A Film a Week - China See / Kinu jura

 previously published on Asian Movie Pulse

While team sports, and especially fandom around them, tend to be influenced by their “native” culture and to project it further, the individual ones are usually simpler to decode because they exist everywhere in the same shape. Among them, martial arts tend to transcend the cultures most often and most fluidly, serve as a bridge between them and an accelerator of societal pluralism. Remember the karate craze in the West decades ago and closely observe the ongoing hype around kickboxing in Japan, for instance.

At first glance, the cultures of Lithuania and Taiwan could not be more apart, and Poland and Czech Republic don’t seem like proper “bridges” between them, so Jurgis Matulevičius’ “China Sea” seems like a very exotic co-production. But the fact that it came on top of the Critics’ Picks competition programme at Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival surely means something.

Our protagonist Osvald (Marius Repsys) used to be a kickboxing champion who enjoyed most when he fought in the Far East. But after an incident, a bar fight in which he (probably accidentally) hit a woman who happened to be at the place, he got banned from federation and from fighting for life. His therapy and (sincere?) apology don’t help, so he is disgraced, with almost no friends and support. He lives in a room above the titular Taiwanese restaurant owned by his friend Ju-Long (Jag Huang of “Life of Pi” fame) and his family, the only place in the world he feels understood and accepted.

Osvald tries to improve his life any way he can. His old coach lets him clandestinely work with the club’s new prospect Angela, but that would also go south when she loses her first fight and her parents find out what is the reputation of one of the men in her corner. At therapy, he meets Skaiste (Severija Janušauskaite), a trophy girlfriend of a brutal Russian gangster nicknamed Tourist (Vaidotas Martinaitis), and sets on rescuing her. Also, since Ju-Long owes money to the gangsters due to his gambling habit, and Osvald, as a former champion, has some “street credit” with them, he tries to save his only friend by balancing between the parties. In situation like this, the question is not whether his life will come down, but when and with how much bang…

China Sea sports the gloomy aura of an Eastern European psychological drama based in a social realist codes of grey skies, drab buildings, depleted factories in town suburbs and the constant snowing. Even its genre “flavouring” is not particularly Oriental, but its noir elements combine flavours from the Continental Europe, Scandinavia and the post-Soviet countries, with a touch of movies that incorporate the Russian Mafia tropes, such as David Cronenberg’s “Eastern Promises”. All of that makes “China Sea” a quintessentially Lithuanian product, dealing with quintessentially Lithuanian problems of the formally, but not actually, completed transition from the East to the West, and the positioning in the new world of uncertainty when and where will the new Cold War between the West and the Russia heat up to the blazing temperatures.

So, what is the Taiwanese angle to the whole thing? The Taiwanese family (we also have Lu Yi-ching as the mother and Sonia Yuan as the sister) could be comfortably switched for a, for instance, Thai (on the grounds of kickboxing, the national sport there), Vietnamese (present in the Eastern Europe even before the fall of communism), or, simply, Chinese one. However, in the terms of dramaturgy, they are not just clichés, “token Asians”, or even means to secure a co-production, but an integral part of Matulevičius’ vision and Saule Bliuvaite’s (of last year’s Locarno laureate “Toxic” fame) script. The connection between Osvald and Ju-Long seems organic and genuine (also thanks to the actors’ efforts), as they both feel out of their place and out of their life, trapped somewhere where the chances of survival are low and of success even lower, where neither the weather nor the people are nice.

In the end, “China Sea” might not be for everybody’s taste because it demands tuning in to a very specific frequency that does not rely much on genre postulates (it is not a martial arts movie with training sequences, the only one, actually resembling a news story, is seen at the opening and serves to provide the context), but on a singular vision. It is very bleak and offers no chance for redemption, so it cannot be used as a motivational quote or a cautionary tale. But there is something inherently humane in it, something that can pack a punch to the liver and to the plexus, a flying knee landing directly on the chin to knock one down and out. And if we can handle the pain, we also learn to appreciate it, because it makes us stronger and wiser. Ultimately, “China Sea” shares the mission with the Shaolin monks and Samurai warriors. What can be more Asian than that, at least in the movies?

