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Written by: Rod Boyle

Category: Film

Published: 03 March 2019

Hits: 1301

And, going now in reverse with writer/director Yorgos Lanthimos of "The Lobster" and "The Favorite" - we here have a director - while getting more polished in his technique by coming to Hollywood, losing his edge...

His films have grown more mainstream, which is - while better for him, worse for me. 

Dogtooth (Dente Canino) - a completely surreal satire on (? and here I'm not sure? Greece & Government? OR The Middle Class? It works either way) - and it's amazing. 5 Stars in the first 15 minutes, more as the film goes on. Brutally funny, incisive, he annihilates the conventions and morals of the middle class, touching upon the contagion of home-schooled crazy, it's insane and works on more than a few levels...

Apparently he's done a few others, I will have to look for them and rescue them from obscurity, this is terrific stuff.

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Written by: Rod Boyle

Category: Film

Published: 02 March 2019

Hits: 1161

The premise - A man's life forks when he's attempting to board a train, and the movie traces each possible destiny from the fork. That is the plot. It's set against Communist Poland, and as such is worthwhile just for the reminder of how devastating the Soviets were to culture (and - in different ways, still are today), but it has some of Kieslowski's signatures, uncomfortably intimate moments, atmospheric, haunting.

Overall, my least favorite of his movies. Which is to say it's a damned good film by any standards, but what followed was breathtaking. If you're just discovering him maybe view the Dekalog first, then go back to the first two, then forward to the Blue, White & Red trilogy & La Double Vie de Veronique.

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Written by: Rod Boyle

Category: Film

Published: 27 February 2019

Hits: 1191

Great, but we're going back in time now, he's a little - rawer, not as subtle, by which I mean he's still a thousand times subtler than any American equivalent, but his style is still evolving and in later films gets increasingly nuanced.

He can be brutal, too, and goes where Hollywood would never go, this, while great, would never pass a test screening, plump audiences clutching their popcorns and diet cokes, they'd hate it. It would go before a committee, get slashed to ribbons, redone, a new writer, director...yet he managed to make it in communist Poland...

There's still one more left...

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Written by: Rod Boyle

Category: Film

Published: 23 February 2019

Hits: 1252

Each deserve their own, but I couldn't wait, watched "White" and then immediately watched "Red".

Classic Kieślowski - the small hallmarks, the overlapping of separate narratives, the recurring symbolism - the old man or woman trying to recycle a bottle, the same as in "Blue", "La double vie..", and there's this haunting feeling that I've seen it before but I can't for the life of me predict the plot. I recognize the characters from his other films, Dekalog especially, which lends the films a certain familiarity.

There is no signature style - or there is, but it's impossible to put your finger on, with Wes Anderson a single still frame will reveal the director, with Kieślowski it's the sum of all the parts. There are no surprises, no twists, yet - while the film evolves, the narrative continues in trifling understated increments you are blindsided by the ending, "White" especially hits you like a sucker punch in the stomach.

There is no - I want to say over-reaching intellect, like in Kubrick where know you are in the playground of a great mind, - but it's there, only - more subtle, it's embossed into the film, nuanced, hidden, layered and washed with color, sublime,  here - the films are ordinary - ordinary - ordinary - and yet at the end there's a spiritual triumph, an awakening, it's the transformative power of art, they are - even the poorest ones by him - easily an order of magnitude above anything produced by his peers. He's the right film-maker at the right time. I appreciated him before - but now, more than ever. Small things come to mean the world and I'm dying for worthy company to discuss it with, but - well, I'm in Calgary...

"Red", stopping it, again and again, feeling it, savoring the moment, I don't want it to end...

He beguiles you with simplicity, the slowly evolving premise of existence, imbuing every moment with wonder, coincidences, symmetries, never overstated, hinting at a divine order beyond comprehension, subtle, muted, he's a master. 

I did not see them, I don't think, maybe I did but not through the same eyes, everything was a surprise, ordinary lives that in the end are anything but ordinary. 

The end, finally, a brief moment of familiarity, suggesting - that maybe I'd once seen it, or clips of it at least, but I'm not sure. 

These are great films. See them if you like film. Even if you saw them a long time ago, indulge yourself, they reward a revisit.