Reviews

Drew Barrymore's "Whip It" is neither a masterpiece nor a very impactful film, but it's also far from what it looks like at first sight. What you would expect to be a typical teenie film according to the book turns out to be much more, and eventually a real surprise.

The story is fairly easily summarised: it's simply a 17 year old girl who discovers roller derbies, a roller skating contact sport in which the punk girls of the region participate. Obviously, her family is against it, and obviously, there is her best friend, and she falls in love with a cute boy for the first time. No need to continue - you basically already know what's gonna happen at what point of the film, and of course you also know how it's gonna end. Basically, you would think this is the topical Hollywood girls and family film. But somehow, it's not.

First of all, nobody can deny how wildly entertaining this film is. Despite being predictable and by no means a new story, you'll notice that the dialogues feel somewhat fresh and original, and the whole film is insanely well-structured. You never have the feeling that a scene takes too long, that the film drags, or anything else. That's probably due to the fact that this isn't the typical studio production to play on MTV or something, but that it's actually based on Shauna Cross' novel "Derby Girl", which is based on her own experiences in the Roller Derby scene of Texas (fun fact: her pseudonym was Maggie Mayhem, just as Kristen Wiig's character - she basically wrote herself into the film). Once you know that it's obvious why this film feels so authentic, full of life and energy. It explains the clever dialogues, which never offer anything new, but still twist the typical genre dialogues a little bit. The family scenes feel especially rewarding, most of all the relation between the baseball-loving father and the protagonist. Contrariwise to what you might expect, the parent's roles go quite in depth: we don't see the typical parents templates here, and the way the parents slowly open up is heart-warming to see.

Then, another point why this film works so well is undoubtedly the excellent casting: it's no news that Elliot Page has always been a great actor, but in "Whip it" he was exceptionally authentic as this indie-rock-loving misfit who rather wants to escape to the adventurous world of Roller Derbies than to participate in the beauty contests her mum wants her to do. Drew Barrymore and Kristen Wiig as two other Derby girls are fantastic, Jimmy Fallon as the moderator is hilarious, and even the parents are really well-cast. Surprising is also how great this film looks, how dynamic the camerawork is. The scenes in the actual roller derby are exceptionally well-shot, mastering the difficult task of creating tension when we are actually just watching girls rolling in circles. That might be suspenseful on sight, but it's insanely hard to film. Everything makes sense when the credits roll and you see that the legendary DoP Robert D. Yeoman, who shot most of Wes Anderson's recent films, i.e. "The Grand Budapest Hotel", "Moonrise Kingdom" and "The French Dispatch".

But still, all this doesn't explain what actually makes "Whip It" good. All the points mentioned above explain why this might be entertaining even if you're not a teen girl who finds everything in this film what a teen girl would possibly like to see. But it doesn't explain why "Whip It" is much more than that: it's actually an interesting film, and has something to say everyone can identify with. It took me a bit of time to realise, but it's actually obvious: it's the setting. Normally, a film like this would be set in Los Angeles. Or in general at the American West Coast. Or at the east coast, doesn't matter. But surprisingly, it's set in Texas. The roller derbies themselves happen in Austin, but most of the film is set in a small suburban town in Texas - not only one of the most conservative regions of the United States, but also a tough one to grow up in. You have all the options in the world if you grew up in the big cities, or at least in Austin, but the characters we're looking at grow up in the middle of nowhere.

I strongly believe that the Roller Derbies aren't actually the main topic of "Whip it", but the small town misery of American teenagers who, as you can guess, grow up in regions which are left behind, or even completely left out, from progressive development. To some extent, "Whip It" is some kind of motivational letter to all the misfits who grow up in small cities , with strict and/or boring parents, who dream about breaking out of the hamster wheel.

The protagonist of this film is the perfect representation of such a person: she works in a diner with her best friend, falls in love with the first boy who plays in a band, her greatest ambitions are her mum's beauty contest or watching baseball with her dad. Everybody who grew up outside big cities knows how frustrating that can be - especially if you feel you're different from the rest. Everyone who's ever had the feeling that they want more from life than being stuck in your small city with the same routine as everyone else will easily identify with Elliot Page's character. And no wonder her name is "Bliss" - that's what this film is about: open your mind and find your bliss. The others will either end up by accepting it or maybe get inspired themselves. That makes the ending so beautiful - when we see a Texan father (and to some degree even the mother) open up to his daughter's really alternative hobby.

The film never explicitly mentions it, but yes, this is in the end somehow political. Under the surface, this is quite an intelligent film with a lot more to say than you would expect. So don't let the film's blurb fool you, this isn't your typical teen drama according to the book.

The biggest surprise of the Cannes film festival this year was probably that the Prix du Jury went to a film about a donkey. Not just that a donkey played a big role in the film, but the donkey was the protagonist of the film, and genuinely played by a donkey.

