The Last Family (2016)

Directed by Jan P. Matuszynski
Country: Poland

“The Last Family”, a very humorous yet unsettling biographical drama about the Polish dystopian-surrealist painter Zdzislaw Beksinski, starts with a funny lightness, develops with an enthralling wittiness between the lines, and ends with a harrowing murder scene. Even with death, suicide, and illness playing influential roles in the life of the Beksinskis, the film embraced a spirited mood throughout that was fiercely swept aside with the appalling finale.

The smartly and effortlessly mounted account begins in 1977 and ends in 2005, the year that Zdzislaw, a bit debilitated due to aging, was brutally stabbed to death at his Warsaw apartment by a 19-year-old with whom he was familiar.

At the beginning, and to better set the tone, Jan P. Matuszynski, who directed from a screenplay by Robert Bolesto (“The Lure”), stages an amiable conversation occurred in 2005 between the painter and his chronicler friend, Piotr Dmochowski (Andrzej Chyra). The well-disposed Zdzislaw, superbly played by the veteran actor Andrzej Seweryn, imagines how amazing would be programming a supercomputer to perform some adjustments in Alicia Silverstone according to his sexual fantasies and whims. The story then winds back to 1977 when he and his wife, Zofia (Aleksandra Konieczna), visit and inspect an old apartment in Warsaw to accommodate their only son, Tomasz (Dawid Ogrodnik), a selfish and suicidal neurotic who would become a popular radio presenter, movie translator, and music journalist in the following years. Tomasz struggles permanently with himself, tormented by his flagrant inability to maintain a proper relationship with a woman. 

His parents have their respective mothers living with them. When together, the two elder women try to guess who is going to die first in the family. They both bet on Tomasz, but his recurring suicide attempts won’t be successful until the Christmas Eve 1999, time when his father located him dead in his apartment. Ironically, Zdzislaw, who considered suicide an act of courage, congratulates his son for finally having found peace.
One year before, the painter had lost his dear wife to a fatal aneurysm. By that time, besides painting to sell abroad, he was a bit obsessed with making homemade videos, his favorite hobby.

Mr. Matuszynski’s directorial methodology, whether pleasantly elaborated or painfully raw, has a crucial impact on the way the drama evolves.
 
Packed with dauntless shots and enlightened by the top-notch performances of Seweryn and Ogrodnik, “The Last Family” also scintillates with major production values with prominence for the appropriate period settings and costume design, an unbreakable storytelling suitable to the challenging structure, and an arresting soundtrack spanning several decades. This is an arty biopic not to be missed.

Goodbye Berlin (2016)

Directed by Fatih Akin
Country: Germany

German director of Turkish descent, Fatih Akin, belongs to that group of filmmakers that struggle at some point in their careers after a brilliant start replete with numerous accolades. His undeniable talent was materialized in many prizes with top-rated dramas such as “Head-On”, winner of the Golden Berlin Bear in 2004, and “The Edge of Heaven”, Cannes best screenplay and prize of the ecumenical jury in 2007. Even when he adventured himself in comedy with “Soul Kitchen”, the results weren’t bad at all, but his following steps, the documentary “Garbage in the Garden of Eden” and the drama “The Cut”, related to the Armenian genocide, didn’t bring the usual gratification to the fans of his cinema. That’s why his next move was awaited with some expectation.

Mr. Akin opted to have a go at the widely explored coming-of-age topic with the comedy drama “Goodbye Berlin”, starring Tristan Gobel and the debutant Anand Batbileg as two teen fugitives from Berlin during the summer holidays.
 
Gobel is Maik Klingenberg, a 14-year-old Berliner whose character intrigues due to a staggering mix of naivety and honesty. He loses his self-confidence when Tatjana (Aniya Wendel), the schoolmate he’s in love with, doesn’t invite him to her birthday party. His apathetic state doesn’t get better when his teacher rebukes him for a composition in which he tells about his alcoholic mother and her considerable time spent in the spa, a funnier way of addressing the rehabilitation clinic, where she willingly goes when stepping off the limits.

His sad days come to an end after he befriends the new student, Tschik (Batbileg), a delinquent Jewish-gipsy orphan with a tough-adult attitude and whose doubtful reputation is reinforced by the rumors that he’s associated with the Russian mafia. Both decide to embark on a road trip in a stolen blue Lada Niva, listening to Richard Clayderman’s “Ballade Pour Adeline” and embracing every strange occurrence and encounter with a burning passion proper from their age. 
While heading to Wallachia, where Tschick’s grandparents live, they bump into Isa (Mercedes Müller), a starving, smelly girl with candid blue eyes who asks for a ride after helping them stealing gas. She intends to catch the bus that will take her to Prague, where her half-sister lives, but not before flirting with the tremulous Maik.

Confessions, promises, and a mutual understanding that feels truly sweet, bolster the trio’s friendship.
Akin reserves the best thrills to the final part, when the troublemakers Maik and Tschik are forced to change direction to escape the police, with unfortunate consequences that could have had much worse repercussions.

Based on Wolfgang Herrndorf's best-selling 2010 novel "Why We Took the Car”, the film shows how Fatih Akin is an adaptable filmmaker, whose interesting vision gets limited and blurred whenever he doesn’t go deeper than the surface, whether emotionally or narratively. 

The feel-good “Goodbye Berlin”, in all its audacity and insubordination, doesn’t break new ground but didn’t let me down either. Even with ups and downs in its fluidity, and with levels of entertainment that oscillate between the good and the average, I didn’t feel that my time had been wasted in the end.

Soul On a String (2016)

Directed by Zhang Yang
Country: China

I’ve always admired the way that Beijing-born filmmaker Zhang Yang handles a story. The gentle “Shower”, his first and major hit, saw the daylight in 1999, but other compelling dramas succeeded, brimming with sufficient points of interest to deserve approval, namely, “Sunflower” and “Getting Home”.

His epic and subliminal revenge tale, “Soul On a String”, adapted from two novels by Tibetan writer Tashi Dawa, may feel excessively contemplative in some passages but it’s also smartly written, marvelously photographed, and sagaciously detailed.
Rooted in ancient tradition, the storyline revolves around Tabei (Kimba), a sinful man who was entrusted with a special mission after finding a precious Tibetan stone in the mouth of a deer. Blessed by a sapient monk, Tabei sets off to the Buddha’s sacred Palm Print Mountain, where the stone has to be returned. The arduous journey works also as an opportunity for a soul cleanse, as well as to bring his life to a right path.

