„Grand Tour“, rež. Miguel Gomes
Awards for directing are not necessarily given for masterfully executed dramaturgy or, as they like to say, for a well-crafted story. Cannes award-winning director Miguel Gomes, one of the flag-bearers of contemporary Portuguese cinema, has created a film that does not have a narrative in the traditional sense of the word, but instead has an original vision, courage and freedom that fills the film from the first minutes.
The Grand Tour takes you to Burma during the First World War and tells the story of a British officer, Edward, who awaits the arrival from London of his fiancee Molly, whom he has not seen for seven years, but panics at the fateful moment and escapes by train to Singapore. Molé decides to follow, and the audience with her. This cinematic tour of Asia is both an unfulfilled love story, an Orientalist fantasy, and a melancholic reflection on colonialism. Here, the past is replaced by the present, and fiction mixes with reality. A true cinematic pleasure.
“The Solitude of the Matador”, dir. Albert Serra
VIDEO: “The Solitude of the Matador”, dir. Albert Serra
The film focuses on the famous Peruvian matador Andrés Roca Rey and his bullfighting performances. But Catalan director Albert Serra wouldn’t be himself if he made a traditional documentary. There are no talking heads, interviews with the hero, or behind-the-scenes (or any other) commentary from the director himself about what’s happening on screen. The director does not delve into the inner world of the hero, does not reflect on the controversy of bullfighting, and does not take any position on any animal rights issues. There is only the matador, the rituals of his careful preparation for the bullfight and the fight with the bull – fierce, bloody, spectacular. As paradoxical as it may sound, a rare contemporary film auteur is able to speak in pure, iconographic images, cleansed of any messages and preconceptions.
Intercepted Communication, dir. Oksana Karpovych
VIDEO: Intercepted Communication, dir. Oksana Karpovych
On the screen, static cameras film destroyed Ukrainian cities and ravaged landscapes, and behind the screen, Russian soldiers talk on the phone with their mothers, wives and girlfriends, to whom they tell how many people they killed and what things they took. That amount of film means is enough to create one of the most influential documentaries of this year.
The director returns our consciousness, dulled by the images of war reproduced by the media every day, to the everyday life of ordinary people, full of tension, silence and uncertainty. At the same time, it clearly formulates the idea that this war is not only of the Kremlin, but of the entire Russian nation, which has been zombified by propaganda.
“Sparrow in the Chimney”, dir. Ramon Zürcher
VIDEO: “Sparrow in the Chimney”, dir. Ramon Zürcher
This is the last part of the so-called “animal trilogy”. The first film was called “Strange Cat” (2013, shown at the Kaunas Film Festival), then followed by “The Girl and the Spider” (2021, shown by the program “Bear, Lion and Twig”), and this year at the Locarno Film Festival, the Swiss director presented the last part, in which unlike the first ones, there was also room for fiction. But don’t be afraid, you don’t need to have seen the previous films to immerse yourself in the strange world of the Swiss.
The director’s stories are chamber psychological dramas taking place in one apartment, living room or kitchen, which could be the envy of any epic in terms of emotions, feelings, secrets and complex relationships between heroes. The only difference is that everything here is suppressed, unspoken, half of the lips.
Glances, gestures, a cracked plate, spilled milk, a child’s crayon drawing, a sun bunny or a cold sore become equivalent to dialogues. The director has been compared to Almodóvar for his keen eye for women, and to Bergman for his camerawork. The author himself shakes off any similarities and says that his stories are a “psychological zoo of people.” This time, his observations will focus on the family of two sisters in a remote country house.
“Empire”, dir. Bruno Dumont
VIDEO: “Empire”, dir. Bruno Dumont
I risk incurring your wrath by recommending this film. It won’t be easy. This time, Dumont let his hair down and created a European version of Star Wars that will require not only patience, but also an open mind and heart. Perhaps even the most of these.
Combining his own existential cinema with blockbusters the logic of the French cinema giant laughs at the (scientific) fiction films that flood the cinemas and television these days and those of us who find in them some kind of meaning about man and the world. Dumont exposes the banality and futility of such spectacles with such fervor that you’ll have to decide whether you’re burning in this fire yourself. And if it burns – what a fantasy! How grandiose! For sure!
“Girl with a Needle”, dir. Magnus von Horn
VIDEO: “Girl with a Needle”, dir. Magnus von Horn
You are probably familiar with the director who was born in Sweden but studied and lives in Poland, Scanorama showed his film “Sweat” a few years ago. And here’s who could have believed (I certainly didn’t) that this year his new (fourth) film would be selected for the Cannes competition program, which is not so easy to get into.
The drama takes us to Copenhagen after the First World War and tells the story of a young factory worker, Karolina, who, not having her husband back from the war and unexpectedly becoming pregnant, gives the newborn to a woman she unexpectedly meets, Dagmara (the wonderful Trine Dyrholm). This promise to take care of the baby and find him a new home, but, as they say, hell is paved with good wishes…
A story based on real facts would be a traditional historical film if the director did not use the motifs of a magical tale, tropes of gothic cinema, 20th century. opening photography style and silent film quotes. All this raises the narrative and creates additional meanings.
“The Second Act”, dir. Quentin Dupieux
VIDEO: “The Second Act”, dir. Quentin Dupieux
Anyway, this Frenchman does not create simple stories. In terms of complex content, no. His films are rather formal cinematic jokes in which he juggles anecdotal situations and while doing so, look, sometimes says this and that about the human condition in an absurd world. This time, those thoughts are probably the most out of all his films.
Telling the story of two friends, one of them the girlfriend and the other’s father, Dupieux invites you into a sly metanarrative about today’s film industry. Metoo echoes, rejection culture (cancel culture), reflection on reality and fiction, artificial intelligence and, in general, the question of the meaning of creativity – everything finds its place here. You can laugh at everything.
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