Change Your Image
thedarkhorizon
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Reviews
Waiting for the Barbarians (2019)
A kind of surreal tale about war. For those who like "strange films" and can sit through slow pace.
Against popular believe in this review section: I really enjoyed it. It was slow, it was a bit surreal, it was weird. But it told in the silence, the slowness, the seemingly unexplaining parts - what war is about. Nothing. Cruelty just for cruelty's sake. Who is the enemy? Why is this the enemy? They dont know. They forgot.
This movie underlines militaristic cruelty and insanity, illustrates insane colonialism and paints the characters as tortured, insanely heartless and victims of this whole system.
Personally I thought the acting was sublime and esp. The fictional world, set design, seemingly set in the eastern desert with fictional cultures and thrown together artefacts makes this tale so enjoyable. The pace was slow, but engaging.
This is a film for those who like "strange" films.
You Should Have Left (2020)
Kevin alone at home... finds his shadow self. (A good film)
Up front: I don't the bad reviews. I liked Bacons acting and the overall story arc with the house being a main character, not unusual but very exciting, still. The story has some amazing moments, and some rather dull, where the suspense was used too hard to get a point across. A more subtle, less agressive approach of the 'evil'would have added to the essence of the film: a psychological thriller where the main character needs to turn inward. It became somehow superficial because of this.
Apart from this and me who could not stop having the "Kevin alone at home" reference in mind (esp. Bacon BEING nearly alone with the 'evil' - at home or at least in his mind)... sorry if this offends anyone.
Great entertaining film to watch once but enjoy it. Don't expect an absolute masterpiece but still a very worthwhile film.
Io sono l'amore (2009)
A magical slow burn, that gets you in the mood to see love from a different angle.
This was def. A slow burn for me, the first time I watched it, I could not get into the film and found it rather uninspiring and boring. But sometimes it takes the right mindset to enjoy this kind of uneventful, but beautiful film that speaks with moments, visuals and details louder than with just plot. For me, this piece is about falling in love and how it feels like, a hot summer breeze, driving in a rusty car through beautiful lush mountains... and the silent, close to crazy, lustful hunt of a new lover that you meet "accidentally" but planned it out in secret to happen just in time. These kind of lustful loves come, when the tides of life take a pause, when marriages, relationships and circumstances grow boring, a husband grows bored or the attention isn't there anymore... or you find yourself in a live you were never really at home with.
Lust and longing, this is what this film is in the first half about - for me. After that, the construct that all the characters built, slowly fall apart, revealing that life is just made of situation after situation, thought after want, deed after longing. If we can't go with the flow, where are we supposed to... go?
Barbie (2023)
A candy pop satire that hopefully changes the world a bit.
I found it to be a surprising grand piece of comedic, satire story telling, again concerning questions of gender roles and toxic masculinity. By the end I was moved to tears for Barbie AND Ken. It represented to me many issues of modern times and things I was confronted with in real life. The candy pop world and performances added so much to it to support the story and as a set designer I found the Barbieworld of course mesmerizing, melancholic and so well done. I hope, apart from all the social media hype, it will do some good in the world, heals girls, women, boys and men... and all those men who got dragged by their girlfriends and found it a reminder we dont need the other gender to support our worth. It is and was the hardest lesson to learn.... for me.
Planet 51 (2009)
Plot a bit boring, but the worldbuilding is top!
This is a hidden gem regarding the details and love all animators put into building a fictional world and combining it with tons of sci fi references and a 50s american dream vibe. Sure, the story is a bit flat, but if you can enjoy light comedy and LOVE the attention to details you are in for a fun ride. They took many references from Alien to Terminator to Kubrik to Spaceballs, it is all there, and so many funky car vehicles, robots and juicy buildings to look at. You can be SURE they poured their heart into animating this.
Also I laughed a lot for the sometimes flat jokes and I think it is great for kids and parents alike (due to the references).
Call Me by Your Name (2017)
Superficial characters ruined the story for me
I hated their behavior most of the time, although the ending was great and emotional... the underage love story and parents that wont do anything about this or their son being heart broken... can't wrap my brain around this. Sensual pretty atmosphere, but shallow for me bc. Of said unlikeable characters.
Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore (2022)
Not mindblowing but kinda okay fanservice.
Outstanding acting by Jude Law and Mikelssen, cute effects, but overall disneyfied blockbusterlike Story. Nice to be back in the magical world but I came for the cute creatures only, anyway.
Unforgiven (1992)
Never liked Western, but the storytelling and dialogue in this were so good it kept me at least watching.
