adriana5478 Reviews

A Serbian Film (2010)

Wanna be shocking, but nothing apart from that

[1/10 · 17 August 2010]

This film is very average try of "B" horror-thriller. The story remains bleak and full of clichés despite of rather obvious efforts of the screenwriter to make remarkably shocking film. Who likes blood and rape scenes, he might like it, although we could see million times this type of films in past few decades. In terms of the story, directing and general suspense this film is far behind 'The Hostel' or 'Cannibal Holocaust'. Moreoften it is very funny how hard it tries to be 'shocking'. And the FX is so bad, like in student horror films.

On the top of it, it is titled 'Serbian movie' in order to attract waspish horror fans from The West who associate attribute 'Serbian' exclusively to something violent. But the setting of the film rather looks like L.A. suburbs than Belgrade. (Some Serb-haters will maybe love it for that.)

Director of Photography did his job well as well as two main actors (Sergej Trifunovic and Srdjan Todorovic). But the plot and the whole idea of criticizing Serbian society - which the screenwriter had in mind and which pops out here and there from time to time - by inventing all kinds of human dirt that he could remember, simply remains poor and bordered by genre stereotypes. At the end I thought 'Oh, mine, what a filmmaker can invent in order to became famous'. Only in this sense this is a notable film.

Silent Light (2007)

Overestimated deja-vu film about absurdity of life

[5/10 · 1 August 2010]

I have seen many 'absurdist' films and I don't think that this one has something new to add. (The mid-aged farmer is thorn between his wife and lover. The wife has breakdown and dies of heart disease. The farmer feels bad. Life has no sense.)

On the top of it it is very slow paced in very fashionable way aimed to please festival programmers that are trying to be "radical". (Old good long takes from the car's windshield, that last forever.) Very long takes of everyday scenes of modern peasant lives, where everything is totally expected. I myself wrote in elementary school such poems, mentioning everyday routines, thinking that I am saying big thoughts. If you like such films maybe you should see The Seventh Continent (1989) by Hanneke. It's more realistic, very touchy and less constructed.

Alright, the story has nice and correct framing with the opening and closing scenes of sky in the sunrise and in the dawn. And the camera-work is great, hats off. Praise for the DOP and choice of the topic , but two thumbs down for the approach.

Generally, this film is very overestimated.

Süt (2008)

Pretentious and boring

[2/10 · 8 June 2010]

This film is pretentious and boring. On the top of it all, contains nothing interesting except the first scene where we see how Turkish magi exorcises a snake from shepherd's mouth.

(...Well, sometimes it happens that shepherds fall asleep in field with mouth opened and snake comes in, which is terribly complicated situation to resolve. How to take out a snake from someone's mouth? Accidentally I have heard it is the best if unfortunate person drinks gallons of goat's milk until the snake literally runs out from his stomach, because snakes cannot bear the milk.) In the first scene we see the Turkish way of doing it. They hang the person on a tree upside-down over a pot full of boiling milk. And then magi throws 'magic formula' in the pot full of milk and when snakes appears out of unfortunate patient's mouth, he grabs it and takes it away.

Apart from this little (probably symbolic) ethnographic-depicting scene at the begging, that does not have any formal connection with the rest of the film, this film has no story, no emotions, actually nothing else worthy seeing it. We see randomly taken (and boring) scenes from young poet's life and that is all. Truly, they are somehow connected, there is some kind of story about the guy who suffers because his widow-mother finds lover (even that is not clear enough), about his ambitions as a poet and the military service he would have to do, but... so what? Boring, slow, quasi-Antonionish and wannabe Tarkovsky scenes follow each other in the slowest and emptiest possible way. It does not matter where the scene will start nor where will it end. (The big difference is that in Antonioni's films we can see maladies of capitalist, ruthless and alienated Italian society, also we feel the atmosphere, and in Tarkovsky there is tension in every single shot because we don't know how it is going to end, as well as it's characters did not know, will they be arrested, or shot, because danger and damnation was everywhere as well in their real life - and there we are - in totalitarian Soviet empire or medieval Russia. And we can feel the breath together with characters, oh yes, absolutely!) In Kaplanoglu's shy case I did not see the purpose of anything. Alright, it does not has to have purpose - but what's it all about? Installation drama? And - drama about what? We actually do not feel nor see why these scenes are important to watch. Nor we see why it was important to author.

I write this because I miss old good films. There are more and more films on the market that are either pretentious and meaningless installations or blockbusters. Turkey is so interesting country, it has so many antagonisms. How can it be that their filmmakers make such empty films? And these programmers of festivals, can they pick anything better? I remember Yol (1982). That was the film! And I've seen many foreign funds and TV's fund Kaplanoglu's films. How come? Are they afraid to finance something more exciting from Turkey? Is it politics? Besides, Kaplanoglu's films could be all done at cost of average TV drama.