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Reviews
Moloch (2022)
Boring, too slow, no real scares
I love genre films, but was utterly bored by this horror flick. The filmmakers clearly don't understand what a great horror movie needs or what it takes to create scary scenes. There's hardly any tension and there is only 1 great jump scare in the entire movie. The story is way too slow, the storytelling clumsy and unfocussed, the audience hardly engages with the characters and the horrorscenes are too clichee and boring. The story doesn't take you by the hand, instead you watch it from a distance. You don't give a damn if someone dies or not. Its biggest mistake is that there are hardly chills and thrills.
*** Spoilers ahead... ***
The reason is that the source of horror is confusing. The women (witte wieven) are only standing in the fields staring, but doing nothing. Someone dies of a heart attack seeing them (bleeeh...the character is scared but we aren't). The real monster turns out to be Moloch, an evil God, but he only created a curse within a family, which means no one else is really in danger. This is what you sense throughout the film. And the family curse is also quite complex. Are the villagers doing it? They sacrifice people, so are they the ones to be scared of? I have no idea. But if they are the ones keeping this spell alive by having one of the women in Betriek's family cut her own throat, then this would only happen once every 20 years?? And only within that family?? It is all very confusing... and therefore not scary. Only once in a while one of the villagers gets possesed (I assume by the witte wieven) trying to kill the mother of Betriek, but even these scenes are not scary, but instead a bit cheesy.
So all in all... Not much to see here. 3 out of ten.
Paradise Drifters (2020)
creative poverty - don't waste your time
This film is part of the school of realism, mainly showing people walking and staring in the distance. The filmmaker might think it is all very deep and dramatic to just show them staring, thinking and walking through the city (often accompanied by cliche serene guitar music), but it's actually the easiest way of filmmaking. Anyone can do this. The audience is never made part of any storyline, there is no attempt whatsoever to find identification or engagement - instead the filmmaker makes the mistake that observing them is enough. The result is a very distant look at characters we don't really care about. Even when it turns out the bag with money is stolen or one of them has died, or when the girl seeks an illegal abortion or when two of them find each other, we don't feel anything. Instead we again see a lot of people staring, with a musical interlude here and there, a 'nice' vomiting scene every now and then and of course the all time arthouse classic of a lonely naked woman in a bath tub. Or what to think of the 'outstanding' idea of a flashlight being switched on and off by one of the protagonists pondering about suicide. How symbolic! How inventive! As for the subject matter or themes or the style of filmmaking: nothing new here, we've seen this numerous times before. The sheer lack of originality, authenticity or urgency is stunning. Compare this to the masterpiece Naked, also about a drifter. The intelligence of that film, the bravoure and artistic depth, where the audience is never underestimated. Naked is an example of what it brings when a filmmaker challenges himself to turn something into an artpiece. The fact that both Berlin and Rotterdam have selected Paradise Drifters means arthouse is suffering from creative poverty and is actually in crisis.
Escort (2006)
Corny and overrated
A few days ago I saw this film on TV. I was flabbergasted that this has actually won best TV-drama and was nomintaed for best screenplay. The film is full of clichees. A golddigger is after the 6M of a rich man who suffers from cancer. Once she has the money she attracts the wrong boyfriend. In the end she decides to donate the money to a cancer institute. Yawn. The plot is so unbelievably predictable and moralistic. And the ending in particular, with her carrying a brand new flightcase where the audience should think she carries a gun to kill her boyfriend. If you indeed want to kill someone, who on earth would carry such a flightcase? And why is her boyfriend not asking about it, when they meet? And when it turns out to be binoculars to show the cancer institute in the distance...why carrying it in such a flightcase? It just doesn't make sense and is only there to put the audience on the wrong foot. The character build up is a mess and in no way you get involved with the character. This is a film made by a lazy filmmaker. Too happy with himself. Ketelaar does have talent as he also made a wonderful short film Vijf Uur Eerder. Seems like the filmmaker lost his spirit to tell original stories a long time ago. And the fact that Escort is awarded best drama says everything about the state of filmmaking in The Netherlands.