After a one-night stand with the solitary and obstinate Chung (Quni Ciren), the traveler will have her company for the trip, even if he doesn't want to. Later, a homeless dumb kid, whom they name Pu (Yizi Danzeng), joins them on the adventure. In truth, he becomes extremely useful with his psychic powers and keen sense of orientation. Chung is the one to be happy with his presence since she's more adept of children than swords.

Crossing amazing landscapes to avoid the insecure main roads, the confident Tabei and his friends head north, aware that a few mysterious men keep following them. 
One of these men is Gedan (Siano Dudiom Zahi), a shadowy cowboy and writer who searches for answers himself, while the other two, Guori (Zerong Dages) and Kodi (Lei Chen), are two brothers who want to avenge the death of their dad, killed by Tabei’s late father in a duel. The younger brother is so enraged that, for the last ten years, he has been killing every man named Tabei that crossed his path.

The camera, peeking from any possible direction, captures stunning sceneries whose combination of color and light would make a great impressionistic painting. The splendid, ultra-polished widescreen cinematography belongs to Guo Daming, who was also preponderant last year in Yang’s “Paths of the Soul”.

The director, privileging tense generational predicaments over bloodsheds, also infuses a prickly, spot-on humor into his storytelling.

The engaging “Soul On a String” is an unparalleled Buddhist-Western odyssey that effectively earned my attention during its nearly two and a half hours.

Heartstone (2016)

Directed by Gudmundur Arnar Gudmundsson
Country: Iceland / Denmark

Heartstone, the directorial debut by the Icelandic Gudmundur Arnar Gudmundsson, is a coming-of-age drama that leaves an ambivalent impression as the force of the written material opposes to some obstacles regarding pace, duration, and cinematography.

The story is set mostly during summer in a small Icelandic farming village, where the teens Thor (Baldur Einarsson) and Christian (Blaer Hinriksson) are best friends. They support each other when an older red-haired bully messes with them, or when they have a hard time at home, which is a recurrent situation. 
Thor’s father left home and headed south where he now lives with a much younger woman. Attempting to suppress loneliness, Thor’s mother, Hulda (Nína Dögg Filippusdóttir) occasionally sleeps with a ‘friend’. However, this behavior doesn’t please her daughter, Rakel (Jónína Pórdís Karlsdóttir), who in a defying hysteria hits her mom with words and fists. Also Christian is far from enjoying happy moments next to his family, living constantly ashamed of his irresponsible, alcoholic father, Sigurdur (Sveinn Ólafur Gunnarsson), who can’t really offer him what a father should offer to a son at such a complicated age.

As they hang out with other friends, their sexuality eagerly awakens, becoming an imminent, inescapable, and sometimes painful aspect to deal with. Thor has a crush on Beth (Diljá Valsdóttir), who reciprocates the feeling. She and her friend Hanna (Katla Njálsdóttir) are the ones coaxing the boys to embrace the wildest adventures. Thor, for instance, reveals an urgency to enter adulthood and gets constrained for still lacking pubic hairs. It’s not rare that his sister finds him jerking off at home while looking at pornographic material, an embarrassment that is quickly overcome by spending time with his friends.

The solid friendship between Thor and Christian is abruptly put to a test when the latter can’t pretend anymore he’s gay. He naturally makes clear that what he feels for Thor is more than a simple friendship. Guilt and confusion quickly strike them as the story develops with slightly more interesting occurrences being reserved for the final section.

Transpiring some genuine emotions, Heartstone feels somewhat flat in the execution and a bit stuck in its moves. Christian’s character, with all its dilemmas, should be further explored and sometimes the family issues feel like pretexts to make us pity them rather than setting the atmosphere that surrounds them.

Often enveloped by shadows and darkness, the dismal visuals almost provide a proper refuge to the restless characters throughout their journey of self-discovery, which happens in a claustrophobic environment. 

The performances by the debutant boy actors, Einarsson and Hinriksson, were driven with an honest, dramatic strength, leading the film to win the Queer Lion at Venice Film Festival.

Detroit (2017)

Directed by  Kathryn Bigelow
Country: USA

American filmmaker, Kathryn Bigelow, has been hugely influential in the recent history of cinema, specifically within the war genre, where gems like “The Hurt Locker” and “Zero Dark Thirty” truly deserved the dozens of awards collected a bit from everywhere in the US.

“Detroit”, her tenth feature film, centers on the true events occurred in 1967 at the Algiers Motel, Detroit, Michigan, when the city was under a civil disturbance known as 12th Street riot. Following a screenplay by Mark Boal, the film portrays a different kind of war, but still a war, and one so important to remind, especially during these absurdly tense and rowdy days we’re living in today due to racial prejudice.

Larry Reed (Algee Smith) and Fred Temple (Jacob Latimore), two Motown black singers who separate from their other bandmates in the heat of the street riots, manage to find a room at the Algiers Motel, where they meet two gorgeous white girls, Julie Ann and Karen, visitors from Ohio. They are visibly relieved for having escaped the ugly warlike scenario that keeps going on out there. The streets are packed with African Americans who violently protest against the discrimination and frequent brutality of the white cops, who, spreading violence, inflame the revolt even more. The turmoil reaches such a dimension that Governor Romney and President Johnson send the Michigan Army National Army and two Airborne Divisions, respectively, to a Detroit on fire.

The two couples and three other acquaints end up trapped in the room of a war veteran after a harmless yet compromising shot with a blank handgun had set the infamous police officer Phillip Krauss and his ruthless squad on their trail.

Willing to find out who the shooter was, Krauss, whose precedent procedures showed his proneness for violence, invades the room to spread fear and death among the present in a clear abuse of power. Will Poulter gives his best performance to date, exhibiting a juvenile physiognomy that masks a heart of stone and unprincipled nature.

Minimal yet precious help comes from Melvin Dismukes (John Boyega), a private security guard who, for some reason, earned some immunity, even being African-American.

