Mar del Plata Film Festival, November 2014. Some notes (III)

Some other movies:

Summer of Blood, Onur Tukel, USA.

• "Red Pill" vampire movie.  Is about the heart of the vampire ethos: how to explain women´s choices in men (or: "nice guys finish last").
• The style is self-conscious slacker Woody-Allen.
• It works!

Watch it (***)

 
Reimon, Rodrigo Moreno, ARG.

• Illustration of Marx´s description of the use of time in a typical day for the working class.
• The main character is a real person filmed while she goes through her day.  Around her are a couple of upper-middle class characters (which the director considers to be "middle-class", I guess due to his own high-class origin) read from "Das Kapital".  It is not as boring as it sounds.
• Is the talent is this movie accidental or in purpose? Who knows.  Maybe its good things are the things I want to see in it, be color schemes in the houses the character visits or upper-middle class behaviors.

Watch, and discuss (¿**1/2? Surely *** if you like discussing Marx).


Aventurera, Leonardo D´Antoni, ARG.

• Pretty Colombian immigrant in Buenos Aires advances her career by using (being used by) men.
• Some emotional moments sound false, and I wish that the treatment of the remains of the moral consciousness of the main character was more organic.
• As it is the door is open to put yourself on both sides of the issue (the "poor victim" at its center), since guilt appears and is not clear how its dissolution will proceed.

Watch it (**1/2)


Wyrmwood, Kiah Roache-Turner.

• Trashy zombie movie with exactly two novel ideas for this genre.  That´s it, just for disposable consumption.

You can watch, be sure to throw the container in the bin (**1/2)


Almost Friends (aka "Linor and Samar"), Nitzan Ofir, Israel

• Is this a documentary?  It felt like a fiction, is really well filmed, most issues relevant to the case are explained on-screen.  For the uninitiated, a little bit more of background would have been good, but that would mean to hear the director´s voice, and I guess that he does not want to show his cards in the open.
• Arab-Israeli (Palestinian with Israeli ID) girl and Jewish-Israeli religious girl meet under a school program.  They wait, they hope, they talk.

Watch it (***)


Solo, José R. Nóvoa, ¿Colombia?

DO NOT WATCH (*), just garbage.

 

Magical Girl, Carlos Vermut, Spain.

• Well filmed tale.
• That makes every character guilty of something.
• And proceeds to promptly punish each one of them with violence... and more violence.
• Nihilist to an extreme, and people seem to like that.  I don´t.  It is the ideology of death.  It is so easy to fall under this kind of spell.  It is a world-view born from a video-store employee mind (Tarantino), not an intellectual of any kind.  This film hurts the human race, more so by being well filmed.

Mmmm, depends if you want to be a serial killer, a genocidal monster or just a dehumanizing soldier.  For Pol Pot wannabes (***), for human beings (**).
 

Mar del Plata Film Festival, November 2014. Some notes (II)

Let`s see:

Jauja, Lisandro Alonso, ARG.

• Really good... if you have problems sleeping.
• Could have worked as a series of stills in some art gallery.

DO NOT watch (*)


Gente de Bien, Franco Lolli, Colombia.

• Colombian neorrealism.
• Is about social class, but not about economic warfare.  More about the rights associated with "being part".  Do poor people have the right to educate their sons?
• There is a danger of taking it as a sign that nothing is going to change,that "the poor are like this and always will be".
• It is good that Colombians now can watch this.  Still long stretches of awakening to go.

Watch it (***)


Mr. Kaplan, Alvaro Brechner, Uruguay

• Funny Holocaust-related movie (!!).
• Feel-good (yep, same Holocaust-related movie).
• Filmed as a classic comedy with some hints of 21st Century "digitalism",but just a little.  It is mostly family 1960s comedy territory.

WATCH it (***1/2 or ****,depending on your mood)


Open Windows, Nacho Vigalondo , Spain.

• Vigalondo is a very cool guy (nothing to do with the movie, I just met him, and he is a cool cat).
• Opening-windows-in-a-computer gimmick is gimmicky.  But, that is the point of the movie,sort of.
• Maybe it will be trapped with others into the "found-footage" subgenre.
• Not so good as "Timecrimes" or "Extraterrestrial" IMHO.  Some parts are pulled from Vigalondo`s cool ass.  But he is aware of that, his mind was on the gimmick.  Which is an interesting one.

Watch it (**1/2) (lots of  movies with 3 stars for me in this Festival, maybe I should give 2 to some of them, if I`m feeling harsh).

Don`t kill me Nacho, I still liked it, but you know, twists are not for everybody.

Mar del Plata Film Festival, November 2014. Some notes (I)

El Patròn: Anatomía de un crimen, Sebastián Schindel (ARG):

• Real story is terrible and impressive.
• Good scenes in butcher shop about this particular sub-world.
• Bare by-the-numbers characterization of corrupt or just inefficient judicial system.
• Intrusive melodramatic music in certain scenes("now feel sad").
• Simplification of the moral scheme (sympathy for the "hero" and hate for the "bad guy"). 

 Watch (***)


Birdman, Alejandro G. Iñarritu, USA.

• Technical marvel in some sequences.
• Self-important.
• Good Oscar-chewing acting by Batm...I mean, Michael Keaton (yep, that`s the point).
• I`m gonna say it: "too meta".
• Gimmicky one-shot is gimmicky.

Watch (***)


  Spring, Justin Benson & Aaron Moorhead,USA.

• Derivative mix of discounted Kauffman and Linklater.  Almost mumblecore.
• With a similar central issue, Doctor Who is far superior thematically.
• Watch "Afflicted" instead (seems to be filmed in the same Italian town).

Do not Watch (**)