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Reviews
The Zone of Interest (2023)
Should those living in a Glazer house throw stones?
Ages ago Godard spoke of making a film that would focus on the petty daily life of the camp commandant at Auschwitz. The film would aim in part at the comfort, and in part at the routine and boredom of daily life. Whether Glazer and Co. Actually knew about this is academic. For some, the pettiness of existence holds something nitty-gritty, a grain one can grasp. Glazer's film offers a sanitized experience, no grain, nothing to grasp. His long takes at a distance recall the work of so many second year students at arts college. Paradoxically, this often static camera was introduced by the experimental documentary cineaste James Benning in an attempt to make way for more attention to sound scapes. Glazer slaps us with the overly aesthetic. His view is total, sure, without gaps. The banality of style.
The Way (2024)
Echos of times past...with a hint of a future.
At times seeming like a vertiginous mix of A Clockwork Orange, It Happened Here (Brownlow), and Punishment Park (Watkins), there is a visionary note beyond just the atmosphere of state repression. A glimmer of hope hovers throughout thanks to a sense of community that doesn't involve nationalism. One might even say a new sense of 'community', indeed, without involving individuals we have to know well or even understand. They don't know each other really, even though sometimes related by family. We don't come to discover their essence either; this will certainly irritate some viewers who look for some ultimate flesh and bones to dwell on or cry over. All in all maybe too much for TV, could have made it, reworked, to the cinema screen. Recall it was Peter Watkins whose work started within television, but quickly found his subjects and refusal to use character-based melodrama part of cinema culture.
En rem af huden (2003)
A jewel
This jewel of a short documentary won the first ever prize at the Shadow Festival, Amsterdam. 2004. It maintains throughout a wonderfully intimate texture, never once drifting into any kind of sensationalism or voyeurism so possible considering the subject matter. As we drift in and out of the melancholic memories of the central character, we are treated to reflective cinematic moments that seemingly just accent what cinema is all about: magical use of sound, editing that transports rather than reveals, occasionally just the sensuality of lighting on film (16mm) that recalls the good old days. A must see.
SAS Rogue Heroes (2022)
Infantile
Embarrassingly infantile, with a summing up of macho war clichés, typified by the local drunk officer using his pistol to shoot holes in a bucket to turn it into a shower head. Hard to imagine this was made by anyone involved with the creation of Peaky Blinders. When the PR emphasizes based on a true story, the authors can always claim that the crassness was not their fault. We are treated to the full bouquet of required emotions: grin 'n bear it (main character carries his wounds throughout), true comradery (various allies stick together, while despising each other), tears (no triumph of romance), Nation (cameo role for Churchill), and finally the Holocaust (yes, a lone Jewish soldier). Ok, so this was all 'true', but God help us, if it all had to be dropped in our lap as if managed by someone, whose daytime job was elsewhere.
Notturno (2020)
Pretentious drivel
I don't know Rosi's work as a cameraman, but can imagine some directors like long takes in wide angle, especially when content is not the main thing. So this is documentary 'art' ? Three years of film-making and I see material that's general, could be anywhere, even an LA backwater. Certainly better on a big screen, but watch out if you have a comfortable chair too, as you might sleep and miss most of it.