There are movies that are really a poem by themselves … or not. Those you cannot say that are bad … until those 5 minutes arrive leaving them on the ground. Or it may be that the script surprises you, but that it does not finish curdling to consider it really good… You might even understand nothing of what they are showing you. In brief, there are some films that at the end you say: WTF!… Some films like these:
THE UNTHINKABLE
A Swedish family romantic drama, with men unable to demonstrate their feelings, in the middle of the unthinkable: a nation being attacked and devastated by the Russians. In summary: many, many people who do not know how to love … This includes a sort of solitary hero, runnaways, chases, many explosions and a chemical rain that affects the brain. Imagine the rest.
UNDER THE SILVER LAKE
A boy in L.A. has dedicated his days to -basically- doing nothing until he decides to immerse himself in the search of a girl who disappears the day after he meets her. Here begins a kind of Millennial adventure that goes from being fun to a spiral of madness that is spreading without (almost) any sense. I can imagine that Los Angeles is as surreal as they paint it, but I must say that maybe it does not take so many minutes to tell a story that could be solved masterfully in half the time … all the rest is ground straw. There is something called “Synthesis Skill” which could have helped transform this idea into a masterpiece. It stays in the attempt, which is very original, by the way.
FUGUE
Polish film directed by Agnieszka Smoczynska and written by Gabriela Muskala. A woman reappears, amnesiac, after years in which she has been taken for dead. What to do when returning to a place in a family that is not remembered or recognized ?. The subject and focus gives to make a dark and beautiful work at the same time but falls on a moral issue that deflates the outcome and makes you stay with the feeling that, despite closing circles, could have been more daring.
TASTE OF LIFE
When I decided to stay for a night marathon, I should have imagined that the one that sounded funniest and least bloody, would be a string of rare films for a scarce and somewhat morbid audience. As it is impossible for me out of conviction to leave the cinema in the middle of a show, I was one of the 5 (?) people who stayed until the end, having seen one of the most nondescript films of the festival: A girl walks through Germany, looking for characters to interview for her video-blog, where she talks about pleasure. A mixture between her experiences on travel and the video blog itself makes this film rather a sort of psychedelic soft-porn piece with a very unintelligible humour. I have to say that if something remains from that night, it was one little pin of Dyanne Thorne and a phosphorescent bracelet that turned off when I left the cinema.
THE PEONY’S WHISPER
Japanese documentary about a character who is a master of the Shibari (tradition of Japanese bondage, which involves tying and suspending the body through complex knots). There is not much explanation about the art itself, rather it is a conversation with this man that is completely the opposite of what you can imagine: a kind, almost tender man, colliding with the background images of him performing his shows. This dichotomy makes it interesting, although not essential.
The Jewels
Let us agree that to earn the title of “jewel”, a film has to move either aesthetically or through the script. They are some films that do not go out of your head when the lights are on and you leave the room. I start with them:
The Good Ones
Come on, they can not be all jewels, but these are worth it, and a lot:
Shorts, Shortfilms
I appreciate having seen the full session of the New Visions shorts, almost all excellent. Here are my favourites: