NinadeL

Werner Herzog’s Ten Thousand Years Older - a documentary from the primeval forest. Jim Jarmusch's Int. Trailer Night - a nice B&W interlude between filming, a nice contrast between the present and the actress dressed in 1920s clothes. Wim Wenders’ Twelve Miles to Trona - a dynamic car journey through the Californian desert.

Another Zanussi journey into the depths of the soul of a Polish university student. In The Structure of Crystal, I found it almost charming, in The Illumination somewhat destructive and audience-unfriendly to the point of being unacceptable. And here? The protective coloring may have a noble tendency, but if one is engaged in studying oneself, one could take a very, very negative attitude toward academia. Indeed, it could cause one moral unease.

Jean-Marc Barr is a typical face from von Trier's films and the protagonist of The Big Blue, and as such he has a lot to say and convey. I wouldn't say the same about his film American Translation. It is as if the message is sewn to the film with a hot needle. The entire film is bathed in unexciting nudity and drowned in adolescent feelings of desire.

Is this a meditation on the two forms of love from Kieślowski's series on the Ten Commandments? Well, if you enjoy it. There are more problematic levels, for example, the parallel with Rear Window - I wonder why? Then, of course, are the interpretations of the motivations of the individual characters, whether the love brought about and forced by the suicide attempt has any value at all. There’s no satisfactory result and instead just the establishment of banality from the landscape of adolescence. Is it necessary to feel guilty if one does not love the one who would wish it? It is not necessary to go into this problem in depth on the basis of a biblical series.

The problem with the evaluation of Short Films probably lies in the inconsistency with the idea of retelling the story of the Ten Commandments in the modern sense of the Polish present of the 1980s. Is there anything beneficial in pointing out basic human weaknesses again? Or anything revealing and new? Here again, for example, we illustrate "thou shalt not kill" and that's all we've done.

I would never say that I would rate Eisenstein's film with the word nice, and yet here, everything is nice. A nice and clear medieval setting, a straightforward and unambiguous hero, a clear problem, a nice story in the side storyline even with a female action protagonist... and I could go on and on praising every element of this lovely little play. The music is greatly aided by the editing track, which straightforwardly tells the tale of how evil German knights (with dramatic music) want to conquer Russia (a playful musical motif). Yes, the battle will not be fought without human casualties, but love and goodness will triumph over lies and hatred and be resolved. Why complicate it when it's so nice?

A melancholic remembrance of the greatest of the greatest. What was always great about Vláčil was that he did not belong to the famous class of Otakar Vávra at The Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts, but he came to his craft in his own way through a renaissance combination of knowledge of art and diligence. And he left with honor.

Another episode of the Czech Příběhy slavných series. The elusiveness of Evald Schorm's character, life, and work is hinted at. I really missed Jana Brejchová's memories, and Jan Kačer had to finish the whole thing for her. Everything else is overly routine. I would ideally replace the attempt to gain insight into the soul with more facts at the expense of popular impressionology.

A tasteful little episode, just the way I like it. It is based on Menzel's narration, which relativizes his achievements and explains his nature, his sense of humor, and all the positions of his soul that we as viewers so often suspect when watching his films. The memories of Abrhám, Hanzlík, and Svěrák are charming. Olga is a chapter unto herself.

Lynch matured with this film. After all, it is impossible to consider it an experiment from a filmmaker who could not at the same time master the craft in its classical form and also manage to grapple with the most refined challenge, i.e., pathos.