Lista - Decembar 2025

 

Ukupno pogledano: 28 (svi dugometražni)

Prvi put pogledano: 24 (svi dugometražni)

Najbolji utisak (prvi put pogledano): The Secret Agent / O Agente Secreto

Najlošiji utisak: What Does That Nature Say to You / Geu jayeoni nege mworago hani

*ponovno gledanje

**kratkometražni

***srednjemetražni

kritike objavljene na webu su aktivni linkovi

datum izvor English Title / Originalni naslov (Reditelj, godina) - ocena/10

*01.12. video Raiders of the Lost Ark (Steven Spielberg, 1981) - 9/10
02.12. festival Magellan / Magalhaes (Lav Diaz, 2025) - 5/10
03.12. festival What Does That Nature Say to You / Geu jayeoni nege mworago hani (Hong Sang-soo, 2025) - 4/10
04.12. festival No Other Choice / Eojjeolsuga eobsda (Park Chan-wook, 2025) - 8/10
*04.12. kino I'm Still Here / Ainda Estou Aqui (Walter Salles, 2024) - 7/10
05.12. festival The Tale of Silyan / Prikaznata za Siljan (Tamara Kotevska, 2025) - 8/10
06.12. kino A Mouse Hunt for Christmas / Hvis ingen gar i fella (Henrik Martin Dahlsbakken, 2025) - 5/10
06.12. festival Militantropos (Alina Gorlova, Simon Mozgovyi, Yelizaveta Smit, 2025) - 7/10
*07.12. video Idiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (Steven Spielberg, 1984) - 8/10
11.12. festival The Secret Agent / O Agente Secreto (Kleber Mendonça Filho, 2025) - 9/10
11.12. kino Hamnet (Chloé Zhao, 2025) - 6/10
13.12. kino Bugonia (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2025) - 6/10
14.12. kino Five Nights at Freddy's 2 (Emma Tammi, 2025) - 5/10
15.12. video The Toxic Avenger (Macon Blair, 2023) - 7/10
17.12. video Bone Lake (Mercedes Bryce Morgan, 2024) - 6/10
17.12. video Shell (Max Minghella, 2024) - 7/10
18.12. festival Orphan / Árva (László Nemes, 2025) - 7/10
18.12. festival Silent Friend / Stille Freundin (Ildikó Enyedi, 2025) - 7/10
18.12. festival La Grazia (Paolo Sorrentino, 2025) - 7/10
18.12. video Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery (Rian Johnson, 2025) - 7/10
19.12. video Boys Go to Jupiter (Julian Glander, 2024) - 8/10
22.12. video No Sleep Till (Alexandra Simpson, 2024) - 5/10
*23.12. video Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (Steven Spielberg, 1989) - 8/10
24.12. video Bob Trevino Likes It (Tracie Laymon, 2024) - 7/10
28.12. video Relay (David Mackenzie, 2024) - 7/10
29.12. festival The Wizard of Kremlin / Le mage du Kremlin (Olivier Assayas, 2025) - 4/10
29.12. video Ballerina (Len Wiseman, 2025) - 5/10
30.12. video The Wailing / El llanto (Pedro Martin-Calero, 2024) - 7/10

A Film a Week - Sisa

 previously published on Asian Movie Pulse

For a movie, to defy the expectations is not always easy. Sometimes the reason for that lays in our own inability to disregard them in order to approach the film in an honest, fair and square way. Reviewers bear some power and responsibility that comes with it, but we’re all humans after all. In that regard, marketing and PR come as powerful, but ultimately a dangerous tool – if used in a wrong way, it backfires and does the damage.

