Under the Open Sky (2021)

Direction: Miwa Nishikawa
Country: Japan 

Japanese writer-director Miwa Nishikawa (The Long Excuse, 2016) worked for three years on the script of Under the Open Sky, an adaptation of a novel by Ryûzô Saki, the author of Vengeance is Mine, made into a cult film by Shohei Imamura in 1979. However, and despite an interesting premise, the object of this review fails to satisfy as Nishikawa’s inspiration dwindles with time. The film periodically descends into cloying while the tough and sweet sides of the protagonist come to the fore. 

Speaking of protagonist, the multifaceted actor Koji Yakusho (13 Assassins, 2010; Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai, 2011) is the underlying cause for most of the film’s appeal. He plays a short-tempered former yakuza who, released from prison after 13 years, has trouble integrating the society. This man, abandoned by his geisha mother at the age of four, spent his childhood in an orphanage and worked for crime families since his teens. Now, in his fifties, he’s determined to get a decent job despite being seen as an outcast. Some old and new friends are his hope. 

Mired in forced sentimentality, the film never really builds up a great deal of steam but infuses some bursts of anger and humor here and there, leaving a meaningful message to the community and a glimpse of hope for the ones looking for an opportunity to change. Anyway, it’s all too patchy to be classified as a prime work.

The Innocents (2021)

Direction: Eskil Vogt
Country: Norway

The Norwegian Eskil Vogt is best known for his writing partnership with director Joachim Trier, with whom he created gems such as Oslo August 31st (2011) and the recently released The Worst Person in the World (2021). On the other hand, he is also a competent if infrequent director. Following the 2014-released Blind,  The Innocents is a psychological horror thriller that confirms his penchant for mood, inspired storytelling, and attention to detail.

In this eerily atmospheric tale, four teenagers - Ida (Rakel Lenora Fløttum) and her autistic sister Anna (Alva Brynsmo Ramstad), Benjamin (Sam Ashraf), and Aisha (Mina Yasmin Bremseth Asheim) - forge a strange and intimate connection on a psyche and spiritual levels. They first use their unfathomable mental powers to play innocent games, but soon, one of them opts for harming the people who vex him. 

Fortunately, Vogt is more interested in being genuinely creepy in a subtle way than piling up showoff scenes with technical pyrotechnics. What we have here isn’t mere style over substance but rather a perfect balance between the two. The film holds our attention, staging the events with nuanced, compelling dynamics as the story sneaks under our skins, suggestively portraying something sinister. 

The haunting camerawork, apt score, and flawless acting by the four young debutant leads are vital elements in the bewitchery. The Innocents is a chilling slow burn worth seeking out.

Old Henry (2021)

Direction: Potsy Ponciroli
Country: USA

Tim Blake Nelson (O Brother Where Art Though?, 2000; The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, 2018) stars in Old Henry, a gripping western that, combining action and character, stands as the most noticeable work by director Potsy Ponciroli. Probing the genre for the first time in his career, the latter shows efficiency and simplicity in the screenplay and courage in the execution, filling the atmosphere with a slow-building tension that leaves no room for relaxation.

The story takes us to the Oklahoma Territory in the early 1900s, where Henry (Nelson), a widowed farmer with guts, lives with his adolescent son, Wyatt (Gavin Lewis). Their peaceful lives change abruptly when Henry decides to take home a severely injured man (Scott Haze), who had been chased by the inquisitive, ruthless Ketchum (Stephen Dorff) and his partners. The latter claims to be a sheriff, but his intention has nothing to do with law enforcement. The courage and determination shown by Henry make the others see him as a crazy man or a fool. What they don’t know is that this apparently meek farmer has an unmatched talent for shooting and is linked to a tumultuous past of violence.

Crisply told, the tale traditionally leads to a life-and-death shootout, but reserves a bitter twist for the end. Gauging from the acting qualities of Nelson, especially in the above mentioned motion pictures by the Coen brothers, there is little to worry regarding Old Henry. It’s solid entertainment, signaling that westerns are better when made simple.

