None of Alex Garland’s films have ever really clicked with me. Critics love him however and I’ve read analyses about his work that raise interesting points that I’ve missed, so I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Yet after watching this, I am left even more disappointed and puzzled. Conceptually, I love this and I’m pretty sure I understood what he was going for. But his execution of the idea is so unserious, so deliberately low brow and over the top that it feels like a waste of a good idea. So I’m still not a fan of his work and I really don’t get what his deal is.
I’m slowly growing to be more of fan of the work of Jean-Pierre Melville. Take this crime thriller for instance which tells the story in a very straightforward way. The story itself is intricate only because of the many characters involved and how they must interact with one another. Events play out so organically and unpredictably that it doesn’t feel much like a movie at all. It’s always a pleasure to watch competence in action but this film makes the point that often pure chance plays its part as well.
Ages and ages ago, I’d imagined how cool it would be if there existed some kind of strategy game about managing a xianxia sect. ‘Lo and behold, one now exists, made naturally by a Chinese company. It has mediocre graphics, very poorly explained mechanics and a bad user interface, but it does more or less let you run your own sect from the beginning up until you manage to nurture your cultivators into god-like beings. So it’s great, right? Well, maybe not. In between the bugs, intricate mechanics, challenge level and tendency to drop gotchas on the player, this can be a very time-consuming and frustrating experience. I already know I won’t be able to persevere all the way to the end but I’m still trying to see as much of the game as I can.
Netflix is getting serious into prestige television with lavish productions like this. Since I’d never read the actual novel by Gabriel García Márquez, this might the closest I can get to knowing its story. With its gorgeous visuals and huge cast of characters, it effortlessly drew me into the lives of the Buendia family and the founding of the town of Macondo. Yet the longer the story goes on the more bored I became. The series is like a very literal retelling of the novel but seems unable to impart any deeper meaning to the many dramatic twists and turns, making it feel like a soap opera. There will be a second part to the series but at this point I’m not terribly enthusiastic.
A film about a Jewish-American boy who is rebelliously ungrateful of his own affluent background isn’t something is compelling to me even if it features major talents like Anthony Hopkins and Anne Hathaway. But then I realized that we usually get stories from the opposite side of the divide with the underprivileged kid as the protagonist, so this is indeed a novel trajectory. It seems that this is yet another semi-autobiographical film drawn from its director’s life so it does have the ring of truth but it’s probably still a little underwhelming for me.
Something far different than the norm for me this month and it’s novella-length, yet published as a book. This particular work is I think significant not only for its text but also for who its author was, when it was published and its significance as a parable for the rise of the Nazis. Ernst Jünger was a highly decorated soldier, a militarist and a political figure of the conservative right. Yet he was also opposed to the Nazis and was indirectly implicated in the famous Operation Valkyrie plot against Adolf Hitler’s life. This of course made him a more polarizing and fascinating person. The book itself is set in an idyllic fictional land that is described in such a dreamlike way that it may well be considered fantasy. The story itself is short and simple but is rife with symbolism that can be interpreted in any number of ways.
Hirokazu Kore-eda keeps churning out solid films and so I keep watching them. He stays on the subject of children being let down by adults but this time around it is a little muddier who exactly is being wronged and who the guilty party or parties are. This film pulls you irresistibly into a story about bullying at school and a gross taunt about a child having the brain of a pig. There are red herrings and misunderstandings aplenty, complicating the search for the truth. Unfortunately once you dig past the confusion, what remains isn’t that substantial and hiding the nature of the boys’ relationship as a twist feels like an outdated move. It’s not bad but it’s weaker than his usual fare so I’d consider it missable.
