Megfojtott virágok

Egy újabb Scorsese által tökéletesen megrendezett retró mű antihősökkel, akik korrupciótól és hazugságtól velejéig romlottak. És az áldozatok tragédiájával, immár klasszikusan érzelmi távolságtartással filmezve. Kivéve a főszereplőt, egy indiai nőt, akinek a megsemmisülése nem néhány másodpercig tartó fejlövéses jelenet. Ehhez szeretni kell Martin energikus elbeszélői stílusát. Nekem mindig is volt vele egy kis problémám. Robert De Niro királyi módon élvezi egy újabb manipulatív keresztapa szerepét, ezúttal egy jóságos bácsika arcával. DiCaprio szórakoztatóan variálja minden színészi védjegyét egy meghasonlott, negatívan ívelt szájú hülye szerepében. Brendan Fraser pedig egy nagyon kis szerepben tündököl. Lily Gladstone a minimalista színészi játékával és visszafogott tekintetével törékeny, odaadó és bizakodó. A brutális játékidő hozzájárul az epikus méretű film abszolút cselekményi komplexitásához, egyben növeli a szereplők és a körülöttük zajló események számát, melyeknek a záró összefoglalásában már egy kicsit elvesztem. A ritmikusan monoton, de a folyamatosan lüktető zenének köszönhetően élénk és baljósan fokozódó, ijesztő igazságtalanságról szóló elbeszélést üdítően felfrissíti a kezdő FBI-ügynökök felbukkanása, jellemző szakmai módszerességgel. A korabeli bűnözői csapatok nem voltak hozzászokva az ilyen törvényi taktikákhoz. Kedves meglepetés egy kámeaszerep az ünnepélyesen szerkesztett epilógusban. Úgy értve, hogy ünnepélyesen az Oscar-jelölés felé vezető úton. (2023.05.21)

Martin Scorsese and Eric Roth have taken a muddled, mediocre book and turned it into a great American novel in film form. Killers of the Flower Moon is a monumental, multi-voiced and timeless chronicle of the fall of a community whose lust for wealth is stronger than love, even though its members are aware that they are preparing the next generation for the future through their own behaviour. The film is dark and slow and feels longer than The Irishman, for example, but that length is justified, as it makes it possible for us to gradually get into that community and see at first hand how greed and cynicism gradually and inevitably spread to the country, become entrenched and consume the characters. Throughout the film, we find ourselves in close proximity to a confident and seemingly all-powerful, yet essentially banal and sometimes comically obtuse evil whose proper punishment seems rather unlikely, which is exactly as frustrating and exhausting as Scorsese most likely intended it to be. By comparison, the voice of goodness is weakened by sickness and the “medicine” administered, and it is limited to naming the one who died (which is something of a Scorsese trademark). Despite that – and thanks to the dignity that Lily Gladstone radiates – it has a central, evidentiary role in the narrative. Killers is primarily an indictment of the murderers whose existence should ideally have been erased from American history (because many still profit from their crimes to this day) and an emphatic demand to give back a sense of humanity to those whose lives were reduced to a few thousand dollars decades ago; the director’s closing cameo leaves us in no doubt about this. ___ Scorsese directs his lament with the surehandedness of a master. This time, he economises on the spectacular dolly and Steadicam shots, instead relying on the actors and Thelma Schoonmaker’s feel for rhythm. As a message about the substance of American capitalism, his plunge into the darkness could eventually become an equally essential work as Giant (1956), Once Upon a Time in the West, The Godfather and There Will Be Blood. At the same time, the intense hopelessness and the atmosphere of irreversible decline reminded me of Tárr’s films. No, that won’t come easy in the cinemas for this proof that you can still make your magnum opus in your seventies. 90% (2023.10.19)

Crushing. It’s good to see in the context of today's times when it appears that no one plays a fair game and those who do are suffering the most. It's not at all enjoyable to watch, in fact it can only be endured because of Scorsese’s masterful work with the actors and his obvious desire to tell an important story. De Niro and DiCaprio are both excellent, and Lily Gladstone is Oscar-worthy. Too bad the people who should see it won't be the ones who will, because they won't be comfortable with the company they'll spend those three and a half hours in, since the main characters are a lazy invalid slacker with a weak will, a naive (though mostly sick) rich wife, and an egomaniac convinced of the righteousness of his actions. The common denominator is, of course, money. Yeah, I like money, almost as much as I like my wife. (2023.10.23)

The American interpretation of the banality of evil, where “banality” is synonymous with the everyday and the ordinary, but it is not readily apparent. Scorsese needs these three and a half hours so that he can depict, with maximum disturbing effect, the paradoxes and absurdities in the actions of people who, with the support of institutionalised racism and under the banner of their own truths and idealised values, were able to live side by side with those whom they killed. Two aspects stand in opposition to each other. On one side, there is the mythology of a nation that is being corroded by adapting to an imported lifestyle, or rather to a foreign mythos of prosperity. The tragedy of the Osage consists in the fact that they tried to adapt to a foreign mythos, but from the perspective of the white outsiders, that mythos was (and still remains) meant only for themselves and not for anyone else. On the other side, we have a stubborn self-centredness underpinned by an imagined right to prosperity in a land of unlimited opportunities, which in practice means that it can be seized by any means at the expense of others. The narrative consistently makes us aware that evil does not consist in some sort of moral gymnastics that the individual uses to justify his or her opposition to good. On the contrary, the essence of evil consists in absolute rational ignorance with respect to anything foreign, including morality. Essential support for this is provided by the instilled roles, models and ideals that one has to fulfil, because the effort to fulfil them helps one not to see anything else. Fortunately, however, there is a third side, represented not by the local authorities, but by those of the state, which in Scorsese's typically idealistic vision are completely immune to the corruption and temptations of the world around them, because they are built specifically for the purpose of fighting evil. Thanks not only to the presence of DiCaprio, Killers of the Flower Moon is a reprise of The Wolf of Wall Street, in which Scorsese portrayed the perversity of egocentrism and opportunism so spectacularly that his film became a materialisation of the dreams of numerous assholes and a representation of what they should aspire to. This time, in the acting itself (from DiCaprio's clumsiness to DeNiro’s adaptation of Donald Trump’s facial expressions) and in the purposefully slow pacing, he deliberately takes care to ensure that his view of America’s values cannot in any way be misappropriated in the furtherance of those values, though the effort is ultimately futile, because nothing external will break the convinced racists and mammonists. (2023.11.19)

Fargo 1920. It's not riveting, but it's undeniably excellent. It feels like a miniseries accidentally put on in one piece, two and a half hours of taking its time with everything in style, and in the final hour, after a change of style, it's conversely stilted. One of those films that should have either been considerably shorter (and left out entire lines) or, conversely, considerably longer (and fully committed to each). (2023.10.20)