dina013 Reviews

Deadpool 2 (2018)

If only it didn't try so hard

[7/10 · 26 May 2018]

Disclaimer: I'm not a big fan of super-hero movies. It hurts me when all the cliches are thrown in the plot, and I've literally fallen asleep on a few occasions during intense fight scenes.

That being said,I really enjoyed the first Deadpool. It seemed like a breath of fresh air and I LOVED the sarcasm, wit and humor. I think this second attempt is slightly weaker, although true to its original story. The characters are pretty damn interesting and more complex than in most movies of the genre. Deadpool is a jerk with some redeeming qualities (or maybe a good guy with some serious impulse control issues, that's for each to decide), and the bad guy actually has a backstory that makes the viewer really sympathize with his plight.

Now for the negatives. There were multiple times when the jokes left the audience in a theater of about 50 people silent. There were some really crass jokes that I thought had no place in the script (making fun of other people's appearance for no good reason is rarely a good idea, imho). And believe me, I have a pretty high tolerance for all sorts of comedy and usually enjoy pushing humor to the limit. But these jokes in the Deadpool script were simply not funny and left you wondering why the writers were trying so hard. Which takes me to my second point, that throughout the movie I had a nagging impression this movie was too much of an audience-pleaser to the point where it just didn't feel as fresh and well-crafted as the first Deadpool. In the name of the absurd and the parody, the risk is to deliver a mindless sequence of jokes that would address certain sensibilities/expectations of the audience without any kind of originality.

Anyhow, I had quite a few laughs and my favorite scenes involved the X-Force dying after skydiving and pretty much any scene with the blind lady and the Indian taxi driver.

Overall, pretty fun for a Friday night out, but nothing too special.

Mother (1926)

Who would not sympathize with the working class after such a movie?

[8/10 · 23 February 2013]

Pudovkin's "Mother" is a film about the feelings of the working class, speaking to the proletariat as the foundation of the nation. Through all its symbols and plot, the film aligns itself with that category of cinema aimed to refresh the enthusiasm for Communist ideals. It is almost as if it is a duty to keep the memory of the first rebels fighting against the powerful and all-pervasive bourgeoisie. In that sense, the film sensitizes its audience towards fighting along the ideas of the party. However banale and meaningless such a pursuit would be for today's audience, the manner in which Pudovkin realizes in conveying this message is remarkable. Overall, we see extremely good and good cinema.

The movie is about a young man, Pavel, who is aligned with the worker's cause and organizes a strike. His mother is always in the background, a perfect symbol of the Russian peasant woman in her simplicity and emotion. The family suffers because the father is a drunkard and very violent man. Pavel's involvement with the strike and the fights that result lead eventually to the murder of his father. The tension builds up to the trial and then continues as the workers try to liberate Pavel from prison, One of the aspects I've liked most about this movie is the fascinating montage. The techniques used in the film make it align itself with other productions from that period (like Eisenstein's or Kuleshov's) which emphasized the capturing of details and using short shots that would convey the plot in a different manner than the overly self-explanatory long shot. Hence, we have the details of physical contact in the altercations, the portrait of the lady who protects the working class seen through a dusty glass, some beautiful close-ups showing the emotion of the characters (especially the mother), caressing hands, eyes, and other shots that put together make this film a fine piece of cinematography.

The film's symbolism is also evident and a strong feature of the film.We have the tumultuous flow of water and blocks of ice which stand for the excitement of the revolution and the peasants as a force. The mother itself is a symbol of unity. We see her at first a sensible being, faithful, but naive, and ultimately helpless in the face of the corrupt bureaucrats. In the end, we see her a strong figure, holding the flag with pride. The suspense is built up in an interesting way during the trial scene, with multiple symbols of the superficiality of the old order: the hiccups of Pavel's defender which suggest ridicule, the sleeping man, and the mare, a symbol of aristocracy and superficial ideals. The film ultimately presents the clash of two camps: the peasants who are represented as pure and filled with ideals (with the mother, the beautiful woman, and young people as representatives) versus the camp of bourgeoisie, with corrupt and indifferent characters, sometimes violent, sometimes diabolic, but never invoking any sympathy to the audience.

Salt for Svanetia (1930)

What does Svanetia need? salt and communism

[8/10 · 16 February 2013]

The idea of the documentary is to present the life situation of people in extraordinary circumstances, living in an isolated community in one of the far ends of the Soviet Union. The lives of these people are fascinating for today's audiences and for the audiences of the 20s who already lived in modern, industrialized cities or collectivized villages. Kalatozov's documentary delivers to what it promises to be: a realistic image of a still secluded world, of a community with its own habits kneeling to an all-powerful nature.

The film starts with some natural scenes, presenting the geographical setting and remoteness of Svanetia. We learn early on that the people of Svanetia live in hardship, struggling every day to survive. From a political and administrative point of view, the village has barely managed to get over the feudal period, with barons asking their due and attacking the community. Towers are an important way of protection, the pride of Svanetians. Resources are scarce and people work hard; the daily occupations of the villagers are beautifully captured by the director through shots of laboring with animals, taking care of cattle, weaving, building a bridge. Every community, however small, has its own individuality. In this case, Svanetians have their own hair-cuts according to their fashions and make things with the materials that are readily available to them. To depict these scenes, Kalatozov handles the camera excellently and knows when and what to capture: we have close-ups which present the often desperate and exhausted faces of the villagers; blurs and sharp focuses; and a wonderfully executed scene of the carriage encircling a field of barley, and the camera making circles, and circles, and circles.