Ms. Bigelow sculpted this drama with vibrant looks and settings, capturing the essence of the late 60s and populating it with fervent confrontations and tumultuous scenarios of hate, violence, and destruction. This tenebrous depiction opposes to the happy vibes that transpire from the R&B and soul songs that compose the film’s soundtrack, which besides originals, also includes names such as Marvin Gaye, Brenda Holloway, and Martha Reeves.

Considerable buzz has been going on around this drama due to its topic and timing, and also the way it was addressed. The recreation of the facts is partly observant, partly opportunistic, but “Detroit” is as much valid as any other story, fact-based or not. For obvious reasons, it can’t be compared with Bigelow’s previous highlights, which live more from the suspense and alertness on the battlefield rather than the insult, prejudice, and humiliation factors associated with the present case.

A parallelism with the present times is inevitable, and lessons can be learned from this dark episode of the American history. With them, we should be able to improve mentalities and evolve as human beings.

Dunkirk (2017)

Directed by Christopher Nolan
Country: USA / UK / other

Over-the-top American director Christopher Nolan has been giving us countless moments of amazing cinema through irreproachable works such as “Memento”, "Batman Begins”, “The Dark Knight”, and “Inception”.
If last year’s “Interstellar” didn’t catch my eye like the ones cited above, his historical war drama, “Dunkirk”, appealed to me through its quirky storytelling, thrilling scenes captured with the help of a phenomenal camerawork, the clever edition by Lee Smith, and the dazzling visuals supervised by the competent director of photography, Hoyte Van Hoytema (“Interstellar”, “Her”, “Spectre”).

During the World War II, the allied English and French troops get trapped in the Northern French city of Dunkirk, after being pushed to that deadlock by the enemy’s implacable actions. Only a miracle can save thousands of stranded soldiers who, surrounded by Germans and constantly under threat, wait patiently on the beach for an evacuation that seems to take forever to occur.
 
Nolan cleverly assembled his version of this famous warlike episode by portraying it through three different perspectives - land, sea, and air.
 
The mole of Dunkirk harbor is where Commander Bolton (Kenneth Branagh), the pier-master, and Colonel Winnant (James D'Arcy) are stationed. They analyze the difficult situation, showing visible signs of preoccupation as they are occasionally attacked by enemy planes. Without losing face in front of their men, they become visibly disappointed and hopeless when informed that the British Navy was relying on small civilian vessels to rescue their men rather than larger capital ships. Tommy (Fionn Whitehead) is one of the lucky British privates that managed to reach the beach safely. Instead of joining the long lines to embark, he sneaks in a fishing trawler anchored outside the Allied jurisdiction area with two other friends. They are now part of a group of wounded Scottish soldiers who wait for the rising tide to be evacuated. However, an unforeseen German attack will thwart their plans.

The sea segment follows the courageous sailor Mr. Dawson (Mark Rylance) and his son, Peter (Tom Glynn-Carney), voluntary civilians who operate their small boat independently to help the Allies. They are exceptionally joined by George (Barry Keoghan), their teenage assistant ashore, for an eventful trip marked by the rescue of a soldier in shock (Cillian Murphy), the only survivor of a wrecked ship put down by a German U-boat. 

At sea, they also spot three RAF Spitfires flying over their heads. The pilots have very specific orders to provide air support in Dunkirk, but struggle with fuel limitations. The aerial sequences become easily the most spectacular scenes, also displaying realistic and often jaw-dropping air battles.

The images speak for themselves and despite the three distinct fields of action, the film’s narrative never feels disjointed or confusing. You won’t see smiles here, but the hope never abandons our heroes whose struggle becomes quite palpable. One can feel their unshakeable camaraderie, even in the toughest moments.

“Dunkirk” was conceived in a more psychological way rather than sending us directly to the battlefields. This was another aspect I truly enjoyed. There’s no bloodshed or explicit violence, and the enemy is an invisible presence that haunts and excruciates.

Nolan is a perfectionist and his remarkable account of Dunkirk’s episode spawns a distinguished and unpretentious epic war film whose outcome is powerful and sublime.

Marjorie Prime (2017)

Directed by Michael Almereyda
Country: USA

Michael Almereyda’s filmmaking style was never easy to catch up. His past films, regardless amazing premises, usually fell into torpid atmospheres and narrative impasses. “Nadja”, “Hamlet”, and “Cymbeline” are elucidative examples of potentially good stories that fail to deliver in the end. Even though, I was able to give him some credit a couple of years ago, when “Experimenter” came out.

Now he’s back with “Marjorie Prime”, a thoughtful and psychological science-fiction drama that truly fits the current times, and which I consider his best work to date.

Almereyda starts by introducing us Marjorie (Lois Smith), an 86-year-old former violinist who apparently is experiencing some trouble with her memory. While we, the viewers, immediately suspect of Alzheimer disease, she sits and talks with a computerized hologram (a Prime) of her husband, Walter (Jon Hamm), who exhibits the same physical aspect he got when he was 40. It was Marjorie who chose this version of him to facilitate and stimulate their communication. He basically keeps repeating old family stories over and over again while studying carefully her reactions. From their warmish conversations, sometimes perplexingly formal, we learn that Marjorie has a daughter, Tess (Geena Davis), whose husband, Jon (Tim Robbins), she was never fond of. After Tess and Jon are brought to the stage, we realize that, just like Walter, Marjorie is a Prime.

At an early stage, we see that Jon struggles with a drinking problem aggravated by pills. While under their effect, he unburdens his mind by embarking on private, often bitter, conversations with the attentive yet icy Walter, in which he revisits forbidden past occurrences like the death by suicide of Tess’ brother, Damian, who left an indelible, painful mark on everyone’s chest.

In a similar way, Tess attempts to open up with the figure of her dead mother, but in a more reserved way. She furnishes some more information to Marjorie’s Prime, who avidly absorbs everything fast and clear, even when the info is scarce and feels slightly devious. At this point, we discover another scar in the family as Tess talks about an estranged daughter who refuses to talk to her.

