Matty

Even though Orlando adheres to the basic ideas of the novella upon which it is based and is primarily an engaging meditation on human mortality and sexual identity as a form of performance, Potter does not just slavishly transcribe the original text. She also added motivation for the protagonist’s transformation, altered the conclusion, wrote in the character of the singing angel and took the game of gender roles even further by letting Swinton play both a man and a woman. In addition to that, she decided to emphasise the central themes of postmodern philosophy, which were already present in their embryonic form in the book (nonlinear narration, direct addressing of the reader, pointing out the instability of identities). ___ The idea that men and women do not act according to their biological make-up, but rather play roles assigned to them by society (which was a ground-breaking concept at the time of the novella’s publication), is expressed in the film not only verbally, but also through the ironic use of costumes, gestures, sets and the characters’ movements, which change according to the plot development. Each epoch is characterised by a certain overarching theme and artistic style, as well as by a specific colour palette. ___ Potter uses opulent surfaces to emphasise the premise that our lives are shaped primarily by our appearance. Through sophisticated cinematic methods, she examines the ability of art and of people to transcend categories that simultaneously define and limit our life experience. ___ Tilda Swinton’s glances at the camera replace Woolf’s highly communicative narrator and, at the same time, make us aware of the discrepancy between Orlando and her environment, which does not understand her. The film thus not only systematically relativises the way we understand gender and identity, but also subverts our viewing expectations and changes the way we usually watch films. ___ Both the book and the film not only thematicise sexual ambivalence, but also show how other meanings can be attributed to cultural heritage in new contexts. Texts are rich in meaning, history is unstable. So is human identity. Orlando is, among other things, a film about reading and writing, based on a novella about reading and writing. Like Virginia Woolf’s original work, it poses the essential question of how to write and read truthfully to oneself. 80%

Regardless of the extent of Welles's control over the final form of the film (or rather its various versions), I consider Touch of Evil to be his crowning achievement. In terms of its composition and narrative, this dynamic noir story about the fall of a police captain, told almost in real time and reminiscent of a horror monster flick with its cold-blooded action, appearance and method of shooting, is an exemplary model of “pure cinema”. Working with several plans of action, suggestive high-contrast shadow play, fluid tracking action and camerawork that responds flexibly to the changing positions of the characters (thanks to focusing our attention through the placement of the characters, changes in the size of the given shot and reframing, key scenes in the film can last several minutes without having any effect on the pace of the narrative), precise and frequently ironic and sometimes deliberately discontinuous editing – all of this contributes to the fact that the style not only draws attention to itself (without disturbing the realistic and, in places, even documentary-like veristic nature of a number of scenes), but mainly bears meaning, strengthens the story and contributes to an atmosphere of permanent danger from which there is no escape (even in scenes shot in large chunks, emphasising the isolation of the protagonists). The bleakness helps to elevate the antagonist to the level of a central and truly fascinating character. Conversely, Vargas and his mistress are relatively one-dimensional melodramatic characters who mainly want to break out of the limbo in which they got trapped due to the initial explosion (however important that is for the film’s liberal impression and its theme of the boundaries between various real and imaginary spaces, they are a mixed couple). Whether you see it for the first time or for the eighth time, Touch of Evil can surprise you with its violation of Hollywood genre conventions, stylistic ingenuity and the fact that it does not give the impression of being cold and artificial (otherwise, it probably would not have become a classic). There is nearly no single “ordinary” shot in the film (though it is very probable that this involves a pick-up shot over which Welles did not have control). I am not aware of many equally honest and engaging textbook examples of how to tell a story with images. 95%

I enjoy musicals, I always remember the original Mary Poppins with relish, and I would listen to Emily Blunt even if she was just reading the TV guide, but this nostalgic remix is so empty that it hurts. ___ Mary herself has a scandalously marginal role in the film. The filmmakers do not work with her as a full-fledged character of the story, but merely as a symbol (so, of course her shadow has to appear on Big Ben). This is beneficial for the story in that it pushes the minute hand back at the right time. Otherwise, she would not have to be in the film at all. Eighty percent of the plot is equally useless, as it is composed of carelessly arranged educational (in the better case) songs that do not in any way advance the plot. The musical numbers mainly represent only technically more advanced, longer and more ostentatious variations of scenes from the original film – instead of dancing animated penguins, the whole zoo; instead of tap-dancing chimney sweeps, a gang of lamplighters. ___ One of the most superfluous scenes is simultaneously the only memorable one, because in it Meryl Streep, as a slightly deranged gypsy from somewhere in Eastern Europe, sings a totally nonsensical song about frogs (Shaiman’s word games are the main reason to at least play the soundtrack). Another painful example of wasted talent is Colin Firth, who plays – as the original – an evil banker who enriches himself at the expense of his clients, which, however, is not as horrible an offence as the fact that he suffocated his inner child. As if society was no longer infantile enough. ___ Mary Poppins Returns is the same kind of peg on which to hang expensive music/dance numbers as Into the Woods and Nine. The sad thing is that, thanks to the set design and music, this hopeless clunker will in all probability be nominated for enough Oscars and make enough money that Rob Marshall will be able to continue committing crimes against cinema (we can already “look forward” to his The Little Mermaid). ___ You’ll be better off watching Paddington again with your kids. 40%