Surprisingly enough, that works. It might sound crazy at first to watch a film which follows throughout the entire runtime a donkey which can't speak or really express his feelings, but it actually works. That's due to the fantastic work of the team behind the film. Much of the success is due to director Jerzy Skolimowski, who seemed to know exactly what he was doing and how he wanted the film to look in the end. But he wouldn't have succeeded in making an interesting film about a donkey if it wasn't for his DoP Michal Dymek and his film editor Agniezka Glinska. Their collaboration results in giving the donkey a character, and making us believe that EO is actually played by a fantastic actor. There were a few moments throughout the film where I actually thought that this donkey should get an Oscar. Of course I was always fully aware that a donkey can't act, and that this is only technical expertise. Film editor Glinska used for example one of the oldest montage techniques of the history of film, the Kuleshov effect, which proved that editing is the key to every film, and that the audience can actually interprete the actor's feelings rather by the following shot than by his expressions. When Kuleshov tested the effect, he edited a (never-changing) close-up of an expressionless man, together with three alternate ending shots: a dead child in a coffin, a bowl of soup, and a woman lying on a divan. Audiences interpreted the expression on the actor's face as sadness, hunger and lust, although it was always the same. This effect got reused by Hitchcock many times, especially in his masterpiece "Rear Window".

In EO, this effect is used many times: A shot of the donkey's eye followed by a shot of animals being mistreated, makes us believe the donkey is actually sad. Another shot of the donkey (who was probably only wondering why people are standing for weeks with a camera around him) followed by his circus "mother" returning to him makes us believe he is happy, and so on. Paired with incredibly impressive and beautiful images, EO actually turns out to be a very interesting and refreshing film, even amongst experimental cinema.

Nonetheless, you're watching a donkey for 80+ minutes. And after a while, you start to feel that. You're waiting for some kind of emotional conflict, some interesting dialogue, etc, - which the director then tries to include by introducing side characters. But those side characters don't work at all, as they only distract from the main story and leave the audience completely cold. Even a great actress like Isabelle Huppert can't save the film's triviality by smashing a few plates when talking to her gambling addict son (who brought the donkey home with him). Instead, her acting - and every other actor too - feels completely misplaced and exaggerated, which is also due to the fact that the donkey always moves on very quickly after having met new persons, so no actor has more screen time than just a couple of minutes.

Last but not least, the film also doesn't manage to entertain enough through the message alone. As to expect, the film speaks a lot about animal exploitation and mistreatment and ultimately advocates for animal rights, but the message is clear after a few minutes, and the ending of the film - which I won't spoil here - doesn't work either, which ridiculousness the message a little.

But after all, EO is an interesting experiment, which surprisingly works due to the fantastic technical aspects. The film's main flaws are in the screenplay (and of course also in the fact that the protagonist is a donkey), but luckily, the film runs only 86 minutes, so you can overlook these weaknesses and still enjoy watching it.

What a terrible shame that BARDO is only gonna be shown on Netflix. Although Netflix produced this year's greatest films, it's a shame that those films will never play on the big screens. So you can imagine how honoured and grateful I was to attend a preview of BARDO with Alejandro G. Inarritu, one of my favourite directors of all time, who came himself and presented his film. You could tell how happy he was to present the film, as it clearly is his most personal and intimate work to date.

I was hoping for the best, but didn't expect too much as the film received quite mixed first reviews from Venice and other previews. That's why I wasn't prepared for the journey Inarritu would take me on for the next three hours. BARDO isn't only easily the best film of the year so far, it was also one of the most beautiful and profound cinematic experiences I've had in my life - that's the reason why I started my review by saying that it's a shame most people will only experience this on their TV. It's really a shame. The images Inarritu and his godlike DoP Darius Khondji produce here are far beyond incredible. The first half hour of the film, I constantly had goosebumps because of the sheer beauty of this film. I often say that I deeply appreciate when a film invents new, unseen images, when the team behind the film almost invent a new cinematic language. They absolutely do here.

The film might feel too long for some, pretentious for others, but it was just the film I was waiting for since a long time, not knowing I was until I've watched it. It was one of these rare films which I didn't ever want to end, and the fact that I knew it was going to run for three hours actually comforted me many times throughout the sublime time I had watching this.

BARDO is undoubtedly Inarritu's most ambitious film yet, this film feels - and is - HUGE. It's an incredible homage to the country Mexico (I've sat through the whole endless credits and he literally only hired Mexicans to work on this film), but moreover, it's one of the most touching and honest films about family. Where in many films depicting family relationships can feel cheesy and superfluous, here it really worked, and moved me in a way no other film did. That is also due to the fact that all actors are nothing less than absolutely outstanding. Led by the revelation of the year, Daniel Giménez Cacho, who plays the role of Silverio and easily carries the very heavy weight of this opus on his shoulders, the film already had a complex character who you could easily identify with. But every actor until the last smallest supporting role was cast perfectly and contributed to this film.

