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Kimitachi wa dô ikiru ka (2023)
Healing movie
Overall, I found The Boy and the Heron a mysterious afantasy that goes back to Hayao's Miyazaki's classic themes of childhood pain and grief and how these were forged in the fires of the World War II.
The great orchestral score, by regular Miyazaki collaborator Joe Hisaishi was excellent.
Having said that, some of that trademark Miyazaki magic has been ruined by overplotted, muddled storytelling and a poor final third act.
The unlimited fantasies of Miyazaki's imagination work great if they are physically contained in some method - within the bathhouse of Spirited Away, the enchanted forest of Totoro, the castle in Howl's Moving Castle. Here, the world in which Mahito finds himself is vast and limitless but the film felt a little cluttered for me.
Fantadroms (1985)
Funky dory
The main character of the show is a yellow shape-shifting robot called Indrikis XIII, who usually takes the form of a cat. He flies through the universe mediating various disputes between the other characters or saving them from disaster.
One recurring dynamic in the show is the love triangle between Indrikis, Receklite (a flying purple cat-octopus with whom Indrikis is in love), and the rat (who is in love with Indrikis). Other recurring characters include a cow, two young humans, and an amorphous pink blob.
The Last King of Scotland (2006)
Not masterpiece but nicely offered.
Hotel Rwanda broke the ice in 2004 with its devastating look at the 1994 Rwandan genocide. And now, The Last King of Scotland, the story of Ugandan President Idi Amin, is the next to hop on the bandwagon.
Where Hotel Rwanda seemed highly biographical and strove to stick to the facts as much as possible, The Last King of Scotland takes a much more theatrical approach. It sets forth by heightening the drama and high adrenaline, even creating a completely fictional character through whom the audience sees and experiences the story. Whether or not you find that tack patronizing, there's no doubt that the movie is genuine in its intent, emotionally wrenching to the very last second, and not afraid to display the brutalities of Amin's regime and the circumstances behind them.
Does The Last King of Scotland have a message for the world? All too clearly it does, and it's nicely but subtly offered.
Nabat (2014)
The best art-house film from Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan's Oscar submission, is an exquisitely shot minimalist tale of an elderly woman who finds herself the last remaining resident in a village evacuated during the Nagorno-Karabakh war of two decades ago. With little in the way of commercial prospects, the film's poetic strengths should nonetheless continue to find favour among viewers.
Bleak and greatly wordless as this tale is, there's a certain quiet grandeur to its unfolding. The low-key, somber colors and elegant crane shots of Abdulrahim Besharat's lensing make Nabat inevitably part of a pitiless yet graceful landscape. Hamed Sabet's sorrowful string score is only occasional present, capping an assembly as handsome as it is spare.