A Film a Week - Daydreamers / Nguoi Mat Troi

 previously published on Asian Movie Pulse

The vampire trope in movies is almost as old as the art of cinema itself. They are invented as something foreign, exotic, usually quite elite that does not belong to the “ordinary world”. There are, however, numerous variations regarding their lore, so we, for instance, got an action hero who was born as vampire and grew to look like Wesley Snipes in his prime or a glittery day-walking, self-loathing highschool kid seeking for some sort of redemption in a soap opera masked as a saga. The point is that the vampires are tough to pin down (pun intended!) because one can vary the rules and the cosmology so much. Vietnamese filmmaker Timothy Linh Bui tried to do so in “Daydreamers” and, after a promising start, failed.

The start is actually an animated sequence set against a voice-over narration which explains how we got such a chic European phenomenon in Vietnam. The answer is, of course, colonialism and debauchery that ensued. The people rebelled soon afterwards (see another parallel with the Vietnamese 20^th century history) and chased the vampires into the illegal. The remaining ones either blended with humans or went to live in the wild, but they had to obey the law that forbade them to taste human blood hoping that the diet of animal blood and humane approach would grant them redemption.

Unfortunately, that cheeky anti-colonial angle stays locked in the first sequence of the film, as the filmmaker and his co-writer Doan Si Nguyen decided to tell a “contemporary” story about what happens when the law gets broken. The story revolves around two brothers, Marco (Thuan Nguyen) and Nhat (Tran Ngoc Vang), a young mortal woman, Ha (Trinh Thao) taken to the vampire underground, and the struggle for power between the “humanist” and “anarchist” fractions within the vampire clique ruled by the benevolent “queen” Trieu (Chi Pu).

Basically, what we get is a one season of a vampire-laced soap opera squeezed in a two-hour movie that feels both rushed and lagging. The trouble is not that Timothy Linh Bui does not understand the concept of vampires and their symbolism, because he apparently does, but the fact that he takes his story way too seriously, but without employing the right means to tell it compellingly.

His directing style is either completely plain in more ordinary, clearly dialogue-driven scenes, or hyper-stylized in the action ones, but the style he goes for is simply derived from video-clips or computer games. Everything is overdone, from the lighting, the abundant use of cheap visual effects (the supervisor Nguyen Anh Viet is signed pretty high up on the ending credits, which is significant) all the way to the omnipresence of music, alternating between the otherwise decent neoclassical score by Jérôme Leroy and MiSS NiNE’s electronic loops. The same goes for acting, which is constantly in the over-expressive register, often over the limit of theatrics, which is not the fault of the actors themselves, as they are instructed to go all in all the time. Maybe some of the saving grace could be found in the attempts of the DoP Phu Nam to capture an occasional eye candy of a shot or the editors Dat Tran and Pham Quoc Dung to calm the things down by delaying their chops, but there is only so much they can do.

Eventually, “Daydreamers” is a trash movie, which might be legitimate if it would be a conscious decision by its director to make it exactly that way. Unfortunately, this is not a case here, as the whole trash seems quite involuntary, as a by-product of a combination of high ambition and sloppy execution.

A Film a Week - The Mountain Won't Move / Gora se ne bo premaknila

 previously published on Cineuropa

Usually, documentary projects spend more time in development and production than fiction ones do. Having two projects premiering some two months apart at reputable festivals is an oddity which has happened to Slovenian filmmaker Petra Seliškar this year. After the premiere of her mid-length effort My Summer Holiday at FIPADOC in January, the filmmaker now presents her feature-length work The Mountain Won’t Move at Visions du Réel. It is no coincidence, though, because the two films share the same subjects, location and topic.

Seliškar takes us up into the Šar Mountains, where three brothers, Zekir, Zarif and Zani spend several months a year looking after their family’s flock of hundreds of sheep and their dozens of cows. The youngest, Zani, stays in the lower hut with the cows, while Zekir and Zarif venture to the upper “bachilo” stone-and-wood house with the sheep. During the summer, their younger brothers join them to learn the trade and provide help. Their life is free from the burdens of modernity, but also quite dangerous owing to the harsh weather and even harsher beasts. Luckily, they have a large number of shepherd dogs to protect them and keep them company. Zekir serves as the leader of the brothers and the teacher, preparing them to continue the centuries-old tradition, but as Zarif grows, he expresses an interest in trying out a different, more modern way of life. Zekir is also at a crossroads, as he is getting too old to spend such an amount of time up in the mountains with the sheep, while he also misses his favourite dog, Belichka, who is being held by a shady breeder.

The filmmaker is less interested in telling a story here (the mid-length is more structured to serve this purpose) than she is in observing the relations between the brothers, and those between them and the breathtaking nature that surrounds them. And in such isolation (some of the shooting locations are at an altitude of over 2,400 metres), where the only structure comes in the form of daily routines, the young men’s minds tend to go into overdrive. The occasional bouts of narration that Seliškar applies are both matter-of-fact and poetic, so they better succeed in painting a picture of the mental states, rather than in driving the story, which is also the filmmaker’s intention.

Technically, The Mountain Won’t Move is a maverick work. The filming took place over several weeks-long spans during a period of five years, and the locations are not exactly accessible, so the image- and sound-recording crews had to follow the subjects around during their mundane, repetitive work for days on end over the harsh terrain, taking care not to step into the others’ line of sight and not to disturb the harmony between the animals. The end result is nothing short of amazing on a sensory level. From cinematographer Brand Ferro’s point of view, we can see both the beauty and the danger of the place in bright, summery colours and crisp, digital visuals. This beauty and danger are further enhanced through Vladimir Rakić’s sound design, in which we can make out individual noises over the overall natural cacophony, while the austere use of Iztok Koren’s ethno-sounding music is also a nice touch.

For sure, there are parallels to be drawn with other documentaries about people in nature and people on the fringes of society, as Seliškar is not trying to redefine these sub-genres. However, The Mountain Won’t Move is a deeply personal work and a frank, in-depth observation of an endangered way of life.

Drop

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Moram da priznam, dragi čitaoci, da nikako ne kapiram mehaniku romanse u sadašnjem trenutku. Nekada se znalo: bioskop i zajednička kanta kokica da se prsti dodiruju, ali svakom svoje piće. Posle šetnja po gradu makar do idealnog kafića gde se slažu utisci i planiraju daljnje aktivnosti, možda neka izložba, koncert, „klabing“ ili, pak, neka klopa ili još šetnje u dvoje, daleko od nepredvidljivih gužvi, što je možda i najbolje. Sve je to elegancijom podsećalo na tango, ali bez strogih sudija koji bi brojali greške i promašene korake. Ili to tako biva u dvadesetima.

Možda sam, sad sa četrdeset i kusur, samo mator, pritisnut dnevnim brigama porodičnog života, pa stoga ispao iz štosa. Možda se samo užasavam depersonalizovane komunikacije i aplikacija za sve, pa i za „uparivanje“. Svakako, ako ne bih okretao na komediju, verovatno na tragu neprijatne „stend-up“ improvizacije, ceo taj svet nalaženja, sastanaka i upoznavanja preko komunikacije „zatvorenih karata“ bih percipirao kao ne naročito originalan psihološki horor.

Drop Kristofera Lendona (Happy Death Day oba dela, Freaky, scenario još za Paranormal Activity serijal) napeti je triler smešten u okruženje prvog sastanka između dvoje zrelih ljudi koji se ne odvija po planu. A i za sastanak, i za očekivanja, i za njihovo iznevereavanje krive su, makar delom, aplikacije.