The Tsugua Diaries (2021)

Direction: Miguel Gomes, Maureen Fazendeiro
Country: Portugal 

Shot in 16mm in Portugal, between August and September 2020, The Tsugua Diaries was born out of the impossibility for directors Miguel Gomes (Tabu, 2012; Arabian Nights, 2015) and Maureen Fazendeiro to complete the projects they were working on due to the coronavirus pandemic. Blurring the line between reality and fiction, the filmmakers conceived a leisurely, minimalistic tour de farce, freely narrated with reverse chronology (note that Tsugua is August spelled backwards) and presenting both cast and crew playing themselves while shooting a film on a mosquito-infested farm in Sintra during lockdown. 

It’s an open exercise with an interesting idyllic backdrop, comedic tones, literary references, a small amount of dramatic tension, and efficient editing. The actors Crista Alfaiate, Carloto Cotta and João Nunes Monteiro make it hard for us to know where the performers end and the personas begin; what you get is what you see and hear,  in an experimental line that suggests a mix of Godard and Assayas. By giving free rein to the actors, the directors successfully entangle viewers in their scheme. It’s all very risky and directionless, but delightful nonetheless. 

With the power of the images overstepping the dialogues, The Tsugua Diaries gives a wonderful example of artistic freedom, off-the-cuff creativity, microcosmic detail, and mood-induced emotion. This is an audacious reinvention of what a movie can be in times of strict restrictions.

Only the Animals (2021)

Direction: Dominik Moll
Country: France 

Working with his regular collaborator Gilles Marchand on the script, the German-born French director Dominik Moll (With a Friend Like Harry, 2000) adapts Colin Niel’s novel into a film noir that stamps its feet on the snow before jumping up to the Internet cloud. Taking advantage of the serviceable acting of the cast, the intermittently vibrant Only the Animals is in equal parts satisfactory and frustrating, making salty observations on loneliness, infidelity, cyber-scams and power. 

The story is told in chapters and takes an elliptical trajectory that, in the end, connects each and every character. It takes us to two contrasting worlds, opposing the snowy, desolated landscapes of the Causses in France to the colorful, populous Abidjan in Ivory Cost.

The plot starts with Alice (Laure Calamy), an unhappily married social worker who is in love with a lonely, morbid farmer tormented by noises, Joseph (Damien Bonnard). Her husband, Michel (Denis Ménochet), gets lured into an Internet sex scheme rooted in West Africa and carried out by Armand (Guy Roger N'Drin), a penniless scammer urgently seeking wealth. Yet, the main link is a missing woman, Evelyne Ducat (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi), the wife of a known financier with projects in Africa. In his absence, and before vanishing without a trace, she embraced a lesbian relationship with a clingy young woman named Marion (Nadia Tereszkiewicz). 

The understated indeterminacy of the story makes us minimally interested, while the surprises, far from jaw-dropping, make it a passable, calibrated crime thriller.

In Front of Your Face (2021)

Direction: Hong Sangsoo
Country: South Korea 

Beautifully crafted, naturally flowing, and full of surprises, In Front of Your Face, the 26th feature from prolific South Korean director director Hong Sangsoo, is about a former actress (Lee Hye-yeong) who returns to Seoul after years living in the US. During her stay, she embraces the present moments, reconnects with her estranged sister (Yunhee Cho), visits the house of her childhood, and agrees to a lunch appointment with a director (Kwon Hae-hyo) who, admiring her past work, offers her an opportunity to star in his upcoming film. 

Sangsoo keeps you engrossed by churning out active dialogues and a delicious lyricism. Yet, on this occasion, and despite the lightness of the storytelling, the core is heavyhearted, and there’s even room for doubt and ambiguity as well as dream and illusion. The most crucial aspect is the honesty with which Sangsoo enriches the emotional spectrum of his cerebral filmmaking style. Even if he decides to warp it, like it was the case here, his work always carries a sensorially alluring pleasure. 