If the story wasn't intriguing enough to keep us searching for the core of the problem, we unexpectedly realize that the real Tess is also dead, and the person we see is just another Prime, who listens, processes, and apprehends information only to mold itself and behave according to the expected. This hired, disturbing tech chain of ultra fast assimilation and response takes us to a dissimulated reality of a painful solitude and apparent well-being. Things get a bit more real and clear whenever Jon becomes ‘tipsy’, as he likes to call it.

Anticipating the disconcerting finale, both ironically funny and achingly sad, we can observe a debilitated, aging Jon taken care by his granddaughter, also called Marjorie. This is a particularly important scene, a crucial passage that helps us understand the desolation of the whole scenario.

By focusing on a complex theme and approaching it through simple processes, Almereyda mounts a gloomily visionary tale that besides dealing with loss, also warns us about the unstoppable advances of modern technology to apparently suppress people from feeling more and more lonely. “Marjorie Prime”, which has a play by Jordan Harrison as its source, is a no-nonsense exercise full of demonstrative close-ups, in which deceitful specters are imagined to ease empty, lost souls.

Lady Macbeth (2017)

Directed by William Oldroyd
Country: UK

Emergent British actor Florence Pugh delivers a monstrous performance, in both senses of the word, in “Lady Macbeth”, a pitch-dark period drama that focuses on a Shakespearean main character that ascends from hell, exposing her murderous instincts to solve all the predicaments that may destabilize her will.

In 19th-century England, the young Katherine (Pugh) is sold to the Lesters, a wealthy rural family composed of Boris (Christopher Fairbank), an authoritarian old man, and his bitter, tormented son, Alexander (Paul Hilton). She was bought to marry the latter, who treats her with bluntness and rudeness while strangely keeps rejecting her sexually. This behavior drives her crazy and increases her craving for an affair, which eventually happens with Sebastian (Cosmo Jarvis), the impertinent new stableman.

Obstinate and prepotent, Katherine, who had been strictly forbidden to leave the house, refuses to comply with the rules of her ruling father-in-law and remorselessly poisons him to have her way.

When her estranged husband returns after a long absence, confronting her with the affair already made public, Katherine doesn’t feel intimidated. On the contrary, she provokes his wrath by exhibiting Sebastian to him. The ambitious lovers murder the dishonored Alexander and fulfill their dream: to become the masters of the entire estate.

Everything went exactly according to the plan, except for the unexpected arrival of a strange and self-assured woman who brings her grandson Teddy to live in the house. According to her, the young boy is the son of Alexander and her daughter, his mistress. 

Cerebrally insidious and wildly violent by turns, “Lady Macbeth” was elegantly put together and thoroughly controlled by the first-time director William Oldroyd, who followed a screenplay by Alice Birch, based on the novel “Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District” by Russian novelist and playwright Nikolai Leskov. Opting for an unadorned filmmaking style likely influenced by the also English Andrea Arnold and Terence Davis, the gifted newcomer thoroughly portraits a possessive, lusty relationship poisoned by a murky feline woman whose impulsive, tenebrous, and immoral acts make her a worthy object of study in psychology and psychiatry.

This is a fantastic example on how to seek inspiration in past literary works and create bold fresh material.
Unusual, uncomfortable, austere, and tragic, this drama film will likely give you the bitterest taste you’ve had this year in the movie theaters.

Atomic Blonde (2017)

Directed by David Leitch
Country: USA / other

Actor/producer Charlize Theron embodies a sexy, unemotional, and methodical MI6 agent in “Atomic Blonde”, a spy action thriller set in Berlin during the Cold War era and directed by David Leitch, uncredited co-director of “John Wick”. The film co-stars James McAvoy, Eddie Marsan, John Goodman, and Toby Jones.

Written by Kurt Johnstad, the script was inspired by Antony Johnston and Sam Hart's 2012 graphic novel "The Coldest City", but the natural strength of the occurrences described in the book failed to be fully passed to the big screen.

Lorraine Broughton (Theron) recalls an eventful Berliner mission that served to retrieve an important list containing the names of all double agents operating in the Soviet Union. She's being submitted to a tight interrogation led by Eric Gray (Jones), her superior, and Emmett Kurzfeld (Goodman), a CIA agent working with the MI6. As she talks, her story is reconstructed visually to include not only the mischievous collaboration with Percival (McAvoy), a cunning agent and snitch who secretly passes to the side of Brenovych (Roland Møller), a crude arms dealer and KGB associate, but also the lesbian relationship with the seductive French informer Delphine (Sofia Boutella) and the necessity to escort and protect Spyglass (Marsan), a former Stasi agent who having memorized all the names on the coveted list, became an easy target for the Russian clan.

Although throwing dynamic punches with avidness when not sharing hot moments with her lover, our heroine needed to be characterized with a bit more charisma and style to captivate and turn us into unconditional supporters. Despite a few periods where the film literally gets stranded in muddy waters, the last section becomes substantially more convincing and slightly more thrilling than the previous. At least we had some more psychological tension around instead of the uninventive physical fights.

“Atomic Blonde” is moderately violent, widely familiar, and boasts a fantastic retro soundtrack that may trigger some nostalgia. The final revelations, almost functioning as an antidote for the mechanical processes adopted by Leitch, piqued a small amount of curiosity until the final credits roll. Notwithstanding, its title won’t be considered as an unmissable spy flick because the story loses emotional grip with the routines succeeding one another without novelty or originality.

War For the Planet of the Apes (2017)

Directed by Matt Reeves
Country: USA

“War For The Planet of the Apes” is the third installment of the saga and the second directed by Matt Reeves (“Let Me In”, “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes"), who knows how to structure tension at the same time that pursues an undeviating narrative line without falling in excesses or trivialities.

Co-written by Reeves and the executive producer Mark Bomback, the film unsurprisingly sets humans and apes battling for the control of the Earth. The modest cast includes Andy Serkis once again as Caesar, the leader and bravest of the apes, and Woody Harrelson as Colonel, his ruthless opponent and human supremacist.

After trying to preserve the peace through pacific ways, the fearless Caesar cries the loss of his wife and two children in an ambush led by Colonel’s troops. He sees no other choice than abandon his vulnerable home and search for revenge. Firstly, he needs to find the monkey who betrayed him and then deal with Colonel, who runs a concentration camp for apes, forcing them to hard labor and depriving them of food and water.

