Goldbeater

Aki Kaurismäki's refreshingly long film follows the worries and joys of Finnish misfits who have little to be happy about in their misery and hardship. Understated, tender, warm, funny and paying tribute to the love of cinema – it was the perfect first screening of this year's edition of the festival. A small film with a big heart. [KVIFF 2023]

Justine Triet delivers a superbly written and filmed study of family ties at a moment of the greatest test of trust, but to be honest, it passed me by in a big way. This long, largely procedural drama is unfortunately as cold as the snout of the dog starring in it, and consequently as cold as the mountain setting in which it takes place. It was a creative choice, of course, but all those pivotal dramatic moments that I had to wait a long time for didn't work and didn't interest me at all. Though I somewhat enjoyed the ambiguity of some of the messages, I am still far from enthusiastic as a viewer. [KVIFF 2023]

For viewers for whom the name Richard Harris means only the wise and kind-hearted headmaster of a wizarding school with a long white beard, this documentary is bound to deal a blow. This portrait of the British troublemaker breaks down all taboos and shows the legendary actor at his peak as well as at his lowest moments. It manages to perfectly balance the combination of period footage and recordings, where Richard Harris himself talks about his life as if his ghost was speaking to us today, with the experiences of his friends, colleagues and especially his three sons, whose relationship with their father could be described as very complicated to say the least. The Ghost of Richard Harris is an information-packed, entertaining and highly emotional portrait of an acting great. [KVIFF 2023]

In terms of production design, special effects and the depiction of the atmosphere and functioning of its world, Restore Point is definitely one of the most remarkable achievements in the field of Czech cinema in recent years. It's a shame, however, that all this is undermined by a rather generic plot and a half-baked screenplay, which, when you strip away the visual trappings, offers nothing more than a banal TV-style crime drama, plus variations on motifs you've seen in other, often better films (Minority Report comes to mind). I appreciate the effort, but it could have been much more polished. [KVIFF 2023]

The remarkable cinephile Alexandre O. Philippe once again uses new techniques in the field of pop culture documentary, as he has done in each of his previous works. This time, he focused his attention on the personality of the now ninety-two-year-old actor William Shatner, who talks to the camera in very subjective speeches about his life, his career, his approach to acting and comedy and, last but not least, his thoughts on ecology and life and death itself. You Can Call Me Bill is thus perhaps the least "cinephilic" of Philippe's films, yet the most civil and "human". And I could have listened to the eloquent Shatner on the screen for another hour and a half, his life insights are truly engaging. [KVIFF 2023]

To a certain extent, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is a safe and modern film stripped of all the appeal, originality, physicality and creative prowess that we loved about the first three installments, and it has also lost much of the magic of adventure. The credits list four screenwriters and the disparity is evident in the result, which feels like it was actually written by an artificial intelligence, it has seemingly all the elements and Indiana Jones film should have, yet it feels more a knockoff than the proper thing. Is it worse or better than Kingdom of the Crystal Skull? Hard to say. In some things is better, in others it’s worse. In any case, the qualities of the original trilogy can’t be seen even from the digital train.

If there was an award for films with the most use of Dutch-angle camera shots and possibly overuse of exaggerated slow motion, Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000 would be the clear winner. You won't see a more visually painful engineered shootout, and you don’t want to see it. The crowning adaptation of the work of the founder of the Church of Scientology is tragic in every way, yet I have to say that the final clash of civilizations is such a mindless monstrosity that I couldn't stop staring, and after an hour and a half of boredom it makes for a dose of entertainment. And the use of miniatures contributes a lot to this.

In his recent films, Wes Anderson has tried to push a lot beyond the main storyline to an additional frame story, from which a core plot then unfolds. But while it was novel and measured in The Grand Budapest Hotel  and practically necessary in The French Dispatch, since it was essentially an anthology film, in Asteroid City this metafictional framing becomes a bit of a stumbling block. The main pastel-coloured storyline (or rather, everything you expect after watching the trailer) is constantly disrupted and diluted by a black and white theatrical frame that ultimately strips the main part of the film of all emotional impact and most of its cinematic charm. It's a strange choice even for Anderson and quite a shame.

The bells are tolling for this phase of the DC universe and The Flash almost feels like a swan song. But don't worry, we still have Aquaman 2 and Blue Beetle to look forward to! Comparing this to Marvel is a waste of time nowadays, but here Spider-Man: No Way Home is literally screaming. Although it's quite entertaining, the plot, which mixes several timelines, has to be kicked off with the main character acting like the world's most irresponsible moron, and everything that happens after that is just mindless action for effect. The excessive fan service will captivate many, on the other hand, the very bad digital effects may surprise some, but otherwise it's a pretty average comic book film, whose existence you will probably forget two days after the screening.

The Night of the 12th is practically an anti-detective story. Right in the opening credits, we can clearly see that the film is about an unsolved case, but despite this fact, you spend the next nearly two hours devouring the procedure of a classic crime film, as if you're going to see the end result, because it otherwise works very well through the construction of the plot. The film only slightly lags in the scenes where it quite literally tries to point out collective guilt (and the following statement may be a spoiler, so beware), because if the victim wasn't demonstrably killed by a specific individual, everyone was the killer. The symbolism is nice, but script-wise it shouts too much and doesn't fit. Otherwise, thumbs up.