Vajolet (Megan Fahi, zvezda serija The Bold Type i The White Lotus) je udovica i samohrana majka u tridesetim godinama, a radi kao psihoterapeutkinja za žrtve traume i nasilja u vezi. Ona je to i sama bila: njen pokojni muž Blejk (Majkl Šej u flešbek scenama) ju je maltretirao, a još od uvodne scene se sugeriše da ga je ona možda u samoodbrani ubila. Bilo kako bilo, Vajolet od Blejkove smrti nije izlazila na sastanke s muškarcima, ali je Henri (Brendon Sklenar, nedavno viđen u It Ends with Us i seriji 1923) pokazao izuzetnu upornost, strpljenje i takt kako bi je izveo. Henri je inače istih godina kao Vajolet, fotograf je i radi za gradonačelnika Čikaga.

Vajolet uredi čuvanje za svog sina Tobija (Džejkob Robinson) tako što pozove svoju sestru Džen (Vajolet Robinson) da pazi na njega dok je ona po prvi put odsutna iz kuće uveče. Njihov sastanak je zapravo večera u finom restoranu, popularnom mestu za romantične izlaske, na vrhu jednog od čikaških solitera odakle se vidi ceo grad. Henri malo kasni, pa Vajolet odlučuje da ga sačeka na šanku gde se upušta u konverzaciju sa šankericom (Gejbrijel Rajan) koja se nagledala svega, „sapatnikom“ Ričardom (Rid Dajamond, možda ga se sećamo kao detektiva Kelermana u seriji Homicide) koji takođe čeka svoju pratilju Dajen s kojom ima susret naslepo, kao i sa ljigavim i lagano pijanim pijanistom Filom (Ed Viks).

Henri dolazi i sve kreće lagano i ugodno, on je i uživo pun razumevanja i strpljiv. Ne smeta čak ni to što im je konobar Met (Džefri Self) neiskusan, brbljiv i u tome pomalo netaktičan. A onda Vajolet počinju da dolaze poruke na mobilni telefon preko servisa nalik na Air Drop, što podrazumeva da ih šalje neko iz restorana sa petnaestak metara udaljenosti ili manje. Vajolet je zbog toga, očekivano, iznervirana, a Henri pokušava da je smiri i pokaže zdravu dozu razumevanja za njene osećaje.

U početku su to „mimovi“ s interneta i neslane šale, ali se ubrzo otkriva da ona nije izabrana slučajno. Ko god da joj to šalje, ima svog „čoveka“, maskiranog napadača, u njenoj kući, pa joj tako preti. Ista osoba takođe pomno prati i prisluškuje situaciju u restoranu. Od nje zahteva da preduzme tačno određene korake, a konačna meta je upravo Henri, i to zbog svog posla, jer je video i snimio nešto što nije smeo.

Pitanje je ko je koristi kao figuru u toj morbidnoj šahovskoj partiji. Je li to konobar? Je li to možda gost sa kojim se slučajno sudarila na ulasku? Je li to pripiti pijanista? Ili možda neko iz većeg društva raspojasanih gostiju? Vajolet je takođe u problemu jer ne želi biti otkrivena, kako od strane Henrija, tako i od strane osoblja restorana koje već primećuje da se čudno ponaša, a mora nekako i ubediti napadača da sarađuje s njim dok zaista ne želi da naudi Henriju koji joj se jako dopada kao osoba.

Dok Drop ide linijom ekonomičnog trilera s tek nekoliko likova i snimljenog na samo dve lokacije, odlično se drži. Kao prekaljeni scenarista i reditelj sklon inovaciji jasnih koncepata u žanrovskom filmu, Kristofer Lendon sjajno kontroliše situaciju i dozirano dodaje na napetosti u, čini se, sasvim običnim i očekivanim situacijama. Kompozitor Ber MekKriri, direktor fotografije Mark Spajser i montažer Ben Boduin mu tu zdušno priskaču u pomoć solidno odrađenim poslom, bilo da je reč o tačno pogođenim i tempiranim „uletima“ muzike, švenkovima i vožnjama koji nam otkrivaju tačno onoliko mikro-topografije koliko je potrebno ili ubačenim „akrobacijama“ koje nas zabavljaju dovoljno da ne primetimo da scenario na momente ostaje bez „pogonskog goriva“.

Lendon takođe zna da, kada se u trileru ili hororu podižu ulozi, likovi i njihove emocije moraju biti pravilno „usidreni“. Iako nije sam pisao scenario (to su učinili Džilijan Džejkobs i Kris Rouč koji takođe stoje iza filmova kao što su Truth or Dare i Fantasy Island), Kristofer Lendon zna da ga „pročita“ i usmeri glumce. U tom smislu, Megan Fahi i Brendon Sklenar su izvanredni i pojedinačno, ali i zajedno, jer između njih sve pršti od izrazito uverljive hemije. Ostali, u teoriji, imaju manje posla, odnosno po jedan ili dva sentimenta koji moraju pogoditi, ali i njihove interpretacije su vrlo dobre: Vajolet Bin je bezobrazna taman koliko treba kao Džen, Džefri Self izvodi izuzetnu improvizaciju na tragu „krindža“ i anti-komedije, a Rid Dajamond skriva jednu neodređeno preteću notu iza smotanosti i slatkorečivosti.

Problem s filmom, međutim, nastupa na kraju i izvire upravo iz uloga koji su prethodno podignuti do „nebeskih visina“. Jednostavno rečeno, to sve treba nekako raspetljati, scenario u tom smislu ide na nagla rešenja koja zahtevaju previše „saradnje“ od gledaoca da ne primeti logičke rupe, a Kristofer Lendon kao da nema kuda, osim da to izvede kroz žanrovske „set-pis“ sekvence koje pomalo odudaraju od onoga što smo do sada videli. Možda bi Drop ispao bolje da je reditelj napisao i završnu ruku scenarija, ali i ovako je prilično dobar i efektan triler.

A Minecraft Movie

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Kako smo se nadali, još smo se dobro i udali, jer A Minecraft Movie je (još i) gledljiv film, na mahove čak i umereno zabavan. Producentima i kompanijama je, međutim, to „puna šaka brade“, sa zaradom duplo većom od budžeta nakon prve sedmice prikazivanja, te sa statusom najvećeg hita dosadašnjeg toka 2025. godine.

A svašta je tu moglo da pođe po zlu i zapravo je čudo da nije. Za početak, projekat je proveo desetak godina u razvoju tokom kojih su se menjali koncepti, scenaristi i reditelji, što je obično loš znak.

Nadalje, Minecraft je kao video-igrica možda i najdirektniji primer „sandbox“-sorte gde igrači mogu stvarati sami za sebe, dakako po određenim pravilima, ali zapravo bez limita. To znači da sama igrica nema priču, a film je, naročito onaj s komercijalnim ambicijama, pre svega umetnost pričanja priče. Zapravo, u teoriji je teško to „prodati“ kao ideju za film, ali ako je uspelo na primeru Lego-filma (originalni se potpisniku ovih redova nije baš svideo zbog datiranosti ne-Lego referenci i siljenja onih drugih), znači da je led probijen.

I konačno, možda je najviše razloga za zebnju izazivala činjenica da ćemo imati igrani film u vrlo animiranom, zapravo 8-bit „pikselastom“ okruženju. Ako se samo setimo kako je propao originalni Super Mario Bros. (1993), i zbog drugih razloga, ali najviše zbog te konceptualne greške, onda se valja pripremiti na najgore.