Case in point: Jun Robles Lana’s newest film “Sisa” that has just premiered at the official competition of Black Nights Film Festival in Tallinn, Estonia. Sold as a war movie and a revenge thriller set just after the American takeover of the Philippines from the Spanish, it turns out to be something else entirely, and not in a good way.

That should be clear from the get-go, since the filmmaker opens the film with a series of info-cards that give us a politicized historical lesson on a pretense of providing some context. The theme is the American occupation of the archipelago in 1899 following the war with the Spanish who ruled the islands for the previous three centuries. Americans have established a reign of terror, executing hundreds of thousands of men and putting women and children in concentration camps. While there were still some fighters trying to resist to the new colonial oppressor from the jungle, the fear of revenge was great and the rest of the population suffered. (At this place, one can’t help asking a question whether the previous Spanish or the subsequent Japanese occupation were any better or milder from the Filipino point of view, but let’s not go down that alley.)

Anyhow, a nameless and seemingly aimless traumatized woman (Hilda Koronel) walks into the fenced village going straight to the guard tower without saying a word. The American soldiers are about to shoot her, but the women from the village beg them to spare her life. The woman does not remember her own name, but gets a new one, Sisa, after a crazed character from a popular book. Simmering with anger that could explode to rage and fury, Sisa observes the proceedings in the village: the openly racist attitude from the camp military commander and the condescending one from the teacher (Isabel Lamers), the pedophilia from the soldiers, the different survival tactics adopted by the different women in the village, from open defiance to accepting the role of the concubines in order to make something for themselves, which almost always results in rivalry and conflict among them.

Given that the men coming to the village to trade goods or to pass the message are no less opportunistic and abusive, one might wonder not if, but when will the titular character lead the rebellion against the cruelty world. Alas, that does not happen, so, instead of a genre movie that we are promised, we get two hours of thinly veiled historical historical lesson from a raging anti-colonial and pretend-feminist perspective garnished with a dose of torture porn to make a point. Basically, a pamphlet.

The acting is underwhelming throughout, given that the cast members usually deliver some rigidly written lines in an amateurish way with more or less theatrics, with the noble exceptions from Hilda Koronel whose character rarely speaks, so the actress has to use her facial expressions and posture as tool more often, which she does quite well, and Isabel Lamers who has enough experience and instinct to make something out of her character. The choice of the actors to play the American soldiers is quite questionable, as it seems that it consists of amateurs that never acted for camera before, but it might be a deliberate statement.

From such a modestly budgeted movie, no one could expect some high production values, but the production design is basic rather than minimalist and the costumes seem lifted directly from a local theater troupe. Some saving grace might be found in Carlo Mendoza’s cinematography, but not for the reason of the cinematography itself, but simply coming from the outdoor locations that could pose as the scenery from a western, adventure or a war movie.

“Sisa” is a highly underwhelming experience, but what frustrates the most is that there was the way for it not to be the case, and that way was pretty obvious. Even on a shoestring budget, adopting a genre approach of a war action movie or a period-set revenge thriller flick would result in a better movie and in a vehicle that could deliver the message in a way that is both more elegant and more loud. It had the character, it had the setting, but its filmmaker might have lacked both courage and skill to do so.

A Film a Week - The Moon Is a Father of Mine

 previously published on Cineuropa

George Ovashvili’s fifth feature film, The Moon Is a Father of Mine, which is premiering in competition in Tallinn’s Black Nights Film Festival, might serve as a prime example of the use and slight subversiveness of the “Chekhov’s gun” principle in dramaturgy. The principle dictates that, if the firearm is displayed in the first act, it must go off and set up a plot twist in the third. In the present film, the rifle is presented more elaborately at the very end of the introduction before enjoying two additional moments in the limelight in the hunting sequence which takes up most of the second act, and with the firing of the rifle opening the film’s final act.

