JulianApostate Reviews

Holiday (I) (2018)

Cain's Daughter

[6/10 · 7 March 2023]

This is an unsettling movie which stays with you days after you have seen it. I kind of disliked this picture - there is not a single sympathetic character here - and yet the movie has had an impact on me, for which it gets 6 points.

There is a girl, living in a Turkish resort with extended group of her Danish narco friends. She is badly treated and yet she does not escape... and at the end she kills a man who was that one of another world but was sincere enough to hurt her feelings. That killing is like a sacrifice which is a gate for her being fully accommodated by her criminal friends - they help her to get rid of the body. Afterwards, they experience for the first time an idyll on the board of cruising yacht. They are all in Paradise now.

That killing poses a dilemma. Why didn't she kill her abuser but just a man whose words directed to her were entirely understandable? Does she therefore truly belong to evil ones...?

Well, the movie starts and ends with the song that tells a story of a sinner whose only recourse is the Devil: "Sinnerman... where you gonna run to...(...) sinnerman, run to the Devil"

Rounding (2022)

The inevitable past repeats: a young doctor tries to redeem his mistake but cannot save a daughter hauled into death by her own mother

[8/10 · 5 March 2023]

A young, taciturn black doctor plays the angel of death for his mother, helping her with her own euthanasia. However, in the last moment, the said mother reverses her decision to die. Her young son immediately starts her reanimation, but alas, however skilful he is, it is too late for her.

Shocked by this experience, he exchanges his residence from a city hospital to a rural one. Here he will be a confronted by a hypochondriac young woman, who soon will be revealed to be driven into this state of hopeless illness by her own mother. This situation, paralleling in some ways the faulty choice of his own past, will move him into attempts to reverse the evil happenings around her.

Alas, again, all of them will founder. What was ordained to happen, apparently MUST happen. The premonition of this feeling as well as the general soul-stirring atmosphere is a strong asset of this movie, which introduces us to serious questions as: can the evil of our past be redeemed at all? Can we avert the evil when it is happening right before our eyes? The movie seemingly answers "No", and this answer is reinforced with the sense of supernatural which somehow haunts the young medic, even provoking his injures, when he escapes from the seven-headed dragon in the cellar of his hospital. Interestingly, that dragon had 7 heads - exactly like the famous apocalyptic Beast from the Book of Revelation.

The Blue Rose of Forgetfulness (2022)

Moody trip into dreamy land

[7/10 · 5 March 2023]

This is a cartoon made of collage of papers scrapped out of old newspapers paced by looped, languishing music. The movie itself is also a collage - of few stories, populated by paper people cut of old comic books. The stories are hard to identify sometimes as some of them lack even a single word. This is not a great surprise as they are all subsumed under the name of Blue Rose, a flower non existent in nature, therefore a sure sign of forgetfulness, since maybe even original memories never really came into being...

The longest story, and one with the clear story line here is the story of the sacrifice of Alcestis, spiced with occult elements of the story of Biblical Rachel, her Alcestis friend, desiring a semen from Apollo, a god synonymous with the Devil in the Book of Apocalypse. As we know, Alcestis decided to freely descended into the land of the dead in exchange for the life of her husband. Here, this dramatic decision is preceded by the debate with Hermes on the rules of human sacrifice which apparently cannot be paid, cannot be suicidal, and cannot be ill.

But don't worry - such both willing and beautiful sacrifice as Alcestis will be finally saved by Heracles, a demi-god who typically interferes into the matters of both gods and men. However, since Alcestis repeatedly refused to drink the water of Lethe, she will be the only one who shall not forget..! Therefore, the Blue Rose of Forgetfulness will not appear in her storyline.

Babylon (I) (2022)

Devil behind Hollywood in the story of modern Eloi and Morlocks excellently paced by music

[8/10 · 5 March 2023]

The main character of this opulent visual requiem for Hollywood, Nelly LeRoy, bears the French surname denoting "the king". Well, she is the She-King, clad in the royal purple... we know where this image ultimately comes from: the Book of Revelation of St John. Yes, Nelly LeRoy is that Harlot of Babylon. The movie practically starts with the long scene of pagan orgy in the twenties, where a human-sized phallus squirts and a lonely, lost elephant of Hannibal's Carthaginian army tramples. It is during this orgy that the purple-clad Nelly LeRoy will be kind of crowned, starting her new, desired life as an actress.

