oktjabr Reviews

Raise the Red Lantern (1991)

Classic of Asian cinema

[9/10 · 20 February 2018]

Raise the Red Lantern is masterful piece of film history.

A bleak tale of sexual subjugation and ruthless scheming in a single opulent household in 1920s China, Raise the Red Lantern portrays four women locked in struggle for attention from the master of the house, who every day favours one of his concubines with special honour of spending a night with him. And as usual among the hereditary nobility, the highest achievement is pregnancy resulting a male child.

The tense plot is perfected by the backdrop of suffocating ancient mansion built out of dull bricks and adorned expensively with etchings and drapery, and staffed with servants. The watcher barely gets a glimpse of the outside world as if nothing even existed outside the walls of the compound where the women are imprisoned in concubinage. And almost as faceless is the master himself, whose face we never see in close up shot.

Cinematography and set building stand out as excellent, with stark reds of the drapery and lanterns, contrasting with the muted greys of the mansion itself, later covered by a blanket of snow.

Life (I) (2017)

Mystery-protozoan from Outer Sp...Mars.

[5/10 · 19 February 2018]

Decent cast in cliched roles and okayish visuals for middle-range budget combine their strength to blow some life (heh) into rather generic scifi-horror adventure taking place on cramped conditions of near-future International Space Station. The darkly lit station as a homage to Alien-franchise works and even evokes a few claustrophobic thrills along the way. Presumably trained scientist crew sure makes some perplexing decisions dealing with the situation at hand, but hey, isn't that almost a scifi/thriller trope nowadays?

Ultimately, the twists and turns, the nooks and crannies of Life have been seen many times in predecessor films. Life is in the end rather forgettable - though I found it sufficiently entertaining especially since it runs compact 110 minutes unlike many modern films that clock well over 2h and outstay their welcome.

The Road Movie (2016)

Life from the dashcam

[6/10 · 30 January 2018]

Russian dashboard camera footage has become sort of an internet cliche - filling youtube and even old-fashioned homevideo TV programs with crumpling metal and shattering glass of haphazard Russian road traffic, with drunken maniacs spliced in.

Fortunately The Road Movie isn't just a highlight reel of spinning car wrecks, but also includes both bizarre, tragic and humorous occurences. My personal favourite were the guys who talked about boozing and slaughtering some animal, but accidentally drove out and into a river, driver laconically commenting "That's it. We are sailing". Talk about Russian fatalism.

In a fact, the subtitles that actually open the discussions of (mostly) unseen passengers make the compilation stand out as a worthwile, though at times slightly boring documentary piece.

As a sidenote, one of the other reviews refer to the clip where we see a blazing fireball streak the sky and occupants of the car wonder what the heck it was - the guy who says it was a meteor was correct - it was so-called Chelyabinsk meteor that was (fittingly enough) captured by multiple Russian dashcams.

On the Road to Berlin (2015)

Run-of-the-mill plot with beautiful nature vignettes

[6/10 · 30 January 2018]

On the road to Berlin (2015) obviously has a rather meager budget compared to modern, even Russian, war movies, which necessarily isn't a bad thing but hinders some of the effect of this film.

Plot is rather run-of-the-mill tale of friendship, chaos of war and bravery - and it is hardly surprising that the film is based on a short story/previous Soviet war film. Especially Lt. Ogarkov as a character seems a bit implausible in his actions. Also the love story-bit seems slightly inserted, to the point of being a trope. Despite this, the interplay between two main characters - the condemned and his Kazakh guard - works. Especially Amir Abdykalov as somber private does a fine performance. And I have to say I haven't seen many central Asian roles cast in any war films portraying the European Eastern front despite the fact that the Red Army fielded plenty of soldiers from there, often in quite subordinate roles.

Visually speaking low budget unfortunately shows in the two grand battle scenes which come out as unintentionally comical - a better solution would've been simply shoot them so that the viewer doesn't see so much of the awkward props from the smoke and chaos.

Fortunately the film makers don't dwell on combat, but emphasize the strong points of cinematography - beautiful sense of "being there" when it comes to Russian summer. Lush forests, fields, misty riverbanks and small villages of the countryside translate marvelously to the film.

Sunflower (2006)

Mediocre Korean drama

[6/10 · 23 January 2018]

Sunflower, a story about a 30-something gangster getting released from prison and trying to avoid sliding back to the thuggish underworld is a bit surprisingly not so much about being a gangster as it is about importance of family and forgiveness.

