Change Your Image
mark_champness
Reviews
Saltburn (2023)
Dull and derivative
I don't know what this movie is saying. Nothing new was my first thought; shades of Brideshead, Ripley, Teorema, and the Penny Dreadful. Not to mention scenes from the Harry Potter movies. Add to that gratuitous bad sex scenes, unrealistic (and inaccurate) Oxford settings and a script tending towards cliché. Seldom has a movie had no likeable characters in it but then there's very little character development shown. I read that the director suggested it was about obsessive love; well, maybe, but what does it say that's new? And it is definitely not an entertaining or comfortable watch. Finally the depiction of the maths geek is way off - arithmetic is not the same as mathematics!
The Last Vermeer (2019)
Historical glosses and inaccuracies make a shoddy film
This film is a heavily fictionalised account of real events. Things are touchéd on eg anti-semitism in the Netherlands, the nature of romantic commitment in the world of fakes and collaboration that are not followed through. It could have been a broader film if they had been but by then I did not trust this film as a witness.
The approach this film takes is epitomised by the end credits where we are told that Joseph was made a member of the British Empire, which makes no sense. I presume he was an MBE which means he was a member of the order of the British Empire! A significant difference.
A poor film that could and should have been a lot better.
Guy Pearce is, however, very good.
Undine (2020)
A strange film
A touch of magical realism strikes this film. Yes there's a story of a love affair intertwined with the myth of Undine. Yes there's Undine's job as lecture on Berlin's history which picks up the DDR. So Petzold's usual plot lines are there. In the end it was much better than I thought at the beginning but not convinced I understand what, if anything, the lack of realism adds.