Weekly reviews #006

Caricaturistes, fantassins de la démocratie (2014) - 5.0 / 10

This pre-Hebdo documentary about cartoonists and freedom of speech is almost not worth being called a 'documentary' rather than an accumulation of interviews by a bunch of self-righteous white men proclaiming their own importance. Admittedly, there are some women and people of colour who get a say. Admittedly, some of the cartoonists live in the line of fire and see people getting killed in their direct vicinity. That's exactly why this documentary has some very good parts. Especially the interviews with Ángel Boligán and Nadia Khiari I found quite interesting. Apart from that, this feature wasn't enlightening at all. Just a bunch of clichés from bourgeois people like Jean Plantureux, Michel Kichka and Baha Boukhari. Also, there's almost no backstory or social context given. For some cartoonists, like Rayma Suprani, I deemed that necessary. This is pretty weak and forgettable stuff for an otherwise very important topic. Footsoldiers of democracy? Most of them really aren't.

Nånting måste gå sönder (2014) - 7.5 / 10

A Swedish Generation Y movie about transgenderism and loneliness, also known as Something Must Break. Saga Becker is phenomenal in this small gem that's been permeated with melancholy. At the same time the film feels incredibly liberating because it talks about gender and the freedom to be who you are without restrictive cisgenderism and heteronormativity. Maybe that's just it: this liberty, which is not at all won at this moment in history, is still something bleak and isolated. Because of that there's a certain kind of sadness surrounding the personal struggle fought by trans people. Sebastian / Ellie is such a person who identifies her/himself not as gay or straight, not as male or female, not as transsexual, but as something that isn't called by name in the movie, something "queer" you might say. While his/her search for an own identity manifests itself, Something Must Break manages to bring up some (other) big issues of our time (in the Western World): solitude, unemployment, depression, the search for meaning in this life, etc. A beautiful yet heavy-hearted movie with a nice soundtrack by Tami Tamaki and Olof Dreijer (The Knife). Recommended!

R100 (2013) - 6.0 / 10

Sometimes it's nice to watch a movie for its mere shock value. R100 is exactly one of those. On the other hand it never was able to transcend the provocative imagery and content like Fight Club or Luis Buñuel (with which the film was compared) did in their time. Director Hitoshi Matsumoto tells the tale of a masochistic man who experiences supernatural orgasms by being extremely humiliated. After a while reality and fiction begin to merge and the man starts to discover his sadistic side. Luckily this isn't a pretext to make a softcore SM movie, but it also doesn't surpass the level of a superficial b-production. The final twenty minutes are a bit too ridiculous for my taste (because they're so out of sync with the rest of the movie), that I can't say I've enjoyed R100 that much. Nevertheless it had some great moments because of the dark humor, meta-jokes and entertaining twists.

Rigor Mortis (2013) - 7.0 / 10

Will this movie generate a revival of East-Asian horror hype? Or will it just be the one? In any case, Rigor Mortis shows us that they aren't out of ideas after The Ring, The Grudge, Shutter, One Missed Call, Dark Water and The Eye. The aesthetic has improved a lot and the storyline still is as crazy and imaginative as ever. The Chinese take on vampires is refreshing in an age were our imagery is dominated by Western mythology and fantasy. Maybe the plot had a bit more potential and sometimes the editing is the cause for some narrative confusion, but all in all this is a cool looking and entertaining movie that resembles the above mentioned films with the cinematographic style of the Russian movies Night Watch and Day Watch.

The Scribbler (2014) - 5.0 / 10

Another picture that had way more potential than its final product. When a young woman with dissociative identity disorder is brought to some kind of madhouse, people start killing themselves for no apparent reason. With a bunch of excentric characters and a visual style that provokes Sin City comparisons, this comic book adaptation will certainly entertain people and capture their attention till the last minute. Unfortunately it all feels a bit rushed, bloated and shallow. With b-listers like Garret Dillahunt, Gina Gershon, Kunal Nayyar, Billy Campbell and Richard Riehle, this movie has some fun acting and prevents from feeling amateuristic, but in the end it's just too much a "been there, seen that" movie...

The Normal Heart (2014) - 8.5 / 10

This is without any doubt the best (semi-)biopic I've seen in years. Maybe because it felt like a very personal movie, but that's not the only reason. Mark Ruffalo is probably one of my favorite actors and for some reason it took Hollywood years to give the man the acting jobs he deserves. As Ned Weeks (who's actually a fictitious Larry Kramer - written by Larry Kramer) Ruffalo finally proves himself an actor who manages to get under your skin. While this movie reminded me of the miniseries Angels in America and the documentary Sex Positive, it certainly comes out as one of the best films concerning gay topics in a long time (apart from Pride, which is probably one of my favorite pictures about homosexuals ever). With incredibly strong speeches from Ruffalo, but also Taylor Kitsch, Joe Mantello (goosebumps!), Julia Roberts and Jim Parsons, this is a very actor-driven feature. Probably because it originally is a theater play. Although The Normal Heart sometimes is a bit too sentimental, it never bothered me due to the fantastic writing and dialogue. In a time that was emotionally devastating, everyone tried to cope with the new situation in their own way. Some people are more sanguineous than others and that makes social relations hard, even impossible in some cases. On the other hand everyone tries to find love, tries to be appreciated and cared for, even the most spirited and loud of all. The Normal Heart is a film with a heart, a lot of pathos, layered characters, top notch acting and superior dialogue-writing. HBO did it again.