POMO

Noah is a historical epic without a clear target audience, combining pop elements from family fantasy movies with depressing psychological scenes in which the blade of a knife hovers above a toddler’s head. Ugh. It is visually beautiful with incredibly contradictory content. It’s been a long time since I saw film that I so much don’t want to see again.

Had I seen this as a teenager obsessed with playing NFS, I’d be ecstatic. The movie is full of gaming poetics and the cars are a level higher than in the Fast & Furious series. With its great locations, Need for Speed is like a road trip around US national parks and cities, as if they were levels in a game. As for characters and the logic of the story, however, it couldn’t be lamer. But the 130-minute running time is not grating, as it makes the film into the longest guilty pleasure mind-fuck in the history of cinema.

In the Chinese Communist regime, human life has little value and concepts such as cleanliness, social feeling and respect for others fail fundamentally. Foxconn is a Taiwanese company that has factories in China, among other places. Here, the Chinese leadership treats the employees within the bounds of national policy, i.e. with the shortcomings listed above. This documentary critically points an accusing finger at one of Foxconn’s customers – the American technology company Apple, which its claims is responsible for Foxconn’s working conditions and should do something about it, i.e. improve the working conditions in the world’s largest communist country. Why doesn’t the director of this documentary do this herself? She is free to complain to anyone about this. The surreptitiously captured shots of the newly built Foxconn dormitories, more spacious than rooms in Amsterdam hostels, are shown with a dark musical background, implying that we are supposed to be horrified by what we see. How can someone who obviously knows nothing about the conditions in which truly poor Chinese live in those cramped apartments that are just a few square meters make such a documentary?? I saw this at Prague's One World film festival, at night during the workweek, in the completely packed Světozor cinema. Instead of a shocking Apple version of Super Size Me, we got to see this misleading and naïve bullshit that cheaply exploits the most successful brand in the world by putting its name in the title.

It’s been a long time since I felt like I was in such a drug-induced trance after watching a movie as I did after Borgman. Its hypnotic strangeness does not captivate you with its visuals or sounds (music is used only in places, and the visuals are minimalist), but purely by what happens in it. It is European cinematic art which, however, does not try to convey its idea in a contemplative and wannabe wise manner, but tells it as it is, without pulling any punches and with hellishly dark humor. Borgman is an exemplary festival film; a proper feast for lovers of countercurrent art.

The first of those three films our country produces every year that we can be proud of. The story is simple and its scope and visuals are not as large-format as Burning Bush, but it has similar internal power and even more sensitively captured details. You will be touched and sad, but you will also be glad you’ve seen this.

You’ll keep telling yourself that if the screenwriters don’t mess it up, it’s going to be a perfect aero-thriller. Non-Stop has a fast pace, a charismatic lead actor, rising paranoia and escalating suspense. But the screenwriters do mess it up, and even though the suspense remains, the film gradually loses its seriousness and in the end leaves you smiling indulgently over another silly action flick with a 1990s mentality (as you could expect from a Joel Silver production). A piece of advice: if everyone on the plane thinks you’re a terrorist and the situation gets out of hand, just tell them that your daughter died of cancer.

The Coen brothers in chill-out mode. This not very ambitious but pleasantly relaxing underground flick has no plot, but its atmosphere is excellent in places – especially during the brilliantly edited (including great work with sounds) car journey to Chicago, dominated by the film’s best character (played by John Goodman). As a whole, however, the film is unsatisfactory, it does not give the audience what it is waiting for. Factotum, also a story about an underdog/loser, was formally more conventional, but with more entertaining content.

Candidate is surprisingly not a bad satire. It is formally precise (except for the sound) but not self-serving – its editing and visual filters are there to convey the superficial charm of the world of commercials where it takes place. Its humor is scarce but witty and to the point. It’s the first time we get to see those Czech-Slovak jokes we’ve been waiting for (the MacDonald’s scene is the best) and it’s done so tastefully that both Czechs and Slovaks will laugh. The main character is charismatic and believable and Marek Majeský is a good fit for the role. Candidate is a very Slovak film, but I don’t mean that as an insult. It reflects hiding the absence of wit behind “glamorous” values, good marketing and dubious politics. However, I won’t give it a fourth star because I’m not sure this was done consciously. I have these doubts also because of the would-be surprising final point, which was forcibly added to the film so that the audience feels the need to discuss the ending with the filmmakers.

The ambition of this film is to make the audience root for an unlucky good guy who goes through some amusing mishaps only to finally manage to fulfil his dream and gain confidence. However, this is done without a single scene, character or any other creative filmmaking effort that would make you remember the film. The effect of the straightforward attack on your emotions will soon subside and leave you with no lasting impression.

In the first half, RoboCop observes the psychology of transforming a human into a robot and addresses the issue of ethics without lacking the proper visual effectiveness. In the second half, the film speeds up and the well-built dramaturgy falls apart (with a twist that probably not even the creators – including the screenwriter – understand, when RoboCop chooses to address his own past over dealing with the ongoing crimes) and the interesting science-fiction movie becomes a dumb action flick. It seems as if José Padilha’s film was cut and shortened by the producers to satisfy more consumerist audiences who don’t need more than said dumb action. And that’s a pity. The cynical view of US foreign policy and a few good jokes (“I’m just from marketing!”) suggest that the new RoboCop could have been a worthy remake, cleverly reflecting society in the new millennium.