On his way to accomplishing this impossible mission, Caesar and his allies show their compassionate nature when they rescue and accept an orphan little girl they call Nova (Amiah Miller) as she was part of their own clan. Because to give is to receive, they are helped and guided by Bad Ape (Steve Zahn), a traumatized, frightened yet funny former prisoner of a human zoo.

The highly appealing scenarios, compellingly photographed by Michael Seresin, emphasize blazing emotions that arise from a powerful quest for freedom and justice, which makes “War For The Planet of the Apes”, one of the most accomplished blockbusters recently released. Besides being the most satisfying module of the series, it kept the expectations high until the end without ever disappointing in its procedures and moral examinations. 

This epic war fantasy is painted with the dark hues drawn from the suffering and despair of losing loved ones as the menace of extinction becomes real. 
Matt Reeves confirms his directorial skills by using a positive, clear, and resonant cinematic voice.

Baby Driver (2017)

Directed by Edgar Wright
Country: USA / UK

British cineaste Edgar Wright has one of those creative minds that you always expect a lot from. He traditionally delivers bold and nimble stories whose course of events suit tastes of both young and old generations. His filmography might not be so extensive, but includes a trio of mandatory flicks, in which he masterfully blended action and comedy genres, gaining deserved praise and a legion of followers around the world. They are “Shaun of the Dead” and “Hot Fuzz”, two masterpieces, and also the extremely entertaining “The World’s End”. Only “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” didn't work for me, feeling like the weakest link.

His new film, an American crime adventure entitled “Baby Driver”, seemed to be the right spin his career needed. Yet, the enthusiasts of his previous movies won’t find that outstanding, sparkling humor but rather considerable amounts of tense activity packed with adrenaline. 

Set in Atlanta, Georgia, the story focuses on Baby (Ansel Elgort), an orphan young man with a baby-face and phenomenal driving skills, who is also a music lover. Music is an indispensable factor in his life since it eases his tinnitus symptom, making him even bolder behind the wheel.

Traumatized by the accident that victimized their parents, Baby has been working as a driver for a crime boss, Doc (Kevin Spacey), who uses him for violent heists. At first, his collaboration served to pay for having stolen one of the Doc’s cars, but when one last job is not proposed but required, it becomes a totally different story.

Boasting a confident personality, Baby embraces the task with his habitual coolness while his nonchalant posture arises some suspicion in the thugs hired by Doc – “you cannot just being in crime without being a little criminal”, one of them said.

Only one aspect makes him ponder about the uncomfortable situation he got himself into. It’s his other half, Debora (Lily James), a deli waitress with an enchanting voice who also vibrates with music.

“Baby Drive”, a stylish combination of Winding-Refn’s “Drive” and Affleck’s “The Town”, runs at a hurried yet safe speed as it flourishes with a diversified pop/rock soundtrack in the background. 
If Spacey accomplishes his role in a sober performance, the young Elgort (“The Fault in Our Stars”) jumps to the spotlight, showing he’s ready for even bigger challenges.

Mr. Wright mounted his plot with a peculiarly interesting character in the center, but when it comes to the conclusion, he was a bit of a letdown. Unfortunately, the justice doesn’t have so much consideration for sly little criminals in the guise of good Samaritans.

The Beguiled (2017)

Directed by Sofia Coppola
Country: USA

“The Beguiled”, the beautifully-photographed new drama by Cannes' best director Sofia Coppola (“Lost In Translation”, “The Virgin Suicides”), provides an acceptable cinematic preparation that concentrates sexual tension and frustration as a compact cocktail ready to explode. However, it fails that final and decisive move to impress.

Ms. Coppola wrote the script based on Thomas Cullinan’s novel of the same name and pointed the way to a stellar cast that includes Colin Farrell, Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst, and Elle Fanning.

The film’s course of events takes place in Virginia during the Civil War, and starts with a wounded ‘Yankee’ soldier, Corporate John McBurney (Farrell), being rescued by a young girl, Amy (Oona Laurence), when she was picking up mushrooms in the woods. He’s obviously an exposed deserter in enemy territory.
Unhesitant, the girl accepts to help him, taking him to the school run by the fearless Martha Farnsworth (Kidman). She supervises the only tutor that didn’t leave, Edwina Morrow (Dunst), and five young female students of different ages.

Ms. Farnsworth immediately relies on her nursing skills, managing to save the life of a soldier who afterward shows to be kind, considerate, and thankful for the caring treatment he was subjected to. However, his presence arouses a natural curiosity among the women, who clearly change their way of dressing and behavior because of him. The deliberate seductive posture sharpens the competition among the girls and gives some power to the Corporate, who inevitably becomes the center of all the attentions.

When almost recovered, McBurney promises his love to the dissatisfied Edwina, sets Ms. Farnsworth’s heart on fire while indulging in frivolous conversation and brandy, but ends up in the bed of Alicia (Fanning), the cheekiest and older of the girls. His reckless behavior triggers an unpremeditated disgrace that will change their lives forever. While the soldier uncovers his darkest side, the women change from sweetly flirtatious to shockingly apprehensive, and everything feels like a punishment for playing the perfidious games of enticement.

Coppola’s direction is competent and mature, but even so, she couldn’t reach the essence of the characters’ emotions. Hence, the tale becomes suffocated with female unanimity and bourgeois pose, aspects that become pronounced by the end, during the most difficult circumstances. Regarding this particular segment of the film, Ms. Farnsworth’s bravery could be much better explored while McBurney’s ultimate torment should have had a longer and convincing healing process.

Sofia Coppola’s adaptation of “The Beguiled” ends up accomplishing the mission with gorgeous visuals, adequate period settings, and nice acting. Yet, it could never bring narrative excellence or add further substance when compared to the 1971 classic version released by the hand of Don Siegel.

The Circle (2017)

Directed by James Ponsoldt
Country: USA

“The Circle” is a drag of a psychological thriller, in which nothing works favorably. I was expecting something more exciting from James Ponsoldt, a skillful director who brought us little gems such as “The Spectacular Now” and “The End of the Tour”. He co-wrote the script with Dave Eggers based on the latter’s 2013 novel of the same name.

