ZFF 2023 #17
A portrait of Vienna's vast Alterlaa housing complex and its present-day inhabitants that's so endlessly charming it seems to forget what it wants to say roughly halfway through, regaining its thematic footing only in the closing ten minutes or so (thanks in no small part to a single devastating cut – you'll know it when you see it). Yet even though it doesn't quite manage to pull all its strings together in the end, watching Gleissinger get…
ZFF 2023 #20
As 160-minute films from 2023 about the state of pandemic-era Romanian society go, Radu Jude's Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World is a tough act to follow, so it's not a slight on MMXX to say that it doesn't quite manage to scale those heights. Indeed, Puiu's latest may actually be a useful complementary counterpoint: where Jude goes for sprawl, Puiu prefers a rigorous dramatic, thematic, and spatial focus, including not one…
Locarno Film Festival 2021 #13
Producer, touring the set: "I must say, Monsieur Mandico, I'm impressed. You seem to have gathered the best team of set and costume designers, makeup artists, lighting technicians, and composers money can buy. This movie will look and sound like a masterpiece. Do you have a script to match this artistry?"
Bertrand Mandico, scribbling stick figures onto a commemorative Kate Bush napkin: "A what?"
Locarno Film Festival 2023 #6
Uwe Boll. TikTok. Matsuo Bashō. Ernst Kantorowicz. Zoom. Andrew Tate. Handwritten end credits. A Godardian reappraisal of a Romanian film from 1981. A belated spritual sequel to The Happiest Girl in the World. Nina Hoss. 163 minutes of Radu Jude firing on all cylinders, taking aim at everything from Romania selling itself for parts to Western Europe and the limits of Charlie Hebdo-style caricature ("Aren't you afraid they'll call you a Putinist?") to the intractable…