Themes like loneliness, reintegration, openness, and compassion are common, but this one brings more, starting off vividly casual before becoming unnervingly earnest, then plaintive and disconcerting, and ultimately mischievous. It’s a bittersweet work from a visionary director who, for the first time since 2017, picks an actress other than his muse, Kim Min-hee, to play the central character. Instead, the latter is credited as a co-producer. Under these circumstances, In Front of Your Face is another distinctive Sangsoo hit.

Procession (2021)

Direction: Robert Greene
Country: USA

The American documentarian Robert Greene (Kate Plays Christine, 2016; Bisbee ’17, 2018) turns his look at the child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. Procession, his seventh film, documents the painful therapeutic process endured by six men who have been struggling with trauma all their lives. 

What’s interesting here is the different forms found by the victims in order to deal with the problem. Some are angrier than others, some are more anguished and less talkative, and some simply decided to forget most of the details. In all cases, the wounds are too deep to recover in full, a fact aggravated by the incredible lack of justice that normally involves these cases.

Greene’s documentary might have done a nice job in helping these traumatized men, but the film itself flows heavily, and our attention almost succumbs to its aimless structure and narrative fragmentation. It wasn’t bad, but the way it was presented was a bit of a letdown. With that said, the film still serves the purpose of exposing the evil kept hidden for so long and the debilitating consequences for those who fell into the hands of predatory clergy.

A Hero (2021)

Direction: Asghar Farhadi
Country: Iran 

A simple and efficient storytelling opposes to shifting complex emotions in this new drama film by the celebrated Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi (A Separation, 2011; The Salesman, 2016). His ninth feature won the prestigious Palme D’Or in Cannes, marking a return to top form and to his Iran after an unimpressive experience in Spain with Everybody Knows (2018).

The protagonist here is Rahim Soltani (Amir Jadidi), an honest sign painter and calligrapher who was imprisoned for debt after being double-crossed by a business partner. During a two-day leave, he becomes in possession of a lost bag with gold coins that can easily pay his debt and free him from prison. But Rahim is too honest for that, and decides to return the bag to the owner. Through this pure act of selflessness, he expects to be forgiven and start a new life with the woman he loves, Farkhondeh (Sahar Goldoost). Lamentably, nothing goes as planned. 

While following Rahim’s dramatic journey, we are plunged into a personal meditation on morality and psychological societal mechanisms permeated by fake news and conspiration. Farhadi's style is direct, realist and sympathetic, and the film, bolstered by an instinctively fluid camerawork, is acted with rigor and intelligence. In his first collaboration with the distinguished director, Jadidi was able to convey the controlled panic of a person who lost face in a society that is implacably quick to judge. All in all, it's so easy to turn honesty into humiliation. 

As a shattering experience that doesn't stint on uncomfortable scenes, A Hero is another impeccable entry in Farhadi’s rich catalogue of timeless contemporary classics.

Memoria (2021)

Direction: Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Country: Colombia / Thailand / other

In Memoria, the most recent film by Thai writer-director Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Uncle Boonmee Who Recalls His Past Lives, 2010; Cemetery of Splendor, 2015), Tilda Swinton plays Jessica Holland, a Scottish woman in search for the meaning of hearing a particular sound in Bogotá, Colombia. She left Medellin, where she lives, to visit her sister Karen (Agnes Brekke), who is in the hospital with an unidentified illness. One night she wakes up in the middle of the night due to a sudden, intense bang that repeats the following days. Insomniac, she decides to go after it.

At once sensory and spiritual, this contemplative mystery of a movie plays like a journey filled with uncanny signs, philosophical quests, and revealing encounters. No one can guess where it leads. The spoken language may have changed but Weerasthekul’s cinematic attributes remain strangely hypnotic. Although uncreepy, the film probes otherworldly interactions and references past lives with a perceptive lyrical sense. It’s about life and death; past and present; animism and trauma; about how humans connect with each other and the multiple mysteries of the universe.