Pa čak ni naslov „A Minecraft Movie“, s neodređenim članom, nije ulivao poverenje. U suštini, u pitanju je marketinški trik kojim se s jedne strane podvlači skromnost („to je samo jedna od priča iz Minecraft-sveta, nikako jedina i ultimativna), ali i rano pozicioniranje za franšiziranje u budućnosti, ako ovo prođe. Za sada se čini da je prošlo iznad očekivanja, ali da mi ipak vidimo kakvu su nam priču servirali Džered Hes (Napoleon Dynamite, Nacho Libre, Gentlemen Broncos) i omanja armija scenarista...

Što se priče tiče, Stiv (Džek Blek) koji je celog života bio opsednut kopanjem pronalazi predmet koji otvara portal u idilični svet. Kada otvori drugi portal u pakleni svet, susreće se s svinjskom vešticom Malgošom koja hoće da se domogne njegovog amuleta kako bi zavladala svetovima, pa zato šalje svog pripitomljenog vuka u „naš“ svet da predmet sakrije. Njega će u zabitom gradiću pronaći brat i sestra, Henri (Sebastijan Hansen) i Natali (Ema Majers), pa će, zajedno s bivšim šampionom video-igrica Geretom zvanim „Đubretar“ (Džejson Momoa) i agenticom za nekretnine Don (Danijela Bruks) otići u pikselasti svet gde će se, zajedno sa Stivom, pokušati izboriti protiv pohlepne i beskrupulozne Malgoše.

U suštini, priča liči na Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017), ali je posuta silnim referencama i „uskršnjim jajima“ iz igrice Minecraft, ali i drugima iz Hesovog opusa i generalno domena američke komedije. Jasno, Henri je njihov željeni alter-ego i tačka gledišta nas u publici kojima se prodaje priča da sve možemo ako smo dovoljno kreativni, Geret je hvalisavi pajser, Stiv poznavalac prilika i mentor u svetu, Natali zatečena situacijom, a Don empatična i mentorska figura u međuljudskim odnosima.

Glumci se s njima nose tako što ostaju u zadatim tipovima, a Momoa i Blek posežu za karikaturom, odnosno za svojim potpisnim potezima (poput pevanja i muziciranja iz čista mira) kako bi priča išla dalje, do nove igračke ili ne-igračke reference. Iako uspevaju da ne zabrljaju previše, zapravo se cela priča mogla ispričati i kao animacija dosledna izvornoj igrici koja je pritom i dovoljno otvorena za naknadno kodiranje i programiranje.

Naravno, u samoj priči ima i viškova, pa čak i suludih skretanja kao što je to pod-zaplet s direktorkom škole (Dženifer Kulidž), njenim bivšim mužem i odbeglim Minecraft-seljaninom koji je završio u našem svetu. A scena posle odjavne špice nam jasno daje do znanja da se nastavak sprema...

Percepcija filma dosta zavisi i od početne pozicije, što je u slučaju vašeg kritičara ona ne-fanovska i čak ne-igračka, ali i pozicija oca jednog igrača-početnika. U tom smislu, kao marketing-alatka, teško da će film privući nove igrače, ali to mu i nije cilj. Cilj je bio servisirati postojeće fanove i na tome zaraditi. Zadatak je ispunjen, ali nemojmo se zavaravati da je A Minecraft Movie kvalitetan film.

A Film a Week - Peacemaker / Mirotvorac

 previously published on Cineuropa

There is a consensus, of sorts, on the level of the whole of Croatian society that the Homeland War, or the War of Independence, in the 1990s was inevitable, and the division between the sides was simply black and white: the Serbs were war-mongering aggressors, while the Croats were victims caught off guard by how the situation developed, so their resistance against the aggressor was purely heroic. The war leaders and commanders are still regarded as heroes, while the efforts of those who had tried to defuse the tense situation before it exploded into a full-blown war are swept under the rug. One of those unsung heroes is Josip Reihl-Kir, the protagonist and title character of Ivan Ramljak’s newest documentary, Peacemaker, which has just premiered at ZagrebDox.

Reihl-Kir was the chief of the Osijek Police Department, which covered the area near the Croatian-Serbian border. As the ethnic tensions in the region mounted over the course of one year, from 1990-1991, he was the authority figure that was trusted by both local Croats and Serbs, so he used this fact to avoid the open armed conflict, or at least delay it for as long as possible. However, the “hawks” on both sides misinterpreted his words or publicly attacked him for cowardice. On 1 July 1991, he was assassinated by a Croatian paratrooper, Anton Gudelj, who was convicted for his act, but only much, much later. Peacemaker portrays the last year of Reihl-Kir’s life in an atmosphere that leads to bloody conflict.

Collaborating with journalists Hrvoje Zovko and Drago Hedl in the script department, Ramljak creates a documentary that plays out like the tensest of crime-thrillers, although the events and the people they involved are not exactly unknown in Croatia. Relying on multiple narrators, such as business owner and Croatian Army volunteer Nikola Jaman, former security service operative Zdravko Pejić, local journalist Goran Flauder and, to a minor extent, local politician Gordana Ajduković and Reihl-Kir’s widow Jadranka, Ramljak re-tells the events from 34-35 years ago with clinical factual precision, but also constructs the archetype of a narrative movie, positioning Josip Reihl-Kir as its hero, and political and paramilitary leader Branimir Glavaš as the villain.

Peacemaker is equally stunning on the directing level, since it is quite creative in playing with our expectations and overcoming the objective obstacles in terms of the very material included in the film. It is an archival type of documentary, but the actual archive footage or photo material regarding Josip Reihl-Kir is neither extensive nor varied enough to construct the feature out of that alone. Ramljak fills in the blanks with archival footage on other topics (one of the most stunning sequences provides a prologue and an epilogue to one iconic TV clip where a tank crashes into a small, old car), and with home-video shots that show daily life in the city of Osijek and its surroundings during that period, revealing the increasingly tense atmosphere. Ramljak is clinical in that department as well: the footage and the narration match perfectly and serve the story, but some praise also has to be reserved for the inspired editing by Damir Čučić.

With Peacemaker, Ivan Ramljak once again proves himself to be a contemporary master of documentary cinema. This is a film that requires complete and utter silence in the darkened theatre hall – preferably even without blinking. It is absolutely gripping and is a bona-fide masterpiece.

A Film a Week - Soil and Wings / Krila i tlo / Toprak ve Kanatlar

 previously published on Cineuropa

We tend to see religion in a certain, uniform light that is highly simplified and often unfavourable, to put it mildly. If we were to take Islam as an example, the first images that could potentially spring to mind may be the stereotypes of discrimination against women and fundamentalism. However, Islam is more diverse than that in a theological sense, as it is merely a wider framework of varied “schools of thought” and customs, beliefs and practices that are rooted not just in different interpretations of the scripture, but also in different folklores.

In his newest documentary Soil and Wings, Serbian filmmaker Stefan Malešević takes us to a very small and very specific Muslim community in North Macedonia. They are Bektashi, a small “sect” residing in the village of Kanatlarci. Their origins stretch to the Janissary soldiers of the Ottoman Turkish empire, while their practices are Sufi-Dervish. Soil and Wings has premiered in the regional competition of the 21st ZagrebDox.

On the “soil” level, we get to learn a thing or two about the community through the members of the Arifovski family, their hard-working life in the countryside, where they grow tobacco and watermelons, and their ways and beliefs. For instance, they are pantheists who equate not just women with men, but also humans with animals, plants and other things believed to have a soul. They also drink alcohol and find it medicinal in small doses. They speak an archaic dialect of the Turkish language, but the elders who have more contact with the outside world also communicate in Macedonian. And although they live in some sort of seclusion from other nations and religious groups, they do not reject the modern world. On another level, that of the “wings”, we get to see their psychedelic, mesmerising rituals being practised, and to hear their equally psychedelic and mesmerising myths and legends that shape their inner worlds.

