JFL

Larraín appealingly reconstructs a fascinating chapter of 20th century history, when Pinochet was forced into a referendum on the future direction of Chile, during which the opposition campaign built on the language of advertising played an essential role in his overthrow. Though the narrative also contains storylines about personal heroism in the interest of grand ideals and about intimidation by the ruling power, it primarily focuses on the detailed portrayal of marketing tactics and their role in the campaign. The chosen form based on using old television technologies enables the seamless transition between the film’s reconstruction of events and television footage from the period. At the same time, the film emphasises the connection between advertising and the lived reality that was just coming into being at the time, but which is now ubiquitous.

Fellini for the new millennium, or an ode to Rome and the life of the campaign city’s upper crust packaged in a portrait of an old dandy looking back on his own life while raising question about the essence of artistic creation, creative distinction and faith. With its style straddling the line between parable, dreams and magical realism, The Great Beauty inevitably evokes the Fellini classics La Dolce Vita, 8½ and Roma, but it does not in any way copy or plagiarise them. It just addresses the same themes in the same spirit, though with respect to the age and misanthropic nature of the main character, it focuses on different elements and values.

Where lies the boundary between art and exploitation? After Filip Renč, Bruno Dumont raises the same question in his artsy-fartsy variation on Requiem for a Maiden, which begs intolerably for festival laurels or at least European Film Awards.

Though Blue Is the Warmest Colour owes some of its qualities to the original comic book (available in French and, since September 2013, in English) about two young women’s great love spanning several years, the main reasons that it is such an emotionally absorbing experience consist in the adaptation’s flawless formalistic approach. An essential role is played by the unique symbiosis of the immediate performances of the actresses and how they are captured by the camera, as most of the runtime is made up of close-ups and medium shots. This approach, literally eliciting a feeling of closeness, highlights even the smallest details in the faces of the central couple, based on which the narrative builds the intense emotional tension found in all of the scenes. Blue Is the Warmest Colour provides an intense, three-hour immersion into a single relationship without a single unnecessary second. Each moment of this dramaturgically perfectly composed film presents a complex and very intimate view into the emotional life of the protagonist Adele – from the initial difficult clarification of her orientation to the passionate love that later transforms into doubtfulness arousing uncertainty and devastatingly painful loss. Despite the caustic comments directed toward it, Blue Is the Warmest Colour deserves all of the acclaim and attention that it has received from both critics and viewers not because of its explicit sex scenes, but simply because it is a uniquely intense viewing experience that literally takes the audience on a journey through the turbulence of a long-term relationship. Even as it enthrals viewers and allows them to experience every intoxicating and devastating moment in the women’s relationship, it never does so in a superficial way. P.S.: Blue Is the Warmest Colour gave me the most intense viewing experience that I have had in many years.

Though Fresh Meat is enticing with a number of trashy delights and its exaggerated, hyper-stylised form, it’s actually the equivalent of a sitcom rather than a proper trash flick. The majority of the film takes place in one setting and, despite the comic-bookishly overwrought elements, it stands entirely on the performances of the actors, who in this case do a fine job of balancing the genre stylisation of trash with sitcom affectation. Fresh Meat does not aspire to do anything more than give its viewers a bit of mind candy along the lines of ordinary television series, which it does flawlessly. The dramaturgy wrings the maximum out of the simple plot as it maintains the pace by regularly jumping between the individual motifs. It’s especially necessary to appreciate how the filmmakers manage to raise expectations and to create suspense, though not in terms of the horror or thriller genre, but at the level of voyeuristic pleasure of the lesbian romance, which actually becomes the film’s main attraction in the climax.

Two years after Die Hard, which served as a pressure valve for the bruised self-confidence of an America roiled by the Asian economic boom, the Japanese struck back with this bizarre trash flick that literally rides on the trend of skating movies that were fashionable at the time. This American-Japanese co-production tells the story of a future America where most of the domestic companies and public institutions have been sold off to foreigners because of the previous generation’s mismanagement (the highlight is the brick-by-brick relocation of one of America’s main universities to Japan :)). In response to the dismal social conditions, a radical nationalist organisation is established, with its membership comprising exclusively white boys aged 10 to 25 who roller-skate in white trench coats and white trousers with suspenders. Their leader recruits new members with the promise of a better future and bringing American companies back under American control, but he finances these sincerely intended plans by dealing drugs, an activity that also conceals his grand plan to eradicate the weak. Standing against this nineties trash Hitler Youth is fading teen star Corey Haim, who lets himself get recruited into the group so that he can be a police informant, though the logic of his motivation for doing so is shaky. Few period trash films targeting adolescent video rental-shop customers can boast such a crackpot premise (and there were all kinds of off-the-wall flicks back then). From roughly the midpoint of the runtime, when the film’s world is introduced and the plot lines are sketched out, Prayer of the Rollerboys unfortunately becomes a formulaic action melodrama. Though the situation is occasionally saved by the inner lack of logic and the tremendously formulaic nature of the characters’ actions, it’s impossible to shake off the impression that this could have been a more lustrous camp gem. On the other hand, however, the very fact that someone would, with a completely straight face, combine skater dystopia, the tastelessness of ’90s fashion, a subversive ideological pamphlet against American nationalism, agitprop about the dangers of youth organisations with charismatic leaders promising personal and physical growth and cleansing of foreign poisons, and then approach the whole thing as a serious action movie makes Prayer of the Rollerboys an undeniably unique film.