Matty

Not even Bear Grylls can prepare you for some situations. The real terror, which will make you put your hand over your eyes, comes only after an hour, but the preceding minutes will still keep you on the edge of your seat. With its subjective shots, close-ups of the protagonists’ faces and shallow depth of field, Backcountry effectively evokes a feeling of a constant threat of uncertain origin. We can infer exactly what and from whom the central couple are under threat and how much danger they are in. The hour-long build-up also serves to introduce Jenn and Alex, to whom we are not indifferent thanks to the fact that they act sensibly (they have rational justifications for most of the decisions that turn out to be wrong) and, at the same time, they are not perfect, but they are completely honest with each other. With its visceral intensity, the final act is thus exhausting not only physically, but also emotionally. Backcountry is proof that even with a very simple concept, it is possible to make a truly brilliant and brutal survival movie that is consistent and convincing, compared to which Wild with Reese Witherspoon, for example, seems like a casual walk in the park. 85%

Based on a short filmed in one take, The Climb is a feature-length movie conceived as a series of brief one-shot films. Though the length of the shots is justified in the opening and closing cycling scenes and contributes to the impression of fluidity, in a number of other scenes it comes across as self-serving and conversely exposes the episodic nature of the elliptical narrative with large jumps in time. The fact that some of the shots last roughly a quarter of an hour does not help to better understand the relationships between the characters, which are the main point of the film. Actors engaged in dialogue are usually shot from up close with a shallow depth of field, as is found in films with standard editing. We thus do not see what is happening in the more distant planes of the picture. Dispensing with editing is primarily an excuse for unnecessary Steadicam acrobatics. Covino doesn’t even try to achieve realism. The transitions between some chapters comprise bizarre musical numbers (in one of which the singing actors look directly into the camera) and in one of the long shots, there is both a sudden transition from day to night and a jump in time (from Thanksgiving to Christmas). These peculiarities create the illusion of sophistication, but by awkwardly varying a single narrative formula (Mike negatively affects Kyle’s life through some action or statement), the film tells the banal story of the friendship of slightly eccentric protagonists and male self-pity that we have seen in a more well-though-out form in many other American indie films. 60%

This documentary summarising the resurrection and second life of Verhoeven’s flop, Showgirls, is excellent in how it takes into account the broad range of aspects that make a cult move a cult movie (touching on the film’s critical reception, fans and Susan Sontag), as well as its ability to convince you – for example, through careful analysis of the dialogue about dog food – that Showgirls can be seen as, for example, a masterpiece with a feminist message and not just as a misogynistic trash. In the end, you will probably appreciate it more or possibly start to see the rest of Verhoeven’s filmography, in the context of which Showgirls is discussed, in a different light. Furthermore, it’s funny and healthily irreverent toward the mainstream, as befits a film that places so many mirrors in front of the entertainment industry. 85%

I had not seen such a compelling true crime documentary series for a long time. The five hour-long episodes follow a successful high-school football player from Texas who was accused of sexually assaulting two four-year-old boys six years prior. There was practically no evidence. Nevertheless, the court sentenced him to 25 years in prison. The documentary crew was there when the case was reopened in 2017 and over the next three years they were able to see first-hand how the case continued to develop while recording the involved parties’ immediate reactions to new findings and rulings. More and more evidence of the fatal failures of individuals and of the system completes the portrait of a divided community, which serves as a microcosm of the United States. Some people respect the facts, while others, under the influence of heightened emotions, refuse to take objective reality into account and put moral principles above the law. Everyone is convinced that they are acting justly. The atmosphere is tense on both sides. The fact that this involves clearing the name of a man who would most probably be the villain in a fictional story of this type – a handsome athlete with a lot of friends and strong support from the community – brings an unusual dynamic to the film. Due to their impartiality and focus, the first three episodes in particular are as comparably engaging as Making a Murderer. The remaining episodes, which are more personal and less procedural, need some editing. That said, there is still no artificial stretching of the runtime through repetition of the same statements, unnecessary diversions or piling up banal testimonies, as is often the case in other true crime series (for example, Netflix’s recent Trial 4). Outcry is so well constructed that you will find your emotions constantly changing (curiosity, suspense, compassion, frustration) and a few times you will probably doubt who is actually the villain and who is the hero, who is telling the truth and who is bullshitting. One of this year’s best docuseries.

