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Anatomie d'une chute (2023)
The curse of Oscars strikes again
This is a PSA: not all films have to be entertaining. Films, especially if they are a study, can be slow paced. They can have no apparent plot. They can have a designed anti-climax (in a nod to how, you know, real life usually is). They can challenge the viewer to check their expectations, (again: hello real life). Sometimes all the action is happening in words, and you need to look no further than Reservoir Dogs for that (which also has some gratuitous violence thrown in because: Tarantino). As usual after an Oscar nod, a film suffers from receiving attention of people who don't like to leave their comfort zone, which is just tiring, like watching people who don't like fish complaining because they decided to pick a sushi restaurant on a street with 20 other places serving steak.
Anatomy of a Fall is not an episode of CSI. In fact what this film does is showing how far from the CSI fantasy land a real life trial and an investigation can be. We all yearn for the certainty that CSI provided, and none more than the main character's son, but the truth is that very often we don't get it. What we have is forensic specialists doing the same thing that everyone else is doing in that court room: WANTING to believe this conclusion or another and finding evidence to support that belief. There is an added element of the fact that - unless you are French AND have been through the French criminal court - you can't compare this court room drama to anything but Hollywood depictions of trials or the experience of a criminal trial in your own country, which seems like an important point to remember when watching a film.
I don't see this film is a masterpiece but I do think it's a great study of disappointment in life. We all want to have happy, fulfilling lives but in reality our lives are far from being picture perfect. Which is unfortunate because should we find ourselves in a criminal court with no hard evidence against us, the prosecution will look for our perfection.
Another element of this film is looking at how words, situations and actions which most of the time are just a part and parcel of everyday life - being annoyed with your partner, passive-agressive behaviour, a row with your partner - become major evidence.
Do I think the main character killed her husband? I think that's not the point. The whole trial is a speculation based on reading into the crumbs of words and situations. No more is that obvious than in the scene of the argument, when as viewers we are in the moment with the husband and wife, and then get abruptly thrown into the court room having nothing but audio. Who did hit whom? Who started the violence? Is throwing plates on the floor violence? Is it intent of murder?
I also find the politics of gender interesting in this film. The woman is described as castrating, manipulative, cold and selfish. She is supposed to be manipulative because she is capable to make her case. She is supposed to be cold even though she is constantly attuned to her son's emotional needs and seeks connection with him when he's suffering. She is supposed to be castrating because she has her own agency and judgement. And she's supposed to be selfish because she isn't simply a facilitator of her husband's life. In older times people like that were not described as cold, selfish, castrating and manipulative. They were described as accomplished, articulate, rational men.
The real focal point of this film to me is the boy. His confusion, his trauma, his expression of turmoil, his ability to carry himself with dignity, his ability to reason with adults. He is the only one with the skin in both outcomes. He wants justice for his father AND his mother, and it's not unreasonable or biased. Definitely no more than someone who wants to score a professional win, be it as a forensic specialist, a prosecutor or a therapist.
I also liked the role of the court guardian who depicted her impartiality perfectly, which becomes obvious in her last scene when she speaks to the mother in the house.
My partner pointed out the "Italian Job" nature of the ending of this film. It will always be "love it or hate it" ending. I like it because I like it when art captures the essence of real life experience. Just because we want to know the truth, it doesn't mean we will ever get it from an omnipresent point of view. The unsatisfactory nature of the end of this trial is the point of this film. Despite the acquittal, the question of the truth will cast its shadow on the lives of the characters forever, and we share in their experience.
Slow Horses (2022)
That's entertainment
Slow Horses inevitably suffers from being compared to Tinker Tailor, and it is not. I don't think it intends to be, even when it plays with TT's esthetic.
Slow Horses is very much an action fantasy intending to entertain, with just enough realism and high-ish profile deaths thrown in to lure in TT's fans. It's got some good drama bits. It's got some intrigue. Some social and political references. But it is not a character study. It's still a slightly subverted maverick genre.
I suppose the most serious aspect is depicting MI5, which like any high power institution, will gravitate towards wanting to be the law onto itself, with personal ambition, power hunger and blind compliance having much higher stakes. Does it actually depict MI5? I have no idea but it definitely plays into what I would imagine MI5 is like.
Is it entertaining? Yes. Is it believable?
Erm... no, at least not consistently.
Is it worth watching? Yes, just alter your expectations.
Rejs (1970)
A myth is born
A very quick look at the cast of this film shows that Stanislaw Tym - a legend that he is - is not the only professional actor playing in this film. Many of the actors are amateurs, adding a flavor to the atmosphere of the film, but majority of the main characters are played by professionals.