Bumblebee is something like E.T., but with a transformer instead of an extraterrestrial: an outsider without a father or friends finds a kindred “spirit” in a visitor from outer space. The whole film is set in the American suburbs in the 1980s, which, in addition to numerous hit songs of that decade, also involves watching Alf on television and a reference to The Breakfast Club. Like the early films from Amblin, it works flawlessly, without slowing down and without a scene that would sooner or later fail to find its justification in the overall structure of the narrative. Though Travis Knight does not offer such uncluttered and spectacular 3D action scenes as Bay, he dedicates much more time and space to the characters, whose actions have comprehensible motivations and are easy to connect with on an emotional level (yes, that includes Bumblebee). The film very skillfully avoids having the protagonist resolve all of her problems (low self-confidence, no friends, longing for her father) by means of getting a car. Thanks to the adventure experienced, she finds the necessary resources within herself. In the “blockbuster for the whole family” category, there is not much to complain about in this film. A very pleasant surprise. 80%

Aquaman is a lot of things (suddenly and gradually). The origin story telling about the birth of the protagonist and the history of a nation, maternal melodrama turned upside down (from the perspective of the offspring, not the mother), an underwater Flash Gordon, a buddy movie (serving as the basis of an insipid romance), a fairy tale about two brothers, of whom only one can be king, a film in whose climactic scene the protagonists mounts a seahorse and his partner a killer whale ... ___ In purely structural terms, it holds together (thanks to a superfluous storyline with a vengeful pirate that motivates the hero’s transformation and forms the foundation for a sequel) and works rhythmically, but the tone changes every ten minutes (making Aquaman unintentionally reminiscent of South Korean multi-genre films) and the narrative is constantly helped along by the same processes (the dry “humanising” one-liners with which the protagonist responds to epic moments, shifting of the story with unexpected attacks by “water” soldiers). ___ My other reservations are rather problems that I personally have with the film – Jason Momoa does not come across as sexy to me and I am disgusted by the solving of problems with brute force, which he represents; Mera has to deal with most of the story in a scaly latex jumpsuit with a plunging neckline, and she acts competently mainly due to the fact that Aquaman is terrible by her side; the most reasonable actions are those of the villain who wants to start a war with humans because they pollute the oceans with their waste. ___ Visually and musically, Aquaman is great in places (it reminded me of Avatar, Blade Runner and Luc Besson’s better films; experts in old comic books may spot inspiration from other sources), and at least one action scene (Sicily) does not look like a noisy CGI clusterfuck, even if it steals from The Adventures of Tintin, The Bourne Supremacy, the second Captain America and scrolling video games. ___ As a guilty pleasure with overwrought ambitions (and a ginger Dolph Lundgren and sharks with laser cannons and Willem Dafoe, who plays a vizier named Vulko), it can be enjoyed without major pain. 65%

Beautiful Boy is a film that has nothing to say (a few informational titles at the end bear the sole message). It merely shows pain and attempts to be moving. The first half is at least remarkably well structured. The narrative does not move forward, but only – often by means of sound bridges – sinks into itself (like a person on drugs). For no apparent reason, the filmmakers abandon the fragmentary, highly subjective narration and alternating flashbacks of a father and his son, and the rest is conventional misery porn with a terrible selection of music and spasmodic actors (Chalamet is capable of great acting, but needs stronger directorial guidance; here, he seems to be a bad Robert De Niro imitator) who, instead of normal sentences, deliver lines like “I missed you more than the sun misses the moon” with a straight face. However, I admit that I felt like crying at the end. Because of the wasted two hours of my life that I will never get back. Perhaps I am being overly harsh, but I have a strong aversion to this kind of film, which uses someone’s actual misfortune for terribly cheap and self-serving exploitation. 20%