Malešević definitely has a knack for studying small, secluded communities, as he demonstrated in his previous documentary Gora (2016): he proves he has the eye of an anthropologist, trying to capture the human essence beneath the surface of economic conditions, the burden of history and daily politics. With Soil and Wings, he immerses himself in the milieu even more deeply, and the result is not an observer’s film about the Bektashi people and their community, but rather a movie that feels, and is, very “Bektashi” in terms of its atmosphere.

Working as his own cinematographer, Malešević often uses long, slowly rotating panorama shots that become the perfect tool to either portray the tranquillity with which his subjects approach their lives, or to give a visual background to the voice-over narrations of their legends. The intelligently austere use of the music, composed by Branislav Jovančević, and the discreet sound design by Bojan Palikuća complement the visual component, while Jelena Maksimović’s typically inspired editing establishes a fitting, meditative pace.

In the end, and especially in its otherworldly ending sequence, Soil and Wings becomes quite a hypnotic experience that remains respectful to its subjects, and faithful to their way of life, rituals and beliefs. As such, it should also stay with the viewer for a long time after the screening is over.

Funk YU

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Svi smo čuli pesmu Ulica Jorgovana Darka Domijana. Na radiju u originalnoj verziji ili na terasi nekog hotela na Jadranu u izvođenju lokalnog tezga-benda ili klavijaturiste-pevača. Pesma kao pesma, tipičan jugoslovenski šlager.

Ali, zapravo, od same pesme je mnogo zanimljivija priča o singl-ploči koja je postala hit u kolekcionarskim krugovima par decenija nakon što je originalan i prilično veliki tiraž rasprodat. Razlog tome nije naslovna pesma „singlice“ nego njena B-strana. Na njoj se nalazio žestoki fank-komad Zlatokosa koji se tada, 70-ih godina prošlog veka, baš i nije toliko vrteo, ali je koju deceniju kasnije postao hit među di-džejevima koji su ponovo otkrili to blago i krenuli da vrte i remiksuju na svojim žurkama.

Potraga za pločom ujedno je i inicijalna kapisla za potragu u kreativnom dokumentarcu Franka Dujmića, Funk YU. Ova hrvatsko-crnogorska koprodukcija upravo je imala premijeru na 21. izadnju ZagrebDox festivala. Zanimljiva je i pozadinska priča o filmu čija je produkcija trajala dugo i delimično je finansirana donacijama zainteresovane buduće publike, što inače nije naročito česta praksa u kinematografiji ovih prostora.

Franko Dujmić od početka zauzima ležerni, pomalo zezatorski stav „kastujući“ samog sebe kao mladog i „zelenog“ kolekcionara kojem je Domijanova ploča „sveti gral“ koji treba negde nabaviti ili „iskopati“. Da bi za to imao ikakve šanse, Franko mora da angažuje stručnjaka za takve potrage, Jerka (Jerko Marčić) koji će ga usmeravati, ako ne i direktno voditi. Frankov put vodi od Podgorice i Peđe Radovića, preko Toše u Skoplju, Dr Smeđeg Šećera u Rijeci, ekipe oko prodavnice Yugovinyl u Beogradu, trojice di-džejeva u Ljubljani i na kraju nazad u Zagreb na „konvenciju“ regionalnih di-džejeva koji vrte opaki fank.

Putem će Franko, a i mi ćemo s njim, naučiti dosta toga o istoriji fank i pop-muzike ovih prostora, audiofiliji, kolekcionarstvu i konceptu „kopanja“. Poslednje dve stvari nisu iste, ponekad čak i stoje u koliziji. Jer kolekcionari vole da kupuju, prodaju i pokazuju svoju kolekciju, a „digeri“ da iskopaju zaboravljeni raritet, podele ga s drugima i na taj način sačuvaju od zaborava.

Mnogo toga je, ako ne i skoro sve, u Funk YU čisti „gimik“ i jasni su razlozi zašto je Dujmić tom pristupu pribegao. Film sve vreme zabavlja gledaoca i drži mu pažnju u formatu od 80-ak minuta, iako je tu realno bilo materijala možda za srednji, „televizijski“ metar. Uz to, film je visokostilizovan, lepo dizajniran, kompetentno smontiran, pa zbog toga i na režijski pametan način zaobilazi konvencije „govorećih glava“, odnosno takve neizbežne momente organski ubacuje u detaljnije dizajniranu pozadinu.

Naravno, ima Funk YU i svojih problema koji su uglavnom rezultat mladalačke nadobudnosti i precenjivanja sopstvenih mogućnosti. Na primer, ne uspevaju baš sve fore i fazoni koji se gotovo rafalno ispaljuju što kroz Dujmićev skript, što kroz Marčićeve improvizacije, a i sagovornicima se ponekad toleriše ne baš utemeljeno „loženje“ i hvalisanje. Iskusnijim gledaocima će tako vrlo brzo postati jasno da nas režiser pomalo vuče za nos tako što razvlači svoj materijal preko svojih mogućnosti.

Međutim, Funk Yu svoju misiju na kraju ispunjava, nedostacima uprkos. S projekcije ćemo izaći zabavljeni, nasmejani ili čak ozareni. Sigurno ćemo poželeti da uzmemo da slušamo muziku, pa zašto to ne bi bio jugoslovenski fank, idealno na ploči!

Harvest

 kritika objavljena u dodatku Objektiv dnevnog lista Pobjeda

Atina Rejčel Cangari jedna je od ključnih figura grčkog „weird wave“ kinematografskog pokreta. Sarađivala je s drugom dvojicom ključnih autora, rediteljem Jorgosom Lantimosom koji figurira kao najvažnije ime pokreta i scenaristom Eftimisom Filipuom, čak se može reći da je upravo ona prepoznala njihove talente i pokazala iz svetu. Naime, Cangari je studirala performans na čuvenoj njujorškoj akademiji Tiš, a posle i filmsku režiju na univerzitetu u Ostinu, skupa sa Ričardom Linklejterom u čijem je filmu Slacker (1991) igrala jednu od uloga.

Njen opus u dugom metru nije toliko impozantan brojčano, ali su u pitanju osebujni filmovi. Prvenac The Slow Business of Going (2000) snimljen je na engleskom jeziku i u američkoj produkciji, ali se zapravo može tvrditi pa je poslužio kao inspiracija za kasnije „grčko čudaštvo“. Attenberg (2010) jedan je od paradigmatičnih filmova pokreta, a Chevalier (2015), pak, jedan od najuspelijih i, ako ćemo pravo, najboljih.

Sa Harvest se Cangari vraća engleskom jeziku i internacionalno poznatim glumcima, pa se na površini film čini prijemčivijim široj publici, iako u njemu ima dosta čudačkog i „art“-štimunga. Nakon premijere u Veneciji, film je putovao po izabranim festivalima, a na „turneji“ se zaustavio i na austrijskom nacionalnom festivalu Diagonale u Gracu gde je Atina Rejčel Cangari bila počasna internacionalna gošća, pa je tom prilikom napravljena retrospektiva njene karijere.

