Matty

A reality show that strips its participants to the bone. Though it employs almost every cliché of zombie horror movies, Dead Set has a thrilling pace and a bleak atmosphere, and Andy Nyman enjoys playing his insufferable prick of a character as much as Ricky Gervais enjoys playing David Brent. I was disappointed by the modest number of episodes, but at the same time, I appreciate that the series is not artificially drawn out and ends when it’s still at its best.

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%

A sea nymph and a fighter. Water and land. Poetic romance and social drama. The elliptically conveyed, agitatedly filmed introduction, during which questions are raised more than they are answered, is reminiscent of the Dardenne brothers’ social dramas (which is also due to the relationship between a father and his son in an extreme situation). We don’t know from where or from whom Ali and Sam are fleeing; the important thing for them right now is to resolve basic existential problems – having something to eat, a place to sleep and a way to earn money. The protagonist’s struggle with the world around him is made more intense by the logic of nature, because for Alain, life is a fight. Audiard doesn’t leave the realm of social drama even in the following minutes, but only enriches the feminine element with more levels of meaning and mood. The lives of Stephanie and Alain complement each other with fateful urgency both figuratively and in images (when her accident is followed by a cut to Alain, who is being passed by an ambulance at that moment). Only together do they form a complete person, one body (almost literally during the sex scenes). Audiard’s fascination with the human body here arises from the condition and nature of the characters. Through brutal fights and short-term sex partners, Alain convinces himself of his own courage and virility and his ability to face everyday reality as a man. His constant and self-destructive need to fight seems to be a rejection of the situation into which his status as a social outsider has thrown him. At the same time, his tenacity makes him an inspiration for Stephanie, whose accident has taken her on a journey from shock and denial to resigned depression. He fights against the world; she hides from it. The motivations for their coming together are not as banal as those in romances, where love conditions and sorts out everything. In order to see not only the cruelty of the world, but also its beauty, they have to accept themselves, learn to accept defeats and live with the hand that they have been dealt. Like Haneke’s Amour, Rust and Bone also reflects the current crisis of interpersonal relationships when it warns against egotistically fighting solely for oneself. A shared struggle is perhaps more difficult, be it gives us the priceless feeling that we belong somewhere and live for someone. 75%

The key melodramatic moment of the late awakening happens in Bigger than Life shortly after the beginning, which makes it possible for the film to continue with slowly rising psychological terror. Ed’s collapse is brought on by the empty routine of family life. As the opening shot reveals, he is running out of time. Only when he comes face to face with death does he see beyond the previously tacitly respected middle-class values that are starting to turn against him. He knows the truth, but he cannot escape and he doesn’t have the strength to fight. He suddenly fails as a father and husband, and as a man. Ray’s directing is very European in the care dedicated to the mis-en-scéne. Ed’s mental instability is mirrored (literally, in one scene) by the objects around him. His infallible authority, identified with the authority of God, looms over the son like a terrifying shadow. For a colour film shot in the widescreen CinemaScope format, Bigger than Life is unusually intimate and unusually bleak, and so conscientious in its etching of the myth of the happy American family that not even its final minutes can alter the overall impression that it makes. 80%