Jake Hannaford, a passionate hunter of Irish descent, as well as a chauvinist and racist, is not so much an alter ego of Welles as he is of John Huston. The Other Side of the Wind captures the last days of classic Hollywood, or rather the decline of the world represented by macho Huston-type patriarchs. Because of her indigenous origins, Hannaford sees the lead actress of his film as an exotic exhibit and mockingly calls her “Pocahontas”. The actress initially reacts with hateful looks and later vents her frustration by shooting at figurines. Hannaford’s publicist, based on film critic Pauline Kael (who couldn’t stand Welles), is not reluctant to engage in open verbal confrontation with the director when she repeatedly points out the macho posturing that he hides behind. The women defend themselves and the men are not happy about it. ___ By giving the female characters more space and enabling them to give expression to their sexuality, Welles comes to term not only with Hollywood, but also with his own legacy. Like late-period John Ford, whom Welles greatly admired, he critically reassesses the themes of his earlier films. At the same time, however, doubts arise as to whether the way in which Oja Kodar’s character is presented in Hannaford’s film (sexually aggressive, captivating an inexperienced male protagonist) also says something about Welles. ___ Hannaford's unfinished magnum opus is clearly a parody of the works of American filmmakers who during the New Hollywood era responded diligently to European works by shooting pretentious and incoherent would-be art films packed with eroticism and conspicuous symbolism. More or less naked, beautiful and young actors wordlessly wander around each other in dreamlike interiors and exteriors. It doesn’t seem to matter that the characters don’t follow the sequences of Hannaford’s film in the right order (if anyone actually has any idea what the order is supposed to be). As Welles divulged in an interview, he shot the film with a mask on, as if he wasn’t himself. Therefore, why should we associate with him what Hannaford’s work says about women and female sexuality? ___ The parodic imitative style, which was not peculiar to Welles, was due also to the raw, intentionally imperfect hand-held shots from a party, reminiscent of the then fashionable cinema-verité. Completed long after Welles’s death, the film is basically a combination of two styles that Welles would not have employed. The question of who Jake Hannaford was (like the question of who Charles Foster Kane was in Citizen Kane) is less relevant in this context than the question of who the creator is and who is imitating whom, which Welles quite urgently asks in the mockumentary F for Fake, which, with its fragmentary style, has the most in common with The Other Side of the Wind. ___ For example, Peter Bogdanovich, who was considered to be an imitator of Welles in the 1970s, plays Hannaford’s most diligent plagiarist in the film. The defining of his character through imitation of someone else, however, is done ad absurdum, when he occasionally begins to imitate James Cagney or John Wayne in interviews with journalists. Though Welles incorporates media images of influential figures into his film, he also ridicules them as improbable and untruthful. All of these contradictions could be part of an effort to offer, instead of the retelling of one person’s life story, an expression of doubtfulness about the ability to recognise who someone really is. ___ Though, thanks to Netflix, Welles’s film can theoretically be seen by far more viewers than would have been possible at the time of its creation, the manner of its presentation by the streaming company recalls a moment from Hannaford’s party, when the producer lays down reels of film and says to those interested in a screening, “Here it is if anybody wants to see it”. Netflix helped to finish the film and raised its cultural capital by presenting it at a prestigious festival, and then more or less abandoned it, as if cinephiles who love more demanding older films were not a sufficiently attractive audience segment. ___ With Welles’s involvement, the film, which was completed 48 years after it was started, would have perhaps been more coherent, had a more balanced rhythm and conveyed a less ambiguous message. At the same time, however, all of its imperfections draw our attention to its compilation-like nature, or rather the convoluted circumstances of its creation – we think about who is in charge of the work, who created it (perhaps Jake Hannaford, whose “Cut!” is heard after the closing credits) and what it says about him, which was probably Welles’s intention. The Other Side of the Wind is a good promise of a great film. 80%

This neo-noir mashup will most probably anger even more people than The Image Book (because more moviegoers will go to the cinema to see it because of Garfield). Rather than creating something original, both films are based on recontextualising earlier media content and seeking hidden meanings in pop culture, which represents the basic frame of reference in Under the Silver Lake. Everything refers to something that someone else invented in the past. There are no originals, only copies and rewrites. Therefore, the story has to be set in Los Angeles, a city that has played a role in so many films that it has become a remake of itself. Mitchell’s third film holds together thanks to its absorbing atmosphere at the boundary between Vertigo and Chinatown and its pseudo-detective plot. It unfolds in such absurd, totally Lynchian mindfuck ways that instead of providing satisfaction from the uncovering of new contexts, it brings only gradually deepened frustration. Both for us and for the main protagonist, a paranoid slacker like from a nineties indie film, it almost involves two and a half hours of a delayed climax (the only satisfying interaction takes place during the prologue). Throughout its runtime, it is also immensely entertaining, while being a deferential and cunning pastiche of classic and post-classic noir films (and the music from such films), most of whose “shortcomings” can be interpreted as conscious and ironic work with certain conventions and stereotypes. For example, we can understand the reduction of the female characters to more or less passive objects as a critique of the “male gaze”, as that is precisely how the mentally immature protagonist, whose perspective the film thoroughly adheres to throughout, perceives women based on their media representation in films by Hitchcock and others. Under the Silver Lake is an ambivalent postmodern work which, thanks to its lack of a centre and its solid structure, succeeds in expressing the confusion of young people who try in vain to find some sort of higher meaning in all of the stories obscuring their view of reality. For me, it was one of the most entertaining movies of the year, but there is roughly equal probability that you will hate it with all your heart. 85%

