Fences

Denzel Washington is the man, there’s no denying that. But I feel that this movie is a piece of absolute self-masturbation. He’s trying to capture the life of an ordinary Yank in the middle of Pittsburgh and he has no problem getting bogged down in a debate about nothing at all for an endless half an hour. And even though I like dialogue-based movies under different circumstances, here I was getting lost among the black folks and their problems. In terms of acting, Denzel is enjoying the very apex, but I cannot shake the impression that he’s pushing it too hard and while doing that he’s tasting one bad vodka at the fence after another. Fences is simply a slightly strange film. You will only be able to bear with it if you are black. Because under different circumstances, 138 minutes is a lot of hard work. (03.02.2017)

A family saga set in three locations, striving to be ambitious in its theme, length, and message. However, it suffers the most from plunging into endless machine-gun monologues from Denzel Washington and leaving the viewer to absorb the atmosphere through excessively long babbling about nothing. In non-dramatic moments, the otherwise powerful performances of the main duo are needlessly diluted, and it is here that the film's major flaw, the inability to break free of the theatrical format, is most evident. The intended refined story about ordinary people in an ordinary time and place is somewhere hidden there, but due to the discouraging prologue and empty epilogue, I can only reach it with great difficulty. (23.01.2017)

If this was supposed to be a full-blooded layered drama, it fails mostly due to the unbalanced pacing, the appallingly long running time, and the fact that a number of scenes could have been cut into shorter segments because it's purgatory at times. However, if you take it as Denzel Washington's inner testimony of words, gestures and emotions that may or may not have been in his own life (or childhood), then the film takes on a slightly different weight and narrative value. In spite of all the verbal filler and the uselessness of some scenes, Washington deals at length, or at least in short cuts, with the post-war racial issue, the habits and functioning of a despot father, problems related to alcoholism, and very strongly delves into the topic of family integrity and the meaning of marriage as such, in a rather timeless scripted form. He does not judge, nor does he preach, he just shows and it is up to everyone what they take away from it – and there are quite a few of those ideas. If this was made for the Oscars, then it’s bad. If this was Denzel's film, and I don't mean that as in the actor or director column, then it's personally satisfying and OK. (06.03.2017)

If the set wasn't full of black people, no one would even want to see this movie. Of course, I completely understand Washington, who, after the racist extempore at last year's Oscars, sensed an opportunity to win a golden bald man and painstakingly crafted a period story that features only one white man in 135 minutes, addressing the social harm done to black people and their clash with traditional family values. However, this intimate black story has the disadvantage of being too theatrical and overly sentimental to break through with a neutral audience, and, above all, it’s insanely long and monotonous, distracting from the constant need for sleep only by the flamboyant performances of Denzel and Davis and a few tense scenes about the clash between a principled father and an idealistic son, which are the only ones that manage to strongly appeal to a neutral viewer. We can say that it's beautifully and realistically shot, but it doesn’t matter when the subject itself is more mired in mediocrity than this year's Oscar ceremony is in sycophancy and awkwardness. After my immediate experience with Fences and Moonlight, I have no choice but to love Samuel "Motherfucking" Jackson even more as a cinpephile, he clearly doesn’t give a fuck about the Oscars. (27.02.2017)

Jeder Theaterfan erkennt bereits nach fünfzehn Minuten, dass er eine Filmadaption eines Theaterstücks sieht. Was jedoch total überzogen ist, ist die Länge. Ich habe den Film buchstäblich durchlitten und ihn in drei Anläufen geschaut. Wenn man die erste Stunde ganz gestrichen und mit der dramatischen Szene in der Küche begonnen hätte, in der Troy seiner Frau eine wesentliche Mitteilung macht, hätte fast ein mitreißendes Familiendrama daraus werden können. So muss der Zuschauer den Beigeschmack der Oscar-Politik spüren, dass man nach dem Skandal aus dem Vorjahr den Afroamerikanern die Nominierungen nachwerfen muss. Ich sage nicht, dass sich Washington oder Davis für ihre schauspielerischen Leistungen keinen Oscar verdienen, und im zweiten Fall nehme ich an, dass eine große Chance besteht, dass sie diesmal Erfolg hat, doch Filme und Schauspieler sollten danach bewertet werden, welche Leistungen sie erbringen, und nicht nach der Hautfarbe. Wenn ein Jahr reich an exzellenten afroamerikanischen Leistungen ist, dann sollen ruhig auch nur Afroamerikaner nominiert werden, aber wenn es keine gibt, dann sollte man sich nicht an gedankliche Quoten halten. (25.02.2017)

After a long hiatus, Denzel Washington took up directing again and chose a stage play. The film takes place in a small space, but it doesn't matter at all. His Troy Maxson is great and he blew me away. The dialogue is excellent and the emotions flow naturally as in life. And this is what life is all about. We talk, we act, and sometimes we fuck up. (12.02.2017)