gudaulin

The screenplay is unfinished. Although it is well-acted, it feels like a fragment of a feature film rather than a standalone functioning short film. The female element is also unnecessary in a script like this... Overall impression: 50%.

731: Two Versions of Hell is a type of documentary where the impact of the message is based solely on commentary, delivered by a neutral voice, which is in sharp contrast to the emotionally charged content of the film. The visual part could be completely absent, as similar information could be conveyed by a slightly modified radio program. The chosen dual perspective is interesting, saying that with a sufficient degree of cynicism and demagogy, anything can be relativized and justified, including gas chambers and torture devices. The visual component is only complementary, where the lively Chinese city of the present forms a counterbalance to the ruins of a concentration camp and a factory for the production of biological weapons. My overall impression, considering the weak visual aspect, amounts to 60%. However, the chosen unconventional form and provocative interpretation of the same event from the perspective of two warring sides make this a film that should not go unnoticed.

After watching the film, I was reminded of a lecture by a well-known science popularizer who admitted that the motive for the creation of his latest book was not a passion for its subject, but a grant that he happened to receive and that it would not be wise to refuse. I had a similar feeling of "motivation" when it came to most of the participating directors here. It wasn't a dream project that pushed them to the limits of their creative powers, and it wasn't even a commercial thing for which they would risk their reputation with the producer. Most of them approached it like a school exercise, and sometimes I even felt like it was out of obligation. In any case, directorial qualities prevailed over screenwriting - sometimes there was palpable helplessness in that area (Kusturica's alcohol-soaked visit to the film festival). Most film fans will probably choose their own favorite story, but as a whole, 7 Days in Havana, in my opinion, doesn't hold up. It was clear from the beginning that the individual contributions would have different styles and poetics, but I must admit that I didn't expect to feel like I was on a roller coaster or riding a carnival ride when comparing the quality of the stories. Overall impression: 45%.

Greenaway's film is one of those rare cases when, despite my undeniable stinginess, I would be willing to leave the movie theater after half an hour and forget the money because I saved a bit of my increasingly scarce time. The question is: is it possible to make a film that is supposed to deal with the dark sides of the human soul, sexuality, and the lives of wealthy people unrestricted by social conventions in an unbelievably boring way? Yes. Greenaway proves that with a little effort, it can be done. If I were a producer, I would rather burn the money in the fireplace than invest it in a similar spectacle. It is an immensely self-centered and difficult-to-digest film, primarily intended for the festival circuit audience, for the small circle of true intellectuals, and a considerably larger circle of those who think they are intellectuals so that they can eagerly debate the hidden meanings of the film after seeing it. At the beginning, one character asks another: "Do you think leading directors make their films to satisfy their sexual fantasies?" - the other replies: "I think most of them do." If Greenaway made this film to satisfy his sexual fantasies, then he is a very boring and eccentric patron. This film is neither provocative nor spicy, and in no way is it true to life, because I have encountered a fair number of bizarre characters, sociopaths, and nutcases, but I have never come across anything remotely similar to these film characters. Overall impression: 5%.

Attribute, which 8 MM deserves the most, is EFFECTIVE. A story from the porn industry appropriately brutal and repulsive with its subject, featuring a number of twisted characters from the gallery and a decadent high society environment. An energetic and attractive positive hero played by the decently acting Cage, complemented by a diligent sidekick, several skillfully filmed scenes, and an overall depressing tone of the film, all led to an extremely high commercial success and recognition among movie fans. It's not Schumacher's best film, but it ranks among the better ones in its genre. Overall impression: 70%.

Where Wall-E attempts to suggest a depressive post-apocalyptic atmosphere in the first half, 9 fully develops its vision of a world devastated by war and does not care about the moods of the child audience. The visual aspect is amazing and because it usually plays a significant role in my rating, I lean toward a five-star rating, even though I have a problem with the philosophical aspect of the film and consider its outcome unsatisfactory. Where, for example, Avatar has a philosophy that is too primitive, the philosophical dimension of 9 is possibly too complicated and uncertain. 9 depicts the adventures of nine extraordinary beings with a robotic foundation who look like rag dolls combined with the idea of artificial machines from the late 19th century. The retro-stylization, which seems to come from late Jules Verne novels, along with the gloomy visual aspect in shades of brown, is exceptional for an animated film made today and it boldly disrupts the idea of a positively inclined film that parents go to see with their young children. The heroes of the story face monstrous machines, from which hatred and dehumanized evil of technology are evident at first sight, escaping human hands. The creators of the film seem to work with the concerns of today's inhabitants of the developed world, to whom technology seemingly gets on their nerves and they dream of a return to a simple life in harmony with nature. The battle of the dolls with the devilish invention is full of adventurous action and unique effects. The idea that the story should be heading toward is somewhat lost under their fire, but it was still a strong experience for me. Overall impression: 90%.