After 12 Angry Men come 16 dissatisfied men and women. They are stuck in their unsatisfying jobs, which makes them easy to manipulate. They might not even be aware of their dependent position in the capitalist system if Sandra had not approached them with her request. The main dilemma that they are faced with is whether to conform and vote with the majority or to weigh their decision and possibly take on greater responsibility. While the indecisive co-workers have to struggle a bit with their own morals, Sandra fights for her lost self-respect, family stability and faith in her own existence. She would most like to not be seen or heard. She would most like to simply not be. Her self-confidence has fallen to less than zero.  Marion Cotillard expresses the character’s feelings of shame and resignation through timid gestures, a hunched posture, a blank expression on her face without makeup and excessive gratitude for every display of humanity. ___ The long shots/sequences that comprise each of the encounters enable her to portray a change of mood from apathetic sadness to cautious joy, from resignation to determination in one go and without losing contact with the setting (which in the Dardenne brothers’ films conditions the behaviour and positioning of the characters). Mainly thanks to her family, she slowly realises that regular doses of Xanax and self-denial are not the only way out. One of the things that makes this apparent to her is the slowly waning interpersonal solidarity. It evidently makes Sandra happy if she can share something with her loved ones, such as a song (sung together in the car) or food (the film begins with taking a cake out of the oven; her husband works as a cook). ___ The brief moments of happiness liven up the intentionally and repetitively stultifying narrative structure. However, the repetition of the same types of situations does not diminish the film’s dramatic potential. We can count down the remaining time and how many people are left to visit, and after the pattern is established, we are kept in anticipation of how the next co-worker that Sandra approaches will respond to her request, and whether it will be a man, a woman, a white person, a black person, a younger person or an older person. The social and ethnic diversity of the supporting characters, none of which is a one-dimensional stereotype, and the effort to take the motivations for their decisions into account and their various responses are indicative of the filmmakers’ empathy, as they do not judge or simplify, and they do not handle the characters as if they were inanimate tools to further the narrative (you have the feeling that the characters exist even outside of the space staked out for them in the film). ___ The setting of a deadline and the structuring of the narrative into brief segments takes Two Days, One Night out of the realm of documentary-style verism that is characteristic of some of the Dardennes’ earlier films, but the strong humanistic message has not been weakened in any way by the more elaborate structure of the plot. Furthermore, the development of the drama never seems overly forced, thanks to the smooth incorporation of more conventional narrative elements (a suicide attempt, leaving an abusive husband) into the flow of the action and the consistent consideration of socioeconomic determinants. ___ Thanks to the clear structure akin to that of a folk ballad (but without a clear ending) in which the protagonist faces a difficult test, the Dardennes were able to emphasise the allegorical subtext and timelessness of the drama, which is outwardly tied to a specific situation and setting. With its apt metaphor for the capitalist system (the workers are at each other’s throats while the boss skates), the film doesn’t slip into didacticism while presenting us with the same questions that Sandra indirectly challenges her co-workers to ask. Would we put our comfortable membership in the majority over our own inner ethical convictions? Would we sacrifice ourselves for a person with whom we have almost nothing in common except our social status? These are questions that I am afraid to answer. 80%

In his belated feature-film directorial debut, former film critic and documentary filmmaker Kent Jones offers a sensitive character study of a working woman from a small city who forgets to take care of herself as you she takes care of others. With every scene, this long-resonating, stylistically unobtrusive film is remarkably rich in meaning. Diane relies on a highly subjective narrative, the director’s sense of detail and the deeply felt acting of Mary Kay Place, which strengthens our affinity for the main protagonist while contributing to doubtfulness with respect to her mental health. The film is also valuable due to the matter-of-factness with which it states that at the end of our life story, no major point will be revealed, but only death in loneliness. 80%

Outwardly, Dick Johnson Is Dead is an intimate portrait of the director’s father, who had begun to exhibit symptoms of Alzheimer’s, the same disease that her mother (and his wife) had suffered from. However, the touching video diary recording the relationship between two people who know what is coming comprises only one level of this unusually conceived documentary. ___ The filmmaker inserts shots of Johnson, who realises that he is losing memories and is becoming dependent on the assistance of others, into a more general contemplation of loss, forgetting and inevitability of endings, which are beyond our control and imagination. Despite that, we try to somehow come to terms with them. For director Kirsten Johnson, playful mystification is a coping mechanism. She stages various ways in which her father may die (the film opens with a beautifully morbid scene in which a loose air-conditioner falls on his head), as well as his funeral and afterlife (the deliberately fake-looking scenes with Jesus are reminiscent of the work of Baz Luhrmann). She does this so inventively that on a few occasions you will not be sure whether you are watching reality or another dramatherapy performance enabling the director to at least partially prepare for the departure of her other parent and the father to experience what he will not live to see. ___ Instead of just another film about Alzheimer’s that starts out sad and gradually becomes increasingly melancholy, Johnson created a mood-altering blend of black comedy, eschatological musical and self-reflexive family drama that is very sensitive toward social actors and contains truth somewhere between fiction and reality, between the space in front of the camera and behind it. 85%