Sarađujući na scenariju s Džoslin Barns (Nickel Boys), Cangari zapravo adaptira istoimeni roman Džima Krejsa smešten u Škotsku u period „ograđivanja“, odnosno potiskivanja seoskog, kmetovskog stanovništva kako bi se otvorio prostor za uzgoj ovaca za proizvodnju vune i štofa. Neimenovano zabačeno selo u kojem se priča odvija, međutim, nije se po načinu života puno promenilo od srednjeg veka: zemlja se obrađuje ručno, žito se takođe ručno trebi, kokoši i svinje slobodno šetaju između kuća, a blato je posvuda. Gospodara Kenta (Hari Meling) se poštuje, a on je zauzvrat dobar i milostiv prema seljanima. Njegova veza sa seljanima je i njegov prijatelj iz detinjstva i bivši lični sluga Volter (Kejleb Lendri Džouns) koji se tu na selu oženio i nastanio.

Radnja filma se odvija u toku jedne prilično događajne sedmice. Sve počinje s požarom u ambaru koji seljani nisu uspeli da ugase na vreme kako ne bi stradali gospodarevi golubovi. Osumnjičene za požar pronalaze u troje stranaca predvođenih ženom (Talisa Tešera) koju optužuju da je veštica zbog njene boje kože. Gospodar Kent, međutim, dolazi u pratnju drugog tamnoputog čoveka, Erla (Arinze Kene), čija je dužnost da mapira područje, a Volter dobija zadatak da mu u tome asistira. Prava nevolja, međutim, izbija sa spoznajom da i gospodar ima svoje gospodare, odnosno da tu zemlju nije nasledio baš on, nego dalji rođak njegove pokojne žene Džordan (Frenk Dilejn) koji ima potpuno drugačiju viziju budućnosti od „seoske idile“ koja je tu uspostavljena. Zato on dolazi sa svitom da uspostavi svoju vlast nad nasledstvom, pa Volter kao naša tačka gledišta mora da se snađe u novonastaloj situaciji.

Vizuelno, Cangari „gađa“ ugođaj realizma, pa od glumaca zahteva da budu ekspresivni s relativno malo dijaloga koji po pravilu ostaje kriptičan, a od direktora fotografije Šona Prajsa Vilijamsa da hvata kontraste između idilične lepote prirode i blatnjave ružnoće sela i ljudi obučenih u rite. U tom smislu, magija analogne fotografije na traku od 16mm je tu prisutna u svojoj zrnastoj slavi, dok montaža uspostavlja spori tempo koji gledaoca uvlači duboko u svoj svet. Prisutna su, međutim, određena iskakanja od tog realizma, pa se mogu čuti savremeniji kolokvijalizmi ili videti neprirodno iskošeni uglovi kamere s kojima se pomalo i preteruje, dok je sve garnirano psihodeličnom gitarskom muzikom na tragu 70-ih, čime film dobija „weird wave“ notu pomešanu s odjecima britanskih „ponoćnih filmova“, radova Larsa fon Trira i ruskih reditelja poput Germana i Balabanova.

Jasno, Harvest je metafora za opasnosti ksenofobije, klasnog društva i najšire shvaćenog kapitalizma za sve upletene društvene slojeve upakovana u pod-žanr folklornog horora nalik na The Wicker Man (1973). Pravi užas tu dolazi od bizarnih rituala kao što su „vaspitavanje“ dece lupanjem glave u kamene-međaše kako bi znali kamo pripadaju i kažnjavanja stranaca, ali i od svakodnevnog ponašanja ljudi jednih prema drugima. S jedne strane, imamo odnose moći, a sa druge mentalitet rulje, a ni u jednom, ni u drugom slučaju tu nema puno mesta za lojalnost i ljudskost. Kao takav je dosta efektan, ali može biti i frustrirajući i iscrpljujući.

A Film a Week - My Dad's Lessons / Lekcije mog tate

 previously published on Cineuropa

It would be a relatively typical story: a woman prioritises her ambition over loyalty, relationships, friendships and family, leaves town and goes off to make it on her own in the “big, wide world” but ultimately fails, so she has to come back and face the music. Make no mistake, it would be different if that woman were a man because in movies, men get a shot at redemption, while women do not – the best they can hope for is some leniency from their milieu.

An individual’s dealing with the setting of a small town was also the topic of the directorial debut by editor Evi Romen, Why Not You (2020), but that movie revolved around a younger male protagonist and the trauma he survived but cannot exactly be open about. In Happyland, however, we have a woman as the protagonist and failure as the reason for her return. It has premiered at the Diagonale (where it won Best Original Score in a Fiction Feature into the bargain), and although it’s scheduled for national distribution this spring, its chances of international festival travel are slim.

Helen (Andrea Wenzl) is a stylish failure with a larger-than-life artistic ego. After causing the last in a string of scandals in London, she jumps in her Jaguar and drives back to her hometown in Lower Austria, where her mother (Michaela Rosen) owns the titular sports centre. Helen’s future is to manage it in a town inhabited by her die-hard fans as well as people she has crossed, such as her former friends and bandmates.

However, the appearance of an impossibly cool young man named Joe (Simon Frühwirth, the star of Gregor Schmidinger’s 2019 title Nevrland) rocks her world. He comes to her place of work as a candidate for the position of rock-climbing instructor, while he also plays drums with her former bandmates – but his true passion are horses, so his dream is to establish his own ranch. Maybe now would be the right time for Helen to have a serious conversation with her former partner Tom (Michael Pink) in order to learn something about the mysterious young man she is about to fall for.

The script, written by Romen herself, relies too heavily on an attempt to keep the “elephant in the room” under wraps for long enough so that the ultimate revelation will have the right impact. However, the dilemma is “phoned in” early on, so more seasoned viewers can easily guess what is at stake here. Also, the filmmaker’s ethics could be viewed as more than a tad conservative, since her protagonist is being punished for expressing her ambition, while illogically assuming that nobody from her social circle has ever travelled or lived outside of the town.

On the other hand, as a director, Romen manages to overcome these obstacles to a certain extent. She has a knack for nailing the small-town atmosphere, bristling with open secrets and petty feuds. Also, she grasps the trajectory of a (failed) musician’s career path from some kind of artsy, punk-rock scene to harbouring singer-songwriter ambitions. The choice of music and the inclusion of quasi-archival footage in appropriate formats is also quite fitting. Furthermore, Romen manages to get the actors in a very playful mode, and Wenzl uses her theatre chops to construct the big-screen role of her career. In the end, Happyland attains the level of a solid movie that has the potential to talk to regular audiences.

A Film a Week - Happyland

 previously published on Cineuropa

It would be a relatively typical story: a woman prioritises her ambition over loyalty, relationships, friendships and family, leaves town and goes off to make it on her own in the “big, wide world” but ultimately fails, so she has to come back and face the music. Make no mistake, it would be different if that woman were a man because in movies, men get a shot at redemption, while women do not – the best they can hope for is some leniency from their milieu.

An individual’s dealing with the setting of a small town was also the topic of the directorial debut by editor Evi Romen, Why Not You (2020), but that movie revolved around a younger male protagonist and the trauma he survived but cannot exactly be open about. In Happyland, however, we have a woman as the protagonist and failure as the reason for her return. It has premiered at the Diagonale (where it won Best Original Score in a Fiction Feature into the bargain), and although it’s scheduled for national distribution this spring, its chances of international festival travel are slim.

Helen (Andrea Wenzl) is a stylish failure with a larger-than-life artistic ego. After causing the last in a string of scandals in London, she jumps in her Jaguar and drives back to her hometown in Lower Austria, where her mother (Michaela Rosen) owns the titular sports centre. Helen’s future is to manage it in a town inhabited by her die-hard fans as well as people she has crossed, such as her former friends and bandmates.

