Haunting biography of Georgian Primitivist painter Nico Pirosmani tracing his lonely, unsettled life. The film avoids the well-worn narrative cliches employed in many biopics. We view Pirosmani at a distance, his motives and thoughts often closed to us. Instead director Giorgi Shengelaya frames scenes to reflect the artist's idiosyncratic painting style, suggesting how Tbilisi and the Georgian countryside looked through Pirosmani's eyes.
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There Once Was a Singing Blackbird 1970
A kinetic, virtuoso day-in-the-life evocation of the rhythms and sounds of modern Tbilisi; one part Vertov, one part Joyce, but distinctly Georgian. A collage of staccato sound cuts in and out of the film as it weaves with its protagonist through the city's bustle: snatches of singing, screeches of brakes, orchestra, overlapping conversations, laughter, ticking clocks, trains and caged birds, cacophony and melody emanating from sources in and out of the frame, fleeting and full of life.
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Obi-Wan Kenobi 2022
I no longer go into Star Wars content with high hopes. Nonetheless, I expect basic filmmaking 101 competence, such as proper blocking, i.e. the understanding of where to place the camera, how to move it, positioning the actors in the frame and so on. Silly me.
All the others ways this was atrocious, I’m sure others will point out.
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Under the Skin 2013
Viscerally unsettling and demandingly opaque, Under the Skin gains immediate entry into the canon of great, uncompromising works of cinematic science fiction, standing assertively individualistic among its peers. Contains some of the most disquieting, yet almost ballet-like imagery I've seen on film. Will be watching the career of Jonathan Glazer with great interest.
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Interstellar 2014
There is a scene in Interstellar that takes places shortly after the protagonists' spaceship has exited Earth's orbit, beginning its two-year journey towards Saturn. Matthew McConaughey is attempting to engage an uninterested Anne Hathaway in conversation. McConaughey remarks that the two are going to learn how to talk to one another. Hathaway responds: and when to remain silent.
Oh, the irony.