Kapsalon Romy (2019)
Great beginning but second half drags and ends in mediocrity
Kapsalon Romy starts out very good. You can feel the director knows how to tell a story and the performances are really good and subtle. Especially Romy, the girl is well directed. The tone and build up of the story are also good - subtle hints to where the film might go and a potential danger the girl might be blamed for stealing money from cash machine. And then it doesn't happen. All very good. But once Alzheimer disease starts to come to the fore the film becomes more and more of a cliche and the film starts to drag. The film seems endless and the film ends exactly the way you'd expect. The film tries to put the emphasis on small human drama, but the audience is not moved at all in the end and the second half of the film is just boring. The trip to Denmark is the equivalent of the cliche to show the sea for the last time to someone who is dying. Once they get off the boat in Denmark grandma Stine immediately meets someone she knows - which is quite uncredible on a population of 5.7M people. There's also the question for who this film is intended. Children won't enjoy the film as it is a film about someone who's falling ill. Adults will think it's a children film because of the child's perspective. As the issue is central, this seems to be foremost a TV-film.
Instinct (2019)
mediocre and abhorrent
A psychologist is treating a serial rapist and starts to be receptive to his manipulations and even has fantasies about being raped, and then that happens in the end. The film is exactly going where you expect it to go, which makes it utterly boring to watch. There is certainly tension as you don't want it to happen and Kenzari is great in this film by Halina Reijn - scary and dangerous. But as an audience you're put in this abhorrent position and you just don't want to watch it any further. Rape and fantasies about rape are probably artistic hip subject matters. We've seen this before, like in Irreversible, which I would call mind pollution, as it is there just to impress the audience: look what I dare to show you - all for a quite empty artistic statement. Or like in Happiness, where we had to be part of a child rapist practices. Happiness is full of masterly scenes and ideas, but the child rapist part is really abhorrent. Instinct suffers from too many cliches, mediocre or even uncredible scenes. The dog in her bed felt like a filmschool solution. The psychologist joining him in the dunes - really? Carice tries to perform her well, but the script is so uncredible and superficial that even Carice cannot entirely convince. And a 40-year-old psychologist lying in bed intimately with her mother half naked?? That was an artistically low point in the film. Instinct sends us away with the message: men are manipulative and try to overpower women, and us women are weak and dependent. We need to draw a line and the only way is to trick them into prison. Well, how groundbreaking! Instinct had a mixed reception, but the ones that gave this film five stars out of five didn't look behind the curtain.
Bumperkleef (2019)
Strong second act, but unsatisfying experience
Bumperkleef gave me a negative experience despite it nails you into your seat for a big part of the film. To first mention some positives: villain Ed is really scary and really well performed. The film is directed quite well, the film is quite effective in its horror and the main characters quest for survival.
Still Bumperkleef leaves you unsatisfied and it didn't do well at all at the Dutch box office. The main reason could be that the main characters are just too negative and unsympathetic. They are frustrated people arguing and shouting all the time, which is exhausting in the end. By the time the film is over you leave the cinema with a very negative feeling.
Now characters in general don't need to be sympathetic. The mistake that is made in this film is that there is no compassion or a tender moment the audience share with the characters (see Joker for this - also a dark and negative character, but we engage). There is no love between the characters at all, only anger.
Horror also doesn't need to end on a positive note. Most of the time a horror film ends with the main characters not being able to survive. The mistake is that Bumperkleef lacks a real third act. You cannot make a villain leave for a while and call that a third act. There needs to be some sort of reversal within the hero. Usually, in a third act the main character has either a redemption or makes a turn facing evil (see Spielberg's Duel for this) going against it instead of trying to escape all the time. In Bumperkleef, the audience never share a moment of victory with the main character where he has seemingly conquered evil. The result is that there is no moment of real insight in the hero. And more importantly, no emotion. There seems to be some sort of intended catharsis with the main character going under the shower at the end. But the audience doesn't feel anything there and it actually feels superficial. Like the filmmaker doesn't know his theme or character well enough...
