Matty

A little girl and big men. A goldfish and a banknote. Luck and misfortune. A banal micro-story unfolding in real time. Nothing happens that couldn’t happen at any time on the streets of the real Tehran, or any other city for that matter. Nothing that would prevent us from believing. A unique aspect of The White Balloon is the child’s perspective. The little girl in the lead role, switching naturally from crying to smiling, is amazing. Panahi has managed to capture the entirely ordinary and fully justified fear of a child who is defenceless in the world of adults. Politics, the military and religion are of secondary importance to him. Those who want answers to the big questions must start with the small ones. 80%

Talking heads commenting in great detail on the subject and unique archival footage would be enough to make The Velvet Underground an information-packed two-hour documentary from which you will really learn a lot about the titular band and the American counterculture of the 1960s. Thanks to Haynes’s self-aware, avant-garde play with imagery, which has the vibe of both early Warhol and late Godard and is always subordinated to the divine music with rhythmic precision, The Velvet Underground is both an incredible audio-visual experience and one of the best films of the year.

Maid is something between a maternal (melo)drama, a thriller and a socio-economic study. In the first episode, a young mother and her daughter flee an abusive partner. She has no money, no job, no roof over her head and no one to help her (on the contrary, her manic-depressive mother, who refuses therapy and medication, only adds to her worries). The following nine episodes quite realistically depict the challenges that a person in her situation has to deal with (the series was based on the memoirs of Stephanie Land, who struggled with poverty and emotional abuse for several years). How to get custody and a government subsidy for preschool and housing? How to escape an aggressive ex and cope with PTSD? How to organise a children’s birthday party with nothing but food stamps? How not to go insane? Though it’s not easy to watch and you will cry often, Maid is not overwrought misery porn. Alex, played by the great Margaret Qualley (of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood fame), has plenty of joyful and humorous moments – mainly with her daughter – and she is not, in terms of character, a flawless victim of domestic violence and an indifferent system that offers nothing but injustice (similarly, her former partner is not a one-dimensional villain). At times, the series slides into slight didacticism, but due to the importance of the topic (and its invisibility to a large part of society) I didn’t mind the effort to describe as vividly as possible the struggles of single mothers and to show possible ways out. Maid is a major surprise and one of the most successful mainstream attempts to approximate Ken Loach.

I previously knew Helen Keller mainly as the deaf-blind girl in the powerful biopic The Miracle Worker who, thanks to her teacher Anne Sullivan, learned to communicate with the world around her and graduated from Harvard. The fascinating documentary Her Socialist Smile also presents her as a suffragette, pacifist and radical socialist (or anarchist to some) who studied Marx and Bakunin and spent her entire life fighting for class revolution and the rights of the disabled, women, children and racial minorities... and she was very sharp. Whenever she encountered injustice, she did not hesitate to respond to it with a public speech, a newspaper article, a book or an open letter (addressed directly to the president, for example) in which she could describe, with admirable precision, the essence of the given problem, whether it was working conditions, women’s right to vote or the impact of socio-political crises on the most vulnerable social groups. ___ This minimalist essay is not delivered chronologically, which is practically the only way in which it is reminiscent of ordinary portraits of celebrities. One level comprises sensuous shots of living nature accompanied by commentary by poet and activist Carolyn Forché, which puts the facts of Keller’s life in context. These passages are complemented by numerous transcriptions of words that Keller said or wrote. No sound, just a long paragraph of text on a black background. Reading instead of listening or watching. There is an occasional twist and momentary change of narrator, or instead of slugs and treetops, we see an excerpt from Chomsky’s lecture on Leninism, or a rock version of “Bandiera Rossa” suddenly starts to play alongside the text. Therefore, it is not enough to adjust to one type of “reading”, as we momentarily use other senses, another part of the brain. Images, sounds and the written word are for the most part independent of each other; through its form, the film brings us closer to Keller’s way of perceiving the world, as she was unable to perceive everything at once. John Gianvito, who incidentally is a professor of visual arts and media, thus puts forth not only a revision of the documentary portrait format, but also a revision of how we receive and process information. Through the media, we are ordinarily overwhelmed by everything thrown at us simultaneously – images, sounds and text – without the option of being selective. Here we have to pay special attention to every element of the film and form connections between them ourselves. Here Socialist Smile is thus, in filmmaking terms, a daring work that places demands on one’s attention while also being a very stimulating reminder of a major figure in American cultural and political life whose many ideas are still relevant today. 85%