More than mind-blowing, Memoria is an original piece of cinema that, keenly shot and oddly paced, rewards patient viewers with an openness to the intangible. If cinema is about being transported to another realm and dimension, Weerasethakul is unrivaled as a helmsman.

Cyrano (2021)

Direction: Joe Wright
Country: USA

It’s great to see Peter Dinklage (Game of Thrones, 2011-2019; The Station Agent, 2003) playing Cyrano de Bergerac in this new adaptation of the Edmond Rostand’s widely popular play by the hand of English filmmaker Joe Wright (Atonement, 2007; Darkest Hour, 2017). However, and considering the potential of the story, this tragedy turned stiff musical is surprisingly pedestrian, aiming big but leaving us with crumbs.

Originally written for off Broadway by Dinklage’s wife, Erica Schmidt, and appropriately photographed by Wright’s regular collaborator, Seamus McGarvey, the film never packs nearly as much of a wallop as the version of Jean-Paul Rappeneau, who directed Gerard Depardieu to critical acclaim in 1990.

The story revolves around the complex relationship between a brave, eloquent army officer named Cyrano (Dinklage), a radiant woman named Roxanne (Haley Bennett), and a handsome new cadet named Christian (Kelvin Harrison Jr.). Bennett and Harrison Jr. don’t deliver, but Dinklage cannot be made responsible for the yawning. His performance reaches satisfactory levels. 

Sadly, the film is never as good as it should be, lacking energy to thrive and being stretched out by these terrible musical moments put together by the brothers Aaron and Bryce Dessler. This is the second miss in a row by Wright, following last year’s The Woman in the Window.

Ninjababy (2021)

Direction: Yngvild Sve Flikke
Country: Norway 

Feverishly tangled in a disconcerting, silver-lining irony about parenthood, Ninjababy tells the story of Rakel (Kristine Kujath Thorp), a 23-year-old cartoonist wannabe and partygoer who finds out she’s six months pregnant from a one-night-stand with a junkie known as Dick Jesus (Arthur Berning). Disoriented and unable to get an abortion at this phase, she can only rely on Mos (Nader Khademi), the sweet aikido instructor she also slept with once, to make her feel better. This is when Ninjababy, an animated character that symbolizes her future baby, sneaks in from time to time to tell her he wants Angelina Jolie to be his mom.

And that’s fine, because Rakel, definitely not ready to be a mother, considers giving it for adoption. The film vents what's going on in her head with a mixture of emotionally charged regret and illuminating hope in the future. The dilemma, consternation and awkward situations are to the point, enhanced by the charismatic, plucky presence of Thorp. Her character progressively gains consciousness of the situation as the narrative swells in force, humor and detail. 

Working with the animator Inga Sætre, the Norwegian director and co-writer Yngvild Sve Flikke worked delivers an observant, punchy and highly amusing comedy drama whose result is neither dull nor hackneyed.

I Was a Simple Man (2021)

Direction: Christopher Makoto Yogi
Country: USA 

This low-key drama about aging and death is marked by a profound melancholy. Honolulu-born director Christopher Makoto Yogi makes a painful moment seem positively reflective through compassion, forgiveness and inner healing. 

Expanding his short film Obake (2011), the filmmaker tells the story of Masao (Steve Iwamoto), a quiet Hawaiian man with a past of addiction and indifference in response to loss. Gravely sick, Masao, who yearns for tradition and simplicity under the onslaught of modernism, prepares himself for his departure on his deathbed as he's watched by members of his family. His estranged eldest daughter, Kati (Chanel Akiko Hirai) and his grandson, Gavin (Kanoa Goo), take turns staying at his place, making sure he gets what he needs. But they’re not the only ones around; the spirit of his beloved, long-gone wife, Grace (Constance Wu), is also there, helping him to cope with guilt.

The story unfurls slowly, combining the meditative lyricism of the present with flashbacks from a more ebullient past. Both the dreamy tones and sluggish pace can become an obstacle for some viewers, but the life-affirming statement delivered overcomes the lack of dynamism. The Oahu’s landscape in the background only increases the film’s serene composure, which is in keeping with its main character's secluded state of affairs, and mind. 

