I wrote a post collecting a bunch of films I’ve seen on TV, and now the counterpart – films seen in a cinema. A very mixed bunch indeed.
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri [2017]
The film festival darling of 2018, I had to go see it. It tells the story of Mildred (Frances McDormand), a divorced woman, who is grieving over her raped and murdered daughter. The major counterpart to her is police chief Willoughby. Mildred is angry over police inaction and rents the three titular billboards to send a message to the police chief. Willoughby is on his part trying to do the best he can, while also fighting cancer.
The film is a combination of the Coen brothers and the generic American indie film. From the Coens you get the single-mindedness and surprising moments of humor at things you shouldn’t really be laughing at. From the indies you get the human heart. The film manages to combine these sides by muting both of them down a little from their worst excesses. Copying the Coens wouldn’t be a bad thing, but toning it down allows the film to stand on its own feet. Copying the indies would obviously bad, but here the characters mostly act in a Coen film, but there are occasional moments, when the roles of the grieving mother and the police chief are dropped, and they are human.
Where this film misses is that despite the genuine tragedy, the film seems like a modern version of the pastel colored suburbs of the 50ies that are these days mostly too perfect fantasies. Here, we have a small town, where everything seems to be just so. We aren’t seeing it through nostalgia, so it’s not without problems, but there’s always checks and balances that makes everything work without too much trauma, despite some people acting quite badly under stress.
A very good film altogether.
- Director: Martin McDonagh
- Watched on: 7th Jul 2018
- Watched at: Kinopalatsi 10
- 4/5
Isle of Dogs [2018]
I’m a fan of Wes Anderson. When he keeps his trickery to sane levels, he is absolutely wonderful. This one is a stop motion animation, telling the story of dogs being exiled to an island that used to be a weird combination of industrial area and amusement park, and now is a dump. The exile is due to dogs spreading diseases among humans. Our story begins as Atari, the son of the mayor, who orders the exile, elopes to the island in search of his beloved dog, Spots. Atari and a group of dogs embark on a grand voyage across the dump to find Spots and help the dogs in general.
As mentioned, I’m a fan of Anderson, when he keeps his trickery in check. With stop motion animation, he can throw all thoughts of that to the wind, and he does. Now, not just the delivery of the actors, but absolutely everything, is bent to his will. The result is not without charms, but the excesses eat into those quite a lot.
- Director: Wes Anderson
- Watched on: 11th Jul 2018
- Watched at: Kinopalatsi 8
- 2.5/5
The Shape of Water [2017]
Guillermo del Toro has risen from an art house darling to a Hollywood household name. At the same time he has turned his B horror sensibilities into something secretly agreeable to even conservatives. He hasn’t discarded the horror tropes or even B film settings, but somehow turned them into a secret fantasy that we can all swoon over at the cinema, and condemn as harmless fantasy, when we get out.
And harmless this is. A story of a cleaning lady, Elisa (Sally Hawkins), who is working at a secret military testing facility, where they have sort of an alien life form in captivity. Elisa falls for the life form and it falls back and they have an impropable romantic relationship. And that’s about it. I don’t really know, what this is supposed to be.
- Director: Guillermo del Toro
- Watched on: 11th Jul 2018
- Watched at: Tennispalatsi 5
- 1.5/5
What? [1972]
This was my first visit to the WHS cinema in Helsinki. It has since become my favorite cinema both in programming and in that they present all the films they show. The presentation gives much depth the experience especially, since the films are otherwise quite obscure.
Like this one – everyone’s heard about Roman Polanski and most even about one of the films stars, Marcello Mastroianni. Despite the scandals of Polanski’s life finally coming to light, even our most conservative TV channels are still playing his films regularly, but not this.
The film tells of an American girl, Nancy (Sydne Rome) coming for a vacation into a hotel in an Italian coastal town. The other residents of the hotel are all sorts of weird and especially the hotel’s proprietor. About the first thing that happens to Nancy is that someone steals her pants (and later her blouse) and she doesn’t seem to have any other clothing. She engages in a weird relationship with an old pimp, Alex (Marcello Mastroianni), who wants to dress up as a tiger, when they are having sex.
The film doesn’t make much sense, but it has a weird post modern charm to it. The camera work and everything keep things interesting as well.
- Director: Roman Polanski
- Original Title: Che?
- Watched on: 3rd Aug 2018
- Watched at: WHS
- 3/5
Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again [2018]
Had a rare date night with my wife. I wanted to take her to the cinema Riviera Kallio and she wanted to see this, so we were set.
The film… Not much to say. It’s basically more of everything compared to the first one, but done slightly less well and with considerably less heart. There is not an interesting shot or piece of dialogue or setup in the film, but it’s good brainless fun for a date night.
- Director: Ol Parker
- Watched on: 13th Aug 2018
- Watched at: Riviera
- 2/5
Knife+Heart [2018]
The film is set in gay porn world of 70ies France. Anne Pareze (Vanessa Paradis) is the producer in her own company. Her ex-girlfriend edits the company’s films – Anne isn’t over it and is (rather badly) attempting win her back over all the time. Her actors are her friends, but there’s a serious issue – a serial killer is picking off Anne’s actors.
The setup is very deeply grounded in the more innocent porn of the 70ies and also in B films. The aesthetic is copied from both, but instead of going for the gags common in porn that time, the film asks us to take the B film tropes seriously. There’s a bird expert with a claw for a hand, and the serial killer has a blade snapping out of his dildo.
This sounds like a premise for failure, but it is not. The aesthetic is spot on, the dread from the killer is real, the slightly over the top gay porn actors are a nice counter-balance. It just works. There’s just a hint of extra fat that could’ve been left on the editing room floor to fix the couple of spots, where the film gives too much slack, but otherwise a great genre exercise.
- Director: Yann Gonzalez
- Original Title: Un couteau dans le coeur
- Watched on: 1st Feb 2019
- Watched at: WHS
- 4.5/5
The Favourite [2018]
Yorgos Lanthimos is another auteur in the style of Wes Anderson – someone with an immediately recognizable style, and who can be a bit too gimmicky given enough freedom. I enjoyed his two previous efforts though, so off I went.
Here the setting is the court of Queen Anne (Olivia Colman). Her favorite adviser and lover, Lady Sarah, the Duchess of Marlborough (Rachel Weisz), has been running the state in practice. This has pissed of the Queen, since her favorite lover is absent quite a bit and enjoying herself too much. Enter Abigail, Baroness Masham (Emma Stone), a down on her luck noble, who manages to get a job from her cousin, Lady Sarah, and quickly finds her way into the Queen’s favor and bed.
Unlike his previous films, this one doesn’t tackle any major social issues, except perhaps to show in some honesty the reality of our past. This gives him too much freedom and the film is set for failure with Lanthimos’ signature slightly too frank dialogue and macabre scenes given free reign.
But the film doesn’t fail. That is purely thanks to the formidable trio of ladies in the leading roles. They make you buy the whole thing hook, line and sinker. The combination turned out to be a magnificent film.
- Director: Yorgos Lanthimos
- Watched on: 20th Mar 2019
- Watched at: Tennispalatsi 5
- 4.5/5
In the Footsteps of a Turtle 