At this point, Bond would just like to be James (double-o seven can no longer be James due to a reason that will cause the eyes of half of FilmBooster users to start twitching). But in order for anyone to see him that way, he will have to give up his Hemingway-esque fishing in the Caribbean and return to the job that has cost him everyone he loved in the past. No Time to Die is most satisfying as a drama about a man making up for lost years and seeking mutuality. Bond tries out new roles, which gives Craig the opportunity to deliver a more nuanced acting performance. For the intensity of the emotions that he manages to arouse on a few occasion, it wouldn’t even matter that, due to its inclination toward melodrama, the film comes across as rather sedate in comparison to the excellent and unpredictable Spectre. Except, at the same time, the filmmakers responded to the dismantling of the Bond universe in the previous instalment by trying to put Bond back together again – offering everything anyone has ever loved about the character and the franchise – which in many respects goes against the effort to create an entirely intimate and moving portrait of a tormented hero. In order for us to find out how Bond resolves his dilemma, we have to endure yet more references to the events and locations of old Bond films, embarrassing characterisations, cheesy one-liners following the elimination of bad guys, and lengthy and unimaginative action scenes, which are at times reminiscent of The Fast and the Furious in their bombast, and a bland villain whose blather about his parents is only slightly more tolerable than his blather about the plants that he grew in his garden. In the end, the thing most torn here is not Bond, but the film itself, as it simultaneously runs in two different directions. Of all the Bond films starring Daniel Craig, I am least inclined to watch this embarrassing mishmash a second time.

This Way Up is one of the most likable recent representatives of the subgenre of bitter relationship comedies in which thirtysomethings deal with their fucked-up lives. Irish comedian Aisling Bea wrote the script and plays an English teacher who is getting her life together after a nervous breakdown. Sharon Horgan is traditionally great as her older and outwardly more well-balanced sister. The first season may have been a bit too low-key and lacking in comedy for some, but the second season is more brisk, entertaining and hopeful. After all, it ends with the nice title “Written for anyone who needs a reminder to find hope”. The series’ strengths remain its two perfectly cast actresses and the writer’s ability to depict complex emotions and a broad range of themes through simple situations. This time the foundation consists in the uncertainty accompanying the establishment of new (romantic) relationships, which both sisters are facing (and which is amplified in the finial episodes by the fear of COVID-19). This is subtly linked to a number of other motifs: anxiety about being average, sibling dynamics, cultural appropriation, the inability to express and share their feelings, haemorrhoids... The series is not in any way overbearing and the drama is naturally complemented by the humour that arises from what the sensitively drawn characters experience. So, for example, the line “I've spent the last four months talking to my therapist about you”, while funny, has a certain depth and we understand everything else that it involves and why it leads to the characters coming closer together. It's not the series event of the season, but I was simply delighted by all of the episodes due to their aptness, unforced nature and balanced quality.

Over the course of a number of months, several couples have been going to the kind of therapist that everyone would want (extremely empathetic, listens well, asks pertinent questions at the right time). Just one room, a lot of emotions and words and numerous camera angles. The individual sessions are interlinked by illustrative scenes from the clients’ lives. The composition of the couples is quite diverse (straight and queer, married eleven years, together only two years, different social classes) and they deal with such varied issues that you will surely find “yours” among them: projecting of one’s own anxieties onto their partner, fading sexual attraction, alcoholism, parenting, disconnection from one’s own emotions. Based on the precise editing, thanks to which we are able to see every action and reaction and to perceive the slightest change of mood in the room, and the smooth continuity of the individual shots, it comes across as a scripted series. In reality, it is a documentary directed with tremendous sensitivity, and the participants went into it with the intention of showing the broader public how couples therapy works. Thanks also to the self-reflective conversations between the therapist and her supervisor, I think that after watching it you will actually have a relatively clear idea about that (unlike the dramatically embellished impression given by the Czech series Terapie) and you may come to a few important realisations. If you are not interested in educating yourself in the area of communication in relationships, there is still a decent chance that Couples Therapy will draw you in like a detective show in which a trio of people use questions and answers to peel back the layers and work their way down to the roots of the invisible violence that we inflict on ourselves and others every day. I’m looking forward to the third season, because it's terribly addictive and Orna Guralnik has a wonderful dog.