Grade school student Toma (newcomer Giorgi Gigauri) is living with his grandma Sidonia (Kira Andronikashvili) in a town apartment in the autumn of 1991, while his mother is living and working away in Moscow. Toma has a knack of getting into trouble, especially when he decides to stand up to a group of bullies who are targeting him for having revealed his feelings to his classmate Anana. Tired of scolding him for his behaviour, the grandmother accepts the boy’s father Nemo (seasoned actor Givi Chugaushvili) taking care of Toma in his ancestral village in the mountains.

Once in the mountains, the father and son begin to get to know each other better. Toma learns that his father was imprisoned for killing a poacher while working as a ranger, and Nemo tries to pass on some wisdom to his son. But as soon as they start to trust each other implicitly, destiny separates them again.

The trouble is that, in Ovashvili’s movie, the third act seems a little anti-climactic and therefore not particularly purposeful, but that’s only one of the film’s issues. The magic realism introduced by the filmmaker at a given point never gets a firm foothold since it clashes with the social realist air established in the opening sequence. Slightly wooden acting and declamatory deliveries of stilted or falsely poetic dialogue, over-use of the shallow focus trick in Christos Karamanis’ cinematography, which only occasionally opens up onto the unique, breath-taking and eerie mountainous landscape, and Josef Bardanashvili and Jakub Kudlác’s unnerving, strings-heavy score which becomes omnipresent, regardless of what’s going on onscreen, also hamper the film. Eventually, the sluggish pace established in the editing phase by Kim Sun-min serves as a painful reminder that this could have made for a good short film rather than a pretentious, uneventful feature-length movie.

In fact, all these afore-mentioned “mandatory art house elements” seem to have been frivolously added to the mix in order to draw attention from selection committees and juries, rather than representing any kind of auteur vision. We also get the impression that, with The Moon Is a Father of Mine, Ovashvili is trying hard to regain the status he enjoyed after his first two feature films, The Other Bank (2009) and Corn Island (2014). It’s possible that there’s more to it, but ultimately the movie is written in a coded language only accessible to certain viewers. In this sense, the opening card informing us that we’re about to watch a true story, and the closing explanation that these events were followed by the Georgian Civil War, feel more like an attempt to wrap things up than a loose metaphor on freedom and self-sufficiency, the necessity of patriotism, or the importance of family roots.

Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery

 kritika objavljena u dodatku Objektiv dnevnog lista Pobjeda

Kako kažu iskusni detektivi, jednom je slučajnost, dvaput je trend, a tri puta već postaje ekstremno sumnivo. Prevedeno u kontekst Rajana Džonsona i njegovih Knives Out filmova: jednom je dobra ideja, dakle slučajnost, drugi put je pokušaj kapitalizacije iste, dakle trend, a treći put je već franšiza.

Ono što autor serijalizovanog sadržaja, bilo filmskog, bilo literarnog, mora da zna u ovom slučaju je da svaki nastavak mora biti nešto drugačiji od prethodnih, dakle mora imati neki svoj identitet pored zajedničkog, a poželjno je čak i da se ne traži neko posebno predznanje, odnosno da se gledalac može uključiti kad god, i ići unapred i unazad. Što se oba tiče, Džonsonu je svakako uzor bila Agata Kristi i njen serijal o Erkulu Poarou, premda su prisutni i odjeci Artura Konana Dojla i Šerloka Holmsa, a od ovog nastavka i američkih autora krimi-misterija i filmova snimljenih po njima, uz Džonsonov pomalo ironični odmak.

Novina kod Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery je ta što se Benoa Blan (Danijel Krejg) ne pojavljuje do kraja ekspozicije, a jednom kada se pojavi, čini se manje skrivenim iza perfektnih manira i oštroumnih opaski i nekako ranjiviji. Ovog puta imamo i narativni okvir jedne izjave, odnosno naratora koji dobar deo radnje šalje u „flešbek“. On je mladi sveštenik Džad (Džoš O‘Konor), relativno novi došljak u malu, ali zato prilično izvitoperenim odnosima zatrovanu parohiju u ruralnom delu države Njujork.