There is also a huge lack of humor in this film. Horror only works for the target audience when it's a form of escapism. Humor is one of the ways to achieve this. Or you can set it into another world or it could be that something happens that is otherworldly, like in Rosemary's Baby. Horror needs this escapism otherwise there is no form of relief (or distance) in the end. Therefore I think it was a mistake to make this film look so realistic. The photography is totally wrong for this film (it looks like 12 Steden, 13 Ongelukken - a cheap Dutch TV-series), and the lack of humor is even more of a mistake (there is some, but not enough). Put that together with the frustration and anger of the main characters, and the film feels too realistic, harsh and confrontational. You can do that in arthouse horror, but not in main stream.
All this leaves you unsatisfied, despite a strong second act.
Gisaengchung (2019)
Great film, but the ending??
No doubt that this is a great film. Great storytelling, wonderful characters and scenes. The build up is slow, but very effective. A lot has been written about this film in all the other reviews so I won't repeat, but one thing that was sticking out for me was the ending. Do we really believe that the father went back into the cellar? Taking the risk he would't be able to get food at all and die? And then, when they moved house, no one lived there, the cupboards and fridge empty for months... How did he survive? And do we believe that he used morse code to contact his son? How does he know that his son would watch? Wouldn't he search a different way to contact him? Call him at night?? And how can the son ever contact his father in the end, saying he should come out and they will meet again? The morse code works one way... So this ending is the only real flaw to this film. It feels constructed and overly romantic. It even spoiled the emotion, whereas I'm pretty certain they thought it was tragical and moving. So, only 8 out of 10 because of the ending. The rest of the film is pretty flawless...
Broers (2017)
One huge cliché
BROTHERS - Utterly boring
Hey art-house filmmakers! Howcome you have the idea that two people having a difficult relationship is enough interesting material for a film? Haven't we seen this numerous times before? How many art-house films (especially in Holland) have been made about emotionally difficult relationships? Most of the time it's about a father and son. This time it's two brothers. And most of the time characters in these films (this one's no exception) are staring into the distance, or say hardly anything, because they suffer or don't know what to say, or maybe the writer didn't know what to come up with, or thought it's quite cool when characters stay silent. It probably makes it deep and more interesting, no? No!
At end of the film one of the brothers is coming to terms with himself. Did I see that coming? Of course I did! Did I feel any emotion? No. Was I involved with the characters during the story? No. Did the story bring a deeper meaning or challenge me in a cerebral way? No. Because everything in this film I have seen before. Nothing new here. It all has the same predictable pattern as all these so called 'interesting and deep and human' art-house films. One huge cliché.
Then suddenly, in the middle section, something happened, with one brother imagining he and his brother are leaving the girl and then time was turned back and it didn't happen. Suddenly the audience was challenged for a moment as there seemed to be an unreliable storyteller. For a moment it opened up possibilities that the film could go into a more interesting direction. Unfortunately quite soon it became boring again. Utterly boring. This self-indulgent film is maybe interesting for story editors of the public broadcasters, or for film funds, or other geriatrics. So I would urge (Dutch and European) art-house filmmakers to challenge themselves. Don't waste the time of your audience. Use your imagination for once. Please do me a favor, next time ask yourself: have I seen this before? If the answer is yes, then please do not write it! Please write the exact opposite of what you expect! Go watch Nouvelle Vague films and see how truly great filmmakers experimented with art-house films. How they experimented with film language and how they chose for an truly adventurous direction. Work harder! Challenge yourself! Do something different for once!
