solidoli Reviews

Stranger by the Lake (2013)

A very sexy film about loneliness, lust and denial.

[8/10 · 13 February 2024]

The film is hugely visceral - the dazzling lake, the brightness of Summer, the sound of the water, the buzz of cicadas.

There is a realism and naturalness to the cinematography - aided I think by the lack of music/score.

We are drawn into these days by the lake. Sex, pleasure, sun wrestle with loneliness, danger, fear. The world of the lake is sinister, but alluring. Like Frank, we can't bring ourselves to disengage from the heady, lusty, pleasures of the lake.

The murder is starved of oxygen by sex - we know we should change our focus - but are caught in the spell of this lake of desire.

Ultimately the film is an exploration how much we are willing to excuse and overlook in order to hold onto the love of an other.

The Zone of Interest (2023)

Out of sight...not quite out of mind

[9/10 · 11 February 2024]

A disquieting film about the evil that is sustained by turning a blind eye.

The film does a masterful job in evoking the psychological strain of living in conditions which require the most extreme cognitive dissonance. The idyllic foreground is intermittently penetrated by distant screams and gunshots. The beautiful garden flowers climb up against the camp wall. As viewers we feel with the characters the constant gnawing of the darkness. Disturbing our sense of tranquility. Pushing an ambivalence which is straining to hold.

It is a mistake to view ZOI only as a historical portrait. I think Glazer is also saying something more fundamental about man and his tendency to live in an insulated illusion of goodness, and to try (naively) to turn away from, deny and repress the demons of his own soul.

A final point on style. Glazer is a really promising director. The comparisons with Kubrick do not feel overstated. He uses experimental techniques (infrared, expressionist colour) in a way that is not gratuitous or self-indulgent, but additive to the story/tone of the film. Glazer is a cutting-edge director who seems to be only growing in his powers.

Saltburn (2023)

A cross between The Talented Mr Ripley and The Line of Beauty

[8/10 · 20 January 2024]

Pretty entertaining.

I felt held in suspense most of the way through, unsure who was really the psychopath (Quick or the Felix family) - though the final resolution is actually a bit predictable. I think it needed a good twist - which it didn't have.

The disturbing moments (bath scene) added to the sense of the uncanny and the undertone of something sinister.

The central theme of wanting so much to be another; the desire to become them; to climb inside them is interesting - but not original, and possibly done better in The Talented Mr Ripley. The more limited charm of Oliver Quick (vs Matt Damon) also makes the story somewhat less credible - why does Felix abide by him? Is it just naive kindness? I think his motivations could have been more thought through.

The film also attempts some sort of social critique. For example, the maze scene is packed with symbolism: Oliver (the harmless deer - exploitation and sport for the rich) vanquishes Felix (Icarus - the rich fly too high, they are due a great fall), reversing the social order and expectations. Though this aspect of the film is not particularly strong.

Some of the scenes are fun (final naked dance) and the music is full of contemporary pop which situates it and evokes the period well.

Lie with Me (2022)

A crushing tale of a life lost to shame

[9/10 · 20 August 2023]

What can I say. This film killed me.

A beautiful depiction of the (typically) male experience of suffering in silence, privately, keeping all one's problems to oneself. The loneliness and strange nobility of this.

The audience is laid to waste by the 17 year old Thomas' haunting confession that he knew already that he would never experience a happiness like this again; that his life was - in a very real sense - already ending.

Thomas' whole character is cast in a new devastating light. Our previous impression of a boy enjoying the first heady, blossoming of adolescent love is shattered. We see anew. He was really a tortured soul. On the one hand feeling the vitality and intensity of a first love, while shattering under the weight of the knowledge that this brief moment of dreaming and life and love was inevitably, awfully his last.

Stephane's photo at the lake is given a terrible poignancy, as we suddenly see through to this brooding troubled soul, mourning the loss of life, happiness and love in his final moments with Stephane.

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What I think was most clever about this film was how it slowly shifted the audiences focus from the on screen lead (Stephane), to the offscreen life of his lover. From the spurned lover to the more tragic life of his spurner. We gradually realise that the real story, the real tragedy is not the lost love of Stephane, but the lost life of Thomas.

Unbearably the sadness of a life spent in shackles, in inhibition, in the repression of dreams, hits us. We see terribly how the external social realities proved insurmountable to the individual human spirit. A life crushed by responsibility to family and by shame about oneself.

We realise that Thomas was the one truly imprisoned. His 17th year was a brief soaring flight into life and love, before the crushing into line by the world.