Džad je tamo poslat po kazni: on je bivši bokser, beskućnik i prevarant kojeg je vera spasila života na dnu, ali je takođe u konstantnoj krizi vere zbog čega se trudi da bude bolji, ali na trenutke posrće. Poslednji puta je odalamio bezobraznog đakona, a njegov nadređeni (Džefri Rajt) mora da ga kazni, iako ga razume. Kazna se sastoji u tome da saslužuje nemoguće bezobraznom propovedniku koji u svojoj parohiji ima apsolutnu moć, a crkva bi ga rado stavila pod kakvu-takvu kontrolu.

Taj nemogući pop je monsinjor Viks (Džoš Brolin), čovek koji voli da šokira svoje kolege i plaši svoje vernike, koji diktatorski „vlada“ svojom pastvom, od njenih uglednijih članova iznuđuje novac i usluge, a ima i političke ambicije pomešane s paranojom i prezirom prema modernom svetu. On će, ispravno pretpostavljamo, završiti kao žrtva, što Džada koji se s njim nikada nije razumeo stavlja u red osumnjičenih. Pored njega tu su još i monsinjorova desna ruka i najodanija prijateljica Marta (Glen Klouz), njoj odani tihi lečeni alkoholičar Samson (Tomas Hejden Čerč), pijani doktor Nejt (Džeremi Rener), propali pisac Li (Endrju Skot), lokalna advokatica Vera (Keri Vašington), njen usvojeni mlađi brat, propali političar Saj (Deril MekKormak) i bolesna violončelistkinja Simon (Kejli Speni), jedna od većih donatora crkve u poslednje vreme koju je Viks varao za novac, dok se ona nadala čudesnom ozdravljenju.

Uz pomoć Džada i šefice lokalne policije Džeraldin (Mila Kunis), Blan se nada da će uspeti da reši zločin u tipu „zaključane sobe“. Misterija, međutim, uključuje tajne iz prošlosti, porodične razmirice, novac, skriveni dijamant, trgovinu uticajem i ambicije prema upravljanju stvarnošću u savremenom društvu spektakla.

Kao što je to bio slučaj s prethodna dva filma, od manje je važnosti ko je počinilac, jer će to bez problema pogoditi svaki verziraniji čitalac ili gledalac krimi-misterija, svim Džonsonovim trikovima za odvlačenje pažnje uprkos. Važnije je kako je to uradio i zašto je to uradio. To dovodi do zapetljavanja u pogledu same konstrukcije misterije, zbog čega se od gledalaca traži prilična suspenzija neverice, ovde možda još i više nego u prethodnim nastavcima.

Razlika je u okruženju i, posledično, u tonu misterije od filma do filma. U prvom smo imali klasičnu „tropu“ kuće s tajnama i prolazima kao igri Cluedo, te porodično okruženje. Drugi je bio smešten u letnje okruženje i krug prijatelja, pa je pomalo podsećao na „krimiće za plažu“. Sada imamo okruženje crkve u malom gradu (gotovo selu), što otvara mogućnosti i za neke dublje, filozofske i introspektivne teme poput ličnih koncepata vere, stremljenja da se ista zadrži čak i kada oni koji su zaduženi da ju propovedaju je ne ispovedaju sami, te sukoba između vere i logike koji puni poštovanja jedan za drugog vode Blan i Džad.

Džonson i inače preferira da radi s istom ekipom saradnika, što je i ovde slučaj, pa se, na primer, oseća odlična komunikacija između njega i direktora fotografije Stiva Jedlina u slikanju pejzaža i portreta s istim kao okruženjem, kao i s montažerom Bobom Daksejem čiji je doprinos u skretanju naše pažnje esencijalan. Koncept što se tiče glumaca je takođe isti od filma do filma, Džonson se trudi da okupi funkcionalnu zvezdanu ekipu sačinjenu što od veterana koji su zvezdani status odavno zaslužili i održali, što od glumaca u trendu.