As a Polish person I find this film amusing but was never taken by the hype. It's difficult to say how many people genuinely love the film, and how many feel obliged to say they love it.
Rejs is a very "Czech" Polish film - free thinking, good spirited, weird and wonderful. You can watch it as a political metaphor or a social / philosophical observation of life.
What it does really well is make you feel being captive in an absurd situation. You feel the slowness, the time being taken from you when you wait for another bit of small-ish talk. In real life one can have a suspicion that the person nominally in charge isn't really in charge, and the guy who's pulling the strings is an imposter who wasn't even trying to get all that power. Why is your own inadequacy or persona supposed to be any worse?
Withnail and I (1987)
Dostoyevsky, but with quotable put downs
I was curious about this film, which pops up in conversations and articles as a must-see gem of British film making. It reminds me of a Polish film Rejs, which enjoys the same cult status mainly due to quotability and its half surreal reality.
If you're not native to English culture you might laugh at hapless cooking, stereotypically male student housekeeping or some other slapstick adjacent gags. But at the core this is a story of two drifters in which homoeroticism depicts class dynamics.
Withnail lives off his friend and his Uncle Monty. The friend, educated in "that other school", serves as a kind off poundshop Jeeves, and Withnail has to graciously put up with his puppy eyes if he is to have a man servant (or rather a man vomit mat). The friend, who hasn't been socialised at the public school to be at ease with his queerness, is in complete denial about his desires. Should he become a woman, like the tabloids suggest? But women are vile, disgusting creatures in this film, so of course not. Even his drug poisoned brain can't accept THAT possiblity.
He comes up with an idea of a nature detox - they should leave London for a bit to clear their heads. Funny thing about English culture: people in the country hate Londoners as much as Londoners hate gays, haha. Anyway, they do get away, because Withnail can ask his Uncle Monty a favour whilst throwing his friend under a bus, which is what Withnails do without even thinking.
Withnail has a clever plan: Uncle Monty gets a promise of fresh meat in return for access to the country cottage, and with any luck Withnail's plus one gets enough sexual release to get him off Withnail's back. Win-win. Unfortunately for Withnail, Withnail's friend freaks out too much (who wouldn't, after narrowly escaping rape as the first introduction to the side of sexuality you are not comfortable with) which cures him of his infatuation and he definitely makes sure he jumps ship at the first opportunity. Which leaves Withnail a bit sad. To his credit, he isn't trying to sabotage his friend's chance too much. He is even trying to "make time". But no need to worry about Withnail - he never fails like common people (a category surprisingly bigger for Withnail than even a grammar school boy). You might think that in his threadbare coat he is "all fur, no knickers" parody. No. Now he's a scarecrow. Now he's an eccentric, fishing with a shotgun (what a legend!). Now he's as tragic as Hamlet, singing the pain of his existence in the rain. Now he's a cult classic for grammar school boys still in love with him.
The performances are really, really good. Some of the scenes are funny. But it's the nightmare end of the surreal spectrum with all the grimness of Dostoyevsky's novels, which for people not in love with Withnail makes it a tiring watch.
La reine Margot (1994)
For the initiated only
At a basic storytelling level this film is a mess. If you don't know the history of the period or the novel by Dumas you will not be able to make any coherent sense of what you are watching.
So you are left with visuals. The film is a carnal, sensual assault. Whether it is a ceremony, a celebration, an orgy, a massacre, anything - the frame is full of bodies. Dressed, undressed, half dressed. Pushing at each other, pushing through, constantly in each other faces. It is relentless. And can kind of understand what this is trying to do - when hundreds of people are slaughtered, humanity seems reduced to carcasses, either dead or soon to be dead. If you can stand the violence (which I couldn't) the film is visually very rich.
But overall it was tiring and off-putting. The dialogue fails to convey anyone's motivations beyond a basic impression. Characters are constantly pushing, shoving, tugging at each other, snarling and mobbing. 40 minutes into this very long film, nothing was making me stay with it.
Lady Macbeth (2016)
British Psycho more like
I like slow films and like quiet dramas so my problem with this film has nothing to do with the form and style. I just don't know what this film wants to be about.