Bardo reads like a poem, as Inarritu speaks in metaphors one more beautiful and thoughtful than the other. It's layered, complex, absurd, dreamlike, moving, breathtakingly beautiful, visionary and ambitious - one of the best films I've seen in my life and a film which will have a place in my heart for a very long time.

Wong Kar-Wai film about a homosexual couple stranded in Argentina wavers for a long time before actually finding out what story it wants to tell. Soaked in Sepia-filters, Wong Kar-Wai runs in circles, always shooting the same tiresome scenes in their little apartment in different variations, without finding a way out of his quite messy build-up. Films about toxic relationships aren't easy to make: the director has to walk the thin red line between making it believable and making it watchable. Here, the director is a bit too much in love with his blurry visuals, the almost drunken camera, endlessly turning around the two fighting lovers.

As soon as the film reaches the point where you start to wish for the actual story to start, Wong Kar-Wai grants you exactly that wish: the lovers separate, and the camera follows the protagonist as he tries to heal from a broken heart, but also from the damage the relationship has caused. Driven by lust as well as loneliness, we follow him as he wanders the benighted streets of Buenos Aires, searching sexual satisfaction but also searching - and finding - new friends.

After sitting through the first 30-40 minutes of the film, Happy Together rewards you with poetic scenes of incredible beauty, portraying a desire to be loved on screen that will assuredly resonate with you, regardless of whether you've lived something similar or not.

The film's last half hour will leave you in awe as the protagonist's mind wanders, missing home and wondering what Hong-Kong might look like upside down in one of the most original scenes of Asian cinema. The last scene eventually fully compensates the messy start.

Cristian Mungiu is undoubtedly the best Romanian director working nowadays. He got famous for winning the Palme d'Or in 2007 for his masterpiece "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days", but hasn't stopped making great films afterwards. "R. M. N." (Magnetic Resonance Imaging in Romanian) is no exception - a gripping social thriller which explores the melting point of socioeconomic forces and simple human emotions.

I had the enorme chance of attending a screening with Cristian Mungiu attending himself. Unlike other directors, he took more than one hour afterwards to discuss the film with the audience, not hesitating to even answer difficult questions in detail. R. M. N. Is a great film, but not an easy one as it's on purpose not filmed how an American film would be filmed (that's what Mungiu said himself) - so I was extremely happy that he explained a lot of the film, it turned out to be one of the most interesting discussions I've ever attended.

Although the film is slow, and at first difficult to access, it's worth sitting through, as Mungiu rewards audiences with an extraordinary showdown in form of a debate in a 17-minute single shot - one of the greatest scenes of the year. The event is based on a a real event of xenophobia and hate which left its mark on Romanian society a few years ago.

The film starts by introducing its protagonist, a monosyllabic man named Matthias who returns home after violently attacking the manager of the German slaughterhouse he works in. Once back in his Romanian village, more conflicts await him, as he's met by a distant wife, an emotionally damaged child and a lover who is quite the opposite of him - she turns out to be the hero of the film, the character we identify ourselves with. When I asked Mungiu why he chose to make an unsympathetic and brutal character as his protagonist, he explained that he didn't want to choose an American approach, that the audience always has to understand, like or identify with the main character. Furthermore, the contrast between the regressive and closed Matthias and the liberal Csilla is meant to portray the inner struggle of every human, the struggle between rational choices and animalistic instincts.

This conflict - inside every human, but equally for the village's inhabitants as well as the two very different lovers - gets serious when the xenophobic event takes place in the village. Without ever accusing an entire group of people, Mungiu shows how every single one is responsible individually and how ideologies clash when communities neglected in the process of globalisation face the antagonistic effects of a market without borders.

Although not a film for the masses, R. M. N. Is once again a very rewarding achievement by the Romanian director, who regularly gives us brilliant insights into an interesting country we watch not enough films from. But as he said himself, has no aspirations to make an English-language film, as long as he still lives in Romania.

Mia Hansen-Love's new film "Un beau matin" tells the story of a single mother, played by the fantastic Léa Seydoux, who has to take care of her sick father after he has been diagnosed with a neurodegenerative disease. At the same time, she falls in love for the first time after the death of her daughter's father a few years back. "Un Beau Matin" is a very conventional Parisian drama, which nonetheless unfolds quickly with a strong energy which makes it stand out from similar films.

Hansen-Love explores love in different variations by switching almost episodically between the protagonist's three relationships: the alienated father who's not able to recognise her after a while, the lover who is cheating on his wife and her daughter whom she has to raise alone. In all these relationships, the film searches for moments of truth, and it finds them, for example in a beautiful scene in which the protagonist explains to her daughter how and why she recognises her father rather in his books than when she actually spends time with him.

It's a film full of honesty and comprehension, and Léa Seydoux is as usual fantastic at embodying the young woman who is torn between the three relationships, trying to fulfil their expectations while suffering themselves from the difficulties. In quiet but meaningful scenes, Mia Hansen-Love deals with the sickness of her own father by humanising the decision of letting go for the sake of others, and ultimately yourself.