Po pitanju uspeha tog „eksperimenta“, prvi deo je i dalje neprevaziđen sa svojom ubistvenom postavom, ali se Wake Up Dead Man kotira bolje nego Glass Onion: Krejg je standardno dobar, premda sada manje insistira na manirizmima nego ranije, a ostali imaju više prostora da se „razmašu“. To najbolje koriste Džoš Brolin (očekivano, njemu prosto leže likovi koji utelovljuju mušku moć, nekad čak i toksičnu) i Glen Klouz, te Bridžet Everet u jednoj minijaturnoj epizodi. Solidno se drži i Džoš O‘Konor kao glumac koji je definitivno „u trendu“ poslednjih nekoliko godina i kojem ti pomalo smušeni, a pomalo mučeni likovi inače dobro leže. Ostali ipak ne uspevaju da se nametnu i iskoriste pun potencijal svojih likova, što možda i nije bez neke logike, jer do zagušenja filma glumačkim bravurama.

Ono što možda radi u korist Rajanu Džonsonu u smislu da će nastaviti da dobija „narudžbine“, ali ne radi u korist samih filmova je i „firma“ za koju je Džonson napravio drugi i treći deo. Prvi film je, naime, bio punokrvno bioskopski i iza njega je stao posrnuli Lionsgate koji je skoro sve karte bacio na njega i osigurao mu široku distribuciju u okruženju u kojem ovakvi filmovi najbolje funkcionišu. Onda je produkcijski iza filmova stala kompanija Netflix koja, pak, ima svoja pravila distribucije gde nakon nekoliko festivala za prestiž i vrlo limitirane distribucije u Americi film „sleće“ na naše kućne televizore. A kućno okruženje nikada neće biti isto kao bioskopsko, pa Wake Up Dead Man za većinu gledalaca neće zasijati punim sjajem.

La Grazia

 kritika objavljena u dodatku Objektiv dnevnog lista Pobjeda

U svojoj filmskoj i televizijskoj karijeri, Paolo Sorentino je naslikao portrete korumpiranih političara, smorene rok-zvezde, pape, bonvivana opšte prakse, samog sebe u godini Maradone u Napulju, mitološki zamamne „sirene“ koju su njena lepota, pamet i dobrota zaštitile od posledica prljavštine stvarnog sveta i čega sve ne. Sve te osobe bile su interesantne već na površini, neke od njih i duboko ispod iste. U svom najnovijem filmu, La Grazia, Sorentino stavlja u centar pažnje, po sopstvenom priznanju reditelja kroz filmski lik, dosadnu osobu. U tom odnosu snaga pravi izazov je ne napraviti dosadan film, odnosno unutrašnji život i dileme koje more dosadnu osobu oslikati kao zanimljive i publici, a ne samo hipotetičkom filmskom liku i autoru koji ga je stvorio.

Može li Sorentino da izgura taj uspon? To će uskoro otkriti pretplatnici na servis Mubi, a festivalska publika je već imala prilike da ga pogleda, kako širom Evrope i Amerike, tako i na regionalnom nivou. Recimo na Human Rights Film Festivalu u Zagrebu.

Italijanski predsednik Mariano De Santis (povratnik u svet Sorentinovog stvaralaštva, Toni Serviljo) je u jeseni svoga života, ali i u poslednjoj etapi svog mandata. Ovaj nekadašnji sudija i još uvek valjda jedan od većih autoriteta po pitanju pravnih nauka nosi nadimak „Armirani Beton“, navodno zbog čvrstine svog uverenja, ali i zbog toga što svoju ranjivost vešto krije iza principa. Ali da je otporan na sve – nije, čak do te mere da mu najbliža saradnica i kćerka Dorotea (Ana Ferceti) upravlja prehranom i u smislu količine, i u smislu arome, odnosno nedostatka istih, zbog zdravlja, naravno.