Emergent actress Emma Watson embodies Mae Holland, who enthusiastically embraces The Circle, an Internet-related organization headed by Mr. Bailey (an apathetic Tom Hanks), who is persuasive about his ideas and generous in his gratifications.

Blinded by ambition and boosted by self-confidence, Mae undertakes a delicate role in the company after being rescued from an unsettling solo kayak adventure. Her obsession with the job costs her one good friend and puts her parents in a very embarrassing situation.

Chip implants, fancy minuscule cameras, overwhelming control techniques, and powerful communication systems based on the Internet are all technological baits that ended up being pointless in a story where the dramatic side was ridiculously feeble.

Other films, like “Red Road”, have succeeded in addressing surveillance as a relevant conditioner of freedom, but that is not the case in “The Circle”.
On top of ineffective, intellectually limited, and emotional parched, the film is way too long, lacking proper tension and fluent narrative.

After Love (2017)

Directed by Joachim Lafosse
Country: France / Belgium

Joachim Lafosse is a Belgian auteur with a propensity to describe complex family affairs with objective accuracy and sharp vision. Even though, “After Love”, his new dramatic creation starring Bérénice Bejo and Cédric Kahn, is a timid follow-up of the revered “Our Children”, released five years ago.
Fanny Burdino, Thomas Van Zuylen, Mazarine Pingeot, and Lafosse himself, are credited as writers, and the story was specified to extract the maximum acting skills from the pair of leading actors.

Bejo is Marie, the only daughter of a wealthy couple who bought her the beautiful house she’s living in. Khan plays her husband, Boris, an indebted handyman who seems more interested in playing the victim than finding a proper job. Two beautiful daughters are a result from their love, which gradually came to an end after a 15-year marriage. Even in the verge of splitting up, Boris has an agreement with Marie that consists in looking after the girls every Wednesday nights. Regardless the rules imposed by his soon-to-be ex-wife, Boris keeps breaking them, insisting in marking his presence at all times. He even overstays and sleeps at the house, sometimes acting as if everything was fine. Well, it’s not fine, because Marie admits she doesn’t love him anymore and all the moves he attempts only make her mad.

The saturated relationship causes a relentless friction that translates into many arguments where aggressive voices and behaviors scare the poor little girls out. This scenario is a real torment for everyone - parents, kids, and even friends who, when invited, feel overwhelmed with Boris’ acerbic posture. It’s even painful for us, viewers. Afterward, in order to release the accumulated tension, Lafosse resorts to the melancholic music of Chopin through a rendition of “Piano Sonata Nº3” by Artur Rubenstein.

Bearably tolerating each other, Marie and Boris, still have their doubts, especially during happy moments spent with the kids or when the desire of their bodies surpass the porous petrifaction of their hearts. 
The reason why they put themselves in this situation is purely financial. Marie wants to sell the house for a fair price and grant one-third to Boris, but he refuses, claiming 50% to cover his effort and time put on reparations of the property.

Lafosse examines this burdensome relationship with focal sharpness and emotional bait, however, the constant pace in conjunction with the cyclic relapse of the predicaments become slightly fastidious as the time advances. After playing their love/hate game for some time, the couple finally settles things out with dull expressions on their faces. There is hardly any aspect to be learned from this plausible exercise, except perhaps that marriage can gradually transfigure and take you from heaven to hell.

The Ornithologist (2017)

Directed by João Pedro Rodrigues
Country: Portugal / other

The films of the Portuguese director João Pedro Rodrigues are usually cleverly mounted to pique curiosity, even if the accessibility of the challenging narratives is sometimes limited. I found “To Die Like a Man” a worthy experience, regardless of its flaws, and was even more impressed with the mournful “The Last Time I Saw Macao”.

His new drama, “The Ornithologist”, raises the level of abstraction when compared to the previous tales, but still comprehends homosexual connotations, crime, and mystery. What is different here is a pronounced surrealism where the contemplation of nature mixes with religious symbolism and folklore elements to form a puzzling peregrination toward a spectacular Christian conversion.

The crisp images are deliberately protracted to make us absorb every single detail in the devious path of Fernando (Paul Hamy), an ornithologist who is rescued by two female Chinese pilgrims after his kayak has been dragged by the force of the river. The two disoriented women, Lin (Chan Suan) and Fei (Han Wen), were doing the religious route of Santiago de Compostela in Spain, but got lost, ending up in Portugal, close to the border between the two countries.

The Chinese pilgrims affirm to be haunted by Tangu – the spirit of the forest – and start acting strangely while asking for Fernando’s protection and guidance to return to the right trail. I couldn’t have been more surprised when Fernando, a positive agnostic, awakens tied to a tree, deprived of his priceless freedom. Under a cursing spell, the women talk about castrating him on the next morning, but he was lucky enough to escape before dawn.

With no map and no ID, and carrying a useless cell phone, Fernando embarks on a series of bizarre experiences that includes being followed by a white pigeon, witness an ominous folkloric ritual, and having odd encounters with a young deaf-mute shepherd named Jesus (Xelo Cagiao), with whom he involves himself sexually, and three mythical Latin huntresses on horse.

Along the way, we learn that Fernando’s mental health depends on some pills whose bottle got out of his sight. Is this a bad dream or demonic reality? The impertinent presence of an owl annunciates further oddities.

Amidst heavy symbolism, punctilious allegory, and religious metaphors, the mystic tale loses a bit of direction somewhere in the middle, before Fernando rebirths as Anthony (director’s cameo) and return evangelized to the civilization, hand-in-hand with Jesus’ twin brother, Thomas.

With an approach that borrows a few stylistic constituents from Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul, this is all about belief and self-discovery. 
The adventure can be as much tortuous as the paths of faith itself and yet sin and repentance are not taken seriously here. Some viewers will find “The Ornithologist” pretentious and philosophically boring while some others will see it as an avant-garde cult film of haunting expression. It will all depend on your openness and state of mind. 

Harmonium (2017)

Directed by Koji Fukada
Country: Japan

Japanese helmer Koji Fukada, active since 2008, has in "Harmonium" his best film so far. As an advocate of solemn dramas with surprising twists, Mr. Fukada, who also penned the script, keeps us entangled in a web of emotions, revelations, and startles, that pushes his film beyond the surface. The severe psychological backbone of the story ended up convincing the members of the jury panel at Cannes Film Festival, where the film won the Un Certain Regard prize.