So, it seems that Trump’s presidential campaign was inspired by a sixty-year-old movie that foreshadowed the era in which anyone could become someone thanks to mass media. Andy Griffith plays Larry, a white-trash nobody from Arkansas who grasps an opportunity at the right moment and, with the help of radio, print and television, works his way up to the position of a public-opinion influencer (there is a certain similarity to Being There). Though he doesn’t know or understand anything, the masses listen to him. He is everywhere, so surely he must know something. Fame serves as a measure of credibility. Larry’s popularity stems from the fact that, as a model populist, he tells people what they want to hear (which is often the opposite of what they actually think). The media-constructed identity is thus in stark contrast to his true self, and therein lies the main weakness of the protagonist, who becomes a victim of the media. The question arises as to who actually serves whom. The film and the protagonist’s life not only accelerate as the minutes pass, but also become darker. Satire turns into a noirish psychological drama, though not as cynical as Sweet Smell of Success from the same year or the later Network. The whole film is excellently directed and acted, only the allusions to the power of the media to turn people into corrupt attention whores are too on the nose in places, and Kazan can’t eschew his characteristic moralising. Even so, A Face in the Crowd is timeless commentary on the dangers of the close connections between the media, politics and pop culture. 75%

“Bottom line is I may be dying of AIDS in America in 1989. Isn't that political?” In portraying the underground American artist and political activist, Chris McKim chose to take a found-footage approach similar to that of Asif Kapadia’s films about Senna, Amy Winehouse and Maradona. In particular, he proceeded based on Wojnarowicz's extensive estate, including his artworks as well as personal videos and recordings of telephone calls. The artist, who died of AIDS at the age of thirty-seven, is thus largely presented to us through his own work and voice, speaking about hatred toward gays, the anxiety that accompanies dying and a growing feeling of alienation from the art world and American society, which, through the lens of Wojnarowicz, was sicker than people with AIDS. His multimedia approach is also presented through animated collages and the way in which videos, photographs, drawings, graffiti and music recordings are combined in the film. The combination of different media and casting light on the process of mediation is so diverse and imaginative that the documentary, which is reminiscent of a walk through a retrospective exhibition in a gallery, is worth watching due to its form alone. However, it is also very valuable for the openness with which it speaks about the disappearance of hippie idealism during the 1970s and 1980s, about life on the streets of the East Village at the time, and about the transformation of the human body and mind under the influence of HIV. In short, the film is uncompromising, raw and probably quite close to the way Wojnarowicz created and lived.

I was surprised by how many people found this film repulsively misogynistic. In my opinion, Sophie Letourneur actually forces viewers to think about misogyny. The husband longs for a child, so he replaces the contraceptives used by his wife Claire, who is busy with her career as a concert pianist, with a placebo. The woman gets pregnant, but the man is the first to know. He therefore makes her an appointment with the gynaecologist for a time after which it is no longer possible (or safe) to have an abortion under French law. That sounds terrifying, like something out of a horror movie, but that is exactly the point. In accordance with patriarchal logic, he appropriates the woman to such an extent that he deprives her of all agency and even takes control of her body and pregnancy, which he then experiences as if it were his own and, instead of the expectant mother, he educates himself in the area childcare and attends a “Love, Milk and Cuddling” course. He realises that he cannot replace Claire entirely perhaps only during the visits to the hospital, which are filmed to emphasise the clinical nature of the whole process in documentary style with doctors. Nevertheless, he continues to see her not as a full-fledged and autonomous human being, but instead perceives her only through her belly, which grows to an enormous size a month before her due date, making her life even more difficult. For Claire, the unwanted pregnancy is primarily a source of stress, frustration, confusion and pain. She loses her bodily integrity and, in the eyes of others, her identity is supplanted by that of her unborn child. She finds peace only when she returns to the piano, not in the role of mother. Neither the humour nor the style in which the film was made is warm, as you would expect from a comedy about pregnancy. With its coldness, spitefulness and reversal of gender stereotypes, Énorme is not reassuring, but rather disturbing and steps outside of the concept, which the best comedies should do, in my opinion. I’m just afraid that someone will shoot a remake that is not a reflection of chauvinism, but a product of it.