The Soviet film school essentially produced war films on an assembly line, but 9th Company follows more so the style and content of American war films from the 1980s. In other words, it is a combination of Full Metal Jacket and Platoon, which is also mimicked in the film's title. It is not a cheap imitation, but rather a very solid piece of craftsmanship and, truth be told, one of the best war films of the last decade. Thanks to the large investments in Russian cinema in recent years and coproduction, it is not a financially deprived film either, so viewers can enjoy the military equipment, generously conceived shots of the military base, and large-scale battles. As for casting, acting performances, and directing, I have no significant objections, and for about 70% of the film I thought I was watching a five-star film that stood out for its exceptionally high level of authenticity. I had the opportunity to speak at length with an eyewitness of the Afghan war, who spent eight years in the war zone, and his narrative aligned with the atmosphere of the film. The attack on the transport plane or the ambush of a military convoy in the pass perfectly fits the way the war was fought at that time. The plane destruction scene is also visually impressive. However, the final grand battle comes, which, from the perspective of a popular culture viewer, is again gratifyingly filmed and directed, but it is unrealistic and reminded me of heroic images from the Soviet era, like "the last heroic defenders of Sevastopol resist the fascist superiority." Ultimately, the closing credits depict the nature of this conflict far more soberly when it comes to the number of casualties. Similar open battles were exceptional in the Afghan war because they demonstrated better tactical preparedness and greater firepower of the Soviet army. It is similar, after all, in present-day Iraq. Otherwise, it is interesting to compare this Russian film precisely with American films about the Vietnam War. American films - even those with an anti-war orientation - depict their soldiers as winners, and if an American soldier falls, he must almost inevitably shoot at least ten Vietnamese soldiers before he dies. Russian soldiers die like flies. Bullets find them much more often than they do the Afghan rebels. The primary goal of 9th Company is to portray Russian soldiers as men who are not afraid to die but fulfill their mission and at the same time show that this war was not theirs. Their deployment was decided by the elders of the Central Committee of the CPSU. Today's Russia is not so much following the era of the Soviet Union as it is emphasizing pre-revolutionary Russia and particularly highlighting service to the country and self-sacrifice. At the same time, there is not a single scene in the film where an Afghan civilian clearly dies. The goal of the film is not self-flagellation like in American production; Russian soldiers, after all, fulfill the tasks assigned to them....Overall impression: 80%.

Just as adults need soap operas to have an excuse to avoid sex with their partners, parents need Maya the Bee to temporarily get rid of their kids as proof of the failure of their parenting methods. That's the better side of multipart fairy tale series like Maya. Unfortunately, in terms of script quality, pacing, dialogues, and prolonged length, it's not great, and not even the excellent dubbing from a time before it was ruined by haste and commercialism can save it. Since I don't let nostalgia sway me, my overall rating remains at 45%.

Robert Wise tried to take a "serious" approach to the material and created a sobering spectacle of what a deadly epidemic of the future could look like. He relied on contemporary scientific theories, and his greatest desire was clearly the believability and rationality of the story. He consciously abandoned the usual genre clichés, which is commendable, but in the end, a somewhat sterile spectacle was created, suffering to some extent from excessive length, exaggerated emphasis on dialogues, and that it is overall static. It's worth a decent three stars, but it's not a film that I would feel any desire to revisit. Overall impression: 60%.

I approached The Tree of Wooden Clogs with skepticism. In 1978, it won the Golden Palm at the festival in Cannes, where the most snobbish people in the world, concentrated in one square kilometer, gather. That is a sufficient warning for an observer who knows something about the self-centeredness of the festival scene. My instincts did not disappoint me. Olmi could have been considered the inventor of the genre of fictional documentaries in the 70s, which is now so popular and widely used. He dedicated maximum energy to creating authenticity in capturing the lives of villagers in the Italian region of Lombardy. He worked with non-actors from the area in order to perfectly capture the local dialect. The film depicts the lives of five farming families living collectively on a farm and renting land from a landlord. However, comparisons to modern fictional documentaries are unfortunately not appropriate. They were created to make the documentary genre more attractive, lively, and accessible to viewers. They work with editing and professional actors, similar to entertaining fictional films. The downfall of Olmi's experiment lies in the fact that he works in real time, therefore it is very slow and, in my opinion, annoying and boring due to its murderous length. Olmi goes as far as the phenomenon of so-called slow TV today, which is completely beyond the scope of my interests. I know of three-hour films where the viewer doesn't have enough time to realize the long duration, and I know ones that subjectively last twice as long. Unfortunately, I would place The Tree of Wooden Clogs in the second category. Overall impression: 25%.