First Reformed is a return to Bresson not only by thematicising personal responsibility for the state of the world (the basic outline of the plot is essentially Diary of a Country Priest, while the ecological line is reminiscent of Bresson’s sceptical later films), but also in its rigorous minimalistic style. The academic format, almost monochromatic picture (Schrader originally wanted to shoot in black-and-white), restrained acting, repetitive editing techniques (each disturbance tells us something important or redirects our attention) and composition (transitioning from symmetrical, after the protagonist begins have doubts, to asymmetrical). Only the camera moves exceptionally. Though First Reformed is a serious and slow film of extraordinary formal rigidity, it does not come across as ponderous thanks to its thriller framework and the raising of questions that are relevant to the period (without having a critical tone along the lines of “Old Man Yells at Cloud”). Even though the film has an “old-fashioned” confessional nature, an inspiring tension arises between the diary-style voice-over and what we see. Toller is constantly waging a battle between his thoughts and that which he can express out loud in his position. While writing in his diary, he promises that he will not conceal or omit anything, but he soon rather prefers to destroy certain diary entries. The content of others (the last entries) is hidden from us for a change. As a priest, Toller has a certain social role. He serves others and as such feels responsible for the state of the world and slips into disillusionment and alcoholism because he is not able to change anything. He is roused from his passivity only by meeting a man who does not want to bring a child into the world because of environmental destruction. By presenting the dilemma between private thoughts and public actions, First Reformed differs from Taxi Driver, Schrader’s previous drama about the suffering of a man disgusted by society, from which he openly quotes at least during a drive at night. In a fascinating way, Schrader’s screenplay and Hawke's focused acting express Toller’s slow transformation, which is simultaneously a descent into darkness and an ascent into the higher realms of being (transcendence). At the beginning, he advises Michael to live for that which transcends man, but at the end he realises the inadequacy of the fact that the church deals with spiritual matters and the afterlife instead of the problems of the present. He finds inner peace only after taking a decision on how he will respond to global warming, a loss of interest in religion (his sermons are usually attended by approximately five people; the church serves rather as a souvenir shop) and the radicalisation of young people. For the first time, he does not spend the evening alone with a glass of whiskey, but in a restaurant, where he eats fish. At the same time, a conversation with Michael raises the central idea of life as a search for a balance between despair and hope. Michael at first embodies despair, Toller hope. Later, their positions become complicated. The ambiguous (or dual) ending offers both despair and hope. It shares enough for the film to be satisfactorily concluded, but not so much that you won’t spend a few days thinking about what exactly Schrader is saying in one of his best films, which can be viewed as the stylistic and thematic peak of his work to date. 90%

Visages, villages is a celebration of the French countryside, teamwork and street art. With her fifty-years-younger and thirty-centimetres-taller colleague, Agnès Varda visits places that tell stimulating stories (about people, unemployment, the transformation of the landscape and the demise of the countryside) and allows them to speak by means of large-format photographs. The people they encounter are both the objects and co-creators of their works. They are not primarily interested in isolation, devastation and industrialisation, but rather in the joy of life and the possibility of creative comprehension of reality. They do not want to criticise and do not seek systemic solutions to problems; as conceptual artists, they “only” change the optics through which we view the world around us. Although they are separated by two generations, both of them have their own unrelenting enthusiasm and desire to discover and create. They always respond to the particular environment and intersperse the stories of others with their own (an eye examination, a running gag with sunglasses, excerpts from Varda’s earlier films), which appealingly lends an improvisational and unpredictable character to the film, which could have turned out to be a monotonous series of site-specific stopovers. The film culminates with a “meeting” with Godard that takes the trajectory of the narrative in a completely unexpected direction, which, however, Varda is able to use to the film’s benefit. Her reaction is another expression of the central theme of the documentary – how we see things (people, walls, buildings, ports) is more important than what they actually are. Agnès Varda’s perspective is empathetic, playful and joyful and without a hint of falseness, which makes Visages, villages one of the best feel-good films of recent years. 90%