Kapadia constructed Senna on a confrontation between the famous race driver and his nemesis Alain Prost, who was the opposite of him in terms of personal character. Maradona is also a film about the clash of two personalities. This time, however, the two personalities are those of a single person. In one of the off-screen comments, coach Fernando Signorini points out the duality of the football legend. He speaks of the incongruity between the shy “mama’s boy” from the slums (Diego) and the monster born of a desire for success (Maradona). According to Signorini, Maradona was originally just a mask that the football player wore in front of journalists, whom he despised. With proliferating scandals (drug dependency, disqualification, love affairs), mask and his real self began to merge. Kapadia seems to have too readily accepted this interpretation. Thanks to the above-mentioned concept, however, the film, with a runtime of more than two hours, is held together by one central motif, which contributes to its dynamics, as it creates tension between Diego and Maradona by alternating between situations revealing different layers of the subject’s personality. ___ As in the case of Senna and Amy, Kapadia further managed to find in the man’s life story universal themes (betrayal, forgiveness, redemption, seeking his place in the world) with which even those who have never played football, taken drugs or made friends with Neapolitan mobsters can identify. ___ I also appreciated how Maradona’s story is set in the broader socio-political and economic context of the time. Argentina’s football victory over England is presented as revenge for the Falklands War. Through Maradona’s cocaine addiction, the film reveals how Naples was plagued by crime syndicates that legitimised their activities with the help of media celebrities. The documentary pays a great deal of attention to the issue of national pride inspired by football and identification with a particular club. When, for example, Maradona played against Italy, he tried to defend his “betrayal” by saying that Naples was not Italy, but rather an outsider state in a country fighting for its place in sun (just as he, a poor boy from the fringes of society, had done). He based that on his awareness of the strong animosity between the Italian north and south. ___ Diego Maradona is fascinating especially due to the way in which Kapadia and his collaborators were able, for the third time, to assemble hundreds and hundreds of hours of archival material into a compact, thematically rich form. Antonia Pinta’s soundtrack, into which the sounds of falls, screams and kicks of the ball are inventively incorporated, also contributes significantly to the flow of the narrative, thanks to which the film offers not only an abundance of information, but also a more bountiful experience than many dramas made primarily for the purpose of stirring emotions. 75%

Die Hard for kids. History repeats. As in the first Die Hard, John has to regain the lost trust of a woman (and which surname is used again plays a role) and, as in Die Hard with a Vengeance, the labyrinth in which he finds himself and in which he toys with the villain is an entire city (Washington this time instead of New York) and, as in all three of the previous films, he faces a band of terrorists from around the world (France, Italy, the United States). Now, however, because of the PG-13 rating, he curses a lot less and kills only in such a way that cuts down on the blood spatter (i.e. sometimes imaginatively, sometimes like in a shooter game from the last century). In comparison with the previous films, the pace is significantly more laid-back, John and the people around him aren’t constantly under stress, there aren’t several things happening repeatedly in parallel (the third film particularly excellent in that respect) and quite of lot of time is taken up with somewhat sentimental talking. Of course, John’s primary objective – other than eliminating the bad guy – is to prove himself a capable father (where Matt serves as his training aid before he reunites with his daughter), but haven’t there already been enough action dads in other movies? ___ As in every buddy movie, here the narrative is given its dynamics by conflicts between opposite natures. John and Matt are separated by a few generations and by their varying scope of knowledge of modern technologies and pop culture (John’s dialogue scenes with Kevin Smith, the guru of all nerds, are among the film’s highlights). They reverse the unfavourable course of events only by joining forces, which is a pleasantly nostalgic aspect from today’s perspective, when analogue heroes have clearly fallen behind the geeks. Information still wasn’t everything back then. It was sometimes necessary to stop staring at a monitor and do something. John has all of the necessary skills; he just lacks information. Muscly tough guys like him are shown to be invaluable. By contrast, the hackers, cut off from the world of real (not virtual) action, are given one ethical slap in the face after another, and whereas John imparts important life lessons (“face your fear”) to his younger partner, he himself remains the same BFU at the end as he was at the beginning. ___ Live Free or Die Hard is the most entertaining when it refers to one of its (better) predecessors or to the action genre as such (the villain’s urging to “Say somethin’ funny”, the ruses that John uses). This would have been a run-of-the-mill high-tech action flick (with action moments sometimes bordering on parody in the vein of True Lies) if it didn’t have the ability to poke fun at itself – and, of course, if it didn’t have John McClane. Because even though this returning American saviour no longer has hair, he still has balls. 75%