However, the appearance of an impossibly cool young man named Joe (Simon Frühwirth, the star of Gregor Schmidinger’s 2019 title Nevrland) rocks her world. He comes to her place of work as a candidate for the position of rock-climbing instructor, while he also plays drums with her former bandmates – but his true passion are horses, so his dream is to establish his own ranch. Maybe now would be the right time for Helen to have a serious conversation with her former partner Tom (Michael Pink) in order to learn something about the mysterious young man she is about to fall for.

The script, written by Romen herself, relies too heavily on an attempt to keep the “elephant in the room” under wraps for long enough so that the ultimate revelation will have the right impact. However, the dilemma is “phoned in” early on, so more seasoned viewers can easily guess what is at stake here. Also, the filmmaker’s ethics could be viewed as more than a tad conservative, since her protagonist is being punished for expressing her ambition, while illogically assuming that nobody from her social circle has ever travelled or lived outside of the town.

On the other hand, as a director, Romen manages to overcome these obstacles to a certain extent. She has a knack for nailing the small-town atmosphere, bristling with open secrets and petty feuds. Also, she grasps the trajectory of a (failed) musician’s career path from some kind of artsy, punk-rock scene to harbouring singer-songwriter ambitions. The choice of music and the inclusion of quasi-archival footage in appropriate formats is also quite fitting. Furthermore, Romen manages to get the actors in a very playful mode, and Wenzl uses her theatre chops to construct the big-screen role of her career. In the end, Happyland attains the level of a solid movie that has the potential to talk to regular audiences.

Snow White

 kritika objavljena u dodatku Objektiv dnevnog lista Pobjeda

U trenutku pisanja teksta, igrana verzija Diznijevog animiranog klasika u režiji Marka Veba (The 500 Days of Summer, dva The Amazing Spider-Man filma) ima tu „čast“ da se nalazi na prvom mestu najgorih filmova svih vremena na sajtu IMDB s prosečnom ocenom od 1,5 na uzorku od oko 285 hiljada datih ocena. To nam možda govori o organizovanoj „anti-fanovskoj“ kampanji da se film zakuca za dno, ali činjenica da nema onih drugih koji bi bili spremni da ga „brane“ u još jednoj epizodi „kulturnih ratova“ ukazuje na skromne kvalitativne domete. Ni brojke s blagajni ne daju razloga za optimizam: nakon prve sedmice prikazivanja, film je dogurao tek do 90-ak miliona dolara zarade, što predstavlja trećinu uloženih sredstava. Jednom rečju – potop.

Negativni odium počeo je s prvim vestima da se na projektu radi 2016. godine. Do gotovog scenarija Erin Kreside Vilson (Men, Women and Children, The Girl on the Train) i izbora Veba za reditelja prošlo je tri godine. Nakon toga, pandemija je odložila produkciju. Dve glavne glumice su za svoje uloge potvrđene 2021. godine, što je „proslavljeno“ internet-pošalicom o lepoti Rejčel Zegler na koju je, kao, ljubomorna Gal Gadot. Film je sniman od marta do jula 2022. godine uglavnom u studiju Pajnvud u Londonu, a početak istog je obeležio i – požar. Još dve i po godine je film proveo u post-produkciji, a prvi foršpan je ponovo pokrenuo lavinu pogrdnih i posprdnih komentara po internetu.

U međuvremenu, dogodilo se to da je Rejčel Zegler krajnje neoprezno i na svoju ruku izjavljivala svašta, od branjenja izbora sebe za ulogu time da su i izvorna bajka braće Grim i originalna animirana ekranizacije popularne u „Latino-sferi“ (znamo, gledali smo Blancanieves Pabla Bergera), pa do napada na Diznijev crtani da je zastareo i toksičan zbog toga što princ proganja Snežanu, a ona zapravo ima pasivnu ulogu da ga čeka. Takođe, izbila je svađa na političke teme između glumica: Zegler je stala na stranu Palestine, a Izraelka Gal Gadot na stranu svoje zemlje. Za dodatnu kontroverzu se javio i Piter Dinklidž problematizujući to što za uloge patuljaka nisu angažovani glumci s tim stanjem, već su upotrebljeni CGI i glasovni glumci različitih profila i visina.

Sama priča, pak, unekoliko se drži šablona iz bajke. Neimenovanim kraljevstvom vladali su dobri kralj (Hedli Frejzer) i njegova kraljica (Lorena Andrea) koji su više nego išta želeli da dobiju dete. Želja im se ispunila jedne snežne noći, pa su malu princezu u čast tome nazvali Snežana (svetlina kože je, zgodno, izostavljena, a i kosa boje abonosa je pala kao kolateralna žrtva ili se, pak, podrazumeva – prosudite sami). Snežana (Emilija Fošer) je izrasla u dragu, prijaznu i pravednu devojčicu, ali je porodicu zadesila tragedija: kraljica je umrla, a kralj se oženio lepom stankinjom (Gadot) koja ga je opčinila.

Ona je, naravno, bila zla čarobnica, pa je kralja na prevaru poslala u rat, Snežanu zadržala u dvorcu kao sluškinju, a podanike je izrabljivala, od njih krala i surovo ih kažnjavala. Jedino što ju je zanimalo, pored bogatstva, bio je njen status lepotice, zbog čega je ispitivala ogledalo na zidu svoje sobe. Kada joj je ogledalo jednog dana reklo da je Snežana (sada već ulogu preuzima Rejčel Zegler), ona je naredila lovcu (Ansu Kabia) da je ubije, ali se lovac smilovao i pustio je u šumu.

Dalje znamo: sedam patuljaka, njihova kućica, otrovna jabuka i – princ. Doduše, princ sada ima ime: Džonatan (Endrju Barnep) i zapravo nije princ, već „robin-hudovski“ vođa grupe odmetnika koji se skrivaju u šumi, pljačkaju dvor da bi nahranili siromašne i zaklinju se na vernost nestalom kralju. I pre cele zavere protiv Snežane, imamo „meet cute“ momenat između nje i Džonatana, tako da je makar jedan nedostatak Diznijevog crtanog filma ispravljen – on sada zapravo ima motiv da je poljubi i probudi. Kao „bonus“ možemo da uzmemo i to da vođa patuljaka, Uča (glas Džeremija Svifta) u jednom trenutku objašnjava ekonomska kretanja u kraljevstvu s bazičnih marksističkih pozicija, ali to ipak ne vodi prema raspletu u kojem Snežana predvodi komunističku revoluciju, ukida svoj tron i proglašava socijalističku republiku.

Iz današnje perspektive, jasno je da je originalni animirani film imao svojih problema etičke prirode i da danas to može izgledati zastarelo, prevaziđeno i duboko konzervativno, ali je on makar bio izraz svog vremena. Uostalom, nije da bajka braće Grim u međuvremenu nije dobila neka nova čitanja, pa ako vam je spot za pesmu Sonne grupe Rammstein previše subverzivan i neukusan, podsetimo se da je Tarsem Sing režirao Mirror Mirror (2012), a da je Džo Nusbaum postavio Snežanu u okruženje američke srednje škole u filmu Sydney White (2007), a bilo je tu još čitanja, od konvencionalnih, preko fantazijskih, komičnih i „hororičnih“ do erotsko-parodičnih.

Problem s novim Diznijevim igranim je što zapravo ne korespondira ni sa čim, osim sa poslovnim trendovima kompanije (CGI, „green screen“, fotorealistična animacija u kojoj šumske životinjice prave ljudske face bez ikakvog razloga) i društvenim trendovima za jedan deo društva, onaj koji sam sebe zove progresivnim. Ovakvo izvrtanje postulata što animiranog klasika, što same bajke ima samo jednu svrhu: „nabijanje“ političke korektnosti, i to pritom radi krajnje nevešto.