Beyond the ideas that the film conveys and the evocative imagery, there exists a symbolic element. One of the important themes of the documentary is the lack of salt. Fast-paced scenes emphasize the alarming and potentially harmful nature of this fact. Animals look for salt and lick sweat, blood, and urine to satisfy this essential need. Men of the village go on an expedition to find this important resource, but die because of an avalanche. The desperation caused by the scarcity of the salt reaches its climax in the scene when a funeral and a birth happen on the same day. Instead of welcoming the new-born child into the world, the Svanetians are given to respecting their old traditions and superstitions, leaving the pregnant mother helpless to give birth in the fields. Her child dies, symbol that Svanetia is unable to look to the new things of the future, stuck in its hundred-year old traditions. Svanetia is now faced with an inevitable decision: move to the new, the modern, or stay in its old customs and traditions, oblivious at what happens outside. Religion is depicted in a very negative way, as preventing the villagers from progress. The salvation from all its worries is a new ideology that comes into action from the revolt of men and women tired of the old ways. The repeated explosions made to build the new road remind on of the explosion of force which was imminent with the October Revolution. Working for yourself and for the village seems the right thing to do and the documentary ends with a feeling that hope exists through modernization and embrace of communism.

Aelita, the Queen of Mars (1924)

A much too complex combination of reality and fiction

[7/10 · 10 February 2013]

Considered the first Russian science-fiction movie, Aelita can be viewed as a combination of dream and reality, an intricate portrayal of different worlds and different topics. The film I believe has some memorable scenes, which can be regarded as good cinema, and also the film nicely experiments with techniques like flash-back and dream-like states. On the other hand, the movie has its flaws and one can only wonder how this promising work could have been handled by merely simplifying the overly-complex plot.

Loss, a Russian engineer who is obsessed by deciphering an intercepted radio message, portrays the typical scientist whose dream is to conquer the planet Mars.One of the interesting features of this film is the nice blend of the fictional world with the complicated outer reality of marriage and Russian society. Loss seems to be happily married and in love with his wife. Reality is constructed around the two lovers, with characters interacting usually at their work places and having their own distinct worlds. Strengths of the plot are the humorous and ridiculous scenes that appear throughout, and which complement the more serious and dramatic ones. Many of them are not directly related to the plot. For example, we have the humorous discourses of the neighbors of Loss who share their nostalgia for the past, or the silly detective who tries in vain to get a job as a policeman. There are good close-ups capturing the inner lives of diverse characters. Society with its hardships is also portrayed (smuggling of sugar, bribes), a result of this being that we have a rich picture of personal and collective lives in 1920s Moscow.

On another plane, there is the fantastical world of Loss's imagination where he pictures Aelita in love with him. She seems to give life to the planet through her curiosity, energy and practice of arts like painting or singing. She wants to touch lips with a man like people on Earth do. We may view the queen of Mars as a symbolic figure that replaces Loss's wife in the dream. Overall, the comparison between the two planets seems to emphasize the humane feelings and principles that people on Mars may long for. A political element is also introduced, through the revolution of the workers wanting to embrace communism. At this point, the film seems to be pretty propagandistic, although we are not sure if this point should be taken seriously or not (after all, it is in a dream). The setting and costumes are very interesting and create an outer-worldly atmosphere, which makes the overall dream scene successful.

The main weakness of the film I believe is the combination of too many ideas and scenes, that although interesting complicate the plot too much. Many characters are introduced with subplots, which I am not sure serve a good purpose (there are some comical ones, but overall the subplots are too many and the viewer has difficulty following what is going on). I think there is too much drama at some point and several aspects of the movie which, if simply removed, would make the movie much more agreeable to watch.

Sehnsucht (2006)

a relaxing, unusual, slow-paced romance

[7/10 · 29 November 2010]

Shot in a usual village-setting, no glamor, no special dramatic effects, this movie displays love, grief and sensibility in a rather uncommon way; it deals with real people (or at least it has a strong tendency of emphasizing realism), real routine and day-to-day situations, where you don't really have the "femme fatale" or the hero.

Markus, the main character is the real mystery here. Some questions the viewer might be asking him/her self during this movie: what does Markus want? what does he think/feel? One of the great pluses for this movie lies within this character's psychology, since it often hard to understand where he's going with his actions and most importantly why. That is what brings the viewer to the end of the movie, through the long shots that could be considered almost dead-boring if it weren't for that true curiosity of finding out what happens next.

So: do we find out? In the end, it is really a mystery, a question of "fate". I found the epilogue of great effect and a good means to emphasize the essence of what we -as an audience - witnessed through this nice, quaint little romance.

Zaza (2009)

a light, romantic comedy worth watching

[6/10 · 11 June 2010]

Zaza is yet another one of those little romances -not really different from other Hollywood productions, except from the action taking place in Moscow. The film is surely bound to put a smile on your face, provided of course you really hate romances. One of the net merits of this movie is the power and vivacity of the main character: Zaza, a woman in her late thirties, looks and acts as if time had stood in its place; although for years imprisoned by obligations towards her son, she now learns to taste the joys of life along with Anton, dismissing at once age differences. The movie presents the story of a woman who re-discovers her own beauty and sexuality, as she tries to take advantage of the second opportunity life has given her to experience love. Will spontaneous love succeed in surpassing prejudices and social obstacles, or will life separate for good these two destinies?