After many years, her career's peak behind her, having been dethroned by the arrival of sound movies, her troubles will lead us to the true ruler of this world. A gangster will introduce us to some dungeon where horned beasts reign and animals are eaten alive by strange subhumans, hiding behind Phoenician masks. Yet our guide says that among them lives the only real hero, the fighter who never gives up, one whose greatest story has never been told... this dungeon scene is so out of touch with the rest of movie that it has to have some special meaning: well, it introduces the king of this world, sometimes known as Satan, and sometimes under other names.

The juxtaposition of the glitzy world in the Sun-scorched Hollywood and the dark world of raw-meat eating creatures below reminded me about a novel which described it roughly 100 years ago - "The Time Machine" of Herbert George Wells. That was the world of carefree Eloi, provided with everything by underground Morlocks, who sometimes dragged down one of those shiny creatures only to eat it underground. And such is the world depicted in the movie: carefree actors think that "now" will become "forever", only to either shot themselves or drink themselves to death when confronted with the unknown machinations of technics, produced in some underground places of which existence they are completely unaware.

Lucifer (I) (2014)

Gnostic take on the duality of Lucifer/Christ in the Mexican milieu around the new volcano of Parricutin

[6/10 · 5 March 2023]

European Modernity shifted the focus of the problem of Lucifer-Satan from the usual heresy stuff like Bogomile & Cathar doctrine into the mainstream. Thus Joost van den Vondel, a famous Dutch writer of the 17th century, wrote a play on Lucifer, where he says that "the world is round". Vondel, aside Hieronymus Bosh and Rumi, belongs to sources of this movie as indicated in the end credits.

Not only the tondoscope making the world round came from the Luciferian milieu but the story itself, which is essentially a re-telling of Christ story, just Christ the baby is a result of carnal sin Lucifer commits with some Maria. Gnosis recognized that Lucifer is the good angel, opposed by the evil forces of Demiurge. The Lucifer character is stylized as the Good Shephard when he saves a lost sheep from a cave. Interestingly, it is the always smiling and grinning Satan - however named as such only in the end credits - who will evict the main characters, Maria and her aunt, Lupita together with her uncle Emmanuel from their house; as this happens after the part named "Sin" we could say it symbolizes the eviction from the Garden of Eden itself. The previous part - the arrival of Lucifer among people - is named "Paradiso", and the last, third part, devoted to the arrival of the child of Maria and Lucifer, is named "Miracle". That progeny is conceived with the help of sin to which Lucifer induces Maria; however, this time it is not apple, but alcohol drinking; the usual element of Dionysian celebrations.

Another character, a priest, builds a new church (besides the old one, destroyed by volcano, which appeared only in the 20th century) whose tower is to reach "heaven" - the parallel with the Tower of Babel is hard to miss. We start to believe that the villagers consciously or not, worship Lucifer, and really are "His" people. This premonition is reinforced by the seemingly innocent moment when Lucifer washes Emmanuel feet completely clean, a deed which Lupita has been apparently unable to achieve. As we know from the Book of Genesis, dust from crawling upon Earth is the fate decreed by God for the seed of serpent. Therefore, washing feet clean can be read as the reversal of that order of God.

Will that end well for them...? We do not know. However, the only miracle performed by Lucifer is not actually a miracle but the revealing of a lie - he forces Emmanuel (one of Biblical name for Messiah), an uncle of Maria who pretends to be ill, to walk. Well, Lucifer is sometimes called the king of lies too... it is only fitting that such a character becomes the king of liars and the heart's desire for Maria. The picture starts with some invocation about people not fully knowing the value of good and bad - and in some sense, the people of the village indeed would be hard to describe in those terms, as they are neither really good nor really bad.

The movie overall has a dreamy, slow quality yet the lives of villagers are entirely realistic, as if they were filmed for a document - and yes, the Italian director, a champion of social realism, Roberto Rossellini, is one of inspirations for this movie as given in the end credits - this is the first time when I would say that reading of the end credits is necessary to fully understand a movie.