As Korean cinema generally is, Sunflower is pretty heavy handed and syrupy when it comes to melodrama, though I'm personally one of those who forgive and even enjoy the slightly campy tear jerking occasions. Actors deliver a solid, though not particularly memorable, performances. Cinematography is also fine.

The most obvious weakness in Sunflower is the predictability - you can see the conclusion of the movie coming from miles away and it plays out just as I expected it to play. Either way, a decent, watchable Korean flick to spend two hours with, no disappointments or broken expectations there.

Sicario (2015)

Professionally done drug crime thriller with a lot of zeitgeist

[8/10 · 24 September 2015]

When film historians of the 2050's look back at the '10s, the style that Sicario represents will probably be a quite defining feeling of the era – a movie version of TV series like True Detective and Narcos. Droning soundtrack, cinematography pushing muted grey and brown and characters lost in their personal hopelessness. Drugs (or maybe terrorists), guns and technology. In this sense, Sicario is somewhat a textbook example.

The film is well shot and has a rather good pacing for a thriller. In tone, it reminds me of Villeneuves earlier film Prisoners (2013) – throbbing soundtrack, world soaked in greys and desperation, broken people and morally ambiguous use of torture and violence. Sicario throws in techno thriller-stuff – drones, vehicle convoys and alphabet agencies. As for the cartels and the drug trade, Sicario doesn't seem to problematize or politicize the issue nor is it a lesson in history as for example Narcos is. I'm not American enough to recognize any hidden jabs about illegal immigration, either.

The only thing hinting how ordinary people are just cogs (reminding us of Villeneuve's masterpiece Incendies[2010] which is basically about fate and misfortune) is the recurring scenes of the Mexican father who wakes up, eats his eggs and beans and goes off to work when his son only wants to play football.

Emily Blunt does a good role as an idealist (or perhaps sane, if we are not to take the nihilist viewpoint as given) FBI agent who gets thrown in the deep end with the task force team led by rather stereotypical CIA-type guy Josh Brolin. The bunch is joined by Benicio del Toro who basically acts the enigmatic, Spanish speaking Benicio del Toro. Daniel Kaluuya is OK in his sidekick role.

Some say that del Toro steals the show, but Blunt was my favourite with a strong female character who isn't a strong female character to the point of being a trope or unbelievable in the context. It was striking how similar the character was with 2nd season True Detective Ani Bezzerides (Rachel McAdams). Then again, if this is the era of TV series getting more serious as a medium of telling stories to adults against infantile superhero fixated feature films, Sicario has a feature benefit of sparing us of longer escapades into relationship trust issues, something you essentially have to have when writing a 10+ hour TV series.

All characters have a slight tinge of cliché, but hey – if this is the neoneonoir of the '10s, it is only to be expected. Sicario isn't anything new or mind blowing, but it is a skillfully crafted piece of film that delivers more than your average thriller, possibly because the subject matter is more interesting than your run-down-the-mill crime thriller.

As Far as My Feet Will Carry Me (2001)

An entertaining, quite OK film

[6/10 · 8 April 2006]

I agree with some other commentators who said that this movie was somewhat overtly dramatic - in some points getting almost too sugary/tear-jerking experience. I haven't read the book so it is hard to comment how faithful the film is to the book, but seems that the authors of the film almost a bit overemphasized the great survival story and the connection between the father and the child.

This is counter-balanced by good acting, rather good cinematography and beautiful images of nature. "So weit die Füsse tragen" is fairly entertaining as an adventure film and I was strangely attracted by the story about travelling through endless wastes of Siberia. The portrayal of nature is captivating. The film isn't a remarkable masterpiece, but I'd still recommend seeing it if the subject sounds appealing. After all, German POWs in Russia isn't exactly the most worn subject of films.

Immortal (2004)

Mediocre film with an intriguing future world.

[6/10 · 25 September 2005]

Immortel wasn't really bad, but I can see why it has received ratings so bad. What was good in this film is essentially what is good in the graphic novels of Bilal - on the other hand, many aspects of translation of comic into motion picture have failed.

Obviously, the most intriguing part of the film is the grim, cybernetic/genetically engineered world, painted with blank, grey colours - completed with almost alien human beings. The dystopia Bilal has created as a backdrop of his graphic novels can be perceived in the film, too, with all the curious little details and cities with breath-taking architecture.