The Philadelphia Story lies halfway between a madcap screwball comedy and a sophisticatedly humorous romance with a thrilling pace. Thanks to the film’s dynamic direction (numerous point-of-view and detail shots, precise choreography of the actors and alternation of settings in accordance with the transformation of the characters and the relationships between them), the beautiful and rich, but far from perfect people practically never slow down for two hours. As a capable and confident woman (whom Cukor liked to give extra space), Katharine Hepburn perfectly complements both of her partners, who were also Hollywood’s biggest stars at the time. Before the film’s premiere, however, Hepburn was considered to be an element that rather repelled viewers with her presence (which was due in part to the bland roles assigned to her). Salvation came to her in the form of a stage play written especially for her by Phillip Barry. Therefore, the loosely autobiographical role of a spoiled heiress who has to learn tolerance and respect for other people can be understood as a reaction to the impression of coldness and inaccessibility that she made on viewers (in other words, she did not try to please them, unlike other actresses). She ensured that the play would be transferred to film as faithfully as possible by buying the rights to it (with financial assistance from Howard Hughes) and choosing the cast and crew herself. In addition to Cukor, Grant and Stewart, the all-star team also included legendary production designer Cedric Gibbons, who received the same number of Oscars in his lifetime as Ben-Hur and Titanic. The success of the original Broadway play and the superbly written and acted film based on it greatly helped Hepburn’s career and The Philadelphia Story became a timeless classic thanks to the fact that, among other things and contrary to the conventions of today, it is a romantic comedy that is funny due to what we see and not only because of what we hear. 85%

Jack London’s novel of the same name, which tells the story of a young sailor on the path to becoming a writer, was set in Oakland at the beginning of the 20th century. In this original film adaptation by Italian painter and filmmaker Pietro Marcello, the setting is the Neapolitan shoreline and the story’s timeframe cannot be precisely determined due to a number of anachronisms. Archival shots in sepia tones, the characters’ modest way of life and costumes evoke an era that came before television screens and the songs used in the film. The collage style of storytelling is similarly untethered, as it combines elements of romanticising melodramas, ethnographic documentaries and avant-garde cinema. The variability of the film reflects the protagonist’s development, which is not viewed from one perspective, but on the basis of his current state of mind and life experiences, which makes Martin Eden a very refreshing work in the context of period dramas and adaptations of classic literature. 85%

Despite its patient examination of the involvement of a remote and isolated community in the broader socio-political and mythological frameworks of the modern world, Olanda can be off-putting due to its slow pace and runtime spanning two and a half hours. However, if you allow yourself to be immersed in it, you will experience not only the hypnotic picking of blueberries and a psychedelic montage sequence ending with an unforgettable cameo by a donkey, but also inspiring testimonies about the possibilities of the harmonious coexistence of people and nature. 85%

A portrait of a family operating a private ambulance service in Mexico City. The saving of lives happens in parallel with the struggle for subsistence. The members of the family try not to lose their jobs and fall apart despite horrendous eating habits, lack of time, corrupt cops and patients who cannot or do not want to pay for their services. Outwardly, Midnight Family is a formally compact action thriller with a lot of adrenaline-fuelled rides through the congested streets of the city at night. On another level, the film employs numerous allusions to gently compose a complex picture of the healthcare system, which is teetering on the verge of collapse due to corruption, overloaded hospitals and a lack of medical personnel. Though it is the only part that takes place during the day, the film’s epilogue does not bring relief and hope, but rather only the beginning of the next cycle, which, without the necessary systemic changes, will be just as devastating as the one before. 85%

Following the dissolution of his relationship, Frank Beauvais fell into depression and set out for the Alsatian countryside. There, isolated from civilisation, he began to fill his emptiness by obsessively watching movies. Over the course of several weeks, he watched four hundred of them. He then turned his experience into an informationally dense audio-visual diary comprising cleverly selected fragments of the films he had seen and original commentary. In the uncensored stream of thoughts, a retelling of his personal life is interwoven with more general reflections on politics, work and art. The bigger the cinephile you are and the more experience you have had with depression, passivity, anxiety and procrastination, the more you will identify with the language of Beauvais’s film composed of other films. 90%

The concept of this two-and-a-quarter-hour compiled documentary is simple – using official government footage and without offscreen commentary or music, it reconstructs events in the Soviet Union in the four days following Stalin’s death. However, Loznica uses properly restored archival materials, which originally served as communist propaganda, to emphasise the absurdity of the cult of personality while also uncovering its hollowness. The layered sound design and the repetition of shots that are similar in content show the extent to which veneration of the leader was based on the mechanical reproduction of the meaningless symbols and emblems of Stalinist iconography. 90%