jsartsreview Reviews

Never Let Me Go (2022–2023)

The BL romance which we deserve

[9/10 · 24 July 2023]

When you demand on the romantic BL stories the accuracy of a 'real life situation', have you ever thought: is it always logical and 'adult' in real life? And haven't you ever blamed the classical Hollywood stories about the straight couples for 'non-realistic plot'?

What is Never Let Me Go? It's a beautiful and a little painful classical 'prince and his bodyguard' story, but it has very good ideas about self-acceptance and the partner acceptance, despite the deep and co-dependent feelings. It often happens when we're young and in love... especially when this love is pure, deep and real.

I liked Nueng and Palm in general, especially their chemistry and how they looked in quite innocent love scenes. They are teenagers, but not children, and they behave quite adequate, despite all the illogical (but absolutely normal for the film) situations with teen-bodyguard etc. Phuwin and Pond are quite promising actors in my opinion and especially Pond has very interesting emotional spectre onscreen. I liked both moms, Thanya and Mam, and the second couple, a little annoying Ben and quite interesting Chopper showed us rather natural types of late teenagers.

I liked the music, despite I prefer rock and the vusual is absolutely great, I adore the colors.

So, I can say it's a really good romance with the elements of action and drama.

Lux Æterna (2019)

To be a witch in the 21st century

[7/10 · 18 July 2023]

The "Lux Aeterna" (18+) is one more cinematic experiment from Gaspar Noé. Noe gained the worldwide fame in 2002, thanks to the scandalous film "Irreversibility" with Monica Bellucci and Vincent Cassel.

"Lux Aeterna" grew out of a collaboration between Saint Laurent and Gaspar Noé, the master of light and audience reactions, it is a surreal and hysterically beautiful narrative of a day on the set of a film about the Inquisition in the underground aesthetics of the 1990s. The shimmering light and quotes from Dostoevsky, Godard, Fassbinder and other iconic figures add contrasts to the film.

Two icons of French cinema of the last decades, Beatrice Dalle and Charlotte Gainsbourg, are the driving mechanisms of the film. At first, they improvise in the dialogue, where they are ironic and exaggerative, but they tell about the creative underside of almost any film or production, and later they heat up emotional tension to the level of the atrocities of the Inquisition or hellish cauldrons. The aesthetic is amazing: crosses and bonfires, Charlotte in a Saint Laurent dress and the insane energy of Beatrice, covering even the madness of light and music at the end of the film. Beatrice is the witch in this story: charismatic, bright, even weird and uncomfortable for others, and the film within the film is her brainchild, which others are trying to appropriate.

The film turned out to be stylish and a bit provocative: about fashion and its victims, about vices and the fact that not everything is so simple with them, and, finally, about human selfishness. A neon beam pierces the "Lux Aeterna" with the truth that witches have a hard time even in the 21st century, because the crowd is always ready to lynch.

Summer of 85 (2020)

François Ozon's most atypical film?

[8/10 · 18 July 2023]

The tragic romantic story that happened to a young guy Alex in the summer of 1985 on the coast of Normandy is based on the book by British writer Aidan Chambers "Dance on my grave". François Ozon first read the book at the age of 17 and he was so impressed that immediately started making an adaptation, but later he put the idea aside. The time for a new adaptation and film has come just now.

Here many people saw the "atypical" Ozon, who shot a warm and very vivid film about youth, summer and the time when it seemed that death happens to someone else, and you, young and reckless, would live forever.

A similar atmosphere was already in his short film Une robe d'été (1996) and now, almost a quarter of a century later, François's film leaves melancholy and bursts to the cinema screens at full speed, with The Cure, forgetting to wear a motorcycle helmet.

Charming and bright Félix Lefebvre, reminds River Phoenix to many people, including the director, plays a reserved, slightly moody, but sincere and even naive young man, inclined to writing and keen on literature. The story is told from the pont of view of his character - Alex, so we see a story about youth, told by a very young man.

In contrast to the "good boy", fascinated by the topic of death, Benjamin Voisin, who demolishes everything in his path, is striking. His David is not a rebel at all, but a person living right here and now. He seems handsome with a completely imperfect face, and his movements, sharpness, eyes and an ocean of pain inside, he breaks the idyllic picture of the film. And here we have the neon lights of a disco ball and Alex swirls in this whirlpool of love, freedom and risk, so typical of the epoch of the 1980s.

According to Aidan Chambers, the story itself is a memory of the protagonist trying to comprehend what had happened to him. People become stories that they tell about themselves, whether they are true or not.