Brimstone (2016)
a weak script and flawed in many ways
Brimstone is flawed in various ways. The characters are underwritten and not interesting enough. The reverend feels like a comic book character and misses complexity. I don't see any internal dilemma or inner struggle. He is mainly 'the evil reverend'. This is also how Pearce performs him and you feel the lack of layers in his performance. If only the director had chosen a Bergmanesque psychology for him – a reverend struggling with his desires instead of him justifying his actions all the time.
Liz (Fanning) is also uninteresting. She's mainly a small anxious rabbit (sorry Dutch expression), and she can't think of anything else than fleeing in her struggle with the reverend. She isn't very likable or challenging and misses complexity – therefore it's hard to identify with her. This lack of identification (and therefore tension) is one of the major problems of Brimstone. Often Liz has no goal. This has to do with the way the film is structured. The film is told backwards and this overloads the film with exposition. Each chapter starts with telling us where we are, who these new characters are and how we ended up here.
Chapter 1 mainly relies on mystery instead of getting us involved with the main conflict and the problems the hero is going through. Experienced writers know you can build on mystery for a while, but not too long. But Koolhoven takes his time, a lot of time. Chapter 2 the first half an hour is again exposition and the main conflict only comes into play when the reverend returns. If you would have told the film chronologically the amount of unnecessary scenes would immediately have come to the fore. Chapter 3 again has a lot of exposition and feels repetitive. The reverend is saying three times his daughter is not a child anymore. Also, Kit Harington's character seems totally unnecessary. Why do we need to see the scene with the gallows on the toilet? And why didn't those two men kill each other already in the stable? I would have understood Harington's character when he would have been part of the moral journey of Liz. But this is the biggest flaw of the film. Koolhoven doesn't seem aware of her real journey. The only thing she does is running off and the events don't seem to gradually change her. More importantly, it doesn't lead to a Crisis in the third act – the so-called Final Dilemma, where Liz needs to choose between the lesser of two evils, with her making a sacrifice. For example, what if she would have to choose between killing her father but destroying her soul, and saving him? This would have created a central moral question in the film: how far are you allowed to go in destroying Evil? This would have been a real religious theme. Are you allowed to become the devil to conquer the devil, or do you need to stay good at all times?
Such a dilemma would have created depth and all elements in the film would have become logical. Why such a reverend, why incest, why told against the background of the lawless Wild West with an eye for an eye mentality, and even Harington's character would have been functional: a good guy who can kill - a step in Liz' moral journey. Even the ending would have become logical when Liz would have killed her father at the cost of her own soul after which she's arrested for a murder she didn't commit. It would have been the hand of God – God's punishment for not making the right choice. The dark ending would have become bearable in all its irony. Instead Koolhoven chooses for a denouement where fate overcomes Liz. And although Liz could have easily defend herself with sign language, Liz is fatalistic, accepts her arrest immediately and commits suicide with a smile. Which of course should make me think she is free at last. She was a strong woman, the voice-over then tells us. Sure!
I have a strong impression Koolhoven doesn't know what his film is really about. No, this isn't a film about feminism. Others before me had already concluded there are no strong women in the film. The lack of an underlying debate makes that the film falls apart in ideas and loose ends and this is also why the violence feels inappropriate and over the top. The slow pace in the edit and the horrifying violence betray that Koolhoven wanted to make an epic film in which he wouldn't avoid anything. Koolhoven foremost wanted to impress. You feel that agenda and this for me clarifies the negative reception in the international press. The film's backwards structure only services to hide the film's inner emptiness. Put the film together chronologically and the story is immediately very thin. And isn't it utterly incredible that Liz cuts her own tongue? Only to take on her friend's identity? Instead of choosing to hide herself in that vast country without leaving a trace (like she already did once very successfully as her father wasn't able to find her for like 8 years), Liz chooses a hiding place at least one person knows about.
I really tried to like the film. Especially because the film deserves applauding based on the extremely demanding financing and production process. Beforehand I heard that everyone thought the script was superb. Watching the film I really don't understand that qualification, as the script is the film's biggest weakness.