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Ana, mon amour (2017): The Relationship Hive Mind
A complex and layered film, it is framed in the present, but plays with the chronology of events to suit its thematic anchors: how relationships shape their protagonists and create inherent tension, abiding by no morality punch-card. While pertinent and polished in its construction, I found it hard to stay connected emotionally, especially as the… Read more
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Camera obscura (2016): Anachronistic Avantgarde
I do recommend Camera obscura, especially if you have an interest in film-making, because it provides some special moments along the way. It’s just unfortunate that a certain unwillingness to prod deeper and a lack of visionary discipline undermine it over the long run. Read more
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Nocturnal Animals (2016): The Story Within the Story
It is captivating thanks to the lead trio of Amy Adams, Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Shannon. It works visually in spite of the occasional clichés. But it’s not an even story and the mediocre writing cannot be forgiven. Implicitly, Nocturnal Animals taints itself with the muck of pretentiousness. Read more
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Afacerea Est: That’s How It’s Done (2016)
Cobileanski manages, at times, to really capture the irony and the foolishness of life in situational humour. Luckily, I was alone in the cinema and could laugh as hard as I felt like doing. Read more
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Cinema, mon amour (2015): Or Existential Limbo
One of my first writings here told a bit of the story on the run-down state of our own Cinema Timis. Cinema, mon amour tells a similar story from a humanistic angle, with a humble house of film in Piatra Neamt at its core. Read more
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Ilegitim (2016): A Difficult Tread
It’s rare that all the possible twists of a movie be so obvious just by looking at a poster. But Illegitimate still manages to make it work, in spite of its self-indulgence – it’s an entertaining story of how a family implodes. It simply fails to punch as high as it aims to do. Read more
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Chuck Norris vs. Communism (2015): A Nostalgia Soufflé
In spite of being born towards the end of the 80s, I recall several “Margareta Nistor movies”, her trademark dubbing scarring my youth alongside the zombies of Return of the Living Dead. It’s funny, particularly because her often inflection-less voice made the humor of the movie much harder to understand at the time. Then again, Read more
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Der Mann, der über Autos sprang (2010): A Soulful Escape
As the movie (English title: The Man Who Jumped Over Cars) was drawing to a close, the question of whether one could really jump over an oncoming car was nagging me. Some brief research highlighted an increase of the average car height throughout recent decades to about 1.5 meters, but one could certainly go for Read more
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Fúsi (2015): On Solitude and Defiance
It was fitting that on watching this film, I was almost alone in the cinema, because isolation and solitude are powerful themes throughout Fúsi (English title: Virgin Mountain). So when you’re out by yourself, in the middle of the day, to watch an obscure Icelandic movie showing at an archaic cinema that now uses a Read more
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Er ist wieder da (2015): An Exercise in Challenging the Norm
I was traveling in Berlin a year ago when I first saw someone reading the eponymous book on which this movie is based. It stuck somewhere, so as my travels brought me back to Berlin and posters were advertising Er ist wieder da (English title: Look Who’s Back), I had to give it a go. The Read more
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