Matty

“Exploit Yourself.” Barbara Stanwyck puts Nietzsche’s ideas into practice and, using every part of her body, takes over an entire company, which is managed by men, of course. Her path to success begins with the liberating death of her father, who had forced her to sell her body. In the case of other men, she is conversely the one who forces them to submit. By confidently applying the “seduce and smile” technique, she avenges all of the wrongs done to her by men. She drives her short-term lovers away from their jobs and from their wives. She maintains an icy calm while the men around her murder each other. In connection with how she sleeps her way to the upper rungs of the corporate ladder, the camera climbs higher and higher to the top of the building, the phallic symbol of patriarchal power. For Lily, the men are also mere puppets, which is in part due to the fact that she has learned from "their" literature on how to make the world theirs (besides The Will to Power, she diligently studies an etiquette handbook). In short, she has read the opposite sex and is smart enough to know when to play dumb. Apart from Barbara Stanwyck, who does amazing legwork and casts immodest glances with irresistible nonchalance, Baby Face is also worth watching as an illustration of how far Hollywood filmmakers dared to go in the pre-Code era. However, that era’s guardians of morality did not find the film’s nihilism fascinating, but reprehensible, so they first censored Baby Face and then completely pulled it from circulation. The complete version was found only in 2004. And thank goodness it was found, because Hollywood has never offered too many similarly diabolical lessons in social pretence and brazen calls to take more from life than is normatively offered to you. 75%

At its core, this a classic morality tale whose carnivalesque ending exposes the true characters of several hypocrites in response to one female teacher’s “internet bunga bunga”. It thus scores hits on targets that are so slow-moving that it is almost impossible to miss them. However, Radu Jude attacks social and narrative conventions with such a sense of absurdity and such vigour not seen in Eastern and Central European cinema since perhaps the films of Dušan Makavejev and other filmmakers of the Yugoslav Black Wave. ___ Jude approaches nudity and sexuality with a similar matter-of-factness as in the Romanian film Touch Me Not, whose poster hangs in the background of the opening sex scene. Though the couple spice things up with masks, dirty talk and leather whips, this is rather ordinary domestic sex, in which there is nothing disturbing, despite the events that follow. Much more offensive things happen on the streets of Bucharest in the opening part of the film, where vulgarisms and the sexualisation of women are a terrifyingly common part of life in the city. ___ The formalistic open-mindedness of the film’s three stylistically different chapters reflects the communicational impotence of the characters, who are incapable of listening to each other due to their age, class or religious differences, as well as the inwardness of their intellectually limited worlds. At the same time, a certain unkemptness, resulting from the rapid filming, amplifies the urgency of Jude’s critique. It is not a precise analysis of social conditions, but rather an angry eclectic shot at the viewers, who, perhaps only by silently observing, are in part responsible for the fact that negligible peccadillos distract from serious crimes and contribute to the division of society; that external appearances (in the form of a polished statue in a schoolyard, for example) are given precedence over internal values; that sexism, racism and nationalism are displacing democratic ideals. It is impossible to remain indifferent in the face of this barrage of seemingly empty observational shots (which actually overflow with meaning), unexpected connections, erect penises and quotes from Benjamin, Brecht, Eco, Kracauer and Kundera. Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn is an ideal film for this age of apathy and probably the funniest winner of the Golden Bear. 85%

Due to the economic crisis, a young woman with no home and no job (and no past that we know of) is left with only her car and her dog, a female named Lucy. The car has broken down and the repair will clearly cost more than she can afford (because she can’t afford anything at all). When Wendy attempts to steal a few cans of dog food for Lucy at the supermarket, she is arrested and taken to the police station. Upon returning to the store, she finds that Lucy has disappeared. Now she has no money, no car and no dog. All she has left is the hope that she can find her dog and a job and not have to incessantly worry about where to lay her head and how to get something to eat. This grim social drama is characterised by its relatively loose dramaturgy, which gives the impression that the protagonist is merely reacting to situations that happen to her instead of pursuing a certain goal and thus fulfilling the larger plan of the screenplay. Wendy’s interaction with her surroundings, which is taken into consideration and enhanced by Michelle Williams’s distanced shooting and ambient sounds (replacing nondiegetic music), is of key importance. It helps to understand why the film is included in the cycle of neo-neorealist dramas about protagonists living in constant uncertainty about how they will survive the day and what will happen to them next, usually because of a system in which there is no place for them (see also the films of Debra Granik and Courtney Hunt). Of course, this does not involve a random layering of moments (just as that was not the case in the relatively classically constructed films of the Italian neorealism movement). Out of simple scenes, usually depicting a particular process in detail, Reichardt only manages to build an emotionally layered narrative that conveys at least part of the existential burden that the protagonist must bear. Her films are unobtrusive; seemingly nothing happens in them and, unlike other festival dramas, they do not make a bold point or offer catharsis. With their verity, precision and melancholic mood, however, they manage to slowly get under your skin and stay with you long after the final credits have rolled. 80%

