End Of The Week Shorts #35
Sakawa Boys continues on from its first part in which our four main figures are introduced and so it moves away from a character-driven melodrama about struggling to find a job and support into a darker and more fantastical story about deception and desperation.
Part two carries less weight than the first part as it moves at a slower pace and without the creepy atmosphere it needed to manifest. So, though the movement into dark magic and rituals is measured, I found myself disengaged from the plot and alienated further by the gratuitous integration of special effects that turn the idea of Sakawa into absurdity that bears no real metaphorical or allegorical sense.
Maami is a strong Nollywood picture. Whilst it bears many of the downfalls and tropes that you may expect - sketchy sound design, excessive flashbacks, questionable dialogue, clunky projections of culture (e.g witch craft), etc. - Maami capitalises on its strengths very well. In such, Tunde Kelani manages to imbue his imagery and narrative with, sometimes, incredible warmth. Whilst some images are completely lacking of verisimilitude and others exude a documentary realism, the best scenes of this movie step inside the conventions of Nollywood to find a genuine melodramatic image and confidently explore a mother-son relationship with moments of true poignancy and thematic weight.
As a powerful example of a Nigerian picture, Maami is notable for the manner in which it constructs the melodramatic image that holds the proverbial 'Nollywood magic'.
The Victors is a truly phenomenal episodic war drama that subverts a plethora of war film tropes and critiques the manner in which WW2 is/was portrayed on film and in newsreels. In such, this film does not have bravado, glorious soldiers, romance, merry Christmases and a happy ending. Simultaneously, this isn't a blindly sceptical anti-war movie. The commentary of this film then ranges from smart to poignantly true to devastatingly ingenious thanks to brilliant editing, performances and direction.
Unfortunately, I watched a watered-down day-time television cut of this and so its more pressing themes concerning racism and violence were clearly edited down. Nonetheless, The Victors stunned me. Highly recommended.
Whilst Suspiria is shot wonderfully - almost masterfully - and bears excellent cinematography, it is not a particularly good film. The story is weak and unengaging, the script is plain clunky, the characters are flat and uncompelling and there are countless moments of undeniable stupidity and awkwardness sprinkled throughout the run-time. Whilst there are elements of the sound design that I think work - the relentlessly cacophonous sound track for example - the style of dubbing doesn't work as it does in a Sergio Leone film. This leaves much of Suspiria contrived and silly. I remained lenient for about an hour of the film's run time, but none of its content grabbed me despite the brilliant form.
I can't really understand what others see in this one.
The Internet's Own Boy is a documentary that is conventionally structured. However, despite predictability, this is an enthralling story - which certainly speaks to its power and pertinence. The story, as the title suggests, is Aaron's Swartz's - activist and co-founder of Reddit. We are told of his legacy and impact upon the world as a figure that attempted to essentially spread and publicise information. And for this alone, The Internet's Own Boy is worth seeing. Its only real downfalls come with the sense that this doesn't portray all of who Swartz's was, which implies that maybe this is a little too sentimental. However, its biggest triumph beyond storytelling is its ability to present a modern biography, utilising social media and a virtual persona with poignancy.
On this first watch, I cannot say that I felt Bresson's ascetic imagery and structure amount to much in Mouchette. As we follow a bullied and alienated young girl, we are never allowed to feel the forces of the world acting upon her. Bresson's cinematic spaces thus lack the transcendentally effectual quality seen in films such as Au Hasard Balthazar. And without recognising happenings and themes interacting, the minimalism of Mouchette only alienates, it does not evoke any greater sense of profound meaning that I'm sure Bresson was attempting to project.
In short, I unfortunately couldn't follow Mouchette as more than a string of actions. Hopefully a re-watch at a later date would reveal more to this film than what I see now.
Udaan is an utterly tremendous film about confronting a prevalent evil archetype: the tyrannical father. Like a plethora of other Bollywood and non-Bollywood films about youth, Udaan is then about freedom and so holds many tropes we would have all seen before. But, very rarely are they captured as viscerally and genuinely as in Udaan. As we follow our main character, we come to realise that this isn't just a narrative about rebellion and confrontation, and nor is it about freedom as a cathartic right; freedom, as presented by Udaan, is about a decision to lead and a choice to carry the burdens that your moral compass sends you to go pick up.
With a terrific sound track, powerful performances and brilliant direction, Udaan is a great movie that everyone should see without hesitation.
Tremendous. Williams is one of the most intensely ludicrous, yet devastatingly precise comics you'll ever come across. With each line that comes spewing out of his mouth, the intensity of his comic facade grows and grows whilst you can simultaneously tell that he is hitting every beat that he has designed into his act, all until he ends up wrestling a chair, dancing around or rolling across the floor. The result: I'm laughing like a moron.
Featuring some of his most brilliant rants and prime act-outs, The Pimp Chronicles captures some of his greatest moments of truth and some of his best physical comedy. As an undeniable force of hilarity, I have to recommend this to anyone who likes dirty, sometimes ridiculous, comedy.
Taal is a victim of its own formula. It starts off by acknowledging that it is following the plot of a stereotypical Bollywood movie, but manages to subvert this with an hour of a truly sumptuous romantic musical. However, stepping away from the first third of this movie, it becomes all that it comments on, and thus constructs a formulaic story about true love prevailing. This is framed with cliches, tropes and some dry commentary on the bastardisation of art. Whilst the last two thirds of this movie are enjoyable and sprinkled with some great musical numbers, it simply fails to live up to the spectacular first hour.
The opening and the music make Taal worthwhile, but the nature of its melodrama as it develops is ultimately a bit of a let down.
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