De ce mă cheamă Nora când cerul meu e senin (2023): Nora Iuga, a vibrant contributor to Romanian culture, is the focus of Carla Teaha’s documentary, which parallels Iris (2014) in its exploration of a nonagenarian artist’s life. The film, akin to a heartfelt tribute, showcases Iuga’s journey through diverse historical contexts and her unique, intimate authenticity. It portrays a solitary figure, weaving a narrative of historical homogenization around Nora’s distinctiveness, despite occasionally lacking context on her literary significance during different eras. The documentary’s narrative unfolds through a road trip to the Frankfurt Buchmesse, revealing Nora as a multifaceted individual, not just an artist. This journey, though modest in its climax, authentically portrays Nora’s human complexities, from the challenges of old age to her youthful vitality. The film, while giving life to Nora’s poetic work, doesn’t dwell too much on identifying why new generations relate to her writing. Despite its occasional narrative and contextual shortcomings, the documentary beautifully introduces Nora Iuga and her unique worldview. It intertwines with her ongoing life story, becoming a part of it, and is a work of affection, likely to appeal to a broader audience beyond literary circles. Full review here. 7
Scrapper (2023): So how about an Aftersun father-daughter dynamic, with a considerably more hopeful experience? After her mother passes, Georgie (Lola Campbell) tries to make it on her own, pretending to be taken care of by her uncle, “Winston Churchill”, while actually stealing bikes and flipping them for a few pounds. When her father reemerges, a match in terms of temperament and stubbornness, she has to adapt and consider how this could all work for her. Campbell is great in her debut role and she has a good partner in Harris Dickinson, who kind of seems to be everywhere these days. The movie never goes beyond itself, but delivers very well on what it promises. 7
Albert Brooks: Defending My Life (2023): One of the important funny men of the 70s-90s gets his own documentary from his friend Rob Reiner. If you’re not familiar with the stand-up by Albert Brooks, which I was not, you should know some of his movies – Modern Romance (1981), Lost in America (1985), Mother (1996), etc. And if you’re not familiar with his movies, then perhaps with his performances – Broadcast News (1987), Finding Nemo (2003), Drive (2011), etc. And if you’re still not familiar with him, geeze, I don’t know how you’ve gone through life without seeing at least of these movies. The documentary is traditional to a t, going over the career of AB while adding some context via a one on one interview between him and RR. Funny stuff, if not riveting, and a warm portrait of a guy who has left his own distinctive mark in “the business”. 7
The Good Driver (2022): This Bulgarian movie, debut feature from Tonislav Hristov, takes us from the beaches of Nessebar to the landscapes of rural Eastern Europe and the cityscapes of Finland. It’s a shame that in order to take us there, it relies on a contrived plot, rife with the familiar drudge of movies from the Balkans. Ivan is “the good driver” who is trying to scrape enough money to return to his family in Finland. Because life is hard and temptation is everywhere, he steps sideways a couple of times, which takes him from minor fraud to human trafficking in the blink of an eye. Things stay ludicrously bleak throughout, undermining the interesting elements that the movie does contain. In particular the moral decay of rural society and the relationship between migration within and into the EU make for interesting talking points, but are not properly fleshed out. 5
The Other Zoey (2023): I love romcoms. I love the cheese and the absurd. I love the soothing predictability. I love the contrived plots. Alas, even as The Other Zoey ticks all these boxes, it is one of the worst romcoms I have seen in a long time. When a football playing college guy has an accident an suffers from amnesia, he thinks a girl who is brilliant in many ways, but not an on-paper match, is his girlfriend…and she decides to fake her way through a weekend with him while angling for his cousin. Sounds like a set-up that could be a lot of fun, if only the movie dared to do anything with this premise and embrace it. Instead, it simply follows the path of its forebears with little charisma or aplomb. I’ll just say that the performances and casting choices are passable, so objectively you can probably find worse movies. But if you’re going to just do a variation on a theme, then you better have a banging script that’s in some ways irreverent or witty. Instead, TOZ is a formulaic, unfunny, reductive, box-ticking waste of heart beats. If this is the kind of romcom that younger generations have to watch, my friends, I am sorry to say, we find ourselves in the romantic post-apocalypse. 3
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