First things first: this is not a take on Lady Macbeth, unless in the most colloquial meaning of "a murderous woman from a higher class". Not even "a murderous woman from a higher class in search for power, haunted by her conscience". Perhaps the Russian novella the film is based on is interesting in its study of a deluded small-time tyrant, and uses the classic tragedy connotation as the ultimate put down of the main character's illusions of grandeur as she's no more than "Lady Macbeth of the sticks", I don't know, I haven't read it. And quite frankly up until this film I wasn't really aware of the novella so it wasn't my main reference point for this film. There is, however, another literary text that influenced my approach to the character, and I could be excused for falling for it.
I think my biggest problem was that I didn't really feel for any of the characters, even those that were straightforward victims. There is one character that deserved all the sympathy and I watched her continued traumatisation with the same detachment as the main character was watching her. The only other film that made me so emotionally empty (not exhausted, not numb, just void) was American Psycho. But whilst American Psycho compelled me to participate in exploring that void and very quickly made me realise the meaning of my emotional state, Lady Macbeth failed to grip me at all. I was seriously tempted to give up 20 minutes to the end. I wasn't engaged with the film, I wasn't angry with the film, I wasn't bored with it. I was indifferent to any, even ugly truth the film was trying to convey.
In the end, if you don't get distracted by trying to understand the main character, the film can be read as a commentary on class oppression (rich have their fancies and murderous empowerment, the poor are made to pay and lose their voice). Was that an unexplored meaning of Macbeth's female protagonist? Was it the background meaning of the Russian novella? Who knows. I don't, and I haven't been made curious to find out.
One other thing to mention is the use of sexual violence in this story. At one point the main character walks into the stables and into a gang rape situation. All she has to protect her is her name, which would still make her feel vulnerable enough not to push it and try some kinky stuff after she freed the victim. Yet she does. She then latches on to a man that she first encountered in that gang rape situation - that is the only thing that she knows about him, there is no room for any "he's a misunderstood gentle giant" fantasy here. I mean, it's possible, but it's a different film, not one in which the lady of the house, sexually and emotionally shunned by her husband, seeks a connection, liberation and sexual validation as a woman. We get it, she's deranged. But this just doesn't add up. There are either massive holes in the way the story is told, or the film is confused about what it wants to explore.
Station Eleven (2021)
A meditation on loss, hope and rebuilding life
I have one more episode left but even if it turns out average, I already love this series.
It is a slow, pensive meditation on the nature of loss, and paths people take (or reject) to rebuild hope and light in their lives.
It's beautiful, poetic and introspective - given how important a theme Shakespeare's tragedies are for the show, it's hardly surprising.
So many delicate yet hardy characters. Admirable even if imperfect.
I really like how the show is using time to talk about people's relationship with time. "There is no before. There is no after. There is only now." Old truth, new reflection.
If you are looking for post-apocalyptic porn, this is not going to meet your needs.
Pan Samochodzik i templariusze (2023)
You might enjoy it if you don't care about the source material
This film takes on a well known and loved brand, and then uses it to create a completely different fantasy, hence the disappointment of so many viewers.
In the source material Tomasz NN is almost the epitomy of "the grey man": he is supposed to be boring, unassuming, blend into the background and come across as a bit of a fuddy daddy. His biggest advantage over his opponents is that they always, always underestimate him, and he plays that card for as long as he can. The man comes across as if he has no ego or ambition: whilst his opponents and rivals boast of status symbols (often difficult to come by in communist Poland) his biggest achievement is working at a museum.
The only thing that stands between him and being the grey man is his car which draws attention wherever it turns up. Tomasz inherited the car from his uncle, an amateur inventor and mechanic. The car is ugly, bizarre and invites mockery but it holds a powerful secret, just like Tomasz who hides intelligence, charm and a fair bit of altheticism under his unassuming exterior. Tomasz is a kind soul who looks after his boy scout friends, just like they look after him. Each book has a strong female character with a lot of agency, though viewed through a feminist lens (which I have nothing against) they probably suffer from being a male fantasy rather than a representation of womanhood.
The film presents us with an obnoxious, self centred, childish character who is supposed to evoke both Indiana Jones and James Bond. His car is a cute-ugly, rat monster truck, something that plenty of people could see as cool.
Poland in the film is a land of the 1960s USA's cultural landscape with some local props thrown in, so hopefully viewers will not treat this film as a way to find out anything about Poland and its history.
For people who grew up reading and loving these books, this film has nothing to offer. However, it is decently shot with more than adequate production value (hence 3 stars) so if you didn't read or love the books you might enjoy this story. For me it was neither Pan Samochodzik (Mr Car), nor James Bond, nor Indiana Jones and I didn't enjoy it so I gave up half way.