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La paranza dei bambini (2019)
Fierce, fast yet not fully convincing
One thing first: I did not read the underlying book by Roberto Saviano. In that sense, at best, I did not bring a lofty expectation of a proper implementation of a literary material, but could dedicate myself openly to the screening of the film.
However, this endeavor became more difficult as a result of the film being awarded the Silver Bear for best screenplay at this year's Berlin International Film Festival. Such an award, which honored the shared work of the books author and the director, raises the bar quite high for the viewer. Additionally, the plots 'Mafia' topic couldn't be called to be among my preferred areas of interest.
Concerning the genre this full-length motion picture for sure can be counted to the crime films, but is due to its content course also to be regarded as a drama.
The storyline follows the experiences of a group of young people in the Naples of the present time and is located in an inner city setting between latent poverty, educational backwardness, archaic local power structures, violent conflict resolutions, ambition, high risk-taking and naive carelessness. The film does not approach this social subdivision gently and piece by piece, but establishes a narrative perspective that seems to originate from it and at the same time allows it to unfold in the eyes of the audience. This dramaturgical gimmick guarantees a high action dynamic from the beginning on, which is also captured by a frequent use of a shaky hand camera. During 110 entertaining minutes, authentic realities of life are touched upon, their points of contact representing the knots in the network of the storyline. The viewer is repeatedly put into pictures whose brute emotionality leaves at best astonishment, but rather bewilderment. However, this really powerful dramaturgy is at the same time the disadvantageous flip side of this coin: trying to bring such a complex social structure with different characters in just over one and a half hours on the canvas, the film is overstrained and woody in places. The predominantly young actors play lifelike and fresh, however, I came to the supposition that the German dubbing of the southern Italian language reflects the original habitus only inadequately and thus the parzivalous briskness of the young Machos supposedly might not convincingly be intoned. Open and obvious questions remain unanswered sometimes, while on the other hand unexpected insights into the mental state of individual protagonists arouse sympathy and understanding. The predominantly established closeups support this personal closeness and dares only to a full shot or a half-total, if the larger spatial context are able to reflect the individual inner conflicts and forsakeness. The escape, pursuit and fun tours captured in rapid motorcycle rides through the labyrinthine road network of the chaotic metropolis, alternately in a pursuing or preceding axis of vision, can also be seen as a metaphor for the wild, inner search for orientation, belonging and meaning. Unfortunately the soundtrack loses almost completely in front of the background of all these rapidly flooding images, despie the fact that the individual music pieces basically support the situations in principle well.
All in all, a worth watching movie, with perceptible weaknesses, but entertaining as a cutting-edge social study. It's like a flickering spotlight on a strange and yet so close world.
Level 16 (2018)
Good idea, lame implementation
The underlying story promises excitement, surprise and depth, and the predominantly young actresses do a pretty good job. But that was already enough of praise. The visual implementation leaves much to be desired. In a thriller, the viewer may expect ingenuity in terms of dynamic axes of action, field sizes, camera angles and perspectives. But none of it! This film, on the other hand, shines with extremely conventional images that neither captivate the viewer nor whet the appetite for more. Mounting and cutting are also realized mostly average. A bit like the first attempt after a webinar on the topic. The music is appropriate, but not really touching. Finally, the biggest drawback: The plot is initially stretched, sometimes boring, but in the end the events turn over. Numerous inconsistencies completely destroy the credibility of this dystopia. What really remains is that a really volatile and promising topic has been carelessly cobbled together.
The Operative (2019)
Respectable profound entertainment
Having seen this film in its German dubbed version as a sneak preview all in all I'd summerize it to be a quite good adapted modern spy story. In contrary to those visually stunning yet totally noncredible Bond like movies, you'll barely find any attention-grabbing punch-ups, car chases or technical gadgets contests. Instead you're invited to follow an authentic and neatly elaborated plot in the realm of operational duties within the Israeli secret service. The several well chosen locations serving as a livelike coulisse as well as the seemingly incidental requisites together form a granular composition for the story line. The cast, the really good construction of the characters und the detailled, emotionally vivid acting lay the slick groundwork for various arcs of suspense. The viewers easyly can share the characters excitement and therefore can put themselves in the different positions. The director consciously utilizes cutting, e.g. long abiding vs. fast action driven scenes, different camera perspectives like close-ups during face-to-face conversations or impressive landscape-shots, chronological cut-backs and much more to involve and thrill the audience. Finally and generously the movie doesn't try to persuade the spectator in respect of a potentially more valuable opinion in this politically delicate setting. So why didn't I award 10/10? Firstly sometimes single scenes and dialogues appear to be a little bit clumsy. Secondly a noticable lack of scenic elegance and narratively ease slightly overtax the characters struggles instead of pointing on the gravity of the main topic with its complex implications. But all in all a really nice film!
Atomic Blonde (2017)
Pretty wretched opus!
One can make a great motion picture based on a graphic novel, however, one can as well make a pig's ear out of it, as happened here. A printed comic strip is something totally different than a feature-length big-screen epic. Specious and superficial characters, played barely convincing, a possibly substantial plot, sadly completely over-dramatized, at times implausible and embedded in a (for no reason and roughly negligently) historical incorrectly shown environment, a washy blend of hardly recognizable climaxes, in contrast a needless series of revelations, meant to be a stylistic device and almost childish, clumsy dialogues which try to impress the audience and, last but not least, a technically poor adaptation of the original visual aesthetics. Finally it's no use to embellish the whole thing with perpetual and ridiculously elaborated orgies of violence and actually cool 80s music.