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drcernovsky
Reviews
Pusinky (2007)
Teenage Psychological Maturation
A group of adolescent girls accompanied by a young brother of one of them hitch-hike in an adventurous quest in summer weather through the Czech landscape, originally intending to travel to Holland, though the intended destination is irrelevant to the plot of this film and their related efforts seem somewhat half-hearted. The trip is a part of their psychological maturation. The main merit of this movie is in its psychologically unusually accurate and emotionally moving portrait of the intra-psychic teenage turmoil. The director Karin Babinská is a master in this respect and the performance of the actors favorably compares to the majority of Hollywood films. The key protagonist (played by Marie Dolezalová) unsuccessfully attempts to overcome or firmly suppress her intense erotic attraction to women. In the first part of the film, she vehemently denies her orientation when queried in this respect by a more experienced, more mature, and overtly lesbian lady. She experiences intense frustrations in her intra-psychic struggle, even attempts suicide, but remains kind to her friends even when these contemplate rejecting her after detecting her erotic preference. These other girls in her group also struggle with growing up pains and with adolescent impulsiveness and self-doubts. The film excellently reflects their adolescent search for a fulfilling friendship and for a more satisfactory definition of one-self. The film culminates when the protagonist (Marie Dolezalová) finally again encounters and befriends the more mature and overtly lesbian lady: this meeting helps her to develop a stronger self-acceptance.
Onde (2005)
Psychological Study of Love versus Self-Doubt
A blind modernistic musician (played by Ignazio Oliva) is befriended by a very attractive girl (played by Anita Caprioli) whose face is unfortunately blemished by a reddish-purple stain, to the extent that many persons avert their eyes when noticing her in public. She often conceals the skin stain by cosmetic makeup cream. This is an unusually valuable psychological study of the ingrained interpersonal mistrust each of these two protagonists brings into their burgeoning love relationship. She is on her guard ("once he would know about my skin defect, he would no longer love me") and he also struggles with a similar intra-psychic hurdle ("most people befriend me only out of a naive curiosity but then they soon reject me, as they become bored with a blind man"). The development of their romantic relationship is punctuated by related frustrations. The leitmotif includes their intense hunger for affection and their related recurrent hope that this relationship could somehow be saved. Although this beautiful and psychologically very complex film is often found only in Italian, it is emotionally very moving even for those who do not comprehend its Italian dialogs. The emotions are somewhat discernible on nonverbal level by facial expression and by other facets of each protagonist's body language. The camera work is often of delightful beauty. The actors and the director (Francesco Fei) have exceptionally well presented the various psychological hurdles associated with blindness and with disfigurement by skin affliction. Persons with artistic inclinations may be very favorably impressed with highly artistic aspects of this film.
Rabâzu: Oou onna (2010)
psychological film about a close relationship
Sensationalist trailers excessively focus on latex garments occasionally noticed in this movie to mislead the public that this is an "adult movie" about mindless sex and without artistic merit. Instead, this is a deeply psychological and artistic film. The protagonist is a very shy young adult woman (played by Aino Kishi), a good hearted loner with a healthy work ethics, who has the misfortune of growing up with an obsessional attraction for rubber clothing, the attraction that usually could make her a target for social rejection, ridicule, and mistreatment. She carefully conceals from her co-workers in a food factory the fact she daily wears some of such undergarments. Her acting is above average, even if measured at high standards. An attractive male co-worker (played by Hiroshi Yamamoto) befriends her. He is a well-meaning and likable young male, conservatively dressed in a gray suit, white shirt, and a tie. He is soon enamored and while kissing her, he caresses her body when they are alone in her apartment. She panics, as his hand might sooner or later detect her rubber undergarments. Unfortunately, he indeed reacts to this discovery with a disappointed surprise and then with a rejection. However, when they again meet in the factory, they discuss her childhood fascination with an actor from action movies who also wore a cat-suit, probably also made from stretchy rubber. They resume dating and now strive to meet each other's need for intimate friendship. As in most such young relationships, they face various misunderstandings and frustrations on this pathway but they also develop a stronger affection for each other that eventually helps them to achieve more harmony. The director Takafumi Watanabe and the actor Aino Kishi skillfully created emotionally very moving scenes that are unusually close to reality, even when scrutinized by a clinical psychologist who occasionally consulted very distressed clients with similar obsessions for certain garments. The movie script, the excellent camera, and Kishi's acting are artistically far above average for Japanese, European, or American cinematography. Persons free of training in fine arts or also persons without a compassionate heart may misjudge or misunderstand this film.