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Possessor (2020)
Joyless, derivative, plodding, but well Acted.
Amazing that films like this are getting made and finding a home but they still surely have to be fun and/or emotionally engaging?
From early on you kind of wonder if the plodding pace and potentially unnecessary first 15 mins are an indication that you're about to watch a film that is trying to fill time... turns out that that's exactly what's happening.
The filmmakers may call it striped down and streamlined but it really just seems that real connection to the central characters and an engaging central plot was something Cronenberg, the director, wasn't interested in. We do feel a bit for one of the central characters but the second, arguably more interesting character is truly short-changed... a great pity due to a really impressive performance.
The shooting style screams low budget and the unorthodox framing and handheld look never find a good balance. Occasionally the shallow depth of field is really overdone and it seems like we're watching a film shot on a Canon 5D Mk2 from 2010.
Ultimately it's not fun and it's derivative. At risk of saying something unkind and obvious... some the themes touched on here have been covered better by Cronenberg Senior... and in a more engaging, enjoyable way.
If 5/10 means average, I'd give this a 3.
Sherpa (2015)
Documentary & Drama Come Together in a Evocative & Technically Impressive Documentary
I went in expecting a 'spectacle documentary' but Sherpa turned out to be so much more.
As with so so many great documentaries, the film-makers went in expecting to make one type of film and came out with something much more than they could surely have hoped.
The spectacle of the cinematography should be enough to draw an audience; if that fails the human story is powerful - moments of heavy emotion and a heart-rending look in a wife's eyes still rattle about in my head.
Many other themes are strewn throughout also, giving the film a pleasing depth - politics, racial divides and differences, economic realities of mountain life and exploitation of nature amongst them.
One of the greatest triumphs for me is that we go on our own expedition with the subjects but also with the film-makers: As their plans become derailed and their film goes in a direction they could not have expected we join them - We find ourselves embroiled in real- life drama and tragedy in perhaps the most dramatic of all locations on Earth.