Goldbeater

Without researching anything about the film beforehand, I went into it expecting a fairly conventional Britcom, and I was surprised at how intimate, dialogue-rich and actor-exposed a conversation piece it ended up being. And it is funny, thought-provoking, engaging and bold, though perhaps a little too literal at times (which doesn't matter too much here, thankfully). [KVIFF 2022]

The phrase "music documentary" is completely misleading in this case. Moonage Daydream is more of an audiovisual mosaic portrait and experiential film using very (but really VERY) free form to tell the story of David Bowie. In other words, either you successfully put yourself into it and have an esoteric experience, or you’ll simply sleep through it. And this, along with the slightly overlong runtime, may be a big stumbling block for many viewers. Anyway, I have to add that the remastered footage is really stunning. [KVIFF 2022]

That Koreans are masters at mixing diverse genres in a functional way is nothing new, yet I was quite surprised at how comedic Decision to Leave ended up being. But thanks to that, it was a pleasant and brisk two and a quarter hours, definitely not a festival bore. The plot and its denouement have their own internal logic only to the extent that you, as the viewer, are willing to accept them under the influence of the atmosphere of the film, so if you don't tune into the film in the first half hour, you probably won't have much of an experience. Fortunately, I was able to. [KVIFF 2022]

The Code of Silence is a tedious, monotonous, repetitive sequence of scenes where the characters throw serious faces at each other to make the viewer understand that they are having a hard time in life. For the whole first hour of the stagnant plot you are practically just waiting for the main character to internally realize a fact that you, as the audience, know from the very first scene, only to then practically start the plot of what could have been quite an interesting revenge movie. But even then, it doesn't go anywhere, you just get a symbolically literal scene at the end with a stare into the camera, so that this time, as a stupid spectator, you will finally understand that the characters really have it hard in life. [KVIFF 2022]

The Five Devils is a catchy genre piece, and the premise certainly had the makings of a solid and fateful thriller, but it unfortunately ended up somewhere in the middle, as if the filmmakers had thrown away their higher ambitions and settled for the safe confines of a family melodrama. In other words, instead of hitting all the strings in the finale, it quietly fizzles out into the void. And that’s a shame. [KVIFF 2022]

Martin Scorsese masterfully presents a half documentary of the last concert of the legendary rock band The Band and half documentary insight into the personalities of its members, who give entertaining and humorous interviews on camera. And in addition, there is a whole host of star musical guests. I have to say that watching the restored version in the space of a cinema with good sound was a really immersive experience, and I almost felt like a participant of that legendary concert. The excellent music is complemented by imaginative camera shots by the cinematographic elite of the 1970s (Michael Chapman, David Myers, László Kovács, Vilmos Zsigmond...). For me, it was literally a fully experienced film screening and a perfect example of how a viewer can be completely drawn into a work. [KVIFF 2022]

This is Spinal Tap meets 70s Italian oddity with a dash of the Greek weird wave. Peter Strickland once again throws absurdity upon absurdity in an audiovisually interesting and subjectively funny film, which I would be reluctant to recommend to anyone with a clear conscience, because you have to be in a really special mood for this unique work. [KVIFF 2022]

Big Opening is Miroslav Krobot's funniest film to date, but that's not saying much and the bar is set pretty damn low. It's a stilted film about strangely behaving people whose fates you won't care about, and when you actually think about it, the ending doesn't even make sense in the realities of a functioning world (or rather, it would have fatal consequences for the main characters). And the completely theatrical performances certainly don't add to the film's cinematic quality; Pavel Šimčík, moreover, is a really uninteresting driving force for me after his antics in commercials. In addition to that, it is a beautiful example of the outdatedness of contemporary Czech cinema, because making fun of Tourette's syndrome stopped being bearable about fifteen years ago. [KVIFF 2022]

Wandering through the Icelandic landscape has to be engaging, and the overlong runtime wasn't a problem for me. I had problems with characterisation of the characters, though, because the main (anti)hero is an uninteresting miserable wretch, and after a subdued two hours of wandering through the wilderness, his further actions and the subsequent backlash of the other characters in the last sixth of the film seemed to fall out of the blue, and I didn't feel that they were heading in that direction in any way, even covertly. Nicely shot, inconsistent in content. [KVIFF 2022]

That people are cruel to each other and to their animal companions today and every day, we know, it's nothing new under the sun, so I'm glad that Jerzy Skolimowski was at least conscious and didn't stretch his film unnecessarily for more than an hour and a half. If only other festival filmmakers had the same amount of sense… [KVIFF 2022]