But still, probably everyone sees their own in the Ozon's film. After all, you should never judge what the author wanted to say. Some spectators see the story that we do not love a real person, but only an image in our head, others - the honesty of the characters to each other, others pay attention to the fact that words and actions are completely different things.

But sometimes we do not know what is hidden inside us, creating images of not only loved ones, but also of ourselves and sincerely believing in them. And life puts everything in its place. And now, listening to Sailing by Rod Stewart, together with the main character, we set off further, each in the own future, with the obligatory hope of the light waiting ahead.

Enola Holmes (2020)

Adventures, feminism and politics for teenagers

[7/10 · 18 July 2023]

Harry Bradbeer's movie was released by Netflix on September 23, 2020. The opinions about the film managed to divide: many disparagingly call it "a film for teenagers", scold for the feminist component and insufficient screen time for Henry Cavill (Sherlock Holmes) and Helena Bonham Carter (Eudoria Holmes); others noted an enjoyable adventure film with a great cast, which tells young people about the changes in British society in the second half of the 19th century.

Personally, I liked the film, first of all, because it is a kind and very high quality story not about the "most famous detective" Sherlock Holmes, but about a 16-year-old girl, although not a very ordinary one.

Enola's exclusivity does not appear suddenly, because she grew up with a mother, albeit seeming a little out of her mind, thinking not just liberally, but even radically, but by that time had already brought up the "face of the British government" Mycroft and genial Sherlock.

Millie Bobby Brown did an excellent job, she perfectly destroys the "fourth wall" and demonstrates completely different character traits of Enola, who, with all her courage and great intellect, is still a confused girl, trying to understand both her family and the world around her.

For the role of "useless boy" (not at all), Viscount Tewkesberry, the young British actor Louis Partridge was selected. A young man with a slightly "sweet" appearance, but at the same time, possessing the most powerful charisma, instantly becomes the second main character in the story and for this he does not even need to become a full-fledged love interest of Enola.

Henry Cavill seemed like a very promising Sherlock and I would love to watch some spin-off with him in the lead role. It was nice to see Helena Bonham Carter, Sam Claflin, Fiona Shaw and Frances de la Tour. But still "Enola Holmes" is not a TV show and screen time is limited.

As for the main conflict of the film, it's not about feminism at all. Women's struggle for their rights is only a part of the liberalization of British society in the late 19th century. The conflict between conservative people and the representatives of more liberal views, a change in attitudes towards human rights in general and, of course, a generation gap. The filmmakers do not divide the characters into "good" and "bad" ones, they try to help the viewer to understand the motivation of the characters' actions.

To be Holmes is to find your own way. And despite the fact that from "Enola", when you rearrange the letters, you get "alone", this does not mean "alone" at all.

La Notte (1961)

The mirror of nowadays

[8/10 · 15 July 2023]

Michelangelo Antonioni is a classic director of European auteur cinema, who lived almost a century and spoke in his films about the main problems of contemporary society. From the point of view of the philosophy of existentialism, Antonioni told about emotional devastation, about loneliness in the films that have become the hallmarks of Italian cinema.

His trilogy ("Adventure" (1960), "Night" (1961), "Eclipse" (1962)) made the director worldwide famous. In an atmosphere of black and white landscapes and half-empty interiors, beautiful and wealthy people (performed by Marcello Mastroianni, Alain Delon, Lea Massari, Jeanne Moreau and others) discover themselves unable not only to find their purpose in the life, but also to realize their feelings for others.

"La Notte" is the central film of the unofficial trilogy. Demonstrating just a day in the life of the fashionable writer Giovanni (Marcello Mastroianni) and his wife Lydia (Jeanne Moreau), Antonioni was able to show the psychological state of the character through objects and circumstances in which Giovanni seems to be, but at the same time exists separately...

The visual language of the film reflects the aesthetics of the twentieth century: vivid, movable, but at the same time, seemingly frozen in the moment. The same can be seen in "La Dolce Vita" (1960) by Federico Fellini. Each single picture of "La Notte" is an art, both visual and psychological, and acting bewitches the viewer, making the picture very personal for many people.

It seems to me that 1960s served as the foundation for contemporary art and became its aesthetic ideal, especially in Europe. Our generation sees the people of that era not as historical characters, but as people like us, only a little more freedom in their fearlessness of looking for the meaning of art. Like the first decades of the twentieth century, the sixties became a turning point for culture that rejected the canons and the atmosphere of post-war conservatism, and cinema ceased to be a wonderful fantasy and became a mirror for a person, with all virtues and aspirations, passions and weaknesses.