If Starship Troopers had been meant seriously, it would have looked like Burger’s sunny dystopia. The central idea of Divergent is likable, and if I were a teenager dealing with the feeling that nobody understands me and I don’t belong anywhere, I wouldn’t have a problem seeing myself in the story. The subject skilfully uses the mental processes of adolescents who feel pushed by society into narrowly defined pigeonholes. Unlike in the real world, failing the test of adulthood here is not a cause for despair, but rather an opportunity to step off the path laid out by parents and to follow one’s heart. ___ But what does Tris accomplish by running away from her assigned role? Violence becomes her main form of self-expression, which remains unquestioned by the narrative. She earns respect through risky behaviour and toughness, not through composure or ingenuity. Though she voluntarily chose her faction, she can’t be herself, as she has to dissemble in front of the others in order to convince them that she belongs among them (she will then have to undergo a great test of dissembling in the Resistance). The militarisation of youth is not coded negatively, but is only abused by another faction, fittingly the Erudite. Weapons are superior to books in the film’s value ranking, which could be understood as a warning about the radicalisation of not only American society – if there was any irony or distance from the characters in the film. ___ The film equivocates with respect to who or what poses a threat, who or what the Dauntless are supposed to protect the city from. There is no ongoing war that has to be stopped. The necessity of a strong defence comes across as a paranoid ideological construct from the Cold War era. ___ The greatest paradox consists in the fact that Tris’s betrayal of her parents’ trust leads back to where the film began. Her rebellion doesn’t lead to revolution, but to the need to restore the previous order. The concept of social engineering, which displaces human nature in favour of a predictable and thus more easily manipulated society, is not questioned. Only individuals like Jeanine are corrupt. The old (parental) system is automatically understood as being correct, which is how Divergent inadvertently “holds up a mirror” to teenagers dreaming in the virtual space that they will go against the tide, while in reality they are terrified of losing their current certainties and accept the status quo as the truth. ___ The concept of life as a video game is contained at least in the choice of factions (as in an RPG), the inclusion of the popular CTF game mode and in the fact that most of the film comprises training with minor skirmishes rather than vigorous action with serious conflicts (which is largely true of the Resistance, where only tranquiliser bullets are used instead of lethal ammunition and where the most spectacular action scenes take place only in the protagonist’s mind). Whereas in her dreams the protagonist is able to withstand all of the elements (earth, birds, fire, water and – the biggest threat to every untarnished girl – a man), when the harmless pseudo-rebel training ends, Tris has to be rescued by her mother – the girl can’t cope on her own in the real world (for a change, she is repeatedly rescued by her male partners in the Resistance). ___ Besides the fact that the film version of the bestselling book gives the impression of being just as confused as a person facing the problems of adulthood for the first time, it essentially fails in dramaturgical terms. The story is slow for 140 minutes. The characters take either needlessly complex detours or unconvincing shortcuts in the pursuit of their objectives. For more than half of the film, the suspense stems only from the anticipation of when Tris’s inability to assimilate will be revealed – there is no more serious conflict in sight. The literalness of the screenplay is apparent from the bookish exposition, which uninventively lets the characters say who they are, what they feel, what they want to do and why. The whole film takes place in a strangely sedated and very inconsistently thought-out world. Add to that bad CGI and another negative character of a powerful woman (as in Elysium, The Hunger Games and Snowpiercer), which darkly stigmatises women’s efforts to get into leadership positions. Thematically, this would need a dystopia for adolescents that is itself adult and does not discourage growing up. Stylistically, something at least suggestively revolutionary. 50%