This means something. Never liked the mystery, violence, cruelty and general tension in Westerns with its glorifocation of violent antiheros but the scenes, dialoge and overall story development kept me watching When I would have turned off other westerns. Oscar deserved, dunno. But worth a watch.
The Time Traveler's Wife (2009)
A roller coaster ride of emotions
I was not prepared for this roller coaster of hellish emotions. I thought I was in for a romcom, not a dramatic love story like this. ...Time is precious, every day is, as it might be our last with our loved ones... The performances were terrific. Amazing film.
Nomadland (2020)
It was more than I bargained for.
Deep, saddening, breathtaking, real, poetic, beautiful, ugly, human. I did not expect this intense story that turns from a documentary to a road movie to a heartbreaking story about grief. "I'll see you down the road." so happy I finally saw it.
L'Atlantide (1921)
Incredibly slow fantasy drama
Might be good but was WAY too slow even for my silent film taste. The first quarter could have been 15 Minutes before The Queen shows up. Bored... quite a lot. Sorry.
The Green Knight (2021)
Fantastic beauty, a gem of visual storytelling.
Some might like it, some might hate it. I LOVE it. The visual beauty and picturesque force is overwhelming and I think directingwise it was a great job to tell a story with slow moving visuals. So this film is not for everybody, but it was for me.
Hereditary (2018)
Psychological Horror with intriguing concept
I was perpetually intrigued by the miniature art and the high amount of perfectly displayed mental/emotional distortions. This psychgical thriller plays out like a drama, not just horror movie, and uses the horror frame as annexcellent base to display grief, disfunctional families, psychological illness and sickening social interactions. The story is told brilliantly andbkept kenglied to the seat for hours, even though Infelt deeply unsettled by all those hurtful emotions. Brilliant acting as well.
Miss Americana (2020)
Real, raw - wow.
This is honest, this is raw and about a star who stays real whatever happens to her. No diva, just an incredible strong artist. Thank you for this insight and creating a REAL persona to aspire to.
Jane Eyre (2011)
Darkness, beauty, fragile coming of age.
I stayed glued to the screen every minute. The soundtrack and visual elements are mindblowing. And Mia... a godess.
The Bridges of Madison County (1995)
Captivating from the start, I cried.
The Story is beautiful, the acting made me forget who the actors are actually. I loved the slowness, the dialogues, the mood. I cried rivers.
The Hunger (1983)
Ice-cold, dispassionate - like the heart of a vampire. This is on-screen poetry, masterfully executed.
A film with lots of style, beautifully shot, almost like a dream. I thought while watching how much this reminds me of BLADE RUNNER, in terms of neo noir, voice and tone... and then I have to find out RIDLEY is his actual brother. There you have it. Tony Scott shows vision, not only in its visual medium but the editing, the music, the production design, the classical costumes and the chance to work with some talent.
This is a strange film, as cold and dispassionate as one might imagine a vampire to be. It seems to hold the viewer at arms length, not allowing them to experience the emotions of the characters...but the characters, for the most part, are severely lacking in emotion anyway, so the stark emptiness of the film becomes a brilliant mirror. This film is about atmosphere and mood, eternally quiet boredom and ice-cold hearts that search for love.
The choice of soundtrack music is quite adept and urbane although only those very familiar with classical music will appreciate the tie-ins. Production design is given full reign and is faultless - the sets, lighting and costumes work fabulously with the soundtrack and the editing, creating a very recognizable style which is a genuine product of the trend aesthetics of the decade in question. And there's an added bonus of knowing use of music.
Deneuve is absolutely ravishing and used to great effect and lovingly photographed. David Bowie does an exceptional turn as her lover. What I admire most is the movie's ability to paint a feeling and mood of their existence outside time, eternally present yet eternally on the fringe, startlingly beautiful yet shrouded, veiled, amorphous and ultimately predatorial.
Finally, the thought that Deneuve's past lovers never die but are trapped eternally in a constantly decaying shell is intense.
El verdugo (1963)
Brilliant choreography and Storyline!
I was hooked from the beginning and was super impressed by the brilliant timing, acting and cinematography which makes this a brilliant choreographical masterpiece in my opinion. There is so much Subtext in the background - what the actors do underlines and emphasizes the actual Story. Brilliant.
Novio a la vista (1954)
Kind of boring
I get that this must have been different in the 50s regarding reception, but I did not find it really funny and the story rather confusing that appealing. Hm.