Shot in all seriousness (and cold colours), Chevalier is an absurd comedy whose numerous symmetrical compositions transform the characters into players on a notional sports field. The characters themselves determine the “sports” disciplines and the rules thereof. Like all social creatures, they infer the acceptability of their behaviour from other people. Social rules and rituals are both amplified by the laboratory-like closed environment and stripped to the marrow as something that is often completely absurd, defying “common sense”, which all of us like to reference when we need to justify some of our decisions. At the same time, absurd is becoming increasingly natural as everyone around accepts it based on an unwritten agreement. For them, competition is the dominant means of relating to the world. It is not enough for them to be who they are, as they need to prove that they are better even though – for the outside observer, which we become thanks to the distanced camera – that doesn’t amount to anything. (At the same time, engaging from a distance elicits uncertainty as to whether or not someone is watching and evaluating what they see.) ___ Their homoerotically tinged focus on physical performance, appearance, strength and condition is not motivated by the game. Emphasis on physicality is evident from the opening shots, when the men touch each other while changing clothes, working out or looking in the mirror (thanks to which we will later be able to watch both the evaluator and the object of evaluation). Perhaps due to their uncertainty with respect to their sexual identity, the risk that they may start to in any way enjoy the company of other men, they transform their stay together into the pleasure of open competition. The go all out in everything they do because of the points that they can score. Though the male-bonding theme is not crucial for the film, I enjoyed watching it as a critique of male obsession with measuring (and re-measuring) oneself against others. “Friendship” built on competition. Legitimising meaningless activities by turning them into a game. Construction of phallic shelving units for CDs. ___ I understand Chevalier, at its core, as a satirical story about man’s confrontation with himself as a member of a society based increasingly on market exchange. Anything we do has a certain value. We ourselves have a certain value (human capital) and we strive to constantly increase it in our own interest, to make a good impression and to be popular (perhaps even by willingly sharing information about our private lives). The pathological culture of “likes”, pervasive opportunism, total instrumentalisation of relationships. To the extreme. 80%

With its essayistic style and thematic divergence, Exterminate All the Brutes is reminiscent of the work of Adam Curtis. Except for occasional flashes of dark humour, however, Peck is more serious, takes a more personal approach and uses performed sequences, often quite brutal and pulling us out of the concept by employing deliberate anachronisms, in which Josh Hartnett almost always portrays a racist swine. In various episodes from ancient and recent history, from the Crusades to the Holocaust and today’s neo-Nazi marches, Peck examines how a “deviation in pigmentation”, i.e. white skin colour, was “transformed into a source of power”. He is interested in the stories that form the basis of the belief that the white race is superior. In gathering together examples of how the happiness of some people was purchased at the cost of pain inflicted on many others, he puts himself in the position of a biased narrator, not a neutral historian. Therefore, he does not shy away from using words that you probably would not encounter in a serious sociological or anthropological study. He bluntly calls Andrew Jackson a murderer of Indians and talks about how the Belgians plundered the Congo and how the genocide of the native population is still ongoing in the United States today. To support his arguments, he uses scenes from Triumph of the Will and John Ford westerns, quotes from Thomas Hobbes, excellent animated maps, well-made animated sequences, classic paintings set in motion and Eva Braun’s home movies. In addition to his sombre voice, we hear a broad range of music ranging from funk to classical. The way in which Peck places individual images and texts behind himself (sometimes even on himself) and thus cleverly confronts us with facts that have been excluded from our culture for centuries (preventing us from cultivating the ability to perceive them) is in itself so suggestive that I momentarily became so absorbed in the visual component that I forgot to listen to the commentary. Exterminate All the Brutes is the most transgressive documentary of recent years.

My Life to Live is like browsing through a book that Godard had written during the time when it was still possible to understand him. At the start of each of the twelve chapters, which break the film up into several episodes, we are briefly informed, as in some novels, of what we have look forward to. A compact, graduated drama is logically not the order of the day. “How” becomes more important than “what”. Though each chapter is slightly different (due to editing, the length of shots, lighting, space left for the text, mood), Anna Karina connects all of them together through the ambiguous (is she a user or is she used?) role of a young woman who would like to believe that she knows how to live her life in a meaningful way. Her spontaneity and playfulness and that of My Life to Live as a whole defy any effort toward rational analysis. It’s just necessary to watch and enjoy. 80%