Trenutno mora da se suoči s nekoliko izazova i da donese konačne odluke kojima nikada zapravo nije bio sklon: na stolu mu je predlog zakona o eutanaziji koji, i pored prepravki, ne zna da li da potpiše ili ne. Jer, u skladu s katoličkom verom koju praktikuje, ako ga ne potpiše, ispašće mučitelj, a ako ga potpiše – biće ubica. Razgovori s njegovim prijateljem Papom (Rufin Doh Zeyenuin) mu nisu od velike pomoći jer Papa mora da brani dogmu svoje organizacije.

Pritom, dve molbe za pomilovanje (otud i naslov filma) se isto pozivaju na eutanaziju i milosrđe. Učitelj (Vasko Mirandola) je ubio svoju dementnu suprugu koja je postala nasilna prema njemu, a jedna žena (Linda Meserklinger) je ubila svog psihički bolesnog muža koji ju je zlostavljao. Za njihove slučajeve ne postoji pravni okvir, a i on i Dorotea kao pravnici po struci imaju profesionalnu deformaciju da po svaku cenu traže istinu.

Pa ipak, više od svega, Mariana muči misterija s kim ga je njegova pokojna žena Aurora varala pre četrdeset godina. On sumnja na svog najstarijeg prijatelja i potencijalnog naslednika u predsedničkoj fotelji, Uga Romanija (Masimo Venturielo), ali mu to prijateljica, kritičarka umetnosti Koko Valori (Milvija Mariljiano) ne želi potvrditi, iako zna istinu.

Zapravo, Marianu se čini da kao usamljeni udovac nema za šta da živi posle svog mandata. Kći je nasledila njegov pravnički um i posvećenost detaljima, sin je odustao od ugleda klasičnog kompozitora i izabrao da zarađuje novac sa pop-muzikom. Distrakcije koje mu nude šef obezbeđenja i savetnik za odbranu privremene su, a fascinacije muzikom repera Guea i bestežinskim stanjem u kojem obitava jedan italijanski astronaut su predaleke za njega. Možda je obostrana radoznalost koju on i urednica modnog časopisa, takođe na odlasku s funkcije, dele jedno prema drugom, dovoljan razlog...

Do sada je Sorentino uglavnom poređen s Federikom Felinijem od velikana italijanske kinematografije, ali La Grazia se čini kao njegov ulaz u svet Mikelanđela Antonionija i teskobu koja je bojila njegove filmove. Pa ipak, i kod ovako „utišanog“ Sorentina ima raskošne režije, boje, humora, dosetke, pa čak i očuđujućih trenutaka koji nam subvertiraju očekivanja i pokazuju snagu duha, kako glavnog lika koji ubire humorne poene predstavljajući se kao dosadnjaković, tako i samog Sorentina kao filmskog autora koji, čak i kada svodi račune, nije rekao sve što ima.

Videćemo tako Papu na skuteru, portuglaskog predsednika za kojeg će se Mariano zapitati da li on nekome deluje tako, sliku suze koja pada, odnosno ne pada u bestežinskom stanju, ničim izazvanu scenu plesu, a čućemo cinične opaske koje Koko ispaljuje, pa čak i himnu „hrabrih alpinaca“ gde se Mariano priključuje horu oficira. Zašto? Pa, Sorentino nikada nije bežao od idiosinkratičkih momenata, naprotiv.