Kanji Furutachi, a regular presence in Fukada films, is Toshio, a metalworker who lives a quiet life in the company of his wife, Akie (Mariko Tsutsui) and their young daughter, Hotaru.
While mother and daughter always pray to God before eating, Toshio eats avidly and almost doesn’t talk. In truth, and regardless his love for them, he doesn’t pay much attention to their needs and often falls in rudimentary behaviors.

On a certain day, Toshio gets the visit of an intriguing old friend, Yasaka (Tadanobu Asano), who just got out of jail, where he has spent 11 years for killing a young man. Toshio immediately hires this man and invites him to live with him and his family, a strange decision that makes Akie in the verge of an attack of nerves. At this point, and observing the two men’s ways, we conclude that there’s a past debt to be paid off.

However, little by little, Akie is beguiled by the gentleness and availability of Yasaka, who acts respectful, attentive, and becomes very handy at home. He even teaches Hotaru playing a song in the harmonium for her upcoming public performance. Akie spends more and more time with him and gets emotional when he goes into his troubled past. Forbidden kisses are exchanged between them on a sunny weekend day in the countryside as the family reunites with a friend. Still, Akie continues to resist him at home, frustrating his furtive advances and forcing a different personality to emerge in him.

Her disappointment and guilt are immeasurable when Hotaru is found on a sidewalk, inanimated with thick blood covering her head and with the rancorous Yasaka at her side. The madness expressed on his face dissipates all the possible doubts about the perpetrator of the monstrous act.
 
Eight years after, Yasaka remains untraceable while Hotaru, completely paralyzed, is perpetually confined to a wheelchair. The couple has opposite reactions: while Toshio dreams with revenge, Akie is haunted by visions of the murderer and her nervous system is visibly damaged.
 
The arrival of Takashi (Taiga), Toshio's young new apprentice, will bring additional information about Yasaka. After so many years, is the couple ready to give up searching for the beast who took their peace of mind?

The slow yet penetrating plot development emphasizes the inherent fatalism of a story that, besides crime and evilness, also deals with karma and selfishness. An unblinking camera mounts compulsive scenarios, where an obstinate symbolism with the red color leads to a creepy, unsettling finale. 

The surprising factor is crucial and only one scene by the end feels forced, when the couple finds someone that looks exactly like Yasaka from behind, teaching harmonium to a young girl.
Apart from that quibble, the director competently elucidates us about how hard it is, in certain cases, to forgive and forget.

Okja (2017)

Directed by Bong Joon-ho
Country: USA / South Korea

Idolized Korean director Bong Joon-ho (“Memories of Murder”, “Mother”, “Snowpiercer”) teams up with co-writer Jon Ronson (“Frank”) and gives life to “Okja”, a big American-Korean production featuring an excellent cast composed of Hollywood stars such as Tilda Swinton, Paul Dano, and Jake Gyllenhaal, as well as South Korean child actress Ahn Seo-hyun.

This polychromatic fantasy with dramatic lure begins with the wealthy, inhumane, and eccentric Lucy Mirando (Swinton) giving a conference in which she explains her eco-friendly plans to develop a super pig in 26 different countries. The new species is announced for 10 years from then and will be genetically created by a group of top scientists headed by Dr. Johnny Wilcox (Gyllenhaal), also a famous TV presenter known as ‘the very healthy guy’. 

The Korean super pig (likely a cross between a pig and a hypo) was baptized Okja and lives happily in the secluded mountains with the old farmer (Byun Hee-Bong) who raised it and his young granddaughter Mija (Ahn Seo-Hyun), with whom it developed an everlasting friendship.

The resolute Mija heads alone to Seoul after Okja has been selected as the best pig and taken to the sophisticated Mirando Corp. Building for lab tests before a pompous public presentation on New York's Broadway.

The rescue of her best friend couldn’t have been possible without the help of five efficient activists from the Animal Liberation Front, whose leader, Jay (Dano), is totally aware of the greediness and psychopathic history of the Mirandos.

Their plan consists in unmasking the scam engendered by Lucy, who even pays to reunite Mija and Okja in front of the TV cameras. Even succeeding on this front, they still have to deal with her evil twin sister, Nancy, and drive the animal home, safely.
 
The film guarantees a great deal of entertainment through superb action scenes and a handful of thrilling moments. Even fictitious, we can’t help caring about the animals and the grueling treatment they are subjected to at the slaughterhouse. However, the humor lacks spirit and is confined to a couple situations when Okja defecates like rain drops and farts with a reverberant sound.

Released on Netflix and executive produced by Brad Pitt, this dramatic and satirical action-packed adventure aims at animal exploitation, rapaciousness, media attention, and consumerism with a critical eye. Nevertheless, Mr. Joon-ho, with all his talent, was unable to reach the same levels of satisfaction delivered in his much more gripping previous films.

As expected, Ms. Swinton is sensational as the villainess, while the cinematography by Darius Khondji, who also did a great job this year in James Gray’s “The Lost City of Z”, is a major asset, making use of the light in the best possible ways, whether on establishing shots, medium shots, or very detailed close-ups.

The Bad Batch (2017)

Directed by Ana Lily Amirpour
Country: USA

The Iranian vampire movie “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night” was the brilliant debut that Ana Lily Amirpour needed to launch her career. The accolades given by the critic have pushed the English-born, LA-based filmmaker into a challenging position, infusing some pressure and piquing curiosity about what her next move should/would be. Would she remain faithful to the beautiful black-and-white cinematography? Would she stick to noirish themes?

Her sophomore feature “The Bad Batch” is now out, and answers these questions. It’s a no to the first one since the still attractive cinematography makes use of an arid color palette. And it’s a yes to the second question because the film, a dystopian cannibal love story, is enveloped in gloominess, human degradation, and distress.

The plot concerns a young woman, Arlen (Suki Waterhouse), who is marked as a bad batch, which means an outcast doomed to live forever in a forlorn enclosed area located outside Texas. She’s given a gallon of water and abandoned at her own mercy, just to be captured by cannibal freaks who usually start sawing arms and legs first to satisfy their hunger.