Unfortunately, the worst part of Immortel is in the usage of computer generated imagery. The main characters are real actors filmed against blue-screen and combined to computer generated backgrounds. Unfortunately, far too many characters have been completely created with computer and illusion is not very good (though it is difficult to know whether it was the point) - in a fact, the CGI characters are so terrible and puppet-like that you could easily place them in a rather cheap computer game cutscene, instead of a full-length commercial film. Considering how well the real actors work against the CGI backgrounds (only three, if I remember right - Doctor, Jill and Nikopol) it is a shame that they didn't do all the human figures with real actors. Especially Senator Allgood and his advisors are an example how a computer modelled character just cannot do the job of a real actor.

The plot of the film is also rather problematic, as clearly there is too little time to actually say anything. It lacks a coherent structure and it is very hard to say how much the film gives to a viewer who hasn't read works of Bilal (I have).

After this criticism, it might feel strange that I give this eight stars. This is because the visual surroundings, the stunning world surrounding the characters - being both familiar and not-so-generic-as-dystopias-normally-are - give the otherwise rather mediocre film that one push over the seven stars I usually give to entertaining, but not that special films.

Edit: I later downgraded all my film reviews (as I wound out giving too much tens and nines), and so Immortel got lowered to seven. I have seen it only once and it'd be nice to see it again - too bad it is hardly available in Finland.

Kamikaze Girls (2004)

Unfamiliar imagery, yet hilarious.

[6/10 · 25 September 2005]

Kamikaze girls - while its western genre might not be one of my favourites - is an exceedingly refreshing film. This was perhaps even multiplied by fact that it was among the last films I saw on a film festival that mainly featured films with dark, sad and/or violent stories.

While some greater details vanished due me not understanding the Japanese (teen) culture and especially because the translation was occasionally lacking (probably because there was too much stuff to cram into subtitles), the overall mood was efficiently conveyed and I felt myself immersed into the strange (and obviously vastly exaggerated) Japanese teen film.

The basic story wasn't really that special, but this was compensated with excellent acting and photography. While perhaps not an artistic masterpiece, it was definitely an excellent piece of entertainment and more than surpassed its western counterparts in the field of comedy.

Dear Wendy (2005)

Criticism maybe, hardly anti-American.

[6/10 · 18 September 2005]

I liked "Dear Wendy". It was well photographed, had good cast and the rocking soundtrack provided the light icing on a film that is both sad and happy from the inside.

It is a bit puzzling that this film has been seen as anti-American propaganda. It does criticise the American values - but so do many American films that are hardly described as anti-American. The message is even softened by placing the film in surreal, small mining town that is so detached geographically that you can almost feel the fiction. In some sense it bears resemblance to the village set on Brechtian stage in "Dogville" (compare for example the "stageness" of main street) by Lars von Trier, whose touch can be seen in "Dear Wendy", too.

It can be also seen as an anti-gun lecture - but that is just one perspective to it and in my opinion also possible to ignore.

The only turnoff is the somewhat annoying narration by the main character, that explains too much and leaves less for the viewer to ponder. I might be also giving one star too much, because the end scene, where the film picks up the pace left such a strong impression on me, and not just because of being so well shot action.

Innocence (II) (2004)

A film with lot of interpretations and not many answers.

[7/10 · 18 September 2005]

Those who expect a straightforward plot with all the answers from Innocence will be disappointed. However, this "open for interpretation" is the strength of the film. This personal interpretation without doubt varies whether the viewer is male or female, child or an adult. Obviously a film about young girls opens differently to women/girls, who can possibly feel similarity with the characters, than to a male viewer who watches the set from the outside - from the darkened audience.

Personally, I saw the film as a demonstration how alien is the world of grown ups to children and how unexplainable many things remain. The film that is clearly shot from the viewpoint of the children and does not tell us much of the environment - answer the basic questions of what and why. Just as children are - and especially were - uninformed about the decisions concerning their life made by their parents/teachers/etc.

Technically the film is very well made, especially the lake shots where camera hovered just centimetres above the surface made me almost feel the water. Also the young actresses performed exceedingly well and felt very natural in their roles.

Tarnation (2003)

I like experimental movies, but...

[3/10 · 28 September 2004]

The idea behind Tarnation sounded interesting enough and that is why I went to see it when it was shown on a local film festival. Unfortunately, this proved to be a grave mistake.

The basic idea is good, but horrendous visual effects that are probably meant to be "experimental" just made me ill. I understand that the budget was really small and everything - but I'm sure that Tarnation would have been better without all those blinking images and "artistically" over-contrasted bits of video tape. And to be downright honest - even if his tale of life is indeed very sad, in the end I (being almost shocked to realize) didn't really care at all.

I shudder to think how torturous the full original three hour version was.