Najmanji je problem izbor nešto tamnoputije glumice latinoameričkog porekla za Snežanu. Problem je što Rejčel Zegler nema pravu prezentnost u ulozi, pa u ikoničnom Snežaninom kostimu izgleda kao da je pošla na maskenbal. Za razliku od uloge u West Side Story koja ju je proslavila, ona ovde samo jednom uspeva da povede pesmu, i to od nekoliko prilika, ali ne i da povede revoluciju u ključnom trenutku. Slično vredi i za Gal Gadot koja bi u teoriji mogla da zablista kontra svog tipa Wonder Woman, ali zapravo nema energije da iznese zlobnu kraljicu ni na polju pesme i plesa, ni na polju drame.

E, da, kao i original, i nova verzija Snow White je mjuzikl i taj okvir se koristi u iste svrhe: kad radnja krene da se „vuče“, što je u crtanom oko sredine, a ovde već na početku, jedini spas može predstavljati song i plesna sekvenca. Razlika je, doduše, u pamtljivosti pesama, tako da i u novoj verziji najbolje prolaze reciklaže starih „hitova“ Heigh-Ho i Whistle While You Work, dok su novi songovi krajnje anemični.

Pošto obe navedene uključuju i patuljke, odnosno podvlače njihov grupni karakter, to nas dovodi do rasprave o ispravnosti odluke da oni budu animirani. Iako se odluka iz ove perspektive čini ispravnom s vizuelne i tehničke strane (zapravo je produžena muzička sekvenca za Heigh-Ho ujedno i najimpresivnija u filmu), ostaje nam „Dinklidžov argument“ na koji nije lako dati jednoznačan odgovor. Jer, čak i da su pravi glumci-patuljci uzeti za uloge u koje bi se njihov hendikep prirodno uklopio, što je redak slučaj, te su mitološke uloge ipak stereotipi, pa bi se film opet našao na etički skliskom terenu.

Možda to najbolje oslikava koliki je „sizifov posao“ proguravati političku korektnost kroz nešto što bi makar u teoriji moralo da posluži kao zabava. Snow White možda nije teror amaterizma kao The Room da bi se s pravom okitio naslovom najgoreg filma svih vremena, ali je svejedno popriličan neuspeh u svom neveštom spajanju nespojivog. Scenaristkinja Vilson, režiser Veb i glumica Zegler su se svojski potrudili da Snow White ima harizmu predavanja na koje nas teraju da idemo, a mi bismo radije radili doslovno bilo šta drugo.

A Film a Week - Sugarland

 previously published on Cineuropa

Will romance save us? Or is it dead, and are we living in a “post-romance world”? That is the question that young, up-and-coming Austrian filmmaker Isabella Brunäcker asks in her feature debut, Sugarland. Its world premiere has just taken place at the Diagonale, while its universal topic might make it a reasonably good fit for an international tour of small festivals.

Iga (Jana McKinnon, of The Trouble with Being Born fame) drives a car alone down the highways of Europe, taking the occasional break to smoke a cigarette at a petrol station. On one such occasion, Ethan (Bill Caple, glimpsed in The Buckingham Murders) asks her for a lighter, only to go even further and ask for a ride. Reluctant to have company in the car at first, Iga eventually offers to drive him to the next stop on the way.

They bond over the music they listen to and start opening up to each other: Iga admits that she is not dropping the car off for a friend, but driving all the way to Scotland to see her ex-boyfriend and bring him the stuff he left behind in Vienna after they broke up, while Ethan says he is coming back early from a party trip to Italy with his friends, subsequently admitting that he is trying to find himself and attempting to make some money in order to go back to studies that he abandoned earlier.

The “next stop” keeps getting postponed. It seems that there is some chemistry between them, but no one has enough determination to take one final step. Or is it all just the random stuff people tell each other to kill time while travelling together? Anyhow, a turn of events just before they board a ferry to cross the English Channel will expose the truth about them, their vulnerabilities and their position in life.

Brunäcker fights an uphill battle initially, given that the whole first half of the film is virtually devoid of a plot and serves only as exposition for the third-act developments. Sure, the filmmaker has to start slowly, but the whole setup where we have two ordinary people in an ordinary and very static situation proves to be a huge obstacle, if not a burden. There are films that subvert viewers’ expectations, but Sugarland is not Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise, even though Brunäcker tries to channel that kind of energy, and the two leads draw inspiration from Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, too. However, the setting of a city to walk and talk in proves to be far more interesting than one of motorways and motels. Once the plot kicks in, though, Sugarland becomes a way smoother watch that eloquently checks the boxes of contemporary young people’s anxieties.

The filmmaker eventually answers the questions from the first paragraph – not directly, but with a hint that has been with us right from the start. Sugarland was filmed on 16 mm stock by cinematographer Matthias Helldoppler, which seems quite romantic in today’s digital age. More than this, it creates a sense of natural warmth, even if the weather is misty, the landscapes are grey and mundane, and the characters try to keep each other at a safe distance in order to prevent themselves from falling in love and getting heartbroken too quickly. The romance of film tape might not be able to save the world, but it could just save cinema and a movie like Sugarland.

A Film a Week - Revelations / Gyesirok

 previously published on Asian Movie Pulse

Yeon Sang-ho first established himself as, potentially, the next big thing in animation with his debut- and sophomore features “The Fake” (2013) and “Seoul Station” (2016). With the latter’s live-action sequel, “Train to Busan” (2016), he nominated himself for the title of the new Korean master of genre filmmaking. However, the trilogy’s ending, “Peninsula” (2020) was underwhelming, to put it mildly, even for the COVID-era standards, while two more two more of his flicks, the superhero action comedy “Psychokinesis” (2018) and the Netflix-produced SF-action movie “Jung-E” (2023) were mere passable efforts.

The energetic filmmaker then turned to work on a couple of TV series, but now he is back to the big screens, conditionally, with “Revelations”, an adaptation of his own web comic. Conditionally because “Revelations” is a Netflix piece with no theatre- or festival screening intended, despite the backing from the powerhouse genre auteur Alfonso Cuarron who assumed the role of the executive producer here. Also, this is a step away from Yeon’s general habitat of genre spectacles and towards the psychological realism within the framework of a grim thriller revolving around a child molester / serial killer and a pastor and a police detective who try to catch him.

First we meet the pastor Min-chan (Ryu Jun-yeol, glimpsed in Hun Jang’s “A Taxi Driver”), a devout man of faith who has to face a double trouble in his earthly life. He has to deal with his wife’s infidelity, and also with a threat of a mega-church being built in his area of work by his former mentor’s son. When his encounter with a recently released sex offender Kwon (Shin Min-jae, re-uniting with Yeon after “Jung-E”) coincides with his son going missing for a while, he sets on catching and punishing him. Even when the son reappears, Min-chan is sure that Kwon is guilty of something and has religious visions as a “proof”.

On the other hand, Kwon is also pursued by the police detective Yeon-hee (Shin Hyeon-bin, lately mostly active on television) who also has a score to settle with him. Namely, he abducted and murdered her sister in the past, so the detective wants to bring him to justice. It might go against the idea that a police officer must not be personally involved with the case in order to close it efficiently and justly, but here it is taken as a “booster” for Yeon-hee’s motivation, which is further enhanced with wobbly flashbacks and visions of her sister.