Sve funkcioniše dosta dobro i na zanatskom i na glumačkom planu. Naravno, raskoš The Great Beauty ili Parthenope ne možemo očekivati u jednom ovako utišanom filmu, ali slike Rima i posebno palate Kvirinale kroz objektiv Darije D‘Antonio nude nam sasvim dovoljno lepote, dok je saundtrek izuzetno raznolik i na nekoliko mesta direktno iznenađujući. Glumački, Toni Serviljo briljira i u diskretnom načinu, bez suvišnih poteza (Volpi kup u Veneciji i nominacija Evropske Filmske Akademije samo su potvrda toga), Ana Ferceti ga prati u mikro-glumi, a ostali mu sekundiraju ili ga čak razigravaju.

Na kraju, rezultat je film koji se lako gleda i o kojem se i posle razmišlja, čak i kada smo svesni da Sorentino zapravo više pokušava da filozofira nego što zaista ima da podeli neku veliku mudrost. Uostalom, i za inspiraciju za film mu je poslužio stvarni događaj, pomilovanje koje je odobrio aktuelni italijanski predsednik Serđo Matarela. Pa opet, čak i kad ga ne „vozi“ jaka inspiracija, i kad se ponaša kao stariji autor nego što to zapravo jeste, Sorentino pravi dobre, emotivne i zabavne filmove.

A Film a Week - Oh, What Happy Days!

 previously published on Cineuropa

A conference call involving two to five parties. The shadows of the past. Political and class conflict. Unearthed secrets. A deal to be made by any means necessary, including blackmail and deception. All of this is to be found in Homayoun Ghanizadeh’s very unusual, even peculiar, avantgarde film Oh, What Happy Days!, which has just premiered in the Critics’ Picks competition of the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.

Actress Homa (Golshifteh Farahani in her first role in an Iranian movie since she went into exile) is being blackmailed by Hashemi (Navid Mohammadzadeh), who possesses a compromising tape. Hashemi was the son of the head servant at her family’s compound before the 1979 revolution, and now he may or may not be a state agent. In order to avoid public shaming because of the viral video, she must persuade her exiled grandfather (“godfather of Iranian cinema” Ali Nasirian) to make a deal with him on the compound, or otherwise the government will seize it. To achieve this, Homa tries to rely on her aunt (renowned artist Shirin Neshad) and her uncle (Payman Maadi), both exiled as well, to help persuade this stubborn old man clinging to decades-old grudges.

Forced into a Zoom call that plays out in real time, Homa comes to know a piece of her family and her country’s history, and becomes aware of political and class conflicts before and after the revolution. She also gets to know the truth about the deaths of her father, who was framed in the turbulent post-revolutionary times, and her uncle, who never reached adulthood, and what the term “happy days” (referring to the times before the revolution) really means to people from different walks of life. The price of happiness for the chosen few was paid by many…

What we see is the same medium-close-up shot from a fixed position mimicking the angle of a laptop camera, either in a single shot or on a screen divided into up to five sections. The composition and placing of the individual shots in the mosaic sometimes suggests a code of sorts, whether it concerns class, age or current degree of power. The “costumes” the characters are wearing are the same – ie, prison uniforms – and the production design consists of the same barren wall, a desk and a chair. Usually, it is all in black and white, but it sometimes gets infused with colour, for an obvious reason or for seemingly no reason at all.

Homayoun Ghanizadeh, who also has a background in theatre, describes his method for Oh, What Happy Days! as “suitcase cinema”, since it was filmed in different locations, from Iran to the USA, via Paris, with the director travelling between the actors. The result is an avantgarde, risky piece of cinema that speaks volumes about the past and the present, displacement, separation from one’s home country and its culture, and even the feeling of being trapped inside it, since in this case it is ruled by a crumbling regime that refuses to give up.

The question here is how long it will take for the main gimmick (which might remind us of the dreaded “COVID-19 cinema”) to wear off, but the answer might surprise us. The story is engaging and is told fluently and naturally, in a way that does not insult the viewer’s intelligence, plus the top-notch acting by these contemporary and erstwhile stars of Iranian cinema channels a plethora of emotions. Oh, What Happy Days! might even open up a completely new avenue in cinema.