The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)
Disturbing, messy, raw and - brilliant.
Every shot and every angle has a message, in this film more than ever. We feel crazily detached from all the characters, not only by their distant, quite held-back acting (intentional), but the slight bird views or off-center compositions give us a rather surveillance and voyeuristic experience. We are with them and we are not.
Often we are left with situations and no explanation but a high pitched sound - this is simple but effective and disturbing... awaiting even more doom. The sound tells a story deeper than what we see. We are left until minute 46 with the mystery of all character's connections with each other. This is masterfully done to keep us engaged so long.
The story winds down in a whirlwind of sickness, death and an epidemy of heartbreakingly sick emotions... I cant believe I kept watching, because the sickness of it drove mencrazy - but this is what brilliant cinema is about: telling a powerful story with powerful tools. The atmosphere, the imagery, the characters and the pace was, for me, on point.
There is what I found in Dogtooth and The favorite: the depth of human emotions wrapped in closeups, classical music, a touch of beautiful surrealism and eerie magic, sickeningly honest and raw characters and understanding that we are all made of sick things that happened to us and made us the sometimes awful people we are today: violent, selfish, messy, disturbing.
Lathimos brings the darker side of what it means to be human to cinema and I am forever grateful that I sat through these two painful hours. Would do it again.
Hände hoch oder ich schieße (1966)
Sehr unterhaltsam, aber....
Natürlich eher langsamer Pace und wenig unerwartetes. Aber: herrlich unschuldig, wunderbar urige Charaktere wie den Arzt und die "Banditen". Amüsant!
The Biggest Little Farm (2018)
Most emotional and well crafted documentary I've seen in some months!
This is mastery. We feel joy and fear with the owners and get to experience what they experience. We see the blooming power of nature and threatening danger of nature. We feel with the animals and we see the wonders arise we needed to see... to understand again how important it is to preserve and cherish nature.
For me, this is mastery of storytelling. This not a dictation of "you need to learn this" but an EXPERIENCE. The well crafted B roll inserts tell their own story, there are peaks and lows in the tension, a fast pace - like a motion picture with a script... because I think the editors had one before cutting these tons of material into this film. This is a well crafted story, well shot images and INTENSE content to be told. This is how I want to see ALL documentaries ever made look like... like the stories that most grab us, influence us, change us: with heros and villains and villains becoming even friends (like the "pest"s they encountered and could incorporate into their farm!). The sound design is a major part of this - and the animal sequences, cut together well crafted like Disney's "Beautiful desert" documentary, a milestone back then. This documentary changed a part of me - forever.
Madame Bovary (2014)
Missed the point of the book somehow.
This is far different to the book.
Somehow, I must say, it was easier to empathize with Emma than while reading the book. I like the beginning where barely was any dialogue and we get to see the isolation and delusion Emma grew up with - differently to the book.
However, Emma is less sensual than I'd imagine and the focus is more on the money depth than her true quest. Her affairs are part of a much more profound struggle for transcendence from the ordinary life in which she feels trapped.
Also they left out the kid she had completely and shortened the moments of despair when she is left / pained by her various lovers - until the end, where an unnecessary climax occurs. The book has far more tension throughout the whole story and we constantly can feel her longing. So - I like the look, the atmosphere, but as an adaptation it kind of missed the point.
Beforeigners (2019)
Best in-depth world building I have seen lately.
I want to emphasize that THIS series has a good plot but a BRILLIANT fictional world. Past, present and maybe future intertwined. Old vikings try to fit in with 2020s and 1900's British Edwardians - pubs with foreign letters, a 1900s dressed accordingly, riding a horse while wearing headphones. A tinder-social media just for the beforeigners. And have a look on the offficial HBO website, there is SO much in depth information on this world: Hoe to eat like a viking. How to curse 10000 years ago. ... and whatnot. The visuals are packed with hints on a complete, rich world... this is what I call, as a practicing production designer and set dresser: THIS is the art. This is the stage a plot stands on. This is the base for a damn good and intense story. I want more of this!
PS: Can't rate plot and acting this time, because I was too consumed with the worldbuilding.
Kiss the Ground (2020)
Bit over-emotional and too many effects.
Yeah, I get that we need to educate AND emotionally inspire people to change something. Problem is, I felt bored 1/3 in because the information wasn't going in depth (or not enough for me), but instead we were over-feed with pretty images, fancy animations and emotional but not informal interviews. Like I said, I get jt.... but this is not my style of documentsry I guess. It feels too much Hollywood and over-emotional for my taste.