The Menu (2022)

Revengeful Christ offers the last supper to his 12 followers only to toss them into apocalyptic fire

[7/10 · 28 January 2023]

A master chef, Slovik of Slovakia, togethers with his crew of cooks - who never question a word from him - prepares his Last dinner, a 12-persons dinner (probably an intended reference to Christ's Last Supper) which will engage not just the sense of taste, but entire lives of his customers, till the very end. Who would like to transform a dinner for moneyed people into some scripted ritual ending with the death of everyone as a form of properly burned human sacrifice? Only a religious person, and a true believer - the film main fabular arc is a not so subtle hint that in the hierarchy of earthly powers, religion still trumps that supposed queen of our age, namely economy. When both blooded and shocked customers try to threaten him with their command of lower earthly powers, he now has only one answer to them: I own everything here, this island is my kingdom, its waters are my waters, and even Coast Guard (servants as they are) hears my command, as it will be evident in one scene. He is now officially not a madman, but a priest and a king in one.

Slovik's followers are of two kind: apostles and believers. The servants are the apostles and the believers are simply Church-going masters (masters worshipping a servant, ha!). The servants are cooks and believers are restaurant patrons.

The servants are perfect artisans, and when they are not perfect, they want to kill themselves: you are forced to admit that they take pride in their art - to extremes. Customers are less obedient but still trusting, until they really cannot take what is "served" anymore.

The chief name, Slovik, when read in English seems to be a wordplay on the word "slave", which gives us a clue that the story is another commentary to the Biblical prophecy of Noah in which he named the children of Ham as the slaves of the children of Shem and Japhet (another recent movie which seems to be based on this Biblical story is "New Order" of Michel Franco). The obsessive concern of Slovik with identifying who is a servant and who is not gives credibility to this interpretation - it is of utmost importance that during The End, lines will not be blurred, that everyone will known his or her place. Also, only a servant girl, a female Judas so to say (it is she who will call Coast Guard, crossing Slovik's will) , can question Slovik and have granted upon her some kindness - here in the form of a double cheeseburger - bestowed upon her as a kind of parting gift for the single Judas type, a servant who refuses to celebrate with other servants. Hamites, sometimes to be rumoured to be a progeny of Cain, are after all proudful artisans and will expect only praise from their brothers and sisters.

Slovik's last supper is a reversal not just of the Christ's Last Supper of the New Testament, but of the Biblical command of the Old Testament - now for a short time servants are masters of their masters very existence whether the latter like it or not - a reversal that truly can find its place only before the end of age, during the reign of God's Opponent upon Earth (and there will be the "Fallen Angel" installation for the guests of the Slovik's restaurant) directly preceding the God's Final Judgement, represented here by the final fire engulfing the island. Yet it is still the reversal of the Last Supper too - all 12 guests will have their sins (broadly, variations of seven deadly sins) exposed and NOT FORGIVEN. If there is Christ somewhere here, it is clearly not The Merciful Christ of Cross, but The One Of The Final Judgement.

However, in Slavic languages "Slovik" has another meaning: that of nightingale. In the Bible, a nightingale can be met only once, in that book beloved by Kabbalists: the Song of Songs, 2:12, which can be translated as "The time of the nightingale is come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land". "The time of nightingale" is spring, of course, a time of regeneration & generation, of the sacred prostitution too, and that ancient time of the celebration of the return of Adonis, sometimes simply known as "The Gardener" - well, is Slovik another face of This Gardener..? He certainly speaks often in religious terms and fires the final fire dispensing the words of love, a last indication that, unless Slovik is a madman, we partake in a religious ritual - Slovik's last speech about love and fire has something Christian in it after all.

The only person who survives this fire is a prostitute, not sacred though, but a PROSTITUTE nevertheless, and one clothed in purple - like that harlot of Babylon from the Revelation of St John. The last scene, loosely summoning the Arc of Noah story, offers therefore a hope to all disgruntled servants, real and metaphorical, genetic and mental - we will survive another blast of Jahwe's fiery flamethrowers of justice! That's the promise, that's the spirit! Of note is the lack of any surviving men: in a sense it is again a reversal of Noah story, where only passengers of his Arc with names were males. Yet in another sense, the last scene of the surviving harlot, the single survivor from the 12 guests, is a kind of reversal of the traditional Judas story in the spirit of its gnostic interpretation which compared Judas to saint as his betrayal was necessary for Christ redeeming sacrifice.