Life choices and mortality; acceptance and repentance; family roots and branches; the earthly and the spiritual… “Dying isn’t simple, is it?”, asks the spirit of Masao’s wife. I Was a Simple Man is honest enough to deserve a peek.

Digger (2021)

Direction: Georgis Grigorakis
Country: Greece

Greece is a country with firm cinema signatures, going from the political/philosophical statements of Theo Angelopoulos to the provocative irreverence of Yorgos Lanthimos to the fresh contemporary spins of Athina Rachel Tsangari. Sad to say that Georgis Grigorakis doesn’t present us with sufficiently interesting material in his debut feature, Digger, to earn a place among these winning filmmakers. 

His film centers on a father and a son who haven’t seen each other for 20 years, joining forces in the woods to fight a greedy mining company that wants their land for profit. Even offering its own details, the story isn’t exactly new. The initial prospect was wasted to a point where I was unable to connect to any of the characters. It’s a cold movie that hardly got a reaction out of me as it brings few emotional instincts to its subject. 

The relationship between Nikitas (Vangelis Mourikis), a solitary aging man who loves nature, and his estranged son, Johnny (Argyris Pandazaras), a motorcyclist who left Creta to claim his share of the inheritance, never felt strong and genuine. Aggravating this, there’s an insipid romance and time-consuming interactions at local bars that, after misleading us into some kind of tension, end up ineffective. 

The plot - written from a story by Grigorakis, Mourikis and Maria Votti - is so torpid that it sinks deep in thick muddy waters in no time; a burden that, hampering a fluid storytelling, makes Digger a mediocre movie with a stubbornly resistant message.

Azor (2021)

Direction: Andreas Fontana
Country: Switzerland / Argentina / France

Meticulously observed and presented with a pronounced sense of discomfiture, Azor is a perceptive, slow-burning thriller that exposes a fragile Argentina in the middle of a bank crisis and torn apart by an austere dictatorship. 

The year is 1980. Yvan De Wiel (Fabrizio Rongione), a Swiss private banker from Geneva, arrives in Buenos Aires with his supportive wife, Inés (Stephanie Cléau). His purpose is to regain the trust of his clients after the sudden disappearance of a charismatic partner, René Keys (Alain Gegenschatz), while operating in the city. Displaying hopes and insecurities along the way, De Wiel soon learns about the rumors that Keys was eccentric and depraved. He brings a list of important contacts with him, including the confrontational Anibal Farrell (Ignacio Vila), the accessible widow Lacrosteguy (Carmen Iriondo), the bitter Augusto Padel-Camon (Juan Trench), the risk-taking Monsignor Tatoski (Pablo Torre Nilson), and a mysterious person called Lazaro. What’s great here is that one has to slowly dig for answers until reaching a final conclusion. 

Among many admirable aspects, I’m hopelessly smitten with the filmmaking process, which makes every scene subtle, methodical and unnerving. I’m compelled to mention that this is the first feature by Andreas Fontana, and under his command, the film unfolds through realistic, powerful acting all around. Yet, acting-wise, it’s Rongione (the Belgian actor who earned credibility with the Dardenne Brothers) who stands out, breathing honesty while portraying a sober and attentive gentleman. 

Azor is an intriguing and fascinating account with a few crossroads and an unimaginable finale. It’s one of the year’s most cohesive films, and it holds up to repeated viewings.

The Whaler Boy (2021)

Direction: Philipp Yuryev
Country: Russia 

Skating between wry social drama and coming-of-age delirium, this drama, set in the small whaling village of Chukotka (Russian Far East) and fleshed out by idyllic landscapes, depicts a tough reality with a few ultimate brushes of surrealism.

It tells the story of Leshka (Vladimir Onokhov), a 15-year-old whale hunter who gets hooked on an adult webcam site, developing an obsession with a model from Detroit with the nickname HolySweet999 (Kristina Asmus). To be with her, he can go against his teasing best friend, Kolyan (Vladimir Lyubimtsev), and even attempt a dangerous solo journey to Alaska. By the time he arrives on a deserted island, the improbable happens and the film weakens considerably from then on. 