If “Revelations” were more toned-down, psychologically dense drama about the characters’ motivations and convictions, it would probably be a better movie of a character study sort. The actors’ efforts go into that direction and Ryu Jun-yeol is the particularly good and convincing here. The actor’s ability to switch his presence from well-meaning to menacing perfectly matches the traits of the character he plays.

However, Yeon aims for a classical thriller here, so he puts an accent on the “race against time” trope. Unfortunately, it never gets a firm grip on the viewers and the reasons for that are several. Firstly, he does not vary his visual style enough, so Yeon-hee’s flashbacks are the only step away from the quasi-matter-of-factly realism that dominates the film’s atmosphere. Not even Min-chan’s visions get a special treatment. Secondly, it is obvious that the film was constructed for small screens, so the absence of the “movie magic” is felt, sometimes painfully. And finally, the only flourish present throughout the movie is the choral score by Kim Dong-wook and Alan Tyler that quickly becomes repetitive and tiresome in promising something Yeon does not want or does not how to deliver: an examination of the characters’ convictions, religious or otherwise.

Therefore, “Revelations” becomes and stays a generic “Netflix-and-chill” experience: watchable, but forgetable. It is so low-engaging that it will depart the viewers’ thoughts and memory way quicker than it entered them.

Novocaine

 kritika objavljena u dodatku Objektiv dnevnog lista Pobjeda

CIPA je redak nasledni poremećaj u nervnom sistemu koji rezultira time da oboleli ne oseća bol, razliku između toplog i hladnog ili pritisak. U teoriji to zvuči superherojski kul, a u određenim tipovima filmova, od treš-akcija do superherojskih spektakala, to bi moglo da znači uštedu na karakterizaciji lika. U praksi, međutim, otpornost na bol, vrućinu, mraz i pritisak ne znači da vas to nešto, od visoke temperature, preko zarđalog eksera na koji ste nagazili, ekstremne akrobacije koja je pošla po zlu ili ormara koji vam je pao na leđa neće ozbiljno povrediti i ubiti, samo toga nećete biti svesni.

U toj poziciji je junak naše priče, odnosno filma Novocaine Dena Berka i Roberta Olsena („home invasion“ horor-trileri Body iz 2015. i Villains iz 2019. godine). On, Nejtan Kejn (Džek Kvejd, sin Denisov), naizgled je smotani i preterano oprezni zamenik menadžera poslovnice lokalne banke u San Diegu. Naš Nejt ima alarm podešen na svaka tri sata da mu bešika ne bi eksplodirala (jer nije svestan da mu se ide u klozet), ne jede čvrstu hranu da ne bi sam sebi slučajno odgrizao jezik, sa svima je ljubazan, ali se baš i ne druži uživo, već to čini na internetu sa svojim „partnerom za igrice“ Roskom (Džejkob Batalon).

Takav, jadan i kukavan, zaljubljen je u svoju novu koleginicu Šeri (Ember Midtander, kći glumca Dejvida i kasting-agentice Anđelik), pa prihvata njen poziv na ručak kao izvinjenje nakon što ga ona zalije vrelom kafom. Pauza za ručak će se završiti njenim pozivom na nalaženje na izložbi u gradu, što će se pretvoriti u izlazak i mogući početak romanse. Uostalom i vreme je takvo, zimsko-praznično (iako se to ne vidi jer... San Diego) i inherentno romantično.

Već sledećeg dana ta romansa nailazi na iskušenje. Trojica kriminalaca maskiranih u Deda-Mrazove predvođenih Sajmonom (Rej Nikolskon, sin Džekov) upadaju u banku s namerom da je opljačkaju. Stari šef Najdžel (Kreg Džekson) biva ubijen jer odbija da im otvori sef, a Šeri postaje njihov talac, pa preko nje vrše pritisak na Nejta koji popušta i pušta ih da ukradu šta su naumili.

Ali kada je oni zadrže sa sobom i za bekstvo, prethodno ubivši nekoliko policajaca koji su slabo opremljeni došli na intervenciju, Nejt, takav fini i pristojan, kreće u poteru za njima. Njegove „superherojske“ moći možda jesu ograničene, ali on makar može podneti solidnu količinu batina i povreda pre nego što „preda meč“. Njemu za petama su i dvoje detektiva (Met Volš i Beti Gejbrijel) koji pretpostavljaju da je on umešan u pljačku.

Samom činjenicom da imamo tri pljačkaša, naša očekivanja su da ćemo dobiti barem tri obračuna, makar po logici kompjuterskih igrica i generičkih akcionih filmova. Dobićemo ih još i više, a akcija koju imamo prilike da gledamo je dovoljno maštovito osmišljena, garnirana s malo uvrnutog crnog humora koji se poigrava s našim očekivanjima, te solidno začinjena praktičnim efektima maske koji su solidno grozni.

Tu se Kvejd pokazuje kao izvrstan glumački izbor. Sposoban da istovremeno kanališe smetenost pristojnog čoveka zatečenog situacijom u kojoj se nikada pre nije našao, pa nam je simpatičan. Takođe, njegov lik ima ugao da se, takav pristojan, serijski taba s likovima koji, za razliku od njega, zapravo znaju da se biju, ali ne znaju njegovu tajnu koju će dovitljivo upotrebljavati protiv njih.

Kvejd funkcioniše i u paru s Ember Midtander u uvodnom delu koji ide šinom romantične komedije. Njih dvoje imaju neku opipljivu hemiju na ekranu koja možda nije dovoljna za kompletnu motivaciju njegove jurnjave, ali makar može unekoliko zabašuriti činjenicu da nam scenarista Lars Džejkobson nije baš sakrio veliki preokret koji bi kasnije, kao, morao da nas iznenadi.

Od ostatka glumačke postave, Rej Nikolson „žvaće“ i pride „mljacka“ svog karikaturalno nasilnog negativca, Gart Kolins je impresivna pojava u jednoj sceni tuče u skrivenom studiju za tetoviranje, Džejkob Batalon unosi malo komične relaksacije kasnije u filmu, a Beti Gejbrijel i Met Volš unose savršeno odmereno komičnu notu pandura kojima je ničim izazvano izbio haos na poslu. Čini se da se svi navedeni, ali i ostali glumci u sporednim, pa čak i epizodnim ulogama, fino i funkcionalno zabavljaju s materijalom koji imaju.

S druge strane, treba biti svestan da je Novocaine film od jednog štosa i, ma koliko se scenarista i režiserski dvojac s tim štosom poigravali i varirali ga, on će se pre kraja filma potrošiti i postati repetitivan. Baš kao što će nam isprva simpatični smetenjak postati dosadan ako ne prestane da bude smetenjak. Takođe, čini se da ni ta praznična komponenta filma nije dovoljno utkana u tkivo filma, pa je zbog toga možda i završio u distribuciji u ovom neatraktivnom terminu.

Problemi su prisutni i na nivou režije pojedinačnih akcionih scena, naročito onih s tučom. Jedna u „preperskoj“ kući punoj improvizovanih zamki je izuzetak, makar u smislu pripreme koja igra i protagonistino i na naše iznenađenje. Ostale se, što se tiče zanatske izvedbe, drže oprobanih američkih recepata drmusave kamere, bliskih planova i silnih montažnih rezova čime možda Berk i Olsen skrivaju da ih nisu baš osmislili u smislu „koreografije“.

Na kraju, Novocaine postaje i ostaje relativno gledljiva „limunada“ za konzumaciju i brzi zaborav jer zapravo ne donosi ništa tako novo. Kao takav, više liči na nešto za beskonačnu rotaciju na kablovskim kanalima nego na bioskopski hit.