But don't worry, it was just a film... about a madman in the kitchen, really.

Zalava (2021)

In the pre-revolutionary Iran, Shah's gendarmes confront devils attacking Kurdish gypsies

[7/10 · 7 November 2022]

.... namely non-Persians....: this movie threads its politics and nationalism very carefully. With a potential loss for the depth and intensity of the story, it does not engage Islam in any way too. The exorcist seems to have never heard of Quran: pretty surprising when compared to the ubiquitous Christian theme of priests-exorcists.

This well-written story, starting from the total denial of the demonic, slowly takes more pro-demon stance (but never decisively) by engaging the love of the main character, a gendarmerie sergeant, for a local doctor, who is a reluctant demon believer (of the kind: it does not harm to believe). Once more, Eve (Malilah) leads Adam (Massoud) astray.

In its approach to ghosts/demons, the movie reminded me about "Benedetta" by Paul Verhoeven: both films leave open the question whether demons exist or not.

Hellhole (2022)

When Satan comes, lilies bloom

[7/10 · 7 November 2022]

Jacob Boehme, a mystic from Silesia - the area where the monastery (Lubiaz) is located where the film was shot - named the expected time of "the rejuvenation of the world" the Time of the Lily. In Catholicism, lily is a symbol of innocence and Virgin Mary.... yet in the more esoteric circles, it is also a symbol of Lilith, the first wife of Adam, like Satan banished by God - in her case, to the desert. As often in the case of Christianity, meanings are bestowed upon the older pagan symbols, reversing them yet raising the question which meanings are the real ones. Here, the well descends to Hell ("Hellhole"); in the Old Testament a well is associated with the beloved of Jacob, Rachel; in Judaism a woman comparable to Virgin Mary, whose name, maybe surprisingly, maybe not will be the last words of Satanic messiah during sacrifice. Likewise, the most knowledgeable in the matters of the cult of the Prince of Darkness in this movie is a monk named after a man who set up Christianity as a religion.... Peter. He will betray the Satanic messiah in the way original Peter betrayed Christ, finally both enabling and completing the sacrifice of Satan's Chosen One, in the end so akin in his fate to Jesus Christ.

The appearance of lilies, rather untypical for cinematic stories about devil, is an example of how well versed in the occult this movie is... In this gripping story of ritual, human sacrifice, cannibalism (the original Polish title is "The Last Supper/Ostatnia wieczerza") and deceit (of his own worshippers by Satan is the last one), the Son of the Dawn (reversal again) is the only winner, even his earthly followers paying price: perhaps they never paid enough attention to the wisdom which says that "No one really knows what the World to Come shall look like". This movie says it will be the great Reversal again, high up to Sky - As above, so Below - to remind one of occult tenets, again somehow present in the Catholic Oratio Dominica prayer ("in caelo et in terra").

The knowledge this movie conveys (up to the pattern of thyrsus on the ceremonial robes of the high priest of Satan) in a way is more terrifying than multitude of slashers inhabiting only the realm of fiction.

All Quiet on the Western Front (2022)

Marshal Foch so evil that he orders old croissants for Germans

[7/10 · 5 November 2022]

Is this Monthy Python? Is this a James Bond installment? No, this is movie about First World War made by Germans. The scene stuck to me as it unintentionally breaks the decorum of this otherwise serious movie. It probably aimed at stressing how evil the French are, but with proverbial German incompetence in the matter of humour, it only comically stresses how whiny and yet overreaching and demanding Germans can be. Seriously, how can they complain that they didn't get first quality food during ceasefire negotiations? I mean - it is ridiculous. And ridiculousness is the first enemy of seriousness. Another scene which unintentionally backfires, not so painfully though, is when "good" German soldiers want to share the meat stolen from French with French girls... thieves being gracious, hm. To compare, in the book, they did share but not stolen things: why this robbery twist then...?