What makes The Whaler Boy work comes in part from the tension of the plot as well as from the information brought to us from a place we've never been. It plays both with the stoicism of the people living in this forgotten part of the world and the traps of the Internet. 

The first feature by Philipp Yuryev is not devoid of flaws or impediments, but left me curious about what will be the next move for this Russian filmmaker. The non-professional actors did a modest yet acceptable job, and there are some mesmerizing images captured and framed in a square 4:3 format that are something to thank for.

The Tender Bar (2021)

Direction: George Clooney
Country: USA 

George Clooney’s The Tender Bar was adapted from the 2005 best-selling memoir of the same name by J.R. Moehringer, recounting the American journalist and novelist's first twenty years on Long Island. Through this new effort, Clooney aspires to hit a curve ball he has been missing since 2005 with Good Night, and Good Luck. He only succeeds here due to the immense charisma of Tye Sheridan (Mud, 2012; Ready Player One, 2018), whose spontaneity as J.R. beats that of Ben Affleck (Gone Girl, 2014; Argo, 2012). The latter plays the protagonist’s cool bartender uncle with no brilliancy.

From a young age, J.R. (sensitively played by debutant Daniel Ranieri) struggles with the absence of his neglectful father (Max Martini), an alcoholic radio host. At 11, he and his mother, Dorothy (Lily Rabe), move into his insolent yet supporting grandfather (Christopher Lloyd)’s house. But it’s uncle Charlie (Affleck) who becomes the elected father-figure; whether at home or at the bar, he teaches him a few useful lessons for life. 

The film, carried out with a generically feel-good posture despite J.R.’s romantic and professional disillusions, needed more depth. I wish it could be crispier rather than softly chewy as its formulaic elements weave into a celebration of nostalgia. Nevertheless, this story denotes a tighter focus than Clooney’s previous effort, The Midnight Sky (2020), and manages to minimally connect at an emotional level. Even with its unsurprising plot oscillating continuously, the result is an optimistic and sympathetic film made stronger by an irresistibly gleaming 1970s soundtrack.

The Lost Daughter (2021)

Direction: Maggie Gyllenhaal
Country: USA 

Maggie Gyllenhaal is best known as an actress (Secretary, 2002; Crazy Heart, 2009; Sherrybaby, 2006) but turned director last year with The Lost Daughter, a psychological drama that deals with motherhood, depression, and life choices. The film, an adaptation of a novel by Elena Ferrante, stars the phenomenal Olivia Colman (The Favourite, 2018; The Father, 2020) in the central role, Jessie Buckley, Dakota Johnson, Ed Harris, and Gyllenhaal’s husband, Peter Sarsgaard. 

Leda Caruso (Colman), a middle-aged professor from Cambridge, Massachusetts, takes a break by the sea, spending a few summer days in Greece. While at the beach, she observes everyone around her, but her gaze stares at a three-year-old girl and her beautiful young mother, Nina (Johnson), in whom she finds fragments of herself. Leda is deeply affected by remorse and shows a seemingly incomprehensible behavior that can be funny, sad and monstrously quirky at the same time. She can leave a subtle sense of discomfort lying around, and that works well as the oppressive stuff here is often disguised as lighthearted. The narrative holds our attention with flickering stimuli to the point that’s difficult to tell where the story is heading. That’s where most of the film’s spell lives.

Gyllenhaal’s storytelling process intertwines recent events with a mix of painful and thrilling flashbacks, keeping The Lost Daughter steady for most of its time. In some cases, the dramatic intensity doesn’t reach the expected levels - like in the very last interaction of Leda with Nina - but the film provides delicate material for thought and discussion. While the slow build of the story functioned properly, there was also a suddenness to some events that was extremely captivating. And then, Ms. Colman does the rest.

