More to go: Mr. Nobody, Tucker & Dale vs. Evil, The Gift and A Serious Man

Apart from almost continuous drinking in past two weeks I prescribed myself an intense film treatment. Started two weeks ago in Prague, then taking place at IFF Karlovy Vary and ending in bed last night. Here is a brief recap of “drugs” used during this exhausting period. Part one, first four out of ten. Some of them still at cinemas around you (including Šary Vary, a IFF KV after-party).

Fantastic Mr. Fox

Directed by Wes Anderson, it is an amazingly entertaining story as you would expect from this talented genius. Well told, superbly executed. I love it, because “I am a wild animal”! And, last but not least, it is not a 3D CGI animation.

100%

The Ghost Writer

Roman Polanski knows a lot about politics, law and crime finishing this piece from his house arrest. The main character, a ghostwriter working on a memoirs of a former British prime-minister, “arrested” on an island close to U.S. east coast, put himself into a serious but hidden danger for a reasonable (?) money and observes he is caught in a trap. The only thing he doesn’t know is that it is a deathtrap. A brilliant thriller with great atmosphere, amazing locations and very good casting proving that the Art and commercial filmmaking can go hand-in-hand. Nevertheless Polanski didn’t escape fully cliche of the genre, he created another great story which is visually stunning thanks also to Pawel Edelman, the D.O.P. of the movie.

80%

The Man From Hong Kong

It was directed by Brian Trenchard-Smith back in 1975. Trenchard was present at the festival in Karlovy Vary and this screening was introduced by the director himself. Mr. Trenchard spoke out his love for the saggy cinematography, he was honest and witty and he wished the audience good luck when he discovered that the sold out big auditorium of Thermal hotel is full of people like me- The Man From Hong Kong virgins. However it’s not possible to approach this film seriously, we’ve been entertained from the very first scene at Uluru rock and we’ve never thought that a rogallo can be such a critical weapon when fighting against a narco-mafia. With no doubts it is a classic of its genre – a kung-fu Bond-like movies of the Australian provenience in the “B movies” category. You know it is worth to see it again if you already saw it before and if not and you are not a film-critic, I just recommend this one for you for one of the sunday afternoons. Btw, some of the sex scenes are really, lets say, very 70’s!

70%

Black Narcissus

Another piece of the history shown at IFF KV, remastered, as a part of a retrospective dedicated to Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. They created this Technicolor movie in 1947 and its simple story leads from England to Himalaya where a bunch of nuns is trying to set up a monastery and educate and cure natives. It is very, lets say, straightforward screenplay full of temptation, danger, understanding, love towards God, love towards humankind or specific representatives of humankind, hate and many funny situations which help the story to swallow. Surprisingly, it’s not boring at all and the film has three strong highlights: one (or two, up to personal taste) beautiful nuns, stunning Technicolor picture with very artistic cinematography and interesting and for that time revolutionary set design as the whole mountain adveture is shot in studios in England with an amazing technical result.

60%

Next time: Son of Babylon, La Isla Interior, Mr. Nobody (tweak me!), Tucker & Dale vs. Evil, The Gift and A Serious Man. And some unseen recommendations.