The imagery comes accompanied by great music, whose styles range from hip-hop to synth pop to ambient electronica, and carries a wicked toxicity and a strong sense of despair that truly disturbs. Arlen covered by her own feces after having one arm and a leg cut off, or a crow pecking the eyes of a recently dead person, are not particularly agreeable images to look at. However, there are a few great digitally manipulated shots that captivate and even soothe the generalized anarchy.

Despite the violence of the scenes and this somewhat urgency in calling systematically our attention to darkness, the story proceeds with logic and some emotional bait.

Arlen has the luck to be rescued by members of an organization called The Comfort, headed by the enigmatic cult leader and drug baron The Dream (Keanu Reeves), and also finds an external ally, Miami Man (Jason Momoa), a Cuban muscleman who’s looking for his missing little daughter.
With all types of dangers surrounding them, they keep struggling to survive in a lawless land where you have to watch for yourself.

The eventful “The Bad Batch” is bitterly caustic in its conclusion. The finale makes us think over and realize how deep into darkness Amirpour’s mind can go. Still, a relentless search for life, regardless its form, is presented in this Jodorowsky-meets-Mad Max psychedelia.

The Lost City of Z (2017)

Directed by James Gray
Country: USA

Written for the screen by James Gray (“Two Lovers”, “The Immigrant”), who also directs, “The Lost City of Z” is a biographical film that mixes drama and adventure in unequal proportions. The story had David Grann’s book of the same name as a source and tells the path of Percy Fawcett, a British officer and explorer who truly believed in the existence of a lost city in the middle of the Amazon forest.

The first scenes take us to 1905 Cork in Ireland where Major Percy Fawcett (Charlie Hunnam) rejoices while hunting, one of his great passions. What we learn minutes later, is that Fawcett has an even bigger passion that he just can’t control: to explore remote lands, which no white man has reached before. The sparkle in his eyes shows an unmeasured contentment when the prestigious Royal Geographical Society sends him to Bolivia in the company of the loyal Corporal Henry Costin (Robert Pattinson), a deep connoisseur of the Amazon rainforest, Corporal Arthur Manley (Edward Ashley), and Tadjui, an Indian guide who, knowing the dangerous river like the fingers of his hand, tells him about hidden cities covered with gold and inhabited by ancient civilizations.

Fawcett’s initial curiosity about these stories becomes an obsession when he discovers archeological evidence in the jungle. Managing to dodge from brutal Indigenous attacks and conquering hunger and tiredness, he returns safely to his beautiful and understanding wife Nina (Sienna Miller) and their little son, Jack. Even expecting another child, Nina knows there’s nothing she can do to prevent her brave husband from going back to the jungle and following his dream. It’s his destiny and his will, and Hunnam conveys it perfectly well.

After another failed attempt, in which the infiltrator James Murray (Angus Macfadyen) jeopardizes all the expedition, Fawcett and Costin are impelled to serve their country in the WWI. The noble Major returns as a hero, but his eyes became so affected that a new expedition to South America seems out of the question.
However, with the support of his brave family, Fawcett returns to the impenetrable Amazon forest, this time having just his fearless son Jack (Tom Holland) by his side.

Standing somewhere between "Fitzcarraldo" and "Deliverance", "The Lost City of Z" is a valid tale of perseverance, passion, and courage. There is plenty to like in the stunning frames captured by director of photography Darius Kondji (“Delicatessen”, “Amour”), but the film loses some exuberance in the way it is portrayed. Also, it was a shame that Gray had given less emphasis to the expeditions and its possible perils to focus more on the dramatic side of the story. I felt that a bit more of tension wouldn’t harm or compromise the outcome. 

Hence, don’t expect to find an Indiana Jones here, but rather a character based on a real explorer who abandoned his life for the passion of adventure. Solid watching!

Mad World (2016)

Directed by Wong Chun
Country: Hong Kong

Following the guidelines of a tight script written by Florence Chan, Hong Kong filmmaker Wong Chun releases his debut film, “Mad World”, with promises of having much more to give in the future. The film, a compulsive drama, looks at mental illness, particularly bipolar disorder, not only addressing the typical pain and distress that torments patients in this condition but also embracing understanding, expectation, and hope.

The film’s central character is Tung (Shawn Yue), a former successful stockbroker who decided to left his job and personal life to take care of his bipolar mother. Curiously, he struggles with the illness himself, extremely aggravated after his mother’s death, which happened in strange circumstances. So strange that he had to go to court to dissipate all possible doubts related to the incident.

The camera lens fixates on Tung after he has been discharged from the mental hospital and accompanies him in the difficult processes of re-adaptation to the real world and reconnection with his estranged, aging father (Eric Tsang). The latter, a good-natured truck driver, is happy to have him in his tiny space in a single-room-occupancy building. However, he is also concerned with his son, and in fact, he has reasons for that since he stopped taking his pills.

Through recurrent flashbacks, Chung thoroughly reconstructs some key moments in the life of Tung, focusing on his depressing experiences when in the company of his mother, who could cry like a baby in his arms and then suddenly curse him with a painful fury. Moments with his heartless girlfriend Jenny (Charmaine Fong), with whom he will meet up again in an attempt to resume the relationship, are also introduced, helping us to better understand his troubled past.

When everything seemed to be favorable, hope is turned into humiliation, and a fulminant relapse goes on his way without mercy or compassion. Pitch-dark are the clouds that hover above his head, making his poor father hopeless as he keeps observing his son lying on the bed all day, crying, without eating or having the strength to take a shower. These are the most powerful scenes in the film, and they cut like sharp razors.

To complicate, the neighbors don’t feel comfortable when Tung is around and demand his departure. Besides his father, there’s only one person in the building who cares about him, earning his friendship: a bright, sensitive kid who read him Saint-Exupéry’s Little Prince at night through the wall. 

“Mad World” is an unadorned, modest tale with a topic many times explored before. Still, and even slightly flawed, it thrives with steeped emotional affluence and gripping performances. Besides sincerity and zeal in the filmmaking and production design, Wong Chun endeavored to extract some light from a life of shadows. Hence, the Best New Director Awards given to him by the Golden Horse Film Festival and the Hong Kong Film Awards are not so surprising.