The actor, director and author of several successful cookbooks travels around Italy, meets with friends, enjoys Italian food and, with his enchanting voice, relays the history of individual regions and the local culture, cuisine and people. I would be perfectly satisfied with just watching the impeccably dressed Tucci as he speaks beautiful Italian in picturesque locations and nibbles on real Neapolitan pizza or first-class pancetta with a blissful smile, but the show is also educational. Tucci’s commentary goes into greater detail and offers more of a political and economic context than is common in gastronomic travelogues. He is not interested only in the production of buffalo-milk mozzarella or prosciutto, but also in their role in the history of Italy (did you know, for example, that pasta became a symbol of resistance against fascism in the 1930s?). In addition to that, the show is filmed not with stereotypes, but with interest in and respect for the places visited and their residents (for example, Scampia is not portrayed in relation to drugs and the mafia, as most of the world knows it from Gomorrah, but from the perspective of the local Romani community). Searching for Italy is a joy.

The offspring of a frozen waffle and a Yeti and his best friend, a smiling rice cake, become familiar with different kinds of food (and their use in cooking), get to know foreign cultures and famous chefs, learn to accept people with disabilities (and properly communicate with them) and visit renowned restaurants. Both of them admire Julia Child and are puppets (not in the figurative sense). ___ A little cooking, a bit of travel and some animated singing vegetables. Try to imagine a cross between Sesame Street and Bourdain’s No Reservations (compared to which this is also appropriate for vegetarians). It may sound like a farce that mixes together so many ingredients that the result is inedible. In reality, however, it is a humorous, informative (but by no means didactic), positive, inclusive, creatively inventive and mostly unobtrusive show for preschool kids that presents food as something of value that should not be taken for granted, as something that isn’t just taken out of the fridge or bought at a fast-food restaurant, and through which the world can be discovered and friendships established. ___ Despite the fact that I haven’t been a member of the target group for a quarter of a century and, at the very least, I am able to cook pasta, I have enjoyed every episode so far. It would be a shame if this slipped through the cracks in the onslaught of new VOD content.

At a deeper level, almost all films touch on the fear of death. Melodramas about dying people are used on a mass scale to thematicise it. This adaptation of Margaret Edson’s stage play resists being pigeonholed as a melodrama, just as Vivian refuses to accept the role of a passive victim of ovarian cancer. Concealed behind the guise of a touching and chillingly humorous story of one woman’s struggle, there is a film essay, an inventive polemic on how death is depicted in art. For Vivian, the starting point for reflecting on the depiction of that which cannot be depicted and naming of that which cannot be named is a poem by John Donne, to which she has devoted most of her scientific career, thus elegantly blending the personal and professional areas of the protagonist’s life. However, reading an apposite poem about death is not the same as dying. As a film about death, Wit is well aware of this contradiction and continuously draws our attention to it by violating melodramatic conventions and through Vivian’s commentary delivered to the camera. Unlike a classic melodrama, there is no survivor with whom we could sympathise and cry after the main protagonist dies. Two likable supporting characters, a nurse and Vivian’s former professor, serve primarily to convey certain theses related to death and dying (regression to childhood while licking ice cream or reading a children’s book). Despite its self-ironic breaching of the fourth wall, Wit is not coldly intellectual. With the substantial contribution of the excellent Emma Thompson, it rather illustrates the fact that a poignant film can be made without emotionally manipulating the viewer. Instead, Nichols and Thompson see us as equal partners in discussing a topic that concerns each of us. 85%

Whereas the secondary theme in Greta’s story was Asperger’s Syndrome, it is depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation in the case of her peer Billie Eilish. With greater intimacy than other documentary portraits of pop stars, the film gives on honest, up-close look at how Eilish constructively deals with these unpleasant states of mind through music, as well as how writing songs and bounding about on the stage breaks her down both mentally and physically. In parallel with her rise, we see how she takes control of her image as a star and increasingly uncompromisingly resists the pressure to submit to the demands of the entertainment industry. Her emphasis on authenticity in music and public performance is reflected in the documentary, which did not give me the feeling that it was attempting to construct a certain image and pass her story off as a prefabricated “rags to riches” narrative. It is rather more reminiscent of a loosely connected series of home videos and observational and unusually long shots from her private life, interspersed with concert footage (in whose case, however, more space is dedicated to what happens behind the scenes rather than to the performance itself). On the one hand, this unkemptness enhances the feeling that we are close to the singer and that we see her as she really is. On the other hand, due to the very long runtime, these moments are quite repetitive and lack a clearer development and rhythm. For the next portrait, which will undoubtedly emerge in time, I would appreciate it if it took as direct an approach to matters as Eilish herself does and gave more space to her parents, to whom the film owes some of its most charming moments (such as her father’s partly worried and partly encouraging but not pedantic monologue on safe driving when Eilish sets out on her first solo drive in her Dodge Challenger). 65%