Federico Fellini is of course one of the grandmasters of cinema and we’ve pretty much watched all of his greatest films already. This was one of the holdouts, being quite famous yet is not as highly regarded. It was his film feature film shot in color and the director sure went all out with it. There’s very little plot in it and almost every frame is a dream vision of surreal images, eccentric characters and fantastical sets. It’s exactly like an animated film except that it’s all real life. At first, I didn’t care for how random and spurious everything in it is, but the film grew on me when I realized how much thought and care went into every aspect of the production. In the end, I loved it and I applaud its theme of a not very attractive middle-aged woman seeking to liberate herself.
Even if it weren’t important enough before, this documentary became practically required watching after the full-blown Russian invasion of Ukraine beginning last year. I kept putting it off because I felt that I’d already read up enough on the events. Finally watching it really helped establish in my mind just how long the entire Euromaidan protests lasted and how difficult it must have been to sustain that level of commitment in the face of every obstacle the government put in their way. At the same time, this documentary feels insufficient and incomplete. It strictly restricts itself to the protests centered around Maidan Nezalezhnosti and to the perspective of the protesters. There’s nothing at all about what was happening elsewhere in Ukraine at the time or of about the politicking behind the scenes so when the protesters finally win, it’s an abrupt and almost inexplicable shock.
Agnès Varda’s films never disappoint and even though this was one of her later works, it’s still amazingly good and brutally unflinching in its portrayal of a wandering vagabond. The title in French is far better and really captures the spirit of the main character. I love how she is defiant and rebellious to the end, even towards the people who are trying to be kind to her. Yet this is far from being any kind of romantic ideal as Varda shows right from the beginning as the corpse of the main character is discovered, having frozen to death in a ditch.
Tár is widely considered a film that was badly overlooked in this year’s Academy Awards with Everything Everywhere All at Once sweeping all of the categories that it should have won instead. This is of course the much more sophisticated film and it’s brimming with subtleties and masterful performances. Yet it’s also such an ambiguous work, and so unevenly paced and full of odd details in a way that I can hardly believe is intentional. I really wanted to like this but I’m not sure that I actually do.
This being a film by Luca Guadagnino and once again starring Timothée Chalamet, I thought for sure that this would be a serious drama. So I truly was shocked by the sudden turn to cannibalism. We’ve seen this work already in Raw and thankfully Guadagnino isn’t trying to do quite the same thing. Yet while the production quality here is gorgeous and features great acting, I struggled to find a coherent theme that brings the whole film together while not doubting that Guadagnino does intend for there to be some meaning. In the end, it seems to come down to eating the ones you love and that’s just so banal and shallow.
This is apparently considered one of South Korea’s greatest films and is highly regarded internationally. Surely that’s a good enough reason to watch it, yet having done so I can’t see what’s so great about it at all. I think it’s melodrama, ramped all the way up to eleven and given a horror twist. There are some bold choices such as how deeply the children are involved in a drama involving adult themes. Yet I find myself unable to look past the deeply rooted misogyny at its heart and the predictable soap opera style drama in practically every one of its scenes. I hated it and it reminded me why I don’t watch Korean dramas in the first place.
The films of Lars von Trier have a mixed record for me though it’s true that at some point I need to go back to watch his best known ones. The fact that he’s such a unique auteur is undeniable however and I’d rate this one both as one of his strangest and yet most affecting to me. There’s so much that is experimental here, the imagery, the way it tries to hypnotize you, the shifts between black and white and color, and so on, and all of it serves a coherent purpose. Most of it, the core idea of it, exploring Germany in the immediate post-war period and all the pain and humiliation of being a citizen of a defeated and occupied country, is so refreshing and resonant.
