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An error has ocurred. Please try againThe films are in no particular order.
Most people have only seen mainstream (Hollywood film- and tv-series) with autistic characters. This list won't be including those movies. This is a list for any art-house movie, indie, shortfilm etc, that won't be on those lists.
This list only contains unconventional movies with that kind of sturcture. Henceforth, no fantasy movie will be featured, as that of story in build into most stories from the genre. The following movies, series and equivalents won't be featured: The Harry Potter movies Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit Movies about superheroes Series based in large fictional universes (Game of Thrones, Vikings)
Reviews
Sorg og glæde (2013)
A movie about love?
Having seen this multiple times, I still don't know how to rate this.
The films doesn't feel like any of Malmros other works. I believe this is because most of the main cast are famous actors, not amateurs from Aarhus. This decision, I attribute to TV2 involvement in the film.
Meanwhile, the story is heart-wrenching and told slightly out of order. The most pivotal scene is placed as the movies last. The second act is spent on the Johannas (Malmros, played by Jakob Cedergren) relationship with his girlfriend and how it led to the death fo their child. This is all told, while Johannes is directing both "Tree of Knowledge" and "Beauty and the Beast." It is how these stories are intertwined, that has me questioning everything Malmros has directed.
In the section just before the pivotal scene mentioned, his girlfriend dares him to make a movie about love - that's to say, why she decides to stay with him all those years (This scene is set 26 years in the future). Previously, she (because of some psychiatric diagnosis, that leads to the premise of the film) can't stop thinking about his potential loves in his movies. Whether Johannes actually is in love with his main characters are never answered, but some of the scenes from his previous movies, shows Johannas in a rather dubious light.
The self-directing of Johannes, his doubt and how Malmros decided to direct Jakob Cedergren in the scenes of his previous work, combined with the fact, that he argues, this movie is about love, raised some serious doubt in me, about him as a director. That's why, I still can't figure out, how to rate or feel about this movie.
The story about Johannes and his girlfriend works, the "Copenhagen" dialect is only mildly distracting and it leaves us at the right time. I really don't know whether this could be read as confession from Malmros previous works or something else entirely.
Olsen Bandens sidste stik (1998)
It shouldn't have been produced at all.
This movie just shouldn't exist, as my mother explained.
Compared to the several previous entries in the series, the writing feels poor and contains way too much exposition (of a somewhat convoluted plot). Simultaneouly, we're getting references to privious characteres in the series, played by the actors - as a poor mans Danish riff Cravens "New Nightmare." This attempt mostly fall flat, as the movies also has covers 18 years of untold fictional story.
Cravens movie puts Freddy Krueger into the reel world, as does this. The major difference being, that here it just doens't work at all, because Olsen-Banden (the Olsen-Gang) are very two dimentional characters that works mostly just for comedic purporses (and that works to varyind degrees of well in the many previous entries.)
To add insult to injury, this movie is also very confused about whether it wants to play the scens for laughter or serious. The lightning and editing doens't match the previous films. I found myself both missing the soundtracks and Ove Sprogøs voice-over during the heists. Needless to say, I didn't finish the film. (although I could do that later.)
This movie is confused mess - the likely cause: Two deathc plagued the production of a close-knit crew.
La cité des enfants perdus (1995)
Style for the sake of style - vague story
"The City of Lost Children" is a movie that's beautiful to look at but not much more. It's saturated with reds, greens and sometimes yellow, like the later movies of Jeunet and Caro ("Amélie" being the most internationally known of those). It also featured an overuse of dutch-angels. This (unintentionally) makes otherwise excagratted casting seem more so. While this is not egregious as the notorious "Battlefield Earth", toning it down just a little might have the story more approachable.
The set design remains exceptionally creative (as with all Jeunet and Caro films) but not enough time is spent actually discovering the strange world with the characters. This is what causes the plot to meanderer to the events that needs to happen - instead of tanking us on the journey along with Ones and Crumb hunt for Littlebrother. It's both predicable and melodramatic - and not in a good way. Events happen in "the City" because the story needs them to, not because our hero(es) feel like. (This is how melodramas works). The movie doesn't communicate well enough the why of the hunting down little brother - even though it does have some odd scietific reason to do so.
Having watched this multiple times, I can now confirm that this a great gateway movie - to explore further weird movies (Like Lynch, Lathimos). It just doen't work very good on rewatches, because the story is minimal and the combination of red/green colors and dutch-angels gets boring.
The Fog (1980)
Carpenters ghost-story
A ghost story of how a priest, a radio host and a group of strangers come to a grim realisation of thier town.
John Carpenters "The Fog" were the first true horror film i saw - many years ago. It became a stepping stone to explorer the genre, that has now become my favorite. "The Fog" is the only of Carpenters great movies, I can watch any day, even more often that his other classics of the same era "Halloween" (1978) and "The Thing" (1982).
"The Fog" is always a cosy watch featuring Carpenters brooding minimalist soundtrack and simple, but great visual effects by Rob Bottin. The story weaves through cross-cutting the stories of 3-4 groups of characters, each solving their part of the mystery of Antonio Bay. Each setup is simple as usual only sparring using more direct horror-scares (including 2 jump-scares).
The minimalist and low-key horror has become how I prefer my horror movies (and movies in general). I strongly prefer the movie to now tell me how feel, in this regard, Carpenter always succeseds (Though might be movies of his that aren't as well crafted in this regard). The additional ½star I increased the rating by for this review, reflects my relationship with the movie - because It does have few flaws. Yet it still also the viewer to decide, whether you believe in ghosts.
It's a tragic story for Antonio Bay that's executed very well and allows you figure it out, along with characters.
Titicut Follies (1967)
Should be shown in schools
A must watch documentary for anybody - this should be shown in schools.
This is my second feature I watched from Frederick Wiseman (I've only seen "Ex Libris"). It's a trolly harrowing insight into the delipidated and inhumane treatment of fellow neurodiverse individuals at an asylum in the 1960's. As usual with Wiseman, we're just observing the characters, both patients and "doctors" on the institiun. Though these brief moments, Wiseman draws us into their world - hesitant at first, then he slowly drags us along to expirence it as though we're the patient.
The genius is not only in his editing, but also in sly comment on the system itself. Breifly, we see glimses of the institiuons "Revue" - Titicut Follies - as well as featuring the first and last shot. This structure suggest to me, that Wiseman is subciously telling us, that what we see are excaggerated version of reality.
If only it was......
(and we haven't improved in slightest since, as seen in a scene that begin rougly at the hour mark)
Altered States (1980)
Russells vision - whatever it may be
This is the first film, I seriously question whether this first watch needs to be rated. Whether I'll rate or not, I expect to figure it out while writing this review. Let's begin:
Before I even begin to discuss this weird movie with a lot of ideas, I need to reiterate Patrick (H) Willems' video about Film Analysis 101. Let's assume everything the film shows is intentional and that Ken Russell has chosen this type of story for a reason. This also correlates with the filmklub hosts' knowledge of Russell, that his movies don't have a second cut - this is Russell's intention.
During the viewing, it quickly became apparent that this movie takes itself quite seriously. Even though our host explained that laughing was allowed, hence alluding to a satirical reading of this film. I did laugh a few times - until I decided that the plot and dialogue (consisting of mostly science talk and dating phrases) weren't that relevant for the vision (I could follow along easily enough by the pictures). This might have been a mistake - but I would assume that Russells script at least put some story emphasis on the scientific terms. The script worked fine with the love aspect - even though it was played a bit awkward, it worked for me.
It's the expository scientific talks that made me "leave" the plot for itself. I did enjoy every bit of dream sequences, some more, but each with a lasting impression. The low-budget green screen, rotoscoping and other VFX works wonderfully in creating unique experiences. Even though I enjoyed these sequences for the effect work, they were also "on the nose" with their symbolisms. It was during these sequences that I discovered I felt like Russell is on a fine line between satire and drama.
From a film historical perspective, this movie created a bridge, uneven, between the early works of David Cronenberg and the modern Peter Strickland. It reminded me of "Stereo" (1969) scenario played out for the screen combined with the one-location setting of Strickland's "Berberian Sound Studio" (2012). In addition to also having David Lynch as a fan of this film, I can understand why it must have had an impact at release.
Immediately after finishing this film, I felt like this was a 3. I'm not so sure anymore. Even if I don't understand it, Russell movies clearly can do something for some people. I do assume, as previously stated, that this movie is Russell's vision. I might not like it or his movies might not be for me. That doesn't bother me at all. I can appreciate this, as a weird and oddly satirical art-piece, that might be a bit too bold for its good. Made with care and a vision.
Pahanhautoja (2022)
"Hatching" - to plan and execute media appearences
Hatching, being the second Finnish horror I've watched, just blew me away. It's a simply story of a Tinja, the oldest daughter in a nuclear family of four. Her mother runs a youtube blogging channel featuring the familys life, that's interrupted by a black raven - that's soon killed. Tinja is also bussy preparing for a new gym-competition, pressured by her moms plan to livestream the event.
The very simple story is how the "Hatching" ask us to question our own use of social media. The mother is mostly concerned with her blogging and not really caring about whether Tinja actually enjoy her gymnastics. She wants the family to appear perfect just to get additional wievs. This accumulates, as Tinja is asked to keep a secret of her mother secret lover, Tero. That's whats causes the ravens offspring - I interprets it as Tinja "little" secret.
Tinja keeping that secret and her mother behavior on social media, reminds me of my own relationship to my dad. Hes always more about the appeareces than the process. He only ever cares for exeptional scores on exams, not whether I personally felt good about it and were satisfied (not matter if my scores were "good" or "bad"). This is just the tip of the problems I have with my dad. This essence I felt was captured in the relationship between Tinja and her mother (with the offspring as a stand in for the secret).