Based on its premise, I expected this to be a visual extravaganza, especially since this is a documentary made by National Geographic. What I did not expect was how brutal it is in showing how closely death stalks the community of base jumpers. This film was shot over a period of seven years, enough time for there to be big changes in the lives of the participants featured here. As the directors were astute enough to focus on three romantic couples in particular, it’s the human aspect that is so gripping as we watch them grapple with fears, injuries and death.
This may be a recent release but between its stark black and white visuals and the post-World War 2 Italian setting, sure doesn’t look like it. It’s deliberately anachronistic in more ways too, being shot in the neorealist style of the 1940s and 1950s and being about how horribly oppressed women of that time were. Yet its genius is that even as it superficially purports to be a film of that era, it subverts expectations to deliver a thoroughly modern message of female empowerment with a dose of wry humor. The twist at the end is perhaps too abrupt but does successfully prevent the film from reverting back into the usual clichés.
Bas Devos is a Belgian director who is new to me and his passion seems to be to showcase the city of Brussels and perhaps the people who live in it. That might not be immediately apparent in this quiet, contemplative film and indeed it’s hard to tell for a long time what it is at all. I think I do get what the director was trying for here, in showing the forest that exists as part of Brussels and in emphasizing the immediacy or thisness of small moments. But to fully achieve the intended effect would require truly sublime imagery and cinematography and I don’t think this film quite reaches those heights.
Wim Wenders has made many amazing films and I’ve covered quite a few of them here. Here’s one of his most critically planned films which I added to my list anyway because Scott Sumner had some nice things to say about it. This is strange film that will leave you in confusion much of the time yet it does have a comprehensible plot. It has a very cinematic feeling, but almost too much so until it feels like a caricature of Hollywood movies. Wenders has made excellent American films before so it’s not like he doesn’t have an excellent grasp of both the language and the setting. So it’s strange that he seems to be deliberately trying to be bad at times. It’s an interesting project but not a good film at all.
This is a made in Thailand short science-fiction anthology series that received wide release through Netflix. Similar to shows like Black Mirror, each episode is its own standalone story with a couple of them being almost films in their own right. None of the science-fiction ideas in here are particularly original and the plot seems meandering a lot of the time. But I will credit this for being a fantastic effort. It’s bold in challenging established moral values and norms, genuinely dares to imagine what Thailand might be like 20 to 30 years in the future and most of all boasts such high production values that I’m astounded. It’s doesn’t just look authentically futuristic, they have superb art direction as well.
I would never have thought to add this to my list except that whenever people discussed their favorite comedies online, it invariably pops up. Indeed the film’s reputation has grown over time. My initial impression of it were bad. It seemed like the usual story of graduating high school kids wanting to lose their virginity. In the end, I still can’t see the greatness in it. But I concede that the duo of Jonah Hill and Michael Cera works and they manage to soften the raunchiness with the cuteness of the characters so the comedy is never mean-spirited.
The films of Robert Bresson haven’t disappointed me so far but I must confess that this one is tough to swallow. As it is literally showing snippets from the diary of a priest, the scenes are very episodic, not allowing us to dwell in the moment. Then there is the cultural and religious gulf and indeed the film probably has little meaning for those who have no religious faith at all. I’m pretty sure I’ve more or less understood what it wants to say but that’s not at all the same as being moved by it. I can see how ahead of its time it is and how it must speak to those who are religious but it’s not for me.