For a movie that has 148 minutes, action is non-existent with just two German charges against French trenches, and some pictures of the backside of the front. It has nothing to do with Remarque novel, except the one scene with Paul & wounded French soldier in no man's land, which surprised me how weak emotionally and short in time it was (remember, movie has 148 minuets), especially when compared to renderings in two previous versions and in the book, of course. That, compounded with "evil Foch weaponizing croissants" gives certain credibility to the notion that the movie is a tacit German propaganda. In this mould, one could also notice the lack of single line discussing real reasons for war (instead of reflecting on history, Kat says that wars happen like diseases), a graphic scene of violence when the "evil" French burn alive German POW-in-spe etc

And yet I give 7 for picturesque qualities of the movie (best experienced in the cinema), the most important part of the cinematic experience. Surprisingly, it is great splendour of colour (from time to time), with a certain hypnotic quality helped by the perceived lack of plot, actually. This is weak 7, though, depending on the fact that I perhaps overemphasize cinematography in films.

EO (2022)

Occult references alone do not make a story

[5/10 · 21 October 2022]

It is hard to understand why no one seems to have read this movie as a story to which backbone is provided by the mythical story of Eo, a mortal lover of Zeus sentenced by his wife, Hera, to be hounded incessantly around the globe. The poor donkey is a victim of gods, not humans. Almost all scenes (starting with the name of the circus, Orion) have some mythical overtones, nevertheless, all of them together make no more story than a strong statement "I am persecuted around the world" by Skolimowski.

In the circus Orion one Kassandra loves Eo.... but let's pretend that it is just a story of bad people and a saintly animal, because by the power of donkey-as-hero it MUST be a remake of Bresson "Balthasar", and films MUST primarily be made about other films. So, just to make this point clear, a couple of references pointing to who the progeny of Eo is: The woman in scarlet, with a heavily-laden name Kassandra, so devoted to Eo, obviously reminds us of the figure of Babylon in the Book of Revelation, whose children are of course not among those whose names are written in the Book of Life: even when visited by presumably kind Eo, they are problematic children in the way of the caring Italian priest the gambler at the end.

The follow-up strange episode of Eo working in some scrap metal yard seems to be a memory of some long-lost kingdoms like Atlantis or Babylon.

Eo, however, is soon to be found in the football club "Zryw" whose colours are white (lily) and blue (sea), the colours of progeny of Lilith and of Poseidon, whereas the name (Zryw- Flying up) reminds us of the story of Icarus. This will be a club which will be helped to its victory by Eo, of course.

In the next episode Eo wanders around the darkness of desert and of underground, among jackals and snakes; all that obviously evokes Lilith's dwelling place.

The only animal with some affection for Eo is, not very surprisingly, a white horse, an animal so close to the white unicorn (a symbol of fallen angels) as it can get in no-fantasy movie. Well, if you bear in mind the famous "A Mon Seul Desir" medieval tapestry of the Lady and the Unicorn, here the Lady is Eo, "Seul Desir" of the white horse/unicorn: it is the same story again, unsurprisingly.

And so, on and on. If you think these remarks are a bit disjointed - the movie is exactly like that, the only structure provided by donkey "wandering" from a station to another stop. Is that Eo visiting her children...?

Unfortunately, symbols do not make a story, and this movie is made of stories shaped like pictures full of symbols, this impression matched by the powerful music which again points to some plane of symbolic instead of uniting scenes before our very eyes in any way as a continuous movie. As such, it could be a tableau on the wall, and nothing would be lost. Maybe Skolimowski was a painter too long to make films again. Certainly, he went a long way away from Polanski, with whom he initially collaborated.

Samurai Fiction (1998)

Samurai Oddballs

[7/10 · 27 September 2022]

A very positive movie, with excellent music, on the theme of how to be free as a samurai. Almost all characters are oddballs in some way: a master swordsman who does not want to kill anyone, incompetent ninjas, a son of feudal lord incapable to be a warrior, a bad guy who does not desire any profits of being bad.

There are numerous plays on Akira Kurosawa and Masashiro Shinoda movies, moreover two minor characters bear their names. There will be also a "Zatoichi" blind man who will appear in the midst of the biggest battle to do absolutely nothing.

The title says all: it is what the samurai world could or should be but wasn't; in this sense it is a kind of fable with a good ending for all leading characters (even the bad guy will have his dream fulfilled and will die with a smile on his face). It is a pity that it stayed as "Episode One", though.

