parnissia Reviews

Inflame (2017)

Excellent film hampered by extremely poor quality English translation

[5/10 · 14 March 2017]

I really loved this film - female director, topical subject matter (freedom of speech and truthful reporting) and excellent cinematography and camera-work, however the English subtitle translation was so poor it hampered my enjoyment (and understanding) of the film. I think running the screenplay through Google Translate would have yielded a better result, to be honest. I am no stranger to foreign films - I watch on average 40 foreign films per year and speak several languages. However, whoever was responsible for translating and captioning this film really did it a disservice. In addition to very poor grammatical errors (example: "Hundreds of Death" instead of "Hundreds Dead" or "Hundreds of Deaths;" "I and Hasret" instead of "Hasret and I;" "I have a fever?" instead of "Do I have a fever?" and the list goes on. There were moments in the film where several people were talking and instead of captioning the salient bits there was an effort to capture everything, and as a result it was a flurry of high speed text on the screen that no one in the audience was able to read or understand in time. Please retranslate and redistribute - it would be a pity if this film didn't reach a wider audience.

Berlin Rebel High School (2016)

Everyone needs an Uncle Klausi

[8/10 · 17 October 2016]

I saw this premiere at the Austin Film Festival and it was a really heartwarming documentary and discussion about the state of the high school system in Germany, which tests students on their ability to memorize facts and equations without true comprehension of the material. It follows a class of former high school dropouts/suspendees as they navigate their way through Berlin's "Rebel High School" that is manned by a group of progressive, thoughtful and truly remarkable teachers that have themselves taken issue with traditional teaching methods and the education system. Klaus in particular is the type of teacher, mentor and friend we all could only dream of having. I have tears in my eyes just thinking back to how heartfelt his messages were, and how much he cared about setting up his students for success. These teachers work for modest wages (even by Berlin standards) in a system that isn't perfect, but that they care deeply about and as such, have stuck around for decades. The film follows a class of students from their debut into the school system through to the day of the final grade. Watching the metamorphosis of students like Hanil, especially, put a tear in my eye - and I wasn't the only one in the audience who loved seeing him transform from lazy and unmotivated to confident, focused and capable. What especially stood out to me in this debut film was the camera work (the drone footage of Berlin was outstanding), the original music and the title sequences. Really well done, and hope to see more from this emerging filmmaker!