Yalda, a Night For Forgiveness (2021)

Direction: Massoud Bakhshi
Country: Iran

Hyper-dramatized and crippled by a slender script, Yalda, A Night for Forgiveness exposes some of the shameful breaches of the Sharia law through a humiliating situation. Maryam (Sadaf Asgari) - a jailed 22-year-old Iranian woman accused to kill her 65-year-old husband for money - is led to a widely popular reality show where she can escape the death penalty if granted pardon. The only person who can give her life back is the upper-class, if indebted, Mona (Behnaz Jafari) - the only child of the deceased - who, although resentful and arrogant, considers the forgiveness just to receive the blood money.

This situation is peppered by the fact that Maryam, who was pregnant at the time of the tragedy, ended up losing her baby. Highly agitated and impatient, she claims it was all unintentional instead of playing her ‘role’ for the audience. 

The writer-director Massoud Bakhshi actually inspired himself in a real Iranian talk show called “Honeymoon”, giving the film airs of a documentary (there’s three in his five-piece filmography) that rings untrue. I felt the story was being narrated as someone who stutters while speaking. It was hard to connect with the central character since the director is quick to stimulate the mind but not the heart. His idea turned out too formulaic in its curvilinear dramatic arc to convince. 

Among scenes that feel whether awkwardly forced or dragging, Yalda only scarcely produces some excitement. It’s an unpassionate, conventional and timid work, which I’m not prepared to forgive.

Luzzu (2021)

Direction: Alex Camilleri
Country: Malta 

Inspired by De Sica and Visconti, the Maltese-American director Alex Camilleri captivates our attention with his well-shot feature debut, Luzzu. This film - part social commentary and part domestic drama - displays a powerhouse slice of Maltese fisherfolk life, being titled after the multicolored wooden fishing boat typical of Malta. Owning one of these, Jesmark (played by real-life fisherman Jesmark Scicluna) struggles financially as the fishing business is dominated by black-market operations. 

His leaky luzzu needs a proper fix, forcing him to stop an activity already underpaid. His wife, Denise (Michela Farrugia), who works as a waitress, is basically the one providing for the family. In a time when their newborn needs medical attention, this is all very anguishing to Jesmark, who has two options: joining the illegal operations of the black market or breaking the generational cycle of his family by accepting an EU payout to decommission his boat and quit the fishing business permanently.

Luzzu clearly conveys what Camilleri had in mind through powerful images and feelings. The filmmaker keeps it real by presenting a plainly spelled-out sequence of events that first infuriates and then makes you think. It’s all filled with dramatic heft, moral shading, and a palpable ring of truth that reflects the bitter change of times, the progressive loss of tradition, and the rampant viciousness of capitalism in a dehumanizing atmosphere that will leave no one indifferent.

The Novice (2021)

Direction: Lauren Hadaway
Country: USA 

Rowing seems a fun sport but not as it is exposed in The Novice, a psychological drama directed by Lauren Hadaway, who worked as a sound editor in Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash (2014). Her first directorial effort is a somewhat sardonic and unsentimental take on obsession and mental disturbance that initially magnetizes and then drops us midway. 

The plot centers on Alex Dall (Isabelle Fuhrman), a freshwoman who joins her college’s competitive rowing team. Obsessively determined to be the best, Alex pushes her physical limits at the same time that she embarks on a lesbian romance with her teacher’s assistant, Dani (Dilone). 

Hadaway brings it to the point of collapse with an unflagging ability to capture the intriguing protagonist’s mind. It’s what surrounds the central character that fails to give the story a better sequence to its stimulating start. This character study lacks resonance in crucial parts to stick with you after the end.  

Still, there's this tightly controlled performance by Fuhrman, who shows to have more acting skills than those demonstrated in Orphan (2009). This year, she was also featured in The Last Thing Mary Saw, a period horror flick directed by the debutant New York-based Italian director Edoardo Vitaletti.

The technical aspects are generally favorable, but if the photography enchants with its dusky hues, then the score, which plays a big role in setting the shadowy atmosphere, feels more invasive than assisting.