Atlantide (2021)

A Symbolic Ride Through Apocalypse: Atlantis Redux

[8/10 · 24 September 2022]

This visually extremely beautiful movie seems to be deeply misunderstood. In essence, it is a deeply symbolic film inspired by the Biblical Book of Daniel, to which we are referred by the name of main character, his steady course in life and his apocalyptic end by fire. All that takes place in the city of sin, bygone Atlantis (clear reference by the title), today's Venice, yesterday's Carthage or maybe more generally, Phoenicia (Venicia). During the long, haunting end sequence of the inverted ride through canals of Venice we constantly meet elements of this floating city framed as the sign of Tanit, the principal goddess of Carthage, that great empire of merchants. The final of this dark, "underground" sequence bursts with light and music - perhaps promising a new beginning for the haughty sons of Atlantis.

Last Film Show (2021)

To be captivated by a beautiful movie is to be captivated by good lies

[9/10 · 24 September 2022]

This is a very good film overall. I will therefore skip on already provided here delights of cinemas paradisos.... However, what other reviewers didn't notice is that this visual masterpiece balances our delights in films with several statements - produced by the local film "expert", namely Fazal, the operator of a film projector in cinema "Galaxy" - that the films prime service is in the service of lies. Appropriately, the movie main character, a child who want to connect light and stories, is a consistent and consummate liar in the service of lies-bearing films - which leads him even to the stay in the juvenile house. Yet Samay does not stop - he will be lying further. Since Fazal is a Muslim and Samay is a Hindu one cannot but see delicate polemics between two religions concerning lies and its embellishments too. Fazal does not want to see more films.

This beautifully shot movie has certain fantastic elements: for example, it is hard to believe that a working film projector can be built by an elementary school pupil just from scrap metal. On the other hand, the most moving scene, of the death of the old projector and of the old film reels, has clear apocalyptic undertones - by fire these artificial stories are destroyed, and then they are reborn/reincarnated as cutlery and plastic jewellery. It may sound comic as you read it, but believe me, in cinema it will be a truly apocalyptic experience, thanks not only to cinematography and editing but to music, appropriately framing those scenes. In the end, constant associations of "light" and stories/movies together with the closing journey of fire & apocalypse conveys some religious, gnostic, or perhaps occult, ideas - like of the fight of Light with Demiurge, the god of matter. But is the Light a lie...?! The Question stays.

Icarus (2022)

Minotaur myth reversed

[8/10 · 24 September 2022]

Despite its title which focuses on Icar, the main plot of this beautiful animation is provided by an interesting reversal of the myth of Minotaur: here Minotaur (under its own name, Asterion) is a good guy and both Theseus and Ariadne are bad guys.

Through its visual aesthetics and music, the movie tries to teleport us to ancient (Minoan) Crete. Icar, however, does not move the plot in any way here; his role is to live this world and convey his experiences: of the good Asterion the telepath, of the wile Theseus, of the self-obsessed Ariadne. If you ever wondered why Theseus left Ariadne on his way back to Athens (she was later snatched by Dionisios, another horned god, but it is not shown here), this movie has a pretty convincing answer!

One thing which is not developed enough, is the relationship of Cretans with their gods: the movie explicitly starts with invoking "constant fear of gods experienced by ancient Greeks", but this theme in the plot is really unclear: was Pasiphae seduced by Poseidon through fear? Why did Minos finally decide to kill Minotaur, in spite of the creature being the son of Poseidon? Why there are horns everywhere in Crete and yet horned Minotaur is to be killed? Such questions certainly are asked by this rare movie, yet answers are not provided. Maybe the opening invocation to "the fear of gods" should also be left out in order to avoid making this animation too confusing: is this more a fable, or more a serious telling of myth and history?

Three Thousand Years of Longing (2022)

Sterile Orientalism

[6/10 · 22 September 2022]

Something was lacking in this movie.... the movie was so much about the djinn that all other characters were rather sterile or papercut. The main plot of the move was the search for a requited love between the djinn and a human female, which finally happened: this is the intended climax everyone was looking for. The name of the female character, Aletheia, which is an old Greek notion for truth says to us that it is all very real. In other words, non-human intelligent beings do exist.

Since the djinn - in his own words - is a subject of Iblis, another name for Lucifer, his story may have been a variation of the fallen angels' story, especially since the love between two species is its subject. This may be reinforced by the fact that djinn deals only with women here, which exposes him to the problems of love, and only the problems of love.